Índex per October 2020 a MacFormat

When macOS Catalina arrived last year, Apple finally did what many of us Mac users have been asking for for years, scrapping the bloated, unwieldy iTunes and replacing it with three sleek new apps – Music, TV and Podcasts – which brought Apple’s media efforts into line with what they already had on iOS and iPadOS. If the results for you haven’t been entirely successful, then our feature on page 16 should help. In it, we take an in-depth look at the Music app (and the Apple Music service), plus TV, Podcasts and Books, and explain how you can get the best from them. iTunes, of course, originally made its debut on the Mac in January 2001, when Mac OS X was barely out of beta. On page 54, we…

Apple seems to have emerged largely unscathed from its public grilling in July at the hands of the US House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, which has been investigating antitrust and anti-competitive behaviour by the big four technology companies. Apple’s Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos from Amazon all gave testimony, reading from prepared statements and answering questions from members of the committee. Tim Cook argued that Apple is not the dominant player in most of the markets it operates in, and that protecting the privacy of its users was a primary concern. However, questions remain over Apple’s policy of taking 30% of revenues earned by developers from the App Store (although this has now been reduced to 15% on subscriptions lasting longer than a year).…

Catalina may have split media across separate apps, but for music, little has changed. All songs and playlists from the iTunes library on your Mac are imported when you first run the new app. This might include tracks you ripped from CDs, bought as MP3s, or bounced from the masters that time you collaborated with Skepta. As before, you can use File > Import to add more files from any connected storage, or even import CDs, if your Mac has access to a CD drive (see bit.ly/impfcds). Music > Preferences > Files Import Settings affects new but not previous imports. You should see all the music you’ve previously bought from iTunes. If not, make sure you’re signed in to your iTunes account on the Account menu and that this Mac…

On the previous spread we demonstrated how to migrate files from iCloud Photos and the Mac’s Photos Library and copy them to an external drive. To keep things tidy, create a new folder on your external drive called ‘Archived from Photos’. You can then pop all the folders full of migrated images into that and browse to them using a third-party app, such as Lightroom. Lightroom comes in two ‘flavours’. The newer version – Lightroom – is a cut-down version designed to let you work with images that are synced via the cloud. The original version is called Lightroom Classic. Multiple drives The beauty of Lightroom Classic is its ability to gather together photos from multiple external hard drives for you to edit and share. As the photos live on…

In recent years, Apple has increasingly been extending the abilities of the iPad so that it can offer a real alternative to a MacBook laptop that you can use for getting serious work done. The latest move in this direction is the ability to use an external trackpad with an iPad, which was introduced with iPadOS 13.4 in March. A trackpad connected to your iPad works just as it would when connected to a Mac, with a series of click controls and gestures that allow you to sit the iPad on a desk and control it without touching the screen – pretty much like a laptop, in other words. Apple says that there’s a handful of advanced gestures that will only work with its own Magic Trackpad 2, but most…

Backing up to Apple File System Q I have a 2TB external SSD formatted in Apple File System (APFS), on which I want to make Time Machine backups of one important folder. Is there any way to do that before Big Sur? by MIKE O’DWYER A In macOS Mojave and Catalina, you can set Time Machine to make its backups to a sparse bundle in HFS+J format, which can be stored on an APFS disk. That isn’t the way that Big Sur uses to back up to APFS, though. First decide the largest total size for the virtual volume to contain your backups, then create a sparse bundle in HFS+ Journaled format. An easy way is using Spundle from bit.ly/mac356spndl, or in Terminal using hdiutil, saving it to the APFS…

The single most interesting thing about Mavericks? Is it unfair to say it was its name? Well, maybe. But the first OS X to be named after a place rather than a magnificent creature was very much evolution rather than revolution. It was a free OS X update whose reviewers agreed was worth every penny. That’s not to say it was worthless. It redesigned the Dock and core apps such as Contacts and Notes, and it brought iBooks and Maps across from iOS. It also relied heavily on iCloud for syncing: OS X’s SyncServices was no longer present. But it felt like a point release, not a brand new Mac OS. You couldn’t say the same about Yosemite. Like its namesake, it was huge. OS X 10.10 set out to…

This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was, understandably, a little different than before, and not only in the way it was presented. This was a transition year, dominated by the not-entirely-unexpected news of Apple’s forthcoming move away from Intel to its own home-grown Apple silicon. Switching from x86 to ARM-based processing means big things for your smart home, and not only within the context of HomeKit; it brings macOS, iPadOS and iOS closer than ever, and the second version of porting tool Catalyst makes moving apps from mobile hardware to your desk far easier. Apple’s two-year-old macOS port of the Home app (which, you’ll surely have noticed, is basically the same as the iPad version) was really just a taster. There will be absolutely no reason why the same software…

£99.99 FROM Zagg, zagg.com FEATURES Full-size backlit scissor keys, trackpad, angle adjustment The Rugged Messenger is an ultra-slim keyboard and detachable case for your iPad 10.2-inch, with backlighting in seven different colours and up to a year’s battery life. You can pair two iOS devices at once, with a function key allowing you to switch back and forth. Like other iPad keyboards, the Rugged Messenger has a row of unique keys for more control over your iPad. You’ll find keys for home, power, volume, battery level, apps running, and more. The keyboard itself feels natural. Each key is spread out nicely and doesn’t feel squeezed together, which is often the case with other iPad keyboards. The case and keyboard snap together using a magnet; if you listen carefully, you can…

Free (IAPs) FROM Ulysses, ulysses.app NEEDS iOS 12.2 or later Ulysses was one of the first text editors to exploit the potential of the iPad. Since then, it’s been joined by several others, but few are as elegant as this app. One of the key new features supports the latest development in iPadOS – improved support for mice and trackpads, so you can now use those with Ulysses. You can also access external folders through the Files app, on both iPad and iPhone. Previously, every word in every Sheet in a group was exported when you exported a group to, say, PDF or eBook, and every word counted towards the overall word count and other statistics. In this version, you can now designate Sheets as ‘material’, which are essentially research…

Lots of us are trying to use our time to complete big projects, whether personal or professional. It might be something new for your job, or a home improvement idea, or that novel you just never got around to starting. Whatever your goal, there are great tools for iPhone and iPad that can help develop your ideas, and work through the tasks that will lead to success. These apps are just as suited to creative tasks as they are to professional ones, helping you turn nebulous ideas into concrete steps. Often, the biggest challenge for climbing that new-project mountain is finding the first hand-hold, but try one of these and you’ll soon be striding ahead. Evernote Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 11 or later When starting a project you need an…

Luminar is one of our favourite photo editors on the Mac – so much so we made it an Editor’s Choice in the May 2020 issue. Now it’s been given a major update with new tools and features. Heading up the list of newbies is a revised Photo search tool, which makes it easier than ever to find images in your photo library. Plus, the 4.3 update now includes 500px integration, so you can show off your best images on that photo-sharing platform too. Developer Skylum has boosted performance, making the app run smoother and faster even on older hardware. Improvements include better handling of Raw images, so they open faster, plus a smaller memory footprint. Other goodies in the 4.3 update are a new Crop and Rotate tool (under…

Are you looking to replace your AirPort Time Capsule? If you’ve been relying on it as a network router, then it’s long overdue an upgrade. Choose a router with Ethernet ports, such as the Eero (reviewed in the July issue), and convert your Time Capsule into a standalone network drive to retain Time Machine support – the annotation above summarises the steps you need to follow. If you’d like to have a centralised Time Machine backup drive without a Time Capsule, then you have several options: the first is to purchase an external USB hard drive to plug into your Mac, then configure it for use as a shared Time Machine backup location – as the first three steps in the guide opposite indicate. Direct connection The downside of this…

Sick of struggling to make yourself heard on video calls over ear-splitting traffic, whirring washing machines and screaming children? If so, try Krisp. It uses artificial intelligence to filter out background noise in your calls to give you cleaner, crisper audio. The basic version is free and gives you 120 minutes of denoised audio a week. If you only need it for the occasional video call, you can use it without ever spending a penny. If you want unlimited filtered audio or support for teams, there are paid options. Head to krisp.ai and download the Mac app. There are also versions for iOS and Windows, plus an extension for Google Chrome. In this tutorial we will look at how Krisp integrates with FaceTime on your Mac, but it also works…

There are some apps that really benefit from the portability and ease of access that you get with the Apple Watch, and Fantastical is a prime example. With it installed on your wrist, there is no need to reach for your iPhone or Mac to see what is coming up on your schedule – just raise your wrist and get organised in a few taps. The Fantastical Apple Watch app is not just limited to checking details that have been entered elsewhere. You can create new events, mark tasks as complete, and add useful complications to your Watch face. It is well engineered for working on a small display and never feels too cramped or overstuffed. Learn to use it and it will become a handy part of your daily…

Strange recharging behaviour Q My second-generation iPad Pro 12.9-inch no longer charges reliably. Left overnight it may not charge when there’s 94% battery remaining. If I plug it back in, it then appears to charge correctly. After resetting, it charges fully again, but after a few days that stops. Does it need a new battery? by JOHN MARRIOTT A Before going any further, carefully check your charging kit and inspect the port on your iPad to ensure that everything is correct and clean, and there’s no fluff inside it. Your Power Adapter should be also a 12W model, see bit.ly/mac356ipadpwr. Batteries give longer life when not repeatedly charged to full capacity Then check its recharging history and Last Charge Level in Settings Battery: if your iPad’s battery is ageing and…

From the first beta in 2000 to Catalina in 2019, Mac OS X continually raised the bar for what personal and pro computers can do. It made computers easier and more entertaining, more personal and more powerful, and it was a key part of the most extraordinary period of innovation the world has ever seen. It also featured a lot of cats Before OS X, Apple was not in good shape. This Apple was not the Apple of Steve Jobs. It was the Apple of Gil Amelio, of poor quality products and a thoroughly dysfunctional corporate culture. This Apple wasn’t working. According to Steve Jobs, Amelio believed that “Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed…

Catalina, macOS 10.15, is the very last chapter in the Mac OS X story. And, like other gripping stories, not all of your favourite characters are going to make it to the end… Let’s start with iTunes, which has been part of the Mac OS X story since 2001. Catalina killed it, replacing it in 2019 with three individual, focused apps: Music, Podcasts and TV. iTunes may have been the biggest casualty but there were many more, because Catalina also dropped support for 32-bit apps. Catalina also continued to bring the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad closer together. Its Sidecar feature enabled you to use your iPad as a second screen, and to use that iPad’s touchscreen or your Apple Pencil to interact with apps. You might sign a…

IN PRINT ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 355 SEPTEMBER 2020 macOS 11: Say hello to Big Sur! Plus: iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and more Kit out your dream home office Boost your MacBook battery ISSUE 354 AUGUST 2020 Verdict: 13-inch MacBook Pro Make iWork documents great again Digital detox tips and tricks for Mac Do more with Photoshop for iPad ISSUE 353 JULY 2020 iPhone SE – the definitive verdict Plus: Handy iOS 13 tips and tricks Ultimate Apple buying guide Use Sidecar with any Mac To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_back or phone +44 (0)844 848 2852 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and keep them forever in your personal library. bit.ly/macformatipad NEVER…

£2.99 FROM Crescent Moon Games, crescentmoongames.com NEEDS iOS 9 or later There are plenty of beautiful puzzle games, but not all are as challenging as Alter. Each level comprises two worlds, which you can switch between when you stand on portal tiles. The trick is to manipulate your surroundings in one world so that you can reach the goal in the other. Alter uses this mechanic well. Pushing a block onto a square in one world may trigger a moving platform in the other. An enemy in one zone may prove an ally in another. You have to consider not only your present state but how things will affect the alternate reality. The results are mind-bending, with perplexing puzzles at the beginning ramping up to serious head-scratchers by the end.…

Apple’s Newton MessagePad, which appeared in 1993 after a long gestation, was a groundbreaking product – but not a successful one. Handwriting recognition was central to its failure: it worked poorly, and the processing power and screen required were too expensive. As other features were added to increase the book-sized device’s appeal, its price rose unstoppably, and by 1997 it still wasn’t obvious who’d want to pay it. The eMate was a solution – the kind of solution a marketing committee would come up with. Handwriting a problem? Give it a keyboard! Too expensive? Cut the price! No clear audience? Target a market! In fact, although this happened just before Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the strategy was one he’d tried with his workstation company, NeXT: if nobody else would…

Apple is already one of the greenest technology companies on the planet – and it’s planning to do even more over the next ten years. Its corporate operations, including the datacentres that power things like iCloud, already use solar, wind or other carbon-neutral power methods; while products like iPhone and Mac are free of environmentally damaging chemicals, such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs), mercury and arsenic. Additionally every product Apple makes now includes some recycled content – the MacBook Air, for example, is made from 100% recycled aluminium. However, Apple’s now committed to making its entire supply chain carbon neutral – aiming to reduce its emissions by 75% and using carbon capture and recovery methods for the remaining 25%. Over 70 suppliers have already committed to using renewables to make…

We are all busy these days, and it is getting more and more important to stay on top of our schedules. If you are looking for a productivity app, Things 3 is as good as they come, winning two Apple Design Awards and earning four stars in MF351. This issue, we are giving away the complete line-up, helping you overhaul your work on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Unlike some other apps, Things 3 takes a comprehensive approach to productivity. Instead of having to flit around between different apps, you can do it all in Things 3, from adding reminders and to-do lists to scheduling tasks and managing your calendar. That makes it a superb tool to have in your daily arsenal. All this power could become overwhelming, but not with…

Whether you subscribe to Apple Music or keep it old school with your own collection on your Mac, the Music app – introduced in macOS Catalina – is your go-to program for all your musical needs. Much like the old iTunes app, Music enables you to rip, play, sync, stream and download your tunes, watch music videos starring your favourite artists and buy items from the iTunes Store. What the Music app doesn’t do is provide a home for your movies, home movies, TV shows, podcasts or audiobooks anymore – these have been hived off into separate apps named, unsurprisingly enough, TV, Podcasts and Books. This guide will explain how to make the most of them too. So, open your Mac, fire up the Music app and read our 13-page…

Your music library is managed on your Mac by a database, previously called iTunes.itl and now called Music Library.musiclibrary. This references a folder, officially ‘the Music Media folder’ but actually just called Music, which by default lives in your macOS user account’s home folder. Music files you import can be stored here or left elsewhere. Then there are tracks from the iTunes Store. In the Library views, an item you’ve purchased on the iTunes account you’re signed into, but haven’t downloaded, is identifed by a cloud icon. If you play it, it’ll stream from Apple’s servers. If you click the cloud, the file downloads to your Music folder and in future will play from there, whether or not you’re signed in or online. If you have Apple Music, tracks added…

It’s easy to subscribe… SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND SAVE! www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/mac/eclipse20 Or call: 0344 848 2852 and quote ‘Eclipse20’ Other benefits of subscribing to the UK’s best-selling Apple magazine… ✓ For more than 25 years we’ve been helping Apple fans get the most from their kit. ✓ Our tutorials and guides empower you with the knowledge to get things done in smarter and faster ways. ✓ MacFormat is for Apple fans of all experience levels. Whether you’ve just bought your first Mac, iPhone or iPad, or have been using one for years, we’ll ensure you don’t miss out on top tips and techniques. Choose your package! 6-MONTHLY PRINT EDITION £30 every 6 months (two instalments required for 13 issues) 13 issues of MacFormat in print Note: No free gift with 6-monthly print subscription…

Before we demonstrate how to migrate images from the Photos app, we need to talk about the different ways you may be using Photos to organise your assets. If you’re using iCloud Photos, you can snap a shot on your iPhone, automatically upload the image to iCloud Photos and then it will sync with the Photos app on your Mac. Because your full size images live in the cloud you can free up valuable storage space on your iPhone and Mac. The downside of using iCloud Photos in this way is that you will need to download an image to edit it on your Mac or iOS device. Organised library Alternatively, you may shoot on a DSLR-style camera, plug your memory card into your Mac and import Raw format shots…

The iPhone’s camera has been used in lots of clever ways by different apps that allow you to do everything from scanning barcodes on packaging to determine calorie count, to pointing it at the night sky to put a name to a starry constellation. Seek allows you to do something a little different – point your camera at a plant or living creature to identify it. You can then add species to your list of observations to earn badges. And Seek will also show you commonly recorded species in your local area. It does this by using your phone’s GPS to determine your location, so will work wherever you happen to be, not just in your own back garden. It’s the perfect way to make the most of getting out…

The tech you use to connect external displays and fast external storage may get a whole lot better. Thunderbolt 4 promises to be three times faster than USB 3 – but while it’s faster than the current USB standard, it isn’t faster than the existing Thunderbolt one. And the incoming USB 4 is just as fast, and it includes Thunderbolt 3. Confusing? You bet. Let’s find out what Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 mean for your next Mac – and maybe your next iPad… Thunderbolt facts Thunderbolt, codenamed Light Peak, was developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple. The goal was to create a high-speed hardware interface for connecting external peripherals to Intel-powered computers, combining three different technologies in a single connector: PCI Express (aka PCIe), DisplayPort and a DC…

Q Why am I being logged out? Sometimes my iMac Pro display freezes for a while, then it goes black and presents the login screen, as if I had logged out. Is this a kernel panic, and what causes it? by NEIL JAMES A Kernel panics occur when something so serious happens that macOS simply can’t recover, and should be followed after a while by your Mac automatically restarting, although some models shut down instead. As your Mac isn’t going the whole through this process, this isn’t likely to be a kernel panic. Instead, what’s happening is that WindowServer, which is the part of macOS responsible for compositing all the individual windows into the image on the display, has to be restarted. As that normally occurs when the user logs…

The official OS X story starts with a cat, but the excitement began with a bear: Kodiak, the $29.95 beta of Mac OS X, which introduced the new OS and its groundbreaking, “lickable” Aqua interface. It expired in May 2001 but by then Cheetah was out of its cage. Mac OS X 10.0 looked and worked unlike any previous Mac operating system. Based on the Darwin Unix-like core and the Open Software Foundation Mach Kernel, it had full pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection, and it had a command line interface in the form of Terminal. It was also demanding. When many Macs shipped with 64MB of RAM, it preferred 128MB. It needed at least 800MB of disk space, and it didn’t support the upgrade cards that kept pre-G3 Power Macs…

What I mean by way of that convoluted introduction is that Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference was your sausage, beans, eggs and bacon kind of feast, a real filling treat of information that made me highly hopeful, slightly sleepy, and full of greasy energy as I shovelled it into myself. There were absolutely a few stray mushrooms, a few unpalatable things I’d rather shuffle to the side of the plate and pretend weren’t there, but it was overall a really positive meal that showed Apple’s direction to be a good one. That kind of substantial start is one thing, but no matter how filling it was, I then had a craving for something sweet… Real change, real leaps forward of the kind Apple only pulls off when it’s excited about something.…

£34.95 FROM Anthropics, anthropics.com NEEDS Mac OS X 10.7 or later We tend to share portraits every day via social media sites. However, capturing a portrait that we’re pleased with can be a challenge. If the camera is too close, lens distortion can stretch the shape of our face in unflattering ways (thanks to barrel distortion). High-definition shots produced by the latest iPhones can reveal lines and wrinkles that don’t tally with our perception of how we look. Fortunately, we can counteract common problems by retouching our photographs in PortraitPro 19. What’s new? Version 19 of PortraitPro sees improvements across a range of tools such as Fix Lighting. Unflattering lighting can cause harsh shadows that accentuate features such as bags under the eyes. A strong light source can create shiny…

£12 per month/£120 per year FROM Clario, clario.co NEEDS macOS 10.12/iOS 11 or later Online security is a complex business, covering everything from password protection to credit card fraud to malware. Clario aims to simplify online security by providing a subscription-based service that includes protection for all these different areas. The app is currently available for Mac, iOS and Android devices and costs £21 per month, or £120 per year, for a subscription that covers three separate devices. That’s more expensive than most anti-virus or VPN (virtual private network) services, but Clario aims to provide an all-in-one solution that includes anti-virus and malware protection, as well as a VPN and other features. Perhaps its most important feature is a team of ‘super nice’ security experts who are available 24 hours…