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HUGE APPLE NEWS SPECIAL! Issue 366 July 2021 macformat.com @macformat

Meet the M1

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> Apple’s incredible M1 all-in-one – revealed!

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Apple’s Spring Loaded event in April sprung a wealth of surprises, chief of which is the gorgeous new 24in iMac. It not only now sports an Apple silicon chip inside, but is now available in seven incredible colours. Measuring just 11.5mm thin, it’s also the closest Apple has come to making the computer disappear – although some might wish it had ‘disappeared’ a little further – the choice of white rather than black bezels and its still-pronounced, but otherwise unadorned, ‘chin’ dividing Apple critics.

What Apple’s making clear here, though, is that it’s moving on from the Intel era and into an exciting new single-platform direction, reinforced by the decision to also include an Apple M1 chip in the new iPad Pro, rather than use an A-series SoC like before. The addition of Thunderbolt too brings the iPad and Mac even closer together, leading some to speculate that the two platforms might eventually merge. Team the iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard (complete with built-in trackpad) and it becomes a touchscreen Mac, essentially, even if it’s running iPadOS rather than macOS – at least for now.

Other welcome arrivals included a new Apple TV 4K with redesigned Siri Remote and Apple’s AirTag – a Tile-like tracker that enables you to keep tabs on all your stuff. Turn to p18 to find out more. Our AirTag review is on p76. Enjoy the issue,

Meet the team

ROB MEAD-GREEN EDITOR editor@macformat.com

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facebook.com/macformat

Jo Membery Operations Editor Jo’s kitted out both of her kids with AirTags and then told them to “get lost”. Funny how that’s coincided with Mummy’s Wine Time, eh?

Paul Blachford

Art Editor Ultimate Grey may be Pantone’s colour of the year, but for our art editor it’s purple all the way.

He already has a purple iPhone. Purple iMac next?

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JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 3

Issue 366 July 2021 macformat.com

6

MACFORMAT INVESTIGATES

Battle Royale: Epic Games vs Apple

APPLE CORE

18

6 RUMOUR & NEWS The latest releases from Cupertino

9 APPS & GAMES Our top picks of the month for Mac and iOS

10 CRAVE The hot new kit we’re lusting after

12 OPINION Nice iMac, shame about the peripherals

2021 got off to a flying start with Apple’s Spring loaded event – here’s what made it so special

14 MACFORMAT INVESTIGATES What to expect from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference

PRIZES WORTH

£574

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A DS720+ NAS and two 400GB SNV3400 SSDs from Synology

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SUBSCRIBE TODAY! & GET A GREAT FREE GIFT WORTH £50 TURN TO PAGE 32

Issue 366 CONTENTS

36 SURF SAFER

IN SAFARI

FEATURE>

APPLE CHOICE

60 SECR E TS O F

iPadOS APPLE SKILLS 36 SURF SAFER IN SAFARI Keep things private in Safari on your Mac

Get the most from the new features and improvements in iPadOS 14

38 SORT YOUR MAC

76

Use Folder Tidy to clean up your files

REVIEW

Apple AirTag

40 SOLVE MAC ISSUES HARDWARE

Run checks to ensure your Mac’s performance

76 Apple AirTag

42 MASTER MISSION CONTROL Tame an unruly desktop with this built-in tool

44 BACK UP YOUR iOS DEVICE Protect your personal data and settings

46 PLAY MEDIA REMOTELY Send content to displays and speakers

48 MAKE MUSIC IN iOS Create amazing tunes on your iOS device

FEATURE>

69

BACK TO BASICS Create a professionallooking brochure

Eat well and stop throwing food away

81 JLab Talk GO 82 SanDisk iXpand 15W Qi charger, Twelve South MagicBridge Extended 84 Group test: True wireless noise-cancelling earbuds

90 PhotoDirector 365 92 AweClone

52 HOW IT WORKS 120Hz displays: faster-refresh rates explained

93 CARROT Weather 94 Fuzion 2.0, Focos

GENIUS TIPS 54

80 Logitech Ergo K860

SOFTWARE

50 CUT FOOD WASTE

Howard Oakley solves all your Mac hardware, software and iOS and iPadOS issues

78 Sonos Roam

96 6 best apps to help with parenting!

74

BACK ISSUES Head here if you’ve missed an issue

98 STORE GUIDE Get help with picking accessories and apps to go with your Apple kit

105 NEXT MONTH What’s coming in MF367 on 29 June

106 RANDOM APPLE MEMORY Our respects to Adobe boss Charles Geschke

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 5

What’s inside 6–8 RUMOUR & NEWS Word on the grapevine about future Apple gear

9 APPS & GAMES

EDITED BY ROB MEAD-GREEN

Our top picks of the month for Mac and iOS

10 CRAVE The hot new gear we’re lusting after

14 OPINION Nice iMac, shame about the peripherals

16 MACFORMAT INVESTIGATES What to expect from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference

It’s already been quite an 'Epic' battle but now the argument is going to court.

HOT TOPIC!

Apple vs Epic Games Tech giants go to court over iOS 'monopoly' fter a long war of words, Apple and Epic Games have finally met in the courts to fight it out. The issue at stake? Whether companies should be allowed to run their own app stores on iOS and, more broadly, whether iOS is run as a monopoly whose power Apple abuses. That is set to be decided over the coming weeks, with potentially massive ramifications for the industry no matter who wins.

Epic has long griped that it must go through Apple’s in-app purchase system – and subsequently pay its 30% commission – whenever it sells something inside one of its iOS apps. Then, in August 2020, Epic’s Fortnite

A

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game was updated to include a secret feature that allowed Epic to remotely activate its own store inside the app.

This functionality was triggered from one of Epic’s servers, causing Apple to ban Fortnite for breaching App Store rules when it realised what had happened. In response, Epic instantly sued Apple and launched a glossy PR campaign, including a video parodying Apple’s famous 1984 advert, claiming that it was fighting for the “freedom” of developers and users.

What has happened so far?

Epic’s lawyers have alleged that Apple designed the App Store to give it a market advantage by

Images credit: Epic Games Inc

iMac could become all-in-one champ he iMac might be the most visible all-in-one computer in the world, but it is not the best-selling one. That accolade goes to HP and its range of all-in-one desktops, but that might soon change according to DigiTimes. The outlet believes that, in the fourth quarter of 2020, HP sold 925,000 all-in-one computers, while Apple sold 860,000 iMacs. It predicts Apple will pull ahead in the next quarter, although this might be a temporary victory.

Interestingly, DigiTimes predicts this actually has much more to do with global chip shortages than anything Apple

THE POLL WE ASKED…

What’s your favourite new iMac feature?

T

blocking users from downloading apps from other stores and by forcing developers to use its in-app purchase system, thereby creating anti-steering provisions and a monopolistic revenue stream for Apple.

For its part, Apple claimed its walledgarden approach exists to maintain the security of its devices, and that its 30% commission is a standard fee across the industry. Apple argued further that it is not monopolistic because no one forces anyone to choose iOS in the first place.

Epic called on Lori Wright, Microsoft’s Vice President of Gaming, Media and Entertainment, who asserted that iPhones are “general purpose” devices yet can only get apps from one location – unlike the Mac, which she also characterised as a generalpurpose device. If Apple can make this work on the Mac, why can’t it on iOS, she asked.

Meanwhile, Apple has stated it believes the app stores of rivals like Sony, Nintendo

The walled-garden approach of Apple’s App Store lies at the heart of the dispute with Epic Games.

The ongoing chip shortage crisis could actually end up working in Apple’s favour.

introduced with its iMac redesign. That is because the dearth of chips will likely see manufacturers focus limited stocks on their higher-end offerings. For Apple, that includes the iMac. For HP, it means pro and gaming systems rather than all-in-ones.

With fewer chips for these computers, HP will likely have fewer of these models available, and will thus sell fewer.

New design / colours

Apple silicon M1 chip

26.1%

52.2%

Improved camera / sound

24-inch Retina display

6.5%

15.2%

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

and Microsoft are fundamentally similar to its own, and that if Epic prevails, they will also be drastically affected.

Smaller notch in 13 Pro Max?

Who will win?

> The iPhone 13 Pro Max could feature a smaller notch. That’s according to an alleged dummy unit seen by YouTube channel Unbox Therapy (dummy units are often based on leaked device schematics). Apple will apparently accomplish the smaller notch by moving the iPhone’s speaker to the top bezel.

That’s not the only change supposedly for the notch. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has claimed the 13in Pro Max will feature an improved ultra-wide camera, going from f/2.4 and fixed focus to f/1.8 and autofocus. This is shown in Unbox Therapy’s dummy unit, which displays a larger camera lens inside the notch.

The outcome will be decided by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers – there is no jury involved – and so far, she has shown a degree of scepticism towards the claims of both Apple and Epic. For instance, she called Epic’s tactics that prompted the trial “not honest” and that they were a potential security issue. On the other hand, she expressed confusion as to why Apple allows Netflix on its systems but not Microsoft’s xCloud app, which aimed to stream games in the same way that Netflix streams movies.

Epic’s highly orchestrated campaign and its deliberate flouting of App Store rules might backfire if the judge deems it was acting in bad faith. It might not be the sole deciding factor in the case, but could make it harder for Epic to argue its point that Apple’s policies are unfair if it is judged to have artificially manufactured the dispute and acted in a dishonest manner.

At the time of writing, the trial was about one week into its expected threeweek length. Whether or not Apple emerges victorious could have huge implications, both for Apple and other companies that run app stores. Stay tuned for more updates in the next issue.

It might be shrinking, but Apple hasn’t worked out how to eliminate the notch yet.

Facebook made a point of opposing App Tracking Transparency, but was forced to relent.

APPLE NEWS ROUNDUP

App Tracking Transparency

APPLE TV APPLECARE EXTENDED

New iOS 14.5 feature gives more control of your data

EXTRA YEAR OF COVERAGE > Apple has extended its standard AppleCare coverage for the Apple TV from two years to three, at no additional cost. The change applies retroactively, so if you've already purchased AppleCare for your Apple TV, you will still get the new, longer coverage period (the three years are based on the original purchase date).

AppleCare+, which includes accidental damage, is not affected.

ADDING MORE SENSORS TO APPLE WATCH EXTRA BIOMETRICS FOR SERIES 7? > The Apple Watch Series 7 might contain sensors for measuring levels of blood alcohol, blood glucose, blood pressure, and more.

That’s because biometric company Rockley Photonics, which aims to bring “laboratory diagnostics to the wrist”, has named Apple as one of its largest customers, fuelling speculation Apple will include this tech in a future version of the Apple Watch.

8 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

pple’s much-discussed App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature has finally arrived with the launch of iOS 14.5. The feature, which aims to provide more clarity about companies that track you across different apps and share your data with third parties, has caused an uproar among advertising firms but won plaudits from privacy groups.

Once you have updated to iOS 14.5, you will see a notification every time an app wants to track you across other apps. You can then choose to permit this or decline it. Additionally, you can disable this tracking altogether in the Settings app under Privacy > Tracking. Here,

A

you need to disable the toggle next to 'Allow Apps to Request to Track'.

When the news first emerged that Apple was working on ATT, Facebook – which makes billions from tracking and advertising – went on the attack, claiming Apple’s move would destroy small businesses. Ultimately, that publicity campaign failed after Apple refused to back down, forcing Facebook to concede and implement ATT in its apps.

It follows the introduction of privacy ‘nutrition labels’ on the App Store, which show how much personal data an app collects about you, and suggests Apple is making another major push to promote its privacy credentials.

Foldable iPhone coming in 2023 Reliable analyst says Apple is well positioned for foldable success ave you enviously watched the likes of Samsung and Microsoft unveil folding phones and wondered when Apple would follow suit? If so, you are in luck, as a reputable analyst has claimed Apple will launch its own folding device in 2023.

Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a good track record when it comes to Apple leaks and rumours, has claimed that the Cupertino company is on track to release the device with an eight-inch flexible OLED display, according to a survey of his industry sources.

Kuo added that Apple will use silver nanowire touch tech in the folding displays, which will allow for devices with

H

multiple folds and increased durability in the future. These devices might even be rollable, Kuo believes.

The analyst also predicted that Apple will have a big advantage with foldable devices because of its tightly integrated ecosystem. “We predict that foldable devices will blur the product Apple has lagged behind other foldable phone makers, but might catch up soon.

segmentations between smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the future,” he said, adding that this is something Apple’s ecosystem is ideally suited for.

Kuo did not mention a price, but given the high cost of current foldable smartphones, it might be wise to start saving now…

Apps & games APPLE CORE

Media Picks

APP OF THE MONTH

What you should be playing and reading this month

[A L BU M]

[M AC A PP]

Happier Than Ever Billie Eilish

Acorn 7 £39.99

£10.99

Quick and dirty image editing made easy Editing images does not have to mean diving into a deep, complex app to perform all manner of visual surgery. Sometimes, a few simple tweaks are all you need. For those times, it’s handy to have Acorn up your sleeve.

Version 7 comes with some major revamps, like a new all-in-one interface that does away with floating palettes, resulting in an intuitive workspace. There are new tools, too, like a

perspective and crop fixer, plus a colour picker that works in the RGB and HSV colour spaces.

Exporting has also received plenty of attention, including what Acorn’s developer calls ‘Über Export’. This is a new, more capable workflow, making it much easier to see the final result before you click OK. There are many more new features and, with a £39.99 one-off purchase, there is no need to worry about an ongoing subscription.

Billie Eilish may only be 19, but she has already made a huge impact. Her second full album is angrier than her earlier work, offering a new side to her music.

[AU DIOB O OK ]

Food Isn’t Medicine Dr Joshua Wolrich £6.99

[iO S A PP]

[iOS GAME]

[M AC GA M E]

Loóna

Tiny Room Story: Town Mystery

Shelter 3

FREE (offers IAPs)

Moving on from badgers and lynx, the third and final entry in the Shelter series tasks you with guiding an elephant herd on an arduous journey to find lost members of the group. As you travel, the herd matriarch will share her knowledge with you – but will it be enough to avoid danger, stay well fed, and survive?

Why you need it: It’s a stylish game that’s tough to master.

FREE (offers IAPs)

If you struggle to sleep, Loóna could be just what you need. It offers ‘sleepscapes’ that set you small tasks – colouring in a 3D shrine, for example – that help you unwind and get ready for the night ahead. With your mind relaxed and distractions banished, nodding off should no longer be such a trial.

Why you need it: It’s relaxing, beautiful, and helpful to boot.

Image credits (left to right, top to bottom): Flying Meat Inc, Darkroom/Interscope Records, Ebury Publishing, Loona Inc, Kiary Games, Might and Delight, BBC World Service

In Tiny Room Story, you play a detective who travels to a small town after receiving a letter from your father. Yet when you arrive, everything is empty, with no signs of life anywhere. What happened to the town and its inhabitants?

That’s what you must uncover in this intriguing puzzler.

Why you need it: For escape room/3D puzzle high jinks.

NHS doctor Wolrich cuts through the diet myths and misinformation littering the web to get to the facts surrounding food, weight loss, etc.

£11.39

[PODCAST]

The Lazarus Heist For many of us, working from home has become ‘the new normal’. This podcast is here to help you navigate this new world and work better than ever from home.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 9

APPLE CORE Hot new kit

Crave THE GEAR WE’RE LUSTING AFTER

TV stands are so last year. What you want is a hole in your floor to hide your telly till it’s home movie time.

1

C Seed M1 >About $400,000 (about £290,000) > cseed.tv > MicroLED is here, and it’s completely out-of-thisworld crazy. The C Seed M1 takes advantage of every one of the new screen tech’s core features to create a TV the likes of which we’ve never seen before and will (unless something very strange happens) never see in our own homes. This folding, expanding, hideaway TV is a feat of engineering as much as it is a leap in innovation. It’s the sort of TV you build a room around — quite literally, given that it’s

10 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

supposed to emerge from a mechanised hole in your floor and unfurl its 165-inch panel automatically, then tuck itself back into the floor.

The M1 pulls off that feat by using microLED’s unique ability to form completely edge-to-edge screens. It aligns them by way of a machined metal structural frame and ensures the joins aren’t visible by using what C Seed calls Adaptive Gap Calibration, essentially detecting any offsets and brightening the pixels on

Sound good? either side to compensate.

Very clever.

MicroLED’s big issue is pixel density. It uses discrete LEDs to make up each pixel rather than OLED substrates or LCD panels and, while they’re pretty small, they’re not quite as micro as they could be — so the resolution of the M1 tops out at 4K. That said, the huge advantages of microLED are all here. The blacks are fully black, there’s some serious 16-bit HDR on offer, and a claimed 1,920Hz refresh rate.

The C Seed M1 integrates its soundbar into the folding mechanism of the screen, but it’s a rather disappointing 2.1 speaker system. Thankfully, you’ll be able to boost its audio capabilities because it supports up to 11.2 audio natively. But presumably you’ll need to plug in your audio manually once it’s emerged from the floor — ditto the single HDMI input — which does defeat the object somewhat.

Image credit: C Seed Entertainment Systems GmbH

Top gear APPLE CORE

2

Signia Active Pro > From £999 > signia.net > These natty in-ears are in-ears with a difference – they’re actually fully functioning hearing aids, designed to look cooler and less beige than the ones most people normally wear.

Like regular in-ears, they come with a charging case and can last for up to 26 hours between recharges. And the

case is Qi-ready, so you can place it on a wireless charger when it needs more juice.

Available in black, black/ silver, or white/rose gold, the Signia Active also boasts Signia Assistant, which has artificial intelligence smarts, accessible via an app. Available online, or through an appointment with a hearing care specialist.

3

Razer Kiyo Pro > £199.99 > razer.com > Laptop manufacturers treat webcams with such disdain. How many top-of-the-line machines drop today with 720p sensors that would’ve been embarrassing 10 years ago? No more. Razer’s chunky Kiyo Pro, with its circular lens redolent of DSLR styling, might not be able to go beyond 1080p but it doesn’t necessarily need to. It can manage 1080p at

a full 60fps (30fps if you switch on HDR) through a sensor which employs STARVIS tech, a pixel– backlighting method used in professional CCTV to pull a clear image out of low-light areas. With a selectable field of view between 103, 90, or 80°, it’s suitable for framing your face or your family depending on the call. An upgrade on most other webcams.

4

Mad Catz BAT 6+ > £TBC > madcatz.com > You’ll need to be a serious mouse slinger to make the most of the hypercar-inspired side vents of the ambidextrous BAT 6+, or to take advantage of its quick-change, grip-switching side plates and Batmobilethemed palm rest. While we don’t really buy Mad Catz’s claims the 16,000 DPI sensor underneath can “sense all of your enemies in every step that they take,”

because that’s ludicrous and would be cheating if true. But we do see that the BAT’s design notes — nay, extended jazz chords — are there to make it as versatile and comfy as possible. The insides are just as overdone, with that ultra-sharp sensor joined by Mad Catz’s DAKOTA mechanical microswitches, which cut debounce delay to actuate up to 60% faster than others.

Image credits: WS Audiology Denmark A/S, Razer Inc, Mad Catz Global Ltd

JULY 2021 MACFORMAT | 11

APPLE CORE Opinion

MATT BOLTON… THINKS THE NEW iMAC IS BEAUTIFUL, SO WHY IS APPLE FORCING HIM TO ADD AN UGLY PERIPHERAL?

T

he new iMac is a gorgeous computer, and is the thing I’m third-most looking forward to having in my house this year, after my parents and my friends. The ultra-slim design feels like a computing revelation, but the cheapest model only has two USB-C/ Thunderbolt ports for connectivity – that’s it for data.

Two ports total. While the next model up in the range adds two more USB-C ports, there’s still a complete lack of support for any accessories with older connection types.

Apple’s problem is obvious: the 11.5mm thinness that makes it look so good is simply not deep enough for a regular USB Type-A connector. I just measured one on my desk, and it’s 12.5mm, and that doesn’t include the bits you’d need to plug into it. It has this problem with the 3.5mm headphone jack too, but Apple moved that over to the side of the iMac, solving the problem. Moving the USB ports to the side would lead to some truly ugly cabling, so I can see why there’s reluctance to do that.

But the end result is still annoying: you need to add some kind of adaptor if you want USB Type-A, or an SD card reader and so on. The cheaper iMac model doesn’t include the Ethernet connection on the power brick that the more expensive version does, either. The adaptor being a hidden cost if you have lots of accessories you want this iMac to work with is frustrating, yet I can live with that. When you know, you can factor it in. Fine. But… why do they all have to be so ugly? Anything on Apple’s site with a decent number of ports is some chunky grey lump – the antithesis of the sleek computer I actually want.

If Apple had made (or worked with another company) on a sleek USB-C/ Thunderbolt dock in the same colours as the iMac – maybe one that fits neatly to the stand to keep the aesthetic clean – then I’d just roll my eyes at Apple and pay the extra. But a look through the dock options on the Apple Store – ie, the products you can buy along with This CalDigit dock has the most connection your iMac – makes it feel like no one at options that Apple sells. It is also the dullest Apple cares about consistent aesthetics. design I have ever seen.

The adaptor being a hidden cost? Fine.

But… why do they all have to be so ugly

12 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

If Apple won’t make a neat USB-C hub in seven different colours as per its new iMac range, who else will?

That’s obviously not the case, but it’s hard to find another explanation for the gulf in design quality here.

You can buy different dock options from other companies, of course, but most people will want to buy one with their computer, trusting in Apple’s quality control for the products it sells in its store. And even if you do look elsewhere, there’s still nothing that actually looks good enough for these iMacs.

It’s such a sharp bubble burst to get this incredible-looking machine set up on your desk, and then to have to attach something that looks like a modem from 1998. It’s a radical design: the first built specifically with the M1 chip in mind… so why didn’t Apple open its mind just a little further to remember those of us with USB-A cables?

ABOUT MATT BOLTON Matt is the editor for Apple and home tech at T3 and has been charting changes at Apple since his student days. He’s sceptical of tech industry hyperbole, but still gets warm and fuzzy on hearing “one more thing”.

Image credit: CalDigit

PRIZES WORTH

£574

Win

A Network Attached Storage system + two 400GB SSDs from Synology!

The more you use your Mac, the more you end up filling it with accumulated files and folders – and that is especially true for bulky media files like movies and music.

But instead of constantly purging your Mac and wondering where you are going to find more space, you can make your life much easier with NAS (Network Attached Storage).

A NAS device is filled with storage drives that you connect to your network. Fill it with files and anyone on the network can access them – perfect for streaming movies to your home cinema setup or sending music

to any smart speaker in the house.

Alternatively, it can act as a backup location for Time Machine, keeping your important files safe and sound.

Synology’s DiskStation DS720+ is perfect for all these scenarios. It contains space for two traditional hard drives (and the slots can be locked to prevent any accidental interfering), and two super-fast small-scale M.2 SSDs. That gives you the flexibility to store frequently accessed files on the SSDs, while keeping the bulk of your files on the hard drives.

This issue, one lucky person will win a DS720+ to get their own NAS

HOW TO ENTER… > To enter, you can visit our website at bit.ly/MFDS720 (web address is case sensitive). > For full terms and conditions, go to bit.ly/MFDS720. By sending your entry, you agree to these competition rules and confirm you’re happy to receive details of future offers and promotions from Future Published Limited and carefully selected third parties, if you have given us permission to do so on the entry form. > This competition closes on 29 June 2021. Over 18, GB residents only. > The winner’s details will be shared with Synology for the purpose of providing prizes.

system up and running. Speaking of fast storage, the winner will also receive two 400GB Synology SNV3400 SSDs, which you can fit into the DS720+.

These drives can hit sequential read speeds of 3,100MB/s, giving you blazing fast access to your files whenever and wherever you need them.

> THE QUESTION To be in with a chance of winning a Synology DS720+ and two SNV3400 SSDs, just answer this question:

What is the sequential read speed of the Synology SNV3400 SSD? A) 2,000MB/s B) 2,500MB/s C) 3,100MB/s > For more information about Synology and its other storage products for your Mac, head to the company’s website at synology.com.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 13

APPLE CORE News feature

For our latest subscription offer see page 32!

INVESTIGATES

WWDC 2021 What to expect from Apple’s great (remote) gathering

We take a look at what developers and consumers can expect from Apple’s much-anticipated Glow and Behold event WRITTEN BY

CHARLOTTE HENRY

or Apple watchers, this time of year means only one thing – the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC).

It will take place between 7-11 June 2021 and, once again, be an all-online affair.

While the idea is to give developers insight into the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS so they can build apps and software appropriately, the event, especially the keynote, always gives fans plenty to look forward to.

F

iOS 15 This year, we will get a first proper look at iOS 15, and developers will be able to access the beta version soon after the address. The finished software tends to be released to the public some months later, usually sometime in September.

The Apple rumour mill is always running, but much iOS 15 speculation is inconclusive at the time of going to

14 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

print. However, one thing we can expect is additional privacy features that go beyond that of App Tracking Transparency, which was introduced in iOS 14.5. iOS 15 will include a menu detailing which apps are collecting data from you without you knowing. There is also expected to be an updated Lock Screen and notifications, which will allow custom categories of alerts and the ability to move between them via both the Lock Screen and Control Centre. These status options will also facilitate different automatic replies to messages. As for Messages, the app is likely to get an upgrade so that it can better compete with Facebookowned WhatsApp. This new software might mean it’s finally time to give up that muchloved iPhone 6, however. Rumours indicate that you will need an iPhone 7 or later to access iOS 15.

Of course, iOS updates are often replicated by iPadOS. Apple is also reportedly planning to introduce

WWDC 2021 APPLE CORE

While WWDC is more about the operating systems, Apple’s promo shots and ‘Glow and Behold’ tagline are fuelling rumours of tech-augmented eyewear.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 15

APPLE CORE News feature While Apple insists on distinction between the platforms, we may see further merging of the operating systems.

a new Home Screen to the iPad to bring it more in line with the iPhone.

As part of this shift, it will be possible to place Widgets wherever we want them on the Home Screen.

macOS 12 The introduction of macOS Big Sur was a big deal. So big, in fact, that Apple called it macOS 11, making a clean break from Mac OS X. There will not be a similar overhaul of the Mac’s operating system this year. It will be more about evolution than revolution, bedding in and building on the changes of WWDC 2020. One fairly significant thing that might change though is the naming structure, with the software becoming macOS 12. This will make it more akin to what happens on Apple’s mobile operating systems than we’ve been used to on the Mac – we had differently named versions of OS X from March 2001 until November 2020. The new version of macOS will likely not be available to the public until towards the end of the year.

Catalyst, the tool that allows developers to have their apps also run on a Mac at native Mac resolution, will get some attention, particularly given the power now offered by the M1 iPad Pro. Despite all this, Apple execs still

16 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

macOS: expect more evolution than revolution insist that the various Apple platforms will remain separate and distinct.

Marketing chief Greg Joswiak told The Independent: “We’re quite proud of the fact that we work really, really hard to create the best products in their respective category.” There is no doubt though that they are becoming ever more similar, particular when it comes to finding differences between using an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard and some Macs. We will see the continuation both of this convergence and Apple’s insistence that the different platforms really are different at WWDC 2021.

watchOS 8 Wearables are an increasingly big deal for Apple, and the Apple Watch is absolutely critical to that strategy (alongside AirPods, of course). Apple is almost certain to unveil the latest version of the device’s operating system – watchOS 8. Health is always a central part of what Apple does with the Watch, and that will no doubt be reflected in watchOS 8, with speculation that there will be a version of the iOS Health App made available for your wrist. At the moment there are disparate health and fitness tools across different apps on the Watch. There are already some features, such as Fitness+ and Time to Walk, that are Watch-centred and largely independent of iPhone, and this could be increased to give the wearable more value in its own right.

M2 chip

watchOS 8 should bring more features and yet more standalone worth to the Apple Watch.

One of the highlights of WWDC 2020 was CEO Tim Cook announcing that Apple was going to use its own silicon – the M1 chip. Clearly, this was merely the start of a process, and we should hear more about the next gen – the M2 chip – this time around. There are reports that the chip is in mass production and it could be used in MacBooks sold this year. No doubt there will be more and

WWDC 2021 APPLE CORE

Beyond the keynote? > > The keynote address, led

by Tim Cook and featuring other high-ranking Apple executives, is what gets most attention, and where almost all of the news comes from. However, there is more to WWDC than one event, and it being all virtual once against doesn’t change that. The “platforms state of the union” is squarely aimed at developers, allowing them to hear directly from some of the top Apple engineers as they explain in depth what

Hot on the heels of Apple’s well received home-grown Apple silicon, we should hear news of the M2 chip.

more popular pieces of third-party software moving to run natively on Apple silicon and we will hear about that too. And rest assured that if there is a new chip, there will be lots of speed comparisons and other mind-blowing numbers to show us just how powerful it is.

Gaming Despite the arrival of Apple Arcade with iOS 13 in September 2019, it feels like Apple has never fully committed to gaming in the way a company of its means could have. The company did recently expand the Apple Arcade catalogue, though, to include Timeless Classics and App Store Greats. The service will likely get a mention during the keynote, and hopefully its expansion will continue, with some exciting new originals announced.

Further growth of the aforementioned

the future holds for the company’s various platforms.

There are a host of other sessions held too. Prior to 2020, developers could book in-person face-toface sessions with Apple engineers, helping them get to grips with the latest Apple technology. These meetings now take place online. In the build-up to the main event, Apple also runs a Swift Student Challenge to try and inspire the next generation of developers. Students submit an interactive scene that they’ve created in a Swift playground which can be experienced within three minutes. Winners of the Student Challenge receive exclusive WWDC21 outerwear and a pin set.

It’s not all about Cook’s speech, there’s plenty more to WWDC.

With the help of Catalyst, we think Apple Arcade could benefit from a little TLC at this year’s WWDC.

Catalyst could also help the Mac become more of a gaming platform, enabling you to play your favourite iPad games on your Mac.

What else?

Other things likely to be unveiled at this year’s WWDC include a design upgrade for tvOS. A ‘children’s mode’ with parental controls could be announced and would make sense giving the expanding amount of content available from Apple TV+, not to mention third-party providers.

In recent times, Apple has been a bit more open to having its services and tools both on and available to third parties – whether that’s Apple TV+ on Samsung, LG and other TVs, or the recent opening up of the Find My network to non-Apple products. We could hear more about this at WWDC as the company looks to repel regulatory pressure both in Europe and the US. However, Apple will not allow developers to bypass its payment systems, and the subsequent 15% or 30% cut that Apple takes, unless forced to by a court, and there are legal battles to be fought (see p6) before that might happen.

While WWDC tends to focus on apps and operating systems rather than hardware, we have good reasons to be optimistic – there’s the mouth-watering prospect of new M2 Macs (maybe even a ‘pro’ 30in iMac), plus we may see those long-anticipated Apple Glasses.

Glow and Behold indeed!

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 17

18 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

2021 got off to a flying start with Apple’s Spring Loaded event – here’s what made it so special Written by Rob Mead-Green >

F

rom the moment Tim Cook introduced the Spring Loaded event at Apple Park in April, we knew it was going to be something very special. Within just 60 minutes, the company set out its stall for 2021, covering everything from new apps and services to an incredible array of new hardware, the chief of which are the M1-powered 24in iMac in a jawdropping slimline design, and the new 11in and 12.9in iPad Pros, which bring M1 superpowers and Thunderbolt to Apple’s tablet for the first time.

But it’s the direction of travel that will ultimately prove to be the most interesting. With the M1 and its successors (the M2 is already reportedly in mass production), Apple now has the chance to completely redefine what its devices can do and be, while at the

same time basing those devices on a common platform, underpinned by Apple silicon.

Apple knows that and it used the Spring Loaded event to mark the new era by deliberately harking back to its glorious past, from the rainbow arch that appeared in the centre of Apple Park to the seven colours of the new iMac, significantly reminding us of the last time that Apple had the chance to start again – the launch of the original iMac in 1998.

Apple then clearly has a sense of its own destiny and, having undertaken the hard and arduous preparation to get there, has now begun its new journey in earnest. The Spring Loaded event was arguably just the first step – there’ll be plenty more incredible adventures to follow in the months and years to come. Ready? Let’s begin…

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 19

New iMac Colourful, slimline design celebrates a post-Intel future

A

fter years of sober space greys and silvers, Apple is bringing colour back to the Mac – and it feels long overdue.

Created to “bring a sense of joy back to any space”, according to Mac product marketing manager Colleen Novielli, the new 24in iMac is available in a choice of four or seven different shades: blue, green, pink and silver in the entry-level £1,249 model, and blue, green, pink, silver, yellow, orange and purple in the £1,449 and £1,649 versions – and it looks stunning with deeper hues on the backs and sides of the 11.5mm slim device and paler, more pastel ones on the front. Together with the narrow white bezels around their 4.5K Retina displays and squared-off edges, the computers mark a clear break from the past, both in terms of aesthetics and technology.

For inside the new iMac, you’ll find an Apple silicon M1 chip. Every model in the line-up comes with an 8-core processor, with the mid-range (£1,449) and (£1,649) high-end models also getting 8-core graphics, while the £1,249 model gets a 7-core GPU. All three iMac configurations get 8GB of unified memory as standard (upgradeable to 16GB) with 256GB of solid-state storage on the entry-level and mid-range models, and 512GB on the top-end version.

20 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

The mid- and high-end 24-inch iMac comes in seven colours and echoes the candybar colours of the original.

Spring Loaded special FEATURE

Touch ID > While iPhone, iPad and MacBook users have long been able to log in to their devices using Touch ID or Face ID, that feature has been conspicuous by its absence on iMac – until now.

Apple enthusiasts have long wanted to see Face ID introduced on Mac, but what we got instead was the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, an updated version of Apple’s aluminium keyboard for iMac, now equipped with a Touch ID button in the top-right corner. This, teamed with the Secure Enclave in the M1 chip, makes it easier and faster to log in to your iMac using just your fingerprint, although you can, of course, continue to log in the traditional way, or by using a paired Apple Watch.

The iMac’s revamped Magic Keyboard now comes with Touch ID for faster, more secure logins.

The iMac’s accessories are colour-coded to match your new machine.

The peripherals

Keyboard

TrackPad

Mouse

>The new Magic Keyboard comes with dedicated keys for Spotlight, Dictation, Do Not Disturb and Emoji. A Numeric Keypad version is also available.

> Like other iMac peripherals, the Magic TrackPad comes in seven different colours to match.

Otherwise its design is unchanged.

>The new colours look good, but the Magic Mouse retains a charging port on its underside, meaning you can’t charge it and use it as the same time.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 21

FEATURE Spring Loaded special

Zoom calls just got better with the new 1080p FaceTime camera.

With the option to upgrade to 1TB storage on the entry level iMac, or to 2TB on the mid- and high-end models.

Apple says the new M1-powered iMac offers 85% more processing power and two-times faster graphics than the Intel-driven 21.5-inch iMac that preceded it.

While the new design retains its rather unsightly chin, the 2021 iMac is 50% smaller by volume than before, while also offering an improved six-speaker audio system, three studio-quality microphones and a decent range of connectivity options. These include 802.11ax Wi-Fi (aka Wi-FI 6), Bluetooth 5.0, Gigabit Ethernet on the mid-range and top-end models and a side-mounted 3.5mm headphone jack across the range. All iMac models comes with two Thunderbolt/ USB 4 ports offering up to 40Gbps data transfer speeds, with the step-up £1,449 and £1,649 models getting two 10Gbps USB-C ports too.

First impressions of the new iMacs have been mostly positive so far, with social media users, designers and other creatives praising the iMac’s design and use of colour. However, reaction among die-hard Mac users has been more mixed, with some bemoaning the use of a white bezel around the display, while others have criticised the lack of user upgradeable options, such as memory and storage. We’ll bring you our definitive verdict when we review the new 24in iMac next issue.

All the new iMac comes with two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, with the £1,449 and £1,649 models gaining two additional USB 3 ports too.

Choose an iMac MODEL

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE

24in, M1 8-core CPU, 7-core GPU

MEMORY 8GB of unified memory STORAGE 256GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 4.5K (IPS, P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard

£1,249

24in, M1 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU

MEMORY 8GB of unified memory STORAGE 256GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 4.5K (IPS, P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard with Touch ID

£1,449

24in, M1 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU

MEMORY 8GB of unified memory STORAGE 512GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 4.5K (IPS, P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard with Touch ID

£1,649

22 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

COLOUR

That all-new design is sure to make the iMac stand out in homes and offices.

New

iMac IN NUMBERS >Number of colours the iMac’s stunning 4480x2520 4.5K Retina display can show, matching the P3 colour gamut.

The colours on the front of the iMac are deliberately less saturated than those on the rear.

The braided power cable attaches to the back of the iMac magnetically.

>The max speed of each of the iMac’s two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The 8-core GPU models have two USB 3 ports offering up to 10Gbps.

>Number of operations per second carried out by the M1’s 16-core Neural Engine, which is used for machine learning tasks.

>Weight of the £1,249 24in iMac, making it 1kg lighter than the 21.5in model it replaces.

The 27in model by contrast weighs 8.92kg.

>Maximum amount of solid-state storage available on the mid-range and top-tier 24in iMacs, costing up to £800 extra.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 23

FEATURE Spring Loaded special

New iPad Pro Now equipped with the same Apple silicon M1 chip as the iMac – and it gets Thunderbolt too

W

The Magic Keyboard is now available in white as well as black. The 12.9in version is £329.

here does the MacBook end and Apple’s tablet begin? A question that’s likely to be increasingly asked with the arrival of the latest iPad Pros. That could be because the 2021 versions of the 11in and 12.9in tablets now sport M1 chips instead of the A-series processors that iPads have used until now. Or it could be because both models now support Thunderbolt as well as USB-C, giving the iPad Pro the same access to compatible peripherals that Macs have now.

The iPad Pro’s design language is increasingly being shared across the Apple family. Its narrow bezels and squared-off sides aren’t just being echoed on the iPad Air and iPhone, but on the iMac too.

What’s the betting the 2021 MacBook Air and MacBook

The 12.9in iPad Pro comes with a Liquid Retina XDR display, driven by over 10,000 miniLEDs. Pro will have similar design cues when they arrive later this year? The direction of travel is increasingly clear.

As for the iPad Pro, the M1 update provides Apple’s tablet with incredible power, making both the 11in and 12.9in versions up to 50% faster than their

Magic Keyboard > Further blurring the increasingly fuzzy line between the MacBook and iPad, the Magic Keyboard boasts a full QWERTY keyboard, trackpad, and a USB-C port for easy connection to compatible accessories.

The 2021 version of the Keyboard is slightly different to its predecessors in two important respects: one, it’s been slightly retooled to allow for the fact that the 12.9in iPad Pro is now a little

24 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

thicker than before; and two, it’s also now available in a very Applelike white finish as well as black.

If you’re hoping to upgrade to a fifth-gen iPad Pro, but don’t want to have to ditch an existing Magic Keyboard just yet, don’t fret. Apple says the new tablet is compatible with existing Magic Keyboards, although there may be a slight gap when you close the case.

The iPad Pro’s display has a peak brightness of 1,600 nits (average 1,000) and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Liquid Retina XDR > If that name sounds familiar, it could be because the 12.9in iPad Pro’s screen shares many similarities with the Pro Display XDR – Apple’s stunning £4,599 32in monitor.

Both use miniLED backlighting to deliver what Apple calls Extreme Dynamic Range

(XDR), with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. That stands in stark, ahem, contrast to many monitors and displays. The iMac has a brightness rating of 500 nits, for example, while many standard computer monitors offer 350 nits or less.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 25

A12Z-powered predecessors. The iPad Pros also now have 5G support for superfast connectivity when not connected to Wi-Fi. Plus they get to leverage other M1 goodies like the 16-core Neural Engine for machine learning, and can be equipped with up to 16GB of memory/2TB of storage.

One of the best additions to the new iPad Pro is an Ultra-Wide camera that adds even more capabilities to the TrueDepth Camera system. In particular it now enables Centre Stage, a feature that ensures you remain the focus of attention during video calls by panning the camera as you move around.

Centre Stage can even cope with having multiple subjects in the frame – handy during family gatherings or business meetings, using machine learning to make sure everyone remains in focus.

With prices starting at £749 for the 11in and £999 for the 12.9in, the iPad Pro isn’t cheap, especially when you factor in the cost of extras like additional storage and 5G. A fully loaded 11in iPad Pro with 2TB of storage, Wi-Fi+Cellular, a second-gen Apple Pencil and a Magic Keyboard will cost you £2,297, while an identically specced 12.9in will set you back £2,597. That puts both iPad Pros in the same ballpark as an M1-equipped 13in MacBook Pro, complete with Magic Keyboard, Force Touch Trackpad, Touch Bar, Retina display, 2TB of storage and 16GB of memory, plus two Thunderbolt/ USB 4 ports at £2,299. You pays yer money…

iPad Pro timeline

Sep 2015

Jun 2017

Nov 2018

Mar 2020

>The first-gen iPad Pro was launched in September 2015 and went on sale two months later. It was equipped with a 12.9in Retina display and a Apple A9X chip running iOS 9. It was joined the following March by a 9.7in version. Both offered a choice of 32GB, 128GB and 256GB of storage.

> Launched in June 2017, the new iPad Pro was offered in 12.9in and 10.5in flavours and equipped with an A10X processor, plus Apple’s ProMotion display, which offered support for Dolby Vision and HDR10. Both models were available with up to 512GB of storage.

>Arriving in November 2018, the new iPad Pro was available with 12.9in or 11in Liquid Retina displays and were powered by Apple’s new A12X Bionic chip. Lightning made way for USB-C for the first time on these models. Storage options also maxed out at 1TB.

> Launched in March 2020, the new 12.9in and 11in iPad Pro models came with Apple’s A12Z Bionic chip, plus up to 1TB of storage. It also included an improved camera system comprising a 12MP Wide camera, a 10MP Ultra Wide camera and LiDAR for augmented reality.

26 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

New

Pro

The 12.9in iPad Pro brings Apple’s tablet closer to the Mac than ever. Will the two merge?

iPad IN NUMBERS >The new iPad Pro is 50% faster than its predecessor and it’s all thanks to that Apple silicon M1 chip, which has an 8-core CPU.

>The iPad Pro also offers 40% faster graphics performance than before. The M1 inside the new model is equipped with eight GPU cores, just like the 13in MacBook Pro.

>The Wi-Fi-only model offers up to 10 hours battery life when watching videos or surfing the web. The Wi-Fi+Cellular model offers 9.

Like a Thunderbolt

. >The inclusion of Thunderbolt on the 2021 iPad Pro could be quite the game changer. It offers maximum theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps and can even be teamed with a 6K Thunderbolt-equipped display such as the Apple Pro Display XDR (pictured above).

It means, too, that the new iPad Pro can be teamed with faster peripherals and accessories such as Thunderbolt SSDs and even enable devices to be daisy-chained together. However, it’s equally likely that you’ll need to connect your iPad Pro to a Thunderbolt dock, due to the individual power demands made upon the device by the peripherals you’ve connected to it. And Thunderbolt docks can be expensive.

>The 12.9in iPad Pro is slightly thicker than the model it replaces (it measured 5.9mm), but packs in an awful lot of tech.

>With 5G on board, the new Wi-Fi+Cellular model can offer theoretical mobile data speeds of up to 4Gbps. That’s fast!

FEBRUARY JULY 2018 2021 | MACFORMAT | 27

New

Gaming got easier with the tvOS 14.5 update, which supports PS5 and Xbox Series X controllers.

Apple TV Apple’s streaming media box gets its first update since 2017 with more power and a new remote

R

umours of an Apple TV update have been circulating for at least two years now, but the Spring Loaded event finally saw it come to pass. And how. While outwardly, the black box media streamer looks much the same, inside the 4K model now sports an Apple-designed A12 Bionic chip to help it deliver Dolby Vision and

high-frame rate HDR. The new model also sports an HDMI 2.1 port for the first time.

The update promises an improved viewing experience, especially if you use the new Colour Balance feature in tvOS 14.5. Gamers may be less enamoured – while the A12 offers better graphics performance, improvements over the previous model’s A10X chip are marginal.

Siri Remote > By far the biggest change to the new Apple TV 4K is its redesigned Siri Remote. The new version (also available to buy separately for £55) comes with an iPod-like touch-enabled clickpad, which replaces the Touch surface of the previous gen. The new

remote also has more physical buttons than before, including Back and Mute, and the Siri button, previously on the front, has been shunted to the side. There’s still no backlighting, which is a shame for a device designed for home cinemas.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 29

FEATURE Spring Loaded special

Other highlights iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini – but in purple > Like the iPhone 11 before it, the iPhone 12 and iPhone mini now come in a natty purple finish, adding to the range of colours available for the phone which include blue, green and Product (Red).

Complementing the new colour (which looks fantastic in the flesh) are a range of new cases – the MagSafe Leather Case (£59) and Leather Sleeve (£129) in deep violet; Leather Wallet (£59) in Arizona brown; plus three individual Silicone Cases (£49 each) in amethyst, pistachio and Capri blue.

Missing in action

AirPods 3

iPad mini 6

27in iMac

>These were rumoured ahead of the Spring Loaded event, but were a no-show in April. They’re now expected later in 2021, possibly to coincide with a rumoured hi-res audio Apple Music launch.

>Another no-show. Given the iPad mini was last updated in March 2019, a sixth-gen upgrade seems long overdue. iPad mini fans are used to waiting though – the fourth-gen model landed in 2015.

> While we have loved to see Apple’s biggest iMac get an update in April, it wasn’t ever on the cards. We think it’ll arrive in August or September, especially now M2 chips are said to be in mass production.

30 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Spring Loaded special FEATURE

Podcasts Subcriptions >Apple’s Podcasts app has a chequered past, chiefly thanks to a confusing array of options that seem to have become more baffling over time. It’s not clear yet whether iOS 14.5’s redesign has done much to change that. But at least now we have Podcasts Subscriptions. Yay.

Latest developments for operating systems… >Apple finally released its long-anticpated updates to its operating systems in April, bringing support for new devices like the AirTag, while also enforcing the new App Tracking Transparency rules it’s been threatening to implement since last year. In iOS 14.5, for example, you can now disable all app tracking by going to Settings > Privacy > Tracking and switching the Allow Apps to Request to Track button Off.

AirTag >After months, no years, of rumour and speculation, Apple’s answer to Tile’s trackers finally arrived in April, with deep hooks into the Apple ecosystem and, of course, the Find My network. Each AirTag costs £29 with a pack of four available for £99. Plus, there are the inevitable add-ons and accessories. See p76 for our in-depth review.

Apple extends Find My network > Presumably intended to stave off accusations of anti-competitive behaviour, Apple has now opened Find My up to third-parties including Chipolo, whose new ONE Spot tracker will likely become a key AirTag rival. Another rival, Tile, remains out in the cold. For now.

Apple Pencil 3

10.5in iPad

14in MacBook Pro

>A launch to accompany the new iPad Pro seems like a good idea, until you try to imagine what the Pencil 3 could do over the Pencil 2. Speculation points to a glossier finish and a new colour (black).

>Apple’s entry-level 10.2in iPad was only updated last September, yet rumours have persisted that a version with a 10.5in screen and a thinner, lighter body may arrive – and soon. We’re still waiting.

> Last September’s update merely shoehorned the M1 chip into the MacBook Pro’s existing 13in body, when what we all want is an all-new design with a bigger screen. And a screamingly fast M2.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 31

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JO MEMBERY

Master Apple shortcuts macOS ç is the Command key, which is also labelled cmd. å means the Option key, labelled alt or opt. ≈ means the Control key, labelled ctrl, and shown as ^ in shortcuts in the menu bar. ß is the Shift key. ∫ is the Delete key, which deletes to the left. ƒ+∫ deletes to the right. † is the Tab key, which shifts the focus between some controls.

36 SURF SAFER IN SAFARI

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

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

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

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

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

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

48 MAKE MUSIC IN iOS Create amazing tunes on your iOS device

36 SURF SAFER IN SAFARI Keep things private in Safari on your Mac

38 SORT YOUR MAC Use Folder Tidy to clean up your files

40 SOLVE MAC ISSUES Run checks to ensure your Mac’s performance

50 CUT FOOD WASTE Eat well and stop throwing food away

52 HOW IT WORKS 120Hz displays: faster-refresh rates explained

44

42 MASTER MISSION CONTROL Tame an unruly desktop with Mission Control

44 BACK UP YOUR iOS DEVICE Protect your personal data and settings

46 PLAY MEDIA REMOTELY Send content to displays and speakers

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 35

APPLE SKILLS Mac software

Surf safer in Safari Keep things private and secure in Safari on your Mac IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to take control of your data when you surf the web YOU’LL NEED Safari, macOS 11

Apple has long tried to take an active approach when it comes to privacy, but that has ramped up noticeably in the last few years. Safari is a notable example of this. In macOS Big Sur, Apple introduced several new settings in the web browser that give you much more control over how you can stop bad actors making off with your private data.

Genius tip!

On a new tab, click the Options button in the bottom right, then tick Privacy Report. This puts a report on new tabs showing what has been blocked.

36 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

A password manager like 1Password can keep your login details safe and synced across all your devices. It can also store secure notes, your address info, and more.

For instance, each website now gets a Privacy Report that notes how many advertising trackers Safari has blocked. There is no need to turn it on – it all works behind the scenes to keep your data safe.

Speak to the manager There are plenty of other actions you can take to step up your Safari security. Apart from tweaking the browser’s settings – which we will cover in this tutorial – we highly recommend you download a password manager and add it to Safari. While Safari itself can remember your passwords, it is pretty basic and is of no use if you use a different browser on another device. Use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass and not only do you get more features, but you can also access all your logins no matter which browser or device you use (provided the manager is installed on each device, of course).

With a sturdy password manager installed and Safari optimised using the settings on the next page, your private information will be safer than ever, leaving you able to browse the web with peace of mind. Alex Blake

Safari security APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Toughen up Safari’s security

1

Privacy extensions

Click Safari > Safari Extensions to open the extensions page of the App Store.

Install the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials and Ghostery Lite extensions; these will block unwanted trackers and content from the websites you visit using Safari.

4

Turn off AutoFill

7

Detect fraudulent sites

Now click the AutoFill tab. Next to ‘AutoFill web forms’, untick all options.

If someone else uses your Mac, this will prevent things like your credit card information from being automatically entered on shopping websites.

Move on to the Security tab and tick the checkbox next to ‘Fraudulent sites’ so that it is enabled. This will warn you if you visit a fake website, such as one that impersonates your bank to steal your account info.

2

Clear your history

5

Problem passwords

8

Cross-site tracking

Open Safari’s preferences and click the General tab. Under the ‘Remove history items’ and ‘Remove download list items’, choose a duration. Shorter times will see your history removed sooner to protect your privacy.

Click the Passwords tab and enter your login password. At the top of the window, ensure the ‘Detect passwords compromised by known data leaks’ checkbox is ticked to get warned about passwords you need to change.

Click the Privacy tab and tick the box next to ‘Prevent cross-site tracking’.

If you have ever had an advert follow you across multiple websites, cross-site tracking is the reason. This feature will stop it in its tracks.

3

Open ‘safe’ files

6

Use DuckDuckGo

9

Website permissions

On the same General tab, untick the checkbox next to ‘Open “safe” files after downloading’. Some seemingly innocuous files can be infected with malware, so automatically opening them could cause problems on your Mac.

On the Search tab, click the search engine drop-down menu and choose DuckDuckGo. This is a privacy-focused search engine that does not collect or store anywhere near as much of your data as Google, Yahoo and Bing do.

Finally, click the Websites tab.

Go through the left-hand categories to see if you want websites to access to your location data, camera, and other Mac features. You can allow all, block all, or make websites ask each time.

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APPLE SKILLS Mac software

Sort your Mac with Folder Tidy Don’t let messy files get the better of you – get organised IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes

Keeping your files organised on your Mac can be a laborious process, and the longer you leave it, the harder it is to do.

Locations like your Downloads folder and your desktop can quickly become overwhelmed with loose files bursting to get out. Even getting started can feel intimidating when there is so much to do. At that point, you start to question whether there’s any hope…

Fortunately, there is. Folder Tidy is a lightweight Mac app (£9.99) that can automatically sort all your files into neatly

YOU WILL LEARN How to quickly organise your files with Folder Tidy YOU’LL NEED Folder Tidy (£9.99), macOS 10.11 or later

ordered folders – one for your images, one for your video files, and so on. Just tell it where to start and where to put everything, click Tidy, and it leaps into action.

Even better, the app is highly customisable with a range of different settings and options.

Not only can you get it to ignore certain files, folders, or categories, but you can also create custom rules to laser-target only the problem areas. And if you accidentally sort things into the wrong place? Fear not, as everything can be undone and put back the way it was.

Alex Blake

EXPLAINED… The Folder Tidy interface 1

3

Input and output folders

Tidy

Choose which folders you want Folder Tidy to work with here.

You can click Choose or drag and drop.

Folder Tidy gets to work as soon as you click this button. It usually only takes a few seconds.

1

4

2 2

Predefined rules

Play by the rules Folder Tidy’s actions can be customised a lot.

Click this button and you can define new rules.

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4 3

The preferences window contains various options to tweak Folder Tidy and create your own rules.

File organsation APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Clean up your messy files

1

Pick your folders

Folder Tidy has two boxes telling you to pick source and destination folders.

The first is the messy folder, the second is the one where everything will be magically sorted. Click Choose or drag and drop the folders in place.

4

Add a custom rule

7

Extra options

Click the ‘+’ in the bottom-left corner to add a custom rule. Give your rule a name and define the folder that the files will be sorted into. To add a folder within a folder, add a slash, such as ‘Documents/Pages files’.

Click the Options tab to enable or disable some more miscellaneous preferences. If you run Folder Tidy regularly, the final option is useful to add a date to the name of the output folder and keep things in order.

2

Organise subfolders

5

Rule parameters

8

Get tidying

Folder Tidy’s sorting is based on rules. Under ‘Step 3’ on screen, choose whether the app will reach inside subfolders to organise their contents too. You can also add detailed rules and tweak other options.

Underneath, start defining your rules using the drop-down boxes. For instance, you can choose ‘Last modified date’, ‘is within last’, ‘x days’. Click the ‘+’ to add the rule, add any others you need, then click OK.

When you are done, close the Sorting Rules dialog box and click Tidy.

The app gets to work sorting your files and, depending on the options you set, might hide your open windows and show the output folder in Finder.

3

Sorting Rules

6

Ignore List

9

Undo Tidy

The Sorting Rules button contains predefined rules that put files into folders based on their type (text files in the Text folder, for example). You can enable or disable these rules by clicking the checkbox by each one.

Back on the Preferences pane, click the Ignore List tab, then click the ‘+’ to add any files you want Folder Tidy to leave in place while it is sorting through your folders. Hold ß or ç to add multiple files at once.

Another dialog box appears when the process is finished. To put the files back in their original state, click Undo Tidy. Alternatively, when you next open the app, click the Undo tab, select a tidy, then click Undo.

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APPLE SKILLS Mac software

Identify and solve Mac issues Run these systematic checks to ensure your Mac performs optimally IT WILL TAKE 15-30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to diagnose and tackle Mac security and performance issues YOU’LL NEED macOS 10.9 or later EtreCheckPro (Free)

Even if your Mac isn’t suffering from beach balls, crashes or kernel panics, you’ll still want it to run faster. EtreCheckPro (etrecheck.com) gives it an excellent all-round check which highlights any problems, and draws your attention to practical measures you can apply to fix or improve them.

Once it has run its checks, it lists major and minor issues which need to be addressed. Its free version provides a thorough analysis of security protection, and a long text report with

full details. Coupled with utilities which are bundled with macOS, you should then be able to fix many of the problems it can detect.

If you get out of your depth and seek help from Apple Support Communities, EtreCheck Pro’s report enables experts there to hone in quickly on a diagnosis. If you run it any more than occasionally, we’d recommend the in-app purchase of its Power User package ($17.99, about £13) for access to enhanced features, particularly its advanced analytics.

Howard Oakley

HOW TO Diagnose and resolve problems

1

Choose a problem

Before starting EtreCheckPro, add it to the Full Disk Access list in the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy pane. When open, click ‘Choose a problem’ and select a reason from the list of options. Record any further details, then click Start.

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2

Get the full report

EtreCheckPro then runs startup checks, examines your Mac’s hardware and software, and measures its performance. After a few minutes it presents its findings in sections, from major and minor issues to the full text.

3

Fix security updates

Major issues include security updates. Fix this by enabling ‘Install sytem data files and security updates’ in the Advanced section of the Software Update pane. That ensures your Mac’s security is properly maintained.

Ensure Mac health APPLE SKILLS

CONTINUED… Diagnose and resolve problems

4

Review security

7

Weed Login Items

Select the Security item on the left to examine any problems with macOS security settings. Where Security Updates are disabled, click on the button to Fix this in the Advanced settings of the Software Update pane.

EtreCheckPro’s listing of Login Items is far more thorough than those offered in the Users & Groups pane, but this is your main control over them. Select unwanted items and click on the ‘–’ below the list to remove them.

10

Unwanted sharing

If the app identifies a sharing service that you no longer need, disable it in the Sharing pane. Some like Remote Login and Management can pose a security risk. Others like File Sharing just impose extra overhead.

5

Check memory use

8

Daemons and Agents

11

Additional features

Excessive memory use is common.

Follow concerns up by looking in the Memory tab of Activity Monitor. Swap Used showing ‘0 bytes’ is a good sign.

Confirm this in Disk Utility with a small VM volume in the startup container.

Old and unwanted LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons can be removed manually from their folders in the main Library and the one in your Home folder.

They should also be trashed when you uninstall the app which added them.

Paying for the app’s Power User package through in-app purchase brings many additional features, the most useful of which highlight areas that merit more detailed attention to improve the overall performance of your Mac.

6

Review CPU use

9

Kernel extensions

Activity Monitor’s CPU tab and its CPU History window also give a good idea of the processor loading over the last few minutes, and which processes have taken the lion’s share. Leave this open while you’re working.

These are notorious causes of crashes and panics, particularly when they’re old. Try to remove them through the app which put them there, otherwise you should be able to trash them, authenticating if necessary.

12

Study analytics

The jewel in the Power User crown is its graphical presentation of saved analytics for the last few days, accessed within the Performance section. These give insight into memory, storage, network and CPU usage.

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APPLE SKILLS Mac software

Master Mission Control Tame an unruly desktop with this genius built-in feature IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to use Mission Control, desktop Spaces, and Hot Corners YOU’LL NEED macOS 11 or later

When you have a horde of apps and windows open, it is easy to lose the one you want among the clutter. Luckily, there is a solution in the form of Mission Control. This provides a bird’s-eye view of every open window, instantly obliterating the turmoil.

Mission Control also uses Spaces, which are clones of your current desktop, minus all the open windows and apps. Spaces help organise your windows: you could move all your work documents to one desktop and

everything else to another, and you can have up to 16 Spaces at once. Windows can be moved between Spaces with a few quick clicks, and you can even run two apps in Split View simply by dragging one on top of another in Mission Control.

Aside from all this, Mission Control’s settings contain a feature called Hot Corners.

These assign specific tasks to each corner of your display, and all you have to do is move your mouse to the corner to set it in motion.

Alex Blake

HOW TO Use Mission Control Genius tip!

Each desktop Space can have its own background image.

This is a handy way to differentiate between your active desktops on the Spaces bar.

1

Open Mission Control

Swipe up with three or four fingers on your trackpad or press the Mission Control button on your keyboard. Now click whichever window you want to switch to, or drag three or four fingers down to close Mission Control.

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2

The Spaces bar

In Mission Control, move your mouse to the top of the screen to find the Spaces bar, then click the ‘+’ to add a new Space. To change desktops, swipe left or right with three fingers, or press ≈+‘ or ≈+“.

Mission Control APPLE SKILLS

CONTINUED… Use Mission Control

Jargon buster

3

Moving windows

5

Move and close Spaces

To move a window between desktops, drag it to the left or right edge of your screen and hold it there. You can move it to a Space from the desktop or Mission Control, or drag it over the ‘+’ to place it on a new desktop.

The order of Spaces can be changed by dragging and dropping them to a new position in the Spaces bar. To close a desktop, hover your pointer over it, then click the ‘X’. Open windows move to your first Space.

4

Split View

6

Use the Dock

Apple calls each new desktop a Space. Your Dock, menu bar, and desktop files are the same on each, but apps and folders can be used separately.

You can run two apps side-by-side in Split View if at least one is full screen. Open Mission Control, then drag a window over a full-screen app’s Space so the desktop preview shows half an app. Now drop it in place.

The Dock shows open apps on all Spaces.

Click the app’s Dock icon to quickly switch to the desktop where it is open. If it is open in both Spaces, clicking the icon will cycle through the desktops where it is running.

Genius tip!

7

Group open windows

Open System Prefs and click Mission Control. If you have too many open windows for Mission Control to organise, tick ‘Group windows by application’ to keep instances of the same app together and reduce clutter.

8

Hot Corners

To copy an item to your desktop, press ç+c to copy the file, press ç+[Mission Control] to show the desktop, click anywhere, then press ç+V to paste.

In Mission Control’s preferences, click Hot Corners. Choose a pop-up menu in one corner, then select a function, such as starting a screen saver or locking your Mac. When you have chosen one, click OK.

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APPLE SKILLS Mac/iOS software

Back up your iPhone or iPad Protect the personal data and settings on your iOS device IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN You will learn the backup options for your device YOU’LL NEED You will need an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch; a Mac

There are two ways to back up the data on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. You can back up to iCloud, or you can back up locally to your Mac. With an iCloud backup, your backups can be accessed from anywhere you can get a Wi-Fi connection. The backups are always encrypted to keep your data secure, and you don’t need to remember to repeatedly back up your stuff: it can all happen automatically.

Unfortunately, the 5GB you get free with your iCloud account is hilariously small, so you’ll need a paid iCloud storage plan – especially if you have multiple devices to back up. Local backups are stored on your Mac, so you’re only limited by the size of its hard drive or SSD. Transfers are usually much faster. But you need to remember to actually do the backup and to turn on encryption to keep your data safe: encryption is switched off by default.

What isn’t backed up

Genius tip!

A backup isn’t the same as a sync.

Backups copy your data and settings; a sync copies newly purchased media such as music or books to your device.

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On your Mac, Manage Backups enables you to see all your local backups and delete old ones to free up space.

With a local backup, data and settings are copied but iTunes and App Store purchases, PDFs downloaded to Apple Books, data already stored in iCloud such as photos and messages, and Apple Mail data are not. Note: if you don’t encrypt your backup, your Activity, Health and Keychain data won’t be backed up either.

It’s a similar story with iCloud. It doesn’t back up existing iCloud data such as photos, messages, calendars, SMS messages and so on, and it doesn’t copy iCloud Music Library or App Store content. Carrie Marshall

iOS device backups APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Back up your iPad or iPhone

1

Enable iCloud

iCloud backups are easy to set up on any iOS/iPadOS device. In this example we’ll enable it for our iPad. To do that, we’ll go into Settings and then tap on our username in the top left. This brings up the iCloud page you can see here.

4

Trust your iPad

7

Set the backup method

You’ll now find your device in the removable drives bit of Finder, or in iTunes if you’re on macOS 10.14 or earlier.

If you haven’t connected your Mac to this device before you’ll be asked to make it a trusted device. To do that, click on Trust.

On the main page for your iPad or iPhone, you’ll see a section marked Backups. If your device uses iCloud, the first option will be selected here.

To change it, click on ‘Back up all the data on your iPad/iPhone to this Mac’.

2

Turn backups on

5

Trust your Mac

8

Encrypt everything

Scroll down the iCloud page to see an option for iCloud Backup. Tap on it and you’ll see the toggle: green means iCloud backup is on, tap it if greyed out. With iCloud backups enabled, this page will show you when the last backup was done.

Now you’ll need to go to your iPad or iPhone and click on Trust there too.

You’ll be asked to enter your device’s unlock code to proceed; if you don’t know it then you won’t be able to continue with the connection process.

Encrypting your backup means nobody else can restore from it without knowing your password – if you choose this option, make sure you keep a note of the password. You’ll be asked again for your device’s unlock code too.

3

Connect to your Mac

6

Bring them together

9

Back it up

To make a local backup, you’ll need a wired connection to your Mac. Devices such as iPads draw a lot of power so don’t worry if you see this message when you connect: it’s your Mac saving energy by disabling other connected devices.

Depending on the version of macOS you have, you’ll either see this screen in Finder or the sync screen in iTunes. As far as backups are concerned there’s no real difference between the way it works in Finder and the way it works in iTunes.

Click on Back Up Now and your Mac will start copying your data. When done, you’ll see a colour-coded chart, which lets you know how the storage on your device is being used. To restore from a backup, click Restore Backup.

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Play media on remote devices Use your TV as a second display or stream music to AirPlay speakers IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to stream audio and video using AirPlay YOU’LL NEED Mac, iPhone, or iPad, or iPod touch; Apple TV, AirPlay-compatible TV, or AirPlay speaker

If you’ve only ever considered AirPlay as a tool for streaming music to compatible speakers, think again. AirPlay allows you to stream audio and video, and that can be done from a Mac, to mirror or extend your desktop. You can even use it with non-AirPlay speakers, with the help of software like AudioBridge (£13.99, audiobridge.com), which turns Sonos speakers into AirPlay devices.

You don’t even need an Apple TV box to take advantage of video streaming, as many

smart TVs now support AirPlay 2, allowing you to stream directly to them. If you add an Apple TV or compatible smart TV to the Home app and assign it to a room, you can even use Siri to control playback of video from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Apple recommends that you connect the devices you want to stream to and from to the same Wi-Fi network. However, if that’s not possible, AirPlay will work in peer-to-peer mode, provided Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are switched on on both devices. Kenny Hemphill

HOW TO Stream to AirPlay devices Genius tip!

If you have an Apple TV or HomeKitcompatible TV with AirPlay 2, you can add it to the Home app and control playback using Siri.

1

Stream audio from your Mac

Go to System Prefs > Sound > Output and choose an AirPlay device. If you have the volume displayed in the menu bar, select from there. In Big Sur, go to Control Centre > Sound, and tap the AirPlay (beacon) icon.

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2

Stream from the Music app

If you only want to stream audio from the Music app, rather than every sound on your Mac, launch Music, click the AirPlay icon in the toolbar and choose your AirPlay speakers or TV from the list.

Stream content APPLE SKILLS

CONTINUED… Stream to AirPlay devices

Jargon buster

3

Stream from iPhone or iPad

5

Extend your Mac’s screen

With audio playing on your iOS device, swipe down from the top right of the screen to invoke Control Centre, then tap the AirPlay icon (top right). Choose the device you want to stream to from the list of options.

Follow step 3, but choose Extend Mac Desktop. In System Preferences > Display, use the Display tab to set the resolution and colour for the TV. Then click Arrange and drag the screens to the order you want them.

4

Mirror your Mac’s screen

6

Video from an iOS app

In Big Sur, choose Screen Mirroring in Control Centre. Otherwise, go to System Preferences > Display, and choose your TV from the AirPlay Display menu. Choose Mirror Display from the menu.

Where devices connect directly to each other, rather than via a router, they are linking peer to peer – connecting your Mac to your iPhone so you can use it as a personal hotspot, say, or directly streaming a video from an iPad to an Apple TV using AirPlay.

Launch the app you want to stream from, for example, YouTube. Tap the screen then tap the Cast icon. Choose AirPlay and Bluetooth devices, then choose the Apple TV or AirPlaycompatible TV you want to stream to.

Genius tip!

You can stream audio from an iOS device to multiple speakers. Follow the instructions in step 3 and choose multiple devices from the list.

7

Display photos from an iPad

Launch the Photos app and navigate to a photo you want to display. Tap the Share icon at the bottom of the screen and choose AirPlay from the list of options. Choose your Apple TV or AirPlay-compatible TV.

8

Mirror your iPad screen

Swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen to bring up Control Centre. Tap Screen Mirroring and choose your Apple TV or AirPlay-compatible TV. To stop mirroring, tap Screen Mirroring and choose your iPad.

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APPLE SKILLS iOS software

Make music in iOS Make amazing tunes on iOS – even if you can’t play an instrument IT WILL TAKE 20 minutes YOU WILL LEARN You will learn how to make music on iPhone or iPad YOU’LL NEED GarageBand. iOS 14 or later

We love GarageBand on our iPad and iPhone: it’s tons of fun, easy to use, and it works brilliantly with GarageBand and Logic Pro X on the Mac. (Check out our Make Music on Your Mac feature in MF365.)

That means it’s as happy in a serious music production workflow as it is being poked and prodded by a young kid on the sofa.

We use it to demo songs or capture musical ideas before turning them into finished songs in Logic; but it’s as easy for complete novices

to experiment with unusual instruments and make block-rocking beats.

There are lots of great music apps for iOS and iPadOS, with faithful reproductions of vintage synths rubbing shoulders with all kinds of beat makers and loopers. You can use many of them to record into GarageBand: look for Inter-App Audio apps in the App Store. Once installed, you can then use that app by choosing External in GarageBand’s sound browser and picking the app you want to get audio from. Carrie Marshall

HOW TO Make music on your iPhone or iPad

1

Pick what to play

Launch GarageBand and create a new song. Let’s pick an instrument from this, the Sound Browser. Swipe left or right for different instrument types and tap the icons to select a specific one such as Alchemy Synth.

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2

Make some noise

We picked this synth because you can play it with one finger: select Fast Gate from the middle section and hold down a piano key to hear a bubbling synth pattern. To record it, press the red circle icon before pressing the key(s).

3

See your stuff

Tap on the third icon from the very top left to enter Tracks view. The green block is what you just recorded. Drag the ends to trim it, double-tap and select Loop. This repeats the recording to fill the entire song section.

GarageBand on iOS APPLE SKILLS

CONTINUED… Make music on your iPhone or iPad

4

Do some drumming

7

See the drums

Let’s add some drums. Tap on the ‘+’ sign at the bottom left to add a new track and swipe until you see Drummer.

This enables you to use GarageBand’s automated drum machine, which can sound exactly like real-life drumming.

Go back into Tracks view (the third icon from the top left) and you’ll now see two tracks: your original looped synth part, and your new Drummer track.

Double-tap either one and choose Edit if you want to change the notes or pattern.

10

Look for loops

GarageBand creates a new section and, if you’re using Drummer, automatically puts a new Drummer section in it. Now let’s add some loops from GarageBand’s excellent library.

Tap the Loop icon towards the top right.

5

Build some beats

8

Bring the bass

11

Adjust and add FX

If you’d rather make beats, swipe along to Drums and tap Beat Sequencer.

This enables you to build beats by tapping where you want each part of the drum kit to play. Tap at the bottomleft corner for a different drum kit.

Add a new track, choose bass and look for the Autoplay control: it can play the instrument for you, and there are four patterns. If you prefer you can play each individual note by tapping Notes.

Use either option and record a bass line.

Find a loop you like and drag it below your tracks to add a new one.

Select any track and tap the Mixer icon at the top left to adjust how it sounds, add echo and reverb and adjust where it sits in relation to the other tracks.

6

Adjust the drums

9

Add a chorus

We’ll stick with Drummer. You can adjust lots of things from here: the drum pattern preset, the patterns for each bit of the kit and our favourite bit, the controller that enables you to make the drums louder or more complex.

Return to tracks view, which now has three individual tracks. Let’s add another song section to our project, such as a chorus. To do that, tap on the ‘+’ sign at the top right, just above your first track. Now tap on Add.

12

Share your song

Tap the page icon (top left) and GarageBand will save your song. You can export your project by long-pressing it and choosing Share. You can export it as an audio file, ringtone or project to send to another GarageBand user.

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APPLE SKILLS iOS software

Cut food waste (and eat well) Stop overspending on food you don’t use with the help of this free app IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to cut food waste and learn some delicious new recipes while you’re at it

Many of us probably do not worry too much about throwing away the odd bit of food now and then, what with everything else going on in our lives. Especially if it goes in the food waste bin. Sometimes you buy too much – these things happen, right?

Once you start totting up all the food you throw away, though – and all the money you

YOU’LL NEED Kitche (Free), iOS 9 or later

You might be shocked at how much food you throw away 50 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Once you have added food to your products list, you can then search for recipes that contain these ingredients, helping you use up leftovers in your store cupboard.

end up wasting on all this unneeded grub – you might be shocked at how much you go through. The wasted energy in growing and shipping the food, and the wasted money you spent on it, is now a serious concern.

Surely something should be done about it?

Well, as you would expect, there is an app for that: it is called Kitche, and it is totally free.

This app is designed to keep track of all the food you buy, as well as everything you keep in your store cupboard, and getting started is as simple as scanning a receipt. Once Kitche knows what you have and when you bought it, it will send you reminders to use the food before it goes out of date. It can also offer up tasty recipe ideas and track how much you throw away to encourage you to waste less in the future.

Not only is Kitche incredibly useful, it is also supremely easy to use. What could become a tiring chore is instead a quick fix that comes with plenty of benefits. Before you know it, you will be wasting a lot less without even trying. Alex Blake

Cut food waste APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Manage your food cupboard Genius tip!

On the ‘At home’ tab, long press an item to delete it, add it to the buy list, or copy it to the top of the tab.

You can also select all items from here.

1

Scan a receipt

When you open the app, you will see an empty product list in front of you. Tap the ‘+’ and take a picture of a receipt to start adding food to the app, or tap Gallery to add a picture of one you have snapped recently.

3

Usage reminders

You will now see a checklist of items and how long it will be until Kitche reminds you to use them. You can skip the reminder by unticking an item, or tap its entry to input a custom reminder date. Now tap Done.

2

Review products

4

Tossed list

Tap Crop & Submit. Kitche will scan your receipt for products it recognises, then will open a list of what it found. You can remove items if you want. Tap Add to insert something manually, or tap Next to continue.

On the list of items, swipe left to add to ‘To buy’ or swipe right to add to Tossed. For the latter, enter how much you threw away, then tap Toss – the idea of this is to encourage you to reduce waste.

Genius tip!

At the bottom of the app, tap Tips to find great articles on cutting food waste. The Portion Planner is particularly handy if you have a lot of mouths to feed.

5

To buy list

On the Products page, tap the ‘To buy’ tab. Items you have added to your shopping list appear here in categories. Tap an item to edit it, or tap the ‘+’ and enter another product’s details to add it to your shopping list.

6

Find some recipes

Tap the Recipes button, then tap Your products. Tap any products you want to use in a recipe, plus any dietary requirements you have, then tap ‘Apply filters’. Tap a recipe to view it, or tap the chef hat icon to save it.

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HOW IT WORKS

120Hz displays

The Liquid Retina display in the new iPad Pro has ProMotion, Apple’s name for 120Hz displays.

More magical movies and power to the Pencil YOU WILL LEARN You will learn why faster displays can be worth having

60Hz is good enough for most people right now, so there’s no pressing need to go faster Key fact Refresh rates tell you how many times per second a display screen is updated. The faster the screen updates, the more smooth and fluid motion will appear. A 60Hz display refreshes 60 times per second; a 120Hz one, 120 times.

An E-ink display doesn’t refresh at all until you tell it to, which is why an Amazon Kindle e-reader can go weeks between charges.

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In early 2021, there was excitement over a newly unearthed Apple patent for mobile device displays with refresh rates of 120Hz, 180Hz or even 240Hz. The patent fits with multiple rumours that the iPhone 13 will have a 120Hz display.

But what does that actually mean?

What refresh rates mean Whenever you look at something on an electronic screen, you’re actually watching a succession of still images. Those images work just like the celluloid frames of pre-digital cinema: they flash by so quickly that your brain doesn’t see the individual images; it sees objects in motion instead. The faster the frames flash by or the images are updated digitally, the smoother the movement.

Everybody Hertz Typical displays today, including the iPhone, your Mac and most iPads, have a refresh rate of 60Hz. Hz is short for Hertz and it’s a measurement of frequency, in this case how many times something happens per second. So a screen with a refresh rate of 24Hz is updated 24 times per second; if it’s 60Hz, it’s updated 60 times a second; and if it’s 120Hz, the screen is updated 120 times per second.

The reason so many displays run at ‘just’ 60Hz is because that speed is actually good enough for most things. But, increasingly, we’re seeing even faster displays, especially in gaming. The more updates per second, the smoother the animation or video.

Less lag and instant illustration There’s another benefit to faster displays, and that’s their response time. The gap between doing something and seeing it on screen is known as input lag, and with a 60Hz display you can’t get that below 16.67 milliseconds: the screen can’t update any more quickly. With a 120Hz display, that figure drops to 8.33 milliseconds – so not only are the visuals smoother, but your device or an input device such as your Apple Pencil is more responsive too. When you’re playing a very busy online game, that can literally mean the difference between life and death for your character.

More than just a number 120Hz displays have been common in gaming for some time now, and they’re increasingly common in smartphones too: it’s another number to stand out from rivals in a product comparison. But there are genuine benefits beyond gaming, which is one of the reasons the ProMotion display in the iPad Pro is 120Hz when other iPads only have 60Hz. It makes the drawing, animation and movie experience so much smoother.

If 120Hz displays are so great, why hasn’t Apple embraced them for everything? There are several reasons for that. The first and most obvious one is that 60Hz is good enough for most people right now, so there’s no pressing need to go quicker. And the second, more important point is that driving a display twice as fast means draining the battery more quickly. That’s a real concern with thin smartphones in particular because they lack room for larger batteries.

120Hz displays APPLE SKILLS

No tears before bedtime One of the problems high-performance gamers can encounter with fast graphics is called screen tear, and it’s something that happens when the GPU is pumping out data more quickly than the display can refresh. That can mean multiple images appear on screen at the same time instead of consecutively. The resulting distortions can be minor or game-breaking, and GPU firms have come up with ways to solve them with intelligent vertical synchronisation.

To simplify what’s really quite a complex task, G-Sync (NVIDIA) and

FreeSync (AMD) adjust the data being sent to the display so that it doesn’t receive a new frame until it’s rendered the previous one. That ensures that your display doesn’t end up drowning in data that’s coming too quickly for it to cope with.

We aren’t aware of screen tearing on ProMotion displays, and we don’t expect to encounter it in the iPhone 13 either:

NVIDIA’s G-Sync avoids screen tear by synchronising the GPU with the display.

the GPU in Apple’s A- and M-series systems is Apple’s own, so it can be matched perfectly with the iPhone or iPad’s display.

That’s exactly what Apple’s ProMotion does. When you need full speed, for example when you’re drawing with Apple Pencil, you get the fast input response and silky-smooth animation of a 120Hz display.

And when you’re watching cat videos on YouTube (30fps) or a blockbuster movie (24fps), you’re not making your iPad Pro run at a refresh rate your source can’t make use of.

You’ve been framed Did you notice we changed our 120Hz displays were rumoured for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, measurement units? One but it looks like Apple has waited until the iPhone 13… minute we were talking Hertz; the next, fps. Fps – frames per second – dates Battery tech hasn’t improved that much, back to analogue cinema and tells you how but nevertheless we’re seeing lots of many frames per second your film or video manufacturers such as Samsung put 120Hz uses. It’s purely about the content, not the screens into their devices without ending up display you’re viewing it on. For example if you with horrific energy efficiency. The secret? watch a typical movie on a pre-HD CRT TV, the Something called Adaptive Refresh. With movie was filmed at 24fps and your TV might Adaptive Refresh, your 120Hz display doesn’t be refreshing at 30Hz; the same film on an HD run at full speed all the time. It runs at a TV, iPhone 12 or Pro Display XDR is still 24fps lower refresh rate – sometimes lower than but your display is refreshing at 60Hz (or more 10Hz – when it can get away with it, for in the case of the TV), and so on. example when it’s only showing the time Will Apple bring ProMotion to the iPhone and the weather forecast. When you and the Mac? Rumours suggest we should see unlock the phone the refresh speeds up it in the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max alongside to something around 60Hz, and when you a more energy-efficient LPTO display and an launch a game it ramps up the refresh rate A15 chip that delivers 15-20% better power to full speed. It’s an eminently sensible efficiency. As for the Mac, it’s possible… but solution to the battery problem: you if Apple’s planning it it’s managed to keep simply don’t need to run your display it awfully quiet. Carrie Marshall at full speed all the time.

Image credit: ASUSTeK Computer Inc

Key fact Refresh rates aren’t the same as frames per second (fps): a 120Hz display won’t display a movie at 120 frames per second. Fps tells you about the video source: most movies are filmed at 24 frames per second and video games are usually locked to 30fps or 60fps. A PlayStation 5 can run at 120fps but at the time of writing only 11 games can go that fast.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 53

EXPERT ADVICE Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems

Contact us

EDITED BY

HOWARD OAKLEY

Living in strange times

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espite being proposed as an international standard in 1884, we still haven’t accepted the 24-hour clock. If you’re American or British, you’ll probably prefer AM and PM; if you’re European, then you’ll want 24 straight hours each day.

Internally computers keep 24-hour time then let the user choose how to express it. Set your Mac to English (US) and Big Sur’s Dock & Menu Bar pane gives a choice for the clock in your menu bar.

This works differently in English (UK), though: the time format can only be changed in the Language & Region pane.

Internal oddities have started appearing since the macOS 11.2 update, with some apps now misbehaving because Apple changed the formatting of time to match that in iOS. Don’t be surprised if time seems a little out of joint, as that may even break some apps.

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Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

Exploding backups Why are my Time Machine backups often so huge when there are only a few files to be backed up? The backups can take many gigabytes on my HFS+ backup disk.

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by A L A N A N D R E W S

This commonly occurs in two situations, both of which you can address. It may be that some of those files are huge, perhaps being virtual machine (VM) files for virtualisation software like Parallels. If that’s the case, add the folder containing them to the list of exclusions using the Options button in Time Machine. As they change each time you use the VM, they’ll

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rapidly fill your backups otherwise. The other problem occurs when your Mac is backing up from an APFS disk to backups stored on an HFS+ disk. APFS can store sparse files, whose content is mostly empty, in highly compact form. As HFS+ doesn’t support the new file format, they have to be expanded to full size to be added to your backup. A few megabytes of file can then explode to several gigabytes.

In this case, the best solution, if you can’t exclude them, is to change to Big Sur’s new option of making Time Machine backups to APFS. To do that, you’ll need to be running macOS 11, and create a new series of backups on a fresh disk which Time Machine can format in its special case-sensitive variant of APFS.

BackupLoupe and T2M2 can reveal excessively large backups, which you can then add to Time Machine’s list of exclusions.

Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

iOS software GENIUS TIPS

iOS software Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices Quick-fire questions How do I show a 12-hour clock instead of 24-hour? > In Settings > Date & Time, turn off 24-Hour Time. But beware: this extends far beyond what’s shown by the clock. You’ll find every time on your device now works using AM and PM, which can become tedious when setting times. There’s no simple control which alters only what’s shown in the clock display.

How to get urgent texts if Do Not Disturb is on? > This normally silences all incoming messages, but you can add the phone number of each specific sender as an Emergency Bypass.

Open their card in Contacts, tap Text Tone.

At the top, turn on Emergency Bypass and set the alert tone. Tap Done when finished.

Device network IP addresses are normally assigned by your router; check them for the active Wi-Fi connection in Settings.

Resetting the printer to print Whenever I try to print to my AirPrint printer from my iPhone or iPad, they report that no AirPrint printers were found, until I turn the printer off and on again. Is this how AirPrint works?

Q

by J I M G I R O N E

AirPrint shouldn’t require you to keep initialising your printer, but should find it easily when in Wi-Fi range.

Problems like this are most likely when your local wireless network is misconfigured, resulting in your printer and devices looking for one another on different networks.

Sometimes this can be solved quickly by enabling support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections in your Wi-Fi router. Otherwise you should check the IP address in each of the devices including the printer. On your iPhone

Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

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and iPad this is in Settings > Wi-Fi, in the Info symbol next to the ticked network. Configure IP should be Automatic, then make a note of the IP Address and details, which should give your Wi-Fi router’s address.

All four should be on the same sub-net, with the first three figures in the IP address the same. If they aren’t they can’t see one another on the network, and you’ll need to reconfigure your router or printer. If the Wi-Fi icon on your printer’s LCD screen isn’t active, it may be using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), requiring you to select one of its WPS options within two minutes of pressing the WPS button in your router’s configuration.

Refer to the printer’s documentation for a detailed explanation.

Once all your devices are on the same network, printing should become reliable.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 55

GENIUS TIPS Peripherals

Peripherals Thinking inside the box to refresh the parts other tips can’t reach quick-fire questions How to deep clean keyboards, mice and trackpads?

Apple’s Thunderbolt 2-to-3 adaptor can’t supply power to unpowered SSDs, which can instead be connected via a suitable dock.

> It’s wise to combine this with disinfection.

Apple recommends two types: sparing use of a disinfectant containing mild bleach, or better 70% isopropyl alcohol which won’t damage the electronics in keyboards. Leave them in a light, open area for a day or two afterwards to ensure virus destruction.

Why do uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) need USB? > When mains power is lost, a UPS needs to signal your Mac to tell it to shut down, or it’ll run out of battery power.

Connecting it by USB lets you set its behaviour in the UPS tab in the Energy Saver pane. There’s also SNMP for networked devices, but that’s more specialised.

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Connecting an external SSD How can I connect a Thunderbolt 3 external SSD to my iMac 27-inch Late 2015 with Thunderbolt 2 ports, so that when I upgrade my Mac I can continue using it?

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by R O B E R T C O P E

The simple answer might appear to be connecting it using Apple’s Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adaptor, but alas that usually doesn’t work as it can’t deliver the power that a compact external SSD normally needs. Equally, buying a Thunderbolt 1 or 2 compact SSD would suffer the same problem when you came to connect it to a current or future Mac. In light of these issues, you can either buy a more expensive powered external SSD or enclosure, or a dock to provide the power that a compact unit needs. If you get a

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Thunderbolt 2 dock now, you should still be able to use it via an adaptor when your Mac has Thunderbolt 3 ports. Another option would be to mount an M.2 NVMe SSD in a compact Thunderbolt 2 case for the moment, and then replace that with a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure when you upgrade your Mac. A second factor to consider is that compact SSDs initially claiming better performance than cheaper SATA models will eventually slow down when they have to cope with sustained writes. This is because they rely on passive cooling in operation, which can’t keep them cool enough to write at full speed for too long.

To realise the full potential of a fast M.2 SSD, it has to be mounted in an enclosure with active cooling such as a fan, which is how Apple’s internal SSDs invariably perform better than compact external SSDs. Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

Peripherals GENIUS TIPS

A good utility to monitor Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signal strength like iStumbler can show dropouts which disconnect Sidecar.

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by C H R I S J O N E S

In most cases, connecting an iPad to a Mac using Sidecar just works, but when it doesn’t it can prove tricky to fix. Wireless Sidecar connections rely on good Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals, which limits the distance between the iPad and Mac to a maximum of 10 metres of uninterrupted sight, and works best when they’re closer. Neither can be sharing their internet connection, and

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> This did require a display with multiple Thunderbolt ports, but CalDigit’s Element Hub and models from OWC and Kensington offer four Thunderbolt 3/4 ports. They’re cheaper but in short supply.

Can I fly my drone using its iOS app on an M1 Mac?

Sidecar keeps falling off Why is my iPad Pro’s Sidecar connection so unreliable that it often disconnects when in use?

How do I connect four Thunderbolt 3 SSDs to my M1?

both should be running the latest version of iPadOS/macOS. Anything causing interference or interruption to wireless transmission can break this. Domestic appliances such as microwave ovens, poorly shielded USB or Thunderbolt cables or hubs are common culprits. Sometimes reconfiguring a Wi-Fi router to use different channels can free others for use by Sidecar’s connection.

Monitoring Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals using an app like iStumbler reveals periodic dropouts which result in disconnection. Those could occur from interference, or if either the Mac or iPad have a hardware problem.

> Unless use on a Mac is explicitly supported you mustn’t try this.

The app may not run as reliably, and may not communicate properly with the flight controller.

For a bigger display, try an iPad not a Mac.

Compatible docks for an M1 Q

Should I expect problems connecting an M1 Mac to any of my Thunderbolt 3 Docks?

by J A M E S S A M S O N

Of all the hardware built into Apple’s M1 chips, the Thunderbolt sections are the newest, and can give the greatest problems in use. Some docks work reliably, others seem to result in impaired performance of connected devices such as disks connected via USB-C. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t produce a list of known compatible docks, and that’s changing rapidly in any case as the drivers in M1 Macs improve.

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Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

Most problems come from connecting a dock which doesn’t fully support Thunderbolt 3 but a variant of USB-C 3 instead. Those aren’t going to achieve the full potential of any fast SSD which you connect to them. Full Thunderbolt 3 docks from brands, such as CalDigit, Belkin and OWC, which are claimed to be compatible with M1 Macs are usually most likely to work best. Try M1 Macs work best when you connect a reputable and compatible dock using a properly certified Thunderbolt 3 cable.

to avoid unknown brands which are primarily USB-C 3 or 3.1 (and not explicitly claimed to be compatible with M1 models), and get a money-back guarantee. Ensure that the cable you use to connect the dock is fully certified, and marked with the Thunderbolt icon together with the digit 3 or 4. Use the shortest cable that you can, preferably less than a metre in length.

GENIUS TIPS macOS

macOS Shine a spotlight on the solutions to your most irritating Mac problems Quick-fire questions

Can’t open dashcam footage

How do I reorder items in the menu bar?

Since upgrading my MacBook Pro to Big Sur it won’t play any footage from my Thinkware F770 dashcam, and reports that it ‘cannot open files in the MPEG-4 movie format’. Why is this?

> Although Big Sur’s new Dock & Menu Bar pane gives most controls over the menu bar, it can’t control the order of items displayed there. You can rearrange most of them by holding the ç key and dragging them into order, but note that the Control Centre and clock are fixed.

Why don’t I have permission to open an app?

Q

by K E I T H G I B B I N S

One of the less prominent casualties with the loss of 32-bit software support in Catalina and Big Sur is that QuickTime codecs used to record and play back certain video and audio formats no longer work. Although most Mac apps have been updated, some older or cross-platform software still hasn’t caught up.

You’re most likely to notice this if you’ve only recently upgraded macOS from Mojave or earlier to either Catalina or Big Sur. Apple

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provides a full list of formats which lost support when those old QuickTime codecs were lost, at bit.ly/mac366QTmedia. Among them are Flash Video, RealVideo, WMV and Perian codecs such as MPEG-4 and DivX. macOS provides support for the conversion of those retired formats in Mojave, but not in subsequent 64-bit versions of macOS such as Big Sur. If you want to convert or access movies in those formats, then Mojave is your best prospect.

In your case, dashcam footage is being saved using a codec which is no longer supported. If the manufacturer is unable to provide an update to the dashcam, or software it provides giving access to footage, you’ll need to replace the dashcam with a model which uses a supported format.

> This error message most often occurs when an app fails a signature check required by macOS. Occasionally this is because permissions aren’t set correctly or there’s a fault in its security or other settings. If it won’t open normally, contact the app’s developer and ask their advice.

Keynote and Apple’s other Mojave apps can convert media from unsupported 32-bit QuickTime formats, but can’t do that in later macOS.

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Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

macOS GENIUS TIPS

Music doubling up tracks I’m running macOS 11.2.3 and subscribe to iTunes Match but not Music. Why is the Music app now duplicating everything in my library, and how can I stop it?

by A N G E L F I G U E R O A

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This is a not uncommon problem which can arise with an iCloud Music Library. The most reliable way to

Problems with duping in iCloud Music Library are often solved by turning it off, signing out, then reconnecting.

How do I fix authorisation problems in Music?

tackle it basically comes down to turning it off and back on again. You should do this when your Mac has a good Internet connection, and you should be able to leave your Mac connected and otherwise undisturbed for a while.

First turn off iCloud Music Library in the Music app. Once you’ve done that, sign out from your Apple ID in the Overview section of the Apple ID pane. Wait a couple of minutes to allow those changes to propagate through iCloud, then sign back in using the Overview in the Apple ID pane again. Once that has updated the pane, open Music and turn iCloud Music Library back on.

After some time syncing and updating, the behaviour of Music should have returned to normal. If you still have remaining problems, it may be the result of an account misconfiguration, so you should contact Apple Support so that they can check that and talk you through remedial action.

Lock your private data away Q How do I best create a secure ‘vault’ for important data so that it’s protected from others, including those with shared access to my Mac at work?

by M A R K M A S N I K

If you’ve got a lot of private files, it may be worth creating an encrypted APFS volume, but most prefer instead to use an encrypted disk image, which can either be a single DMG file or a sparse bundle.

DMG files are best if you want a fixed size which is easiest to move around; they can be created in Disk Utility or DropDMG from bit.ly/ mac366dropdmg. Sparse bundles consist of a whole folder, within which are ‘band’ files. These make it possible

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for a sparse bundle to be flexible in size, so to grow by adding more bands. They too can be created using Disk Utility or DropDMG, and Spundle from bit.ly/ mac366spundle. In High Sierra and later you can opt for either the traditional HFS+ format, or the latest APFS instead.

Double-click it to open the image and mount it in the

Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com

Finder once you’ve entered its password. The only snag is that, once mounted, these are also accessible to other users, so you must be careful to ensure they’re ejected before you leave your Mac for other users. It also helps if you set the General tab of the Security & Privacy pane to require your Mac’s password immediately on sleep or the screensaver appearing.

> If you start getting errors about a Mac’s account authorisation, deauthorise your Macs completely. Deauthorise them all from your account, viewed using the View my Account command in the Account menu in the Music, TV or Books app, and wait a few minutes.

With all authorisations available, authorise each Mac one at a time from the Mac you want to authorise. If problems persist, contact Apple Support as they may need to correct account settings. iOS and iPadOS devices don’t count in the number of authorisations, only Macs and Windows computers.

How do I show hidden files in the Finder? > Press ç+ß- in the Finder; when you want to hide them again, repeat the same shortcut. You can also make this a more permanent state by typing in Terminal defaults write com. apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true Setting that to false will return the Finder to normal again.

Encrypted sparse bundles are a robust way of storing sensitive files, and can be created in Disk Utility, DropDMG or Spundle.

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SECR E TS O F

iPadOS Get the most from the new features and improvements in iPadOS 14 with these tips and tricks Written by Kenny Hemphill

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he launch of iPadOS 14 in 2020 wasn’t the seismic shift we saw the previous year when the iPad got its own operating system for the first time. However, there are plenty of new features, tweaks, and improvements in this version.

Today View widgets have evolved and now feature many of the same options as the Home Screen widgets introduced in iOS 14. So, you can now add Stacks and choose between large, medium and small widgets, for example.

Lots of apps look different now too, thanks to the addition of sidebars and pull-down menus. App Clips make

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an appearance in iPadOS with this version, and you can now use an Apple Pencil to write in any text box and have your handwriting converted to text. And in the Notes app, you can select and format handwriting in the same way you would with regular text.

Safari and the App Store get Privacy reports, and the Messages, Maps, Photos and Reminders apps are all updated with the features seen in iOS, many of which also appear in macOS Big Sur. There’s a lot to like in this update and, over the next seven pages, we’ll show you all the tips and tricks you need to get the most from iPadOS 14.

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The iPadOS 14 Home screen You can’t add widgets to the Home Screen in iPadOS 14 the way you can with iOS 14. However, the widgets in Today View have been improved, with more iOS-like features such as Smart Stacks.

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Search has been improved, too. As you type a search query in, the results are displayed from web

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searches, apps, and contacts.

As you continue to type, the results are refined.

Calls in FaceTime and other supported apps no longer commandeer the whole screen when you receive them, instead you’ll find them displayed in the same compact view in which phone calls in iOS 14 are shown.

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The Files app benefits from interface enhancements, including sidebars and pull-down menus.

Files is edging closer to being as useful as macOS’ Finder.

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In Notes, you can select and format handwritten text in the same way as typed, making it easy to capture text with an Apple Pencil.

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JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 61

FEATURE Tips and tricks

Interface tricks Use a keyboard or Apple Pencil to boost your productivity ne of the things that really differentiates using an iPad from using an iPhone is keyboard shortcuts. If you connect an external keyboard to your iPad, then it makes the experience much more like using a Mac. For example, to search for something, instead of swiping down on the Home Screen and typing a search query on the on-screen keyboard

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then tapping a result, you can press ç+[spacebar], the same as Spotlight on the Mac, type the query, then press ® on the keyboard. In iPadOS 14, you can now even handwrite the search query with an Apple Pencil.

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Add a Smart Stack to the Today View

Tap and hold on any free space on the Home Screen. Tap ‘+’ in the top-left corner. The widgets drawer will appear, with Smart Stack at the top. Tap Smart Stack and swipe left or right to choose the size you want. Tap Add Widget.

2 You can now add Smart Stacks to the Today view on the iPad’s Home Screen. This one isn’t very helpful.

Use Assistive Touch to access Universal Search

Accessing Universal Search from within an app usually requires an external keyboard, but you can also do it by customising the floating Home button displayed when Assistive Touch is active.

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Assistive Touch and toggle the switch

to turn it on. Then tap one of the Custom Actions and choose Spotlight.

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Use Split View

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Set default email and browser apps

Tap on one of the apps you want to view in Split View. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to show the Dock.

Tap and hold on the other app you want to view until the contextual menu disappears. Drag its icon to the left or right of the screen. To view the second app as an overlay on the first, tap and hold the bar at the top of its window and pull it down over the first app. To get rid of it, tap and hold on the bar on the bottom until the window shrinks, then swipe up over it.

For your email and browser, you can now choose third-party apps as default.

Launch Settings and locate the app you want to use as your default, eg Chrome.

Tap on it and tap Default Browser App,

HOW TO Customise the Files app >

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Edit the sidebar

Tap Files to launch it. Tap the sidebar icon in the top left to view it, then tap More and choose Edit Sidebar. Use the toggle switches to add or remove items from Locations, or tap ‘–‘ to remove items from Favourites or Tags.

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Change the sidebar order

You don’t have to keep the default order in the sidebar. To change the order of items in the sidebar, tap and hold on the item you want to move, then drag it up or down and drop it in its new location.

Tap Done when you’re finished.

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Add a folder to Favourites

To add a folder to the Favourites section of the sidebar, navigate to the folder you want to add then tap and hold on it. Choose Favourite. You can also create new tags here by choose Tags and Add New Tag.

iPadOS 14 FEATURE

then choose it from the list. To set a default email app, locate the mail app and tap Default Mail App. As of iPadOS 14.5, you can choose your audio app too – ask Siri to play some music or a podcast and it will ask you which app to use rather than picking the Apple default.

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Use Scribble

Using Scribble is as simple as tapping in any text box with an Apple Pencil. You’ll see a pencil icon appear, which means you can start writing and your handwriting will be converted to text. For more see the tutorial in MF361.

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Copy handwriting in Notes as text

Open a note that has handwriting in it and double-tap on a word to select it.

Drag the selection handles over all the words you want to select. In the menu

that appears, choose Copy as Text. You can now paste it as text in any app.

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Draw accurate shapes in Notes

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Translate different languages in Safari

iPadOS 14 introduced a feature called Private Access for Wi-Fi Networks which is switched on by default. It replaces your iPad’s MAC address with a randomised version, to prevent your device being tracked while you use public Wi-Fi networks.

However, if you regularly access Wi-Fi networks that identify permitted devices

by MAC address, you may want to turn the feature off. To do that, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and tap the ‘i’ next to the network you’re currently connected to, then toggle Private Address to the off position.

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Disable Share Sheet suggestions

This one works with either an Apple Pencil or your finger. Draw a shape then, when you’re finished, hold your finger or the Pencil on the screen for a few seconds and the shape you drew will be turned into a perfect version.

Launch Safari and navigate to a web page that’s written in a language other than your iPad’s native language. Tap the ‘AA’ button to the left of the address bar and choose Translate to English (or whatever your iPad’s native language is). You might see a pop-up asking you to confirm. If so, tap Enable Translation.

When you tap on a Share Sheet in iOS 14 or iPadOS 14, it displays contact suggestions based on conversations you have frequently. In iPadOS 14, you can turn that off. Go to Settings > Siri & Search, then toggle the switch next to ‘Suggestions while Sharing’ to off.

Disable Private Address for Wi-Fi networks

Get more from the Music app 1

Add a widget to Today View

The new Music widget displays recently played tracks, albums and playlists and come in three sizes. Tap and hold on any free space on the Home Screen and press the ‘+’. Tap on the Music widget, swipe to the size you want and tap ‘+Add Widget’.

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Turn Autoplay on and off

Autoplay adds tracks to playlists so the music continues after the playlist finishes, if you have an Apple Music subscription. When a track is playing, tap it to see the Playing Next Screen.

You’ll see an infinity symbol highlighted to the right of Playing Next. Tap it to turn Autoplay off and tap it again to turn it on.

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View timed lyrics full screen

The Now Playing screen has been redesigned. Tap the currently playing song to enter the fullf-screen view, then tap the speech bubble icon to see lyrics displayed as they are sung.

Turn handwritten notes into text in another app by copying the handwriting and pasting elsewhere.

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FEATURE Tips and tricks

Cameras, Photos, and Video The Photos app is improved with a new sidebar and Camera gets mirrored selfies he Camera and Photos apps don’t get the big upgrade in iPadOS 14 that they did in the previous version. However, there are some very handy additions and improvements.

The most immediately noticeable enhancement is in Photos, which has been redesigned to take advantage of the new sidebar that has been introduced across iPadOS 14. Photos also now allows you to filter photos in collections by favourites, edited, photos, and videos.

And you can add captions to both photos and video. In the Camera app, you can now take a mirrored selfie that looks exactly as the image in the camera does on screen when you press the shutter.

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Change video quality in the Camera app

the album as a key Photo. In iPadOS 14, you can choose your own key photo.

Navigate to the album, tap and hold on the photo and choose Make Key Photo.

You can now toggle the frame rate and resolution in the Camera app. Go to Settings > Camera and choose Record Video. Toggle Video Format Control to on and select from the list of options.

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Limit access to Photos Library

You can choose which apps have permission to access your Photos Library, even if you’ve already granted them access. Go to Settings > Privacy > Photos,

Set key photo in albums

When you create an album in Photos, it automatically sets one of the photos in

Take a mirrored selfie

Talking of taking a selfie that looks like the mirror image you see on the screen… Go to Settings > Camera. In the Composition section, toggle the Mirror Front Camera switch on.

iPadOS has several new privacy features, including more control over which apps can access your photos.

HOW TO Make the most of Memories >

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View a memory

In the sidebar, tap For You, then tap See All next to Memories. Swipe up to scroll through memories and tap the one you want to view. Tap the play button at the bottom right of the main image to see the slideshow of the Memory.

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Choose music style

Locate the Memory you want to edit and tap it. When it starts playing, either wait for it to end or tap Pause. Choose a style of music from the list – dreamy, sentimental, uplifting, etc – and press play to preview it.

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Edit the music

If you don’t like any of the music available in the list of styles, tap Edit.

Tap Music, then either tap on a Mood to choose a different track for it, or tap Your Library and navigate to the track you want to use and tap it.

iPadOS 14 FEATURE

How to view and customise the sidebar The sidebar icon at the top left of the screen is the easiest way to toggle the sidebar on and off.

You can also swipe from the left of the screen. When you do that, it slides over what’s on screen rather than pushing everything to the right.

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The Photos app now allows you to add captions to your still images and videos.

Drag and drop any photo on to an album in the sidebar to add it to the album.

and you’ll see a list of apps that either have access or have been refused access.

Tap an app and choose an option to change its setting.

collections, like Favourites and Media Types, can be filtered. Navigate to the album or collection and tap the More button. Choose Filter and then choose how you want to filter the photos.

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Drag and drop photos on to an album

The new sidebar layout makes it easy to add pics to an album. Locate the photo you want to add in your library, and just tap and drag it on to the relevant album in the sidebar.

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Filter photos in collections

If you have thousands of photos, finding the one you want can be a chore, even with Photos excellent search capability.

To make it easier, albums and some

7

Rotate photos in Files

You can rotate any image in the Files app in a similar way to how you would in the Mac’s Finder. Tap and hold on the image, then Rotate Left or Rotate Right.

8

Add captions to photos

Adding captions is a great way to add more interest to photos. Navigate to any photo, tap it to view it and then swipe up over it. You’ll see a caption box appear below it. Tap Add a Caption, type the caption and press ®.

Tap Edit in the sidebar and scroll down to the list of albums. Tap the ‘–‘ to delete and album or tap and hold on an album, then drag it up or down the list to reposition it. Drop it where you want its new position to be.

2

Scroll to the bottom of the sidebar and tap ‘+New Album’.

Give it a title. You will be prompted to add photos to the album. You can add photos at any time later by dragging them from the main window on to the album.

3

4

Add or delete photos

Tap the Memory, then tap Edit.

Choose Photos & Videos. To delete a photo from the Memory, navigate to it and press the waste bin. To add a new photo to the Memory, tap ‘+’ and choose the photo you want to add.

5

Change the title

Launch Notes and tap New Folder at the bottom of the screen. Choose whether to store it in iCloud or on your device. Type in a name, then press Save.

To make it a subfolder, tap and hold it then drag it over the other folder.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 65

FEATURE Tips and tricks

All the little extra features There’s lots more, from delegating Reminders to sending audio messages with Siri he built-in apps in iPadOS 14 are full of improvements and new features.

Reminders has been overhauled, we’ve already shown you some great new additions in Mail, and Safari has been greatly improved, too.

Shortcuts is now installed by default and much more powerful. And both Siri and Voice Control are much improved.

T

1

Assign a reminder

to trimming the start and finish. But now you can enhance a recording. Open the memo in Voice Memos and tap the magic wand icon at the top of the screen. If you don’t like the sound of the enhancement, tap it again to remove it.

3

Send an audio message with Siri

top button, depending on which iPad you have. Say “Send an audio message to” followed by the name of the contact you want to send the message to. When you’re finished recording pause and wait for Siri to display a preview. You can listen to the preview by tapping the play button, or say “Send” to send the message.

Siri can now send audio messages. To send one, invoke Siri by saying “Hey Siri”, or by pressing and holding the Home or

4

You can now enhance a recording in Voice Memos to reduce background noise and echo.

Want to know how much space an app is occupying?

You can now search iPad storage.

Dismiss calls without rejecting them

We’ve all been there. You’re working or

In addition to sharing lists in Reminders, you can now assign individual reminders to people you share the list with. Tap a reminder in a shared list, then the people icon and choose a contact to assign the reminder to.

2

Enhance Voice Memos

Voice Memos is a great app for recording everything from short voice notes to podcasts or narration for videos.

Until now, your options for editing them within the Voice Memos app was limited

HOW TO Get more from Messages >

1

Pin a conversation

If you struggle to find important messages, you can now pin favourite conversations to the top of the list. Find the conversation you want to pin, swipe right over it and tap the pin. To unpin it, tap and hold on it and choose Unpin.

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2

Specific message reply

If you’re in a group conversation, instead of sending a reply to the group, you can reply to a specific message.

Tap and hold the message you want to respond to and tap Reply. Your reply will appear under that message.

3

Mention someone

Messages has gained the ability to ‘mention’ conversation participants.

Start typing the name of the person.

When their name turns grey, tap it and tap the contact preview. The name will now turn blue and they will be notified.

iPadOS 14 FEATURE

Using a keyboard

You can now change the opacity of a screenshot, as well as crop and annotate it.

If you connect a keyboard to your iPad you can access even more new features in iPadOS 14. For example, if you press ç+[spacebar], you’ll pull up the new Universal Search window. Search for an app in there and, when you find it, you can just drag it on to the screen to open it in Split View or Slide Over.

Tapping the globe key on a Magic

Keyboard or Smart Keyboard allows you to insert and emoji quickly in any text box. And, on a Magic Keyboard with a trackpad, you can double tap instead of tapping and dragging to drag items around the screen.

These are in addition to the keyboard shortcuts that already exist in iPadOS and which you can see by pressing and holding the ç key.

focused on something and a FaceTime call comes in. You don’t want to reject it because then the caller will know you’ve rejected it, but you don’t want it to keep ringing either. Now you can have the best of both worlds. When a call comes in, swipe up over the notification to dismiss it. The notification will disappear, but the caller will be none the wiser.

5

Search apps in iPad storage

4

New Memoji stickers

If you go to Settings > General > iPad Storage, you can see how much of the storage on your iPad is occupied and the capacity occupied by each app you have installed. Now, you can also search for a specific app. Just tap the magnifying glass at the top right of the screen and type the name of the app.

There are lots of new Memoji options in iPadOS 14, such as more hairstyles and headgear. To use them, tap in the text box then tap the Memoji stickers button and then the ‘+’ to create a new sticker, or an existing Memoji, then ‘…’ to edit it.

6

Adjust the opacity of a screenshot

5

Search in Messages

The screenshot Markup toolbar has a new addition in iPadOS 14. You can now change the opacity of screenshots to make your markup standout more. Take the screenshot in the usual way, then tap it when the thumbnail appears to see it in a larger view. You’ll then be able to use the slider to adjust the opacity.

Messages’ search has been improved. Tap in the search box at the top of the list and you’ll see links, photos, and documents. Start typing and you’ll see results from conversations at the top, followed by photos and other items.

7

Watch YouTube in 4K

6

Preview a conversation

iPads don’t have 4K screens. But you can still watch 4K videos in the YouTube app if 1080p HD videos aren’t high enough quality for you. You’ll need to find videos on the YouTube app that are available in 4K – try The HDR Channel.

Choose a video and play it in full screen, then tap the three vertical dots at the top right. Choose 2160p for the 4K version.

With one conversation on the main screen, you can preview another. Just choose the conversation and tap and hold on it to see the preview. From here, you can also pin or unpin a conversation or turn alerts on or off.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 67

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In iOS 11 or later, point the Camera app’s photo mode at this QR code to download our app. *First-time digital subscribers only.

Beginner’s Guides Introducing Pages

Use Pages to create a professionallooking brochure Apple’s word--processsing and d pa age e layoutt to ool is often overloo oked but it is both powe erfu ul and d eassy to use WRITTEN BY hen it comes to all the free apps that Apple makes available for macOS, Pages probably gets the least love. It doesn’t have the wow factor of iMovie or GarageBand, nor is at as close to its competitors in capability as Keynote and Numbers.

However, it has a great deal going for it and is a very capable tool when it comes to laying out small documents, such as leaflets, posters and flyers.

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macformat.com @macformat

KENNY HEMPHILL

It does have its quirks. The distinction between a word processing and a layout document remains, and how to choose which of the two to create is not obvious. That matters because some features are only available in one type of document, and which you choose will substantially affect how Pages works.

Many of us wouldn’t dream of using Pages for word processing, as the Mac is awash with excellent tools for

crafting and editing text documents.

So, we’re going to concentrate here on what Pages does well – creating those posters, leaflets and flyers. We’ll cover the basics, but also take a look at some of Pages more powerful features, like anchoring objects such as images to text so they move with it as the layout changes. We’ll also walk you through how to wrap text around an object, and how to make images look stunning using transparency and masks.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 69

Beginner’s Guides Introducing Pages

Create a brochure Pages excels when it comes to making documents that really grab your attention ith this walkthrough, we’re going to create a brochure by starting with one of the templates from the Template Chooser that appears when you first launch Pages. The Template Chooser can also be accessed from the File menu by choosing New. We’ll use a brochure template here, but the principles are the same for all templates.

Once you’re comfortable using templates to create documents, you can create them from scratch and even make your own templates. Documents in Pages can either

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be layout or word processing types. By default, brochures are page layout documents and templates like reports, CVs, and letters are word processing. You can see which type of document you’re working on, and change it from one type to the other, by clicking on Documents in the toolbar. If the box labelled Document body is checked, it’s a word processing doc, if not, it’s a page layout.

Tick or untick the box to change it.

As well as choosing an image from Photos for your document, you can drop any image on your Mac on to a picture box to import it.

EXPLAINED… Getting started with Pages documents 1

3

Features Pages has several features, including master pages, that you would expect to find in a more professional layout tool.

Formats

3 4 2

2

Thumbnails In multi-page documents, pages appear as thumbnails in the sidebar, though you can hide this.

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1

Images, shapes and text are styled and arranged in the formatting palette which houses a wealth of options.

4

Image styles There are lots of options for styling images to make them look more interesting.

Introducing Pages Beginner’s Guides

HOW TO Create your first Pages brochure

1

Create a document

Open Pages, click New Document, then select a suitable template from the Template Chooser. Here, we’re using the Elegant Brochure from the Miscellaneous section. Click it to select and click Create to open it (or just double-click on it).

4

Choose a new photo

7

Place and style the logo

The photo on the front doesn’t fit our location, so we’ll choose a new one.

Click on the icon at the bottom right of the photo. Locate the photo you want to use in your Photos library when the window opens, and click on it to add it.

Click on the new shape and drag it to where the flower was. Look out for the yellow lines that indicate when you have aligned an object with other elements on the page. Click and drag on a corner to resize it and use the Style options.

2

Customise the text style

5

Edit the photo

8

Complete the brochure

In this template, the right-hand panel is the front of the brochure. Click on the title text box to select it. We’ll create a new title style. Click Text, then the down arrow next to TITLE and the ‘+’ next to Paragraph Style. Give the style a name.

Our photo looks a little boring.

To change that, select it and click Style.

Choose from one of the options. Use the options under Border and Shadow to adjust the frame. We also clicked Arrange and used the Rotate dial to add interest.

Use the steps above to select and style the rest of the text, photos, and other elements in the brochure. Type your text directly into a text box or paste it from a text document. To invite others to work on it, use the Collaborate button.

3

Create new text style

6

Change the logo

9

Export the brochure

Choose from the options for font, text size, colour and alignment for the new title style. When you’re done press Update. Select the text in the box, and type your new title. You can customise the other text boxes in the same way.

That yellow flower wasn’t really working so let’s change it for a shape.

Click on the flower to select it then press delete. Click on Shape in the toolbar and choose a shape to replace the flower with. Click on it to add it to the brochure.

When done, go to the File menu, choose Export To and choose PDF. Click Next, choose a location and click Export. If you think you’ll create a similar brochure in future, choose ‘Save as Template’ in the File menu.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 71

Beginner’s Guides Introducing Pages

Make your docs stand out Tips and techniques to elevate your Pages projects and make them shine o far, we’ve learned how to set up a Pages document using a template and adapt it to our needs. However, Pages has a lot more than that to offer. By using some of its more advanced features, like text wrapping, you can make your newsletters and brochures look very professional. And by using masking and transparency, images can be made to look exactly as you want them to.

On these pages, we’ll show you how to anchor an object to text so that if you add

S

more text or move it around, you don’t have to worry about manually moving the object each time, which can be a big time saver in longer documents.

There is a great deal more to explore in Pages, but hopefully we’ve shown enough to motivate you to explore and discover more for yourself. Play around, dive into menus and palettes, change things for fun and see what happens. You can revert most things with ç+Z and, if not, it’s easy to roll back to a previous version from the File menu.

HOW TO Wrap text around an object

1

Add the object

Choose the object you want and add it to the page, such as the aeroplane here.

Drag it into position in the text box and click and drag the corners to resize it (hold ß to retain the proportions). Then, with the object selected, click Arrange.

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2

Make it wrap

In the Arrange palette, click on the Text Wrap menu and choose how the text should wrap the object. If the object is non-rectangular, you can use Text Fit to make text follow the contours of the object, rather than the box housing it.

3

Add more space

Change the amount of space between the object and the text by selecting a value from the Space menu.

If your object has an alpha channel, select a value from Alpha to control the transparency at which the text wraps.

Introducing Pages Beginner’s Guides

HOW TO Use transparency and masking

1

Add the image box

We can use the masking tool to place images in non-rectangular boxes. Choose a shape and place it on the page where you want the image, then resize it to the size you want the image to be. Locate the image you want to use in the Finder.

2

Add the image

Drag the image from the Finder on to the object. You’ll see the masking tool appear, showing that the only visible part of the image is inside the shape. Drag the image into position and use the slider to choose what is visible.

3

Style the image box

3

Lock an object

Use the options in the Style menu to choose whether your image has a border, what colour it is, and whether there is a drop shadow. Play around with the options and experiment with different shapes and text wrapping options.

HOW TO Anchor an object to text

1

Place the object

This only works in a word processing document, so won’t work in a brochure page layout but it’s worth knowing. Place your object on the page, position it and make it the size you want. We’re adding an end stop to a paragraph.

2

Anchor it

Choose Arrange in the sidebar on the right. Select Move with Text, then click on the Text Wrap menu and you’ll see ‘Inline with Text’. Choose that. Now, if you add more text before the object, the object will move with the text.

We can do the opposite, too – lock an object so that it never moves. Choose Stay on Page and press Lock at the bottom of the window. Now, when you add more text, the object will stay where it is and the text will move around it.

How to edit images in Pages Make parts of an image transparent or the whole The Image tab in the Format palette has two options to adjust transparency and saturation, as well as a one-click Enhance tool. But click the Settings button and you’ll see a whole suite of tools for adjustments like levels, sharpness, and highlights and shadows. Adjustments are previewed on the image in real time.

If you click Instant Alpha, you can choose to make specific colours in the image transparent so they disappear from the page and text runs over them. Edit Mask pulls up the masking tool so you can make changes to an image mask.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 73

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BUYING ADVICE Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices

Contact us

EDITED BY

Email your queries and your questions to letters@macformat.com

ROB MEAD-GREEN

Our ratings Our reviews are totally independent; we’re not affiliated with Apple or anyone else, nor are we influenced by advertisers.

76 APPLE AIRTAG

A truly exceptional product.

Award given solely at the discretion of the editor.

HARDWARE

78

76 Apple AirTag 78 Sonos Roam 80 Logitech Ergo K860 The best example of its kind when pitted against comparable products.

+++++ A brilliant thing

81 JLab Talk GO 82 SanDisk iXpand 15W Qi charger, Twelve South MagicBridge Extended 84 Group test: Wireless noisecancelling earbuds

+++++ Strongly recommended

+++++ Worth considering

90 SOFTWARE 90 PhotoDirector 365 92 AweClone

+++++ Notable flaws

+++++ A waste of your money

Image credit: Apple, Sonos Inc, CyberLink Corp

93 CARROT Weather 94 Fuzion 2.0, Focos 96 6 best apps to help with parenting!

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 75

APPLE CHOICE Hardware

Apple AirTag Find lost things – with some caveats £29 (4-pack £99) FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES U1 chip for Precision Finding (U1 chip needed in iPhone for Precision Finding), Near-Field Communication, Bluetooth, Siri support, IP67 rated, CR2032 replaceable battery

Apple’s tech means you can find just about anything you have attached the AirTag to

Apple gives you a number of preset labels to name your item, or a custom option.

eeping track of your stuff can be tricky at the best of times. Are your keys in your jacket? Have you left them at a café? What about your iPhone? Thankfully, that last one is easy to fix thanks to Find My – the app and iCloud service that makes it easy to track Apple devices. But, seriously, where are your keys?

Enter AirTag, an Apple-branded tracker that comprises Bluetooth, an ultra-wideband U1 chip and Near-Field Communication (NFC) tech and Find My to help you track it down and/or identify it.

The item-tracking concept isn’t new. Tile, Chipolo and Samsung’s SmartThings all offer Bluetooth trackers and have done so for years (Chipolo’s forthcoming One Spot will work on Find My too). However, Apple’s belated entry into the sector could be a game changer – thanks to its ability to the create intersection points between hardware, software and services “where the magic happens”, according to Tim Cook. The question is: how magic is the AirTag, really?

The AirTag costs £29 (a 4-pack costs £99) and is slightly bigger than a two-pence piece and around three times as thick, with a chrome front and glossy white back. The disc springs into life the second you remove the tag

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Apple’s own AirTag key rings, loops and bag charms are all sold separately, starting from £29.

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that activates the supplied CR2032 battery.

On an iPhone updated with iOS 14.5, the AirTag appears on-screen so you can pair it with your device, with a menu offering a range of preset names – keys, backpack, wallet, etc – as well as a Custom Name option.

The AirTag then links itself to your Apple ID, appearing under the new Items tab in the Find My app on iPhone, iPad and macOS (but not in iCloud – yet).

In Find My, you can play a sound using the AirTag’s built-in speaker or if you own an iPhone 11 or iPhone 12 with a built-in U1 chip, use that chip’s precision-finding capabilities to help find exactly where an item is – the Find My screen shows direction arrows and distance and, as you get closer, your phone gives haptic feedback, while also showing the distance to the AirTag in metres or feet. Once it’s found an item, Find My says ‘It’s Here’.

On older iPhones and other Apple devices without a U1 chip, you’ll just be given an idea of an AirTag’s likely location. You can, however, still tap the Sound button. Curiously though the macOS version of Find My doesn’t give this option. And the chirruping sound the AirTag makes isn’t particularly loud, so you’ll need to be in a fairly quiet place.

You can also put an AirTag into Lost Mode. This enables you to assign it a phone number, so that anyone who finds it and taps it with an NFC-enabled device can find out who it belongs to and return the item.

Apple AirTag APPLE CHOICE

You can get your AirTag engraved with letters, numbers or emojis and, unlike the accessories, this is a free option.

Testing, testing To test the AirTag, we embarked on an AirTag treasure hunt in our five-storey HQ – with the device out of range (and few other iPhone users in the building due to COVID restrictions), Find My told us to move to a different location. After traversing all five floors of the building with no signal, we got a ‘Connected. Signal is weak. Try moving to a different location’ message before finally picking up a signal strong enough for the more precise tracking on an iPhone 12 Pro to work. Sure enough, we managed to pinpoint the exact location, confirming with the use of the Sound button to make the AirTag pipe up.

So we found the AirTag, but it took a while. Partly because the building wasn’t overly occupied with Apple device users; partly because while the AirTag contains an accelerometer (to tell if it’s moving from place to place), it doesn’t contain an altimeter so we couldn’t tell what floor it was on.

The biggest issue, though, is privacy.

Apple says it’s gone to great lengths to ensure that AirTags are secure (they’re linked to your Apple ID and use encryption), and you are warned if there’s an AirTag nearby that doesn’t belong to you – which should stop a stalker from slipping one into your bag.

However, the on-screen warning only works if you’re on iOS 14.5 and doesn’t work on

Android. Apple says an undetected AirTag will also play a sound “over time” – although it doesn’t specify how long. Brenda Stolyar of Mashable discovered that it took up to three days for an undetected AirTag to pipe up…

Maybe take Apple’s privacy assertions with a grain of salt then. Or if you do discover one that doesn’t belong to you, pop out the battery.

Finally, there are the accessories, and AirTag’s build quality. While Tile and others include a slot or hole in their trackers to make them easy to attach to any keyring, Apple does not – instead, it sells AirTag key fobs and loops, which range from the affordable (£29) to the silly (Hermes Luggage Tag, £399).

There’s also a growing number of third-party fobs and loops from the likes of Belkin and Nomad. You might also want to invest in a protective film for your AirTag. One of ours has only been in place for a few days, but its chrome and plastic body is already starting to get scuffed. Parents might also want to make sure that the AirTag is kept away from small children; its relatively small size and easy-toopen battery compartment are potential hazards. It’s also worth noting that unless you stow AirTags deliberately out of sight, they’re pretty easily removed, while the shiny finish, Apple logo and fashion-forward loops and fobs are positively attention-seeking.

Rob Mead-Green

VERDICT There’s a lot to love – but the AirTag’s flaws are significant enough that we can’t give it top billing – yet.

+++++ Easily find lost things Find My ready Hardly essential Privacy concerns

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APPLE CHOICE Hardware

Sonos Roam The best portable speaker of 2021 £159 FROM Sonos, sonos.com FEATURES 2x Class-H digital amplifiers, 1x tweeter, 1x mid-woofer, far-field microphone, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, AirPlay 2, 1x USB-C port, dust- and waterproof to IP67, Amazon, Alexa, Google Assistant support, Privacy button, up to 10 hours playtime

The Roam delivers a powerful sonic performance

The Roam combines lightweight portability with reassuring ruggedness.

ccording to the brand’s CEO Patrick Spence calls the Sonos Roam “the smartest speaker we have ever built.” The speaker certainly comes with both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, which means it can work as a portable speaker as well as part of your wider multi-room Sonos system – and with Google Assistant and Alexa onboard, it doubles up as a smart speaker too.

The Roam also comes with a host of cool features. With Sound Swap, you hold down the play button and the speaker will ‘throw’ your audio to the nearest other Sonos speaker available. Automatic Switching between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi means you can walk into your home and the Sonos Roam, having previously been paired with your Bluetooth device, will connect to your Wi-Fi, without the need to reconnect manually. Finally, the Auto TruePlay feature (first introduced with the Sonos Move) has been upgraded here, so the Roam will automatically tune its soundstage to your environment, whether you’re on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

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The slightly embossed buttons look discreet and smart, but also feel pleasantly tactile.

While the Roam retains the minimalist aesthetic of the brand’s previous devices, there’s a focus on ruggedness. It’s similar in size to a water bottle, and weighs just 430g, yet it has an IP67 water-and-dust resistance rating, and can survive being three feet underwater for 30 minutes.

Above the Sonos logo is an LED that indicates the speaker’s connection status, while an LED on the opposite end indicates battery life. The control buttons are on the left end or top depending on how you place the speaker; you get volume up/down and play/pause buttons, as well as a button for turning the microphone on/off. The slightly embossed buttons feel tactile, easy to use, and accessible for those with visual impairments.

The play/pause button can be double-pressed to skip to the next track, or triple-pressed for the previous track.

The design is attractive, and the speaker boasts a “precision-engineered” honeycomb grille – it’s not a wraparound grille though, so don’t expect true 360° sound.

Performance Speaking of audio output, the Roam delivers a powerful sonic performance, with remarkably prominent bass. Inside the speaker are two class-H amplifiers, with a high-efficiency motor, as well as a custom

78 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Sonos Roam APPLE CHOICE

The clever innards and honeycomb grille help to deliver a great audio performance.

racetrack mid-woofer, and a tweeter. You get thumping bass lines, smooth synths, and clear, rich vocals.

We’d like to hear a little more from the mids and lower trebles, as some detail is lost amid the bass; if you’re using the Roam inside, you may want to adjust the EQ settings to increase the treble frequencies. Some may find the bass slightly overpowering – though the forceful low frequencies work well outdoors, where there are no walls for the sound to bounce off. The Roam lacks the kind of rhythmic accuracy and dexterity of audiophile speakers, but for a speaker of this size, we weren’t disappointed.

As for music services, there’s support for AirPlay 2 on Apple devices with iOS 11.4 or later, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube Music, 7Digital, Sonos Radio, and more via the Sonos S2 app.

Power and features Beneath the power/Bluetooth pairing button is a USB-C port for charging. You get a USB-A to USB-C connector in the box, but you’ll have to use your own adaptor. The claimed battery life of the Roam is 10 hours; we found that this came in at around nine hours while playing at a medium volume. (A wireless charging stand is available for £44, or you can charge it with any Qi-certified charging device.)

Sound Swap is one of the best features, allowing you to ‘throw’ the music from your

Image credit: Sonos Inc

Sonos Roam to the nearest Sonos speaker available, and vice versa. Press the play/pause button until you hear the third tone, while holding the Roam close to the other speaker.

Your music will then begin playing from the second speaker – or if you’re casting to a Sonos system, the full speaker set-up. We found that it worked seamlessly, and the feature works in reverse – holding down the play/pause button will cause the speaker to pick up audio that’s playing on another speaker or setup. You can use the Roam as part of a wider multi-room audio setup, or pair two for stereo sound. Unfortunately, you can’t use two Sonos Roams as a pair of rear channels for a home cinema system.

The Roam works with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, so you can use it in the home or on the move, and the new Automatic Switching feature makes this transition more seamless than ever, with the speaker automatically connecting to your Wi-Fi network when in range, and re-pairing with your phone when you’re out and about.

Both Google Assistant and Alexa are onboard. It’s a shame that you can’t call on the voice assistant while using Bluetooth, but that’s certainly not a dealbreaker. And, if connected to Wi-Fi, you can use your voice assistant to control the speaker hands-free, control smart home devices, check your calendar, ask questions, and more.

Olivia Tambini

VERDICT Powerful sound, rugged design, excellent connectivity features, and smart home control.

++++ ++ Powerful audio performance Excellent connectivity Google Assistant and Alexa support Fairly pricey

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 79

APPLE CHOICE Hardware The split layout ensures your hands sit at a natural angle, and the undulating shape supports your wrists.

Logitech Ergo K860 Great keys meet great posture £109.99 FROM Logitech, logitech.com FEATURES Split layout, sloping body, wrist rest, Bluetooth 5.0, USB–A receiver dongle, 2x AAA batteries (included)

The design choices are intended to provided a comfortable position

VERDICT A great option to reduce strain on your wrists when typing.

++ ++++ Ergonomic design Nice key feel Takes some getting used to Very large

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any of us spend an enormous amount of time sat at a desk working on our Macs. The problem with all this typing is that it can create a real strain on your body – not just your wrists, but your arms and back too. Logitech has decided to do something about this with its new Ergo K860, an ergonomic keyboard designed to make things easier on your body and offer a more comfortable typing experience.

The first thing you notice about the K860 keyboard is its layout. The keys between Caps Lock and Return are divided into two very separate banks, with a large wedge between them. The keys themselves follow an undulating path, aligning horizontally at the edges and becoming more angled as they approach the centre.

The body of the keyboard itself is also convex, with its highest point right in the middle of the key divide. These two design choices are intended to provide a more natural, comfortable position for your hands – instead of angling your wrists so that they’re straight, there is minimal modification needed for your posture.

The built-in wrist rest also aids comfort.

This is generously sized, taking up around three-quarters of the height of the keyboard.

It’s on the firm side but isn’t overly rigid, giving your wrists plenty of comfy support without feeling like a block of wood.

Typing feel is one area where the K860 really excels. Compared to Apple’s Magic Keyboard, the K860 has slightly more travel

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and there is the merest hint of a physical click on each key press. It actually makes the Magic Keyboard feel slightly squishy in comparison, which is not something we expected and high praise for Logitech’s effort.

Cross-platform ease Many of the keys are printed for both macOS and Windows use, which is handy if you regularly switch between the two platforms.

Speaking of which, the K860 can connect to three devices and change between them at the touch of a button. There are also dedicated screenshot, calculator, and lock buttons – and oversize Esc and Print Screen keys.

The keyboard does lack backlighting, which would have been a welcome addition; although that would have impacted on the impressively long two-year battery life from the two (included) AAA batteries.

The K860 also incorporates a full number pad, making it very wide on your desk, and centring your hands over the wedge-shaped divide pushes your mouse quite far away.

This took some getting used to and ironically actually resulted in some slight discomfort before we found the ideal position. Sadly, Logitech doesn’t offer a more compact ‘tenkeyless’ option in its ergonomic range.

Still, the K860 has a lot going for it. Once you get the position right it’s a comfortable experience – both in terms of its layout and key feel – and could be just what you need if traditional keyboards leave you aching.

Alex Blake

Image credit: Logitech

Hardware APPLE CHOICE

JLab Talk GO

Lightweight yet sturdy, the Talk GO microphone is ideal for travel.

A great upgrade on your Mac’s mic £49.99 FROM JLab, jlab.com FEATURES Two recording modes (cardioid and omni-directional), two condensers, 96kHz resolution, mode-control button, 299g (with stand)

The Talk GO mic has just enough of what you need and none of what you don’t

he COVID-19 era means having a goodquality microphone is more important than ever, yet built-in Mac mics have not been able to keep up. If you’re spending more time in video calls with your workplace or family, you need something reliable.

So is JLab’s Talk GO up to the task?

As the name suggests, this is a compact mic. It cuts down on extra features in favour of a small, lightweight design with just enough of what you need and none of what you don’t. At £50, it makes for a compelling option.

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Sleek style

VERDICT Top looks and decent audio quality at a superb price.

++ ++++ Great price Perfect for travel Decent audio quality Noticeable levels of background noise

Image credit: JLab

Visually, the Talk GO looks great.

It’s clad in all black with light blue highlights – including an illuminated ring at the base that changes colour when you switch recording modes or mute the mic. It’s classy without being garish, and a clever idea that provides important at-a-glance info.

The good looks are backed up with excellent build quality. When you start putting the Talk GO together, the first thing you notice is how weighty the stand feels. That’s reassuring – the last thing you want is your mic sliding out of place or toppling over because the stand can’t support it. There’s no chance of that here, as the rubber feet at the base of the stand’s legs ensure everything stays exactly where it’s meant to.

The microphone itself is lightweight – at 130g, it’s much lighter than the stand. Halfway up its oblong body is a screw hole that allows you to attach it to the stand. On the bottom is the aforementioned light ring, as well A button located on the bottom mutes the microphone and changes its recording mode.

as a USB-C slot, a volume roller, and a large mute button.

Hold it down and this doubles as a mode switcher that flips between cardioid (front-facing) and omnidirectional recording modes.

Compared to the £99.99 JLab Talk, the Talk GO is not missing a huge number of features. There’s no gain control and it only has two recording modes rather than four, but for most people that should be acceptable.

The biggest issue, though, is the number of condensers: two on the GO versus the three you get on the Talk. And that different does have an impact on the audio quality.

The Talk GO is fine for work conferences or video calls with your family. Our voice sounded crisp and clear, and mounting the device on a boom arm or larger stand further helps volume and clarity. The main sticking point is what happens elsewhere.

There’s a noticeable level of background noise, which might be a problem if you want to record videos. It’s not terrible, but is evident when compared to the £119.99 Blue Yeti; then again, that costs a lot more.

JLab’s offering is great value if you need a travel microphone or a step up from your Mac’s built-in mic.

Its audio isn’t studio quality but is more than enough for most. Alex Blake

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 81

Hardware APPLE CHOICE

SanDisk iXpand 15W Chunky wireless charging £46.99 FROM SanDisk, shop.westerndigital.com FEATURES Qi wireless charging, USB-A to USB-C cable, mains charger

hile SanDisk is a name you’d normally associate with storage, its iXpand line has been iXpanding (ahem) into other areas.

The company has now thrown wireless charging into the mix with the iXpand Wireless Charger Sync (with up to 256GB of storage), and this standalone Qi charger.

This charger’s chunky design and circular shape makes it look like a corpulent coaster. The underside is ringed with vents to keep the pad and, by extension, your

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VERDICT High-quality wireless charger with a somewhat bland design.

++ ++++ Charger included Not MagSafe compatible

iPhone cool, while the top has a grippy silicone ring to stop your device sliding off. A 1.8m USB-A to USB-C cable and mains charger are included.

The iXpand Wireless Charger packs 15W of power, although it can only deliver a maximum of 7.5W to your iPhone 8 or later thanks to charging limits imposed by Apple.

While the iXpand charger doesn’t work with MagSafe, it’ll still charge an iPhone 12 equipped with MagSafe or stowed in a MagSafe (or any) case measuring up to 5mm thick. A small, telltale LED

The charger’s solid-looking design allows for underside cooling vents.

lets you know whether or not your device is charging correctly – glowing red when it’s not and blue when it is.

The LED also flashes red if it detects a foreign object such as a coin. So far, so standard.

Like most Qi chargers, juicing up your iPhone can take a while despite the presence of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 tech – we managed to get our iPhone 12 Pro from 75% to 95% charge in about 50 minutes.

Rob Mead-Green

MagicBridge Extended Bring order to control surface chaos £49 FROM Twelve South, twelvesouth.com FEATURES Works with Apple Magic TrackPad 2 and Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad; 58.4x1.4x11.9cm; 240g hen it comes to desk space, many of us are neat freaks who like things ‘just so’. In which case having your Magic Trackpad and Keyboard sit all higgledypiggledy while jostling for room among iPads, hard drives and docks could be enough to bring you out in hives – especially if you also love to eat lunch ‘al desko’.

Aiming to bring some order to the chaos is the Twelve South MagicBridge Extended, a black slice of polycarbonate (it’s also

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VERDICT A great way to keep your trackpad and keyboard just so. Do you need one? No.

++ ++++ Tidies up your desk Trackpad sits lower than keyboard

Image credit: Western Digital Corp, Twelve South LLC

available in white) into which you can snap both an Apple extended keyboard and its accompanying trackpad. The trackpad can be positioned to the left or to the right of the keyboard, with cutouts on the back of the MagicBridge giving you easy access to both devices’ power switches and Lightning ports. The only additional accessory is a grey plastic rectangle, which serves as a riser for the keyboard.

Weirdly, the trackpad doesn’t get the same treatment, so it sits slightly lower, although that doesn’t make

A really smart solution to independent device desk chaos.

any difference to usability.

Instead having the two devices conjoined in this way soon becomes second nature, not only enabling you to move and pick up both the trackpad and keyboard as one, but also to bestow another benefit – you can now use your Magic combo on your lap, perfect for sofa surfing while using a Mac mini connected to a TV, or for keeping a suitably socially distanced gap between you and your MacBook’s dreaded Touch Bar. Rob Mead-Green

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 82

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APPLE CHOICE Group test

Group test Reviewed by NICK ODANTZIS

ON TEST… Apple AirPods Pro Jabra Elite 85t JLab Epic Air ANC Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro Technics EAH-AZ70W X by Kygo Xellence

WIRELESS NOISE–CANCELLING EARBUDS If you want to listen to your tunes without the hassle of cables or the distraction of external noise, we’ve got six great options 84 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Wireless earbuds APPLE CHOICE

he popularity of true wireless earbuds – that is, earbuds that connect to your devices over Bluetooth, have no wires between each unit, and fit inside your ear with buds – has exploded in recent years.

While the audio quality of on- or over-ear headphones is generally better, they’re not as flexible. True wireless earbuds are tiny, by comparison, easily fitting in your pocket; they’re barely noticeable in use, and they’re more comfortable.

They’re also superior when it’s hot outside or when you’re working out – many are even water resistant for that reason.

True wireless earbuds are also housed in a case which charges them when not in use – a big benefit when you’re on the move.

Many of these true wireless earbuds now come with noise cancelling built in order to reduce the level of external noise. All the earbuds on test offer come with a noise-cancelling mode.

Here we test six of the best, covering a range of prices. We’ll look at fit, ease of use, battery life, active noise-cancelling ability and, most importantly, audio quality.

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How we tested We loaded up the Qobuz app (from £12.49/month, qobuz.com), which offers streaming of hi–res audio tracks on iOS or Mac, to ensure each pair of earbuds was tested using only the highest quality recordings. We specifically picked tracks that would give each pair of earbuds a work out, highlighting any inadequacies, as well as tracks that we personally loved and knew well. We also used the earbuds while watching a variety of films, including an action–packed scene from WWII flick Greyhound, to see how each pair fared when watching movies.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 85

APPLE CHOICE Group test

Things to consider…

1

Music to your ears

2

Fitment varies

3

Staying in control

4

Your listening tastes

> Most true wireless earbuds have a companion app that allows you to adjust audio. Some even let you perform a hearing test, tailoring the sound for areas where you might need a boost.

> Depending on the size and shape of your ears, you might need to try different tips to get the right fit. Some come with a wider variety than others.

>True wireless earbuds use touch controls to allow you to make audio adjustments on the fly. If you do this a lot, then it needs to be effective.

> No matter which buds win our group test, you should always consider which pair works best for the kind of music you listen to most.

1

Apple AirPods Pro

Jabra Elite 85t

£249 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk The AirPods Pro are getting on a bit now, but Apple’s excellence shines through. They’re arguably the best-looking earbuds here, and the case is easily the most compact.

It also charges wirelessly.

A battery life of around 4.5 hours isn’t bad, but it’s not the best either. The charge time is 1hr, 15mins, and after a single charge there was 53% left in the tank. The Pros are the only earbuds on test to natively display charge time in iOS 14.

Controlling the AirPods Pro is ridiculously easy – the force sensor on the stems giving positive feedback.

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86 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

£249.99 FROM Jabra, jabra.co.uk

The only downer is a lack of volume control. Fitment is generally good, and you get three different tip sizes.

Audio-wise the Pros put in a sterling performance; perfectly balanced in all kinds of music. Noise cancelling is very good, but Transparency mode is the real victor here, allowing in external noises with astonishing volume and clarity. No other comes close.

> VERDICT Balanced and detailed audio Controls are perfect Transparency mode Battery life

+++ +++

Jabra’s top-flight Elite 85t earbuds are IPX4 water resistant, light and snug without feeling buried, and sit comfortably in your ears.

The case is a little plasticky, but it is compact and can be charged wirelessly. You don’t get a charging meter as with some other cases, but Jabra’s app gives you the percentage.

The 85t’s 5.5-hour battery life was OK, as was its 1hr, 5mins recharge time. After a single charge there was a huge 70% charge left in the case.

These are the only earbuds here to feature a physical control, and we can see why – it works well, but

2

does put unwanted pressure on your ear canals. As with some of the others, you can create a hearing profile in the app, but it didn’t make that much difference. The 85t sound fairly laid-back, with strong bass, though they can get overwhelmed in more complex tracks. Noise cancelling is solid, but external sounds aren’t that clear in HearThrough (transparency) mode.

> VERDICT Smooth, bassy audio Good look and fit Case charges wirelessly Controls awkward to use

++ ++++

Wireless earbuds APPLE CHOICE

2

3

JLab Epic Air ANC

Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro

£99.99 FROM JLab, intl.jlab.com JLab’s Epic Air ANC are hard to beat.

Sure, the case is big, but it packs a useful USB-A charging cable, and while the earbuds aren’t luxury looking they’re a good size and fit snugly, offering excellent passive noise cancellation. They’re only IP55 rated, or sweat resistant, mind.

The touch controls work well, but you need a firm touch which hurts your ears.

For the price, you might not be expecting these earbuds to deliver much on the audio front, but the results are surprising. They’re a little flat in more dynamic tracks,

3

4

£129.99 FROM Soundcore, uk.soundcore.com

but the balance is fine and bass is solid, if a little dominant, and there’s an EQ within the app. The active noise-cancelling (ANC) doesn’t seen to do much but the Be Aware (transparency) mode is excellent – second only to the AirPods Pro. One other surprise: an 8.5-hour battery life is the best here.

After a 1hr, 15min charge, the case showed two out of three lights remaining.

> VERDICT Excellent battery life Decent, bassy audio Great transparency mode Touch controls a bit fiddly

++ ++++

Soundcore’s speckled finish on the charging case looks and feels great, and we love the unique sliding lid.

The earbuds are equally nice, and you get nine pairs of eartips, although the stems are a little on the large side.

The targeted active noise cancelling is effective; there are multiple in-app modes for different scenarios, allowing you to adjust for different external noise. You can boost conversations in transparency mode, but it’s not hugely effective.

The touch controls are a bit finicky and often wouldn’t do what we asked

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– a firmware upgrade might help in this regard. Audiowise, these are bright– sounding, with good separation. They go pretty low, but are slightly harsh at the top end and feel a little muddled, though the adjustable EQ allows you to do some fine-tuning. Battery life was impressive at seven hours. Charge time was 34 minutes with two lights out of three left on the case.

> VERDICT Premium look and feel Effective noise cancelling Strong battery performance Touch controls hit–and–miss

++ ++++ JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 87

APPLE CHOICE Group test

5

Technics EAH-AZ70W £169.99 FROM Technics, technics.com/uk Technics’ entry in the true wireless line-up is refined and well built. They fit snugly, though their length makes them sit slightly proud of your ears. The case is a bit on the large side, too.

The AZ70W’s are IPX4 rated for water resistance, and feature touch controls which are very responsive and easy to use. In terms of noise cancelling, they block out a lot of noise; they even work well in passive mode.

And Ambient Sound (transparency) mode, while not to AirPods Pro standard, is decent too. Where the AZ70Ws come into their own

5

88 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

is to be expected given the brand’s heritage in premium audio. They sound fantastic, with the balance and detail of the AirPods Pro but with more low-end oomph and a more striking soundstage in the default flat EQ. At 4hrs, 38 mins, battery life is on the weak side, though recharging was just 50 minutes and the case still showed all three bars after a single charge.

> VERDICT Sublime audio Effective noise cancelling Good touch controls Battery life could be better

++ ++++

6

X by Kygo Xellence £179 FROM X by Kygo, xbykygo.com X by Kygo’s Xcellence feature LED lights in each ear unit (they can be turned off). IPX5 water resistance is good, and the units are large but sit snugly in the ear without looking bulky.

Getting them in the ear in the first place was tricky – on each occasion a mirror was used to orient them correctly.

The matching case is compact, good looking, and features four battery lights for a display of remaining charge. On that front, the Xellence’s faired OK, with 4hrs, 49mins of battery life.

As for audio quality? Though these are very heavy on the

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bass (oddly, there’s a bass boost toggle but no EQ) it’s well controlled. At the other end, clarity and detail is very good, but that low end gets in the way. It was a similar situation while watching Greyhound – the booming explosions in stark contrast with the hushed voices.

Noise cancelling works reasonably well on the Xellence, as does Ambient (transparency) mode.

> VERDICT IPX5 water resistant Detailed sound Sorting the fit is fiddly Bass is overpowering

++ ++++

Wireless earbuds APPLE CHOICE

THE WINNER

Apple AirPods Pro Balanced audio, effective noise cancelling, ease of use, and an unparalleled transparency mode verall, the AirPods Pro are hard to beat. Though they’re not quite the best-sounding earbuds on test – that accolade goes to the Technics EAH-AZ70W – they have a very likeable, balanced sound that works well with pretty much anything you listen to, and they work well with movies too. The AirPods Pro don’t just offer good overall

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sound, they also check a lot of other boxes.

The noise cancelling is first rate and the Transparency mode – which enables you to hear what’s going on around you while still listening to music – is exceptional.

They’re also easy to use thanks to the feedback from the force sensors on each unit, and their compact size means they can easily fit in any pocket.

For pure audio performance, we would recommend a closer look at the Technics EAH-AZ70W. They’re cheaper than the AirPods Pro, though battery life isn’t the best. Alternatively, those on a budget should consider the JLab Epic Air ANC, which – a weakness with their ANC aside – perform far better than their low price would suggest.

How do they compare? > Specs

Apple AirPods Pro

Jabra Elite 85t

JLab Epic Air ANC

Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro

Technics EAH-AZ70W

X by Kygo Xellence

Website

apple.com/uk

jabra.com

jlab.com

uk.soundcore.com

technics.com

xbykygo.com

Price

£249

£249.99

£99.99

£129.99

£169.99

£179

Battery charge time (0-100%)

Not listed

3hrs

3hrs

2hrs

2hrs

2hrs

Play time (main charge) Up to 4.5hrs

5.5hrs

8+ hrs

Up to 7hrs

6.5hrs

6.5hrs

Play time (with case)

More than 24hrs

Up to 25hrs

36+hrs

26hrs

19.5hrs

19.5hrs

Quick charge

5mins = 1hr

15mins = 1hr

15mins = 1+hr

15min = 3hrs

15mins = 1hr, 10mins

15mins = 1hr, 10mins

Control type

Force sensor

Touch

Touch

Touch

Touch

Touch

No of eartips

3 pairs

3 pairs

6 pairs

9 pairs

5 pairs

5 pairs

Water/dust resistance

IPX4

IPX4

IP55

IPX4

IPX4

IPX5

> Overall

+++++

+++++

+++++

+++++

+++++

+++++

Note: The final verdict scores reflect the overall opinion of a product and are not necessarily an average of the criteria listed in the table.

Note: All the earbuds on test have a frequency range of 20Hz-20kHz

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 89

APPLE CHOICE Software

PhotoDirector 365 Manage images, fix photo problems and get creative £49.99 annual subscription/£13.99 monthly subscription FROM cyberlink.com NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later

Should prove attractive to dyed-in-thewool Adobe users as well as novices who want to get more creative

Replace dull skies with more interesting ones using the software’s automatic sky replacement tools.

or decades now, Adobe has been the king of the image-editing castle. Lightroom enables you to organise, fix and share your photos while Photoshop lets you to edit them creatively using extra tools such as layers, text and filter effects. Over the years, various challengers have risen up to try and seize a chunk of Adobe’s territory and PhotoDirector 365 may have a fighting chance of success.

PhotoDirector 365’s key strength is that it combines Lightroom and Photoshop style tools into one app. PhotoDirector 365 enables you to make Lightroom style selective adjustments using graduated filters. It then lets you add new layers of content to the edited image to create the type of work you might produce in Photoshop. While Lightroom and Photoshop users subscribe to those apps for around £120 per year, you can subscribe to PhotoDirector 365 for less than half that price at £49.99. Subscribers to PhotoDirector 365 also receive new tools to download every quarter, keeping it fresh and functional. As a subscriber you can download a host of extra assets such as art filters, template layouts and even stock photos.

If you’re an established Lightroom user, you’ll be able to get to grips with

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Guided edits help you produce creative results such as this striking spot-colour effect.

PhotoDirector 365 quite quickly thanks to similarities in its layout. As in Lightroom Classic, PhotoDirector’s Library module enables you to import and organise your files using star ratings and colour labels. You can then use filters to search for particular files according to specific ratings for example.

You can then take shots into the Adjustment module which acts like Lightroom Classic’s Develop module. Here you’ll find a host of tools that enable you to adjust colour, tone and composition. Once you’ve tweaked a shot’s properties in the Adjustment module’s digital darkroom, you can take it into the Edit module to get more creative. Edit provides the option to combine multiple layers and use advanced content-aware tools to clone out unwanted objects as you would in Photoshop.

Easy editing If you’re unfamiliar with Lightroom and Photoshop, don’t worry. PhotoDirector 365’s Welcome screen enables you to launch a cut-down Express version of the app that provides a host of one-click presets (like Photoshop filters) which quickly produce a range of creative looks.

Here you can mimic classic works of art using the AI Style Transfer workspace which turns pixels into paint. You can dial down the strength of the filter effects or use adjustable brush strokes to reduce the presence of the art effect in specific areas of the photo. As a subscriber, you can download more filters

90 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

PhotoDirector 365 APPLE CHOICE

from the Store tab by browsing through collections such as Oil Paintings.

The Guided workspace is an effective place for editing newcomers to develop their skills. For example, if you choose the Sky Replacement guided edit, it places a collection of sky presets and the tools you need to fine-tune the new sky in one panel. You can then use brush tools to add or remove the replacement. When viewed through delicate tree branches, we found traces of our test image’s original sky were difficult to replace.

Luminar AI does a better job of adding new skies and provides more control.

The Guided edit workspace is packed full of effects. With guided Blur Tools, you can add circular or linear gradient blurs. The latter enables you to mimic a tilt-shift lens that makes full size objects look like toys. The new Glitch effect adds striking red, green and blue shifts that evokes RGB electronic display artefacts. You can fine-tune the vertical and horizontal colour shifts using sliders or restrict their presence using brush tips.

The Colour Splash guide enables you to create a spot-colour effect. Use an eyedropper to choose the colour that you want to isolate then use brush tips to mop up unwanted examples of that colour in other areas. Guided edits are springboards to mastering a wide range of tools and techniques.

Image credit: Cyberlink Corp

One of the biggest challenges faced by content makers is finding source images for creative projects. Subscribers to PhotoDirector 365 can now import stock photos using the integrated Shutterstock Photo Browser. This accesses a curated collection of stock images rather than the full Shutterstock library, but it does contains useful lifestyle stock images.

You can add ‘moving’ water to a static photo by simply drawing arrows on specific areas.

Animation creation One exciting new feature is Photo Animation.

This enables you to animate areas, such as water lapping on a seashore while the foreground subject stays static. Brush-based masks and anchor points help freeze objects such as people while water laps and clouds float by in the background. The mask-editing brush tip is a little too sharp edged; it would be handy to have a feathering option to create more subtle blends between moving and static areas. However, it doesn’t take long to create striking looping animated GIFs that will draw attention to your social media posts.

Photoshop boasts a wider set of tools than PhotoDirector 365, but you would expect that in an app that costs double. PhotoDirector 365 should prove attractive to dyed-in-the-wool Adobe users as well as novices who want to fix photos and get more creative with their image editing. George Cairns

VERDICT Combines the image editing power of Adobe apps, is easy to use, and offers guided edits.

++++ ++ Good asset management tools Creative guided edits Regularly updated Hit-and-miss sky replacement

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 91

APPLE CHOICE Software

AweClone A simple disk copy and backup that doesn’t deliver

Comparisons let you see how your changes are altering the original shot.

$24.95 (about £18) FROM Magoshare, magoshare.com NEEDS OS X 10.7 or later

AweClone’s many quirks are sadly counterproductive

loning disks and making backups looks deceptively easy, and shouldn’t be complex. AweClone is a new contender in a market with well-proven alternatives to bundled utilities such as Disk Utility and Time Machine. It’s cheaper and simpler, but how well does it negotiate the bear traps in macOS which have only been growing worse?

AweClone offers two functions: disk copying and the creation of ‘image’ backups.

As quickly becomes obvious, these aren’t anything like cloning and proper backups, though. AweClone makes copies of whole volumes by copying individual files into a folder. This happens fairly quickly, at around 320GB per hour to a regular SSD, but its copy doesn’t match the original.

Try this with Big Sur’s System and Data volumes, and you end up with a composite in which permissions have all been changed to give you read and write access to each file, as its owner, many of the files and folders are missing from the copy, and it hasn’t a clue what to do with a snapshot. The copy isn’t formed into a Volume Group, can’t be used as a startup

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VERDICT You’ll do better with the Finder and Disk Utility.

+++++ Makes disk images Disk copies incomplete Flawed interface Forgets settings

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When selecting folders to copy or image, its non-standard selector doesn’t sort items, but lists them randomly.

AweClone doesn’t grok Big Sur disks, and doesn’t show true volume sizes.

disk, and is missing so much it isn’t even a faithful backup either.

Making ‘image’ backups works better, but these aren’t proper backups, merely one-shot Zip archives or disk images, much as you can create using Disk Utility. There are none of the options offered there, such as encryption or different file systems: AweClone just writes plain HFS+ read-write disk image (DMG) files.

It doesn’t use these for subsequent incremental backups, nor does it let you schedule them.

When you quit the app, any copying task you have set up is lost, so has to be re-entered every time you want to repeat it.

Caught by the bear traps Its many quirks are sadly counter-productive.

Instead of using a standard file selection dialog, it invents its own which annoyingly lists items in seemingly random order. Its progress bar usually doesn’t work, forcing you to rely on a busy spinner which doesn’t show progress.

Not only does it fail to understand how to work with file systems found in Catalina and Big Sur, it also needs to be added to the Full Disk Access list in Privacy (in the Security & Privacy pane), which passes unmentioned in its sketchy documentation.

If you want to clone or back up volumes, look at the long-proven industry standards Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! For creating disk images, DropDMG is far more capable. Maybe AweClone will grow into something more useful; for now it just walks into every one of those bear traps waiting for it in recent versions of macOS. Howard Oakley

Image credit: Magoshare

Software APPLE CHOICE

CARROT Weather And the outlook is: totally essential Free (IAPs) FROM Grailr, meetcarrot.com/weather NEEDS iOS 13 or later

CARROT Weather can be bent to your will through its Interface Maker

VERDICT

hen it comes to mobile weather apps, CARROT Weather has long been the oddball. Forecasts are laced with snark and sarcasm, presented by malevolent artificial intelligence biding its time as a meteorologist before going all Skynet.

When it’s about to rain, you’ll see a raindrop symbol and a prediction, but you’ll also be told it ‘sucks to be you’ or sagely advice like: ‘Don’t worry, the rain will wash away the evidence.’

With version 5, though, personality is joined by personalisation – CARROT Weather can be bent to your will through its Interface Maker. You can dive right in, but the app prefers to gradually unlock components, drip-feeding features so it doesn’t overwhelm.

When it’s done, you end up with a range of panels to add, edit, and rearrange. Although several varied presets are also provided.

Whichever path you take, you’ll marvel at the possibilities. CARROT Weather can be made to resemble rival apps or the weather app you always wanted. And the smarts continue.

One of the new components is a set of cards that contextually surfaces useful data that’s

W

The funniest weather app is now also simply the best available.

+++++ Customisable interface Lashings of accessible info Infused with personality Map clunkier than Dark Sky’s

Image credit: Grailr LLC

Almost everything in CARROT is a context menu. Longpress a card or hour’s/day’s forecast for detailed info.

Unlike many iPad weather apps, CARROT can utilise your entire display.

normally buried in other apps. Long-pressing on almost anything provides instant access to details. And quick actions from the tab bar rapidly get you to commonly used features.

Sunshine and services The other big change is the price: CARROT Weather now starts off free, but can quickly become expensive. If you opt to not pay, all that stuff about customisation goes out of the window – and you also lose iCloud settings sync, Siri shortcuts, maps, sources beyond Foreca, notifications, Apple Watch complications, and even widgets. That’s not to say the free version of CARROT Weather is bad – you still get a compact, usable main view that’s dotted with the aforementioned cards, and the only ad banner you’ll be happy to see in an app. (It either displays a joke or points you at one of the CARROT Weather creator’s favourite indie apps.) But it is basic fare.

Choose to pay and CARROT Weather’s first tier is £4.99 per month – but it’s more palatable if you pay annually (£19.49). There’s also an Ultra tier (double the cost, adding rain/ lightning/storm cell notifications and a few other features) and Family Ultra (£43.99), enabling Ultra use across families.

CARROT Weather’s creator has in the past reminded us that data isn’t free. Apple and other giants eat data costs or flood weather apps with ads. CARROT Weather wants to be better. To that end, Ultra seems a reasonable ask in its annual incarnation – which you’re pushed toward, what with the hefty monthly alternative. And for that you get what’s now the most customisable weather app on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad – and, given its capabilities and feature set, also the best.

Craig Grannell

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 93

APPLE CHOICE Software

Fuzion 2.0 Jazz up portraits with effects Free (IAPs) FROM Leslie, fuzion.photo NEEDS iOS 12.4 or later uzion for iOS is an image editing app for layering and masking portrait photos with graphics and other effects. It’s free, but for £3.49/ month or £17.99/year, you can unlock the full feature set.

Version 2 adds major new features, starting with machine learning. Now it can read the depth map data in a portrait-format image. It can identify a face in any portraitstyle image and separate it from its background, making it possible to achieve the cut-out effect. However, it does require a human face

F

VERDICT A fun and friendly app for creating stylish portraits.

++ ++++ Can detect any face portrait Only detects human faces

Apply presets to portrait shots to create masking/colour effects.

– unfortunately, images of animals are not supported.

Presets dial in a bunch of settings, and these can be edited, but you’re not able to save your own presets. The developers add new ones on an ongoing basis, and the editing tools are comprehensive.

Backgrounds, fills and faces can be faded, have their colours changed, and different masking effects employed.

Light overlays and gradients

You can adjust the properties of any element on the canvas.

can be added with a tap. All this is via easy-to-follow tools and sliders.

Also new are text and stickers, with attractive fonts and one-click masking. When you’re done editing, the picture can be posted to social media or saved to Camera Roll, though there are currently no quality or format options, so exports are just regular JPEGs at fairly small file sizes.

Hollin Jones

Focos Bokeh and light editing Free (IAPs) FROM Xiaodong Wang, focos.me NEEDS iOS 11 or later pple’s multicamera iPhones simulate bokeh.

But Focos goes beyond just blurring the background.

Version 2 introduces machine learning that analyses any image to create a virtual depth map. The free version is surprisingly adept but a full-feature subscription starts at 99p per month.

Open an image – Raw files are now supported – and the app either reads or creates depth data. Using the Aperture Size slider, you can blur the background from f20 down to f1.4, for max blur. The app

A

VERDICT An effective depth editor for all your images.

++ ++++ Advanced bokeh control Masking sometimes needs a tweak

94 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Use Patch mode to manually change the blur mask.

makes a good job of picking out your subject, though it’s preferable if they’re on a plain background or closer to the camera than objects behind.

You can manually fine-tune the depth mask, and there are hardness and flow controls for making corrections. You can tap to move the focus area in an image, though it can only defocus, not sharpen.

You can control the intensity of the bokeh, as well

Increase the virtual aperture size to blur backgrounds.

as the shape of the virtual lens diaphragms, and the luminance and vibrance of the shapes. Multiple virtual lenses are available, and a Custom Lens tool lets you control the appearance of the background.

You can add different kinds of light, placing the image in the 3D environment to relight your subject after the fact. Highquality exporting is supported, as well as up to 24MP resolution. Hollin Jones

Image credit: Leslie GmbH, Xiaodong Wang

THE iPAD MAGAZINE YOU READ ON THE iPAD Find us on the App Store by searching ‘iPad User Magazine’ or scanning the QR code!

APPLE CHOICE App round-up

6 apps to help with parenting Make raising your kid child’s play

BabySparks Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 9 or later

Reviewed by ALEX BLAKE ringing a baby into the world can be daunting. And these days, you can find advice on every aspect of raising children. Aside from all the classes, books, and other resources available to you, there’s also an ocean of top-notch apps. What you need then, if you’re a little sleepdeprived, is a guide to the best ones.

Whether you’ve just welcomed a new member into your family or are looking for a helping hand with a young child, there are plenty of apps that can help. This issue, we have focused on six of the best, ranging from early years helpers packed with advice to useful monitors that protect your kids from unsuitable content.

No one can ever be 100% prepared for raising a child, but BabySparks can help fill in the gaps. It learns your baby’s needs and creates a daily play programme so you can foster their development across a range of areas, from language and cognition to emotional and motor skills.

There are tools to measure your baby’s progress and helpful articles, too.

The Wonder Weeks

Cozi Family Organizer

Qustodio

B

£3.99 (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 12 or later Raising a baby can be tough if you don’t know what’s causing them to be upset. This app can help you understand why your child might be crying and what you can do to soothe them. The app is also there to guide your child’s development and acquisition of new abilities. It is an essential tool to helping your baby progress and learn new skills.

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Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 11 or later

Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 11 or later

When you have children, what was once an orderly household can quickly descend into chaos.

Chores need to be assigned, meals planned, groceries bought, and much more. Cozi is an all-in-one family calendar and organiser that brings together everyone’s schedules into one place, ensuring you know exactly what’s on your plate for the days ahead.

When your child gets their first phone, you might be worried about the type of content they’re accessing and the amount of time they’re spending on their device. Banish those fears with Qustodio, an app that puts you in control. You can restrict what they see and for how long, protect them against inappropriate content, and even find their location when they’re out.

Image credits: BabySparks Inc, The Wonder Weeks, Cozi Inc, Qustodio SL

19

ABCmouse.com Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 9 or later As your child gets older, their developmental needs change – which is where ABCmouse.com comes in. Designed for kids aged 2-8, ABCmouse offers a huge range of educational activities and games designed to improve your child’s skills in maths, art, science, literacy, and more. Kids can see their own progress and have fun along the way.

Moshi Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 11 or later At the end of a long day, it’s important for both you and your child to get a good night’s sleep, and the Moshi app is perfect for that. Dip into its library of audio stories and music narrated by the likes of Goldie Hawn and Patrick Stewart, or try its sleep sounds and white noise designed to help your child relax. When your child sleeps better, you sleep better.

Image credits: Age of Learning Inc, Mind Candy Ltd

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 97

STORE GUIDE Apple kit

EDITED BY

ROB MEAD-GREEN

Your complete guide to the best Apple hardware and third-party accessories

98 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

The 24in iMac released in April brought with it a return of colour to the Apple spectrum.

Choose an iMac MODEL

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE

24in, M1

MEMORY 8GB of unifed memory GRAPHICS Seven-core GPU STORAGE 256GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 4.5K (P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard

£1,249

24in, M1

MEMORY 16GB of unifed memory GRAPHICS Eight-core GPU STORAGE 512GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 4.5K (P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse with Touch ID, Magic Keyboard

£1,649

27in 3.8GHz MEMORY 8GB of 2,666MHz DDR4 eight-core GRAPHICS AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT Intel Core i7 STORAGE 512GB SSD DISPLAY Retina 5K (IPS, P3 gamut) ALSO Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard

£2,299

= Retina display

The new iMacs all feature a 1080p FaceTime camera, a highfidelity six-speaker system, a studioquality three-mic array and support for spatial audio. You’ll also find two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports on each model, with middle- and high-end options gaining two additional USB-C ports. Thunderbolt 2, HDMI, DVI and VGA are supported using adaptors.) All come with a Magic Keyboard, with the mid- and highend versions boasting Touch ID. Prices start at £1,249.

The 27in iMac, last updated mid 2020, sports SSDs across the line and you can choose from six-core tenth-gen Intel Core i5s on the entry level models, or an eight-core tenthgen Intel Core i7. The 27in iMacs also boast AMD Radeon Pro 5300 graphics on the entry and midrange models, and an AMD Radeon Pro 5550 XT GPU on the £2,999 model. All three models have 5K Retina displays with True Tone. You can add up to 128GB of memory and up to 8TB of solid-state storage.

ENTRY LEVEL

Ever since the Bondi Blue iMac debuted in 1998, Apple’s all-inone desktop computer has been setting standards in gorgeous design and powerful performance.

And Apple’s April 2021 Spring Loaded event delivered the new, colourful 24in iMac, available in green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver. The larger screen has also been bumped up to a 4.5K Retina display with a 4480x2520 resolution.

Inside, Apple’s own M1 chip combines with macOS Big Sur, and Apple promises up to 85% faster CPU performance and up to two times faster graphics performance than the 21.5-inch iMac models.

All the models come with 8GB of unified memory (upgradeable to 16GB). The eight-core CPU/sevencore GPU option comes with a 256GB SSD (configurable to 512GB or 1TB). The eight-core CPU/eightcore GPU versions come with either a 256 or 512GB SSD and can be upgraded to 1TB or 2TB.

UPGRADER

From £1,249

HIGH END

iMac

EXPECTED AUG 2022 UPDATED APR 2021

Apple kit STORE GUIDE

EXPECTED DEC 2021

Mac Pro From £5,499

EXPECTED SEP 2021 UPDATED NOV 2020

and opting for the top SSD storage of 2TB takes the price to £2,299.

So far, only the 13-inch model has been updated to the M1 chip, but the 16-inch is obviously due to follow. The 13-inch 2.0GHz Intel Core i5 Quad Core model with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, starting at £1,799, is still available. As are the 16-inch ninth-gen Intel Core models, which start at £2,399.

Choose a MacBook Pro KEY SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE

ENTRY LEVEL

MODEL 13in, M1 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU

MEMORY 8GB of unified memory STORAGE 256GB SSD TOUCH BAR Yes TOUCH ID Yes

£1,299

UPGRADER

In November 2020, Apple rather surprised the tech world with an earlierthan-expected release of the first MacBook Pro with its own custom designed 5nm Apple M1 chip.

The eight-core CPU is said to offer 2.8 times faster performance over its predecessor, while the eight-core GPU has five times faster graphics. The 16-core Neural Engine completes the powerhouse spec sheet for advanced machine learning.

All this, coupled with a 61W battery, translates to the longest battery life for a MacBook Pro so far, with an impressive 17 hours of web browsing and 20 hours of video play. The Pro comes with 8GB of unified memory but you can upgrade to 16GB. Storage starts at 256GB SSD, and can be configured up to 2TB. The physical build remains the same as the May 2020 model (1.56x30.41x21.24cm), and still features the Magic Keyboard, Touch Bar, Touch ID and Force Touch trackpad.

There are now two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. As well as Bluetooth 5.0, the 13in Pro now supports 802.11ax Wi-Fi. 13-inch model pricing starts at £1,299; while upping the unified memory to 16GB

From £1,299

13in, M1 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU

MEMORY 16GB of unified memory STORAGE 512GB SSD TOUCH BAR Yes TOUCH ID Yes

£1,699

HIGH END

MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro 13-inch (Late 2020) features Apple’s own silicon 5nm M1 chip.

Aimed at creative pros, Apple’s high-end desktop has always been designed to deliver as much power and flexibility as possible.

Ironically, the previous ‘trash can’ Mac Pro proved to be a design dead-end, and so Apple came up with this – a stainless steel and aluminium tower that’s almost infinitely configurable – you can even add wheels if you want to.

If the price at the top makes you wince, that’s just the start – prices rise incredibly steeply once you get beyond the standard spec, and even those wheels will cost you £400, while adding six 128GB DDR4 EEC memory cards costs £14,000.

Given that you can fit everything from a 28-core Intel Xeon W processor to 8TB of SSD storage that’s hardly a surprise, though.

16in 2.4GHz MEMORY 64GB of 8-core 2,666MHz DDR4 Intel Core i9 GPU AMD Radeon Pro 5500 4GB STORAGE 1TB SSD TOUCH BAR Yes TOUCH ID Yes

£3,799

The new Mac Pro has been designed to be as configurable as possible.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 99

EXPECTED SEP 2021 UPDATED NOV 2020

Mac mini

The M1-equipped MacBook Air (Late 2020) is an incredible portable performer.

MacBook Air

100 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

with increased storage; you can add up to 2TB of SSD storage for £800 on the base model or £600 on the eight-core GPU model.

The M1 MacBook Air can be teamed with Apple’s Pro Display XDR, although none of the M1 Macs can be used with an external GPU (eGPU).

You also get Touch ID for secure logins, and a Force Touch trackpad.

The MacBook Air is also equipped with two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports and a headphone socket. The laptop now supports 802.11ax Wi-Fi – aka Wi-Fi 6, has Bluetooth 5.0 onboard, and is equipped with a 720p FaceTime camera for video chats.

So with the new internal upgrades, does the MacBook Air still boast its legendarily long battery life? Yes, and some! You can now get up to 18 hours of Apple TV app movie playback, or 15 hours of wireless web surfing, thanks to its 49.9Whr battery. Like the earlier 2020 incarnation, the new MacBook Air comes with Apple’s Magic Keyboard for fast, fluid typing.

Choose a MacBook Air KEY SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE

ENTRY LEVEL

MODEL

13in, M1 MEMORY 8GB of 8-core CPU, unified memory 7-core GPU STORAGE 256GB SSD TOUCH BAR No TOUCH ID Yes

£999

UPGRADER

Apple’s thinnest, lightest laptop now also gets the M1 treatment.

But without a price hike! Prices still start at just £999. The next step model (with increased SSD storage and eight-core GPU) even costs £50 less at £1,249. Like the MBP, Apple’s own unified memory silicon enables faster performance and better graphic speeds. And the 16-core Neural Engine results in nine times faster machine learning.

It may be Apple’s most affordable laptop, but the MacBook Air certainly doesn’t feel like a budget machine, thanks to its 100% recycled aluminium unibody, and 13.3-inch LED-backlit Retina display, which has a resolution of 2560x1600 (227ppi) and True Tone, which automatically adjusts the display’s colour temperature depending on the ambient light.

The inclusion of the M1 chip has changed none of the Air’s physical characteristics – the portable laptop is still just 1.61cm thin, and weighs 1.29kg. Despite the performance boost, the Air is now fanless, using an aluminium heat dissipating panel instead – which also means that it runs in complete silence.

The base model comes with an eight-core CPU, but a seven-core GPU, and 256GB SSD storage. While on the step-up model, the CPU and GPU are both eight-core, and the storage starts at 512GB. Both offer the option to upgrade to 16GB memory, and are configurable

From £999

13in, M1 MEMORY 16 GB of 8-core CPU, unified memory 8-core GPU STORAGE 2TB SSD TOUCH BAR No TOUCH ID Yes

£2,049

From £699

Despite a near two-year wait for the last update to the Mac mini, within just eight months, Apple released it again in November 2020 with the homegrown M1 chip.

The processor boasts far superior processing and graphics performance to the Intel innards of the previous incarnation. Like the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, the base model starts with 8GB of memory that can be boosted to 16GB. The SSD options go from 256GB all the way up to 2TB. The Mac mini now supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. You get two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, as well as two USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.0 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The entry level Mac mini is available for £699. Taking it to its max memory and SSD capacity will set you back £1,699. The 3.0GHz Intel Core i5 model is still available from £1,099.

EXPECTED APR 2023 UPDATED APR 2021

Apple TV

From £169

Apple’s media streamer has been around since 2007, and in April this year Apple unveiled the sixth generation. Running an A12 Bionic chip and its own OS (tvOS), the latest model offers 4K high frame rate HDR. You get Apple TV+, as well as access to thirdparty content using apps such as BBC iPlayer. You can also use it to play Apple Arcade games, run Apple Fitness+ content, stream photos and your music library, and more. The Siri Remote has been redesigned with an improved touch-enabled clickpad.

Apple kit STORE GUIDE EXPECTED SEPT 2021 UPDATED SEPT 2020

EXPECTED OCT 2021 UPDATED OCT 2020

EXPECTED JUN 2021 UPDATED OCT 2020

iPad Air From £579

iPhone

iPad

From £699

In October 2020, Apple launched the iPhone 12 family of handsets. The Pro features Apple’s A14 Bionic chip, with either a 6.1-inch or 6.7-inch (Max version) Super Retina XDR all-screen OLED True Tone display, and comes in 128, 256 or 512GB storage options. The 12MP camera system incorporates Ultra Wide, Wide and Telephoto lenses with Portrait mode, plus HDR video with Dolby Vision.

The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini have the same A14 Bionic processor as their pricier sibling, but come in 64, 128 and 256GB storage options. Both boast the Super Retina XDR True Tone display.

The standard screen size is 6.1-inch, while the mini is 5.4-inch. These phones feature 12MP Wide and Ultra Wide cameras, but can also record HDR video with Dolby Vision. All the new iPhone 12 models connect to 5G, and feature Face ID, Apple’s U1 chip and Haptic Touch.

Choose an iPad

£579

CAPACITY 128GB PROCESSOR M1 CONNECTIVITY Wi-Fi CAMERA 12MP UNLOCKING Face ID

£999

ENTRY LEVEL

CAPACITY 64GB PROCESSOR A14 Bionic CONNECTIVITY Wi-Fi CAMERA 12MP UNLOCKING Touch ID

10.2in iPad

iPhone 12 CAPACITY: 128GB £849 (6.1in Super PROCESSOR: A14 Bionic Retina XDR) FACE ID Yes CAMERA 12MP photos (dual lens), HDR video

UPGRADER

£329

CAPACITY: 64GB £699 PROCESSOR: A14 Bionic FACE ID Yes CAMERA 12MP photos (dual lens), HDR video

10.9in iPad Air

iPhone 12 Pro Max (6.7in Super Retina XDR)

HIGH END

CAPACITY 32GB PROCESSOR A12 Bionic CONNECTIVITY Wi-Fi CAMERA 8MP UNLOCKING Touch ID

ENTRY LEVEL

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

iPhone 12 mini (5.4in Super Retina XDR)

12.9in iPad Pro

CAPACITY: 512GB £1,399 PROCESSOR: A14 Bionic FACE ID Yes CAMERA 12MP photos (triple lens), 4K video

Watch From £379 (Series 6) The world’s number one smartwatch now boasts an always-on Retina display.

Along with the two size options (40 and 44mm), the EXPECTED SEP 2021 Watch is available in aluminium, UPDATED stainless steel, titanium. The SEPT 2020 ceramic option has now been discontinued. Along with the W3 and U1 chips, the 64-bit S6 dual-core processor promises to make the watch 20% faster than Series 5, while retaining the same 18-hour battery life.

Series 6 now boasts a blood oxygen sensor and makes the most of the new watchOS 7 features, such as Family Sharing, improved sleep and fitness tracking, and more customisable faces.

AirPods Max From £549

MODEL

UPGRADER

PRICE

HIGH END

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

From £329

In September 2020, Apple brought out the eighth-gen iPad featuring a new six-core A12 Bionic chip. The processor update allows for a Neural Engine to support image processing and Augmented Reality experiences.

Built for iPadOS, the iPad is great at multitasking. You can slide a second app over the right side of the one you’re working on. Picture in Picture enables you to watch video in a corner of the screen. There’s also Split View, which lets you work on two apps side by side. iPad also supports external drives and, since the iOS 14.5 update, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers for more immersive gaming.

The iPad comes in Gold, Silver and Space Grey with 32GB or 128GB options.

At 490g, it is light yet the recycled aluminium enclosure is one of the most durable built by Apple.

Choose an iPhone MODEL

There are changes aplenty for the iPad Air. The larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display also boasts slimmer bezels. You now get an A14 Bionic chip with Neural Engine for 40% faster performance. The device still uses Touch ID but has replaced the Lightning connector with USB-C. The device is compatible with the secondgen Apple Pencil and the Magic Keyboard with trackpad.

PRICE

Apple’s rather expensive over-ear headphones are finally here. The aluminium cups rotate independently, the knitted mesh headband helps reduce on-head pressure, and EXPECTED the Digital Crown helps you to DEC 2021 control your audio with ease. More NEW DEC 2020 importantly, the high-fidelity audio performance is exceptional, and the H1 chip uses computational audio to assist ANC and Transparency mode. In addition, spatial audio with dynamic head tracking ensures that the headphones deliver an immersive experience.

JULY 2021 | MACFORMAT | 101

STORE GUIDE Accessories

BEST BUYS… Curated picks of third-party kit DESKTOP SPEAKER

THUNDERBOLT 3 HUB

PORTABLE SPEAKER

Ruark MR1

Brydge Stone Pro Hub

£329.99 ruarkaudio.com

£229.99 brydge.co.uk

£159 sonos.com

If you’re looking for a hub that offers multiple connectivity and impressive power delivery, this could be the one for you. You can power up your MacBook, thanks to over 87W of power from the wall power supply, and you can also charge up to four extra USB devices at once (three USB-A and one USB-C). You also get a dual-purpose audio and mic mini jack port.

According to Sonos, this is its smartest speaker yet. You get Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and Alexa and Google Assistant AI. The lightweight but rugged speaker’s extensive feature list includes Sound Swap – throwing sound to the nearest Sonos speaker, and Auto TruePlay – where it automatically tunes itself to the environment. It also sounds great!

Winner of MF357’s head to head, the MR1 speaker set looks and sounds the business. The dome tweeter and longthrow woofer can handle a variety of audio styles with aplomb. You get a good variety of connectivity options, and we love the chunky function/volume dial too.

IN-EAR EARPHONES

Sonos Roam

HEADPHONES

EXTERNAL SSD

M&D MW07 Plus

Beats Solo Pro

OWC Envoy Pro FX SSD

£279 masterdynamic.com

£269.95 beatsbydre.com

£365.99 (1TB) owcdigital.com

Master & Dynamic’s MW07 Plus offer 10 hours of listening time, and the charging case holds an additional three charges (so you get 40 hours in total). These greatsounding earbuds are IPX5 rated, so they’re excellent for workouts and commuting. The marble-effect finish gives them a premium aesthetic, as does the stainless steel charging case.

The latest Beats headphones pack an impressive 40-hour battery life and Active Noise Cancellation.

We love the unfold to power design and sound reproduction is excellent. Powered by Apple’s H1 processor, the Solo Pro also offer simple pairing, Hey Siri detection and audio sharing with iOS 13 or later.

Don’t let the size of this neat little SSD fool you – it’s both tough and efficient.

Not only is it dustand waterproof (IP67), and drop tested to military standards, it boasts blisteringly fast read and write speeds, and the supplied cable is capable of transferring data at 5,000MB/sec over Thunderbolt. Storage capacities range from 240GB to 2TB.

KEYBOARD (MAC/iOS)

WI-FI ROUTER

MACBOOK BAG

Logitech MX Keys For Mac

Zyxel Multy U WSR30

Hex Technical backpack

£99.99 logitech.com

£199 zyxel.com/uk

$149.95 (about £110) hexbrand.com

If you spend a lot of time at your desk, you’ll know how imperative the right keyboard is. The MX Keys is full size with spherically dished, smooth-touch keys.

The keyboard can pair with up to three Mac or iOS devices, and you can switch between them without having to re-pair.

Battery life is good and the backlight is cleverly triggered by a proximity sensor.

Zyxel’s Multy U mesh router hits the sweet spot, offering great performance at a competitive price, making it ideal for homes and small offices. The AC2100 router offers up to 280Mbps with a range of 6,000sq ft, and the nodes are easy on the eye, too. The companion app comes with helpful speed tests and diagnostic tools, as well as parental controls.

Looking for a bag that hits the sweet spot for generous storage and stylish looks? Look no further. The Hex Technical’s 17.5-litre capacity is made up of device-hugging padded pockets for a MacBook (up to 16in), iPad, power bank and more. The bag is waterproof and has a 1680D Cordura ballistic bottom so it’s also reassuringly rugged.

102 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

Image credits (left to right, top to bottom): Ruark Audio, Brydge, Sonos Inc, Master & Dynamic, Apple, Other World Computing Inc, Logitech, Zyxel, Hex

Software STORE GUIDE

BEST BUYS… Curated picks of additional apps PHOTO EDITOR (MAC)

TEXT RECOGNITION (MAC)

NOTE-TAKING (iOS)

Luminar AI

TextSniper

Notability 10

From £59 skylum.com

£6.99 textsniper.app

£8.99 gingerlabs.com

If you want to improve your photos without spending too much, this is the app for you. If you’re worried that you don’t have the know-how for technical image edits, this is also the app for you! The software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse your photos with templates for various categories, instantly enhancing your shot.

And, once the AI has worked its magic, you can make your own easy tweaks.

Not only can TextSniper extract and recognise text from anything you see on your Mac’s screen, it can do so very quickly.

The app can handle just about any type of copy – be it a screenshot, PDF, scanned photo document, and so on. It’s easy to use, works almost instantly, and we’re really impressed with its accuracy. If you need a decent text recognition app, try this excellent affordable option.

Notability is a very flexible note-taking app.

It can combine different mediums, such as illustrations, handwriting and audio recordings, and import PDFs and scan documents. Version 10 also brings an in-house Shop for purchasing additional stickers, themes and features, such as handwriting conversion. The app works well with Apple Pencil and supports a range of cloud-based services.

TO-DO (MAC/iOS)

FILE FINDER (MAC)

TIME TRACKING (MAC/iOS)

Todoist

HoudahSpot 6

Tyme 3

From Free todoist.com

£31 houdah.com/houdahSpot

£3.49 per month tyme-app.com

Task management apps should be clear and simple but with features on hand for you to be as productive as possible. Todoist provides that platform, and the Premium £3.99 tier in particular gets our vote. The interface is very easy to navigate and the comprehensive toolset is accessible without being overwhelming. The price includes both Mac and iOS apps, file uploads, and collaborative tools.

If you find that Spotlight isn’t quite the Mac super sleuth you need it to be, try HoudahSpot 6.

Searches are fully customisable and groups of criteria can be combined into logical expressions. Custom search windows can then be saved as templates, handy for common searches, and your searches can be further refined progressively. The Mail plug-in is great for drilling down through your mailboxes.

If you need to make sure you’re paid for hours/miles you put in for work, or any expenses you incur, you need this app. Create a project, add your tasks and let Tyme keep track for you. The app doubles as an organiser and project manager and comes as a package for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Geofencing means times can be recorded automatically based on your location.

PHOTO EDITOR (iOS)

CALENDAR & TASKS (MAC/iOS)

EMAIL MANAGER (MAC/iOS)

Pixelmator

Fantastical 3

Spark

£4.99 pixelmator.com

From £3.25 per month flexibits.com

Free sparkmailapp.com

Pixelmator is a fullfledged layer-based photo editor, graphic design and painting app.

It offers over 100 brushes, dozens of tools and 32 blending modes giving you full control, all for a really affordable price. The app works with iCloud to sync all your projects across devices including Mac. It also supports formats like PSD, PNG and JPEG, making it the best app for all your graphic needs.

If your calendar and reminders are getting out of control, Fantastical can sort things out. It has support for natural language entry, so you can enter events and reminders as you would say them. It’s got a nifty menu bar shortcut, plus a great interface, clever calendar management and a powerful iOS app. Its predecessor won MF338’s group test.

Image credits (left to right, top to bottom): Skylum, Valerijs Boguckis, Ginger Labs, Doist Inc, Houdah Software, Muse Software Inc, Pixelmator, Flexibits, Readdle

Feeling inbox anxiety?

The solution could be Spark, our favourite iPhone email app after winning MF340’s group test. Its ‘smart inbox’ prioritises emails based on perceived importance – no more vital messages getting lost in a sea of spam. You can snooze messages to be reminded about them later, and search your mailboxes using natural language. And to top it all off, it’s free.

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To email, enter firstname.surname@futurenet.com EDITORIAL Editor ROB MEAD-GREEN Art Editor PAUL BLACHFORD Operations Editor JO MEMBERY Global Head of Design RODNEY DIVE Design Director BRETT LEWIS Group Art Director JO GULLIVER CONTRIBUTORS EDITORIAL: Alex Blake, Matt Bolton, George Cairns, Craig Grannell, Kenny Hemphill, Charlotte Henry, Hollin Jones, Carrie Marshall, Nick Odantzis, Howard Oakley, Olivia Tambini ART: Apple, Phil Barker (Future Photo Studio), Matt Lochrie, Jamie Schildhauer ADVERTISING Chief Revenue Officer ZACK SULLIVAN Commercial Sales Director CLARE DOVE Head of Commercial – Technology DAVE RANDALL Senior Advertising Manager SASHA MCGREGOR Account Director ANDREW TILBURY INTERNATIONAL LICENSING MacFormat is available for licensing.

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ALSO INSIDE… Group test: Weather apps for iOS Capture any text with TextSniper Get creative with CorelDRAW

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RANDOM APPLE MEMORY

Charles Geschke Charlotte Henry reflects on the life of Charles Geschke and his clashes with Steve Jobs

Charles Geschke, ‘the father of desktop publishing’, co-founded Adobe Inc in 1982 and was a member of the board until 2020.

harles Geschke, the co-founder of Adobe who helped develop the PDF, passed away aged 81 on Friday, 16 April 2021. At university, he studied Latin and Liberal Arts. Before falling into computer programming in the 1960s, he hardly seemed a likely candidate to be one of the people who would reshape desktop publishing. Yet, alongside Steve Jobs and Apple, that’s what he and his company did. Dr Geschke lived an interesting life too, including being captured at gunpoint in 1992 and held for ransom. His kidnappers freed him unharmed after four days.

Adobe initially had a good relationship with Apple, which adopted the PostScript language for the LaserWriter printer. However, Geschke eventually clashed with Jobs over Adobe Flash after Apple refused to let the software on to iPhone. In his infamous ‘Thoughts on Flash’ open letter posted in 2010, Jobs accused Adobe of being “painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms.”

“We also know first-hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash,” he continued.

“We have been working with Adobe to fix these

C

106 | MACFORMAT | JULY 2021

problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our [devices] by adding Flash.”

For his part, Geschke said that “there have been times when Apple has changed its strategy on hardware or on operating systems that didn’t meet our product cycle. As a result, there have been periods of maybe six months where we didn’t keep up with their latest release. But that’s our own business model; we can only afford to re-implement our products at a certain rate. We have never, ever abandoned Apple and we don’t want to abandon them today.”

Despite the issues, Geschke was one of the attendees at Jobs’s funeral in 2011. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Nan Geschke, three children and seven grandchildren.

ABOUT CHARLOTTE HENRY Charlotte Henry is a journalist and author covering media and technology. Based in London, she is the UK Associate of The Mac Observer, hosts its Media+ podcast, and has written for various other outlets. Her first book, Not Buying It, was published in 2019.

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