Macworld All attention might be on iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, but Apple hasn’t stopped working on its current crop of operating systems. And if you’re not running the betas, you need to know that Apple just shipped a slew of updates to fix some critical security holes. All told, Apple pushed eight updates on Wednesday: iOS 16.5.1 and iPadOS 16.5.1; iOS 15.7.7 and iPadOS 15.7.7; macOS Ventura 13.4.1, macOS Monterey 12.6.7, and macOS Big Sur 11.7.8; and watchOS 9.5.2 and watchOS 8.8.1. That covers more than a decade of devices going back to 2013 and includes the iPhone 6s, Apple Watch Series 3, and the original 12-inch MacBook. All of the updates fix the same vulnerability: Kernel Impact: An…

Macworld If you have multiple Macs you want to use, it can be a hassle to manage multiple keyboards, mice, and other pointing devices. What if you could use a single set of input devices to control multiple Macs—and sometimes iPads? Since Monterey, Apple has offered Universal Control for Macs and iPads, a solution for sharing keyboards and mice between two Macs. Where Universal Control doesn’t fit, you can try a hardware or software KVM, which can share a set of input devices among multiple computers. What is Universal Control? Universal Control will let you use the same keyboard and mouse for all the Macs and iPads you are working on. All you have to do to switch devices is…

Macworld If you have multiple Macs you want to use, it can be a hassle to manage multiple keyboards, mice, and other pointing devices. What if you could use a single set of input devices to control multiple Macs—and sometimes iPads? Since Monterey, Apple has offered Universal Control for Macs and iPads, a solution for sharing keyboards and mice between two Macs. Where Universal Control doesn’t fit, you can try a hardware or software KVM, which can share a set of input devices among multiple computers. What is Universal Control? Universal Control will let you use the same keyboard and mouse for all the Macs and iPads you are working on. All you have to do to switch devices is…

As some subreddits continue blackouts to protest Reddit's plans to charge high prices for its API, Reddit has informed the moderators of those subreddits that it has plans to replace resistant moderation teams to keep spaces "open and accessible to users." In a comment shared by r/Apple moderator @aaronp613, Reddit cited its Moderator Code of Conduct and said that it has a duty to keep communities "relied upon by thousands or even millions of users" operational. Mods who do not agree to reopen subreddits that have gone private will be removed.If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but…

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge My smart home journey began, like so many others, with a poorly placed light switch. My partner and I had just bought our first house, and the switch that illuminated the kitchen was in the laundry room all the way on the other side, meaning we had to wander through darkness to get to it. I hated that light switch. So what to do? Well, I could spend a bunch of money I didn’t have to hire someone to move it, try to do it myself and accidentally burn my house down with a bad wiring job, or take the plunge on a smart home. I took the path of least resistance (that’s…

Macworld Do Macs get viruses? Do Macs need antivirus software? The answers to these questions aren’t as simple as they might seem. In this article, we look at the dangers faced by Mac users, and the pros and cons of using Mac antivirus software. Historically, the Mac has been considered safe and secure for a number of reasons that we will go into below, but in recent years the consensus has fluctuated. In its 2020 State of Malware report, Malwarebytes said it saw “a significant rise in the overall prevalence of Mac threats in 2019, with an increase of over 400 percent from 2018.” The following year, the company found that overall malware detected on macOS decreased by 38 percent…