Macworld UK April 2020

Momentous news from the US, where Apple has reportedly agreed to pay between $310m and $500m to millions of customers affected by the so-called Batterygate iPhone problem. Class-action lawsuits in the US accused Apple of deliberately slowing down older models of iPhone with iOS updates, in order to encourage them to upgrade to newer versions; Apple countered by saying that it was throttling processor performance to preserve battery life, although it did not originally disclose that it was doing so. (In fairness, the company is far more transparent about this now, and allows you to turn off the euphemistically named ‘performance management’ feature.) How will this affect you? If you’re from the US and have an affected iPhone, you stand to gain a small amount of money, even if you…

While last year’s annual spring Apple event was entirely devoted to services, this year’s show appears to be shaping up to bring a torrent of new hardware. We already knew about the new budget successor to the iPhone SE (which may be called the iPhone 9) and an iPad Pro refresh, but there have been a flurry of rumours that suggest Apple has much more hiding up its sleeve. There’s no denying that the AirPods and AirPods Pro are runaway hits, so it only makes sense that Apple would want to build on their success. We’ve heard rumours for a while that Apple is working on a pair of noise-cancelling over-ear headphones, but a cryptic Target listing spotted by Target employees suggests they might be on the way sooner than…

Apple has announced that it miss its forecasted revenue guidance for the second fiscal quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus epidemic. The company had projected revenue for the quarter between $63 and $67 billion, and gross margin between 38 and 39 percent. Apple did not provide revised Q2 earnings estimates. In a released statement, Apple stated that it is, “experiencing a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated. As a result, we do not expect to meet the revenue guidance we provided for the March quarter due to two main factors.” In a statement, Apple said it expected the iPhone supply constraint to be temporary. Demand for Apple products in China has been affected as well, with Apple stores closed for a duration, and then reopening at…

Price: Free (in-app purchases) from fave.co/2PMobm7 Apple introduced content-blocking Safari extensions in 2015 for iOS and 2016 for macOS, offering third-party developers a way to bring rule-based blocking without requiring users to give up privacy. Extension creators can produce and update unwanted lists of URLs, structural page elements, and a few other kinds of items that are unwanted or outright malicious. These lists are loaded into Safari, which handles blocking. User behaviour isn’t uploaded – it’s a one-way street. 1Blocker was one of the first to enter this market, producing an app that paired with extensions for flexible control. 1Blocker 3 is an overhaul of the macOS app, intended to provide a simpler interface for users who don’t want to dig into rules and to meet new extension requirements set…

Price: Free (in-app purchases) from fave.co/2Tr1V3N AirPlay 2 provides Apple device owners more ways to stream favourite music, movies, TV shows, and home videos around the house. But for anyone without a HomePod, Apple TV, or other compatible hardware, the experience is actually pretty limited. JustStream is a macOS menu bar app for wirelessly streaming from a Mac to compatible AirPlay or Chromecast devices, including LG, Roku, Samsung, and Sony televisions. This is done two different ways: Mirroring, which essentially live streams your desktop; or streaming, where one or more media files can be queued up for playback. Running entirely from the menu bar, JustStream automatically detects compatible devices on your local network capable of receiving via AirPlay or Chromecast. Select a target device from the pull-down menu at the…

Price: Free (in-app purchases) from fave.co/332ZKGB Prior to the arrival of Mac OS X in 2001, software for keeping tabs on CPU usage, managing extensions or even doubling available virtual RAM allowed power users to monitor or tweak system performance. While such hacks are largely unnecessary on modern Macs, a few apps still carry a torch for this bygone era. Mac optimization utility Sensei is the latest, probing deeper than the already comprehensive real-time data of competitor iStat Menus, while also supplying a generous toolbox of disk cleaning skills. The result is an app that manages to pack a ton of information into a gorgeous, well-organized user interface. The main window provides an overview of your Mac hardware, with model-specific details including serial number, manufacture date and identifier across the…