Macworld UK September 2016

Welcome to the latest issue of Macworld. As I sit down to write this column students up and down the country are eagerly awaiting (or dreading) their A-level results. For those moving on to higher education, ensuring they have the right tech to help their studies is incredibly important. With this in mind we’ve put together a guide to the best gear for university (page 31). We also reveal how students can save money by getting an education discount from Apple (page 94), plus the pros and cons of purchasing a refurbished Mac (page 25). Although it doesn’t feel like it, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has been in charge of the company for five years. On page 47 he talks about Steve Jobs, the company’s showdown with the FBI, his…

Another quarter brings with it Apple financial results – nearly $8 billion in profit this time, despite a whole lot of tough year-over-year sales and revenue comparisons. But as a part of the results we also get the chance to hear directly from Apple’s executives, in the quarterly ritual of the conference call with analysts. There’s always good stuff to be gleaned from this call, and this quarter was no exception. Here’s what we learned. Optimism about the iPhone buying cycle Combine the changes to the way people buy smartphones (especially in the United States) with the sales fall-off from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 6s, and a lot of people are worried that the buying cycle of the iPhone is going to be elongated. In other words, while…

Niantic isn’t the only company benefiting from the Pokémon GO craze. It appears that Apple is along for the ride, as well. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted. Apple doesn’t release download numbers, but third-party analysts estimate that downloads of Pokémon GO are in the tens of millions worldwide. Though the app is free, in-app purchases are available. Since Apple collects 30 percent from each purchase, that money quickly adds up. One analyst told Fortune that it’s possible that Apple could earn as much as $3 billion within the next year or two. Though Cook doesn’t specifically say that Pokémon GO is the reason for the record-breaking month, it’s easy to connect the dots. During Apple’s Q3 2016 financial results announcement (see page 4), Cook pointed out the growth in…

Apple has announced it has sold one billion iPhones. That’s a huge milestone, but its timing is strangely awkward. Tim Cook told employees in Cupertino that the billionth iPhone had been sold, but this announcement came just one day after Apple’s Q3 2016 saw disappointing iPhone sales, declining to 40.4 million units sold, from 47.5 million in the year-ago quarter. “Last week we passed another major milestone when we sold the billionth iPhone,” Cook said in a press release. “We never set out to make the most, but we’ve always set out to make the best products that make a difference. Thank you to everyone at Apple for helping change the world every day.” The next iPhone revision is expected in September, but rumours suggest Apple isn’t significantly altering its…

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has described India as one of the company’s fastest growing markets and has proposed to the government a program to offer refurbished phones in the country as a way to get around the high prices of its devices in a price-sensitive market. Cook is also said to have discussed with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May the “possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India,” a move that would help the company avoid the high import duties on smartphones and other products that the authorities have imposed to encourage local manufacture. However, data from Strategy Analytics suggests that until these plans are put into action the company may continue to see a middling performance in the country. Shipments of the Apple iOS on smartphones fell to…

It’s been a couple of months since macOS Sierra was announced, and we’ve had a chance to spend some time with it. Here we reveal some interesting features you might have missed. Storage management is complicated Apple’s pitch about Sierra being better about freeing up your disk space (especially on comparatively cramped flash-storage drives) is true, but on stage Apple’s Craig Federighi presented a very simplified version of the concept The reality is that this isn’t a single feature, but a whole collection of them. Yes, you can now sync your Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud, and (separately) give your Mac the option of deleting local copies of documents that are also stored in iCloud. But that’s just one small way Apple is giving the system the opportunity to…