Articles about macOS

It is November 12 and macOS 11 Big Sur is officially released today -- yes, sir, indeed. Why does the date matter? Well, I suppose it doesn't in the grand scheme of things, but still, it is rather surprising that Apple didn't release it yesterday, when the date was 11/11. Boy, that was missed opportunity, eh? Oh well.

But yeah, if you are a Mac owner, you can finally install the latest version of the macOS operating system. This is most notable for being the first version of macOS that will run on Apple's new M1-powered Mac computers. And yes, Big Sur on these new Macs can run both iOS and iPadOS apps too.

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It has been a number of months since Apple first unveiled macOS Big Sur (macOS 11) with the promise that this major operating system upgrade was coming "later this year".

At yesterday's "One More Thing" event at which the company revealed details of its new M1-powered Mac Mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, we also finally learned the release date for Big Sur. And the good news is that there's not long to wait -- macOS 11 is available to download from tomorrow, November 12.

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PowerArchiver 2021 adds a brand new internal editor and viewer tool.

ConeXware has unveiled a major new version of its trialware archiving tool for Windows users with the release of PowerArchiver 2021. For the first time, PowerArchiver 2021 is also available for macOS too, although this release does not (yet) boast all the features of its Windows cousin.

Version 20.0.58 for Windows unveils tools to help view and edit files within archives without extracting them, plus promises improvements to its Pro edition-only PowerArchiver Cloud feature, and adds some welcome new tools to the Action menu.

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We know that Microsoft is planning to give Windows 10 a makeover in the future, but it’s unlikely that the software giant will really go to town on the design, with the focus of its UI revamp -- codenamed Sun Valley -- being more on tweaking things and expanding on the Fluent Design language currently in use.

While some people are more than happy with how Windows 10 looks, it’s pretty bland when compared to macOS. But what if Apple and Microsoft joined forces to produce a Windows/macOS hybrid?

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Corel-subsidiary Parallels International GmbH has launched Parallels Desktop 16.0, the simplest and fastest way of running Windows in a virtual environment on a Mac.

The virtualization software, which can emulate a wide range of operating systems, including Linux and earlier versions of macOS, comes with the promise of over 30 new features, including ever-faster performance and new features, plus has been updated "to take full advantage of the new macOS Big Sur architecture and revamped kernel extensions”, a nod to the upcoming release of macOS 11.0, the biggest macOS update in over a decade.

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Developer Felix Rieseberg won our hearts and minds a couple of years ago, when he released Windows 95 as an Electron app that you could run in Windows, macOS and Linux. He even updated it a year ago to make it faster and bundled playable versions of gaming classics such as Doom and Wolfenstein3D alongside the OS.

Now he’s back with an installable version of Mac OS 8 that you can run on any modern computer, and he’s included a number of Mac apps and games with it, including Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, Oregon Trail, and Duke Nukem 3D.

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The T2 chip included in more recent Macs helps to boost security in a number of ways. As well as preventing unsigned software from booting, the chip also secures the entire boot process and handles drive encryption.

But T2 chip can also cause headaches for owners of such machines. The security built into the chip forces users to perform some system repairs -- such as the Touch ID sensor -- with Apple rather than a third party. It can also cause huge problems when it comes to data recovery; that is, unless you're using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac.

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In addition to revealing iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and watchOS 7, at WWDC 2020 Apple also gave us a look at the future of macOS -- Big Sur.

This is a significant upgrade to the operating system, significant enough for Apple to move away from calling it macOS X, and jumping up to macOS 11. There has been a significant redesign to the interface, icons and apps, bringing macOS much more in line with iPadOS and owners of an upcoming ARM-based Mac will be able to run iOS apps natively). But Big Sur is about more than just aesthetics.

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Usually files are encrypted while in storage or in transit but are decrypted in order to be used, providing a window of opportunity for hackers to access the information.

The technique of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) solves this problem by allowing the manipulation of data by permissioned parties while it remains encrypted, therefore minimizing the time it exists in its most vulnerable state.

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Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15.5 which includes a new battery health management feature to help improve the battery life of MacBooks.

Much like the feature that has been available in iOS for a little while now, battery health management helps to improve longevity by reducing the peak capacity of a battery. In addition to this, the latest update to Catalina also improves the appearance of Pro Display XDR monitors, and fixes various problems including issues in FaceTime and Reminders.

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A bug has been discovered in the Image Capture app that's part of macOS. The app is used to import photos and videos from other devices.

The bug kicks in when importing images from an iPhone or iPad, and it can result in a hard drive being filled up with empty data.

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After discovering a no fewer than seven security vulnerabilities in Safari for iOS and macOS, a researcher has received a $75,000 bug bounty pay out from Apple.

Ryan Pickren, a former Amazon Web Services (AWS) security engineer, found a series of security flaws in Apple's web browser, some of which could be exploited to hijack the camera of a Mac or iPhone to spy on users. The webcam hacking technique combined a total of three zero-day bugs.

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There has been talk of a macOS version of Facebook Messenger for the best part of a year, and now it seems that the app is finally rolling out.

Facebook had said that it wanted Messenger for macOS to launch by the end of 2019, but it is only now that it has started to appear in the Mac App Store. For now, sadly, it is limited to a handful of markets, suggesting that this is a staged rollout targeting key countries first.

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Microsoft has announced that its cross-platform automation tool and configuration framework PowerShell 7 is now Generally Available.

Available for Windows, macOS and Linux, PowerShell 7 sees Microsoft moving from .NET Core 2.x to 3.1 which enables greater backwards compatibility with existing Windows PowerShell modules thanks to the resurrection of numerous .NET Framework APIs. The cross-platform nature of PowerShell 7 means that Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, Debian and other Linux distro are embraced.

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Rocket League is one of my favorite PC games. Not only is it extremely fun, but it runs well on average hardware and is very easy to play. Seriously, folks, the learning curve is so low that almost anyone can just start playing right away. If you aren't familiar with Rocket League, please know it is essentially soccer with cars -- you drive into a giant ball and try to get it into the goal.

Another cool aspect of Rocket League? It is cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac, and even Linux. Sadly, this is changing, as the game's developer, Psyonix, is killing support for all desktop PC platforms that aren't Windows. That's right, if you are a Linux or macOS gamer (yes, they really exist), you will get one final patch before March -- when support officially ends. Sadly, this update will remove the ability to play the Mac and Linux versions online. And no, you cannot avoid the patch and continue to play online. In other words, you will soon be limited to offline play. Laughably, the game will continue to work fully on the now-unsupported Windows 7.

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