Apple is said to be spending a couple billion dollars over 2018 and 2019 on the development of exclusive original programming. That’s a lot of TV! It’s nothing compared to the $12 billion Netflix spent on content in 2018, but it’s still a very big investment.

What can you get for a couple billion dollars? Apple hopes to attract some of the best talent in TV and film production, including huge stars and directors, and to lock down the television and movie rights to best-selling books. Though the company has only given us a glimpse at a handful of shows, the Hollywood trade press has uncovered many more through its reporting on deals from casting agents and production companies.

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Quick—open up Safari on your iPhone and hit the View Tabs button in the bottom right.

If your phone is like mine, you’ve got a stack with dozens of tabs... leftover pages opened from social media posts, movie times from the film I saw weeks ago, search results, you name it. I don’t need any of that stuff anymore, but it’s kind of a pain to go swiping through all my open tabs every few weeks to clean out the cruft.

Fortunately, iOS 13 adds a new feature to Safari that can automatically close tabs after a period of time. It’s easy to set, if you know where to look.

1. First, open the Settings app.

2. Then scroll down to Safari settings and tap on that.

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When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, one of his early moves was to vastly simplify what had become a bloated line-up of Mac hardware. Jobs famously showed off a two-by-two product grid: pro and consumer, desktop and portable. Filling the grid were four products—iMac, PowerMac, iBook, PowerBook—each addressing one of those combinations.

The two-by-two grid lasted for several years, until the debut of the category-busting Mac mini in 2005. Since then, there’s been an almost magnetic impulse to cite the grid as the holy grail of Apple product design aspirations. Every time Apple releases something a new Mac, pundits try desperately to figure out how to shove the latest addition into the already bulging grid.

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By the time an application reaches version 7.0, users anticipate fewer whiz-bang new features as developers focus on refining core functionality and required compatibility updates. The question then becomes, has the software improved enough to justify buying an upgrade to the latest and greatest version, often on an annual basis?

Such is the case with ExpanDrive, a venerable macOS utility that mounts cloud and network-attached storage in the Finder so you can more or less use them like locally-attached volumes. Despite a recent focus on eye candy, it’s what’s under the hood that makes the latest update worth a look.

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Major changes to Apple’s MacBook lineup! Has Zoom made your Mac vulnerable to hackers? What will Apple be like without Jony Ive? And your hot takes! That's all in this episode of the Macworld Podcast.

This is episode 658 with Jason Cross, Leif Johnson, Roman Loyola, and Michael Simon.

Listen to episode 658

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You’re planning on buying a new Mac laptop. So you head over to your local Apple store, or you peruse the pages of Apple’s website, and you find yourself with money to spend but no idea on which MacBook to buy.

Don’t worry! That’s why we’re here. In this guide, we’ll go over Apple’s current MacBook lineup, point out their differences and similarities, and provide you with the information you need to pick the right MacBook for you.

The affordable choice: MacBook Air

Longtime Mac users may remember when the MacBook Air made its debut years ago as Apple’s entry into the ultra-portable laptop market. But times have changed, and starting in 2015, the MacBook was repositioned as Apple’s affordable laptop.

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Update 7/11: Apple has issued a silent update to macOS that removes the Zoom Mac app's localhost server.

Zoom has released a patch for its Mac app that removes a localhost web server from your Mac and allows users to manually uninstall the app from the menubar after a serious flaw was discovered. You can download the patch here.

 In a Medium post earlier this week, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh disclosed a vulnerability in the app that could allow a website to access your Mac’s camera without your knowledge or permission. As Leitschuh explained, the vulnerability stemmed from Zoom’s quest for simplicity. As the service works, you can just send anyone a Zoom meeting link which will in turn automatically open the Zoom client installed on their machine. In case you’ve deleted the app, Zoom keeps a localhost web server running silently on your Mac, Leitschuh said, so the Zoom client will reinstall when a link is clicked without requiring any user interaction on your behalf besides visiting a webpage.

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Less than 24 hours after Apple issued a background update to remove a vulnerability in Zoom’s Mac app that installed a surreptitious web server that could activate the video camera without the user’s permission, Apple has disabled another app for a possible security breach. And this time it’s one of its own: Walkie Talkie.

Walkie Talkie was introduced with watchOS 5 as a quicker way to communicate between Apple Watches. Apple promotes it as “a new, easy way to have a one-on-one conversation with anyone who has a compatible Apple Watch.” However, it might not be as private as you think. Apple announced late Wednesday that it was temporarily disabling the Walkie Talkie on the Apple Watch due to eavesdropping concerns.

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People interacting with their phone while driving have been implicated in an enormous number of accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 3,166 people were outright killed as the result of distracted driving in 2017.

Apple added the Do Not Disturb While Driving feature in iOS 11 as a tool to help reduce distractions without you have to take extra steps. It leaves Siri enabled among a few other features. But the DND-While-D feature can trigger automatically when you’re not in the driver’s seat. You might be a passenger in a car or in another mode of transportation.

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If you have several-years-old iPhone, or know someone who does, you’re probably aware of the fact that the battery life is a lot shorter than when it was new.

The rechargeable batteries in today’s electronics degrade over time and become less capable of holding a charge or delivering the same peak power.

This caused Apple to limit the performance of older phones in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns, which led to class-action lawsuits, and ultimately a rather good $29 battery replacement program.

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For all the advancements Apple has made over two decades with the Mac operating system, it’s surprising how little attention core features like menu bar audio control have received. Traditionally little more than a convenient way to adjust volume without opening System Preferences, beginning with macOS 10.12 Sierra the basic slider was embued with the ability to also switch between output devices—and inputs too, by first holding down the Option key.

If you’re thinking, “there must be a better way,” you’d be right. Rogue Amoeba, the creators of awesome audio solutions like Audio Hijack and Fission, have taken the wraps off SoundSource 4, a more powerful way to control sound coming and going from your Mac, no matter which application you’re using.

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