Category Archives: Apple

14in MacBook Pro review: putting power back in Apple’s laptop

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New M1 Pro and Max chips, larger screen, long battery life and more ports make for huge upgrade

Apple’s MacBook Pro has been given its biggest upgrade in power, ports and screen quality since 2016, ticking almost every box on the wishlist of eager Mac users.

But the new 14in and 16in models are no longer machines for the average consumer. Costing from £1,899 ($1,999 or A$2,999) they are workstation laptops for creative pros and developers and priced accordingly. They leave the excellent £999 M1 MacBook Air as Apple’s foremost consumer laptop.

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The 20 best gadgets of 2021

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From smartphones to folding skis, the year’s top gizmos selected by tech experts from the Guardian, iNews, TechRadar and Wired

Cutting-edge tech is often super-expensive, difficult to use and less than slick. Not so for Samsung’s latest folding screen phones. The Z Fold 3 tablet-phone hybrid and Z Flip 3 flip-phone reinventions are smooth, slick and even water-resistant, packing big screens in compact bodies. The Fold might be super-expensive still, but the Flip 3 costs about the same as a regular top smartphone, but is far, far more interesting. Samuel Gibbs

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Controversial Pegasus spyware faces its day of reckoning | John Naughton

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The infamous hacking tool is now at the centre of international lawsuits thanks to a courageous research lab

If you were compiling a list of the most toxic tech companies, Facebook – strangely – would not come out on top. First place belongs to NSO, an outfit of which most people have probably never heard. Wikipedia tells us that “NSO Group is an Israeli technology firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”.

Pause for a moment on that phrase: “remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones”. Most smartphone users assume that the ability of a hacker to penetrate their device relies upon the user doing something careless or naive – clicking on a weblink, or opening an attachment. And in most cases they would be right in that assumption. But Pegasus can get in without the user doing anything untoward. And once in, it turns everything on the device into an open book for whoever deployed the malware.

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Apple tells Thai activists they are targets of ‘state-sponsored attackers’

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At least 16 people including protest leaders have received alerts about devices possibly being compromised

Thai activists who have called for reform of the monarchy are among at least 16 people in Thailand who say they have been warned by Apple that they have been targeted by “state-sponsored” attackers.

Warnings were sent to the prominent activists Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul and Anon Nampa, according to Panusaya’s sister May, and the administrator of Anon’s Facebook page. Panusaya and Anon are in pre-trial detention after leading demonstrations calling for the power of the monarchy to be curbed.

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Can big tech ever be reined in?

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The Biden administration has shown an early determination to tackle the power of Amazon, Google, Facebook and co. But is it already too late?

When historians look back on this period, one of the things that they will find remarkable is that for a quarter of a century, the governments of western democracies slept peacefully while some of the most powerful (and profitable) corporations in history emerged and grew, without let or hindrance, at exponential speeds.

They will wonder at how a small number of these organisations, which came to be called “tech giants” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft), acquired, and began to wield, extraordinary powers. They logged and tracked everything we did online – every email, tweet, blog, photograph and social media post we sent, every “like” we registered, every website we visited, every Google search we made, every product we ordered online, every place we visited, which groups we belonged to and who our closest friends were.

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iPhone 13 Pro Max review: Apple’s heavyweight super phone

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Top-priced, big screen, two-day battery life and cracking cameras – but just too heavy to beat the best

Apple’s latest super-sized smartphone is a beast in all directions, but is bigger really better?

The iPhone 13 Pro Max is Apple’s most expensive smartphone, starting at £1,049 ($1,099/A$1,849) – at least £100 more than other models. With the same chips, software, design and camera as the regular sized 13 Pro, size is the key differentiator.

Screen: 6.7in Super Retina XDR with ProMotion (120Hz OLED) (458ppi)

Processor: Apple A15 Bionic

RAM: 6GB

Storage: 128, 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: iOS 15.1

Camera: Triple 12MP rear cameras with OIS, 12MP front-facing camera

Connectivity: 5G, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5, Lightning, ultra wideband and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)

Dimensions: 160.8 x 78.1 x 7.7mm

Weight: 240g

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Apple Watch Series 7 review: bigger screen, faster charging, still the best

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Small updates keep Apple at top of smartwatch market, even if it’s not worth upgrading from recent models

The Apple Watch gets a bigger, better screen, faster charging and a small price cut for 2021, which is enough to keep it at the top of the smartwatch market.

The Series 7 version costs from £369 ($399/A$599) and, despite being £10 cheaper than last year’s Series 6, is Apple’s most expensive smartwatch, above the Watch SE costing from £249 ($279/A$429). It requires an iPhone 6S or newer and does not work with Android.

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Apple iPhone 13 mini review: still the boss of small phones

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Mini model trounces competition with great camera and performance, but isn’t the best iPhone for the year

The iPhone 13 mini takes what’s great about the full-size iPhone 13 and squeezes it into a body not much larger than the iPhone 5S without cutting back on features or power.

The smallest of Apple’s 2021 lineup costs £679 ($699/A$1,199), sitting above the £389 iPhone SE and below the £779 iPhone 13.

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Apple’s plan to scan for child abuse images ‘tears at heart of privacy’

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Security experts say technology on iPhones could open door to mass surveillance and be misused

Technology like that proposed by Apple to search iPhones for child sexual abuse images would open the door to mass surveillance and be vulnerable to exploitation, world-leading security and cryptography experts have said.

Client-side scanning (CSS) gives access to data on users’ devices, including stored data, which “brings surveillance to a new level”, according to analysis from academics at Harvard Kennedy school, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Cambridge, among others.

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Apple may cut iPhone 13 production by millions as US warns of Christmas shortages

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Shares in Apple fall as global chip shortage and supply chain issues prompt White House to admit there could be empty shelves during festive season

Apple may slash the number of iPhone 13s it will make this year by up to 10m because of a shortage of computer chips amid a worldwide supply chain crunch that led the White House to warn that “there will be things that people can’t get” at Christmas.

Apple was expected to produce 90m units of the new iPhone models this year but has told its manufacturers that the number would be lower because chip suppliers including Broadcom and Texas Instruments were struggling to deliver components, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

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Intimate data: can a person who tracks their steps, sleep and food ever truly be free?

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Big tech now encourages us to monitor everything from our heart rate to our glucose levels via smartphones and watches. How much privacy have we lost to the promise of self improvement - and is it time to stop?


First we counted our steps, then our heartbeats, blood pressure and respiratory rates. We monitored our sleep, workouts, periods and fertility windows. But there is plenty left to measure as we are sold the promise of self-optimisation by the vast and sometimes controversial frontier of health tracking – an increasingly medicalised market that has flourished since pedometers went digital and watches got smart.

The latest health metric available to consumers comes from a medical device originally designed for people with diabetes; it allows users to track their blood sugar levels. But, as always, the big questions are: will it make us healthier, and is it wise to sacrifice ever more intimate data?

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Apple iPad 2021 review: still the best tablet for most people

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Faster chip, more storage and huge video call camera upgrade keep Apple’s cheapest tablet in front

Apple’s updated low-end iPad looks set to continue its dominance of the market with newer chips, twice the storage and a brilliant new video-calling camera.

The 10.2in iPad costs £319 ($329/A$499) – £300 for students – making it Apple’s best-value tablet, sitting below the £479 iPad mini and £579 iPad Air.

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iOS 15 release: everything you need to know about Apple’s big update

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Free software upgrades for iPhone, iPad and Watch improve notifications, Safari, FaceTime and more due for release

Apple plans to release software updates for its iPhone, iPad and smartwatch on Monday, which will add new features for compatible devices.

Announced at the firm’s developer conference in June, iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and WatchOS 8 bring new ways to deal with notifications, tools to keep work and home life separate, the ability to FaceTime video call with non-Apple users and more.

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Child abuse: Apple urged to roll out image-scanning tool swiftly

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Exclusive: privacy concerns ‘must not delay use of neuralMatch algorithm to protect victims of abuse’

Child protection experts from across the world have called on Apple to implement new scanning technologies urgently to detect images of child abuse.

In August, Apple announced plans to use a tool called neuralMatch to scan photos being uploaded to iCloud online storage and compare them to a database of known images of child abuse.

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Apple and Google accused of ‘political censorship’ over Alexei Navalny app

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Navalny’s supporters say companies deleted tactical voting app from stores after pressure from Kremlin

Supporters of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have accused Google and Apple of capitulating to Kremlin pressure after the two tech companies deleted his tactical voting app from their online stores.

Both companies had come under significant pressure from Russian regulators in the days before the courntry’s parliamentary elections to block access to Navalny’s Smart Voting initiative, which tries to channel opposition votes toward the strongest opponents of the ruling party, United Russia.

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Apple still reliant on one core product as it nudges $3tn hurdle

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The iPhone maker may be set to break market records, but it’s starting to look more and more like a one-gadget pony

If Apple is to become the world’s first three-trillion-dollar company, the iPhone will play a key role in that feat. The tech firm unveils the latest iteration of its signature product on Tuesday, and the success of the iPhone 13 will determine how quickly Apple goes from its current market capitalisation of just under $2.5tn (£1.8tn) to $3tn.

“We believe Apple is on a trajectory to hit $3tn by early 2022 and the iPhone 13 will be a lynchpin of growth,” says Dan Ives of investment firm Wedbush Securities.

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Russian minister complains to US about role of ‘digital giants’ in election

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Sergei Ryabkov’s claim of interference in Duma vote believed to be reference to anti-Putin apps on Apple and Google

The Russian foreign ministry has summoned the US ambassador, John Sullivan, to complain about alleged interference by “American digital giants” in Russia’s upcoming parliamentary election.

According to a ministry statement on Friday, the deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, claimed Russia “possesses irrefutable evidence of the violation of Russian legislation by American digital giants in the context of the preparation and conduct of elections to the state Duma”.

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Apple delays plans to scan cloud uploads for child sexual abuse images

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Company says it will ‘collect input and make improvements’ after backlash from privacy groups

Apple will delay its plans to begin scanning user images for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) before uploading them to the cloud, the company says, after a backlash from privacy groups.

The company’s proposal, first revealed in August, involved a new technique it had developed called “perceptual hashing” to compare photos with known images of child abuse when users opted to upload them to the cloud. If the company detected enough matches, it would manually review the images, before flagging the user account to law enforcement.

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Beats Studio Buds review: Apple’s Android-loving noise-cancelling earbuds

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Buds have good sound, battery life, compact shape without stalks and work with Android or iPhones

The latest Apple Bluetooth earbuds from its Beats brand offer active noise-cancelling and cross-compatibility that goes beyond its competitors – even for Android users.

The Studio Buds cost £129.99 ($149.99 or A$199.95) and are Beats’ smallest earbuds to date, following on from the sport-oriented PowerBeats Pro and budget Beats Flex.

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Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child sexual abuse images

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Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizens

Apple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time.

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