MAC PRO: APPLE SILICON REDESIGN COMING 2022
13 ESSENTIAL MACOS TIPS SEPTEMBER 2021
REVEALED: 50 BEST APPLE ARCADE GAMES
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NEWS 4
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Apple is reportedly testing a new high-end monitor with an A13 chip inside Apple introduces a new online shopfront and there’s a lot to see Google Maps finally has dark mode and home screen widgets Apple’s fight against leakers has a surprising motive: cases
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Apple beefs up Intel Mac Pro performance with 3 new pricey GPU options
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You can now get a Touch ID Magic Keyboard for your M1 Mac Mini-LED is nice but Centre Stage is the iPad Pro feature the Mac needs M1X, M2, M2X chips: How fast will the next Pro Macs be? From M1X to 5G: How Apple’s careful control will bring even bigger things The next Mac Pro
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macOS Monterey: Full Keyboard Access provides freedom from the mouse macOS Monterey beta bug could affect Time Machine backups macOS Monterey: How to use Quick Note to quickly save anything macOS Monterey: How to use Live Text and Visual Look Up Verify your Mac’s drive health using Disk Utility Make and manage a shared iCloud calendar Keep a Mac cool and check its temperature Use the Terminal to see what Mac processes are accessing the Internet Look at your command history list in Terminal Learn these macOS Terminal shortcuts and spend less time typing Set a custom scale for each website in Safari
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Best Apple Arcade games
HELP DESK 102
Help Desk September 2021 • Macworld 3
NEWS
Apple is reportedly testing a new high-end monitor with an A13 chip inside Buy why? Jason Cross reports
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ccording to a report from 9to5Mac, citing “sources familiar with the matter”, Apple is internally testing a new display that will have an Apple SoC inside. The report says Apple is currently using the A13, the same 4 Macworld • September 2021
processor as you’ll find in the iPhone 11. Though the tech giant has long been rumoured to be working on a new lower-cost monitor, this particular project (codenamed J327) is said to be a high-end successor to the Pro Display XDR.
Stuffing an A13 inside would give the monitor a six-core CPU (two high-performance and four highefficiency cores), a four-core GPU and an eight-core Neural Engine, along with all the other stuff that goes into Apple’s modern SoCs like audio and video encoders, DSPs, and a secure enclave. It’s not yet clear what the purpose of this hardware might be. A full-scale application processor of this type is way overboard for normal monitor control operations (tone balance, backlight control, and so on). One might surmise that the monitor would have a full TrueDepth module instead of a regular FaceTime camera, allowing for Face ID, Memoji/ Animoji and other AR operations. But there’s no real need to do that stuff in-monitor. Data could easily be sent to the Mac over the Thunderbolt connection, where the Mac (perhaps exclusively those with Apple silicon) does the necessary processing work. You wouldn’t want to store items in a Secure Enclave in your monitor, either. The only reason we can really surmise that an Apple monitor would need a full SoC in it would be if Apple intends to provide some operations while the attached Mac is either off or asleep. Perhaps waking your Mac from sleep via Face ID (but how hard
is it to tap the keyboard or mouse/ trackpad?), or operating as a sort of HomePod or Apple TV without the Mac in the loop. We’ve heard rumours that Apple is working on a HomePod with a display, but that scenario seems more consumer-focused than you would find in a high-end professional monitor, though. So colour us intrigued.
September 2021 • Macworld 5
NEWS
Apple introduces a new online shopfront and there’s a lot to see Apple returns the ‘Store’ tab after six years. Michael Simon reports
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e may have seen the last ‘Be Right Back”. message on the Apple Store. After inexplicably going down for about an hour late last month, the online Apple 6 Macworld • September 2021
Store returned with a new tab, a new look, and a whole lot of new puns. While Apple has been selling products online for years, it hasn’t had a true storefront that encouraged browsing since the last redesign
in 2015. With this new look, products still have to buy links that go to dedicated sections of the store, but you no longer need to jump through hoops or search for a specific product to browse the digital shelves. The leftmost tab next to the Apple logo now says ‘Store’ as it did six years ago, Will Apple still need to shut down the entire store to add something new? and clicking it brings you to what Apple describes as: “The best way to buy find with dedicated cards in the the products you love.” centre of the page. It certainly is a better experience The look is fairly busy with and is much closer to the iOS and numerous rows of cards and clickable iPadOS apps. The front page of the elements, but overall it’s a letter store is filled with links to Apple’s experience. And it’s possible that family of products as well as a Apple might not need to take the store series of cards advertising the latest down for hours every time it needs to stuff with clever slogans like ‘Stick add a new product, a strange quirk Out’ (MagSafe), ‘Blast Past Fast’ that has is endearing to Apple fans (iPhone 12), and ‘A world of winning and confounding to anyone looking to looks’ (Apple Watch International buy a product during shutdown times. Collection bands). You can still find Apple hasn’t announced anything products the old way, but the new about back-end changes to the store, design is more likely to encourage and since it also took down the Apple impulse buying. For example, the Store app when updating Apple.com AirTag is spotlighted as well as the it’s entirely possible the practice HomePod mini. Shopping assistance could continue. and tech support is also easier to September 2021 • Macworld 7
NEWS
Google Maps finally has dark mode and home screen widgets Google gets on board with iOS 13. Michael Simon reports
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ith just weeks to go before iOS 15 arrives, Google is finally getting on board with some of the best features of iOS 13 and iOS 14. The company has 8 Macworld • September 2021
announced that it is bringing dark mode and home screen widgets to the Google Maps app. Dark mode is basically what you expect it to be: dressing the entire app in an optional black wrapper.
You can choose whether to turn dark mode on in the settings and it will presumably follow the system-wide options as well. Also new are a pair of widgets that can be added to the home screen. The Nearby Traffic widget is a small twoby-two widget that shows an updated view of the traffic conditions around your current location. The second is a large four-by-four Search widget that lets you ‘search for your favourite places or navigate to your frequent destinations with just a quick tap’. Along with the new colour and widgets, Google is also expanding its integration with Messages. iPhone users will be able to tap on the Google Maps Messages app and share their location for up to three days with friends. There will also be a stop button in the message to instantly disable it. Google says the update will be available “in the coming weeks”, but the Messages app is already available to try out by tapping the App Store icon in Messages and scrolling until you see the Google Maps logo.
September 2021 • Macworld 9
NEWS
Apple’s fight against leakers has a surprising motive: cases Apple’s China law firm sends cease-and-desist letters to social media leakers. Michael Simon reports
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ver the past few months, Apple has seemingly taken a much harder stance against online leakers, sending out cease-and-desist 10 Macworld • September 2021
letters to social media accounts that post assorted rumours that quickly spread around the web. Now Apple has a message to go along with it: you’re not harming us, you’re harming
the cases. In a cease-and-desist letter obtained by Motherboard, Apple’s law firm in China went after a leaker who had ‘advertised stolen iPhone prototypes on social media’. In the letter, Apple said the leaker has “disclosed without authorization a large amount of information related to Apple’s unreleased and rumoured products, which has constituted a deliberate infringement of Apple’s trade secrets”. According to Motherboard, Apple wrote that leaks harm customers by taking away the element of surprise, but also have an adverse effect on case makers and buyers. Apple told the leaker that “thirdparty accessory manufacturers may develop and sell mobile phone cases and other accessories that are not actually compatible with the unreleased products”. That’s a new avenue in the fight against leakers. While other phone makers work closely with big-name case makers to ensure availability at launch, Apple doesn’t often supply specs until after launch, leaving case makers in a tight spot. That’s why many of them follow rumours as closely as we do and make prototypes and actual shipping units based on leaks. We’ve seen numerous case
makers over the years trot out iPhone cases weeks and months before they arrive on the market. Occasionally the first batch doesn’t quite fit the actual product or has the wrong name on the outside, and Apple wants to stop that in the interest of quality control. Since Apple can’t actually prevent a case maker from launching a new product based on a leak, it’s appealing to the source to stop spreading information. “It is obvious that when the unpublished information about the design and performance of Apple’s products is kept confidential, it has actual and potential commercial value,” Apple wrote. Of course, the rumour market is robust for giant companies like Apple and Samsung and it’s unlikely that these efforts will have a major impact on the reporting and dissemination of rumours anytime soon. But if you buy an iPhone 13 case that doesn’t quite fit when you pop your iPhone into it, don’t blame Apple. Blame the leakers.
September 2021 • Macworld 11
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Apple beefs up Intel Mac Pro performance with 3 new pricey GPU options You can add the Radeon Pro W6800X, W6800X Duo or W6900X to a new Mac Pro, but it’ll cost you. Jason Cross reports
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pple and AMD have started offering new graphics options for the Mac Pro desktop and there’s no shortage of power. The 12 Macworld • September 2021
Radeon Pro W6800X, W6800X Duo, and W6900X are new workstationclass variants of AMD’s very popular consumer RDNA2 graphics cards, the Radeon 6800 and 6900XT. The
The W6800X Duo puts two GPUs and their memory on a single card. You can add two for a four-GPU workstation.
X6800X Duo is sort of unique in that it puts two Radeon Pro 6800 GPUs on a single card. The cards can now be selected – alone or in pairs – when configuring your Mac Pro. The Radeon Pro W6800X is similar to the consumer Radeon 6800: it features 60 compute units and a 256-bit memory bus, but it doubles the amount of GDDR6 memory from 16GB to 32GB. Configuring your Mac Pro with one of these cards is a £2,400 upgrade, or you can get two for £5,200. The Radeon Pro W6900X is similar to the consumer Radeon 6900XT: it features 80 compute units and a
256-bit memory bus, again doubling the GDDR6 memory bank from 16GB to 32GB. One of these is a £5,600 upgrade to your Mac Pro, two of them will cost you £11,600. The Radeon Pro W6800X Duo is unique in that it has no consumer analogue. It puts two W6800X GPUs, each with their own memory, on a single graphics card (pictured above). This card will run you £4,600, or you can buy two to create a four-GPU workstation for a mere £9,600. These GPUs replace the AMD Vega II MPX Modules as configuration options, but both those old cards and these new ones and are also available September 2021 • Macworld 13
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as standalone modules for those who have existing Mac Pros and want to swap out their graphics cards. The price for the standalone cards is £400 more than the upgrade price when configuring a new Mac Pro. Apple says they’ll offer big performance benefits for professionals, claiming improvements of up to 84 per cent when running Octane X, 23 per cent when using DaVinci Resolve, and a 26 per cent increase in frame rate when doing real-time 3D interaction in Maxon Cinema 4D.
14 Macworld • September 2021
You can now get a Touch ID Magic Keyboard for your M1 Mac But only in silver. Michael Simon reports
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t’s been a long three months since Apple unveiled the new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for the 24in iMac, but if you’ve been itching to get your hands on one, the wait is over.
Unveiled with little fanfare in its online shop, Apple is now selling the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID (£149 from fave.co/2VqoQ2S) and the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keyboard (£179 from September 2021 • Macworld 15
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fave.co/37m7Ahz). The models are the same that Apple offers with the 24in iMac, which Apple offers as an upgrade for £50 and £80, but only come in a single colour: silver. The keyboard is the same as the standard version with a Touch ID sensor in place of the eject button at the right end of the function row. However, if you want one you’ll need an M1 Mac. While Apple has offered Touch ID on Intel MacBooks built into the keyboard, the M1 chip in the latest laptops features a Secure Enclave integrated into the system on chip. Intel Macs, on the other hand, use a T2 co-processor to handle security which is likely the reason for the lack of support. In our testing of the new keyboard, we found that Touch ID works just as well as it does on MacBooks. Apple previously allowed the iMac keyboard to be paired with any M1 MacBook. In addition to the Touch ID keyboards, Apple is also selling ‘new’ versions of the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, though it appears that the only thing that’s different is the cable. Apple previously sold the devices with a standard Lightning to USB-A Cable but now they come with a woven Lightning to USB-C Cable. Of note, Apple has also 16 Macworld • September 2021
removed the numbers from the devices, which were both identified with the number ‘2’ in their name. The prices of the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are unchanged at £79 and £129, respectively.
Mini-LED is nice, but Centre Stage is the iPad Pro feature the Mac needs Apple needs to bring Centre Stage to the Mac. Jason Snell reports
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he iPad Pro has frequently been an incubator for technology that Apple ultimately plans on rolling out to the rest of its product line. Last year, the iPad Pro got a LiDAR
scanner months before it appeared in the iPhone 12. This year’s 12.9in model introduced the mini-LED screen technology that will probably be showing up very soon in a new line of MacBook Pro laptops. And September 2021 • Macworld 17
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this autumn’s iPhone Pro models are rumoured to come with high-refreshrate displays, pioneered years ago on the iPad as ProMotion. But there’s another core Apple technology of the future that’s currently available only on the newest iPad Pro. And I’m confident that, in the next couple of years, you’ll see it spread across most (but not all) of Apple’s products: Centre Stage. Centre Stage uses machinelearning technology to pan and zoom in a camera’s field of view to get the perfect shot during a FaceTime call or other videoconference. It will zoom in on a single subject, or zoom out to find every person in the frame. If you haven’t tried Centre Stage, you’ll need to trust me: it’s great. And having experienced it for months on my iPad Pro, I now want it everywhere. It’s too good a feature not to be, and as soon as possible.
THE OBVIOUS DESTINATION: MAC I like the new 24in M1 iMac, which was announced on the same day as the new iPad Pro. But it’s so frustrating that Apple introduced Centre Stage on the iPad Pro and omitted it from the iMac. (Chalk that one up to parallel product development, I guess 18 Macworld • September 2021
– I suspect that the iMac’s design predates the iPad’s, despite them arriving simultaneously.) Really, it’s only a matter of time until Centre Stage appears on the Mac. The technology is perfect for any device that generally stays still while people position themselves around its front-facing camera. The iMac is perfect for this, which is why I’d expect that the next iMac we see – presumably a replacement for the 27in Intel iMac that Apple is still selling – will support Centre Stage. And that eventually the 24in model will be updated to support it, too. It just makes too much sense in a device that will be stuck on a desk or kitchen counter. But I think Centre Stage will make sense on Apple’s laptops too. While I will occasionally take part in a videoconference with a MacBook on my lap, most of the time I’ll set the laptop on a table or chair. Families with Mac laptops enabled with Centre Stage can turn them into great FaceTime devices just by placing them on the coffee table. To me, the only question is when Centre Stage will arrive. On the software side, I suspect Apple’s already got this covered – the code that’s running on the iPad Pro is,
after all, already optimized for Apple Silicon. The real question is hardware. Centre Stage takes advantage of an ultra-wide frontfacing camera, so it can capture as much of a room as possible and then dynamically crop and remove distortion to give you the sense that there’s Centre Stage follows you as you move around the camera. a camera operating zooming and panning. An Echo Show, HomePod, or any Apple’s been slow to upgrade the other device that might be parked front-facing cameras on Macs, but I in a kitchen or living area has a real very much hope that this next round of liability: it’s probably not going to get redesigned laptops leaves space for picked up and moved around. And yet, a high-resolution ultra-wide camera when you consider a device in this capable of being an excellent source class, it’s hard not to imagine video for Centre Stage. calls being a key use case. I’ve tried OTHER ANCHORED video calls on my Echo Show, but the DEVICES COULD BENEFIT angle is lousy and Amazon’s calling A few months back, there were software isn’t worth my time. rumours that Apple was testing out But when I imagine a similar a future HomePod that would have a device, built by Apple and with a screen. As a user of an Amazon Echo camera equipped with Centre Stage, Show, I can see the appeal of such a it gets a lot more interesting. That device. But once Centre Stage came device, anchored in one position, on the scene, the shape of an Apple can follow you around the room as product strategy came into view. you talk. It’s a perfect match. (I also September 2021 • Macworld 19
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think this would be a great match for a future Apple TV model or Apple TV camera accessory that sits atop the TV screen, to enable FaceTime calls on the big screen – while keeping the actual picture it’s shooting dynamic and interesting.)
DYNAMIC DEVICES? NOT SO MUCH As for the rest of Apple’s product line, I’m not so sure. I don’t really see how most iPhone use cases would work with Centre Stage since you hold an iPhone in your hands and can position it as you like. You’re the camera operator, in that case. And then there’s the Apple Watch, which obviously doesn’t need Centre Stage – or does it? Maybe not the Centre Stage we know now, but I wonder if the same techniques that Centre Stage uses to remove distortion from a wide-angle lens might allow a camera mounted somewhere on an Apple Watch to create a more pleasing image that looks more like a professionally shot video and less like a camera pointing up someone’s nose. Apple can only do so much, but the power of this technology is strong.
20 Macworld • September 2021
M1X, M2, M2X chips: How fast will the next Pro Macs be? We have a good idea of what Apple’s planning – and it’s going to be epic. Michael Simon reports
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hen Apple released the M1 chip at the end of last year, two things were clear: Macs were a whole lot faster and the future was incredibly bright. What we didn’t know was how Apple would handle updates
now that the entry-level models were as fast as some of the Pro machines. At the time, Apple said it was developing “a family of chips” that would be unveiled as the transition continued over the next couple of years, and now that it seems the M1 September 2021 • Macworld 21
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Macs have all been released, we’re anxiously awaiting the next step. The timeline is a little clearer now. Now that Apple has updated its entire line-up of consumer-level Macs with the M1 chip in the MacBook Air, 13in MacBook Pro, Mac mini and 24in iMac rumours are piling up about the next round of Apple silicon-based Macs. According to the latest speculation, Apple will be following a similar cadence to the A-series chips in the iPhone and iPad but with way more power between generations. Apple’s current M1 processor is based on the 5nm A14 chip that first arrived in the iPad Air and later the iPhone 12. It has 4 high-performance cores with 192KB of L1 instruction
cache and 128KB of L1 data cache and shared 12MB L2 cache and 4 energy-efficient cores with 128KB of instruction cache, 64KB of L1 data cache, and shared 4MB L2 cache. That makes a total of 8 cores split evenly among power and efficiency leading to tremendous speed boosts over the prior models. The system-ona-chip also has an 8-core GPU in most models (the entry-level MacBook Air and 24in iMac have a 7-core GPU) with 128 execution units and up to 24,576 concurrent threads. Memory has also changed. With the M1, the LP-DDR4 memory isn’t just soldered to the motherboard, it’s actually part of the chip itself. That means it’s faster and more efficient than before, but it’s also a bit more limited – you can only get 8GB or 16GB in an M1 Mac and there’s no way to upgrade it after purchase. (That won’t be a surprise for MacBook buyers but the same unfortunately applies to desktop models.) And finally, Apple’s M1 processor is based on the 5nm A14 chip that first arrived in the iPad Air and later the iPhone 12. the chip has a 22 Macworld • September 2021
16-core Neural Engine, along with the Secure Enclave and USB4/ Thunderbolt support.
M1X: LATE 2021 We started hearing about the development of an M1X chip earlier this year, and it looks to be making an appearance in the redesigned 14in and 16in MacBook Pro later this A redesigned 16in MacBook Pro will likely showcase the M1X processor. year. Much like the A12X in the 2018 iPad Pro, it will be built on the same architecture as was a six-core CPU with two highthe existing M1 processor but bring performance cores and four highfaster all-around performance. efficiency cores while the A12X was According to CPU Monkey, which an eight-core chip with four highclaims to have received benchmarks performance cores and four highof the upcoming chip, the M1X could efficiency cores. have a 12-core CPU with 10 highThose specs would give Apple’s performance cores and two highhigher-end M1X Macs a nice efficiency cores, and a 16-core GPU performance boost over the current with 256 execution units and a shared crop of M1 machines. It’s also 32GB L2 cache and up to 64GB of rumoured that they will bring support LPDDR4X. In a slightly different take, for four Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. Mark Gurman has reported slightly M2: EARLY 2022 different M1X CPU specs, with eight Apple’s M2 chip will likely arrive in the high-performance cores and two next MacBook Air, which looks to get high-efficiency cores. a complete redesign with new colours Based on what we know of prior to match the 24in iMac. According to ‘X’ releases, that makes sense. For Bloomberg, Apple’s next-generation example, the A12 in the iPhone Xs September 2021 • Macworld 23
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processor “will include the same number of computing cores as the M1 but run faster”. That’s similar to how Apple approaches A-series upgrades, which has had six cores since the A11 processor despite vastly improved performance. As far as the GPU Apple is reportedly developing a new Mac Pro with an incredibly powerful custom chip inside. goes, Bloomberg reports that the cores several tiers of performance, which will increase from seven or eight to could “come in 20 or 40 computing nine or 10. core variations, made up of 16 highWe don’t know yet how speeds performance or 32 high-performance compare, but based on previous cores and four or eight high-efficiency chips, we can expect the M2 cores”, according to a Bloomberg processor to actually be a bit report. The workstation-calibre chip slower than the M1X chip. The same is also rumoured to have 64 core or limitations on USB4/Thunderbolt 128 core options for graphics, which and RAM will likely remain as well would replace the AMD GPUs in since Apple is establishing non-X current models. Those specs are chips as consumer products for comparable to what Intel and AMD users who aren’t as demanding. offer in their top-of-the-line chips and M2X: LATE 2022 would challenge the fastest PCs, at According to reports, Apple is least on paper. planning an even higher-end chip Apple could very well call this for the Mac Pro and possibly a chip the M2X, but since the Mac Pro larger iMac. The chip will likely have processor would represent such a 24 Macworld • September 2021
big jump from even the rumoured chips, it will likely be separated from the pack with a whole new naming system. (Apple has previously used the ‘Z’ identifier on chips to indicate improved graphics performance.) Mark Gurman reported that the next iMac will likely use the M1X or M2X chip in the next iMac, but it’s not clear if he’s referring to this chip or a lower-powered M2 variant. It’s also possible that Apple pairs two M1X chips inside the Mac Pro to boost performance, a tactic it last used with the Power Mac G4 back in 2001. But however Apple plans to go about it, expect the new Mac Pro to bring tremendous speed that blows away today’s model and caters to ultra-high computing demands. This chip and machine won’t be for mere mortals, but thankfully Apple has plenty in the works that are.
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From M1X to 5G: How Apple’s careful control will bring even bigger things Why Apple brings its core technologies in-house. Dan Moren reports
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pple’s fixation on control is legendary. From the earliest days, the company prided itself on building the whole widget, hardware, and software, in an age where those 26 Macworld • September 2021
two were becoming increasingly decoupled. Even today, it remains arguably the defining characteristic of the company. Just compare it to its main rivals in the smartphone or PC market.
As Apple has become larger and more successful, that focus on control over the whole widget has gotten even broader. The company’s been building its own processors for mobile devices for more than a decade, and those advancements have finally jumped to the Mac. On the other end, Apple has The days of Apple using Qualcomm chips are probably numbered. introduced more and more services that help provide that Apple has gone to great lengths the glue between those traditional to secure the requisite technology. hardware and software components. That move came primarily in two This trend isn’t about to stop any time parts: First, in April of 2019, Apple soon; there are plenty of places where and Qualcomm – one of the largest the company has decided to move its manufacturers of the cellular modem core technologies in-house. chipsets – buried the hatchet, ending a CELLULAR spate of nasty legal fighting between REPRODUCTION the two companies. As part of that Outside of the processor itself, the deal, Apple licensed Qualcomm’s ability to connect to cellular networks patents for at least six years and is probably the most important struck a ‘multi-year’ supply deal. hardware feature in a smartphone. The second hit in that one-two (Without them, we might all be punch landed three months later carrying around an iPod touch that when Apple announced that it had could only use Wi-Fi, and the mobile bought most of Intel’s foundering revolution might have looked quite a modem business. bit different.) Given the crucial nature As of 2021, we’ve yet to see an of cellular connectivity, it’s no surprise Apple device with its own first-party September 2021 • Macworld 27
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cellular chip, but that day is coming soon. And given what Apple has accomplished with building its own processor, it seems likely that control over networking could allow the company to optimize for any number of MicroLED technology could debut in a future Apple Watch. features, including speed, power without a display, would be little consumption, and more. Perhaps, more than a typewriter. with its own in-house modem If you pay close attention to available, the company’s MacBook the rumour mill, you’ve probably line might even finally get cellular heard the term ‘microLED’ bandied access of its own. After all, if about in the past couple of years. you’re going to invest in a business This technology essentially uses this fundamental, why not take microscopic LEDs that bundle advantage of it everywhere you can? backlighting and pixel colours MICROLED MACHINES together in one tiny package, which Apple’s long prided itself on pushing has implications that can lead to forward display technology, from brighter displays with better contrast. its first Retina screens to the highIn 2014, Apple bought a company end XDR display in the latest 12.9in called LuxVue, which specializes in iPad Pro. That’s shouldn’t come microLED technology. Seven years as a surprise – on a mobile device, may seem like a long time for such an the display is not only how you view acquisition to come to fruition, but content, but also how you control bringing something in-house isn’t and interact with it. Even a Mac, just about the nuts and bolts, but 28 Macworld • September 2021
also integrating personnel and the logistics of being able to ramp up to a scale that can accommodate the huge numbers of devices Apple produces. If the latest rumours bear out, we could see a product using a microLED display as early as this fall.
YOU CAN CALL ME AI Machine learning and AI are one of the hottest areas in the technology industry, and Apple’s no slouch when it comes to this realm. We might ding the company’s virtual assistant, Siri, for its shortcomings, but AI and machine learning underpin so much more of what Apple’s devices do: everything from mapping to photography to predictive text. Apple’s made a number of moves to bring AI/ML experience in-house over the past few years. That’s included high-profile hires like John Giannandrea – who heads up Apple’s strategy in that area, but previously worked as head of search for Google – as well as major acquisitions, including companies like Xnor.ai, and, recently it’s rumoured, Finnish company Curious AI. As of September 2019, Apple was reportedly outpacing all of its competitors in AI acquisitions, according to research group CB Insights.
Given that Apple has not only built a lot of its software atop AI but has also invested in hardware specifically tied to these kinds of applications (the Neural Engine that’s been a key component of its processors since the A11), bringing more and more AI technology under its own roof makes a lot of sense for a company that values control as much as Apple does.
STRATEGY GAMING Control is a big part of the reason that Apple has chosen to build more and more of its key technologies itself, but the roots run even deeper. Apple’s institutional memory is long and the company still remembers what it was like to be on the brink of disaster in the mid-1990s. One element that put Apple in danger in that era was that it relied on an external provider for its most crucial component, processors, and that supplier’s technology had been significantly outpaced by competitors. That fear is part of what drove the company to make its operating system more flexible, running on first Intel processors and then its own silicon. But now, two decades later, the company is still trying to deal with the trauma of those times, trying to September 2021 • Macworld 29
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protect itself by bringing as many core technologies as possible under its own control. And while that doesn’t insulate the company from failure, it does mean that if and when it does encounter problems, it has nobody to blame but itself. That seems like a philosophy that even late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs would probably appreciate.
30 Macworld • September 2021
The next Mac Pro Here are the major features and changes that have been rumoured. Macworld staff report
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pple’s Mac Pro was introduced in 2019, and updates usually come out in increments – new graphics options here, SSD module upgrades, there, etcetera. But the Mac Pro will undergo a major update when Apple releases its own System on a Chip (SoC) for the workstation. This article keeps track of the
reported updates for the Mac Pro, so return to this page to keep up to date with what could be coming.
DESIGN AND SIZES The current Mac Pro design was introduced in 2019 but we could see some changes when Apple unveils the Mac Pro with Apple silicon. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the September 2021 • Macworld 31
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Mac Pro that uses Apple’s own SoC will be “half the size” of the current Mac Pro, have an aluminium case, and could remind people of the Power Mac G4 Cube. Gurman also reports that Apple won’t discontinue the current Mac Pro design and that the company will update it with Intel processors. This model will be available along with new Apple SoC Mac Pro.
APPLE SILICON
The revamped Mac Pro might remind people of the Power Mac G4 Cube.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Apple silicon Mac Pro could be available with 20 or 40 computing cores, with 16 performance cores and four efficiency cores in the former (Apple’s codename for this SoC is Jade 2C-Die), and 32 performance cores and eight efficiency cores in the latter (codename Jade 4C-Die). If you consider that the rumoured 14and 16in MacBook Pro could have a 10-core SoC with eight performance cores and two efficiency cores, could it be possible that Apple is taking the MacBook Pro SoC and installing two or four of them in the Mac Pro? We’ll have to wait and see. 32 Macworld • September 2021
For the short term, Apple is going to have both Intel processors and Apple silicon available in the Mac Pro. No details on what Intel processors Apple will be upgrading to have been released.
INTEL SILICON While Apple has promised to transition to its own silicon within two years, Tim Cook has also promised to continue supporting Macs with Intel chips as well. With the Mac Pro, that could mean an updated model with new processors. According to yuuki_ans on Twitter, Apple could release a Mac Pro that
uses Intel Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 workstation processors in 2022. Yuuki_ans has tweeted accurate leaks in the past but does not provide information on how this Mac Pro fits in with Apple’s silicon strategy. After Brendan Shanks on Twitter spotted references to Intel’s Ice Lake processors in the Xcode 13 beta, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman confirmed that “Apple has indeed been working on an update to the Intel Mac Pro”. We assume that would be a model with the existing design but a faster processor and possibly update graphics.
GRAPHICS The Apple silicon Mac Pro will use the graphics on the SoC instead of graphics cards by AMD, according to Gurman. The graphics could have 64 or 128 processing cores – that’s a huge increase from the eight graphics cores in Apple’s M1 SoC used in the Mac mini, 24in iMac, MacBook Air and 13in MacBook Pro. The Intel-based Mac Pro models will continue to use AMD graphics, but no reports have surfaced that cover what possible upgrades are in store if any. Nor do we know how long Apple will continue to sell non-Apple silicon Macs.
RAM AND SPECS The current Intel Mac Pro offers up to 1.5TB of DDR4 ECC memory in 12 user-accessible DIMM slots, but the unified memory in the M1 Macs is quite different. The RAM isn’t just soldered onto the motherboard on the M1 MacBook and iMac – it’s built directly into the chip, making it faster and more efficient. We don’t know if Apple will take a similar approach with the Mac Pro, however. The users who want such a machine demand customization options that MacBook and Mac mini users don’t necessarily need, so it’s possible that Apple offers slots like the Macs of old. But more likely is a rethinking of what a Pro desktop is. The unified memory is a big part of what makes the M1 Macs so fast, but tying the memory to the chip would drive up the purchase price significantly. The Mac Pro already starts at £5,499, but if you buy RAM through Apple it could add as much as £10,000 to the price. So if Apple doesn’t allow aftermarket memory, it’s also likely to limit the build-to-order options at checkout. Apple currently offers up to 8TB of storage in the Mac Pro, and we expect the storage options to remain the same. The ports likely won’t change either, as Apple already offers four September 2021 • Macworld 33
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USB ports (two Thunderbolt 3 and two USB 3) and a pair of Ethernet slots. However, the Mac Pro has eight PCIe x16-sized slots that support many different types of PCIe cards, so you can easily add more ports. We assume Apple will allow expansion slots on an M1 Mac Pro, but compatibility is a question.
PRO DISPLAY When Apple launched the Mac Pro in 2019, it had a pricey companion to go with it: a £4,599 Pro Display XDR with an optional £949 stand. And it looks like Apple may be working on a new one that may be even more expensive. 9to5Mac reported in late July that Apple is working on a new pro Display with an A13 Bionic processor inside (see page 4) that “will likely be a new model to replace the current Pro Display XDR in the future”. A display with a dedicated processor could bring enhanced graphics, Face ID, or always-on Siri support. But considering it will likely to connected to an incredibly powerful computer, it’s unclear what Apple has up its sleeve.
PRICE AND RELEASE The current Mac Pro starts at £5,499 and we assume the Apple silicon34 Macworld • September 2021
based Mac Pro will stick with that general price point. Apple’s M1 Mac prices haven’t fluctuated much from their Intel predecessors, so the new Mac Pro will almost certainly be a super-high-end machine for professionals. Rumours say it will arrive sometime in 2022, with Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reporting in late summer that a redesigned model will arrive just under Apple’s twoyear Apple Silicon transition wire. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a preview at WWDC 2022, which was where the 2019 and 2013 models were launched, with shipping later in the year.
macOS Monterey: Full Keyboard Access provides freedom from the mouse Navigate your Mac with just your keyboard. Roman Loyola reports
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ith macOS Monterey, Apple bolstered its Full Keyboard Access features so that you can rely less on the mouse or trackpad to navigate the user
interface. You’ll find these settings in System Preferences > Accessibility > Keyboard in macOS Monterey. In macOS Big Sur, the Keyboard settings in Accessibility have two sections: Hardware and Accessibility September 2021 • Macworld 35
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The Full Keyboard Access settings are located at System Preferences > Accessibility > Keyboard.
Keyboard. In macOS Monterey, Apple added a third section: Navigation (the Hardware section is still there, and Accessibility Keyboard has been renamed as Viewer). Let’s go over the settings in each section.
NAVIGATION The Navigation section of Keyboard provides settings that let you navigate the Mac UI without using a mouse or trackpad. The setting here is called Full Keyboard Access and when it’s turned on, you can do the following:
• Use the spacebar to activate a selected item. 36 Macworld • September 2021
• Use the arrow keys to navigate within a group. • Use OptionCommand-D to access the Dock • Use Control-F2 to go to the menu bar • Use the Tab button to navigate though all controls, including window chrome and desktop/ device services.
Here’s how these settings work when they are enabled. Tab button: With Enable Full Keyboard Access on, the Tab button switches to just about every element of the window, from the green/yellow/ red window buttons in the upper left, the search button on the upper right, to the last folder in the window, and everything in between. Pressing Tab moves from left to right, pressing Shift-Tab goes from right to left. With Enable Full Keyboard Access off, your use of the Tab button when navigating macOS is limited. For example, in the Home window in the Finder, pressing Tab allows you to only sift through the files and folders.
Spacebar: After you use Tab/Shift-Tab to highlight the item you want, press the spacebar to activate it. Pressing the Return key will not work. If you have a folder or file selected, you can also press Command-O.
When you encounter a group of items like the left column of a Finder window, you switch from using the Tab button to the arrow keys to navigate through the group.
How to navigate within a group: If you Tab to a highlighted section with multiple items in it, you use the arrow keys to navigate within the group. For example, In the Home window, if you Tab to the left column, all the items in the column are highlighted, and pressing Tab again doesn’t select an item in the column. Instead, use the arrow keys to select an item in that group.
between menus and the spacebar to open a menu. Use the arrow keys to navigate the menu items. Options: The Accessibility > Keyboard system preference has an Options
Dock: Press Option-Command-D at the same time and the Dock appears. Then use the arrow keys to highlight the item you want and press the spacebar to activate it. Menu Bar: Press Control-F2 at the same time to navigate through the Menu Bar. Use Tab/Shift-Tab or the left/right arrow keys to switch
On a MacBook with a Touch Bar, press Fn-Control-F2 at the same time to navigate through the Menu Bar. September 2021 • Macworld 37
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keyboard functions. You cannot reassign the keys.
HARDWARE This setting in Accessibility > Keyboard lets you enable and adjust Sticky Keys and Slow Keys. It hasn’t changed from macOS Big Sur. Sticky Keys is used in instances when you need to hold down modifier keys – Shift, Control, Option, Command, and Function (Fn). With Sticky Keys enabled, you only need to press the key and the Mac will have it active. You can adjust the options so that Sticky Keys is toggled on or off after pressing Shift five times, beep when a modifier key is set, and display an on-screen indicator to let you know when a modifier key is active.
The Full Keyboard Access highlighter can be customized to your liking.
button where you can adjust the following Appearance settings:
• Auto-Hide: The amount of time the Full Keyboard Access highlighter will disappear after you have stopped using it. • Increase Size: This makes the highlighter bolder. • High Contrast: Increases the contrast of the highlighter. • Colour: Select the colour of the highlighter. List of commands: Click on the Options button and then Commands, and you will see a complete list of the 38 Macworld • September 2021
Slow Keys adjusts the time between when a key is pressed and when it is activated. Its options let you adjust the amount of time before acceptance, and if you want a click key sound to play.
The on-screen keyboard for macOS.
VIEWER This setting was called Accessibility Keyboard in macOS Big Sur. While the name has changed, Apple hasn’t changed anything else about this setting in macOS Monterey. When you enable the Accessibility Keyboard, an on-screen keyboard appears, and you can use the mouse or trackpad to type on it. The Options button lets you adjust settings such as its appearance, a timer for having the keyboard disappear when not in use, Hot Corners to activate it, and more. The Panel Editor is an app that is used to create and customize the
Accessibility Keyboard. Apple has support documents to help you learn more about the Panel Editor.
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macOS Monterey beta bug could affect Time Machine backups ‘The file %@ could not be backed up’. Glenn Fleishman reports
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ave you recently seen the message ‘The file “%@” could not be backed up’ after Time Machine warned you of a failure? You’re not alone: many people who have installed the macOS 12 Monterey Public Beta have
40 Macworld • September 2021
also received the same error. There’s no fix for it; it’s likely an error in how Time Machine scans for files. This may mean your files are not properly being back up, however. I entered Time Machine on a Mac that’s running this public beta and
(fave.co/37pfKpk) and enable in Carbon Copy Cloner > Preferences > Updates the option ‘Inform me of beta releases’.
This failure appears related to a recent update to the macOS 12 Monterey public beta.
looked around through older backups even where Time Machine claims it hasn’t been updated. The files all appear to be there, but I can’t check comprehensively. If you’re concerned about losing data during this test period before Apple squashes this bug in a future beta or production release of Monterey, make sure all your document files are stored on a syncing service, like iCloud Drive or Dropbox, or syncing through iCloud services. It might be a good time to make nightly clones of your computer with Carbon Copy Cloner September 2021 • Macworld 41
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macOS Monterey: How to use Quick Note to quickly save anything When you need to jot something down, Notes is just a Hot Corner away. Roman Loyola reports
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pple’s Notes is one of my go-to apps in macOS. For me, it’s a repository of notes, links, images, excerpts, and anything else I think I’ll need for work or personal projects. 42 Macworld • September 2021
And with macOS Monterey, Apple guaranteed that I’ll use Notes even more often with a new feature called Quick Note. Quick Note is a fast way to create a note file when you’re not using the
Notes app. When you trigger it, the Notes app quickly opens to a new file that you can start using immediately. It’s a fantastic feature but might not be so obvious if you don’t know it’s there. Here’s how to find it.
HOW TO SET UP QUICK NOTE Apple added Quick Note as a Hot Corner function Quick Note is triggered by a Hot Corner action. in macOS Monterey. You can pick a corner of the screen and 7. Click OK and close System when you move the cursor to that Preferences. corner, it triggers a Quick Note. Here’s HOW TO USE QUICK NOTE how to set it up. To launch Quick Note, move your cursor to the corner you picked. A 1. Open System Preferences. sheet will appear, and when you click 2. Click on Mission Control. it, the Notes app launches with a note 3. Click the Hot Corners button at file open. You can start typing or add the bottom of the Mission Control whatever you want into the file. setting window. Since you’re actually in the Notes 4. You’ll see an image that represents app, you have access to all of the your display in the middle of the app’s features and you can do tasks window, surrounded by four poplike change fonts, implement a table, up menus at each corner. Pick a set a checklist, and share your note. corner you want to use to trigger a When you’re done, just quit the app Quick Note. or close the note’s window. You can 5. Click the pop-up menu for the access the note in the Notes app on corner you want. any device whenever you’d like. 6. Select Quick Note. September 2021 • Macworld 43
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You can set your Quick Note to always be the same note file, or to create a new note file every time.
You can set Quick Note to always create a new note file or to open the most recent file in the preferences of the Notes app. If you want to open the same note file all the time, check the box for Resume last Quick Note. Uncheck the box to start a new note each time.
44 Macworld • September 2021
macOS Monterey: How to use Live Text and Visual Look Up You can now select the text in the photo, copy it and then paste it into a document. Roman Loyola reports
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ive Text is a new feature in macOS Monterey that allows you to use the text in an image. It’s a feature that’s quite helpful – for example, if you’ve ever been in a meeting or lecture, and took a picture of a whiteboard filled
with written information, you can now select the text in the photo, copy it, and then paste it into a document. There are a lots of ways you can use the Live Text feature, and it’s a huge time-saving production tool. Live Text is also in iOS 15 and iPad September 2021 • Macworld 45
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OS 15, and because you probably use the cameras on those devices often, you might use Live Text on your iPhone and iPad more than you would your Mac. But it’s coming to macOS Monterey this autumn and works in the Photos app, Safari, Quick Look and the Screenshot function. Here’s a look at how Live Text works on the Mac, using the Public Beta on macOS Monterey. While compatibility with Intel-based Macs is not listed on Apple’s website, Apple made Live Text available on Intel Macs with the fourth beta of Monterey.
USING LIVE TEXT IN PHOTOS, QUICK LOOK, AND SAFARI The Live Text function in the Photos app, Safari, and Quick Look work in a similar way. (At the time of this writing, Live Text did not seem to be active using the Screenshot app in the Public Beta.) When you are looking at an image, move your cursor over the text, and the text selection tool appears. You can then select the text, and you can copy it and then paste it into a document. You also have to option to grab the text in the image and drag it over to another app, and then drop the text. 46 Macworld • September 2021
USING LOOK UP With text selected, you can right-click, bring up the contextual menu, and you have the option to Look Up the text. (If you’re using Safari, the Look Up selection in the third section of the contextual menu, under the Save Image and Copy Image sections.) Three Look Up options are offered: Siri Knowledge: Displays information based on the context of the selected text. Maps: Does a search in Maps based on the text and displays a location. Siri Suggested Websites: This does a web search using the selected text and offers a website you can peruse.
Verify your Mac’s drive health using Disk Utility Using the First Aid function in Disk Utility. Roman Loyola reports
I
t’s a good idea to check on the health of your Mac’s internal storage on a regular basis. You can do this using Disk Utility, an app that comes with every Mac. To run the check, you need to boot the Mac into Recovery Mode. On Intel-based Macs, restart your Mac and hold
down Command-R on the keyboard. On M1 Macs, shut down the Mac, then press and hold down the power button as it boots. When your Mac is in Recovery Mode, it will display a window with the available recovery utilities. Click on the bottom option, Disk Utility, and September 2021 • Macworld 47
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this will launch the Disk Utility app. Follow the steps below to check your storage device for errors and to fix them. (The rest of these instructions are performed using the macOS Big Sur version of Disk Utility. Other versions work the same way, but the interface may look a little different from the screenshots shown below.) 1. In Disk Utility, click on the View menu and select Show All Devices. 2. The left column should show the storage devices on the Mac. The first listed device in the Internal section is your Mac’s boot drive. If there is an arrow to the left of the label, clicking that arrow will expand
the listing to show any volumes or containers in the drive. Expand each part of the listing so you can see all the volumes and containers. 3. Select the last item on your Mac’s drive. 4. Click the First Aid button. 5. You’ll be asked if you want to run First Aid on the drive. Click Run to check the drive. This will take a few minutes. If the Run button is dimmed and you can’t click it, click Cancel. Then, in the left column, select the next drive above and try again from Step 4.
When First Aid finishes, go to the left column and select the item above the one you just had selected. Repeat Step 4. Do this again and again until you reach the top of the list. When you’re all done, you can restart your Mac normally. To perform a more thorough examination of your Mac hardware, you can run Apple Diagnostics (fave.co/3fCjCYD) for Macs released in or after June 2013. If you find a problem using these tests, you may need to see a technician at your local Apple Store. When your Mac boots into Recovery Mode, this window appears at start-up.
48 Macworld • September 2021
Make and manage a shared iCloud calendar You can use an iCloud calendar among family and friends, including those without a single Apple device. Glenn Fleishman reports
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shared calendar can be a big help in coordinating activities across a couple, a family or a group. Apple offers shared calendars via iCloud, but it doesn’t always make it easy to understand how to share or accept an invitation – particularly if you
or those you’re sharing with don’t use only Apple calendar tools on a Mac, iPhone or iPad, or use other operating systems. People inside the Apple ecosystem or using iCloud-compatible third-party apps like BusyCal (fave.co/37vgfy5) or Fantastical (fave.co/3jtdgfj) can September 2021 • Macworld 49
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view and modify events on privately shared calendars. If you’re using calendar software that doesn’t integrate directly with iCloud, requiring a log in with your account, you won’t be able to accept invitations to private calendars, but can still view publicly shared ones.
START BY SHARING A CALENDAR You can create a new private calendar or share an existing one privately to specific people. Here’s how. macOS: Hover over the right-side of the calendar name in the Calendar List. (Choose View > Show Calendar List if that list isn’t showing.) Click the outline of a person’s head. This produces a pop-out menu. If it’s a calendar you create or can modify who shares it, click Share With or click an existing name to open up an area you can type part an address in that’s autocompleted or paste an email address into. Click Done when you’ve added all the addresses you want and invitations are mailed out and triggered in Apple’s apps and some third-party apps. iOS/iPadOS: Tap Calendars and then tap the i info button to the right of the 50 Macworld • September 2021
calendar you want to share. Tap Add Person to type or paste an address into. Invitations are sent immediately. Tap Done when complete. iCloud.com: Navigate to Calendar. Click the waves icon to the right of calendars you can share – it looks like a rotated Wi-Fi symbol. Check the Private Calendar box and then type or paste the address into the Add Person field. Click OK. You can remove addresses or click or tap Stop Sharing in each of these locations to halt sharing with a person, people, or everyone. In each of those locations, there’s an option to check, click, or tap to share a public, read-only version
macOS makes it easy to share a calendar by clicking.
of the calendar (in iCloud, you have to click, then click Done, then click the waves again). Copy the URL that appears that starts with webcal:// to share with anyone using any calendar software with support for Internet-published calendars. Uncheck or disable Public Calendar in each of these locations to unpublish the calendar.
SUBSCRIBE TO A CALENDAR To subscribe to a private calendar: You can accept an invitation via the inbox in all Apple calendar apps and in iCloud.com
macOS: In the Calendars List, click the inbox icon next to the calendar icon at the top. New invitations appear there. Click Join Calendar.
iOS/iPadOS: Tap the Inbox link and tap Join Calendar. iCloud.com: Tap the inbox icon (an arrow pointing downwards into a physical inbox tray) and click Join Calendar. To subscribe to a public calendar:
macOS: Choose File > New Calendar Subscription, paste the webcal:// URL, and click Subscribe. iOS/iPadOS: Go to Settings > Calendars > Accounts > Add Account > Other > Add Subscribed Calendar and paste the URL. Tap Next. Apple shows a shocking amount of technical information that’s unnecessary for this sort of connection. Tap Save. iCloud.com: There doesn’t appear to September 2021 • Macworld 51
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be a method to subscribe to a public calendar on iCloud.com, even though you can share public calendars from iCloud.com. Google Calendar: Visit Google Calendar and click the + next to ‘Other calendars’. Select From URL. Paste the URL of the calendar in and click ‘Add calendar’.
52 Macworld • September 2021
Keep a Mac cool and check its temperature Extreme heat might require more attention to a burning-hot Mac. Glenn Fleishman reports
W
aves of extreme heat have already passed across the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world so far this mid-2021. While people are at the greatest risk from high temperatures, your Mac may be more fragile. People
can be water cooled and no current Mac offers that option – though some have tried. An iPhone or iPad will warn you when it detects it’s too hot and shut down, while a Mac may simply suddenly power off. If it doesn’t power down, you may be running it to close to its maximum capability and putting September 2021 • Macworld 53
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a lot of additional wear in the process on components that might fail later during other seasons. Knowing the temperature is one thing. The other is how hot should your internal components run? Apple says you should only use a Mac when the ambient temperature – the temperature around you – is in the range of 10° to 35°C and 95 per cent or lower humidity. Internal components produce far more heat than the ambient temperature, with around 40°C often the minimum at which they operate in normal indoor circumstances. CPUs, GPUs, ports, and other elements shouldn’t exceed about 89°C for extended periods. At 100°C, the boiling temperature for water at sea level, you should either figure out what energy hogs are making your computer work that hard or shut the system down for a while. It’s almost always a browser. (Use Activity Monitor in Applications > Utilities to look at the Energy tab’s Energy Impact column for more particulars.)
CHECKING THE MAC’S TEMPERATURE Modern Macs have an inordinate number of power sensors to detect problems and manage fan speeds in 54 Macworld • September 2021
models that contain them – I count 34 using one tool on an M1 Mac mini. These sensors can be monitored with the right knowledge or software. On some Intel Macs, you can use Terminal or a free utility for basic temperature monitoring. In Terminal enter the following command and press return: sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature" (Note that those quotation marks are straight double-quotes.) Enter your administrative password when prompted. This will provide a continuous temperature reading of the CPU’s temperature. Press Control-C to stop the monitoring. You can also install the free app Fanny (available from fave. co/3s1MVZB), which offers a simple drop-down set of information in the menu bar or as a notifications widget. Details include the average CPU and GPU temperature along with current fan speeds. For any Intel Mac and M1-based Mac, the utility TG Pro (£9 from fave.co/2Vy1qsh) provides detailed monitoring and fan control. You can see the temperature recorded
TG Pro provides an enormous amount of detail on demand and control of built-in fans, but uses colour coding and a menu bar summary for at-a-glance status.
fans and override Apple’s settings. This includes creating rules for when fans and how fast fans run. The app comes with a preset rule that turns the blades up to their maximum rotation if the highest temperature of any CPU parameter is at least 70°C.
by every sensor in your Mac and for hard disks and SSDs that support the industry-standard SMART diagnostics. Information and controls are available both in a standard app window and a dropdown menu bar. That bar shows the highest port and CPU temperature and the current fan rotation. TG Pro provides an enormous amount of detail on demand and control of built-in fans, but uses colour coding and a menu bar summary for at-a-glance status. You can monitor the speed of internal September 2021 • Macworld 55
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Use the Terminal to see what Mac processes are accessing the Internet Use Terminal to see which processes are using your Internet connection. Rob Griffiths reports
I
f you’ve ever wondered about which programs are using your Internet connection at any point in time, here’s one way to find out using Terminal. Open Terminal, in Applications > Utilities, and run this command:
56 Macworld • September 2021
lsof -P -i -n | cut -f 1 -d " " | uniq When you press return, you’ll see a list of processes that are using the Internet connection. At the time I wrote this, my output looked like this:
COMMAND AppleVNCS PTHPasteb SystemUIS aosnotify iTunes GrowlHelp Transmit iChatAgen ÀUHIR[ E VPNClient Mail The first row, COMMAND, is just the column header. Below that are the processes that are using the Internet connection. Most of the time, they are self-explanatory, or can be figured out with relative ease. On my list, most of the entries are pretty clear, but perhaps not aosnotify. A bit of work with Google, though, determines that that process is related to MobileMe syncing. If you just want to use this command, you know all you need to know now. If you’re curious how it works, though, then keep reading. While the command may look complex, it’s actually three relatively simple commands strung together with the pipe (|) symbol. The first one, lsof -P -i -n, runs lsof to list open files, with options set to focus only on
those connections using the Internet connection (-i), and to not try to convert port and host numbers into names (-P and -n). The output from this command is then sent to cut, which cuts out everything except the first field (-f 1), based on using spaces to delimit fields (-d " "). Finally, that output is sent to uniq, which strips out duplicate entries from the list – without this last bit, you’d see a lot of repetition in the list, because every open app will have multiple open files.
September 2021 • Macworld 57
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Look at your command history list in Terminal Learn how to use the history command. Kirk McElhearn reports
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ith the Terminal in macOS, you can save lots of time and type less by using the command history functions built into the Terminal shell. The shell keeps a record of the commands you run, and you can access this history with a few simple keystrokes to run commands
58 Macworld • September 2021
again or edit them so you don’t have to retype them. You can check to see what commands are in your history at any time by running the history command. When you type history and press Return, Terminal displays a list of the commands in the history list. For example:
1 ls 2 cd .. 3 ls 4 cd kirk Each line includes the number of the command (from the first to the last) and the command itself. Terminal includes all commands, whether or not they were successful. This means that erroneous or misspelled ones will appear in the history.
LIMIT THE HISTORY LIST There are several ways of displaying your history list. In most cases, you want to see the most-recent commands. One way to do this is to run the history command with an argument that says how many commands you want to display. For example, history 5 tells the shell to display the commands starting with the fifth one in the history list. You can enter any number as an argument for the history command; if you enter a number that’s invalid (most likely, your list isn’t as long as the number you entered), Terminal will respond with fc: no such event.
TIME-SAVING SHORTCUTS As discussed in a separate article (see page 61), you can move up or down your history list by pressing the arrow keys. This is the easiest way to rerun a command you executed recently. But if your command is further back in the list, there are quicker ways to tell the shell which one to run. !: Say you have displayed your long history list, and part of it looks like this: 329 locate Walden 330 history 331 ls -l If you want to re-execute the command locate Walden, type !329. The exclamation point (!) is a shortcut for a command in the history list. If you enter a number after it (with no space between), Terminal runs the command that has that absolute number in the history. Relative numbers: Another way to specify a previous command is by using a relative number, or the nth command back from the end of the list. For example, if your history is 200 September 2021 • Macworld 59
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entries long and you want to enter the fifth command back from the 200th entry, enter !-5. Characters: You can tell the shell to run the last command that begins with a specific string of characters. For example, another way to run the same locate Walden command would be to type !loc (with no space after the exclamation point). Enter as few characters as you want after the exclamation point. The shell will stop at the first occurrence of a string that matches these characters. In the example just mentioned, I could have typed !lo since there were no other commands that began with those letters. But if I had merely entered !l, the example would have run command 331, the ls -l command, because this would have been the first match.
60 Macworld • September 2021
Learn these macOS Terminal shortcuts and spend less time typing Save lots of time and type less by using the command history functions. Kirk McElhearn reports
M
any people stay away from macOS’s Terminal because of the tedium of typing in long, precise commands. But you can save lots
of time and type less by using the command history functions built into the Terminal shell. The shell keeps a record of the commands you run, and you can access this history with a few September 2021 • Macworld 61
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simple keystrokes to run commands again or edit them, so you don’t have to retype them. Terminal saves the command history in last-in, first-out order, which means that the first command in the history list is the last command issued. If you want to run a command that you’ve already typed – say you want to rerun the last command you just typed – all you have to do is press the up arrow key, and the shell displays the last run command at the prompt. If you want to run a command you ran earlier, press the up-arrow key several times. As you do this, the shell cycles through your last commands, displaying each one at the prompt. If you decide that you don’t want to use a command in the history list, just press the down-arrow key until you get back to an empty prompt, and then enter a new command.
REWRITING HISTORY Using the command history, you can rerun previous commands, but you can also modify commands and run them with different arguments. One of the simplest ways to do this is to use the !! command to run the previous command, appending new information to it. Let’s say you want to list the 62 Macworld • September 2021
contents of a directory, like this: ls ~/Library/Preferences/ ByHost After reading the list, you decide you want to save this list to a file. You can run the following: ! OLVW W[W Terminal replaces the !! shortcut with the last command you ran, so !! ! OLVW W[W is the same as typing this command: ls ~/Library/Preferences/ %\+RVW ! OLVW W[W
EDIT THE COMMANDS In addition to moving up and down the command history by pressing the upand down-arrow keys, displaying each command at the prompt in Terminal, you can also edit the commands that appear or add arguments to them. This saves time when you need to run a command that is very similar but not exactly the same. Say you want to copy a file; you type a command like this: cp /Users/kirk/Pictures/ P101068.jpg /Users/Shared
Terminal says the file doesn’t exist, but you’re sure it does. When you go to the directory and check, you see that there is indeed a file with a similar name, but you left out a zero. Using the command history, you can press the up arrow to display the command again. Use the left arrow to move the cursor to the location where you need to add the zero, type 0 and then press enter. (You don’t need to move the cursor back to the end of the line.) You can use command editing to change commands and run them on different files. For example, if you have several files in your Pictures directory, you can use the up arrow to redisplay the previous command, change the file name, and run the command again on a different file.
CHANGE ARGUMENTS AND OPTIONS Use the same trick to change a command’s arguments or options. In the previous example, I copied pictures into my Users/Shared directory. I could easily press the up arrow to redisplay the command and then alter the command to copy one of the files to a different location. There’s no need to retype the entire line. By the same token, say you list the files in a directory and then decide
you want to use the -l option to display a long list. Press the up arrow to redisplay the command, and then move the cursor to the left to add -l. For example, ls -l /etc/periodic.
OOPS, I FORGOT SUDO There are many commands and areas of your Mac you can’t access without root user privileges. If you have admin rights for your computer, you can use the sudo command to prompt you for a password. But it’s annoying to type a long command only to have Terminal dourly reply ‘Permission denied’. If you forget to prefix a command with sudo, just type sudo !!. This command tells the shell to execute the previous command again, this time prefaced by sudo. Enter your password at the prompt and then press enter, and the command will run. There’s no need to type it all over again.
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Set a custom scale for each website in Safari Not every site is the right size for your eyes. Glenn Fleishman reports
W
ebsite designers have particular feelings about how their work should look on your display. The rise of responsive design over the last several years has led to most sites automatically resizing their type and graphics and
64 Macworld • September 2021
reshaping their layout to fit the size of your browser window or the device you’re using. You should be able to read, navigate, and interact with a web page without making your own adjustments. (Responsive design means the site uses style sheets and sometimes JavaScript to respond to
the dimensions of the view within the browser window.) Unfortunately, designers may have better eyesight than many of us who use the sites they produce, leading to sites that are perfectly responsive in showing type that’s too small to read. I’m sure you’ve The Zoom settings reveal the scale of sites open in your had the experience browser and changes you’ve made others you visited. as often as I have Ironically, I did not set a custom zoom for Zoom’s site. of squinting and leaning in more closely to read the Some sites take this enlargement type on a page or puzzle out a symbol. and reduction better than others. You likely know that you can Press Command-0 (zero) to take the use keyboard shortcuts in Safari site back to Actual Size, whatever for macOS (and other browsers) that means in a relative world. to scale the contents of the page However, what you may be larger and smaller. Press Commandunaware of is that Safari retains hyphen (used here as a ‘minus’) to these zoom preferences in a way shrink everything on a page relative that lets you modify them later and to its 100 per cent scale. Press set and overall default. Go to Safari Command-equal sign (used here for > Preferences > Websites and click the plus sign also found on the key) Zoom. Here you see a list of the to enlarge a page. (Safari recognizes zoom percentage for sites in open the intent without you need to press tabs and windows, as well as any Shift to directly ‘type’ the plus custom zoom values you’ve set for sign. You can type Command-= or other sites visited with the browser. Command-Shift-=.) You can also use the ‘When visiting September 2021 • Macworld 65
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the Accessibility preference pane offers more customization options.
Accessibility’s Zoom option lets you enlarge the entire display above 100 per cent and back down or toggle between 100 per cent and your last enlargement factor.
other websites’ pop-up menu to change the default zoom for any site you subsequently visit. Apple offers another kind of zoom as part of its accessibility features that can trip you up because the keyboard shortcuts are nearly identical. Accessibility’s Zoom option enlarges the entire display in intervals above 100 per cent. Press CommandOption-equal sign to enlarge the display and Command-Option-hyphen to reduce it. The minimum is 100 per cent. (Command-Option-8 toggles between your last enlargement and 100 per cent.) The Zoom view in 66 Macworld • September 2021
INSIDE: WINDOWS 11 FEATURES APPLE SHOULD STEAL
AUGUST 2021
APPLE MAC FIND OUT WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
PLUS:
HOW TO CONTROL A MAC WITH YOUR APPLE WATCH
APPLE ARCADE
Best Apple Arcade games We reveal our favourites. David Price reports
A
pple Arcade is a subscription service that lets users play premium iPad, iPhone, Mac and Apple TV games as often as they like for a set monthly fee. But which ones are worth your time? We test primarily on iPhone. We also recommend you get a hardware controller, given how many of the games benefit from one: we test with 68 Macworld • September 2021
an Xbox controller and a Rotor Riot wired controller to see if this works and how well it suits the gameplay. Many games support Bluetooth controllers despite not mentioning this fact in their App Store description.
1. SP!NG A puzzler that’s original, clever, sadistic, fun and frustrating in that ‘let me keep trying until I crack this’
way that’s always a sign of quality. There’s essentially one control: tap the screen and the free-falling shape that you control will hook on to the nearest fulcrum and swing around it. Using this mechanic and various interactive level furniture you must collect the jewels and 1. exit without landing on any nasty spikes. The music’s great, as is the simple but eye-catching aesthetic. But it’s the compulsive quality – the way you automatically start the next level, without the least thought of doing something else for a bit – that really marks it out as a winner. An exceptional, must-play game.
hate golf’ – hits a hole in one for relentless ingenuity. The courses feature exploding barrels, cats and runaway cars, and half the time you find yourself playing with a cow or a carpet instead of a ball. There are levels in both portrait and landscape orientation; there are
Puzzle • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
2. WHAT THE GOLF? This bizarre and genuinely funny sports sim – ‘Golf for people who
2.
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huge variations in difficulty and graphical style and gameplay mechanics; there are even witty parodies of other games. As soon as you feel like the makers must have exhausted the possibilities of the format they surprise you yet again. There’s masses of golf to be played here, and all of it feels fresh.
3.
Sport • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (but this isn’t recommended)
3. GRINDSTONE Here’s Arcade’s take on the Bejeweled/Candy Crush template, and as you’d expect it’s both gorgeous and far more interesting than most of the clones in that space. Trace a path across matching creatures – accounting for certain complications, such as treasure chests, boss monsters and magic stones that let you transition to a different colour – and then hit Go. Instead of a gentle tinkling of jewels, you’ll be rewarded with a ridiculously gory (albeit cartoonish) animation. Far easier to pick up than it is to put down, Grindstone also wins the 70 Macworld • September 2021
prize for the most addictive Arcade game I’ve yet tried. Puzzle • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (awkwardly)
4. BLEAK SWORD Devolver’s low-fi action RPG takes the style and atmosphere of Dark Souls and puts it through a super-cool 8bit filter. It looks like nothing else. The difficulty ramps up crazily as you dodge, parry and slice your way through increasingly dangerous mobs of monsters and bad hombres: some levels are so demanding that you virtually have to plan them out, Hotline Miami style. You get as many continues as you like – the game’s quite forgiving like that – but a single
4. death results in the loss of all your equipment... unless you can beat the level that killed you on your very next try, which makes for some high-stakes tension. Bleak Sword is fast, exciting and masses of fun. It’s also occasionally infuriating, in a way you only get with very good games: something about the way it manages to make you care so intensely about your little stick man, and take it personally when he suffers. This is a roundabout way of admitting that this game 5. made me swear.
RPG/Fighting • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
5. SPACELAND Turn-based squad strategy game that strongly recalls the classic board game Space Hulk, only simpler and graphically cuter. Controlling a handful of heroic space rangers,
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you’re investigating an alien-riddled abandoned colony, shooting, kicking and grenading your way to various mission goals. Great fun.
6. Strategy • Age 12+• Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (but touchscreen is easier)
6. SHINSEKAI INTO THE DEPTHS Cast into a stunningly detailed, treacherous underwater world, you will be pursued not only by ice slowly setting in but a swathe of sea creatures ranging from cute to downright terrifying. Blast around with jet packs, mine minerals to convert into oxygen and uncover the secrets of the depths in this gorgeous, vibrant and unique underwater 7. exploration game. 72 Macworld • September 2021
Adventure/Exploration • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
7. MUTAZIONE Singularly lovely gardening-themed adventure game, in which the mutants and monsters you encounter play (mostly) second fiddle to a compassionate story about loss and the healing powers of community. Strongly recommended, but give it a
chance: it takes a while to get going. Adventure • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
8. CARD OF DARKNESS Wonderful to look at (unsurprisingly, since 8. the animator Pendleton Ward of Adventure Time fame was involved), Card of Darkness proves it’s more than a pretty face with an elegant and compelling design with masses of depth. Puzzle • Age 9+ • Single player only • No controller support
capturing a priest’s soul. Unusually, it takes the form of a card game – each time you collect an item, or acquire a new character, this is added to your deck and played at opportune moments. But this is more an
9. PILGRIMS Look up the word charming in the dictionary and you ought to see a screenshot of this nostalgically animated adventure game, in which you solve a variety of problems such as slaying a dragon and
9.
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aesthetic than a gameplay decision: in practical terms playing a card works out largely the same as pressing a ‘use X with Y’ button. No, this game is all about the character, which is simultaneously dark and adorable, the weird leaps of logic and the gorgeous look. It also has respectable replayability, since there are multiple solutions and multiple endings, and 45 achievement cards to collect. Adventure • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (sort of, and it’s better on touchscreen anyway)
illusions. The levels are tightly designed and have a pleasing tactility, with chunky dials and sliders to play with as you find a route that makes sense according to the game’s weird internal logic. This is an all-time App Store classic that combines beautifully crafted gameplay with a gorgeous aesthetic, and if by some miracle you’ve not done so already, get playing. Puzzle • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
11. TANGLE TOWER 10. MONUMENT VALLEY+ Short and serene puzzler based around MC Escher-style visual
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Detective adventure game based around a locked-room murder. So engrossing that I stayed up half the night trying to solve it. I haven’t played either of the previous Detective Grimoire titles, and perhaps this is why I felt a little overwhelmed at first: the game never really explains how to go about interrogations, for example. And the case is wilfully complicated,
packed with twists, turns, red herrings and background flavour text. But that sensation of just barely understanding 11. what’s going on is textbook goldenage murder mystery, and quite pleasurable if you go along with it. And the story, graphics, voice acting and humour are all of such exceptional quality that even crimesolving newbies will have a blast. Detective/Adventure • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (but touchscreen is easier)
12. CHAMELEON RUN+ I need to stop playing this maddeningly brilliant autorunner, which has burrowed into my brain and torments my dreams. The elegant gimmick is that each 12. level is divided
into three colours: black sections which you have to avoid entirely, and pink and yellow bits that you can touch but only if you are the same colour. Tapping on the right side of the screen jumps, while tapping on the left toggles you between pink and yellow. These simple ingredients, combined with smart and occasionally sadistic level design, create a game that’s twitchy and adrenaline-fuelled and lots of fun. Good game, but not recommended just before bed.
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13. Platformer • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
Strategy • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
13. OVERLAND
14. OUTLANDERS
FTL reimagined as a road trip; the Walking Dead scripted by Cormac McCarthy; a turn-based version of Resident Evil. This survival game takes its inspiration from the best, and the result is melancholy and fiercely difficult. Each level is both a puzzle and a fragment of isometric Americana: a few squares of tarmac, grass, picnic tables, abandoned cars and danger. As the monsters close in, you have to make decisions about what resources you need, and what (and who) you’ll have to leave behind. It’s a fascinating and thrilling game.
Blissful, combat-free town builder that I would love to play all the time. The sense of atmosphere is wonderful, from the Untitled Goose Game sprites and changing light to the calming taps and clinks as your houses are built and your trees felled. And I applaud the way each level really feels like a level in its own right, with specific goals and (genuinely difficult) challenges – something that isn’t always achieved by strategy games of this type. I have very few complaints but must add that the swipe detection is sometimes a little overkeen, causing
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15. PACMAN PARTY ROYALE
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frequent overshooting when moving around the map. And the night-time sections are rather dull, since your people all go to sleep – but luckily you can speed these up to 20x. Strategy • Age 12+ • Single player only • No controller support
15.
This stone-cold multiplayer classic pits four Pac-Men against one another in a fight to the death. If one of you is caught by the non-player ghost, or by a fellow PacMan goofing on a power pill, you turn ghostly yourself; when only one Pac-Man is left, that player wins. A simple set-up, then, but it’s got more nice touches than a Swedish masseur. For a start, you retain control after being ghostified; if you then manage to catch one of the remaining Pac-Men you switch roles and you’re back in the game. And the more dots you eat, the faster you move, which gives the game September 2021 • Macworld 77
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a thrilling natural acceleration. The Quick Start option is a brilliantly easy way of starting a game with three AI opponents, but my only quibble is that it’s a lot harder to set up a game with other humans: there’s no online matchmaking function, with the onus on you to find fellow players on Twitter, in real life and swap party codes. Apple TV owners have complained, too, that there’s no support for local ‘couch’ multiplayer on a single device. Arcade • Age 4+ • 1-4 players • Supports hardware controllers
16. FLIPFLOP SOLITAIRE+ Reissued as part of Arcade’s mass intake of classics in spring 2021, Zach
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Gage’s 2017 ‘sequel’ to Solitaire is a must-play for card fans. It adds a simple twist: cards can be stacked numerically both up and down, and without regard to suit (although stacks can only be moved together if they are all the same suit). And this entirely changes the flavour of the game, transforming it from an exercise in systematic neatness into something messier and subtler. Card • Age 4+ • 1-4 players • Supports hardware controllers
17. INMOST Unsettling horror puzzle platformer with superb sound design and an evocative low-fi look. Exploring a mysterious and danger-filled world you alternate, Lost Vikings-style, between three totally different characters: a defenceless child, a mostly defenceless man (who can at least run and jump) and a nigh-on indestructible knight. And these characters lend their respective sections a pleasing variety
17. without spoiling the coherence of the whole, which is tied together by the spellbinding aesthetic. Puzzle/Platformer • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
18. CRICKET THROUGH THE AGES This utterly ridiculous ragdoll cricket sim made me laugh constantly. Very silly and very fun.
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Sport • Age 4+ • 1-2 players • Supports hardware controllers
19. OCEANHORN 2 Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm is hands-down one of the most beautifully crafted, consolelike games available as part of Apple Arcade. Though the original wasn’t to be sniffed at, Oceanhorn 2 takes the RPG experience to the next level with high-end 3D graphics, tactical combat and an engaging story that’ll keep you hooked as you hack-and-slash your way across the huge open-world map. There are meaningful gameplay improvements too, September 2021 • Macworld 79
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19. including a new caster weapon that can wipe out gangs of enemies with an explosive fireball or a blast of ice, and the ability to heal yourself midbattle with a spell. The touchscreen controls are good, incidentally, but for the full experience we’d recommend a hardware controller. RPG • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
20. NO WAY HOME Simple and exhilarating twin-stick shooter with excellent cartoon graphics and a characterful story. You’re piloting and gradually upgrading a 20. petite spaceship 80 Macworld • September 2021
on a mission to find its way back to Earth, and blasting your way through the space pirates and other ne’er-dowells that stand in your way. That’s your overarching mission, at any rate, but you’ll be hired or persuaded to do lots of smaller jobs along the way. Most of these boil down to “go to a place, shoot some people, and come back”, admittedly, but I never tired of the formula, and the makers added more missions – and a new ‘defend’ mission type – in the version 1.1 update. The shoot-’emup action works decently with the onscreen controls, although switching between your gun and grappling hook is a challenge, and your thumbs occasionally obscure the action; it
works well with a controller. Shooter • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
truly beautiful graphical sensibility, split between the slick 2D game screens and the cute Fireman Sam animation of the cut scenes.
21. TAKESHI AND HIROSHI Takeshi is a game designer; Hiroshi is his poorly younger brother and biggest fan. Your job is to cheer Hiroshi up with a game he can play in hospital... but it’s not finished yet. As Hiroshi progresses, you have to design the game on the fly, deciding which monsters will attack in which order and, later on, when a friendly wizard will decide to apply heal or buff spells. The idea – which presumably mirrors real game design – is to push the youngster as hard as you can without actually killing his character. It’s a sort of maths puzzle, basically. But that’s to undersell the excitement of the concept, which rewards brinkmanship and punishes you for playing it safe. And there’s a
21.
RPG/Strategy • Age 12+ • Single player only • No controller support
22. SPYDER Cute puzzler in which a robot spider (with only six legs, oddly) gets sent on espionage missions. You scuttle all over each level, pick things up, manipulate knobs and dials and generally get up to mischief. Now, we need to talk about the camera before we go any further. When using on-screen controls the camera is almost game-breakingly unhelpful, wandering off at funny angles at the worst possible moments and preventing you from spotting the next objective. But using a hardware controller largely solves this issue, and in other respects this is a fabulous game. The music is brilliantly atmospheric (the Donna Summer pastiche in September 2021 • Macworld 81
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22. the space mission is a particular highlight), your interactions with the physical environment are pleasingly tactile and I loved the overall feel of being a tiny unobserved creature with freedom to explore and tinker. Puzzle/Adventure • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
23. LEGEND OF THE SKYFISH 2 Vivid, charming action RPG evidently made by someone who loved Zelda but wished there was more hookshot. Your weapon is a fishing rod, and you can use this surprisingly 23. versatile 82 Macworld • September 2021
instrument to grapple yourself across gaps, activate distant switches, yank enemies towards you (a process which briefly stuns them) or simply whack them. These powers, combined with a dodge/ roll button, make combat hectic and fun, although it can occasionally be frustrating when a monster camps next to a grapple target and thwarts your strategy. RPG fans really are spoiled for choice on Apple Arcade. If you want to relive the glory days of Zelda in 2D, however, this is the place to start. RPG • Age 9+• Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (recommended)
24.
24. CREAKS Based on the look and the maker’s reputation I expected this to be a point-and-click adventure, but it’s pure puzzle action. On each level/ scene, you have to clamber up and down ladders, manipulate lights and bully the various monsters into positions that allow you to continue onwards. That’s a simple premise, and there’s a pleasing purity to the gameplay. But don’t underestimate the thought and developmental pedigree that’s gone into this. There are some real head-scratchers, and a terrific sense of satisfaction each time you work something out. As puzzlers go Creaks has an unusually well-defined sense of
narrative flavour, which forms an integral part of the experience rather than background fluff. The eccentric visuals and phenomenal music, the Limbo-style silhouette deaths and sinister collectibles: it all adds up to a game that draws you into its world and gives additional motivation to progress. Puzzle • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
25. SPELLTOWER+ Beautifully crafted puzzler in which you have to form words from a grid of random letters, in a variety of formats. Sometimes you’re searching for words against the clock; sometimes you’ve dealing with a limited supply September 2021 • Macworld 83
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catalogue-’em-up in which you stroll the streets, beaches and mountains of a Spanish island and photograph the local wildlife. While you’re about it you also clear up rubbish, mend bridges and signs, heal stricken animals and generally act as the local dogooder. There’s a really lovely sense of positivity
25. of letters; and sometimes you’re in Zen mode and everything is friendly. If words are your trade – if you are, for example, a professional writer – you may be frustrated to discover that you have no special talent for these multidimensional word searches. But if you can get past the revelation of your own inadequacies, this is about as faultless as word games get. Word • Age 9+ • Single player only • No controller support
26. ALBA: A WILDLIFE ADVENTURE Battery-wrecking but otherwise delightful 84 Macworld • September 2021
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about it all. The (portrait-mode) touchscreen controls are slightly awkward: the top half of the screen controls your view and the bottom half your direction but you can’t do both at once. Much better to use a joypad, which is much easier (despite the sad lack of an option to invert the Y axis) and also, ingeniously, converts the game to landscape.
Adventure/Exploration • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
27. DISCOLOURED This lovingly crafted mystery reminded me of early Resident Evil, and it’s not just the colour-based puzzles; it’s the whole atmosphere. There are no zombies but the dark windows and flickering TVs are somehow scarier. The setting – an eerily empty 50s diner, like one of those ‘social distancing’ parodies of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks – has been drained of colour, and solving the puzzles gradually restores them. This in turn makes certain objects appear, which may enable or impede further progress. There are some nice head-scratchers. As with all first-person games, a joypad is recommended. The only
27.
downside is that turning is weirdly slow – something I assumed must be a deliberate choice to increase the paranoia factor (“Is there someone behind me?”) until I found there was no such issue in touchscreen. Puzzle/Adventure • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
28. THE GET OUT KIDS A lovely and nostalgic ‘interactive adventure novel’ that’s affectionately written and packed with puzzles, jokes, vampires and 1980s pop culture references. This is a classic tale of underdog kids investigating no-good grownups. It alternates between floatinghead cartoon dialogue sequences, puzzles (which vary wildly in difficulty, from basic subtraction to Skyrim-style lock-picking) and intertitles alluding to a larger and darker back story. All of this (along with the evocative audio and Frosty Pop’s jauntily characterful house art style) creates an atmosphere that is both weird and September 2021 • Macworld 85
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28. wonderful: a blend of humour, whimsy, mild spookiness and gentle sadness. And while it’s short, and goes a bit haywire at the end, this gets a strong recommendation. Adventure • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
29. DREAD NAUTICAL Turn-based squad survival game with a pleasingly unusual look and atmosphere that reminded me of the mighty Grim Fandango. Your job is
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to recruit a team of fellow survivors – who manage to present distinct and sympathetic characters despite their fingerless, almost lumpen appearance – and direct them around a cruise liner that’s stuck in some kind of zombie-themed Bermuda Triangle. You’ll need to kill baddies, collect food and healing items, and craft new equipment in your base between
missions. The loading screen delays are a mild irritation, but the mystery is intriguing and I enjoyed the combat and resource management elements. Strategy • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (but is a little awkward – touchscreen is easier)
30. ATONE: HEART OF THE ELDER TREE Moody RPG with a beguiling look: cartoon Scandi saga with a dash of neon. The story is great, the visuals and music fantastic, and the overall experience a lot of fun. There’s less combat than you might expect from a game with such a lot of death in it: exploration, dialogue and puzzles take up more of your time. But when it does happen, combat takes the form of a rhythm mini game in which shapes cascade down the
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screen, Guitar Hero-style, and you try to tap in time to the music. RPG/Adventure • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
31. LITTLE ORPHEUS We waited on this one for a while: Little Orpheus’s main character was the first thing we saw in the official Arcade preview video back in September 2019, but it didn’t launch until June 2020. Well, it was worth the wait. It’s a side-scrolling puzzle platformer, in the vein of Inside and, on Arcade, Stela. In fact it’s something of a mirror image of the latter game; whereas Stela is dark and mystical, Orpheus is wonderfully silly. You’re a Russian cosmonaut (with a distinctly dubious accent) who was sent on a mission to the centre of the earth and is currently trying to explain what went wrong. The game looks superb, full of oversaturated colours, wild landscapes and crazy monsters, September 2021 • Macworld 87
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31. and the music and voice acting (accents aside) contribute hugely to the atmosphere. It’s not the hardest of games, but you’ll enjoy every moment you spend with it. Puzzle/Platformer • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
32. THE PATHLESS Calling a game The Pathless is a brave move, especially when – as here – it’s a game that can leave the player without a strong sense of direction. After a deceptively straightforward tutorial area, you’re dumped on 32. to the main island 88 Macworld • September 2021
and faced with a scarcity of hints that some will find refreshing and others wearying. Still, there’s always online tutorials to fall back on if you’re really not sure what’s happening or where you’re supposed to go next, and other than this sense of navigational difficulty (and a seeming tendency to heat up my iPhone 12 Pro a touch more than I would like) The Pathless is a triumph. It is visually stunning, evoking the mournful air and sublime scale of Shadow Of The Colossus, and adds the Spider-Man-esque bonus that simply getting from one place to another – a combination of dashing, jumping, flying and
33. shooting targets with a bow to refill your stamina meter – is fun and exhilarating in its own right. RPG/Adventure • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (and greatly benefits from them)
33. SNEAKY SASQUATCH A cheeky stealth game with the merest hint of Surgeon Simulator, Sneaky Sasquatch is charming and masses of fun. You play as the titular hirsute cryptid and have to tiptoe (and occasionally sprint) around the bins, barbecues and caravans of an unnamed US national park, trying to avoid the prying eyes and ears of the
tourists and park rangers who want to stop you getting your hands on their tasty pickernick baskets. Adventure • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
34. THREES!+ We’ve all played this, surely – but if you haven’t, now’s the time to jump in and make up for lost time. Tiles labelled with a 1 or 2 appear in the board, and can be manipulated with swipes. Shove a 1 into a 2, and they combine to make a 3. Shove together two 3s and you’ll make a 6. And so on. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this excellent concept was cloned by an army of copycats – September 2021 • Macworld 89
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34. but none pulled it off with the same blend of mechanical slickness and aesthetic charm. Puzzle • Age 12+ • Single player only • No controller support
and how to deal with them once they’re in the back of your car: which line of conversation will uncover useful information, and which will annoy them so much they tank your rating? The worldbuilding is terrific, with an uncomfortably plausible gigeconomy dystopia fleshed out without resorting to exposition dumping. And the graphics are wonderfully precise – which is important, as the emotional cues you get from the sprites’ faces give you hints about when to back off from a dodgy topic.
35. NEO CAB “Making small talk in a taxi” isn’t perhaps the most appealing description a game could have, but Neo Cab is better than it sounds. So yes, it’s a taxi sim, but you don’t need to worry about the actual driving. This is about deciding 35. which fares to accept, 90 Macworld • September 2021
Adventure • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
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36. THE_OTHERSIDE Stranger Things-inflected survival horror board game that isn’t great at explaining its rules and mechanisms – you could really do with a nerdy friend to talk you through it all – but is a lot of fun once you catch the drift. You control two or more characters, each of which has three action points per turn that can be spent on moving, shooting and searching for items. The idea is to find and destroy a requisite number of ‘spirit anchors’ and then escape the level; a continuously spawning collection of Lovecraftian monsters (the equivalent of Genestealers in Space Hulk) do their best to prevent this. First impressions were a little baffling: the stats and dice rolls and even view controls (it’s a twofinger horizontal swipe to rotate, not the traditional twist gesture) were
probably explained in the tutorial but there’s too much to take in all at once. You’ll need to learn by doing, but it’s worth the effort: the action is tense and the atmosphere well realised through sound and visuals. Strategy • Age 12+ • Single player only • No controller support
37. TOWERS OF EVERLAND First-person, grid-based dungeon crawler in the style of Legend of Grimrock, but with a single character rather than a party. Highly enjoyable and compelling, despite a litany of small complaints. The control system falls between two stools (joypad is better for manoeuvring, touchscreen for navigating menus); the Normal and Hard towers are fairly easy, but I reached level 40 without once seeing the item needed to unlock the next category; I don’t entirely trust the autosave, which once lost a cool axe September 2021 • Macworld 91
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38. SOUTH OF THE CIRCLE
37. I’d recently picked up, yet you can’t manually save; and it appears to be super-demanding on the processor, murdering my iPhone 11 Pro’s battery and making it quite warm. But there’s so much to enjoy. The parry/block system is as solid as I’ve ever seen in a first-person RPG, there are masses of weapons and armour to buy, craft and upgrade, and I love the way it works in both landscape and portrait, in different but equally viable ways. I hope they massage some of the issues, but this is still a great iPhone RPG. RPG • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers (recommended, on balance)
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A proper in medias res opener, this: your plane has just crashed in a snowstorm, your copilot is injured, and you need to get help – a mission that then spirals into a larger mystery and greater danger. Along the way your likeably worry-prone character explores memories of his life before setting off for Antarctica, and throughout both flashback and present-day sequences you influence the narrative via dialogue choices. These (mostly) aren’t spelled out: instead they’re labelled with abstract shapes indicating a general mood – enthusiastic, straightforward, panicked and so on.
Despite these choices it doesn’t feel like you have a huge amount of agency, particularly in the exploratory sections where you only sometimes have control over Peter’s movements. But the story is emotionally involving, in its quiet as much as in its adventurous sections, and the look and sound of the game are very beautiful indeed.
All of the games are excellent, but the second instalment was when the series’ scope unfurled: the developers suddenly realising they could transplant those dry puzzles to environments as varied as an ancient temple and the cabin of a ship at sea. The game has aged surprisingly well, and if you’ve not played it already, now is the perfect time to jump in.
Adventure • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
Puzzle • Age 9+ • Single player only • No controller support
39. THE ROOM TWO+
40. GOOD SUDOKU+
Beginning in 2012, the Room series of games acted like a demo reel for the multitouch capabilities of the iPad and iPhone, their horror-tinged lockedbox puzzles offering a deliciously tactile interactivity – you twist, swipe and tap the mechanical elements in a way that satisfies the fingers as much as it exercises the brain.
As with solitaire, so with sudoku: MobilityWare covers the basics with slick competence, then Zach Gage comes along and breaks all the rules. Gage’s Flipflop Solitaire+ might be the better game, but his Good Sudoku+ is a bigger improvement on its original, fixing the considerable issues with playing standard sudoku on your phone and taking the entire exercise to another level. It lets you annotate squares, crucially, and if that’s all you’re looking for you can
39.
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you’ll soon understand. Puzzle • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
41. THE MOSAIC
40. leave the tinkering there. But if you want, it will create basic annotations automatically, vastly speeding up the busywork elements of the game and freeing you up to concentrate on the more interesting deductions. Best of all it teaches you how to play sudoku properly, with an exhaustive series of tutorials covering everything from naked pairs to avoidable rectangles – 41. two references 94 Macworld • September 2021
Surreal narrative/ adventure game about the loneliness of city life. Playing as a downtrodden office drone, you have to get up each morning, read your texts, brush your teeth and go to work, where your job takes the form of a mini game faintly reminiscent of World of Goo. As you go through these repetitive motions, odd things start
to happen... The controls are a little sluggish and awkward (your character walks at a glacial pace, which may be 42. a conscious decision but is still frustrating) and the starting concept of a commuter looking for meaning in life feels a little trite. But the Mosaic’s visual imagination is so rich and unexpected, and its humour so acute, that it gets away with it. Adventure • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
42. CARDPOCALYPSE Cheerful, simplified take on the Magic: The Gathering concept, in which you construct a deck of ‘Power Pets’ cards and do battle with your rivals. The card battles are brilliant, with surprising depth – you can even customise your cards with statboosting stickers and rename them in honour of your favourite cricketers, etc – and joyously cartoonish artwork. What’s especially nice, however, is that the framing RPG
narrative that takes you from fight to fight (and allows you to earn and swap rare cards) manages to be so much more: it’s a funny and intriguing story about trying to fit in at a new school where something weird is going on, and is crammed with missions and side missions. Our only complaint would be that tapping cards to examine them more closely often adds them to a deck instead, and vice versa. The controls are occasionally a tiny bit clumsy, and feel like they might have been designed with bigger screens in mind than an iPhone. Card • Age 4+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
43. ASSEMBLE WITH CARE This gentle puzzler from Ustwo Games, on a hot streak after September 2021 • Macworld 95
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43. producing the two Monument Valley games, is a delight. You play as Maria, an antiques restorer on a working holiday, and get to know the inhabitants of the town of Bellariva as you mend their most treasured objects. The story is occasionally a tiny bit heavy-handed, but it’s also sweet and very beautiful. Puzzle • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
44. ALL OF YOU You’re an adorable hen who has lost its chicks, which by a handy 96 Macworld • September 2021
44.
coincidence can each be found by solving a level of this clucking great puzzle game. It looks and sounds brilliant, and has a solid premise. Each puzzle is split into a series of connected circles, which the hen can travel between to get where it needs to. Most (but not all) circles can be set to play or pause; some can be swapped or flipped. From time to time you will hit a level that seems utterly impossible, which is rather dispiriting – at time of writing I’m feeling that way about 46. But in every previous case the
45. solution, once I got it, has proved logical in retrospect. So stick at it. Puzzle • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
45. MINI METRO+ In this classic from 2015 you’re tasked with designing metropolitan rail networks, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Each ‘level’ is a real-life city, but the way it grows and develops varies from game to game. You’ll start with a few nodes in various shapes that are easy to link up; passengers turn up randomly at each node, each designated by a shape corresponding to the type of node they want to reach. (They’re a lot less fussy than
real-life commuters.) But as new nodes and new node types are added to the mix, and as you start to run out of resources like tunnels and rolling stock, things get complicated. For a sped-up simulation of what is presumably a very stressful job, Mini Metro+ can be unexpectedly calming – when the little trains are doing their job well, at least. Overall it’s a very lovely game. Strategy • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
46. BUTTER ROYALE The butter/battle pun doesn’t quite work (has anyone done ‘Cattle Royale’ yet? All the combatants could be cows) but other than that Arcade’s September 2021 • Macworld 97
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Shooter • Age 9+ • 1-32 players • Supports hardware controllers (and pretty much requires one)
46. take on the Fortnite format has a lot to recommend it. It’s all perfectly family-friendly, with food taking the place of sniper rifles and shotguns: your default melee weapon is a baguette and you get ‘creamed’ rather than literally killed. But the structure remains the same, with 32 players gradually whittled down to a single winner while the map closes in. The music is exciting, in a potentially annoying sort of way, and it’s all very polished. With one exception: at one point, frustratingly, I made it down to the last two then both died simultaneously, causing the game to crash and costing me valuable XP. But it’s been otherwise glitchfree and thoroughly 47. enjoyable. 98 Macworld • September 2021
47. THE ENCHANTED WORLD All sweetness and light (and pleasantly atmospheric music) on the surface, this language-free puzzler conceals a murderously difficult mechanic, and I’m very much here for it. It’s a little like those old tilemoving games you used to get as a child, where you push squares around the board until they make a picture of a cat or you go mad. In this case you’re trying to rearrange tiles until you can form a path for your little fairy character to get through, but nearly every level adds something new: gates that only open when
you connect up machinery, timelimited spider webs, open/close lily pads and Venus flytraps that swallow you. Thanks to this ever-deepening complexity and a sadistic approach to level design, it gets seriously, braintaxingly difficult 48. almost straight out of the tutorial level. In a world of hand-holding userfriendliness, that’s a refreshing thing to be able to say. Puzzle • Age 4+ • Single player only • No controller support
48. GUILDLINGS Quirky RPG set in a fantasy world with technology roughly equivalent to our own, and consequently riddled with text speak and selfies and ‘battery power’ instead of hit points. And despite all that it’s not awful. Not even slightly. Admittedly I found the setting and combat system (in which you simply have to survive, using various defensive strategies, until
the monster gets tired and leaves) so weird at first that I struggled to engage, but it clicks around the time your second party member joins. And then you start to appreciate the oddness, the total absence of RPG cliché, as well as the intriguing story and funny dialogue. Be warned that the save system, at least when I tested, was worryingly prone to create duplicates, and often needed advice on which to keep. (The developers are aware of this so it’s likely to be dealt with in an update.) More significantly, it’s frustrating how arbitrarily the game changes your characters’ mood status, given how critical this is to the special abilities they are allowed to use. It might be September 2021 • Macworld 99
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49. more fun to roleplay in a free and easy way without having to worry about the gameplay consequences of one misjudged joke. RPG • Age 12+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controller
49. SAYONARA WILD HEARTS Static screenshots don’t do justice to Sayonara’s joyous combo of speed and music. This is all about overwhelming the senses – as well as a soundtrack so great that I’ve been listening to little else on Apple Music, it has a neon fantasy look all its own – and pushing your fasttwitch responses to the limit. Why isn’t it higher, then? The 100 Macworld • September 2021
touchscreen controls aren’t great. You can direct your motorbike/car/ ghostly stag/whatever you’re driving in the current level with swipes or by leaning a finger in either direction, but this is neither easy nor intuitive at high speed. It’s immensely better with a hardware controller. (Also, make sure you turn off the skip feature in the settings. It’s a nice idea for the game to offer to bypass sections you’ve repeatedly failed, but in practice it’s hugely demoralizing.) Driving/Shooter • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
50. POPULUS RUN The unusual thing about this firstperson auto-runner is that you don’t
50. control a single character: you control an entire mob. (I suppose you could say it’s first person plural.) This is good for several reasons. It’s unusual, and feels fresh; it’s very funny, particularly when entire crowds of little people are rag-dolling into, off and under various obstacles; and it adds a neat built-in difficulty adjuster, because the game gets easier the fewer people you’ve got left. There’s a nice contrast between ‘safe but difficult’ with a big crowd and ‘precarious but easier’ with the final survivor. Platformer • Age 9+ • Single player only • Supports hardware controllers
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Help Desk Solutions to all your Mac problems. Glenn Fleishman reports
HOW TO FIGURE OUT IF A MACBOOK POWER ADAPTER OR BATTERY HAS GONE BAD You plug in your adapter to your laptop, and the battery doesn’t charge reliably. Sometimes, your Mac dings to let you know it’s plugged in to power; other times, you have to plug and unplug, or even restart 102 Macworld • September 2021
your computer. What’s up? Battery charging involves three separate elements, so you have to go through a process of troubleshooting to identify which one is faulty.
The battery For several releases of macOS, Apple has provided alerts and information about the health and status of a
laptop’s battery. macOS warns you if something’s actively wrong with a battery when it determines this. In macOS Catalina and earlier, you can Option-click the battery icon in the menu bar, and get a little more insight about the state of the battery. In macOS Big Sur shows the current battery parameters, but not battery health. Click Battery Preferences for that. Big Sur, there’s a lot more detail about the battery available by default, but the icon, and the message reads No condition is nested more deeply: go Battery Available. In Big Sur through to the Battery preference pane, click many earlier releases, you can hold Battery, and click Battery Health. down the Option key and select Ð The condition should be listed > System Information and click the as Normal, but if the battery’s Power item under Hardware in the maximum capacity has dropped left-hand navigation bar. Look for below a certain point (which Apple Condition there, where you can also doesn’t specify), it might say Service see Cycle Count (fave.co/3yBUsB7) Battery. You may also see one of and, on certain models and versions a number of other messages that of macOS, Maximum Capacity. The Apple doesn’t document, such as Cycle Count isn’t the number of Service Recommended, Replace times you’ve charged, but rather the Soon or Replace Now, all of which total capacity of the battery divided have a little more urgency, as the by the total energy every used. The operating system has deemed the more cycles, the lower total capacity battery holds a charge poorly, or even the battery has remaining, though it not at all. If the battery dies entirely, should be both years and hundreds an X appears through the battery of cycles before you see degradation September 2021 • Macworld 103
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below 80 per cent. (A cycle measures 100 per cent of the capacity discharged, not the time between being unplugged and plugged back in. If you deplete to 50 per cent on two successive days and recharge to 100 per cent, it counts as one cycle.) In Big Sur, you can also use the Battery preference pane’s Usage History view to examine how and when your battery has been in use and when it’s been recharged. Starting in Big Sur, Apple automatically throttles and adjusts your charging pattern to reduce stressing the battery: it no longer charges the battery to 100 per cent at all times, but based on your usage, keeps it at 80 per cent whenever possible. Lithium-ion batteries face additional wear when fully charged all the time, which reduces battery life. This chart may reveal a pattern of slow failure.
plug blades, dirty or bent parts of the laptop connector, or other signs of problems. However, a frequently used adapter may look fine to the eye, but the internal wiring or circuitry and components in the power conversion part that handles AC-to-DC transformation could be on their way out. If, when you plug in your adapter, your computer doesn’t seem to charge immediately or reliably, see if you can borrow an identical or similar adapter from someone else temporarily to see if it helps. You might even purchase a replacement from a store with a liberal return policy, and keep it if that’s the
The adapter It’s natural to look at your power adapter for signs of wear, like a crushed portion, fraying cable insulation, bent or marked AC 104 Macworld • September 2021
Usage History in Big Sur reveals the pattern of charging on your laptop.
problem. (For Macs that use MagSafe, please, for your own safety, avoid third-party MagSafe chargers and adapters. Read the reviews to understand the risk you’re taking.) With MagSafe connectors, find the appropriate matching adapter; Apple has all the information in this note (fave.co/2VdA0YN). For Macs with USB-C ports (released starting in 2015), it’s okay to test with an adapter that’s rated with higher or lower wattage than your laptop, by the way. If you have a laptop that comes with a 29-watt adapter, you can use an 89 watts one or vice versa: the laptop that requires 29 watts charges fully when in use with a paired 29 watts adapter, but it doesn’t pull in more electricity than necessary with a higher-wattage one. Likewise, an 89 watts laptop can charge with a 29 watts one, though it may charge very, very slowly or you might even see the battery decline. But you can still check whether the adapter is recognized and the adapter is attempting to charge it. All of Apple’s USB-C power adapters have a removable charging cable. Try swapping the cable out. You need another one that’s designed to carry the wattage noted (fave. co/3nWWXt1). Many USB-C cables
are designed with a maximum wattage that’s far below the capacity of the adapter, or can only carry data and low-wattage power over USB, such as is used to charge an iPhone or iPad. Apple notes also in its notes on troubleshooting USB-C adapters (fave.co/3ysi1MC): “Some possible sources of line noise include lights with ballasts, refrigerators or minirefrigerators that are on the same electrical circuit as the outlet you’re using. Plugging the power adapter into an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or an outlet that’s on a different circuit can help.” I have never seen this kind of behaviour, nor heard of it from readers, but Apple clearly has.
Charging circuitry in the laptop If you’ve gone through the above troubleshooting and still have problems, particularly intermittent, the internal components required for charging may be configured incorrectly, failing or have suffered damage. This can explain why restarting your computer allows it to start charging again, or it might only charge when it’s been shut down, and the components have cooled. If there’s a setting fault, you can reset the System Management Controller on your Mac, which handles September 2021 • Macworld 105
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battery charging, fans, sensors, lights and a number of other active hardware components. Follow Apple’s instructions (fave.co/2VmHCrR) for your Mac model to reset the SMC, and see if that solves the problem. If not, your final step is to find service, hopefully under AppleCare. If your AppleCare has expired, I recommend finding a shop (via recommendations from colleagues) that can repair components or source used parts. Because of the integrated nature of power in most of Apple’s laptops, it can be an expensive repair to get a new motherboard or subsystem board, when a used one may work just as well.
MAC SCREEN SHARING WON’T WORK? DISABLE IT, THEN TURN IT BACK ON It’s a sad thing that after so many years of offering screen sharing as a native feature in OS X and then macOS, the remote-access service remains unreliable. I have two Macs in my house on the same network – one a laptop, one a desktop – and it’s often the case that the two can see each other and mount each other’s drives, yet can’t initiate screen sharing. With Big Sur, I recently noticed that when I was unable to connect 106 Macworld • September 2021
from one machine, the one that wouldn’t share stated it was being controlled by my other Mac already. (Big Sur offers more visible and obvious signs of remote screen sharing, as one of the subtle security improvements Apple added.) If you haven’t used macOS’s screen sharing, it’s quite simple:
• In the Sharing system preference, check the box next to Screen Sharing. • From another computer on the same network, find that computer in the Devices list in the Finder sidebar, select it, then click Share Screen in the upper-right corner. Log in with an account on the remote machine when it’s account screen appears. • To access outside your local network, Apple no longer offers its former direct method (Back to My Mac). You need to have a publicly assigned IP address on your computer or punch through a gateway, a much more complicated set-up. I attempted to disconnect that session from the sharing machine by selecting the Screen Sharing icon (two overlapping rectangles) in the menu bar and choosing Disconnect Remote Address. No joy.
Big Sur tells you on the login screen if there’s an active remote session (left). When logged in, two overlapping rectangles in the system bar appear, and reveal information (right).
The solution is paradoxical: turn-off screen sharing. This resets the service: 1. Open the Sharing system preference. 2. Deselect the box next to Screen Sharing. 3. When prompted, click Turn Off to confirm sharing. 4. Check the box against next to Screen Sharing to re-enable it. You should find you can now connect from other Macs on the network. If the built-in screen sharing option isn’t robust enough for you, or you need routinely to access your Mac outside your local network, you can find alternatives in this review round-up of remote-access options (fave.co/3hjnMGk) from 2019.
SET A CUSTOM SCALE FOR EACH WEBSITE IN MACOS SAFARI Website designers have particular feelings about how their work should look on your display. The rise of responsive design over the last several years has led to most sites automatically resizing their type and graphics and reshaping their layout to fit the size of your browser window or the device you’re using. You should be able to read, navigate, and interact with a web page without making your own adjustments. (Responsive design means the site uses style sheets and sometimes JavaScript to respond to the dimensions of the view within the browser window.) Unfortunately, designers may have better eyesight than many of us who use the sites they produce, leading to sites that are perfectly responsive in September 2021 • Macworld 107
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Shift to directly ‘type’ the plus sign. You can type Command-= or Command-Shift-=.) Some sites take this enlargement and reduction better than others. Press Command-0 (zero) to take the site back to Actual Size, whatever that means in a relative world. However, what The Zoom settings reveal the scale of sites open in your you may be unaware browser and changes you’ve made others you visited. Ironically, I did not set a custom zoom for Zoom’s site. of is that Safari retains these zoom showing type that’s too small to read. preferences in a way that lets you I’m sure you’ve had the experience modify them later and set and overall as often as I have of squinting and default. Go to Safari > Preferences > leaning in more closely to read the Websites and click Zoom. Here you type on a page or puzzle out a symbol. see a list of the zoom percentage You likely know that you can for sites in open tabs and windows, use keyboard shortcuts in Safari as well as any custom zoom values for macOS (and other browsers) you’ve set for other sites visited with to scale the contents of the page the browser. larger and smaller. Press CommandYou can also use the ‘When hyphen (used here as a ‘minus’) to visiting other websites’ pop-up menu shrink everything on a page relative to change the default zoom for any to its 100 per cent scale. Press site you subsequently visit. Command-equal sign (used here for Apple offers another kind of the plus sign also found on the key) zoom as part of its accessibility to enlarge a page. (Safari recognizes features that can trip you up because the intent without you need to press the keyboard shortcuts are nearly 108 Macworld • September 2021
identical. Accessibility’s Zoom option enlarges the entire display in intervals above 100 per cent. Press CommandOption-equal sign to enlarge the display and Command-Option-hyphen to reduce it. The minimum is 100 per cent. (Command-Option-8 toggles between your last enlargement and 100 per cent.) The Zoom view in the Accessibility preference pane offers more customization options.
SCAN DOCUMENTS IN NOTES AND THIRDPARTY APPS ON THE iPHONE AND iPAD Relatively few people buy stand-alone scanners these days unless they work with printed documents, photos or photographic negatives, and most financial, medical and legal documents show up in digital form – but not all. That’s particularly true if you have kids in school and are tasked with endlessly filling out variations of the same form, by hand and often submitting as paper. Apple has built in a scanner into Notes for a few releases, which lets you capture pages or images as documents, and then edit them directly (via the
embedded Mark-up tool) or export them as PDF to fill in forms or make other modifications. Based on reader email and online questions in forums, relatively few people seem aware of the power hidden away there. Like most iOS/ iPadOS apps, Apple’s gradual improvements don’t overcome people’s memories of what didn’t work or what was omitted in earlier releases. You can also upgrade to a thirdparty app if you need more advanced features than Notes provides,
Notes figures out where a document sits against a contrasting background (left). You can adjust a scan afterwards for colour and other parameters (right). September 2021 • Macworld 109
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particularly in accessing text digitized via optical character recognition (OCR), and better editing and assembly of finished documents.
detects a document. This lets you auto-scan by swapping out pages beneath the camera or pointing the camera at a series of pages. You can also tap the shutter button in Scan with Notes Auto mode, or tap Auto to switch Notes provides an efficient, but not to Manual after which you must highly featured document scanner: tap the shutter button to capture 1. Launch Notes. a document. 2. Create a new note or select an 5. In Auto mode, documents are existing one. captured and keystone correction 3. Tap the camera button and select applied. In Manual mode, you can Scan Documents. adjust the corners of a document, 4. With the document beneath the and then tap Retake or Keep camera, try to get it as level and Scan. (Keystoning is the effect square as possible. If the Auto of a rectangle appearing to be a setting is on (the word Auto different shape when not captured appears in the upper-right corner), – or projected as with a slide Notes captures a page whenever it projector – absolutely squarely.) 6. Continue scanning until all pages are captured. 7. Tap Save. Notes attempts to extract some text at the top of the document to use as its title. In Step 4, you can also adjust colours captured, as well as choose a flash setting. Once a document is saved, you can tap it in You can search on text recognized in the document (left). Apply a signature (right). the note, and then add 110 Macworld • September 2021
additional pages, adjust cropping and colours, rotate it and trash it. You can also share it, including using Markup, which lets you use a previously stored signature or create a new one by tapping the + sign in the lower-right corner and then tapping Signature. Tap Done when finished to store the revised document page in Notes. If you want to export the document, select it in Notes, then tap the Share button and select any available option. It’s always exported as a PDF. You can also open the same note in Notes for macOS, if you have iCloud sync enabled for Notes, where you can view and modify it, as well as export it as a PDF. The contents of scanned documents are digitized, so you can search Notes for legible text on them. However, Apple doesn’t offer a way in iOS, iPadOS, or macOS to select that text or export a PDF with the text embedded in my testing. That requires a third-party app.
Scan with other software Many iPhone and iPad scanning apps offer Notes’ base features plus additional ones. (Some scanning apps offering faxing, too, useful on rare occasions, but I was unable to find a
Adobe’s scanning app offers similar controls, but more advanced refinement and export.
combo scan-and-fax app that clearly disclosed fax pricing, even among well-reviewed apps.) The most popular and full-featured of these apps comes from Adobe: Adobe Scan (fave.co/3rTfW9U). In its free version, it lets you scan pages and export them in a form that also lets you simply copy the text out of the PDF, as in the Preview app and other PDF-reading apps. For an in-app purchase price of £9.99 per month (£87.99 per year), or as an included part of a Creative Cloud subscription, you gain additional options for exporting in formats like Word, bundle pages into documents, and more advanced September 2021 • Macworld 111
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features. You only need these options if you handle a lot of documents, or if you’re scanning pages of a book or academic journal and want to have better control over creating the final document and extracting the text for better reading access. Alternatives include Microsoft Office Lens (fave.co/3xyz3aF), which is free, and independent of Microsoft Office, but works with the company’s apps and storage service. There’s also PDFPen from SmileOnMyMac (fave.co/3lvvdwC), which I’ve used for years for its flexibility and the friendliness of its interface – and it’s a £69.99 one-time purchase.
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INSIDE: COMPLETE GUIDE TO ANDROID 12
OCTOBER 2021
ZENBOOK DUO UX482 (2021)
ASUS’S EPIC DUAL-SCREEN LAPTOP INTRODUCING VALVE’S STEAM DECK PC GAMING IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND