Apple hasn’t launched a totally new type of app in a long time. This week’s operating system updates – iOS and iPadOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1 – include Freeform, Apple’s app “designed for creative brainstorming and collaboration.” Here’s how you can use Freeform to brainstorm, develop projects, and collaborate with others.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
Every year, when Apple releases its latest version of macOS, there’s a good chance that another generation of Macs won’t be compatible with the new operating system.
While this is not necessarily a problem — if your Mac was working well last year, there’s no reason why you can’t continue to use it this year — it can be potentially dangerous from a security perspective. Apple generally provides security updates for the current and two previous macOS versions. However, you may not be aware that Apple often doesn’t patch some vulnerabilities in the two previous Mac operating systems.
So, if you have an old Mac that’s no longer supported by the current version of macOS, what should you do with it? Here are several ideas.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
Continuity Camera has been a feature of macOS for a couple of years, allowing you to import images directly from your iPhone’s camera to apps like Mail, Messages, Pages, Numbers and Notes. In macOS Ventura, Continuity Camera gets a new skill, the ability to use your iPhone as a webcam with your Mac. Here’s how it works.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
Apple has released macOS Ventura, the latest operating system for Macs. As with major upgrades to Apple’s operating systems in recent years, Ventura doesn’t have loads of new features; gone are the days when Apple would tout hundreds of new features in an operating system, as they did when they hyped 300+ new features in Mac OS X Leopard. (To be fair, I count 166 new features in the macOS Ventura Features page.) Operating system upgrades are more subtle these days, which, in many ways, is a good thing. Users don’t need to discover so many new features each year, most of which they only find by accident.
But there are some useful and interesting new features in macOS Ventura, including some that focus on enhancing security and privacy. Here’s what’s new.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
Among the many new features in macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16 are long-awaited improvements to its communication apps, Mail and Messages. Mail allows you to schedule when you want to send emails, remind yourself to check up on emails, and undo messages that you’ve sent. There is also a built-in follow-up feature, that moves sent emails to the top of your inbox to remind you to “circle back” to their recipients.
With Messages, you can edit messages that you’ve sent, you can undo sent messages, and you can recover recently deleted messages.
Here’s how these new features work.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
There are lots of settings, preferences, and options on the Mac, and many of these settings are organized in one app: System Settings. You can access this app from the Apple menu, and it offers a plethora of options for customizing your Mac’s environment, and many of its features.
The System Settings app is new in macOS Ventura; since the early days of Mac OS X, it was called System Preferences. While the new System Settings app includes everything that was in System Preferences, its organization is different.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to use the System Settings app and how to change some essential settings for your Mac.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
At this time of year, when the forthcoming version of macOS is made available in beta versions, many users want to try it out. If you’re a developer, you need to test your software to make sure it’s compatible with the next version of macOS. Apple gives you plenty of time to do this. The first beta of macOS Ventura was released in early June, and the official release will not occur until the fall.
Even if you’re not a developer, you may want to try out the public beta and play around with the new features. Apple allows non-developers to run these betas through its public beta program so they can get feedback from more users.
But you don’t want to run beta operating system software on a production machine; your data could be at risk. In this article, I’m going to explain how you can add a new APFS volume to your Mac, so you can boot into the beta version of macOS Ventura and try it out.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
We recently looked at how you can use UTM to run Windows 11 on your M1 or M2 Mac for free. UTM is free, open-source virtualization software, that allows you to run other operating systems on your Mac. In addition to allowing you to run Windows and Linux – and even MacOS 9.2 – you can also install macOS Monterey, and even create a virtual machine using the macOS Ventura beta software. Here’s how.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
For many years, Apple made it easy to run Windows on your Mac. Apple’s Boot Camp allowed you to start up your Intel-based Mac in either macOS or Windows, and this dual-boot capability was great for people who needed to use both operating systems.
Unfortunately, Apple only supports Boot Camp on Macs with an Intel processor. Since Apple has been updating its Macs to run on its own Apple silicon (i.e. M1 and M2) processors, few Macs are still available that let you dual-boot Windows or run Windows apps natively with an Intel processor. For now, Apple still sells one model of Mac mini with an Intel processor, as well as the more expensive Mac Pro which is out of most consumers’ price range.
But for those who want to move forward with Apple silicon, there’s another option: virtualization. Of the two popular apps that have been used for years to run Windows and other operating systems on a Mac, namely VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, only the latter has been updated to run on an M1 or M2-based Mac. Parallels Desktop’s pricing can range anywhere from about $50 (for upgrades from a previous version) to $100 for the Pro Edition, unless you happen to buy it when it’s on sale.
There’s another solution, which is QEMU: a free, open-source emulator that (at least in its standard package) is somewhat difficult to install and set up. You can bypass much of the initial setup complexity by using the UTM app, which allows you to run QEMU on your Mac with very little setup. UTM is not as feature-rich as Parallels Desktop, but UTM is free (more accurately, payment is optional).
In this article, I’ll explain how you can run Windows on an M1 Mac (or any Mac with an M1 Pro, M1 Max, or M2 chip) with UTM, for free—including a free version of Windows 11 Pro.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.
macOS has long had automation tools that can help you save time performing complex tasks, or tasks you carry out often. From AppleScript to Automator, these tools have been available with variable learning curves, and many people leverage these tools regularly.
iOS/iPadOS 12 added Shortcuts, another automation tool, to that platform, and now Apple is adding Shortcuts to macOS. What does this mean for the future of automation on the Mac? And what are the risks of using shortcuts?
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.