Vision Pro international rollout beckons as China approves release
We’re expecting the Vision Pro international rollout to happen not long after WWDC, and we’ve now seen another element of the plan fall into place. An “Apple wearable computer” has been granted the Chinese quality and safety accreditation it needs to be released for sale in the country … more…

Read more »

Vision Pro will soon be able to show live captions of everything being spoken around you
Today in advance of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple outlined a variety of exciting new accessibility updates coming to its platforms later this year. From bringing the Vision Pro’s eye tracking tech to the iPad and iPhone, to music haptics, and more. One new accessibility feature coming to Vision Pro users is Live Captions. Built especially for the deaf or hard of hearing, Live Captions will—as the name implies—take everything being spoken around you and present it in written form, all in real-time. more…

Read more »

Apple published a new Press Release
Apple just published a new Press Release:Apple announces new accessibility features, including Eye Tracking

Read more »

Best iPad for students 2024
Macworld Preparing for student life can be exciting and stressful. To make things easier, it’s good to know that you’ve got the right tech to help you write your essays, take notes in lessons, and kick back with Netflix and games when the work is done. The iPad has evolved in recent years to something that can now act as a laptop replacement for many students, with accessories like the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil making it one of the most versatile devices you can buy.  Choosing the best iPad can be tricky, as Apple currently offers a wide range of models with different prices and features, including the M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air models updated in May 2024. Can students get discounts on iPads? Students can save money on all sorts of Apple products by shopping at Apple’s education store in their country. Apple offers money off new iPad purchases to students in higher education all year round. In a separate article, you can read all about how to get an Apple Student Discount. Plus, if you’re a student and you buy an iPad (or a Mac) from Apple, you might be able to get a free gift such as a pair of AirPods or vouchers while the company’s “Back To Uni” event is running. (This usually runs from June to September in the U.S. and Canada, and from July to October in the U.K. and January to March in Australia, New Zealand and other southern hemisphere locations). Click on the following links for the Education stores in the countries where most of our readers reside: Apple’s U.S. Education Store Apple’s U.K. Education Store (in the U.K. you will need to verify your student status via UNiDAYS). Apple’s Canada Education Store Apple’s Australian Education Store Another bonus if you’re a student: you can get Apple Music for half price with free Apple TV+ included. How much can students save on an iPad? Students can save as much as $100 in the U.S., £100 in the U.K., $170 in Australia, and $150 in Canada if they buy from the education store. ProductU.S.U.K.AustraliaCanadaiPad (10th gen) MSRP$349£349$599$499iPad (10th gen) Student Price$329£329$559$469iPad mini MSRP$499£499$829$679iPad mini Student Price$449£449$749$609iPad Air (11-inch, M2) MSRP$599£599$999$799iPad Air (11-inch, M2) Student Price$549£549$919$729iPad Air (13-inch, M2)MSRP$799£799$1,299$1,099iPad Air (13-inch, M2) Student Price$749£749$1,219$1,029iPad Pro (11-inch, M4) MSRP$999£999$1,699$1,399iPad Pro (11-inch, M4) Student Price$899£899$1,529$1,249iPad Pro (13-inch, M4) MSRP$1,299£1,299$2,199$1,799iPad Pro (13-inch, M4) Student Price$1,199£1,199$2,029$1,649Apple’s discounted price for students compared to the usual price. How to get an iPad student discount Apple offers a student discount via its country-specific education stores. To recap: Apple’s U.S. Education Store Apple’s U.K. Education Store (in the UK you will need to verify your student status via UNiDAYS). Apple’s Canada Education Store Apple’s Australian Education Store Depending on your location you may only need to sign up with details of your student status and course and prove your identity. Some countries have less stringent checks than others. In the U.K. you need to be registered with UNiDAYS in order to even see the student prices. We explain how to do this in our article How to get an Apple student discount. To qualify for a discount you also need to meet Apple’s conditions. You either need to be a student in higher education, or a teacher at a teaching institution. The only way to get a discount for a child still at school is to be home educating them or to be a teacher yourself. If you can’t get a student discount that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get money off a new iPad though. Read our round-up of the best iPad deals. You will also find links to the best deals for each iPad below. Best iPad for students 11-inch iPad Air (2024, M2): Best All-Rounder Pros M2 processor 128GB of storage in base model Lots of color options Cons It's not cheap Price When Reviewed: $599 (128GB, Wi-Fi only) Best Prices Today: $599 at Apple The 11-inch iPad Air (M2), with its 11-inch display, modern design, low weight (462g), great cameras, and hugely powerful processor, is a great choice for students. Unfortunately, it’s a bit on the pricey side for a tablet, with the current prices starting at $599/£599, but this does now include 128GB of storage, which is double that of the baseline iPad Air (2022, M1) it replaces. This makes it the perfect combination of power, storage and features, for a price that isn’t unreasonable, and one we can heartily recommend for those starting out on their studies.   The biggest feature of the 2024 model is the inclusion of the M2 processor. This is the same chip that powered the previous generation of iPad Pro models, not to mention several of the new Macs. In an iPad Air, it makes the device fly.  The camera is a 12MP Wide lens (also like on the iPad Pro), which can record video up to 4K/60fps, and as with other iPads on this list, the front-facing camera is a 12MP Ultra-Wide that allows for Center Stage and is now sensibly positioned on the longer side of the chassis to allow landscape views. Essentially, the 2024 iPad Air is a 2022 iPad Pro for a cheaper price. The only major feature it’s missing is the 120Hz ProMotion screen refresh rate, but that’s hardly something most people will even notice.  There are plenty of colors to choose from, and if you want to complete the Apple flavoured package then the 11-inch iPad Air supports the Magic Keyboard ($299/£299), Apple Pencil Pro ($129/£129) and Apple Pencil Pencil USB-C ($79/£79). If you prefer a larger display, then there is also the 13-inch iPad Air (M2) that comes with all the same specs and features, and starts at $799/£799. We highly recommend the 11-inch iPad Air (M2) for students who need premium performance and the best iPad you can buy without the Pro name. How much can students save on the iPad Air? MSRP: $599 / £599 / AU$999 / CA$799Student: $549 / £549 / AU$919 / CA$729 Students save: $50 / £50 / AU$80 / CA$70 Get the best deal on a new iPad Air. iPad (10th gen, 2022): Best Balance of Price and Power Pros Air-style design 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display Price reduced in May 2024 Cons 64GB storage on base model Requires dongle to power Apple Pencil (gen 1) Price When Reviewed: From $349 (64GB) | $499 (256GB) Best Prices Today: $334 at Amazon$349 at Adorama$349 at Apple Thanks to a recent price cut, and the retirement of the iPad 10.2-inch (9th gen), the iPad 10.9-inch (10th gen) model that arrived in October 2022 is now the cheapest iPad available from Apple. But that doesn’t mean it’s a budget device, as it features the same design approach as the iPad mini and iPad Air. This means you don’t have the traditional Home button, which has been replaced with swipe gestures and the Touch ID sensor repositioned in the power button on the top edge. This makes room for a larger display than on its predecessor, and ensures that the Home button is now officially a thing of the past. On this iPad, the a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, unlike on the mini, Air or Pro models, is unlaminated. This means there’s a slight air gap between the glass and the digitizer beneath. You probably won’t notice it at all, but if you intend to use the Apple Pencil for notes (gen 1 and USB-C are supported) then you may experience slight delays in the tracking. One welcome addition (that arrived with this model, and is now a feature of the M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air) is that the front-facing camera is located on the longer end of the panel, meaning it offers a true landscape view that’s centrally located. This is much better suited to FaceTime and other video calling apps. That new landscape 12MP Ultra Wide camera has a f/2.4 aperture that delivers a 122-degree view; it’s also compatible with the Center Stage feature that keeps you in the center of the frame even if you move about while on video calls. Apple bestows this iPad with a 12MP f/1.8 rear camera so you can get some great shots and shoot video 4K video at 60fps. If your course requires any kind of video content, then either the front or back optics of the iPad (10th gen) should prove more than sufficient, plus you can call home and look good doing so. An A14 Bionic processor is at the heart of the new iPad, which is the same chip that powered the iPhone 12 (including the Pros). So there’s more than enough power for word processing, note-taking, coding, and most other education apps, not to mention gaming and entertainment duties. The switch from a Lightning port to USB-C also opens up the ability to use various peripherals and even power an external display if you want the iPad to become more like a fully-fledged computer. Apple kits out the baseline model with 64GB, which feels a bit of a sore point in 2024. With this in mind, we’d recommend you opt for the 256GB version if you want to download plenty of movies and games or store all or your photos and videos on the device itself. Although this does push the price from $349/£349 (64GB) to $499/£499 (256GB). The extra space will serve you better in the long run, but if you don’t want to blow that extra cash, then there’s always the option of expanding your iCloud storage so that you can keep stuff safe in the cloud instead. There are four colors to choose from (Blue, Yellow, Silver, and Pink) so you should be able to find one that suits your personality, and for extra functionality, you could invest in the new two-piece Magic Keyboard Folio, although the $249/£249 price tag does seem very high. Of course, a standard Bluetooth keyboard will get you the same results for a lot less money. As mentioned above, the new iPad supports the first-generation Apple Pencil, but as the charging port is now USB-C you’ll need an adaptor from Apple if you’ve already bought the Pencil. Otherwise, the dongle is now included in the box when you buy a new Apple Pencil (1st gen). Of course, there’s also the compatible Apple Pencil (USB-C) which gets around the dongle madness. As you can see, there are a few caveats, but with its modern design, solid processor, and larger display, the 10.9-inch iPad (10th gen) is a great all-rounder that would prove a wise investment for those heading off to pursue their studies. For more information, you can read our iPad 10.9-inch (10th gen) guide. We expect to see an 11th-generation iPad at some point in 2024, more here: What you need to know about the 2024 iPad. How much can students save on the 10th gen iPad? MSRP: $349 / £349 / AU$599 / CA$499Students; $329 / £329 / AU$559 / CA$469 Students save: $20 / £20 / AU$40 / CA$30 Read our full 10th-gen 10.9-inch iPad (2022) review iPad mini (6th gen, 2021): Best for Note-Taking and Reading Pros Small and light Centre Stage for FaceTime calls Cons 64GB storage may be too limiting Price When Reviewed: From $499 (64GB) | $649 (256GB) Best Prices Today: $399.99 at Target $469 at Amazon$469 at Walmart If the most important factor to you is portability there’s one iPad in particular that you might want to consider. The iPad mini, last updated in September 2021 with an A15 Bionic and a brand-new design, is the smallest and lightest iPad you can buy, weighing in at 293g. Of course, the low weight is a result of the iPad itself being smaller, thanks to the 8.3-inch display (which is bigger than it used to be since Apple got rid of the Home button and relocated Touch ID to the power button on the top edge). The result is a compact but powerful device that doesn’t feel too small. We think this screen size is perfect for reading books or taking notes (especially with an Apple Pencil), so it may well be ideal if that’s how you intend to use your iPad. And don’t let the diminutive form fool you: the A15 Bionic chip is the same as that found in the iPhone 13 Pro Max, so there’s no shortage of power on tap. Connectivity is top-notch too, with support for Wi-Fi 6 and LTE 5G networks available, depending on the model you choose.  The front-facing camera is an Ultra-Wide lens, so it can track you and keep you in the center of the frame on video calls thanks to Center Stage, while the 12MP Wide camera on the back can capture great photos and videos that could be used in presentations or for media-based assignments.  There are two storage options available (64GB and 256GB) and, as with the 10.9in (10th gen) iPad, we’d recommend the larger of the two as it allows you to store more apps, music, movies, photos, and videos.  One disadvantage is that the mini only works with Bluetooth keyboards, rather than Apple’s range of iPad-specific keyboard, but whether that’s a significant disadvantage is debatable. It will definitely save you money. Prices start at $499/£499 for the 64GB model, with the 256GB option raising the cost to $649/£649. The good news is that in May 2024 Apple reduced the price of the mini outside the U.S., having increased it a couple of years back.    We hope to see a new iPad mini at some point in 2024, more here: iPad mini 7, what’s next? How much can students save on the iPad mini? MSRP: $499 / £499 / AU$829 / CA$679Students: $449 / £449 / AU$749 / CA $609 Students save: $50 / £50 / AU$80 / CA$70 Get the best deal on a new iPad mini. Read our full Apple iPad mini (6th gen, A15, 2021) review 11-inch iPad Pro (2024): Best for Power and Performance Pros M4 Processor OLED display Stupidly light and thin Cons Expensive Probably overkill for students Price When Reviewed: $999 (Wi-Fi only) Best Prices Today: $999 at Apple The Pro iPads are the pinnacle of Apple’s tablet range, and as such they feel like the power and price are probably overkill for your average student. That being said, if you want the best, then this is where you’ll find it. The 11-inch iPad Pro (M4), was introduced in May 2024, boasting incredibly light and thin construction, but with a stupid amount of power inside. In an unprecedented step, Apple introduced the new M4 processor in the iPad before the Mac, making the 11-inch iPad Pro and 13-inch iPad Pro the most up-to-date devices in the Apple catalog. The question really, is do you need all that grunt? If you’re after an iPad for taking notes, writing essays, watching Netflix, playing some games and using it for video calls home, then the iPad Air is a better balance of power and price. But, for those with money burning a hole in their pockets, and those planning to do a lot of gaming when they should be studying, the 11-inch iPad Pro comes with a new Ultra Retina XDR OLED display that has two layers (Apple calls this Tandem OLED) to produce the brightest panel they’re ever made, kicking out up to 1600 nits. It’s also ProMotion, with an ultra-smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Cameras are 12Mp sensors, with the rear unit a Wide lens that can record video up to 4K/60fps, plus ProRes capabilities which would be of interest to video content creators. The front-facing lens also has the TrueDepth array, allowing Face ID, which remains a Pro-only features on iPads. You get Centre Stage for video calls, and the placement of the camera on the longer edge means you get landscape view. The two size variants offer the same capabilities, with 256GB of storage the baseline, and prices starting at $999/£999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299/£1,299 for the 13-inch variant. As we’ve said, the iPad Pros are probably too much for your typical student, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t excellent products for those who can afford them and take advantage of all the power on offer. How much can students save on the 11-inch iPad Pro? MSRP: $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 / CA$1,399Students: $899 / £899 / AU$1,529 / CA$1,249 Students save: $100 / £100 / AU$170 / CA$150 Get the best deal on a new iPad Pro. iPad 10.2in (9th gen, 2021): Best Bargain Hunt iPad Pros Cheap Centre Stage support for FaceTime Compatible with any Bluetooth keyboard Cons No longer in production 64GB storage may be too little Price When Reviewed: $329 (64GB) | $479 (256GB) Best Prices Today: $249 at Amazon$249.99 at Best Buy$249.99 at Target Since we expect that students are likely to be looking to save money where they can, we’d suggest that the 10.2in iPad (9th gen) is the closest you can get to a bargain iPad. True, it is no longer in production, being discontinued in 2024 by Apple, but there should still be stock available from third-party sellers out there, and refurbished models could make the ticket price even lower. If you want an iPad to cover the basics, it offers enough performance and features to make it an excellent choice for many students. The final 2021 model featured the more than adequate A13 that previously powered the iPhone 11 range, plus the FaceTime cameras has an Ultra-Wide lens and support for Center Stage, making video calls home a lot better looking than on previous iPads. It can happily run the Microsoft Office apps for iPad if that is what you want to use, but there are free productivity apps from Apple and others that will make note-taking and working on assignments a doddle. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and you have a very workable laptop that should cope with most coursework demands. Support for Apple Pencil (gen 1) means you can annotate documents, sketch, and of course practice your handwriting.  The iPad 10.2-inch is still a great pick if you can find one and your demands aren’t too onerous. It will handle academic life with ease, and provide plenty of entertainment when lessons are over. One word of caution, though. The base model comes with only 64GB of storage, which in this day and age seems pretty mean. With that in mind, we’d recommend opting for the 256GB version as it would be more practical, albeit more expensive. As a rough guide, here’s the prices for the iPad (9th Gen) when it was still available from Apple – $329 / £369 / AU$549 / CA$449. Get the best deal on a new 10.2-inch iPad Read our full Apple iPad 10.2in (2021) review Should students buy an iPad or a laptop? Before you go ahead and buy your iPad you may want to consider its suitability for your purpose. As a student you probably have a few requirements: Low price Great apps for things like note-taking, recording lectures and revision Light enough to carry around all day Keyboard and stylus support Suitable for making video calls home You might be wondering whether a tablet or a laptop would be better for those needs, and if you lean towards the latter, take a look at our guide to the best Macs for students. We think, however, that an iPad is a great choice. It runs many of the apps you’ll find on a laptop, including Office apps like Word and PowerPoint and the Apple equivalents, and in some cases, an iPad is actually more powerful than a laptop thanks to the super-fast processors Apple uses. Another benefit is that you can have all the books you need for your course on your iPad and carry them with you to lectures and tutorials. You could even photograph pages from books in the library and use optical character recognition to save the text to your iPad. Not only do you not need to lug all your books around with you, but an iPad is also far lighter than even the lightest laptop, so you won’t get backache from carrying it to lectures and the library. With battery life of 10 hours–plenty for a day on campus–you aren’t going to need to find a space beside a plug socket in order to get through a day at uni. Think that having an iPad will mean you have to type on an on-screen keyboard. No! You could sync any Bluetooth keyboard or plug in one of Apple’s own iPad keyboards and effectively turn your iPad into a laptop. There’s also the Apple Pencil, which could come in useful if you wanted to jot down some notes on your iPad screen in a lecture. See Best stylus for iPad. And when you’ve finished studying there are loads of games, and apps for video calling your parents. Still not sure? We have more information comparing a MacBook laptop and an iPad. Are iPads good for students? The next question you might want some reassurance on is whether the iPad is the best option for a student. There are a lot of other tablets available, many of which are cheaper than an iPad. So you might be thinking of saving some money. We think if you do so you will regret it. There are many reasons why Apple’s iPads are so popular: The App Store is heaving with great apps designed specifically for the iPad. Many of those apps will be ideal for students: note-taking apps, apps for converting handwriting to text, apps for recording lectures, timetable management, and of course video calling (so you can stay in touch with mum and dad). There is an ecosystem of great accessories designed to work with the iPad. Apple’s iPadOS is stable and easy to use, especially if you already have an iPhone. If you’ve got a Mac you can use an iPad as a second screen, provided you’re running Big Sur or later.  Further reading That’s all of our student-related buying advice, but if you’re buying for someone younger, check out our guide to the best iPad for Kids. iPad

Read more »

Apple previews iOS 18 accessibility features including eye tracking and music haptics
Apple today announced new accessibility features that will debut later this year in iOS 18 and its other operating systems (although as usual, Apple does not specifically refer to ‘iOS 18’ prematurely). The headline addition is Eye Tracking, which will allow iPhone and iPad users with physical disabilities to control their devices just by looking at it with their eyes, with a new iOS gaze system somewhat similar to Vision Pro. Other new features include music haptics, Vehicle Motion Cues, Live Captions coming to visionOS, and more … more…

Read more »

As M4 iPad Pro arrives, Joz sets the record straight: ‘tablets suck, and iPads don’t’
Happy launch day! Whether you’re picking one up for yourself or dreaming about which configuration you’d order, there’s plenty of M4 iPad Pro material to go around this week. The latest insight into Apple’s vision for the iPad is included in an Apple exec interview by Harry McCracken for Fast Company. John Ternus and Greg Joswiak, or “Jozz,” talk M4, AI, OLED, and what makes the iPad a “Pro” machine. more…

Read more »

Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett understands Apple’s strong long-term value
Apple is Berkshire Hathaway's largest holding, accounting for nearly 40% of its stock portfolio, because Warren Buffett understands… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Read more »

Apple is upping its magnet game for a best-ever Smart Folio on the new iPads
Today is launch day for the M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air, so more users are starting to get their hands on the devices and making new discoveries about them. One such find came from MKBHD, who discovered how Apple is upping its magnet game with the new iPad Pro and Air to make its Smart Folio better and more versatile than ever. more…

Read more »

How fast will A18 in iPhone 16 be? The iPad Pro's M4 can tell us.
Apple is months away from launching the A18 chip in the iPhone 16 Pro. Apple's M4 can tell us a lot about what to expect from that chip, and maybe, a M3 Ultra.Apple chips are numbered sequentially. The next iPhone chip will likely be the A18. Apple's shift over to using its own chips has paid off for the tech company. The iPhone is leading the way with its processing capabilities after running on the A-series for quite a few years.On the Mac side, Apple Silicon is now in its fourth generation, and it too has rocked the PC industry in its own way. Indeed, it kinda rocked itself too, with M4 being announced before an expected M3 Ultra chip made it out of the supply chain. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Read more »

Shocking report claims the next iPad Air will have an M3 chip
Macworld The new M2 iPad Air has just hit shelves this week, but direct from the desk of Captain Obvious comes a new report about the next model. Brace yourself, because the next iPad Air, which will likely arrive at some point in 2025, will reportedly have an M3 processor. The shocking report, posted on X by a private account with “a proven track record of sharing accurate information about Apple’s plans,” according to Macrumors, didn’t offer any other details about the update, but we hear it’ll also have an 11-inch and 13-inch display, a single rear camera, and run iPadOS. We kid, of course, because Apple has clearly established its processor cadence for the iPad Air. With the latest round of updates, Apple put even more distance between the iPad Air and iPad Pro lines, bumping the iPad Pro to a brand-new M4 chip while the iPad Air jumped from the M1 to the M2. So it stands to reason that the next iPad Pro will have an M5 chip while the iPad Air gets the M3, keeping the same two-generation gap. Apple could have put an M3 in the latest Air, which would have still left the iPad Pro with a faster chip. Instead it gave it an older M2, which speaks to where the Air fits in the lineup. Going forward, we don’t need rumors to tell us that the Air and Pro will get the next respective M-series processor and stay two generations apart, while the iPad and iPad mini will likely stick with A-series chips that are a generation apart. iPad

Read more »

New iPads make it much easier to manage battery health
Up to now, checking an iPad's battery health was no simple task. But a new menu makes it easier in the new M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

Read more »

Apple Watch golfing functionality highlighted by Apple, ten years on
A new Apple press release highlights Apple Watch golfing apps, as Golfshot launches a new tool to analyse your golf swing on the range. The latest feature has been made possible by the high-frequency motion API Apple added in watchOS 10 … more…

Read more »

This wireless CarPlay adapter lets you watch videos on your car’s screen
Get turn-by-turn navigation, listen to YouTube and watch movies with this wireless CarPlay adapter and in-car streaming device. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

Read more »

iOS 17.5 is allegedly resurfacing pictures that were deleted years ago for some users
A bug in iOS 17.5 is allegedly resurfacing photos that were deleted years ago for some iPhone users, according to posts on Reddit. The affected iPhone users say that after updating to iOS 17.5 – which was released on Monday – there are a number of pictures in the Photos app that were deleted years ago. more…

Read more »

Apple published a new Press Release
Apple just published a new Press Release:Apple Watch is the perfect golfing companion

Read more »

New iPad Pro has larger magnets in different places and new speakers
The thin case of the new iPad Pro hides a redesign that sees brand new speakers alongside larger magnets for attaching to peripherals.Apple's new iPad ProApple's new iPad Pro is significantly thinner than its predecessor, and it now appears that in part to achieve that, its interior magnets and speaker arrangement have been redesigned. The iPad Pro still has quad speakers, one in each corner, and the magnets are used for attaching it to peripherals such as the Magic Keyboard.Magnets pic.twitter.com/zwHcVnICCR— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) May 15, 2024 Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Read more »

Skip Apple’s pricey Pencils and get this iPad stylus for just $20
Macworld Apple’s pencils are undeniably excellent, but they come with a hefty price tag. If you’re someone who often misplaces their stylus or simply can’t justify spending over $79 on a tablet pen, the Jamjake stylus is a wallet-friendly alternative currently priced at just $20 on Amazon, a 33 percent discount from its regular price and it’s a steal for those looking to save.  Let’s start with the basics. The Jamjake stylus is designed to work seamlessly with a wide range of iPad models. Whether you own an iPad, iPad Pro, iPad Air, or iPad Mini released after 2018, this stylus is for you. It’s important to note that it won’t function with older models or the latest 2024 iPads, for which you’ll still need the Apple Pencil Pro.  The Jamjake stylus will provide the accuracy you need when writing or drawing because it features a 1.5mm tip, which is slightly larger than the original Apple ones but still similar enough that you shouldn’t feel much of a difference. The tips are super easy to change, and there are plenty of extras in the package.  Despite being super affordable, it functions like an Apple Pencil, with an ergonomic design, precision writing, and palm rejection so you’ll be able to rest your hand on the screen without any accidental touches on the screen. The Jamjake stylus’s battery life is also comparable to that of Apple’s original models. A full charge takes about 15-20 minutes, and you can use it for upwards of 10 hours. While we haven’t had the opportunity to test this model ourselves, the product has garnered close to 87,000 reviews on Amazon alone, with an impressive 4.4/5 stars. The majority of users praise the quality of the product and its ease of use. One recent purchaser shared their experience, expressing their initial hesitation about using a stylus with their iPad. However, they were pleasantly surprised by the Jamjake stylus and concluded that there was no need to invest in the more expensive Apple originals.  Apple’s models are also on sale if you’re still unsure about getting the Jamjake stylus for $20. The Apple Pencil USB-C is $69 ($10 off), while the 2nd gen Apple Pencil is $79 ($50 off).  Snatch a $20 stylus pen for your iPad from Amazon Tablet Accessories

Read more »

Apple’s M2 iPad Air: ‘All the iPad most people will need’ – Ars Technica
Apple this month revealed the redesigned 11-inch and all-new 13-inch iPad Air, supercharged by the M2 chip. Now available… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Read more »

How to clear disk space on a Mac
Macworld Back in the days when Macs had hard drives we all had tons of space on our Macs, but the SSDs that feature in our Macs now are more limited in capacity, and high-res video, photos, music and other essential files take up more storage than ever. Running out of space can really hamper your computing: if you want your Mac to run quickly you need to make sure you’ve got something like 10 percent of your storage free at all times otherwise your Mac can really slow down (read: How to speed up a Mac). At worst if you don’t delete some of the things taking up storage space on your Mac you may even find you can’t start it up one day because the startup disk is full! You may already be seeing warnings that your start-up disk is almost full – you shouldn’t ignore them. You may also need to clear some space on your Mac if you are installing a macOS update. When Apple released macOS Big Sur in 2020, for example, a lot of Mac users found that they didn’t have enough free space to install the new macOS. We are anticipating similar problems when the next version of macOS arrives in September or October. Under those circumstances, you are likely to look for a quick and easy way to free up space on a Mac–so finding how to find out what is taking up the space on your Mac, and the best way to remove it, will be your priority. PROMOTIONCleanMyMac X | Clear your Mac’s disk Use CleanMyMac X to find hidden junk and free up the unseen cache files. Locatelarge old folders, background apps, and heavy memory consumers. Tune your Macfor maximum speed, keep it malware-free and secure. Make sure you use the Smart Scan weekly to help your computer stay productive all year round. Download Free Edition If you aren’t sure how to see how much disk space your Mac has read: How to check how much space you have on your Mac. In this article, we walk you through simple steps that will help you identify what is taking up space on your Mac, what you can and can’t delete, the safest way to remove the biggest space hogs, and how to manage the storage on your Mac so that you never run out of space again.  Step 1: Clear space on your Mac quickly There are lots of ideas below for freeing up disk space below, but if you are in a hurry and you don’t need a lot of space, or if you aren’t too bothered about making sure you don’t run out of space again, here are a few things you can do right now:  Click on your Downloads folder in the Dock, open it in the Finder and select the contents, or any files you don’t need, right-click and choose Move to Bin/Trash. Open the Finder and navigate to your Home folder (press Shift-command-H). Now press Command-F to open a search window. Click on the first drop-down and choose ‘File Size’. Now in the next dropdown choose ‘is greater than’. Change file size to MB and type 100 into the box besides that. You can sort by Size to make it easier. Now select anything that you don’t need that’s bigger than 100MB and chose Move to Bin/Trash. (We found a number of Payloads files here, but we don’t recommend deleting them because they are part of the macOS Install Data and deleting them may stop your Mac from performing optimally – if you do want to delete any of these files we recommend making a back up first!) You could set up a similar search to delete files you haven’t opened in the past year or longer. Instead of searching for File Size, choose Last opened date. Next choose ‘before’ and change the date to a year ago. Select and right-click on files you are sure you won’t need again and choose Move to Bin/Trash. If your Desktop is a dumping ground, open the Finder again and choose the Desktop folder. Sort by Size and delete anything you don’t need that’s particularly large. Alternatively sort by Kind to quickly locate all the Screenshots (which will be PNG files). Or by date to find the year’s old files. Select those you want to delete and choose Move to Bin/Trash. Another way to delete screenshots is to go to your Desktop and if you haven’t already done so go to the menu and choose View > Use Stacks (you’ll need to have the Desktop selected). Now find your Screenshot folder. Click on it to open it up and then select as many Screenshots as you are comfortable deleting. You can click and drag these to the Trash/Bin. You could do the same with other files on your Desktop (it’s where most things end up after all). Now the final and most important step: Right-click on your Trash/Bin and choose Empty Trash/Empty Bin (we are doing this last as we’ve just added lots to the Trash!) This might recover a few GB for you, and if that’s all you need then job done! But if you need to get a lot more space, and if you want to avoid running low on space again then follow the steps below. Step 2: See what’s taking up space on your Mac If you are running out of space your Mac could be slowing down, which is bad enough, but if you run out of space on your Mac you may not even be able to start it up! Before you get to that stage take a look to see what it taking up the space on your Mac because that will determine what you should delete. There are several apps that will show you which files are taking up big chunks of disk space, or allow you to order files in the Finder based on their size. Free or cheap apps like GrandPerspective ($2.99/£2.99, buy it here) and DaisyDisk ($9.99/£9.99, buy it here) give good visual indications while the free OmniDiskSweeper uses the standard hierarchical file window to show the sizes of every file and folder. CleanMyMac X Read our review Price When Reviewed: $34.95 per year, free 7-day trial available Best Prices Today: $34.95 at MacPaw CleanMyMac X (which costs around $34.95/£29.95) shows disk usage as part of its cleanup features. Parallels Toolbox Read our review Price When Reviewed: $24.99 per year, free 7-day trial Best Prices Today: $24.99 at Parallels (annually) Parallels Toolbox ($24.99/£20.99) also has a Clean Drive tool along with lots of other useful tools. However, before you spend any money, it’s actually really easy to get an overview of what’s taking up the space on your Mac. This view shows you how much space certain things are taking up, but how do you delete the stuff that is taking up the space? Ventura and later Open System Settings. Click on General. Click on Storage. Wait for it to calculate the storage that is available. You’ll see different colored bars that represent the kind of data on your Mac. Hover over these to see what is taking up space. Foundry Foundry Foundry Pre Ventura Click on the Apple logo in the top left. Choose About This Mac. Click on the Storage tab and wait while it calculates. Eventually, you will see various bars indicating how much storage is given to certain things, and how much storage is available. Hover over the different bars to see what each represents and how much space they are taking up. For example, in the example below, yellow was Photos (you could have 100GB+ of Photos, if you do, we recommend using iCloud Photos to reduce what’s stored on your Mac). Foundry Foundry Foundry What are System, System Data, macOS and Other? Older versions of macOS had some strangely named divisions of storage including System and Other. Nowadays these types of files tend to fall under the label System Data and macOS (as seen above). If you are using an older version of macOS – which may well be the case if your Mac is a bit older and unable to support new versions – you may be confronted with almost 40GB of ‘Other’ (as we were, see below). We’ve heard of people having even more than 40GB Other storage. With a name like Other it’s no wonder that people are assuming this is redundant files that can be deleted. In some cases they can be – but you have to be careful. You may be wondering if you can delete Other. That isn’t something you can do easily – and nor should you. We explain How to delete Other on a Mac in a separate article though. The same goes for System/System Data. It would be unwise to delete the vast majority of your System files, but there are a few that you can probably do without, such as Time Machine snapshots, iOS backups, and so on. We also have a separate article about How to clear system data on Mac. MacCleaner Pro Read our review Price When Reviewed: $74.95 (one-time purchase), $29.95 (one year subscription) Best Prices Today: Free at Nektony (free trial) | $74.95 at Nektony Tools like CleanMyMac X can help you deal with these Other and System files – and also files that come under macOS in newer versions of the operating system. CleanMyMac is $34.95/£29.95/ ( here’s where you can download CleanMyMac). We also have a round-up of the Best Mac Cleaners in which we look at some alternatives to CleanMyMac including DaisyDisk, MacBooster, Parallels ToolBox, and MacCleaner Pro. Step 3: See how Apple recommends you save space on your Mac Apple offers some guidance regarding ways you can save space on your Mac, including Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage, Empty Bin Automatically, and Reduce Clutter. Again, the way this works depends on the version of macOS you are running. Ventura and later Open System Settings > General. Choose Storage. If there are recommendations about how to reduce your storage you will see them below the bar chart. These could include Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage and Empty Trash Automatically (but they won’t appear if you are already doing those things). We discuss these below. Pre Ventura Click on the Apple logo > About This Mac > Storage. Now click on Manage. You will see Recommendations, such as Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage and Empty Trash Automatically and a Reduce Clutter option. If these have already been done you will see confirmation of that, if you haven’t already done any we recommend that you do. More details about these options below. Step 4: Save space on your Mac by using iCloud We think the option to Store in iCloud should be your first port of call if you want to reclaim lots of space on your Mac. Instead of storing files, photos, and other things on your Mac, once this is turned on everything will be synced to the cloud; downloadable to your Mac when needed. If you pay for enough iCloud storage, you can sync all your photos and music and your Desktop and Documents folders to the cloud. This can save a lot of space on your Mac. We explain how much iCloud costs and how to use iCloud separately, but with up to 12TB iCloud storage available that’s a lot of disk space you will no longer need on your Mac. To set up iCloud on your Mac follow these steps: Open System Settings/System Preferences (depending on the version of macOS). Click on your Apple ID section. Click on iCloud. Click on the Manage button beside Account Storage. Click on Change Storage Plan. Select Optimize Mac Storage to ensure that files are only stored on the Mac if you have space. Alternatively, if you see the Store in iCloud option in Manage Storage, follow these steps: Click on the Store in iCloud option. This opens a window asking you to choose what you want to store in iCloud. This can be all the files on your Mac Desktop and your Documents folder and all your Photos. Select both. Click on Store in iCloud. Foundry Foundry Foundry If you want to store high-resolution versions of your photos in iCloud so that you can save space on your Mac you will want to turn on iCloud Photos. To sign up for iCloud Photos follow these steps: Open the Photos app. Click on Photos in the menu. Click Settings. Turn on iCloud Photos. Select Optimize Mac Storage. If you want to really cut back on the amount of space taken up by your photos read How to save space by moving photos from a Mac to iCloud. We also have more advise on this further down the article. Step 5: Optimize Storage on your Mac Optimize Storage is Apple’s next recommendation after Store in iCloud. Turning on Optimize Storage is a really easy way to stop your storage getting clogged up on your Mac. If you turn on Optimize Storage it will delete TV shows or films that you’ve watched and it old email attachments will be removed. You needn’t be afraid of losing either of these things because the emails will still be stored on the email server anyway, and the shows you had purchased from Apple can always be downloaded again for free. You will see the Optimize Storage option in Apple’s recommendations if you haven’t already switched it on. If you aren’t sure that you have Optimize Storage turned on you will see it in the Apple ID section of System Settings/System Preferences. Once you have chosen this option your storage will be optimized automatically. Step 6: Set your Mac to empty trash/bin automatically We already mentioned emptying the trash as one of the quick ways to get more storage on your Mac. The easiest way to empty your trash is to right-click on the trash can icon and choose Empty Trash/Empty Bin. It’s good practice to empty your Trash regularly though and Apple has a great way to automate this action. If you choose Apple’s Empty Trash Automatically recommendation it will empty files out of your Trash (or Bin if you are in the UK) after they have been there for 30 days. Here’s how to set it up: Ventura or later: Open the Finder. Click on Finder in the menu. Choose Settings. Click on Advanced. Now select Remove items from the Bin/Trash after 30 days. Foundry Foundry Foundry Pre Ventura: Switch this option on in About My Mac > Storage > Manage. Choose the Empty Trash Automatically option. Click Turn On… You will see an alert asking if you’re sure you want to erase Trash automatically. It should be pretty safe as 30 days is a long time to realize you didn’t mean to delete something, so we recommend you click Turn On. Step 7: Reduce Clutter on your Mac Reduce Clutter is Apple’s final Recommendation in the list above. On a pre-Ventura Mac you could click Review Files, or you could click on each of the options in the left-hand column (e.g. Applications, Documents) to see the files in that category. In Ventura and later you can also each of the options in the left-hand column to view the contents and decide what to delete. Foundry Foundry Foundry TIP: Rather than open files or documents to see what you are considering deleting, select the file and press the space bar to see a preview. Click on Review Files and you will be taken to a pane that shows tabs for Large Files, Downloads, Unsupported Apps, Containers and a File Browser (depending on which version of macOS you have). This is actually the same view you would see if you clicked on Documents in the side-bar on the left.  The first port of call is Large Files. You can determine whether to delete them or not based on the information provided, which includes when you accessed them last and their size. You may find that lots of dmg files will appear here. Next option is Downloads. This isn’t the same as your Downloads folder. It’s every file you have downloaded from the internet. Here you are also likely to find dmg files you can delete. We recommend sorting by Kind and deleting things like Zip archives that are likely to already have been unzipped and saved where you need them. The good thing about deleting files this way is that it won’t just move them to your Trash. If you delete via the Finder you will also need to Empty Trash too. But that’s a good reason to be cautious too! If you have any Unsupported Apps you will see them in that section. You might see old 32-bit apps here, for example. We’ll skip Containers as it’s unlikely that there will be anything in that view for you to delete. In File Browser you can quickly access folders for Pictures, Desktop, Music, Movies, Documents and so on. Those are the steps that Apple offers to help you manage the storage available on your Mac. We’ll now go into a bit more detail on some of the other ways to save space, of which there are many.  Step 8: Reduce your photo library If you have a large photo library you might be thinking that you could save some space by deleting the hundreds of blurry or not-so-good photos. While there are apps that will offer to delete duplicate photos on your Mac (such as the free Photos Duplicate Cleaner or MacPaw’s Gemini 2 ($19.95/£15.95), the latter of which can remove duplicate files from your Mac.) However, there is an effortless way to reduce the amount of photos on your Mac: move them to iCloud. We already touched on Photos above, when we mentioned that if you choose the Store in iCloud option and choose to store your photos in iCloud. Also read: How to move photos to iCloud to save space on an iPhone. The benefit of using iCloud Photos is that any photos you upload to your Mac in the future also appear on your other devices: iPhone, iPad and so on. Our Photo library (prior to turning on iCloud Photos) was 96GB we started off by paying for the 200GB of space Apple offers. Months later we had upgraded to the full 2TB as we were storing all our documents, desktop, photos and more in iCloud. The 2TB of iCloud storage can be shared on a Family account. You might have turned on iCloud Photos, but if you haven’t already you could do so in the Photos app. Go to Photos > Preferences. Check the box beside iCloud Photos. This is important: Select Optimize Mac Storage to make sure that your full-resolution photos are replaced with low-res versions (you can always download the full-res version if you need it). With that setting your library should eventually shrink as the high res versions of your images are switched for low-res versions. But note that you will also get low res versions of all the images you have on all of your devices, so it’s possible that you may not save a lot of space. Beware that if you delete photos from your Mac they will be deleted from iCloud too: iCloud is not a way to back up your photos so that you can delete them from your Mac. Read: How to delete photos from iPhone, but not from iCloud. If you want to remove your photo library to free up space look at our next suggestion. Step 9: Move photos to external storage Another option is to free up space on your Mac by moving your photo library to an external hard drive. We have a separate article that describes how to move your photo library from your Mac to an external drive, but we’ll summarise the steps below. Quit Photos. Copy your Photos Library to an external drive. (To save having to delete them again afterwards, press the Command key when you drag the files over so that they are moved, with the original files automatically deleted, rather than copied.) Once the files have finished copying, hold down the Option/Alt key while starting up Photos. In Photos select Photos > Preferences and in General choose Use as System Photo Library. If you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, the Mac may get busy as it works out which photos reside in iCloud, but if should eventually complete without requiring a massive data transfer. Step 10: Move your music library Your Music library (iTunes in older versions of macOS) might be another candidate for re-claiming disk space, especially if you spent a lot of time importing CDs many years ago. If your music library holds a few GB worth of music you have a few options. You can copy the whole thing from your Music directory to an external hard drive and point Music/iTunes to it from Preferences. That’s great if your Mac is a desktop model, but not ideal if it’s a notebook – unless you have a NAS drive to which you connect wirelessly. We have a separate tutorial on how to move your iTunes library to an external hard drive. Another option is to pay $25/£21.99 a year to subscribe to iTunes Match. Here’s how to set up iTunes Match. Note: If you have an Apple Music membership, you already get all of the benefits of iTunes Match, plus access to the entire Apple Music catalog. So you don’t need both. Once you’ve set it up, iTunes Match allows you to access all the music in your music Library on Apple’s servers, meaning you don’t have to have it stored locally at all. You’ll need to be connected to the internet in order to play music, but other than that, it’s just like using Music/iTunes with locally stored music. And, as a bonus, if you decide at a later date that you want to download your music from iTunes Match, you get 256-bit AAC files which are probably of better quality than the ones you had stored on your Mac. The final option here is to subscribe to Apple Music, Apple’s service that for $10.99/£10.99 a month gives you access to its whole music library, so assuming that all the music you enjoy is on Apple Music you can delete all your music from your Mac and just stream the music from Apple Music instead. If you decide not to subscribe anymore, you will be able to download, for free, any tracks you previously purchased from Apple. But, unless you have iTunes Match, you won’t be able to download tracks that you uploaded to your music library yourself–so don’t throw out those CDs just yet. Step 11: Remove unwanted apps There is an option in Mac > Storage > Manage to remove unsupported apps, but what about the other apps you have installed but don’t use and don’t need? Deleting apps is pretty simple on a Mac – normally – and we cover it in detail here: How to Uninstall Mac Apps. You can either delete an app from the Applications folder in the Finder: right-click on the app and choose Move to Bin/Trash. Or you can press F4 to open up Launchpad, find the app, press Alt/Option and hover over on the app. Click on the x to delete it. However, some macOS apps have preferences (plist) and application support files and these can exist in a number of places on your Mac. In those cases, the methods above won’t delete all the associated files and libraries associated with an app. If you want to make absolutely sure that every trace of an app is gone then you can try an app that deletes apps thoroughly. Some major apps include an uninstaller. For example, you’ll find one of these in the Additional Tools folder of Microsoft Office. Sometimes an app’s installer doubles as an uninstaller. But the lack of a dedicated uninstaller in macOS is a serious omission. Fortunately, there are a number of third-party options. AppCleaner (free, download from the Mac App Store here), AppDelete ($7.99) and AppZapper ($12.95) are good options, as are Daisy Disk, CleanMyMac X, Uninstaller and CleanApp ($14.99). Another tip is to make sure you quit apps running in the background. Quitting apps that have been open for several days or more, or even restarting your Mac on a regular basis, will also help free up disk space. Applications create temporary files to store data and the longer they run without quitting, the bigger those files become. When you quit the app, the cache files are deleted and the disk space returned. Step 12: Remove duplicate files Identifying and dumping duplicate files is another good way of freeing up disk space. Gemini costs $19.99/£15.95 on the Mac App Store and allows you to scan your Mac for duplicate files so you can dump one copy. How much of your precious hard drive space is being taken up by duplicate files? While hard drives may be getting bigger and cheaper, Apple’s direction is that of smaller, faster SSD drives. The problem is that these have smaller capacities so a higher level of filing discipline is essential. There are a number of reasons why you end up with so many dupe files. When you add songs to iTunes, if you have ‘Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library’ checked in the preferences, you keep the original. Instant duplication. A couple of thousand high quality songs and that’s anything up to 10GB hard drive space wasted. And that doesn’t include dupes within iTunes. If you use Apple Mail, remember that all attachments reside in Mail’s own download folder. This can be another source of duplication. More generic apps use various strategies and criteria to find duplicates and give you control over which ones to get rid of. Have a look at Tidy Up ($29.99) or Singlemizer (£9.99/$9.99 on the Mac App Store). Step 13: Remove extra languages macOS supports a range of languages, being localized for more than 25 languages all of which are included automatically during installation. Go to System Preferences > Language & Region; here languages can be put into preferred order making it easy to switch between them. Many major applications support multiple languages too, using the order from Language & Text to select one if the app doesn’t support your main language. The problem is that if you only want to use one or two languages, macOS and many of your apps are bloated with all the others. If you want to delete extra language files that you know you won’t be needing, go to the Resources folder and look for folders ending in .lproj. Each of those folders will include a language file. You should be able to trash these folders without any problems. Step 14: Remove unwanted code Getting rid of unwanted code is another disk-saving exercise. Monolingual (donation requested) lets you remove specific architectures from macOS along with specific languages. While it can claw back huge swathes of hard drive space, it can also render your Mac unbootable if you’re not careful. Use with caution. Step 15: Use Terminal to delete files and folders This is one for the pros, but if you want to make sure files are well and truly deleted Terminal is the way to do it. We explain the process here: How to delete files and folders using Terminal. Step 16: Use cloud storage space We’ve discussed iCloud already, but there are other cloud storage options. Read our best cloud storage services for Mac. Cloud storage services are great for making files available remotely, but they can also take up space on your Mac. Both Dropbox and OneDrive, for example, sync everything you store in them with your Mac by default – assuming you’ve installed the Dropbox/ OneDrive app. If you only have the default 2GB storage available for free from Dropbox, that’s not too much of a problem. But Microsoft gives Office 365 subscribers 1TB of space free, so if you use that to store lots of files, you could find yourself running out of disk space very quickly. The same is true if you pay for more space on Dropbox. In both cases, however, you can choose to sync only files and folders you specify. In Dropbox, click on the menu bar item, then click the cog and then Preferences. Click the Account tab, then click Change Settings. Now untick the files and folders you don’t want to sync with your Mac. In OneDrive, click the menu bar item, then Preferences. Click Choose Folders, then Choose Folders, then Choose Folders to sync. Untick folders, or click the expand arrow to access individual files and untick those. An alternative would be to sign up for more iCloud storage, as we mentioned earlier. Step 17: Archive or backup your Mac You might be thinking I need the space, but I don’t want to delete anything! If you really are the proverbial data squirrel, here are a few simple suggestions: Archive any files you’re unlikely to need regularly. Ctrl-click on a folder and select the compress option. (Here’s more info on how to zip Mac files.) The space saved will vary according to the type of file being archived: JPEGs and DMGs, for instance, are unlikely to compress very much. Once created, archives can either remain on your Mac or be saved to an external drive. Finally, if you do decide to delete files or folders, always back them up first. If you need an external drive read our round-up of the best hard drives and best SSDs for Mac. For more advice read our tips for cleaning up your Mac to make it run faster. Cleaning and Data Recovery Software, Mac, MacOS, Personal Software

Read more »

Dual-boot iPad would be nuts, says former Microsoft president
A number of commenters have made the point that iPad reviews haven’t really changed in years. Each generation, the hardware gets better, and the software gets left behind. That has led some to suggest a dual-boot iPad, which can switch between iPadOS and macOS as desired. However, former Microsoft exec Steven Sinofsky – who was President of the Windows division for several years – says this idea “is just nuts” … more…

Read more »