Macworld UK June 2022

Apple has formally announced that this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will once again be held as an online-only event from 6 to 10 June, with free attendance for all developers. Apple’s announcement contains the typical language, stating: “Building on the success of the past two years of virtual events, WWDC22 will showcase the latest innovations in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, while giving developers access to Apple engineers and technologies to learn how to create groundbreaking apps and interactive experiences.” In other words, expect the keynote on 6 June to reveal iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and tvOS 16, macOS 13 and watchOS 9. Apple’s developer conference almost always takes place in June. The image accompanying the announcement is a stylized version of the logo for Apple’s programming language…

Apple has released the second developer and public betas for macOS Monterey 12.4. It likely mostly includes bug fixes and security updates, though it’s possible that it also includes hidden references to new hardware releasing at WWDC in early June. Developers can get the update through the Apple Developer website (fave.co/3EI841g), or, if you are running the beta, by performing a Software Update. To install the public beta, you must be enrolled in the Public Beta programme (fave.co/3g7Ld4O). Then go to the Guide section, click on the ‘macOS’ tab and then ‘Enrol your Mac’ in the Get Started section. Version 12.4 includes an important note for Universal Control. If you install 12.4, all devices that you want to use with Universal Control must also be updated to the latest betas.…

More than two decades after its introduction, Apple has quietly announced that macOS Server, has been discontinued. The end of macOS server comes just over 23 years after its introduction on 16 March 1999. The final version of macOS Server is 5.12.2. During the latter part of macOS Server’s run, Apple incorporated many of its features into macOS as part of a phasing out of the software. For example, the File Server, Caching Server, and Time Machine Server were included in macOS High Sierra. The command-line tools to manage Xsan (Apple’s storage garage network/clustered file system) were included in macOS Big Sur. Apple outlines which services and features are available through a support document (fave.co/3vb5JZA) announcing the discontinuation. There was a time when the software was an inexpensive way to…

Apple has acknowledged an extremely serious fault afflicting some units of the Apple Watch Series 6, which can cause their screens to go blank permanently. It has agreed to service affected devices for free. A similar fault, known colloquially as the Black Screen of Death, has been seen from time to time with a variety of Apple Watch models, including the Series 2, Series 3 and Series 5. But complaints became more frequent with the Series 6 in the second half of last year, and Apple has now admitted there is a problem, while doing its best to emphasize the “very small percentage” of devices that are affected. Affected Apple Watches often appear functional in other respects, making the usual sounds when the user taps the screen or clicks the…

While Apple’s HomePod strategy has been somewhat scattered, with the original high-end speaker discontinued last year and the cheaper HomePod mini struggling to compete against the Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio, Apple reportedly hasn’t given up on its smart home vision. According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple is “absolutely” still working on a new HomePod, though it won’t be another standalone speaker. Gurman says the new device will combine a HomePod, Apple TV and FaceTime camera into a single “combination product will probably be at the centre of Apple’s approach”. We’ve heard this rumour before, but it’s been a while. Last April, Gurman reported that Apple was working on a product that combines “an Apple TV set-top box with a HomePod speaker” with “a camera for video conferencing…

The introduction of the Mac Studio was exciting for many reasons – one of which was the unveiling of yet another addition to the M1 series of Apple’s System on a Chip (SoC). The M1 Ultra, found in the £3,999 Mac Studio, brings an entirely new level of performance, adding to the dust that the Intel processors were already left in. It’s essentially two M1 Max chips fused together to bring double everything: 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU, 32-core neural engine, four video encoding engines, four ProRes encode and decode engines, and up to 128GB of LPDDR5 unified memory with 800GB/s of bandwidth. But is the M1 Ultra really twice as fast as the M1 Max? Data can give us an idea of how it compares to the M1 Max…