Apple Intelligence will create a whole new smart home era
I’ve previously argued that Apple Intelligence could be the biggest reason to buy an Apple smart home camera. Longer term, I think it also has the potential to create a whole new era of truly smart homes. How long it will take before we can trust Apple Intelligence to run our homes is a whole other question! There’s no arguing with the fact that there’s a long way to go before the AI tech will be more than a public beta. But the longer-term potential does excite me … more…

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Clip-on earbuds excel at comfort but fit can mess with sound quality [Review] ★★★☆☆
In our hands-on Edifier Comfo C earbuds review, we find the clip-ons excel at comfort, but the fit can mess with audio quality. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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President Trump’s inaugural brings the world’s billionaire elites, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, en masse to DC
As Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. President with Apple CEO Tim Cook among those billionaires in attendance… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.

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Cisco Announces ‘Radical’ Approach to AI Security
Cisco is taking a radical approach to AI security in its new AI Defense solution. AI Defense is aimed at addressing risks in developing and deploying AI applications, and identifying where AI is used in an organization. The post appeared first on TechNewsWorld.

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Second report corroborates iPhone’s fall from 1st to 3rd place in China
Two of the world’s leading market intelligence firms report that the iPhone has lost its place as the best-selling phone in China, dropping from 1st to 3rd place in the final quarter of last year. Increased competition from local brands is cited as one factor, the second being Apple’s inability to offer AI features in the country … more…

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Trump hesitates over instituting China tariffs that would hurt Apple
Trump's day-one tariffs on China haven't been implemented yet, but he's still maintaining the fiction that it isn't American consumers who will pay the price.Tim Cook (right) and TrumpThere is no gray area here: tariffs are not a tax on other countries, they result solely in higher prices for Americans. Nonetheless, as he did during his first term, President Trump is again imposing tariffs, just not yet on China.During the campaign, he committed to introduce tariffs on his first day in office, and specifically that he would levy a 60% tariff on imports from China, plus a further 10% duty on Chinese goods. None of that happened, and instead newly announced tariffs will instead start from February 1, 2025, for Mexico and Canada. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Microsoft word for Mac review: What’s new in Word 2024?
Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Packed into compelling Office package Full of options Focus mode is fantastic Cons So many tools it may overwhelm some Our Verdict Microsoft Word remains king of the word processors, and while it definitely has some stylistic choices that may push some away, it’s combination of affordability and flexibility make it tough to beat. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Price When ReviewedLifetime license, one device: $179.99; Microsoft 265 Personal, one device: $99.99 a year ($9.99 a month) Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Microsoft (lifetime license) $179.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket If you’re of a certain age, Microsoft Word is likely to have been a cornerstone of your early computing life. Before Google Docs and the like, many of us used Word, helping Microsoft’s word processor become a household name whether you enjoyed using it or not. While it still has its quirks, Word is now better than it has ever been, and is rolled into an already compelling Office 365 suite that takes away the pain of expensive one-off licenses from yesteryear. First Impressions Whatever platform you use Word on, there’s a pleasing familiarity to it. I used it throughout all levels of education, and as a result, found it easy to get started – but others may be more than a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of toolbars and icons (more on that a little later). Still, once you’re in, Word can open just about document you throw at it – with the exception of Pages files which remain openable in, well, Pages. (Want to share a Pages document with a Word user? You will need to save your Pages file in the doc. file format. To do so, press click on File and you will see an option to Export to…. choose Word. Now click on Word and Save. If you are trying to open a Pages document in Word you will need to convert it using Pages, if you don’t have Pages to hand you can use Pages in iCloud.) Template Gallery: All of these templates are a click away.Foundry As soon as you opt to pick a new document to open you’re presented with a whole host of templates that range from Calendars to notepads, journals and resumes, and you can open from Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage, too. That brings us nicely to the integration with Office365. The rise of Google Docs and other cloud-based options means that buying a full word processor isn’t a pressing concern for many of us. File Locations: Word can pull from a variety of file locations.Foundry Thankfully, the combined apps and services on offer with Microsoft Office 365 make it so you’ll probably find the value from somewhere, if not specifically Word. For one user it’s $99.99/£84.99 a year ($9.99/£8.49 a month) for Microsoft 265 Personal. Or for $129.99/£104.99 a year (or $12.99/£10.49 per month) you can get the Microsoft 365 Family edition with up to six licenses including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and more. However, if you only want to buy Word you can do that too. Microsoft sells a lifetime license of Word for $179.99/£159.99 (one device). Word is also available for free with 5GB of cloud storage and a series of basic templates, too. See: How to get Word for free. Microsoft Word features As you might expect from Microsoft, Word has a fairly business-like appearance, with easy to read labels and tooltips on the huge variety of buttons it offers. I’d still rather look at the more minimalist Pages interface, but Word on Mac does a good job of putting things in places your muscle memory knows to drift to. You can share documents in real-time, too, with comment and highlighting functionality included, and as you can imagine it’s very easy to share via OneDrive or Outlook. New in recent years is, as you may expect, AI integration. On the web comes in the form of Copilot which works a little like Apple’s own Apple Intelligence Writing tools, letting you write or rewrite with simple prompts, but in the Mac app it’s seemingly restricted to the Editor tool. AI Editor: The Editor is included on the Mac version of Word, but Copilot isn’t.Foundry It’s fine, and feels like the way the world is moving, but it really just operates as a quick checklist of potential grammar mistakes and a rudimentary plagiarism check. My favourite feature is the Focus mode that helps you zoom in with minimal distractions. I tend to work on articles in Draft for its simpler view, but this is definitely something I can see myself coming back to for longer pieces. Focus Mode: Focus Mode is a great way to minimise distractions and get work done.Foundry Microsoft Word annoyances Toolbars: Word packs a lot of items onto its toolbars.Foundry Microsoft Word’s only real negative is just how chock-full of options it is. Just look at the toolbar in the screenshot above, for example – there are buttons everywhere, and then there’s the menu bar, too. If you’re used to it, or you genuinely do find yourself using a lot of those features, you’ll have no issues here. But, as Microsoft shoehorns more AI features into its Office apps, it could end up getting more and more complex. Should you buy Word for Mac? Interface issues aside, Microsoft Word is a full-featured word processor that runs well on Mac, has an excellent ecosystem of sibling apps, and can be used for free. If you’ve not tried it for a while, it might just surprise you.

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TikTok ban suspended for 75 days, but Trump order may not be legal
The TikTok ban which came into effect on Sunday has been suspended for 75 days by an executive order signed by President Trump on his inauguration day. He has also said that US companies who provide services to TikTok during this time will not be prosecuted. However, legal scholars note that Trump’s order does not appear to comply with the law, and say that companies who make TikTok available remain liable for hundreds of billions of dollars of fines, so Apple is unlikely to return the app to the App Store … more…

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Apple's biggest innovation of the last 25 years isn't the iPhone
There's a new year upon us, with 2025 capping off a quarter-century of the modern Apple and its definitive role in personal computing innovation. In particular, 2025 marks 25 years of Apple's intuitive experience that turns elements of hardware and software into a magical coherence.Apple Park is the host for the next 25 years of Apple innovationsThese last twenty five years have represented the most critically important turn-around in the history of personal technology. In that quarter-century the formerly underdog "Apple Computer Inc" completely shed its beleaguered, clumsy, struggling image as the faded remains of the 1980's Macintosh company, hopelessly trying to remain relevant in a Microsoft Windows world.The tech media widely regarded Apple as simply flailing, indecisively pursuing ineffectual software and impractical hardware strategies to desperately patch together a reason for existing in what appeared to be a new age that had simply passed Apple up and left it to decay into the past. Just like Atari, Polaroid, Sega, or Kmart. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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New leak changes everything we know about the iPhone SE 4
Macworld With about two months to go until the launch of the new iPhone SE, we thought we had learned everything about the upcoming budget phone. But a new leak claims it will be a lot different than we thought. According to longtime leaker Evan Blass on X, the iPhone SE 4 will have a Dynamic Island instead of a notch. That contradicts basically every other rumor we’ve heard about the iPhone SE display, which has long been expected to have a notch. Apple first dropped the notch with the iPhone 14 Pro followed by the iPhone 15 a year later. Rumors have long claimed the iPhone SE 4 will be based on the iPhone 14, the last iPhone to have a notch. Foundry Granted, the rest of what we’ve heard about the iPhone SE 4 matches up with the iPhone 15, including a 48MP camera and USB-C. But if the iPhone SE 4 has a Dynamic Island, it changes everything we thought we knew about the phone. For one, Apple still sells the iPhone 15. If the iPhone SE 4 has the same design and display with a better chip, the only benefit of the iPhone 15 will be a secondary camera, which is a hard sell for a year-old phone that will likely cost $200 more and have a slower chip. And who would buy an iPhone 14 with a notch and a Lightning port when the brand-new iPhone SE 4 is cheaper? If Blass is correct, it likely means that Apple will change its iPhone strategy and distill the lineup down to just five models: the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, and iPhone SE 4. Or maybe 16E, though Blass also reports that the iPhone SE name will stick around. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone SE 4 in March or April, possibly at a spring event alongside the 11th-gen iPad.

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Apple @ Work Podcast: The Mac @ Work report
Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple. In this episode of Apple @ Work, I talk with Tim Lydon from Wipro about their recent Mac @ Work report. more…

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Review: SwitchBot Wallet Finder is an incredibly useful accessory to track your wallet with iPhone Find My
I have an on my keychain to keep track of my keys, but obviously an AirTag is too big and bulky to fit inside a wallet. That’s what the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is for. Disguised inside a thin, credit-card form factor, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder connects to the Find My app on your iPhone, so you can follow its location, and it even houses a speaker so you can make it beep to help you find your wallet when it inevitably gets lost somewhere in your home. Read on for my review … more…

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Team up with Apple at your own risk
Macworld Thinking about forging a multi-million or even billion-dollar deal with Apple? Hey, we’ve all been there. You’re sitting around on a Tuesday afternoon, watching old episodes of Columbo in your underwear while eating string cheese that’s past its best-by date and you think, “I should do a big-time deal with Apple!” Well, hold on, Fabio (can the Macalope call you “Fabio”?). Before you ink that deal, you might want to take a look at how some of the other partners Apple’s taken on over the years have faired. Because it’s not always great for the other guy. HP In 2004, HP started selling special branded iPods. No, really, this happened. You can look it up. HP agreed not to make a rival digital music player through August of 2006 and Apple agreed to not laugh so hard that milk came of its nose. Apple was so into this deal that these iPods had to be repaired by HP, even though they were just standard iPods with an HP logo on them. HP’s CEO was soon forced out and the deal was terminated before anyone could figure out what the heck it was all about. Grade: Incomplete, no credit This photo was not created using AI. It’s real.Wikipedia/keegan Motorola In 2005, Apple partnered with Motorola on the Rokr, a device that literally everyone agreed was garbage. Limited to 100 songs that could only be transferred to the phone by low-speed USB, the Rokr was eclipsed by the iPod Nano, which was unveiled on the same day. The following year, Motorola unveiled an update that worked with RealPlayer (remember RealPlayer?) instead of iTunes. You can imagine what a hit that was. Apple, meanwhile, was working on the smartphone that would essentially drive Motorola and dozens of other cell phone manufacturers out of business. Only Goldman Sachs could make this deal look slightly better in comparison by losing a metric butt-ton of cash. Grade: D Cingular/AT&T Apple eased its way into the cellular business without a lot of pain and Cingular got exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in the U.S. for four years. Cingular clearly gave up a lot of control, but it also got something extraordinarily valuable in return. Somewhere Stan Sigman is still monotonously reading from cue cards about this deal, even though he died four years ago. Grade: B Intel Usually, if Apple is buying something from you, it’s a relatively good relationship (as long as you don’t mess anything up). Foxconn has done alright. So has Samsung. Intel did fine for years, but it really missed the memo on processors for mobile devices. Most of this is the fault of Intel itself, but Apple was also quietly improving its iPhone processors so they could be used in Macs to run fast with very low power consumption. Intel was sailing along as if nothing had changed since 1997. Grade: C- Google Google has largely done fine in its relationship with Apple, you know, other than getting into an argument about Maps and having to deal with lawsuits about Android. Its lucrative search deal has drawn the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, but it’s likely that some well-time donations to the incoming administration’s inauguration will snuff that out. Definitely a passing grade, if not terribly high. Grade: B- Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs partnered with Apple on the Apple Card and, boy, does it wish it had not done that. How do you lose $859 million in a year? Who does that? Probably a company that’s used to having the taxpayers bail it out, that’s who. Goldman’s mistake here seems to have been rushing so fast to get into the consumer business that it didn’t A) ask itself it was capable of getting into the consumer business and B) read the fine print on its deal with Apple. Something something ground war in Asia, something something going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Grade: F Nike Apple has been selling Nike-themed Watches and bands for years now and this relationship largely works because Apple and Nike are in completely different lines of business (same with Hermès). You might think, hey, so are Apple and Goldman Sachs! But, no, not according to the U.S. government. Grade: A- The Macalope isn’t saying you can’t win by partnering with Apple. Clearly you can do fine and there are, of course, many non-monetary benefits to partnering with an 800-lb gorilla. But, you should expect that the gorilla is going to get more of the bananas than you are. If you go into the relationship thinking, hey, lotta bananas to be had by partnering with this gorilla because people keep throwing it bananas, think again. There are a lot of bananas that will be thrown, yes, but you’ll mostly get left with the peels and maybe those little stringy bits no one likes. By the way, there are no flaws in this gorilla analogy. None.

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Rumor: Apple to introduce M3-based iPad Air this year
Apple’s next-gen iPad Air may feature an M3 chip which was confirmed on Monday by known leaker Evan Blass. Over on X, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning forthcoming 11-inch iPad Air, 13-inch iPad Air, and iPad 11 models. Blass currently holds a good track record with leaks, and […] Source

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Exclusive: EaseUS ToDo Backup for Mac 3.7.2 crash bug discovered when running macOS Sequoia 15.2
There are times when a company truly jumps the shark and refuses to take responsibility for its mistakes. In the case of utility software company EaseUS, this has become apparent with EaseUS ToDo Backup for Mac 3.7.2, which crashes every time the “Destination” button is clicked while creating a new backup under Apple’s macOS Sequoia […] Source

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It’s time to drop kick Dropbox and get cloud storage without the recurring fees
Macworld We’re of the opinion that a new year means a new you, and the new you shouldn’t be paying subscription fees for cloud storage. Instead of giving Dropbox a chunk of change every month, why not own 10TB of cloud storage after just one payment? Yup, lifetime access to Internxt cloud storage is now only $244.99 (reg. $2,999) with coupon code STORAGE30. It’s a big figure upfront, but consider this—a similar Dropbox plan takes $15 away from you monthly. If you do the math, this Internxt offer pays for itself after 18 months. Just like Dropbox, Internxt comes in a mobile and desktop app format for easy access. It’s simple to use, too. Just open the app, select the files you want to transfer, and ditch your old cloud subscription forever! For reference, 10TB could store 2.5 million photos, 2,000 hours of HD video, and 20 million documents. It sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that this plan could last you forever, or at least in the near future. And don’t worry, everything you upload on Internxt is protected with complete end-to-end encryption so no one but yourself or an intended recipient can view it. Make 2025 the year you kick your cloud subscription to the curb. Grab lifetime access to 10TB of Internxt cloud storage for $244.99 with code STORAGE30. This offer expires February 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT, and supplies are limited!   Internxt Cloud Storage Lifetime Subscription: 10TB Plan Only $244.99 at Macworld StackSocial prices subject to change.

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How to get the Apple TV Snoopy screensaver on your Mac
Alongside its famously gorgeous landscape and cityscape screensavers, Apple TV 4K set top boxes now feature animated Snoopy screensavers. Here's how to get them onto your Mac.You can get Apple TV 4K's Snoopy screensavers onto your MacSince Apple TV acquired the rights to screen classic "Charlie Brown" shows, and make new ones, it also added the cartoon's Snoopy to the Apple Watch. Then from tvOS 18.2, Apple TV 4K has gained four animated Snoopy screensavers.Getting them from Apple TV to your Mac turns out to take many steps, but they're each quite simple. And the reward for your efforts is to see: Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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