Apple has released MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta 5 for Mac users who are currently running the beta operating system. For those in the public beta testing program, the same build typically arrives for them soon after.

MacOS 27 Golden Gate emphasizes performance improvements to the general system as well as features like Spotlight and Mail search. There are also notable adjustments made to the Liquid Glass interface including a slider for users to change the transparency effect. Additionally, there’s a new dedicated Siri app, Siri AI features including customizable voice, new Apple Intelligence capabilities, and more.

Beta system software is generally only appropriate for advanced users, but if you’re comfortable with the idea of the beta experience then installing MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta is pretty simple. You can also choose to download a full installer or IPSW file further below, which can be used for things like making a bootable install drive or a Golden Gate virtual machine.

Separately, Apple has also released iOS 27 beta 5 for iPhone, and iPadOS 27 beta 5 for iPad, along with watchOS 27 beta 5, tvOS 27 beta 5, and visionOS 27 beta 5.

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Apple has released iOS 27 beta 5 for iPhone, along with iPadOS 27 beta 5 for iPad. If you’re currently running the developer beta you will find the latest update available right away, and typically public beta testers find the same build version available soon after as well.

The emphasis of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 is primarily performance improvements, leading to a faster and more stable operating system, improvements to system search, and other core system functionality. There are also visual tweaks and adjustments to the Liquid Glass interface including a customizable slider to adjust the transparency effect throughout the OS. iOS 27 also includes a new dedicated Siri app, new Siri AI features (on fully compatible devices anyway), new Apple Intelligence features, along with various tweaks and adjustments to other aspects of the operating system.

If you’re interested in running the beta and are comfortable with the drawbacks of beta operating systems, you can learn how to install the iOS 27 beta on iPhone and iPadOS 27 on iPad.

Separately, Apple has released MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta 5 for Mac, watchOS 27 beta 5 for Apple Watch, and tvOS 27 beta 5 for Apple TV.

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If you’ve been using computers for a long time, you might recall the Apple II and Apple IIgs, two of Apple’s early computers that were before they had fully committed to the Macintosh platform. While there were plenty of productivity apps and programming tools for Apple II and Apple IIgs, there were also a whole bunch of classic games which made the platform so much fun.

If you’re up for some nostalgic gaming, a fun site called VirtualApple offers “almost every Apple ][ and Apple IIgs game ever made” which translates to hundreds and hundreds of titles, including classics like Dark Castle, ShadowKeep, Kings Quest I, Kings Quest II, Kings Quest III, Oregon Trail, Mummy’s Curse, Police Quest, Tetris, and so much more. The games play right in your web browser, making perusing and retro gaming easy and available on just about any device.

If you’re into retro gaming from the Apple II and Apple IIgs era, check them out:

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Amazon is offering some great discounts on AirPods models, check them out and pick which is right for you:

• AirPods Pro 3 for $189 (down from $249)
• AirPods Max for $449 (down from $549)
• AirPods 4 for $99 (down from $129)

Misc Deals

• Anker 7-in-1 USB-C hub For $20 (down from $26)
• AirTags 2 – 4-pack – $89 (down from $99)
• Get Apple Watch Series 11 for $299 ($100 off from $399)
• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $1399 ($100 off)
• 14″ M5 Pro MacBook Pro – 24GB – 2TB – $2499 ($500 off)

FTC: OSXDaily is an affiliate partner with Amazon, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment which goes towards keeping the site running.

Apple has released security updates for MacOS Tahoe 26.6.1, MacOS Sequoia 15.7.9, and MacOS Sonoma 14.8.9, each addressing the same security flaw relating to the Screen Sharing service where an attacker could authenticate without valid credentials. Download links for IPSW and full installers for these new versions of MacOS are available further below.

Due to the nature of security updates, the software update is recommended for all users of Tahoe, Sequoia, and Sonoma operating systems.

It’s unclear if the current MacOS Golden Gate beta is already patched for this issue, or if the security flaw will be patched in the upcoming Golden Gate beta releases.

Presumably it’s only users who have enabled the Screen Sharing feature that would be theoretically impacted by this security issue, though that is not guaranteed. Any issue where an attacker could authenticate into a computer should be patched quickly due to the nature of such a flaw, and therefore it’s still recommended to install the security update on any eligible Mac.

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It seems like every time you call any major business, institution, facility, government, or corporate office nowadays, you get placed on hold, often for what seems like an eternity. Nobody likes waiting on hold with the annoying and repetitive hold music, but fortunately the iPhone has a wonderful solution to being stuck on hold, called Hold Assist.

With Hold Assist, you don’t need to wait on a call hold, because your iPhone will wait on hold for you. How this works it quite simple; when Hold Assist is activated, the iPhone monitors the call, and then alerts you when a live person has returned to the call, so that you can pickup and rejoin the call. It’s super easy and works quite well. Let’s walk through the exact steps so you can utilize this fantastic feature.

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If you’re curious about testing out MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta but you aren’t ready for the full commitment of installing it as your primary operating system, the simplest and safest way to run MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta is within a virtual machine. While one of our authors dove right into MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta full time out of frustration with Tahoe, running a beta operating system has some risks and stability issues associated with it, so that’s not always a viable solution. In situations like this, a virtual machine is particularly helpful.

Virtual machines are great because they’re self-contained and segregated from the rest of your files and host Mac operating system, meaning there’s no chance anything in the VM, beta or not, can break anything else on the Mac. This offers a nice way to test out new beta MacOS features and functionality without any risk to your main Mac. And when you’re done, or no longer use the VM, you can just delete it.

We’re going to walk through the steps for making a MacOS 27 Golden Gate virtual machine by using the VirtualBuddy VM app. VirtualBuddy is easy to use, free, and handles the downloading of necessary MacOS 27 assets directly within the app as part of the VM setup. This makes it so you don’t have to seek out and download MacOS 27 IPSW and installer files on your own, or deal with any additional steps. The result is that setting up a new VM is super easy with VirtualBuddy. Yes there are many other virtualization apps out there, many of them are great too, but for our purposes here we are using VirtualBuddy. You will also need the host machine to be a MacOS 27 compatible Mac, which includes basically any Apple Silicon Mac (MacOS 27 does not support Intel chips).

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Apple Watch Series 11 is nicely discounted by Amazon, cutting $100 off the base price and they’re now starting at $299.

• Get Apple Watch Series 11 for $299 ($100 off from $399)

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I know it’s only in beta, and probably halfway through the beta cycle at that, but I’m going all in on MacOS 27 Golden Gate. Why, you might ask? Because, for me, the MacOS 27 beta is better than MacOS 26 Tahoe is, in some pretty critical ways.

And to be clear, I do not recommend this for anyone else, this is me throwing caution to the wind on my own personal Macs. But I just am fed up with the bugs of MacOS Tahoe enough that I want a change, and I’m willing to embrace the more risky beta experience instead. And here’s some specific reasons why.

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Longtime gamers and fans of retro gaming in general may recall the 1992 classic first person shooter Wolfenstein 3D, which set the standard and blueprint for many the entire genre and gaming in general moving forward.

While re-playing Wolfenstein 3D in and of itself can be a fun retro experience, one enterprising developer took it upon themselves to modernize it just ever so slightly.

Dubbed Wolfenshine 3D while it still uses the original 1992 artwork and sound effects, it has been modernized a bit with lighting effects to add in colored lighting, light rays, fog effects, bloom effects, shadows, and water effects. The end result is pretty neat. Check out the game yourself as a free download, or enjoy on your Mac (or Windows PC):

• Check out Wolfenshine on Github here

BTW don’t feel bad if you’re not familiar with the process of downloading an app from Github, you can read about that here if you’re unfamiliar but basically go to the “Releases” section and get whatever is the newest for your particular Mac hardware.

The developer Github page describes the Wolfenshine project as follows:

“Wolfenstein 3D rebuilt in modern C#—faithful when you want it, shiny when you don’t.

Wolfenshine is a playable, cross-platform reimplementation of the 1992 classic. It reads the maps, artwork, music, and sounds from your own copy of Wolfenstein 3D, then brings them to life through a clean .NET engine written from scratch.

At its heart is an authentic 320×200 software-rendered experience. Press F2 and that same game becomes something new: colored lights spill across rooms, muzzle flashes illuminate enemies, fog gathers in the distance, and bright doorways cast descending shafts into the darkness.”

If you want to watch how it looks before running it yourself (or perhaps in lieu of), check out the YouTube embed below:

Found via X (Twitter), and you can find us on there too.

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Many MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Neo owners have noticed something curious; their MacBook battery stops charging at 80% when plugged in. To add to the confusion, even if they leave their MacBook plugged in overnight, the battery seems to be stuck at 80% and will not charge any further. Because this is not necessarily understood or expected behavior, some Mac users think there may be something wrong with their battery or their computer.

So what’s going on here? Why is the MacBook battery stuck at 80% and will not charge more? It turns out this is intentional behavior, part of a feature of MacOS that is designed to help preserve long-term battery health on your MacBook. Let’s explain, explore this further, and learn how you can fully charge the MacBook to 100% at any time, and even how to change this setting so it always charges to maximum capacity.

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Amazon is taking $500 off the 14″ M5 Pro MacBook Pro in 24GB RAM 2TB SSD configuration. This is a very well equipped pro Mac at a whopper size discount:

• 14″ M5 Pro MacBook Pro – 24GB – 2TB – $2499 ($500 off)

If you don’t need quite so much power or storage, or perhaps you want a larger display, there are some other deals available from Amazon too on MacBook Air and 16″ MacBook Pro, though none are as generous at the aforementioned with $500 off.

• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $1399 ($100 off)
• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 1TB – $1499 ($100 off)
• 16″ M5 Pro MacBook Pro – 24GB – 1TB – $2799 ($200 off)

As always with Amazon, stock moves quickly, so if you see something you like, grab it.

AirPods from $99

Amazon is once again offering the popular AirPods for at just $99, and the AirPods Pro 3 for just $199.

• AirPods 4 for $99 (down from $129)
• AirPods Pro 3 for $199 (down from $249)

FTC: OSXDaily is an affiliate partner with Amazon, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment which goes towards keeping the site running.

The iOS 27 beta has overall been a very positive experience for many beta testers, but if you have installed iOS 26 beta onto your iPhone or iPad and decided that it’s no longer for you, perhaps due to some incompatibility, critical bug, or other issue, then you can downgrade your iPhone from iOS 27 beta reverting back to iOS 26 (and yes, the same trick works for downgrading iPadOS 27 beta back to iPadOS 26).

Downgrading is a multistep process that is somewhat technical, but don’t be too intimidated by it. The big thing to remember is that to downgrade successfully and keep all of your stuff, you’ll have need to have made a backup of your iPhone or iPad prior to updating to iOS 27 beta. If you don’t care about keeping your data, then you can downgrade and just setup the iPhone or iPad as a new device running iOS 26.

And yes this works the same for downgrading either the iOS 27 developer beta or the public beta.

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MacOS Sequoia 15.7.8 and MacOS Sonoma 14.8.7 are available for Mac users who are not running the Tahoe operating system. Both MacOS Sequoia 15.7.8 and MacOS Sonoma 14.8.7 include a myriad of security patches, making them recommended updates for all Mac users who are running those operating systems. No new features are included.

Separately, Apple has also released MacOS Tahoe 26.6 update, iOS 26.6 & iPadOS 26.6 update, along with updates to watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. Those releases also contain important security patches, so you’ll want to be sure to update all of your eligible Apple devices.

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AirPods are available at a nice discount from Amazon, whether you’re interested in the AirPods Pro 3 with hearing aid functionality for $199 (down from $249), or the AirPods 4 for $99 (down from $129):

• Get AirPods 4 for $99 (down 22% from $129)
• Get AirPods Pro 3 for $199 (down from $249)

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Apple has released MacOS Tahoe 26.6 for Mac users running the Tahoe operating system. The update is primarily focused on security fixes, and includes 8 new Emoji icons. Don’t expect any major changes or features, as those are instead arriving in the currently under beta MacOS 27.

For Mac users running MacOS Sequoia and MacOS Sonoma, you will find security updates available for those Macs as well as macOS Sequoia 15.7.8 and macOS Sonoma 14.8.8.

Separately, Apple has also released iOS 26.6 for iPhone, iPadOS 26.6 for iPad, and a bevy of other software updates for Apple devices as well.

Note that if you have already installed MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta, you will not find the MacOS Tahoe 26.6 update available on your Mac.

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Apple has released iOS 26.6 for iPhone, along with iPadOS 26.6 for iPad. The software updates are focused mostly on security enhancements for the devices, and there is also some included preparations for the upcoming larger iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 releases coming later in the year.

Separately, Apple has also released MacOS Tahoe 26.6 for Mac, along with updates to prior iOS, MacOS, and iPadOS versions, and other Apple devices, so be sure to check Software Update on just about anything for available updates.

If you’re currently running iOS 27 beta you will not find the iOS 26.6 update available to you.

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Tired of getting bombarded with frequent DoorDash advertising, promotional, and marketing notifications on iPhone? You’re not alone. If it feels like your notifications are getting spammed by DoorDash, this is a broad nuisance to many, and fortunately with some hidden settings adjustments, you can completely stop the DoorDash marketing rubbish that gets pushed to your notification center.

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