As always, while Apple makes these betas available for everyone, you would be foolish to install one on devices you rely on for, well, anything. Apple has improved its development processes so even early betas are more stable than in the past, but you’re guaranteed to run into bugs, incompatibilities, and possibly even data corruption.
Not only should you restrict these betas to dedicated test devices, but we also recommend that you avoid connecting your main iCloud account with the betas in case some bug causes an upstream problem. For instance, you wouldn’t want a wonky Photos beta to delete all your custom albums. Although we always recommend making backups before you install a new version of any operating system, you shouldn’t install these betas on anything that you can’t erase at the drop of a hat without fear of data loss.
Then there’s the big stuff. In Ventura, Apple has added an entirely new way to manage the many windows can can litter our screens. It has enlisted the optics of the excellent cameras on the iPhone to act as a substitute for often-lackluster Apple webcams. It’s recognized that families might want to share their iCloud Photo Libraries. And it’s thrown out the venerable System Preferences app, a part of Mac OS X since the early days, and replaced it with a new System Settings app that’s reminiscent of iOS.
It's rare for Apple to reshape the way people work on Macs, but that's precisely what the company is trying to do with Stage Manager in macOS Ventura. At first glance, it's just a quick visual way to swap between your recently used applications. But after testing the first Ventura public beta over the past week, I think it may also solve window management issues that have plagued Macs since OS X debuted 21 years ago.
iOS 16 doesn't deliver a major overhaul to Apple's iPhone software. Were it not for a rather substantial change to the iPhone's lock screen — you can finally customize the lock screen of your phone, thanks to this update — you'd be hard-pressed to find many big changes from the current iOS 15 version, at least on the surface.
But OS updates go beyond the surface. And as you'll gather by the length of this iOS 16 beta hands-on, the new version of this iPhone software implements a number of tweaks and enhancements that should make things run a lot more smoothly.
It’s part function, part fashion, and part fun. Even the most jaded among us can appreciate that combination.
Users just need to tap the cover of a song on Apple Music, Spotify, or a podcast while the iPhone is locked, and the preview takes over the screen.
This year’s changes to the Workout app may be more significant than usual, but otherwise watchOS 9 fits this formula quite snugly. While it may not make for the most glamorous year-over-year updates, the strategy has cemented the Apple Watch as the most popular smartwatch in the world — by far. It’s no surprise that Apple sees no need to alter it.
You may not know it, or you may not need them, but your Mac comes with a bevy of accessibility features that help make your computer more accessible if you have disabilities. Apple is well-known for building best-in-class assistive technologies into all of their platforms — and the Mac, almost four decades old, is no exception.
Investment banker Tom Pey lost his eyesight at age 39, when an injury from a childhood game reemerged 30 years later to cause blindness. After struggling to manage with his sudden new reality, he moved into charity work to improve equity and access for blind people. While his new blindness didn’t restrict his ability to move, he pined for a core human experience that he profoundly missed: the independence to explore. “What I had lost is not the freedom to move, but the freedom to explore the real world around me,” he says.
Recapturing that experience for himself and his peers was the impetus for starting Waymap, a London-based navigation app that allows visually impaired people to accurately find their way around outdoor and indoor public spaces using the inherent sensors on smartphones. This summer, Washington, D.C.’s transit system has trialed Waymap at three Metro stations and will expand to the entire network by early next year. It’s allowed blind Washingtonians to more confidently navigate for commutes and leisure activities—and to rekindle the spirit of exploration.
Whatever you call it, here’s what Upnext is: it’s a place to save and interact with content from all over the internet. It handles articles and blog posts like Pocket or Instapaper but also serves as a dumping ground for all those YouTube videos you want to watch later, the podcast episodes you’ll eventually listen to, the tweet threads you don’t have time to scroll through yet, all those PDFs cluttering your desktop, and more.
While discussing the power station concept with my friend, I realized I had an appropriate battery in the car all along! With the appropriate charging cable! This is all a bit embarrassing, but I want to share it nonetheless because the solution could also be useful for you.
My son is 15. He is also an autistic boy with Down syndrome. From the moment he was born, well-informed experts, well-intentioned fellow parents, and a whole universe of marketing suggested that technology would provide answers to many of the problems we’d end up facing.
This is not the technological future we were promised when he was born. We thought by now we’d have devices, apps, and pharmaceuticals that would help him learn and communicate more easily, while also keeping him safer in a hostile world. Technology can provide disabled people with wondrous new tools, but only — as with so many kinds of innovation — when they are married to systems that take into account our complex and varied humanity.
Food that is lost or wasted accounts for 38% of total energy usage in the global food system, making it a clear area where carbon savings can be made.
Enter the apps. Grocers from Tesco to Iceland, as well as convenience chains and coffee shops, are linking up with the growing array of tech platforms to tackle food waste.
This, to me, is the future of the Apple Watch: a broader set of models set apart by something more than just styling. A ruggedized Apple Watch would be aimed at a specific market that’s not well addressed by the current line-up of devices and might help bring in entirely new customers who wouldn’t previously have considered one. It may even open up Apple to adding entirely new editions of the Apple Watch in the future, exploiting the device’s versatility.
I think I may already be set in my ways of managing apps and windows on macOS, and probably will not appreciate Stage Manager. I've tried out Spaces, and that didn't stick for me. I've tried out full-screen apps, and that I reject completely. I've also tried out WindowShade, and... well, nope.
The only 'new' thing that worked for me is Expose. Or Mission Control, as it is now known.
Maybe I will like Stage Manager. I don't install beta software, since I do not have any extra Mac computers lying around. But I am not excited.
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I'm still excited with the new iOS lock screen. Can't wait.
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Thanks for reading.