Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Macworld UK

All eyes were on the tech world last month as Apple capped a string of disappointing results from Google, Meta and Amazon. But Apple managed to buck the trend with another record-breaking quarter. For its fiscal fourth quarter, the company posted revenue of $90.1 billion, up 8 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.29, up 4 percent year over year. The quarter was buoyed by its two biggest categories: the iPhone and Mac. Apple enjoyed an extra week of iPhone 14 sales thanks to an earlier release (though that didn’t include the new iPhone 14 Plus, which arrived 7 October). Sales of the iPhone came in at just under $43 billion, an increase of 10 percent over last year, and Mac sales rebounded from a…

After the European Union passed a law mandating that all new electronic devices that charge with a plug need to support USB-C, all eyes turned to Apple and its Lightning-powered iPhone. Now we have an answer: Apple confirmed that the iPhone will switch to USB-C. In an interview with Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference last month, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, was surprisingly candid when asked about the future of USB-C on the iPhone: “Obviously, we’ll have to comply; we have no choice.” However, it’s clear that Apple isn’t happy with the move. Joswiak pointed out that the EU Commission originally wanted to use Micro-USB as a global standard over a decade ago, which would have stymied the development of both…

As we report on page 4, Apple has announced its fiscal fourth-quarter results, and the results were predictable – another record quarter. But, of course, Wall Street had already anticipated all of this and had moved on to deciding that a lot of Apple’s growth was not quite as high as they expected. It happens. Still, from the broader perspective of looking at Apple’s financial disclosures as indicators of how Apple is doing as a business, there were interesting titbits amid the stacks of cash and the wailing of financial analysts seeking endless growth. There always are. SERVICES SLUGGISHNESS Apple loves all its legally mandated revenue disclosure lines equally, of course, but the ones that allow it to show growth to Wall Street are more equal than the others. So…

Apple has updated its entry-level iPad for 2022 but is also keeping the older model in the current catalogue. There’s a good reason for this, as this time around the two iPads are different in many ways. So, should you go with the cheaper 9th-generation device or embrace the modern aesthetic that comes with the 10th-generation revamp? We compare the two so you can make the right choice. DESIGN For the 10th generation of its most affordable iPad, Apple has given the device a complete makeover. Gone is the Home button and prominent bezels of its predecessor, replaced instead by a similar design to the iPad mini and iPad Air. The display has been increased in size from 10.2 inches to 10.9 inches, thanks to the new design. Like the…

Price: £83.24 from fave.co/3UU7ncz There’s no shortage of cleaning and optimization utilities for the Mac these days, and while Ukranian developer Nektony’s MacCleaner Pro doesn’t offer the most revelatory set of features, what’s present here is a handy, powerful selection of tools. MacCleaner Pro doesn’t overextend itself by promising to remove malware or move into otherwise esoteric tasks that can’t live up to their promise. These utilities are competent, clever, and run smoothly while delivering what’s promised. The suite hones in on several modules and functions (MacCleaner Pro itself, App Cleaner & Uninstaller, Disk Space Analyzer, Funter and Memory Cleaner) and executes them well, albeit at a potentially high price point for some users. Each of MacCleaner Pro tools is fairly powerful, and it has a good tutorial system that…

Price: £99 from fave.co/3gX5nkS There’s no doubt that massive growth in the consumer electronics market comes at a cost to the planet. Is there a way to enjoy all the benefits of modern audio while also offsetting the damage? Skullcandy wants to counteract some of those environmental costs in its new Transparency series, which includes the limited edition Skullcandy Transparency Jib True 2 Wireless Earbuds (£45 from fave.co/3UHkltV) and the Transparency Hesh Evo Wireless Headphone. We’ve reviewed the Transparency Hesh Evo headphone here, and it’s a pair of cans that will definitely get a reaction when you wear them outside your house. GREEN CREDENTIALS Partnering with TerraPass and EcoChain, a pair of companies that aim to help businesses make their products and manufacturing chains more eco-friendly, Skullcandy promises that the…

Stage Manager is a new feature in Ventura for organizing your windows. If you work in several applications at a time, Stage Manager can be used to easily switch between apps and documents, saving you from the headache of finding the window you need. It’s easy to set up, but it’s a big change from what we’ve been using for decades on the Mac. Here’s everything you need to know about the Mac’s newest navigation and multitasking method. SET UP STAGE MANAGER You can turn on/off Stage Manager in the Control Centre, but you can also activate and customize it in System Settings. Here’s how. 1. Stage Manager in System Settings Open System Settings and select Desktop & Dock in the left column. In the main section of the window,…

Long-time MacBook users have it really good right now. On top of the historic performance that Apple laptops offer, the company brought back several features that users longed for, including an SD card reader, MagSafe on MacBooks and the start-up chime. Now we’re hearing about yet another feature that Apple could revive: the illuminated Apple logo. According to a patent filing discovered by Patently Apple (fave.co/3EhSNEQ), Apple is working on “a backlit partially reflective mirror [that] may be used to form a logo or other structure in an electronic device”. And based on the contents of the patent document, this technology could be used for a glowing Apple logo on the lid of a MacBook. Apple stopped using the illuminated Apple logo with the MacBook in 2015. While Apple didn’t…

Despite positioning itself as a pro-privacy tech company, Apple has been accused by iOS developers of behaviour that ‘should raise many privacy concerns’. It all relates to Apple’s own apps, including the App Store, and the way usage data is allegedly shared with Apple even when the user has turned off analytics sharing and personalized recommendations. The Twitter account Mysk (fave.co/3Gp9VuL), which is run by a pair of developers in Canada and Germany, posted a thread warning that, if you’re using the App Store app in iOS 14.6, “every tap you make” is recorded and sent to Apple. This happens regardless of user preferences and settings, the developers claim. Apple has several toggles designed to reduce tracking, but the developers say that “opting‑out or switching the personalization options off did…

Apple’s most recent financial quarter has come and gone, and the company posted (yet again) record revenues, pulling in a zillion dollars and ending its latest fiscal year with just shy of $100 billion in profit alone. Let that sink in for a moment. $100 billion is such a large number as to be utterly incomprehensible to most of us who will never approach anywhere near even a single billion in our lifetime. It’s bigger than the gross domestic product of some countries – and not just a few of them. More than half of the countries in the world. Most of them. And again, that’s profit, not revenue, which was a soaring $316 billion, putting it in around the top 40 countries. On the one hand, good for Apple.…

Price: £849 from fave.co/3ArwpHR At Apple Park, 2022 was the year of the premium product, with the company aggressively pushing customers towards Pro versions of the iPhone and AirPods. The Apple Watch too has got its flagship, and this time it actually offers some extra features beyond being made out of a costly material. But the Apple Watch Ultra is a different proposition to the iPhone 14 Pro and AirPods Pro. The Apple Watch Ultra isn’t a straightforward upgrade where you pay more to add only improvements; it’s a niche device that some customers will love, but most absolutely shouldn’t buy. DESIGN The Ultra is considerably bigger than any previous Apple Watch model. It’s almost twice as heavy as the lightest Series 8 model and weighs 19 percent more than…

Price: $29.95 (around £25) from fave.co/3GyfXJT Apple has matured its Photos app for macOS substantially in the several years since the company cut the thread for iPhoto and declared Photos its new approach. The current version mostly resembles the one introduced but with everything working reliably most of the time. However, Photos still has substantial missing pieces for managing libraries. Fat Cat Software’s PowerPhotos has filled that role since 2015, and the company released a major update in 2022 to version 2 that offers even more refinement. The app is the solution for many of the problems with Photos that people routinely write to us about. The program lets you merge Photos libraries, view multiple libraries without quitting Photos and reselecting them (including in separate windows simultaneously), create libraries on…

One of the major (and majorly controversial) changes in Ventura is a redesign of System Preferences. It’s now called System Settings and it’s designed to better resemble the iOS Settings app. Apple’s desire to have more commonality between macOS and iOS is understandable, but the problem is that it’s now a chore to find the settings you need. The years of muscle memory developed by Mac users are out the window and it’s time to relearn where everything is. You can find most of the frequently-access preferences up front (Apple ID, Battery, Bluetooth, and Sound, for example). Others have been renamed to match the corresponding iOS setting, such as Security & Privacy, which is now Privacy & Security. But most notably, System Settings now uses a lot of subsections and…

HOW TO BLUR THE BACKGROUND FOR VIDEO CALLS ON YOUR MAC Apple didn’t hide Portrait mode in macOS Monterey with M-series Macs, but it sure didn’t highlight it. This background-blur option appears only in Control Centre and only when you have video input active. That can be a built-in camera in a laptop or iMac or in a third-party webcam. With a camera selected in an app, click the Control Centre icon in the menu bar. Note that a Video Effects option now appears. Click that tile and then click anywhere in the Portrait line to enable the mode. Notice that the background blurs slightly. Note that you can also enable and disable Portrait mode in an active FaceTime session: the Portrait mode icon appears in your selfie video thumbnail…

A new report from The Information (fave.co/3EImfVJ) explores Apple’s ongoing project to develop in-house search capabilities but paints a gloomy picture regarding the launch of a direct rival to Google search. According to the report’s sources, an Apple search engine, if it launches at all, cannot realistically happen within the next four years. Apple’s search plan was boosted in 2018 by the acquisition of the news/recommendation start-up Laserlike, which was founded by three former Google search employees. At the time, the project was a significant one for Cupertino, with Laserlike co-founder Srinivasan Venkatachary occupying a senior role in a search-focused team numbering at least 200 employees – and this was separate from, and in addition to, the team in charge of search on the App Store. But The Information reveals…

Apple has begun rolling out its new Rapid Security Responses feature to iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 beta testers. The mechanism, which is designed to speed up the delivery of security fixes on iPhone, iPad and Mac, was announced at WWDC and began testing back in October and appears to be ready to go – although we don’t yet know when it will first be made available to macOS testers. As Twitter account Appleosophy reports (fave.co/3TQ2KPr), this initial Rapid Security Response does not contain any actual security content. In Apple’s words, it is “for testing purposes only”. But future updates of this sort could be highly significant. At present, Apple’s only way of seeding patches for security vulnerabilities is through updates to iOS, iPadOS or macOS, such as iOS 16.1…

Price: £499 from fave.co/3OfwPXy It can be hard to get excited about the cheapest model in a range. Apple’s standard iPad has for years offered a blend of strong value and respectable specs without creating much of a buzz because the features it offers are either weaker than those on the Air, mini and Pro models, or arrive several years later. This latest iPad, however, may change that perception. It does some interesting things, particularly in terms of its position within the range – but not all of those things are good. Being interesting can be a mixed blessing. DESIGN From very first impressions, it’s clear that Apple has given the humble iPad a glow-up. Particularly if you’ve got one of the bright new colours: I tested the pink model,…

Price: £86.56 from fave.co/3OgDe4J Like Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements stands out by providing powerful video-editing tools and wrapping them up into an easy-to-use interface that caters for both beginners and more experienced users. The 2023 update isn’t a major upgrade, but at £86.56 it’s still a good option for people who shoot a lot of videos for sharing on social media, or who need to do some precise editing work for vlogging, podcasts, or business presentations. You can also buy Premiere Elements in a bundle with Photoshop Elements for £130.36 from Adobe. Video-editing can be a complex task, so Premiere Elements provides three different editing modes for people with different levels of experience. The ‘Quick’ mode helps beginners to get started by allowing you to quickly import multiple videos and…

Price: £1,299 from fave.co/3SSvYMU Sennheiser has engineered its flagship IE 900 in-ear monitors for comfortable long-term wear and to sound fantastic. That’s it. They’re wired, and there are no in-line controls. There’s no active noise cancellation. There’s no microphone for phone calls. The IE 900 is a headphone designed for maximum audio quality, period. And Sennheiser delivers in that department. At this price, why choose an in-ear monitor instead of on-ear or over-ear headphone? If you’re on the move, the IE 900 are sufficiently well-built to use as a commuter headphone and the case will fit in your pocket. If you’re in the office, your co-workers won’t be commenting on your giant pair of cans. Ultimately, however, the IE 900 offer an immersive and intimate listening experience that’s different than…

Your iPhone has long been the best camera you always have with you – and is now usually the only one most people ever have – but it took until macOS 13 Ventura for Apple to extend that to the logical extreme. Your 2018 or later iPhone (XR or later) iPhone is the best video camera you now have within reach for Mac videoconferencing. Ventura turns your iPhone into a webcam that you can select just as easily as a built-in video device on your iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Pro when using FaceTime, Zoom, or any software that allows video input. This feature extends Continuity Camera, a previous macOS option to snap photos and scan documents using a nearby iPhone or iPad. (You need a clip or tripod to position…