hoakley Macs, Technology

What has changed in Catalina 10.15.2?

Apple’s release notes on updates to macOS continue to improve, and its detailed account of changes in Catalina 10.15.2 includes the following fixes and improvements:

  • improvements in News+ and Stocks;
  • Music restores the column browser view, fixes a bug with album artwork, and another which can reset equaliser settings during playback;
  • adds support for iOS/iPadOS devices as remote controllers for Music and TV;
  • fixes four bugs in Photos, including better reliability with some AVI and MP4 files;
  • fixes two bugs in Mail, including blank Preferences windows, and problem with Undo retrieving deleted messages;
  • improves the reliability of syncing books and audiobooks with iOS/iPadOS devices through the Finder;
  • fixes a bug in the order of reminders in the Reminders app;
  • fixes poor typing response in Notes;
  • fixes an issue where the user password might not be accepted in T2 Macs upgraded to Catalina.

There are relatively few security fixes in 10.15.2 which Apple details here. They include two kernel bugs and updates to OpenLDAP 2.4.28, tcpdump 4.9.3 and libpcap 1.9.1. Bundled in the 10.15.2 update is an update to XProtect, bringing it to version 2109.

Some more recent Mac models have firmware updates included in the main update. However, firmware versions still aren’t uniform across all three supported versions of macOS, and in some cases have now left Sierra behind.

Apps which have increased their version numbers include:

  • Books, new version 2.2, build 1875
  • Music, new version 1.0.2, build 1.0.2
  • News, new version 5.3, build 2371.2.3
  • Stocks, new version 2.3, build 471
  • TV, new version 1.0.2, build 1.0.2.

Other apps which have increased build but not version numbers include:

  • App Store, incremented from build 1004.4.28 to 1004.5.15
  • Automator, minor increase in build number
  • Calculator, incremented from build 123 to 213.2
  • Calendar, increase in build number
  • Contacts, minor increase in build number
  • Home, increase in build number
  • Mail, incremented from build 3601.0.10 to 3608.40.2.2.4
  • Maps, increase in build number
  • Notes, increase in build number
  • Photo Booth, minor increase in build number
  • Photos, incremented from build 111.16.180 to 121.17.170
  • Podcasts, increase in build number
  • Preview, minor increase in build number
  • Reminders, increase in build number
  • Activity Monitor, minor increase in build number
  • Bluetooth File Exchange, minor increase in build number
  • Boot Camp Assistant, increase in build number
  • VoiceOver Utility, increase in build number.

Elsewhere in the system, the following changes appear to be significant:

  • Archive Utility, minor increase in build number
  • Finder, increase in build number
  • Spotlight, increase in build number
  • AMD, AMDRadeon and Intel kernel extensions increase in build numbers
  • Many public frameworks updated to new build numbers
  • Preference panes with increased build numbers include Bluetooth, Notifications, Profiles, Sidecar
  • Many private frameworks also updated.

Finally, although APFS remains relatively stable now, it is incremented from version 1412.41.1 to 1412.61.1.