It has been an interesting week for updates to the iPhone and iPad operating system. For those of us who are not using beta software, iOS 12 was updated to version 12.4.1. Apple says that this update "provides important security and stability updates, and is recommended for all users."
Here's a little more information. Researchers recently discovered a flaw in Bluetooth. If a bad guy was sufficiently close to two devices trying to make an initial Bluetooth connection, such as an iPhone or iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard, the hacker could break the encryption between the two devices and see all communications between the devices — which, in the case of a keyboard, means everything that you type. This flaw was called Key Negotiation of Bluetooth, or KNOB for short. If you want more information, you can read this article by Dan Goodin of Ars Technica. Apple fixed the flaw a few days ago when it released iOS 12.4.
Unfortunately, there was a bug in iOS 12.4 that removed a patch Apple had previously implemented and, as a result, it was possible to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12.4. You certainly don't want a bad guy to get access to your iPhone and then have a way to break into it. Yesterday, Apple released iOS 12.4.1 to restore that patch. Thus, you should update to iOS 12.4.1 to protect yourself from both the KNOB flaw and the jailbreak flaw.
And there is more news in the world of iOS updates. In just a few weeks, Apple will release iOS 13, a major update that I discussed in June. Apple has been testing beta versions of iOS 13 for a while now, both with folks who develop apps and also with members of the public who sign up for the beta program. Until yesterday, all of the betas were of versions of iOS 13.0. But yesterday, Apple also released to developers a beta of iOS 13.1. I cannot remember a time in the past when Apple has released a beta version of not the next version of the iOS but the one after that.
One interesting aspect of the iOS 13.1 beta is that it seems to confirm that some of the features that Apple announced as being a part of iOS 13 won't be in the initial iOS 13.0, but instead we will have to wait for iOS 13.1 to be released. According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, the features that we will have to wait for include:
- The ability to share your live ETA with a friend using the Maps app, a feature described in this article by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac.
- The ability to pair two AirPods with a single iPhone or iPad so that two people can listen to the same song or watch a movie together, a feature described in this article by Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac.
- The ability to have shortcuts run automatically when certain events occur, such as a certain time of day, when you arrive at your office, or when you connect to CarPlay, a feature described in this article by Brendan Hesse of Lifehacker.
- The ability to have Siri automatically read incoming messages if you are using AirPods, plus the ability for you to instantly respond using your voice, all without touching any buttons, a feature described in this article by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac.
- The ability to limit when your kids can text, talk, or FaceTime via communication limits, a feature described in this article by Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac.
Of those five features that will apparently be missing when iOS 13.0 comes out in a few weeks, Gurman says that the first three are contained in the iOS 13.1 beta. The last two are not yet in this version of the iOS 13.1 beta, but of course they could be added later.
We don't yet know when we will see iOS 13.0, let alone iOS 13.1, but my guess is that the delay between releases will be about six weeks. The prevailing rumor is that Apple will unveil new iPhones on September 10, 2019, so I presume that iOS 13.0 will come out the following week, around September 16, 2019. Apple released iOS 12.1 on October 30, 2018, and released iOS 11.1 on October 31, 2017, so I presume that iOS 13.1 will similarly come out at the end of October 2019.
