Since the release of macOS Monterey earlier this year, some users have reported that the "Tap to Click" trackpad gesture would intermittently fail to work. The issue appears to have affected a variety of Macs, ranging from the M1 MacBook Air with a built-in trackpad to an Intel-based iMac paired with a standalone Magic Trackpad.
Following the release of the fourth macOS 12.1 beta today, several users across the MacRumors Forums and Reddit have indicated that they are no longer experiencing issues with "Tap to Click" after updating to this version.
"Tap to Click" can be enabled in System Preferences under Trackpad > Point & Click, allowing users to tap with one finger to click.
macOS 12.1 should be publicly released before the end of the year, with a key new feature being SharePlay, which will allow users to watch movies and TV shows, listen to music, and share their screen with friends and family on FaceTime calls. SharePlay is already available on iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1.
At the end of each year, streaming music service Spotify provides a "Spotify Wrapped" recap of each user's listening habits and favorite songs. Spotify Wrapped is a highly anticipated year-end feature that Spotify users love, and Apple Music listeners may be wondering how to get their own "Wrapped" rundown.
Apple does not have a year-end wrap up that's equivalent to what Spotify has, but the streaming music service does offer "Apple Music Replay," a feature that ranks all of your top songs for the year.
Apple Music Replay is refreshed on a yearly basis, usually during February, and it updates each week to provide an ever-changing playlist of your favorite songs. The best Apple Music Replay experience is on the web, and you can get to it by navigating to the Apple Music Replay website and signing in to Apple Music.
On the Replay website, you can see details like the number of hours you've listened to music during the year and your top albums and artists. If you want to share these statistics on social media, you'll need to take screenshots.
You can listen to the Apple Music Replay playlists on iPhone or iPad, but you'll need to sign in on the web to see the more detailed statistics mentioned above.
In the Apple Music app, navigate to the "Listen Now" tab.
Scroll down to "Apple Music Replay."
Select one of your replay lists. Apple offers playlists for every year that you've been subscribed to Apple Music, so you can see how your tastes have changed over time.
One of the best parts about Spotify Wrapped is that it packages up all of your year-end statistics into neat little graphics that are shareable on social media, and unfortunately, there's no Apple Music equivalent.
Apple Music Replay is also not as in-depth as Spotify Wrapped, which provides information on top artists, genres, songs, podcasts, and minutes listened. Spotify also does add-ons like "The Movie" that pairs top songs with classic scenes from movies and "2021 Wrapped Blend," comparing each user's listening taste with friends.
Spotify's year-end feature is much more comprehensive than anything Apple offers, and so far Apple has declined to make a true year-end highlight reel so Replay is the best Apple Music users are going to get for now.
Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS Monterey 12.1 update to developers for testing purposes, with the new software coming two weeks after the third beta and a month after the official release of macOS Monterey.
Registered developers can download macOS Monterey 12.1 beta profile through the Apple Developer Center and after the appropriate profile is installed, the beta will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences.
macOS Monterey 12.1 brings SharePlay to Macs for the first time. SharePlay is a new feature that's designed to let you watch TV, listen to music, and play games with friends and family members over FaceTime.
SharePlay allows all kinds of apps to work with FaceTime, with content synced for all people who are part of the FaceTime call. You can listen to music with Apple Music and access shared playlists, watch synced TV shows and movies together, work out together, and even share your screen for things like group trip planning or device troubleshooting.
Apple designed SharePlay to work with first-party app options like Apple TV, Apple Fitness+, and Apple Music, but there's also an API for developers so third-party apps can also use SharePlay FaceTime features for games and other experiences.
SharePlay is already available in the release versions of iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, so the Monterey 12.1 update brings Macs in line with other Apple devices.
The Luna Display dongle that's meant to turn an iPad or Mac into a secondary display for a primary machine today received a major 5.1 software update, introducing new features.
With the new PC-to-Mac Mode, Luna Display owners can turn a Mac into a secondary display for a PC. PC-to-Mac mode follows PC-to-iPad mode, which was introduced in October. Thanks to the updated software, any old Mac or iPad can now be used as a secondary display with either a PC or a Mac.
Along with PC-to-Mac mode, the update introduces support for 4K and 5K resolutions. Computers that have a 4K or 5K display can be used as a secondary display at their full resolution, with the USB-C Luna Display required for this functionality.
There's also a new Teleprompter Mode for the PC, Office Mode for PC users, and Magic Keyboard Support for iPhone owners. The Magic Keyboard and trackpad can now be used with an iPad when using Luna Display.
The USB-C Luna Display that works interchangeably with Macs and PCs can be purchased for $129.99, though there is a discount for the next two days that drops the price to $97.50. The discount will show up when the Luna Display is added to the cart for purchase.
Apple released macOS Monterey in late October, but we are still waiting on several promised features such as SharePlay and Universal Control to be made available through subsequent software updates like macOS 12.1, which is currently in beta testing.
The first macOS 12.1 beta enabled SharePlay on the Mac, allowing developers to prepare their apps to support the feature. SharePlay, which is already available in iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, will allow users to watch movies and TV shows with friends and family while on a FaceTime call, and even share their screens.
When Will macOS 12.1 Be Released?
Apple has released several previous macOS updates in early-to-mid December:
macOS Big Sur 11.1: December 14, 2020
macOS Catalina 10.15.2: December 10, 2019
macOS Mojave 10.14.2: December 5, 2018
macOS High Sierra 10.13.2: December 6, 2017
macOS Sierra 10.12.2: December 13, 2016
OS X El Capitan 10.11.2: December 8, 2015
In mid-November, Apple shared a press release stating that SharePlay is coming to the Mac later this fall, and given that SharePlay was enabled in the macOS 12.1 beta, this altogether implies that macOS 12.1 will be released before the end of the year.
From the press release:
SharePlay, a powerful set of features for shared experiences while on a FaceTime call, has introduced new ways for Apple users to stay connected. With SharePlay support in Apple TV+, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+ — as well as many of the most popular apps like NBA, TikTok, Twitch, Paramount+, and SHOWTIME — users can watch movies and TV shows, listen to music, or complete a workout with friends together on a FaceTime call. SharePlay extends to Apple TV so users can watch on the big screen while using FaceTime on iPhone or iPad. With screen sharing support, users can also browse the web together, look at photos, or show their friends something in a favorite app. SharePlay is available with the release of iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, and is coming to Mac later this fall.
It remains unclear if macOS 12.1 will include Universal Control, which will allow for a single mouse, trackpad, and keyboard to be used across multiple Macs and/or iPads side by side. Apple's website continues to list Universal Control as "available later this fall," but the feature has still not been enabled as of the latest macOS 12.1 beta. Universal Control settings can be force enabled with a feature flag, however, so it is clear that Apple is working on the feature behind the scenes and so it could still launch this year.
Other new macOS Monterey features include AirPlay to Mac, Quick Note, Live Text, a Shortcuts app, spatial audio in FaceTime, and more.
Nomad today announced a pair of new products, including a new USB-C PD wall charger and new Sport Cables. These accessories are both available to order and ship out today on Nomad's website.
The 30W USB-C GaN AC Adapter is a small, minimalist wall charger with a 30W power output that supports iPhone fast charging. This accessory costs $29.95 and does not come with a USB-C cable. In terms of size, Nomad's charger is only marginally larger than Apple's 5W USB-A charger.
Secondly, Nomad has a new collection of Sport Cables, which it says are similar to its existing kevlar cables but come in at a cheaper price and with a nylon braid. There are three versions available: USB-A to Lightning, USB-C to Lightning, and USB-C to USB-C. The Lightning cables are MFi certified and cost $24.95 each.
With both the 30W AC Adapter and one of the USB-C Sport Cables, you'll be able to fast charge an iPhone. With this feature, you can get up to 50 percent charge in under 30 minutes on modern iPhones. The 30W AC Adapter can also be used to power Apple accessories like the MagSafe Charger.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Nomad. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Spotify today made its annual recap feature "Spotify Wrapped" available to users on the iOS and Android app. This feature tracks your top artists, genres, songs, podcasts, and minutes listened, and generates graphics that are easily shareable on social media.
There are a few new additions to Spotify Wrapped 2021, including "2021: The Movie," which pairs your top songs with classic scenes from movies; "Your Audio Aura," which visualizes your audio aura based on top music moods; "Playing Cards," which is an interactive quiz game about your listening habits; and "2021 Wrapped Blend," which compares your listening tastes with friends.
Spotify Wrapped can now be shared on TikTok as well as the usual platforms like Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can generate these custom graphics and find all of your personalized Spotify Wrapped 2021 data in the 2021 Wrapped Hub, which also has the overall top songs, podcasts, and artists of 2021.
Apple Music users looking for a similar year-end recap feature will have to rely on the Replay 2021 playlist, which has been tracking subscribers' most-listened-to songs since February. Apple Music for the web also has a few more pieces of data, like top albums and artists of the year, but Apple has yet to compete with Spotify's deep dive into niche user listening habits and shareable social media graphics.
The Apple Music Replay 2021 playlist can be found on your "Listen Now" tab in the Apple Music app, and once you add it to your library there is a "Made For You" section in the Library tab that makes the playlist more easily accessible. You'll find a Replay playlist for every year you've held an Apple Music subscription, dating back to the service's launch in 2015.
In an internal memo obtained by MacRumors, Apple said it will be adding the iPhone 6 Plus to its vintage products list on December 31, meaning that more than five years have passed since Apple stopped distributing the device for sale.
Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers continue to offer repairs for vintage products for up to seven years, subject to parts availability.
Introduced in September 2014, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were two of the most popular smartphones that Apple has ever sold, with the devices featuring larger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays that customers had long desired. While the iPhone 6 Plus was discontinued in 2016, the smaller iPhone 6 remained available through select retailers in select regions until at least 2018 and will not become a vintage product until later.
On the software side, Apple already dropped support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus with the release of iOS 13 a few years ago.
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were the first devices to feature support for Apple Pay, with other key features including an A8 chip and improved cameras. Pricing started at $649 for the iPhone 6 with a now-paltry 16GB of storage.
After Black Friday and Cyber Monday ended, all of the best AirPods deals quietly disappeared. But Amazon has now brought back the solid $29 markdown on the new AirPods 3 that we saw last week, offering the earbuds for $149.99, down from $179.00.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
This sale is an all-time low price on the AirPods 3, and as of writing it is the only AirPods deal to return after the closure of Black Friday shopping.
We track sales for every model of the AirPods in our Best AirPods Deals guide, so be sure to bookmark that page while you shop around for the wireless headphones.
For World AIDS Day today, Apple highlighted its long-standing partnership with (RED), which has raised $270 million to combat AIDS since 2006, launched its annualApple Pay donation program and informative in-app collections, and is offering six downloadable (RED) Apple Watch faces.
The six downloadable (RED) Apple Watch faces feature (RED)'s distinctive shade of crimson. Apple says that the faces allow users to show their support for (RED) and complement the PRODUCT(RED) Braided Solo Loop, Sport Band, and Sport Loop Apple Watch bands.
Since 2006, Apple's donations to the Global Fund to fight AIDS have helped to deliver prevention, testing, support, and access to healthcare for communities affected by AIDS. Apple-supported grants have provided care and support services for more than 11 million people, over 192 million HIV tests, and access to antiretroviral treatments for over 13.8 million people.
A portion of the proceeds from Apple's current range of (PRODUCT)RED devices and accessories goes directly to the Global Fund, and through December 6, Apple is donating $1 to the Global Fund for every purchase made with Apple Pay on apple.com, in the Apple Store app, or at an Apple Store.
To raise visibility for World AIDS Day and the ongoing effort to eradicate HIV and AIDS, hundreds of Apple Store retail locations are displaying red Apple logos and window displays. The company is also spotlighting ways for customers to learn about AIDS in the App Store, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, Apple Music, and Apple TV app.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has encouraged customers to buy the "Cyberwhistle" for $50 instead of Apple's much-discussed Polishing Cloth.
The product page, which Musk shared on Twitter on Tuesday evening, offers a limited edition stainless steel whistle with the same distinctive design of the Tesla Cybertruck:
Inspired by Cybertruck, the limited-edition Cyberwhistle is a premium collectible made from medical-grade stainless steel with a polished finish. The whistle includes an integrated attachment feature for added versatility.
In October, Apple released a Polishing Cloth for $19 which quickly became the subject of ridicule due to its presentation and pricing. Musk had already expressed amusement at the Apple Cloth after its release, and in a follow up tweet, he drew a comparison between Tesla's spoof product and Apple's Polishing Cloth.
Don’t waste your money on that silly Apple Cloth, buy our whistle instead!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 1, 2021
The Tesla Cyberwhistle was available for $50 and is already sold out. Meanwhile, Apple's Polishing Cloth is heavily backordered, with new orders due to arrive as late as February 2022.
The Dropbox app has a troubled reputation among Mac users. The client is often called out for using significant system resources, even when it's not doing anything in the background. And when it does lurch into action, syncing with Dropbox's servers can sometimes be painfully slow, for no obvious reason.
Added to this is the fact that almost a year after the first Macs with the M1 chip became available, Dropbox still doesn't natively support Apple silicon, and won't until sometime in 2022. That means M1 Mac owners must use Dropbox with Rosetta, and reports suggest the client hemorrhages MacBook battery life and uses a disproportionate amount of memory on Apple silicon Macs.
If you've had your share of frustrations with the Dropbox app, you can always switch to another rival cloud storage service like iCloud, or you can try one of the following alternative Mac clients to sync with your existing Dropbox account.
1. Maestral (Free)
Maestral is a popular open-source Dropbox client for Mac that's free to use and has a significantly smaller resource footprint than the Dropbox app (40MB versus 420MB). The lightweight client happily syncs files and folders in the background, and won't bring your Mac to a standstill in the process. It also natively supports Apple silicon. The caveats are that it doesn't support Dropbox Paper, shared folder settings, or the transfer of only those parts of a file which have changed ("binary diff").
2. CloudMounter ($29.99 a year)
CloudMounter connects cloud storage accounts like Dropbox and Google Drive to your Mac's Finder, allowing you to treat them like regular, local drives. You can search, drag, drop, and access your files, and it doesn't automatically synchronize them to your local drive, which is great if you need access to files on Dropbox's servers but are low on storage space. It encrypts your files to ensure their safety, and you can also share any file or folder by copying its Dropbox link to the clipboard via a contextual menu option.
3. Mountain Duck 3 ($39)
Like CloudMounter, Mountain Duck integrates with Finder to turn it into a fully-functional SFTP client, allowing you to access your Dropbox (or other cloud storage service) account as if it was a local drive. You can choose to keep individual files offline on your local disk, and it displays which files are in sync with little icons. Client-side encryption is included, and it also has a contextual menu to keep sync and URL copying options at your fingertips.
4. Transmit 5 ($45)
Long-running file transfer app Transmit used to be referred to as an FTP client, but these days it can also connect to 11 different cloud services, Dropbox being one of them, which is why we've included it here. While it's not a straight up Dropbox client replacement (it doesn't sync files in the background) its dual-pane interface is faster than Finder, which makes it good if you upload and download files regularly. It also has useful features like File Sync, which can mirror remote and local files in one click.
5. Strongsync ($49.95)
Strongsync is another client that lets you mount cloud storage accounts on your Mac as if they were local disks. Files get downloaded transparently when another app requests them or when you request them in Finder. Amongst other clouds, it supports Dropbox and Dropbox for Business. There's no kernel extension or reboots needed, it offers full library search, and its SwiftUI 2 interface natively supports both Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
Know of any other Mac clients that support Dropbox integration and have proved useful to you? Let us know in the comments.
In 2022, Apple is going to release an updated version of the MacBook Air with some of the biggest design changes that we've seen since 2010, when Apple introduced the 11 and 13-inch size options. In the video below, we highlight five features that you need to know about the new machine.
No More Wedge Design - Current MacBook Air models have a wedge design that tapers toward the front, but the new MacBook Air will look much more like the MacBook Pro with a uniform body design. It's going to deviate from the MacBook Pro in terms of ports, though, with Apple only expected to include USB-C ports.
White Bezels - The MacBook Air is rumored to be modeled after the 24-inch iMac, with off-white bezels around the display and a matching off-white keyboard with a full row of function keys. The MacBook Pro surprised us all with a notch for the camera, and rumors suggest the MacBook Air will have the same notch, but in white.
Multiple Colors - Continuing on with the iMac theme, the new MacBook Air is expected to be made available in several color options. The colors could be similar to the 24-inch iMac, which comes in blue, green, pink, silver, yellow, orange, and purple. Apple has a history of using bright colors for its non Pro machines, and different color options would clearly distinguish the MacBook Air from its Pro sibling.
Mini-LED Display - Apple introduced a mini-LED display with ProMotion technology in the 2021 MacBook Pro models, and the 2022 MacBook Air could adopt the same display, though without the ProMotion. The MacBook Air display is expected to continue to measure in at around 13 inches.
M2 Chip - Rumors suggest the MacBook Air will be equipped with an "M2" chip, which would be an upgraded version of the M1. It won't be as powerful as the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips used in the MacBook Pro, but it will offer an improvement over the M1. It's expected to continue to feature an 8-core CPU, but with faster performance and nine or 10 GPU cores, up from seven or eight in the M1.
There's one other notable rumor - the upcoming MacBook Air might not be an "Air" at all. Apple could be planning to revert to the standard "MacBook" name, which hasn't been in use since the 12-inch MacBook was continued. It's not yet clear if this is accurate, so the "Air" moniker might not stick around, but there's a chance Apple is once again going to streamline its Mac naming.
We'll know more as the MacBook Air's launch date approaches, and while a release timeline isn't nailed down as of yet, we're expecting to see it sometime in the second half of the year.
For a more in-depth overview of what's expected for the 2022 MacBook Air, we have a dedicated rumor guide. It's a good idea to keep it bookmarked if you're planning on buying one of the new machines, because we update it each time there's a new rumor.
Streaming gaming platform Twitch today added support for the SharePlay iOS 15 FaceTime feature, allowing iPhone and iPad users to watch Twitch streams with their friends and family members over FaceTime.
To use SharePlay with Twitch, participants must start up a FaceTime call with one another and then open up the Twitch app to a stream to watch together. FaceTime will ask if the lead person would like to play the stream for everyone in the call, and then Twitch will open the stream on everyone's device and playback will be synced between the iPhone or iPad of everyone on the call.
Want to watch Twitch with all your friends? Now you can on iPhone and iPad devices through SharePlay! 📱
Learn more about how to watch streams together in a FaceTime call here: https://t.co/PIWwZ3OkpO
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) November 30, 2021
All participants must have the Twitch app installed and must be logged in with a Twitch account. Participants will be kept in sync at the same point in the stream, and all users can play or pause content for everyone in the call. Anyone can change the channel by navigating to another channel.
During a SharePlay Twitch stream, all users can chat, follow, subscribe, and cheer with Bits from their separate accounts.
SharePlay for Twitch is limited to iOS devices running iOS 15.1 or iPadOS 15.1 at this time, and there is no integration for the Twitch Apple TV app.
Toyota and its luxury brand Lexus are starting to roll out an all-new infotainment system with large touchscreens, wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, and more, and I recently had a chance to go hands-on with one of the first vehicles to get the new system, the 2022 Lexus NX.
My test vehicle was an NX 450h+ AWD plug-in hybrid priced at nearly $60,000 that comes with a spacious 14-inch main infotainment display. Lower trims of the NX come with a standard 9.8-inch display that can be upgraded to the 14-inch one.
Lexus Interface
The infotainment system is similar on Toyota and Lexus vehicles, and it's known as Lexus Interface on the luxury brand. The system delivers a modern, clean look that's heavy on light gray backgrounds during the day and dark gray at night.
For the NX, Lexus has opted to go for a very streamlined look for the dashboard that incorporates most of the climate controls into the main infotainment screen. On some other vehicles such as the 2022 Toyota Tundra with essentially the same system, climate controls remain primarily hard buttons below the infotainment screen, so Toyota is being somewhat flexible depending on what it believes the target market for each vehicle will prefer.
Apple today released a new 4B65 firmware update for the Beats Fit Pro headphones that came out in November, updating the earbuds from the prior 4B58 firmware that was available at launch.
Apple does not offer information on what's included in refreshed firmware updates for the Beats Fit Pro, so we don't know what improvements or bug fixes the new firmware brings.
There's no standard way to upgrade the Beats software, but firmware is generally installed over-the-air while the earbuds are connected to an iOS device. Putting the Beats Fit Pro in the case, connecting them to a power source, and then pairing them to an iPhone or an iPad should force the update after a short period of time.
Beats Fit Pro are Apple's newest Beats earbuds, featuring flexible wingtips to keep them in the ear, a charging case, silicone tips, Active Noise Cancellation, spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, and an H1 chip for "Hey Siri" support.
If we find notable changes after the firmware updates are installed, we'll share details, but the software likely includes performance improvements and bug fixes.
All of the Top 100 playlists can be accessed though the Apple Music streaming service, priced starting at $9.99 for a standard membership. Apple also offers a student plan for $4.99 per month, and soon there will also be a $4.99 per month Voice plan that allows users to ask Siri to play content, but it will not feature lyrics, song downloads, and other features.
Earlier today, Apple also announced the winners of the third annual Apple Music Awards, with The Weeknd being named the Global Artist of the Year and Olivia Rodrigo named as Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
Apple today announced new limited-edition Beats Studio Buds in collaboration with clothing store Union, in celebration of the retailer's 30th anniversary.
The limited-edition Beats Studio Buds feature a red, black, and green design, which draws inspiration from the Pan-African flag and pays tribute to Union's roots as a Black-owned business, according to Apple. The charging case also features Union's logo.
The new Beats Studio Buds will be available exclusively at Union's Los Angeles and Tokyo stores and on its website starting December 1, with pricing set at $149.99 in the United States. This is the same price as the standard Beats Studio Buds, which launched in June and are available in red, black, and white through Apple's online store.
Key features of the Beats Studio Buds include a compact round design without any "stems" dropping below the ears, active noise cancellation with up to five hours of listening time per charge, hands-free "Hey Siri" support, IPX4-rated sweat and water resistance, Find My support, and a USB-C wired charging case.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
