Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i MacLife

QUICKLY EXPORT FULL–RES IMAGES AND CLIPS AND STORE THEM LOCALLY BY ONLY STORING photos locally on your Mac, you risk losing irreplaceable memories if it gets lost or damaged. A safer solution is to store shots on iCloud Photos, as you can simply download the full–resolution images as and when you need to edit and share them. However, although iCloud Photos is a syncing service, it doesn’t technically offer a backup of your clips and stills. Plus, as you snap more shots, you may need to start paying for extra iCloud storage. Fortunately, the Photos Takeout app enables you to back up and offload assets such as large video clips, so you can then delete them from Photos and keep your iCloud Photos storage requirements down. The app enables you…

YOU CAN MANAGE a book collection in many ways. Book Tracker (https://booktrack.app) feels tailor–made for Apple, and can organize physical and digital books. This tutorial shows how to use the iPad version, but the process is much the same on iPhone and Mac. Book Tracker’s cross–device nature can be a boon, too. Data syncs via iCloud, which means you can use an iPhone to scan items and check a collection on the go, and later use an iPad or Mac for heavier editing tasks. Our walkthroughs here get you started. But if you like the app, do explore its other features, including backup/restore, export, and seriously detailed statistics for people who really want to track their reading! You can add/view five items for free to get a taste for what…

FOR MANY PEOPLE, the iPhone has replaced the alarm clock on their bedside cabinets. But you don’t have to settle for a phone that only springs into action when it’s time to wake you up — with StandBy mode, your iPhone can display all sorts of useful information, from a simple clock, to widget updates, to round–ups of your favorite photos. StandBy mode isn’t restricted to bedtime, either. You can use it when your phone is charging in any room of the house — for example, it can be a desktop photo frame when you’re working in your office. Just connect it to power and turn it on its side to get started. StandBy has a few different forms. It can tell the time with a variety of clock faces,…

YES, IT’S THAT time of year again already — the Christmas holiday season is a time to unwind, relax, and spend precious time with loved ones, if that’s possible, and we hope you can indulge in all the good things that the holidays bring with them. Whether you are buying a tech treat for yourself or pulling out the stops for family and friends, our Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide will arm you with the all of the key information that you’ll need on some of the top tech trends and devices around at the moment. We cover the full spectrum, from useful little gadgets that really won’t need much wrapping paper, to more “considered purchases” for around the home — for those of you who really want to push the…

Standard edition $219.99 or $99.99/year; Pro edition $119.99/year (subscription only) From www.parallels.com Needs macOS 10.14.6 or later BEFORE THE iPHONE, Apple was far less well known around the world than it is now. Outside of the creative industries, most people used Windows PCs, and that meant there were quite a few software products that simply did not exist for the Mac. Running Windows without needing a PC has long been something that has been useful for developers, gamers and those who like both platforms. When Apple transitioned to using Intel processors it created Boot Camp which let you run Windows natively but you were either booted into one OS or the other. Emulators and virtualization packages such as Parallels Desktop were created to allow you the best of both worlds —…

$14.99 From https://timeflies.buzz Needs macOS 11 or later WE’RE OFTEN TOLD that life is short, but what if it was really short? That’s the premise behind Time Flies, a whimsical game from Playables that challenges you to make the most of your time on this planet. The catch? You’re a fly destined for just a minute or two of existence. Before you begin, you choose a nation. This determines your fly’s lifespan, and is based on the World Health Organization’s measure of human longevity. Picking the US gives your fly 76.4 seconds (instead of years) to live, for example. As soon as your fly moves, the clock starts ticking. As you buzz around each monochromatic pixel art level, you find interactive scenes where time stops. Completing each puzzle (many of…

THE RUMORS WERE on the money. Apple has released a new iPad Pro lineup, 14–inch MacBook Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, all powered by a next–generation M5 chip. Apple says M5 represents “the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon,” but is it all about AI, or does M5 have more to offer? And does the new hardware — all announced merely in press releases — deliver more than just a processor upgrade? The M5 chip, built using third–generation 3–nanometer technology, introduces a 10–core GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core. This accelerates GPU–based AI tasks, such as on–device image generation and AI video masking, by up to 3.5x compared to M4, and 6x compared to M1, Apple says. M5 also boosts graphics performance overall. It’s…

APPLE’S iPADOS 26 is one of the biggest, most important, and most user–friendly iPad updates in the company’s history, both in terms of how it looks and how it works. The eye–catching and good–looking Liquid Glass interface that makes any iPad look shiny and new is just the beginning, because under the sparkly bits there are lots of really important improvements, as well as some key new apps. They’re all designed to do one very important thing: make your iPad utterly unique. This is the most customizable iPadOS ever, with lots of great ways to make your iPad look amazing. It’s also the most productive iPadOS ever, with lots of tools and tweaks to help you get stuff done and tame your to–do list. Moreover, it’s the most connected iPadOS…

MANY OF US use calendars to keep ourselves organized, and Apple’s Calendar app is a great way to achieve that. You can also share calendars to keep family, friends, and co-workers up to speed. Whether you need a family planner or want to sort your sports club’s fixtures, shared calendars can help. There are many ways to collaborate on calendars in macOS; you can share calendars using iCloud, publish them for the public to use, and more. Apple also lets you set your shared calendars as read–only, and you can stop sharing them altogether at any point. Existing calendars can be subscribed to as well. For instance, you can subscribe to Apple’s US Holidays calendar, which is kept up to date with public holidays each year. Note that you can’t…

THE MAP SHOWS WHERE SHADOWS WILL FALL AND WHEN THEY SAY YOU should make hay while the sun shines, but that’s equally true for sitting outside with a quick snack or cup of coffee, basking in warm rays as long as they last. But knowing where you should go to do that isn’t always easy, especially as fall sets in. What looks like a sunny spot on a map can often be overshadowed by a looming skyscraper, blocking the sun and leaving you out in the cold. It doesn’t have to be this way. With an app called Coffee in the Sun loaded on to your iPhone, you can find the best places to enjoy food or drink outside before you even leave your home. Better yet, its map shows…

THERE ARE COUNTLESS ways of interacting with a smartphone, tablet, or computer. You can touch a screen, type on a keyboard, move a mouse, swipe on a touchpad, use a game controller, or even issue commands using your voice. But imagine a future where such input devices aren’t necessary — a future that allows your brain to directly control a device. It’s a future being worked on by scores of people, including a good number at Apple, and it’s set to be transformative in so many ways. The latest development came in May this year when Apple unveiled a brain–computer interface (BCI) protocol that supports Switch Control accessibility. Long available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac (via Settings > Accessibility > Switch Control), and more recently available on the Apple…

VIDEO GAMES ARE a serious business. The worldwide gaming market, according to Statista, is estimated at close to $455 billion, and games generate significantly more revenue than the movie and music industries combined. Apple has a slice of this market. It’s said that around 2 billion people play games on mobile phones, with iOS understood to be generating more than $47.7 billion, compared to Android’s $33.3 billion. Yet, despite games helping to boost Apple’s coffers today, the company isn’t generally regarded to be a gaming powerhouse. Apple’s flirtations with games began before the company was even formed. Its co–founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, began their tech careers in the video game industry, working at Atari in 1976 on the circuit board for Breakout. Apple’s early computers also attracted many…

Free; Pro $9.99/month; Advanced AI $19.99/month From www.raycast.com Needs needs iOS 18 or later APPLE’S STRUGGLES AROUND building its own artificial intelligence (AI) have been well documented even if many people assume, perhaps incorrectly, that it is trying to follow the same path as its competitors. While devices running the latest iOS can query ChatGPT directly, other services require additional apps. Raycast runs on your iPhone and iPad, as well as your Mac, and provides one–stop access to practically all versions of all the AI services out there, for a fee. There’s a free version with fairly limited functionality, or you can upgrade to the Pro subscription for $9.99/month, which provides access to the majority of engines including ChatGPT, OpenAI, Perplexity, Raycast’s own, Meta, DeepSeek, and more. The top tier Advanced…

THE DAYS OF carefully curating a cassette mixtape by recording songs off the radio may be long gone, but Apple Music has a much simpler, more straightforward, and much better–sounding alternative for you: playlists! Playlists have been available in Apple’s music apps since the iPod days and, they’re even better in the Apple Music era. Whether you’re creating a mix for your own amusement, to soundtrack an event, to download for a trip off–grid, or share with a friend or loved one, it’s easy to create, organize, and share playlists of pristine digital delights, and sync them across all your devices automatically via iCloud. SHARE THE TUNES As we’ll discover, it’s easy to create a personal playlist, add songs, and move them around. It’s also easy to create a Smart…

macOS FINAL Cut Pro’s Draw Mask tool enables you to manually place control points around a subject and create a mask that makes the subject’s background become transparent. In this way, you can creatively combine two parallel video layers in the timeline and make a subject on the top layer walk through a cartoon version of their environment on the layer below. However, if your subject is moving, you will need to manually reposition each of the mask’s many control points and add new keyframes for every frame of video in the clip. This step–by–step mask–editing operation can take hours to perform. Thanks to the new AI–powered Magnetic Mask tool, you can instantly isolate a complex subject, and the mask will automatically adjust its shape for every frame of video…

IF YOU WATCH a lot of movies, it can sometimes be hard to keep track of what you’ve seen and what you haven’t. Throw in TV seasons, games, books, and audiobooks, and your media library can quickly get out of hand. That’s where Sequel comes in. It is designed to help you get a hold on all your favorite media, from movies and TV shows to books, games, and audiobooks. Not only does it let you create wish lists of everything you want to get to next, you can log the movies you’ve watched, the games you’re halfway through, and the shows you couldn’t quite complete. There’s support for custom collections, too, which is ideal for anything that’s outside the default categories. Here, we’ll show you how to add media…

$1,599 From www.apple.com Features Apple M5 chip (10–core CPU, 10–core GPU, 16–core Neural Engine), 16GB unified memory (24/32GB available), 14.2in Liquid Retina XDR display (3024x1964), 512GB storage (1TB/2TB/4TB available), Wi–Fi 6E (aka 802.11ax Wi–Fi), Bluetooth 5.3, 3x Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, 1x HDMI, MagSafe 3 port, 3.5mm headphone jack THE BIGGEST CHANGES ARE ALL INTERNAL AND ENABLE FASTER PERFORMANCE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TASKS APPLE NORMALLY RELEASES new versions of its flagship laptop at this time of year, but for 2025 it has done things differently. Instead of releasing MacBook Pro models with a choice of chips (last year it was the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max) and in two different sizes, it has launched a single 14–inch model equipped with an Apple silicon M5 — 16in models equipped with M5…

$219.99 From https://renpho.com Features Heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, step counter, sleep tracking, stress monitoring; up to seven days’ battery life (14 days with USB charging case); Apple Health integration; waterproof to 5 ATM WHILE THE APPLE Watch has an array of health–tracking features, smart rings are an alternative way to measure all kinds of metrics. Available in Titanium Silver or Carbon Black, the Repnho LYNX requires you to use the free sizing kit to determine which you will need, after which you can order the correct size. It’s lightweight yet sturdy, and designed to be worn most of the time. The ring is waterproof, but you’re advised to remove it during any abrasive activities, such as weightlifting. If you’re not used to wearing a ring, it can take…

$279.95 From https://plugable.com Features 1x USB–C input with 140W charging, 3x USB–C (10Gbps/DisplayPort 1.4), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x HDMI 2.0a, 1x 2.5Gbps Ethernet, 1x USB–C 10Gbps (front), 2x USB 3.2 Type–A 10Gbps (front), 1x 3.5mm audio IT HAS FIVE BUTTONS ANDA CLICKABLE SCROLLING WHEEL, WHICH CAN ALL BE REPROGRAMMED THE LIMIT APPLE puts on the number of external displays you can connect to pre–M4 MacBooks can be frustrating, but Plugable has a solution. Its UD–7400PD USB–C 5–Display Docking Station has five display outputs, though you’ll need to use the software that comes with it, rather than just plugging it in. It’s not too hard to configure — the problem is going to be finding the monitors and desk space to take full advantage — and, as three of the video…