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Want to buy a new Mac and don’t want to spend a fortune? Buying a new Mac is an expensive business, but there is a way to get a new Mac for less money.
We don’t mean buy a second-hand Mac from someone on eBay. We mean you can get a brand-new Mac directly from Apple for less money. Read Should I buy a secondhand Mac?
Want to know how? Shop at Apple’s Certified Refurbished Store. On the Refurbished Store you can find Macs from the past few years all with money off Apple’s usual price. See just how much you can save here: How much can you save at Apple’s Refurbished Store.
The price isn’t the only reason to shop at Apple’s Certified Refurbished Store though. Here we’ll tell you all the reasons why you should buy a refurbished Mac.
Apple’s not the only place that sells refurbished Macs. We discuss the Best place to buy a refurbished MacBook or Mac in a separate article and also make some recommendations below.
You might be thinking that buying from Apple’s Refurbished Store is a bit like buying secondhand, assuming that the Mac had a previous owner and for one reason or another they returned their Mac to Apple. Your concern might be that this means there is something wrong with the Mac, but as you will see from the point below, Apple will have identified and fixed any faults.
The Mac you are buying probably hasn’t come straight from the factory, but its interlude with a prior customer will have been brief. The previous owner may have exercised their consumer rights and returned it unused within 14 days (which is the extent of Apple’s refund and exchange policy). Or the Mac might have been used as a demonstration model, but this doesn’t mean that it will have been used by lots of people and it is unlikely to have undergone any intensive processing.
You can save money on the current generation of Macs if you shop in the Refurbished Store.
For example, in July 2023 we found a refurbished 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip for $929, which is a saving of $170, and less than the M1 MacBook Air still sells for.
It usually takes a few months before Apple starts selling the current generation of Macs on the Refurbished Store, but Apple started selling refurbished M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pro and M2 Mac mini in the refurbished store in May 2023, about four months after they initially went on sale in January 2023.
Apple
Buying from the Refurbished Store is a great way to get a more powerful Mac than the current entry-level for less money.
If you shop for your Mac in your local Apple Store, at an Apple Authorized Reseller, or in Apple’s online store, you can only buy the newest version of a particular Mac. Turn instead to the Refurbished Store and you will find Macs from the past few years at a lower price than their successors.
The really enticing thing is that these older Macs often aren’t a lot different from the current models. Sure, the newer Mac might have the next-generation processor, but if you had the choice of an M2 or an M1 Pro then the M1 Pro would still be a more powerful option. See our Mac processor comparison.
For example, we took a look at the Apple Refurbished Store in July 2023 and found a refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip (14-core GPU, 512GB SSD, and 16GB Unified Memory) for $1,539. This is a saving of $360 on the $1,899 price it had when it was new. But the deal is even better when you consider that a brand new 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 chip, configured to have the same 512GB SSD and 16GB memory, would cost $1,699 and would be a less powerful Mac with a 10-core GPU.
Typically you can see the following savings at Apple’s Refurbished Store for the current generation and older generation Macs:
There are also some big savings to be had on Intel-powered iMacs.
You might be thinking that this is all very well, but these are Macs that are likely to have been returned to Apple due to a fault with them. Would it be unwise to buy a Mac that has already proven to be faulty?
The great news here is that you can be sure that any fault will have been rectified by Apple. The company says that all refurbished Macs include “full functional testing, genuine Apple part replacements (if necessary),” as well as “a thorough cleaning”.
The Mac you are buying will have had more checks than any Mac coming straight from a factory so you can be sure that any problems will have been caught.
Apple
Even better, you get a one-year warranty, so if anything does go wrong getting it fixed will be easy and free.
You also get complimentary technical support, which means you will be able to phone Apple up if you have any problems with setup, installation of software, and any connection problems.
You can also extend the one-year warranty up to three years if you buy AppleCare protection when you purchase your refurbished Mac.
If you buy secondhand from another source you will only have any remaining warranty left over–and since the model you are buying is likely to be more than a year old this protection will have expired.
Because you are buying the Mac from Apple directly it comes with other benefits. For example, not only will there be no shipping costs associated with your new Mac (Apple will dispatch it to you for free).
You will also be protected by Apple’s 14-day returns policy, which means that if you change your mind you can send it back, no questions asked, within two weeks.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Another benefit is that if the Mac is in stock at your local Apple Store you could pick it up today. And if you would prefer that it was delivered to you, it could arrive as soon as tomorrow.
If you don’t have the money right now you can still get your new Mac. Apple offers financing options. In the U.S. Apple offers its own Apple Card which brings the advantage of 3% Daily Cash Back when you buy from Apple.
The Apple Card isn’t available in the U.K., but Barclays and PayPal Credit provides finance if you want to buy a new Mac. You just need to apply for financing when you check out.
You can also trade in an old product to get credit toward your new purchase. You could get up to $775/£615 credit for trading in a MacBook Pro, for example.
Dealing with Apple is a real benefit. You don’t need to deal with a previous owner who might not be completely honest about problems with the machine, or might be difficult if later on you experience problems.
Dealing with Apple directly should give you peace of mind that you are buying exactly what is advertised and that if there are any issues they will be dealt with professionally.
Apple isn’t the only place you can buy a refurbished Mac. There are a number of Apple Resellers and Refurbishment specialists who will also sell you a secondhand Mac that has been thoroughly checked over.
We’d advise that you are a little more cautious if it isn’t Apple selling the refurbished Mac, and we recommend that you don’t buy a very old Mac, even if it has been refurbished, but this can be a good way to get a reasonably new Mac for less.
These refurbished stores will have thoroughly checked the Mac so you can be confident it will work!
In the U.S.:
In the U.K.:
If you want to know more about buying a refurbished Mac, read this: Where to buy a Refurbished Mac.
We also have Best Place to buy a Mac and When is the best time to buy a Mac.
For advice about which Mac to buy read out Best Mac Buying Guide
And if you want a deal on a new Mac, read: Best MacBook Pro deals or Best iMac deals
In any business there are ups and downs. As you’d expect, ups and downs in Apple’s world can be pretty big.
(It’s just a theme to pull two mostly unrelated stories together, people. Don’t think about it too hard.)
Fortunately for Apple, the down here is actually for another company, but it’s a whopper.
“Goldman Is Looking for a Way Out of Its Partnership With Apple”
Apple Pay was just another in a long string of Apple products that pundits told us were doomed from the start.
This comes after reports that Goldman Sachs has lost billions in the relationship. The Macalope doesn’t know about you, but when he gets into business deals that lose him billions of dollars, he considers those bad deals and attempts to get out of them. Moreover, he tries not to get into similar deals in the future.
That’s just him though. And, um, Goldman Sachs, apparently. You can’t really blame them for trying to squirm out of the deal. The company is reportedly looking to American Express to take over its entire credit card business, although a deal has not gone through yet.
Seems like a bit of a tough sell. “Heyyy, buddy. You got any interest in taking over this Apple Pay thing? Good business. No, really… uh… really good business. We’d looove to keep doing it but… just sooo busy with the other stuff.” Well, the Macalope wishes them both the best of luck in this billion-dollar game of hot potato.
IDG
The one company that Apple Pay has been really good for is… anyone? Yeah, it’s Apple. It somehow managed to not get destroyed by CurrentC. Remember CurrentC? Oh, how we laughed. You laughed so hard milk came out of your nose! And you weren’t even drinking milk! That was very weird. Anyway, Apple Pay has gone on to be a big contributor to Apple’s services revenue.
With downs like that, who needs ups? Well, not Apple, but here it is anyway.
“Apple’s Market Valuation Returns to $3 Trillion After Almost 18 Months”
So what? If you’re an Apple customer, it affects you not in the slightest. It doesn’t change the quality of Apple’s products, it doesn’t change the user experience, and it doesn’t make Craig Federighi’s hair any more full and lustrous.
That’s just genetics. Nothing you can do about that.
Now, if you’re an Apple employee with stock options (or an Apple investor) it matters, and maybe some of that circles back around to better products. (Still not hair, though.) But it’s not a relationship that’s easy to calculate.
So, no big deal, right? Sure. However, if you’re a long-time watcher of Apple like the Macalope is, it’s funny to see the company become the most valuable in the world when we were told for the better part of two decades or more that it was minutes from going out of business. This wasn’t an unreasonable thing to say in the mid-1990s, but pundits hung onto the notion far longer than it seemed possible given the assumption that all human beings operate with at least a baseline understanding of logic. “Are these people serious?” we wondered in the early 2000s. “How do these people dress themselves?” we pondered around 2008. “CAN THESE PEOPLE EVEN HANDLE BASIC CONCEPTS LIKE HOW SOUP WORKS?!” we shouted around 2016.
Once Apple passed $1 trillion in valuation, though, things began to change. The very idea it could go out of business was less and less publishable. When it passed $2 trillion, you needed to be selling a book or something and just trying to get attention. Now that it’s back at $3 trillion, don’t expect to see it floated much if at all.
So, maybe as an Apple customer, there is a benefit after all.
It’s got more top-end ports than any other dock we’ve tested and a built-in SSD enclosure so you can add up to an extra 8TB of storage, yet it is one of the most affordable docking stations available.
$299.99
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s SuperDock! But what makes Sonnet’s latest Thunderbolt 4 laptop docking station so super?
The super-ness is not the 19 top-end ports, although these are certainly impressive. It’s not the 2.5x faster Ethernet connection. And it’s not the backward-compatible Thunderbolt 4 technology that is certified to the very latest Intel standards.
What makes the Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock so super is its built-in M.2 NVMe SSD slot which means you can add up to 8TB of SSD storage to your system without connecting an external storage device to the dock or computer.
But first, let’s look at the abundance of ports this dock boasts to connect devices at top speed.
Foundry
The Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock has a copious 19 ports. The “20” in the Echo 20’s name includes the power supply port, which we don’t usually count in our port countdown.
The Echo 20 has more ports than we’ve seen with any docking station. Even the Caldigit TS4 Dock has only (!) 18, and it’s this kind of Thunderbolt 4 docks that Sonnet is gunning for. Read our fuller roundup of our other recommendations for the best Thunderbolt docks for Mac.
All the Echo 20’s USB ports are at least 10Gbps (twice the bandwidth of the many docks’ USB ports). The TS4 has as many (8) but the Echo 20 has one more USB-C, while the TS4 has the extra USB-A. As more devices eschew Type A for Type C, we applaud Sonnet for having as many USB-C as USB-A.
You can daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices via the two downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports, although the devices connected will be sharing the 40Gbps bandwidth upstream to the laptop.
Rather than add the maximum possible three downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports, Sonnet includes two plus a high-end HDMI 2.1 video port so the user can add a direct external display without the need for an adapter.
If you plan to connect an HDMI display, that makes more sense than a third Thunderbolt 4 port.
Foundry
The Echo 20 doesn’t ship with an SSD, so you need to purchase one yourself. A 1TB SSD can be found for under $50, 2TB for around $100, 4TB for $250. 8TB SSDs can cost between $800 and $1,000.
If you were configuring a new MacBook with 8TB of internal storage, Apple would charge you $2,200, so adding it to your connected docking station at half the price makes a lot of sense, and you can swap it out with other capacities as you desire.
It must be an M.2 NVMe SSD. With the right SSD, transfer and access data rates are up to 800MBps.
Foundry
SSD installation is simple if you know how to use a screwdriver and don’t have shaky hands. Unscrew the two screws securing a panel cover on the back panel of the dock. Insert the SSD and re-secure the bottom cover.
However, we would have preferred Sonnet to include the correct screwdrivers with the dock as what you need—a tiny crosshead—may not be in the average toolbox.
The Echo 20 isn’t heavy but even with its compact power supply it’s not particularly portable, so what you store on that SSD isn’t going with you when you disconnect the laptop from the dock. It’s great for backups, archiving, and for large files you don’t need with you on the road.
There’s also a fast SD card reader for more portable storage…
The Echo 20 features just one SD card reader for portable storage, while the TS4 has both SD and MicroSD readers.
Having both formats offers more flexibility, and the two slots can be used at the same time, so the TS4 wins if you prefer portable storage to be installed.
Most MicroSD cards come with an SD adapter so the lack of MicroSD doesn’t stop you from choosing between the two memory-card formats on the Echo 20. MicroSD cards are usually cheaper than full-size SD.
Tiny memory cards were once the preserve of professional users such as photographers who use them to quickly transfer files. However, anyone can buy a quality 512GB card for around $75/£75, and they offer an inexpensive way of upping the storage in your laptop and are super portable, too.
The Echo 20’s UHS II SD card reader is rated fast at 312MBps—the same as the TS4’s.
As with other docks, if you prefer portable storage there are other options, too. For example, you could add a pocketable SSD enclosure, such as Ugreen’s M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure Adapter, available for around $30 (also not including the SSD itself).
Foundry
You can connect an external display via the HDMI 2.1 port (without the need for an adapter), and another screen via one of the Thunderbolt ports, or two via both the downstream Thunderbolt ports.
Dual-display support means M1/M2 Pro, M1/M2 Max and M1/M2 Ultra Macs can hook up either a single 4K/5K/6K screen or two HD/4K/5K/6K displays.
A Mac with an M2 Pro/Max/Ultra chip can support up to a single 8K display at 60Hz, or two HD/4K/5K/6K displays (both 4K at 60Hz).
Windows PCs and Chromebooks sporting Thunderbolt 4 can support up to a single 8K display at 60Hz, or two HD/4K displays at 60Hz.
If you install DisplayLink software you can run two displays off connected plain M1 and M2 Macs, which otherwise are limited to one display. Learn more about adding multiple screens to M1 or M2 Macs in our tutorial and solution recommender.
An interesting difference between the Echo 20 (HDMI 2.1) and the Caldigit TS4 (DisplayPort 1.4) is the choice of video port.
HDMI is the more popular port on displays but DisplayPort has traditionally been superior on the specs front. However, HDMI 2.1 has more than caught up with DP 1.4 so is a fine option even for high-end pros. HDMI 2.1 is a big leap up from HDMI 2.0, which is found on most other docking stations with a video port.
Visuals aren’t the Echo 20’s only strength. There are four audio ports available. At the front is a 3.5mm combo jack for either wired headphones or a microphone, and at the back are separate left/right channel RCA line-out jacks that can deliver a clean signal to powered speakers or an amplifier, plus an extra 3.5mm microphone jack.
The TS4’s three audio ports are all 3.5mm. While there is no noticeable difference in sound quality between RCA and 3.5mm connectors, a lot of consumer A/V equipment still supports RCA connectors, which also provide a more secure connection than 3.5mm connectors.
Audio enthusiasts would prefer a Digital Audio port to connect directly to their amplifier, speakers, or home theatre receiver for the highest-quality, pure audio playback. Caldigit’s Thunderbolt 3-based TS3 Plus dock has one, but the audio ports on the Echo 20 will be good enough for most users.
Another bid for “Super” status is the Echo 20’s super-fast 2.5Gb Gigabit Ethernet, which has the potential to be 2.5 times faster than standard Gigabit Ethernet. This again matches the wired-network port on the TS4.
To take advantage of the 2.5GbE speed, you need a connected device—such as a router/network switch—that is 2.5GbE or above
The 2.5Gb Ethernet port is backwards and forwards compatible with other speeds of Ethernet, so will work with a standard Gigabit Ethernet network.
With 100W Power Delivery (PD), the Echo 20 can keep even the largest connected laptop powered up in full use.
Each USB port on the Echo 20 has a minimum charging power of 7.5W, and the downstream TB4 ports can offer 15W to power connected devices.
While this is impressive, it’s one area where the Caldigit TS4 has more muscle. Its 230W power supply is the most powered-up docking station we’ve ever tested, and one of the front USB-C ports can charge at a generous 20W–enough, for example, for fast-charging an iPhone via USB-C.
The Echo 20’s 150W power supply should, however, be powerful enough to charge a 100W laptop and have enough left for a few connected devices.
Foundry
Docking stations either lie horizontally, like the Echo 20, or stand vertically, like the TS4. Vertical docks save desk space but horizontal docks can offer a cleaner look.
Personally, I prefer the vertical design, but most docks, if doing their job correctly, soon blend into their desktop environment anyway.
Most docks place the upstream Thunderbolt 4 port (to the host laptop) at the front, which means a trailing cable messing up your desk. Both the Echo 20 and TS4 handily position the upstream port at the back of the dock.
The Echo 20 is jet black, while the TS4 is metal gray, although this is unlikely to be a decider when choosing between these two excellent two docking stations.
Sonnet
The Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock costs $299.99, which measures up very favorably against the Caldigit TS4’s $399.99 and other Thunderbolt 4 docks such as Kensington’s SD5700T ($369.99).
Given its top-end specs, this is easily the best-value Thunderbolt 4 dock we have tested.
Note that there’s no SSD included with the Echo 20 so you need to factor in this if you want to add the internal storage, but it’s not even an option with other docks so doesn’t spoil the comparison.
Even if you don’t need the SSD enclosure now, the Echo 20 still represents great value for money.
We didn’t think that Caldigit’s TS4 could be beaten but the Sonnet Echo 20 Thunderbolt 4 SuperDock is a very close match for the number and quality of ports but for $100 less.
It lacks a MicroSD card reader and doesn’t offer as much multi-device power, but it has other benefits—most noticeably the internal storage enclosure—and is specced high enough for most users.
The 19 ports are all top-end—Thunderbolt 4, 10Gbps USB-C and USB-A, 2.5Gb Ethernet, HDMI 2.1—and the inclusion of the onboard M.2 NVMe SSD slot gives the Echo 20 our crown as the new Thunderbolt 4 docking station of choice.
iCloud Keychain is end-to-end encrypted among all your devices and uses iCloud just for syncing your password and other shared keychain entries. As I’ve written previously in “Why iCloud Keychain may prompt you for a device password used with other Apple hardware you own,” Apple relies on device passcodes in a special way as you add additional devices to an iCloud Keychain set.
With your first device, you’re simply enabling syncing. Apple requires that you enter the password or passcode on that device to prime the pump. That encrypted password is used to wrap all your iCloud Keychain entries. The next device you add will prompt you to enter the passcode or password of the one you initiated iCloud Keychain with. Entering the secret unlocks the iCloud Keychain sync and adds your new device to the set of legitimate keychain sync partners. Because you’re entering the passcode or passphrase on a device under your control, it’s never leaving your hardware: Apple doesn’t learn it; it’s just a secret only you know to unlock the syncing operation.
One reader, however, was shocked when restoring an iPhone that they were prompted to enter the password of a computer they no longer owned—one they double-checked had been removed from their set of registered devices. Surely that was a security leak? They were concerned that whoever possessed their old computer might have access to their keychain secrets.
Fortunately, that’s not the case, though Apple surely should have a way to resolve this problem when devices are removed from iCloud—but possibly not with a restored backup. Only the encrypted passcode of that older device lingered, likely within the iPhone backup. When prompted to enter it, the reader was only unlocking their local keychain set.
While this request looked sketchy or problematic, it was poorly labeled rather than a security hole.
When the reader disabled iCloud Keychain on all their devices and re-enabled it, they weren’t prompted for the password on an old Mac again—or any passcode at all. The devices all retained enough mutual security elements associated with the iCloud identity that re-authentication wasn’t required.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Andrea.
We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently, along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to [email protected], including screen captures as appropriate and whether you want your full name used. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.
Whether you go around the world or only as far as the coffee shop, you need effective network security. Now through July 14th, the Deeper Connect Pico gives you that security for the best price ever as part of our Deal Days promotion.
The Deeper Connect Pico has a profile that can slip into a coin pocket and a look that blends in with your gear. But inside is a quad-core processor that drives a seven-layer firewall, an ad-blocker, a parental control tool, and a decentralized private network of other Picos to provide maximum security. And since it’s all hardware-based, you won’t pay any subscriptions or fees. Just take it with you, connect it to a power source and a network with the included wireless adapter, and log on with confidence.
Get hardwired security in a tiny package with the Deeper Connect Pico for $139.99, our lowest price ever lasting only through the end of July 14th.
Deeper Connect Pico Decentralized VPN & Cybersecurity Hardware + Wi-Fi Adapter – $139.99
Prices subject to change.
StandBy, one of a number of appealing new features in this year’s iOS 17 software update, enables iPhones to act as smart displays when plugged in and not otherwise in use. This means they can serve a secondary function as a reduced-brightness (or red-tinted) digital alarm clock with a few useful widgets while charging overnight. But based on a new report, Apple is considering a similar feature for the Mac.
Of course, your Mac is less likely to be sitting beside your bed during the night, so the analogy isn’t exact. But there’s considerable merit to the idea of the screen automatically transitioning into a more general info hub when it would otherwise be sleeping (and assuming battery conservation isn’t a concern). It could feature a clock, a calendar, weather info, smart-home controls, a rotating gallery of photos, or any number of other useful widgets or controls.
It seems that Apple feels the same way. In the subscriber-only version of his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg leaker-analyst Mark Gurman says Cupertino’s engineers are working on a new Mac display that will feature its own Apple silicon processor. That in itself isn’t new: the Studio Display runs an A13. But this device will be specced to act (like an iOS 17 iPhone) as a standalone smart display when not required for its day job.
Given that StandBy has only just been announced for the iPhone, and that this is the very first we’ve heard about this development for a Mac display, we’d expect this to be a long way from launch, if indeed it ever becomes reality. But it’s worth mentioning that, as The Verge observes, such a feature has been rumored in the past, only for the iPad.
Leaving aside the smart-display feature, there have been many rumors about Apple’s upcoming standalone displays. Last December it was reported that the company was working on multiple such devices for launch in 2023, and there are hopes–albeit in the considerably longer term–that a 27-inch mini-LED display is in the pipeline.
Apple’s 4th-generation AirPods and 3rd-gen AirPods launch is approaching, and a major leak has revealed some new details about the next version of the company’s hugely popular wireless earbuds. These include new health features (covering both hearing and body temperature monitoring) and a switch from Lightning to USB-C.
The leaker-analyst Mark Gurman focused on the next generation of AirPods in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, and while some elements have been mentioned before by Gurman and others, the article is a useful summation with some new tidbits and further detail in certain areas.
We already know, for example, that Apple is deeply interested in hearing health and how AirPods can help with this. It’s been shown that current AirPods Pro models can double as cheap hearing aids, and the Conversation Boost feature was launched years ago.
More recently, Gurman himself said in an earlier edition of Power On that hearing health would be the next area for AirPods innovation. But at the time this was comparatively vague, mentioning the “ability to get hearing data of some sort.” The new report expands on this considerably. There will be, Gurman predicts, a “new hearing test feature that will play different tones and sounds to allow the AirPods to determine how well a person can hear. The idea is to help users screen for hearing issues.” In other words, as well as serving as an effective hearing aid, the next AirPods will be able to flag up potential hearing loss earlier so it can be treated more effectively.
A separate health function Apple is looking to add to the AirPods is body temperature measurement. Again, this is an area we already know is of interest to the company, whose most recent Apple Watches are designed to measure body temperature via the wrist for fertility tracking and overall well-being, but the ear canal is a better and more accurate source of such data. Apple is accordingly working on adding a temperature sensor to a future set of AirPods, Gurman says, although this may not be ready for the fourth generation.
What will be here in time for the next model is the widely predicted switch from Lightning to USB-C on the case charging port. This makes sense since Apple is strongly expected to make the same transition on the iPhone starting in late 2023. However, while Gurman has previously said he expects all three AirPods models to move to USB-C by the end of 2023, he’s now signaling that the company may be prepared to wait a little longer for the non-standard models; the AirPods Pro, he says, will stick to their current release cadence, which means the next model, presumably based on a USB-C connection, isn’t likely to arrive until the fall of 2025. It’s unclear whether a new case will be rolled out before then as with the MagSafe case in 2021.
Finally, the idea that Apple will look at cutting the price of its cheapest AirPods, aired again in the new report, has been knocking around for years. They have generally been referred to as the AirPods Lite and are expected to compete with sub-$100 earbuds.
The current (standard) AirPods launched in October 2021, and while Apple refreshes its headphones less frequently than its phones, tablets, and laptops, work will be well underway for the sequel to this highly successful product. A glance at Apple’s AirPods release history (September 2016, March 2019, then October 2021) would suggest that the next standard edition of Apple’s wireless earbuds is likely to arrive in or close to the spring of 2024.
You can keep up with all the latest news and rumors by bookmarking our regularly updated new AirPods superguide.
The Mac is an obvious candidate if you’re looking for a computer with which to make music. The choice can be overwhelming, though, with devices ranging from a few hundred dollars or pounds to thousands more than you might spend on a car. In this article we compare them all and explain which Mac is right for you.
There was a time when music production required hiring a studio, but technology moves fast. During the 1980s, there was a revolution in analog home recording kit; then the 1990s saw home computers gradually take over. Today, you can do everything from recording pop songs to mastering movie soundtracks on a Mac. But which Mac? That’s the question we’re here to answer!
Whether you choose a Mac or PC for music production is largely down to the platform you prefer and who you’re collaborating with. However, there are a few reasons why musicians who choose to use Macs do so.
One reason is the simple fact that Macs are incredibly easy to use, so musicians don’t get sidetracked trying to set things up or fix problems. The recent addition of the M-series of Apple-made chips also means that they are very powerful, often outperforming Intel-equipped PC equivalents. Mac laptops are also slim and light, with superb build quality – a benefit if you are carrying them around to gigs as well as using them in a studio.
If you are going to make music with a Mac then there are a number of things that you need to consider. We’ll run through each of these below to help you make your final decision.
Apple
The software you use – your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) – is as arguably as important as the computer you choose. There are plenty of options available on macOS, which you can read about in our round-up of the best music recording software for Mac.
Two impressive packages you can only find on Macs are Apple’s own Logic Pro and its enthusiast-focused cousin GarageBand. (Read our Logic Pro and Garageband reviews.)
GarageBand is essentially an audio sketchbook, albeit a powerful one in the right hands. It’s great for quickly getting down the bones of songs or compositions, with plenty of support for plug-ins. We know of several professional musicians that use it for creating demos of ideas, which they can then share with other musicians in the early stage of writing. Best of all, GarageBand comes free with every Mac, just another good reason for using Apple’s computers to create your music.
When they want to get serious though, there’s a good chance they’ll switch to Logic Pro X, which is the far more powerful and feature-rich DAW.
Music software is notoriously hungry for memory. A lack of RAM (in Apple terms this is referred to as Unified Memory) becomes a serious bottleneck in any pro-level project. You’ll be able to run fewer instruments and fewer effects; you’ll spend more time rendering and less time doing things live.
Consider 16GB your minimum. This shouldn’t be difficult, all Macs and MacBooks can be equipped with 16GB RAM – and we recommend that you do configure your Mac to at least this level, if not more. Note that M2 and M1 Macs ship with 8GB RAM as standard. The M2 Macs can be updated to 16GB RAM and top out at 24GB, while M1 Macs could only support up to 16GB RAM. If you think you might need 32GB RAM then you will need to upgrade to the M2 Pro (an option in the MacBook Pro or Mac mini), which comes with 16GB as standard and supports 32GB. For 64GB or 96GB RAM, you need the M2 Max (an option for the MacBook Pro or Mac Studio). And for 128GB or 192GB RAM you’ll need to look at the M2 Ultra (in the Mac Studio or Mac Pro).
Storage is likely to be an important factor in your decision. All Apple Macs use SSDs and have done so for many years now. This is a benefit because hard drives can be a bottleneck due to their relatively low speed compared to SSDs, and they can be noisy.
However, SSDs are far more expensive per GB than hard drives. Entry-level Apple notebooks have 256GB SSDs, but pro instrument and effects collections when installed can require hundreds of GB, and that’s before you even start to add your own music files. So you probably want a minimum of 512GB SSD with your Mac. Another reason to avoid the lower-capacity Macs is that we’ve found the smaller SSDs to be slower than their larger-capacity counterparts.
You must figure out what you’ll need, and whether assets will be stored internally or externally. External drives can be fine for large sample libraries and the like, especially when connected using Thunderbolt, but you then need to determine how to take everything with you if you’re a musician who works with people in many different locations. Cloud storage might be a good option here: check out our Best Cloud Storage Services for Mac.
Speaking of being at different locations, you must decide whether you need the Mac to be portable or not. If you’re always moving around, working with various musicians in different countries, a Mac Studio probably won’t fit in your hand luggage. But if you’re a solo musician who only ever creates music in a home studio, you could get more bang for your buck with a desktop machine such as the M2 Pro Mac mini.
If you are studio based you may think that you need an iMac so that you can take advantage of the large display, but you can plug in an external display to any Mac, so even if you had a laptop Mac you could happily use it with a 30-inch screen when you are at your desk.
You also need to consider the other kit you want to use. If you don’t have any extra kit (if all of your music-making happens inside a Mac) then this won’t be a concern, and, in theory, any Mac might do. But if you have a pile of audio interfaces, USB instruments, headphones, monitors, and other vital hardware, trying to get by the two USB-C ports found on the MacBook Air and entry-level MacBook Pro models will drive you to despair. (In which case you might want a USB hub to use with your new Mac).
Luckily in recent times, Apple has added more ports to its newest Mac laptops, so you will find SDXC, Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, and more on the side of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. The Mac mini and Mac Studio also have a nice selection of ports.
Apple
High-end audio work can be extremely processor intensive, especially when using professional plug-ins and effects. If your demands are great, you’re going to need a Mac with fairly serious processing power. Ergo, whichever Mac you decide to buy, avoid low-end models that seem to lurk in the line-up to enable Apple to say ‘from’ and use a lower price-tag in marketing material. That said, the current crop of entry-level Macs with their M2 Chips are proving to be quite formidable.
For the ultimate option turn to the MacBook Pro, Mac mini or Mac Studio with the M2 Pro or M2 Max. The M2 Ultra in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro might also appeal, but would likely be overkill.
There’s also the question of the GPU. Historically, recording and editing audio didn’t utilize many graphics card resources, unlike 3D design and video editing. Things are more complicated these days as some audio software is GPU-accelerated. It’s also a factor should you require additional displays. Apple’s M2 Macs offer 8 or 10-core GPUS and should suffice in most cases.
If you think you will benefit from more graphics prowess then look to the 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro (16 or 19 graphics cores) or the M2 Max (30 or 38 graphics cores). The Mac Studio and Mac Pro go further offering the M2 Ultra with 60- or 76-core GPU.
Speaking of external displays, note that if you want to plug in more than one additional display the standard M1 and M2 MacBooks won’t officially support more than one additional display (although there are ways around this, see: How to connect two or more external displays to Apple M1 or M2 Macs). The Mac mini, Mac Studio and all other MacBooks support a number of external displays. This could matter if you wish to use graphics with the music you play.
If you want a good-sized screen, plenty of ports, and plenty of power the 14-inch MacBook Pro, introduced in January 2023, is a good option (and the 16-inch MacBook Pro if you want an even bigger screen). Both come with the M2 Pro chip and 16GB Unified Memory (aka RAM) as standard. This can, of course, be upgraded at the point of sale, maxing out at 32GB for the M2 Pro (you can get up to 96GB in the more expensive M2 Max models).
You’ll get 512GB or 1TB storage as standard, with the option to increase that to a mega 8TB. There is no 256GB SSD option for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, which avoides the whole issue with slower SSDs that plagues the 256GB SSDs.
Those are all good reasons to choose the larger MacBook PRo over the 13-inch model, another is the M2 Pro, which brings extra GPU cores (16 or 19) that can be used to crunch the numbers needed when using loads of plug-ins, VSTs or rendering multi-channel compositions onscreen. Should you want the most powerful MacBook Pro you can buy, then you could look at the M2 Max, which maxes out at 38 GPU cores.
This is an expensive Mac, but we often see very good discounts so we strongly recommend that you shop around to save. Check out these MacBook Pro deals for the best discounts.
Not every musician has the budget for Apple’s M2 Pro-powered MacBook Pro though. The good news is that even the 13-inch M2-powered MacBook Pro is worthy of consideration for music-making.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro, introduced in June 2022, uses Apple’s M2 chip. The M2 is powerful enough to offer great performance and make short work of projects with plenty of layered tracks, effects, VSTs, and give smooth playback without stuttering or overloading. True, the baseline model does only come with 8GB of RAM, so we’d advise upgrading this to either 16GB or 24GB at the time of purchase, as you can’t make any adjustments later on due to the non-upgradable way these are built.
The M2 MacBook Pro is also the last remaining MacBook to feature the Touch Bar, which can be really helpful for adjusting settings or scrubbing through a timeline. You do only get a couple of USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports, but these can be expanded via a USB-C hub if you need more connections for external peripherals or drives. If you want power and portability, then the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 is quite the workhorse.
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 is another Mac laptop that could be considered for your DAW. In terms of weight, it’s the lightest of the current crop at 2.7 pounds/1.24kg, but that doesn’t mean it’s a lightweight in the performance stakes. The M2 model is claimed by Apple to be 1.4x faster than the previous M1 version, plus you also get a little more display space as it was increased from 13.3-inch to 13.6-inch.
Due to Air’s power efficiency, the laptop also comes without a fan, which could be a godsend if you record near the laptop. As with all Macs, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can edit on the go without worrying about latency.
The MacBook Air is a little less powerful than the MacBook Pro, but you can choose a model that meets our requirements of 512GB storage, and you can up the RAM to 16GB or 24GB as we recommend. The 512GB MacBook Air, upgraded to 16GB of RAM, costs $1,599/£1,649 from Apple, which isn’t exactly cheap (but Apple did drop the price by $100/£100 in June 2023. There is a cheaper $1,099/£1,149 model, but that only has 8GB of RAM and 256GB, but could be usable if your workload is light.
To save more money you might consider the M1 version, which is still available from $999/£999, we’d advise against this and suggest that you save money by shopping around for a good deal. See: Best MacBook Air deals. You can see how the two different models compare by reading our MacBook Air (M2) vs MacBook Air (M1) article.
Feel like the screen on the 13-inch MacBook Air might be too cramped for your needs? In June 2023 Apple introduced a 15-inch MacBook Air. It costs more than the 13-inch MacBook Air, but actually represents good value for money in comparison to the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which has a similar-sized screen but costs a lot more. See: 15-inch MacBook vs 14-inch MacBook Pro for more information.
If you don’t need the portability of a laptop the best value for money Mac for musicians is the Mac mini with M2 Pro, which launched in January 2023. For $1,299/£1,399 you can get the same chip that will cost you $1,999/£2,149 in the MacBook Pro. Sure you’ll need a separate screen, mouse and keyboard, but it’s still going to save you a ton of money.
It’s small, quiet, and has great connectivity options, along with an additional audio-in port that could be useful for legacy products. What more could you ask for?
If you don’t need the M2 Pro there’s a standard Mac mini with M2 chip, which starts at just $599/£649. If you already have a display, keyboard, mouse and are just looking for an engine on which to make some music, the Mac mini is a solid choice.
It’s small, quiet, and has great connectivity options, along with an additional audio-in port that could be useful for legacy products.
The Mac mini is currently available with the M1 chip and 256GB SSD for just £649/$599. There’s also a 512GB model for £799/$849. Double the RAM to 16GB, for another £200/$200.
If funds are low, the Mac mini is a great choice for making music. Here are the best prices for the Mac mini.
Those looking to create professional-level music in the home or studio will definitely want to look at the Mac Studio. Aimed at the Pro market, but still affordable, this beefed-up Mac mini boasts the M2 Max SoC, with a 12-Core CPU and 30-Core GPU, or the M2 Ultra for 24-core CPU and up to 60 or 76-core GPU. Both options deliver enviable levels of performance.
Add to this up to 64GB RAM for the M2 Max, or 192GB RAM for the M2 Ultra, and up to 8TB of storage (all of which can be upgraded at the point of sale) and you have an incredibly potent Mac that can handle anything you throw at it. There are plenty of ports available, including 4x Thunderbolt 4 and 2x USB-C and 2x USB-A, so all of your outboard kit should be able to plug directly into the Mac Studio. As with the Mac mini, you’ll need to bring your own display, keyboard, mouse and speakers.
Check out the best deals for the Mac Studio to see if you can save on the usual price of $1,999/£2,099.
Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.
One of the quirkier stories we covered last week centered on a simple Velcro strap.
Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset, you see, is rather heavy, and the company seems to have addressed possible issues with comfort by adding on an extra strap that goes over the top of the user’s head. But this strap is depicted nowhere in the press photos, and (according to the Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman) is likely to cost extra on top of the standard $3,499 price tag.
If you spend that sort of money on a product, you’d hope that comfort would be priced in. (And it’s entirely possible, we should stress, that it will be. For now this is merely a rumor.) But the idea that the strap won’t be included in the box is sadly compatible with Apple’s broader strategy in recent years. Apple has become the king of the upsell.
It all started, for me at least, with the charger. In 2020 Apple made the decision to stop including a power adapter with new iPhones, using the pretext that most customers already owned one, and that they were all ending up in landfill. Handy, then, that the move also enabled Apple to reduce the size of boxes and cut costs without lowering the price. And of course Apple will still happily sell you an adapter for an extra $19 if you haven’t got one lying around. The company also stopped including EarPods in iPhone boxes, which means more AirPods sales.
To be clear, I’m not saying the environmental justification was entirely disingenuous. But I do strongly suspect that Apple found a genuinely worthwhile idea more appealing because it could be used to squeeze out bigger profits. If the company sincerely wanted to reduce tech waste in landfill, after all, it would make its phones compatible with a global connection standard rather than a proprietary one before being forced to do so by regulatory pressure. But proprietary cables and chargers are better for upsell.
In 2022, Apple went all-out on the upsell strategy. It wasn’t enough for customers to spend $799 on a new iPhone 14; the company gave that device a year-old processor and generally did all it could to push customers who could possibly afford it to get the $999 14 Pro instead. (In our review, we called the 14 “basically an iPhone 13s.”) Similarly, the Apple Watch Series 8 was barely an improvement on its predecessor–why bother with the Series 8, when you’ve got the Apple Watch Ultra to push–and the AirPods Pro were heavily pushed over the standard AirPods. Every company wants you to buy their most expensive models, but for Apple that year it became an obvious and calculated strategy to an extent never seen before.
It’s difficult to argue with decisions made by a company that just touched a $3 trillion market cap (again). But this sort of thing–gouging out an extra $400 for wheels, when your customer has already shelled out $6,999 for a Mac Pro–might not be wise in the long term. It can get people’s backs up, eroding goodwill towards your brand, but more importantly, it makes your entry-level products seem a bit, well, rubbish. And those who can’t afford the iPhone 14 Pro or the Apple Watch Ultra or the Vision Strap Plus might decide to give up on the idea entirely and spend their money elsewhere.
Thanks to the readers who got in touch about last week’s Siri-bashing column. I was reassured to discover that some of you are even angrier about the state of Apple’s error-prone personal assistant than I am.
Richard Raymond-Smith, for example, complained bitterly about Siri’s apparent regression. It used to be able to respond to natural-language queries about a journey’s ETA, he notes, but now unhelpfully replies along the lines of “Here’s what I found on the web about ETA…” That’s a big fail, Siri.
Robert Williams, meanwhile, finds it “mystifying that Apple continues to sully its reputation for excellent products by muddling along with a product that is VASTLY inferior to, say, Alexa,” and ponders why any of the company’s software engineers would willingly work on Siri, given the embarrassment factor when revealing this in conversation. And Gus Pistolis throws down a challenge: “How do we mount a grassroots effort to get Apple to create a better if not new Siri?” The campaign starts here!
Drop me an email if you’ve got any strong opinions about this week’s piece above; I can’t respond to them all, but I do read them. No promises, but I might include a few more reader comments next week.
Foundry
Does anyone actually enjoy working at Apple, asks the Macalope.
Wallets out, everyone. A rare original 4GB iPhone is expected to fetch as much as $100K at auction.
Apple has bagged Stardew Valley in a notable coup for Apple Arcade.
Apple is planning to launch its biggest iMac ever. It could have a screen beyond 30 inches.
But there might be a very long wait until the next new Mac arrives.
The next Apple Watch Ultra might arrive sooner than we thought.
You might have to pay extra to make the Vision Pro headset comfortable.
After a huge June, here’s everything coming from Apple in July.
And looking further into the future, here’s everything Apple plans to release over the next 12 months.
The Apple Watch is getting its first major revamp to its operating system this fall. And can FaceTime spur Apple TV hardware sales? Plus the fundamental change coming to all of Apple’s operating systems, all in this episode of the Macworld Podcast!
You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
iOS 17 is finally tapping into the iPhone 6’s full potential.
Visual Look Up is getting a lot more useful in iOS 17.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.
Deal Days has come to Macworld, bringing savings that rival Prime Day on a host of gadgets. And if you already have a lot of gadgets, here’s a particular one you need to look at. It’s the InCharge X Max Charging Cable, and its ingenious design means that you can finally consolidate all those different chargers that have been tangled up on your desk.
Each end of this cable has a “keyring” configuration that lets you flip out a different connector. You’ve got USB, USB-C, Micro-USB, and Lightning hookups all on the same charger, allowing you to power up phones, drones, cameras, tablets, and a wide array of devices at up to 100W. And with an Aramid fiber shell, you can be sure the cable is built to last.
Don’t wait: Thanks to Deal Days, the InCharge X Max is now on sale for $19.97, down from the MSRP of $39 – but only through July 14.
InCharge® X Max 100W 6-in-1 Charging Cable – $19.97
Prices subject to change.
Apple’s two-factor authentication system deflects access to your Apple ID account by requiring that in addition to your password you also have to provide a code that arrives either through a trusted device (an iPhone, iPad, or Mac) or a trusted phone number—one that’s been verified after having been added. Trusted devices are an easier set to manage, because they represent all devices logged into the same Apple ID for use with iCloud. Trusted numbers are a different matter.
I’ve long recommended adding not just your own cellular or other phone numbers as trusted numbers, but also that of someone trustworthy who is close to you, like a life partner or family member. That gives you a backup in validating your account should suffer a massive theft, an accident that destroys gear, or you lose all your hardware.
But I’ve received occasional correspondence, particularly from businesses, who want to remove trusted numbers because they no longer trust the person whose number it is or they no longer have an association with that person.
It’s simple to remove a trusted number, but you must be sure first that you still have access to other trusted devices for the account. Otherwise, you could lock yourself out.
You can test whether you have trusted devices associated properly by attempting to log into the Apple ID website. It always requires a second-factor code to access your account details if you don’t use a stored identity in versions of iOS, iPadOS, or macOS and Safari that support that. You should receive an alert on all trusted devices noting that someone is trying to access your account, with a small preview of a map and two buttons: Allow or Don’t Allow. (In our experience this map illustration can be more than 200 miles outside your location, but if you were the one requesting access it is probably ok!)
If you see this, tap or click Allow, enter the code that appears in the appropriate locations on the Apple ID site, and confirm the login was successful.
If you don’t receive the Allow/Don’t Allow prompt on any device, you should troubleshoot why that is. You may have set up two-factor authentication for an Apple ID account you don’t have logged into an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. I’ve recommended this as a way to deal with Apple IDs used solely for purchasing media and apps, something many of us wound up with if we used Apple’s systems for a long time because purchasing and cloud-based systems once used separate accounts.
In that scenario, you need to re-associate a trusted device with the account so you don’t unintentionally lose access when deleting a trusted phone number. I’ve recommended using a secondary account on a Mac that has its iCloud account set to be your purchasing Apple ID. (An iPhone or iPad can only be associated with a single Apple ID for iCloud; on a Mac, each account can have a separate iCloud-associated Apple ID, but they’re only active when you’re logged into that Mac account.)
If you’ve done that, log into that Mac account and see if you receive the two-factor prompt and code there. If not, you should use an existing trusted phone number under your control to set up that secondary Mac account.
Now you can remove trusted number you don’t want to keep active:
You can remove trusted numbers in several places, including here in macOS Ventura’s Apple ID management setting under Password & Security.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by an anonymous Macworld reader.
We also have the following articles that might be useful:
We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to [email protected] including screen captures as appropriate, and whether you want your full name used. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.
Looking for a more convenient way to charge your Apple Watch? Then check out this Apple Watch wireless charger keychain. It’s small and lightweight so you can pack it everywhere — and it’s on sale for a limited time during Deal Days so it’s cost-effective too.
Deal Days is our version of Prime Day — only it starts earlier and runs longer, so there are more opportunities to save. The Apple Watch wireless charger keychain, for example, normally costs about $50. Until 11:59 pm on July 14, however, you’ll save over $34 off this price and instead get it for just $14.97. And you’ll get free shipping too, which makes it a heck of a bargain.
This charger elegantly replaces the one that came with your Apple Watch. Instead of having to deal with cables, you just keep this small charger on your keychain and charge your watch anytime and from anywhere. It features a capacity of 950mAh, it’s compatible with all Apple Watch series, and you can charge your watch while the keychain itself is charging too.
Get your Apple Watch wireless charger keychain for just $14.97 with free shipping until 11:59 pm on July 14, no coupon codes required.
Apple Watch Wireless Charger Keychain – $14.97
Prices subject to change.
Got an international trip planned? Then you won’t want to be without these award-winning Mymanu CLIK S translation earbuds. And since you can save $67 off the regular price during our very limited Deal Days Sale, there’s never been a better time to get them.
Mymanu CLIK S earbuds might look like an average set of wireless buds. Except for the fact that they aren’t. Like other earbuds, they do let you listen to music and other types of media in exceptional HD clarity. Where they differ is in their ability to translate spoken languages — over 37 of them, in fact — which is why it’s won awards from CES and Red Dot.
So, if you’re backpacking across Europe, with your Mymanu CLIK S earbuds you’ll be able to understand when you ask where the bathroom is. You’ll also order your food correctly when you’re at a restaurant, make your way around the cities and countries more easily, and just generally have a more relaxing experience than you otherwise would.
Pick up a pair of Mymanu CLIK S translation earbuds for just $89.97 until 11:59 pm on July 3, no coupon codes required.
Mymanu CLIK S: Award-Winning Translation Earbuds – $89.97
Prices subject to change.
If you’re looking for a deal on a new MacBook Air or Pro, you can usually find one, but it’s rare to see every model on sale at once. But that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Ahead of Prime Day, being held July 11-12, Amazon has slashed prices on every MacBook Air and Pro model but at least $100 and as much as $200, including the newest 15-inch MacBook Air:
Many of these prices are at or near all-time lows, and they’re all excellent options. Even the M1 MacBook Air, which is more than two years old and still sporting an M1 chip, is a great laptop for high school and college students, and the new 15-inch Air is basically the perfect laptop. We don’t know how long these sales will last or if Amazon is planning any deeper discounts once Prime Day officially arrives, but if you need a MacBook, there’s never been a better time to buy one.
Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale in July is an excellent opportunity to save money on Apple devices. For two days every year, you’ll find tons of deals including savings on AirPods, Macs, iPhone, iPad, and more.
The next Amazon Prime sale will kick off just after midnight on July 11, 2023, and will run until 11.59 pm on July 12. We expect to see some great discounts on Apple products during the 48-hour sale, but you don’t have to wait until then to save money. We usually see companies offer Early Prime Day Deals to get ahead of the rush. Amazon itself is offering early access to deals via its home page. To see if you can already save money on something you want take a look at Amazon Prime Day (US) and Amazon Prime Day (UK) or at your local Amazon storefront.
While many discounts are available to everyone, you’ll need to sign up for Prime to qualify for the best deals, but that also gives you free one or two-day delivery and access to Prime Video. If you don’t already have a Prime membership, you can sign up for the free 30-day trial. After that ends, the service costs $14.99/£8.99 per month or $139/£95 a year. Here are the best prices you can get on Apple products leading up to the big sale:
Amazon U.S.
And in the U.K.
See our roundup of the best Amazon Prime Day Sale AirPods deals for more deals.
Amazon U.S.
Amazon U.K.
See our roundup of the best Amazon Prime Day Sale Apple Watch deals for more deals.
Amazon U.S.
Amazon rarely discounts iPhones in the U.S. and when it does they are tied into a contract. However, you can visit Amazon’s iPhone page to see the deals on offer. Accessories are often on sale, however, including these deals:
Amazon U.K.
See our roundup of the best Amazon Prime Day iPhone deals for more deals.
Amazon U.S.
Amazon U.K.
See our roundup of the best Amazon Prime Day iPad deals for more Prime Day deals.
IDG
Amazon U.S.:
Amazon U.K.:
See our best Amazon Prime Day MacBook Air and MacBook Pro deals and our roundup of the best Amazon Prime Day Mac deals for more deals.
Want a new hard drive or SSD? See our Best SSD and hard drive deals for Prime Day.
Want a display to go with your Mac or MacBook? See our Best monitor or display deals for Prime Day
Many Prime Day discounts are exclusive to Amazon Prime members, so if you want to take advantage of the deals, you’ll need to become a Prime member. Membership cost $139 / £95 / AUD$59 annually, or $14.99 / £8.99 / AUD$6.99 on a monthly basis. There’s also a 30-day free trial for anyone who doesn’t want to commit. You can cancel at any time.
Amazon Prime is a service that began as a way to get unlimited next-day delivery but has since become much more. Subscribers get access to Amazon’s Netflix rival Prime Video, plus plenty of other benefits. You can see all Prime benefits here.
Here are some quick tips to grab an Apple bargain during the two-day Prime Day sale.
It’s essentially a catalog for the full range of Apple products, and when you click through to specific devices, you’ll also see any available discounts.
We’ve listed all available devices below, many of which had good discounts off last Prime Day. We’d recommend bookmarking the product pages you’re most interested in, so you can browse discounts as soon as Prime Day hits.
Here are the same product pages for UK readers:
Prime Day deals will go quickly, as many offers are available as Deals of the Day, which means stock can be limited or last for only a few hours.
Ensure first off that you’re signed up to Amazon Prime to access the deals on Amazon. You don’t need to be paying for the service; you can be on the free trial.
Also, make sure your payment and shipping information is up to date to make sure you can purchase products before they sell out.
If you come across a deal that has sold out, you can usually join the waitlist to be alerted to any stock that becomes available, usually because someone has decided they don’t want to purchase it after all, and removes it from their basket.
You can also use the “Watch this Deal” button on upcoming deals to be alerted when they become available.
With a team of Apple-breathing experts browsing through deals and offers every day (literally), you can be sure if there’s a top offer out there. See only the best deals on Macworld right here.
Apple’s free Mac apps: Photos and Preview can get the basics of editing an image or photograph, but if you want to do anything more advanced you’ll need a dedicated image editing app. Adobe’s Photoshop is the industry standard, due to its wide range of features and capabilities.
Here’s how to get a copy of Photoshop on your Mac, or, failing that, the next best thing. Plus, because you can’t beat free, we’ll also explain your options for getting Photoshop on Mac for free. We have also rounded up the Best Mac free image and photo editors if you just want a free photo editor and it doesn’t have to be Photoshop.
If you’d like to get the same software on your tablet, read How to get Photoshop on iPad.
A lot of people will be wondering if there is a way to get Photoshop for free on a Mac. First a warning: if you find Photoshop on a file-sharing site don’t download it. This is because it’s very unlikely to be a legitimate version of the app and will almost definitely cause you problems – this is how viruses spread.
Back in June 2022 Adobe started a trial of a free web-based version of Photoshop in Canada. That version of Photoshop is available globally now, but it is in beta and only works on the Chrome browser or Microsoft’s Edge, with support for Firefox in the works. As yet there’s no news on when it will come to Safari.
It doesn’t include all the features of Photoshop, but there are lots of quick and easy editing tools available. For example, there are Quick Actions for lighting effects or removing the background from an image
The main editing page looks similar to the desktop version of Photoshop, with a set of editing tools running down the left-hand side of the window, including Selection tools, Paint Brush, Adjustments for color and lighting, and a Type tool for adding text. If you are unfamiliar with the tools each has a quick video tutorial.
On the right of the editing window, you’ll find a detailed set of tool palettes for working with layers, masks and effects. There’s also a palette that allows people to collaborate online by adding comments to their projects as well–which is unique to this version of Photoshop.
This free version of Photoshop only requires that you register for a free Adobe ID account. We wonder if it may become part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription plan in the future, but for now, it’s a way to get Photoshop for free.
Another option that will give you access to some of the Photoshop tools for free is Adobe Express (there’s also a Premium subscription version for $9.99/£9.98 per month that includes some additional editing tools.) This online web app also includes a number of useful photo-editing tools that are available for free through any web browser. If you want to do some photo-editing you can easily import photos of your own or use some of the free stock photos that are included with Express.
When you import a photo, Express allows you to quickly resize it or pan around in order to focus on a particular part of the image. You then enter the main Express workspace, which includes a selection of simple filter effects, as well as slider controls that allow you to quickly adjust brightness, contrast and other settings. You can import additional photos and superimpose them in order to create a collage, and you can also add text and graphics, including a number of ready-made logos and artwork for creating posters, fliers and other documents. Express even has simple layer controls, which allow you to edit photos, text and graphics elements individually.
Those free versions of Adobe Photoshop don’t include all the features. If you want to use the full version of Photoshop there are a few options that could get you a copy of Photoshop free for a limited time, or on a short-term subscription.
Trial: The first option is a Photoshop trial. There is a 7-day free trial that gives you access to the full program, with no restrictions.
While Adobe advertises the free 7-day trial, you can actually get 14 days free, because you can cancel within 14 days of your initial order and get fully refunded. In fact, you could, theoretically, get 21 days free if you had the trial and then canceled your subscription after 13 days.
Monthly cancel any-time subscription: The second option is signing up for a monthly subscription on a monthly rather than an annual basis. This won’t give you Photoshop for free, but the option will allow you to subscribe to Adobe Photoshop on a temporary basis and cancel when you no longer need it. We’ll run through the various subscription options in the sections below.
To explain how it works we need to explain the difference between Adobe’s two monthly subscription packages:
There are two monthly subscription packages: one is cheaper ($20.99/£19.97 a month) because it is part of an annual plan; the other is a more expensive option ($31.49/£30.34 a month), but you can cancel without having to pay Adobe anything.
| Photoshop with 100GB of cloud storage | U.S. | U.K. |
|---|---|---|
| Annual plan paid monthly | $20.99 | £19.97 |
| Annual plan paid upfront | $239.88 | £238.42 |
| Monthly plan (cancel at any time) | $31.49 | £30.34 |
| Buy it here | Buy it here |
Adobe explains the legal terms of the various contracts here. Basically, if you sign up for the cheaper ‘annual contract, paid monthly’ and then choose to end your subscription you will be able to do so, but if you end the contract after the first 14 days “you’ll be charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period.”
This is a slightly better scenario than if you were paying annually – in that case, your contract will continue to the end of the term. You wouldn’t get any money back.
This is why the best option, in this case, is to sign up for a month-to-month contract. In this case, the contract will automatically renew every month, but should you choose to cancel (we explain how to cancel below) you will be able to use Photoshop until the end of that month, at which point your contract will cease.
If you need Photoshop, but you don’t want to tie yourself into a contract with Adobe, this could be the best option for you. However, you should note that you will lose access to anything you have saved in Adobe’s cloud after 90 days.
If these options aren’t right for you, but you don’t want to pay for Photoshop you will need to look for alternatives to Photoshop. We have a round-up of the Best Mac free image and photo editors, which includes some free options such as Seashore and Gimp.
If you were hoping to buy a copy of Photoshop to own, as in not paying on a subscription basis, we have some bad news for you: Adobe no longer sells what is known as a ‘perpetual license’ for Photoshop and its other apps.
There is one option though: you can buy Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements is designed for amateur rather than pro photographers, but it does offer a number of photo editing features that might be sufficient for your needs.
You can buy a copy of Photoshop Elements directly from Adobe’s website for $99.99/£86.56. Buy Photoshop Elements from Adobe. See our review of Photoshop Elements for more information.
You can also buy Photoshop Elements on the Mac App Store, where the price is actually less than Adobe’s price at $79.99/£79.99.
The benefit of Photoshop Elements is that you can buy it outright and install it on your Mac. You will have access to features like masks, layers, colorisation, image manipulation and other useful, more consumer-level effects with Elements.
If you’re a creative professional though, or are used to the full-blown version of Photoshop, then you may find too many tools missing from the box. If you want to take a look there’s also a 7-day free trial of Photoshop Elements so you can take the software for a test run.
Understandably there are lots of Mac users who are disappointed that Adobe doesn’t sell a ‘perpetual license’ for the full version of Photoshop anymore. Many years ago professional Mac users might have owned a version of Adobe CS and used it for years, but the slow rate at which companies updated probably lead Adobe to switch to a subscription model.
If you don’t care about how up-to-date your software is you might be interested in buying a secondhand copy of Photoshop, or an old Mac with Photoshop installed. Just be aware that Adobe doesn’t support all older versions in terms of updates, so the ones you find might not be compatible with later iterations of macOS, plus newer Macs won’t run old versions of Photoshop.
You’ll also need to confirm that the software license hasn’t already been used, as usually these are non-transferable. And generally, we would advise against buying a used Mac (unless it’s certified refurbished).
For more information read: What version of macOS can my Mac run?
If a subscription to Photoshop isn’t for you, and Photoshop Elements isn’t enough, we recommend you look at alternatives to Photoshop, many of which have comparable features with the benefit of being available to buy outright. The best options include PixelMator Pro, Affinity Photo and others. See: Best Photoshop alternatives for Mac.
There is one other way you can save money while getting a copy of Photoshop for your Mac.
If you are in education then you may qualify for a discount. However, you can’t sign up for a reduced price on the Photoshop-only tier, you have to get the entire Creative Cloud collection, which includes Photoshop and a large collection of other Adobe apps. The student and teacher deal for Creative Cloud does represent quite a hefty reduction.
At the time of writing, Students and Teachers pay $19.99/£16.24 a month, which is around 70% less than the normal subscription rate.
If you have accepted that you need to pay for a subscription to Photoshop you will want to know how much it costs. There’s not actually a straightforward answer: it depends on how you want to buy it.
Whether you love or hate the subscription model, there are a few options to choose from if you want to get a copy of Photoshop:
Photoshop: If you just want the single Photoshop app you can have that for $20.99/£19.97 a month if you sign up for a year, or $31.49/£30.34 a month if you just pay on a monthly basis. Sign up on Adobe’s website.
Photography Plan: However, the Photography Plan is actually the best deal. It includes Photoshop, Lightroom (for web and mobile), and Lightroom Classic (for desktop). That bundle costs $9.99/£9.98 a month, but you will be on a contract for a year. You get 20GB storage included (there’s a 1TB storage option that costs about $10/£10 more a month). Sign up on Adobe’s website.
| Plan: Photography Plan with 20GB cloud | U.S. | U.K. |
|---|---|---|
| Annual plan paid monthly | $9.99 | £9.98 |
| Annual plan paid upfront | $119.88 | £119.21 |
| Monthly plan (cancel at any time) | n/a | n/a |
| Buy it here | Buy it here |
| Plan: Photography Plan with 1TB cloud | U.S. | U.K. |
|---|---|---|
| Annual plan paid monthly | $19.99 | £19.97 |
| Annual plan paid upfront | $239.88 | £238.42 |
| Monthly plan (cancel at any time) | n/a | n/a |
| Buy it here | Buy it here |
Business: If you are a business user you ought to sign up for the Business option where you can get a single Photoshop license for $35.99/£26.49 ex VAT a month per license. It’s worth noting that all the Adobe CC apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and Acrobat, cost $84.99/£61.99 (ex VAT) per license a month. Sign up on Adobe’s website.
The ease with which you can end your Photoshop contract is one of the benefits of Adobe’s decision to switch from selling copies of Photoshop outright to a subscription model.
It also means that you only need to pay for Photoshop for as long as you need it. So if it’s just for a short-term project you can unsubscribe as soon as the work is done.
Here’s how to cancel your subscription:
There is plenty of great photo and image editing software available on macOS, many of which come with lower price tags than Adobe products. One of our favorites is Affinity Photo from Serif, which boasts a wide range of powerful tools, a friendly interface and costs $69.99/£67.99 as a one-off payment, and also offers a 30-day free trial.
Another popular choice is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is completely free and comes with an incredible range of tools and features. The interface can take a little getting used to, which is not uncommon with open-source software, but once you get to know your way around, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve. There’s also a large collection of tutorials for the software on YouTube, so if you’re willing to put in the time then it’s a powerful suite that will cost you nothing at all.
We also recommend you read Best Mac for photo editing.
You may also be interested in: How to get Adobe Illustrator on a Mac and How to get InDesign on a Mac.
An original 2007 iPhone, still in its box and cellophane wrapping, is up for auction beginning today. The starting bid is set to $10,000, and LCG Auctions estimates that it will fetch between $50,000 and $100,000.
Apple sold around six million 2007 iPhones, but units in their original packaging are relatively rare. Even rarer are units like this one specced with 4GB of storage; at launch, the device was available with either 4GB or 8GB but the lower configuration was discontinued after a few months in favor of a new 16GB edition.
That rarity value explains the unusually high valuation. Last October an unopened original iPhone with 8GB of storage sold for a (still respectable) $39,339.60; a few months before that another sold for $35,414.
Whoever wins the auction would be wise to keep the device in its wrapping, because it will be well nigh unusable as an actual smartphone. Other than 4GB of storage (compared to a minimum of 128GB for the iPhone 14) and a 3.5-inch screen (compared to 6.1 inches on the iPhone 14) the original iPhone cannot even run iOS 4 and has no way to install third-party apps.
The auction begins on Friday, June 30 at 5 pm EST, and will end on July 16.
Apple includes the free Photos app on all Macs, iPhones and iPads, but this app is primarily intended for organizing your photo collection and only has a limited selection of editing tools.
If you’re a keen photographer and want to have more creative control over your work–but don’t want to pay for the privilege–then take a look at the free photo editing apps for Mac below. We’ve taken a look at the best alternatives to Photos that provide a wider and more powerful set of photo-editing tools.
In this article, we round up the best free photo-editing programs for the Mac, including Adobe Express, Google Photos, Gimp and more. There is even a free version of Photoshop you can try out (currently in beta). If you don’t mind paying for a decent photo editing app then we recommend you take a look at our round-up of the Best photo editing software for Mac, which includes the likes of Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Express, Pixelmator Pro, Affinity Photo and many more.
If you were hoping to get the full version of Photoshop for free read How to get Photoshop on a Mac, which includes some ways to get Photoshop for free.
Updated 30 June 2023 to add Photoshop on the web.
Photos is the free photo editing and image library app on every Mac, iPhone and iPad. It’s completely free, easy to use, and has the benefit of syncing across all your devices if you take advantage of Apple’s iCloud Photo Library (for which you will need to pay for iCloud storage, from $0.99/£0.79 a month for 50GB).
Prior to 2015 Photos on the Mac was iPhoto. When Apple replaced iPhoto with Photos in 2015 it also stopped selling another photo app, Aperture, which offered more advanced image editing. Photos has more in common with Photos for iOS and very little in common with Aperture. It’s not a professional image editing app, but it is easy to use and will do for basic to moderate photo management, and quick image tweaking.
The app is a great tool for organizing your photos. It arranges your pictures and videos into the same Years, Collections and Moments as on iOS. You can assign photos to Albums and Shared Albums and Projects. Searching for images can be made easier by identifying People in them so that you can, for example, see every image featuring a particular person in your library. Add a year to the search to see every photo of that person in that year. You can also search for all your photos with cats, plants, or the sea in them, for example.
If it’s image editing features you are interested in you can apply the same Instagram-like filters as are available in the iOS version of the app, but you can also adjust light and color, switch to black & white, eliminate red-eye, adjust white balance, reduce noise and sharpen. There’s a Heal tool, but there’s an absence of pen or brush-based tools in the Edit toolkit. You can’t sharpen or blur individual spots in the picture, for example, or fix the brightness/darkness of regions of the picture. Nor can you add text or shapes, or make selections. For a quick edit you can click on the Auto Enhance icon, which adjusts color and contrast for the image–as a result images tend to look brighter and more colorful. For advice and help read How to edit in Photos for Mac.
Photos is both very easy to use and you can edit and improve images, and easily share them with friends and family directly (via Shared Albums) or to social networks like FaceBook. But if you want more in the way of editing tools you might need to look further–in which case, check out our alternative options below.
Adobe describes Express–formerly known as Spark–as a tool for ‘social graphics and more’, but this online web app also includes a number of useful photo-editing tools that are available for free through any web browser.
When you log in to Express with your web browser, it starts by offering you a variety of templates designed for social media posts, or for creating documents such as posters, menus, or even a resume. But, if you just want to do some quick photo-editing work, then you can easily import photos of your own or use some of the free stock photos that are included with Express.
As you import a photo, Express allows you to quickly resize it or pan around in order to focus on a particular part of the image. You then enter the main Express workspace, which includes a selection of simple filter effects, as well as slider controls that allow you to quickly adjust brightness, contrast and other settings. You can import additional photos and superimpose them in order to create a collage, and you can also add text and graphics, including a number of ready-made logos and artwork for creating posters, fliers and other documents. Express even has simple layer controls, which allow you to edit photos, text and graphics elements individually.
The basic version of Express is free to use, but there is a Premium subscription plan that costs $9.99/£9.98 per month and includes some additional editing tools, as well as a huge library of stock photos, templates, and fonts. Adobe also offers discounts to students, teachers and non-profit organizations, and there’s a 30-day free trial for the Premium option also available.
Adobe already has a simple browser-based photo-editing tool called Express (see above), but it’s also working on a more advanced online editing tool called Photoshop on the web (currently in beta). As the name implies, Photoshop on the web aims to provide some of the more advanced editing tools found in the desktop version of Photoshop, making those tools available within a web browser so that you can start editing your photos on any device with an internet connection (and, presumably, a decent size screen).
At the moment, this online app is still in its beta test phase, and currently only works with the Chrome browser and Microsoft’s Edge, but we were able to use the Mac version of Edge with no problems at all on a MacBook Air running Ventura. Adobe also plans to add support for Firefox soon and, since so many creative users own Macs, we hope they’ll add Safari as well.
Photoshop is a powerful and complex editing tool, but this web version does provide some help for new users. There are some sample images on the app’s home page that you can experiment with (photoshop.adobe.com/import). And when you’re ready to upload your own photos you can also choose a number of Quick Actions – such as lighting effects or removing the background from an image – that are automatically applied to the photo as soon as it’s been uploaded.
After uploading your photo, you proceed to the main editing page, which is very much based on the familiar desktop version of Photoshop. There’s a set of editing tools running down the left-hand side of the window, including Selection tools, Paint Brush, Adjustments for color and lighting, and a Type tool for adding text. There’s more help here as well, as each tool has a quick video tutorial to show you how it works. Over on the right of the editing window there’s a more detailed set of tool palettes for working with layers, masks and effects, and a key feature of this web-based editing tool is a new palette that allows people to collaborate online by adding comments to their projects as well.
Photoshop on the web won’t replace the full desktop version of Photoshop, but it does provide lots of quick and easy editing tools to help you get started with simple photo-editing projects. But remember – it’s still in beta, and we did encounter a few bugs along the way, so make sure to keep a backup of your photos on your Mac’s own hard drive. And while this beta version is free to use at the moment–as long as you register for a free Adobe ID account–it may become part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription plan in the future.
Gimp (which we look at later in this article) may be free, but it’s not the most user-friendly program around. Seashore started life as a ‘fork’ of Gimp – a kind of clone that took Gimp as its starting point – but it has developed a distinct identity of its own over the years.
It doesn’t offer the same level of editing power as Gimp, but Seashore is a lot more straightforward to use. A simple toolbar running across the top of the editing window provides quick access to features such as a crop tool, pen, paintbrush, color dropper, and clone tool. There’s also a Text tool for adding captions and annotations.
As you select each tool, a second context-sensitive toolbar appears below it that offers additional options for that particular tool. So selecting the paintbrush will show options for adjusting the shape and size of the brush, along with features such as different materials and brush textures.
There’s a selection of color effects and filters, and – unusually for open-source software – it even provides a manual that explains how the various effects work to help you get started. More advanced tools include color adjustment, and controls for brightness and contrast, along with precise selection tools that allow you to apply edits just to specific areas of an image.
The app also supports layers for creating composite images, and alpha channels for adjusting transparency. The app’s interface is a little eccentric – such as the sneaky vanishing dialogue boxes that sometimes turn transparent while you’re using them – but Seashore is a great option for getting started with photo editing without spending a penny.
You can download it from the Mac App Store.
For some reason, Google decided to kill off its popular Picasa photo app a few years ago, and its photographic offerings now focus on the online Google Photos service.
This is essentially Google’s version of Apple’s Photos and iCloud. There’s a simple app available for Macs and iOS devices that allows you to upload your photos to the Google website – and videos too if you want – and then sync them across all your devices (as long as they’re signed into your Google account). You can view all your photos online using a web browser on your Mac, and organize them into albums for easy browsing.
The actual editing tools are pretty basic, limited to a selection of simple filters, and slider controls for adjusting lighting and color, along with tools for cropping, rotation and adjusting aspect ratio. You can also combine a set of photos to create a collage or animated slideshow, but Google Photos’ editing tools are certainly more limited than Photos on the Mac and most of the other photo-editing apps that we review here.
However, Google Photos does have one big strong point that might tempt you away from simply sticking with iCloud. High-res photos and video can take up a lot of storage space, and when you sign up for a Google account its Google Drive service gives you 15GB of free online storage for your files – compared to just 5GB for iCloud Drive (although, as we mentioned above, you can upgrade your iCloud Drive to 50GB for just $0.99p/£0.79 a month, which is actually pretty good value).
If you’re going on vacation and plan to take a stack of photos on your trip, then it might be worth signing up for Google Photos just for the extra storage, and then using Photos or another app to do some serious editing when you get back home.
Gimp is a popular open-source photo editor that has been available for many years and runs on Macs, Windows and even Linux (its full name is GNU Image Manipulation Program, named after the GNU version of Linux). But while it’s free to download, Gimp’s powerful editing tools are light years beyond the simple selfie filters and effects that you find in most free apps. There are no ads and no in-app purchases to tempt cash out of you, either.
The downside of Gimp’s Linux background is that its interface will come as a bit of a shock to most Mac users. Instead of colorful icons and helpful tools, Gimp fills its main editing screen with dull grey icons and long menus and dialogue boxes containing annoyingly small text descriptions.
The app can also feel a little sluggish when applying some of its more complex effects, which suggests that it hasn’t been optimized to take advantage of Mac-specific technologies such as Apple’s Metal graphics system.
But if you’re determined to avoid spending any money at all then you’ll find that Gimp offers a range of powerful tools that are rarely found in a free app such as this.
There are dozens of filters and effects, with a handy split-screen view that gives you ‘before’ and ‘after’ views of your photos. There are even a few animated effects, such as ‘wave’ and ‘ripple’ that you can use to create GIF files for the web. Gimp also has many of the same editing tools as more expensive rivals such as Photoshop Elements, with precise selection tools, layers, clone brush, and a variety of transformation tools, such as crop, scale and shear. And, if you’re feeling really brave, you can delve into some very powerful and precise color and lighting controls too.
Gimp is undoubtedly a powerful and versatile photo editor, and it seems churlish to criticize a free app such as this – but the program’s unfriendly interface could deter quite a few people, so it might be worth parting with some cash if you’d rather work with something a little more user-friendly.
PhotoScape X is a relative newcomer when compared to photo-editing veterans like Photoshop Elements, but this free app has proved popular with many users on both Macs and Windows PCs. It’s also quite unusual, as it completely ignores the traditional interface design of most of its photo-editing rivals.
Instead of toolbars and palettes, PhotoScape X displays its main editing window with a series of tabs running along the top of the window. Each tab focuses on a specific task, starting with the Viewer tab which provides a quick preview of an entire folder of photos at once.
You can then select a specific photo that you want to work on and switch to the Editor tab. This includes a wide range of filters, effects and lighting controls, with a handy ‘Compare’ button that shows ‘before’ and ‘after’ versions of your photos. You can also tidy up your photos using options such as red-eye removal, and a ‘healing’ brush to eliminate scratches and other blemishes.
The other tabs at the top of the editing window tend to focus on working with multiple photos, including the Batch tab, which allows you to crop, resize or apply effects to a whole group of photos all at once. We also like the GIF tab, which allows you to quickly combine a series of photos into an animated GIF for use on the web.
One area where PhotoScape X does fall short is with its rather limited selection tools – which means that you generally have to apply edits and effects to an entire photo rather than selected areas within an image. There is a Pro version of the app available as an in-app purchase that provides additional editing tools for £38.99/$39.99, but that seems a little pricey when compared to affordable rivals such as Pixelmator.
You can download it from the Mac App Store.
If you’ve ever been locked out of an account, you know how essential a good password manager is, and Sticky Password is quickly proving itself to be one of the best. That’s especially true now that you can get more than $5 off the already sale-priced cost of a lifetime subscription in this limited-time promo.
So what do you get for that one-time fee? Basically, a lifetime of painless logins, no matter what device you log in on. Sticky remembers your username and password for you, guarding it behind state-of-the-art encryption and keeping it accessible with one easy passcode that only you know. You can even choose the way your logins are saved: In the cloud or on hard storage.
This Premium lifetime subscription is already on sale for $29.99, but Macworld readers can get it for $23.97 if they buy by April 11.
Sticky Password Premium: Lifetime Subscription – $29.99
Prices subject to change.
Editor’s note: Macworld has tested the macOS Ventura 13.3.1 update released on Friday, and it appears that the update fixes this problem. This article has been updated to reflect these results.
If you’re a macOS Ventura user and you’ve set up your user account with the Home directory saved to an external storage device, you should wait before updating to version 13.3. A number of users who set up their Macs this way have found that they cannot access their accounts after installing the update. [Hat tip to Macworld reader Lee.]
The problem, which is addressed on Reddit, is that after updating to 13.3, the Mac restarts, and then when the user tries to log in, a message appears that says the log-in “failed because an error occurred.” No explanation of the error is offered, and clicking the OK button simply sends the user back to the login screen.
Update April 7, noon PT: Apple released macOS Ventura 13.3.1 and our testing indicates that the update fixes this problem. Update to 13.3.1 if you have this issue.
If you cannot install the 13.3.1 update, a workaround explained by Neat_Release_2683 on Reddit, offers a way to get your Mac working. It involves turning off System Integrity Protection while in Recovery Mode. I was able to replicate the problem on a 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro with Ventura 13.3 and an account Home folder saved to a USB-C flash drive.
I used the steps below to fix it.
If your user account’s Home folder is saved to an external drive, and it is the only account with admin rights, you can try using the workaround below. If your Mac has another admin account on it with the Home folder saved to the Mac’s internal drive, there is another workaround you can use.
Foundry
On M-series Macs, hold down the power button and continue to hold until the screen says, “Loading startup options.”
On Intel Macs, hold down the Command and R keys.
Select the Option icon when it appears and click Continue.
The macOS Recovery screen should appear with user login icons. Select an account that has admin rights, then click Next. Enter the password for the account.
Foundry
You’re now in Recovery Mode. Ignore the main window and click the Utilities menu. Select Terminal. If you’re not familiar with using the Terminal, it’s okay. The Terminal is the command-line interface for the Mac, and you’ll enter an easy command.
Foundry
A Terminal window appears, with a prompt that says something like, -bash-3.2# and then a cursor.
Type csrutil disable and then press the Return key.
That command turns off System Integrity Protection, and if you’ve never turned it off before, a warning will appear. Type y to continue.
Enter your username and then your password, It may look like your Mac is doing nothing but wait a bit. A message telling you to restart your Mac will appear when the changes are implemented.
Foundry
Now restart your Mac ( > Restart). You should be able to log into your account.
Go to System Settings and check your iCloud settings to make sure everything is enabled.
Now you can re-enable SIP by repeating steps 1 through 4, but at the Terminal in step 2, enter the command csrutil enable instead. However, Macworld reader Andy in the U.K. wrote to us to say that SIP had to stay disabled for them in order to get iCloud to work properly across “all relevant apps.” So you may want to keep it off until Apple issues a fix
You can try the following workaround for the user account with the Home folder on an external drive. But you need to have another account with admin rights on the Mac that also has its Home folder on the internal Mac storage. Also, Macworld reader Scott informed us that the method below may work only with MacBooks; it wasn’t available to him on his M1 Mac mini. Apple’s support document about this SIP feature addresses only “Mac laptop[s] with Apple silicon.”
Foundry
Based on my hands-on experience (and not a deep tech dive into working code), the problem seems to be related to a feature within macOS’s System Integrity Protection, referred to as SIP. One of the features of SIP is that it can alert you whenever an accessory (such as an external storage device) is connected to your Mac.
With Ventura 13.3, this alert seems to hinder the ability to log in, creating a Catch-22 situation. Because the external drive has yet to be approved by the user, the Mac won’t access the drive and log in can’t be accomplished. But if you can’t log in, you can’t approve the drive. If SIP is turned off, then the alerts won’t appear and the external drive can connect.
Why would anyone save a Home folder to an external drive in the first place? Mostly it’s because the Mac’s internal storage is running out. The Home folder saves a lot of user info, such as app libraries and your files. It is possible to save individual components of the Home folder to an external drive instead of the whole Home folder–for example, on a 2013 Mac Pro with a 512GB SSD that I use at home, I save my iMovie, Photos, and Music libraries to a 5TB external drive. But some people may not want to hassle with individual components and simply place the whole Home folder on an external drive.
Apple has been contacted about this issue but has not yet responded to our inquiry. It’s unclear if this issue is addressed in the macOS Ventura 13.4 beta that is currently in the works. We’ll update this article with any further developments.
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