Apple Releases Studio Display Firmware Update to Fix Speaker Issue

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today released an updated version of the 15.5 firmware for
the Studio Display, with the update coming more than two months
after the Studio Display firmware was last updated. The prior
version of the 15.5 firmware had a build number of 19F77, while
the new version is 19F80. […] Apple last week sent out a memo to
authorized service providers, acknowledging that some customers
have had issues with the Studio Display speakers cutting out or
offering distorted playback.

I believe I’ve encountered this audio issue twice since March. I wrote about it back in April, complaining particularly about the fact that the only way to resolve it was to yank the display’s power cord, because it doesn’t have a power button. It happened again about a month ago. I spent $40 on a HomeKit power outlet to work around the Studio Display’s lack of a power button.

So here’s a question. I installed this firmware update this afternoon, and it requires you to restart your Mac to apply the update to the Studio Display. Why? There was no MacOS update today — just the Studio Display. My guess is that Apple thinks it’s less weird to require rebooting the whole machine just to update the display firmware than to have a Mac without a functional display for 3 or 4 minutes.

Update: It’s apparently problematic to update the Studio Display firmware from a beta version of MacOS 13 Ventura.