Macworld Jeff Johnson is the hero behind StopTheMadness, Link Unshortener, and other must-have browser and social-media utilities that let you override and defeat websites’ attempts to hijack control of your cursors, mouse, and Control-click. (I gave StopTheMadness 5 out of 5 stars in a Mac Gems review last year.) But what has he done for us lately? He’s figured out how to disable smooth scrolling, a surprise feature added by Apple in Safari 16.4 for macOS. If you didn’t notice, with this version of Safari, pressing and releasing the down or up arrow on a Safari page scrolls the page continuously until you tap a key or use a mouse to regain control. The change is baffling. Who asked for this? Why introduce…

Macworld If you don’t want to wait to install the next version of macOS, for which Apple will be revealing the details of 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 will be available to download, if you are a registered developer, shortly after the Apple Keynote on June 5. The public beta version will then be available for anyone to signs up for the Public Beta program around the beginning of July. While you wait for the beta of macOS 14 to drop you can test the next update to macOS 13 Ventura.…

Macworld Say, did you hear the rumor about iOS 17 from, oh, perhaps five minutes ago? Your news feed probably has a recent report about what’s coming soon for the iPhone –if not from five minutes ago, then maybe from the past few hours, or at the most, a day or two. Even without any major new features, Apple Reading about iOS 17 is nice and all, but as a Mac editor, what I look for in my news feed are juicy macOS rumors, something that tells us what we could see in the next version, macOS 14. And if my news feed could produce special effects based on its contents, it’d play chirping crickets. Our macOS 14 news hub…

Macworld Apple’s WWDC will kick off with a keynote on June 5 at which we expect the company to take the wraps off of macOS 14, the next major version of the Mac operating system. In this article, we’ll track the latest news about macOS 14, the features we hope to see and the rumors, and when it is officially unveiled, it’ll be your place to learn about all of the new features and updates. macOS 14: What will be the name of the next macOS release? Every year since macOS 10.9 Mavericks, Apple has used California landmarks to identify each new version of macOS. Apple has trademarked numerous names over the years, as shared by Parker Ortolani of The…

Macworld As an editor who’s been covering Apple for a long time, I’m often asked by family, friends, and acquaintances about which Mac to buy. I have knowledge and insight that people can tap into conveniently through a conversation, saving someone from hours of research, a task that can be daunting, intimidating, and confusing. When using Google or another search engine, results appear as a list of websites, and then it’s up to you to find the information you need. That could take a lot of time, maybe even several hours. But generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard can possibly cut that time down to a few minutes, akin to the conversations I have. However,…

Apple today released the first beta of macOS Ventura 13.5 to its public beta testing group, allowing the general public to try out the software ahead of its official launch. The ‌macOS Ventura‌ 13.5 public beta comes a few days after Apple provided the software to developers. Public beta testers can download the macOS 13.5 Ventura update from the Software Update section of the System Preferences app after installing the proper profile from Apple's beta software website. There is no word as of yet on what's included in ‌macOS Ventura‌ 13.5, and no notable new features were found in the developer beta. We're expecting to see Apple unveil macOS 14 in just two weeks at WWDC, and macOS 13.5 should…