Essential Apple User Magazine Vol 11

What will Apple do in 2020? New iPhones? That’s a given, but they’re not likely to arrive until September. New Macs? Quite a few are due a refresh, so again, this one’s a distinct probability. An iPad Pro with triple cameras? If the rumour mill is to be believed, this one’s coming too, but what else?

In our main feature, we round up the rumours, list the leaks and get to grips with the gossip about what Apple’s likely to bring us over the next 12 months.

Something that’s bound to be big over the next few years is XR. This umbrella term covers Virtual Reality (exploring a wholly computer-generated 3D environment) and Augmented Reality (overlaying 3D computer renders onto the real-world environment). AR glasses are bound to take off, after several false starts, and VR for both business and entertainment will continue to grow? But what does the future hold for XR and why should we be excited? We caught up with Alan Smithson, founder and CEO of MetaVRse, to find out.

There are some great apps out there, both paid for and free, that can really help you get even more from your notebook or desktop Mac. Whether you want to stop it from going to sleep, use your cloud storage just like a connected hard drive, batch-rename a folder full of files or make better use of the space in your top bar, you can bet there’s an app for that. And you can also bet there’s an article in this weighty tome that rounds them all up and more.

Your Apple gear is great for productivity, but it’s also excellent for having fun. Whether you’re watching TV, listening to music or podcasts, playing games or reading electronic books, your Macs and mobile devices deserve to be at the heart of your digital entertainment world. And that’s where our tutorials for this issue come in. Starting on Page 56, we show you how to use Apple’s famous entertainment apps on the Mac, iPhone and iPad.