TECH THAT...
A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
MACOS CATALINA AND APPLE NEWS+ WITH all the hardware Apple has been dishing up lately, it’s easy to forget that it also makes software This week two big releases from Cupertino reminded us of that fact.
The latest version of the Mac operating system hit computers across the globe as a free download – and MacOS Catalina brings a wide range of improvements, as well as breaking some long-standing conventions.
This is the first version of MacOS that doesn’t include the venerable iTunes app, for a start. That has been broken down into separate apps for music, TV and podcasts.
Catalina also brings Apple Arcade – the new subscription game service that costs £4.99-a-month. Now you can play across all your devices – Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV.
Sidecar is a new feature in Catalina that allows Mac users to utilise their iPad as a second screen, with included support for Apple Pencil.
Then there’s Mac Catalyst, a new technology that allows iPhone and iPad app makers to easily build Mac versions of their apps. Expect to see a rash of new apps making the leap from the small screen to the big.
Apple also launched its subscription magazine and news service, Apple News+, in the UK this week.
For £9.99-a-month subscribers get access to more than 150 magazines and newspapers, including The Times and The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Empire, and Grazia, as well as several US newspapers, magazines and digital outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, and Vox.
The publications are designed to look great on screen, and there’s also some smart AI in the background trying to work out which publications and stories are of most interest to you personally.