HomePod may be the first new Apple device since Apple Watch nearly three years ago, but for many of us, it’s not the oh-my-god-I-need-to-have-it gadget we wanted it to be. Unless you’re specifically looking for a way to play Apple Music in your house, you’re probably on the fence about whether to buy one. If that’s the case, here are 10 things you might want to consider before placing your order:

You’ll need an iOS device running iOS 11.2.5

Before you consider buying a HomePod, you’ll need to make sure you have the proper hardware:

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Literally the worst thing about tech coverage today is that everything has to be literally the worst. Nothing can just be bad or just need some real improvement.

Writing for the very fine people and talking snakes and three-headed were-poodles and unspeakable Blodgets at Business Insider, Avery Hartmans says “I had an Apple Store experience from hell—and it’s clear there are larger problems with Apple’s retail presence.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Ctopher P.)

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We receive a ton of emails every day, and while not all of them are important, they still take up space in your inbox and can bury more pressing items, making for a stressful situation later on. That's why taking the time to tidy up your inbox is well worth the effort, and with CleanEmail, you can do so with minimal fuss—all for only $59.99.

CleanEmail uses powerful rules and filters that you define to efficiently segment your mailbox into relevant groups, allowing you to quickly identify emails with a few clicks. It's built to work from any major browser, on all email clients and on all devices for easy removal across devices and accounts. Plus, with a lifetime subscription, you can clean up to 5 email accounts with zero limitations. And, CleanEmail encrypts access details and removes data after 24 hours, so it never retains access to your information—giving you ultimate peace of mind.

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If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on Apple’s HomePod, the big day has finally arrived. Starting today, January 26, you can pre-order your new Siri-powered smart speaker for delivery February 9, that is, assuming there’s enough stock to go around. And since it’s a near certainty there won’t be, you’ll want to get in as soon as possible. Here’s how to snag one of the first units:

When can I get it?

Apple opened up HomePod pre-orders at 8:30 am EST on Friday, January 26, much to the chagrin of those of us who woke up at 3 am on the east coast.

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We’ll fix it in post.

It’s a longstanding joke in the podcast community—when somebody flubs a line or misspeaks during recording, we just kick the can down the road and repair it in editing. (For shows that actually do editing, anyway.)

But lately it’s started to seem like a more common occurrence across the tech industry, and even Apple’s jumped aboard the train. We’ve seen a number of places where Apple announced a particular feature shipping in a product—whether it be a new hardware device or a major software update—only to eventually release the product without said feature, promising it in a subsequent software update. The most recent example is the HomePod, which will lack support for multi-room audio, stereo pairing, and AirPlay 2 when it ships next month. But before that, we had iOS 11’s promised Messages in iCloud, Apple Pay Cash (which did ship in a later point release), and, again, AirPlay 2.

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The Mac-exclusive Final Cut Pro X is the very definition of a prosumer video editing program. Descended from a much more expensive professional tool, it attempts to bridge the gap between consumers who want something powerful but easy and affordable, and professionals who can’t bear to lose a single piece of functionality. 

The result, surprisingly, is an innovative, elegant, and unusual video editing program that serves most people in both categories—as long as they have Macs. Apple offers a 30-day free trial, and the full package costs $299.99 from the Mac App Store.

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Updated 01/25/18: Apple has ordered a new series from Damien Chazelle, writer and director of La La Land.

Apple is said to be spending as much as $1 billion over the course of 2018 on original TV programming. That's a lot of TV! It's not the $8 billion Netflix is going to spend, but it's still a huge commitment.

What can you get for a billion dollars? Well, some simple math gives us 200 episodes at $5 million a piece (a reasonable per-episode price for high-end TV). But we're not likely to actually see 10-20 shows with 10-20 episodes each, all costing around that much. For starters, that billion dollars has to cover a lot more than per-episode production costs.

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Updated 01/25/18: Apple has released Public Beta 1 of iOS 11.3.

Hot on the heels of iOS 11.2.5, which brought HomePod support, Siri news, and a fix for the Messages text bomb, Apple has started to release betas of iOS 11.3. And it’s going to have some pretty cool features on board, including the one we’ve all been waiting for: a toggle for CPU throttling on phones old batteries.

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Mac users continue to roam the Internet unprotected, despite growing concerns about hacks, ransomware attacks, and extortion attempts on the web.

In this blog, Bitdefender offers its predictions for Mac security in 2018 and beyond, with high hopes that Apple fans will take security a bit more seriously as we step into the New Year.

macOS Malware on the Rise

Malware is growing rapidly on every platform, including macOS (formerly OS X). On the consumer side, we expect a lot of “scareware” or “PUA/PUP” (potentially unwanted applications/potentially unwanted programs).

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Apple’s macOS recently came under fire after an update revealed that it’s possible to log in as “root” – for full administrative privileges – without typing in any password for authentication.

Since it’s a Unix-based operating system, average users don’t have full administrative privileges when performing regular tasks, such as browsing or editing documents. However, a “root” user has the highest level of privilege, meaning he can fully interact with the operating system and add, remove, or edit any system files.

Root privileges are usually protected by a password – or at least should be – to prevent inadvertent tampering. Because the update appears to allow anyone to simply log in with the “root” username without a password, this is a major security vulnerability that can be heavily exploited.

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A recently discovered vulnerability in macOS allows for full system compromise of macOS versions dating back 15 years. Residing in the "IOHIDFamily" component – notoriously used in the past to exploit various race conditions leading to system compromise – the vulnerability doesn’t seem remotely exploitable by itself, although it has existed for at least 15 years.

Triggered only by local access to a Mac, all macOS versions up to 10.13.1 appear to be affected. Security researcher Siguza warns that the vulnerability can still be weaponized to be remotely exploitable if a “sleeper program” – or malware with similar behavior – simply waits for the user to log out, reboot, or shut down, before activating the vulnerability.

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Surely by now you’ve heard about the Spectre and Meltdown CPU flaws, but you might not fully understand what the issue is and how you can protect yourself against the risks. We’re here to help. Here’s how these vulnerabilities affect your Apple devices and what you can so to keep them safe.

Update 01/25/18: Apple has released iOS 11.2.5 and MacOS 10.13.3 to further protect against Spectre exploits.

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Macworld reader David wonders whether a drive used for Time Machine backups can also store other files, or whether that could cause problems. The good news is that you don't have to devote an entire drive to Time Machine backups, although you may certainly choose to do so.

macOS writes all the archived files related to Time Machine to locations within a folder called Backups.backupdb. Everything else on the drive gets ignored. However, as a drive fills up, Time Machine starts deleting the oldest snapshots, which are retained starting seven days after an initial hourly backup as weekly snapshots.

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Shocking news today as the iPhone X has failed to meet the dunderheaded and completely fabricated expectations of serially wrong pundits, signaling its utter failure.

Writing for the Forbes contributor network and expired pimento loaf factory outlet, Ewan Spence declares the “iPhone X Defeated As Tim Cook Steals Victory Away With The iPhone 8.” (Tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody.)

Headlines, they’re what’s for blarrrrrrgh.

The iPhone X was defeated, you see… by other iPhones. It is a wonder Tim Cook is still employed.

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It’s clear that Apple is building a video service. That much was obvious the moment it hired veteran entertainment executives Zack van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht. But you can’t flip a switch and create a streaming service—not even if you’re Apple. (You could buy one, but Apple has apparently chosen to build, not buy, at least for now.)

What has to happen between now and the day we all sit down and watch the first episode of van Amburg and Erlicht’s first major acquisition to play through our Apple TVs or on our iPads and iPhones?

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Apple’s HomePod goes on sale this Friday. Are you buying one? The latest iPhone rumors have created confusion about the future of the iPhone X. Apple provides a sneak peek into new features coming to iOS. We also feature your comments and questions for Michael Simon, Jason Cross, Roman Loyola, and Dan Masaoka in the Macworld Podcast, episode 589.

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I would never claim iCloud Photo Library is easy to understand. Among the most-asked questions to Mac 911 are those relating to how the sync-and-central-storage system for images and video works.

Macworld reader Keiti seems to have run afoul of how iCloud Photo Library manages images and videos, and may have missed a prompt that explained what was about to happen.

Keiti writes:

My iCloud storage was full and I did not purchase any extra storage. In order not to get the notifications, I decided to turn off iCloud Photo Library. But after that, about 1,000 photos out of 2,000 photos just disappeared from my iPhone. Are they still somewhere hidden on my device or are they gone for good?

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Pixelmator is an impressive image editor. In my review of version 3.5, I wrote, “Pixelmator represents that percentage of Photoshop’s features most people actually use on a regular basis.”

But some developers just can’t leave well enough alone. That’s good news for photographers and designers looking for an inexpensive ($60) Photoshop alternative. Pixelmator Pro 1.0 Whirlwind (Mac App Store link) is an all new application designed with more demanding needs in mind. Although there’s plenty of feature overlap between it and Pixelmator, Pixelmator Pro is a fresh start.

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Apple's HomePod smart speaker is finally almost here. After a month-long delay that caused it to miss the all-important holiday-shopping season, Apple has announced that HomePod will begin shipping on February 9, more than eight months after we first got a glimpse of it at WWDC.

Apple is billing HomePod as an audio device (hence its home under the "Music" tab on Apple.com), but in the age of growing Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, it needs to be much more than a really good speaker to compete with its fellow AI-enabled competitors. Here's how the fight is shaping up:

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Every day, Macworld brings you the essential daily news and other info about all things Apple. But staying on top of that torrent of information can be a constant challenge. One solution: the Macworld digital magazine.

In the February issue

This month we take a first look at the new iMac Pro: Apple’s most powerful all-in-one Mac. Should you buy one? We lay out all of the pros and cons to help you make that decision. iPhone X users who are eager to try out wireless charging will want to take a look at our charger roundup. 

Also in this month’s issue:

• MacUser: Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws: How to protect your Mac and iOS devices, GeForce Now beta

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Apple on Tuesday released an update for macOS High Sierra. According to Apple’s release notes, macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 fixes a problem in Messages where your conversation is listed out of order. It also has a fix for an issue that causes your Mac to stop responding when connected to an SMB server.

Version 10.13.3 is available through the Mac App Store; when you launch the App Store app, click on the Updates tab at the top of the app. You can press Command-R or select Store > Reload Page if you don’t see the update. The installation will require you Mac to restart.

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It's time to update all your Apple gear! A relative minor point release update has just been released for iOS, tvOS, and watchOS. When you get the time, you should update all your iPhones, iPads, AppleTVs, and Apple Watches.

What's new in iOS 11.2.5

You won't find dramatic changes or really big new features in iOS 11.2.5, but it does add support for HomePod (coming February 9th) and the ability for Siri to play audio news. That last one is a little odd, because the feature went live last week and worked fine on earlier versions of iOS. Here's what Apple lists in the release notes:

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