Macworld December 2018

Apple recently unveiled a revamped privacy website to educate users on how the company handles the personal information that it collects. The website covers how your data is protected, who can access it, and iOS and Mac features you can use to further protect your personal data. Apple’s new privacy website also now lets you get a copy of the data that Apple collects about you. Here’s how to get your copy. HOW TO DOWNLOAD YOUR PERSONAL DATA FROM APPLE 1. On the Apple privacy website, go to the Manage Your Privacy section. 2. The top of the Manage Your Privacy website is a section called “Here’s how to manage your privacy.” Click on Manage Your Apple ID. 3. Scroll to the “Take charge of your data” section. Click on Visit…

In early October, Bloomberg published a bombshell article uncovering an extraordinary hardware hacking effort by state-sponsored Chinese agents. “The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies” details successful efforts by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to implant tiny chips into the motherboards of servers made by Super Micro, to compromise those systems and give them access. It’s an extensive piece of reporting, too complex to fully summarize here. To really understand all the details, you should read the original article. Citing many sources both inside affected companies and the U.S. government, the article explains that the PLA infiltrated Super Micro or its suppliers to sneak tiny hardware chips—as small as the tip of a sharpened pencil—into server motherboards. Super Micro is one of the world’s…

I’m excited about the new iPads and MacBook that we saw from the October event. As you know, I was also excited about a possible update to the Apple Pencil. But I’m going to go ahead and say this, as it’s sometimes best to remind a company to get the little things out of the way: On top of everything else, I’d really, really like to see a space gray version of the regular Magic Keyboard. Apple originally designed the space gray keyboard, trackpad, and Magic Mouse solely for the $5,000 iMac Pro, lending a premium look for Apple’s most powerful desktop to date. That exclusivity didn’t last long, though, perhaps because iMac Pro owners quickly took to eBay to sell their space gray peripherals for exorbitant prices that probably made…

If you are the designated family memoirist, you can count on Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 to give your run-of-the-mill photos a bit of a kick. The latest version of 2019 vintage does a good job of augmenting automated aspects of the program while giving the opening sequence a fresh coat of paint. Increasingly, Adobe’s creative apps rely on Adobe Sensei, the company’s artificial intelligence engine, and the first thing you’ll notice when launching Photoshop Elements 2019 is the brand-new Home Screen. This light, airy window into the Elements world presents you with the new Auto Creations feature, a series of photo and video collages and slideshows generated from the content you added to the Elements Organizer. While Organizer, the asset management helper app for both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, got…

Is there such a thing as a bag with too many pockets? You’ll never catch me uttering such blasphemy, but I can easily imagine someone pointing to the WaterField Air Porter as proof of decadence most dire. It has 10 interior pockets, 4 exterior pockets, and even more pockets in an optional removable sleeve. Depending on how you interpret the term, it even has pockets in some of the pockets. Somehow WaterField manages to turn this bag into something that’s both incredibly portable yet capable of carrying fairly hefty loads, making it perfect for both the streets and the skies. HIDDEN DEPTHS The Air Porter sounds like a complex bag, and in some respects it is. The beauty of it, though, is that you’d never know that from a quick glance.…

SAMSUNG Q8FN 4K UHD TV The Samsung Q8FN 4K UHD TV is a Quantum-dot television that can hold its own with the finest TVs at any price point. The HDR is vibrant, the colors true, and the blacks very dark. In addition to being quite bright, the picture was largely artifact free. There’s very little blooming or other artifacts with bright objects on a black background. The TV is equipped with four 60Hz HDMI ports, with one supporting ARC (Audio Return Channel; a coax connector for cable or an OTA antenna (there is a tuner on board); two USB ports; an ethernet port; and an optical audio output. A/V and component input is supported via 3.5mm ports and adapter cables. There are also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters onboard.—JON L. JACOBI…