On Tuesday this week, Apple released a new update to macOS Catalina, 10.15.5 which brings new battery health features as well as a reasonable list of bug fixed. Catalina 10.15.4 came out around two months ago in early April and fixed some FaceTime bugs as well as adding Screen Time Communication Limits to bring macOS up to speed with iOS and iPadOS.
macOS Catalina 10.15.5 adds a new Battery Health Management feature to the Mac, something iOS has had now for a few months but on the Mac, the system will learn how and when you charge you laptop and will take action if you you leave it plugged in all the time for example. Leaving a laptop plugged in constantly can reduce the capacity the battery has.
Battery Health Management is enabled by default on macOS upon updating to 10.15.5, but it can be disabled within the System Preferences app.
10.15.5 also addresses quite a few bugs, one was where the Finder could crash if large amounts of data was being transferred and one where the password box may not appear on the lock screen. Apple has also addressed a stability issue where the Mac would be unstable uploading and download photos to iCloud Photo Library while the Mac is asleep.
Release Notes
macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduces battery health management in the Energy Saver settings for notebooks, an option to control automatic prominence of video tiles on Group FaceTime calls, and controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
Battery Health Management
– Battery health management to help maximize battery lifespan for Mac notebooks
– Energy Saver preference pane now displays battery condition and recommends if the battery needs to be serviced
– Option to disable battery health management
– For more information, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT211094FaceTime Prominence Preference
– Option to control automatic prominence on Group FaceTime calls so video tiles do not change size when a participant speaksCalibration Fine-Tuning for Pro Display XDR
– Controls to fine-tune the built-in calibration of your Pro Display XDR by adjusting the white point and luminance for a precise match to your own display calibration targetThis update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
– Fixes an issue that may prevent Reminders from sending notifications for recurring reminders
– Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen
– Fixes an issue where System Preferences would continue to show a notification badge even after installing an update
– Resolves an issue where the built-in camera may not be detected when trying to use it after using a video conferencing app
– Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in Sound preferences
– Fixes a stability issue with uploading and downloading media files from iCloud Photo Librarywhile your Mac is asleep
– Resolves a stability issue when transferring large amounts of data to RAID volumes
– Fixes an issue where the Reduce Motion Accessibility preference did not reduce the speed of animations in a FaceTime group call
Updating
To update from an older version of macOS Catalina, the Mac will automatically take care of this update for you and let you know, otherwise you can go to System Preferences > Software Update and then check for what updates are available.
