Apple’s new Studio Display comes with its own built-in A13 chip and firmware, based on iOS. Although I’m sure it’s not the first display which has its own firmware, keeping that up to date is going to be important for those using this gorgeous 27-inch screen. So this new version of SilentKnight now checks the firmware version in each of the Studio Displays your Mac is connected to, and reports whether they’re all up to date.

If you’re unfortunate enough to be still waiting for your Studio Display, you’ll see a blank row in SilentKnight’s window now. This makes a clear separation between the results of its checks above, and the updates row below. Otherwise, nothing has changed.

Here’s the same window on my Mac Studio with my new Studio Display connected. This reports that it has found at least one Studio Display, and gives the firmware (iOS-comparable) version numbers of each it has found – in this case, just the one.

SilentKnight will check the firmware versions in as many Studio Displays that it can find, although I suspect you’ll only see around half a dozen of them reported in the upper section of the window. It also draws your attention to the problem if any of them have firmware that is out of date. The version number is checked against my GitHub database, just as Mac firmware and security data versions are.

Studio Displays don’t just report the version of their firmware, which corresponds to the base version of iOS, but also give a build number. Juggling half a dozen versions and build numbers seems a little excessive, so the build number is only reported for one of the connected Studio Displays, and given in the scrolling view at the bottom of the window.

Studio Display firmware updates are delivered as you’d expect through Software Update. I strongly recommend that you don’t try downloading or installing them using SilentKnight, which isn’t intended to handle such large and demanding updates itself, and doesn’t provide essentials such as a progress bar.

SilentKnight version 1.19 is now available from here: silentknight1196
from Downloads above, from its Product Page, and through its auto-update mechanism.

Although I have tested it thoroughly with Macs without a Studio Display, and with two connected to my one Studio Display, please report any issues you might find so that I can correct them quickly.

If there’s sufficient demand, I will look at updating LockRattler and silnite to work with Studio Display firmware too.

Enjoy!