Zoom has introduced a new feature called Focus Mode that's designed to prevent students from distracting each other during virtual classrooms.
When enabled, Focus Mode allows the teacher or lecturer taking the class to see all the students, while each student can only see the teacher.
The setting can be activated at any time by the teleconferencing host, so for example it could be turned on for lecture periods to reduce distractions from students' video feeds and then turned off for group discussion.
Focus Mode is available on the free desktop Zoom client, therefore lending itself to other uses, like business meetings, family gatherings and so on.
Zoom announced the new feature in a blog post offering other back-to-school tips to get children prepared for virtual or hybrid learning. Version 5.7.5 of Zoom for Mac is available to download from the Zoom website.
Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps.
More features and changes will follow in future ...
Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Juli Clover
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass.
The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings.
iOS 26.4 will...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released by the end of next week.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more.
With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by Juli Clover
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Monday October 20, 2025 1:02 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Even though we're at the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple is continuing to add new features. In fact, the fourth beta has some of the biggest changes that we'll get when iOS 26.1 releases to the public later this month. We've rounded up what's new below.
Liquid Glass Transparency Toggle
Apple added a toggle for customizing the look of Liquid Glass. In Settings > Display and Brightness,...
Monday October 20, 2025 1:42 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Kohler is expanding its line of bathroom products with Dekoda, an iPhone-connected device that's designed to be attached to a toilet rim (via The Verge). The device's included "sensors" point into the toilet bowl, allowing it to analyze what goes on in the bathroom.
According to Kohler, Dekoda is a health tracker that can monitor gut health and hydration, as well as detect the presence of...
I've been teaching a lot over Zoom during a few periods of lockdown, and it has been less than ideal.
However, this seems like a nice way to get the students to actually enable camera (privacy concern and distractions are two main reasons why I normally teach to a bunch of "icons on black background").
That way it would be possible to actually get the "feel of the room", although just fraction of what you can get in a physical classroom.
There are other issues to zoom lectures (not least for practical subjects), but every little bit helps.
Now, I don't trust Zoom anywhere near enough to install the client on my personal Mac, I still consider the app as Malware, but on my company issued work Mac this will be a welcome upgrade.
I've been teaching a lot over Zoom during a few periods of lockdown, and it has been less than ideal.
However, this seems like a nice way to get the students to actually enable camera (privacy concern and distractions are two main reasons why I normally teach to a bunch of "icons on black background").
That way it would be possible to actually get the "feel of the room", although just fraction of what you can get in a physical classroom.
There are other issues to zoom lectures (not least for practical subjects), but every little bit helps.
Now, I don't trust Zoom anywhere near enough to install the client on my personal Mac, I still consider the app as Malware, but on my company issued work Mac this will be a welcome upgrade.
Honestly, as a student, I feel like this is the worst of both worlds from a student perspective. I absolutely hate zoom calls for a number of reasons:
- It’s distracting/hard to focus - primarily because of your OWN preview (you also don’t do other things in front of a mirror) - Other students can be distracting - (Most) teachers themselves can be distracting, for instance by being poorly prepared, having technical issues (bad WiFi - stutter, bad microphone or bad camera) or another common one is teachers taking +25% longer than a physical lecture because ‘they can’ which generally results in lectures that either drag and are too slow paced or on the other end of the spectrum, are overfilled and fatiguing
The upsides being:
- seeing your fellow students - seeing the teacher
With this new feature, it basically remains a ****** experience for students while also removing any social elements.
at this point might as well just stream a live recorded video and have a live q&a chatbox imo.
This reminds me of 19th century prison chapels where each prisoner sat in a partitioned cubicle so they could only see the priest and not each other as part of a prison-wide regime of total isolation from other prisoners. Can you imagine the response if anyone suggested doing the same in a normal school environment? So why do people think it's a good idea for online teaching?
Because it is not a normal school environment. you wouldn’t want it on all the time, but it would be good during an online assessment, plus there are special needs students who don’t have their camera on during lessons but would be more comfortable if they know the whole class isn’t looking at them. Our head of learning support is very happy they added this feature.
PS: The model for a whole gaol like you describe was called a panopticon ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon')
Have you never attended an assembly or lecture? This is intended to be used for short bursts of focus where you don't need to see everyone else's face for any dubious social reasons, but the presenter would. I have seen meetings go off the rails because someone's child or pet came on camera and someone called attention to it, or I get really self-conscious about my fidgeting/stimming and kill my video feed.
So instead of learning focus let’s mask it completely so these kids are more socially awkward and unprepared for the real world.
Guess what? When you grow up that big business meeting isn’t going to cater to your issues.
