When Apple unveiled its first-ever smartwatch back in 2014, it’s fair to say that the world wasn’t exactly sure what it was for… and neither was Apple. In those early days, along with the fitness elements which would remain an enduring part of the product’s appeal, the company talked enthusiastically about sharing taps, sketches, and heartbeats with friends, which would not. It took time for users and third-party developers to teach Apple what they wanted from a smartwatch, and for the company to take that on board.

Today, the Apple Watch is a mature and versatile product. It’s so versatile, indeed, that you may not be aware of some of its most useful capabilities. In this article, we’re going to catch you up.

Take better iPhone photos

This was a superb piece of lateral thinking. There have always been situations where it’s difficult or impossible to trigger a camera because it needs to be out of reach, or out of sight, of the person taking the picture: when you’re trying to photograph the ports around the back of your Mac, for example, or when setting up a formal group photo that everyone wants to be in. Timers used to be the main solution, but often resulted in a mad scramble to place the camera correctly and get back in time before the time ran out. But the Apple Watch offers something better.

Open the Camera Remote app on your watch, and it will simultaneously open the Camera app on the paired iPhone. Whatever the iPhone’s camera can see, you can now see on your watch; you can switch between the front and rear cameras (and toggle some other settings) using the options button at the bottom right. Once you’re happy, hit the three-second timer button, look up and smile, and enjoy your perfect photo.

Foundry

Unlock other Apple devices

An Apple Watch, once you’ve unlocked it with a single passcode input, remains unlocked as long as it stays on your wrist. It can thus act as a handy digital key that’s on you at all times, unlocking your Mac and iPhone by proximity alone.

On iPhone, open the Settings app and go to Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode on older devices), then scroll down and tap the toggle under Unlock With Apple Watch. On Mac, open System Settings and go to Touch ID & Password and click the toggle next to your Apple Watch.

Play games

As small as the Apple Watch’s screen may be, it can still support some fun games; they just need to be designed with that limitation in mind. You need to be selective. We’d recommend Deep Golf and Lifeline, both of which make perfect sense in this format, but there are some more excellent suggestions here.

Talk to ChatGPT

You probably have your own thoughts on the ethics of AI, but it’s hard to deny that ChatGPT is fun to play with. Thanks to the Petey app, you can now have those conversations on Apple Watch. Tap the ‘Ask me Anything’ button then type in a query (or better still, use the dictation button and save your tapping finger) and you’ll soon hear what our future AI overlord thinks of the matter. There’s even a complication, which means Petey is never more than a tap away.

Foundry

Control navigation with air gestures

The standard control method for Apple Watch involves having the device on one wrist, and then tapping the screen and pressing and rotating the buttons and dials with the other hand. But there are situations where you need to control the watch with the same hand it’s on. And this is possible, thanks to AssistiveTouch, one of Apple’s handy accessibility features.

Open the Watch app on the paired iPhone. (Alternatively, you can set the feature up in the Apple Watch’s own Settings app, but I found this fiddly.) In the My Watch tab, select Accessibility, then scroll down until you see AssistiveTouch. Tap this, then tap the toggle at the top of the next screen to turn it on.

By default, doing a pinch gesture with the watch-bearing hand will take you forwards in menus, while double-pinching (pinching twice, rather than pinching once with two fingers) will take you back; clenching your fist will act as a tap, while double-clenching will open a menu of actions, which takes a little getting used to. In fact, the whole thing has a learning curve, but practice makes perfect, and you can change the actions tied to each gesture.

Tell the time without looking

If for whatever reason you are unable to look at your Apple Watch but you’d still like to know the time, Speak Time is the lesser-known feature for you. To set it up, open the Settings app on the watch and go to Clock, scroll down until you see Speak Time, then tap to turn it on. (Again, this can also be done in the Watch app on a paired iPhone; again, go to Clock then hit Speak Time.) Now you need only hold two fingers on the watch face for a second or so and it will tell you the time out loud.

Conversely, if you’d like to know the time silently without looking at the screen, consider Taptic Time. (You can turn this on in the Watch app by going to Clock > Taptic Time, or following a similar route in the Apple Watch’s Settings app.) There are various options but I find the Digits format easiest: this would for example give one long tap, followed by four short taps, followed by three long taps, followed by six short taps, to give you the time 14:36.

Quickly reply to messages

The Apple Watch probably doesn’t seem like the optimal device for writing out messages, but watchOS has been cleverly designed to help. Tap a notification of an incoming message (or open the Messages app on your Apple Watch and tap a message there) and you’ll see the option to reply. This is easier than it sounds.

The easiest method is to select one of the pre-written replies, such as yes, no, and “Can I call you later?” One tap and the canned reply is winging its way to the recipient: easy. And if these replies seem too limited, write some of your own by opening the Watch app on your paired iPhone and going to Messages > Default Replies.

Foundry

If you’d rather be spontaneous, you can type out a reply on your wrist in the onscreen keyboard, but we’d recommend that you instead swipe up and select the Scribble keyboard instead: this has you scrawl a letter at a time using the entire screen, which is much easier than hitting tiny keys. Or best of all, tap the dictation button and speak your thoughts out loud.

Make your battery last much longer

Hardly anyone seems to know that the Apple Watch now has a Low Power mode–perhaps because it already had a Power Reserve mode, which was far more drastic and made the watch basically unusable. But Low Power, finally added in watchOS 9 in 2022, is much closer to the equivalent iPhone feature, simply cutting back on features and settings to eke out a little more battery life.

To turn on Low Power mode, open Control Center by swiping up from the clock face, then tap the battery percentage. Just below the Battery Remaining figure, you’ll see a toggle labeled Low Power Mode. (Note that in watchOS 10, Control Center is instead accessed by pressing the side button.)

Preserve your privacy

The always-on screen offered on the Series 5 onwards has many good qualities, but you might be worried that it means personal data may be visible to other people. Fortunately, you can adjust the settings so that sensitive complications and notifications only appear when your wrist is raised.

Let’s start with complications, which could display personal data such as calendar appointments or health information. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone. From the My Watch tab, go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Complications Data. From here you can pick and choose which complications are allowed to display their data when the always-on screen is in dimmed mode.

Foundry

Similarly, if you go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Notifications you can fine-tune the notifications which appear in dimmed mode, and which are only allowed to reveal their information when you’ve raised your wrist.

Get discreet directions

When you’re lost in a new city, the last thing you want to do is advertise the fact that you’re a tourist (or indeed the fact that you’ve got an expensive smartwatch on your wrist and an expensive smartphone in your pocket). For this reason, it’s desirable to have Maps advise you of turnings in a way that’s discreet and doesn’t require that you look at the screen of your Apple Watch or iPhone.

While you’re still somewhere safe, open Maps on your iPhone and select a destination and the type of directions you want. Start the journey, and make sure you turn off the sound alerts by tapping the mute/unmute button on the right-hand side. Tuck the iPhone away in a pocket.

Now, as you walk along, the Apple Watch will alert you to left turns by giving you three sets of two short buzzes and signal right turns with a rapid and even series of 10 to 12 haptic taps. (You don’t need to count them, it’s the rhythm that gives it away.) When you reach your destination you get a long vibration.

Apple Watch

Apple’s announcement of the Vision Pro mixed-reality headset at WWDC 2023 on Monday was an impressive affair in many ways, from the slick design and obvious tech chops of the device itself to the high production values of the video showing them off. But the best performance of the night may have been the presenters’ intricate dance to avoid the ghosts of past failures.

Because, as usual, Apple is not the first to this market. (At least in the broad sense. Vision Pro is breaking new ground in terms of some specifics.) Google tried to make augmented reality a thing back in 2013 and finally gave up on its Glass project earlier this year. Facebook is desperately trying to make the metaverse a thing and has succeeded only in making its CEO a laughing stock. And while HTC, HP, and others are no doubt making money from virtual reality headsets, none has yet pushed into the mainstream or built a convincing case that VR is a cool technology for cool people.

Apple is clearly aware of the history, and it was striking how careful it was to avoid the pitfalls that ensnared previous competitors. Google Glass owners, for example, were insulted and sometimes physically attacked by passers-by who objected to being filmed without consent, so the Vision Pro presenters did their best to avoid the merest hint of surveillance culture. The spatial video feature was illustrated with a user in their own home filming happy and cooperating members of their own family (it’s odd, incidentally, how indoors the whole demonstration was); it was carefully pointed out that Vision Pro uses the outward screen to signal when a video is being shot, so you wouldn’t be able to do so secretly.

The message was simple: Vision Pro is wholesome. Nobody would use this for illicit or sinister purposes. You can see the person’s eyes! Everything is fine.

Apple

At the other end of the scale sit VR headsets made for gamers. VR gaming is a lot of fun, but it’s almost comically excluding; loved ones will have trouble attracting your attention mid-session, and you barely know which house you’re in when you stop. All of the headsets I’ve tried have put me in a bubble and made a virtue of this: the immersion is total, but that doesn’t lend itself to contact with the outside world. And this leads to stereotypes of lonely, isolated nerds and skepticism from the more tech-agnostic sections of the general public.

Targeting a relatively small demographic of hardcore gamers can work for smaller companies, but Apple needs its headset, eventually, to appeal to almost everyone. It wants Vision Pro to take the iPhone’s place as its central platform, after all. So the company had to go out of its way to emphasize that this headset is different. This headset doesn’t isolate you in a lonely bubble. It’s designed for FaceTime with entire groups of smiling friends; it welcomes other people when you’re ready to engage by showing your eyes on the external screen, and detects them when they approach so it can fade out the background. Most of the demos took place in the context of sociable groups, and in pride of place on the living-room sofa, not hidden away in a basement or bedroom. (No matter that, for me at least, the most compelling use case was total blissful isolation in a busy plane.)

That FaceTime demo, by the way, was also striking in its deliberate distancing from the clumsy and unappealing world of the metaverse. Because Vision Pro covers your face, it’s necessary for the sake of good communication that the system generates an artificial representation of your image. Still, visionOS avatars are much closer to photo realism than the legless cartoonishness of Facebook’s metaverse. And while it would presumably be possible–perhaps even desirable–to have a video chat in a virtual environment, especially if all participants are using Vision Pro, the demo took place in a normal room. All we’re doing, the presenters were reassuring us, is bringing your friends and colleagues into your home. This isn’t some wacky cartoon chatroom. We’re not like that other company.

Learning from other people’s mistakes

Vision Pro is riskier than most of Apple’s product launches because it addresses a market whose value remains unproven. Will mixed reality really be the next big thing? The best most of us can offer is maybe. The smartphone won’t dominate forever, and one day will be displaced by a new platform. But the smartphone’s qualities were apparent right from the start: it could be carried with you wherever you went, it fitted unobtrusively into your life, and it was conceptually close enough to existing technologies for newcomers to understand how it worked. Mixed reality doesn’t have any of those advantages, and the hardware isn’t yet hugely appealing. Headsets are bulky and heavy, battery life is poor, and the control methods are completely different from what we’re used to.

Petter Ahrnstedt / Foundry

All of this means Apple has an enormous challenge on its hands. It doesn’t just have to convince customers that this specific product is good; It has to sell the entire concept of mixed reality. A lot of potential customers aren’t familiar with the technology, which is a problem. But a bigger problem is the fact that others are, and don’t like what they’ve seen. So before it can even get to the hard sell, Apple has to fix the PR damage wrought by the companies that came before.

The whole thing is a terrifying balancing act. We’re not as isolating as VR, but we’re not as intrusive as Glass. We want to talk about the potential of virtual interaction, but we don’t want to make you think about Mark Zuckerberg and the metaverse. We want to say that this is a revolutionary product, without frightening customers with too much change. And we want to sell a product concept that will probably hit its stride several generations down the line while encouraging developers to get behind it right now in order to generate momentum and build content.

Frankly, it’s amazing that the presentation went as well as it did.

Apple

WWDC 2023 is creeping up, and with Apple fans starved of event hype since the iPhone 14 launch well over eight months ago, expectations are high. Of course the Reality Pro headset, if the company has managed to get it finished in time, will be the flagship announcement. But one of Apple’s less heralded products might be the sleeper hit of the show.

Last month, the respected leaker-analyst Mark Gurman claimed watchOS 10 will be so good that no one will care about the (reportedly rather underwhelming) new Apple Watch hardware coming later in the year. What that means in practice seems to be an updated interface, and while the use of the word “updated” rather than “new” implies something less radical and alarming than iOS 7, for instance, most pundits think it will still be a major rethink of the way we control our smartwatches.

A few days later, in fact, a new leak gave us some idea of what watchOS 10 will look like. Most fundamentally, the famous Grid View app layout, a visually baffling honeycomb of unlabelled icons that’s remained the same since 2015 (albeit joined by the alternative List View in 2017), will reportedly be ditched in favor of more iOS-esque uniform rows of larger icons that you scroll through vertically. This seems far more logical and user-friendly, and might even tempt a few of us back from List View, which has many advantages but doesn’t give you any way to put the more frequently used apps closer to the center.

(I should interject at this point to warn that this second leak came from @analyst941, also known as “anonymous-A-S” and, more recently, “that leaker who got busted by an Apple sting.” At this point it’s unclear how much of 941’s flurry of leaks were accurate, and how much was targeted misinformation. But in this case at least, the unfortunate leaker’s sources are corroborated elsewhere. The gist is probably correct.)

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Going off the grid

Apple’s long-term loyalty to Grid View has been difficult to understand; it’s simply not an efficient use of a small screen and requires both excellent memory of icon artwork (which, rather unhelpfully, can change) and dextrous fingers. Perhaps the company felt that this was a recognizable signature of the Apple Watch, much as the Home button and later the notch and Digital Island have served as visible badges for the iPhone. But this isn’t, as those other examples are, a question of making a virtue of necessity. The Grid View is simply bad design that could easily be improved… and hopefully is about to be.

The interface refresh may not stop at rearranging the icons, however. If we are to believe @analyst941 (and as I say, that isn’t a given), then Apple is also about to include folders on the Apple Watch’s home screen for the first time. This seems a less logical evolution, but that might be because I haven’t yet seen how watchOS will implement the feature. I’m mentally transplanting the folder system from iOS onto the watch when it actually needs to be rethought if it’s to avoid fiddliness. Apple’s interface design team has dropped a few balls since Jony Ive left, but I’m optimistic that they will find the right way to do folders on the smallest screen.

The key thing is that you need to be willing to take risks, try things out, and change them if they’re not working. And this is where watchOS’s development has been most disappointing. In the fundamentals, in terms of the home screen and app layout, Apple has generally been unwilling to ring the changes. It’s particularly disappointing in this case because the Apple Watch has seen a lot of change in the way it’s regarded by maker and customers alike since Grid View was created in 2015. Apple accepted that it got other parts of the interface wrong; the side button used to bring up a list of contacts, until the makers realized a dock would be more useful. It shouldn’t have taken this long to realize that Grid View too was a swing and a miss.

Can I widget? Yes you can

We’ve killed Grid View and we’ve welcomed folders. But there’s one more change (reportedly) coming to the Apple Watch interface this year, and it’s widgets.

At the end of April, Gurman returned to the subject of watchOS 10 and predicted that it would focus on widgets rather than apps, in an implementation that sits somewhere between the old Glances that the Apple Watch got rid of back in watchOS 3 and the widgets you now get on the iPhone and iPad. (This matches a prediction by @analyst941, by the way.) It will also share some features of the Smart Stack in iOS and iPadOS, a deeply handy feature that cycles the widgets it shows based on the location and time of day and what it thinks will be most useful to you.

I didn’t really go for Glances back in the day and shed few tears when they disappeared. But plenty of others have sung their praises to me, and I’m prepared to believe they can work in an updated form.

The key here is to think laterally about the way the Apple Watch works, and the qualities and limitations that make it different to an iPhone or an iPad. It’s always on you, so it’s uniquely convenient to check quickly, but it’s tiny, so it’s uniquely inconvenient for extensive navigation. (I hate faffing around in the Maps app, for example, but when requesting directions to a saved location with a single tap, the user experience sings.) There’s a sweet spot, richer than the complication and simpler than the app, where the Apple Watch can provide deep and relevant information without demanding that you interact with it too much, and the new watchOS widget can occupy that space.

Of course, we won’t know if the watch widget–or the rest of the interface refresh-works well until the watchOS 10 beta gets rolled out next month. Perhaps it will be like iOS 7: initial alarm followed by a slight aesthetic softening and eventual acceptance. Perhaps it will be an instant hit, or an irredeemable failure. But the important thing is that Apple has finally accepted that the Apple Watch’s interface isn’t working properly and needs to change. The first step is recognizing you’ve got a problem. Everything else flows from that.

Apple Watch

A good MacBook bag shares many qualities with Apple’s laptops. We want it to be tough, so it needs to be made from good materials. We want to use it for multiple tasks, so it needs to have plenty of pockets and compartments. Let’s admit it, with the diminishing number of ports on the MacBook, the bags often have the edge. And since we all admire good design here, we certainly don’t mind if the bag looks fantastic.

Plus, whatever MacBook you’ve got, Air or Pro, you’ve probably spent enough on it that you don’t want to risk it breaking—and don’t mind spending just a little more to keep it safe.

There’s no shortage of companies out there that make protective accessories for MacBooks, from laptop bags and rucksacks to sleeves, covers, and cases that clip on directly, and plenty of them do their best to be just as stylish as the Mac they’re protecting.

We’ve rounded up a selection of our favorite cases, sleeves, backpacks and bags for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, whether you have a 13-, 14- or 16-inch model, to keep your Mac safe.

All of the bags below fit those criteria, but we’ve been careful to choose bags that meet specific needs. Keep in mind that every bag here won’t fit every MacBook, but if a bag can’t handle the 16-inch MacBook Pro, we’ve been sure to make a note of it.

Case Logic Laptop Sleeve – Most colorful simple MacBook sleeve

Pros

• Tight fit
• Padded
• Colors

Cons

• Lack of pockets

Best Prices Today:



$24.59 at Amazon$24.99 at Best Buy$25.99 at Adorama

Fits: 13-inch

Case Logic makes many laptop sleeves that are suitable for various sizes of MacBook and come in all number of colors. The Case Logic Laptop Sleeve fits a 13.3in MacBook, such as the M1 MacBook Air or M2 MacBook Pro.

It’s form-fitting, so the MacBook shouldn’t slip about inside, and it features padding for extra protection. There is woven webbing along the sides to further protect the laptop and strengthen the case. It’s a slim case that should fit nicely inside your bag. 

Available in a range of strong colors, including Pink, Dark Blue, Lime Green and Teal.

STM Myth Laptop Brief – Best MacBook shoulder bag

Pros

• Slim 7L storage bag with pockets
• Handle and detachable shoulder strap

Best Prices Today:



$77.06 at Amazon$79.95 at Lenovo$79.95 at STM

Fits: up to 14-inch

STM’s Myth laptop bag will fit up to 14-inch MacBooks, although it officially stated up to 13-inch laptops. It comes in Black, Granite Black, and Slate Blue depending.

The slim shoulder bag protects your laptop by suspending it, so that it doesn’t touch the bottom of the bag. It’s also encased in foam. The shoulder strap is easy to adjust and has a non-slip pad to make it more comfortable. With a subtle luggage trolley sleeve, it can slip onto the telescopic handle of a suitcase for easy of use when not on your back—handy for busy travel interchanges and crowded trains and buses.

It’s well-made, with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) coated webbing handles with rivets, reverse coil zippers, and water-repellent C6DWR coating applied to the fabric.

Inside there are plenty of sections and pockets (we counted 10 but there could be even more hidden away) to help with organization. Cable-routing means you can charge your laptop or other devices while still in the bag.

Harber Nomad Organiser – Best Organiser for MacBook

Pros

• Pockets for tech organization
• Premium luxury leather looks
• Can hold MacBook and iPad
• Handle and detachable shoulder strap

Cons

• Bulks up quickly if over-stuffed
• Expensive

Best Prices Today:



$416.00 at Amazon

Fits: 13-inch, 14-inch

While a laptop seems like a self-contained unit, with keboard, screen, trackpad, hard drive and everything all in one tidy package, it’s not quite as easy as that.

You need a charger and charging cable for starters, and when you’re on the move you have to carry around your AirPods, and maybe you prefer a proper mouse to the MacBook’s trackpad. And what if you have an iPad to work on, too? A simple sleeve can’t cope with all that lot, but the Nomad Organiser, from luxury bag maker Harber London, certainly can.

The Nomad has ten pockets: a padded one for your MacBook Pro, and another padded pocket that fits an iPad from 9.7 to 12.9 inches, and capacious enough to handle the tablet with a Smart Cover. Be warned, though, that holding both laptop and tablet, the sleeve can be tricky to close if you are stuffing in chargers and other tech too.

One lower pocket is big enough for your MacBook charger, but you’ll notice a bump in the fine lines when closed. I prefer to keep my bulky stuff in a wider-opening bag—check out our favorite tech organizer bags—and use this sleeve for the thinner essentials.

Two pockets are zipped for safe-keeping (for example, cash or memory cards) and there’s a handy key fob strap. There’s a couple of holders for pens or an Apple Pencil.

There’s a phone pocket, too, but I’m not sure I’d want all my devices in one place, and most of us prefer our phone at hand in a pocket or more-easy-to-dip-in bag. If you do, it’s large enough for a Pro Max iPhone.

Below that pocket are a couple of slots for credit or travel cards, and above it are five straps that will hold an AirPods case, cables and even an AirTag—after, all, at this price, even the sleeve on its own is definitely worth keeping tabs on at all times. I’d have preferred elasticated straps for a firmer hold but I can appreciate the all-leather design looks super lush.

You can carry the Nomad Organiser under your arm, via a subtle built-in handle, or you can attach a matching strap to sling it over your shoulder like a messenger bag.

It is a premium MacBook sleeve, handcrafted with full-grain Spanish leather, and really does shout cool luxury. Available in Tan, Dark Brown, Black and Navy.

Mujjo Envoy Laptop Sleeve – Smart sleeve with storage

Pros

• Premium look and feel
• Accessory pockets
• In-sleeve charging

Cons

• No sealed pockets

Fits: 14-inch, 16-inch

Made from top-quality waterproof vegan leather, the Envoy Laptop Sleeve from Dutch design brand Mujjo offers portable storage not just for the MacBook but your favored accessories, too. There are tight outside pockets to store your charger and cables plus phone and other essentials.

The laptop is secured by the classy sleeve’s magnetic opening that combines fast access with a firm close. Handily, there’s a generous side opening that allows for easy in-sleeve charging.

At the back there’s an easy-access slip pocket for a notebook or passport. You can carry just about anything slim in this sleeve so don’t leave it unattended at the café!

The Mujjo Envoy is available in Black or Blue and for both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, although 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks are comfortably (if slightly loosely) held, too.

Woolnut Leather Sleeve for MacBook – Luxury leather sleeve

Pros

• Premium look and feel
• In-sleeve charging

Cons

• Lack of pockets
• Expensive

Best Prices Today:



$99.00 at Amazon

Fits: 12-inch, 13-inch, 14-inch, 15-inch, 16-inch

Available in four deeply stylish colors (Black, Cognac, Green and Gray), the Woolnut Leather Sleeve snugly fits every recent MacBook from the 12-inch original, the Air and all the Pro models. Each size is tailor-made for every model.

This minimalist sleeve might lack pockets but it is as luxe as you’ll find and will draw admiring looks and awed strokes from fellow MacBook owners. The exterior is made from full-grain Scandinavian leather, with the interior soft 100% natural wool felt from Germany.

Speck SmartShell – Simple, colorful shell

Pros

• Protects in use

Cons

• More colors, please

Best Prices Today:



$37.99 at Amazon$49.95 at Adorama

Fits: 13-inch

If you want to protect your laptop while you are using it you can pop a clear or tinted case on it. The Speck SmartShell case comes in various sizes to suit different MacBooks.

There’s clear cases as well as a few different colored options, including Cosy Pink, Obsidian and Clear variant for the M2 MacBook Air, so you can pick one to suit your personality.

UAG Plyo Case – Extra robust laptop shell

Pros

• Super robust shell

Cons

• Particular about exact MacBook model

Best Prices Today:



$55.99 at Amazon$79.95 at Best Buy

Fits: 13-inch

Some shell cases are built to do more than give your MacBook a bit of color. A number of manufacturers build hard shell cases that will add an extra layer of protection to your MacBook Pro or Air.

UAG (Urban Armor Gear) makes impact resistant armour for your MacBook. The Plyo series has extra strength built into the cushioning corners and cooling vents to ensure that there is adequate airflow (to stop your laptop from overheating).

Make sure you buy the exact shell for your model MacBook.

Case Logic Bryker Backpack Roller – Laptop bag with telescope handle

Pros

• Telescopic handle
• Wheels
• Versatile

Cons

• Not a suitcase replacement

Best Prices Today:



$103.99 at Amazon

Fits: up to 15.6-inch and a 10-inch tablet

If you’d prefer not to carry your laptop in a bag on your back all the time then this is a great solution that offers a telescoping handle that retracts into zippered compartment and padded storage for a laptop up to 15.6-inches and an iPad.

It even has wheels (that can be covered when the bag is worn as a backpack) so you can drag it like a suitcase.

The laptop storage section can be detached.

A lower storage pocket provides space for bulky accessories, and there’s a side pocket for a water bottle.

Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack Deluxe – Padded laptop bag

Pros

• Premium backpack
• Plenty of pockets
• Decent 28L capacity

Cons

• Premium price

Best Prices Today:



$159.00 at Amazon

Fits: 15-inch

If you have an Apple laptop and intend to take it outside the house or office from time to time, it goes without saying that you will need a good sturdy bag to carry it in. We recommend getting a well padded backpack that is designed for carrying a laptop.

A well designed backpack will include lots of areas insider the bag to store things in: such as a front pocket, a large main compartment and a large side pocket. Quilted shoulder straps and a padded back should ensure the backpack is comfortable to wear. It’s pricy, but the Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack Deluxe is a good option.

Thule Gauntlet Attaché – Laptop briefcase

Pros

• In-use hard-shell case
• Detachable shoulder strap

Cons

• Black only

Best Prices Today:



$64.95 at Best Buy

Fits: 13-inch

If you are looking for a briefcase style bag with a solid construction, a good option is the Thule Gauntlet attaché. It’s a slim and rugged case with enhanced corner and edge protection. There is a single, removable shoulder strap as well as handles. You don’t even need to remove the Mac from the case to work.  

Twelve South SuitCase for MacBook – Hard shell, carry-on fabric hybrid

Pros

• Slim but in-use hard shell
• Handle

Cons

• Lack of pockets

Best Prices Today:



$49.99 at Amazon$79.99 at Twelve South

Fits: 13-inch, 14-inch, 16-inch

Laptop backpack and bags can be bulky, expecting you constantly to be travelling to airports or on trains, when sometimes you just need the convenience of a slim briefcase with the protection of a hard shell. SuitCase from Twelve South is an odd name for what is effectively a briefcase with a recessed handle, but it’s a great hybrid of sleeve, shell and carry on.

There are three layers of protection: a water-resistant, quilted gray fabric exterior; underneath the twill textile is a layer of hard plastic to protect your MacBook from impacts; and inside is a soft layer of microfiber to protect the surface of your Mac.

You don’t even have to remove your MacBook from the case to get working, and, when closed, dual zippers keep it securely closed, even when charging.

Laptop Accessories