Today, Apple is releasing iOS and iPadOS 18.2, the second major updates to the iPhone and iPad’s latest operating system versions. Once again, this release’s main highlight is a wave of new Apple Intelligence features that are now available to the public. And just like in October, we’re covering these new AI features separately in a special story for MacStories readers. Be sure to check out Federico’s story, which goes over the new Apple Intelligence features included in iOS and iPadOS 18.2.
But besides another batch of Apple Intelligence features, this release also includes a series of changes to the system, from updates to Safari, Find My, and Photos to the arrival of new system-wide settings for Default Apps and more. Here’s a roundup of everything new besides Apple Intelligence in iOS and iPadOS 18.2.
Back in 2020, John opened his review of HomePass 1.7 in this way:
My HomeKit setup started out simple enough with a few Hue bulbs, but over time, it has grown to include security cameras, door sensors, electrical outlets, and more. As the number of accessories connected to my network grew, so did the hassle of managing them.
I know this is the case for many people, myself included. There seems to be an ever-growing selection of third-party apps for HomeKit, and developer Aaron Pearce has released some of the best. Where other apps add more functionality and, thus, complexity, Pearce has focused on simplicity and pure utility. The best example of that approach has always been HomePass.
In 2024, web browsers mostly all look the same. Their user interfaces always feature an address bar at the top of the window and horizontal tabs that allow you to navigate through multiple websites. So whenever a new browser tries to shake things up and innovate on this basic premise, it’s inevitable that it will elicit a certain amount of interest – sometimes to the point of fashioning its own fanbase. For example, with a novel approach to organizing, pinning, and managing tabs in a customizable sidebar, Arc Browser by The Browser Company has been a great showcase of what creating a brand new user experience for browsing the web can look like.
Last week, though, I stumbled upon a newcomer called Horse Browser by Pascal Pixel that immediately caught my attention. Horse is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in this space. The browser is based on a new approach that completely does away with the traditional address bar and horizontal tab layout. Instead of tabs, navigation in Horse Browser is structured in hierarchical trees called ‘Trails.’ The resulting UI is unique, appealing, and clever. But how does it hold up in everyday use?
Raycast has always been more than an app launcher. From the start, it has included a multitude of other handy utilities, including Floating Notes. I’ve used Floating Notes now and then to park a bit of text where I knew I’d be able to find it later. Because the note floated above other windows, it was easy to access, but Floating Notes always felt a little too rudimentary to use for much more than that.
Today, Raycast released an extensive update to the feature and renamed it Raycast Notes. Your notes still occupy a floating window, but now, the window auto-resizes to fit the content by default. The window’s width is fixed, but you can always resize its height to adjust how much space it occupies on your screen.
CoverSutra by Sophiestication is a name that may sound familiar if you’re as ancient as Federico, who last reviewed the app on MacStories in January 2010. At the time, the app was a fully-featured iTunes controller. It could display your music in the menu bar as well on the Desktop. It also used to act as a Last.fm client and ship with a bunch of customization features.
This month, CoverSutra is back with version 4.0. This new version was rewritten from the ground up with a different approach: instead of being a controller for Apple’s native Music app, CoverSutra is now a standalone client for Apple Music on the Mac. In practice, this means that you can search your Apple Music library, pick any album or playlist, and start listening without ever having to launch the Music app.
Search is CoverSutra’s highlight feature. Using CoverSutra for the past week on my Mac has made me realize how much more time I usually spend in the Music app just searching through my library. Searching with CoverSutra, on the other hand, is fast and persistent. You can start typing part of an artist’s name, album, or song title, and search results will instantly appear in the menu bar popover window. And as long as you don’t start a new search, your search results will not disappear, even if you click away from the menu bar.
CoverSutra’s layout for search results puts the emphasis on album and playlist covers.
I’ve also found that CoverSutra suits my listening habits pretty well. As the kind of person who likes to play albums from front to back and rarely relies on curated playlists, I’ve enjoyed how CoverSutra allows me to quickly bring up an album and play it from the beginning. The layout emphasizes album and playlist covers and makes it easy to instantly spot the album you are looking for.
In its current shape, CoverSutra 4.0 is pretty basic. Apart from search, playback controls, and the ability to set your own global keyboard shortcuts, there are no additional features or settings. However, I’m hopeful that the app can start fresh from this new foundation. Unlike similar alternatives on the Mac like Neptunes or Sleeve, CoverSutra’s potential as a standalone player in the menu bar may enable a range of more advanced features.
CoverSutra supports custom global keyboard shortcuts.
CoverSutra 4.0 is available on the Mac App Store. For a limited time, the app is available at an introductory price of $4.99. If you’ve purchased CoverSutra on the Mac App Store in the past, the upgrade to version 4.0 is free.
The day has finally arrived. iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1 are all out and include Apple’s first major foray into the world of artificial intelligence. Of course, Apple is no stranger to AI and machine learning, but it became the narrative that the company was behind on AI because it didn’t market any of its OS features as such. Nor did it have anything resembling the generative AI tools from OpenAI, Midjourney, or a host of other companies.
However, with today’s OS updates, that has begun to change. Each update released today includes a far deeper set of new features than any other ‘.1’ release I can remember. Not only are the releases stuffed with a suite of artificial intelligence tools that Apple collectively refers to as Apple Intelligence, but there are a bunch of other new features that Niléane has written about, too.
The company is tackling AI in a unique and very Apple way that goes beyond just the marketing name the features have been given. As users have come to expect, Apple is taking an integrated approach. You don’t have to use a chatbot to do everything from proofreading text to summarizing articles; instead, Apple Intelligence is sprinkled throughout Apple’s OSes and system apps in ways that make them convenient to use with existing workflows.
If you don’t want to use Apple Intelligence, you can turn it off with a single toggle in each OS’s settings.
Apple also recognizes that not everyone is a fan of AI tools, so they’re just as easy to ignore or turn off completely from System Settings on a Mac or Settings on an iPhone or iPad. Users are in control of the experience and their data, which is refreshing since that’s far from given in the broader AI industry.
The Apple Intelligence features themselves are a decidedly mixed bag, though. Some I like, but others don’t work very well or aren’t especially useful. To be fair, Apple has said that Apple Intelligence is a beta feature. This isn’t the first time that the company has given a feature the “beta” label even after it’s been released widely and is no longer part of the official developer or public beta programs. However, it’s still an unusual move and seems to reveal the pressure Apple is under to demonstrate its AI bona fides. Whatever the reasons behind the release, there’s no escaping the fact that most of the Apple Intelligence features we see today feel unfinished and unpolished, while others remain months away from release.
Still, it’s very early days for Apple Intelligence. These features will eventually graduate from betas to final products, and along the way, I expect they’ll improve. They may not be perfect, but what is certain from the extent of today’s releases and what has already been previewed in the developer beta of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 is that Apple Intelligence is going to be a major component of Apple’s OSes going forward, so let’s look at what’s available today, what works, and what needs more attention.
Today, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 18.1, the first major release since the operating system versions that launched in September and were reviewed by Federico.
As you may know, the main highlight of this new release is the first wave of Apple Intelligence features available to the public. AI has arrived, and for better or for worse for Apple’s platforms, this is only the beginning. Be sure to check out John’s review of all the new Apple Intelligence features included in iOS and iPadOS 18.1 (as well as macOS Sequoia 15.1) for the details.
Fortunately, Apple Intelligence isn’t the only highlight of this release. It also includes a series of changes to the system, from Control Center and the Camera app to Shortcuts and the arrival of new health features for AirPods Pro 2 users.
Here’s a roundup of everything new besides Apple Intelligence in iOS and iPadOS 18.1.
MacPaw has released a new version of its cleanup and maintenance utility CleanMyMac, dropping the “X” from its name, refreshing the design, and simplifying the app substantially.
The latest version is divided into six modules that host a variety of tools:
Smart Care
Cleanup
Protection
Performance
Applications
My Clutter
It also includes an assistant that rates the health of your Mac and recommends maintenance actions to you.
A lot of the tools available in CleanMyMac’s update will be familiar to long-time users. The difference is that the app’s modules have been simplified and explained in a less technical manner, which should make the app approachable to a broader audience.
The My Clutter module does more to find file clutter than before, scanning for large, old, and duplicate files, as well as images that are the same or close matches to each other. The scan can take a while depending on the amount of storage on your Mac, but I was impressed with the volume of files it identified that I could summarily delete.
CleanMyMac’s menu bar item.
The app also features a menu bar item that opens a grid of tiles reporting the highlights of your Mac’s health. Clicking on any of the tiles reveals additional details about that component.
The Smart Care, Cleanup, Protection, Performance, and Applications modules include a variety of other maintenance tools. You can tune up your Mac by clearing caches and other unnecessary files taking up your storage, free up memory, scan for viruses and malware, and uninstall or update apps to name just a handful of the many tools at your disposal.
The My Clutter scan may take a while if you have a lot of files.
I’ve been running the new version of CleanMyMac for about a week, and it’s been running smoothly. The My Clutter file scan does take a lot of time; my 4TB Mac Studio took about 25 minutes to scan, but the app did a fantastic job identifying files I could delete. The other available scans have worked well, too, and are faster, making it simple for me to periodically maintain my Mac.
CleanMyMac is available directly from MacPaw starting at $39.95 per year for one Mac (with multi-device bundles available at a discount), or as a one-time purchase starting at $119.95. Either option includes a seven-day free trial. Alternatively, you can download CleanMyMac as part of a Setapp subscription (affiliate link).
The Native Union Voyage with USB-C cable and canvas pouch.
Last week, I abandoned the Belkin BoostCharge Pro Wireless Charger because of a recent recall. Fortuitously at about the same time, Native Union sent me its Voyage 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charger to test. Although I preferred having the Apple Watch charging puck integrated with the power source for charging, as the Belkin battery did, the Native Union’s Voyage has proven to be an excellent replacement and far more flexible in how it can be used.
The Voyage consists of two charging disks joined by a soft rubberized strip that allows the two halves to fold into a compact, magnetically connected unit. The device comes in sandstone or black and is made of plastic, with the soft-touch rubbery hinge extending around the exterior edge of the disks. When folded, the Voyage is about the thickness of two iPhone 16 Pros, which may be too thick for some pockets but works well in a bag with your other gear. Overall, the device feels sturdy, and the build quality is excellent.
Charging an iPhone and AirPods Pro 2.
There are a few ways to use the Voyage. If you want to charge your iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time, you can fold the Voyage flat, push up on the Apple Watch charging puck so it’s perpendicular to the rest of the device, and start charging both. The Voyage is a Qi2 charger, meaning it can deliver 15W of power to an iPhone. The Apple Watch puck delivers 5W of power. Qi2’s power delivery is a step up from the original Qi standard, but it’s worth noting that you can get faster charging from Apple’s official iPhone MagSafe charger and Apple Watch charger.
Charging an iPhone and Apple Watch at 15 and 5W, respectively.
That said, there’s a benefit to the Voyage’s integrated design that Apple’s faster chargers don’t offer. Not only can you charge your iPhone and Apple Watch (or AirPods Pro) simultaneously, but you have other options, too. First, if you fold the Voyage back on itself, you can charge just your iPhone. In this configuration, the Voyage is thick enough to double as a landscape-oriented stand, allowing you to use it to watch videos whether you’re charging your iPhone or not. If you’re charging in this configuration, you’ll also have access to the iPhone’s StandBy mode.
Using the Voyage in StandBy mode.
Another option is to flip the same configuration over and drop your Apple Watch or AirPods Pro on the Voyage’s flat surface to charge. Alternatively, you can flip the charging puck up and use your Apple Watch in nightstand mode as it charges. That’s a total of four ways to charge your devices with a charger that has a footprint not much bigger than an official Apple MagSafe charger.
Using the Voyage as a stand.
The Voyage comes with a fabric-covered USB-C cable that matches the color of the device. There’s also a canvas bag in the box for storing the Voyage and its cable, although I’ll probably use it for storing small dongles and other odds and ends instead.
So far, the Voyage has been a good substitute for the charger I was using before. I’d prefer it if the Voyage supported faster MagSafe charging, but its compact size makes up for the slower charging in most contexts. The device has been equally handy having around the house whenever I need to top off my iPhone, Apple Watch, or AirPods Pro as it’s been easy to keep in my backpack for working away from home. So while the Voyage won’t replace faster charging solutions I have connected to my desk, it’s filled the role of having a charger handy at all times very well.
