Mac

Stay up-to-date on the latest Mac news, and tutorials. Get expert tips and tricks to optimize your Mac’s performance and learn about the latest Apple products and software updates. Discover the best Mac apps and accessories to enhance your user experience.

The W3 Stand turns your Apple Watch into a vintage Macintosh

If you have an Apple Watch and an affinity for vintage computer hardware, you're going to love the W3 Stand from Elago. It's a short, stumpy stand that's built to make your Apple Watch look like an old-school Macintosh.

The stand is made of scratch-resistant silicone, and it conveniently holds your Apple Watch horizontally in Nightstand Mode. This allows you to view the current time, date, charging status and Calendar events at a glance.

Intel announces Kaby Lake processors for Macs and more

Intel on Tuesday officially announced its full 7th generation Intel Core processor line, known by many as Kaby Lake, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There are over 40 new performance-class processors in the family, which are based on Intel's 14nm+ process technology, that offer more speed, productivity and security than previous generations.

AirBar gives your MacBook Air a touchscreen display

You'll soon be able to give your MacBook Air a touchscreen display, courtesy of AirBar. Neonode on Tuesday unveiled a Mac version of its laptop dongle at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that will allow you to navigate macOS via touch.

The AirBar magnetically attaches to the bottom of your 13.3-inch MacBook Air display and connects via USB. It uses Neonode's patented zForce AIR technology to emit an invisible light field that can sense touches from fingers, gloves, and even a paintbrush.

Consumer Reports reportedly stands by its controversial MacBook Pro battery findings

As you probably heard, the influential consumer organization Consumer Reports is not recommending Apple's new MacBook Pro due to inconsistent battery performance. Apple's marketing honcho Phill Schiller responded by saying that the product-testing magazine's test results don't match the company's own data. 9to5Mac reached out to Consumer Reports to learn more about their findings, here's what the magazine had to say.

How to check if your Mac supports Auto Unlock

macOS Sierra debuted a new feature called Auto Unlock that lets you get into your Mac without typing your account password simply by wearing a passcode-protected Apple Watch. With Auto Unlock, you just wake up your Mac and if it senses you're nearby and wearing your watch, it'll log you in automatically. Yes, it just works!

Auto Unlock imposes certain hardware pre-requisites in terms of modern Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chipsets. Here's how you can quickly check if your Mac supports Auto Unlock.

Video converter Handbrake exits beta after 13 years

In a better-late-than-never move, the free cross-platform video converter Handbrake has finally hit version 1.0. The app had been languishing in beta for more than thirteen years. Handbrake 1.0, a free download for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and other platforms, lets you convert videos easily from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. With subtitle support, capable transcoding engine and built-in presets for devices like Apple TV, iPhone and iPad, Handbrake makes it easy to optimize videos for your specific hardware.

Spotify for Mac gains Touch Bar shortcuts

Spotify for Mac was updated this morning with support for Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro models, German outlet Giga.de reported. A few handy music-playback controls are now available in Spotify's Mac app directly from the Touch Bar, including common controls such as transport and search, as well as persistent Now Playing buttons like play, pause, shuffle, repeat and the volume slider.

Consumer Reports won’t recommend new MacBook Pros over inconsistent battery life

Consumer Reports will not be recommending Apple's latest MacBook Pro models due to inconsistent battery performance, the magazine said Thursday. After conducting a battery of tests, Consumer Reports discovered that battery life across all new Pros varied “dramatically” from one test to another.

On the other hand (as I note in this article), the battery woes might be caused by a software issue in Safari for Mac because Chrome (a notorious battery hog) fared far better in the tests.

Be that as it may, Apple's latest notebooks received low rating and failed to earn Consumer Report’s recommendation “after battery life issues surfaced during testing”. As a result, the new MacBook Pro is the first Apple notebook that did not receive a Consumer Reports recommendation, said the magazine.

Email client Spark for Mac adds a bunch of new productivity features in latest update

Less than a month ago, Ukrainian developer Readdle launched Spark for Mac with Touch Bar support and many advanced features to help you achieve Inbox Zero Nirvana. Last evening, the app received a bunch of new features in the new 1.1 update. You can now assign a different color to each email account so it's easier to distinguish in the account list. Multiple messages can now be marked as spam at once, IMAP folders can be created directly from the sidebar, contacts now sync with your address book and more.

Report offers insight into Apple’s internal Mac struggles

Following comments made by Tim Cook regarding the importance of the Mac, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today issued a far-reaching report that offers insight into Apple's internal struggle with its laptop and desktop lines.

In the scoop, Gurman says that employees he's interviewed feel like the Mac is getting far less attention these days. They also say it's lost clout with Jony Ive's design team, and lacks a clear direction from senior management.

Apple launches beta 2 of iOS 10.2.1 and macOS Sierra 10.12.3

Apple on Tuesday seeded to members of the Apple Developer Program a second beta of iOS 10.2 and a second beta of what would become the third major update to macOS Sierra. iOS 10.2.1 beta 2 (build 14D15) and macOS Sierra 10.12.3 beta 2 (build 16D17a) are now available to install over-the-air via Settings → General → Software Update on iOS devices and under the Mac App Store's Updates tab on the Mac.

Apple starts accepting orders for LG’s 27″ UltraFine 5K Display, ships in 2-4 weeks

LG's UltraFine 5K Display, the external ultra high-resolution display Apple didn't want to make, is now available to order through Apple.com. The display can be ordered with Apple's in-store pickup option (availability of in-store pickup may vary from one store to another). First orders were scheduled to deliver on December 27 or 28, with in-store pickup availability on December 29. However, estimated delivery times quickly slipped to 2-4 weeks.