Apple preparing iOS 14.8 release as iOS 15 launch nears

Posted:
in iOS edited August 2021
Apple appears to be readying a major point release for iOS 14 ahead of an expected iOS 15 launch this fall, with references to the update recently surfacing in an Xcode beta.

iOS 14


Spotted by developer Brendan Shanks, the latest Xcode beta version lists iOS 14.8 as an available or soon to be available operating system version. The supposed update is accompanied by existing iOS 14 point releases, but the list does not make note of minor revisions like the most recent iOS 14.7.1.

What will be incorporated in an iOS 14.8 release is unclear. Apple has patched most known vulnerabilities, the latest round arriving in late July, and the prospect of new feature introductions is highly unlikely given iOS 15 is due this fall.

Issuing an eighth major point update would be an unprecedented move, as Apple's past mobile operating systems have capped out at seven point revisions, at most. That said, the company is for the first time modifying how it handles major iOS updates.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple said it would continue to supply users of past operating systems with security updates following the launch of a major release.

Instead of pushing users to the next major version, in this case iOS 15, Apple will provide "important security updates" to those who elect to remain on iOS 14. Users will be able to choose from two software update versions in system settings when iOS 15 sees release, the company said in a preview of the feature.

The option will be a welcome respite for some, as Apple intends to roll out new Child Safety tools with the next iteration of iOS. The multi-pronged system, which in part "scans" user photos for child sexual abuse material, has proven controversial, with some arguing that the features reduce user privacy.

Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    yojimbo007yojimbo007 Posts: 1,165member
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    elijahgdarkvadercochomejsricmuthuk_vanalingambaconstangcaladanian
  • Reply 2 of 18
    14.7.1 erased  saved contacts information.. so I would get text messages/calls from people I thought I already saved.  I’m glad 14.8 is in the works. Hopefully it fixes my situation 
    darkvader
  • Reply 3 of 18
    cochococho Posts: 8member
    I’m not updating anything for the moment. I do not trust Apple anymore. 
    elijahgdarkvadermejsricbaconstangcaladanian
  • Reply 4 of 18
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    I think you might’ve turned off your spelling checker too. 


    doozydozenzigzaglenscaladanianmike1
  • Reply 5 of 18
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    What a hilarious screed! This should be on Comedy Central. Total wack!
    doozydozenArchStantonmike1twokatmew
  • Reply 6 of 18
    14.7.1 erased  saved contacts information.. so I would get text messages/calls from people I thought I already saved.  I’m glad 14.8 is in the works. Hopefully it fixes my situation 
    I had a similar problem I thought was from an update. It turned out to be the exchange server at work had issues after it's update and reverted some accounts and totally screwed up others.
    apple4lizifecaladanian
  • Reply 7 of 18
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    cocho said:
    I’m not updating anything for the moment. I do not trust Apple anymore. 
    So who DO you trust? Name a company.

    And by the way, whether you update or not has nothing to do with it. Apple will be scanning images on iCloud, not your phone. You know that, right?
    edited August 2021 doozydozen[Deleted User]caladanian
  • Reply 8 of 18
    The good news there is not one big brother. The bad news there are many big brothers all wanting to take (by whatever means legal or otherwise) each person's private information to use as a marketing tool or to steal their assets.
    darkvaderbaconstangcaladanian
  • Reply 9 of 18
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    That's good, since no one in their right mind will be installing spyOS 15 at this point.
    cochozigzaglensmejsricbaconstangcaladanian
  • Reply 10 of 18
    geekmeegeekmee Posts: 629member
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    Don’t feed the trolls
    [Deleted User]
  • Reply 11 of 18
    geekmeegeekmee Posts: 629member
    cocho said:
    I’m not updating anything for the moment. I do not trust Apple anymore. 
    And we don’t trust trolls.
    [Deleted User]ArchStanton
  • Reply 12 of 18
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 

    darkvader said:
    That's good, since no one in their right mind will be installing spyOS 15 at this point.

    I really hope circulating paranoid crap on the Internet becomes illegal one day. 
    edited August 2021
  • Reply 13 of 18
    lkrupp said:
    Apple will be scanning images on iCloud, not your phone. You know that, right?
    The scanning happens on the phone, uploading to iCloud triggers the counter that supposedly prevents false positives from alerting the management. A whole string of positives in a row would indicate someone uploading their stash. The fact that this is happening on board the phone in the background is what has everyone pissed off. As well as being an interesting way of showing off their AI/ML tech, I suspect this is a prelude to finally encrypting all iCloud data at rest. This still leaves open the possibility of corruption of the NCMEC database.
    muthuk_vanalingamcaladaniancocho
  • Reply 14 of 18
    darkvader said:
    That's good, since no one in their right mind will be installing spyOS 15 at this point.
    “In their right mind” isn’t an appropriate phrase for the responses in this thread. 

    I’ll be updating to OS15 as soon as available. You can also read my previous posts. I’ve argued for privacy as hard as anyone. Still do. Still will. I know the subject well iPhone is still by far the most private os available of the big two smartphones. 
    If you think it isn’t right then don’t use iCloud. Itoolbox has an easy wiki on not using iCloud for backups. Otherwise use Android. There’s where you’ll get your privacy staying in your right mind. 
    macapfelbuttesilver
  • Reply 15 of 18
    I can’t remember that many point updates in iOS.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    Perhaps you should watch Rene Ritchie’s careful and detailed explanation of the new feature before you jump to any final conclusions. It’s long because it needs to be but it’s very helpful. I now have a clearer understanding of the whole thing…not perfect, but a lot clearer. Well worth your time. 

    Full disclosure: I don’t use Facebook, google (except for unsigned-in YouTube viewing) or Amazon services because of my passion for privacy. These companies, and let’s add Microsoft to the mix, have been doing something like this for years, but with far less privacy protection than Apple is proposing, it seems. 

    edited August 2021 buttesilverArchStanton
  • Reply 17 of 18
    ricmacricmac Posts: 65member
    John Gruber at Daringfireball reports today; "I don’t think anyone knows how prevalent CSAM is on iCloud Photos. We know Facebook reported 20 million instances of CSAM to NCMEC last year, and Google reported 546,000. For Facebook, that’s about 55,000 per day; for Google, 1,500 per day. I think it’s a genuine “we’ll soon find out” mystery how many iCloud Photo users are going to be accurately flagged for exceeding the threshold for CSAM matches when this goes live."

    Perhaps some of this righteous indignation about privacy is not so "righteous" after all?

  • Reply 18 of 18
    Turned off automatic updates … will not be updating to 14.8 and 15..
    Apple has become  super creepy… all in a course of one week!!!… They have turend thier mantra completely upside down,  blatetantly saying  FU to every person who believed them on their privacy initiatives .. invested in that initiative and paid premiums  for that initiative ..  ( all down the drain)

    From a champion of privacy to the creepiest company who blatently say’s your next version of software will have a built in survaylance spywear.! 
    Photos now… what later? 

    Yes icloud can be turned off..    but that breaks the ecosys.. .. ecosys another selling point of Apple.. 
    Turning off icloud .. also means less storage needs on the cloud… which means i dont need to subscribe to icloud storage space anymore… which hurts revinue and is blatently against shareholder interest.  

    What the F is going on at Apple! 
    Perhaps you should watch Rene Ritchie’s careful and detailed explanation of the new feature before you jump to any final conclusions. It’s long because it needs to be but it’s very helpful. I now have a clearer understanding of the whole thing…not perfect, but a lot clearer. Well worth your time. 

    Full disclosure: I don’t use Facebook, google (except for unsigned-in YouTube viewing) or Amazon services because of my passion for privacy. These companies, and let’s add Microsoft to the mix, have been doing something like this for years, but with far less privacy protection than Apple is proposing, it seems. 

    This is an inconvenient truth. The depth and breadth of surveillance capitalism is pervasive. The Natural Fallacy is in full force through corporations big and small(even small websites thanks to cross scripts cutely named "Analytics"): everyone does it so it must be ok. 

    Numerous companies almost entirely depend on revenue of gathering and auctioning off where you went today, what you bought, and who you talked to just before you did this (among other private data points). It's chopped up in daily, weekly an historic behaviors. Fyi, Google likely has a copy or AI interpretation of most pictures you've search for. Don't believe me? Request your free copy of your data from Google. See how wrong I am for yourself.
    When Apple turned off this spigot, they stirred up the hornet's nest. Would be interesting to know if Cook and company understood the blowback they'd receive for it.

    With that said, I don't shut out the world either. Google knowing demographics and trends etc etc about me to target ads on that general level is, IMHO, fair game. They can make huge money from it too. Just don't continue to make smartphone not only an expensive functional tracking, watching and listening device but also a hub that spans your contacts list. This is as a slippery slope as it gets. 
    But small things can help reject this surveillance capitalism: leave ATT blocking on, don't enable "help us make ____ better", use a VPN, don't use an Apple or Google or Facebook account as your account and authentication across many of your websites (keychain or third party password manager!), use your smart wallet for transactions, don't use Google Chrome until at minimum they put in third party cookie blocking (at minimum). Doing these things I just mentioned is nothing, takes almost no extra time, blocks so your phone from being a tracker, and anonymizes a bunch of your private data. It's not perfect but what it does is pushes companies (including Apple) to have to dig revenue up in ways other than your smartphone (and PC) being a tracking and recording device that is constantly sending back information on you. It disincentivizes the behavior. Win for consumers and freedom. 
     


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