Table of contents for June 2020 in Macworld

Despite shifting product releases and delayed launches due to the coronavirus, Apple appears to still be on track to deliver its first ARM-based Mac in 2021, according to a new Bloomberg report. According to Mark Gurman, Apple is working on a trio of processors for the Mac, all based on the design of the upcoming A14 chip in the iPhone 12. The project, codenamed Kalamata, has been ongoing since 2012, when Apple developed its first Mac chip based on the iPad Pro’s A12X processor, according to the report. Previous rumors suggested Apple might be launching its first ARM-based Mac later this year. Of note, the A14 chip is rumored to be designed using a 5nm process versus Intel’s current 14nm process. A smaller manufacturing process will enable Apple to offer chips…

Apple’s just-released developer preview of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 includes a new feature called Battery Health Management that the company says could extend the overall life of your MacBook’s battery. With lithium-based batteries like those found in MacBooks, iPhones, and other portable devices, it’s not a good idea to charge the battery to 100 percent. This, along with rising temperatures, can wear out a battery, shortening its overall charge capacity over time. According to Apple, with Battery Health Management turned on, the temperature and charging history of the laptop’s battery is analyzed, and then adjustments are made so that the battery isn’t charged all the way, thereby preserving more of your battery’s overall life. Battery Health Management is turned on by default, but you can turn it off in System Preferences.…

TCL 5-SERIES 43-INCH 4K UHD TV The list price of TCL’s smart TV is about $500, but you can find it online for under $300. That is practically larcency for a 4K UHD TV with Dolby Vision. And while its picture quality will never have you mistaking it for a QLED or OLED panel, the 43S525 delivers surprisingly good color and as much detail as 4K UHD TVs costing far more. Home network connectivity is provided via your choice of 802.11ac Wi-Fi and ethernet. There are three HDMI 2.0 ports with HDCP 2.2, a USB 2.0 port, analog video/audio input, and a coax connection for cable/satellite TV tuner or an over-the-air TV antennae.—JON L. JACOBI BLURAMS HOME PRO SECURITY CAMERA The Blurams Home Pro brims with advanced features, including…

We spend hours a day in messaging and social media apps, and probably no more than a few minutes in a weather app. Nonetheless, a good weather app is one of the most important apps on our iPhones. It’s how we know when to wear a heavier jacket or take along an umbrella. These apps can influence everything from our preparation for natural disasters to our sprinkler timings. It’s important to have an accurate, easy-to-read weather app that quickly and effortlessly tells you just what you want to know. The built-in iOS Weather app is fine for really basic stuff, but it doesn’t offer the variety of data, sources, or visualization that many users crave. There are loads of weather apps on the App Store, but these five are among…

When I first heard about the Tot app, I admit my first thought was, “Aw, not another notetaking app.” Lately the new ones might as well be clones, as they usually only differ from each other with some minor tweaks on familiar features. But Tot (or Tot Pocket, as it’s called on iOS)—a new, purposely limited notetaking app for iOS and macOS—warrants your attention. Not only does it introduce more than one fresh idea, but it also solves a specific and common digital notetaking problem. Frequent users (myself included) of notetaking apps tend to deal with links, snippets of text, and copied passages by just jotting them down in new documents littered between an app’s serious “notes,” which, in my case, often include lengthy drafts in iA Writer and Ulysses.…

Some of us speak more than one language, and we may at different times prefer one over the other on the Mac. In some cases, we might also have licensed software that only works when the app or macOS is set to a particular language or keyboard. Apple lets you perform a global or app-specific language change, which is quite handy. (Having a problem with the language selected with macOS Recovery? See this column from last year.) To change your language for macOS, you start with the Language & Region preference pane. If you don’t see it in System Preferences—it didn’t show up for me in macOS Catalina—choose it from the View menu with System Preferences open. If you’ve already selected keyboard layouts from across multiple languages in the Keyboard…

Out of all the companies Apple has purchased over the years, Beats was the most perplexing. Not only was it a whopping $3.2 billion, it also brought a highly recognized brand under the Apple umbrella, along with some very high profile personalities, including Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre, and Trent Reznor, all of whom have moved on from prominent roles within the company. But it all kind of worked. At the time, the brass ring in the Beats purchase wasn’t the ultra-trendy cans, it was the Beats Music subscription service that had a small but loyal cadre of listeners. Barely a year after the acquisition was finalized, Beats Music morphed into Apple Music, and some 60 million subscribers later, it clearly worked out. Apple Music is one of the premium listening experiences…

High-end Danish audio maker, Bang and Olufsen is known for its striking designs and high-fidelity audio reproduction, and both characteristics are in abundance in the company’s latest flagship wireless headphone, the Beoplay H9. Featuring excellent active noise cancellation, B&O’s signature sound, premium materials and craftsmanship, excellent battery life, and Google Assistant built in, the $500 Beoplay H9 gets my strong recommendation. REFINEMENTS OVER ITS PREDECESSOR The Beoplay H9 is a refinement over its predecessor, the Beoplay H9i. I reviewed in February 2019. Indeed, put the two side-by-side or hold them in your hands and you’ll be hard pressed to tell the difference. The H9 sports the same cowhide leather headband and cloth underside with four padded quadrants. The perfectly machined, brushed-aluminum headband arms remain a thing of beauty. They slide…

In 2016, Apple started to excise the good, old USB-A port (the rectangular plug you always try to insert the wrong way) with USB-C ports (the little reversible oval) on all its laptops. It started with the MacBook Pro and the new 12-inch MacBook, which had only one USB-C port that had to be used for both power and peripherals. That was a frustration, but the reasoning for dumping USB-A seemed sound: USB-C was the obvious future. One port that is smaller, thinner, reversible and easier to plug in, that guaranteed high-speed USB 3.0 speeds, and maybe even other stuff like Thunderbolt connectivity. Just as Apple did when it dropped serial and parallel ports with the original iMac in favor of only USB, it was embracing the obvious future, and…

There are a number of options for antivirus on the Mac, but few are exclusively focused on macOS. That’s what inspired AiroAV to release its first antivirus solution for the Mac desktop in early 2019. With offices in San Diego and Tel Aviv, Airo aims to be the primary choice for Mac users looking to deal with and prevent Mac-specific malware. So far Airo is doing very well, though the only testing house to look at Airo is AV-Test. In December 2019, AV-Test gave Airo a 100 percent rating based on its detection of widespread and prevalent malware test, which had 145 samples. That’s a great result considering Airo rolled out its first release less than a year ago. AV-Test also ran Airo up against more than 71,000 samples of legitimate…

When Apple announced the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, it decided to play coy about how much it weighed. The result is that, despite some accurate speculation, none of us found out for sure until the first keyboards arrived in the hands of reviewers and customers. And so, during the midst of our global isolation event, we were all spared a couple of weeks of bad takes from tech pundits. Alas, those days are now over. But I’ve got good news! While the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro does indeed make an iPad Pro weigh as much as a laptop, you only have to buy one if you want to use your iPad that way. It’s your choice—and that says it all about the iPad’s greatest appeal. WEIGHS AS…

The day of this writing marks the six-month anniversary of Apple Arcade, and Apple’s subscription-based gaming service has every reason to be booming. It’s got over 100 games, it costs only $4.99 a month, and Apple is offering this package at a time when much of the world is sequestered indoors and saving money out of fears of a financial crisis. And yet Apple barely mentions the service in public anymore. New releases of Apple Arcade games rarely make ripples on social media. It’s still too early to say “Game Over” for Apple Arcade, but this is as good of a time as any to wonder what went wrong and figure out how Apple could improve the situation. There is some hope for Apple Arcade, partly because there has been…

Nothing stirs the ire of app owners like a developer switching business models. For example, going from “pay once, use forever” to monthly or annual subscriptions. Of course, in software there’s really no such thing as “forever” because without future updates, an app that works one day could be rendered obsolete the next by an operating system upgrade. Such is the dilemma faced by modern app developers. During the App Store “gold rush” a decade ago, iPhone owners would happily pay up front for quality (or even not-so-great) apps, apparently under the misguided conception they’d receive free updates forever. Flash-forward to the present, and most apps are now free to download, with developers relying on advertising, in-app upgrades, or controversial subscriptions to provide sustainable income. The latest to make the…

Apple TV+ is a tiny service in comparison to competitors like Disney+ and Netflix, but months after its launch, it now offers enough of a library that you might have a hard time figuring out what to watch first. So far, none of the shows are particularly bad, but if you want to see the productions with the quality you’d expect to see from a company like Apple, here’s what we recommend starting off with. To learn more about Apple’s content, there’s an Apple TV YouTube channel that features trailers, behind the scenes, and more. Visit the channel to learn more. Note: As of this publishing, Apple still doesn’t have a lot of movies, so this list focuses on TV series. If feature films are more your speed, start with…

The MacBook Air is Apple’s best-loved and best-selling laptop. It’s thin, light, powerful enough for most people, and it’s the least expensive option in Apple’s laptop lineup. Apple finally brought the MacBook Air into the modern Mac era in 2018 with the addition of USB-C, Touch ID, a Retina display, and the removal of MagSafe and USB-A. But that laptop also ditched the old scissor-switch keyboard for the much-maligned butterfly keyboard, and boosted the starting price to $1,199 without giving you more storage. In 2019, Apple knocked $100 off the price and added True Tone to the display, but that was it. It’s a fine laptop, but not a particularly good deal. This year, with faster processors, double the starting storage, the new Magic Keyboard, and a $999 starting price,…

ICloud acts as a repository of some data and the conduit through which other passes. For certain categories, it also retains a backup of items you delete or update. Here’s how to restore data when you’re using iCloud sync or iCloud Drive across these services. iCLOUD PHOTOS Delete photos and videos in Photos on any device and you’re prompted that the media will be deleted from all your devices linked to the account. However, the image or movie isn’t immediately tossed. Rather, it’s put in the Recently Deleted album, which is available from all your linked devices as well. (If you don’t use iCloud Photos, the album appears only on the device you deleted the image from.) A label overlaying or beneath each image or video lets you know how…

In macOS Catlina, iTunes is gone, and the new Music app that replaces it is fairly similar in broad strokes. However, some users are having trouble finding how to search their own music library, as opposed to the iTunes Store. When I tested this, typing any search into the Search field in the upper-left corner of the Music app produced results that I could switch by clicking one of three buttons in a lozenge in the upper-right corner: Apple Music, Your Library, and iTunes Store. When I selected Your Library, songs I’d purchased or ripped from CDs I owned appeared in the results. The interface doesn’t make that the most visible element to choose, and in my study I cannot find any way to prevent the lozenge from appearing. However,…

If you haven’t been actively shopping for earbuds or headphones in the last couple of years, you might have missed the quiet gold rush of companies competing to offer increasingly inexpensive Bluetooth earbuds. Scrolling down through search results on Amazon, there are now dozens of options in the “true wireless” earbud market starting from as low as $20. For people interested in trying out true wireless earbuds for the first time, the Monoprice True Wireless earbuds are a solid option. I was impressed by their rich sound, good build quality, and persistent connectivity—and at only $50, they’re about the same price as other, much worse Bluetooth headsets I’ve encountered. DESIGN Monoprice likes words like “sleek” and “ergonomic,” but I think the best way to describe these earbuds is simply “small.”…

This year has already been big on change, in and outside of Apple. But it seems as though the company may still have more big moves ahead of it. Rumors of a Mac processor transition to Apple-designed, ARM-based chips has already garnered a fair amount of momentum, but new reports (see page 7) have started to spell out details like a timeline, chip capabilities, and more. All of which only lends credence to the speculation. On the other end of the spectrum, the iPad has recently taken on more Mac-like features with the addition of cursor support (see page 55) and a brand-new keyboard (see page 33) accessory. Tied together with Apple’s continuing foray into unifying its software efforts, it points to these two Apple platforms getting closer than ever.…

It’s not unusual for a VPN service to initially start out with a basic feature set. The company shoots for solid speeds, a good country count, and a growing number of servers, adding extra features and services over time. VPNCity is one such service that fits this profile. Think Huge Ltd.—a technology company that specializes in online services for foreign exchange markets—began VPNCity around a year ago with enough of the basics to appeal to most users: It offers Netflix compatibility, a no-logs policy, and enough bandwidth and DDos protection for gamers. SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SERVERS, AND SPEED VPNCity uses the OpenVPN protocol, with data encryption handled by AES-256-CBC, data authentication is SHA512, and the handshake is over TLSv1.2. VPNCity is officially based in Hong Kong, as is Think Huge. At…

It was “a wholly new product,” a “futuristic gadget the likes of which we’ve never seen before” that would somehow “soon be viewed with the same nostalgia-tinged contempt we have for the original iPod and iPhone.” After months of debate and speculation in the aftermath of its announcement, ten years ago the original iPad arrived and I finally got to review it. Anniversaries are an opportunity to look back in time and ponder how much has changed. I’m happy to report that despite spending a bit too much time dwelling on how the iPad didn’t run Flash, my review from April 2010 does a pretty good job of encapsulating the potential of that original iPad. Re-reading that review today also reminds me that we’re still debating a lot of the same…

With iPadOS 13.4, hooking up a mouse to your iPad is a lot simpler than it was when iPadOS 13 first dropped, and the overall experience has improved, as well. And at long last, you can finally hook up Apple’s own Magic Mouse 2 without diving deep into the Settings app or worrying about support dropping after iPadOS updates. Here, we’ll show you how to hook everything up. SET UP A BLUETOOTH MOUSE ON AN iPAD OR iPHONE The easiest way to use a mouse with your iPad is to set it up with Bluetooth. Any old Bluetooth mouse should work. Before iPadOS 13.4, you had to dig in the Accessibility menu in order to pair some specific Bluetooth mice, but now you can do it straight through the regular…

Apple has joined the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max with its own exclusive streaming service, Apple TV+. The service features an assortment of TV shows funded by Apple’s mountainous cash pile, and the Cupertino company is sparing no expense in its attempt to lure viewers with some of the best-known actors, writers, and directors. In this guide you’ll find a compendium of everything we know about the ambitious service. We also have reviews of some of the programs, and a partial list of the shows that are coming soon. If you have yet to sign up for the service, take a look at this guide to help you decide. And if you do decide to tune in, we’ll show you how to sign up.…

Apple is said to be spending several billion dollars on original programming. That’s a lot of TV! Apple is attracting some of the best talent, including huge stars and directors, and is locking down the television and movie rights to best-selling books. Though the service is relatively new and its library is growing, there’s a lot in the works. Here is a partial list of shows that we know Apple is working on so far, along with details about prominent stars, directors, producers, and release dates. You can see the complete list on the Macworld website. Foundation What it’s about: Of all of Isaac Asimov’s famous science fiction work, none is as sprawling, weighty, or influential as the Foundation series. The original book trilogy (part of which was originally published…

From 1999 until 2016, Apple released and continued to sell a series of external digitally connected displays optimized for Mac users. The displays started with DVI connectors, shifted to the Apple-made ADC connection, then back to DVI, expanded to dual-link DVI, pivoted to industry-standard Mini DisplayPort, and finally ended with Thunderbolt 2 connectors. (It’s only last year that Apple announced it would restart making monitors with its own Thunderbolt 3 display, the Pro Display XDR, and began shipping it in December for a minimum of $5,000.) And, gosh, do a lot of those older Apple monitors remain out in the field and in use. Apple never releases much in the way of unit sales, but it’s a fair guess that several million displays were sold. While monitors dim and components…

Time Machine is a great, baseline, no-fuss archiving solution for macOS. While it has many drawbacks and can be fussy, it’s far better than not having a backup and it works generally well for the vast majority of Mac owners. It’s a great solution for family members who otherwise don’t back up. (Especially coupled with convincing them to subscribe to or giving them Backblaze or another highly related secure, automated, hosted backup service.) If you’re frustrated with Time Machine’s limitations, however, you have other options. Econ Technologies’ ChronoSync always sits at the top of my list. It’s not per se backup software. Rather, it’s an exhaustive solution for synchronizing files between two local, two remote, or one local and remote location. Backup and archiving is just one of its many features.…

The Tufton is the latest Marshall Bluetooth speaker to cross TechHive’s portal. It’s a large, loud, bass-pumping, but bare-bones unit designed for outdoor and party use. It sounds decent and its build quality is top-notch, but its $400 MSRP is a fair amount of coin for an oddball stereo implementation, no buttons to control playback or handling phone calls, and no ability to charge other devices. It’s worth noting that Amazon was selling the Tufton for $330 as I was writing this review, and the manufacturer was throwing in a free pair of its Major III Bluetooth headphones if you buy it direct. DESIGN AND FEATURES The styling of the Marshall Tufton is a nod to…. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure. It has the Marshall logo, tweed grill, and…

HOW TO USE iCLOUD ALIASES TO SEND AND RECEIVE EMAIL Sometimes it’s useful to have an email address that’s not your primary one. You might want to sign up with a service or use it to subscribe to an email list, and not trust that it won’t be reused and deluged with unwanted mail you can’t unsubscribe from. Apple lets you set up to three additional email-only identities with iCloud.com, called aliases. That lets you preserve your primary iCloud.com address for whatever purpose you like while having these three alternative identities that you can use to filter email and even delete if you want to abandon the address altogether—not an option with your primary iCloud.com address, which is often the account name for your Apple ID. I wrote in April…