Howard Oakley has written an interesting history of secure enclaves on the Mac, and when he touches upon “exclaves”, a new concept that doesn’t have a proper term yet, he mentions something interesting.
While an enclave is a territory entirely surrounded by the territory of another state, an exclave is an isolated fragment of a state that exists separately from the main part of that state. Although exclave isn’t a term normally used in computing, macOS 14.4 introduced three kernel extensions concerned with exclaves. They seem to have appeared first in iOS 17, where they’re thought to code domains isolated from the kernel that protect key functions in macOS even when the kernel becomes compromised. This in turn suggests that Apple is in the process of refactoring the kernel into a central micro-kernel with protected exclaves. This has yet to be examined in Sequoia.
I’m not going to add too much here since I’m not well-versed enough in the world of macOS to add anything meaningful, but I do think it’s an interesting theory worth looking into by people who posses far more knowledge about this topic than I do.
On Monday, Apple announced it would be integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT AI assistant into upcoming versions of its iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. It paves the way for future third-party AI model integrations, but given Google's multi-billion-dollar deal with Apple for preferential web search, the OpenAI announcement inspired speculation about who is paying whom. According to a Bloomberg report published Wednesday, Apple considers ChatGPT's placement on its devices as compensation enough.
"Apple isn’t paying OpenAI as part of the partnership," writes Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, citing people familiar with the matter who wish to remain anonymous. "Instead, Apple believes pushing OpenAI’s brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments."
The Bloomberg report states that neither company expects the agreement to generate meaningful revenue in the short term, and in fact, the partnership could burn extra money for OpenAI, because it pays Microsoft to host ChatGPT's capabilities on its Azure cloud. However, OpenAI could benefit by converting free users to paid subscriptions, and Apple potentially benefits by providing easy, built-in access to ChatGPT during a time when its own in-house LLMs are still catching up.
Enlarge/ The classic Mac OS wallpaper in macOS 15 Sequoia mimics the monochrome user interfaces used in System 1 through 6. (credit: Apple)
I'm still in the very early stages of poking at macOS 15 Sequoia ahead of our customary review later this fall, and there are quite a few things that aren't working in this first developer beta. Some of those, like the AI features, aren't working on purpose; I am sure some of the iCloud sync issues I'm having are broken by accident.
I've already encountered a few functional upgrades I like, like iCloud support inside of virtual machines, automated window snapping (at long last), and a redesigned AirDrop interface in the Finder. But so far the change that I like the most is actually a new combo wallpaper and screen saver that's done in the style of Apple's Mac operating system circa the original monochrome Mac from 1984. It's probably the best retro Mac Easter egg since Clarus the Dogcow showed up in a print preview menu a couple of years ago.
The Macintosh wallpaper and screen saver—it uses the animated/dynamic wallpaper feature that Apple introduced in Sonoma last year—cycles through enlarged, pixelated versions of classic Mac apps, icons, and menus, a faithful replica of the first version of the Mac interface. Though they're always monochrome, the default settings will cycle through multiple background colors that match the ones that Apple uses for accent colors.
Enlarge/ Macs running a preview build of macOS 15 Sequoia. (credit: Apple)
We’ve written before about Apple’s handy virtualization framework in recent versions of macOS, which allows users of Apple Silicon Macs with sufficient RAM to easily set up macOS and Linux virtual machines using a number of lightweight third-party apps. This is useful for anyone who needs to test software in multiple macOS versions but doesn’t own a fleet of Mac hardware or multiple boot partitions. (Intel Macs support the virtualization framework, too, but only for Linux VMs, making it less useful.)
But up until now, you haven’t been able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS, or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who just wanted easy access to their iCloud data from within a VM.
This limitation is going away in macOS 15 Sequoia, according to developer documentation that Apple released yesterday. As long as your host operating system is macOS 15 or newer and your guest operating system is macOS 15 or newer, VMs will now be able to sign into and use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services just as they would when running directly on the hardware.
Yesterday at WWDC 2024 Apple announced its long-anticipated machine learning effort, a Siri overhaul dubbed "Apple Intelligence." The new system employs LLMs and diffusion model image generation while attempting to maintain a uniquely high level of privacy by splitting queries across three tiers of increasing anonymity and capability: on device, private cloud compute servers, and anonymized opt-in-only ChatGPT calls. Ars coverage on Apple Intelligence, and the ChatGPT integration.
The system will debut in the pending iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia releases and is composed of three separate layers:
1) On device, the primary mode which draws upon all personal information across apps, contacts, conversations, etc. to create a highly-detailed, user-specific context Apple refers to as a "semantic index." In addition to the ability to parse information currently displayed on screen when requested, there is a new developer API so that third-party applications can specify what kind of information Siri can draw from them, and request appropriate generated text and images. The specific information gathered and any derived data or personalized fine-tuning remains on your device, with the limited exception of difficult queries which are handed off to...
2) Private Cloud Compute, a semi-anonymous cloud-based neural network inference service hosted by Apple with exposure of personal data limited specifically to the query at hand, using a cryptographically-signed software stack and operating with a no-data-retention policy. The segment on Private Cloud Compute featured an unusually candid critique of the data harvesting common to machine learning systems by competing tech giants, without specifically naming...
3) OpenAI's ChatGPT, which will be available later this year and only with explicit user opt-in (on each individual query) for queries the new Siri detects as likely to benefit from scale beyond both on-device hardware and Private Cloud Compute. Data sent to OpenAI is heavily anonymized and multi-modal (meaning combined text and images) for asking questions about an image. Apple mentioned that other models may later become available, but did not specify whether this meant Google's Gemini, Facebook's Llama-3, or potentially even self-hosted endpoints based on open source models like Mistral 8x7b.
Enlarge/ Using macOS S15 Sequoia to stream an iPhone's screen to a Mac while the iPhone stays locked. (credit: Apple)
Apple has formally announced macOS 15 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Codenamed Sequoia, the new release brings a combination of iOS 18 features and a few Mac-specific things to the devices it supports.
Users who split their time between Windows and macOS will be the most excited to see that Apple has finally implemented a form of automated window tiling in macOS. This makes it easier to arrange windows automatically on your screen without manually dragging and resizing each one individually or switching into full-screen mode.
Another feature called iPhone Mirroring sends your iPhone's screen to your Mac, so you can use apps directly on your phone while manipulating them using your Mac's keyboard and trackpad. The iPhone audio is also streamed to your Mac. For privacy's sake, your phone's screen stays locked while apps are streaming to your Mac, and your Mac can also receive your iPhone notifications alongside your Mac notifications (no word on how the operating systems will handle duplicate notifications from Messages, Calendar, or other apps that are getting the same updates on both platforms).
Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC, kicks off in Cupertino, California, next week. As always, it will start with a livestream keynote on Monday morning at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. We'll be in attendance reporting on the event, so let's take a moment to take stock of what we expect to see next week.
But first, let's note something we don't think we'll see: Due to some peculiarities about Apple's upgrade cycles, as well as a push toward the M4, we're not actually expecting any major hardware announcements at WWDC this year.
That's OK, though, because it looks like it's going to be a big one for software news. iOS has seen relatively modest updates in the past couple of years, but that's about to change.
Apparently, this is such a common complaint that an application had to be made just to gain some semblance of control over what some people still refer to as “their” computer. For both macOS and Windows, there’s a giant industry – you can’t really call it a cottage industry anymore at this point – of tools, applications, and fixes just to deal with or avoid all the user-hostile, anti-choice garbage Apple and Microsoft shove into their respective operating systems.
As a Linux user – and recent OpenBSD convert – I find this absolutely wild. Following any Apple podcast, or reading any Windows website, makes it so clear just how many hoops these people have to jump through and how many weirdly-shaped holes they have to contort into just to be able to gain some vague semblance of ownership of their own hardware. I’m not judging – we all have areas in our lives where we do this, they just differ from person to person – but it’s still confronting to see it so clearly, all the time.
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