Changelog

What's new in Airway.

August 2026

ReleaseAug 14, 2026Airway 0.8 — First public releaseAirway leaves closed beta with Siri & Shortcuts support, 8 languages, appearance controls, and automatic background updates.

Version 0.8 (build 3) — Airway's first release outside closed beta testing. Everything below reflects the complete, current feature set, not just what changed since the last build.

What is Airway?

Airway is a macOS menu-bar app for direct, granular control of your Mac's fans. It talks straight to the System Management Controller (SMC) through a small privileged helper, so you can see live RPM and temperature, switch between automatic and manual control, and save named presets for the fan behavior you use most — all from a lightweight popover anchored to the menu bar.

Highlights in this release

  • Public launch — Airway is now available outside the beta program, with a first-launch onboarding experience that walks new users through what the app does and how to set it up.
  • Siri & Shortcuts support — Fan control is now exposed through Apple's App Intents framework, so Airway can be controlled by voice ("Hey Siri, Airway on Max") and wired into Shortcuts automations.
  • 8 languages — The full app, including Siri responses, is now localized into English, Filipino, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and Korean, with automatic system-language detection.
  • Appearance controls — A new Light/System/Dark override and a toggle to disable Airway's translucent "liquid glass" styling in favor of solid backgrounds.
  • Automatic updates — Airway now checks for and installs updates in the background via Sparkle, so future releases no longer require a manual reinstall.
  • Guided onboarding — A first-launch window with short video walkthroughs introduces fan control, presets, and licensing before users land in the main popover.

Full feature set

Core fan control

  • System Mode — hands fan control back to macOS's automatic thermal management.
  • Manual Mode — direct per-fan speed control via smooth sliders, with a hard 25% safety floor so airflow is never fully disabled by accident.
  • Max Mode — instantly spins all fans to maximum, useful for sustained heavy workloads.
  • Live monitoring — real-time RPM and system temperature, in the popover and optionally in the menu bar itself, in Celsius or Fahrenheit.
  • Fine-Tune toggle — switch manual control between coarse 25%-step adjustments and precise 1% granularity.
  • Graceful handoff — on quit, Airway automatically returns fan control to macOS rather than leaving fans pinned.

Presets

  • Save named fan configurations (by RPM or percentage) with a custom SF Symbol icon.
  • Apply any preset instantly from the popover; the active preset is highlighted and automatically clears if you adjust fans manually.
  • Full preset management — create, edit, reorder, and delete — in a dedicated Preset Manager window.
  • Presets persist locally across restarts.

Siri & Shortcuts

  • Four App Intents: Set Fan Mode (system, max, or any preset), Get Fan Status (RPM + temperature, usable for branching a Shortcut), Increase Fan Speed, and Decrease Fan Speed.
  • Works with natural Siri phrasing and synonyms (e.g., "full blast," "turbo," "automatic"), and appears automatically in the Shortcuts app.
  • Actions run against the same live app state as the popover — a preset triggered by Siri lights up as active in the UI immediately.
  • Gated behind an active trial, paid license, or beta access, same as the rest of the app — Siri is not a way around the paywall.

Language support

  • Airway is fully localized into 8 languages, plus a System option that auto-detects your macOS language:
    • English
    • Filipino
    • Spanish
    • French
    • German
    • Japanese
    • Chinese (Simplified)
    • Korean
  • Every user-facing screen is translated — the main popover, presets, licensing/paywall screens, feedback form, About window, and even Siri and Shortcuts responses.
  • Switching languages from the popover applies instantly across the whole app, no relaunch required.

Appearance

  • Appearance override (Light / System / Dark) applied app-wide, independent of the macOS-level setting.
  • Optional "disable liquid glass" toggle that swaps Airway's translucent materials for solid backgrounds.

Licensing & trial

  • 7-day free trial, no credit card required — just an email address to get started.
  • Cryptographically signed (ES256/P-256) license tokens verified on-device; the app never blindly trusts a token's claims.
  • Generous offline grace period after activation, so a temporary network hiccup never locks a paid user out.
  • License purchases are handled at airway.fan.

Onboarding

  • First-launch walkthrough with short video demos covering fan control, presets, and getting a license, presented in a dedicated onboarding window before the main popover appears.

Automatic updates

  • Background update checks via Sparkle, with in-app notification when an update is ready and a one-click "Update Now" install-and-relaunch flow.
  • Manual "Check for Updates" is also available at any time from the popover's options.

Feedback & stability

  • Built-in feedback form (bug report, idea, or general feedback) directly from the popover's options, with optional contact email.
  • Automatic crash reporting to help prioritize stability fixes — crash and feedback data are only ever used to improve the app.

System integration & safety

  • Communicates with hardware through a privileged helper daemon over a secure, authenticated XPC connection — Airway itself never runs with elevated privileges.
  • Manual fan overrides are hard-floored at 25% to protect against accidental overheating; this floor applies everywhere fan speed can be set, including presets and Siri/Shortcuts.

System requirements

  • macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
  • Apple Silicon or Intel Mac with SMC-based fan control

Installing Airway

Airway is not yet distributed through the Mac App Store or notarized by Apple, so macOS will show a security prompt the first time you open it. This is expected — here's how to get past it:

  1. Move Airway.app to /Applications.
  2. Double-click to open it. macOS will show a warning that it can't verify the developer.
  3. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the message about Airway being blocked, and click Open Anyway.
  4. On first launch, Airway will ask to install its privileged helper (used for fan control). Approve it under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → Allow in the Background — fan control won't work until this is approved.

Future updates delivered through Airway's built-in updater will not require repeating this process.

Known limitations

  • Airway is signed but not yet notarized by Apple, so the Gatekeeper steps above are required on first install.
  • Crash reporting currently catches uncaught Objective-C/Cocoa exceptions; low-level Swift crashes (fatalError, signals) are not yet captured.
  • Multi-device license management, custom fan curves/thermal profiles, historical usage tracking, and scheduled profile switching are planned but not yet available.

Roadmap

Planned for upcoming releases:

  • Multi-device license management
  • Custom fan curves and thermal profiles
  • Historical usage and temperature tracking
  • Advanced scheduling for automatic profile switching

Links

  • Get a license / download: airway.fan
  • Feedback: in-app, via the popover's options panel