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“iOS 15 is very much an update for a COVID-ravaged world” I hope you’ve all had the chance to watch Apple’s keynote from WWDC21. As usual, it didn’t disappoint, with big updates to Mac, Apple Watch and AirPods announced. But it was the iOS 15/ iPadOS 15 announcement that really excited us. After a truly wretched 18 months, the new update for iPhone and iPad is very much the iOS for a COVID-ravaged world.

Primarily, iOS 15 is designed to bring people back together.

People who may still be wary of close physical contact, who will be able to benefit massively from the enhancements to FaceTime and the scope that SharePlay brings for listening to music or watching movies with your friends and family while isolating. And those who continue to work from home will also benefit from Focus, Apple’s new method of streamlining your notifications to avoid getting too distracted by your Apple devices. And if you’re still avoiding travel, a new, super-detailed Maps app will bring the world to you in stunning 3D, with extra augmented reality thrown in to let you explore like never before. You can read all about these brilliant new features and many more in our massive lookahead to iOS 15/iPadOS 15 starting on page 14. Enjoy the issue!

Ryan Butt Editor

Meet the experts David Crookes This issue, our iOS expert shows

you how to get really creative with your iPhone by creating fun animations, enjoying Pac-Man in AR and even conducting the BBC Philharmonic orchestra.

Shaun McGill

Our tech expert shows you how to transform your home and garden using apps. From picking new colour schemes to learning new skills, there’s an app for everything!

George Cairns Our creative genius shows you

how to transform your photos into movies and your movies into photos in iMovie, and add atmospheric water effects to your Final Cut Pro projects.

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Contents

Discover the creative treats in store this month

iCreate regulars

News, look-backs and expert advice

08 Trending: News

Read about Monterey, the massive new update coming to your Mac this fall

10 Trending: 5 Things

New stuff that we’ve discovered this month, including the Apple Design award winners plus big Watch and AirPod updates

12 Trending: iCandy

Apple hardware new and old, like you’ve never seen it before

86 Genius Bar

Our resident Apple Genius solves all of your tech troubles

98 Time Machine

Take a trip down memory lane with classic Apple hardware

iCreate reviews

Latest hardware and apps, rated

92 iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 2021) 94 Kensington StudioDock 96 Software

92

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iOS 15 We unveil the best new features that you can expect to see on your iPhone and iPad this autumn

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iCreate tutorials

42 44 46 48

Sort out Mac shutdown problems Master interactive charts in Pages Securely encrypt your Mac folders Capture text from any image

watchOS Tutorials iOS Tutorials

24 Shoot and edit in an iPhone photo format that suits your needs 26 How to turn your iMovie clips into photos, and your photos into clips 28 Enhance your Final Cut Pro scenes with a range of water-related effects 30 Add a retro-sounding synth track to your GarageBand projects 32 Learn how to master the auxiliary sounds feature in Logic Pro

iPadOS Tutorials

76 Create the ultimate console gaming experience on your iPad 78 Answer FaceTime calls on your iPad using just your voice

Creative projects and guides for getting more from your Apple devices

Creative Tutorials

72 Create fun animations with Scroobly 74 Make grocery shopping much easier

60 Find out how to get iOS 15 installed on your iPhone right now!

62 Save important emails as PDFs and store them in the Books app 64 Steps to take if you think you are being tracked by an AirTag 66 Discover how to get iOS 15-style Background Sounds now 68 View Pac-Man in AR from the comfort of your living room 70 Conduct the BBC Philharmonic orchestra with your iPhone

Tech feature

80 Enjoy new Apple Watch face designs with the Face app 82 Stay healthy and hydrated with the WaterMinder app

tvOS Tutorials 84 Type, don’t speak, your Siri queries on your Apple TV

macOS Tutorials 36 How to avoid getting ‘Out of Application Memory’ errors 38 Track AirTags and other devices using the Automator app 40 Discover how to unlock the new retro M1 screensavers on any Mac 227

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#Trending The big story

Apple announces macOS Monterey The next version of macOS is coming in autumn, and it looks great

AT THIS YEAR’S WWDC IN JUNE, APPLE INTRODUCED THE WORLD TO MACOS MONTEREY, THE NEXT VERSION OF THE MAC’S OPERATING SYSTEM. With exciting new features like AirPlay to Mac, Shortcuts and Universal Control, together with improvements to FaceTime, Safari and Quick Notes, macOS Monterey looks like a worthy upgrade for Mac users. “macOS Monterey is packed with features that help Mac users get more done, connect with friends and family in amazing new ways, and work across Mac and iPad more seamlessly than ever before,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.

Many of the new features are also found in the new iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, like improvements to FaceTime calls, a new Focus mode to help you concentrate on work, and new sharing options, but there are some new features that can only be found in macOS Monterey. Here, we’ll take a look at them, starting with Universal Control.

If you’re anything like us, you don’t own just one Apple device – you own several – and with Universal Control, you’re going to be able to use them together in new and exciting ways. Simply set your iPad down beside your Mac, and you’ll find that you can move the cursor off your Mac’s screen and onto your iPad’s screen.

You don’t need to launch an app first or do some complicated sign-in process – it just works. All the features of your trackpad will be available on the iPad’s screen, 8

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including the ability to select and drag things around. You can even drag a file from your iPad’s screen onto your Mac’s screen, where you can add it to a project you’re working on. For example, you could drag a graphic you’re been creating on your iPad into a Keynote presentation on your Mac. Universal Control works with more than just two devices too, so you could have an iMac on the same desk as a MacBook and iPad, and drag and drop files seamlessly between all three devices.

Another great feature is AirPlay to Mac. If you’ve got an Apple TV, you’ll already

be familiar with how AirPlay works – it’s a great way of mirroring your iPhone or Mac’s screen, or casting movies and photos to your TV for easier viewing.

AirPlay to Mac enables the same feature to work on your Mac’s screen, so you can cast media from your iPhone or iPad to a Mac with macOS Monterey.

The next exciting thing about macOS Monterey is that Automator, the Mac’s long-standing workflow tool, is transiting into Shortcuts. Shortcuts debuted first on iOS, and enables you to automate the everyday stuff you do on your iOS device for peak productivity.

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A redesigned Safari browser and new sharing options give macOS Monterey a boost.

With Shortcuts on the Mac, you get the same drag-and-drop functionality that makes Shortcuts so easy to use on iPhone.

The app also come with a rich gallery of prebuilt shortcuts just for Mac. In the Shortcuts editor, you’ll find it is easy to link together a series of actions for making shortcuts for your specific workflows.

Don’t worry if you’re a fan of the old Automator – it’s not going anywhere just yet. While it is transitioning to Shortcuts, it will still continue to be supported, but you can import your Automator workflows into Shortcuts in order to make the switchover easier.

The final big change is to the Mac’s builtin browser, Safari. It is still the fastest internet browser out there, and it is going to become even more streamlined. It has had a complete makeover, so the interface looks less cluttered. The main change is that the tabs and search bar have been integrated, which frees up a lot of space, meaning the browser interface doesn’t get in the way as much. The new combined search and tab bar also takes on the background colour of the web page, so it feels like part of the page you are viewing.

Open browser tabs can also be stored together in new Tab Groups in a menu

that appears down the left-hand side of the Safari browser. These groups of open tabs can be used for organising research into a particular topic, like a holiday you’re thinking of taking, and stored together or easily shared with friends and family.

You don’t need to worry that macOS Monterey will only support the latest Macs with M1 chips either. macOS Monterey will support the broadest lineup of Macs in history, including the latest iMac, MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, as well as Apple’s Intel-based Macs. You can expect macOS Monterey in autumn 2021.

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#Trending Apple Watch news

Things we learned this month Apple AirPods

Apple news

The 2021 Apple Design Awards winners have been announced AirPods updated with new features in iOS 15 With iOS 15, there are some great features coming to AirPods, like Conversation Boost. Using computational audio and beam-forming microphones, it focuses your AirPods Pro on the person in front of you, making face-to-face conversation easier. You can also reduce the amount of ambient noise you hear, and a new feature called Announce Notifications will read your notifications to you.

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Each year, the Apple Design awards highlight the most brilliant apps on Apple’s App Store. Six new categories were added this year, including Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, and Interaction. “This year’s Apple Design Award winners have redefined what we’ve come to expect from a great app experience, and we congratulate them on a well-deserved win,” said Apple’s Susan Prescott.

Winners this year included Voice Dream Reader, a text-to-speech app that reads text aloud from virtually any source. The game HoloVista, which supports a wide variety of accessibility features also won in the Inclusivity category. Another game, Pok Pok Playroom, won in the Delight and Fun category, as did Little Orpheus, a platform game with excellent storytelling. In the Interaction category, the app CARROT Weather brought humour and unique visuals to the weather apps genre, while Bird Alone combined gestures, haptics, parallax and dynamic sound effects.

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watchOS 8 adds connectivity and mindfulness

watchOS 8 offers more things you can do with Wallet, more capabilities with the Home app, and an updated Breathe app.

Users with a HomeKit-enabled camera can view who is at the door on their wrist, and users can tap ‘Intercom’ to broadcast a message throughout the home or to individual rooms via HomePod, HomePod mini, or other devices.

“Apple Watch is the most loved watch in the world, keeping users healthy, active, and connected,” said Kevin Lynch,

Apple news

Share health data with loved ones or your doctor

With iOS 15, iPhone and Apple Watch users now have the ability to share health data with loved ones or a care network. You can choose to securely give a loved one visibility into your health and wellness data, enabling them to have more meaningful conversations and provide support as they follow alerts and changes over time.

In the Health app, a Sharing tab gives you control over which data you share and with who.

For the person receiving this information, important insights and trends are highlighted.

With your permission, the Health app can keep track of valuable information, helping bridge the gap of what a person experiences between clinic appointments.

Apple’s vice president of Technology.

“With watchOS 8, we’re bringing more convenient access to places users live, work, and visit”.

In watchOS 8, you can also look out for a new Portraits watch face, and enhancements to Messages and Photos that make staying connected to loved ones even easier. Mental wellbeing is front and centre, with a reimagined Breathe app and new Tai Chi and Pilates workout types. These are supported by powerful custom-built heart rate and motion algorithms.

Apple Music

Apple’s Spatial Audio has launched and will transform music

Apple has launched Spatial Audio on Apple Music.

While Stereo gives you left and right directions, the new technology is an immersive experience, with sound moving around you in different directions. This cinema-like experience is especially effective for movies. Spatial doesn’t require special speakers, and works on Apple AirPods Pro and Apple AirPods Max, but should be coming to other headphones soon.

Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio has now arrived for Apple Music subscribers, and you can enjoy it today.

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iCandy Mac Pro (2006)

Apple’s Intel Xeon-powered super-Macs were available with one or two CPUs (with options giving two-12 cores), and had room for four internal SATA-300 hard drives.

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iOS

15 DISCOVER

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Discover iOS 15 Apple announced the latest incarnations of iOS and iPadOS at the recent WWDC21. Here are the highlights of what we can expect to see this autumn

V

ery much an iOS for the times, iOS 15 arrives as we’re still feeling our way out of lockdown into a post-COVID world. A world where things feel relatively normal, yet we’re still hesitant to get too close to friends and loved ones. A world where many of us still work from home, and face the challenges and potential distractions that it brings. And a world where the freedom to travel has been dramatically restricted, possibly marooning us from family residing in far away lands. The new update for iPhone and iPad helps you stay connected to the people who matter most to you, find the space to focus on what you need to without distraction, and bring the world to you in stunning detail. Read on to discover more about iOS 15’s new features…

New in Wallet Ultra Wideband support has been

added to keys so that you can unlock your home or car without removing your iPhone from your bag or pocket. You can also add corporate badges for your office, add your ID cards and receive and use hotel keys that are added when your room is ready.

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Discover iOS 15 Clearer communication The fact that video calling has become the

new norm throughout lockdown means that FaceTime sits top of the pile for new features shoehorned into iOS 15. Apple has acknowledged that video calling, while bringing so much joy, also poses challenges, such as the loss of all of the social, visual and auditory cues that our brains process during face-to-face conversations. So FaceTime has been enhanced to feel more natural, comfortable and lifelike.

To make it feel as though you’re actually sat in a room with the person you’re on FaceTime with, Spatial Audio has been introduced to capture all of the ambient noise around them to provide a more natural talking environment.

Also, while on group FaceTime calls, the voices will sound like they’re coming from the direction of where they’re positioned on the screen. This may seem like a minor enhancement, but it all helps in making those conversations flow more naturally and freely.

Two new options have been added to FaceTime’s use of the microphone. During a FaceTime call, the mic picks up a cacophony of sound, but Voice Isolation uses machine

A more inclusive FaceTime Some of the new features that iOS 15 brings to the FaceTime party

Schedule calls

Thanks to FaceTime Links, you can now schedule and share links to FaceTime calls that anyone can access – even your Android and Windows-owning mates can access it now.

Share everything

With SharePlay, you can now share music, movies, TV and whatever is currently on your screen with the people on your FaceTime call.

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FaceTime has been greatly enhanced in iOS 15 to make video calling as natural as possible…

SharePlay lets you watch movies as a group, go to Picture in Picture and chat about it in Messages…

Discover iOS 15 Taking inspiration from iOS Photos, Portrait Mode blurs out the background and shines the spotlight on you

Who said what?

You can place the people on your FaceTime call in a grid view and, with Spatial Audio, hear the voice of the person come from their respective position on the screen. It’s witchcraft!

Enhance the sound

Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum sound have been added to the FaceTime mic options, so you can block out all outside noise apart from a voice, or open the floodgates and let the ambient sound flood into your call.

learning to distinguish these sounds, block out the ambient noise and prioritise your voice to make it crystal clear. This means that dogs barking, babies crying and traffic noise can be instantly eradicated from the conversation with the touch of a button. The other new mic option, Wide Spectrum, is the polar opposite; it opens the mic up to every ounce of outside noise to help place others in your moment.

There are also some new enhancements to the FaceTime video. Grid View lets you see every face in your chat room neatly aligned into a grid, offering equal prominence and this provides a clear indication of who is speaking while allowing you to see the instant reactions of the other callers. Then there is Portrait Mode, which blurs the background and naturally puts more focus on you.

To help you schedule your calls, FaceTime links have been introduced. Now you can generate a link for your FaceTime call and share it via Messages, WhatsApp, or even create an event for it in Calendar. Better still, FaceTime links are universal – so you can send one to your Android-owning mates and they’ll be able to join the conversation too. At last – Android users will no longer feel left out!

FaceTime’s biggest innovation yet, is SharePlay. We feel isolated during lockdown – we miss movie nights with friends, and listening to music together. However, SharePlay lets you incorporate these experiences into FaceTime.

You can listen to an album in Music together, or create a new playlist that everyone on the call can control – it’s like you’re in the same room!

This principle applies to streamed video content too, choose to watch together and everyone can view the content. It’s a feature that stretches throughout iOS as you can switch your ‘watch together’ video/call to Picture in Picture mode, and then order a takeaway through Safari. You can tap the top of the screen to access your FaceTime controls at any time, and AirPlay the whole thing to your Apple TV to enjoy on the big screen. With a PAI built for easy adoption, Apple hopes that many developers will incorporate SharePlay into their own apps to help bring their content into FaceTime.

The last feature to be added to SharePlay is Screen Sharing. With this, you can share whatever is on your iPhone or iPad screen with your call, so you can show off your gaming skills or help someone out with their device.

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Discover iOS 15

You can block out any unnecessary distractions in your daily schedule by setting up different Focus sheets…

Any content shared with you in Messages, such as a song, will be added to the ‘Shared with You’ menu within the respective app…

Share more In iOS 15, the Messages app has been gently

enhanced to aid the sharing experience. If we’re sent links to content in Messages that we perhaps aren’t ready to digest at the time, Apple has introduced a new Shared with You feature that takes the content from Messages and adds it to a ‘Shared with You’ section in the ‘Today’ view of News. You can then check out the content in the News app and tap on the name of the sharer at the top to continue the conversation regarding the shared content 18

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in Messages. Likewise, if people share playlists with you in Messages, you can listen to them at your leisure by heading to Music, and if they share pictures, you can head over to Photos to check out the images in the new ‘Shared with You’ section. Shared with You has also been incorporated in the Safari, Podcasts and Apple TV apps as well, so you can always jump

straight to the content that matters the most – making life a lot easier.

Stay focused While iOS devices fill our days with info,

entertainment and communication, Apple also acknowledges that our attention is being pulled in multiple directions at once, so it has

“Apple has introduced Shared with You into many of the core iOS apps”

Discover iOS 15

Maintaining your focus How to stay trained on the task at hand in iOS 15

Setting up

Your Focus groups

Instant access

Adding more

You can set up your Focus groups in Settings>Focus and choose who can contact you, and which apps can notify you during these scheduled phases.

It’s a good way to switch off from work for the night.

As well as using the more general Do Not Disturb feature to block everything, you can create custom notification sheets based on what you’re doing. By default these include Personal, Work and Sleep.

You can schedule your Focus periods to kick in at set times, or you can enable them instantly through your iOS 15 Control Centre (the ‘Focus’ control replaces the standard ‘Do Not Disturb’ option).

implemented many more cool features to help us stay on track with our tasks, and these features are collectively called Focus.

To start with, our notifications are clearer, with larger app icons to help you track which apps need attention. Also, contact photos accompany messages and other forms of communication. Apple has just introduced Notification Summary, a handy round-up of your notifications that you can schedule to arrive. This summary is created using advanced AI that monitors how you interact with apps,

Although four main Focus categories are created by default, you can also create your own custom Focus for anything, whether it’s family time, you time or sometimes, erm… Hammer time!

and stacks the summary accordingly. It won’t include personal messages but will strip the less important stuff out of your Notification Centre, and deliver it in one handy digest. Set up this schedule by going to the Notifications settings, and tap ‘Scheduled Summary’.

Focus also exists as a standalone section in your iOS 15 Settings app, and here you will be able to set up four categories of Focus: Personal, Work, Sleep and Do Not Disturb.

Each essentially acts as a sheet of settings to determine which people from your Contacts

can contact you, which apps can send you notifications during the periods of execution and even which Home Screens you can access.

For example, when setting up the ‘Work’ Focus, you can choose to only be notified by co-workers, or apps such as Mail, Calendar and Slack. Each Focus can be scheduled to kick in at set times or you can enable them manually through your Control Centre. You can also create a custom Focus. It’s a good way of blocking out distractions to only focus on what you need to.

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Discover iOS 15 More intelligence With iOS 15, Apple has ramped up the

Intelligence of your device – a collective term for a number of enhanced features to help you discover and find new things. For example, Live Text has been added to Photos that lets you capture text from any image (such as a handwritten note, whiteboard presentation, etc) just by tapping a button in the corner of the screen. You will then be able to interact with this text as if it were normal typed text, and copy and paste it into other apps. Live Text also goes further in allowing you to tap and drag on any text within a photo to look up place names or call numbers, and works across seven languages. Fantastic!

Also implemented into Photos is Visual Look Up, a clever tool that picks out objects of interest within photos that you can tap on for more information, such as the breed of a dog or a type of flower. Photos have also been added to the Spotlight search tool, so you can find the images you need without even having to browse through your library. The power of this feature is immense and you can even find photos by typing in any text depicted in them.

Spotlight also now features enhanced contact info. Just start typing the name of a person and you’ll be presented with all of the tools needed to contact them, as well as recent messages, meetings, emails, etc.

New in Maps

Apple has added a new Google Earthstyle globe for you to spin and explore, and has really gone to town in adding richer detail to the word’s busiest cities.

There is more detail in key landmarks, different road colours and labels, and it even sports a ‘Night Mode’ whereby the cities are presented in moonlight.

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Live Text has been added to Photos.

This lets you capture text from any image. System-wide translation also means you can translate foreign text in photos

Discover iOS 15

New in Weather

The Weather app has been redesigned to offer condition-sensitive displays, more graphics to help you better understand conditions (like wind, UV index and pressure), and full-screen, high-res maps that show pressure, animated precipitation and air quality to provide a whole new way of seeing the weather around you.

Better memories In Photos Memories, Apple has essentially

Photos have now been added to the Spotlight search tool, so you can find images without even opening the app

created your own, personal, action-packed music videos. By incorporating Apple Music in your memories, you can pick the songs that take you back to those special times, and your memories will be pieced together using pictures, Live Photos, and videos – all of which move to the beat. Pause the action and the music continues, unpause and everything instantly syncs back to the beat and tempo of the music. It’s very impressive, and Memory Mixes even lets you choose from intelligentlychosen alternatives, with different songs, tempos and filters to completely change the dynamic of the memory.

The iOS 15 update will be rolled out this autumn and will work on the iPhone 6s and later. What’s more, iPad users will be able to enjoy all of these great features as well as many unique ones for the increased screen size of their device. It’s a huge update that will undoubtedly have a massive impact on how you communicate with people and interact with the world around you. Roll on the fall.

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Discover iOS 15

The 10 best new features of iPadOS 15 Your at-a-glance guide to the most exciting enhancements coming to iPadOS

Multitasking In iPadOS 15, there is a new tool that

sits at the top of your open apps, and tapping on it reveals the multitasking menu. From this menu, you can make your current app go into split-view and then open another from your Home Screen. You can also minimise apps to a ‘shelf’ and come back to them later.

System-wide translation Thanks to the arrival of the Translate

app, translation is possible from within any of your other apps, including Photos. Just tap to highlight foreign text in images using Live Text, and then you will be able to get the text instantly translated, as if by magic.

Updated widgets

While the option to drag widgets to your Home Screen was introduced with iPadOS 14, there is now a greater selection of widgets for your favourite apps and a new XL size that is bettersuited to the larger dimensions of the iPad screen. Now you get more information, at-a-glance.

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New Notes features Mentions have been added to Notes,

so anyone you namecheck within a note will be notified and linked back to the note – perfect for when you need to collaborate on shared notes. You can also add tags to your notes to make them easier to find thanks to the new Tag Browser.

Discover iOS 15

Swift Playgrounds

This app is a great way to learn how to code, bringing Apple-designed, interactive lessons to your iPad. Now it has been enhanced to let you create apps straight on your iPad, with a main preview window instantly reflecting the code that you write and predictive code auto-filling in those long lines of text.

Translate

Apple has brought the Translate app to iPad and it is rammed with new features. You can practice writing in foreign languages with Apple Pencil, translate right next to a document in Split-View, or use Auto Translate to detect when people are speaking and in what language, making conversations flow better.

App Library

The App Library has been added to iPadOS and is accessible via a handy Dock accessory, meaning you can simply tap on it from any Home Screen to instantly jump to your App Library and access your lesser-used apps. You can also opt to hide Home Screens you rarely need.

New-look Safari

WHY WAIT UNTIL THE AUTUMN ROLLOUT? TURN TO PAGE 60 TO SEE HOW YOU CAN GET iOS/ iPADOS 15 NOW!

Safari gets a new tab design that lets users see more of the page as they browse. The new tab bar takes the colour of the webpage and combines tabs, the toolbar and the search field into a single, compact design. You can also use Tab Groups to save and easily manage tabs – ideal for planning trips.

Quick Note

This new system-wide feature means you can swipe diagonally out from the corner of the screen to bring up an instant note for writing or typing on.

You can do it within any app and it’s a handy research tool. For example, bring up a Quick Note in Safari and you can add the page link to jump back to it whenever you need.

Keyboard shortcuts

As the iPad gets ever more Mac-like, Apple has added external keyboard shortcuts to iPadOS. Users can quickly set up and switch between Split View and Slide Over by using simple keyboard combinations, and the menu bar has also been redesigned to make everything clearer and more accessible.

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Photos Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

15

Find the right format for your shots Shoot and edit in an iPhone image format that suits your photography needs

T

he iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max enable you to shoot photos in a wide range of image formats – HEIF, JPG and AppleProRAW. But which format should you be using? If storage space is an issue then a 2 MB High Efficiency Image Format photo will take up 90% less space than a chunky 20 MB Apple Pro RAW snap! To share a shot on social media, then a 3 MB .JPG file is a good compromise as it has more information to work with than an HEIF file but it’s lighter than a ProRAW file. However if you need more quality and control in the edit stage then ProRAW enables you to use Photos to reveal missing colour and detail.

Develop RAW shots Enjoy the extra benefits of the RAW format

Shooting in RAW enables you to reveal more shadow detail while keeping noise at bay

Working with RAW files

If you save space by storing your original files in the iCloud, then Photos will need to download a full version of a file before you can edit it. To edit an Apple ProRAW file in a third-party app, hold down alt and drag the thumbnail to the desktop.

Look for the label

If you capture a shot on your iPhone as an Apple ProRAW file then you’ll see a RAW label on the shot in both the iOS and macOS versions of Photos.

Shots without a label will be either compressed .JPG or .HEIC files.

Knowledge base

Digital Negatives

Apple ProRAW files are saved as .DNG (digital negative) files. This is a universal RAW format created by Adobe. If you don’t have an iPhone 12 Pro (or Pro Max) then you can still shoot RAW files using apps such as Firstlight and Halide. The Photos app will recognise these RAW files and give you more editing options.

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Info

If you click the ‘i’ icon you can summon the info panel. This will tell you if a shot has been captured in RAW or .JPEG format.

A RAW file will give you better looking results during the edit. You can then share it as a .JPG for exporting to the web.

Extra tools

When working with a RAW file you have extra noise reduction tools. You can easily reduce nasty specs of Colour noise without losing important image detail. The Luminance noise slider helps you get a balance between smoothing noise caused by a high ISO setting while preserving key details.

Creative Photos Step-by-step

Choose the right format

1Choose a format

2Save to iCloud

3 Save data

4 Take a shot

5 View the format

6 Editing RAW

7 Sharing RAW

8 Extra control

9 Exporting RAW

Go to Settings and choose Camera>Formats. Tap ‘Most Compatible’ to save files in .JPG format. Toggle on ‘Apple ProRAW’ to shoot in this format too.

To save space on your iPhone and sync your shots to Photos on your Mac and iPad go to Settings>Photos. Toggle on ‘iCloud Photos’. Tick ‘Optimise iPhone Storage’.

In Camera, you can tap on the RAW icon After taking a picture, go to Photos to at the top right (hold the iPhone vertically) or view it. If you shot a RAW file you’ll see a top left (if you hold it horizontally) to switch RAW label in the top-left of the shot. Tap between RAW and .JPG. Snap a shot.

‘Edit’ to adjust its colours and tones.

An edited RAW file’s .DNG format needs After syncing images via iCloud you can to be converted to a viewable .JPG. This edit all formats in macOS Photos. ProRAW happens when you tap the Share icon and gives you access to extra controls to remove choose a destination like Twitter.

Luminance and Colour noise.

It takes lots of data to upload a RAW file.

Swipe down to tap on ‘Mobile Data’ and turn it off. Your iPhone’s photos will only upload to iCloud when its connected to Wi-Fi.

A RAW file stores more information than a compressed a .JPG. This enables you to reveal more shadow detail without adding blocky compression artefacts.

Hold the option/alt key and drag the thumbnail from Photos to the desktop. This exports the file as a .DNG that you can work on in a third–party app.

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iMovie Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

10

Download available

Turn clips into photos and photos into clips Discover how to create high-quality photos from footage (and add motion to stills in the process)

P

hotographers aspire to capture the perfect moment. However, by the time they’ve swiped and tapped to get their iPhone’s Camera app up and running, they may find that ‘the bird has flown’. Fortunately, by shooting footage instead of stills, you can increase the frequency of your photo opportunities. Since a video clip is a series of consecutive images, you’ll have hundreds of shots to choose from. By shooting in 4K resolution you’ll be able to produce an image that will look great in your social media stream.

You can also use iMovie to add motion and create a montage sequence or slideshow…

Stills and clips Turn footage into photos (and vice versa) Knowledge base 4K and print size

By filming footage at 4K (or UHD) resolution, you can scrub through your movie and find a frame that can be converted into a more aesthetic and well composed photo.

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Enhance image

Our unprocessed footage suffers from flat tones and desaturated colours. iMovie has all the digital darkroom tools needed to boost contrast and saturation to create a shot with more impact.

4K footage has a resolution (size) of 3840 x 2160. If you multiply those numbers together, you get 829440.

This means that a 4K clip can produce a photo that’s the same size as one produced by an 8 megapixel stills camera. 8 megapixels is big enough to produce a highly detailed 10 x 8 inch photo packed with 300 pixels per inch.

4K footage

With a few simple tricks, you can turn your footage into stills and stills into footage…

Add motion

When you pop a still into the timeline, iMovie gives it a duration of four seconds and adds a Ken Burns camera move to it. You can modify the duration and the move.

Recompose

4K footage is large enough to be cropped and still produce a large print. Here, we’ve used the Crop tool to remove the photographer’s shadow.

Creative iMovie Step-by-step

Create a high-res print

1Go 4K

2Import assets

3 Check size

4 Choose a frame

5 Improve composition 6 Colour and tone To remove the photographer’s shadow, click the Cropping icon. Choose ‘Crop to Fill’. Drag the corner handles to lose the head. Drag inside the crop window frame.

To improve flat contrast, click the Color correction icon. Drag the black contrast slider left to darken shadows and lighten highlights. Increase the Saturation slider.

7 Export a still

8 Add a still

9 Modify motion

Go to your iPhone’s Settings app and tap In Projects, click ‘+ Create New’.

Drag the clip into the timeline. By default, on ‘Camera’. Tap ‘Record Video’. Choose Choose ‘Movie’. This takes you to My Media. the project’s resolution is defined by the first one of the 4K options, like 4K at 25 fps. This Click ‘Import Media’, browse to our supplied clip you add to the timeline. Click ‘Settings’. gives you 25 still frames per second.

‘4K Clip.mov’, and click ‘Import Selected’.

Here, you’ll see that the setting is indeed 4K.

Scrub the playhead to seven seconds.

Here, the trees have just cleared the top of the castle. The branches create a frame for the building and add foreground interest.

Now that the chosen frame is looking its best, go to File>Share>Image. Label the image ‘Train Still’. It will automatically be saved in a shareable JPEG image format.

Import our supplied photo, ‘Castle.jpg’.

Drag it to the timeline. iMovie adds a zoom to the still image to make it more interesting to look at. You can modify the motion.

Click the Cropping icon above the viewer. Click the Ken Burns button. Re-size and re-frame the End window so the camera zooms and pans to get closer to the castle.

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Final Cut Pro Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

15

Download available

Just add water – liquify your landscape images How to enhance a scene with a range of water-related effects so you can be an instant pro with your post-production edits

W

ater can change the mood of a scene. A ripple-free lake creates a natural mirror that adds symmetry and tranquillity to a landscape. Sheets of driving rain can add drama to genres, such as thrillers and crime shows. Adding water as a postproduction visual effect gives you more control over your footage. You don’t need to rely on a wind-free day to create a mirror-like surface. You can even add water to landscapes that don’t feature a lake. Final Cut Pro has a wide selection of water-related effects so you can shoot ‘dry for wet’ and then turn on the taps to create a digital deluge. Let it rain!

Make a splash Add digital water effects

CGI water effects add atmosphere and symmetry to a landscape

Compound clip

After using a mask to mix two layered clips together, we can flatten the clips into one layer. This enables us to apply a new Rain effect to both layers at once.

Video Inspector

All the Effects that we apply to a clip can be modified in the Video Inspector. For example, here we can increase the amount of digital rain and adjust Density for more impact.

Knowledge base

Shooting tips

We captured this lesson’s supplied source footage in bonny Scotland using an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Thanks to the iPhone’s sensor-shift optical image stabilisation, we were able to pan handheld and achieve a gimbalsmooth camera move (without the need to stabilise the footage in Final Cut Pro). We also used the ultra-wide lens to include more of the landscape in our clip.

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Mask

We used a Graduated Mask effect to blend the top half of the upper layer with the bottom half of the vertically flipped lower layer. This created a lake-like reflection.

Effects

We plundered the Effects panel’s ‘Stylize’ category for two of its waterrelated effects. ‘Rain’ adds a digital downpour. ‘Raindrops’ flips a layer to create a reflection, and adds animated splashes to the scene.

Creative Final Cut Pro Step-by-step

Add water effects to your footage

1Import clip

2Add raindrops

3 Modify effect

4 Add a mask

5 Reposition mask

6 Transform the layers

7 Compound clip

8 Add rain

9 Sound advice

Choose File>New>Event. Label it ‘Water Effects’. Choose File>Import Media. Browse to our supplied ‘Water_start.mov’. Drag the clip into the timeline. Play the lake-free clip.

Select the clip. Choose Edit>Copy.

Edit>Paste to add the clip to the timeline.

Go to ‘Stylize’ in the Effects browser. Drag ‘Raindrops’ onto the duplicated clip.

In the Video Inspector’s ‘Raindrops’ panel, increase the ‘Amount’ slider to 40 for more splashes. Drag the raindrops effect clip below the original clip in the timeline.

From the ‘Masks’ section of the ‘Effects’ In the Viewer drag the bottom ‘Mask Click on the bottom clip. Select the browser, drag the ‘Graduated Mask’ onto the control’ handle closer to the top handle. This ‘Transform’ tool. Drag the bottom clip down. top clip. This makes the lower half of the clip creates a sharper horizon line. Drag the top Click on the top clip, and drag that upwards become transparent. Click on the top clip. handle down to lower the lake’s horizon. to create a more balanced mirror image

Shift-click to select both clips in the timeline. Right-click and choose ‘Create Compound Clip’ from the menu. Name the compound clip. Click ‘OK’.

Select ‘Stylize’ in the ‘Effects’ browser.

Tick the ‘Audio’ sidebar icon. Go to Drag the ‘Rain’ effect onto the compound ‘Sound Effects’. In the ‘Ambience’ folder clip. In the Inspector’s rain panel increase you’ll find a selection of rain sounds that you ‘Amount’ to 100. Tick the ‘High Quality’ box. can use to enhance your clip.

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Garage Band Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

20-30

Create an arpeggiated 80s bass synth Learn how to add a retro-sounding synthesised bass track to your GarageBand projects

A

nyone familiar with 1980s pop music will know all about it. Things were going electronic with the advent of synthesisers, and there was very, very big hair.

Haircuts may have changed since, but still you can hear the sounds and styles in today’s tunes. If you want to add that 80s vibe to your GarageBand songs, bass is key. Arpeggiated bass synth lines were a hallmark, and our favourite music-making app has them in abundance. In this guide, we’ll create one from scratch, using software instruments to make a simple line. Then, by using the arpeggiator plug-in, we can get that rapid-fire pulsing effect so synonymous with the era.

Step-by-step

Go back to the 80s by adding a retro synth track

Add an 80s bass synth

1Retro Project

2New Track

3 Library Patch

4 Smart Controls

5 Arpeggiator Notes

6 Rate and Range

We start with an open project. Our Create a new track (option+cmd+N). example uses 1980s Apple Loops, such as We want to add a software instrument track, 80s Back Beat 01, Minimal Disco 80s Beat 02, which we will record our synth line into. Using Abstract Atmosphere 080 and Synth Array 19. Musical Typing we can add MIDI notes.

Open the Smart Controls (B). Here, we’ll set the knobs to adjust Delay to 7, with Ambience and Envelope both halfway (6).

FM, Decay and Reverb are 4, 7 and 1.

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Click the Arpeggiator button in the topright of Smart Controls. Toggling the Arp on, click the dropdown menu and hover down to set Note Order to ‘Up & Down’.

With new track added and selected, show the Library panel (Y). Navigate to Synthesizer>Bass and pick ‘Eighties Pop Bass’ to apply the patch.

Keeping the Arpeggiator as Factory Default, hover down to Rate. You want this set to 1/16th notes for the best 1980s feel, while ensuring Octave Range remains on 1.

Arpeggiator Appreciated

Creative GarageBand

Exploding our example project to pick out the core points for achieving 80s bliss

Knowledge base

What is an Arpeggiator?

Eighties Pop Bass

An arpeggiator refers to arpeggio or the playing of individual notes within a chord. In synth terms and GarageBand’s plug-in, it works very much this way, but you don’t necessarily have to play chords. The various presets offer choices here in terms of notes and timing, but essentially it triggers repeating cycles from each keyboard press or MIDI note.

This synthesiser patch isn’t the only one you can use. There are many superb synth options within the Library panel (Y) to try. Just bear in mind that many don’t show the Arpeggiator in Smart Controls.

Synth Bass Track

The green MIDI region is just a single note line. If you toggle the Arpeggiator off, it will sound precisely that way and lose that pulsating rhythmic cycling so synonymous with 80s pop music.

7 Musical Typing

We will play the synth using our keyboard. Show the Musical Typing (cmd+K) window and press Z to set Octave to C1. This lowers the pitch to better suit a bass line.

Delayed Effect

Adding plenty of delay and reverb is a key tip for an 80s sound. In Smart Controls (B) you can set the parameters for the synth patch and play with things like FM, Envelope and Decay.

8 Record It

Arpeggiator Plug-in

The button here toggles the Arpeggiator on and off. However, the dropdown is where you define how it behaves, choosing order, rate and octave range for arpeggio notes. There are some presets also worth exploring.

9 Tightening Time

Hit Record (R) to preview the project and You might need to correct the timing. perform. Note the Arpeggiators repeating Show Editor (E), and in the Region Inspector cycle triggered by each keypress. Our line is pick 1/16th Note from the Time Quantise just five single notes, so pretty simple. menu with the Strength slider at 100.

227 31

Logic Pro Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

20

Download available

Master auxiliary sends inUse theLogic Pro same effect plug-in on multiple tracks and save processing power (and time) by utilising this feature

W

hen producing music on any platform, adding effects like reverb and delay is an essential part of the mixing process. Fortunately, Logic ships with a generous bundle of effects plug-ins, not to mention the array of third-party AudioUnit plug-ins it supports. The problem with applying effects like this is that often you need the same effect on multiple tracks, but how do you pull this off without incurring a massive CPU performance lag? Luckily, Logic’s signal routing system is based on that of a real-world, hardware mixing console, so it features a workaround for this issue in the form of auxiliary sends. Let’s find out more…

Aux sends let you use the same plugin across multiple tracks

Auxward moment Efficiently add the same effect to multiple tracks with Multiple sends

To add an extra send to a channel, simply click in the narrow grey area beneath the last existing send, and the bus selection popup will appear.

100% Mix

When using plug-ins on return channels, ensure that the wet/dry mix control is set to 100% wet, as you don’t need to hear any dry signal on this channel – you already have this on the original track you’re sending from.

Power saver

Knowledge base

On the buses

A bus is a special pathway down which a copy of a signal can be sent to a destination such as a group or an effect channel. Buses can be mono or stereo in Logic Pro. You can choose to have your signal sent down any of the 256 available buses from different points in the channel, either before or after the fader.

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Balancing act

Use the return channel’s fader to balance the level of the effect against the dry versions of the tracks on the other, original channels.

Aux sends provide precise, automatable control over the amount of signal sent to the effect, plus you can send multiple tracks to the same instance of a plugin, rather than having multiple instances using a lot of CPU power.

Creative Logic Pro Step-by-step

Adding effects via auxiliary sends

1Import audio

2Catch the bus

3 By return

4 Rename

5 Delay of the land

6 Turn it up

7 Effective immediately 8 Add more tracks

9 Send away

On a new audio track in your Logic project, import the file ‘Aux Send Vox 1.wav’ from FileSilo. We’re going to add a delay effect to this vocal via an auxiliary send.

Double-click the new return channel’s name and rename it something appropriate, like ‘Delay’. This name now appears in the list.

In the channel inspector, click on the text that reads ‘Sends’. A popup will appear with one currently selectable item labelled ‘Bus’ – click on this.

Click on the return channel’s Audio FX slot and choose a suitable delay plug-in from the list. We’ve gone for Logic’s stock Stereo Delay effect. (Delay>Stereo Delay>Stereo).

Hit Play, and you should hear the delay Time for some harmonies! On another working on the vocal and see the meters on pair of audio tracks, add the files ‘Aux Send the return track flashing as the effect appears Vox 2.wav’ and ‘Aux Send Vox 3.wav’ at the in the channel. same bar/beat location as the first file.

A list of available buses will appear.

Choose the first one – Bus1 – from the menu.

This automatically creates a new return channel, labelled ‘Aux1’ by default.

Locate the Send Level knob next to the Bus slot on the original track. Turn this up by dragging up vertically on it. A green halo indicates the position of the control.

Repeat the above steps to route these tracks to the same delay effect via bus 1. We can now use the sends on each channel to send each vocal to the same delay plug-in.

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227 35

macOS Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

10

Step-by-step

Avoid ‘Out of Application Memory’ errors Is your Mac running short of memory? Avoid problems involving lack of memory with these tips

I

f your Mac is running out of available memory, it affects its performance. It could slow down, and in extreme cases apps can be frozen by macOS with an error message. Don’t worry – we’ll show you how to tell if the Mac is short of memory and what can be done about it.

There are a few techniques that help you to avoid running out of application memory, and useful ways to deal with it if an app is frozen.

These tips apply to Intel Macs and those with just 4 or 8 GB of memory. However, we have seen 16 GB computers run out of memory when editing large images in Adobe Lightroom. Memory is a common issue with photo editing software.

See memory configuration in System Information and memory usage in Activity Monitor

Prevent or fix memory problems

1Install more RAM

2Check memory usage 3 Check running apps

4 Restart the Mac

5 Don’t browse Recents 6 Start startup apps

Adding more RAM is an obvious solution to fix your device’s memory issues. To find out if your Mac is upgradeable, go to support.apple.com/specs and check.

Some people never turn off their Mac, so it runs for weeks at a time. If apps are paused or memory warnings appear, then restart the Mac to clear apps and memory.

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If your Mac is slow, is it from a lack of memory? View the ‘Memory’ tab in Activity Monitor. You can check the memory pressure chart to see if it has red areas – a bad sign.

Go to the Apple menu and Force Quit to see running apps. If there are too many, quit some to free up memory. ‘Paused apps’ due to lack of memory are labelled in the list here.

Browsing the Recents files list in Finder Apps, Safari and Finder use memory consumes memory, watch it rise in Activity from when you login. To stop this, go to Monitor! Go to Finder>Preferences and System Preferences>Users & Groups>Login select another startup folder to save memory. Items and remove any unnecessary apps.

Monitor memory Check for memory issues in Activity Monitor

macOS Memory problems

Show memory hogs Open Activity Monitor, select the ‘Memory’ tab and then click the ‘Memory column to sort everything by size. See which apps are using the most memory and quit them to free up memory.

Memory pressure

This live scrolling chart shows how well the Mac is coping with apps’ memory usage. The red peak shows that this Mac briefly ran out of memory for running apps. Large red areas are serious.

Step-by-step

Knowledge base

Memory clean-up apps

Are memory optimiser apps the answer to memory problems? Yes and no. The Mac optimises memory by compressing it and saving rarely accessed parts to the disk. An optimiser increases this activity.

It frees up memory for the next app you run, but currently, open apps may slow down because their memory needs to be loaded when you switch to them.

RAM installed vs used

Here is the total amount of memory installed. Below is the amount of memory used, cached and written to the swap file. Install more RAM if possible, but if not, you should reduce the apps installed and running.

Memory usage

This box breaks down memory usage.

‘Compressed’ memory and ‘Swap Used’ are slower to access than normal memory, and large numbers mean poor performance. Quit apps to free up memory.

Funter and Maintenance

Memoryboosting apps

If your Mac is often short of memory, causing performance issues or even paused apps in severe cases, uninstalling rarely used software helps. Remove any app that is not needed. It is usually not a good idea to install more apps, but we know two that can help with the memory issues. Funter (nektony. com) and Maintenance (titanium-software. fr) are both useful tools that work in different ways. Both are free, so add them to your Mac to clean up and tune up.

1 Free up memory

Funter adds a menu bar icon. Click it to see memory used and total memory. Click the ‘Cleanup’ button to free up memory. Do this before running an app to give it more memory and improve its performance.

2 Disk cleanup

The disk is an extension of memory and performance suffers when there is little space.

Run Maintenance every month or two to clean caches, logs, junk and other temporary files you won’t miss. It frees up space and memory.

227 37

Automator Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

10

Track AirTags and devices with auto screenshots See where your Apple devices and AirTags have been, not just where they are right now

A

pple’s Find My service is a shining example of how to track devices. Thanks to the huge network of iPhones, you can see the location of AirTags and other Apple devices in the Find My app. However, one missing feature is location history – you can see where AirTags and devices are right now, but you cannot tell where they have been.

To work around this, you can save a screenshot of Find My showing where something is now, then later take another screenshot to see its new location. This way, the location is tracked in images. However, here we show you an Automator script that does it automatically.

Take timed screenshots Anatomy of an Automator app Knowledge base

Track an Apple device’s location history using Find My, and by taking timed screenshots

Take a screenshot

This Automator action takes screenshots of the desktop. Using the ‘Timed’ option, it can take them after a delay, and the time is entered here.

Choose the file to save the screenshot image to.

Test your app

This app is designed to run for several hours, taking screenshots for you.

Test it by setting the interval to ten seconds, and loop it for one minute.

A test run also enables you to allow macOS permissions like taking screenshots and saving files. Go to System Preferences and prevent the Mac from sleeping or blanking the screen, or it won’t work.

Get Finder Items

This works with the following action, and ‘Get Specified Finder Items’ gets the name and path of a file. It then passes it to the next action in a suitable format. Here, it gets a screenshot.

Looping actions

Sometimes you may want to repeat actions. Luckily, ‘Loop’ does that. Set it to loop automatically and choose when to stop. A spinning gear menu bar icon shows it running. Click it to stop it.

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Rename files

‘Rename Finder Items’ does exactly what the name says, but which file does it rename?

The one passed to it by the previous action. Use the hour, minute and second to create a unique filename.

macOS Automator Step-by-step

Take automated screenshots in Automator

1Create an app

2Browse the library

3 Add actions

4 Take a screenshot

5 Create a folder

6 Rename the screenshot

Run Automator in the Applications folder and click ‘New Document’ in the file selector window that appears. Select ‘Application’ in the next window, and then click ‘Choose’.

In the ‘Take Screenshot’ action, tick ‘Timed’ and set the delay. A screenshot will be taken in five minutes. Click ‘Save To’ and select ‘New’ from the menu.

Automator enables you to create apps Find these four actions in the library by selecting and linking ready-made modules and drag them to the right. We have clicked or actions. Select ‘Library’ in the first column each ‘>’ to collapse the actions, making them to see actions listed in the second column. easier to see. This is the whole app.

A folder and filename are needed for screenshots. Use Finder to create a folder and copy any PNG image to it. Select it in Automator, where screenshots are saved.

7 Rename screenshots 8 Loop to start

Each image is saved in this folder, and with this name. New shots overwrite old shots. Avoid this by clicking ‘Add’ in ‘Get Specified Finder Items’ and select the file.

9 Save the app

In ‘Rename Finder Items’, we can rename Set the ‘Loop’ action to loop Go to the ‘File’ menu and save the app. the screenshot file we just saved, and give it automatically and stop whenever you want, Run it, to save screenshots at the intervals set. a new name. Select ‘Add Date or Time’ at the like after 300 minutes. It can be manually Activate Find My, leave it on the screen and top and ‘Hour Minute Second’ for ‘Format’. stopped if necessary from the menu bar icon. the screenshot app saves location images.

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macOS Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

05

Unlock the Apple Mac’s new retro screensaver Say a huge “hello” to this striking blast from the past that arrived with macOS 11.3

W

hen Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984, the word “hello” was written across the screen. With the release of the M1-powered, 24-inch iMac, Apple has revived the message in the form of a new screensaver that draws the greeting in a cursive font. It’s also available in different languages.

As you can imagine, it’s very cool, yet it’s not immediately available. To enjoy the new screensaver, you’re going to have to perform a small number of actions – none of them tricky, we’re happy to note. It certainly makes for a fun homage while also being colourful and modern.

Here’s how to see this treat for yourself.

The new ‘hello’ screensaver writes the word on your Mac’s display

Manage Apple’s new screensaver You have a few options at your fingertips to make the retro screensaver work for you Choose a theme

Click ‘Screen Saver Options’, and you will see settings specific to ‘hello’. These include three themes: Spectrum, which has bright backgrounds and white text; Soft Tones for pastel-like colours, and Minimal, which is more monochrome.

Different languages

By default, the ‘hello’ screensaver will cycle through greetings in a host of lingos, but if you only want it to display the English version, then untick this box.

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Decide on the timing

You can tell your Mac when the screen saver should be displayed. This can be set to as little as a minute or as much as an hour. Screensavers can also be shown with a clock and randomised.

Match system appearance

If you enable Dark Mode on your Mac, then you’ll likely want to the screensaver to follow suit and darken too. Do so by leaving this option ticked.

Knowledge base

Why does my Mac say the screensaver is already installed?

If you try to import the screensaver, but your Mac says it is already installed, chances are you won’t have renamed the ‘hello.saver’ file. Renaming this is a vital step in the process, and it does not matter what you call the new file. It’s also crucial that you have updated to your Mac to at least macOS 11.3. We found it worked on macOS 11.4 without any issues.

macOS System Preferences Step-by-step

Find the hidden “hello” screensaver

1Say hello… maybe

A new ‘hello’ screensaver is now available as part of macOS 11.3 and later, but non-M1 iMac owners won’t find it by going to System Preferences>Desktop & Screen Saver.

2Install the screensaver 3 Enter the path You’re going have to manually install it. The Screensaver has been pre-saved in a folder on your Mac, so start by clicking Go>Go to Folder in Finder.

4 Copy the screensaver 5 Select the file

The file you need to work with is ‘Hello.

Once it has a new name, double-click saver’. Copy it to your desktop, right-click it, the icon. You’ll be prompted to install the and select ‘Rename’. For this process to work, screensaver, so click ‘Install’. You’ll need to the file must be called something else. enter your system password.

Step-by-step

To reach the folder, you will need to type the file path: /System/Library/Screen Savers into the text window. Press enter on your keyboard or click ‘Go’ when you’ve done so.

6 Choose ‘hello’

Within seconds, the ‘hello’ screensaver will be made available to you in the ‘Desktop & Screen Saver’ section of your System Preferences. Click to set it as your default.

Using Hot Corners

Add hot corners to your screen

Screensavers make your display look pretty when you’re away from your computer, but they’re not actually particularly useful when it comes to preventing screen burn on modern displays – they’re a throwback to the days when we used CRT monitors. Even so, they remain popular, so perhaps you should make it easier to start them by making use of Hot Corners, a function that will allow you to move your pointer to a designated corner of the display, and subsequently have the screensaver spark into life immediately.

1 Open System Preferences 2 Choose an action Launch System Preferences and select ‘Desktop & Screen Saver’. Click ‘Hot Corners’ in the bottom corner. You’ll see four blank drop-down menus. Choose one of the four corners and click the drop-down for options.

Why not select ‘Start Screen Saver’ for the top-left corner and ‘Disable Screen Saver’ for the top-right? Then you only need to move the pointer into either corner. ‘Put Display to Sleep’, and ‘Lock Screen’ are also useful.

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macOS Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Fix shutdown problems on the Mac If your Mac is slow to shut down or freezes during shutdown, solve the problem with these expert tips

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any people never experience problems shutting down their Mac, but occasionally it does happen, and either the Mac takes a long time to turn off or it begins shutting down, but never completes it.

Holding down the power button for five or six seconds will instantly cut the power, but this is not recommended because there is a chance of data corruption when files are open.

It’s best to find the source of the shutdown problem, and this is usually a bug or fault in a hardware driver, app or service that’s running in the background. Even if you don’t have shutdown problems right now, it’s useful to know what to do.

Step-by-step

Try clearing the option to reopen windows when shutting down…

Avoid macOS shutdown problems

1Update macOS

2Update apps

3 Disable extensions

4 Terminal shutdown

5 Quit apps

6 Clean the system

Major releases of macOS are swiftly followed by updates to fix bugs. If you have problems shutting down the Mac, check Software Update in System Preferences.

If shutting down from the menu doesn’t work, try doing it with a Terminal command prompt. Enter man shutdown to read the manual or enter sudo shutdown -h now.

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Apps, especially those that access external devices like printers, can cause problems. Look for updates in the App Store and install them when available.

Some apps add extensions that can cause problems even when the app itself isn’t being used. Disable them in System Preferences>Extensions or uninstall the app.

Apps in the background may prevent Temporary files like caches and logs can shutdown. Select ‘Force Quit’ from the Apple cause shutdown problems if corrupted. Get menu to see what’s running. Open each app Onyx from titanium-software.fr and use the and quit. Force Quit only as a last resort.

Maintenance section to clean the system.

Sources of shutdown errors Investigate the source of shutdown problems

macOS Shutdown errors Check for extensions

Another potential cause of shutdown issues is bugs and faults in macOS extensions.

Check here to see what extra items have been added.

They may be the cause of shutdown problems, so remove them.

Extra preference panes

Some apps add items to System Preferences when they are installed. There aren’t any startup items, windows or apps – they silently run in the background. Remove them to see if they fix shutdown errors.

Update everything You will not be the only one with shutdown problems, and macOS and app updates frequently fix bugs. Make sure that everything is kept up to date with these settings in System Preferences.

Step-by-step

Knowledge base

Login Items

Open Users & Groups, then Login Items. Remove any apps here to see if it cures shutdown issues. Startup apps are also in LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons and StartupItems in the ~/Library and /Library folders.

Find the cause

Finding the cause of shutdown problems is the best way to solve them.

Start the Mac, log in, wait a minute or two and shut down. If there are problems then the cause is something loading at login. If it’s okay, run an app, then shut down. You may be able to narrow down the cause to a single app.

Check startup apps

Startup and shutdown

Many shutdown problems are caused by apps that run automatically on startup. The problem is finding which app it is, where or when it is loading and how to stop it.

There are some obvious places to look for apps that automatically start when you log in to your Mac, but there are many nonobvious places, too, and you must dig deep into macOS to find them. Take care when deleting startup items and always have a backup just in case.

1 Check Login Items

Open System Preferences>Users & Groups>Login Items. Apps here automatically start when you log in to your user account.

Select and remove apps and see if they help with the problem. Restart the Mac afterwards.

2 Hidden startup items

Most apps start by adding entries in LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons and StartupItems. Check these folders in personal ~/Library and system /Library folders. Uninstall apps to remove startup items.

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Pages Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Master interactive charts in Pages documents Insert charts in documents and make them interactive with clickable elements to view data in different ways

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hey say a picture is worth 1,000 words.

When it comes to explaining numerical data, it’s probably worth more. A page full of figures, like sales by date or region, takes a lot of effort to analyse, but when those figures are displayed as a bar chart, you can see at a glance what they mean. The largest and smallest ups and downs over time can easily be seen in a chart.

Inserting a chart into a Pages document like a report for work, school or university is easier than you might think. There are many different chart types available – here, we look at interactive charts. These provide controls that enable the data to be explored and shown in different ways.

Insert charts into Pages documents that you can interactive with and view data in different ways

Interactive charts Create charts to explore complex data Knowledge base

How does it work?

Interactive charts can be confusing at first sight. What do they show? The figures can be shown one column or one row at a time, depending on the button in the corner of the Chart Data window. Clicking the buttons or slider under the chart displays the next or previous column or row. Only one at a time is visible.

Choose a chart

Don’t worry about choosing the right chart to insert into the document. Click here to switch chart types and click the style buttons at the top. See which shows off the data most clearly.

Chart data

Open the chart data window and edit the labels and dummy data to replace it with your own.

Ctrl+click the row or left column to insert more rows or columns as needed for your data.

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Interactive control

This is what makes the chart interactive.

Click the next/previous buttons to show the next column or row of data, or drag the slider. These dots are data columns or rows. Click them to jump there.

Rows or columns?

The interactive chart shows one row or column at a time and the chart control moves forward and back a column or row. Click these buttons to switch between showing rows and columns.

macOS Pages Step-by-step

Create interactive charts in Pages

1Choose a chart

2Choose a style

4 Edit the data

A small window appears with four rows Click ‘Interactive Chart’ in the sidebar and columns, plus labels. Click a cell and enter and choose between Slider and Buttons new labels or data. Ctrl+click columns or rows (see previous pic) or Buttons Only. The slider to add or delete them as required. enables you to jump between views.

5 Change the buttons 6 Add value labels

What do the figures represent? Select an empty cell in the Chart Data window and the Series tab in the sidebar. Click ‘Value Labels’ and choose an option, like Currency.

7 Flip the chart

8 Style the chart

9 Change chart type

Open a Pages document or create a new one. Position the cursor in the document and click the ‘Chart’ button. Select the Interactive tab and click the first chart you see.

3 Access chart options

A small chart with dummy data is The chart currently shows example data, created. Open the Format inspector panel on which must be replaced with your own. Click the right – at the top are all the chart styles. the ‘Edit Chart Data’ button at the bottom or Change the style any time by clicking an icon. ctrl+click the chart to display a menu.

Use the buttons in the corner of the There are many styling options that let Chart Data window to flip the view between you make the chart look good. Select the showing columns or rows. Click the back/next Chart inspector tab and use the options in buttons under the chart to see the difference. the sidebar to explore these effects.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Chart inspector panel and click ‘Chart Type’ to choose a different chart view. Would your data look better presented in a different way?

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Disk Utility Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Encrypt your Mac folders for extra security Keep your folders secure and safe from prying eyes by ensuring they are password protected

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ot all folders are equal. Some will contain files you don’t want others to see, such as financial documents, contracts and sensitive info. To be sure people can’t access your Mac and easily open these folders, you can encrypt the data so it can only be viewed by entering a password. This also means you can feel more comfortable sharing that data, knowing the other person will also have to enter a password.

A good way to do this is by turning folders into password-protected, encrypted DMG disk image files using a process that makes use of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Make sure you use a password that is difficult to guess

What do the different icons mean?

When encrypting folders, you’ll end up working with DMG image files and volumes The encrypted disk image

A mounted volume

Double-clicking a DMG disk image mounts it to your Mac. You’ll find it on your desktop as well as in the Finder sidebar. You then have to click the mounted volume to view the contents.

DMG files are Apple Disk Image files and you’ll have come across them many times when installing software. What you’re doing when you’re encrypting a folder is turning it into a locked disk image.

Knowledge base

Open DMG files in Windows 10

Sharing encrypted DMG files with other Mac users is easy as we’ve seen on these pages, but if the recipient is using Windows 10, then they’ll need to consider purchasing DMG Extractor to view their content.

That’s because the free version won’t extract encrypted DMG files but, at £7.14 ($9.95), the app is inexpensive enough and there’s a 30-day refund policy too.

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Share the DMG

If you decide you want to share the encrypted file, it’s the DMG version that you will need to send. Right-click and you can choose ‘Share’ from the menu.

The original folder

This is the folder we used to create an encrypted DMG file. If it contains information you wouldn’t like others to see, then you can delete this folder once you’ve put it through the encryption process.

macOS Disk Utility Step-by-step

Scramble and secure your folders

1Use Disk Utility

2Create an image

4 Choose encryption

5 Select Image Format 6 Create the image

You don’t need to buy extra software to encrypt files in macOS. All you need is Disk Utility. Locate it by going to Finder> Applications>Utilities and double-click it.

We’re going to turn a folder into a secure, password-protected DMG disk image file, but don’t feel daunted. Go to File>New Image>Image From Folder.

3 Find a folder

Browse your folders. You’re looking for the one that you’d like to encrypt with a password and, once you spot it, just click its icon or name to highlight, and select ‘Choose’.

Click ‘None’ next to Encryption and You now need to determine the format Sit back and let Disk Utility work its magic, choose either 128-bit AES encryption or a more of the disk image: in this instance select waiting for the blue line to reach the end. secure (but slower) 256-bit AES encryption. ‘read/write’ from the drop-down menu to the Once the encrypted disk image is created, Add a strong password and click ‘Choose’. right of Image Format, before clicking ‘Save’. click ‘Done’. You can now exit the app.

Step-by-step

Opening encrypted files

What can you do with an encrypted folder?

Your encrypted DMG file can be used like a folder on your computer. You can store it on your Mac or an external drive. You can also share it with other people, knowing that only those who have knowledge of the password will be able to unlock the goodies that are contained within it. But how do you open it and gain access to the contents?

Thankfully, that’s a rather straightforward process as we are about to see.

1 Double-click the image 2 View the files Double-click the encrypted DMG file. This will launch a password window and all that’s needed is the string you inputted prior to the encryption process. It’s also possible to save the password to your keychain if you wish.

The DMG is mounted on your Mac and appears as a new icon. Double-clicking this will allow you to view and edit the files inside.

Once finished, close the window and rightclick the mounted disk before selecting ‘Eject’.

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TextSniper Developer Valerijs Boguckis Difficulty Time needed

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Capture text from any image on your Mac Although macOS Monterey will let you capture text from any picture, there’s already a tool that does the job well

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f all of the forthcoming features for macOS Monteray, one in particular caused jaws to slacken. It was the new Live Text feature, which will allow words within images to be highlighted, copied and pasted.

Now, there’s more to this function, which is why it’s so exciting. It’s an interactive feature, so if a telephone number is detected, then it’ll be possible to make a call. .

But if you’re simply after copying and pasting text in images and documents where words cannot be selected, you can carry out that task today on macOS Catalina and Big Sur thanks to TextSniper. Here, we look at how it works.

Step-by-step

TextSniper will even capture words from videos

Copy and paste text from images

1Install TextSniper

2Find some text

3 Capture the text

4 Select the text

5 Copy to clipboard

6 Paste the text

You can download TextSniper by visiting the developer’s website at textsniper.app or by purchasing it from the App Store. After installing, it places an icon in the menu bar.

A crosshair cursor will appear on the screen. Use it to highlight the text that you want to capture. Everything you select will darken, showing exactly what will be used.

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You’ll often come across text that cannot be highlighted, perhaps because they’re embedded within an image or a nonselectable PDF. This report is an example.

Once you’ve captured the text that you want to run through TextSniper’s Optical Character Recognition system, let go and it’ll be copied to the clipboard.

The easiest way to activate TextSniper is to press shift+cmd+2 on the keyboard, or else click the app’s icon in the toolbar and select the ‘Capture Text’ option.

You can now open a text editing app or a word processor – we are using Pages. Paste the words you’ve copied to the clipboard using cmd+V on the keyboard.

Explore TextSniper’s menu

macOS TextSniper

You can grab text from images taken on your iPhone and use a host of other options Import from an iPhone Read QR codes If your iPhone or iPad is connected to your Mac, you can choose to take a photo, scan a document or create a sketch and have TextSniper make use of any words it detects.

As well as being able to capture text from an image, you can highlight a QR code or a barcode and have TextSniper capture, extract and convert it to text.

Grab text

Have the words read out

We found that TextSniper was even powerful enough to be able to grab text from a chalkboard. It does struggle with text that has a lot of symbols, however.

When TextSniper identifies words, you can have them read out to you using this option within the menu.

Knowledge base

Add custom words

TextSniper has built-in language correction, but if you are capturing text that includes a lot of jargon, you’ll want to ensure the app can recognise them for greater accuracy.

Click the app’s icon in the toolbar and select ‘Preferences’. Then click the ‘Custom Words’ tab and enter words separated by a comma.

They’ll automatically save.

Step-by-step

Set up TextSniper

Allow TextSniper to record

When you first begin using TextSniper on your Mac, you will be prompted to allow the app to record your computer’s screen. If you decline to do this, the app will not work. But does this mean that the app is dangerous and could be snooping on other parts of your display? Simple answer: no. TextSniper says it doesn’t store screenshots or text, and it doesn’t send them to outside servers. All of the functions are carried out locally on your computer.

• Image credits: Valerijs Boguckis

1 Open System Preferences 2 Make the change To give TextSniper permission to record the screen, click ‘Open System Preferences’ when you are prompted. Alternatively, open System Preferences and go to ‘Security & Privacy’ before clicking the ‘Privacy’ tab.

The apps that want to record your screen are listed. Click the lock, type in your admin password to make changes, then tick the box next to TextSniper. You will be told that the app needs to close, so click ‘Quit & Reopen’.

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Y

How to transform your home and garden using apps!

ou may believe that you have the physical tools, and the knowledge, to undertake your own redecorations and landscaping at home. This is the case for many DIY lovers out there – and we have no doubt that the vast majority of you reading this could do a perfectly acceptable job – but the difference some well-chosen apps could make for your home and garden, is quite significant. They have the ability to replace some tools, and in many cases do a better job, and crucially they can give you the

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inspiration to come up with the best possible look for your home and garden. They also give you choice and the ability to visualise how your new colours, furniture and plants will look in your space.

Planning is a key part of this process, and there is a simple logic behind a large project – the longer it takes, the better the end result will be, allowing your home improvements to actually last longer. We hope that the advice in this feature will help you work more efficiently, and creatively, than you would have without these brilliant apps.

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Home improvement

AThe Measure quickappmeasure received a lot of attention when it was first announced, but it has garnered a lot less recognition since then. However, it is incredibly handy for giving you very quick measurements of almost any area, or object, when you need them, and the end results are accurate enough to work with.

Save your work

Tapping this icon will save your measurements as a screenshot to easily capture all of your work. You can also tap on any measurement to copy the value into other apps. Every possible use is covered in Measure.

And go again

When you have completed a measurement, you can tap ‘Clear’ to start your next measuring phase. This is also useful if you are not sure about what has been captured, and want to double-check the dimensions of the shot.

Tap and measure

When you are at the right spot, hit the big ‘+’ icon.

Then move your iPhone, and hit the ‘+’ to measure.

Now, hit ‘+’ in the same spot, and move again to start making squares and other shapes. Repeat until it’s completed.

It’s not perfect

Remember that Measure is only useful for certain measurements, such as wall heights and the general dimensions of furniture. It is not capable of giving exact measurements, so stick to rulers if you need to be extremely meticulous with your measurement.

Plan your rooms

Once you have some measurements, it is a good idea to build a basic plan of the rooms you wish to redecorate and improve to help you evaluate your desired layout and interior design. Our advice is to pay close attention to the furniture so that wholesale changes will not look too cluttered when you have finished. Creating a basic 2D plan in Draft Paper is an excellent way to start.

1Get Draft Paper

2Perfect dimensions

3 Build it up

Draft Paper is a very simple app that is The app can use dimensions to let you Simple shapes can also be inserted to designed purely to let you draw simple plans, draw everything to scale. This will ensure that represent your furniture. If you take your time, which you can use for an overview of all the you do not make the common mistake of you can create relatively complex plans of rooms you are working in. mismatching crucial areas and measurements. every single room in your house.

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Choose the perfect colour

Home improvement

One of the hardest aspects of redecorating is getting the colours right. This is particularly true when dealing with walls. You have to consider how a colour will look alongside your furniture, the natural lighting in the room, and myriad other things. There is an app, however, that will make this process much quicker and easier – Dulux Visualizer.

1The motivation

2See your wall

4Even more colours

5Save your favourites 6 Finish the job

The obvious motivation of the app is to sell products, but credit to Dulux for making an app that offers instant inspiration, and which is extremely easy to use.

Tap ‘More Colours’ at the bottom, and you will see more palettes to choose from.

You will likely have a tone in mind, so this helps to narrow down the options.

Tap the big green icon (bottom right), and you will see your wall through the app.

You can now touch the wall, which will add your chosen colour from the bottom.

When the right colour choice hits you, it can be saved as a favourite with a note of the room, as well. Don’t fret, it won’t take long to find the right colours.

3 It transforms

The immediate transformation is impressive, and all you then need to do is scroll through the colours at the bottom and then tap the wall again.

When you are finished choosing the right colours for your home, you can purchase the paints from within the app. This is a very impressive and simple solution.

Pick out colours

There is an app called Color Name AR that lets you instantly find the ‘exact’ colour you are seeing in front of you. This will take the task of picking out colours from furniture or flowers, and then matching paints with them, to a whole new level. Bear in mind, however, that you don’t need to get too specific with finding the exact colours.

1Snap and capture

Take a photo, and then tap on a specific area to instantly see the colour. The RGB value and the colour name will be presented at the top.

2The true value

You can now see all of the values for the colour, which is especially useful when using a physical paint-picking shop that can create customised paint.

3 AR scanning

The AR feature is even faster at picking out colours. Simply move the iPhone around, and every colour spotted is immediately detailed at the top for your reference.

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Home improvement

Plan every single improvement

For a project as big and varied as redesigning a house and garden, it is tempting to grab a project planning app to bring all of your information together. We would advise, however, to take a long look at Apple’s Notes app, which has the potential to do everything you need, and to save you substantial time throughout the project.

1Sub-folders work

2Break it down

3 See your ideas

4Bring it together

5Use the features

6 Limit the reminders

The ability to create sub-folders in Apple Notes is hugely beneficial for managing the work you need to do in various rooms. You can organise everything with ease.

Links can be added to Notes in seconds, and you will see a preview of the page when you tap and hold it. This is useful for lists of tools, and other items.

Break down all aspects of your project, to include folders for your measurements, tools and ideas. A ‘Room’ folder should focus on the look, and new design.

The ability to sketch ideas in Notes is a bonus, and gives you thinking space to simply play around until the right idea strikes. You can then view it immediately.

Images will play a big part in your project One advantage of using Notes is that planning because they can give you the you will not be bombarded by alarms and inspiration to push forward, and to visualise reminders. You can share a note to Reminders, what your work will look like. if you still need the facility.

Solve your DIY problems

There is a non-specialised tool that you can use to learn how to undertake specific DIY tasks, and to get practical and understandable advice. YouTube is, of course, a huge resource for video content, but we found that when it comes to DIY tasks it really does shine. There appears to be a tutorial video for every possible task.

1A quick search

2Check the comments 3 Some new ideas

A quick search on YouTube will bring you a The comments attached to a video are list of results, which you can use to complete often enlightening, and help you to assess a task. We would suggest watching as many the accuracy of the advice provided. This is a as possible. very quick process.

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You can also use YouTube to get design and decorating ideas, with videos showing the best available products. Be aware of sponsored content, which can skew opinions.

Home improvement

Collate, curate, click and collect It is important that you spend a significant portion of your planning on buying the right tools and items for your project.

This saves you a lot of money, but also ensures that the work you do will be sustained for a longer period of time. Buy the best you can, and research exactly where your money should go. Spend smarter with our handy tips.

Check all options

Most DIY services and websites, will offer complete indexes of every item they sell.

We would advise checking as many as you can, and to then look for better-value alternatives from as many retailers as possible.

Save the data

The data and item information you need will be available within each service, and you can either save the web links, or use the share sheet in apps to push them to the project tools you are using.

More than a picture

You cannot go by price and a pretty picture alone when buying tools – especially when purchasing paint, wallpaper or other static items for your home. You will likely need to see some of your purchases in person, so keep that in mind.

So many options

There are many apps and online services available on your iPhone, iPad or MacBook, which you can use to compare as needed. You should be able to do all of the non-physical redecoration work on your Apple products.

Upscaling furniture ideas

Upscaling furniture can be a fun task that saves you a huge amount of money. The end results of your work will also be unique because you have done the work yourself, so there is little downside. The difficult part of the process can be coming up with ideas for some furniture, but we have a solution for that in the Pinterest app.

1Choose your categories 2View a design

When you open Pinterest and sign in, you On each of the designs and ideas will be asked to pick categories that you want presented, you will likely see links to find to see content from. This is a quick and easy more information. The entire presentation of way to get new ideas in a visual format. the app is ideal for this task.

3 Be more specific

You can also search for specific items, and we found that this was ideal for focusing in on specific types of furniture. The ideas came to us in seconds.

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Home improvement

Plan in perfect detail Home Design 3D is a superb macOS app that helps you visualise your redecorations with near-perfect accuracy. It could easily form the basis of your ideas, and as you work with other apps to gain inspiration, the end results can exist in your mind way before you finish the project. It takes time, but it’s worth it.

It’s all there

The furniture and artefacts you need are built into the app. They may not always be exact replicas, but offer more than enough realism to enable you to plan in a highly accurate environment. Everything you need is included.

Multiple views So impressive

You can see how detailed the view of your house can be in Home Design 3D. This will of course take time to create, but you should also be aware of how much extra time it will take to rectify mistakes.

Quality work is worth the time!

Save some time

You can import blueprints to ensure that every aspect of your virtual plan is accurate, in terms of dimensions. This can save you a huge amount of time in the initial planning stages, and help to create a better end result.

An overhead 2D view is available, alongside a 3D view and even close-ups that you can move around inside your property. You will find that each view will assist you, in the way you plan ahead.

The right tools

One way to save a lot of time is to have as many of the tools you need in your possession before you start. A surprising number of tasks can be undertaken with digital tools on your iPhone, but you may want to invest in good-quality, reliable tools if you are likely to use them multiple times.

1Convert anything

2A digital level

You will probably need to convert An app like Bubble Level will allow you between units often when measuring, and an to ensure that every picture, edge and panel app like Conversion Calculator Plus will do is straight. It is just as useful as a real level in the job for free when you need it. some circumstances.

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3 Real tools matter

If you need an expensive tool that will have the effect of saving you loads of time, you can find a selection of tool hire apps in the good old App Store.

Home improvement

Identify any plant

PictureThis – Plant Identifier is a stunning app, and one that will pay dividends in more ways than you may initially expect. It literally covers every aspect of knowledge you will need to understand the plants of your new garden, and this gives you the potential to create a long-term look that will survive, season after season.

1Identify any plant

2So much detail

3 Take care

4Avoid plant disease

5Add detailed notes

6 Time to buy

Simply point your iPhone at any plant, and then tap the green capture button at the bottom of the screen. This is the moment when the magic happens!

After a few seconds, the app will identify the plant or flower, and it will list every possible detail you need to know. It shows loads of information – highly impressive.

The app can even diagnose specific You can add notes alongside each plant problems and diseases that are affecting your that you have identified. This is useful when current plants. You can use this information to deciding what plants will go where in your avoid making the same mistake again. new garden setup.

The ‘Care’ section is most useful when creating a new garden. You can see which plants will suit the shaded and sunny areas of your garden to ensure longevity.

All of the plants you have chosen can be stored in the ‘My Garden’ section. You can now buy what you need to get your new garden up and running.

Plan your garden

Garden Planner is a practical macOS solution for designing, and making the most of your garden space. The default 2D view is incredibly easy to use, and you can instantly ensure that your new garden is neither too sparse, nor too crowded. It is a simple app, but one that works exactly as you would need it to.

1A sample garden

We would suggest to start off with one of the sample plans to make yourself familiar with all of the tools and objects included.

There is a lot to discover!

2Part of a plan

You can add markers to every part of your garden plan, and even number and annotate each of your plants. It can be used alongside your other planning apps.

3 The 3D view

The 3D view will give you more of a realistic sense of what the garden will look like.

It is obviously digital, but it does display the space accurately.

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Home improvement

Keep your costs under control

Home and garden improvements are areas in which you can save a huge amount of money, if you take time to understand what work you can do yourself and where you can find the best-value purchases. Numbers, is the app that will help you keep control, and it works on almost all of your Apple devices!

1Use the sample

2Calculate the labour 3 Squeeze the hours

There is a sample sheet in Numbers called Tap the ‘Costs’ tab at the top, and check ‘Home Improvement’. Select this, and you will the labour costs that are included. Take time instantly see how it can be useful for working to work out what work you can undertake, out the cost of everything. and what needs professional help.

Add a new tab, and input the professional hours needed for each area. Now, take as many hours off, that you can do yourself and quickly calculate the savings.

4Explore further savings 5Your order book

6 A useful overview

The ‘Products’ tab lets you add items that You can add to the Products tab, by We would advise revisiting the front page you need for your home improvements. You inputting what has been ordered to date. The so that you can fully understand where your can remove and add items as needed, and ability to select certain items gives you full money is going. Some simple changes can this approach will really open your eyes. control of your costs, at all times. save you lots of money.

A smart picture frame

You may be aware of digital picture frames, and they can be a good option to consider, but there is no reason why you cannot use your iPad for the same task. This is not redecorating as such, but it is a clever and cheap way to make use of your tablet when it is charging, and to add personality to any room.

1An app solution

2Choose your preferences 3 The end result

Download Photo Frame from the App A new panel will appear which allows Store, and give it access to your photo library. you to tweak the transitions, the speed of Now, select the photos you want to display, the photo cycle and what extra content is and tap the red play icon to begin. displayed alongside each photo.

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The end result will be a pristine presentation of your favourite photos, which includes the current weather conditions and temperature, the date and the UV Index level.

Create your own digital clock

Home improvement

This may sound strange, but turning your iPad into a digital clock can add some much-needed modernism to your living room or kitchen. If you are careful with how you manage the power (with regards to battery health), you can create a stunning effect that works as a useful and aesthetically pleasing object.

Save your screen

Within Settings you can enable ‘Burn-in Protection’, which will cycle the clock faces over set periods of time.

This is like a slow moving screensaver that should help to save your screen from permanent damage.

See the world

Tapping this icon lets you view up to six time zones at one time, and this can add a sense of technical practicality to any mantlepiece or shelf.

The effect is surprisingly impressive on a larger iPad.

Just one app

The Clocks: Alarm, World Clock – is a versatile option that offers clean and large clock faces on your iPad, with the ability to use extra functions and to manage the look in a variety of ways.

Mechanical or quartz

This icon highlights the level of detail that the developer has put into the app, because you can switch between mechanical (sweeping seconds hand) to quartz (ticking seconds hand) with just one tap. It’s a pleasing extra touch.

Present your family history

How many photos are stored on your iPhone? Hundreds? Thousands? Well, no matter how many there are, you can use your home improvement project to do something special with your favourites. It will involve printing them, which may feel alien these days, but the end result could become the main focus of your new and improved living room…

1Fit the frame

2Add some creativity 3 Enjoy your work

Create a new album in Photos, and Color Splash is a superb app for quickly decide which images you want to use for a adding touches of colour to your images. It new family frame. Take note of the number of makes each photo black and white instantly – landscape and portrait slots in the frame. ready for you to make your mark.

If you do not own a printer, most printing stores will print multiple photos very cheaply.

The end result could surprise you, and become a special addition to your home.

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iOS 15 Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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How to download & install iOS 15 on your iPhone now Discover how you can grab the big update early by installing developer or public betas on your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch

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ather than wait for the official rollout of iOS 15 in autumn, there are a couple of ways to get hold of the software early. Beta versions are usually released simultaneously with the update being announced at WWDC, but to get hold of one of these, you will need to be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program (which costs £70 per year). We will guide you through the process of enrolling and obtaining the dev beta here, but alternatively you can wait an extra month and then install the newer, possibly more stable public beta – check out ‘Knowledge base’ for information on how to get that.

Updating to iOS 15 Everything you need to know Wait a while

If you don’t want to pay to enrol in the Developer Program, you can wait a little longer (about a month) for the public beta of iOS 15 to be released at beta.apple.com.

Typically you have to wait about a month after the WWDC announcement for the public beta to arrive…

Install the profile

Beta software profiles always need to be downloaded on the device you intend to install them on. In this case, you will need to go here on your iPhone and then download the profile.

Read the notes

Before you install a new profile, click on the ‘Release Notes’ link and you will be enlightened about known issues with the software to help you make a more informed decision on whether to install it or not.

Knowledge base

Wait for the public beta

If you don’t want to pay the annual fee to enrol in the Developer Program for your iOS 15 beta, then you can wait an extra month or so for the public beta.

To get that, go to beta.apple.com and then click the ‘Sign Up’ button to enrol on the program for free. The public beta should be out by the time you read this, so go and grab it!

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Back up your device

Before installing Apple beta software, always back up your device to iCloud and your Mac. If you find that you don’t like the beta, you will be able to restore from your backups.

iOS Get iOS 15 Step-by-step

How to install beta software

1Go to the website

2What you need

3 Sign in

4 Back up device

5 Connect to Mac

6 Back up again!

7 Back to the web

8 Install beta profile

9 Run the profile

In Safari, head to developer.apple.com and then scroll down the page and click on the ‘Developer Program’ link. Next, click on the ‘Enroll’ button at the top of the page.

Once you are in to the Developer Program, go to Settings>Apple ID>iCloud> iCloud Backup and then tap the ‘Back Up Now’ option to save all your settings.

The next screen will tell you if you need to enrol as an individual or an organisation.

Scroll down the page and then click on ‘Start Your Enrolment’.

Now connect your device to your Mac, open a new Finder window and then click on your device under ‘Locations’ in the sidebar, and then click on ‘General’ at the top.

You will now need to sign in using your Apple ID and confirm your details (name, address, phone number, etc) and then read and agree to the licence agreement.

Now select the ‘Back up all the data on your iPhone to this Mac’ option and then click on the ‘Back Up Now’ option to save a copy of your backup to your Mac. Now we’re set.

On your device, open Safari and go to Navigate to the iOS 15 beta section and You will see your downloaded iOS 15 developer.apple.com and sign in. Then scroll tap on the ‘Install Profile’ option. This will Beta Software Profile. Tap on ‘Install’ in the down and tap on the ‘Software Downloads’ download a profile to your device. Now go to top-right corner and wait for the software to option to go to the beta software page.

Settings>Profile Downloaded. be installed and your device to restart.

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Books Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Save important emails as PDFs in Books How to save an email as a PDF and read and annotate it in the Books app on an iPhone

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id you know that emails can be saved to the Books app on your iPhone as a PDF? Once in the Books app, they can be read and even annotated using drawing tools.

You may occasionally receive emails that you want to keep. It could be a special event, a receipt, or something similar. You will not want to save every email, but sometimes it is very useful.

In this tutorial, we will show how to save Apple product announcements in Books, so you can refer to them in the future. A year or two from now, the emails will not show the contents because remote images have been deleted, but the PDF in Books is fine.

Emails in Books Organise, print and share email PDFs Emails as PDFs Save emails as PDF files to the Books app, and they appear as large thumbnails, along with the other eBooks and PDFs in your library. Tap a thumbnail to read the email in the Books app.

Print emails

Tap the ‘…’ icon in the lower-right corner of an email thumbnail in the Books app to show this menu. From here, you can perform useful tasks, such as printing and sharing the PDF.

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Save emails as PDFs and import them to Books. Add them to an ‘Emails’ collection

Knowledge base

Books for everything

The technique used here to save an email message as a PDF and import it into the Apple Books app is not specific to emails, and it works everywhere. If an app allows you to print, just spread two fingers on the print preview to turn it into a PDF, then share it to the Books app to import it.

Annotate emails

PDF files can be annotated in the Books app using the usual iOS Markup tools that appear across multiple apps. Use them to annotate the emails saved to your Books library. Annotations show on thumbnails.

Add to Collection

Organise the library by tapping here and creating a collection that contains only emails saved as PDF files. It makes them easier to find when browsing a Books library with many items.

iOS Books Step-by-step

Save emails as PDFs to Books

1Open an email

2Choose an action

3 Secret print action

4 View the PDF

5 Save to Books

6 Read in Books

Open the Mail app on the iPhone and Tapping the actions button shows only select an email to save. Here, we have chosen half the menu options. Pull it up the screen to save the announcement of the new M1 to reveal them all. The one you want is ‘Print’, iMac. Tap the actions (arrow) button. right down at the bottom. Press ‘Print’.

The printer options are hidden, and the Tap the share icon, and share options email appears almost full screen. This is a PDF appear at the bottom. Swipe through them document now, no longer an email. We can until you see the Books icon, and press it to do what we want with it. import it into Books.

Step-by-step

A preview of the email is on the Printer Options screen. Use a secret feature: Convert the printout into a PDF by pressing and spreading a finger and thumb on the image.

The PDF file of the email opens in the Books app. Swipe left and right to browse through the pages like an eBook, or tap ‘AA’ and select ‘Vertical Scrolling’ like an email.

Markup your emails

View and annotate emails

Any PDF file that is imported into Apple Books can also be annotated using the Markup tools that have been provided by iOS. This includes PDFs that have been created from emails, which makes it a very useful feature for adding notes or for highlighting certain parts of the email. It is probably a good idea to use the Collections feature of the Books app in order to organise email PDFs into their own collection.

PDFs can be shared with others, so you also have the option of passing it on to someone else.

1 Annotate email PDFs 2 Organise email PDFs Open an email saved as a PDF file in Books, and press the Markup button at the top to enable the tools. Select drawing tools at the bottom, choose a colour and draw on the email and highlight sections.

It is useful to separate emails from the rest of the eBooks. On the main screen, tap the ‘…’ icon on an email PDF thumbnail and select ‘Add to Collection’ from the menu.

Create a new collection and name it ‘Emails’.

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Find My Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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What to do if you’re being tracked by an AirTag AirTags are brilliant at tracking devices that may become lost or stolen, but they can unfortunately be used to track people too

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irTags are hugely useful. We’ve used them to find lost car keys and wallets, and they give us peace of mind when placed within other valuable items ensuring they’ll be more easily found if they’re stolen. But there are concerns about their use, such as the potential for tracking people surreptitiously.

Apple has thought about this. iOS devices are able to detect AirTags that have become separated from their owners, letting people know they’re carrying one that belongs to someone else.

They’re also easily disabled and tapping them with a NFC-capable device such as an iPhone will reveal useful details. Here’s how it works.

Step-by-step

1Receive an alert

Discovering an AirTag

If someone else’s AirTag appears to be following you around and the owner isn’t nearby, you will get an alert saying: “AirTag Found Moving With You”. Tap the alert.

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AirTags can be very useful, not just for you, but for people with nefarious motives too…

2Check it out

You’ll be informed your current location is visible to the AirTag’s owner. You’ll also be told the time the device was first seen with you. Unexpected? Then tap ‘Continue’.

3 Track your path

A map will show exactly where you have been with the AirTag – all information the owner could have seen. You’ll also see your current location. Time to take some action.

Stop stalkers in their tracks You can stop an AirTag from pinpointing your movements Remove the battery

An AirTag’s battery can be removed by opening the device. Push down on the back plate and twist it anticlockwise to remove the battery

View the serial number

Every AirTag has a serial number. It appears when you tap ‘Learn About This AirTag’; you’ll see it when you hold your iPhone over the device; and it’s written inside the AirTag itself.

If you believe you are being stalked, Apple says law enforcement only needs to obtain a court order to obtain details of its owner. You can save the serial number to ensure you don’t lose it.

To help find the AirTag, tap ‘Play Sound’.

If the option’s not available, the owner may be close by or the AirTag isn’t with you any more. Physically search if you’re worried.

Knowledge base

Are these measures enough?

Apple’s anti-stalking measures go some way to protecting users but there are still problems. By the time victims are alerted, much info may have already been shared, including addresses.

Victims also often live with their abusers and may be frightened to seek help.

For advice, call the UK National Stalking Helpline on 0808 802 0300.

Using an Android phone?

Call the cops

4 Play a sound

iOS Find My

5 Stop notifications?

Android phones can be used to scan AirTags but Android users will only be alerted three days after an AirTag is seen to be following them. Apple says it’s looking to reduce that timescale.

6 Learn about the AirTag

Expecting the AirTag to be with you?

If you were not expecting the AirTag to Tap ‘Pause Safety Alerts’ to halt notifications be with you, tap ‘Learn About This AirTag’ to for a day. AirTags belonging to Family Sharing see its serial number and part of the owner’s group members can be turned off forever. phone number: you may recognise the latter.

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Soothing Sleep Sounds Developer Phase4 Mobile Difficulty Time needed

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Step-by-step

Get iOS 15 Background Sounds right now!

Apple is adding a new feature to iOS called Background Sounds

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n May, Apple announced some great new accessibility features coming to iOS later in the year (https://apple.co/3wYZLcB), and they will likely appear in iOS 15 in the autumn. One of these new features is Background Sounds, and Apple says that ocean, rain and stream sounds will play in the background to help you focus, stay calm or rest. We need a bit of ‘zen’ these days!

This may sound like several dozen apps already in the iOS App Store, but you can have this iOS 15 feature right now, and out of all the apps, we like Soothing Sleep Sounds. It’s free, and works brilliantly. Find it in the App Store on your iPhone, and you will be calmer after consistent rest.

Browse the collections of sounds and mix them to create unique background sounds

Soothing Sleep Sounds

1Choose a category

2Browse the sounds

3 Sound options

4 Set a timer

5 Create a mix

6 Add more sounds

Soothing Sleep Sounds organises the Each category contains a small collection Tap ‘Play’, and the sound plays until you audio into categories like rain, ocean, river of sounds. In ‘Rain’, for example, there are stop it. Use it during the day to relax or mask and streams just like Apple, but there are also five types of rain sounds, like ‘Blizzard’ and the sounds around you, like a busy office or crickets, insects and frogs. Press one.

‘Australian Thunderstorm’. Tap one. traffic. It works great with AirPods!

Some people find that rain, wind, Skip back a couple of steps and press chirping insects and other sounds help them ‘Add to Mix’. Although the collection of free to fall asleep. Tap ‘Timed Play’ and set a timer sounds is small, they can be mixed in endless so that the app stops when you are asleep. ways. Start with a sound, then tap ‘+’.

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Browse the categories of sounds, and select another one to add to the mix. For example, select one of the sea sounds to add to the pacific thunderstorm mix here.

Play background sounds Create and edit your own mixes

iOS Soothing Sleep Sounds

Edit a mix

Sounds cannot be edited, but you can edit mixes of sounds. Tap here to edit a mix. Remove sounds, or add more to build it out. You can also adjust the volume of each sound in the mix.

Create a mix

Select a sound from the collections provided, to use it as the base for a mix.

Add other sounds to the mix to create your own unique sounds – to help you unwind, or to help you fall asleep at night.

Time to sleep

First, set a timer to automatically stop the sound from playing, then put the iPhone next to your bed and play the sound. It will then turn off by itself, when you have fallen asleep. Many people find it helps.

Knowledge base

Access hidden information

Soothing Sleep Sounds is a fairly straightforward app, but it has a few hidden features. Select a category of sounds, and then tap a sound to open it. At the right side of the sound title, near the bottom of the screen, there is an ‘upside-down V’ symbol. Tap it to view information about the sound, and the photo is also displayed.

Play background sounds

Play any sound, or mixture of sounds, to focus and drown out distracting sounds around you – like a noisy office, car horns and so on. Play through the iPhone speaker or better yet, use AirPods.

7 Adjust the volume

We now have two sounds in our mix.

Tap the ‘+’ button to add more. Adjust the volume of each sound with the sliders. Name your mix and tap ‘Save’.

• Image credits: Phase4 Mobile

8 Show the menu

At the bottom of most screens, there’s a small menu button (three lines). Press it.

There aren’t many options, but it’s worth visiting the Settings & Help section.

9 Mix with apps

Apple’s Background Sounds will ‘Mix into or duck under other audio’. Soothing Sleep Sounds has that covered. Just turn on the ‘Mix with Other Apps’ switch in Settings.

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Google Developer Google LLC Difficulty Time needed

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Step-by-step

1Install the app

View Pac-Man from the comfort of your living room Google is bringing a host of Japanese characters to life thanks to the magic of augmented reality

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ugmented Reality allows you to use your iPhone to overlay objects on to your real-world environment, giving the impression that those items are sitting in front of you. While it has many ‘serious’ applications, there is also scope for fun.

Google certainly thinks so. For a while, it has been letting users of its Search app play around with dinosaurs, wild animals and items from history, but now it’s introducing Japanese characters from the country’s popular culture.

Chief among them is Pac-Man, but there are many others. Here, we look at how you can bring them to life…

Use AR in Google Search

The Augmented Reality feature works within the official Google search app in iOS 11 and above. Go to the App Store and download it to your iPhone.

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You can bring Pac-Man and other iconic Japanese characters to life on your iPhone…

2Search for a character 3 Scroll down Either launch Safari and go to the Google website, or open the Google search app. In either case, type ‘Pac-Man’ and tap ‘Search’ to see the page of results.

The AR option is part way down the screen, so scroll until you see a card that says ‘See PAC-MAN in your space’. Tap the ‘View in 3D’ option to make use of the feature.

Capture the characters Film an augmented reality movie or snap some pics Snap an image

Position the Japanese characters and get them in frame, then press the shutter button to take a photo. If you hold it down, you can also take a video recording.

View your media

Any photos or video you take can be viewed by tapping the media button. This lets you view or play your creation. You also have options to like, trash or share.

Start again

If you want to begin afresh or see the characters without the background environment, tap this button. You can also tap ‘X’ in corner.

4 See the model

5 Move your iPhone

iOS Google Knowledge base

Play a game of Pac-Man

When you search for Pac-Man, you’ll see a game based on the pill-chomping character at the top of the search engine. It was made available in May 2010 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Namco arcade classic, and has remained ever since. Tap Play, turn your iPhone into landscape mode, and swipe up, down, left and right to play.

Choose other characters

You can also enjoy using Hello Kitty, Kiki and Lala, Ultraman, Ultraman Zero, Ultraman Belial, Gomora, Cogimyun, Pompompurin, Gundam Odysseus and more.

6 Play with Pac-Man

You will see Pac-Man chomping on pills You’ll be asked to give Google access to Look at your iPhone screen, and Pacfollowed by the four ghosts, Blinky, Pinky, your camera, and then to move your iPhone Man will appear to be in the room with you.

Inky and Clyde. If you want them to appear in in a circular motion to map your surroundings. Tap ‘View Actual Size’ for the most impact, your environment, tap ‘View In Your Space’.

Once done, the character appears. and use your fingers to move the characters.

• Image credits: Google LLC

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Safari

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Conduct the BBC Philharmonic orchestra Have music play through your connected devices

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istening to music on your iPhone, iPad or Mac is all well and good, but you’re not getting a surround sound experience. What if you could connect these devices to your other computers, phones and tablets too?

That’s the premise of the BBC’s Pick A Part, only it goes beyond that. A production tool called Audio Orchestrator means sound files can be brought together and assigned to different devices, letting you isolate instruments.

This uses music from the BBC Philharmonic orchestra. To use Audio Orchestrator for your own projects, request access at https://www. bbc.co.uk/makerbox/tools/audio-orchestrator.

The BBC’s Pick A Part lets you conduct your own orchestra

Explore ways to connect your devices The BBC’s tool provides a number of ways to hook up your phone, tablet or computer Copy the URL

If you’ve set up Apple’s Continuity and you’re connecting Apple devices, tapping the Copy button is the easiest method. Once done, just paste the URL into your other devices’ browser.

Enter a code

If you manually visit Pick A Part on other devices, you will find the option ‘Join Existing Session’. Tap it, and you can enter the number that will be displayed here.

Share the link

You can also tap the Share button. Doing so will call up a share sheet, allowing you to use AirDrop or messaging services to make the URL available to other devices.

Scan the QR code

The QR code can be scanned on another device, opening the link in a browser. The rear-facing camera on an iPhone or iPad can scan QR codes.

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Knowledge base

How I can better enjoy the music?

There’s little point connecting your devices to play a piece of music, only to have all your devices bunched in front of you, blasting the tune from a single direction. Play around with the physical positions of your devices so that it feels as if the music is coming from all around you. This will give you the most immersive experience.

iOS Safari Step-by-step

Create a synchronised surround sound system

1Open the tool

2Start new session

Decide whether your iPhone, iPad, Mac or other computer will be your lead device. Go to https://pick-a-part.pilots. bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk.

The idea is to connect two or more devices and have music play from each one.

Tap ‘Start New Session’ and tap the ‘+’ icon in the top-right of the screen.

4 Calibrate your devices 5 Play a tune Tap ‘Enter Calibration Mode’ to sync your sound. As sound plays on your main device, move the slider on the added device until you can’t hear a timing difference.

• Image credits: BBC Media Applications Technologies Limited

3 Connect devices

Connect other phones, tablets and computers. You have a range of ways to do this, so see the main image on the opposite page to explore the options available to you.

6 Interact and enjoy

Tap ‘Exit Calibration’ and scroll down the It’s time to sit back and listen as music screen. You can now choose a piece of music plays from each of your devices. Use any to play by simply tapping on the one that you controls you see to isolate instruments being wish to hear. It will play on all devices. played, effectively making you the conductor.

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Scroobly Developer Google LLC Difficulty Time needed

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Step-by-step

Create fun animations using Google’s Scroobly Move your face and body around to bring your doodles to life, in real-time, with this cool AI tool

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oogle experiments with artificial intelligence and it has, over the years, produced a host of creative tools based around its machine learning library, TensorFlow.js.

Scroobly is one of them, which lets you produce your own digital animations, that you can map to your own live motions: just doodle, allow the camera access, pull some facial expressions and move around – and your actions will be replicated on the screen.

You can have loads of fun playing around with different shapes and creations, quickly testing what works well. You can then make some recordings, which you can share with friends!

Design your own animated doodle

1Launch the website

Open a web browser on your iPhone to visit scroobly.com. Google’s animation tool also works in iPadOS or macOS but, in any case, begin by just tapping ‘Start’.

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You can even generate GIFs on Scroobly

2Access the camera

Scroobly lets you create doodles that you can move, using your face and body.

You’re going to have to grant it access to your camera, so press ‘Allow’.

3 Select a shape

For instant results, select a shape from the bottom of the screen. Switch the background on or off, and choose whether you want to use the front or back camera.

Animate and record your doodles Choose or create a character, and have some fun with it!

Make a recording

Scroobly’s main screen has a ‘Record’ button.

Tap it, and it will count down from three, giving you time to frame your video.

Trim your video

Move the scissor icons (positioned left and right of the edit line), to select a portion of the video that you want to use. As you do so, the number of seconds will be displayed.

Create a GIF

If you’d like to share your animation, you can do so as a GIF. Tap the GIF icon to generate it, and then press and hold on the image that appears, to save it.

4 Make your own

Create your own character! Tap ‘Make Your Own’, and choose one of the suggested body shapes. To customise your character even more, you can tap ‘Doodle Your Own’.

• Image credits: Google LLC

5 Use the outline

Now, an outline of your character’s body will appear. By default, you can draw the character in black on the screen, but tap the pen tool in the top right corner for options.

iOS Scroobly Knowledge base

What information is Google gathering with Scroobly?

None. Google points out that it doesn’t store any of the images or data that you create using Scroobly. This means you can be as crazy as you like, without fear that someone will be able to view your videos – unless you want them to!

When you create a GIF, it will only be downloaded to your device. Then, only you decide if you want to share it.

Start over

Not happy with the doodle or your recording? Then either tap ‘New Doodle’ to start afresh or select ‘Re-record’. Don’t forget, you’ll need to give the tool access to your camera to record.

6 Be creative

Use the outline as guidance, and draw some facial details too. Choose colours and use the slider for pen thickness. When done, press ‘X’ and tap ‘Preview’ to animate.

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Grocery – Smart Shopping List Developer Conrad Stoll Difficulty Time needed

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Take the hassle out of grocery shopping A clever app on your iPhone can help you complete your food shop

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here are very few apps that are considered the best in their class, but here, we have one that many would rate highly. Grocery shopping is time-consuming for most people, but Grocery – Smart Shopping List aims to change all of that. It is far superior to an app that only lets you create shopping lists, because Grocery also provides reminders, the ability to import recipes, onboard learning to help automate your weekly shop based on your previous purchases and myriad other features that will come in handy. We will cover the main features and how to use them, and the rest will be up to you to take full advantage of everything else that is on offer here.

Step-by-step

Every part of Grocery is designed for efficiency, and it will save you time every single week

Get your groceries under control

1Set it up

2Take it further

3 Add some items

4 Move and add

5 Halve the time

6 Smarter sorting

Upon first use, you will be shown the main If you have an account with a features and also asked to allow Reminders supermarket, you can set up the URL to find integration. This is recommended to ensure the exact items you want to buy online. It is a that you never forget a future shop. very clever integration with online services.

You can move any item up and down Tap the bottom right icon and then ‘Last the list, and also add more detail to be as Trip’. Now, tap multiple items to instantly add specific as possible. As you mark each item as them to your new shop – it makes creating a bought, the app will remember your choice. new grocery list much more efficient.

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The best way to begin with the app, is by entering new foods in the main list interface. The simple design will ensure that you do not miss any food or drink items.

This may sound over-the-top, but it’s clever. The app will remember the order in which you tick off items, and this should correspond to the layout of the shop.

• Image credits: Conrad Stoll

iOS Grocery

Simplicity above functionality Let the app do the shopping for you Build your meals

The ability to create tasty meal plans is a bonus, and takes the app to a whole new level. You can use the items you have added in unusual and creative ways. Brilliant!

Multiple shop choices

It’s possible that you shop in more than one place for your groceries, and the app takes care of that. You can keep separate lists for each shop.

Be specific

You can add notes for each item. This can include calories and other nutritional information. This app could also be used as a basic calorie tracker if you want it to do this.

Tap for more

The History icon will show you your last trip, the items you purchase most often and recommendations for specific items that may prove useful to you in future food shops.

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App Store Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Build an iPad gaming console experience There is one key component to improving your iPad gaming – and that is a wireless game controller

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he number of good quality games available on the iOS platform, and by association for the iPad, is immense, but using a touch screen to control your character or other objects just isn’t that fulfilling.

When you add a good quality wireless controller everything changes and you will immediately notice that the games feel more immersive and compelling

than they did before. It is also useful that Apple has made strides to build in greater compatibility, and you now have the chance to use top quality controllers and have a mobile gaming experience that competes with dedicated systems in many important areas. You may be surprised at just how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to bring the console feeling to your iPad.

AGES : t i d e r c e g a m I •

Step-by-step

1 Grab the app

The visuals will remain the same, but the feel of the games on your iPad will be so much more natural

Control your controller

An app called Game Controller Tester Gamepad is designed to help you troubleshoot controller issues. Open it with your controller connected, and it will find and understand exactly what model it is.

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2 Check the buttons

You can now press each of the buttons on the controller and look for visual feedback in the main app display. The entire process is very simple, but it will effectively root out any problems, which is super useful.

3 Be 100% sure

The ‘Rendering’ options let you display an alternative controller. This is a very handy feature, which can help you to be sure that your controller will work with the games you want to play.

iPadOS App Store Step-by-step

Improve your iPad gaming immeasurably

1Look for compatibility 2Connect in seconds

Apple lists controllers that are compatible You should be able to go to with iPads, and they include Xbox, PlayStation Settings>Bluetooth, and then set your and MFi Bluetooth models. The more wellcontroller into pairing mode. Tap it, tap known the model, the better it will work.

‘Pair’, and it will be ready for future gaming.

4 A new experience

Playing with a compatible controller will seem both strange and familiar to you.

It almost feels as if someone has magically improved your mobile gaming in an instant.

7 To the Arcade

Apple Arcade offers a big selection of complex games, and most of the action titles fully support controllers! The experience gets pretty close to a real-life arcade, too.

3 A quick search

To test your controller, go to the App Store and search for ‘controller games’. You will see a selection that you can control remotely, and many are also free to play.

5 Tweak your preferences 6 Relive memories online In many games you will be able to tweak the way the controller works, and this can help add realism to the experience, like in some of the advanced third-person shooters.

Many websites let you play retro games online, such as retrogames.cc. The majority work with controllers, and in our tests, they showed a strong connection on an iPad.

8 Tricky updates

Updating the firmware in a controller can be tricky, if you do not own the console it was originally designed for.

You may need to find a friend who will connect it and update it.

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Settings Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

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Answer FaceTime calls using your voice With compatible headphones, you’re now able to answer incoming calls on iPad using your voice

P

icking up your iPad when someone is trying to call you via FaceTime isn’t always convenient.

You may be carrying something bulky, or have mucky fingers, making you think twice about touching your iPad or headphones. With a set of compatible headphones, however, things have become a little easier thanks to Siri’s latest voice ability.

Upgrade to iPadOS 14.5 and above (or iOS 14.5 for iPhone), and you can get Siri to answer or decline any incoming calls. Siri will start by telling you who is calling, and prompt you for your instruction, allowing you to chat or save time by avoiding scammers or unwanted callers. It’s a shame there’s no way to use your voice to end calls, but here’s how you can set everything up.

Make it easier to answer FaceTime calls on your iPad

Step-by-step

Set up voice answering for FaceTime

1 Delve into Settings

To instruct Siri to answer FaceTime calls on your iPad, you need to update to at least iPadOS 14.5, and turn the function on in Settings. Tap ‘FaceTime’, or ‘Siri & Search’.

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2 Tap Announce Calls

3 Make a choice

Ensure ‘Allow Siri When Locked’ is turned By default, Announce Calls is set on, and tap ‘Announce Calls’. This feature to ‘Never’, so choose if you only want gets Siri to read out who is calling so you don’t an announcement to be issued via your need to pick up your iPad (or iPhone). headphones, your car, or in every situation.

iPadOS Settings

Make FaceTime work for you on iPad Take a look at the FaceTime settings and ensure everything is set up as it should be

Activate FaceTime

You won’t be receiving any FaceTime calls at all unless this button is toggled to green, so make sure it’s activated.

Allowing access

Here, you can determine how you want FaceTime calls to be announced. You can also tell iPadOS how those calls show on the screen – whether as a banner or full-screen.

Receive calls

Turn on ‘Calls From iPhone’ if you want to take calls on your iPad. If you don’t do this then calls will be transferred to your tablet from your nearby Wi-Fi-enabled iPhone.

Knowledge base

Which headphones can I use?

Siri can only be used to answer calls if you have compatible wireless headphones. Unfortunately, the first generation of AirPods won’t cut it, but the second generation ones will work just fine. You can also use AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, Powerbeats, Powerbeats Pro and Beats Solo Pro – essentially most headphones that Apple has had a hand in manufacturing.

4 Connect your headphones 5 Receive a call

You’ll need to make sure your compatible When someone calls you on your iPad headphones are connected to your iPad via using Apple’s FaceTime, a prompt will appear Bluetooth. Go to Bluetooth, turn it on, and tap on the screen as usual. You will also hear the your headphones in the device list. call announced via your headphones.

Respond with a text

Set up text messages to be sent if you can’t accept a call. You can enter up to three messages, but they can only be sent by touching the Message icon when a call is incoming – there’s no voice command option for this.

6 Answer or decline

When Siri asks if you want to accept the incoming call, you only need say “answer” or “decline” – there’s no need to say “Hey Siri”.

The call will be connected or rejected.

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Facer Developer Little Labs, Inc Difficulty Time needed

10

Enjoy new Apple Watch face designs Flex your creative muscle and build unique Apple Watch faces that you can then share

O

ne of the best features in watchOS7 is the ability to share Apple Watch faces.

It has allowed users to expand the range of designs – you only need glance at the Facer app to see the difference it has made.

Facer is jam-packed with stunning Watch faces. It also comes with easy-to-use built-in Watch face creation software that lets you come up with your own designs in very little time.

If you want to achieve more complex faces filled with complications, there’s a fee involved (£4.99/$4.99-a-month). There is a free seven-day trial though, and you may find that this is plenty of time to create what you need.

Top global brands are making an appearance on Facer

Share your Face designs Once you have created your own Face design, you can share it with the world Use it yourself

After adding your design to your Faces, launch the Watch app on your iPhone. You’ll be able to alter the colour scheme, change the complications and set it as your Watch face.

Share with friends

Tapping ‘Share’ will generate a .watchface file, which can then be sent to others. When the recipient taps it and selects ‘Add To My Face’, they can install it on their Apple Watch.

Publish on Facer

Your creations can be shared with the Facer community. Tap ‘Publish’, describe the design, and select a category. When you tap ‘Publish’ again, it’ll be added to Facer’s library.

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Knowledge base

Find Watch faces on Facer

Want to see other people’s designs? Then simply browse the app. Look through the Home tab for Facer’s ever-changing suggestions, then tap ‘Explore’ to search by category or to see what’s new and trending.

The charts include the most popular free faces – to make use of any, just tap. You can add a face to your favourites, view it in action, and check its compatibility with your Watch.

View your Face

As you build your Apple Watch face in Facer, you’ll see exactly how it will look on your wrist.

You can start again at any time by tapping the ‘X’ button, but your progress won’t be saved.

watchOS Facer Step-by-step

Create your own Watch face

1Launch Facer

2Make a choice

3 Begin customising

4 Add a photo

5 Find complications

6 Send to Watch

Install and open the Facer app on your iPhone and tap the blue banner that says ‘Create Your Own Design’. This will show you a selection of face templates for your Watch.

If you have an image you’d like to use, tap ‘+’ under Photos, and choose one from your Photo Library. You’ll be able to take a photo or browse files stored on your iPhone.

• Image credits: Little Labs, Inc

You have one free template (X-Large), which works on Apple Watch Series 3 and above. The rest are unlocked if you buy a subscription. Tap the template you want.

Scroll down the list for more options, including complications for weather, health, communication and entertainment, as well as tools and widgets. Tap to add to the face.

You can add various items to your Watch face. Tap any area ringed by a broken line, and you can either add one of the displayed images, or tap ‘+’ to view more options.

Ready to use the Watch face? Tap the blue icon, and you’ll be promoted to select ‘Add To My Faces’. Your creation will appear in the Watch app under the ‘My Watch’ tab.

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WaterMinder Developer Funn Media, LLC Difficulty Time needed

05

Stay healthy and hydrated with WaterMinder WaterMinder will help you achieve your goal of adequate hydration – so drink up!

G

Step-by-step

and 1Download allow access

ood hydration is like a good night’s sleep. If you are falling short with your water intake, your ability to stay healthy and exercise will be severely limited. A lack of hydration can lead to long-term health problems. Tracking your liquid intake can be a bind, because it is something that you likely do multiple times a day, but WaterMinder takes all of the pain away and lets you add your intake on your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch in a couple of seconds. The fact that it has been built so cleanly for the Apple Watch is a huge advantage, and at no point should you struggle to either input new data or understand what your intake is throughout the day. We will show you just how simple it is to set up and use, and also how to make the most out of this solution.

The visuals of WaterMinder are purely designed to aid usability on the Apple Watch

Track your liquid intake anywhere

2Create your target

You should now enter your personal After downloading WaterMinder, you’ll need information so that the app can calculate the to allow Health access. This shares your health right amount of daily hydration for you. This data with the app to store it in one place. is crucial and underpins the entire system.

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3 Tap to add

On your Apple Watch, you can now input new water and liquid intake with just a couple of taps. You’ll most likely find yourself using this app a lot when you’re on the go.

watchOS WaterMinder

AEverything cleanyouand tidy presentation need is just a tap away on your iPhone and Apple Watch A virtual you

On the iPhone app, the main interface is dominated by a virtual representation of you. This shows how much you have progressed, to help you complete your hydration target on the day.

Build it up

The ‘History’ of your hydration is vitally important in maintaining your physical health, and the data is presented very cleanly on the iPhone. Make sure you check it on a regular basis!

4 Check your logs

Other liquids

Use this icon to add other drinks, such as coffee, tea and even carbonated drinks! Water is obviously the healthiest, but you can still hydrate in many other ways.

Tweak all areas

In ‘Settings’, you can tweak how the app works on your iPhone, and crucially on your Apple Watch. This lets you ensure it works as efficiently as possible on your wrist.

5 Continual recognition 6 The detailed view

Scroll down and tap ‘Today’s Logs’ to WaterMinder can be added to your The watch app is designed for data see all of your entries. You can then tap the watch face as a complication, which is perfect input. If you want to check your stats, you will small ‘bin’ icon next to it to remove an entry if to keep your mind on the task at hand. It need to view the associated iOS app, which you added it in error. Quick and simple. shows your daily target progress at all times. displays all of the data clearly.

• Image credits: Funn Media, LLC

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Apple TV Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed

02

Step-by-step

Type your Siri queries on Apple TV If you prefer not to speak, then Siri will allow you to use an on-screen keyboard instead

S

ometimes, no matter how many times you utter a phrase, Siri doesn’t quite understand what you’re asking it to do. It’ll launch an app that you don’t want launching, or look for content that you don’t desire at that moment in time.

As such, it can lead to much frustration at having to repeat yourself. Speaking in a posh accent doesn’t always cut it, either.

The option to type your request is a welcome one, and as of tvOS 14.5 and above that’s exactly what you’re now able to do. It takes no time at all to activate and will ensure your requests are noted accurately via an on-screen keyboard. It also comes in handy if you feel a little selfconscious verbally asking Siri questions – a reason why this function has been a hit on iOS and iPadOS for some time.

Activate Type To Siri

1Launch Settings app

The ability to type rather than dictate your Siri requests is not activated by default.

To turn it on you need to launch the Settings app, then navigate to ‘Accessibility’.

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Quietly (and accurately) ask Siri to perform a task

2Find the function

Scroll through the Accessibility settings – the function is quite far down the list – and you will see ‘Type To Siri’. As we’ve mentioned, this is turned off by default.

3 Turn it on

Simply click on ‘Type To Siri’ to activate.

Now it will be possible for you to enter text if you don’t want to speak when you next call upon Siri to help you locate something.

Type to Siri using your iPhone As well as using the on-screen keyboard on Apple TV, you can also type via iOS or iPadOS

Manage your notifications

See more settings

Tap these three dots and you can determine if you want the keyboard notification to be delivered quietly to your iPhone or iPad. You can also turn it off.

When you tap the ‘…’ icon you will also see an option called ‘Settings’. This lets you determine how the keyboard alert appears on your iPhone: whether it’s on the Lock Screen, in the Notification Centre, as a banner or even all three.

Call upon Siri

With Type To Siri activated on Apple TV, press the Play button on your Siri Remote.

Tap the notification which appears on your iPhone or iPad, and anything you type on these devices will be processed on Apple TV.

Set up your device

If you’d prefer to use the Qwerty keyboard layout of your iPhone or iPad to enter text on Apple TV, ensure either device is signed into the same Apple ID as your Apple TV. You also need to enable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

4 Activate Siri

tvOS Settings

Knowledge base

Can I still dictate to Siri?

Of course. The benefit of enabling Type To Siri is that you don’t lose the ability to dictate if you would prefer that method. When the keyboard appears, just press and hold on the microphone button on your Siri Remote instead of entering any characters and the digital assistant will function as it always has.

5 Enter your text

Press the microphone button on your Use the touchpad or clickpad ring, Siri Remote – it’s located on both the first and depending on your remote, to highlight each second-generation devices. You’ll now see character, then press to select it. Keep doing that a keyboard will automatically appear. so until you have typed your entire request.

6 Select numbers

To make use of numbers or special characters, press the Play button on the remote. When you’re ready, click ‘Done’ and the request will be processed.

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Genius Bar

Our Apple devices and the software on them are some of the finest products on the planet, but even they have their moments. We’re here to give you expert advice and get you back up and running in no time

Contact us today Glossary

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macOS Finder

The place to come for key terms made easy ------------------------------

App Switcher

This refers to a feature in iOS that lets you view all of the apps currently open on your device. When in the App Switcher, you can swipe up to ‘flick away’ apps you don’t need to run to save battery power.

------------------------------

M1

The M1 is the first Appledesigned ARM-based silicon processor featuring two types of cores: high performance and high efficiency. The M1 chip has been rolled out to MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini and iPad Pro. ------------------------------

Please can you tell me how to replace the boring default folder icons on my Mac with my own? Sabine Tadaro

Picture in Picture

When watching a video in Safari, Picture in Picture mode transfers the video to its own separate viewing window, meaning you don’t have to watch it in the web page. You can manually drag the corners to increase the size of this window, and drag it to various snap-to positions on your desktop.

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1 Copy the icon 2 Open info Open the image that you would like to use for your new folder icon, then press cmd+A to highlight it. Now, press cmd+C to copy the image and then turn your attention to the folder you want to edit.

Click to highlight the folder and then press cmd+I to ‘Get Info’. This will open the folder’s info box whereby you can add tags, comments and sharing permissions. Click on the small thumbnail icon in the top-left.

3 Paste icon

Now, press cmd+V and you will paste the new icon over the old one. Once done, close the info box and your new icon will be saved.

Highlight the icon in ‘Get Info’ and press delete to remove it.

Geni s r macOS TouchCopy

Apple Expert The one-stop column for Genius advice

-----------------------------How do I change my email signature on my iPhone? I don’t want it to say, ‘Sent from my iPhone’ anymore.

I have loads of obscure music on my iPod, which I don’t physically own anymore, can I copy it to my Mac? David Reynolds Yes, but you will need to download a third-party app, such as TouchCopy to perform this action.

This app isn’t available on the App Store, so go

to wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy and download the free trial version to your Mac. Now, connect your iPod and do the following:

1 Connect and select

2 Browse your files

3Select tracks to copy

4 Play your music

With your iPod connected to your Mac, launch the app and it will immediately start searching for devices. When your iPod is found, select it and then click ‘Connect’.

Highlight the music you wish to copy (hold cmd and click individual tracks to add them), then you can click on the ‘Copy to Music’ or ‘Copy to Mac’ options at the top.

Go to Settings>Mail and then scroll down and tap on the ‘Signature’ option at the bottom of the page.

By default, your ‘Sent from my iPhone’ signature will be applied to all of your email accounts, so select ‘Per Account’ and all of your active email accounts will be listed, and you will be able to assign a new signature to them individually. Now, simply tap on the ‘Sent from my iPhone’ text field, delete the existing text and then replace it with whatever you want. Exit the settings screen to save them.

The contents of your iPod will now be displayed by genre, artist and album. As a handy shortcut, you can click on ‘Not in Music App’ to list everything not on your Mac.

You will be notified when your selected tracks have finished copying, so head to Music, click ‘Artists’ or ‘Albums’ in the Library section and start playing your new-found music.

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G niu Bar Apple Expert The one-stop column for Genius advice

iOS Settings I am on a free trial for a particular app and don’t wish to continue, so how do I cancel the subscription? Steve Dobson

-----------------------------I heard that it is possible to hide items in my Mac’s System Preferences panel.

Is this actually possible?

Indeed it is. Open your System Preferences and then click on the ‘View’ item in your Mac’s menu bar. If you then select the ‘Customise’ option from the View menu, tick boxes will appear next to each item in the System Preferences panel. Now just untick any items that you don’t want to see (the ones you never use) and then go to View> Customise again to untick the option and save all of your changes.

1 Open Settings 2 Enable options 3 Tap to cancel In the Settings app, tap on your Apple ID at the top, and you will see a section on the next screen marked ‘Subscriptions’. Tap on this to view all of the subscriptions tied to your Apple ID.

Pay attention to the options on this next screen, as they apply to Family Sharing and receipts for subscription renewals. Look under ‘Active’ for the subscription you wish to cancel and then tap on it.

You will now see the ‘Cancel Subscription’ option, that you can tap on to cancel immediately. If there is still some way to go to your next billing date, hold off, but set a Reminder to cancel before.

iOS Reminders Is there a way to pin Reminders lists to my Home Screen so that I can see what I need to do? Liz Mason

Edit Home Screen

Long-press on a blank part of the screen to enter ‘edit’ mode (in which your app icons will start to jiggle and display ‘–’ icons) and then tap on this ‘+’ icon.

Add a widget

Make sure that your iPhone is running iOS 14 or later, and you’ll be able to add a Reminders widget to your Home Screen that displays whatever list of reminders you want.

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Edit the widget

Exit ‘edit’ mode by tapping a blank part of the screen, then long-press on the widget and choose the ‘Edit Widget’ option. You will now be able to select which list of reminders you want shown.

Select the widget

On the widget screen, scroll down and select ‘Reminders’.

Choose the size of widget that you wish to use, and then tap ‘Add Widget’ to add it to your Home Screen. Hold and drag it to a favoured position.

Geni s r macOS Notification Centre Is it possible to drag widgets to your desktop on a Mac like you can do on an iPhone in iOS? I am new to Mac and can’t find the widgets, let alone an option for this! Rob Fry

With Apple having removed Dashboard (the previous source of Mac widgets) in macOS 10.15 Catalina, this would have seemed like the perfect progression, but we have yet to see it implemented. In more recent Mac operating systems, the widgets are accessible via your Notification Centre, which you can access by clicking on the ‘date & time’ to the right of your Mac’s menu bar. You can change which widgets are displayed and more from here, as you will see from the following steps.

1 Access your widgets 2 Edit your widgets

3 Remove widgets

Click on the date & time in your Mac’s Scroll down to the bottom of your You can remove widgets that you menu bar to view your Notification Centre. Notification Centre, and then click on the don’t need by clicking on the ‘–’ icon in the It slides in from the side of the screen, and ‘Edit Widgets’ option. The widget edit screen top-left corner. You can then start adding this is where your widgets will be displayed. will now consume your desktop. the stuff that you do want displayed.

Knowledge base

Manage your notifications

4 Create a widget

All of the apps with widgets will be displayed in a list to the left. Click on an app to see the widget and then select a size: Small, Medium or Large.

5 Add and re-order

Click on the green ‘+’ icon in the top-left corner of your new widget to add it to your Notification Centre. Now drag the widget up or down to reposition it where you want.

Remember that you can manage all of the alerts that appear in your Notification Centre by going to System Preferences>Notifications.

Here you can turn off notifications for particular apps and determine exactly how your other apps end you alerts. All new alerts will appear at the top of your Notification Centre above your active widgets.

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G niu Bar iOS Settings Can I use my Apple AirPods as a hearing aid? Not necessarily in the conventional sense, but just to help me hear things clearer? Nancy Mull

Knowledge base …And there’s more to

AirPods are far more than just headphones to listen to music, podcasts and telephone calls. Thanks to some thoughtful additions and modifications, you can use them to easily hear what is being said on the other side of the room, as well as to monitor decibel levels and to adjust the tone of the audio they reproduce, to suit your ears. These features sit alongside the Accessibility settings that Apple has been adding to iOS for years, including Voice Control, VoiceOver, Spoken Content, Audio Descriptions and Sound Recognition. It is a feature called ‘Live Listen’ that we’ll focus on here.

come with iOS 15

When the new version of iOS is released later this year, more audio benefits will come to your AirPods Pro, too. For example, ‘Conversation Boost’ is designed to help people with mild hearing problems stay more connected in conversation.

In this mode, the mics within the headphones will focus on the person talking in front of you, making it easier to follow what they are saying.

You will also be able to reduce the ambient noise.

1 Set up Control Centre 2 Start Live Listen On your iPhone, go to Settings> Control Centre and then tap the green ‘+’ icon next to ‘Hearing’ to add it to your iOS Control Centre. It appears as an ear icon.

With your AirPods connected to your iPhone, access Control Centre, tap the ear icon and then tap ‘Live Listen’. You will now hear what your iPhone’s mic is picking up.

3 Set Accommodations

Now go to Settings>Accessibility> Audio/Visual>Headphone Accommodations, switch it on and pick one of the ‘Tune Audio For’ options.

4 Customise the setup 5 Customise Transparency 6 Further refine In Headphone Accommodations, tap ‘Custom Audio Setup’, then follow the instructions, choosing which version of the audio clip sounds the best.

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Transparency mode enables you to hear what’s going on around you. Tap on ‘Transparency’ and toggle-on ‘Custom Transparency’ to see the options.

Alter the amplification balance and tone using the sliders. Transparency mode is activated from the Control Centre volume controls.

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Reviews

iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 2021) £1,149/$1,299 Key features

Powered by M1 • Liquid Retina XDR display • 5G capabilities

Learn more

apple.com/ipad-pro

Available from apple.com

THE iPAD PRO 2021 IS A HUGE STEP UP for Apple’s tablet experience, but is it one that you need? If you want the very best tablet that money can buy, and a slate that can achieve almost anything you want a computer to, this is likely your perfect purchase right now.

The iPad Pro 2021 12.9-inch isn’t for everyone, though. The biggest caveats are that it’s incredibly expensive, and that it’s an overwhelmingly large device for those who don’t need a screen this big. For those who can handle both the physical size and the price tag, though, this is an outstanding offering that boasts next-gen power and a truly gorgeous new Liquid

“An outstanding offering that boasts next-gen power and a gorgeous new unparalleled Liquid Retina display”

Retina XDR Mini LED display, with max brightness levels unseen on other tablets.

The peak brightness is arguably excessive at 1,600 nits, as we found that too much of a strain in everyday use. The display also has a 120Hz refresh rate, which means the onscreen image refreshes twice as fast as on many other tablets for a smoother look and feel.

Much has been made of Apple’s M1 chipset, and this is the first time the company has included its new, own-brand silicon in an iPad. This will greatly benefit those who work in creative fields, such as photography and

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“Apple’s own-brand silicon will greatly benefit those who work in creative fields, such as photography” music, by helping them power through their projects. Otherwise, you likely won’t appreciate having this much power on tap unless you’re intensively gaming, using particularly power-hungry apps, or pushing the tablet to its multitasking limits. This will load apps like YouTube, Netflix and your email faster than ever before, but in most cases the difference is negligible, and you’ll only really notice the hike when powering up the some of the App Store’s most intensive experiences.

Thunderstruck

Other upgrades are perhaps less important, but there are a few other noteworthy tweaks. There’s a highercapacity storage variant at 2TB, a new Centre Stage camera feature that keeps you in the frame on all of your video calls, and Thunderbolt 4 support in the USB-C slot. These are all great additions, but they’re overshadowed by the display and chipset’s game-changing upgrades.

The battery life is very decent – in our testing we found that the tablet would last for around ten hours on a full charge. Your mileage will obviously vary depending on what you’re doing, but this iPad provides a solid battery performance that shouldn’t disappoint anybody.

All of this comes at a very high price, of course, and you’ll likely not be shocked to learn that this is Apple’s most expensive tablet ever. It starts at £999, with the price increasing to £1,999 for the 2TB model – and you’ll have to pay more again for the version with cellular connectivity.

The iPad Pro 2021 is a truly phenomenal machine that is undoubtedly the best that money can buy. But do you need it?

Verdict

The massive surge in power and the large, crisp display make this a must for creative types, but more an unnecessary extravagance for those of us who just like to watch stuff.

Centre Stage uses the 12MP front camera to follow you around the room on video calls

This iPad features a 12MP rear shooter and 10MP ultrawide camera…

There are four speakers, with two on the top of the device and two on the bottom edge

Thankfully, the Magic Keyboard for the 2020 model will work with this one

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Reviews

Kensington StudioDock £389.99/$379.99

Key features

37.5W superfast charging• Qi wireless charging

IF YOU WANT TO TRANSFORM YOUR iPAD INTO A MAC then this fantastically engineered stand is the perfect way to go. Compatible with iPad Pro (2018 or later) and iPad Air (2020 or later), the StudioDock is designed to enhance the functionality and usability of your iPad in home and office desktop environments, and it certainly accomplishes that mission.

Extra tilty

Available in 12.9 and 11-inch versions, the StudioDock lets you magnetically connect your iPad to a facia pad that can rotate around 90 degrees and tilt backwards to allow you to view your iPad in any orientation. The only thing you can’t do is adjust the height. This surface pad also includes a USB-C connector that delivers

Learn more

kensington.com

“The StudioDock allows you to connect anything while providing a stylish and sturdy stand for your iPad”

Available from amazon.co.uk

37.5W to charge your iPad at superfast speeds, and on the base of the dock are Qi wireless charging pads for your iPhone and AirPods. On the back and sides of the heavy, industrial base are three additional USB-A ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, SD card reader, 3.5mm audio jack and a single, 4K HDMI 2.0 video output to support an additional monitor.

The StudioDock allows you to connect anything while providing a stylish and sturdy stand for your tablet. When we say sturdy, we mean you really wouldn’t want to drop it on your foot – it is hugely weighty which, combined with the rubber pads on the underside, mean it’s going nowhere once you set it up. It’s the ideal way to create a multifunctional Mac-like workspace for your iPad.

An array of ports populate the back and sides of the StudioDock, including three USB-A, Gigabit Ethernet and an SD card reader

You can take advantage of the built-in 4K HDMI 2.0 video output to connect a second screen to your iPad to widen your digital workspace…

Verdict

The StudioDock is an expensive proposition, but if you work in a creative industry and require extra connectivity and versatility in how you view and interact with your iPad then this is the best in show.

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The StudioDock provides the perfect way to make your iPad feel and perform in a more Mac-like way at home or in the office

Software “Enhance your keyboard, guitar and vocal live performances with a huge collection of plug-ins” Price

£28.99/$28.99

Requirements

c n I elp pA : s t i d erc e g a m I •

macOS 10.15.5 or later 977.9 MB

Learn more

apple.com/uk/mainstage

Available from Mac App Store

Create your sound

There are thousands of effects at your fingertips for guitars and vocals

MIDI marvels

You can assign effects to any MIDI controller and swap them out easily

Retro synth action

Patch your keyboard with vintage sounds and apply to each song 96

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MainStage Apple’s ultimate live rig for musicians JUST IN CASE YOU AREN’T FAMILIAR WITH APPLE’S ‘OTHER’ MUSIC APP, MainStage transforms your Mac into a live rig that you can take on stage with you when you perform live and enhance your keyboard, guitar or vocal performance with an enormous collection of plug-ins and sounds.

Keyboardists, for example, can utilise notebased remote controls with the Arpeggiator and trigger complex chords by pressing a single note with Chord Trigger, as well as dial in retro synth effects from the golden age of synthesisers and big hair. For guitarists, you get a varied assortment of on-demand stomp boxes to

expand your sound, without spending a fortune on piecing together a physical pedalboard.

MainStage supports just about any external MIDI device on the planet and the interface is simple to use. Just assign a physical control to an onscreen control and it’s connected forever.

Although if your kit does fail just before you walk out onstage then it’s quick and easy to swap out – the show must go on after all!

The range of sounds that MainStage presents is staggering. With over 4,300 instrument and effect patches at your fingertips, more than 1,800 sampled instruments and over 10K loops in the library, you can create a varied audio tapestry to take to the live stage.

Verdict

Of course, relying on any computer technology to enhance your live performance requires a leap of faith, but MainStage seems up to the task.

iOS game

Podcast

Leo’s Fortune+

Price

Arcade subscription

Requirements

iOS 13.0 or later • 183.5 MB

CLL irneS & 7331 :stiderc egamI •

ALTHOUGH LEO’S BEEN DOING THE ROUNDS FOR YEARS, this enhanced iOS version for Arcade feels fresh and exciting, and is a great addition to the Arcade range.

A simple run-and-jump platformer, the game is reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, in that you can build up a fair head of steam, which is at times crucial for building enough momentum to scale the highest points of the levels. There are coins to collect and you’ll be graded on how quickly and on how few attempts you take to crack the levels – and the mix of spiked perils and puzzles means you’ll struggle to ‘ace’ them first time. Great fun to pick up and play.

Learn more

leosfortune.com

Available from iOS App Store

Breaking Atoms: The Hip Hop Podcast The Main Sauce Network Leo can inflate to jump/float and even trigger switches in levels

Music

Verdict

Addictive platform fun, but the hands-on-the-screen controls sometimes hampers your vision.

There are plenty of spiky perils to avoid in the challenging levels…

macOS app Price Free

Zen Tuner

Requirements

macOS 11.0 or later

Learn more

apps.apple.com

The Problem of Leisure Gang of Four £15.99/$15.99 Available from Mac App Store

dr a m i S er r e i P - n a e J : s t i d er c e g a m I •

IF YOU USE YOUR MAC FOR RECORDING MUSIC, then rather than faff around with a standard instrument tuner or iPhone app, you can launch this quick and easy desktop app and get your Mac tuned-up in seconds.

The clean and simple interface features a large current note representation and a marker that changes from red to green when the note is in tune. A dropdown menu allows you to select different types of tuning and you can click on the main note to adjust it to sharps or flats.

Optimised for Big Sur, and also featuring a dark mode for studio night owls, this is quick to launch, easy to use and very accurate.

Subtitled ‘A celebration of Andy Gill & Gang of Four’, this album pulls together various artists to cover the post-punk band’s best songs.

Contributors include Tom Morello, La Roux and IDLES.

Books

My Amy

Tyler James £8.99/$9.99

Verdict

A simple but effective tuning tool to keep all instruments (and voices) tuned-up on the song.

An insightful and highly entertaining listen as the important issues surrounding Hip-Hop music, culture and politics are meticulously dissected and discussed by experts who’ve lived it.

You will need to grant Zen Tuner access to your Mac’s microphone to work effectively

A decade on from her passing, Amy Winehouse’s closest friend charts her rise to fame and self-destruction.

227 97

Time Machine Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA To email, enter firstname.surname@futurenet.com

Editorial

Editor Ryan Butt Art Editor Newton Ribeiro Production Editor Olivia Weaver Head of Art & Design Rodney Dive Senior Art Editor Jo Gulliver Photographer Phil Barker (Future Photo Studio)

iPod Shuffle (1st Generation) January 2005 Release date

• Capacity: 512 MB or 1 GB • Connection: USB 2.0 • Colours: White • Minimum macOS required to sync: 10.2.8 • Discontinued: September 2006 • Original price: £99/$149 Price now: £30/$40

The reasoning behind the iPod Shuffle’s creation was that many iPod users left their iPods on shuffle anyway, so Apple decided to make a device that offered this feature at a cheaper price. The Shuffle relied on an ‘autofill’ feature in iTunes that selected songs at random from the user’s music library (or from a specific playlist) and stuffed as many onto the Shuffle as storage allowed. The first-generation iPod Shuffle could typically hold about 240 songs, although you could reduce the bit rate of songs to 128 kbit/s AAC in iTunes to shoehorn in more of your favourite ditties.

Lacking the display, trademark click wheel and additional features and apps of the larger iPods, the Shuffle consisted of simple playback controls, battery indicator light (activated by a button) and a three-position switch to turn the Shuffle on/off and play music in order/shuffled. The USB plug is hidden beneath a cap to which you can attach a lanyard to hang the device around your neck, but the following year, the Shuffle would shrink to a microscopic size and clip to your clothing.

Next issue…

iCreate 228, on sale 12 August 2021

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