I just updated to 14.3.1 and immediately noticed an issue where any audio coming through my audio interface no longer worked. This affects my headphones, microphones, and the studio monitor speakers that are hooked up to it. At first I thought they weren't working at all, but then I noticed that I could faintly hear noise coming out of a speaker or headphone. I cranked the system audio all the way up and at the max setting, with all of my interface dials cranked up to the max as well, I could now hear the audio but it was at a very low volume. This only affected audio coming through my USB audio interface. Audio piped through my monitor's built-in speaker and the Mac Studio's built in speaker worked like they normally do. After trying to figure out the source of the problem I finally opened up the built-in "Audio MIDI Setup" application in MacOS. Turns out, for whatever reason, the update to the OS had the affect of setting my external interface's audio levels almost all the way down. Setting them back to the standard level of 1.0 fixed the issue. Just sharing in case anybody else has the same issue.
I understand that few people are using external interfaces so this is maybe a niche problem, but Apple markets these machines to creative professionals, so I don't think that criticism is unwarranted when system updates break things that those of us who work with audio depend on to work on our projects. This isn't a 3rd party software thing either, this is 100% just Apple messing up the way their own built in audio settings handle piping audio through external hardware. There's no software layer here to mess things up other than the software Apple controls. This kind of oversight is becoming more and more common and coming from long-time mac user it's getting pretty infuriating because this legitimately wasn't the sort of thing you used to have to worry about with Apple. Things really did just work for the most part for a very long time and this is increasingly not the case. Now it feels like there's some new issue that needs solving for every issue Apple fixes. The user experience of having to troubleshoot, check drivers, etc every time you install a simple update now reminds me of the same frustrations and headaches that led me to switching from Windows TO a Mac almost 20 years ago. I really wish Apple would get back to form, they are getting really sloppy.
On that note (and it is audio related) is there a reason I'm not allowed a setting to NEVER be prompted to have my Airpods connect or be "automagically" detected by my Mac? I never use them on my desktop because when I'm working with audio I'm not using Airpods to do it. Why do I only have the choice between deleting them entirely from my account or using my desktop without being signed in to my account? I know I can set them to not connect automatically, but why am I forced to have them pop up and ask to connect on a computer I don't intend to EVER use them on just because I bought them for my phone? Thats a really dumb way to turn an accessory into something I'm now just going to ditch for 3rd party bluetooth earbuds when it comes time to replace these because you've made the official product part of your ecosystem in a way that doesn't respect how your users want to tailor their experience and use your products. Apple needs to stop with this idea that they just "know best" how we should be using these things, especially when people in many industries know things about their needs that Apple doesn't. They are chasing the convenience of being able to use a device in a completely thoughtless manner, which is fine for the average person who only checks social media and watches YouTube, but for those of us who still want/need to retain control how we use these products in our workflows they are being reduced to toys with fewer and fewer options. Sorry, rant over, just a longtime user frustrated at both the decisions and the sloppiness coming out of Apple in the last several years.
