Table of contents for March 2022 in Macworld UK

A pparently, the supply chain issues that affected production during the last holiday season were much ado about nothing. Apple has reported a staggering $123.9 billion in revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, with substantial year-over-year growth in nearly every category, including a record $71.6 billion in iPhone sales alone. All product categories except the iPad were up year over year, with the Mac, Services and Wearables all posting record numbers. Here’s how the quarter breaks down, with the year-over-year growth in brackets: iPhone: $71.6 billion (9 per cent) Mac: $10.9 billion (25 per cent) Wearables: $14.7 billion (13 per cent) Services: $19.6 billion (24 per cent) The iPad, on the other hand, was down about 14 per cent to $7.3 billion. Apple began selling the iPad mini…

I ran out of ways to summarize Apple’s quarterly results a while ago. When they’re all records, all-time greats, rolling up numbers so big it’s hard for the human brain to quantify them, what can you say? My wife comes home on days Apple releases its quarterly results and asks me, “So, how’s Apple?” And I respond with some variation of, “Apple’s just fine.” Here’s the news about Apple’s fiscal first quarter of 2022, covering the holiday season of 2021. So many of Apple’s arrows are pointing up that, due to issues with the global supply chain, they’ve run out of arrows. Apple’s just fine. EVERY RECORD HAS BEEN BROKEN So, most revenue in a quarter ever. Biggest profit ever. But if you’re looking for places to find a weakness…

MacUpdater has a simple mission: keeping your apps up to date. That’s a noble goal, as some of the worst security flaws and crashing behaviour appear in slightly older versions of software we use routinely. This Mac app scans your applications folders, checks the version of each app present, and consults its database. If your version is older, you can pick whether you’re notified or the app simply gets automatically updated. It’s as simple as that. But what a relief that is. If you’re like many Mac users, you have a rich history of installed apps and from dozens to hundreds of ones that aren’t in the Mac App Store. Nearly every app I use has its own update system, many of them relying on Sparkle. Yet I have to…

After about a month of development, Apple has released iOS 15.3 to the public. According to Apple’s support site, iOS 15.3 “includes bug fixes and security updates for your iPhone and is recommended for all users”. That sort of language is usually reserved for point releases (as in the iOS 15.2.1 update that landed earlier this month), so it’s strange for Apple to push a major update with no user-facing features, especially since some announced features still need to arrive. Apple pushed digital ID cards to 2022 after the feature failed to appear in any of the iOS 15 updates in 2021, iCloud+ Private Relay is still in beta, and we’re still waiting for iPadOS 15 and macOS 12 to get Universal Control. Among the known fixes in iOS 15.3…

If you happen to be reading this story on a BlackBerry phone, your device is officially obsolete. The company has announced that BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, and BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 is no longer be available, and warns that “devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality”. The end comes almost exactly 15 years after Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco – and back on 7 January, 2007, few people would have believed that BlackBerry would suffer such a fate. At the time, BlackBerry was one of the leading names in smartphones and approaching 10 per cent market share, a number that would grow…

When Apple finally released AirTags last April, it was a welcome new accessory to the line-up. After years of rumours, an official Apple tracker was finally available to for the items in our life that didn’t have a chip in them – keys, backpacks, purses, anything. Our biggest issue on launch day was that the key tag holder cost as much as the AirTag itself. But almost immediately, AirTags started making headlines for all the wrong reasons. First there were fears over the battery compartment, which is relatively easy to open and could pose a choking hazard for small children. Apple responded with a warning on its website to keep AirTags away from children and will likely tweak the design in future versions. The more pressing issues are related to…

MOVED A WI-FI ROUTER? THAT COULD MESS WITH AN iPHONE’S LOCATION You pull up the location of your iPhone, Mac or other devices in Find My, and they’re located somewhere other than you expect them to be. Or you’ve shared your location with a friend or family member, and they see you far off from your current position. What’s happening? It might have to do with a relocated Wi-Fi router. Bear with me, as this sounds like I’m tacking red string to a corkboard and connecting the dots. Instead, it has to do with how Apple approximates positions and leans on Wi-Fi – no conspiracy required. Wi-Fi is one leg of Apple’s location-finding system used across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and used by Apple’s Find My, Maps, and many other apps,…

Researchers at security firm Eset (fave.co/3obYHA9) have provided details on a brand new macOS malware that can be used to perform surveillance on a Mac. ‘DazzleSpy’ is malware that may have infected users who visited a website that promoted democracy in Hong Kong. DazzleSpy is what security researchers call a watering hole attack, where a website is used to infect visitors of that site. It is used when an attacker wants to target a specific group. DazzleSpy is documented with the ID of CVE-2021-30869 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, and was patched by Apple in Catalina and Big Sur updates in September. The Google Threat Analysis Group reported on the technical aspects of these watering hole attacks last November (fave.co/3s7aXD5). Eset’s report published in January provides details on…

As we’ve already reported (see page 4), Apple has announced an astounding $123.9 billion revenue for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2022 (the period ending 31 December). Nearly every category and geographic segment set records and the iPhone grew to a staggering $71.6 billion, more than some full quarters. On the other end of the spectrum, Peloton announced in January it was suspending production of its iconic bikes as demand for the pricey piece of exercise equipment waned. The company’s stock took a tumble as a result and analysts naturally began speculating about Peloton’s future, including possible suitors. As you’d expect, Apple’s name came up. It’s not the first time Apple’s name has come up as a potential buyer for a high-profile company, and usually, it’s just bluster.…

The macOS 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4 betas were released to developers late last month, and there was a surprise: Apple finally added Universal Control, the much-anticipated feature that was revealed at WWDC21. Late last year Apple announced that the release of Universal Control would be delayed to this spring, so we didn’t expect to see any trace of it until at least March. For the uninitiated, Universal Control allows you to use an iPad as an external display for a Mac. During the demo in the WWDC keynote, Apple VP Craig Federighi merely placed the iPad next to his Mac, and it worked. No cables to connect, no restarting, no need to click anything or say “please”, it just connected and worked like magic. And from my initial experience, after…

Squinting at two documents side by side is no way to figure out what’s changed between them. Computer systems have offered ‘diff’ utilities for decades that try to compare two (and sometimes more) files and tell you what’s different in each. You can invoke comparisons in Microsoft Word, BBEdit, the command line and other apps – though not Apple Pages. Each of these tools has a particular focus, like plain text or rich text, and offers only a few options for controlling the display and merging conflicting elements. Kaleidoscope has a bigger reach than those built-in features, yet doesn’t exceed its grasp. The app compares plain text, rich text format (RTF), Word and PDF files, among other document formats, in both side-by-side and integrated views that highlight their distinct contents.…

As expected, Apple has followed the release of iOS 15.3 with the beta-testing releases for iOS 15.4 (and associated operating systems like iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS). We’re still waiting on a couple of significant iOS 15 features that are supposed to be released this spring, and this beta finally brings the first look at Universal Control (together with the macOS 12.3 beta). It’s hoped that, over the course of the beta testing releases, these features will show up in iOS 15.4, but Apple may still delay them further. NEW FEATURES Universal Control The iPadOS 15.4 beta finally brings Universal Control, which was supposed to release last autumn, but was delayed until spring 2022. The feature, which lets you drag and drop files between the iPad and Mac (or different Macs)…

If you want an iPad, you have three basic choices: the basic 10.2in iPad, the more expensive iPad Air, or the even more expensive iPad Pro. But if you have a few pounds to spend, the choice is even simpler. The standard 10.2in iPad is the budget option, with an aging design (big bezels, home button, Lightning port) and older processor. And the new 12.9in iPad Pro starts at a whopping £999 and is geared toward only the most demanding of users. So if you want the most tablet without breaking the bank on a £999 12.9in iPad Pro, you have just two options: the £579 iPad Air and the £749 11in iPad Pro. We used to recommend the iPad Air unequivocally for bringing the best of the iPad Pro…

The past two years has put new emphasis on how important an Internet connection is to our daily lives. At the same time, some of us have never experienced such slowdowns and erratic performance as in these past two years, coupled with overloading our previously capable home networks. Measuring Internet networking performance can help us stay efficient, keep entertained and remain less frustrated. Several tools can help you measure or monitor your Internet and network performance, and many of them are free. One is even built into macOS Monterey. MONITOR VERSUS MEASURE, INTERNET VERSUS NETWORK Checking in on your network health is always complicated by your position relative to the Internet. Within your network, the speed of your connection via Ethernet or Wi-Fi can constrain your Internet bandwidth. If you…

If your New Year’s resolution was to get more exercise, then the new Apple Fitness+ features – Collections and Time to Run – are just what you need. Apple is also releasing the third iteration of its Time to Walk series. Collections are a set of workouts and meditations that Apple says “will provide users with an entirely new way to get motivated”. Collections draw from the nearly 2,000 workouts and meditations in Fitness+. The following Collections are available: • 30-Day Core Challenge• Improve Your Posture with Pilates• Perfect Your Yoga Balance Poses• Run Your First 5K• Strengthen Your Back, Stretch Your Hips• Wind Down for a Better Bedtime Time to Run is basically a runner’s version of Time to Walk, where each episode is, according to Apple, “focused on…

In 1998, Steve Jobs introduced the first iMac and it revolutionized the personal computer – not to mention it gave new life to a struggling Apple. The iMac was a big hit, but after four years, Apple needed to update the computer. The updated iMac not only had to usher in new technologies, but it also had the daunting task of proving that Apple’s design innovation wasn’t a fluke. So in 2002, Apple introduced the iMac G4, and the company again turned the market on its head. And in doing so, it created the greatest Mac it has ever made. Here’s why it still holds up two decades later. THE DESIGN WAS TRULY UNIQUE Very early on in its history, Apple was known for making all-in-one computers. While most people…

Intel’s Alder Lake processor is starting to become available in PC laptops and that means one thing: benchmarks! Macworld’s sister publication, PCWorld, posted a review of one of the first laptops with the Core i9-12900HK processor (code‑named Alder Lake), and it inevitably got us thinking about Apple’s M1 Pro and Max. To be clear, PCWorld didn’t include Apple silicon in its review – they are reviewing Windows-based laptops and comparing Alder Lake to its predecessor and a new 8-core Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU. Many of the benchmark programs PCWorld used aren’t even available on the Mac or do not have native M1 versions, but PCWorld did run Geekbench and Cinebench, two benchmarks Macworld also uses. And we learned a lot from them. First, let’s check out the specifications for the…

Contactless payments have ramped up in the age of the pandemic, but to make Apple Pay work businesses still need clunky hardware to process transactions. According to a new report, that could soon be a thing of the past. According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple will soon let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware or attachments. The report says Apple will use NFC to turn the iPhone into a ‘payment terminal’ for tap-to-pay credit cards and other iPhones with Apple Pay set up. It’s not clear from the report if Apple will also accept Google Pay and Samsung Pay through the system, but it’s unlikely. Gurman says the new payment system is the result of Apple’s $100 million acquisition of Mobeewave in 2020.…

In celebration of Black History Month, Apple has launched several initiatives designed to spotlight Black businesses and innovation, including a special edition Braided Solo Loop band a groundbreaking new watch face designed using 2D ray tracing. The Apple Watch Black Unity Braided Solo Loop is a black band with red and green speckles throughout to symbolize the colours of the Pan-African flag. It is available now on Apple.com for £99 and is available now. Also available is a new Unity Lights face designed using 2D ray tracing, which Apple says has never before implemented for a watch face. The analogue face “simulates the light and shadow falling across it and the movement of the clock hands simultaneously reveal and hide the light, changing dynamically throughout the day”. It can be…

Dragging files around the Finder was life-changing in the 1980s after decades of entering commands in a terminal or shell that required precise syntax. Decades later, some of us may have forgotten a few file-dragging basics – or never discovered them, whether we’re an old hand at the Mac or a newcomer. It’s a good time for a refresher on what happens when you drag files in the Finder. If you hold down modifier keys when you drag files, you can perform different functions. Move a file to a new location on the same volume: A simple drag and drop without holding down any keys moves files from one location to another on the same volume. Copy a file from one volume to another volume: A simple drag and drop…

Apple offers robust support in macOS for Unicode (fave.co/3IUByKu), a standard that provides a unique number to represent characters and symbols. Unicode encompasses scripts used bylanguages, symbols for scientific notation, emoji, and other kinds of marks. The standard currently includes nearly 150,000 unique characters, each with its own number and description. Most fonts contain an extremely small subset of those 150,000-odd characters. Because a type designer has to draw each character in a digital font uniquely, there’s no way for each font to contain more than a few hundred to the low thousands of characters. Font-design tools help keep consistency and automate production, but drawing remains at the heart, keeping character counts low for reasons of profit for commercial typefaces and sheer time for those created for joy, to preserve…