Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från Macworld

Now that the transition to Apple silicon is in full swing, we’re seeing some regularity with the Mac release cycle. The MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini made the switch from Intel chips to the M1 in November 2020, followed by M2 upgrades in January 2023. The Mac Studio was introduced with the M1 Max/Ultra, and then a year later the M2 upgrades came. We also got the M2 Ultra Mac Pro and an M2 Pro Mac mini, but since those releases are relatively recent, there’s still time left in their cycle before we’ll see updates. But there’s a huge gap in Apple’s Mac cycle, and it involves the most iconic computer of them all: the iMac. The M1 iMac was introduced on April 20, 2021, and that was…

Remember those serious Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws from about five years ago? Well, Intel’s in hot water again with another serious vulnerability that affects years worth of processors. Known as “Downfall,” the vulnerability exploits a flaw in the AVX vector extensions of every Intel CPU from the Skylake generation onward until we get to the more recent 12th-gen Alder Lake processors. Macs with these processors started appearing in late 2015 with the 21.5-inch iMac, and just about every Intel-based Mac—desktop or laptop—since that time is on the list of affected processors. Apple switched to its own chips in 2020 rather than using the newer 12th- and 13th-gen Intel processors (though those aren’t affected by the flaw anyway). WHAT IS DOWNFALL? Researcher Daniel Moghimi, who discovered the flaw, created a microsite…

SAMSUNG VIEWFINITY S9 Samsung’s new 27-inch display offers a 5K resolution, support for the P3 color gamut, and 600 nits of brightness to address the needs of content creators. It lacks a variable refresh rate, however; it supports only 60Hz. But it is Pantone Validated so it offers authentic reproduction of more than 2,000 Pantone colors and 100 Pantone SkinTone shades. It comes with Thunderbolt 4 and USB-C for Mac connectivity.—ROMAN LOYOLA ANKER MAGGO POWER BANK The Anker MagGo Power Bank implements the new Qi2 standard with wireless charging speeds of 15 watts that is compatible with the iPhones with MagSafe. With its built-in kickstand, the MagGo can act as s stand when the iPhpone is magnetically connected. An LCD screen offers battery status information, and a USB-C port…

In Apple’s Q3 financial report, we learned that the Apple Watch is doing a good job of attracting newcomers, which made up two-thirds of buyers in the most recent quarter. What’s less clear is how appealing the device is to upgraders, particularly in the wake of a string of cautious updates: Last year’s Apple Watch Series 8 had few meaningful differences from the previous model, and the upcoming Series 9 is expected to tell a similar story. Beyond 2023, however, that pattern could be about to change. According to Bloomberg leaker-analyst Mark Gurman, writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Cupertino has a far more momentous Apple Watch launch up its sleeve. The 10th generation of the device, which Gurman refers to as the Watch X and describes as…

Despite what the name implies, Satechi’s Duo Wireless Charger Power Stand charges up to three devices at the same time. The “Duo” seems to refer to the number of items that can be placed on the stand for charging: an iPhone and AirPods case, for Apple device users. A third device can be charged through the stand’s rear USB-C charging port. At first glance, the Power Stand looks like a normal power bank, with a two-tone design that stands out. A closer look reveals that the black top offers a Qi-compatible wireless charging area that has a maximum power output of 10 watts. However, iPhones are charged with a maximum of 7.5 watts via Qi, which is half of what a MagSafe charger can do. But since it’s a Qi charger,…

Unicode is a massive, sprawling effort that pairs a number to every unique character in a language, every punctuation mark, every math symbol, and much more. And nearly all of it is available within macOS, but it’s not always easy to find. If you are trying to type unique characters such as the euro sign or a pound sign, see this separate story: “How to type Æ, €, #, @, © and more special characters on a Mac.” There’s a semi-hidden way to access special symbol sets in Unicode, and a somewhat obscure method of searching for specific symbols across all of macOS’s included Unicode characters. First: In macOS 12 Monterey or earlier: Go to Apple menu → System Preferences → Keyboard and make sure “Show keyboard and emoji viewers…

Norton is one of the oldest software utility names in the Mac world and a big name in software security, so we were intrigued by the various Norton 360 bundles, including Norton 360 Plus, Standard, and Deluxe. Among the software’s strengths are the wide range of functions it offers and its solid detection of Mac viruses. It’s easy to use and imposes a low system load. FEATURES In recent years, antivirus programs have developed more and more into collections of apps. That’s the case for Norton. The features on offer depend on which version you use: Norton offers Plus, Standard, and Deluxe, as well as Advanced in the U.K. or LifeLock Select in the U.S. You can also subscribe to some additional functions individually, which can be significantly cheaper. You can almost…

Pardon me while I stand and salute EarFun’s new flagship noise-cancelling earbuds, the Air Pro 3. These feature-filled mighty mites deliver dynamic, detailed, and full-bodied sound. While they’re just a bit shy in bass articulation, they deliver much of what you’ll get from buds with much higher price tags. Comfort level is good—I can wear them for hours—and the active noise cancellation (ANC) is improved compared to the company’s earlier efforts, wiping away a goodly amount of plane, train, and bus noise as well as walk-about wind noise. What really sets the Air Pro 3 apart from its midpriced competition is a futuristic feature set that could grow in usefulness and service for years to come. Tapping the brand-new Qualcomm QCC3071 audio chip, EarFun outmaneuvered the majors to deliver the…

IS YOUR USB-C DEVICE GETTING THE PROPER CHARGE? IT’S ALL SORTED OUT FOR YOU Many people found—and some still find–USB-C confusing because of the variety of data standards supported by different hosts (computers, mobile phones, and so on) and devices (headphones, other computers, gaming systems, drives, and so forth). But mixed in there was the issue that a USB-C cable has no preferred end and can carry power over any cable, often at the high wattages necessary for charging laptops or recharging USB battery packs. When you plug in multiple devices that can provide power over USB-C, will you fry a computer or other equipment? Will their voltages combine for faster charging? If they’re competing to charge, which one “wins” when you have two sources with different outputs, like 15…

As a person who loves the Mac, it’s sometimes hard for me to see Apple yank the platform around. Some years it gets attention heaped on it, while others it plays second fiddle to the iPhone and iPad (even though those platforms depend on the Mac for their third-party app development). That’s why it’s been so great to watch the pivot to Apple silicon because the Mac we all depend on for our work is getting the hardware it needs to excel. But there’s an elephant in the room. The Mac has fallen short consistently when it comes to gaming, and even though Apple’s making moves to improve things, we’ve been down this road before. Sure, the M1 and M2 have decent graphics performance, but the best games Apple can…

Adobe Photoshop is for image editing as Microsoft Office is for the office: absolutely dominant, and in a professional environment, you can’t get around having it. However, if you aren’t using Photoshop and the Creative Suite—or Creative Cloud, as it is now called—for professional reasons (and even if you are), the package has become very unattractive since the introduction of the subscription model more than a decade ago. If you only want to edit a few photos every now and then, you probably won’t think that a monthly subscription for around $9.99 is worth it—because most of the time it is not. A cheap and affordable alternative to Photoshop is Affinity Photo, which was released in its second major version in late 2022. Here you get an unlimited license for an extensive…

When iOS 17 launches next month, it will bring a wealth of improvements and new features: Contact posters, live voicemail transcription, StandBy, FaceTime messages, new autocorrect and dictation, Siri improvements, and a lot more. But some features you may be looking for won’t be there when you update your iPhone in September. While they’re part of iOS 17, they won’t be ready until later this year. Apple does this every year with iOS updates, and it’s no cause for concern. It just means that some features are earmarked for iOS 17.1, 17.2, or 17.3, and Apple is telling us about all of them now. In fact, sometimes one or two of the “coming later this year” features slip into the next year. Here are the features Apple says are coming in…

Apple has made it simple to take a picture quickly with your iPhone: swipe left on the lock screen and the Camera app appears. (You can also set the Camera icon to appear on the lock screen in Settings → Siri & Search → Camera, and then flip the switch for Show on Home Screen. And you can also swipe to reveal the Control Center and tap the Camera icon if you’ve enabled that option in Settings → Control Center.) But what if you want to make it more difficult to trigger the camera, especially after you’ve wound up taking too many photos of your pocket lining? I recently captured an amazing series of lint action shots during a visit to the Palace of Versailles in France, for instance. Apple…

Apple pulled the covers back on the latest iteration of its Mac operating system at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 5, 2023. Named macOS Sonoma after the Northern California city known for winemaking, the new software has customization at its heart. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, stated, “We think users are going to love macOS Sonoma and the new ways it enables them to personalize with widgets and stunning new screen savers, see new levels of gaming performance, and gain powerful productivity for video conferencing and browsing with Safari.” Here are the headline features to look forward to when macOS Sonoma arrives in the fall. 1. SCREENSAVERS This might seem like a blast from the past, but screensavers are still a thing, and Apple has taken…

One of the joys of Touch ID on a Mac laptop is using Apple Pay without needing an iPhone or iPad at hand to validate a secure credit or debit card transaction. This was extended to M-series Macs with the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which allows a Mac mini, iMac, or Mac Studio to add Touch ID through a special wireless connection to an M-series Mac’s Secure Enclave module. But some readers have found Apple Pay disabled. In Apple menu → System Preferences/Settings → Wallet & Apple Pay, macOS offers the following explanation: “Apple Pay has been disabled because the security settings of this Mac were modified.” Several different causes could be the root, and Apple omits one for M-series Macs in the document linked via a Learn More…

The close corporate ties between Disney and Apple have created all sorts of speculation over the years that the two companies might end up being one company. Steve Jobs sat on the Disney board, and Disney CEO Bob Iger sat on Apple’s board. In his memoir, Iger even suggested that had Jobs lived, the two companies might have combined. That speculation was always ridiculous to me. But these are different times, and Disney and Apple are very different companies than they were a couple of decades ago. This is why, when The Hollywood Reporter took the possibility of an Apple purchase of Disney seriously, I realized that the speculation I used to roll my eyes at when I was the editor of Macworld now seems…not that implausible, actually. APPLE OF YOUR…

Sony’s SRS-XV800 is a beast of a speaker. Just getting it out of the box was a minor adventure, as it weighs just over 40 pounds and is wrapped in styrofoam. Luckily, the speaker has two sturdy handles if you want to carry it, and even better, it has wheels for even easier transport. All in all, it’s a solid and stylish build that comes in all black. The speaker is omnidirectional and fills the room with powerful sound from all directions. Five tweeters, two speakers that Sony calls X-Balanced Speaker Units, and a 6.7-inch subwoofer powered by 900 nominal watts undeniably produce a powerful sound, to say the least. BATTERY AND AC POWER OPTIONS You can use the SRS-XV800 by plugging it into an electrical outlet or via its 10,520mAh…

While Apple has long been one of the loudest opponents of the Right to Repair movement, it has seemingly softened its stance over the past several months. And now it’s completely changed its position and offered its full endorsement to California’s version of the legislation. As first reported by TechCrunch, Apple has sent a letter to a California State Senator Susan Eggman backing the bill and urging its passage. Apple’s support likely paves the way for the state to pass the legislation, as it has unanimous support in the California Senate. I’ve been working on the #RightToRepair in California for the past six years and I’m so appreciative that @Apple has stepped up to support this important consumer and environmental protection policy. This is an historic day for the movement!—Senator…

Laptop docking stations are a great tool for adding multiple USB, video, and networking ports to your MacBook, and this dock from Satechi goes a step further by including an SSD enclosure so you can add affordable fast storage without having to attach a separate hard drive. As its name suggests, the Satechi Dual Dock Stand also identifies as a laptop stand. It certainly raises the MacBook that rests on it to a more agreeable angle for typing, but it isn’t a stand that will raise your MacBook to a more ergonomic height. However, if you are using the MacBook’s keyboard rather than an external one, it’s more comfortable than leaving the laptop flat on the desk. SPECS AND FEATURES The Satechi Dual Dock Stand features nine ports and an…

Apple has worked to make stolen iPhones less valuable to thieves through Activation Lock, a feature that’s part of Find My. With Find My enabled (Settings → account name → Find My), an iPhone (or an iPad or Macs from recent years) can’t be erased and reused without having the password for the Apple ID account associated with the phone. (This locking feature can also render Apple hardware intended for legitimate resale or donation unusable.) You can make this slightly harder with a small inconvenience to yourself by disabling Control Center from the Lock screen without Touch ID or Face ID authentication. Here’s how. You may also like to read “How to find a lost or stolen iPhone with Find My and other methods.” DISABLE CONTROL CENTER FROM THE LOCK…

Imagine this scene: a busy, bustling video production studio with editors scrambling to edit their masterpieces. You probably imagine them on hulkingly large workstations and giant monitors, right? Now picture this: They’re all sitting on comfortable couches—but just as busy—editing on iPads. Final Cut Pro for iPad brings a new tool into the mix for both amateur and professional creators alike. While the above scenario may not seem realistic yet for those in the industry, there are various ways that the iPad can enhance and improve the production process. And Final Cut Pro is a huge step toward turning the iPad into an actual computer. Can the iPad Final Cut Pro really be a replacement for the Mac version? Or is it merely a superhero sidekick? Let’s look at how Final…

At the Worldwide Developers Conference 2023, Apple previewed iPadOS 17, this year’s main software update for the iPad. While pre-event rumors suggested this would be a quiet refresh, there were several worthwhile changes and new features that are good news for iPad owners. “iPadOS powers our most versatile device and enables users to do so many things on iPad, and now with iPadOS 17, we deliver an experience that’s even more personal and capable,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. LOCK SCREEN AND WIDGETS Last year iPhone users got the new ability to customize their lock screens, but tablet users missed out. iPadOS 17 now brings this option to the iPad. You can set photo shuffles or Live Photos as the background, customize the font and…

Parallels International has announced the latest version of Parallels Desktop 19 for Mac Business Edition, its virtual machine software for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac hardware. “Parallels is proud to be a Microsoft-authorized solution and we are committed to bridging the gap between macOS and your operating system(s) of choice,” wrote Sharda Veeramally of Parallels in a blog post. “This latest version offers an even more seamless experience for Mac users looking to run Windows or Linux.” The new features include the following: Touch ID support in Windows: Touch ID can now be used for the Windows sign-in. IPP printing from Windows: Shared Printing has been re-engineered to adjust for Apple’s removal in Sonoma of the CGPSConverter PostScript converter. Printing from Windows now uses the Internet Printing Protocol.…

Spending some time with the Beats Studio Pro has been enlightening. I’ve long known that Sony, Bose, and other headphone makers have offered more features than AirPods Max but without the great integration into the Apple ecosystem that AirPods offers. But Beats? Now Apple’s other headphone brand has come around and shown what’s possible, and it has seriously raised the bar for the next AirPods Max. I once expected the next AirPods Max to be a relatively minor upgrade, with an H2 chip, with improved audio, noise cancellation, and active transparency. Perhaps they’d throw in a U1 or U2 chip so the Find My app can use Precise Location. That might have been enough, but no longer. Apple needs to go beyond mere AirPods Max (2nd gen) and give us a…

AirPods are made to work seamlessly with other Apple products—your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch. If you spend a lot of time in the Apple ecosystem, this tight integration makes them really appealing. But underneath it all, they are just a wireless Bluetooth headset and you can connect them to other Bluetooth devices, even Android phones. You just won’t get some of the fancy features. So that means you can use them with your PlayStation 4 or 5 or Xbox One or Series S/X, right? Well, no—at least, not easily. If you want to use your AirPods with your console, we have some bad news and some good news. We also discuss how to use AirPods with a Nintendo Switch separately. THE BAD NEWS: THEY’RE NOT COMPATIBLE Recent PlayStation…