Great news, Ubiquiti has released Unifi OS 3.0.20 (link) which will hopefully mean that the early access 3.1.x builds won’t be too far away thus bringing the UDM and UDM Pro inline with the rest of their product range. The built in ad blocking (as mentioned on a previous blog post) is pretty rudimentary in that it does it at the DNS level rather than intercepting as the page is downloaded. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few releases the focus is on dealing with bugs then once stable hopefully they’ll make it more feature rich. In terms of its relaibility and performance after the update – everything is smooth sailing but keep in mind that I have a pretty simple setup consisting of an UDM, AP AC HD with the devices connected include: Mac Studio, MacBook Air, Apple TV and Nothing Phone.
Apple has pushed out a ‘Rapid Security Response’ update (link) however there haven’t been any notes regarding what was actually updates but I’d hazard to guess that a lack of details combined with Apple’s use of their ‘Rapid Security Response’ indicates that must have been critical and the lack of details points to Apple wanting to get every user updated before giving out details. It’ll be interesting to know what the details are – I’ve checked a few key macOS components to see whether they’ve been changed (wifi firmware, frameworks such as Webkit) but nothing jumps out at me but they must have been serious enough that they couldn’t wait until the next round of updates (iOS 16.5, macOS 13.4 etc).
Chrome 113 has been released for the desktop (link) which is available for immediate update but Android will be rolled out in stages so it may not come to your Android device straight away (it is available in iOS). If you’re a developer there are plenty of changes (link) along with harmonisation of implementation standards (link). One thing to realise that when it comes to browsers, Google see Chrome like a runtime framework in much the same way one could view Android, Flutter etc. with websites becoming more feature rich – almost like a native application that eventually native applications will become less and less common. When it comes to seemingly native applications aren’t so native after all, OpenMTP for example is an Electron based application even though it makes use of low level libraries and hardware access to access an Android device via MTP.
When it comes to Microsoft, it is interesting how they’re gradually killing off native applications – very soon I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up Skype being replaced with Teams. Although they have said that they won’t do that, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a long term goal of doing just that as it would greatly simplify maintenance. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up seeing the online version of Office 365 replacing the native version particularly for businesses that are either new or investing into moving away from bespoke custom line of business apps in favour of using an SDK provided by Microsoft or use another website either by Microsoft or by a third party that can integrate into Office 365.
Side note: There was a report that Google was working on getting Chrome working on iOS so then they’re ready to ship once the European Union forces Apple to open it’s platform for alternative web engines rather than forcing vendors to use the one Apple provides with iOS.I wonder whether the improvements that have come through for macOS in regards to memory, performance and battery life it is the result of inefficiencies being picked up as they develop Chrome for iOS. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case given that when the law changes that Google will want their browser ready to go right of the gate. It’ll be interesting to see just how much transaction it will gain when it is an option given how strong the preinstalled option is for most people – “meh, it’s good enough and I’m not motivated to change it” which is part of the reason why Internet Explorer hung around for so long. With all that being said, it is interesting how there is suddenly a sense of urgency within Apple about getting Safari up to scratch – it lacks the sort of feature rich extensions framework that enable me to use the extensions I like but I guess for for most people it’s a bit of a non-issue.
As side note to my side note: I’m going to start deleting some only posts I made. I like purging the old content as keep moving forward. I’m tempted to clear out everything before 2023 so I start with a new fresh start. I’ll make the decision over the next few days. With that being said, I’ll hopefully be providing better coverage to WWDC this year – what I might end up doing is going to bed early rather than waiting up until 5am so that by the time it comes on I’m an absolute zombie. I tried covering it the first time by staying up but by the time I got around to writing my blog I needed to watch it again. Hopefully with a good night sleep I can put it on my big screen, crack out a soft drink and some nibbles and get to watch the experience – I may even do a live commentary via Mastodon for not just the keynote but also for WWDC Platforms State of the Union if I have time.
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