Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i Macworld UK

Apple has posted its fourth consecutive quarterly decline with revenue of $89.5 billion in its fiscal 2023 fourth quarter, down 1 percent over the same quarter last year. Mac sales were once again hammered, down about 35 percent year on year. iPhone sales, which were up slightly, and Services, which gained about 16 percent, were the lone bright spots. Apple was widely expected to post a year-over-year decline in the quarter. The company continues to struggle in a difficult economy for higher-priced goods and pressure from Huawei in China. Apple’s Greater China sales were flat year-over-year. Apple is heading into the holiday shopping season with an armful of new products, including the iPhone 15, Apple Watch Series 9 and M3 MacBook Pro, but will face lots of uncertainty. Here’s how…

Researchers at Jamf Threat Labs (fave.co/46cOoQJ) have discovered a new malware that can give hackers access and control of a Mac once it has been infected. Dubbed ‘ObjCShellz’ by Jamf, the malware appears to be connected to BlueNoroff Advanced Persistent Threat, a group that usually targets banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, and venture capitalists. The malware, which was created using the Objective-C programming language, can run shell commands that are received from the hacker’s server, effectively giving the hacker control of the Mac. The malware can also get information about the Mac – such as the version of macOS that is running – and send that info to the server, which can then be read by the hacker. Jamf determined that ObjCShellz communicates with a domain that is used by the Rustbucket…

Apple released several Macs at its recent ‘Scary Fast’ event, including a new 24-inch Mac with a faster M3 chip (see page 19). But if you buy one, you’ll get the same old accessories as before, colour-matched to your chosen machine – and you’ll still need a Lightning cable to charge them. The tech giant is kind enough to supply one in the box – and you’ll get one if you buy the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad or Magic Keyboard separately as well – but it’s strange that Apple didn’t use the opportunity to upgrade its Mac accessories to USB-C. They’re one of the few remaining devices that haven’t switched to USB-C and the ones that make the least sense. Quite frankly, Apple’s Mac accessories should have never had a…

The very first Geekbench 6 benchmarks of the MacBook Pro with M3 processor have started to appear in the Geekbench 6 database. What they show is a processor whose higher CPU performance is almost entirely owed to an increase in clock speed over the M2. The performance gains are roughly in line with Apple’s marketing (which focused primarily on comparisons with the M1), but seem to suggest that the CPU core designs alone are not particularly exciting. Here’s a summary of the results. MacBook Pro with M2 Clock speed: 3.49GHz Single-core: 2,587 Multi-core: 9,627 MacBook Pro with M3 Clock Speed: 4.05GHz Single-core: 3,030 Multi-core: 11,694 The M3 has maximum clock speed 16 percent higher than the M2. The single-core CPU performance score is about 17 percent higher, and the multi-core…

While taking screenshots of Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ event video for an article recently, I noticed something in Johnny Srouji’s lab: The four £7,000 Apple Pro Display XDRs that were prominently positioned around the room weren’t hooked up to Mac Pros – they were powered by Mac Studios. Assuming those machines are top-of-the-line models with M2 Ultra processors, 192GB of RAM and 8TB of storage for £8,999, Apple is basically admitting the Mac Pro – which costs £11,999 with the same specs as the Mac Studio – is a waste of space and money. Apple updated the Mac Pro at WWDC in June with an M2 Ultra processor to replace the Intel model from 2019. However, while the new chip brought a tremendous speed boost, the switch to Apple silicon also…

Among the many changes and new features in watchOS 10, you’ll find new and updated watch faces. One of those is not like the others. The new Snoopy watch face injects a level of personality and reactivity that I didn’t know I was missing until I had it. Despite obvious problems – would it kill Apple to put the date on the face – it’s quickly become my go-to watch face. And I’m not even particularly a fan of Peanuts or Snoopy. At first glance, you might assume the new Snoopy watch face is not much different from other ‘character’ faces like Mickey & Minnie or Toy Story. But enable it for a few days and you’ll realize that it’s much more. The Snoopy watch face does something new. When…

Price: £9.99 from Mac App Store There’s generally a difference between a product’s marketing copy and what the software is capable of living up to. For all its bluster on the Mac App Store, BitMedic Pro Antivirus (v3.1.3 at time of writing), developed by Pocket Bits LLC, is a good antiviral program, albeit with some shortcomings that need to be worked through. The program, which retails for £9.99 on the Mac App Store, features a nice complement of tools, including an Antivirus Scan module, an Adware Cleaner module, a Result Log, a Custom Scan module, a Browser Privacy module, and a System Settings module that allows you to schedule deep scans, customize system behaviours and create a whitelist of files not to scan. Just download the software, assign it the…

Apple has released major updates of Logic Pro for Mac and iPad. The updates to Apple’s music authoring software bring the Mac version to 10.8, and the iPad version to 1.1. Apple also updated MainStage, its Mac app that acts as a live rig with Logic Pro. GarageBand, Apple’s audio editing app for consumers, was also updated. Both received bug fixes. Here’s what’s new: MAC UPDATES • Deliver a release-ready mix with Mastering Assistant and its professional palette of intuitive sound-shaping tools. • Transform any audio sample into a malleable sound that you can perform using Sample Alchemy. • Radically reshape and reshuffle audio with Beat Breaker, a sophisticated time and pitch morphing plug-in. • New Slip and Rotate tools allow for the contents inside a region to be moved…

While working on a Linux port for the latest version of macOS, the team at Asahi Linux has uncovered what they say is a bug in ProMotion MacBooks that could leave users with “a completely unbootable system”. According to a post on GitHub (fave.co/3su0J3Y), the bug is present whether or not you have Asahi Linux installed on your Mac and can be found on versions of macOS Ventura 13.6 and macOS Sonoma 14 and later: “As far as we can tell, ALL users who upgraded to Sonoma the normal way have an out-of-date or even broken System RecoveryOS, and in particular MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch owners are vulnerable to ending up with a completely unbootable system.” It apparently has to do with the way macOS Ventura and Sonoma handle…

Price: £2,928 from fave.co/3sAyoZM Over two years ago, during the Spring Loaded event in April 2021, Apple’s iconic iMac was completely redesigned and outfitted with a then-cutting-edge M1 chip. But as Apple began to phase in the M2 a year later, each time a new update launched, the same question came up: What about the iMac? And there was nothing. At the end of October 2023, we finally got an answer: Apple updated the iMac with the M3, skipping the M2 series altogether. It has the same design, colours and features as the M1 iMac – so, an icon in Apple’s product line‑up got a simple chip upgrade. That’s a good way to make a great Mac even better. PERFORMANCE At the heart of the iMac is a M3 chip,…

When the first M3 benchmarks appeared in the Geekbench 6 database yesterday, we learned that the processor has a 16 percent higher clock speed. The Performance cores (and thus singlecore performance) is higher almost entirely due to those higher clocks rather than architectural changes, but the Efficiency cores show a bit of improvement beyond just a clock speed bump. So what if you get higher clocks and more cores? The new M3 Max results in the Geekbench 6 database show what that means for Apple, and it’s the picture of an extremely impressive chip for high-end laptops and compact desktops. Here’s how the scores break down, and compare to the M2 Max: M2 MAX (12 CORES, 4E AND 8P) Clock speed: 3.66GHz Single-core: 2,736 Multi-core: 14,497 M3 MAX (16 CORES,…

Price: £999 from fave.co/48mSwP5 Apple’s latest iPhone Pro is faster, has a better camera, and has a few nice conveniences. There’s not a lot of innovation here, just some minor but noticeable improvements along mostly predictable lines. The titanium frame makes the phone significantly lighter, USB-C brings Apple up to the standards of five years ago, and the new Action Button is a simple, sensible replacement for the age-old mute switch. The camera hardware appears to be entirely unchanged from last year’s iPhone 14 Pro, though the processing has improved, with a new 24MP default, three ‘1x’ crop options, and some nice ‘pro’ video options like Log colour. For a complete picture of the iPhone 15 Pro, check out our review of the iPhone 15 Pro Max (Macworld, December 2023),…

Apple’s smallest iPad was given a substantial facelift at the end of 2021. The 6th-generation iPad mini sports a complete redesign with a bigger display, Touch ID on the power button, USB C instead of Lightning, and an upgraded front camera. This represented the first major change to the design since the iPad mini was first introduced back in 2012. The mini celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2022 without an update, but a new 7th-generation iPad mini is rumoured to be in the works and could be here early 2024. Here’s what we know. RELEASE DATE It’s been nearly two years since the 6th-generation iPad mini launched, and, based on the dates when other iPad mini models have launched, an autumn update for the iPad mini would make sense. A…

HOW TO FILTER SPAM AND UNKNOWN SENDERS IN MESSAGES The average person receives a lot of spam and scams by phone, text and email. Apple and ISPs offer anti-spam tools for email (with varying degrees of effectiveness), and cell carriers and third parties have worked to provide ways to identify or block unwanted or illegal calls on your phone. Texts, however, are still open to abuse. One overlooked set of options on your iPhone, iPad or Mac comes with notification and filter settings that can at least let you avoid seeing incoming garbage. On an iPhone, go to Settings > Messages, scroll to Message Filtering and enable Filter Unknown Senders. This puts people who send you iMessages or text messages and don’t match an email address or phone number in…

On the heels of a major update to Logic Pro (see page 6), Apple announced new features for Final Cut Pro, its professional non-linear video editing app. At the time of writing, updates were due to come to both the Mac and iPad versions in November and are free. Here’s a list of new features. MAC UPDATES • Automatic timeline scrolling: Clips are in view under the playhead during playback. • Quick cleaning within a timeline, and the ability to combine a selected group of overlapping connected clips into a single connected storyline. • Dynamic timeline view adjustment: Use the Zoom tool or keyboard shortcuts during playback. • At-a-glance timeline organization: Distinct colours are used to identify and highlight clips. • Faster H.264 and HEVC exports. • Object Tracker with…

While writing a preview article for October’s ‘Scary Fast’ Mac launch event, I came up with the silly idea that Apple would sell the iMac in new stripy and spotty finishes. Needless to say, this didn’t happen. But I was disappointed that the company didn’t meet me halfway. This isn’t to say there were no fun colour-related announcements to be enjoyed. It’s just that they happened elsewhere in the show. I’m talking about Space Black, of course, which will be available on the higher-end MacBook Pro for the first time and looks, frankly, absurdly cool. (I’m a sucker for the gloomier colour palettes and sometimes wonder if the stunning Space Grey finish of the 2018 iMac Pro was what pushed it up from 3.5 to 4 stars. I’d like to…

Price: £4,099 from fave.co/3sCCYXm Based on Apple’s recent quarterly results (see page 4), Mac sales are not where Apple would like them to be. You’d think that with the success of the M-series chip rollout, MacBooks would be flying off the shelves, but they’re not. There are a lot of reasons why people aren’t buying, but the product and the technology behind the latest Macs are not the problem. The M-series MacBook Pro rollout has been successful from an execution standpoint, but there still are lots of people using Intel-based MacBooks. Apple makes high-quality products that simply last a long time, and it’s easy to hold on to an older MacBook just a little while longer. Apple has now released the M3 series of chips, which are featured in the…

It should probably not be a controversial opinion that, in late 2023 (and surely through most of 2024), one should not sell a pricey ‘Pro’ computer with only 8GB of RAM. And yet here we are. The least-expensive new MacBook Pro you can get costs £1,699 and includes only 8GB of RAM, an insultingly miserly amount for this day and age. Want more? That will be at least £200, take it or leave it. Apple has a long history of providing less RAM than it should for the price of its laptops and overcharging to get more, but it’s reached ridiculous proportions. The cheapest standard configuration with more than 8GB of RAM is £2,099. The cheapest MacBook Pro you can configure with more than 8GB is £1,899. YES, YOU NEED…

Price: £379 from fave.co/3uqKCVa It’s probably fair to say that the Apple Watch is not prone to radical change. In the eight years and nine standard generations since the first model launched in 2015, the fundamental design has barely altered, and it’s often difficult to differentiate one generation from another. One day, perhaps, this will change. But not today. The Apple Watch Series 9, launched in autumn 2023, doesn’t mess with the formula that has seen Apple effortlessly dominate the smartwatch market for the best part of a decade, and differs from last year’s Series 8 in only a few respects. But does that mean it’s a bad watch? Of course not! Aside from the Apple Watch Ultra line, which is aimed at a different audience, this is the best…

Price: £199 from fave.co/3SKZMio Laptop owners who spend long periods at the same desk rather than at their local cafés can easily connect to one or more external displays either via one of their USB-C or Thunderbolt ports or via a docking station. Big external displays are great if you don’t have to move them, but road warriors can’t easily pack up multiple monitors on a trek. The DUEX range of portable 1080p HD monitors is a more flexible solution. The DUEX Lite is a 12.5-inch portable monitor for 12- to 13-inch laptops; the DUEX Plus is a 13.3-inch screen for 13- to 14-inch laptops; and the DUEX Max is a 14.1-inch display for laptops 14 inches and larger. Plain non-Pro/Max M1/M2/M3 Macs are limited to connecting just a single…