Macworld Looking for a way to save some money on the latest Apple products? Consider a refurbished MacBook, refurbished iPhone, or refurbished iPad from the Apple Certified Refurbished store. A refurbished product is just like new, but Apple sells it at a lower price. Here’s a quick guide with information about which products are available on Apple’s refurbished store, how much you can save on the refurb store, and everything you need to know about the ins and outs of the Apple Certified Refurbished store and buying a refurbished MacBook, desktop Mac, iPhone, or iPad from Apple. You’ll find links to the sections of Apple’s Refurbished store so you can buy Apple products for less. What is the Apple Certified…

Macworld One of the joys of Touch ID on a Mac laptop is using Apple Pay without needing an iPhone or iPad at hand to validate a secure credit or debit card transaction. This was extended to M-series Macs with the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which allows a Mac mini, iMac, or Mac Studio to add Touch ID through a special wireless connection to an M-series Mac’s Secure Enclave module. But some readers have found Apple Pay disabled. In  > System Preferences/Settings > Wallet & Apple Pay, macOS offers the explanation “Apple Pay has been disabled because the security settings of this Mac were modified.” Several different causes could be the root, and Apple omits one for M-series…

Macworld Threads is a new app from Meta made as a text-based offshoot of Instagram. If that sounds like yet another competitor cashing in on the Twitter turmoil like Bluesky, Mastodon, or Post, you’ve got the right idea. The existence of the app and service was first revealed a few months ago and has been in testing with lots of celebrities, brands, and influencers. You can download the Threads app from the App Store, where a preorder placeholder has been available for a couple of days. The app is designed to get a boost from one of Meta’s most popular services, Instagram, with heavy integration between the two. Threads is listed as “an Instagram app” in its titles on app…

Macworld The first iOS 17 Developer Beta was released on the first day of WWDC, as is tradition. While it is meant for developers to begin building apps using new frameworks and APIs, and to test and send bug reports if their apps don’t work with the new software, it is technically available to anyone with a developer account. In fact, the Developer Beta used to require a paid membership to the developer program, which costs $99 a year. With iOS 17, Apple changed its policy to allow even those with free developer accounts (which otherwise only provide access to the developer forums and Xcode) to download the iOS 17 Developer Beta. Still, we recommend waiting for the Public Beta…

Macworld If you don’t want to wait to install the next version of macOS – which we now know will be called Sonoma after Apple revealed all the details at WWDC in June, you can join the beta program and try it out on your Mac before it is released to the public in September or October. The developer beta of macOS 14 Sonoma is already available to download. This year the developer beta isn’t just available to developers who have paid to join Apple’s Developer Program (which costs $99/£79), Apple has opened it up to anyone who is a registered developer. We explain how to get a free developer account below. The slightly more stable public beta version will…

Macworld If you don’t want to wait to install the next version of macOS – which we now know will be called Sonoma after Apple revealed all the details at WWDC in June, you can join the beta program and try it out on your Mac before it is released to the public in September or October. The developer beta of macOS 14 Sonoma is already available to download. This year the developer beta isn’t just available to developers who have paid to join Apple’s Developer Program (which costs $99/£79), Apple has opened it up to anyone who is a registered developer. We explain how to get a free developer account below. The slightly more stable public beta version will…