Apple on Monday released an update to Boot Camp Utility, the company’s tool that lets Intel Mac users run Windows natively on their Apple computers. Today’s update brings Wi-Fi improvements, as it adds support for the WPA3 standard.
For those unfamiliar, WPA3 is a new Wi-Fi protocol that makes the network even more secure against brute-force attacks. The new standard also adds more protection for public Wi-Fi networks, and it works better with IoT (internet of things). Boot Camp version 6.1.16 allows Mac users to connect to WPA3 Wi-Fi networks when using Windows.
But this is not the only change coming with this update. As noted by MacRumors, the latest Boot Camp Utility update also fixes a Bluetooth driver issue that could occur after waking the computer from Sleep or Hibernation modes.
Earlier this year Apple released Boot Camp 6.1.17 with drivers for the Studio Display. This allowed Apple’s new external display to also work with Windows. However, Boot Camp 6.1.17 wasn’t made available for users who don’t have a Studio Display (so this probably explains why today’s update has the number 6.1.16).
In order to update Boot Camp drivers on your Mac, click on the Start menu when running Windows and then open the Apple Software Update tool.
Boot Camp for Apple Silicon Macs
It’s worth noting that, at least for now, Boot Camp remains available only for Macs with Intel processors. Macs with an Apple Silicon chip (M1 and M2) can only run Windows through virtual machines with software like Parallels.
Apple’s VP of software engineering Craig Federighi once suggested that “it’s really up to Microsoft” to make Windows compatible with M1 and M2 Macs. An exclusive deal between Microsoft and Qualcomm, which is about to expire, would be one of the reasons why there’s no commercial versions of Windows available for ARM-based computers.
There are, however, some methods that let users install Linux on Apple Silicon Macs without Boot Camp, but there are still some compatibility issues.
