Apple TV announces new holiday film specials and free offerings
Apple TV has announced its lineup of holiday-themed offerings for viewers, including classic holiday specials that can be viewed even without a subscription. Here are all the details. more…

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This dock transforms the Mac mini into a retro classic Mac
It’s becoming increasingly rare to find a tech accessory in 2025 that’s both functional and fun to use. As so many of these accessories become more commoditized, they begin to function and look the same, making them fade into the background. So when I saw the Wokyis Retro Docking Station for the M4 Mac mini, I was immediately intrigued. It transforms the Mac mini into something straight out of 1984. On paper, it had all the functions I needed out of a dock, but it was also such a cool-looking product. After using it for three weeks, it checked off every box. Here is what you need to know. more…

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Avast Free Antivirus for Mac review: Basic protection, for free
Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Easy installation and setup Solid customization options such as whitelists, exceptions, and scheduled scans Handy network tools like Traffic Monitor and Network Inspector Cons Steady stream of ads, upgrade prompts, and assorted locked features The Web Guard module failed to catch obvious scam links The Scam Guard failed to detect scam, phishing, and ransom attempts Our Verdict Avast Free Antivirus for Mac delivers on its historically strong antivirus/anti-malware tools and offers some interesting network tools. However, the inConsistent web filtering and the failure of its AI-powered Scam Guard module, drags down the free version of one of the better security options for macOS.  Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Retailer Price Avast Software – Avast Free Antivirus Free View Deal Avast Software – Avast One Essential Free View Deal Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Avast Free Antivirus Retailer Price Avast Software – Avast Free Antivirus Free View Deal Avast Software – Avast One Essential Free View Deal Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket There’s a distinction that every software company’s marketing department has to make in terms of what’s a demo, what’s a free trial, what’s a teaser, and what’s the fully-featured version of a product it intends to release. The free version of Avast Security for the Mac, Avast Free Antivirus, combines a powerful antiviral/anti-malware core with several other modules, each with its own varying degree of success. Downloading and installing the software is simple; Avast Free Antivirus requires macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or later to install. The installer, somewhat surprisingly, places an uninstaller application in your Mac’s Applications folder for easy removal, a nod to convenience. Once installed, the software both creates a network extension for itself and requests full access to your Mac’s hard drive, which is handled without any undue fuss by the installer. Like similar Mac antivirus applications, Avast’s antivirus suite is centered around several modules (Smart Scan, Virus Scans, Scam Guardian, Traffic Monitor, Network Inspector, Email Guard, Ransomware Shield, Core Shields, and Quarantine), each with its own settings and functions. The Smart Scan updates virus definitions and performs a surface-level viral scan, while its Advanced Issues feature scans for ransomware, network vulnerabilities, and fake website threats. However, you will need to subscribe to unlock additional features. Expect ads to pop up frequently offering Avast Security’s upgraded subscription package and its expanded feature set. Other modules, such as Traffic Monitor, follow up on features available in previous versions, and it’s fun to see where your internet traffic is traveling through and how much data you’re using. The Network Inspector takes this to the next level and offers a full network scan as well as a list of every device currently on the network, so you can be made aware if a device has connected that shouldn’t be there. Granted, this is only a casual set of network controls compared to a dedicated application, but it’s a nice tool to have on hand if you’re curious as to what’s happening on your network. The Virus Scans module is the heart of the app as you would expect, and there’s a lot to complement it on. Avast’s viral definitions are up to date, the application can scan .zip and .dmg archives, there’s a good level of customization with the preferences, and it’s easy to build a whitelist. Scanning external volumes is easy, and the scheduling function works well, but the function itself doesn’t jump up and declare that it’s running; you have to go into the Virus Scans module to watch it function. The Deep Scan feature is speedy, even if it could benefit from a timer declaring how much time has passed and/or an ETA as to how much time is remaining, and the overall antiviral element teams up well with the macOS’ Gatekeeper and Xprotect systems, which block everything that’s suspect (you genuinely have to bypass various dialog screens warning you as to what you’re about to do wrong to install malware). This, in turn, corresponds well with the Core Shields module, making it that much harder to install malware on your Mac. The free version of Avast’s Antivirus found lots of threats. Foundry Unfortunately, the remaining modules are locked by subscription. The Email Guard module is handy and ties into 22 different types of email accounts (such as Gmail, Outlook, etc.), but it is only available with a Premium account, and there’s no option to try it out without paying (with a subscription it provides decent warnings about spam and scam emails.) The Web Guard module’s success rate is sporadic, and after clicking through to dozens of questionable links in my Gmail spam folder, it let me visit the link that claimed I had an almost $14,000 cash payment waiting for me, but caught other scam-related links and directed me away from them as needed. Ransomware Shield, the accompanying sister module, also requires an upgraded account to access, and again, no demo is available in the free version, presenting a missed opportunity to show what the software is capable of. The Scam Guard module, an AI-assisted application, didn’t work very well in the free version of Avast Antivirus Free. You can drag and drop emails, images, and other files onto it in order to determine how scam-related they might be. Unfortunately this wound up being a disaster. While an innocuous .jpg file of a sleeping puppy came up as non-scam-related, when I dropped more questionable emails onto it, it offered no feedback that the content was linked to something scam-related. Just a cute puppy. Foundry The module failed completely when I dropped in a PDF file of a Bitcoin ransom scam email, claiming I’ve been videotaped via my webcam and that this would be sent to my friends, family, and contacts unless several thousand dollars were sent via Bitcoin to the sender. This is the height of a phishing attempt, a ransom attempt through and through, which the Scam Guardian module failed to interpret correctly. The AI assistant was of no help whatsoever. Just how much you should expect from a free antivirus is arguable, but Avast does clain that the Free Antivirus includes the AI-powered anti-scam protection, defense against online scams, and safer browsing and emailing, so really it’s fair to expect that those elements would work. Avast will readily let you know that its Ultimate subscription tier is available for free for 60 days, and all you have to do is enter a credit or debit card or PayPal information to set this up, and it states that nothing is due today and that you’ll receive a reminder seven days before billing. If you wish to upgrade from Avast’s free version, the retail version sells for $4.09 per month for the first year with support for one Mac, or $49.08 for the first year if paid in full. Read our full review of Avast Premium Security. Should you use Avast Free Antivirus Is Avast’s free version worth trying out? Yes. The antiviral/anti-malware core is as good as it ever was, if not better, and the supporting modules largely round it out and add to its functionality. Still, the Web Guard is hit or miss, the Scam Guard felt like the Hindenburg on an off day during testing, and the constant barrage of reminders to upgrade to the paid subscription tiers is annoying. There’s something credible here, but this application doesn’t know where it stands between freeware, trialware, and a fully-featured retail version, and there’s something to be said for releasing a fully-featured trial version for a given period of time and letting the user see what the software can actually do.

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WhatsApp now supports passkeys for backups
Your live WhatsApp messages and backups are both protected by end-to-end encryption, but so far you’ve only had the option of using a passkey to access your messages. Accessing backups required a password instead. That’s all changing now as the company is in the process of rolling out passkey support for backups … more…

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Deck the halls this holiday season with Apple TV
Apple TV celebrates the most wonderful time of the year with an expansive lineup of programming for the whole family, including the all-new… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.

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Mother Describes the Dark Side of Apple's Family Sharing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple's Family Sharing feature can be weaponized by a former partner. Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways... [...] Namely, Family Sharing gives all the control to one parent, not to both equally. The parent not identified as the organizer is unable to withdraw their children from this control, even when they have a court order granting them custody. As one woman's story shows, this can allow the feature which allows it to be weaponized by an abusive former partner. Wired reports: "The lack of dual-organizer roles, leaving other parents effectively as subordinate admins with more limited power, can prove limiting and frustrating in blended and shared households. And in darker scenarios, a single-organizer setup isn't merely inconvenient -- it can be dangerous. Kate (name changed to protect her privacy and safety) knows this firsthand. When her marriage collapsed, she says, her now ex-husband, the designated organizer, essentially weaponized Family Sharing. He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group. But without his consent, the children couldn't be transferred to a new one. "I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I'd be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer," says Kate. But Apple couldn't help. Support staff sympathized but said their hands were tied because the organizer holds the power." Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Expect more AI slop in Instagram, and more ads in Threads
Today isn’t a great day for users of Meta apps. Mark Zuckerberg has told us to expect a “huge corpus” of AI content in Facebook and Instagram, while the company’s CFO Susan Li has said that ads in Threads are now running globally and that video ads are on the way … more…

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Don't get too excited yet about the China tariff cut
Thursday's announcement about a halving of tariffs on goods shipped from China only applies to the summer's back-and-forth between the two nations, and not the "reciprocal" tariffs applied in April that Apple has already warned about.Tim Cook and Donald Trump in a meeting at the White House in 2018Apple won an exemption on future semiconductor tariffs — at least temporarily — after investing $100 billion in the US. But it is still subject to Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, and the new truce negotiated with China does not affect that.According to the New York Times, Trump has agreed with China's Xi Jinping, to halve his fentanyl-related tariffs, which were announced over summer 2025. In its turn, China has agreed to suspend for a year its limits on exporting rare earth materials. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Proton Data Breach Observatory reports as soon as your personal data hits the dark web
Security-conscious readers probably already use the data breach alert site Have I Been Pwned, but a new Proton website is aiming to alert you at an earlier stage with what the company says will be near real-time reporting. The company behind ProtonMail says it has launched the Data Breach Observatory because it can sometimes take too long to find out when your personal data has been made available for sale on the dark web … more…

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US tariffs on Chinese imports affecting Apple are halved; threatened raises suspended
Apple and/or its customers were facing billions of dollars a year in additional costs after increases to US tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the Trump administration earlier this year. The company had initially absorbed these costs, but it was unclear how long that might last, with future price rises seeming likely. There’s some good news today, however, with Trump halving the additional tariffs imposed after meeting with China’s President Xi. Additional tariff increases that were scheduled to come into effect shortly have also been suspended … more…

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Apple Watch Ultra 3 review: A leap forward towards perfection
Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Huge long-lasting battery Robust design Satellite connection High blood pressure notifications Cons Takes a while to charge fully Our Verdict It’s not cheap, but the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is worth Considering for its mighty battery alone. A good choice for outdoorsy Apple fans. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Price When Reviewed$799 Best Prices Today: Apple Watch Ultra 3 Retailer Price $779 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Whereas the Apple Watch Ultra 2 offered very minimal upgrades two years ago, the Ultra 3 is a complete overhaul of Apple’s rugged outdoor smartwatch. In addition to the expected leap to a new chip, the manufacturer has given the device a longer-lasting battery and a bigger and better screen. There is also new connectivity that could come in handy on wilderness hikes. In addition to the switch from LTE to 5G, the smartwatch can use satellite connections to contact emergency services or share your location with contacts. So it’s not a minor update. But is it a worthwhile one? Read on to find out. Apple Watch Ultra 3: Bigger and better display If you place the Ultra 1 and Ultra 3 next to each other, you’l notice how thin the display edges have become. Apple says they’re 24 percent thinner, while the display area has increased by five percent. Apple Watch Ultra 3 (left) and Ultra 1 (right) Apple has also improved the screen technology. As a result, the contents of the display can be seen sharply and clearly even from unfavourable angles. Last but not least, scratch resistance is excellent. I tried several times to scratch the screen with my keys, without success. Apple Watch Ultra 3: The perfect hiking companion I took the Ultra 3 on a three-day hike in the Steinernes Meer to see how it behaves under stressful conditions. On the battery front, it lived up to Apple’s promises, lasting almost two days on a single charge. I fully charged it on Thursday evening and went to bed with it. On Friday, we started our multi-day tour in Schönau, and the watch recorded a six-hour hike; I had loaded it with offline maps of the area and used it as a satnav. On the second day, we had a long and strenuous hike lasting 11 hours, of which the watch recorded eight. I only put it on a power bank in my bag towards the end of the tour. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make an emergency call on the tour, but the Ultra 3 indicated with its satellite icon that network coverage is almost non-existent in the high mountains. On the Ingolstädter Haus, you had to go as far as the cable car ascent to send a message; during the three days on the trail, mobile coverage was spotty at several locations. Having the satellite connection was a reassuring backup for emergencies. On the negative side, the Ultra 3 with its dual-band GPS still had problems finding its exact location in certain locations, such as between two high mountain faces. During the ascent via the Saugasse to the Kärlinger Haus, the WorkOutDoors app reported several times that I had deviated from the route, even though this is practically impossible: a single path leads to the plateau, which is bordered on both sides by the Sigeretplatte and the Simetsberg. Nevertheless, you can clearly see from the recorded route that the Ultra 3 made several mistakes. Halyna Kubiv / Foundry Despite these quibbles, the Ultra 3 is the perfect companion for multi-day hiking tours. The large battery easily lasts for two days, even if you navigate using the watch. And the new satellite antenna ensures a connection even in remote locations. The only thing Apple still can’t do magically is GPS. The Ultra 3 sometimes loses its exact location in gullies and ravines, and hiking apps can falsely report that you have strayed from the route. With or without the Ultra 3, you still have to rely on your own senses and not rely entirely on digital assistance. Apple Watch Ultra 3: Gold standard for heart-rate measurement The Apple Watch Ultra 3 measures heart rate very accurately. As a comparison reference device, I wore the Polar H10 chest strap during training sessions and synchronised the data with Apple Health. On my first attempt, I did two stretching sessions over the weekend. The two devices, Ultra 3 and Polar H10, show a correlation of 96.1 percent cumulatively across all workouts. This means that the values from the Apple Watch Ultra 3 correspond exactly to the values from the Polar H10 96.1 percent of the time. The latter is a gold standard in heart rate measurement and is even used in clinical studies, so it’s a strong benchmark for accurate performance.

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'Long Island Compromise' drama looks for new home after Apple TV passes
The television dramatization of best-selling novel "Long Island Compromise" has been dropped by Apple TV before production begins.Apple TV was originally launched as Apple TV+Taffy Brodesser-Akners novel had been the subject of a bidding war between studios, before being successfully bought by Eden Productions. That meant the project was then offered to Apple as Eden's executive producer Richard Pepler is nearing the end of a five-year deal with Apple TV.According to Variety, Apple turned down the project. It's not clear how far the show got with Apple TV — the novel was subject to a bidding war before its July 2024 publication. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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This Apple News+ word game is better than Wordle, Connections, and Strands
Macworld Back when News+ launched in 2019, the value was somewhat debatable. While the $9.99 service offered access to hundreds of magazines as well as “premium online publications,” it paled in comparison to the New York Times’ All-Access subscription’s array of content, including recipes, sports, podcasts, and, most importantly, games. Over time, that began to change. iOS 16.5 added a dedicated Sports tab for scores, standings, and related coverage, and later that year, Apple began offering daily crossword and crossword mini puzzles with iOS 17, and introduced News+ Food with restaurant reviews and recipes earlier this year. In late 2023, Apple hiked the price from $9.99 to $12.99 a year, but it’s still a better value than when it launched for 30 percent less. It’s a little Google News, a little Zinio, and a little ESPN all rolled into one. I’m an Apple One subscriber, but even if I dropped that, I’d still subscribe to Apple News+. But the reason isn’t the news. It’s the games. Apple News+ includes five puzzles that subscribers can play each day: Crossword and Crossword Mini, Quartiles, Sudoku, and Emoji Game. The crosswords and sudoku games are self-explanatory, and Quartiles is a fun Boggle-esque word game that challenges you to create compound words from a set of 20 fragments. Apple’s Emoji Game is a perfect mix of fun, challenging, and addicting.Apple They’re all fun, but ever since Emoji Game arrived on July 17 to mark World Emoji Day, I’ve been hooked. It’s as addictive as Wordle, more challenging than Strands, and as clever as Connections. The concept is simple. Each day, there are three short phrases with blanks corresponding to an emoji-based word. Each phrase has a clue that is only partially revealed, so the challenge is two-fold: figure out the phrase with only a part of a clue, and then figure out which emoji sequence fills in the missing letter. A perfect score is 6, and each wrong answer or clue reveal adds a point to the score. Some emoji clues replace full words, others are parts of words or span two words. For example, Wednesday’s first puzzle showed “Intelligent birds…” under a 7-letter word broken down into one three-word and one four-word blank. Tapping the clue revealed “Intelligent birds in the crow family,” and the answers were MAG (an emoji of an open magazine) and PIES (two pie emojis). It’s harder than it looks and requires a specific way of reasoning to figure out. Sometimes you need to figure out the phrase first, other times, recognizing one of the emoji clues will help make sense of a phrase. It’s fun, challenging, and clever, and only takes a couple of games to get completely hooked. It’s the first thing I do in the morning now, even before Wordle and Connections. You’ll need to be an Apple News+ subscriber to play ($12.99 per month, free one-month trial), however, and it’s not so easy to find if you haven’t played before. To get to the games tab on an iPhone, launch the News app, then tap the search icon at the bottom right of the menu bar, and then navigate to Puzzles. There you’ll find the Emoji Game with today’s games spotlighted along with a full archive going back to July. If you can’t stop playing, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Dynamic Island Could Be Coming on the iPhone 17e
Digital Chat Station, a leaker on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, reports that the iPhone 17e could be receiving the Dynamic Island feature. Information was shared in the comments section of a post that talks about the company’s plan to give the iPhone 18 Pro a variable-aperture lens system. Dynamic Island is an interactive […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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iPhone 18 Pro Could Be Receiving A Variable Aperture Camera
A Chinese leaker with alleged Apple supply chain-sourced information reveals that the iPhone 18 models are anticipated to have lens with variable aperture. Digital Chat Station, an account on Weibo, reports that the variable-aperture system will be seen on the 48MP Fusion camera for both models of the iPhone 18 Pro. This would be a […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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Ghost Posts Coming To Threads App
Threads will be receiving support for disappearing posts called Ghost posts, as recently announced by Meta. These pieces of text will be archived automatically after 24 hours, and any replies from the ghost post will be sent to the user’s inbox as direct messages. They appear in the form of chat bubbles with a background […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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Apple releases Pico-Banana-400K dataset to AI research community
If nothing else, Apple is participating in the artificial intelligence community. On Wednesday, the company released Pico-Banana-400K, a highly curated 400,000-image research dataset which was built using Google’s Gemini-2.5 models. The research team, which published a study entitled “Pico-Banana-400K: A Large-Scale Dataset for Text-Guided Image Editing,” released the full 400,000-image dataset under a non-commercial research […] Source

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Apple distributes iOS 26.1 Release Candidate to both the developer and public beta tester communities
Apple’s first major update to iOS 26 is en route in the form of iOS 26.1, and on October 28th, the Release Candidate went out the door to the developer community with a public release expected sometime next week. Here’s what can be expected from the update at this point: The betas can be installed […] Source

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Macworld Podcast: iPhone 18 and what we know (so far)
Macworld Apple has big plans for the iPhone 18 lineup in 2026. We discuss the latest reports in this episode of the Macworld Podcast. This is episode 957 with Michael Simon, Jason Cross,  and Roman Loyola.  Watch episode 957 on YouTube Listen to episode 957 on Apple Podcasts

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Apple eases App Store review rules for developers
Developers now get more flexibility with the App Store review process, as they can upload new materials while an app is still under review. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

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