APC

WELCOME | EDITORIAL We do like to make your APC a nice combination of helpful information, along with articles that are interesting and a bit of fun to read. We choose what to cover in our many regular How To guides based on how we use our devices and apps in the real world, and as much as we can fit in, cover many platforms. A fine example is this month’s double-feature on security. Safeguarding your data is a chore, yes, but it is one we must endure because the consequences of a failure here can absolutely ruin lives. So! This issue we’re diving into the hot topics of good password practise, together with a great article about how you can and should make sure your private messages stay private.…

Download these APC exclusives free from: www.apcmag.com/exclusives ASHAMPOO UNINSTALLER 12 UNINSTALL UNWANTED PROGRAMS WITHOUT LEFTOVERS. Ashampoo UnInstaller 12 deletes programs without leftovers and allows you to install, test and remove software without worries. Four deletion methods ensure a more thorough removal than is possible with Windows’ default means. Even nested setups are fully logged and removable. The installation monitoring technology built into UnInstaller logs all file and system modifications and completely reverses them during software removal. The program auto-detects most installations from beginning to end so users don’t have to take manual action. Installations that weren’t logged by UnInstaller are still fully removable thanks to the built-in database with hundreds of software profiles. ASHAMPOO WINOPTIMIZER 25 WINDOWS 10 & 11 SYSTEM CLEANER AND OPTIMISER. Ashampoo WinOptimizer 25 makes Windows PCs…

Everything you need to know from the month in tech Back when AMD previewed the Zen 5 architecture, it promised an IPC gain averaging 16% over equivalent Zen 4 parts. While the new chips handily beat out the older ones in heavily threaded benchmarks, the gains were smaller in games. That led to some criticisms, with many gamers believing the new chips didn’t offer enough to tempt them to upgrade. “Reviews of the Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 7 9700X, Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X highlight their power efficiency, cooler running and solid all-round performance.” AMD acknowledged these concerns in a blog post, saying its internal testing was “run in admin mode, which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimisations not present in the version of Windows reviewers…

Your Mac, iPhone and iPad look set to change in fundamental ways later this year – and it’s all thanks to Apple take’s on artificial intelligence (AI), which the company’s renamed Apple Intelligence. Making its debut in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this spring, Apple Intelligence will give you whole new ways to do things easier and faster, all the while safeguarding your privacy. Or that’s the promise. On iPhone, the most obvious change will be a revamped version of Siri, which now shimmers around the edge of your iPhone’s screen when you invoke it. Apple says Siri can glean facts about you, the things you like to do and your key relationships and combine them in useful ways. In its keynote Worldwide Developer Conference address in June,…

OPINION | END USER Concord, a squad-based hero shooter published by Sony in August and developed by Firewalk Studios, was deemed a failure within hours of its launch on PS5 and Steam. Social media was quick to point out that this eight years-in-development live service outing only managed to attract 600-odd concurrent Steam players upon launch (this doesn’t include however many people were playing on console). Whichever way you cut it, those numbers are exceedingly low for a big blockbuster release from Sony, especially one that relies on a returning online player base. What went wrong? Well, first it’s important to acknowledge that maybe Concord hasn’t gone wrong: perhaps it’ll blossom late in the same way Rainbow Six Siege did. It’s not like Sony and Firewalk will dump the game…

OPINION | TECH TALK AMD has released two variants of its Zen 5 architecture into the wild, the desktop ‘Granite Ridge’ chips with up to 16 cores and the mobile ‘Strix Point’ processors with up to 12 cores. Granite Ridge desktop CPUs will take over from the Ryzen 7000 series, and work in the same socket AM5 motherboards. AMD plans to launch four different CPUs: Ryzen 9 9950X with 16/32 cores and threads; Ryzen 9 9900X as a 12/24 core part; Ryzen 7 9700X will be an 8-core design with a single CCD (Core Compute Die), and the Ryzen 5 9600X comes with six cores. These follow the existing Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 names – AMD opted to use Ryzen 8000 branding for the Zen 4 G-series parts that come…