If you are interested in getting a game by Epic in Apple’s App Store, you’re out of luck. On Friday, Apple terminated Epic’s developer account, and games made by Epic are no longer available.

The move by Apple is the latest in the battle between the two companies, which started earlier this month when Epic provided an option in Fortnite to buy directly from them. This was a direct violation of Apple’s App Store rules, and Fortnite was removed from the App Store.

Apple released a statement in regards to its actions today:

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When Apple released iOS 12.3, it refreshed the TV app and added a feature called Apple TV Channels. Channels lets you subscribe to third-party streaming services like CBS All Access or HBO, right from within the TV app. You can watch that content in the TV app, served directly from Apple, without the need to install other apps.

Here’s everything you need to know about which services are available as Apple TV Channels, what they cost, and how they work.

Updated 08/28/20: You can now subscribe to BFI Player Classics for $5.99 per month. This channel features a selection of classic British films selected by the British Film Institute.

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With the internet abuzz with privacy concerns and the potential changes coming to net neutrality, you’ve likely heard about virtual private networks, better known as VPNs. When used correctly, a VPN can greatly strengthen your online privacy, assist in keeping your personal information secure, and even spoof your location in the world—allowing you to access websites or services that would otherwise be off limits due to region-locking.

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If you’ve already filled out your iPhone claim form and are awaiting your $25 check from Apple, you might have another payout on the way. Anyone who bought a pair of Powerbeats 2 earbuds is eligible to submit a claim that could pay as much as $189.

The lawsuit challenged Beats’ claims that the Powerbeats 2 were “built to endure” and are the “best headphones for working out.” The suit claims that Powerbeats’ sweat and water resistance weren’t up to snuff, and needed a charge after “minimal usage.” Apple agreed to settle the case for $9.75 million without admitting any wrongdoing.

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Almost everything about Keynote is good to great. Apple created a version of the software originally for Steve Jobs’s presentations, and effectively rolled that out to all Mac users. It reflects his aesthetics and Apple’s. But there’s one setting that I’ve seen bedevil people—and if you search for an answer, you’re unlikely to find it, because of the way you have to formulate the question!

Three years ago, I was at a wood printing type aficionados gathering on the shores of Lake Michigan, when my friend and mentor Jenny had a crisis with her presentation. Despite the help of an expert A/V manager, in Keynote’s presentation mode, they could only get the slideshow part to appear on her laptop, while the presenter’s notes showed up on screen.

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It’s been more than two years since we reviewed NordVPN, and the last time around we awarded it top honors as our favorite VPN for its speeds, features, and overall value.

NordVPN offers a fantastic service, and NordSec, the umbrella brand for NordVPN parent company Tefincom S.A., has gone beyond VPNs with new products including a password manager, and a file encryption app for the desktop.

Note: This review is part of our best VPNs roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

But NordVPN is one of those services with an exotic location and, until recently, an anonymous leadership. To use a VPN with any degree of confidence you have to implicitly trust the company, which is why we prefer to know who’s running things, and it’s fantastic that co-founder Tom Okman is now someone we can point to as leading NordSec.

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 Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Retina display in Space Gray  Gold  Space Gray  Silver  Space Gray  Silver Looking for a way to save some money on the latest Apple products? Consider a refurbished MacBook, refurbished iPhone, or refurbished iPad from the Apple Certified Refurbished store. A refurbished product is just like a new, but at a lower price.

Here’s a quick guide with links to the best deals you can find on the refurb store, along with a FAQ guide if you want to know more about the ins and outs of the Apple Certified Refurbished store and buying a refurbished MacBook, desktop Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We make a recommendation of what to buy, but feel free to check out the store inventory to find the right model for you.

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Apple’s new Apple Arcade subscription-based gaming service is basically Apple’s way of helping customers sort through the chaff in the App Store, as the highly curated service features premium games that are untainted by in-app purchases and ads. If all goes well, it could elevate the perception of mobile gaming in general.

Got questions? We’ve got plenty of answers. 

Updated 08/27/20: Added The Last Campfire by Hello Games to the list of available games. 

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Apple Arcade is here, and you can play some of the subscription service’s many games with select models of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers as well as Mfi (Made for iOS) controllers like the SteelSeries Nimbus+.

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Updated 08/27/20: The third public beta is now available.

Apple has released a test version of watchOS 7 for public beta testers. The public beta is a pre-release version of the next Apple Watch operating system, which will be officially released this fall. The public beta gives users who are willing to try out beta software a chance to use the upcoming features of watchOS and the Apple Watch.

If you think you’re interested in installing the watchOS 7 beta, you should know that there are still bugs and other quirks being worked out. You can provide valuable feedback to Apple while using the beta, but you may also run into problems that could hinder your ability to use your Apple Watch.

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Amazon unveiled its first wearable on Thursday and it’s not what you think. Instead of a cheap smartwatch with Alexa, the Amazon Halo is a minimal wearable with no screen that’s designed to keep your body and your relationships healthy.

While the Halo connects to your smartphone, you won’t be using it to listen to music or get directions. It doesn’t have GPS or Wi-Fi or NFC. In fact, you won’t interact with it much at all. It has 50-meter water resistance so you can wear it while swimming and 7-day battery life so it can monitor your sleep at night. It has an optical heart-rate sensor for step and activity tracking. And like the Apple and Fitbit watches, the Halo also has a microphone.

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We weren’t expected much out of Apple’s upcoming iPad Air refresh, but a new rumor has us very excited about the new device. According to an allegedly leaked manual posted in the China-based social media platform Xiaohongshu and shared by DuanRui on Twitter, the next iPad Air is getting a complete makeover and some new tech we haven’t seen before from Apple.

The first thing you’ll notice is the design. It clearly takes its inspiration from the iPad Pro, with extremely slim, uniform bezels and rounded corners on the screen. The pictures describe gesture navigation on the iPad and clearly show an iPad with no home button.

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Apple and Epic: Their fight is making headlines. What is all the hubub about? And what does it mean for you? We talk about this and more on this episode of the Macworld Podcast.

This is episode 710 Jason Cross, Michael Simon, and Roman Loyola.

Listen to episode 710

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If you’re in the market for a new Fitbit, you have no shortage of options. Along with the three new devices unveiled this week, Fitbit is also selling many others. Its full lineup includes no less than nine smartwatches and trackers, many of which have overlapping features.

If you’re confused, you came to the right place. There are plenty of Fitbit devices worth buying, but we’re also here to tell you which devices not to buy.

Definitely buy

Fitbit Sense ($330)

What you get: The Sense is Fitbit’s newest flagship device with a 1.58-inch display and interchangeable bands. It has every heath and fitness feature you could want: step tracking, elevation, Active Zone Minutes, sleep tracking, built-in GPS, and an area of next-gen sensors that include EDA for stress, ECG for heart rhythm, and skin temperature for illness. You also get Alexa and Google Assistant, fast charging, music storage, and call answering.

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Keynote is designed best for presenters to work across two screens. One is typically a projector or large monitor; the other, a laptop screen or computer screen in front of the presenter. Keynote fills that second screen with a variety of presenter’s tools, like notes, thumbnails of the previous and next slides, and a time-elapsed clock.

IDG

Apple is planting its own flag in the streaming wars with Apple TV+, its in-house streaming service that focuses almost entirely on original programming rather than an extensive library of existing TV shows or movies.

Though the service has been available less than a year and and doesn’t yet have a lot of shows or films available, there’s a lot in the works. This is a list of all the Apple TV+ content we know of so far, along with details about prominent stars, directors, producers, and release dates.

Updated 08/26/20: Apple has announced three new documentaries. Tiny World, Becoming You, and The Earth and Night in Color. They are narrated by Paul Rudd, Olivia Coleman, and Tom Hiddleston.

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We’ve told you about the many big changes and new features in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, including an awesome new redesign of the home screen with Widgets and the App Library. For the last several years, Apple has made its operating systems available in a public beta, so you can kick the tires and help find bugs before its release in the fall.

If you’re interested in running the iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 public beta, here’s how you get it.

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Fitbit has unveiled its latest lineup of devices, and there’s quite a bit of shuffling going on. The Ionic has finally been retired, the Versa 2 is suddenly in no-man’s land, the Inspire and Inspire HR have been replaced by a single model, and there are two new smartwatches at the top of the line: the $329 Versa 3 and the Sense. But with just $100 separating them, which of Fitbit’s new flagships should you buy?

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You’ve probably seen the stories: it’s an epic (eye-rolling pun intended) war between two technology giants. In this corner is Apple, accused of being a greedy colossus using its tight-fisted control over its platforms to stifle innovation and ruin consumer choice. In the other corner, Epic Games, accused of posing as the victim of a controversy it manufactured in the name of keeping more cash for itself. Who do you back? Choose your side!

The thing is, I don’t really back all the actions of either party in this kerfuffle. Instead, I’m squarely on the side of the people who use technology. Let’s leave aside the tech giants. What are the outcomes that would most benefit regular users?

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For Apple enthusiasts who want to use Microsoft’s Office software on a Mac, iPad, or iPhone, you can easily download the full Office 365 bundle, or any of its individual apps, from the Mac App Store. The Office 365 bundle includes six apps: Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Word, each of which can also be downloaded individually. There is a free one-month trial for Office 365, after which the subscription  is $69.99 a year, or $6.99 a month. If you already have an Office 365 subscription, you can use it here. As part of the subscription software updates are applied automatically as they’re rolled out. 

Here are direct links to the apps in the Mac App Store.

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Reports about what will be in the 2020 iPhones are hitting the wire. We’ve compiled the most notable ones here, but take these with a big grain of salt. Even if these reports are accurate representations of what suppliers are saying, or come from moles within Apple itself, the company’s plans can and do change. There’s still plenty of time before the design and features have to be totally set in stone.

Update 08/25/20: Noted leaker Jon Prosser tweeted a screenshot of some iPhone 12 Pro test settings. They verify testing of 120Hz displays and multiple new camera features.

120Hz display and new camera features

Jon Prosser, who has accurately leaked several Apple devices and features in the past, tweeted screenshots of some test settings pages for PVTs (product validation devices). 

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Apple’s processors are exclusively made by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation), and Apple pays top dollar to make sure its A-series chips in the latest iPhones and iPads (and soon Macs) are manufactured with the very bleeding edge of what TSMC has to offer.

So when TSMC announced the improvements it is making to its chip manufacturing processes at its annual Technology Symposium, we gain some insight into what to expect from Apple’s future chip roadmap.

Naturally, the actual design of Apple’s silicon is the primary indicator of performance and efficiency. But manufacturing process technology plays a huge role; it helps determine how large and complex a chip can be, how fast it can run, and how much power it uses at a given speed.

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Apple on Tuesday released updates to iMovie for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The update includes new comic-based filters that give your video a “hand-drawn look.” There are three comic filters on the iPhone and iPad, and five on the Mac.

The release notes for the iPhone and iPad update details the other updates:

• Give your videos a hand-drawn look with 3 new filters: Comic, Comic Mono and Ink

• Choose from 25 new soundtracks — in genres including action, chill, and sentimental — that automatically adjust to match the length of your movie

• Addresses an issue that could prevent the viewer from updating after duplicating a photo in the timeline

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Apple has announced significant upgrades to its popular Mac-only video editing software Final Cut Pro X, along with companion apps Compressor and Motion. 

The new features are primarily designed to streamline and speedup the workflow of video editors, particularly those who work with proxies (lower-res versions of source footage meant to speed up editing) and create footage meant for social media in vertical or square formats.

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