hoakley Macs, Technology

What has changed in macOS Ventura 13.5?

Apple states that macOS Ventura 13.5 includes “important bug fixes and security updates” but gives no further details apart from bugs affecting security. Full security release notes are available here. There are 29 fixes, including five to the kernel, one of which is believed to have been exploited in iOS, and a sandbox escape. As expected, these include the fixes previously provided in RSRs (a) and (c).

Changes in macOS 13.5 build 22G74 are fairly common but almost all are small build increments, giving an overall picture that it fixes many smaller issues, brings few if any improvements to features, and prepares the way for 13.6 as the first security update to Ventura in September.

There are firmware updates for Apple silicon Macs, bringing iBoot to 8422.141.2, and Intel T2 models are updated to 1968.140.7.0.0 (iBridge: 20.16.6072.0.0,0).

Significant version changes seen among bundled apps include:

  • Mail, build increment
  • Maps, build increment
  • Music, to version 1.3.6
  • News, to version 8.4.1
  • Photos, build increment
  • Safari, updated to version 16.6 (18615.3.12.11.2)
  • Stocks, to version 5.3.2
  • TV, to version 1.3.6.

Significant changes in /System/Library include:

  • further small build increments in several Automator PDF actions
  • Pro Display Calibrator app, to version 1.6.0
  • Apple USB Audio kext, version increment
  • Apple VirtIO and Virtual Graphics kexts, build increment, indicating improvements in lightweight virtualisation
  • Extensive build increments in CloudKit components
  • APFS is updated to version 2142.140.9.

locsvcs

Thanks to Maurizio for pointing out a serious bug in 13.5: in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, all third-party apps have been omitted from the list of services you can control. Expect this to be fixed shortly in a further update.

[Updated 1855 26 July 2023 with details of that bug.]