Apple kicked off March 2026 with a flurry of product updates, refreshing its budget iPhone, mid-range iPad, and entire MacBook lineup. The announcements bring real upgrades across the board, with improved chips, faster storage, and better connectivity.

iPhone 17e Adds MagSafe

The iPhone 17e replaces last year’s iPhone 16e and maintains its $599 entry-level price. The most notable addition is MagSafe support—something conspicuously absent from its predecessor. The iPhone 17e now supports 15-watt MagSafe and Qi wireless charging, opening it up to the full ecosystem of MagSafe accessories.

Apple doubled the base storage to 256 GB and dropped the 512 GB price from $899 to $799. The new model runs on the A19 chip—the same processor powering the iPhone 17, though with one fewer GPU core. Apple’s C1X cellular modem promises up to twice the speed of the iPhone 16e’s C1 chip while using 30% less energy.

Other improvements include Ceramic Shield 2 for better scratch resistance, the next-generation portrait mode with post-capture focus and depth adjustments, and a new pink color option alongside black and white.

For users seeking the most affordable iPhone, the iPhone 17e is a solid value at $599 and a real improvement over the iPhone 16e. However, for $200 more, the base iPhone 17 offers a larger, brighter 6.3-inch screen, Camera Control, an additional Ultra Wide camera, better battery life, Always-On display with ProMotion, and Dynamic Island—making it the better choice for users who can stretch their budget.

iPad Air Gets M4 and More Memory

The updated iPad Air brings the M4 chip to Apple’s mid-range tablet while maintaining prices at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch version.

The M4 features an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU, delivering up to 30% faster performance than the M3 version and up to 2.3x faster than M1 models. More significant is the increase in unified memory—the iPad Air now comes with 12 GB of RAM, 50% more than the previous generation’s 8 GB, and memory bandwidth has increased to 120 GB/s. These improvements particularly benefit AI workloads and demanding apps like Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro.

Connectivity receives an upgrade with Apple’s N1 and C1X chips. The N1 wireless networking chip enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, while the C1X cellular modem in the Wi-Fi + Cellular models delivers up to 50% faster data performance with 30% lower energy consumption than the M3 model’s modem.

Starting storage remains at 128 GB, with options up to 1 TB. The iPad Air continues to be available in two sizes and four colors: blue, purple, starlight, and space gray.

The M4 iPad Air makes sense for users upgrading from pre-M1 iPads or anyone wanting a capable tablet without the premium price of the M5-based iPad Pro models, which start at $999 and $1,299.

MacBook Air Gains M5 and Doubles Storage

The MacBook Air receives the M5 chip along with doubled starting storage of 512 GB. The 13-inch model now starts at $1,099, and the 15-inch model at $1,299. Although those prices are the same as the previous generation’s 512 GB configurations, they’re $100 higher than the previous entry-level pricing to create a little more room between the MacBook Air and Apple’s new entry-level $599 MacBook Neo laptop.

The M5 chip features a 10-core CPU and 8-core or 10-core GPU, delivering 1.5x to 4x improvements over the M4 depending on the task. Memory bandwidth increases to 153 GB/s, enabling smoother multitasking and faster app launches. Storage configurations now include a 4 TB option for the first time in a MacBook Air, and the new SSDs deliver up to 2x the read/write performance of the M4 generation.

Apple has integrated its N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. The MacBook Air continues to feature the 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, MagSafe 3 charging, and up to 18 hours of battery life. It’s available in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver.

The MacBook Air remains compelling for most laptop users. If you configure it comparably to the M5 14-inch MacBook Pro, it’s $400 cheaper, slightly smaller, and 26% lighter. Anyone limping along with an Intel-based Mac laptop will experience dramatic improvements if they upgrade to the M5 MacBook Air, and it’s also well worth considering an upgrade if an older M1 or M2 MacBook Air has started to feel slow.

MacBook Pro Introduces M5 Pro and M5 Max

The MacBook Pro gains significant performance upgrades with the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, along with doubled starting storage. For models with the M5 Pro chip, pricing starts at $2,199 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro and $2,699 for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The M5 Max models start at $3,599 (14-inch) and $3,899 (16-inch).

The M5 Pro offers either a 15-core or 18-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU, now supporting up to 64 GB of unified memory with 307 GB/s bandwidth (up from the M4 Pro’s 48 GB ceiling). The M5 Max comes with an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and supports up to 128 GB of unified memory with 614 GB/s bandwidth. Compared with the previous M4 Pro and M4 Max, Apple claims up to 30% faster multithreaded CPU performance for the M5 Pro and 15% faster for the M5 Max. Both chips also deliver 4x faster peak GPU performance, in part thanks to new Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core. Ray tracing performance improves by up to 35% compared to the previous generation of chips.

As with the other product refreshes, Apple doubled starting storage: M5 Pro models now start at 1 TB, while M5 Max models start at 2 TB. The new SSDs also deliver up to 2x faster read/write performance. Like the MacBook Air, all models gain the N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

Otherwise, the MacBook Pro retains its premium hardware from the previous generation, including the Liquid Retina XDR display, three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI with 8K support, SDXC card slot, 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, and MagSafe 3 charging. Battery life remains up to 24 hours, and both sizes continue to be available in space black and silver.

For professionals pushing boundaries in motion design, visual effects, video editing, machine learning, and data-intensive workflows, these new MacBook Pro models offer real-world improvements that may justify an immediate upgrade from recent generations. Others with M3 or M4 Pro/Max machines may not see enough benefit to justify upgrading, but anyone on older hardware will appreciate the leap.

(Featured image by Apple)

Apple has updated its Studio Display with an improved 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with Desk View support, two Thunderbolt 5 ports, and improved bass from its six-speaker system—all for the same $1,599 starting price. More significantly, Apple introduced the Studio Display XDR at $3,299, bringing professional-grade HDR technology to a broader audience at a much lower price than the $5,000 Pro Display XDR it replaces. The Studio Display XDR features a 27-inch 5K panel with mini-LED backlighting, 2304 local dimming zones, up to 2000 nits of peak HDR brightness, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and a 120 Hz refresh rate with Adaptive Sync. Both displays require macOS 26.3.1 Tahoe and work with all Apple silicon Macs.

(Featured image by Apple)

In macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple has made it easier to customize folder appearance in the Finder. Control-click any folder and choose Customize Folder. In the panel that appears, click a colored circle to apply that color and then select an icon to display on the folder. Click the Emoji button to choose from the full set of emoji instead of the icons. A few notes: Customization is available for everything except macOS’s Applications, Library, System, and Users folders. These colors are associated with Finder tags, which you can change in Finder > Settings > Tags. Although the colors and icons should sync via iCloud Drive, don’t assume they’ll survive other cloud-based syncing services or other actions (like archiving) that may not preserve Finder metadata. In other words, they’re mostly useful for individuals, not workgroups.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Christian Ouellet)

Apple offers several simple ways to share Wi-Fi network passwords. When someone nearby tries to connect to a Wi-Fi network with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and they are in your Contacts app, you will be automatically prompted to share the network password with them. Additionally, in the Passwords app, you can display a Wi-Fi network QR code that anyone can scan to join the network. However, sometimes you need to share a password via email or text. To look up a Wi-Fi password on an iPhone or iPad, open Passwords, tap Wi-Fi, select the desired network, and tap the obscured Password field. A Copy Password button makes it easy to copy. In the Mac version of Passwords, hover over the obscured password and click the revealed password to copy it.

(Featured image by iStock.com/jpkirakun)

Starting with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, Apple replaced the Ring/Silent switch on the top-left edge of the iPhone with the Action button, making the new button standard across the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 lineups in subsequent years. The Action button is a dedicated hardware button you can configure to perform one of many different tasks. Although Apple prompts everyone setting up a new iPhone to configure the Action button, our experience is that many people haven’t integrated it into their everyday usage.

Taking advantage of the Action button isn’t hard, but there are obstacles. The Ring/Silent switch had only one function, whereas the Action button offers so many options that it’s easy to fall prey to decision paralysis. Also, because the Action button is configurable, it behaves differently even if you leave it set to Silent Mode. The Ring/Silent switch was a physical switch that also showed its state with an orange indicator. With the Action button, you can’t tell at a glance if Silent Mode is on, and activating it requires a relatively long press-and-hold. Finally, the Action button’s ultimate power lies in its Controls and Shortcuts options, but many users are unaware of the wide-ranging possibilities these unlock.

So let’s look at how to make the most of the Action button. To configure the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button and swipe through the choices. The choice on screen when you exit Settings will be active. Although there are no bad choices here, many of the options Apple provides can be activated just as easily through Control Center or Siri, so you might not want to dedicate the Action button to them.

• Silent Mode: Toggle call and alert sounds on and off. This is the default setting, but unless you regularly need to toggle the ringer, it’s not worth dedicating the Action button to such a seldom-used option. You can toggle Silent Mode in Control Center just as easily.
• Focus: Activate or switch Focus modes such as Do Not Disturb. We recommend using Focus sparingly because it can block desired notifications, but if you’re a fan, the Action button might be a good way to switch between them. Focus modes are also easy to select in Control Center and turn on with “Siri, turn on Do Not Disturb.”
• Camera: Launch the Camera app. If your iPhone has the Camera Control (as do all Action button-equipped models except the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max and iPhone 16e), the Camera Control is the best way to open the Camera, but the Action button might still be helpful for opening the Camera app to a specific mode: Photo, Selfie, Video, Portrait, or Portrait Selfie.
• Visual Intelligence: Launch Apple’s AI-powered object recognition feature. Again, pressing and holding the Camera Control (if available) is a better way to access Visual Intelligence.
• Flashlight: Turn the flashlight on or off. This may be a good choice if you use the flashlight regularly, but if so, you’re probably already accustomed to tapping its icon on the iPhone’s Lock Screen. If your hands are too full, try “Siri, turn on the flashlight.”
• Voice Memo: Start recording audio in the Voice Memos app. If you use Voice Memos heavily, you may like this use of the Action button. Alternatively, just say, “Siri, record a voice memo.”
• Recognize Music: Use Shazam to identify music that’s playing nearby or on your iPhone. Another way to invoke Shazam quickly is to ask, “Siri, what’s playing?”
• Translate: Starts listening to translate between the default languages you set up in the Translate app. This use of the Action button is a great shortcut if you’re traveling in another country and need quick translations, but most people don’t need it every day.
• Magnifier: Launch the Magnifier app to make it easier to see tiny text and small objects. Those with low vision may particularly appreciate this use of the Action button, but the Magnifier app is also easily accessed from a Control Center button or by saying, “Siri, open Magnifier.”
• Controls: Invoke any Control Center control. Here’s where things get interesting! Starting with iOS 18, iPhone apps can create controls in Control Center. With the Controls option, you can choose any available control, so you could have the Action button start a ChatGPT conversation, add a task to TickTick, create a new event in BusyCal, or myriad other options. We strongly encourage you to scroll through the available controls to see if any catch your interest.
  
• Shortcut: Activate any custom Shortcut for personalized actions. The previous Controls choice is brilliant, but what if you want even more options? With Shortcuts, you can create custom actions that can even leverage multiple apps to do exactly what you want. For instance, you could create a shortcut that takes a photo of an expense receipt and sends it to a specific email address, all triggered by a long press on the Action button. The sky is the limit here.
  
• Accessibility: Quick access to accessibility features like VoiceOver, Zoom, Speak Screen, Apple Watch Mirroring, Live Captions, Conversation Boost, and more. Don’t assume these options are only for people with disabilities; many have broader utility.
• No Action: The final option is No Action, which is useful only if you accidentally press the Action button frequently and don’t want it to do anything.

So there you have it! If you’re not currently using the Action button, take a spin through the available options to see which can make a difference in your everyday iPhone experience.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

When business slows down, it’s tempting to reduce IT spending. But that approach often backfires, creating bigger problems—and larger bills—down the road.

Beyond the productive work you accomplish on your Macs, your technology infrastructure enables you to communicate with clients, send invoices, manage schedules, and get paid. A downturn is precisely when you need those systems working reliably, not when you should neglect them.

The smart approach isn’t to stop spending on IT. It’s to protect the essentials while trimming optional expenses. Let’s look at what’s critical and what’s not.

The Hidden Costs of Cutting Back

When IT spending gets cut, three things typically go wrong:

• Small problems become big problems: Deferring maintenance—putting off updates, delaying hardware replacements, and ignoring broken workflows—doesn’t save money, it just pushes the expense to a later date, when it will almost certainly cost more. Beyond the fact that prices only increase over time, emergency troubleshooting, rush purchases, and downtime during business hours always cost more than planned maintenance.
• Security risks persist: Attackers don’t slow down just because revenues have. When budgets tighten, businesses often cut the very things that stave off disasters: software updates, security monitoring, and tested backups. One phishing attack that leads to wire fraud, one malware infection that steals passwords, or one unpatched vulnerability can wipe out years of “savings.”
• Productivity losses add up quietly: When Wi-Fi is flaky, Macs are slow, and file sharing doesn’t work reliably, employees waste time waiting and working around problems. During a downturn, you typically have fewer people doing more work, which is the worst time to tolerate daily friction.

What to Protect First

Spending on some aspects of IT is more important than others. These are the services that keep your business running smoothly and help you recover when something goes wrong:

• IT support and consulting: We’re biased, of course, but we’ve seen what happens when clients go out on their own and then come back. Proactive support catches issues early, keeps your systems running, and ensures you have someone to call who already knows your setup when things break.
• Software subscriptions: Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365, accounting software, and similar subscriptions often seem cuttable. But letting subscriptions lapse means missing security updates and losing access to files in proprietary formats. It also means employees will spend time learning new tools rather than being productive with familiar ones. Before canceling, understand what you’ll lose.
• Backup services: Cloud backup services like Backblaze or CrashPlan may seem unnecessary if you have local backups, but they protect against burglaries, fires, or burst pipes that can destroy local backups.
• Networking equipment: Dodgy Wi-Fi access points and aging routers waste everyone’s time. If your team can’t reliably stay connected, nothing else matters. If you need to replace networking gear, choose quality products that will last for years.
• Hardware replacement budget: It’s tempting to squeeze another year out of aging Macs, but don’t keep them going beyond the point where they stop receiving security updates. User productivity will also decline as older Macs slow down and experience more issues.

Where to Cut Without Breaking Things

Many businesses have unnecessary costs hiding in plain sight. Here’s where to look:

• Unused software licenses: Audit what you’re paying for versus what employees actually use. Many companies have up to 30% of seats unused across various apps. Reclaim those seats, and establish a simple rule: every subscription needs an owner and a regular review.
• Duplicate tools: It’s surprisingly common for businesses to pay for multiple apps that do the same thing—multiple chat platforms, overlapping backup utilities, and so on. Pick one and consolidate.
• Vendor contracts up for renewal: Before agreements for Internet service, phone plans, hosting, or equipment leases auto-renew, check whether you still need the same service level. Many vendors will negotiate rather than lose a customer, and some plans can be downgraded to match actual usage.
• Projects that don’t solve real problems: Pause any “nice to have” work that isn’t about reducing costs, lowering risk, or helping you serve customers better: things like migrating to a new CRM, redesigning a website that’s working fine, or building custom tools when off-the-shelf options exist. A downturn forces prioritization—use it.

The goal isn’t to spend more on IT—it’s to spend smarter. Protect the services that keep you running, cut the ones that don’t, and avoid creating tomorrow’s emergency by skipping today’s maintenance. If you’re unsure where to cut and where to hold the line, we’re happy to help you sort through the options. A short conversation now can prevent an expensive surprise later.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Userba011d64_201)

The AI hype train continues to gain momentum, with breathless reports of rapid user growth, billion-dollar deals, and sky-high company valuations. At the same time, it’s easy to highlight AI pilot failures, problematic uses, and worries about job losses.

As always, reality lies between the extremes. AI is just another technological tool, like spreadsheets, email, and the searchable Web. Like them, casual usage won’t automatically increase an organization’s productivity. At best, many people have begun using AI chatbots as a smarter search engine, and while that’s a fine start, it’s unlikely to make a notable difference. Many others are technology skeptics who are uncomfortable with any new technology, let alone one as fuzzy as AI. Even those who are interested and capable are often overwhelmed by their existing work and don’t have time to learn yet another tool.

So how do you set up an organization to make effective—even transformative—use of AI?

Get Buy-In from Management

Ideally, the desire to adopt AI would come from the top of the organization, with leadership discussing and modeling the kind of usage they want to see. But what’s absolutely essential is lower-level management creating the culture, resources, and time necessary for employees to experiment with AI.

Evangelize from the Bottom, Don’t Mandate from the Top

Although management must be on board, a CEO memo mandating immediate AI adoption won’t have the desired effect. Unlike many other technologies, AI solutions tend to be highly specific rather than one-size-fits-all. Frontline employees know where they’re wasting time with inefficient workflows, and they have first-hand knowledge of what customers want, so they’re more likely to be able to leverage AI tools when they are involved in the development and deployment. Solutions created without their participation likely won’t benefit the business’s bottom line, customers, or employees.

Centralize Testing and Support

A top-down approach does make sense for tool analysis and testing. The explosive growth of the AI market means that there are numerous similar options for any desired workflow. To save time, avoid future chaos, and reduce tool jumping, it can be helpful to have a single IT team evaluate the numerous possible tools, make recommendations, suggest best practices, establish basic data handling and privacy guidelines, and provide support.

Adopt a Documentation Mindset

A key to automating workflows with AI is being able to document the necessary tasks clearly first. Some organizations already have a documentation mindset, where they write everything down, define processes, and record decisions. If that’s not the case for your organization, it’s better to focus on building such documentation before creating automation tools that are unlikely to deliver the desired results. Consider using AI to help with documentation, such as by interviewing people who understand the workflows and using AI to extract an outline from the transcript of the recording.

Think of AI Tools Like a Junior Employee

The hard part of using AI is defining your goals and determining where AI can make a difference. It’s much like training a new hire. What are you trying to achieve by hiring them? What do they need to learn to do their job? What level of excellence do you expect? What common mistakes and pitfalls should they avoid? You can only automate something if you have a clear idea of what success entails and precisely what’s necessary to achieve it.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, successful AI implementation comes down to defining what you want to achieve, giving people the time they need to explore possibilities, and providing guidance rather than mandates.

(Featured image by iStock.com/FabrikaCr)

AI agents—software that can take actions on your behalf using artificial intelligence—are having a moment. The appeal is obvious: imagine a robot butler that triages your inbox, manages your calendar, and handles tedious tasks while you focus on more important work.

That’s the promise driving the recent surge in popularity of OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot), which is now all the rage in tech circles. Token Security found that at least one person is using it at nearly a quarter of its enterprise customers, mostly running from personal accounts. That’s a shadow IT nightmare—employees connecting work email and Slack to an unsanctioned tool that IT doesn’t know about and can’t monitor. Whether you’re an individual tempted by OpenClaw’s promise or a manager wondering what your users are up to, you need to understand the risks these AI agents pose.

OpenClaw is an AI agent built around “skills”—installable plugins that let it integrate with your messaging apps, email, calendar, and more. You communicate with OpenClaw via Messages, Slack, WhatsApp, and similar apps. Because it’s open source, you’ll need to provide your own API keys for AI services like OpenAI or Anthropic, which means ongoing costs that can add up quickly—people have reported spending $10–$25 per day.

The more serious problem? Security researchers have discovered serious vulnerabilities, including misconfigured instances exposed to the internet that leak credentials, API keys, and private messages, and a supply chain vulnerability where malicious skills uploaded to the ClawdHub library can execute arbitrary commands on users’ systems. Even beyond specific bugs, OpenClaw’s fundamental design encourages users to grant broad access to sensitive accounts.

Why AI Agents Are Risky

Security concerns aren’t unique to OpenClaw—they apply to any AI agent that acts on a user’s behalf. Here’s what’s at stake:

• Credential exposure: For an AI agent to send emails, manage your calendar, or post to Slack, it needs your authentication tokens or login credentials. If the agent software stores these credentials insecurely, or an attacker gains control, they could be exposed.
• Prompt injection: AI agents work by following instructions, but they can’t easily distinguish between prompts and data in the content they use. A class of attacks called “prompt injections” trick AI systems by hiding malicious content in emails, websites, or documents that will be processed. An attacker could embed instructions in an email that would cause your agent to search for and forward email messages containing passwords or financial data, follow links to malware sites, or take other harmful actions. There is currently no foolproof defense against this class of attack.
• Data exfiltration: An AI agent with access to your email and your computer’s filesystem could be manipulated to extract information from elsewhere on your computer—financial data, customer lists, or personal details—and send it to an attacker.
• Unvetted extensions: OpenClaw and similar AI agents let users install “skills” or plugins to extend functionality. Libraries that allow users to share custom skills often have minimal or no security vetting, making it easy for attackers to submit poisoned skills. Installing such a skill could grant malicious code access to everything your agent can touch.
• Exposed control interfaces: Security researchers found OpenClaw control servers exposed on the Internet, potentially leaking API keys, VPN credentials, and conversation histories. This risk is unique to OpenClaw at the moment, but future AI agents may suffer from similar vulnerabilities, particularly as they’re adopted by less technically savvy users.

How to Reduce Your Risk

We’ll come right out and say it: we strongly recommend against installing OpenClaw or other AI agents on your Mac. In a year or so, Apple may have updated Siri to provide many of these capabilities with significantly stronger privacy and security. But for now, just say no.

If you decide to use AI agents despite these risks, here are practical steps to protect yourself:

• Use dedicated accounts: When possible, create separate accounts specifically for agent use rather than linking your primary personal or work accounts.
• Limit permissions: Grant the agent access only to accounts it absolutely needs. If you only want help with your calendar, don’t also connect your email and messaging services.
• Avoid connecting sensitive services: Never connect anything involving money, healthcare, or confidential business information. The liability is too high if something goes wrong.
• Review agent actions: If the platform offers logs or activity feeds, check them regularly. Look for unexpected messages sent, files accessed, or connections made.
• Vet extensions carefully: Don’t install skills or plugins from unknown sources, and even with known libraries, look for evidence of others using and reviewing the skills. Treat skills like any other software you’d install on your computer.
• Keep software updated: Security patches for OpenClaw and similar tools address known vulnerabilities. If you’re running an agent, keep it up to date.
• Run agents in isolated environments: Technical users should consider running agents in sandboxed environments or virtual machines to limit potential damage.

If you run a business, you should assume that some employees have already installed OpenClaw or will soon, and may have connected their work email and Slack accounts without realizing the associated risks. Here’s what you can do:

• Educate before it’s a problem: Proactively explain the risks to employees. People are more receptive before they’ve already invested time setting something up.
• Update acceptable use policies: Make clear that connecting work accounts to unsanctioned AI agents is prohibited, and explain why.
• Offer sanctioned alternatives: If employees want AI assistance, point them toward safer options that don’t require handing over credentials to sensitive accounts.

What About Claude Cowork and OpenAI Codex?

Not all AI agent platforms carry the same level of risk. Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and OpenAI’s Codex take a different architectural approach from OpenClaw. Rather than requesting authentication tokens for your email, messaging, and other personal services, they operate within their own controlled, sandboxed environments. These systems work primarily with files, code, and data you explicitly place into their workspace, which substantially limits the fallout from an attacker gaining some level of control.

This containment approach reduces risk, but does not eliminate it. Prompt injection remains a concern whenever an AI system processes untrusted content, even inside a sandbox. An AI agent analyzing a malicious document could still be manipulated into taking unintended actions within its allowed environment. Similarly, any code generated by these systems—particularly code that touches the network or executes system commands—should be reviewed carefully to make sure it hasn’t been compromised by prompt injection.

The key distinction is scope. Claude Cowork and Codex are designed to operate within a defined workspace, whereas tools like OpenClaw require standing access to your most sensitive accounts. From a security perspective, a compromised sandbox is a recoverable incident; a compromised email or messaging account may not be.

The Bottom Line

AI agents promise a lot and may provide genuine convenience, but at a cost beyond just paying for API tokens. Before you or anyone in your organization connects an AI agent to sensitive accounts, consider: What’s the worst that could happen if this system were compromised by an attacker? If the answer involves passwords being stolen, private email being exposed, or photos being posted to social media without your knowledge, proceed with extreme caution. If you can imagine a way financial accounts could be accessed or business data stolen, don’t proceed at all.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Thinkhubstudio)

Apple has introduced Apple Creator Studio, a subscription bundle of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, priced at $12.99 per month or $129 per year (with education pricing at $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year). The bundle also includes premium content and a few AI tools for the iWork apps: Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. These apps will prompt you to download the new version 15, but don’t worry—they remain free for all existing features; only the new AI capabilities and premium content require a subscription. You can also still purchase Mac versions of the pro apps, though the iPad versions of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro are now available only to subscribers. Up to six family members can share a Creator Studio subscription via Family Sharing.

(Featured image by Apple)

Have you noticed that when you restart your Mac or relaunch an app, your previous windows and documents sometimes reappear exactly as you left them, but at other times you’re greeted with a clean slate?

This behavior is controlled by Resume, a technology introduced in OS X 10.7 Lion back in 2011. Resume automatically reopens app windows and documents so you can pick up where you left off after a restart or app relaunch. Apple’s goal was to make macOS work more like iOS, which tries to preserve your place in apps. However, many Mac users found it confusing when apps opened old documents or appeared in unexpected positions when the number of displays changed. Some also objected to how long it took to open old documents that were not relevant to the task at hand. Apple quickly reversed course and made reopening apps and windows optional.

Users are much more familiar with how the iPhone and iPad work now, so you may wish your Mac apps remembered their open documents and window positions. Various settings control this behavior, but it can be hard to find them and understand what they’ll do. Let’s explore how Resume works and how you can make it do what you want.

First, note that Resume operates in two distinct situations. One applies only at restart or logout, and you decide at that moment. The other governs what happens every time you quit and relaunch an app and is controlled by a persistent system setting.

The “Reopen Windows” Option at Restart

Whenever you restart, shut down, or log out of your Mac, macOS asks whether you want to reopen your apps and windows when you log back in. You’ve undoubtedly seen the checkbox in the confirmation dialog: “Reopen windows when logging back in.” When the checkbox is selected, macOS dutifully relaunches the currently running apps after you log in, putting you back where you were. If you uncheck it, your Mac will start fresh, without reloading previously open apps.

macOS remembers how you’ve selected this checkbox, so if it’s checked when you click Restart, it will also be selected the next time you restart, and vice versa. If you ever perform a forced restart or skip the dialog by holding the Option key when choosing Restart or Shut Down, macOS uses the last known state of that checkbox on the next startup.

Many users either love or hate the “Reopen windows” behavior. For those who enjoy having their entire workspace restored after a reboot, keeping that checkbox checked makes sense. For others, including many IT professionals, the point of a reboot is to start fresh. Pick whichever behavior you prefer.

Controlling Resume When Relaunching Apps

Resume also governs what happens each time you quit and reopen an individual app. This behavior is controlled by a switch in System Settings > Desktop & Dock under the Windows section, labeled “Close windows when quitting an application.”

When this “Close windows” switch is turned on—it’s the default—macOS will close all windows and discard their restorable state before allowing an app to quit. Because macOS has closed the windows before quitting, there’s nothing for Resume to restore when you next launch that app. Effectively, the app will always start fresh with no memory of past windows (unless it has its own session-restore mechanism).

On the other hand, when this option is turned off, quitting an app will not discard its windows, so when you reopen the app later, Resume will automatically restore whatever documents and windows you had open, putting you right back where you left off.

There are three main scenarios where Resume can have effects that you may or may not like:

• Document-centric apps: With these apps, like Pages and Numbers, you work on individual documents, each of which opens in its own window. When “Close windows” is enabled, apps start fresh on each launch; when it’s disabled, the documents you were working on when you quit reopen automatically.
• Unsaved documents: As a corollary to the previous scenario, if you have unsaved documents open when “Close windows” is on, you’ll be prompted to save your changes before the window is closed. When “Close windows” is off, you won’t be prompted because those documents—with all their unsaved changes—will open automatically at the next launch.
• Window-based apps: Other apps, like Mail and Messages, display their content in a main window. They’ll open this window regardless of the “Close windows” setting. However, Resume determines where that window appears. If “Close windows” is turned on, macOS does not remember which display or Space the window occupied, so the app often reopens on the primary display, even if that’s not where it was when it quit.

Most users have no idea that this “Close windows” setting exists or what it does. If you’re irritated by having to reopen Pages documents you were working on before or reposition Mail’s window after every relaunch, make sure “Close windows” is turned off. Conversely, leave it on if you want apps to start fresh.

Exceptions and Caveats

For most people, controlling Resume using the “Reopen windows” checkbox and the “Close windows” switch is sufficient. However, some people may want more control or wonder why some apps ignore those settings.

• Nonstandard apps: Everything we’ve said so far describes the behavior of standard apps using Apple’s recommended development frameworks and tools. Some apps don’t use Apple tools or play by Apple’s rules—we’re looking at you, Microsoft—and will ignore the Resume settings. Don’t be surprised if Word, Excel, and PowerPoint fail to act as described.
• Turn off Resume per launch: If you set apps to restore their windows by turning off the “Close windows” switch, you can override that on a one-off basis in some apps by holding the Shift key down as they launch. This trick doesn’t work in all apps, but it’s worth trying.
• Custom session restore: Some apps manage session restoration on their own, most notably Safari and apps built with the Electron framework, such as Slack, Discord, and Notion. For instance, in Safari > Settings > General > Safari opens with, you can choose a new window, a new private window, all windows from the last session, or all non-private windows from the last session. With such apps, look for internal settings that control their behavior.
  
• Login Items: Even if you deselect “Reopen windows” when restarting, apps and documents that you’ve added as login items in System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions > Open at Login will still open. Think of this as a manual Resume—you’ll restart to a preset workspace, not to the way things were when you restarted. Some software may also install helper apps that control what appears at launch.
• Full-screen apps and Spaces: Apps that were last used in full-screen mode reopen into their own Spaces when “Close windows” is disabled. After a restart or relaunch, the app may appear not to have reopened because it is occupying a separate Space that is currently not visible.

In practice, Resume comes down to a simple set of choices:

• If you want your workspace restored after a restart, select “Reopen windows when logging back in.” Ensuring that apps—even if they’re set as login items—open full-screen or in particular Spaces also requires “Close windows when quitting an application” to be turned off.
• If you want apps to remember documents (even unsaved documents), window positions, and displays when you quit and relaunch them, turn off “Close windows.”
• If you want a clean slate, deselect “Reopen windows” and leave “Close windows” turned on.

When windows don’t appear as you expect, check these two settings as your first troubleshooting step.

(Featured image by iStock.com/BigNazik)