Tabla de contenidos para August 2023 en Macworld UK

All attention might be on iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, but Apple hasn’t stopped working on its current crop of operating systems. And if you’re not running the betas, you need to know that Apple just shipped a slew of updates to fix some critical security holes. In all, Apple pushed 10 updates: iOS 16.5.1 and iPadOS 16.5.1; iOS 15.7.7 and iPadOS 15.7.7; macOS Ventura 13.4.1, macOS Monterey 12.6.7, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.8; Safari 16.5.1; and watchOS 9.5.2 and watchOS 8.8.1. That covers more than a decade of devices going back to 2013 and includes the iPhone 6s, Apple Watch Series 3 and the original 12-inch MacBook. All of the operating system updates fix the same vulnerability: KERNEL Impact: An app may be able to execute arbitrary code with…

Apple has only just announced the launch of its M2-based 15-inch MacBook Air, but the company is already working on the machine’s successor. A 15-inch Air with an M3 processor is expected to launch sometime in 2024, according to the prolific leaker Mark Gurman. In a recent edition of his Power On newsletter (fave.co/44nLlTQ), the Bloomberg reporter responded to speculation about the choice of processor in the new Air. The M2 chip, after all, is a year old, first appearing in the 13-inch Pro and Air laptops announced at WWDC 2022. It seems like a strange choice for the machine Apple described last month as “the world’s best 15-inch laptop” (fave.co/3r29f91). Realistically, it was always possible that WWDC 2023 would come too soon for the M3, given that the M2…

While the $3,499 (around £2,760) Vision Pro won’t be available for sale until next year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently reported that Apple is already working on a cheaper version. The news isn’t exactly surprising – Gurman himself previously reported on Apple’s plans to initially introduce the pricey mixed reality headset meant for developers, with a device meant for the masses released sometime later. He covers some of the ways Apple could cut costs – lower-quality screens, an older chip, and fewer cameras among them – though much of the core Vision Pro features, including the EyeSight eye tracking, will likely remain. The projected release date for this other headset is late 2025, only two and a half years from now. Gurman doesn’t mention a smaller design, but it’s hard to…

The MacBook Air has always been a svelte and compact device that is lightweight and easy to carry around. And now it’s got a big screen too: Apple has introduced a MacBook Air with a 15-inch screen that’s just as thin and light as the 13-inch model and actually larger than the more-powerful 14-inch MacBook Pro. So which should you buy? We’ll break down all the specifics here. PRICE One of the most important parts of any buying decision is how much you want to spend. That’s why the 16-inch MacBook Pro has been left out of this comparison, as you could almost get two 15-inch MacBook Airs for the same money, which puts Apple’s largest laptop in a different league. But with a £2,149 starting price, the 14-inch MacBook…

Price: £49.99 from fave.co/43bBP5t Pixelmator Pro is a popular and affordable alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop – not least because it’s available as a one-time purchase that doesn’t require a monthly subscription like Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps. But over the years it has evolved and can now be used to edit video and create professional layouts. It’s a little tricky keeping track of the Pixelmator range as the developers at Pixelmator Team have a tendency to keep changing the name, and also producing multiple versions of the app for Macs, iPhone and iPad. The older Pixelmator Classic for Mac now seems to have been discontinued, leaving just Pixelmator Pro on the Mac. And, on the mobile side, the iPhone and iPad versions of the app have merged into a single app…

A network is great, but what if you just want to connect two Macs and transfer gobs of information as fast as you can? Using a gigabit Ethernet cable or a Mac with 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) or later wireless networking hardware, you can transfer data between two devices at gigabit per second rates, but you can do better than that. Apple offers four built-in methods in macOS, none of which are obvious to set up. Each of them has different requirements, advantages, and trade-offs. Once connected, you use the same tools to transfer information between two Macs as you would if they were connected to a network: SMB file sharing: In the Finder, choose Go > Connect to Server (Command-K) and click Browse. If the Mac doesn’t appear in the…

If you’re buying a new Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra processor, there’s only one reason to spend thousands more than a Mac Studio: PCle expansion. Unfortunately, there’s already a problem. In a rare move, Apple has publicly acknowledged the existence of what sounds like a fairly annoying bug afflicting the tower’s internal storage. In a support document published recently (fave.co/3CXrgrL), Apple addresses the possibility that owners of the new Pro could unexpectedly see the error message ‘disk not ejected properly’. This message would normally appear when an external drive is disconnected without ejecting it safely, but in this case refers to an internal drive. The company explains there is a risk that an internal SATA drive could disconnect from the new Mac Pro after it wakes from sleep. The…

Apple’s Vision Pro headset, unveiled at WWDC last month, is only the first step on the company’s journey into the mixed-reality market, and it clearly isn’t perfect. It’s understood that Cupertino’s design team recommended that the project be pushed back until the available technology caught up with the sort of product they wanted to make, but CEO Tim Cook overruled them and insisted on announcing something this year. Real artists ship, after all. One of Vision Pro’s obvious physical limitations at this stage of evolution is its relatively high weight, which some early testers have suggested is likely to make it uncomfortable when worn for long sessions. But Apple is aware of this issue, and working to solve it. Indeed, when my colleague Roman was able to spend an hour…

Price: $3,499 (around £2,760) At Apple’s WWDC23, I think I saw the future. [Pausing to ponder.] Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw the future – or at least Apple’s vision of the future of computing. I recently got to try the Apple Vision Pro, the new $3,499 (around £2,760 mixed-reality headset that was announced earlier this month and ships next year. I’m here to tell you the details of my experience, but the overall impression I have is that the Vision Pro is the most impressive first-gen product I’ve seen from Apple – more impressive than the 1998 iMac, or the 2007 iPhone. And I’m fully aware that other companies have made VR headsets, but Apple does that thing that it does, where it puts its understanding of what makes…

Price: £2,099 from fave.co/3XCFGHn The Mac Studio had a splashy debut last year, a new desktop design with speed that filled the needs of the most demanding professionals. But it also raised a few questions at the time: does it replace the Mac Pro? And if it doesn’t, will Apple continue the Mac Studio line once the Apple silicon Mac Pro arrives? Would the Mac Studio end up just like iMac Pro, a model that got little attention after its release and eventually was discontinued? We now have answers that give the Mac line-up some much-needed clarity. Apple showed at WWDC that it is dedicated to upgrading and maintaining the high-end desktop Mac as a platform with the release of the M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio and the M2 Ultra Mac…

Price: £179 from fave.co/3PCEG4d In our review of the original Beats Studio Buds, we found they outclassed AirPods Pro in several ways but lacked some Apple-specific features. That, along with mediocre noise cancelling, made them less desirable for Apple enthusiasts. The revamped version, Beats Studio Buds +, improves on the original in many important ways. But Apple also has a new model – the second-generation AirPods Pro – that seriously raise the stakes. Again, I enjoyed the design and usability of these Beats earbuds but find the latest AirPods Pro easier to recommend. These are earbuds made for both Apple and Android users and lack Apple’s home-grown H1 or H2 chip that enables certain features within the Apple ecosystem. I’d take them over AirPods any day, but they don’t match…

If you have a Mac laptop or iMac with a display that’s been damaged or no longer turns on, but you’re sure the computer is still functioning, a repair may not be required to extract all its data or continue using it. (In fact, without a paid AppleCare+ for Mac plan, repair costs for a display often far exceed a Mac’s value unless a repair shop can find a refurbished or salvaged display. It may be cheaper or not much more expensive to simply buy a used Mac of the same vintage with a working monitor.) USE AN EXTERNAL MONITOR TO KEEP IT ALIVE OR EXTRACT DATA All Mac laptops and iMacs of the last few years support an external monitor, though the adapter and type varies based on the…

Ever since Apple retired the 27-inch iMac after launching the Mac Studio and Studio Display last year, the dream of an iMac with a screen larger than 24 inches was dashed. But a year later, there’s new hope for a big-screen all-in-one. According to Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter (fave.co/46zc028), Apple hasn’t forgotten about the iMac, which still has an M1 chip and hasn’t been updated in more than two years. Gurman reports that Apple is preparing two new 24-inch iMacs for release in late 2023 or early 2024. Those models will reportedly have the same design as the current ones and likely run M3 processors with other small upgrades, such as Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. In addition to those models, Gurman reports Apple “is also conducting early…

June was a very good month for the Mac. Not only did we get to see the next version of macOS in Sonoma, but we also got a new 15-inch MacBook Air that’ll be a hit, a Mac Studio update, the M2 Ultra chip, and to top it all off, we finally got a new Apple silicon Mac Pro. That’s a whole lot of Mac goodness, which is great because they might need to hold us over for a while. Based on projected chip production schedules and the current state of the Mac line-up, it’s very possible that the only Mac news we’re going to get between now and the first few months of 2024 is the release of macOS Sonoma. That means no more Mac hardware, likely for the…

Price: £1,399 from fave.co/43e57Ae Last summer when I reviewed the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, I wrote, “For most of us, the new M2 MacBook Air is all the laptop we’ll ever need.” Well it’s a year later, and Apple has given those who prefer larger laptops what they want: the same thing, only bigger. This could be a shamelessly short review. It would be entirely accurate to say this 15-inch MacBook Air is exactly like the 13-inch MacBook Air introduced last year, only with a bigger display (and thus chassis) and better speakers. That’s it. Review over. But seriously, if you have some idea of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, you know what to expect here. The M2 is no longer brand new, but is still an absolutely excellent processor…

Price: £67.99 from fave.co/3JHAQD1 Adobe Photoshop is for image editing what Microsoft Office is for word processing: absolutely dominant and in a professional environment you can’t get around it. However, if you aren’t using Photoshop and the Creative Cloud for professional reasons, 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 £9.98 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 licence for an extensive image editing toolbox for…

If you’re a professional photographer or designer you need editing software that provides precision and control over your images, as well as support for editing RAW files and multi-layer editing tools. The popularity of selfies and smartphone photography in recent years has given rise to dozens of affordable photo-editing programs aimed at amateur photographers. While these free (or low-cost) apps are great for people who simply want to smarten up their selfies or holiday snaps, they may not offer the features pro photographers need to edit photos. If you want to edit your photos like a pro – or you are a pro photographer, designer, web developer, graphic artist or other creative professional, then you may wish to consider one of these pro photo editors. Photoshop has always been the…

HOW TO STOP SAFARI’S SMOOTH SCROLLING USING THE ARROW KEYS Jeff Johnson is the hero behind StopTheMadness (fave.co/434DppC), Link Unshortener (fave.co/3JIfF3T), and other must-have browser and social-media utilities that let you override and defeat websites’ attempts to hijack control of your cursors, mouse, and Control-click. Now he’s figured out how to disable smooth scrolling, a surprise feature added by Apple in Safari 16.4 for macOS. If you didn’t notice, with this version of Safari, pressing and releasing the down or up arrow on a Safari page scrolls the page continuously until you tap a key or use a mouse to regain control. The change is baffling. Who asked for this? Why introduce it in mid-stream? And, the biggest question of all: why is there no checkbox to disable it? Johnson…