Stephen Shankland

How Apple sees iOS apps bringing new life to Macs

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. Four new Apple apps coming to MacOS Mojave later this year began their lives as iOS apps. And if Apple gets its way, that could be the beginning of a deluge of new software rejuvenating its personal computers. …

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New Safari privacy features on MacOS Mojave and iOS 12 crack down on nosy websites

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. When Apple announced a new Safari privacy feature last year called intelligent tracking protection, advertisers accustomed to tracking your behavior online squealed. Get ready for some more squealing. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company showed some new restrictions it’s imposing on online …

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FaceTime gets 32

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. With a new feature called Group FaceTime, up to 32 people will be able to chat online together, Apple said Monday at its developer conference. Now playing: Watch this: Now you can group FaceTime with multiple friends 2:04 The change is significant for …

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Apple overhauls Mac App Store to try to get you to actually use it

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. Apple has struggled to get people to use its Mac App Store to find and install software, but the company hopes an overhaul will help. The new Mac App Store, unveiled Monday at Apple’s developers conference, will come with a discovery tab to …

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Trust me, the favicons in MacOS Mojave will make you like Safari better

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. Apple has a slew of new features coming with MacOS 10.14 Mojave — a dark mode, stacks to organize files, the terrific screenshot tool already iOS, a gallery view in Finder, and even the ability to run iOS apps on your Mac. Fine, great, whatever. For …

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Apple brings iOS apps into Mac, but won’t merge platforms

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. Macs will be able to run some apps written for iPhones and iPads on the next-generation MacOS Mojave software, a big new step in bringing the two technology platforms closer together. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, announced the change …

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Mozilla’s Firefox tries closing more privacy holes with new network tech

Browser makers are trying to thwart network snoopers by encrypting your connections to the web servers that host websites, but Mozilla on Friday began a project to go one step further. Firefox Nightly, a rough-around-the-edges test version of Mozilla’s browser, now includes technology called DNS over HTTPS, Mozilla said. DNS is the Domain Name System used to find the numeric addresses needed …

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Firefox will stop hiding an important privacy feature: Tracking protection

An obscure but increasingly important browser privacy feature in Firefox is getting a big promotion. Mozilla developers accepted an update to the Firefox Nightly test version on Wednesday that makes tracking protection easier to discover, easier to use and more nuanced. Tracking protection blocks website publishers and advertisers from running software that follows your online behavior — something that’s useful …

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Arm aims to make your Android phone faster with next

Arm, the influential designer of mobile processors, wants your Android phone to run faster — and maybe your ultralight Windows laptop, too. On Thursday, the company announced a new chip generation, the Cortex-A76, that it said will be 35 percent faster than today’s models when it arrives in 2019 phones. That’s a big jump for one year, and perhaps enough …

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Mozilla Firefox joins Chrome, Safari in making it easier to build sophisticated websites

With Mozilla’s flip of a virtual switch, life got easier for the people who make websites and the people who use them, which is to say, everybody. On Monday, Mozilla accepted an update for its Firefox browser that enables technology called web components. You probably won’t directly care about them unless you’re a programmer. But you’ll almost assuredly care about …

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