Following widespread complaints about webcams on Studio Display, Apple will soon release a separate firmware update in an attempt to fix the issues.
Owners of the Studio Display report that the image quality of its webcam was markedly poor compared to the iPad Pro, which should be theoretically the same. According to McWorld’s columnist Jason Snell, they complained, it created a washed-out, noisy figure, when the crop was “ridiculously high.”
Apple has agreed to look into the matter, and announced in April that tweaks to the webcam have been included in MacOS Monterey 12.4 Beta 3. Jason Snell described it as a definite improvement, but added: “I hope the Apple team working on this firmware will continue to do that, because there is so much more that can be done to improve things.”
Apple later announced that you don’t need to update MacOS to get a webcam fix: it will bundle the tweaks to Studio Display Firmware 15.5, a separate firmware update. The update, the company claims, “refines camera tuning, including improved noise reduction, contrast and framing.” And it’s almost here, after sowing the seeds of yesterday’s release candidate (RC).
RC is only available to beta testers, but it is one of the last steps in the beta process, and signals that universal release is imminent. And the fact that it’s available as a separate update is a big deal: iMore argues that folding display firmware changes with the MacOS update is never understandable, and this separation will make it easier for Apple to respond quickly to more specific issues. The problem is not having to go through a macOS update process.