“Apple Released macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 beta 3 to Public Testers”
On last Wednesday Apple released the third beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 update to public testers, two weeks after releasing the second public beta. Public testers who have signed up for Apple’s beta testing program will be able to download the beta installation file through Apple Developer Center, or via the Software mechanism in Mac App Store.
The first beta of iOS 11.3 introduces new features like Health Records and new Animoji, and the second beta includes the initial implementation of the battery health feature. Meanwhile, macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 beta introduces support for some features that are also available in iOS 11.3, like Messages on iCloud, which uploads all of your iMessages to the cloud, and support for Business Chat, a feature that synchronizes a user’s Messages “stack” between multiple devices logged in to the same iCloud account. These signs hints that the user experience on macOS and iOS will be gradually converge in near future.
Additionally, Apple has announced the plan to weed out 32-bit Mac apps, and the second beta of macOS 10.13.4 is the first beta that includes an alert of 32-bit apps. When users are trying to launch or install a 32-bit app on the 10.13.4 beta, it will still run, but a warning message will pop up saying that the app will eventually be incompatible with the operating system.
It is required that all new added apps on Mac App Store must support 64-bit architecture starting from January 1, and the existing Mac apps must be updated to 64-bit by June 2018. Now developers are able to test the compatibility of their apps on the betas of macOS 10.13.4.
Considering the regular updates of Apple’s operating systems in recent months, chances are that macOS will receive alternative renewals of beta and official versions in the future.