Apple strongly protects data stored on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and macOS (with FileVault enabled or a T2 Security Chip, or both). However, there’s an exception for mobile devices that can be useful in extremis, such as if you’ve forgotten your passcode (say, for an older device), you’re helping someone who has forgotten it (possibly due to dementia or an accident), or you need to recover data that you’ve inherited or are working on on behalf of a family.

iOS and iPadOS backups aren’t nearly as secure as the data stored on devices. This means you may be able to retrieve a backup with all the data—even including stored passwords and other personal information—to another device under your control.

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You might have missed this during Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event last week about the iPhone 12, because the Macalope isn’t sure if the company mentioned it or not, but at long last you can buy an iPhone and enjoy the blazing speeds delivered by 5G.

Right?

Right?

Hang on, the Macalope’s intern is staring at him.

What is it, Carl? It’s always something with this kid, swear to God.

Oh. Huh. The Macalope is being informed that may not be the case for, uh, well, most everyone.

Yes, turns out a funny thing happened on the way to the colosseum, which Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg insisted during Apple’s event we’ll all be back in soon so you’d better get those high-speed phones now.

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Apple Watch Series 3 owners: Apple has released an update for you. With watchOS 7.0.3, Apple says the update has bug fixes, include one that addresses an issue where the watch will unexpectedly restart.

A watchOS 7.0.3 update for owners of other Apple Watch models has not been released. The current version for those watches is watchOS 7.0.2.

How to install watchOS 7.0.3

Before you install the update, you must place your Apple Watch on its charger. Also, the watch needs to be within range of your iPhone connected to Wi-Fi. Then follow these steps:

1. On your iPhone, launch the Watch app.

2. Tap General.

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A modern smartphone uses navigational satellites—sometimes drawing from multiple orbital systems—as well as cellular towers, Bluetooth hints, and Wi-Fi router locations to produce an awfully precise location. My family’s iPhones are often tracked not just at our house but—when looking in the Find My app—to each of our nearly exactly locations in our home within a few feet.

That might be too much when you’re giving a third-party app your location even once, but especially whenever the app is in the foreground, or, for rare apps, continuously in the background. In iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Apple added a switch to let you choose to offer either precision or “fuzzed” locations to apps—and by extension to any third parties that the apps might work with, who receive location information as well.

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There was big news out of Cupertino last Tuesday—big news! Apple announced a new, smaller version of one of its products at a cheaper price point, potentially opening it up to a whole new class of customers.

I speak, of course, of the HomePod mini.

Yes, yes, there were iPhones as well, but I found myself more drawn to the new, smaller, and 100-percent more globular smart speaker. Part of that may have been intrigue, yes, but a more substantial reason is that I'm trying to figure out exactly what Apple's strategy for this product line is. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what Apple seems to be doing.

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Apple is planting its own flag in the streaming wars with Apple TV+, its in-house streaming service that focuses almost entirely on original programming rather than an extensive library of existing TV shows or movies.

Though the service has been available less than a year and and doesn’t yet have a lot of shows or films available, there’s a lot in the works. This is a list of all the Apple TV+ content we know of so far, along with details about prominent stars, directors, producers, and release dates.

Updated 10/16/20: Apple has released a trailer for Fireball, the Werner Herzog documentary about shooting stars.

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It’s been a long time since you could only get an iPhone directly from Apple or from AT&T. Today, it’s offered by all major carriers and big retailers, and many of them want to entice you to buy with them by offering special deals. Of course, you can always buy from Apple directly, either in-store or online.

If you haven’t yet put in your order for an iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro, here’s a summary of some of the deals and promotions offered by different retailers to help you make up your mind. For each, we’ll tell you about any current special deals, when you should consider buying there, and when you shouldn’t.

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In case you missed it, Apple has four new iPhone 12s to sell you. But the lineup is even more confusing and treacherous than the addition of a single extra model.

Let’s start with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini. Compared to the iPhone 11, you get a new smaller option, 5G, better cameras, and a thinner design, with pricing that’s pretty much in line with last year.

Here are the prices with a “customer discount” through the four major carriers—Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T—which require an activation fee of $25 or $30, so you're not actually saving anything:

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While most people are trying to decide which iPhone 12 color or model they want, it’s not the only new Apple device on sale today. Apple has also begun accepting orders for the new iPad AirRemove non-product link, with delivery for next Friday.

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Just when you thought we had all the Apple events we could handle this fall, there may be another one on the horizon. According to Twitter leaker Jon Prosser, Apple will be gathering people around their screens for one more event in just a few short weeks.

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With more models, new screen sizes, and a whole lot of new camera tricks, upgrading or switching to the iPhone 12 is a no-brainer. Deciding which phone to buy, well, that's another story. Luckily, we're here to break it all down for you.

Update 10/16: The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are now available for pre-order at Apple.com and other retail stores.

iPhone 12 and 12 mini vs iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max: Design

While Apple didn't completely reinvent the iPhone as it did with the iPhone X, the iPhone 12 definitely has its own style. It features flat edges and a uniform construction not unlike the iPhones 4 and 5. The antenna lines are more of a design element this year as well, and the camera array on the back has been slimmed down a bit for a more seamless flow.

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Paper people—folks like me who prefer the feel of paper when it comes to notation and illustration—who are looking for a tablet to replace notebooks and printed documents can make the transition with the reMarkable 2. The device is essentially a large E Ink tablet (like a Kindle) that presents a focused and tuned experience that I highly recommend.

Adam Patrick Murray/IDG

The reMarkable 2 tablet itself retails for $399, with a choice of the basic Marker stylus at $49 or the upgraded Marker Plus at $99 (more on the differences later). There are also two options for keeping the tablet safe; a Folio sleeve retailing for $69 or a Book Folio starting at $99.

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Underwriter’s Laboratories has just released a new 3DMark Wild Life benchmark, and we couldn’t be happier. There’s a distinct lack of reliable graphics benchmarks on iOS/iPadOS.

Sure, you can find lots of “GPU” performance measurement tools for iPhones and iPads, but the vast majority of them measure GPU compute performance rather than the actual display of 3D graphics. It puts a totally different kind of stress on the GPU and memory subsystem of your device.

Thus, we’ve been trying to stick with 3DMark’s prior benchmarks—Sling Shot and Ice Storm—when measuring the performance of iPhones and iPads. Neither one of those have been updated since 2016, and they have stability problems on modern devices. What’s more, they use outdated graphics engines and rendering techniques, and don’t represent the state of the art in realtime 3D graphics and games.

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The “Compare HomePod models” chart on Apple’s site includes a feature not previously discussed by Apple. “Home theater with Apple TV 4K” is a feature of the regular full-sized HomePod, but not the new HomePod mini.

Apple has confirmed to The Verge that an upcoming software update will allow HomePods paired with Apple TV 4K to stream Dolby Atmos, as well as 5.1 and 7.1 audio. The feature uses HomePod’s spatial awareness feature—computational audio that uses an array of microphones to measure room acoustics and adjust sound on the fly—to provide virtual surround sound.

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The iPhone 12 is finally here! We’ll talk about Apple’s new smartphone and its features, specifications, prices, and more in this episode of the Macworld Podcast.

This is episode 717 with Jason Cross, Michael Simon, and Roman Loyola.

Listen to episode 717

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Presentation software and videoconferencing tools mix like oil and water. That's a particularly unfortunate thing when tens of millions of teachers are forced to use PowerPoint or Keynote to remotely educate kids daily. These apps weren’t designed for interactive remote presentation, and about nine months into the pandemic, the seams aren’t just showing, but they’ve ripped out like a former shirt of Bruce Banner’s.

The fundamental problem is full-screen presentation mode. For in-person presentations, it makes perfect sense. With two screens—one a laptop and one a projector or being fed into a broadcast or webinar system—a presenter can view notes, use tools for markup, run builds and play videos, and see their next slide or even the set of upcoming slides. They don’t need another screen to also see participants, or they’re in an environment set up by the IT department with multiple computers to enable that.

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As it revealed the new iPad Air during its Time Flies event, Apple took the wraps off its latest mobile system-on-chip, the A14 Bionic. Built with a bleeding-edge 5-nanometer manufacturing process, it is Apple’s most advanced SoC ever and likely the fastest mobile chip on the planet.

Earlier this year, we took some educated guesses about what we might expect from the A14. Now that Apple has revealed a few details, this FAQ can tell you what this fantastic SoC is going to do for the Apple products in which it appears. As we get more information, we’ll update it.

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Apple has just taken the wraps off the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. Each are available in two sizes (the regular iPhone 12 now comes in a 6.1-inch model and a 5.4-inch “mini”), but as was the case with the iPhone 11, the “Pro” models have some differences that set them apart and help justify their higher price tag.

Here are the most important things you need to know about the iPhone 12 Pro. If you’re interested in the less expensive variant, check out our guide to the iPhone 12.

It’s got a new, slightly larger design

As with the iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone 12 Pro comes in two sizes. This year, the display on the two models measure 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, up from 5.8 inches and 6.5 inches. (Bear in mind that a 6.1-inch display is the same size as the regular, non-Pro iPhone 11.)

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Apple has already released a beta of iOS 14.2, making it available to developers just one day after the public release of iOS 14 and then to public testers just a few days later. In addition to iOS and iPadOS 14.2, Apple made beta versions of tvOS 14.2 and watchOS 7.1 available. 

It appears that iOS 14.1, which Apple appeared to skip past in releasing the 14.2 beta, is intended to support the features of the new iPhone 12. The GM release is available for developers to download, but there has been no beta test. It's likely that iOS 14.1 will ship on iPhone 12 models from the factory, and iPadOS 14.1 on the iPad Air, but everyone else will jump from 14.0 to 14.2.

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Most people are surprised that Caller ID isn’t verified in any real fashion. With the appropriate software or third-party service, a spammer, scammer, phisher, or abuser can set Caller ID to nearly any number that will then appear on your phone.

Or, at least, that was true until relatively recently, when a pair of systems referred to amusingly by their acronyms STIR and SHAKEN finally allowed carriers to use cryptographic means to track a phone call’s assigned number from its origin all the way to your phone. It requires a lot of moving pieces, as telecommunications firms all have to work together to let the verification chain occur, but the FCC has heavily promoted it.

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When it comes to the size of the iPhone, a lot of us who tend to buy the most mainstream iPhone are a bit like the proverbial frog in the gradually boiling pot of water. In upgrading from the iPhone 4 to 5, from 5s to 6, and from 7 to X, our phones just keep getting a little bit bigger.

Sure, there were larger options—in the last couple of years, two larger phones bracket the main iPhone on price. But with the exception of the iPhone SE, there were no smaller options.

With the iPhone 12 line, though, Apple has made things interesting. Not only has Apple subtly cranked up the heat on that boiling pot, but it’s provided a place to leap to if the heat is too much for us. Now there are some decisions to make.

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Apple’s HomePod (originally rumored to be called Siri Speaker) is a smart speaker with Wi-Fi capabilities intended to compete against Amazon Echo devices and Google Home—although it’s more expensive. Revealed during Apple’s 2017 WWDC keynote, Apple’s senior VP of marketing Phil Schiller boasted about HomePod’s audio quality, its built-in room sensors, and the integration with Apple Music.

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