Tag Archive for: Mac

You are here: / Mac

Posts

Try macOS 26.2’s Edge Light for Low-Light Video Calls

/in /by

We can’t always guarantee optimal lighting for video calls, especially when using laptops on the go. A new feature in macOS 26.2 Tahoe called Edge Light might help. It’s a video effect that uses the outermost pixels of your Mac’s display to create a bright white rectangle that illuminates your face during video calls. It acts like an on-screen ring light in low-light conditions. You can activate it from the green video camera icon in the menu bar (shown when the camera is active), and on Macs from 2024 and later, you can set it to turn on automatically in low-light environments. Click the disclosure triangle next to Edge Light to adjust the light’s width and color temperature. Mouse awareness allows the light to recede automatically when you move your pointer toward it. While Edge Light won’t replace external lights, it can help make your face visible in otherwise dark rooms.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Dima Berlin)

Social Media: Dark room, important video call? macOS 26.2’s Edge Light transforms your Mac’s display into an on-screen ring light, illuminating your face so you’re visible on camera.

Control Song Transitions in Apple Music

/in /by

A new feature for Apple Music subscribers in the Music app in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 is AutoMix, which Apple says causes songs to “transition at the perfect moment, based on analysis of the key and tempo of the music.” It fades between songs as a DJ would, but it’s not always successful. If AutoMix’s transitions aren’t to your taste, navigate to Settings > Apps > Music > Song Transitions in iOS and iPadOS, or Music > Settings > Playback > Song Transitions in macOS, and switch back to the longstanding Crossfade option, which transitions between songs over a user‑specified number of seconds. Or, just turn off the Song Transitions switch and let one song end completely before the next one starts.

(Featured image by iStock.com/lakshmiprasad S)

Social Media: Apple’s new DJ‑style AutoMix transitions between songs in the Music app aren’t to everyone’s taste (and sometimes flub the jump). Here’s how to switch back to a timed Crossfade or disable transitions in Music on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Charge Your MacBook with the Right Power Adapter

/in /by

If you lose or break the power adapter that came with your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, make sure to replace it with a charger that meets or exceeds the machine’s required wattage. A charger with too low a wattage may result in little or no charging (or even battery drain while working), and it certainly won’t enable fast charging. You can check the adapter’s wattage by reading the fine print on the charger itself, or by opening the System Information app (in the Applications/Utilities folder) and checking the AC Charger section in the Power screen. It’s safe to use an adapter with a higher wattage than required, but we don’t recommend going below the wattages of Apple’s included adapters:

  • 13-inch MacBook Air: 30 or 35 watts standard, 67 watts for fast charging
  • 15-inch MacBook Air: 35 watts standard, 70 watts for fast charging
  • 14-inch MacBook Pro: 67 or 70 watts standard, or 96 watts for the Pro and Max chips, 96 watts for fast charging
  • 16-inch MacBook Pro: 140 watts for both standard and fast charging

(Featured image by iStock.com/Isaac Lee)

Social Media: Lost your MacBook charger? Don’t grab just any USB power adapter—using one that’s too weak can result in no charging, glacial charging, or battery drain while you work. Here’s the minimum wattage you need for each MacBook model.

Canva’s Free Affinity App Takes on Adobe Creative Cloud

/in /by

Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps—Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign—are best-in-class, and for many people, they’re essential. But if you’re paying $70 per month for a Creative Cloud subscription even though you don’t need the full power of Adobe’s apps, consider Canva’s new Affinity app, available for free for macOS and Windows, with iPadOS coming soon. The extremely capable Affinity combines all the features of the previous Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps (which Canva acquired from Serif in 2024). The app can be activated with a free Canva account, but optional AI features require a paid Canva subscription that costs $15 per month or $120 per year. We don’t know if Affinity can replace Creative Cloud for you, but as a free app, it’s worth checking out to see if it meets your needs.

(Featured image by Canva)

Social Media: Could you cut your design costs? Canva’s new Affinity app for macOS and Windows is free but offers features comparable to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Try it and see if it’s enough to replace Creative Cloud.

Backups: Trust but Verify

/in /by

It’s easy to assume your backup app—whether it’s Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, Backblaze, Retrospect, or something else—is quietly doing its job. But it’s possible for a bug to corrupt backups or for a destination disk to fail silently, such that you can’t restore backed-up data. We’ve seen this happen! For peace of mind, set a quarterly reminder to verify your backups. Test by restoring a few files and opening them: for Time Machine, enter Time Machine and restore a few important files; for a clone, mount it and open files; for a cloud backup, perform a small restore. Backup failures aren’t common, but since backups are your lifeline after a catastrophe, it’s worth confirming they work.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Andreus)

Social Media: Don’t just trust your backups—verify them. Each quarter, restore a few files from Time Machine, your clone, or your cloud backup, and make sure they open correctly. Silent failures happen; test restores prevent nasty surprises.

Apple Adds M5 Chip to MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro

/in /by

Apple’s fall harvest has yielded the new M5 chip, leading to updates for the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, the iPad Pro lineup, and the Vision Pro. All three benefit from the M5’s significant performance boosts, but remain mostly unchanged otherwise. Availability starts on October 22. We anticipate that Apple will release M5 versions of the iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Air in the coming months, along with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips in early to mid-2026.

With the M5 chip, Apple continues to focus on boosting AI performance. Its new 10-core GPU promises up to four times the peak GPU compute performance of the previous M4 chip—an impressive leap. The GPU also provides enhanced graphics capabilities and ray tracing that deliver results up to 45% faster than the M4. The 10-core CPU, with six efficiency cores and four performance cores, provides up to 15% faster multithreaded performance than the M4, a more typical performance increase between chip generations. Additionally, Apple increased unified memory bandwidth from 120 GBps to 153 GBps, which speeds up many different operations.

14-inch MacBook Pro

The most mainstream of the updated devices is the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, which benefits from the improved performance of the M5 chip. Apple claims improvements in various tasks ranging from 20% to 80% compared to the M4 model it replaces. Even more compelling is the comparison with the M1-based 13-inch MacBook Pro, where the M5 MacBook Pro is 2 to 7 times faster.

Apple also increased SSD performance by up to 2x, which we suspect should give the new M5 model read/write speeds comparable to those of the M4 Pro and M4 Max models of the MacBook Pro.

The final update is that the M5 MacBook Pro can now be equipped with 4 TB of storage, a $1,200 option previously reserved for the M4 Pro and M4 Max models. They remain for sale, and although Apple didn’t share any benchmarks, we suspect they will continue to outperform the M5 model at most tasks.

Otherwise, the new M5 MacBook Pro continues to feature three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot, and MagSafe 3 charging. Its 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with ProMotion remains unchanged, as does the physical design. Pricing is also the same, starting at $1,599 for 16 GB of unified memory and 512 GB of storage.

For now, the M5 model of the 14-inch MacBook Pro is notably more capable than the M4 models of the MacBook Air, which was less true of the M4 MacBook Pro it replaces. That said, you won’t go wrong with the more affordable MacBook Air or the higher performance of the M4 Pro and M4 Max models of the MacBook Pro.

11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro

The M5 models of the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro deliver similar performance improvements over the previous M4 models, with Apple highlighting up to 2x faster AI image generation and up to 2.3x faster AI video upscaling. The enhancements are even more pronounced when compared to the M1 iPad Pro models, where benchmarked tasks are 2x to 7x faster. Additionally, the M5 iPad Pro models feature up to 2x faster storage, although they are limited to 2 TB.

Apple didn’t stop there. The 256 GB and 512 GB configurations have 50% more unified memory, increasing from 8 GB to 12 GB, while the 1 TB and 2 TB configurations have 16 GB. The new models also feature enhanced external display support, enabling them to drive external 4K displays at up to 120 Hz with Adaptive Sync, which reduces latency and enhances gaming performance. Lastly, Apple introduced fast charging that provides 50% power in 30 minutes with an appropriate charger.

Two other notable changes probably won’t be evident to most users. The M5 models of the iPad Pro utilize Apple’s new C1X cellular modem and N1 wireless network chip, which enable Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread networking. Apple claims faster cellular and Wi-Fi performance, along with lower power consumption, but official battery life estimates remain unchanged.

Otherwise, the new iPad Pro models remain nearly identical to their predecessors. They retain the same Ultra Retina XDR display, cameras, ports, and accessory ecosystem (Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil). The case and industrial design are the same.

Pricing for the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $999 for Wi-Fi models and $1,199 for Wi-Fi + Cellular models. The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299 with Wi-Fi and $1,499 for Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

Creative professionals already using a previous generation of the iPad Pro may consider upgrading, but for most people, we recommend either the low-cost iPad or the mid-range iPad Air.

Vision Pro

In the first hardware update to its Vision Pro “spatial computer,” Apple replaced the M2 chip with the more powerful M5. This upgrade boosts performance, allowing the Vision Pro to render 10% more pixels, resulting in a sharper image with crisper text and more detailed visuals. The M5 also increases the Vision Pro’s maximum refresh rate to 120 Hz from 100 Hz, helping to reduce motion blur. Battery life receives a slight boost, providing an additional 30 minutes of general use (up to 2.5 hours) and video playback (up to 3 hours). The only other change is a new Dual Knit Band, which Apple says is more comfortable.

Apart from the M5 and Dual Knit Band, the Vision Pro remains unchanged in form, function, and philosophy. Nor did Apple lower the Vision Pro’s price, which is still $3,499. Although these changes undoubtedly improve the Vision Pro experience a bit, they won’t change anyone’s purchasing decision.

(Featured image by Apple)

Social Media: Apple has brought its new M5 chip to the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro, boosting performance but changing little else. The updates maintain existing designs and price points.

macOS 26 Tahoe Introduces New Recovery Assistant

/in /by

If a Mac running macOS 26 Tahoe experiences certain kinds of problems, it might automatically restart and launch a new Recovery Assistant. It will prompt you to unlock your disk if needed and to connect to a Wi-Fi network—an Internet connection is required. Apple doesn’t specify precisely what Recovery Assistant will do to recover your device, but it will either indicate that it succeeded, that it was unable to recover the device, or that it found no problems. In any case, you’ll need to restart your Mac, after which you may receive a notification to recover your iCloud data; initiate this process in System Settings. While we generally favor Macs being able to fix their own problems, we cannot stress enough how much more important it is to have a current backup than to rely solely on any recovery system.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Armastas)

Social Media: macOS 26 Tahoe brings a new Recovery Assistant, which automatically detects and attempts to resolve Mac problems. Just remember: automated recovery can be helpful, but backups are still essential.

App Store Gains Accessibility Nutrition Labels

/in /by

Apple does a good job providing accessibility options for users who experience issues with vision, hearing, motor control, and other accessibility needs. Nearly everyone will benefit from these features at some point in their lives. To encourage support for Apple’s accessibility features and assist users in finding compatible apps, the App Store now includes Accessibility Nutrition Labels that indicate supported features. Developers aren’t required to support or list these features, so it may take some time before many apps display this information. Still, it’s a welcome step forward!

(Featured image by iStock.com/findfootagehq)

Social Media: New App Store Accessibility Nutrition Labels show which apps support Apple’s accessibility features—a win for anyone who needs these capabilities now or in the future.

Press Control-Return in Sequoia to Open Contextual Menus

/in /by

Those who prefer keeping their hands on the keyboard may appreciate Apple’s addition of a new shortcut in macOS 15 Sequoia. Instead of Control-clicking to open a contextual menu with commands to apply to the current selection, you can press Control-Return. Since it’s so new, it doesn’t work in some older apps or those that sidestep standard Apple frameworks, but it’s worth adding to your keyboard repertoire.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Milatas)

Social Media: macOS 15 Sequoia has a new way you can keep your hands on the keyboard. Press Control-Return to open contextual menus—no mouse required. Try it out and speed up your workflow on your Mac.

Secret Link