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improve your

iCloud Drive Sort, search, open… do it all from your Mac and iOS devices

Say hello to

macOS

ios 10 apple’s biggest update yet to iphone & ipad

watchos 3

Now’s the time to get the Watch into your apple life

Sierra Supercharge your Mac with powerful new features for the desktop and beyond ✓ Search with Siri ✓ Apple Pay on the web ✓ Better Photos ✓ Unlock with Watch

likE Forget the

pp, os photos

how apple gear can make your home a healthier place

Lifetime storage: which drive is best?

Get to know the new iTunes 12.4

All the recent changes explained

Mac

iphone

hoME hEalth

ipad

Terabytes of testing for your Mac

Watch

iCloud

itunes

photos

iOpener Game-changing tech from the world of Apple and beyond A silk thread almost resembles a lock of hair under an ioLight.

Up close, a fly’s eye reveals thousands of tiny lenses.

ioLight can show its scanned images on your iPhone or iPad.

ioLight A high-quality microscope for your iPhone The ioLight is a device that claims to solve a problem you hadn’t even thought of.

High-end laboratory microscopes cost upwards of £3,000 and are fiddly to use, while cheap options simply aren’t good enough for the pros, so ioLight claims to be the mid-range solution that promises the best of both worlds. Okay, it’s not for everyone, but it’s great for people who need a portable microscope for fieldwork or teaching. It displays the resultant images on your iPad, so you can view them in even greater detail and back them up to iCloud for safekeeping. £840 includes ioLight microscope website iolight.co.uk works with iPads running iOS 8.1 or higher

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AuGuSt 2016 | MACFORMAT | 3

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We’re used to Apple’s computers saying “hello”, and it’s never been more true than with the re-emergence of the Mac OS name (now styled macOS). So, that means it’s goodbye to OS X, a name that’s been with us for 15 years. This year’s WWDC kicked off with a packed keynote announcing four brand new operating systems: macOS Sierra, iOS 10, watchOS 3 and tvOS 10. We’ve analysed every bit of information available to bring you an early look at how your Mac is changing, in anticipation of their full release in the autumn.

We’ve looked at the major features for all four systems, concentrating on the key new features of Siri, Continuity, Apple Pay on the web, Photos, HomeKit and a Lock screen overhaul in iOS 10.

As it’s summer, you’ll no doubt be taking more iPhone shots than you do at other times of the year, and our guide to some of the very best third-party photos apps for iOS will inspire you to get one step closer to pro-looking images.

Talking of photos, they are often the media files that take up the biggest amount of space, so our group test this issue looks at six high-capacity hard drives for your Mac.

Meet the team

ChriSTiAn hAll EDitOr editor@macformat.com

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Alan Stonebridge Production Editor With the summer sun here at last, Alan’s taking the activity rings on his Apple Watch seriously and burning through those daily goals.

Alex Blake Commissioning Editor Alex has just returned from a break in Spain to rain-soaked Somerset.

At least there was plenty of good news from WWDC to cheer him up.

Paul Blachford Managing Art Editor Paul’s transport broke down just as our deadline approached, leaving him hungry for even small scraps of information about Apple’s mysterious electric car project.

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AUGUST 2016 | MACFOrMAt | 5

Issue 302 August 2016 macformat.com

say hello to

macos

8

Apple Core 8

ruMour & news

The core apple news you need to know about

11

Apps & gAMes

our top picks of the month for Mac and ios

12

Apple FACts

amazing stats from the world of apple

14

Sierra Supercharge your Mac with powerful new features for the desktop and beyond

30

news FeAture & opinion

Going deeper into the hot topics of the month

18

split view

The team’s views on the latest apple tech

Apple hoMe 21

Apple hoMe

Build the smart home of the future today

22

hoMe heAlth

Delightful devices to boost your wellbeing

26

evAluAte your body

74

Easy pro photo editing on ios Get pro-style results from the best photo apps available right now

Weigh in to track your fitness plan’s progress

28

hoMe gAdgets

a new light-bulb-cum-speaker, and more!

6 | MACForMAt | AUGUST 2016

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Issue 302 Contents

genius tips 67

genius tips

Howard oakley solves your Mac and ios issues

93

68

Apple ChoiCe

SAVE

our verdicts on the latest hardware and apps, including the upgraded 13-inch MacBook air

45%!

104 store guide

Turn to page 42

89

Apple ChoiCe

Get help with picking your next piece of apple hardware and the best add-ons to go with it

70

MAC soFtwAre

Ease your app-fuelled anxieties with our fixes

72

ios soFtwAre

swipe away your touchscreen troubles

62

*InCLUDEs pRInT anD DIGITaL EDITIons

win!

A drone and an 20

Apple skills

action camera your chance to win £580 of kit

peripherAls

Clear up your confusion about connectors

46

MAnAge your iCloud drive

Learn how you can recover deleted cloud files

In association with

48

Find your wAy in itunes

Understand apple’s navigational changes

regulArs 82

bACk issues

Head here if you’ve missed an issue

110

next Month

What’s coming in MF303, on sale 2 august

112

letters

83

love your MAC

Inspiring ideas for revamping old apple kit

51

eAsily position windows

Mimic Windows’ snap feature on your Mac

52

explore note-tAking Apps

Replace notes with an alternative that fits you

56

tune up your browsing

Explore the features of a new web browser

58

shAre Files the eAsy wAy

If airDrop’s letting you down, try this instead

Have your say on all things apple-related

114

bACk pAge

61

Control your MusiC

Choose what’s playing using your apple Watch

old apple kit turned into tiny accessories

62

projeCt: tAke Control oF your sMArt hoMe

Make smart devices work together with IFTTT

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AUGUST 2016 | MACForMAt | 7

What’s inside 8–10 rUMOUr & nEWs The core Apple news you need to know about

11 aPPs & GaMEs

EditEd by

christian hall

Our top picks of the month for Mac and iOS aPPlE rUMOUr

12 aPPlE Facts Amazing stats from the world of Apple

14–15 nEWs FEatUrE How is Apple looking after factory workers?

16 OPiniOn Adam Banks finds his app aims swiftly limited

18 sPlit ViEW The team’s views on the latest Apple tech

Contact us Email your queries and your questions to letters@macformat.com Keep up to date by following us on Twitter @macformat Join the conversation at facebook.com/ macformat

8 | MacFOrMat

13-inch Macbook Pro Apple’s powerbook gets a whole-body makeover While there was much to whet our appetites at Apple’s WWDC event on 13 June, we still can’t help but feel a little disappointed there was no mention of an updated MacBook Pro. Sure, we can’t wait to get stuck in with macOS Sierra, and Apple Music is getting an overhaul, but what about Apple’s well-loved workhorse notebooks?

Given the recent updates meted out to the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Air range, the Pro is sticking out like a sore, neglected thumb.

But it’s not all bad, if you believe the rumour mill.

There has been a barrage of news, opinions and ‘leaks’ regarding the MacBook Pro, so much so that 1 it’s hard not to feel that something is just around the corner. We’ve seen shots of the alleged keyboard OlED bar layout (sans function keys), we’ve heard that the The MacBook’s physical Thunderbolt ports will not be present, and we’ve function keys are on the way out, read that the internal specs are going to get a boost according to rumours. Instead, in the form of new Skylake processors.

Apple will treat us to an OLED Of course, with so little information at WWDC, bar with touch-sensitive buttons. a pinch of salt is recommended with all rumours.

These will change depending on But with an autumn launch date supposedly pegged the app you’re using – to show a down and ‘leaked’ photos in abundance, it looks like song progress bar in Spotify, say. something wicked this way comes. Fingers crossed.

Alan says…

After last year’s fairly small addition of Force touch, finally we’ll get an update to be excited about

2

lOts OF Usb-c We expect Apple is going full steam ahead on USB-C, which has only appeared on the 12-inch MacBook so far. The new Pros are said to feature four USB-C ports (also used to carry Thunderbolt 3 data) and a headphone jack.

macformat.com @macformat

Rumour aPPlE cOrE

3

tOUch iD After the announcement that Siri is coming to Mac, the next MacBook Pro could gain even more from the iPhone with the introduction of Touch ID. Code snippets containing the word ‘Biometric’ in the macOS Sierra beta have got tongues wagging.

thE POll WE askED… Which of Apple’s operating systems won the day at WWDC?

watchOS

macOS

35% 17% tvOS

1%

47% iOS

Log on and see next issue’s big question! twitter.com/macformat facebook.com/macformat

2

rUMOUr Mill

Hot on the heels of the tech giant’s latest moves…

1

1

MaPs strEEt ViEW Nothing was announced at WWDC, despite a Maps update, but there have been an awful lot of Apple vans with weird cameras seen on the streets…

2

aPPlE Pay

3 4 4

bUttErFly kEys Apple took a new approach to the keys on its 12-inch MacBook with the debut of the ‘butterfly’ mechanism, and that’s set to migrate to the MacBook Pro. Could this thinner key design mean more internal space for batteries or better components?

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It looks like you will soon be able to pay people within iMessage conversations, but we’d like this to be possible outside of that platform.

3

aPPlE hOME DEVicE After Google launched its own Amazon Echo competitor, many suspected Apple would follow suit. We still think this is an area Apple can really own, so keep your eyes peeled.

August 2016 | MacFOrMat | 9

CLASSIC APPLE FACTS

iphone 7 cpu boost

$10.9bn Made with Value of all 2015 apple pay transactions

The analysts might be claiming that Apple Pay is on the rocks, but $10.9 billion sounds like a lot to us! It’s the total value of all Apple Pay transactions carried out in 2015; we’d expect it to go from strength to strength hereafter.

$6.56 the price of an apple share in 2003 Today an Apple share will set you back about $100, but it wasn’t always so pricey. After the slump of the ’90s and the devastation of the dotcom bubble, it hit this low in April 2003.

$782m apple’s total r&D expenDiture in 2007 A decade ago, Apple spent less than $1 billion on research and development (although that’s still a princely sum). These days it spends more – a lot more. 2015 saw it drop a huge $8.07 billion on R&D alone.

10nm process faster, more efficient a10 chip to be manufactured by tsMc ou won’t be surprised to hear that Apple is expected to include a new processor, the A10, in the iPhone 7 when it launches in September this year.

But what is interesting about this news is that the manufacturing process is set to change, bringing with it important power and efficiency improvements.

While the A9 processor in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is built on a 14nm process, the A10 is slated to debut on a smaller 10nm manufacturing process. In practice, this will result in a faster, better performing chip. At the same time, this should improve efficiency, meaning longer battery life in the iPhone 7

Y

and 7 Plus without Apple having to increase the size of the built-in batteries in its range of new smartphones.

TSMC is expected to be Apple’s sole manufacturer of the A10 chip. The firm’s CEO, Mark Liu, has stated that the 10nm process will be ready for high-volume production by 2017 at the latest, leaving a small possibility that it could sneak into the iPhone 7 this year.

TSMC has also disclosed that it is working on a 7nm chip, but this will not be ready for mass production until 2018 at the earliest.

apple Watch 2: launching soon Sept 2016 date Apple gets ‘aggressive’ in time for autumn Watch 2 launch lthough Apple doesn’t want you to know the exact numbers, it’s the opinion of many that the Apple Watch has failed to sell as many units as the Cupertino giant had hoped.

However, the latest news from the supply chain is that Apple is going on the offensive with Apple Watch 2. Tim Cook’s firm has reportedly placed a higher volume of orders for Watch components to its suppliers than expected – enough to ship up to two million units to customers per month. The supply chain source described these orders as “rather aggressive” given the apparent disappointing Watch sales so far.

10 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

A

The chips and components used to make the Apple Watch are expected to ship in the third quarter of 2016. That would place them in the region of July to September, potentially in time for Apple’s regular September event, provided the Watches themselves can be manufactured in time. Watch 2 could therefore launch alongside the iPhone 7, which certainly makes sense, given the close relationship between the two Apple devices.

Apple will be hoping the introduction of watchOS 3 and better specs in Apple Watch 2 will further boost sales figures. Read our watchOS 3 highlights on page 41 for more.

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Apps & Games APPLE CORE

APPLE TV

APP OF THE MONTH

Our top picks of what’s worth watching and playing this month

[M AC A PP]

Airmail 3 £7.99

[ MOV I E]

HIGH-RISE £13.99

Revamp your email with this update to a popular Mail alternative We’re big fans of Airmail here at MacFormat, with version 2.0 getting the runner-up spot our last round-up of alternatives to Apple Mail (see MAC291). So, another big update was always going to be welcome, particularly when it adds headline features such as Smart Folders for enhanced mail filtering, VIP contacts, and support for ‘send later’ in Gmail and Exchange accounts.

Based on J. G. Ballard’s novel, High-Rise is set in a tower block that’s the height of modern living – until things go disturbingly wrong.

The app also has a handy iCloud trick up its sleeve, finally: you can now sync your account preferences across all your Macs and iOS devices, so rules, folders and VIPs are the same on every device you use Airmail on.

One of the app’s big boons, praised in our group test, is the ease of setting it up. That’s enhanced by its iCloud connectivity, saving you recreating settings on iOS. It also now integrates with dozens of new web services.

[POdCASt]

THINKING SIDEWAYS FREE A rational look at the world’s most intriguing unsolved mysteries.

From cryptic codes to chilling disappearances, it’s all discussed within.

[iO S A PP]

[iOS gAME]

[A PPl E M uSIC]

UNFADE £3.99

WARBITS £2.99

WHY ARE YOU OK (BAND OF HORSES)

This app is a pain-free way to take snapshots of your old photo albums so that you have digital copies for posterity. There are similar apps available, but being from the makers of Scanbot, this one produces higher quality scans and captures shots fast.

Why you need it: For making your old photos last longer.

What’s it best for: If albums take up too much space.

War is never cute, but at least Warbits’ cartoon style makes this online strategy game all the more fun. It’s a well trodden genre but Warbits maintains your interest through its fast-paced take on turn-based gaming. It could become an iOS classic.

Why you need it: Well crafted and balanced iOS war game.

What’s it best for: Seasoned strategy fans and newbies.

The latest effort from Ben Bridwell and pals seeps into your brain as the tunes roll by, then you notice a couple of hours have flown by with it on loop. Bridwell‘s infectious vocals shine brighter here than on anything the band’s done since Infinite Arms.

Why you need it: At least try In a Drawer and Casual Party.

What’s it best for: A beautiful blend of guitars and vocals.

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[A PP]

FROMSKY FREE Get breathtaking aerial views of some of the world’s top destinations with this app. Perfect if you’re bored of Apple’s default landscapes.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 11

APPLE CORE Facts & Figures

2

3 0 % MacBook IN NUMBERS From the lightweight 12-inch MacBook to the powerful MacBook Pro and back into Apple’s history, we look at a few facts you may not know about its portables

The 2015 MacBook’s display uses 30% less energy than previous MacBook screens.

1

60GB

3

The first MacBook Pro with Retina display (the Mid 2012 model) had a resolution of 2880x1800 pixels, twice as many each way as its nonRetina equivalent.

If you reckon your MacBook could do with more storage, it could be worse.

The original base model only had a 60GB, 5,400rpm hard drive.

4

2010

First made standard in the 2010 MacBook Air, flash storage is now used in all new MacBooks. Like today, the 13-inch model started at 128GB, but the 11-inch had 64GB!

NExT ISSUE 12 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

5

17%

The 12-inch MacBook’s keyboard, which debuted a new ‘butterfly’ mechanism, features keys that are 17% larger than those on other MacBook models.

With Apple’s wearable being a hot topic once more with watchOS 3, find out the figures behind it… macformat.com @macformat

w

APPLE CORE News Feature

For our latest subscription offer see page 42!

investigates

Workers in the Far East Is Apple doing enough to stand up for workers’ rights in its supply chain? wrItteN by ALEX BLAKE usiness Insider recently shed light on what it’s like to work in an Apple Store. It didn’t look like the best job in the world, but it certainly has its perks. But how does Apple stack up when it comes to taking care of the employees further down its supply chain? Is it pulling its weight in protecting their rights?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer.

In its Supplier Responsibility 2015 Progress Report, Apple says it mandates a 60-hour maximum working week for workers in its supply chain, and that 92% of the 1.1 million workers it tracked did not exceed that level. It also claimed that the average number of hours worked per week was 49, and that 94% of all working weeks contained at least one day off for workers.

However, 8% of 1.1 million is still 88,000 people working more than 60 hours every week. Apple’s stats also suggest 66,000 supply chain workers do not get a single day off per week.

While it may sound like we’re nitpicking – 92% sounds pretty good, right? – that figure actually represents a step backward from 2013, when Apple ensured that 95% of its supply chain workforce did not work more than 60 hours per week. In fact, that figure stood at 92% in 2012, suggesting Apple has seen little progress for a number of Workers’ rights abuses have been reported at the Pegatron iPhone factory in Shanghai. years, at least in this area.

B

14 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

66,000 workers do not get a single day off per week

More worrying news came in the form of an October 2015 report published by the non-governmental organisation China Labor Watch (CLW). Based on an undercover investigation at the Shanghai-based Pegatron factory that produced many of Apple’s iPhone 6s devices, the report alleged numerous rights violations. For instance, workers were made to falsify safety training forms and received only eight hours of safety training, where Chinese law requires at least 24.

Workers were also subjected to unpaid work, 12-hour shifts six days a week, and unhygienic conditions.

The undercover investigator had to work on one iPhone motherboard every 3.75 seconds and stand for 10.5 hours a day – and when any worker went to lunch, their neighbour had to pick up their workload to cover gaps.

Apple insists that it is working hard to stamp out unacceptable working conditions at its suppliers’ factories, but some are slipping through the cracks. CLW undertook a similar investigation in 2013, and claims that by 2015 Pegatron had made progress in only one category out of 21.

Apple takes a stand

Yet Apple is making improvements in other areas. It sources much of the cobalt used in its batteries from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),

macformat.com @macformat

workers’ rights APPLE CORE

where large swathes of the cobalt mining industry are dominated by appalling working conditions. When confronted by Amnesty International over the issue, Apple stated it was “currently evaluating dozens of different materials, including cobalt, in order to identify labor and environmental risks as well as opportunities for Apple to bring about effective, scalable and sustainable change”.

Amnesty noted that Apple and Microsoft were the only tech firms taking any steps to address human rights violations in the cobalt mines of the DRC.

Protecting children

In defence of Apple, it also takes strong action against child labour in its supply chain. In a further comment to Amnesty International, Apple stated that: “Any supplier found hiring underage workers must 1: fund the worker’s safe return home, 2: fully finance the worker’s education at a school chosen by the worker and his or her family, 3: continue to pay the worker’s wages, and 4: offer the worker a job when he or she reaches the legal age”. While there is progress to be made, Apple is at least making an effort.

Apple has also been proactive in ensuring safe working conditions at refineries and smelters for many materials it uses, like tin and tungsten. It does much to ensure safe and healthy workplaces for the employees of its

macformat.com @macformat

Despite occasional lapses, Apple ensures workers in its supply chain are treated a lot better than those of many other tech firms.

Apple has eliminated numerous toxic materials from products like the MacBook.

Apple takes strong action against child labour in its supply chain

suppliers, from guaranteeing proper training and acceptable working hours to securing compensation when violations occur.

For example, a March 2015 article in the Economist highlighted a case where Apple discovered that one of its suppliers had used a recruiter who charged potential employees fees, and that these prospective employees had to take out expensive loans to afford the fees, effectively bonding them to the employer. Apple made the supplier reimburse around $4 million to affected workers.

While conditions like these are common in the tech industry, Apple actually stands up pretty well (relatively speaking) against its competitors. CLW found appalling conditions in factories used by Samsung and Lenovo, while Amazon made the news last year for the terrible working conditions at its contractors’ bases. Apple is certainly trying hard to improve the lives of its workers and suppliers, and should be applauded for that.

Yet it still has much to do to ensure every worker who helps make an iPhone or a Mac is treated properly, not merely the majority of them. Every case of a worker becoming hospitalised after exposure to toxic chemicals or collapsing from overwork is a case too many. Apple must ensure it never happens.

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 15

APPLE CORE Opinion

ADAM BANKS… gOing deeper thAn A fOrce click with musings On the wOrld Of Apple Swift Playgrounds looked like the most revolutionary announcement of WWDC: a way for anyone to get coding.

But don’t get too excited just yet Learning to code is a big deal nowadays. Everyone from Martha Lane Fox to Obama reckons it’s a vital skill for the next generation, and everyone from journalists to designers has an annoyingly competent colleague that can do it.

So Swift Playgrounds for iPad, announced at WWDC, should be important. Pitched at kids but with obvious appeal to the rest of us, this app, says Apple, “makes learning to code easy and fun”. It certainly looked fun in the demo, with a little character hopping around a 3D world – a classic programming tutorial updated for the Angry Birds era. And it’s far more than just a tutorial: it brings an integrated development environment (IDE) to the touchscreen, helping you to write real code in a professional language that’s bang up to date.

Every kid with an iPad could be a developer. And the iPad itself could leapfrog the argument about whether it’s for real work or passive consumption, and become a tool for making tools. I flashed back to HyperCard, which ran on Macs in the 1990s. Essentially a database with an interactive user interface on the front and scripting in the middle, it was adopted by many thousands of business, academic and scientific users.

I wasn’t alone in thinking this. During the keynote, commentator John Gruber tweeted: “Swift Playgrounds = the new HyperCard?” But it turns out Swift Playgrounds != (is not equal to) the new HyperCard, nor does it quite let kids make apps.

Straightforwardly, Swift Playgrounds gives you a pane on the left where you write your program, and a live preview on the right where it runs. Start typing a line of code, and it suggests what you could validly put next. That gives you a good

I flashed back to Apple’s HyperCard, a database with an interactive interface

16 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

head start: you can guess at the statement or expression you need, then see how to complete it. If you’ve used Excel’s Formula Builder, it’s a bit like that.

Except it’s not, because you can’t just bash your way through modern programming; you need to grasp some computer science.

Try to read bit.ly/mfswift and you’ll see what I mean. Objects, methods, protocols… it’s a far cry from writing BASIC, or an Excel macro, or AppleScript, where you just list things to be done one after the other. Although Playgrounds brilliantly supports example projects that guide you (teachers can add their own), it still feels more like being handed a violin and a book of sheet music than a pile of building blocks.

Nor can you create a full app. To do that, you’d have to sign up as an Apple developer (£79 per year), install Xcode on a Mac, export your Swift project to it and learn what to do next. The iPad is just for playing after all.

You’ll hear plenty about how amazing Swift Playgrounds is, and it’s true. It would be churlish to call it a missed opportunity.

But for me, it just shows how much more we could do with the iPad, if it had playgrounds for grown-ups.

ABOUT ADAM BANKS Adam is Apple to the core, having reported on the world of Macs since the 1990s. As a writer, designer, art director and print production contractor, he divides his time between the Northern Powerhouse and the Creative Cloud.

macformat.com @macformat

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Watch Video!

APPLE CORE Split View

APPLE IN QUOTES KEn sEgALL kensegall.com

“There is serious work to be done in rebuilding the perception of simplicity.�

sPLiT ViEW

the MacFormat team debates the hot Apple issues of the day, using their iPhones of course!

“WhAT WAs yOuR WWDC 2016 highLighT?�

Apple must make its products less confusing, says Steve Jobs’ former ad agency chief

Alex says‌

sAVE

45%! turn to page 44

Christian says‌

iOS 10 has been given a major overhaul, I love the new Lock screen/Raise to Wake.

Yes, that was definitely a highlight. Control Centre looks much more powerful now.

ELOn MusK tesla.com

“I think they’ll probably make a good car and probably be successful.�

I can’t wait to see how Siri will develop on iOS thanks to SiriKit. Making it work with non-Apple apps has always been the turning point for me.

Tesla chief says Apple would do well in the electric car industry‌

It really looks like Apple is making Siri a key priority, seeing as its now added Siri to .

It’ll tie in nicely with HomeKit, too.

AnDREW uERKWiTz

That’s why there might be an OLED bar on the new MacBook Pro. I think it’d be great to see the Siri waveform show on the keyboard!

opco.com

“My big worry is do they actually have the experience to enter that market?�

Not to mention song progress in Apple Music!

‌but Oppenheimer analyst Uerkwitz isn’t so sure

đ&#x;Ž§đ&#x;Ž§ đ&#x;ŽŽđ&#x;ŽŽ

Though a small feature, Universal Clipboard really suits the way I browse the web and edit docs.

TiM BAjARin

You’ve just gotta be careful not to overwrite an item you wanted to keep on the other device.

creativestrategies.com

“[Apple] will create the gold standard for a smartphone-based VR headset�

SUbScRibe TOdAy!

nExT issuE Will the new-look Apple Music keep your interest?

Apple will apply its usual formula to dominate VR, says the famed tech commentator

18 | MACFORMAT | AuguSt 2016

Siri...ously?

“How do you think I look today� tap to edit

I think, therefore I am. But let’s not put Descartes before the horse.

macformat.com @macformat

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20 | MACFOrMAT | August 2016

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We’ve also thrown in a wrist control device and waterproof case for the X150 to complete the setup. The case is waterproof up to a massive depth of 30 metres depth, so it’ll keep the camera safe and secure if you take a dip, while the wrist strap lets you start, stop and pause recording on the X150 camera remotely – useful if you want to make changes on the fly without having to stop the action.

THE QUESTION For your chance to win this amazing drone and camera bundle, just answer the following question: What is the flight time of the Kaiser Baas Delta drone?

A) 10 minutes B) 13 minutes C) 17 minutes For more details about the full range of drones and action cameras from Kaiser Baas, visit kaiserbaas.com.

To enter, you can visit our website at futurecomps.co.uk/deltabundle.

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What’s inside 22–25 Home HealtH Get yourself in tip-top shape using your Apple kit and amazing add-ons

26–27 tUtoRIal How to use Withings’ Health Mate app to track weight and more

28–29 Home GaDGetS Essential kit to elevate your abode from ‘home’ to ‘smart home’

EditEd by

ClIff joSepH

lIVe SmaRteR The smart home is here – live the Apple dream today!

Apple devices have been part of many people’s health and fitness regime ever since the company released the first iPod in 2001 ack in 2015, Apple unveiled its HealthKit API as a way for developers to record and share health and fitness data tracked by accessories or even entered manually by you. In March of this year, it announced CareKit to assist with the development of apps that help you to manage medical conditions, tracking your symptoms and medications and optionally feeding that data back to your doctor.

Built-in features of Apple’s devices can help save lives, too. One Massachusetts teenager’s Watch drew attention to a serious injury by showing his heart rate was abnormally high for a sustained time.

Apple’s initiatives here go back years, to motivational iPod workout playlists and 2006’s Nike + iPod Sports Kit. The basics are now built in to its newer devices, yet there’s a plethora of accessories that talk to them to help keep you fit and healthy.

B

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Even if you aren’t into serious workouts, the iPhone and Apple Watch can track regular movement and walking activity.

AUGUSt 2016 | maCfoRmat | 21

apple Home Home Health

Home Health Get started with

From your morning run to night-time dreams, there’s a plethora of fitness tech to keep you hale and hearty

What is HealthKit? HealthKit is software technology available in iOS that allows health and fitness apps from different developers to combine and share data – such as the number of steps you have taken or jogging statistics recorded by one app and calorie intake tracked by another.

HealthKit takes all that information and then combines it within the main Health app on your iPhone in order to provide you with a comprehensive overview of your personal fitness data.

22 | maCfoRmat | AUGUSt 2016

or many people, modern simple digital display that shows just a few fitness technology arrived in key statistics for your daily workout. In fact, the form of the iPhone 3G, one of the most popular fitbands is the with its built-in accelerometer Jawbone UP2 (£90, jawbone.com), which and GPS features that enabled it to track doesn’t have a screen, but allows you to your location, distance and speed while you transfer all your fitness data into its free were out jogging around your local park. companion app on your iPhone or iPad. But, running around with an iPhone The more sophisticated fitness trackers strapped to your arm isn’t an ideal solution, tend to be a bit larger, with a screen more especially if you own one of the Plus-size like that of a traditional watch. Of course, models. This has led to an explosion of new the Apple Watch is one of the leading fitness-tracking devices that are small and products here, although its starting price light enough to be worn on your wrist while of £259 has left plenty of room for less you’re exercising. These fitness trackers are expensive rivals to flourish. Withing’s Go a lot less expensive than an activity and sleep tracker TomTom’s Spark offers activity iPhone too, as they tend to (£50, withings.com/uk) and GPS tracking, and the Spark focus on just a few specific has a simple black-andCardio adds a heart rate monitor. activities, such as measuring white E Ink display, and the distance you run, the it’s also water-resistant calories you burn, or even just to 50 metres, making it the number of steps that you an affordable option for walk during the day. swimmers. At the other end of the market is the Fitbit Blaze (£160, fitbit.

Flick of the wrist com/uk), which looks a The simplest and smallest lot like the Apple Watch devices, often known as and includes similar fitbands, tend to have a very

F

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Home Health apple Home

iFacts…

26% The percentage of clinically obese men in the UK in 2013. (Office for National Statistics)

194% The increase in women with diabetes in the UK since 1994. (ONS)

37 inches

Withings says the battery in its Go activity and sleep tracker runs for eight months.

The waist size at which the risk of diabetes is increased in men. (ONS)

What happens to my personal data?

Withings’ Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor measures systolic and diastolic pressure along with your heart rate.

100,000 The total number of avoidable deaths caused by unhealthy lifestyles in the UK each year.

(Department of Health)

Withings’ Smart body Analyzer can measure your heart-rate through the soles of your feet features, such as a heart rate monitor and a colourful touchscreen that can display notifications for calls and text messages.

Some of the latest fitness trackers also include built-in storage, which enables them to store and play music without a connection to a smartphone. TomTom’s Spark fitness trackers (tomtom.com) start at around £110 for the basic model, while the Spark Music is £150 and has 3GB of storage, which can hold about 500 songs for your workout.

Sleep on it The motion sensors used in fitness trackers have another use too, as some can monitor your movements while you’re asleep at night in order to produce a diary that tracks your sleeping patterns. For greater accuracy, you

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can also buy specialised sleep monitors that can be attached directly to your mattress.

Serious athletes can use the Emfit QS (£325, emfit.com), which is a bit pricey but aims to improve your sleep in order to reach peak levels of fitness. Another option for more general use is Withings’ Aura Sleep System (£250). This two-part system includes a sensor that goes under your mattress to track your nocturnal breathing and movement patterns, along with a digital alarm clock that can play you soothing music at night, and also monitor temperature and light levels to see if there are external factors affecting your sleep.

Weigh in One health device that can be useful for your entire family is a set of smart scales. There are several of these available at the moment, from about £100 for the Fitbit Aria,

As well as sharing data via HealthKit, many fitness apps will also want to store your personal data in the cloud, so make sure you check the developer’s policies on privacy and data sharing. You can also control how apps use your data by going to Settings > Privacy > Health; there, tap the name of an app to choose which of the health and fitness metrics it’s able to read from or write to the Health app provided by Apple.

Jawbone’s UP2 fitband lacks a display, so you need to fish out your iPhone to check the data it has gathered.

AUGUSt 2016 | maCfoRmat | 23

apple Home Home Health

Why can’t I sleep?

Insomnia is an increasing problem in our always-connected world. You don’t need a high-tech gadget to confirm you haven’t been sleeping well, but one key feature of sleep monitors is that they can track the light and deep sleep cycles that you go through during the night. That can help you to see if there are changes you can make to your bedtime habits to improve the overall quality your sleep.

What exactly am I breathing in?

There are a number of devices that are able to monitor air quality.

Generally, that refers to the levels of CO2 in the air, but you can also buy more sophisticated air sensors, such as the Elgato Eve Room (£70), which can detect a wide range of pollutants, such as tobacco smoke and paint fumes, that can affect people who have allergies or other respiratory problems.

Withings’ Home security camera (£170) can also monitor air quality.

Explained eCG

Heart sensors, such as the Kito+ and QardioCore (pictured), measure the rhythm of your heartbeat and the electrical activity in the muscles of your heart. This information recorded can be shown as a graph known as an electrocardiogram, which can help to diagnose many types of heart disease.

QardioCore tracks heart health, body temperature, stress levels and other biometrics. It’s 12mm thick.

which is an obvious choice for people who are already using one of Fitbit’s popular fitness trackers. Other companies, such as Garmin (garmin.com/en-GB) and Under Armour (underarmour.co.uk), also make digital scales that can be used with their fitness trackers. All these scales enable you to measure your weight and body fat, and you can create profiles for several different family members and upload readings to an app on your iPhone or iPad. However, the heavyweight when it comes to scales is Withings, with its Body and Body Cardio devices (£100 and £140, respectively). These check your weight, hydration, and fat, muscle and bone mass, and the latter model also measures your arterial health using Pulse Wave Velocity to clue you in about blood pressure and the stiffness or flexibility of your arteries.

Heart to heart

Eve Room senses volatile organic compounds that can come from paint, a printer or even furniture.

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If you need to regularly check your heart rate, check out Azoi’s Kito+ (azoi.com). This versatile sensor costs just £99 and is housed inside an iPhone case (for the 6 and 6s models only) that’s always with you, so you can check your heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature and respiration rate as needed.

Withings just introduced two new smart scales that give additional readings about your body mass.

If blood pressure is a particular problem for someone in your family, Withings makes a dedicated monitor that’s priced at £110.

Also, the aptly-named Qardio (getqardio.com) makes a number of specialist products for heart-related issues, including the QardioArm blood pressure monitor (£99) and a high-end ECG monitor called QardioCore (£450).

Though the latter’s expensive, it’s clearly a good investment if you have a condition that needs regular monitoring.

And, with Apple’s new CareKit In addition to its basic activity rings, Apple Watch has a Workout and ResearchKit technologies app that tracks specific exercises. (apple.com/uk/researchkit) now available to developers, you’ll soon be able to monitor your condition and send regular updates to your doctor, pointing towards much more personalised healthcare systems in the future.

Unlike some early smart blood pressure monitors, QardioArm talks to your iPhone wirelessly – there are no messy cables

fIVe of tHe beSt We recommend some of the best health and fitness gear to get you started

Elgato Eve Room £70

Fitbit Blaze £160

Jawbone UP2 £90

Aura Sleep System £250

Withings Body Cardio £140

elgato.com

fitbit.com/uk

jawbone.com

withings.com/uk

withings.com/uk

Most air quality sensors simply measure the level of CO2 in the air, but the Eve Room has additional sensors that can detect fumes from paint and cleaning equipment, and other gases linked to bad air quality. It works with Siri, so you can ask your iPhone for an update.

Fitbit’s fitness trackers are very popular, and the top-of-the-range Blaze can give the Apple Watch a run for its money. It has GPS tracking, a heart rate monitor, sleep tracking, and a touchscreen, and it’s even able to play music from your iPhone to help you get going.

The UP2 is a really slim, lightweight fitband that you can wear all day long, like a little bracelet. It’s a bit basic – in fact, it lacks a built-in screen, instead using LEDs to indicate status – but it’s able to monitor running or walking activity and send the data to your iPhone.

You can buy the Aura alarm clock on its own for £150, but it works better with the optional sleep sensor that you attach to your mattress, so it can monitor your movement and breathing at night in order to provide a detailed analysis of your sleep patterns.

Withings’ new premium smart scales give greater insight into your body’s composition and fitness than its old Smart Body Analyzer, which cost only a tenner less. This model also features Pulse Wave Velocity tech that enables it to tell you about the condition of your arteries.

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AUGUSt 2016 | maCfoRmat | 25

apple Home Home Health

1

off tHe RoaD You don’t have to be a fitness fanatic to use a fitness tracker. You can improve your health by walking more and counting the steps you take each day, and also use your tracker to monitor your sleep patterns at night.

Explained Rem

REM sleep occurs several times each night, during which most of your muscles relax and stop moving – apart from rapid eye movement while you’re dreaming.

Sleep sensors are able to distinguish between REM and non-REM sleep in order to analyse your sleep patterns.

1

2

2

mUSIC anD moVement

Some fitness trackers are able to monitor your movement while you’re asleep

Many fitness trackers have to be paired with a smartphone in order to play music. However, some new devices, such as TomTom’s Spark Music, have their own storage for your favourite workout tunes.

HoW To Use the Withings’ smart scales Genius Tip! The Health Mate app can also work with your iPhone’s accelerometer, allowing it to act as a basic fitness tracker.

You could also use one of Withing’s own fitness trackers and combine all your data in one app.

1 Weight watchers

When you stand on the scales, the display shows your weight, then other readings such as fat, muscle and bone mass, and more on the Body Cardio model. The data is then sent via Wi-Fi to the Health Mate app on your iPhone.

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2 On target

You can set up personal profiles for each family member, and if you want to lose weight you can set a target that helps the app to track your progress. The app also shows your BMI to indicate the sort of weight you need to aim for.

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Home Health apple Home

wHat elSe SHoUlD I ConSIDeR?

Get SmaRt aboUt DealInG wItH DIabeteS Apps can make a world of difference with glucose levels through clear visualisations that help you identify trends revention is always the best cure, and using mobile tech to monitor your weight and fitness levels is one of the best ways of avoiding Type 2 diabetes, which is often described as an epidemic in many western countries.

Digital technology can also help you with diabetes management after diagnosis. Kits for testing glucose levels in the bloodstream have been available for many years, and there are now several iOS apps that let you enter your test results in order to keep regular records and help spot patterns in readings.

A more recent option is iHealth Labs’ BG5 Wireless Smart GlucoMonitoring System (ihealthlabs.eu).

P

This still requires you to prick your finger, unfortunately, and then apply your blood to a test strip that you insert into the BG5 so it can analyse it and send the result to your iPhone.

The BG5 is one of the few such devices approved by the FDA in the US, as well as meeting European CE standards. It’s available in the UK for about £50, and we’re told test strips are available on prescription. iHealth’s Gluco-Smart app gives long-term feedback to assist with control of your blood glucose level.

Jargon Buster

3 Vital statistics

This Timeline view shows a quick summary of your progress at the top of the screen. You can also tap on the graphs below to see more detailed data for your weight and other things checked by the smart scales.

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4 Doctor, Doctor

Health Mate can send your data to your doctor. The NHS might not be ready for this just yet, but it’s more common in the US, and Apple’s CareKit and ResearchKit will make it easier to customise healthcare to your needs.

Many digital scales, not just smart variants, are able to measure your BMI (body mass index), which is the ratio of your weight to your height. A BMI of between 18 and 25 is normal for most adults.

Above 25 is considered overweight, while over 30 represents obesity, putting you at increased risk of diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and other illnesses.

AUGUSt 2016 | maCfoRmat | 27

apple Home Gadgets

wHat yoU neeD next…

Home GaDGetS indoors or outdoors, here’s the tech you need to create your new smart home

Sengled Pulse Flex £100 sengled.com

For even more smart home advice subscribe today!

The original Pulse was a See page 42 bit of a head-scratcher – a bulky LED light bulb controlled by an iPhone app or you can buy the Flex over Bluetooth and with a built-in speaker. bulb and Horn bundled And, to be honest, the speaker wasn’t all together for £130. that great either.

Undeterred, Sengled has refined the idea Wireless smarts with this latest addition to the Pulse range.

Bluetooth is out this time Available with either silver or gold casing, around, as the Flex uses the Flex uses a power-efficient LED bulb a Wi-Fi connection to your that’s rated at 470 lumens. That’s roughly home network. This allows equivalent to an old 50W light bulb, so it you to connect multiple Flex should be bright enough for use in most bulbs together in order to rooms around your home. create a multiroom system You can use it out in the garden too, with different lighting and as Sengled says the Flex has an IP43 audio settings in each room. water-resistance rating (though your We’re still not convinced the built-in outdoor electrical wiring will need to be speakers are good enough to replace a good set of standalone speakers, but it’d be quite cool to have one of the Flex bulbs in the garden to enjoy some mood music and soft lighting on a lazy summer evening, or perhaps to play some gentle music in a child’s bedroom at night that you can control from your iPhone.

Sengled is also working on a bulb featuring a microphone and voiceprotected from water, too). recognition. This will compete with Alternatively, for indoor use, Apple’s Siri by enabling you to Sengled also sells a tastefully control a variety of other home named light shade, the Horn, that devices using your voice, and it’ll you can use to suspend the Flex also include security features, bulb from the ceiling. The Horn is such as the ability to recognise available in a number of different breaking glass and other sounds. colours, and costs an extra £40,

1

this new bulb’s use of Wi-Fi lets you create a multiroom lighting and sound system

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Sengled’s Pulse Flex light bulb is available with either an E27 Edison screw or a B22 bayonet fitting.

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Gadgets apple Home

d-Link 180 Wide Eye £147

Smart ideas fUtURe wI-fI

dlink.com/uk We’ve looked at a number of security cameras recently, but D-Link’s 180 Wide Eye stands out by providing a wide-angle lens with full 180° viewing angles for maximum coverage. As well as its 720p video recording and motion-detection features, D-Link also claims the Wide Eye’s infrared sensors can provide a five-metre viewing range even in complete darkness at night. A 16GB memory card is included for storing your videos, so there’s no need to pay a subscription to store them online.

And, like many smart security cameras, you can stream video and send alerts straight to an iPhone app, or view the camera through a web browser on a Mac or PC.

3

Senic Nuimo $159 (about £110) senic.com

At first glance, the Nuimo looks like a big button that sits on the table in front of you. However, that button is packed with smart tech, such as touchsensitive controls and motion sensors that can detect hand gestures from a distance.

It’s also programmed to act as a remote control for a variety of devices, including the Nest Thermostat, Philips Hue lighting, and Sonos sound systems. It can control apps such as Photoshop on your Mac, too.

The Nuimo has only just emerged from Kickstarter, and goes on sale this summer.

2

JbL boost tV £170 uk.jbl.com There are plenty of soundbars available that you can use to boost the sound on your TV, but this one’s also designed to work with your mobile devices and computers.

As well as analogue and optical connectors for your TV, the Boost TV includes Bluetooth for wireless connectivity, and JBL’s SoundShift

4

next ISSUe macformat.com @macformat

option allows it to connect to three devices at once, so you can quickly switch from Game of Thrones on your TV to Apple Music on your iPhone. You can also use JBL’s Connect app to pair the Boost TV with another JBL speaker for stereo sound. The first version on sale in the UK is black, but there’s also a white version of the Boost TV due soon.

become a culinary champion with the aid of smart kit for your kitchen

Interoperability is still the holy grail of the digital home, allowing you to control multiple devices so, say, your door sensor also turns on your lights and heating when you get home. Apple’s HomeKit is meant to handle this, though it has met with limited success so far.

An interesting related development looming on the horizon might be in your next router.

One reason smart home devices are often so costly is many need special adaptors that use the power-efficient Z-Wave or Zigbee networking standards.

The next type of Wi-Fi, 802.11ah (Wi-Fi HaLow), is designed specifically for the Internet of Things. It uses lower radio frequencies than conventional Wi-Fi (below 1GHz), enabling it to use less power while also providing greater penetration through obstacles such as doors, walls and floors, making it ideal for connecting devices at home and in buildings such as offices and hospitals.

We expect to see the first 802.11ah routers by the end of this year.

AUGUSt 2016 | maCfoRmat | 29

Say hello to

macOS Your Mac is about to change, and this time you really will be saying “hello” with Siri’s arrival on the desktop

A

pple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) once again brought us the major software announcements that we expect to see in the middle of the year.

This time around, updates were announced for each of Apple’s four operating systems at the same time, and their names were brought into line too. All of their names now end in ‘OS’, and so our beloved OS X made way for macOS, the new name for your Mac’s operating system.

That wasn’t the only naming update: macOS is actually version 10.12, and carries the more casual-sounding name Sierra. If El Capitan felt like Yosemite enhanced, Sierra looks like it’s

30 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

really going further, introducing a whole new way to control your Mac with Siri, more Continuity features, the ability to shop securely online with Apple Pay, copy and paste between macOS and iOS, and a new file system (though that won’t exit beta until 2017). iOS 10 goes even further in what looks like the biggest update in years. There’s a totally redesigned Lock screen, and more customisations in Messages than you’ll know what to do with! Siri has also been enhanced, and HomeKit finally gets its own app to make it easier to control your smart home.

Here we get right to the heart of what matters and show you how many features, such as Photos, are changing across the whole Apple ecosystem.

We can’t wait for September to come!

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Sierra Introducing Apple’s new OSes tvOS

watchOS

Not the biggest update, but it’s good to see Apple TV getting a dark mode and a smarter version of Siri.

This is looking like the version that will make the Watch the desirable wearable we hoped for.

Fast-loading apps ahoy!

macOS

iOS If iOS 9 felt like a tweak to iOS 8, iOS 10 is the overhaul you’ve been waiting for, with major upgrades to features.

Although it’s no longer called OS X, it’s still the OS you know and love.

Now with Siri, Apple Pay, Auto Unlock and more.

Try it yourself…

A public beta of macOS Sierra will be available a matter of days after you read this. Just like El Capitan last July, Apple will make iOS 10 publically available for beta testing, too.

Sign up to participate in the public beta at beta.apple.com.

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If you choose to test out either system, remember that you could encounter some issues so make sure you back up your data. Also, for macOS it’s wise to put it on a separate drive away from your existing installation of OS X.

See what all the fuss is about by installing the public macOS beta in July.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 31

macOS

Siri on the Mac Now the way you use your Mac has really changed…

W

e had hoped for Siri to debut in Yosemite, then expected it in El Capitan, so frankly it just had to happen in Sierra. The clever, voice-controlled assistant has been a central part of iOS since 2011, debuting in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S. As macOS and iOS continue to converge in various ways, Siri‘s appearance on the Mac needs to add real productivity gains if it’s to be anything more than a nice bolt-on.

Judging from Apple’s demo, users of Siri for the Mac will be able to command Siri and ask it questions with their voice to give a much more intuitive way of performing everyday computing tasks. Sports results, making appointments, checking the weather; sure, they’re all there, as you would expect, but what really makes Siri work on the Mac is how it works with your files.

“What can you do?”

By adding Siri to the Mac, Apple is offering the same service across all its key devices, including Apple Watch and Apple TV. Siri is deeply integrated into the new macOS. That said, the pace of development is out of kilter with iOS 10, which will include an API, SiriKit, to enable third-party apps to add voice control (see opposite page).

Siri’s reach on the Mac might be more limited due to its infancy, but its intelligent search facility is why it’ll be an instant hit with Mac owners come the autumn.

On the WWDC stage, Senior Vice President of software engineering Craig Federighi demoed

32 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Siri lives in Sierra’s Dock and displays all results in the top-right corner of the desktop.

how Siri can help with sophisticated queries for files on your Mac, such as: “Show the files I worked on last week about the off-site”. That command brings up a list of found files (under a Finder Search window), and from there users can narrow down their search based on specific words such as “annual”, “just the ones Marc sent me” or “the ones I tagged with draft”.

What’s more, you can pin Siri’s results to Notification Centre, so you can go ahead and close Siri’s window but still keep the results near at hand.

Federighi says this facility works with many results, from which we infer that it’s not for everything. It certainly will work with lists of files, Twitter feeds and sports schedules, though.

Siri can access other parts of macOS, including apps such as iTunes, making personal requests such as playing a particular genre or playlist a hands-free

Can’t remember where you saved that report?

Just ask Siri to search your Mac and dig it out.

experience. It integrates with Safari web searches, too. Federighi showed this off by using Siri to search for falconry images, and then dragged one of the results into a Pages document he was working on.

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macOS

Siri in third-party apps Thankfully, Siri isn’t just for the default apps. until now, Siri on iOS could be used to open third-party apps, but it couldn’t do much else with them. Finally, that’s changing with SiriKit in iOS 10, which enables developers to tap into Siri’s amazing abilities.

They can use Siri in just six kinds of app, though those encompass a wide range of popular App Store offerings, such as apps for voice or video calls, messaging,

In iOS 10, Siri is open to developers.

making payments, booking transport, workouts, and searching through photo libraries. Notably, Apple hasn’t mentioned integration with music and TV services.

Siri’s waveform is similar to that introduced in iOS 9.

One popular use for Siri on the iPhone and iPad is to quickly send messages to your contacts. Well, by saying something like “tell John we should meet somewhere later”, Siri on your Mac will compose that message and display it for your approval. You can then speak back to Siri to confirm that it should be sent, at which point the message is passed to the Messages app to actually do that.

System commands

would normally require you to press a key, such as “increase brightness” or “increase volume”.

Say those things and you’ll get a slider in the results window that you can tweak.

It’s been noted that there’s no ‘always on’ mode for Siri on the Mac, (the “Hey Siri!” command), but it’s unknown if this will filter down to the final version in the autumn. You will be able to tweak how Siri sounds, however. As on your iPhone and iPad, you can pick an accent in its settings, and if you like you can add a Siri icon that triggers interaction with the feature to the menu bar as well as the Dock.

So, Siri is Sierra’s headline feature but will it become your favourite way of searching for files and the web?

There’s a lot of crossover with existing, more manual methods – Finder and Spotlight – but we think that once you get used to speaking to your Mac more regularly (perhaps just at home) it’ll help you to be genuinely more productive.

SIrI CAN ACCeSS APPS SuCH AS iTuNeS, MAKINg requeSTS A HANDS-Free exPerIeNCe

Siri will be incredibly useful in making searching for information more convenient. Federighi even demoed how to search for “new movies playing this Friday” and completed a booking using the new ability to buy things on the web using Apple Pay (see page 36). However, Siri can also be used for simple commands that

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You know Siri is a proper assistant when it can do the things you don’t have time to do, such as find a restaurant.

“Hey Siri…”

“Show the PDFs in my downloads folder” “Play the top 40 jazz songs” “What’s the weather looking like tomorrow?”

“Show my photos from yesterday” “What time is it in Paris, France?”

One interesting take on Siri for the Mac is that unlike Microsoft’s Cortana there’s currently no text interface, just voice control. Perhaps that isn’t surprising given its absence on iOS and watchOS, but for Mac owners who make extensive use of a keyboard, it might have been a useful addition.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 33

macOs

iOs

Continuity All your Macs and iOS devices working in harmony

A

pple added Continuity to the Mac and iOS two years ago. It’s a set of features rather than a single one, revolving around the theme of reducing the friction you feel as you switch from one device to another. It‘s already easy to switch to your iPhone to finish writing something on the go, take phone calls on your iPad, or send text messages from your Mac. In macOS Sierra and iOS 10, a few new tricks have been added to Continuity’s repertoire.

Jargon buster Continuity features make use of Bluetooth to discover all of your devices that are nearby and signed in to your iCloud account; some use a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection to transfer things between devices without them having to be connected to a network.

Apple’s demo showed a MacBook auto-unlocking between lifting its lid and laying hands on the keyboard.

Auto Unlock

Universal Clipboard

You may never need to enter your login password again! If you read our tutorial on MacID (see MF296), this won’t sound revolutionary, but it’s good to see it built in to macOS. Where that app lets you unlock your Mac using Touch ID on your iPhone, Apple only mentioned Auto Unlock in the context of making your Mac ready to use in an instant based on you wearing your Apple Watch.

There are already Clipboard tools that enable copy and paste between devices, but Apple has deemed it useful enough to bake into Sierra and iOS 10. Copy something on either system – using the existing Copy command, not a new one – and it’s sent to your nearby devices, ready for you to paste wherever it’s needed. Universal Clipboard works with text, images and video.

Your desktop in the cloud For years it has been considered good practice not to save too much stuff to your desktop, but we all do it from time to time, if not habitually, despite there being performance consequences. It is, after all, a quick destination to reach with a keyboard shortcut.

In recognition of this, Sierra puts your desktop’s contents in iCloud Drive, and it makes your Documents folder available there, too.

As both of these locations are just folders, they‘re accessible in

34 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

the iCloud Drive app on iOS devices, so all the files you need to carry on working on a document there will be available to you.

If you work on a Mac and an iPad, in Things you’ve saved to your Mac’s desktop are available on iOS too. particular, the sheer month for more. Apple didn’t convenience of this mention new iCloud storage tiers could well be a convincing reason at WWDC, though we’d really like to upgrade your iCloud storage one between its 200GB (£2.49) quota beyond the measly free 5GB and 1TB (£6.99) monthly subs. allowance and pay at least 79p per

macformat.com @macformat

macOs

Optimised storage Let macOS and iCloud handle the hassle of tidying up files

T

hough the cost of flash storage looks destined to drop further given time, most MacBooks still come with a paltry amount of it as standard. The prices Apple asks you to pay for more are expensive when you get into the realms of a hard-drive-rivalling 1TB capacity. The result, on portable Macs in particular, can feel like stepping back in time about a decade because it puts a burden on you to clear out old files to reclaim space – a wall we often run into at an inconvenient time.

Sierra can take on the burden of manually archiving or trashing old files, which should avoid the situation where free storage space runs very low.

Its Optimised Storage feature puts documents you haven’t touched in a while, Mail attachments and even photos in the cloud. However, the files will appear to you like they’re still in their original locations, and they’re downloaded on demand when you next try to use them. This sounds like the sort of zero-friction experience

Apple already pulled off in Photos for iOS, which downloads full-quality originals from iCloud Photo Library when they’re needed.

Taking out the Trash Apple also says Sierra will prompt you to delete app installers you’ve already used, clear out duplicate downloads, caches, logs and other stuff, and that trashed items older than 30 days will be removed – much like the Recently Deleted album in Photos.

Apple says that when it tested this on a Mac with 20GB free storage,

turning on all of Optimized Storage’s settings took it back up to 150GB. Just like the Continuity feature that puts the desktop and documents in iCloud, Optimised Storage depends on you being content to pay Apple a monthly fee to increase the amount of online storage available to you, in order to ensure there’s enough space to store a potentially much larger amount of data there than at present.

You may also want to take into account your internet connection’s upload speed, and especially any monthly quota imposed by your ISP.

Apple knows how pinched storage can feel on MacBooks, so it’s using intelligence and the cloud to remedy it.

Enhancements for managing your workspace Safari, Finder and some other Mac apps let you gather multiple windows in one by displaying them in tabs, but currently this isn’t possible in a lot of apps. We’ve all seen what Mission Control looks like as a consequence.

In Sierra, support for tabs will be a system-wide feature, and what’s great about this is developers don’t have to update their apps for you to benefit from it. (Apps that draw windows in non-standard ways may

Pages, Numbers, Maps and many more apps will support tabbed windows on day one of Sierra’s availability.

macformat.com @macformat

still need their makers to be willing and able to rework things, though.)

However, using tabs isn’t compulsory; you can still use separate windows if, say, you prefer to jump straight to a document using Mission Control.

To help you keep an eye on video while tending to tasks, Sierra follows in iOS 9’s footsteps with Picture in Picture, so you can pop video out of iTunes or Safari so it floats on top of everything – even full-screen and Split View apps. Video can be resized and put in any corner of the desktop.

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 35

macOs

iOs If you’ve avoided adding bank card details to your keychain, Touch ID’s security and convenience could be your solution for speeding up online payments.

 Pay

Apple Pay for websites Making online checkout a touch simpler to do

A

pple Pay comes to the Mac in Sierra – well, sort of, and only on websites that add an Apple Pay button to their checkout process.

You’ll be able to click that button to tell a site you want to pay for your basket’s contents using Apple’s system, after which you’ll authenticate the payment by putting a finger on your iPhone’s Touch ID sensor or double-clicking your Apple Watch’s side button.

Apple says this will work in Safari, but makes no mention of it being possible in other browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox. Apple Pay will also be available on websites viewed in Safari on iOS 10, and you’ll also be able to use it to buy physical goods and services in apps.

With your delivery address known to Apple Pay, you won’t have to change it on multiple sites after moving.

itunes changes Following navigational changes in iTunes 12.4 (see tutorial, page 48), Apple’s revamping the way iTunes for Mac and Music for iOS present your aural entertainment.

In Music for iOS 10, the My Music tab is renamed Library and redesigned to explicitly list the different ways you can view your music – by artist, album, genre and other attributes – rather than expecting you to know to tap a specific item to uncover these options, as you must in iOS 9.

No more hunting high and low The app structures information more clearly by presenting text in very different sizes and weights, alongside better use of cover art. The benefit of this is seen clearly in the For You page, where large headlines make it clearer what’s in each row and quicker to scan down the various recommendations offered by Apple Music.

Added to that, you no longer have to tap See All to explore all of the recommendations under a heading, as each row can be scrolled by swiping it, just like those in the iTunes Store app.

Searching has moved from a tappable magnifying glass icon at the top right to a tab at the bottom of the screen, which seems sensible given its usefulness. Tapping it still shows trending searches immediately, but you no longer have to tap another icon to access your previous searches as they’re listed alongside.

After a year with an awkward iteration of the Music app, it seems Apple’s managed to clean it up.

36 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

macformat.com @macformat

iOS

Messages Apple’s chat app gets animations, stickers, add-ons and more

T

he Messages app is getting a huge boost in iOS 10, turning it into a truly modern chat app. Here we highlight all the great additions, but the key thing to know is that the app is getting much more fun and interactive. Conversations shown as simple, coloured speech bubbles decorated with emoji will be a thing of the past.

Sadly, at the time of writing, Messages for macOS is only able to view these new features, not create them – though that may well change by Sierra’s release.

Drawing

You can send handwritten responses, and the app even provides preset common phrases, weirdly – likely to save you scribbling with your finger repeatedly to make things look more personal. Also, you can import photos and draw on them – your lines are recorded and play back to the recipient in the order you drew them, just like Apple Watch drawings.

Interaction

Animations

Stickers

Emoji

You can now ‘Like’ a message with a little ‘thumbs up’ icon (or pick from a few others, including a heart) to acknowledge it without typing. You can also send messages that are obfuscated with a blur effect, which the other person must wipe away in order to see the message, giving things a dramatic flair.

Like many other apps of its kind, Messages for iOS 10 supports stickers – basically images you can send instead of just text and emoji, though you can also stick them to images you’ve been sent, which the other person will then see too, or even outside of message bubbles. Apple includes some stickers, and more will come through add-ons (see below).

When you send a message, you can make its bubble appear with one of several effects, such as growing huge to seem like shouting, shrinking like a whisper, or slamming down for effect. Full-screen animations play when you send certain phrases, such as confetti falling down the screen for “Congratulations”.

Regular emoji characters appear larger in Messages for iOS 10 when they’re used on their own, and emoji will also be suggested by the QuickType keyboard, making likely choices quicker to access. But it’s this feature we love: switch to the emoji keyboard and any word that has a corresponding emoji will be highlighted – simply tap a word to replace it!

Extending Messages with add-ons Apple is enabling developers to build apps that work within Messages, from simple sticker pack add-ons to much more advanced features. These apps can create messages that are fully interactive, for sending content or data.

Apple has highlighted payment apps and food ordering as key possibilities,

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so you might collaborate on a takeaway order, then pay whoever placed the order. Its developer documents point out even games can be played within an iMessage conversation. There’ll be a dedicated App Store to browse within Messages to get new apps for it which can be paid or free, like regular ones.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 37

macOs

iOs

Photos

Your devices now recognise faces, places and even objects

A

pple’s changes to the Photos app in iOS and macOS this year are focussed around organisation, but without you having to put in any effort. Expanding on the facial recognition technology that’s been available for a while on the Mac, the Photos app on both platforms will now scan your photos, using ‘machine learning’ (the same kind of rudimentary AI Google uses for its Google Photos platform) to automatically identify not just who is in your photos, but what else is: objects and animals can be identified, and even types of places, such as a beach.

This will make your library searchable in amazing new ways: by location (the type of scene), people, dates, or anything vague you remember from it. Want to find that nice photo of you, your dad and the family dog in London?

You can now search for any of those things. The identification is done on your device, too – Apple doesn’t need all your photos to be stored in the cloud for it to work, unlike Google. The information generated is available everywhere

Apple says analysis of faces, scenes and objects in your photos is done on-device with your privacy in mind.

your photos are though, so you can take photos using your iPhone, then view the categories created in Photos on your Mac, iPad or Apple TV.

Stroll down memory lane Apple is also organising your photos using a new feature called Memories.

It will collect groups of photos and videos that seem connected: if you went somewhere new for a weekend, if you took lots of images of a group of people at a party, and so on.

Moments seems like a great way to revisit memorable times in your life and share them with others.

38 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

It creates albums that are a bit like smart folders for these collections, then presents them to you in the Memories tab. After you open one, you can create a video from its contents – you pick an audio theme and the app edits your photos and videos into a fun movie that matches it. Choose another theme and the video is re-edited.

Camera and editing improvements When it comes to taking and editing photos, updates are fairly low-key.

The Camera app will open faster, so you’ll be able to grab pics you might have missed otherwise, and it has a new interface on iPad. The Photos app has a new adjustment slider for Brilliance, and the auto-enhance feature has been improved.

Live Photos are improved with stabilisation to make them a bit smoother to view, and you’ll be able to edit them and apply Live Filters.

macformat.com @macformat

tvOS

iOS

The Home app will be available on iPad too, and watchOS 3 also has Home controls built in.

Home automation Upgrade your home with tech that makes life easier

A

pple’s efforts to give you control of your home – from alarms and cameras to lighting, window locks and much more – will be more approachable in iOS 10. A new app, Home, consolidates controls for all your HomeKit-certified devices, rather than you having to learn several with often very different designs.

Although HomeKit-compatible devices have been on sale for a while, interest has depended on existing awareness of home automation.

Putting the Home app on millions of Home screens might encourage more people to consider the concept and invest in it.

The app’s opening page displays a list of your favourite scenes and accessories, with a customisable wallpaper behind them. Tapping an accessory in the grid of large icons toggles its status, so you can quickly turn on a light, say, or you can press harder or longer to access more options, such as a slider that you adjust simply by moving your finger up

or down the screen. There are also shortcuts in Control Centre for sending instructions to your HomeKit devices.

Tea, Earl Grey, hot If all that tapping sounds like too much work, just tell Siri to switch to a preset scene or make fine adjustments.

The experience is further enhanced by the level of interactivity available in iOS 10’s notifications. Tapping one that informs you someone just rang your doorbell might show video from its camera, along with buttons to activate your intercom or unlock the door, all from the Lock screen.

Controlling your home needn’t be done manually. For example, you can set a geofence that triggers the lights in an entrance in case your hands are full when you get home.

You’re even able to control your home remotely by connecting your Apple TV to iCloud, with end-to-end encryption for security. Don’t have an Apple TV? An iPad that’s always at home and on mains power can be used instead.

THE HOmE APP EnAbLES YOU TO COnTROL ALL YOUR DEVICES FROm OnE PLACE

macformat.com @macformat

Notifications in iOS 10 can offer much greater interactivity to save you unlocking your device.

Stay aware of Home happenings You don’t have to wait for iOS 10’s arrival to keep up with the latest smart home happenings. Read our Apple Home pages for discussion of a different category of home automation in every issue, as well as freshly announced gadgets for every room of your dwelling – or even outdoors! Turn to page 21 in this issue to learn more.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 39

iOS

Lock screen & widgets There’s more information at your fingertips in iOS 10

O

ne big feature we wanted to see in iOS 10 is a more useful Lock screen, and that’s exactly what we’re getting. The big news is that you’ll be able to 3D Touch notifications to access much richer instant options for them – so you can press on one from Messages to see the larger conversation and reply, or press on an event invitation to see your calendar for the proposed day and accept or decline, all without unlocking your phone or opening the full version of the notifying app.

Having this extra information and quick options to hand can really help you get meaningful things done fast.

These capabilities only work with 3D Touch devices in the developer beta, but they’ll come to other devices too.

The new widgets view provides live updates from your most important apps in one place.

Apple’s changing a few other things about how the Lock screen works: you’ll swipe leftwards on it to use the camera, for example. Swiping in the other direction opens a new widget view, a bit like the Today view in Notification Centre. You choose which widgets to show here, including those installed by third-party apps, to see information at a glance.

This screen also includes a search function and Siri app suggestions, a bit like the Spotlight feature, so you can use it to unlock your phone straight to an app. And, you can get to all this stuff faster thanks to the new Raise to Wake feature: when you pick up your iPhone, its screen comes on automatically, just like when you raise your wrist to look at your Apple Watch.

You’ll be able to see how an invitation fits with your schedule and deal with it right from its notification.

Even if you don’t add an app to the new widgets view, you can 3D Touch its icon for the same info.

A touch of widgetry The extra info from rich notifications and widgets shows up elsewhere in iOS, too. When you 3D Touch an app on the Home screen, it can now show a widget as well as Quick Actions, so you could get a quick glance at sports scores. Widgets in Notification Centre can include live elements too, such as notifications or even streaming video, so you could open clips straight from a news app’s feed, for example.

Widgets can include live video, so you can observe a match alongside other info in a personalised feed.

Maps comes of age When you open the Maps app, you’ll see more of the map, with just a search bar to get you started. Apple has added proactive suggestions from Siri, so if there’s an event with a location in your calendar, it’ll suggest directions to it – or it might tell you what the traffic’s like on your route to work, or where the nearest shops are. In turn-by-turn navigation, you

40 | MACFORMAT | AuguSt 2016

can easily take a detour to amenities without breaking your overall route, with a live traffic view the whole way.

Another feature places a pin at your car’s location when you get out of it.

The really big news is developers can create apps that run inside Maps, enabling you to book a table based on searches, or call for a ride-sharing service, all without leaving it.

macformat.com @macformat

watchOS

watchOS 3 Some nice new features, but this update is mostly about speed

T

here was a strong theme in Apple’s watchOS 3 presentation, and that theme was speed. Apple’s idea for the Watch was always that is should be a quick way of doing light tasks, but it only ever really met this ideal for notifications. Even in watchOS 2, apps are slow to load, and can be fiddly to use. It’s clear that watchOS 3 is designed to tackle all of this, making the Watch faster from a technical standpoint, but also from a usability one. It’s back to basics stuff for making the Watch more enticing to use, and it looks great.

Apps load data from your phone in the background, meaning you don’t have to wait for them to open and then pull information from it, which Apple says makes opening an app seven times faster. This also means Glances are gone: instead there’s a new ‘Dock’, accessed by pressing the side button (removing the contacts dial from watchOS 2), which lets you quickly scroll through screens of your apps.

These screens are live views, so you get the same quick view you got with Glances, and they act as your route into the app, too.

Many of Apple’s apps have been subtly redesigned too, with more immediately tappable options – for example, the Timer app provides preset durations, instead of forcing you to set one using the Digital Crown.

Watch your wellbeing The updated watchOS will support many of Messages’ new features, and you’ll even be able to write text replies on the Watch for the first time if you need to, drawing one letter at a time on the screen. There will be more support for HomeKit-enabled devices too, and there’s a helpful new SOS feature that calls the emergency services after a countdown – and it can notify your emergency contacts too – when you hold the side button.

There’s also a new wellness app, Breathe, that takes you through breathing exercises to help you manage stress. And, of course, there are new watch faces and complication options, too.

Your always-on personal trainer Fitness fanatics will love the new watchOS – especially that you can now share your activity to compete with friends. You can also see more workout metrics on the display at once, add new watch faces with larger activity rings, and your Watch can track your workouts in the background.

There’ll also be activity tracking support for wheelchair users for the first time, for which Apple has written an algorithm tailored to the different movements.

Your Watch apps will open in an instant, eliminating the need for Glances. There’s a new Breathe app to further de-stress you.

WATCHOS 3 IS FASTEr FrOM A TECHnICAl pOInT OF vIEW, BuT AlSO In TErMS OF uSABIlITY macformat.com @macformat

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 41

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AUGUST 2016 | MAcFORMAT | 43

What’s inside 46–47 MAnAge your icloud drive Learn how you can recover deleted files

48–50 Find your wAy in itunes 12.4

EditEd by

new ideAs

AlAn stonebridge

Your new-look guide to getting more from your Apple kit

Understand Apple’s navigational changes

51 resize windows with MAgnet Snap windows into position in an instant

leArn itunes 12.4 p48

52–54 go beyond Apple notes Discover key features of three alternatives

56–57 tune up your web browsing Explore the features of a new browser, Vivaldi

58–59 shAre Files the eAsy wAy Try a more compatible alternative to AirDrop

61 tAke control oF your Music Choose what’s playing from your Apple Watch

62–65 control your sMArt hoMe Make devices work together using IFTTT

Understand iOS gestures A tap is a brief contact of (usually) one finger on your device’s screen.

Swipe means move one or more fingers across an item or the screen, then let go.

Pinch means move two fingers together or apart, usually to zoom in or out.

To drag is to move a finger across the screen to scroll or pan around content.

A flick is like swiping, but it’s quicker, and is often used to scroll content more quickly.

Touch and hold means lightly rest your finger on an item and wait for a reaction.

Master Mac keyboard shortcuts When you see a shortcut like ç+å+C, hold all but the last key, then press that one.

≈ means the Control key, labelled ctrl, and shown as ^ in shortcuts in the menu bar.

insertion point. Press ƒ+ ∫ to delete to the right.

ç is the Command key, which is also labelled cmd.

ß is the Shift key, which is typically just labelled shift.

å means the Option key, labelled alt or opt.

∫ means the Delete key, which deletes to the left of the

† is the Tab key, which shifts the focus between some controls in windows and web forms. Turn on Full Keyboard Access in System Preferences to jump between all controls.

AUgUSt 2016 | MAcForMAt | 45

APPLE SKILLS Mac/iOS Software

1

3

4

Search Drive Tap the search bar and then type to look for files and folders in iCloud Drive.

Matching items appear below.

Folders with icons are used by respective iOS apps to store docs. Mac apps are able to save outside of these.

1 2

2

3

Sort the view

App folders

Swipe down past the first items listed to reveal sorting options. Tap one to sort the view on that attribute.

4

Manage items Tap Select to add checkboxes that enable you to select multiple items and then move or delete them.

Manage your iCloud Drive

Work with files on OS X and iOS, and even recover what you’ve deleted IT wILL TAKE 15 minutes yOu wILL LEARn How to restore files you’ve deleted from iCloud Drive. yOu’LL nEEd An iCloud account.

A Mac, or an iOS device running iOS 9.

iCloud Drive’s integration with Finder and its iOS 9 app offer easy online storage management

Apple’s relationship with online storage and syncing tools hasn’t always been a good one.

From iTools through to MobileMe it made one misstep after another. Even when it first introduced iCloud, there was no easy way to use the service as cloud storage like you would Dropbox or OneDrive, for example.

That changed with the introduction of iCloud Drive. It’s integrated into OS X’s Finder, making it simple to add files to and retrieve them from your online storage. The iCloud Drive app added in iOS 9 (see above) allows for file management on your iPhone or iPad. When it comes to working with your files, there’s a handful of tips and tricks that are worth knowing. Moving them to iCloud Drive on your Mac is easy: drag and drop them onto its row in Finder’s sidebar, or click that row and then drag and drop items onto a folder within.

The iCloud Drive app for iOS is largely straightforward, yet it provides several ways to get certain things done. It gives you two ways to view your files and folders: as large icons or in a list. To switch between them, go to the top level of your iCloud Drive, then tap the bulleted list icon at the top-right corner.

46 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

There are three ways to sort your files and folders: by date, name or tags. To use tags, you’ll need to create and attach them in OS X, as there’s no way to do so in iOS. In OS X, click iCloud Drive in Finder’s sidebar, ≈-click the file you want to tag, then choose Tags in the contextual menu. The easiest way to create tags is in Finder > Preferences > Tags.

Move mountains of files Back in the iOS app, the list view enables you to move a file by tapping the ‘i’ to the right of its name, then the toolbar’s folder icon, and choosing a folder. You can move multiple files at the same time by tapping Select at the top of the screen, then the items to move, and finally Move at the bottom of the screen.

A third option for moving files is to swipe left over a file’s row in list view and tap More, then ‘Move to Folder’. In icon view, hold a finger on a file, choose More when the options bar appears, then tap Move to Folder. The Select and swipe methods also let you delete files.

If you delete files from iCloud Drive, you can recover them for up to 30 days after deletion. See how to on the opposite page.

Kenny Hemphill

macformat.com @macformat

Advanced iCloud Drive APPLE SKILLS

How to Recover deleted files Jargon Buster

1 Log in to iCloud on the web 2 Complete authentication To recover files you’ve deleted from iCloud Drive, sign in at iCloud.com on your Mac. Next, if two-factor authentication or two-step verification is enabled on your account, pick a device to receive a verification code.

After you’ve picked a device, wait for the verification code to arrive on it, then type it into the box on the iCloud.com sign-in form.

Once you’re successfully signed in, click the Settings icon on the site’s Home screen.

3 View deleted files

4 Sort and search for files

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Under the Advanced heading, you’ll see four options, allowing you to restore different types of data. Click Restore Files to see a list of files deleted within the last 30 days.

A cache is a local copy of data that’s stored and maintained on a remote server. In El Capitan, your iCloud Drive files are cached in Mobile Documents within your account’s Library folder.

Don’t exclude that from your local backups.

By default, files are sorted by date deleted, with the most recently deleted at the top of the list. To sort them by name or size, click the ‘Sort by’ option at the top-right corner of the file list and pick an order.

Genius Tip!

5 Choose a file to restore

Once you’ve sorted the files the way you want, scroll down the list to find items you want to restore. Click the checkbox to the left of each’s name. Alternatively, click the Select All box at the bottom of the list. Click Done.

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6 Sign out and wait

Click your name at the top-right corner of the page, then Sign Out. Next, go to iCloud Drive in Finder on your Mac or open its app on your iOS device. Your restored file(s) should soon reappear there.

OS X Server 5 caches personal iCloud data by default, including your iCloud Drive, so data only has to travel over the internet once to reach multiple devices on your network.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 47

APPLE SKILLS Mac Software

Find your way in itunes 12.4

get to grips with apple’s navigational improvements to your media library iT will TAke 20 minutes yOu will leARn How to work your way around iTunes’s amended layout. yOu’ll need iTunes 12.4 or higher.

An iPod or iOS device (optional).

Version 12.4 rolls back one of the most questionable amendments apple’s ever made to itunes

Apple is often criticised for the way iTunes has evolved. From the sheer number of things the app does, changes to long-standing presentation and navigation, and the way the company’s cloud-based subscription services, iTunes Match and Apple Music, have been grafted on, you don’t have to look hard online to find someone who is confused by what was once a simple, effective digital music jukebox.

Apple already cleaned up iTunes a little by reorganising menus in version 12. Now, after a few more minor updates with bug fixes and tweaks, iTunes 12.4 has arrived with a bunch more usability improvements – or, if we were to be uncharitable, rolling back one of the most questionable amendments Apple’s ever made to the app; from iTunes 11, the sidebar was hidden until you started to drag an item from your library to drop onto a playlist or a device, at which point it would slide into view. It’s understandable if the sidebar’s apparent absence made you think you couldn’t manage your media the way you had been doing for

years, and that you had to use the ellipses next to items to perform such actions instead.

That doesn’t matter any more, because the sidebar is once again persistently open on the left-hand side of the app, making it less fiddly and less jarring to add tracks to a playlist, say, as you browse your library.

Other things to note There are other changes beyond the sidebar, which we’ll get to, but it’s worth recapping a couple of things from previous, minor updates.

Firstly, if you’re an Apple Music subscriber and don’t want songs from its library to be added to your personal collection when you add them to a playlist, go to iTunes’ General preferences and turn off ‘Add songs to My Music when adding to playlists’.

Secondly, if you don’t care about Apple Music, remove its pages from the top of the Music category by going to the Restrictions preferences and putting check marks in the boxes labelled Apple Music and Connect.

Alan Stonebridge

explained… Changes to itunes’ interface 1

3

Media Picker Kinds of media are now in this pop-up, which makes it a little clearer where to change what it is you’re viewing.

The sidebar

1

This now stays open in all views.

View options are now at the top of this, instead of at the far right of the bar above.

2

3

2

4

Tailor the list

Tailor the view

Pick Edit Menu to choose which media kinds are listed. You can still reach hidden ones in View > Media Kind.

In some views, extra settings, such as grid or list presentation, can be accessed in View > Show Viewing Options.

48 | MACFORMAT | august 2016

4

macformat.com @macformat

What’s new in iTunes 12.4 APPLE SKILLS

How to Navigate itunes 12.4

1 Go back and forth

2 Recently added items

3 Choose available views

4 View as a grid or a list

As you move around iTunes – between different kinds of media, the iTunes Store, and parts of Apple Music – click the new Back and Forward buttons to move between the store pages and views of your library you’ve visited.

If you never browse music by genre, say, ≈-click it and choose Remove from Sidebar, or choose Edit List to quickly switch multiple categories off or on. The latter is also where you can turn on the Compilations view.

Jargon Buster iCloud Music library is part of Apple Music and iTunes Match that puts your music online, so you can play it on demand.

See MF301 for a tutorial.

These are no longer shown at top of each and every view of your library. Instead, they’re a discrete view at the top of the sidebar. Sadly, Apple has dispensed with the manual setting that determined how far back this view goes.

The Albums and Music Videos views now offer a list view as well as the grid of cover art.

It puts items in a long, scrolling list, artist after artist. Click an empty spot in it and type a few letters to jump to an artist instead of scrolling.

Genius Tip!

5 Find your playlists

Playlists are in the sidebar, making it more intuitive that you can drag items onto them.

Only playlists for the media kind you’re viewing are shown at first; click the header and pick All My Playlists to compile different kinds in one.

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6 Shuffle and loop playback

Before, you had to ≈-click an icon in the status area or go to the Controls menu for the full list of shuffle and repeat options. Apple’s sensibly split these into separate icons that you can click multiple times to toggle their settings.

This version of iTunes lets you press † to put the focus in the sidebar so you can choose a view with the keyboard.

Also, after pressing ç+j to open the View Options window, press ≈+ƒ+& to turn on Full Keyboard Access so you can tab your way down its controls.

august 2016 | MACFORMAT | 49

APPLE SKILLS Mac Software

How to go to a song’s album or artist

1 The new Go To menu

Apple has complemented the existing ability to go to the current song’s album or playlist (press ç+L) with commands that jump from the selected item – in a diverse playlist, say – to its original album or artist’s catalogue in your library.

2 Go to artist or album

Select a song in your library, then pick Song > Go To > Go to Artist or Go to Album. The first of those switches to the Artists view and shows all in your library by the same artist. The latter shows the song’s source album in the Albums view.

3 In the status area

The Go to Artist and Go to Album commands are also available from the More Options ellipsis that appears when you put the pointer over the status area while something’s playing. This can come in handy during shuffled playback.

How to sync media to your devices

1 Sync options for devices 2 Manually add to devices 3 Archive your iOS apps Full device management is still done by clicking a button at the top-left corner after connecting your device. Use this route to automatically sync unplayed TV show or podcast episodes, photos from a folder, or everything by an artist, say.

If you’ve turned on the option to manually manage music and videos (click Summary and scroll down), you can drag items from your library onto the device in the sidebar to copy them across. You can also drag the search bar’s suggestions.

As of iOS 9, you can’t back up apps to your Mac, likely because it downloads versions tailored to your device. To back up your apps, turn on auto-downloading in iTunes’ Store preferences, and get your old ones from Account > Purchased.

What happened to itunes Match? apple’s other subscription service is still available iTunes Match is an annual subscription service (£21.99) that puts your music online in what Apple calls your iCloud Music Library, so you can stream it to devices on demand, rather than having to sync or copy tracks ahead of time.

This is also a feature of Apple Music (from £9.99, monthly), which also gives you access to a library of millions of tracks as long as you keep paying. If you only want iCloud Music Library, you can still subscribe to iTunes Match: choose Account > View My Account, sign in, then click Learn More next to iTunes Match.

50 | MACFORMAT | august 2016

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Window management APPLE SKILLS

Resize windows with Magnet snap windows to screen halves or quarters in an instant IT wILL TAKE 10 minutes yOu wILL LEARn How to more easily position windows by using Magnet. yOu’LL nEEd OS X 10.8 or higher.

Magnet 1.8.

Make window management in Os X more efficent with this terrific tool

The Mac’s long been flexible regarding using multiple windows, enabling you to compare different apps and drag content between documents. However, moving and resizing windows can be fiddly.

The idea behind Magnet (magnet.crowdcafe. com) is to get rid of the drudgery, thereby providing you with a far more efficient means of organising your windows.

Once the app is installed, you’ll need to authorise it with control of your Mac. Go to the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences and click the Privacy tab. Unlock the pane by clicking the padlock and typing your admin password, then select Accessibility and put a check mark next to Magnet. Magnet confirms it’s able to do its job, and you can get started.

App windows can then be resized and positioned by dragging them to a screen edge or corner. Doing the latter automatically resizes a window to the relevant quarter of the screen, while dragging to the left or right edge resizes a window to that screen half. Dragging

a window to the screen’s top edge makes it fill the screen, apart from the menu bar. (This is distinct from OS X’s full-screen mode.) Note that a few apps have minimum window sizes, either in height, width or both, and so they may not entirely play ball; most will, though.

Keyboard control You can also use keyboard shortcuts to resize the currently active window, which are listed when you click Magnet’s icon in the menu bar.

There you’ll see additional shortcuts, such as to centre a window, restore its pre-Magnet position, or send it to another display.

Magnet’s menu also contains an option to disable its features for the current app, and this is where you can open its preferences as well. In those preferences, you can change default shortcuts if they’re not memorable enough for you, and set Magnet to open at login. The latter is a smart move, because once you get used to this kind of window manager, you’ll never want to go back to manually resizing windows. Craig Grannell

explained… How to use Magnet 1

3

Drag to resize Drag a window to a screen corner or edge for a preview of how it’ll resize.

Let go to apply the change.

1

3

2

Shortcuts in the menu bar Extra window resizing settings and Magnet’s preferences are accessible from the menu bar.

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Block an app

2

Choose Ignore from Magnet’s menu to stop it working with the current app.

Choose this again to revert.

4

4

Define your own shortcuts Shortcuts can be removed (click the cross) or changed (click one, then press the keys to use).

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 51

APPLE SKILLS Mac Software

Explore note-taking apps Discover the benefits of journaling and note-taking on Mac and iOS iT will TAke 30 minutes yOu will leARn How to pick the right note-taking app for you, and install web clipping extensions. yOu’ll need Day One 2, Evernote, or OneNote.

OS X 10.10 or higher (10.9 for Evernote).

It’s important to pick the app with the right categorisation features for you

digital note-taking will never replace the simplicity of a Moleskine notebook, but there are distinct advantages to be had using your Mac and iOS devices over a traditional pen and paper option. Filled-out journals and notebooks can get cumbersome fast, and searching through them can seem an impossible task, especially if you’re gathering research for a large-scale project.

That’s where the categorisation features of cross-platform Mac and iOS apps like OneNote, Evernote and Day One 2 quickly prove their worth. Taking clippings of web pages, linking sources, tagging items, searching and sharing are the bread and butter of this kind of app, but which one should you be using and why?

OneNote Microsoft’s OneNote has garnered a large following since it was ported from Windows to the Mac, and it’s no wonder why. Each OneNote notebook consists of a series of tabs called sections, and each of those can contain an

52 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

unlimited number of pages. Pages are what you use to organise your notes, and each one is an endless canvas for your ideas.

On a page, you can enter information in a totally freeform fashion. Click anywhere and start typing, and your notes are automatically contained in a boxed element that can be moved, resized and formatted any way you like.

A page element isn’t limited to text either.

It can contain images, links to websites, video, audio and even documents. There’s nothing to stop you dragging PDFs, text files, images and other items from another window onto a page.

OneNote’s ribbon interface will be familiar if you’ve used Microsoft Office, and while it’s not quite as kitted out as the latter, Microsoft regularly updates OneNote with more features.

The Home tab is equipped with various text formatting tools, as well as a list of useful tags to drop into your pages, such as ‘Remember for later’, ‘Website to visit’, and ‘Source for article’, and a useful checklist feature.

Switching to the Insert tab, you can add arrows, lines, polygons and other geometric

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Digital notes and journals APPLE SKILLS

explained… OneNote’s interface 1

3

The ribbon interface The ribbon contains tools for editing, attaching, styling and tagging notes.

Sections

1 2

3

4

2

4

Notebooks

Pages

There’s no theoretical limit to the number of notebooks you can store in OneNote.

shapes to pages, which can help you relate ideas to each another on a canvas. You can add attachments, include dates and times, create tables for inputting data, and add equations into the mix too, if your project demands it.

Another great feature is the ability to insert an audio recording into a page, so you can chatter away about what you’re viewing and later revisit the audio file to revisit those thoughts.

Lastly, the View tab lets you zoom in and out of pages, change their colour, and apply password protection to particular notes.

There are two things to bear in mind: OneNote doesn’t let you edit documents embedded in a page, and won’t update said files if you edit them outside of the app – once the file is inserted, the link to the original copy is severed. Also, using OneNote requires a OneDrive account, since the app stores all your notebooks in the cloud. If you don’t have an account, you can register for free (at onedrive. live.com), which gets you 5GB of storage. This also enables you to sync notes to the iOS app.

EverNote If OneNote sounds a bit too wild and freeform for your tastes, consider Evernote, which is more like the ultimate digital filing cabinet.

It’s the perfect place to collate more structured research, class notes, or any information that’s crying out for better organisation.

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Notebooks are divided up into sections, each of which can contain an unlimited number of pages.

A ‘page’ in OneNote is an infinitely long, freeform canvas to fit your notetaking needs.

Each note in this app has a title, an input field for adding tags, a creation date and a location, and, of course, an editing window into which you can drag files from your desktop or simply start typing into. Choose the latter and a style and formatting bar appears above the page, with options to add numbered, bulleted and checklists, insert tables, record audio, share a note, and take snapshots using your Mac’s FaceTime camera. You can also add a reminder to a note if it needs actioning later.

Naturally, notes live in notebooks, which can be nested into hierarchical stacks in Evernote for more nuanced structuring.

The interface’s three-column design makes switching between notes and notebooks quick and easy, thanks to its sidebar shortcuts (think of them as bookmarks for certain notes and notebooks in your collection) and its list of notes you’ve recently visited.

If you reduce the Evernote window’s width, the sidebar vanishes, leaving you room to work with your notes, and in the View menu you can switch between a selection of other layouts that may better suit your preference.

One of the best things about Evernote is its powerful search function. Type a word in its search bar and the app not only goes through your notes and tags, but also searches within attached images that contain recognisable written or typed characters.

Jargon Buster A tag is a searchable, keyword or term you can attach to a note to describe its content, independent of your notebooks’ hierarchy.

Genius Tip! To migrate Evernote notes to Apple Notes, switch to Notes, choose File > Import Notes and then select an exported Evernote XML file.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 53

APPLE SKILLS Mac Software

Jargon Buster Markdown is a simple and flexible syntax that enables you to specify styles and formatting to add to plain text.

Elsewhere, Evernote’s Atlas view offers a geographical perspective of where your notes were recorded (provided you had location services enabled) and plots them on a map, which is a great way to keep track of travel notes and on-location research.

Like OneNote, Evernote continually syncs to the cloud, which is why you need to register for an account to use it. A free Basic account grants you a 60MB per month upload limit, which doesn’t sound much, but it’s actually plenty enough for textual notes. Otherwise, £20 a year lets you upload 1GB per month, and a £35 premium account offers 10GB per month, as well as an excellent presentation mode and annotation tools. You can sign up at evernote.com, and you can also take notes in Evernote’s suave iOS app, which is free to download from the App Store.

Day One 2

Genius Tip! To encrypt a section in a OneNote note, choose Notebooks > Sections > Password Protection > Protect This Section.

Such parts only appear in searches if unlocked.

If your written records take the form of daily journaling and diary entries, and you’re happy to forego the more businesslike features of OneNote and Evernote, Day One 2 could be the right solution for you. This app has come a long way since its introduction, and easily takes the crown for the most elegant and personal interface, which puts the focus squarely on your writing.

Click the big plus sign in the right pane of the window and an entry is created for you to start typing. Here Day One 2 eschews fancy formatting options and instead relies on the

simplicity of Markdown for adding links, headers, lists, and bold and italic text to your entries. Images are the sole media option that can be added to entries, which is done by dragging and dropping from either a Finder window or the Photos app.

The middle column of the interface is where you choose how you’d like to view your entries – by timeline, attached photos, map location or calendar view.

Day One 2 also supports multiple journals, which appear in its left pane. The benefit of them in this app is that you can divide up your entries into specific journal themes – workouts, work and home, for example – without having to rely exclusively on tags. That said, tagging options in Day One 2 are nothing to sniff at.

The app can geotag an entry to record the location where you created it, and it can even add details about current weather conditions.

If you’re using Day One 2 for iOS, that version of the app can tap into your device’s motion tracking and activity data to record your step count for the day.

Provided you don’t need the collaboration features of OneNote or Evernote, Day One 2 is a first-class app. With its timeline emphasis, location awareness and calendar smarts, it’s the perfect solution for keeping your travel diaries, ideas, lifestyle habits, flash fiction, and all kinds of other thoughts stowed away in the Day One cloud – which, of course, makes them accessible in the elegant iOS companion app as well. Tim Hardwick

How to Add web clippings to notes from Safari

1 Day One 2

You can drag images from web pages into Day One journal entries, but this app’s extension can’t take clippings of a page; when you select it from the Share button’s list, the page’s address is saved.

(If it’s not there, pick More and turn it on.)

54 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

2 OneNote Web Clipper

Install this from onenote.com/ webclipper, then switch to Safari, choose View > Customize Toolbar and drag the Clipper’s button to the toolbar. Clicking the button shows an overlay with articleclipping, note-taking and import options.

3 Evernote Web Clipper

Evernote’s is the most sophisticated clipping tool. Get it from evernote.com/ webclipper and add its button to Safari as in step 2. It provides more options for how much of a page is clipped, and you can tag a clipping to help find it later on.

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AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 55

APPLE SKILLS Mac Software

tune up your web browsing there’s a new browser in town, and it’s packed with powerful features IT wILL TAKE 15 minutes yOu wILL LEARn How to better manage tabs, monitor pages in Web Panels, and use powerful search capabilities. yOu’LL nEEd OS X 10.9 or higher.

Vivaldi.

Vivaldi goes beyond the core features found in rivals with extensive customisation opportunities

does the world really need another web browser? Vivaldi certainly thinks so – at least for power users who need to tame lots of tabs, find things fast and make their browser’s interface just so. It’s built on Chromium, the open-source project that’s also the foundation of Google Chrome, and it has attracted a million users in just six months.

Vivaldi offers the same core features as other browsers – private browsing, extensions, page zoom, and so on – but it beats its rivals with extensive personalisation options. Do you fancy putting tabs at the bottom of the screen and the address bar at the top? How about having your favourite websites on the right and making the interface a garish red colour?

No problem. Fancy the exact opposite? That’s not a problem either. Also, like Safari for Mac and iOS, Vivaldi’s colour scheme changes to suit the page you’re reading.

If you’re the kind of person who tends to have many tabs open simultaneously in your web browser, hundreds or even thousands of bookmarks, and a burning desire to get stuff done as quickly as possible, Vivaldi is aimed at you. It has a Spotlight-style search feature that’s able to find system features, bookmarks,

and even search across multiple open tabs.

Beyond that, it provides you with the ability to stack tabs together, tile them automatically, or put them into a digital deep freeze so they don’t use resources when they aren’t needed.

Web Panels enable you to open the likes of Twitter in a sidebar that remains open as you move between tabs, and you can use mouse gestures to perform key actions, such as closing tabs, opening links in new tabs, and moving through your browsing history.

A concerto of new features In this tutorial we’ll focus on Vivaldi’s tab management, Web Panels, Quick Commands and other really useful features, but the thing we’re most excited about isn’t quite here yet.

Vivaldi 1.2 will expand on the existing mouse gestures by enabling you to create your own.

So, if you don’t like the default swipe down and to the left to close a tab, you can replace it with something else. Version 2.0, due even later this year, will add an integrated email client. Vivaldi isn’t for everyone, but it isn’t supposed to be. However, if you’re the kind of power user Vivaldi is aimed at, we think you’ll love it. Before you read on, download the browser from vivaldi.com. Gary Marshall

How to take control of your tabs

1 Group tabs in stacks

Vivaldi has a clever way of avoiding tab overload: it lets you group related tabs. Create a tab stack by dragging one tab slightly over another until the latter dims, then let go. Place the pointer over a stack to see thumbnails of its tabs.

56 | MACFORMAT | AuguSt 2016

2 Arrange tabs as tiles

Once you’ve created a tab stack, Vivaldi can automatically arrange the stack’s tabs in columns: ≈-click the stack and choose Tile Tab Stack. The effect is a bit like OS X’s Split View, but the widths of the columns aren’t adjustable.

3 Save resources

Open browser tabs can be a major memory drain, but not with this browser: ≈-click on a tab or tab stack and choose the Hibernate option to freeze it (or those in the background). Frozen tabs resume when you go back to them.

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Browse better with Vivaldi APPLE SKILLS

How to Add useful tools in panels

1 Make a note

The toolbar on the left offers some additional features, including a notebook: click on the document-like icon and the Notes panel appears. New notes aren’t tied to the current page, but in a central list. However, you can put them in folders.

2 Keep an eye on a page 3 Set Speed Dial Click the + on the toolbar to add a Web Panel. This can be any web page, and you can add several. Each adds an icon to the toolbar; click that and its page opens in a resizable column on the left – handy for monitoring social media.

The uppermost icon in the sidebar is for accessing your bookmarks. It provides a familiar mix of folders and Speed Dial, which contains the sites you want to see when you create a new window or tab.

Your whole collection is searchable, too.

How to Look up things using Quick Commands

1 Call them up

Vivaldi has a Spotlight-esque feature called Quick Commands, which you call up by pressing ç+e. If you don’t type anything, the Quick Commands window lists the browser’s keyboard shortcuts, of which there are many.

2 Find a feature

Like Spotlight, Quick Commands is a search engine for all kinds of things.

Looking for a particular feature or command but can’t remember where it is? Start typing and the Quick Commands window lists the most likely options.

3 Search everything

Quick Commands also searches tabs, bookmarks and your browsing history, as well as the web. For the last of those, the default provider is Bing, but you can pick Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo or Wikipedia in Vivaldi > Preferences > Search.

Extend Vivaldi’s features Further boost your browsing, but be cautious As Vivaldi is built on Chromium, the open-source foundation of Google’s Chrome browser, it works with Chrome extensions. That’s good, but it’s important to note that the Chrome Web Store isn’t policed in the same way as Apple’s app stores.

Malicious extensions can be uploaded to it, and even legitimate software can cause problems: in December 2015, the AVG Web TuneUp extension was found to disable some of Chrome’s built-in safety features. That has since been fixed, but it shows that you need to be careful what you install.

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AuguSt 2016 | MACFORMAT | 57

APPLE SKILLS Mac/iOS Software

1

3

Share from DeskConnect You can share photos, web addresses, the Clipboard, or files stored in iCloud Drive.

Share several photos at once Sharing from the Photos app lets you select and send more than one photo at the same time.

1

3 2

2

4

4

Manage your received files Files received by your device are shown here.

Items with an adjacent blue dot are new.

Share from other apps Tap the icon for DeskConnect in the share sheet.

If it’s not there, tap More and flick its switch.

Share files quickly and easily Is Apple’s AirDrop tech letting you down? try DeskConnect on for size IT wILL TAKE 15 minutes yOu wILL LEARn How to easily share files between your Macs and iOS devices. yOu’LL nEEd Two or more Macs or iOS devices.

DeskConnect.

DeskConnect can send files further afield than AirDrop from wherever you’re able to get online

we love Airdrop, it’s a superb way to quickly share a photo, a document or a web page with someone nearby without having to create an email and attach things. There’s no doubt it makes life easier. We even use it to transfer things like screenshots between our own devices and among the MacFormat team, which avoids clogging up our email accounts.

AirDrop has its fair share of limitations, though. For one thing, there’s the issue that it works only in close proximity, which can be a problem when the recipient isn’t nearby.

Even when that isn’t a problem, AirDrop needs fairly recent devices (see bit.ly/AirDropMF), and cross-platform sending between iOS and OS X works on an even smaller subset.

DeskConnect is an alternative that works anywhere you can connect to the internet.

As it isn’t dependent on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, you can share files between any model of Mac or iPhone. Also, it doesn’t require devices to be close to each other, so you can send things elsewhere in the world without a hitch.

In practice, DeskConnect works in a similar manner to AirDrop. Like you can with Apple’s solution, you can send things from any app

58 | MACFORMAT | AuguSt 2016

where the Share icon is available. Or, you can open the DeskConnect app to share things, and to manage what you’ve received.

DeskConnect lets you define a keyboard shortcut to send the active window’s contents to all your devices. You can also share the Clipboard’s contents, which saves you making a document, pasting the Clipboard’s contents, then saving and sharing the document. Turn on Show Clipboard in Menu in DeskConnect’s preferences, then click its menu bar icon.

Fling your files for free DeskConnect is pitched as a way to send stuff between your devices, but you can also use it to share among a team. Choosing who to send files to isn’t quite as straightforward as it is in AirDrop, but it’s still easy to manage. To share files between your own devices, sign up in the app using your personal email address and use the same account on all your devices. To share among colleagues, use a joint email address and get everyone to sign in with it. Make sure you switch back to your personal account if you don’t want a file going around the office!

DeskConnect is free, and downloadable from both of Apple’s app stores. Alex Blake

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Share files to your devices APPLE SKILLS

How to Send photos between devices

1 Choose your photo

2 Send and receive

3 Keep it safe

4 Browse recent files

Open DeskConnect, tap Send Photos, then select the pic you want to send. You can then select which device to send it to (see Genius Tip for more info). Or, select a pic in Photos, tap the Share icon, then tap DeskConnect’s icon.

To save the photo, click the Share icon, then click Save. You can also share it on social media, open it in Preview or another Mac app, attach it to a message or an email, or process it with other sharing actions you’ve set up.

A notification will appear on the device(s) you sent the photo to. In our example it’s gone to our MacBook. Click (or tap) the notification and the pic will open. If you ignore the banner, DeskConnect will keep the photo for 30 days.

Jargon Buster A share sheet shows actions you can take on what you’re viewing, such as to send it to an app, set it as wallpaper, or push it to a printer.

To see the files your Mac’s received via DeskConnect, click DeskConnect’s menu bar icon, hover over Recent and a list of the files is displayed. From here, you can open and then save or export the files, as described in step 3.

Genius Tip! DeskConnect can automatically send files to all your other devices, rather than just one.

You’ll find this option in the iOS app’s settings.

5 Return the favour

Sending files back the other way is just as easy. On your Mac, just drag a file over DeskConnect’s icon in the menu bar to see a list of devices signed in to your account for the service, then drop it on the one to send to.

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6 Receiving loud and clear

You’ll get a notification on the other device telling you the file has been received.

(DeskConnect needn’t be open.) Swipe right on the notification to open the file in DeskConnect, where you can save or further share it.

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Music and Apple Watch APPLE SKILLS

Take control of your music Turn your Apple Watch into a remote control and a standalone player IT wILL TAKE Up to a few hours yOu wILL LEARn How to control and sync music using your iPhone and Apple Watch. yOu’LL nEEd Apple Watch. iPhone 5 or later, with music on it.

A pair of Bluetooth headphones (optional).

With Bluetooth headphones, you can play music from your Watch without your iPhone around

A key reason to own an Apple watch is to make it less necessary to fish your iPhone out of a pocket — or, in some cases, to remove the need for an iPhone.

One area in which this works well is music, where Apple Watch can act as a remote to control playback on other devices, or as a standalone music player. In the former case, controlling playback using Apple Watch is about convenience, yet having the wrist-based device as a player becomes a tempting proposition in situations when an iPhone could be unwieldy, such as when you’re at the gym.

For remote control, you can use two of the built-in Apple Watch apps: Music and Remote.

In the former case, by selecting your iPhone as the source, the app lets you browse music on your iPhone and pick something to play.

If you’re in a hurry or indecisive, there are alternative means of getting to music. You can call upon Siri to select a track, album or band.

Alternatively, use the Music app’s Beats 1 or Quick Play buttons to fire up Apple’s internet radio station or play something random from Apple Music, respectively. Once something is playing, your Watch’s Music glance gives you a quick way to skip tracks, pause and resume

playback, adjust the volume level, and mark the currently playing track as a favourite.

Meanwhile, the Remote app provides the means to select a device on your network – a Mac or PC running iTunes, or an Apple TV – that has Home Sharing activated, and then skip tracks and change the volume.

Leave your iPhone behind When it comes to using your Watch by itself, you’ll need to pair Bluetooth headphones first, to which the Watch subsequently streams playback. Once you’ve done that, you can sync music to your Apple Watch using the process outlined in the walkthrough.

It’s worth noting a couple of things when doing so. First, you can limit how many songs are synced to your Watch by total quantity instead of storage space if you want. Secondly, and more importantly, syncing songs over Bluetooth to your Watch is an extremely slow process. We recommend creating a playlist with a smallish number of songs that you want to copy across, geared towards whatever task you’ll do with your Watch (such as uptempo numbers for gym sessions). Alternatively, prepare the sync before you go to bed and leave it running overnight. Craig Grannell

How to Sync music to Apple Watch >

1 Select a playlist

Open the Watch app on your iPhone, then scroll down to find Music and tap it.

Tap Synced Playlist and select the playlist you’d like to sync to your Apple Watch.

If your Watch is charging, the sync process will start immediately.

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2 Adjust the limits

The Watch app defaults to syncing 1GB of music from your iPhone to your Watch (which has little storage), but you can increase this to 2GB, or reduce it as far as 100MB. Once the process is done, the number of synced songs is shown.

3 Play some music

On your Watch, open the Music app and select Apple Watch as the source to play from. Use the My Music and Playlists options to browse the music you synced to your Watch, and to select and play it through paired Bluetooth headphones.

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APPLE SKILLS Project

Control your smart home

Get non-communicative smart home devices working with each other IT wILL TAKE 20 minutes yOu wILL LEARn How to create IFTTT recipes that allow different devices to control and interact with each other yOu’LL nEEd Smart home devices.

A free IFTTT account.

IFTTT doesn’t require you to set up another hub just to get devices talking

The smart home is the latest craze, promising to link all the devices in your abode together in a flexible, customisable and clever mesh. Do you want to switch on or dim lights from your iPhone? There are bulbs that enable that. Concerned about security? Use sensors to monitor movement, the opening of doors or windows, or just people’s presence.

Better still, why not use sensors to switch on lights when someone enters a room?

It seems like the possibilities are endless.

Before rushing out and buying any kit that takes your fancy, remember this: there’s still no industry-approved standard for smart homes and the Internet of Things (IoT), which means devices from one manufacturer won’t necessarily work with another. Everyone from Samsung (SmartThings) and Philips (Hue) to Google and even Apple (HomeKit) are trying to find ways of standardising things, but the fact remains many brands remain closed, effectively isolated from other kit, which makes buidling a smart home a minefield.

62 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Attempts to bridge this digital divide are plentiful. Wink (wink.com) is one such effort, while Amazon’s new Echo speaker is another that attempts to work with multiple standards rather than introducing its own. A whole army of SmartThings users are implementing their own smart apps to make incompatible devices work with the platform. However, Wink hasn’t taken off in quite the way it hoped, Amazon’s Echo remains stubbornly out of reach for UK users, and SmartThings requires devices to be physically capable of talking to its hub.

Thankfully, a more successful solution is available that doesn’t require you to buy yet another hub for your home, and which is completely free to use. Not only can it link your non-talking smart devices, it also extends their reach to other platforms: your iPhone or iPad, or social media, say. It’s called IFTTT.

How IFTTT works IFTTT (ifttt.com) works on a beautifully simple process: ‘If This, Then That’. The ‘this’ part is called a trigger, which subsequently leads to

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Connect diverse smart devices APPLE SKILLS

Even if your smart home devices come from various manufacturers, IFTTT can make your clever tech work even better by making them all work in a cohesive system.

‘that’, which is an action. Manufacturers and services are falling over themselves to work with IFTTT, and there are over 310 channels, with more added daily, that provide both triggers and actions for specific smart devices as well as other platforms.

The beauty of IFTTT is that it’s channelneutral, so triggers from one channel can be used with actions from another in what IFTTT terms a ‘recipe’. Another advantage is that it provides greater scope for interacting with your smart home devices, even where there’s existing compatibility. For example, while the Philips Hue range of smart light bulbs work with many major platforms, wouldn’t it be nice if you could switch on your lights simply by sending a tweet (or a direct message for privacy) when you’re five minutes from home?

IFTTT also works brilliantly with your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. You’ll find dedicated channels for your phone’s contacts, locations, photo library, reminders, and Safari Reading List – mostly acting as triggers, but with the occasional action, too. For example, you could create a recipe that links the iOS Location Channel with your Nest Thermostat so it knows to switch on your heating when you leave work for the day. The trigger goes off when you – or, to be precise, your iPhone – leaves your workplace, giving your home’s

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heating system time to warm up so your home is comfortable when you get there.

There’s also a range of free apps for your phone or tablet: IF (apple.co/1WwPbVi) for managing and setting up recipes from your device, and a number of DO apps (apple.co/ 1PjYPYW) that enable you to turn your device into a manual trigger using its camera or a one-tap button.

Work with IFTTT Start by visiting ifttt.com, clicking Sign Up and providing an email address and password for your new account. Once that’s done, you’ll see a navigation bar at the top, providing a handy search tool, a shortcut to your recipes, plus options for browsing recipes and channels.

Click your account name here to configure

Jargon Buster In IFTTT, a channel is a collection of recipes, triggers and actions for a device, online service, or family of devices.

Genius Tip!

IFTTT doesn’t instantly gain access to all of your smart devices; you specify which of your devices it can control.

There’s a noticeable delay of up to a minute between triggers and actions, so IFTTT is best used when no native options are available.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 63

APPLE SKILLS Project

explained… Uses for IFTTT 1

1

2

3

Mobile devices

SmartThings

Philips Hue

Pair your smart devices with the IFTTT app for iOS to get notifications and control from your mobile.

We’ve paired our SmartThings devices, including motion sensors and power outlets, with IFTTT.

Hue lighting works with most smart devices natively, but IFTTT provides you with a useful fail-safe.

4 3 4

Smart camera Cameras such as the Canary are notoriously picky about what they’ll they play with. IFTTT can bridge the divide.

2

Jargon Buster Apple’s HomeKit is a framework that enables compatible devices to talk to each other and be controlled using iOS apps and Siri.

Genius Tip! Go to a channel’s page at ifttt.com and click Reconnect Channel to add devices to that channel’s list, or to remove them from it.

your preferences, such as adding two-step verification to enhance account security, and also to develop your profile for others to read, should you subsequently share your recipes.

Let’s start by browsing and connecting to channels, so click that word at the top of the page. Channels are split into various sections – keep checking back for new ones, which appear at the top of the list. You’ll see a combination of online services such as Blogging, Lifestyle and Productivity, with smart technology from Connected Home to Fitness and Wearables, via Mobile and Security and Monitoring Systems.

Click a channel to view it in more depth.

You’ll see a list of popular recipes, and when you scroll down you’ll see all the triggers and actions that channel supports. You’ll also see a large Connect button. Click this to begin the process of connecting the channel to your account. You’ll either be prompted to log in to the account for that service, or you’ll be directed to another app, the latter being the case on your iPhone or iPad. Once logged in, you’re instructed to authorise the connection, and then you get to configure it, if necessary; for example, choosing exactly which smart devices you want to give IFTTT access to.

Once your channel is in place, it’s time to build your first recipe. This is straightforward, and our step-by-step guide opposite walks you

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through the process. Once the recipe is in place, it’s automatically switched on and will monitor for triggers.

You can manage your recipes in the site’s ‘My Recipes’ section. Here you can enable and disable recipes, trigger them manually, view a log of their activity, and make changes or delete a recipe entirely. You’ll see recipes are divided into the IF and DO categories, and that three separate DO apps are available; of those apps, DO Button is the most useful to smart home enthusiasts. Here you simply set up an action that’s triggered with a tap on a screen.

A smarter home While we wait for a one-size-fits-all standard to be developed – might Apple yet wow us with something as revolutionary as the iPod or iPhone, for example? – IFTTT ensures you’re not straitjacketed by your choice of smart home devices. Even if a device isn’t officially supported by its own IFTTT channel, there’s often find a way to work around that. Take the Edimax EdiPlug, for example. This inexpensive smart plug (£30, bit.ly/mfediplug) doesn’t play nicely with any other devices, but it can send notifications via email, which you can pair with IFTTT’s Gmail channel to use it as a trigger.

It’s not particularly elegant or fast, but it works and it sums up what IFTTT is about: ensuring more of your smart home devices can talk to each other. nick Peers

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Connect diverse smart devices APPLE SKILLS

How to Create an IFTTT recipe Best Buys!

1 Select a trigger channel

Log in at ifttt.com and click My Recipes, then Create a Recipe. Click the highlighted ‘this’ word and pick the SmartThings channel. Click Connect, log in to your SmartThings account (registering’s free, if you want to check it out), and pick the ‘Temperature drops below’ trigger.

Looking for some smart home kit that will play nicely with other devices? Two of the following solutions offer a comprehensive range of tech, while the third makes some devices compatible with IFTTT.

2 Configure your trigger

Under ‘Which device?’, select your device that contains a temperature sensor. Set the unit of measurement to Celsius, and then set the temperature value at which you want to trigger an action. With these things done, click the Create Trigger button.

Belkin WeMo Belkin’s WeMo range works with SmartThings (no Belkin hub required), and there’s a full range of WeMo channels on the IFTTT website, too.

3 Set an action

The ‘if that then this’ phrase on the page will be updated with a summary of your trigger.

Next, click ‘that’ to set up your action. Select the Nest Thermostat channel to view a list of actions that are available to use with it, then select the ‘Set temperature’ action.

5 Set a recipe title

Click Create Action, then review your recipe: click Back to return to the previous step if you need to make any changes. Otherwise, provide a descriptive title for your recipe, then tick the notifications box to receive updates whenever the recipe runs.

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4 Configure your action

As in step 2, select your thermostat from the ‘Which device?’ pop-up menu, then specify the temperature you want your heating system to raise the room temperature to. Again, make sure you switch the unit of measurement to Celsius as well.

6 Try out your recipe

mydlink Home D-Link’s range of smart devices rivals SmartThings, but you’ll need its collection of IFTTT channels to liaise with anything else.

Wink app

Click Create Recipe. You’ll find your recipe is now enabled within the My Recipes section of the site. When the temperature sensor detects the room is cold, you should find that IFTTT automatically boosts your heating, after a short pause, via the Nest Thermostat.

The Wink iOS app can hook up devices like the Nest Thermostat and Canary to the Wink Shortcuts channel even without a Wink hub.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 65

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What’s inside 67 Mac Software How to handle pesky, system-freezing kernel extensions.

68–69 PeriPheralS

EditEd by

howard oakley

eXPert adVice Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems

Enlightening answers to your questions about external devices

70–71 Mac Software Ease your app-fuelled anxieties and get your productivity on track

72 ioS Software

Applying an OS X Combo Update (from support.apple.com) over your system can fix lingering problems.

Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and love iOS once again

Help, my Mac won’t wake up properly!

Contact us Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com Keep up to date by following us on Twitter @macformat Join the conversation at facebook.com/ macformat Get the latest subscription offers at macformat.com

My 21.5-inch iMac 21.5 (Late 2012) running OS X 10.11.4 has started freezing when I try to wake it from sleep. On entering the start of my password, that repeats until I force the Mac to shut down. The Console app’s logs have several entries complaining of problems with com. taoeffect.ispy.kext. Is that responsible?

Q

by B o B A s p i n A l l

That kernel extension may well be to blame. It’s an old part of Espionage 2, probably migrated from a previous Mac. Ensure you have no more encrypted files, as removing this will prevent their decryption.

In Finder, hold å and choose Go > Library, then remove files with Espionage or iSpy in their name from the Application Support,

A

LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, Services, and PrivilegedHelperTools folders within this folder. Also do this in the Library folder at the top level of your startup disk. Finally, get rid of iSpy.kext from /System/Library/Extensions.

Some of these will require your password.

Restart your Mac. If it continues to crash on waking, run Apple’s hardware diagnostics by starting up with d held (a wired keyboard may help). You may find a memory or other fault that needs to be fixed by an authorised Apple repair centre, such as a Genius Bar. If your hardware is okay, try installing the latest OS X Combo updater over your system.

Remember to update security files afterwards (see bit.ly/1RsZJwA). You can also try starting up in safe mode, with ß held from the startup sound till the Apple logo, to see if that helps.

AUGUSt 2016 | MacforMat | 67

GeNiUS tiPS Peripherals

Peripherals Untangle your FireWire cables from your thunderbolt with our help for external devices Peripherals quick-fire questions Can I use a Magic Trackpad 2 with a mid-2011 iMac? > Although the Magic Trackpad 2’s specs say it needs Bluetooth 4.0, which your iMac doesn’t have, many people have reported that the device still works fine with many Mac models back to 2007, provided they have been updated to OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Can I use a Smart Keyboard and Pencil on a Mac? > There’s no way to directly connect these iPad Pro accessories to a Mac. The keyboard must be hooked up to a Smart Connector, and the Apple Pencil only works with an iPad Pro’s display. However, you can use them indirectly in iOS apps that turn your iPad into an input device for your Mac, such as Astropad (£22.99, astropad.com).

SMART status checkers, such as DriveDx, are useful before failure; after, try repairing in Disk Utility.

External drive in trouble When my iMac crashed today, its logs were full of messages about “Failed to composite image for descriptor” errors prior to forcing its shutdown. I also saw some repeated errors from the kernel about a ‘disk1s2: I/O error’.

I’ve only recently upgraded to El Capitan: does this indicate an incompatibility with it?

Q

by M A r k s y d e r

The upgrade process may have brought on your problem, but the more critical and worrying of those error messages are those relating to disk1s2, which is likely to be an external hard drive.

Input/output errors like this are normally the result of a serious issue with a drive, possibly even complete drive failure or a defective electrical connection. Ensure both ends of the drive’s connecting cable are fully inserted into

68 | MacforMat | AUGUSt 2016

A

its ports, and that the cable is a good one.

Check the drive using Disk Utility first, and perform any necessary repairs. If that reports a SMART status error or other hardware failure that can’t be fixed, eject the drive and shut it down immediately. Several utilities, such as the excellent DriveDx, can provide you with more details about SMART warnings, errors, and other faults, but once your drive has failed there is little point in holding a post mortem.

If the drive hasn’t died, it might still be recoverable. When you have a replacement, you might be able to salvage the old drive’s contents and copy them over to your new one.

Unfortunately, sudden drive failures can still be the cause of crashes, although OS X is getting more resilient to such hardware issues.

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Peripherals GeNiUS tiPS

Can you fax from a Mac running El Capitan? > The best way is through a supported multifunction printer with fax capability, such as Epson’s WorkForce range. There’s help on using such devices at bit.ly/mfSetUpFax and bit.ly/mfSendFax. You might get an old fax modem like the US Robotics USR5637 to work, but there’s no longer software support for using it as a fax.

Can i improve my Mac’s graphics?

I’ve seen information about external GPUs for laptops. Would I be able to use one with my Retina 5K iMac (Late 2014) to enhance gaming?

Q

by p e t e p A g A n

You can hook up an external GPU to a Mac’s Thunderbolt port to deliver improved graphics performance.

One supplier of the necessary kit is Bizon, with its BizonBOX 2 (see bit.ly/bizonbox2). This is expensive, but it can be customised to provide the graphics card which you want. Current pricing for an NVIDIA GTX 980, for example, is around $699 (about £475), while with the recently announced GTX 1080 it costs $799 (about £543). However, according to Bizon’s

A

An eGPU leverages Thunderbolt’s bandwidth, but they’re expensive and only partly compatible at present.

own tests, your iMac could only use this as a CUDA accelerator (CUDA is a graphics API used by some apps), so you’re unlikely to see a noticeable general graphics boost in OS X. Bear in mind we haven’t tried out this kit.

Also, Intel only officially supports eGPUs as of Thunderbolt 3, so we wouldn’t expect support from Apple for any issues you might run into between Mac apps and Bizon’s kit, which is designed for older Thunderbolt specs.

In Windows, you should get worthwhile acceleration, particularly in games. However, right now no one is sure how the eGPU market will develop for Macs.

My Mac sees my fax machine but i can’t send anything I want to use my Epson WorkForce WF-2540 multifunction printer to send faxes from apps on my MacBook Pro. I’ve set up the fax using its utility, and synced my contacts to it.

When I select the fax as the output device in an app, such as Pages, the Print button changes to read Fax but remains dimmed. Why’s that?

Q

by s t e w A r t d A v i s

Apple states that its printer driver version 9.04 for El Capitan provides full support for faxing through your device. With the printer connected to your Mac and powered up, first check

A

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Printer drivers appear alongside OS X and other Apple updates in the Mac App Store’s Updates tab.

How can I connect my Thunderbolt drive to USB-C? > It’s unclear whether there’ll ever be an adaptor to allow this. For now, you can connect your MacBook to USB-C drives, and USB-A if you buy a suitable adaptor for it.

you don’t need to install a more recent driver update from the Mac App Store’s Updates tab.

If you have any older Epson software installed, remove it using its uninstaller.

If that doesn’t help, uninstall the fax and printer by selecting it in System Preferences’ Printers & Scanners pane, and clicking on the – (minus) button. Once that’s done, with the printer still powered up and connected, add it to the Printers & Scanners pane again, and check its settings using the utility.

Ensure that the correct page size and device information appear for the fax feature.

One last thing worth trying is to restart in safe mode, holding ß from the startup sound until the Apple logo, to see if other software’s the problem.

AUGUSt 2016 | MacforMat | 69

GeNiUS tiPS Mac Software

Mac Software Ease your app-fuelled anxieties and get your productivity back on track with this advice Software quick-fire questions How can we enlarge Calendar’s fonts for printing? > There’s an option to increase the font size in Calendar’s Print dialog, which should help.

If that is insufficient, you’ll need to use an alternative app, such as BusyCal 2 (£39.99, Mac App Store).

Although this isn’t cheap, it can use your existing calendar data, and is richer in features than Apple’s app.

Can Calendar print limited times in its Week view?

Mend an interminably bounced email Q When I tried to send an email to a friend using Apple’s Mail app, it was returned to me saying, “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently”.

The technical details included messages about DNS errors and ‘mx’ lookups. How can I send that message to my friend? by d A v i d w A r d

The message you tried to send didn’t get through to the recipient. Often, such errors are transient, resulting from a temporary mail server outage, and the server will try sending the message again after a delay of a few hours. When it intends doing that, it’ll say so in the bounced message.

In this case, your mail server considers that the problem is going to be permanent, so it has given full details of the addresses that it has tried to deliver to.

An MX server is normally a designated server that’ll accept and store messages in the

A

event of primary mail server outage. In your case, not only could your mail server not reach the intended address, but there was no record of a fallback in the form of an MX server.

Although you could try sending that message again, it looks as if the recipient has changed

it looks as if the recipient has changed address, and further attempts are doomed to similar failure their email address completely, and all further attempts to send to their old address will be doomed to similar failure.

Try contacting the friend another way to confirm what email address they’re currently using. If they say it hasn’t changed, they can contact their ISP to get this fault fixed.

> No. Calendar is restricted in its print and other options, and it’ll only print out a week view with the entire day shown on it; there’s no way to limit the time range shown there.

You’ll need to switch to a third-party app such as BusyCal 2 or similar.

You can use Network Utility to look up info for the domain name and IP addresses given in ‘bounced’ message reports.

70 | MacforMat | AUGUSt 2016

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Mac Software GeNiUS tiPS

i can’t change things in a shared address book

How can I fully remove Dropbox from my Mac?

My wife and I share our Apple ID so we can use the same contacts and other information. We each have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Mac. My wife also has an old iPhone she uses for music. When we make changes in Contacts, they soon revert to how they were. What’s happening?

Q

by i A n s l e i g h t h o l M

Your changes are being synced to iCloud, but another of your devices is then overwriting them. Chances are it’s the old iPhone. Shut it down, then make changes in Contacts. If they don’t stick, repeat for other devices one at a time to identify the culprit, then turn off its Contacts syncing.

Ultimately, it’s better if you have separate Apple IDs, and share common data another way, perhaps using iCloud’s Family Sharing feature. That provides a shared calendar, but not a shared contacts list. For that, go to the

A

Once you have a secondary, shared iCloud account, copy contacts to it, then delete them from the primary account.

Internet Accounts preferences pane, click + then the iCloud logo. Click Create Apple ID and follow through the process. Select the account on the left and leave only Contacts checked, then add it to all your Macs and iOS devices.

In Contacts for Mac, new contacts go in the account selected on the left. Contacts for iOS has a setting for where they go by default, which you can override: tap Groups, hide all contacts, show the shared account, add a new contact, then show the primary account again.

Old Safari stops making some secure connections I’ve been using Safari on my old PowerPC iMac running OS X 10.4.11 for many years, with few problems.

Just recently it has started refusing to open several secure websites using the HTTPS protocol, which always worked in the past.

Why is this, and how can I fix it?

Q

by M A r k h o h e n A d e l

To connect to an HTTPS site, your Mac uses Transport Layer Security (TLS, which was preceded by the Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL).

This requires a complex sequence of negotiation, conducted according to standard protocols. Older standards supported by your version of OS X and Safari are no longer considered secure, and sites are progressively stopping their support for them.

A

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Instead your browser must now negotiate using more recent protocols, but it isn’t equipped to do so.

When you try to connect, the server refuses to use the old and insecure methods that are the best your browser can offer, and the connection is dropped.

To keep using Safari and connect to those sites, you’ll need a modern version of OS X on a newer, Intel-based Mac. If you’re prepared to try another browser for now, get TenFourFox (floodgap.com), which is based on Firefox and works on OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and on PowerPC G3, G4 and G5 processors.

However, consider that later versions of OS X have greatly improved other security features too, providing you with better protection, especially when online. Hardware problems with your PowerPC Mac will almost certainly be unrepairable now, so considering a new Mac is a wise move.

> The first and crucial step is to unlink your Dropbox account. Start by clicking Dropbox’s icon in the menu bar, then click the cog and choose Preferences.

Under Account, click Unlink This Dropbox, then quit the Dropbox app from its menu bar icon’s cog menu. Finally, move the app from the Applications folder to the Trash. For details on removing Finder integration and the Dropbox app’s settings, go to bit.ly/rmDropbox.

How can I open a second Photos library easily? > Photos can open one library at a time. Choose one by holding å when opening the app from the Dock or Finder (this method indicates which is your System Photo Library) , or double-click a library in Finder.

How can I strip out markup to create plain text? > Try TextSoap (about £31, unmarked.com), one of the simplest and most capable apps for text conversions. BBEdit (about £34, barebones. com) can also do this, and has sophisticated support for creating your own scripts.

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GeNiUS tiPS iOS Software

iOS Software Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices iOS software quick-fire questions Why will iMessage not send to one of my contacts? > Check the recipient still has an iOS device, and edit their card in Contacts so that their number is labelled ‘iPhone’. In Settings > Messages, ensure that Send as SMS and MMS Messaging are enabled.

It sometimes helps to turn off the iMessage switch at the top of this page, then tap it again to turn it back on.

How can I correct my email address for AutoFill? > Check your card from Contacts is selected in Settings > Safari > AutoFill > My Info, then go to that card in the Contacts app, tap Edit and put the address to use in forms first.

You can’t just drag addresses to reorder them, so a little copying and pasting is in order.

Faithful colour on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro I have been using my iPad Pro for design work using the Apple Pencil, and was very happy with this setup until I saw the True Tone display in action on a newer 9.7-inch model. I’ve heard that I can achieve similar white balance adjustment on my iPad Pro by turning on Night Shift and tweaking that, but it doesn’t look the same.

Is there anything else I can try, or will I just have to upgrade when Apple ships an updated version of the larger iPad Pro?

Q

If faithful colour is important to your work, you could perform colour calibration using one of Datacolor’s Spyder3 or Spyder4 ranges of colorimeters and its Spyder4Gallery app, but that app doesn’t work with newer Spyder5 devices. Until you can get a more suitable iPad, try to limit colour-sensitive work to fairly consistent and neutral lighting conditions.

Unfortunately, iOS devices don’t offer system-wide colour calibration like that found in OS X’s Displays pane.

by s t e v e J o n e s

It’s unfortunate that Apple didn’t have the hardware ready when it launched the current version of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and everyone expects that model’s next revision will include a True Tone display.

Night Shift’s quite different from True Tone, though. While a regular user might find adjusting Night Shift’s settings makes things look almost as good as True Tone, Night Shift could readily lead you astray when colour is a more critical issue. This is because Night Shift’s colour adjustment is manually controlled, rather than driven by ambient light sensors, as True Tone is.

So, Night Shift is just as prone to human error as performing colour calibration of your display by eye alone. Given quirks in human vision, with effects such as colour constancy and those of colour contrasts, ‘by eye’ adjustments can easily be misled.

72 | MacforMat | AUGUSt 2016

A

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Easy

pRO phOTO ediTiNg on ios

Angela Nicholson shows you how to use the best Photos extensions – and how to get pro-style results from them!

74 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

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improve your photos with these brilliant extensions egardless of whether you take photos your iPhone or with a pro-level R on DSLR, the camera isn’t psychic, and it can’t always produce exactly what you had in mind, so there are times when you need to do a little editing. There are also times when you need to fix errors, such as rotating to adjust a sloping horizon or brightening a shot that’s too dark. Or, perhaps you want to get a bit more creative by turning your image black and white and boosting its contrast to add atmosphere?

There are plenty of really great apps for doing the job, with some offering one-click fixes or a selection of retro-style filters, and others that allow you to take manual control and make carefully measured adjustments.

A problem with many tools, however, is that you have to check the shot in Photos and decide

what to do with it, then close it and track down the appropriate app before locating the image again and making the edits. If you use apps that provide extensions for the Photos app, you can access their tools within Photos and start editing right away, making it easier to use them, or mix their effects. Read on to discover more.

> The exTeNsiONs yOu’ll Need

> Fhotoroom > LUCiD by Perfectly Clear > MaxCurve – Curve image editor > ProCam 3 - Manual Camera & Photo Editor > Quick Mask – Easy Bluring [sic] > sKEW

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h Ow TO | U s e e xt e n s i o n s i n t h e P h otos a P P

Download the app

1 First, grab the photo-editing app you’re going to use from the app store. once it’s installed on your device, you may need to open it and allow it to connect to Photos; if the app doesn’t immediately ask you for permission, tap whatever option it provides for browsing and opening items from Photos’ library and it should then ask for access.

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you want more?

2 In Photos, locate and open the photo that you want to adjust, then tap the Edit option in the top-right corner of the screen. once you’re in the editing view, tap the icon that looks like three dots in a circle (in the bottom-right corner) to reveal and choose from any activated extensions. Tap the ‘More’ icon at the right end of the row.

switch ’em on

3 you’ll now see the list of installed apps that provide extensions for the Photos app. switch on any you want to be able to access from the three dots icon in the previous step. Drag from the three lines to the right of an extension to reorder it in the list, so you can reach your favourites quickly. Tap Done, then tap an extension’s icon to use it.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 75

FeATuRe Easy pro photo editing

h Ow TO | U s e LU c i d to c r e at e P e r f ect P o rt ra i ts

Tweak the basics

1 open LUCiD’s extension. Before you adjust specific parts of the image, get the general exposure, contrast and saturation looking good. The easy way is to tap the Fix! icon to apply automatic adjustments, but to take more control, tap the Control icon (which looks like three sliders) at the bottom right, then tap Corrections to access those options.

adjusting shape

4 The Face Contouring control can make your subject look slimmer by morphing the sides of their face inwards to make the cheekbones more defined. adjust the slider to give the level of effect that you want. It can be helpful to tap the option at the bottom of the screen to toggle the effect so you can see the scale of the impact.

76 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Take a look

2 We all want to look good in photographs, but it’s best to be subtle with adjustments to avoid making skin look artificial. Take a good look at your photo and decide which areas require work. If necessary, tap the target icon at the bottom, then tap Beautify followed by the Control icon then Portrait Enhancements to view those controls.

Make teeth gleam

5 now to save a fortune in dentist fees and use LUCiD’s Teeth Whitening feature. adjust the slider until the teeth look good. Frustratingly, tooth-detection is automatic, so it won’t always apply the effect where you want it. When it does correctly detect teeth, take care not to push the slider too far and make them glow unnaturally.

smoothly does it

3 LUCiD detects a subject’s ‘flaws’ and adjusts them automatically, but it’s worth tweaking each of the settings individually. The key controls for getting skin looking good are Perfectly smooth, Blemish Removal and shine Removal.

Wrinkles and laughter lines becomes softer and skin starts to glow. Don’t overdo it, though.

The eyes have it

6 Tap Eye Enhancements to open that panel. The controls here are fairly self-explanatory. Take particular care with the Eye Enlarge option to avoid making your subject look like Gollum.

The Catchlight control gives eyes a little sparkle that can really lift a portrait, while the Dark Circles feature brightens the areas under the eyes.

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Easy pro photo editing FeATuRe

h Ow TO | Use skew to straighten bUiLdings

What’s the problem?

Reach for the skew

1 When a camera is held at an

2 although it can’t work in full-

angle to a building – tipped up or down, rather than perfectly straight-on – a phenomenon known as ‘converging verticals’ occurs in the image. This is where the top of the building looks smaller than the bottom. Unless you’re using it for effect, images look better when it’s corrected.

resolution mode as an extension, sKEW is useful for fixing converging verticals, flipping images, levelling horizons and so on. To prevent a building looking like it’s toppling over, the first step after opening sKEW’s extension is to tap the icon third from the right at the bottom of the screen (a square).

and… stretch

4 To correct converging verticals, select the top corners one at a time and drag them outwards so the top of the building looks the correct size relative to the bottom. In many cases you’ll want to move the corners outwards without moving them up or down, so it can be useful to tap the arrows at the bottom of the screen to make fine adjustments.

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Drag it into shape

5 you may want to select the side edges and drag them up or down to correct other issues. Here we’ve made the roof of the cathedral level by dragging the right side down – this couldn’t be achieved satisfactorily with the level tool, because it rotates the whole image. once you’re happy, tap the green check mark at the top right.

select the corners

3 your image is now surrounded by a frame with dots at its corners. The dot at the top-left corner will be coloured blue to indicate it’s selected. simply tap another corner once to select it instead.

To select an edge, tap the small box at the centre of the edge line. Tapping the box at the centre of the image selects all four corners together.

Crop to finish

6 Tap Done (top right) to confirm the adjustments and then use Photos’ Crop tool to get rid of any blank areas at the image’s edges. Drag the corners or the edges of the crop selection box to exclude the blank spaces and create a composition that you like. Tapping the overlapping rectangles icon reveals aspect ratios for constraining the tool.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 77

FeATuRe Easy pro photo editing

h Ow TO | add PUnchier contrast in fhotoroom

Things look flat

1 sometimes images look dull and washed out because they lack contrast, and the areas that should be black or white are actually grey. This can be improved dramatically using Fhotoroom to set black and white points and boost contrast. open its extension, then tap the icon in the bottom-left corner.

Create some white

2 swipe the controls left to reach Whitepoint and then tap it to reveal the tool’s slider. By default, its value is set to 100; slide the dot left to reduce the value and lighten the image until the brightest areas are white. Then tap the check mark to reveal the main controls and tap the Blackpoint icon.

Make some blacks

3 Here the default setting is zero, and as you slide the control dot to the right the image will get darker. If you want, tap the check mark to apply the edit, then open the Whitepoint tool to tweak it, and return to the Blackpoint tool again if needed. soon, your image will be full of depth and contrast.

h Ow TO | make whites white and coLoUrs right in Procam 3

White balance

1 some lighting conditions create a colour cast, which you can correct in ProCam 3’s White Balance tool. open its extension, and tap the Control icon at the bottom-left corner of the screen.

WB denotes White Balance, while the eyedropper is for Colour Balance, which is useful for more dramatic changes.

78 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Drag to adjust

2 With the White Balance tool selected, drag right on the scale to apply a negative value and make the image look cooler, or drag left to apply a positive number and make the image look warmer. as soon as you make an adjustment, an undo icon appears in place of the White Balance tool’s icon.

Colour adjustments

3 With Color Balance (the teardrop icon) selected, tapping on the red, green or blue dots lets you adjust that colour channel. Then, setting a positive value increases that channel’s visibility in the image, while a negative one increases the amount of their opposites: cyan, magenta and yellow, respectively.

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Easy pro photo editing FeATuRe

h Ow TO | make Pro-Looking bLack and white in maxcUrve

Make a duplicate

1 although you can undo changes you’ve made in Photos by tapping Edit followed by Revert, it’s a good idea to create a duplicate and work on that when making dramatic changes to an image. To do this, select the image in Photos, then tap the share icon in the toolbar, followed by the Duplicate option in the bottom row of the share sheet.

Bend the line

Why use a curve?

2 There are lots of apps that can convert a colour image to monochrome, but few of them give you any control over how the conversion is performed.

MaxCurve gives you the type of control that professional photographers demand, enabling you to adjust the brightness and mix of the colours that make up a scene.

shape the curve

4 you now have control over the

5 Wherever you tap on the line

brightness of the areas of each colour.

To darken the reds as we have here, just tap the line near the red peak in the histogram and drag it down. areas that contain cyan (red’s opposite colour) will stay at their original brightness, but areas in-between red and cyan will be adjusted a little.

(or curve) of the graph, you create a new control point that you can drag up to brighten corresponding colours, or down to darken them. Experiment with adding more points and dragging them.

To delete a point, tap it followed by the trash can icon. Use the Undo icon to cancel unwanted adjustments.

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Make it mono

3 open MaxCurve’s extension, then tap the sun icon to access the ‘Lightness Kit’. scroll down to the bottom of the selection of graphs and then tap on the one labelled Black&White to perform a basic conversion and make the shot monochrome. The larger graph will now show coloured peaks that represent the colours that make up the original scene.

Tweak the contrast

6 If the image needs an adjustment to its contrast, scroll up in the graph column (on iPhone, tap the grid icon to get back to the graph list), then select Contrast. Unlike most contrast tools, this one lets you target areas of specific brightness. Raising the curve’s right end increases the contrast of the highlights; the left end increases shadows.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 79

FeATuRe Easy pro photo editing

h Ow TO | make a cross-Processed Look with maxcUrve

Cross what?

1 at one point it was popular to process print film as if it was slide film, and slide film like it was print film, to give images an alternative appearance.

These days it’s easy to recreate the same effect digitally by manipulating an image’s colour curves. In Photos, you can achieve this appearance with the MaxCurve extension.

Get the blues

4 switch to the Blue graph, then drag the point at the far right of the curve down a little to take some blue out of the highlights. Doing this also injects some yellow into the highlights, because yellow is opposite blue in the colour spectrum. now drag the point at the other end of the curve up to put some blue into the shadows.

80 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Use the curves

2 Tap MaxCurve’s overlapping circles icon to access the RGB Kit, tap the Red graph. The histogram under the curve represents the brightness of the pixels that make up the image, with the brightest ones at the right end and the darkest at left. If you add a point on the curve and drag it up, you’ll increase the amount of red in the image.

adjust the greens

5 next, select the Green graph and add a few points to drag up and down to create a shallow ‘s’ shape, similar to the one you created for the reds. Dragging up will increase the amount of green in pixels at the relevant level of brightness, while dragging down removes green and adds magenta. Revisit each of the graphs in turn and tweak your changes.

Work the reds

3 Tap the curve near its right end and drag it to the top so the brightest areas go white and the highlights have a pink note. Then drag the point at the bottom of the curve up a little to inject a little red into the darkest areas. now add a couple of points between the end points and then drag them in opposite directions to create a shallow ‘s’ shape.

Finalise the contrast

6 as a final touch, tap the sun icon to access the Lightness Kit and select the Contrast graph. add points to the curve and drag them up to increase contrast and give the image a punchier appearance. Experiment with different points until you find a look you like – this is your creation, after all! Remember you can remove unwanted points.

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Easy pro photo editing FeATuRe

h Ow TO | soften messy backgroUnds with QUick mask

Deselect any faces

1 Busy backgrounds can be very distracting, but you can make them less obvious by applying blur using Quick Mask. When it opens, the extension automatically detects and selects faces in an image – this is shown as a red square around the face. simply tap the Deselect all option followed by next.

Paint your selection

2 With the Blur effect selected,

paint in the areas you want to blur using your finger on the screen. Don’t go too close to your main subject – vary the brush size using the slider as necessary to avoid this. Increase the strength of the blur until it becomes visible just before the edge of the effect’s mask.

3

save and repeat

Tap Done. Quick Mask saves a copy of the image with the effect added.

If you want to apply more blur, open the copy and edit it more, concentrating on the areas further away from the subject.

Repeated treatments enable you to build up the blur without having a harsh leading edge where the mask ends.

h Ow TO | make yoUr sUbject stand oUt with fhotoroom

Flaws can be good

Darken the corners

1 Technically, vignetting – also

2 Tap the Vignette icon to open

known as corner shading – is created by a flaw in lenses and it’s often corrected automatically, but it can also be very attractive, helping to draw attention to your subject. In Fhotoroom’s extension, tap the control icon at the bottom left of the screen to see the available options.

that tool, then drag the slider right to darken the image’s corners. The amount you need to apply depends upon the image and the position of the subject; if it’s over to one side you’ll probably need to apply a little less than if it’s in the centre. Tap the check mark to apply.

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now add a frame

3 Tap the picture frame icon at the bottom of the screen to see available options. There are many shapes on offer, but it’s usually best to keep things simple and use a rectangle. next, decide whether to make the border white or black and drag the slider to the right to set the border’s size as you prefer.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 81

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What’s inside

ReUSe OLd KIT

84–85 RepURpOSe A CORpORATe MAC

Inspiring ideas for revamping your old Apple devices

Clean out unwanted software to use an old office Mac at home

86 eXpLORe iCLOUd ALTeRNATIVeS Discover the cloud services you can use even on Snow Leopard

EdiTEd by

LUIS VILLAZON

Rehabilitate an old office iMac y latest fixer-upper is a 17-inch, ‘Early 2006’ iMac. It was mouldering at the back of the IT cupboard at Future’s offices, under a pile of old keyboards. I offered to take it off Christian’s hands, while making it sound like I was doing him a favour, and now I have a second work computer! It’s one of the first Intel-powered iMacs, and it has a 1.83GHz Core Duo CPU – a 32-bit chip that won’t run OS X Lion, yet Snow Leopard works quite comfortably on it. This model has about twice the performance of the iMac G5 it replaced, and its spec is good enough that I see no pressing need to upgrade it at all. But, like a lot of computers appropriated from office environments, it still bears the scars of its former corporate life, and I had to remove many shackles and safeguards so I could put it Until we dug out to work at home, starting this photo, we’d forgotten about the magnetic Apple Remote. with finding a way to log in.

M

Contact us Email your queries and your questions to lovemac@macformat.com Keep up to date by following us on Twitter @macformat Join the conversation at facebook.com/ macformat Get the latest subscription offers at macformat.com

LUIS’S APPLE CLASSIC! The 2006 MacBook replaced the iBook series and quickly became the best-selling Macintosh – a record it held until the MacBook Air was introduced. Its ‘chiclet’ keyboard was initially criticised for being too flimsy but came to be copied on virtually all laptops, both Mac and Windows. It was the first computer I bought for someone else; my 13-year-old daughter. She used it until she went to university five years later, and all the keys were still working then.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 83

LOVe YOUR MAC Early intel iMac

Hardware quick-fire questions Why are apps still in the Dock after being uninstalled? > The Dock icons are just shortcuts to the apps.

When you drag an app from a folder in Finder to the Trash, its Dock icon updates to point to its new location (though you can’t run apps or open files from there).

If you empty the Trash, the link is broken but the Dock icon stays behind – with a question mark on it to show the app’s missing. You need to drag each unwanted app’s icon upwards, off the Dock, to remove it.

Maximise an old iMac

Even a 10-year-old Mac has scope for upgrades, and plenty of expansion ports 1

17-inch display

1

The 1440x900 display resolution is good enough for watching HD video.

2

SuperDrive 2

3

Why won’t the office Mac connect to my home Wi-Fi?

2GB memory Our iMac already has the maximum supported memory on its logic board, upgraded from the base spec of 512MB.

3 image creditS: iFiXit.com

> Try connecting it to your network using an Ethernet connection first, to make sure your router isn’t blocking the Mac itself. If that works, open the Mac’s Network preferences and create a new location, click the cog in the bottom-left corner and choose Set Service Order, then drag AirPort to the top of the list. Turn the Mac’s Wi-Fi off and then on again to reattempt connection.

Pre-2012 iMacs have an optical drive for watching DVDs and burning discs.

4

4

160GB hard drive This could be replaced with a larger, faster drive, but it’s fine if you put photos online or on an external drive.

5

5

1.83GHz Intel Core Duo This is quite an old processor, but the 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo Socket M chip is a possible upgrade, costing around £27.

6

6

Three USB and two FireWire ports There’s also Bluetooth 2.0, and an IR receiver for use with the Apple Remote.

84 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

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Repurpose a corporate Mac LOVe YOUR MAC

o one still at Future HQ knows any of the usernames or passwords for this computer, and there are no install DVDs available in order to reset the admin account, either. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to create a new user account on a Mac. Start up with ç+s held down to enter single-user mode. At the command prompt, mount the filing system by entering /sbin/ mount -uw / then rm /var/db/.AppleSetup Done. This tricks OS X into thinking it’s on a brand-new Mac. When you restart, it’ll prompt you to create an admin account.

Once I could log in, I started to clean up the system. I deleted all but the default apps, and removed all the Dock shortcuts. I removed all the old user accounts from Users & Groups preferences, and deleted around 150GB of data from their home folders. I also unbound the Mac from the Active Directory domain that was set to point at uk.future.com.

N

Rogue preferences The next challenge was to get rid of all the remote management hooks that had been installed by Future’s IT department. I turned off ‘Remote login’ and ‘Remote management’ in the Sharing preferences pane, and removed a

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third-party preference pane called Absolute Manage, but when the Mac was restarted, the icon simply reappeared in System Preferences.

So I poked around in the /Library/Application Support folder and found something called LANRevAgent. I got rid of this and deleted the Absolute Manage preferences pane one more time. This time it stayed deleted.

The network configuration was a bit more stubborn. The iMac was somehow trying to connect automatically to the corporate network, even though the Users & Groups pane listed no login items for the account. Every time the iMac restarted, it changed the login background to red, displayed the Future PLC logo, followed by an error saying it wasn’t connected to Future’s network, and then another message to tell me it couldn’t configure my email. None of this stopped me connecting the iMac to my own Wi-Fi network afterwards, but it was irritating and could spell problems later on if it clashed with something else.

The most obvious place to start searching was the /Library/Future folder. Sure enough,

This Mac tried to connect to a corporate network after years of sitting abandoned in a cupboard.

Don’t forget to remove old office printers from System Preferences as well.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 85

LOVe YOUR MAC Early intel iMac

HoW to Use the cloud with Snow Leopard

1 Google Drive

You can’t use iCloud on Snow Leopard because it requires at least OS X 10.7.5 (Lion), but there are alternatives that’ll give you most of the same benefits.

Google Drive (drive.google.com) provides 15GB of online storage for free. Its Mac app also requires OS X 10.7, but you can use the web interface instead.

2 Dropbox

The desktop client for dropbox.com supports OS X 10.6.8. This gives you another 2GB of free online storage when you sign up, and it’s easy to boost it with referrals and promotions. The service automatically syncs with a folder on your Mac, making your files accessible from different devices and when you’re offline.

Check what login items the Mac’s corporate owner set, and whether they automatically come back after restarting the Mac.

there was a LogIn-Out folder within it, containing a suspiciouslooking app called iHook and a folder called Pictures that contained the graphics for the error messages I was getting at startup.

I deleted the whole folder, as well as Library/Future Redirects, which contained many subfolders for all the old user accounts. A quick restart confirmed that the login errors were successfully quashed!

Exorcising daemons

Next Issue!

Luis breathes new life into a 2006 MacBook from the days when you could increase memory and storage in an Apple laptop after buying it.

While in /Library, I noticed the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons folders also had several items with Future in their names. I don’t need to know exactly what these all do; they’re likely related to remote management tools of one kind or another, so I could just delete them wholesale. In fact, I don’t need any of these daemons and agents – the non-Future ones are auto-updaters for Sophos Antivirus, Google and

86 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

3 Amazon Photos

One of iCloud’s most useful services is iCloud Photo Library. If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can use Amazon Photos instead, which provides unlimited photo storage, 5GB for videos, and autouploads new pics from specified folders.

The desktop app doesn’t work in Snow Leopard, but the web interface is decent.

Adobe apps – unnecessary at best and a nuisance at worst. So into the Trash they went!

In fact, I removed the whole of the Sophos app as well. Antivirus software might make sense on a mixed network, where Macs may inadvertently pass viruses on to Windows PCs, but there are no wild viruses that infect Macs themselves, so running it is like taking antimalarial drugs when you never go abroad.

The final task was to run Software Update.

This last ran successfully on this Mac back in October 2013. This was presumably because it

i don’t need to know what these daemons do.

They are unnecessary at best, a nuisance at worst had been managed separately by Future’s IT department. I clicked Check Now to trigger a manual check, but after a long pause it told me the update server at asus.uk.futurenet.com wasn’t responding. So, I deleted /Library/ Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist to restore Apple’s default server and retried. This time it returned six updates, including one for security. I installed all of them. Finally, in Security prefs, I turned on the ‘Automatically install important security updates’ option.

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AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 87

The home of technology techradar.com

What’s inside 90–91 APPLE KIT Our word on the 8GB, 13-inch MacBook Air

92–95 hARDWARE

EditEd by

BUYING ADVICE

ALEX BLAKE

An iPhone add-on for steady video, and more!

Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices

96–99 GROUP TEST Pick a high-capacity hard drive to suit you

100–102 MAC SOFTWARE

13-INCh MACBOOK AIR p90

A new photo editor, and effects for your text

103 iOS SOFTWARE A vector art app and a Street View substitute

Manifesto – our ratings explained

Contact us Email your queries and your questions to letters@macformat.com Keep up to date by following us on Twitter @macformat Join the conversation at facebook.com/ macformat Get the latest subscription offers at macformat.com

Our reviews are totally independent; we’re not affiliated with Apple or anyone else, nor are we influenced by advertisers.

You can trust us to give an honest assessment of a product’s worth.

The prices quoted for products are correct at the time of writing and are

HHHHH

the best we can find from a reputable online dealer, excluding delivery.

Worth considering, though there may be better options

HHHHH

HHHHH

A brilliant thing in all regards, and worth every penny

Fundamentally flawed; look at alternatives as a priority

HHHHH

HHHHH

Strongly recommended; any flaws are only minor concerns

A waste of your money and everyone’s time; do not buy!

the MACFORMAT Awards Awarded to a five-star product we believe is truly exceptional in its category. Given solely at the discretion of the Editor.

Given to a hardware or software product that might not be the very best in its category, but is a noted for affordability.

Our group test winner gets this award for being the best of its kind when pitted against other comparable products.

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 89

APPLE CHOICE Apple Kit

MacBook Air (13-inch)

the Air gets a (rather small) boost Reviewed by matt Bolton £849 (128GB); £999 (256GB) from Apple, apple.com/uk features 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, Intel HD 6000 graphics, 8GB RAM e’ve been saying for a while that we think the MacBook Air’s clock is ticking, and Apple’s tiny update to the line this year hasn’t exactly changed our minds. While the super-thin MacBook got faster, new-generation Intel processors, the 13-inch MacBook Air got… some more memory. And that’s it. Still, that’s better than the 11-inch Air, which received no updates at all.

So the 13-inch Air has the same 1.6GHz fifth-gen Intel dual-core processor as last year, with Intel integrated graphics, but it’s now backed up by 8GB of memory. This is what we recommend for most people as the minimum these days anyway, so it’s good that Apple’s caught up there – though the 11-inch Air is still stuck with 4GB as standard.

There are two versions of the 13-inch model in Apple’s line-up, and their only difference is storage capacity: 128GB or 256GB. That storage is still monstrously fast, though, capable of read speeds up to 1.4GB/sec on this model in our tests. That’s truly pro-level stuff.

The unchanged processor and graphics performance from last year (which was only a small improvement from the 2014 model) is not so much pro-level, but it’s still a fairly capable machine – it has no problem with

W

The MacBook Air doesn’t have a huge amount of storage, but what it has is incredibly fast.

Christian says…

It’s good to see Apple finally turn its attention to the MacBook Air’s memory – 4GB just isn’t enough in my eyes. But without an upgrade to the non-Retina display, the Air range is looking increasingly outdated.

We’d love to see Apple give the Air the display it deserves and help keep it relevant.

The non-Retina display is really feeling the strain now – compared to Apple’s Retina offerings, it feels seriously lacking.

light photo and video editing, and very light gaming. For prolonged complex tasks, it’s still lacking power, but it’s got more grunt than the MacBook if you want to do iMovie work, or compile apps in Xcode.

However, there’s also been no change in the screen – a 1440x900-pixel, non-Retina display – which might put you off if you’re thinking of using it for creative tasks on its

We’ve long recommended you go for 8GB of memory, so it’s nice to see Apple making it standard.

90 | MACFORMAT | August 2016

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MacBook Air APPLE CHOICE

ALTERnATIVE CHOICEs

MacBook £1,049 specifications 1.1gHz dual-core Intel Core m3 processor 8gB memory (1866MHz) 256gB flash storage Intel HD graphics 515 usB 3.1 (gen 1), 802.11ac Wi-FI, Bluetooth 4.0, dual microphones, 3.5mm headphone jack

own, due to the relative lack of detail. We can live with non-Retina displays (if we really have to) for general office work or simple web browsing, but it’s not just the number of pixels the Air misses out on here. Its display also lacks brightness, vibrancy, and visibility compared to all the other MacBook models.

Mac in business Still, the MacBook Air has other usability factors in its favour. The keyboard is the same style as the MacBook Pro’s, rather than the 12-inch MacBook, which some prefer. It also has two USB ports, Thunderbolt and an SD card reader, so it offers connectivity beyond what’s found on the MacBook, but without the extra weight of a MacBook Pro. Then there’s

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MacBook Pro £999 specifications 2.7gHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor 8gB memory (1866MHz) 128gB flash storage Intel Iris graphics 6100 usB 3.0, thunderbolt 2, sDXC card reader, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, dual microphones, 3.5mm headphone jack

VERDICT The chassis is exactly the same as the previous MacBook Air – once again, the only change comes to the internals.

the battery life, which remains fantastic – lasting for over nine hours in our real-world tests. These attributes mean the Air is a great option for some people, but in general we recommend the portability of the MacBook, or the power of the MacBook Pro.

still a reasonable option for new Mac owners (shame about the display), but sadly lacking a real update.

HHHHH 8gB of memory Excellent battery life Very fast storage No processor or display improvements

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 91

APPLE CHOICE iOS Hardware

Apple Smart Keyboard (9.7-inch) A cover, stand and keyboard in one £129 from Apple, apple.com/uk features Apple Smart Connector, US English layout WeIGHt 224g he 9.7-inch iPad Pro has almost all the features of its bigger sibling, including a matching Smart Keyboard from Apple, which acts as a cover for the screen and connects using the Smart Connector, not Bluetooth.

The Smart Keyboard draws power from the iPad, so it doesn’t include the weight of an additional battery. It folds closed into basically a thicker version of the Smart Cover, complete with fibre lining on

T

VERDICT A good keyboard cover that’s easy to type on, yet imperfect as well as expensive.

HHHHH Thin and light Keys feel a little dead

the inside that cleans your iPad’s screen.

Compared to the big iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard, it’s… the same, but smaller.

(There’s really a theme there, isn’t there?) So you get the main letters at a good key size, with the most common punctuation at the edges, and modifier keys at the bottom. Typing isn’t the best experience, due to a combo of deadness in the thin fabric keys and lack of travel (the MacBook’s thin keyboard

handles this better, with a firmer click when pressed), but we found it very accurate anyway, which is the most important thing – and it’s far from the worst out there.

There are other issues, though: the lack of media control and iOS function keys, and it’s surprising that there’s no Caps Lock status light. Plus, while it holds the iPad sturdily for typing, its separate ‘watching’ position is too vertical, and doesn’t hold firm. matt BoLtoN

Logi Base Connecting your Pro the smart way £90 from Logitech, logitech.com features Smart Connector, 70° viewing angle WeIGHt 357g mart Connector accessories are generally limited to keyboards, but Apple's connector happens to be the perfect port for a charging stand too.

Logitech's Base is for 12.9-inch and newer 9.7-inch iPad Pros, giving you a great way to stand either tablet in landscape orientation and charge it without having a Lightning cable sticking out of its side. It certainly looks as 'smart' as the connector's technology, and there are magnets near the Smart Connector to help snap the

S

VERDICT

A good cable-tidying option for keeping an iPad Pro charged and upright on your desk.

HHHHH Solid, great angle Rather costly

92 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

The iPad Pro snaps into place thanks to magnets around the Smart Connector.

iPad into place. We love the firm feel, aided by the sticky pad on the Base’s bottom, which makes it an excellent desk companion and ideal for using apps like Duet Display to extend your Mac’s desktop onto an iOS device.

You'll still need to plug that Lightning cable in to the Base's rear, but it's all very discreet and we have no complaints about how Logitech has made it look.

We even admire the angle, which holds your iPad more upright than most stands.

Sadly, with Base being a fixed piece of aluminium, there's no way to change its angle, but the biggest issue is the £90 price tag. Apple's Smart Keyboard for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro (see above) is only £40 more. This is a pretty expensive add-on just to charge and stand up your iPad Pro. CHrIstIaN HaLL

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Smooth-C APPLE CHOICE

Zhiyun Z1 Smooth-C

Anyone can make pro-quality movies with this iPhone stabiliser Reviewed by Matt BOLtON £157 FROM Zhiyun, zhiyun-tech.com FeatuRes three-axis gimbal camera mount with counterweight and electronic gyroscope

the Smooth-C’s built-in gimbal keeps your iPhone camera stable no matter how your hand moves around

VERDICT the Smooth-C turns your iPhone into a truly amazing video camera. It has its confusing moments, though, and certainly isn’t inexpensive.

HHHHH Very smooth video two modes Confusing recalibration Fairly expensive

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hough the iPhone is capable of taking extremely high quality video, that doesn’t mean everything you record with it will look beautiful. Even if you know how to compose and capture light well in a shot, if you’re holding your iPhone in your hands, you’re likely to produce slightly shaky and jerky footage. The iPhone stabilises video as best it can (and the optical image stabiliser in the iPhone 6s Plus works with video, which helps a lot), but you’ll still never get it looking really professional. That’s where the Smooth-C comes into play.

This device is an iPhone holder with a built-in gimbal, meaning that it keeps the iPhone stable no matter how your hand moves when gripping the handle. You just slot your iPhone into the cradle and turn it on, and the iPhone locks into a position pointing forward, after which you can pretty much rotate your hand around almost any way you want without upsetting your footage.

There are two modes: one that keeps the iPhone always pointing forward, even if you rotate the Smooth-C left or right; and one that will turn the iPhone left or right with your hand (but with a delay, so it can even out jerkiness in the movement). Two buttons enable you to tilt the iPhone up or down.

The results are just brilliant. You can hold your iPhone out and walk forward, producing stunningly smooth 4K video, as if you were using a professional Steadicam. You can walk forward to zoom without shaking all over the place, and swoop around a subject in an even motion. When your control over movement is increased, the iPhone really shows off what it can do with picture quality, too – it seems to

t

If you think video stabilisation on the Plus-size iPhone is impressive, wait until you get a load of this.

focus faster than when you make the same moves with it in your hands. It’s especially great if you like to record at 4K and then crop in for zoomed 1080p exports, since that method is especially vulnerable to the downsides of camera shake.

Wobbles along the way The Smooth-C isn’t perfect, admittedly.

Getting it set up in the first place is slightly confusing, which isn’t helped by the fact that there’s almost no labelling on the device (including its buttons), and the manual being hard to work through. Once you know what you’re doing, though, it’s fine.

Our unit came with its horizontal angle slightly off, though, and recalibration – even using the companion Mac app, which we highly recommend as the easiest option – was a hazy process. It’s very hard to do in a way that you can be sure you’re improving things rather than throwing them further off.

AuguSt 2016 | MACFORMAT | 93

APPLE CHOICE Watch/Mac Hardware

Twelve South TimePorter Watch gets its own luggage £45 from Twelve South, twelvesouth.com features 180° case hinge, magnetic closure, cable clips ravelling with a watch didn't used to take up any space in your suitcase because it would stay on your wrist. Try that with your Apple Watch and you'll be out of juice in a day or so.

That means you have yet another charger to pack, and though Apple finally introduced a folding plug with the Watch, we've been crying out for a good way to pack it and its cable away with the rest of our luggage.

T

VERDICT

For now, a unique travel solution for all your crucial Apple Watch gubbins.

HHHHH Nice travel solution Hard to pack it all in

Just remember that the TimePorter isn't actually for your glasses too!

TimePorter is a Watch charging stand and carrying case all-in-one. Pack your magnetic charging cable by wrapping it around the rubber loop at the case’s edges and hold it neatly in place with the three clips.

The centre of the case allows you to put in a spare strap and a portable battery.

Crucially, you can pack the Watch’s folding plug, but not alongside a spare strap

and the cable – the lid just won't close. A shame, but for true portability you should consider buying a portable battery that can connect to the USB cable anyway – just make sure it's thin enough to go in this case.

As a stand, TimePorter is superb: just pull the rubber stopper out, poke the cable’s disc through, and the strong hinge holds your Watch steady. CHrIstIaN HaLL

Porsche Design Mobile Drive 4TB Masses of storage for the MacBook £210 from LaCie, lacie.com features USB-C port, USB-A adaptor ore than a year since USB-C’s debut on the 12-inch MacBook, storage with this port is becoming more common. This new model of the Porsche Design Mobile drive adds USB-C to the aluminium design, and also stands out for its 4TB capacity – more than enough to back up a MacBook, and plenty if you own a desktop Mac as well. Unlike most desktop drives, you won’t need external power, either.

M

VERDICT

Though pricey, the USB-C port and 4TB capacity are a good fit for the MacBook.

HHHHH Works with MacBook Premium price

94 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Though the onboard port is USB-C, LaCie also provides a USB-A adaptor.

There’s a price to pay for the capacity though, and we don’t just mean in money.

LaCie also sells 1TB and 2TB models, which are just 10mm thick and weigh 193g, but the 4TB model is a bit chunkier at 21mm and 315g. However, it’s still small and light enough to carry around, and for many people the huge storage capacity will be worth a little extra weight.

Porsche Design USB-C drives cost quite a bit more than USB 3.0 versions. The 5,400rpm disk here reached 135MB/sec when reading and 75.8MB/sec when writing – good, though for the price we’d have liked a 7,200rpm drive. But, 4TB portables are few, especially with USB-C, so this one’s worth attention if you need lots of portable space. CLIff JosePH

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Reviewed by Nick PEERS

Head to Head APPLE CHOICE

ReadyNAs 212 A powerful and flexible solution where you can provide the disks From £260 FROM Netgear, netgear.co.uk FEATURES 2 drive bays, 2x gigabit Ethernet, 3x usB 3.0

Ease of use HHHHH This drive can be bought with two 2TB or 3TB disks, or empty for your own (up to 12TB per bay). Beware the caddy, which needs to be pushed in firmly. Browser-based setup is straightforward, but not as easy as the EX2 Ultra.

Connectivity HHHHH You get twin Gigabit Ethernet ports with support for link aggregation, but make sure your switch supports the 802.3ad protocol (ours didn’t). There are three USB 3.0 ports (one on the front) and a legacy eSATA port, too.

Features HHHHH There’s support forApple Filing Protocol (AFP) and Time Machine (with individual user quotas), cloud access and a repository of almost 80 apps to choose from. The OS (ReadyNAS OS 6) is standard across Netgear’s range, so it’s well supported with feature updates and fixes.

Performance HHHHH It just pips WD’s drive by about 3MB/sec in our standard read and write tests. Its quad-core CPU and 2GB memory, are capable of transcoding media streams, though it’s less nippy than the similarly priced Synology DS216+.

the RN212 is more feature-packed and powerful, but can cost up to £100 more if you add your own disks. We think it’s worth it (just).

My Cloud EX2 ultra A fast file server that offers some extra features – but not many From £240 FROM WD, wdc.com FEATURES 2x drive bays (prepopulated), 1x gigabit Ethernet, 2x usB 3.0

Ease of use HHHHH We’ve had trouble setting up WD drives before, but this one was a doddle: plug it in, switch it on, go to the website on the card and it’ll find the drive and walk you through the set-up process. The interface is easy to navigate.

Connectivity HHHHH Annoyingly, there are no power or backup buttons on the drive. The Ethernet and USB ports are on the rear, with the latter accepting drives (including Mac-formatted ones) for backups or additional network shares, but not printers.

Features HHHHH Mac-focussed features include AFP, Time Machine and an iTunes audio server. There are only 14 apps in the store, but they’re well known, good quality and cover most bases. Our review unit was prepopulated with two 4TB drives preconfigured as a RAID1 (mirrored) array.

Performance HHHHH The dual-core ARM processor offers okay performance, but the drive’s file transfers impress: 55MB/sec reading and 44MB/sec writing in our standard test, and 100–105 MB/sec and 108–110MB/sec in large and extended tests.

Competitively priced, but lacking in advanced features and raw performance. A decent choice if you want fast transfer speeds and little else.

HHHHH VERDICT HHHHH macformat.com @macformat

August 2016 | MACFORMAT | 95

AppLe ChOiCe Group Test

high-CApACiTy running out of storage? check out these humongous hard drives hARd dRives ON TesT… seagate innov8 WD Mycloud eX2100 Lacie 2big Thunderbolt 2 QNAP Ts-251+ G-Tech G-rAiD Thunderbolt 2 Transcend storeJet 35T3

Reviewed by Nick Peers

re you one of those people who finds themselves at the cutting edge of high-definition media?

You’ll know the high price of that quality: gargantuan file sizes? Or, perhaps you find yourself upgrading your external storage year after year, because however much you buy, it never seems to be enough. If so, this group test will appeal to you.

We’ve brought together six high-capacity hard drives, all offering a minimum of 6TB of storage. Many of them can be configured for even higher capacities – up to 16TB in some cases. We’ve split our drives into three broad categories, with two drives in each.

First, there’s the dependable desktop USB hard drive – a single 8TB disk housed in a relatively slim casing that’s designed to be unobtrusive. We’ve picked a traditional USB 3.0 desktop model that’ll work with any Mac (Transcend’s StoreJet), and another drive specifically for the MacBook’s USB-C port (Seagate’s Innov8), which is self-powered.

If you want maximum performance and the option of redundancy in the event of a disk

A

96 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

failure, we’ve also picked two Thunderbolt 2 drives, both of which provide two removable disk bays and a choice of RAID level; RAID 0, or a striped RAID set, for performance is the default setting in both the G-Tech and LaCie drives included in this group test.

It’s good to share Finally, if you need lots of storage and want to share it around your home, as well as and access it on the move, we’ve picked out two network-attached storage (NAS) drives that ought to fit the bill. Again, each of these

We’ve brought together six high-capacity hard drives from three broad categories to sate your storage needs

How we tested We connected the USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 models to a Mac mini, the Seagate Innov8 to a 12-inch MacBook, and the two network drives to the same Gigabit Ethernet switch as our test Mac mini. We noted each drive’s design, features and the ease of setting them up, and benchmarked each drive’s performance using QuickBench.

drives, from WD and QNAP, has two bays, enabling you to upgrade or replace their disks should you need to.

To find out which of these capacious hard drives is best for your needs, read on.

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High-capacity storage AppLe ChOiCe

hARd dRives

Things to consider…

Higher…

Everything you need to know before getting started

1

sharing

2

connectivity

A practical use for high-capacity drives is to share storage with other devices on your network. If this appeals to you, go for a NAS drive. Once connected to your router and set up, everyone on your network can access it.

A NAS drive needs a spare Ethernet port (or two, if you plan to use link aggregation) on your router. Otherwise, ensure your Mac has the correct port – USB-C drives need a 12-inch MacBook or a Mac Pro with an expansion card.

3

Performance

The RAID drives are by far the quickest on test. The NAS drives are the slowest in daily use, but both have a USB port with a one-click copy button to speed up the initial data transfer.

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4

expandability

5

rAiD array

Do you think you’ll need more storage in the future? Thunderbolt and NAS drives make it easy to swap out and upgrade their disks, which is cheaper than going to the expense of buying a whole new drive as a replacement.

Two-disk drives are set up for RAID – choose RAID 0 for performance, or RAID 1 for redundancy in case one disk fails. Remember, RAID 1 halves how much you can store on the drive because one disk backs up the other.

6

The five-bay Drobo 5D array with 9TB (3x 3TB) disks fitted costs £860.

It has two Thunderbolt ports (for daisychaining additional devices) and one USB 3.0 port.

…or lower?

Features

NAS drives are like mini-computers that offer more than basic file sharing. It’s not just services and apps to look out for; performance (the drive’s CPU and memory) is also important.

You could spend £150 on a 6TB Samsung D3 Station – a single-disk, no-frills USB 3.0 drive that weighs less than a kilo – 772g, in fact.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 97

AppLe ChOiCe Group Test

Test 1 Design

Test 2 Performance

Looks, build quality, and ports.

Just how fast are these drives?

There are only so many ways you can dress up a hard drive. That said, Seagate’s Innov8 looks striking – but don’t mistake its bus-powered nature as meaning it’s portable.

Elsewhere, it’s practicality over looks. The RAID and NAS drives are chunkier owing to their two-disk nature, but all make it easy to access and swap out their disks.

A bonus point goes to WD’s MyCloud EX2100 for its screwless drive bays, while LaCie’s 2big hides its ports and hardware RAID controls behind a fiddly removable back panel. QNAP wins hands down for connectivity: four USB ports (two of which are USB 3.0) and an HDMI port.

Both NAS drives offer twin Ethernet ports, enabling link aggregation with a compatible switch, but this had no effect on their performance in our benchmarks.

It’s not entirely fair to directly compare the performance of all six drives, because they connect using a variety of interfaces, but we can pick out clear winners in each category.

It’s unsurprising that the fastest drives are the Thunderbolt models.

Thanks to a combo of Thunderbolt 2 and their RAID 0 setup, the G-Tech and LaCie drives leave the competition far behind. Their transfer rates were much faster, working at over 200MB/sec for standard read/write times, and 330MB/sec (G-Tech) and 400MB/sec (LaCie) for larger files.

A strange observation: random read/write times were on par with the other drives tested, while both Thunderbolt 2 drives performed almost as well (and better in some tests) when connected via the supposedly slower USB 3.0 port – something we’ve seen in portable, dual-interface drives before, but didn’t expect here. Ultimately, the 2big takes the honours.

TesT ResuLTs G-Tech G-RAID LaCie 2big Seagate Innov8

HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

Transcend StoreJet WD MyCloud QNAP TS-251+

HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

Test 3 Features What functionality is on offer?

Both USB drives are simply plug and play. Seagate’s Innov8 draws power from your MacBook’s USB-C port, while Transcend’s StoreJet has a one-click backup button that triggers its bundled back-up software.

The two Thunderbolt drives differ in that G-Tech’s drive uses a software RAID implementation, while LaCie’s utilises its own hardware RAID, controlled by buttons inside its rear panel.

Both NAS drives are designed as more than mere storage.

The EX2100 offers practically identical functionality to other WD MyCloud drives we’ve looked at recently, while QNAP offers one of the most comprehensive sets of features we’ve seen in a NAS, including an HDMI port and remote control for watching media direct from the box on your TV. It’s a shame it’s hidden behind such a complicated and fussy interface.

TesT ResuLTs G-Tech G-RAID LaCie 2big Seagate Innov8

A game of two halves The two single-disk USB drives lagged some way behind, at about half the speed of the RAID devices, highlighting the physical limitations of drives that contain one disk (RAID 0 allows both disks to be utilised at once to speed up access times). The Seagate drive’s performance edged ahead of the Transcend’s in most tests, averaging out at 124MB/sec in the standard read and write tests, and peaking at 215MB/sec in the large write test, though Transcend beat it in two others.

(Interestingly, the Transcend’s random read rate of 63MB/sec was the fastest of all six drives tested.)

There was little to choose between the two NAS drives.

While QNAP’s drive had the edge overall, at over 105MB/sec

Thanks to a combo of Thunderbolt 2 and RAID 0, the G-Tech and LaCie drives are the fastest contenders in the group in the extended and large tests and an average of 50–55MB/sec for standard tests, it fell far short of the claimed 200MB/sec throughput. WD’s entrant was no slouch though, and both are up there with the quickest NAS drives we’ve seen recently.

Also worthy of mention is the 2GHz, quad-core Celeron processor and 2GB memory in the QNAP drive, which help it deliver top-notch performance when transcoding media and running multiple services at once.

TesT ResuLTs HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

Transcend StoreJet WD MyCloud QNAP TS-251+

98 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

G-Tech G-RAID LaCie 2big Seagate Innov8

HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

Transcend StoreJet WD MyCloud QNAP TS-251+

HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH

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High-capacity storage AppLe ChOiCe

The WiNNer QNAP TS-251+ Sizing up the right fit for your needs here speed’s your primary need, and you need a large capacity for gigantic files such as 4K video, the choice is straightforward: a Thunderbolt 2 drive with RAID. In this regard, LaCie’s drive wins by a whisker – it’s that bit faster overall, and is more affordable per terabyte. At the other end of the scale, the Seagate Innov8’s price left us cold, despite it not needing a plug socket.

For most people, such a large capacity is better utilised as a shared space, so you’ll want a NAS drive. (Some routers can turn a basic USB drive – USB-A, anyway – into a shared drive, though often they’re leaner on features than a dedicated NAS.) If your needs are relatively simple, WD’s MyCloud EX2100 is more than sufficient for your needs, but if you want an all-singing, all-dancing model

W

Alex says…

that can run multiple services while streaming media, QNAP’s TS-251+ comes out on top.

The QNAP drive isn’t perfect – there’s a learning curve and the interface is fussy at times – but its stellar spec, broad app support and good transfer rates make it worth the effort.

QNAP’s user interface is fussy at times, but the stellar spec makes it worth the effort

While drive capacities are outstripping the average Joe’s needs, I can see why those working with large media files would need a drive with lots of wiggle room. If that applies to you, LaCie’s 2big Thunderbolt 2 is a no-brainer – it’s fast, flexible and has room for expansion.

How do they compare? >THE SPECS

>G-TECH

>LaCiE

>SEaGaTE

>TranSCEnd

>Wd

>QnaP

Model

G-RAID Thunderbolt 2

2big Thunderbolt 2

Innov8

StoreJet 35T3

MyCloud EX2100

TS-251+

Price

£579

£479

£336

£235

£420

£442

diMensions (WxdxH), WeigHt

13x23.5x8.7cm, 2.7kg

10.9x21.7x13cm, 2.7kg

12.4x20.8x3.6cm, 1.5kg

4.5x15.2x17.2cm, 1.04kg

10.9x21.6x14.8cm, 3.25kg

10.2x22.5x10.2cm, 2.32kg

caPacity tested

8TB (2x 4TB)

6TB (2x 3TB)

8TB (1x 8TB)

8TB (1x 8TB)

4TB (2x 4TB)

6TB (2x 3TB)

raid levels

RAID 0 (preconfigured), RAID 0 (preconfigured), n/a RAID 1, JBOD RAID 1, JBOD

n/a

RAID 0, RAID 1 (preconfigured), JBOD

RAID 0, RAID 1 (preconfigured), JBOD

Processor, MeMory

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

1.3GHz Marvell Armada 385 (dual-core), 1GB

2GHz Celeron (quad-core), 2GB

connectivity

2x Thunderbolt 2, USB-A (USB 3.0)

2x Thunderbolt 2, USB-A (USB 3.0)

USB-C (USB 3.1)

USB-A (USB 3.0)

2x Gigabit Ethernet, (with link aggregation)

2x Gigabit Ethernet (with link aggregation)

Power button, 2x USB-A (3.0) ports (one each on front and rear; front-facing port has one-click copy button)

Power button, one-touch copy, 2x USB-A (3.0, one on front), 2x USB-A (2.0), HDMI, remote control

extras

Power button

Power/standby button

Bus-powered

One-touch backup button, and a deep sleep mode

>design

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

>PerforMance

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

>features

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

>overall

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

HHHHH

macformat.com @macformat

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 99

APPLE CHOICE Mac Software

Capto Screen capture made easy £19.99 FROM Global Delight, globaldelight.com NEEDS OS X 10.10.5 or higher aking a screenshot of your desktop has never been too tricky, but recording video of it (or an iOS device) is another story. Capto offers an easy a way to do both, along with a few basic editing tools. If you’re planning anything more complicated than a quick product demo, though, you’re going to want to use Final Cut Pro. But if that’s your limit, Capto will offer all you’re likely to need.

Recording from iOS is a particularly painless exercise, just like in QuickTime since OS X Yosemite’s release: plug

T

VERDICT

An excellent tool as far as it goes, which may not be far enough for your needs.

HHHHH Efficient iOS recording Very limited editing

Screen recording? No problem, but Capto is fairly basic stuff.

in your device, choose it as your video or audio source, then click a big red button.

The only catch is having to flick between recording your mic or iOS device. This isn’t the case for recording your Mac, where both are available.

There’s also no stacking audio if you want to bring in background music, or control over anything except basic volume, never mind being able to bring in different

tracks and use tricks like audio ducking. Capto has the basics, including arrows, speech bubbles, blurs and shadows. You can blur out bits of the screen, but you can’t invert that to draw focus to the important stuff.

On the plus side, Capto is far cheaper than competing tools like Camtasia, and is a competent tool if you don’t need to get too in-depth.

RichaRD cObbEtt

TeamViewer 11 Control your Mac remotely Free (for personal use), £29.90/month (for business use) FROM TeamViewer, teamviewer.com NEEDS OS X 10.7 or higher eamViewer allows you to remotely control your Mac from an iPhone or iPad, either over a local network or the internet. Similar to LogMeIn and GoToMyPC, TeamViewer lets you control the pointer on the remote computer, as well as use keyboard controls. Or, you can tap the screen to click, similar to using Multi-Touch gestures on an iOS device.

First you must download TeamViewer on the Mac you want to control. You can create a TeamViewer account and add the Mac to it, but that

T

VERDICT

A useful tool for accessing a remote Mac to transfer files or take control of it.

HHHHH Access a remote Mac Controlling a Mac is hard

100 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Interacting with a remote Mac on a touchscreen can be tricky.

isn’t necessary – all you need is the ID and password for the computer you want to access.

When you open the iOS app, enter this ID and, once the app has located the Mac, enter the password and you’ll be in charge of the computer. All communication between app and Mac is encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption.

While TeamViewer is great for accessing files you left on an office Mac or for

shutting down your work computer when you forget, it suffers from the same issues as its cohorts: controlling a Mac using gestures on an iOS device is very tricky.

Setting up TeamViewer on remote Macs is not as simple as it could be, but its iOS app is easy enough to use – that is, as long as you’re able to master working with a Mac using on-screen Multi-Touch gestures. KENNy hEMphill

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Picktorial An impressive photo-editing app that won’t break the bank Reviewed by IAn eVenden £29.99 FROM Picktorial Innovations, picktorial.com needs OS X 10.9.5 or higher, OpenCL 1.2-capable graphics processor

Picktorial’s developer has put a lot of thought into its design and feature set

hoto-editing apps tend to go one of two ways: you’ve got one-shot filter effects, such as Priime Styles, and more Photoshop-like apps with in-depth tools for full control of editing your images in any way you like.

Picktorial features aspects of both, though.

While it’s unfortunate there are no layers to work with, you do get non-destructive editing to play with. There’s also skin-smoothing, raw image file support for a growing list of cameras, white balance adjustment tools, and a curves adjustment histogram, as well as compatibility with existing Aperture catalogue files – although Picktorial doesn’t feature that app’s organisational abilities.

The interface is clean and uncluttered, with editing tools in an Inspector panel on the right, and file browsing on the left and below the image you’re editing. Any of the side panels can be slid out of the way when you’re not using them.

Photo filters aren’t always to everyone’s taste. Happily, though, Picktorial contains film-simulation filters along with its more Instagram-like ones. The bundled ones are

P

VERDICT Picktorial is a superb app, and a great buy if you need an editor to replace Aperture.

HHHHH Clean interface Packed with tools For all skill levels Doesn’t quite rival Photoshop Elements

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Tools range from basics like cropping using rule-of-thirds guides to powerful eight-channel colour adjustments.

Picktorial’s various panels can be hidden at will to increase your workspace.

customisable, you can create your own, and there’s a always reset button nearby if things get out of hand. That’s all some people will want, but this is a £30 app, so it’s gratifying that it takes things further.

Scroll down the Inspector and you’ll find tools for cropping and rotating images, Lightroom-style sliders including exposure and white balance, and some clever colour saturation settings that can alter the hue, saturation and luminosity of eight colour channels, along with a Split Tone tool for separately adjusting the colour of shadows and highlights. This is impressive stuff for such a newcomer to the imaging scene.

Picture-perfect?

Retouching options include a Tone tool that only affects a preselected region of your photo, which you define by painting. You can then adjust colour temperature, exposure, contrast and saturation over the defined area using a discrete set of sliders. It’s a neat way of getting around the lack of a general selection tool like the one in Photoshop, and you can paint more than one region, flicking between them and fine-tuning your edits. It takes a steady hand if you want to be accurate with your selection, though. Overlays to add folds, cracks and frames to your images are also available, as is watermarking to protect your creations with your copyright.

All things considered, Picktorial is a very good image editor. Its developer has put a lot of thought into its design and feature set, with tools that are easy to use and a simple interface. It would make a fine replacement for Aperture’s editing tools and if you don’t want to pay more for (or tackle the complexity of) Photoshop Elements or Affinity Photo.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 101

APPLE CHOICE Mac Software

Art Text 3 Paint a thousand words £39.99 FROM BeLight, belightsoft.com NEEDS OS X 10.10 or higher his app simply applies effects to a chunk of text, but the extent of those effects makes it something special.

With dozens of presets, ranging from 2D textures to bevelled 3D extrusions with bump maps and lighting, Art Text produces instant artwork that’s then highly customisable. You can even apply 3D warps on top of other operations to make letter shapes come alive.

It’s not without its flaws.

The painted effects are just fills; you can’t create brushed strokes. Bump maps don’t

T

VERDICT

Not robust enough for serious work, but it delivers gratifyingly eye-popping results.

HHHHH Customisable effects Awkward behaviour

Having picked an effect, you can customise it in many ways.

quite work as they should on objects’ edges. Shadows are disappointing, loosely resembling a wall shadow, with no floor shadow option.

Also, the Kerning control only works globally, so we often had to split our text into individual letters, which brought its own issues.

A bug, which BeLight told us would be fixed soon, made our initial document tiny.

This was easy to change this

in Edit > Document Size, but trying to do so later, using the option to resize objects, made our text vanish. That meant it was crucial to get the right resolution at the start, because on exporting your finished work as a GIF, JPEG or PNG, the DPI setting only affects the file’s metadata, not how many pixels are output, and exporting to PDF still saves a bitmap graphic, not a scalable vector file. ADAM BANkS

MacFamilyTree 8 Back at the top of the (family) tree £44.99 FROM Synium Software, syniumsoftware.com NEEDS OS X 10.10 or higher acFamilyTree is 18 years old, so it’s appropriate this latest release feels like a coming of age. The app is a complete tool for managing and publishing your family history, with all the core functionality you’d expect coupled with useful online features like iCloud syncing, the ability to share your tree online, and integration with the familysearch.org website.

Version 7 was a little disappointing, but since then Synium Software has been busy providing free major updates to improve key areas

M

VERDICT

Better performance and refined features make this the best family history tool yet.

HHHHH Regular free updates Annoying niggles

102 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Tool options appear in the palettes on the right.

of the app, specifically its subpar Places management tools. Street-level mapping was introduced a while back, and MacFamilyTree 8 tunes things further by adding a map to the Places screen, so you can immediately see if you’ve selected the right one.

Other improvements include an overhauled user interface – particularly good is a new Interactive Tree view, which has basic editing tools

integrated into it. There’s also support for custom fact types (at last!), smart filters, new Sidebar lists for browsing your database, as well as an improved editing mode.

Some minor annoyances remain – no date field for photos, for example – but on the whole the app’s a triumph, and we’ve no hesitation in making MacFamilyTree our family history app of choice once again. Nick PEERS

macformat.com @macformat

iOS Software APPLE CHOICE

Bez Vector drawing on your iPad Free FROM JuicyBits, juicybitssoftware.com Made FOR iPad ost drawing apps for the iPad try to innovate or specialise, yet Bez provides all the basic vector tools, and does a neat job of it.

In testing, Bézier curves worked as expected, although when trying to close paths by joining to the first node, it was easy to miss. Smart Guides help you to position objects, and the essential combine and align operations are all present, but the lack of a Direct Selection tool (the white arrow in Illustrator) makes editing awkward.

Compared to drawing on

M

VERDICT

There’s room to improve, but this is a deeply thought-out and well-designed app.

HHHHH Great core tool set Can feel a bit vague

Drawing can be simple, yet a full set of tools is available.

a Mac, we felt the absence of the Shift key to constrain shapes and build selections. iPad Pro users can also draw freehand with the Apple Pencil. There’s no support for other active styluses such as Adonit’s Jot Touch Pixel, but our inexpensive passive stylus worked well: a +/- control lets you smooth wobbly paths, and you can auto-convert approximations of shapes such as circles. Fills are

limited to solid colours and simple gradients, which will get you a long way with transparency and blending.

You can add text too, but formatting is very limited.

Almost everything works in the free version, but a £5.99 in-app purchase gets you vector export (to iCloud Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive) in SVG format for web delivery or transfer to desktop apps.

adaM Banks

Streets 3 Virtually roam the world’s streets £1.49 FROM FutureTap, futuretap.com Made FOR iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Apple Watch iven that Google Maps for iOS includes Street View, a standalone product for browsing Street View panoramas might seem superfluous. Streets 3 proves otherwise. It places Street View front and centre, making it easier to examine coverage as a whole and access the specific area you want to see. When in map mode, a circular thumbnail of Street View is shown, and vice versa; when in Street View, that thumbnail can be expanded in size with a single tap, thereby speeding up

G

VERDICT

An unexpectedly impressive app that’s worth buying if you often use Street View.

HHHHH Usable and focussed Interface niggles

macformat.com @macformat

Streets 3 works as per Google Maps, albeit less smoothly.

browsing streets and moving your position.

Specific locations can be stored as favourites, and the app bundles a gallery of famous sites in its search feature. These are arbitrarily ordered, but it’s still amusing to explore the pyramids and Stonehenge, and a pull-down tab provides more info on what you’re looking at. More practically, Streets 3 can act as Street View for Apple Maps:

in Apple’s app, hold a finger on a location, pick Transport, then tap View Transport Apps and choose Streets.

We had minor niggles during review – navigating panoramas is noticeably jerkier than in Google Maps, and the view zooming out and back in when shifting locations is unnecessarily dizzying. On the whole, though, Streets is a winner.

CRaig gRannell

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 103

STORE GUIDE Apple Kit

UpDATED OCT 2015 ExpECTED lATE 2016

EdiTEd bY

AlEx BlAkE

Your complete guide to the best Apple hardware and third-party accessories elcome to MacFormat’s Store Guide, the place to go to find out about all the Apple kit that matters – updated this issue to include the revamped 12-inch MacBook with speedier specs.

We’ve chosen our top products from Apple’s product line-up, plus the best third-party kit that meets our quality standard.

Whether you’re a recent convert or a seasoned Apple user, we highlight a model of each product that’s ideally suited to your needs. So, check our handy tables to see which Mac, iPad or iPhone is best for you. We’ve also highlighted the gold standard in audio, storage, cameras, and many other categories to complement your Mac or iOS device with the best accessories.

W

Who’s it for?

ENTRY LEVEL

UPGRADER

HIGH END

you’re just getting started in the world of Apple and need to know where to begin.

A firm Apple user, you’re ready to move on and get even more from your tech.

Apple is your life. you prize quality and want the best that money can buy.

iMac Ever since the famous Bondi Blue iMac debuted way back in August 1998, Apple’s all-in-one desktop computer has been setting standards in gorgeous design and powerful performance.

Apple’s spirit of innovation was as clear back then as it is today – the iMac was the first Macintosh to abandon the floppy disk in favour of USB ports, and its bright, colourful aesthetic set it apart as a playful pretender in a world of staid beige boxes.

These days Apple is again pushing boundaries with the iMac, blessing all of its 27-inch models with the world’s best display, which has a massive 5K (5120x2880) resolution. Add in a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (configurable from 3.2GHz up to 4.0GHz), 8GB of RAM, a fast and capacious Fusion Drive, and a powerful AMD Radeon R9 graphics processor – and the large iMac is the desktop system to own. In 2015, Apple lowered the price of the top-spec 27-inch model by £150 and introduced the first 21.5-inch iMac with a Retina 4K display. All iMacs (except the entry-level, 21.5-inch model) have a quad-core processor.

Choose an iMac

= Retina display

Monitor.........................................107 Ultra HD monitor..............107 Portable storage...............107 network storage...............107 Wireless router....................107 Thunderbolt dock............107 Printer............................................107 IP camera...................................107 MacBook bag.........................107

104 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Wireless speaker..............109 Portable speaker..............109 On-ear headphones......109 In-ear headphones.........109 Portable battery................109 Action camera.....................109 Camera stabiliser.............109 iPhone stand..........................109 Apple Watch stand.........109

EnTRy LEVEL

iMac..................................................104 MacBook....................................105 MacBook Pro.........................105 Mac Pro........................................105 Mac mini......................................105 iPhone...........................................106 iPad....................................................106 iPad Pro........................................106 Apple Watch...........................106

price

21.5-inch 2.8GHz quad-core intel core i5

RAM 8GB of 1867MHz lpddr3 GRAphics intel iris pro Graphics 6200 sTORAGE 1tB (5,400rpm) DispLAY 1920x1080 (ips, srGB gamut) ALsO Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard

£1,049

UPGRADER

Inside your buying guide…

Key specifications

21.5-inch 3.1GHz dual-core intel core i5

RAM 8GB of 1867MHz lpddr3 GRAphics intel iris pro Graphics 6200 sTORAGE 1tB (5,400rpm) DispLAY retina 4K (ips, p3 gamut) ALsO Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard

£1,199

HIGH EnD

Model

27-inch 3.3GHz quad-core intel core i5

RAM 8GB of 1867MHz ddr3 GRAphics aMd radeon r9 M395 sTORAGE 2tB fusion drive DispLAY retina 5K (ips, p3 gamut) ALsO Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard

£1,849

macformat.com @macformat

Apple Kit STORE GUIDE

UpDATED ApR 2016 ExpECTED 2017

UpDATED MAy 2015 ExpECTED SOOn

UpDATED DEC 2013 ExpECTED SOOn

MacBook

MacBook Pro

Mac Pro

The baby of Apple’s laptop family, the MacBook was recently updated with slightly improved specs and a new Rose Gold colour. Weighing in at just 0.92kg, it’s Apple’s most lightweight laptop but still packs in a 226ppi pixel density in its 12-inch Retina display.

The MacBook is powered by an Intel Core M processor (at 1.1GHz, 1.2GHz or 1.3GHz), which doesn’t require a fan to keep cool, so the MacBook runs silently.

It also features a Force Touch trackpad, which can trigger different responses as you apply more pressure. All models of the MacBook come with 8GB of 1866MHz memory, with no option to add more, and Intel HD Graphics 515 – that’s 25% faster than the previous iteration – and there are 256GB or 512GB flash storage options. There are four colour options: Silver, Space Grey, Gold, and the new Rose Gold.

Following hot on the heels of the MacBook, the MacBook Pro recently gained a Force Touch trackpad. At the same time, the MacBook Pro range saw small boosts to its Intel and graphics processors. The top-of-the-line model is currently the only one to offer a discrete graphics processor, in the form of the AMD Radeon R9 M370X – the other models have an integrated Intel Iris or Iris Pro graphics processor.

All except the entry-level MacBook Pro are equipped with a Retina display, in either 13-inch or 15-inch sizes. They also have two Thunderbolt 2 and two USB 3.0 ports, an SDXC card reader, and their flash storage ranges from 128GB to 1TB, depending on the model you pick as a starting point. Battery life is also improved, with the 13-inch model lasting 10 hours and the 15-inch model going strong for nine hours.

If you need power – and we mean serious power – this is the computer for you. Even the entry-level model comes with 12GB of RAM, a quad-core 3.7GHz processor, 256GB of speedy PCIe flash storage and dual AMD FIrePro D300 graphics cards. However, with a price point to match, it last being updated in 2013, and Thunderbolt 3 just around the corner, consider holding out for the next version.

£1,049

12-inch 1.2GHz RAM 8GB of 1866MHz dual-core lpddr3 intel core m5 GRAphics intel Hd Graphics 515 ssD 512GB

£1,299

12-inch 1.3GHz RAM 8GB of 1866MHz dual-core lpddr3 intel core m7 GRAphics intel Hd Graphics 515 ssD 256GB or 512GB

£1,249 or £1,419

macformat.com @macformat

Key specifications

price

EnTRy LEVEL

EnTRy LEVEL

12-inch 1.1GHz RAM 8GB of 1866MHz dual-core lpddr3 intel core m3 GRAphics intel Hd Graphics 515 ssD 256GB

Model 13-inch 2.7GHz dual-core intel core i5

RAM 8GB of 1866MHz lpddr3 GRAphics intel iris Graphics 6100 ssD 256GB

£1,199

UPGRADER

price

UPGRADER

Model

Choose a MacBook Pro

15-inch 2.2GHz quad-core intel core i7

RAM 16GB of 1600MHz ddr3l GRAphics intel iris pro Graphics ssD 256GB

£1,599

HIGH EnD

Key specifications

HIGH EnD

Choose a MacBook

15-inch 2.5GHz quad-core intel core i7

RAM 16GB of 1600MHz £1,999 ddr3l GRAphics aMd radeon r9 M370X ssD 512GB

From £2,499

UpDATED OCT 2014 ExpECTED lATE 2016

Mac mini

From £399

A welcome update in 2014 brought a £100 price drop to the most affordable Mac. The mini has some interesting talking points: the entry-level model has a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM, making it akin to the entry-level MacBook Air but with a 500GB hard drive and no display. Higher end models come with 1TB storage (a Fusion Drive option is available), 8GB of RAM, a better graphics processor and either a 2.6GHz or 2.8GHz Intel Core i5 for £569 and £799, respectively. Those models can be upgraded to Core i7 processors, though there are no quad-core options available – you’ll need an iMac for that.

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 105

STORE GUIDE Apple Kit

UpDATED SEpT 2015 ExpECTED q3 2016

UpDATED MAR 2016 ExpECTED SEpT 2016

UpDATED MAR 2016 ExpECTED q3 2016

iPhone

iPad

iPad Pro

Apple brought 3D Touch to the iPhone with the 6s and 6s Plus, providing extra interactions depending on the level of pressure you apply to the screen. For example, a light press on an email lets you ‘peek’ at its contents, so you can decide whether to delete it or, with a firmer press, ‘pop’ it open to reply to it.

While the new iPhone SE lacks 3D Touch, it matches many features of the iPhone 6s, from a 12MP rear camera and 4K video recording to an A9 chip and M9 motion coprocessor. All that comes in a compact 4-inch case, so it has plenty of power and is perfect for anyone put off by the larger iPhones.

All models have front-facing cameras for video calls. There’s also Live Photos, which capture the moments before and after you take a photo to make a short video, plus all feature high-quality Retina displays.

Aside from the beautifully gargantuan 12.9-inch iPad Pro (see right), there was a small but very welcome change to Apple’s tablet line-up last September with the addition of the iPad mini 4, which is essentially an iPad Air 2 in a smaller chassis. The Air 2 hasn’t changed since late 2014, though.

On the software side, iOS 9 has brought multitasking features, which are a boon for productivity. you can slide a second app over the right side of the one you’re working in (great for quickly checking email), then dismiss it to get back to work. Picture in Picture enables you to watch video in a corner of the screen – but it may be a bit too small on the mini. Those two features work on the Air 2, mini 2 and Pro and newer models. There’s also Split View, on the Air 2, mini 4 and Pro, which lets you work on two apps side by side.

The iPad Pro now comes in 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch sizes, packed with either 32GB, 128GB or 256GB of storage.

All models except the 32GB, 12.9-inch one are available with the option of mobile network connectivity. The Pro’s A9X chip is the most powerful in any iOS device, and it has an impressive four-speaker sound system, too. Adding the pressure-sensitive Apple Pencil makes it an accomplished drawing tool.

iphone se (4-inch display)

cApAciTY: 64GB pROcEssOR: a9 3D TOUch no cAMERA 12Mp photos, 4K video recording

£439

iphone 6s (4.7-inch display)

cApAciTY: 128GB pROcEssOR: a9 3D TOUch yes cAMERA 12Mp photos, 4K video recording

£619

iphone 6s plus (5.5-inch display)

cApAciTY: 128GB pROcEssOR: a9 3D TOUch yes cAMERA 12Mp photos, 4K video recording

£789

106 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

Model

Key specifications

price

EnTRy LEVEL

EnTRy LEVEL

price

ipad mini 4

cApAciTY 64GB pROcEssOR a8 cONNEcTiViTY Wi-fi cAMERA 8Mp TOUch iD yes

£399

UPGRADER

Key specifications

ipad air 2

cApAciTY 64GB pROcEssOR a8X cONNEcTiViTY Wi-fi cAMERA 8Mp TOUch iD yes

£429

HIGH EnD

Model

UPGRADER

Choose an iPad

HIGH EnD

Choose an iPhone

12.9-inch ipad pro

cApAciTY 128GB pROcEssOR a9X cONNEcTiViTY Wi-fi cAMERA 8Mp TOUch iD yes

£799

From £499

UpDATED SEpT 2015 ExpECTED MID 2016?

Watch

From £259

Apple’s first foray into the world of high fashion certainly turned heads when it arrived on the scene. Apple has since released a slew of updates in the form of watchOS 2, which expands the capabilities of third-party apps, as well as a range of new case colours and strap options (although hardware specifications are unchanged).

Among the new straps are several Woven nylon models in various vibrant colours, plus a snappy yellow Sport Band made of comfy fluoroelastomer.

The Watch comes in aluminium, stainless steel or 18-carat gold cases, the first of which now has Gold and Rose Gold colour options.

macformat.com @macformat

Accessories STORE GUIDE

bEsT bUYs… curated picks of third-party kit MOnITOR

UlTRA hD MOnITOR

pORTABlE STORAGE

ViewSonic VP2772 £569

AOC U3277PQU £574

Samsung T3 SSD From £95

viewsonic.com

aoc.com

samsung.com/uk

If you’re not fussed about 4K but still want exceptional image quality, this IPS display is truly superb. It offers 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB colour space, 10-bit colour and a 2560x1440-pixel resolution. It has HDMI 1.4, DVI and Mini DisplayPort connections, and four USB 3.0 ports for expansion.

The recent winner of our 4K displays group test, this 32-inch screen is a joy to work with, and a monitor of this size is the perfect setting for 4K to really come into its own. From stunning picture quality and top-notch contrast ratio to the reasonable price for such a wide display, it’s a winner all round.

This drive’s performance is typical for a USB 3 SSD, but we’re enamoured by its compact form, which makes it stand out, as well as its lightness – it weighs just 51g. It also sports AES-256 hardwarebased encryption, and comes in capacities up to 2TB, though you’ll need considerable cash in order to buy the largest one.

nEw!

nETwORk STORAGE

wIRElESS ROUTER

ThUnDERBOlT DOCk

QnAP TS-251+ £442

netgear nighthawk D7000 £140

CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 2 £180

qnap.com

netgear.co.uk

caldigit.com/uk

We know a good nAS drive when we see one, which is why the TS-251+ won MF302’s group test.

It’s one of the quickest nAS drives we’ve seen lately, with transfer rates of over 105MB/sec for large files.

It even has an HDMI port and a remote control for watching your media directly on your TV set. Four USB ports top it off.

This is one of the best 802.11ac routers you can get. It was one of the fastest models in MF301 ’s group test, and it can connect to ADSL, fibre and cable equipment, so it’s not stymied if you change your broadband setup. Its iOS app is great, and it’s hugely affordable for what it offers. A winner all round.

Our MF297 group test winner got the nod for its beautifully compact form and superb menu bar tool, which lets you eject individual drives as you please (something its rivals failed to offer).

It’s not the most laden with ports, but has everything that most people will need, and comes in at a great price point.

pRInTER

Ip CAMERA

MACBOOk BAG

Brother HL-3150CDW £149

Logi Circle £120

Knomo James £169

brother.co.uk

logitech.com

knomobags.com

This versatile laser printer got the nod in MF300’s group test.

Its light design, feature list, and impressive print quality make it a great choice for home office users. AirPrint and Wi-Fi connectivity means it plays nice with your iOS devices. It’s not great for printing photos, but is a winner at everything else.

Winner of MF299’s group test, the Logi Circle is packed with features.

It’s so easy to use and can be powered by batteries, making it highly portable.

With a wide 135° field of vision, it captures plenty of detail, and is very affordable. The Logi Circle is a barnstorming all-rounder, and looks great on your mantlepiece.

A beautifully made bag with a surprising amount of space inside. you’ll love the little touches, such as its big chunky zips and flashes of colour. It’s easy to turn the Knomo James into a smart office bag by removing the backpack straps, and Knomo provides each bag with a tracking ID in case yours goes AWOL.

macformat.com @macformat

AUGUST 2016 | MACFORMAT | 107

STORE GUIDE Accessories

bEsT bUYs… curated picks of third-party kit wIRElESS SpEAkER

pORTABlE BlUETOOTh SpEAkER

On-EAR hEADphOnES

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless £499

Kef Muo £299

Plantronics Backbeat Pro £125

bowers-wilkins.co.uk

kef.com

plantronics.com

This airship-inspired speaker is certainly striking, but it’s more than just a looker, with crisp, clear treble and refined bass output over previous Zeppelin models. Support for Bluetooth, Spotify Connect and AirPlay makes for plenty of connectivity, and dynamic EQ ensures controlled bass at all volumes.

Hi-fi king Kef brings its audio know-how to the portable speaker world and blows away the competition. Firm bass, a rich, detailed sound and sturdy build combine to form one impressive package, while you won’t be let down by the solid battery life. It’s one of the best portable speakers you can buy.

Wireless headphones are often blighted by meagre battery life, but not so with these cans, which run for more than 25 hours. They offer active noise-cancelling, brilliant wireless range, superb comfort and a huge range of intuitive touch controls, making these the wireless headphones to beat.

In-EAR hEADphOnES

pORTABlE BATTERy pACk

ACTIOn CAMERA

RHA MA 750i £90

Apple iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case £79

GoPro Hero4 Session

rha-audio.com

apple.com/uk

gopro.com

These in-ear buds impress on nearly every level. They come with easy-to-use inline controls and a steel-reinforced cable, while faultless low and mid range reproduction and a crafted, premium feel make them earphones of distinction. They are a world away from Apple’s cheap earbuds.

Despite that silly-looking hump on its back, the official battery case for the iPhone 6 and 6s is impressive. It’s easy to fit, the buttons feel great, and the soft inner lining protects against scratches. It isn’t the largest capacity case, yet it has more than enough juice for busy days, and the bump is surprisingly comfy.

nEw!

CAMERA STABIlISER

iphOnE STAnD

£159

GoPro has built a truly formidable reputation for itself as an action cam champ, and rightly so.

The Hero4 Session may be compact, but it’s a great all-rounder. Internal waterproofing, an outstanding app and impressive video quality, combined with an affordable price tag, make it a firm favourite at MacFormat.

ApplE wATCh STAnD

Zhiyun Z1 Smooth-C £157

Just Mobile AluBolt £41

nomad Stand for Apple Watch £50

zhiyun-tech.com

just-mobile.eu

hellonomad.com

The iPhone may take amazing videos, but if you’ve got shaky hands then your phone will still struggle. If that sounds like you, try the Zhiyun Z1 Smooth-C. It’s an iPhone holder with a built-in gimbal, so you can move your hand around and your footage will stay smooth with nary a bump or wobble.

Charge your iPhone in style with this simple yet elegant stand. From the curved backstop to the rounded aluminium base, it oozes Apple-esque design chops and will fit right in among your other Apple kit. The Lightning connector can be tilted to help mount your iPhone on it, which is a nice touch.

nomad’s stand is an absolutely gorgeous Apple Watch charging dock – carved from a single piece of curved aluminium, it looks like it could have been designed by Apple.

Its weighty base keeps everything in place and the cable management is so tidy that it looks like there’s no cable there at all.

108 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

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were deleted and confirmed it no longer had them. What am I doing wrong?

by E D W E B B E R

Your AirPrint receiver article (MF300) was really interesting, and it’s exactly what I need to get my excellent but rather old Canon MP610 working wirelessly. There are Windows and Mac drivers available, but it isn’t listed on the openprinting.org/printers site. Does this mean it can’t be used with the Raspberry Pi device?

Assuming it can, I have a few questions.

I have a Microsoft cordless keyboard and mouse that use a single USB port: will they be compatible for setting up the Raspberry Pi? It’s not quite clear to me which commands are input to the Raspberry Pi through the attached keyboard, and which are input to my MacBook. Are all the sudo commands on page 67 input on the Pi? Also, what does ‘headless’ mean? If I’m using AirPrint from my MacBook, can I use all the normal printing options available through the Apple driver when I use a USB connection? Will I be able to scan with it?

ALAN sAys… Were the files loose on the Time Capsule’s drive, or part of a Time Machine backup on it? For the former, following the instructions at bit.ly/verifytc to verify the drive’s file system. For the latter, you must ensure references from all points in time are deleted: enter Time Machine, browse to a file to delete, select it, and then click the cog on the toolbar and pick Delete All Backups of [item name] – see bit.ly/ rmtmfile. Let us know how you get on.

by B I L L I M E S O N

I treated myself to a 9.7-inch iPad Pro for my 75th birthday and was given a Apple Pencil as a present. Pencil and Pro talk to each other, but my Notes app does not show the new doodle icon.

My iPad’s software is the latest and I’m getting frustrated. What’s wrong?

ALAN sAys… The various commands are entered in Raspbian’s Terminal app; all that’s done on a Mac before that is to prepare an SD card with an operating system for the Pi. A headless computer is one without a display attached, and is typically networked so it can be maintained from another device. The bad news is we also couldn’t find a CUPS driver for your printer; other forums mention it in relation to Linux (Raspbian is based on a Linux distribution), but nothing concrete enough that we’d recommend trying the project unless you can borrow a friend’s Pi to try it.

WATCHING BRIEF After many frustrating years as a Windows PC user, I am looking this year to switching to an Apple laptop (after being so impressed with the iPhone). I have a CCTV system whose files I back up for security reasons.

This video is in H.264 format, can you recommend video software suitable for playing this format on Apple products and also to convert it to AVI format?

by G R A E M E H A R D Y

ALEX sAys… OS X’s own QuickTime Player or a good free player such as VLC will play back your video recordings in H.264 format, which is already be compressed to save space and will play

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on many modern devices, not just Apple’s. But we’re not sure why you’d need to convert to AVI except to play your video on devices where you think it’s better supported. Movavi (£25, movavi.com) should do the job, though, and there’s a trial version available.

TIME AND sPACE

DOODLE BUG

by A N T H O N Y W A L S H

CHRIsTIAN sAys… This is a curious one. When you first opened Notes did you accept the prompt to upgrade the format in which notes are stored in iCloud (see bit.ly/upgnotes). If you’re still using the old format, you won’t see the the Sketch tool. To get the prompt up again, force the app to quit (double-click the Home button, then swipe upwards on Notes’ preview), then reopen Notes and it should ask again about upgrading.

I have a 3TB AirPort Time Capsule with less than 1TB of space remaining.

I recently spent several hours deleting TV series and films that were cluttering it up – nearly 500GB, I’d say– but the free storage capacity remains at 0.8TB, the same as before I started. I re-entered the Time Capsule to check if the files

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Take the smart movie quiz... www.gamesradar.com/new-totalfilm-quiz

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TIME MACHINE Classic Apple kit given a unique makeover

Above: This tiny Apple III model cleverly includes a slot for an SD card reader in the floppy drive bay.

Left: Apple Watch docks based on classic 1980s Macs, and an Apple IIc Raspberry Pi enclosure.

Retro Apple miniatures Dinky, 3D-printed replicas of early Apple hardware Retro Apple gear makes us all warm and fuzzy inside, but its sheer bulk can be a turn-off.

So thank goodness for 3D printer artist Charles Mangin, who came up with these diminutive replicas of classic Apple products. Mangin channelled his inner geek to reproduce a range of the company’s vintage devices in miniature form, including functional versions, like the 1984 Mac that holds an Apple Watch, and even an Apple Lisa that works as an SD card reader.

Now anyone can enjoy a retro office without having to sacrifice essential desktop space.

They’re available to buy prebuilt at the Etsy page below, or you can get the 3D printed parts from Shapeways (bit.ly/1UkLsYZ), enabling you to paint, customise and finish them yourself.

From £22 website etsy.com/shop/RetroConnector

NExT IssuE ON sALE Tuesday 2 August 2016 114 | MACFORMAT | AUGUST 2016

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