Inhoudsopgave van April 2019 - MacFormat

Subscribe today! SAVE up to 57%! Turn to page 30 › Well, the first couple of months of 2019 certainly flew by! Before you rush outside to enjoy the early spring weather and lighter evenings, set aside some time to make sure your critical digital life is in order. I’m talking about the perennially important task of backing up your files. You know, the documents you write for work or college, but also the precious personal stuff you might never recover from a computer catastrophe – photos from your travels, videos from your kids’ birthday parties, and even your painstakingly acquired music collection in iTunes. Almost certainly you’ve set Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically. That’s not really enough, though. Your irreplaceable files deserve more considered protection than that…

1 46% free dis space › The Macintosh 128K used floppy disks, not a hard disk. Formatted, they held 400kB. The startup disk had to hold the system, apps and your own files. The system software took up 216kB! 2 $12,000 Per GB › Back in 1984, a box of 10 floppy disks was listed at $49 in the inaugral issue of Macworld US. That’s 1.2¢ per kilobyte, or $12,000 per gigabyte! Suddenly, today’s superfast SSDs don’t look so pricey! 3 9,253 Macs! › The amount of storage on today’s entry-level Macs (128GB) is equivalent to 320,000 400kB floppy disks. If you were to stack up that many floppy disks, their volume would be equivalent to 9,253 (and a bit) 13in MacBook Pros. 4 15,075 floppies › Oh boy, how…

Why do I need to do this? I use the cloud! When it comes to storage, iCloud is great, but it isn’t a great backup solution. That’s not because you can’t trust Apple – although if you were one of the people whose iTunes library got messed up by Apple Music a while back, you might beg to disagree – but because there’s a golden rule when it comes to protecting your stuff. That rule is simple: never have a single point of failure. If a file or photo gets damaged and you only have one backup of it, if that backup doesn’t work or isn’t available then you don’t have a fallback option. The more important something is, the more backups you should have – so if a particular…

A silhouette on your camera’s display could still contain shadow detail When the sun is low it can be a challenge to capture a bright sky without losing detail in a landscape’s shadows. Instead of trying to reveal missing shadow detail in Affinity Photo’s digital darkroom, you can embrace a high-contrast lighting scenario and create a striking silhouette. By deliberately underexposing a backlit subject to produce pure black pixels, you can emphasise the shape and form of subjects such as buildings and trees. Silhouetted shapes can add a sense of drama and mystery to a photo too. Shoot a silhouette To capture a shot that contains silhouettes, set your DSLR camera to Spot metering mode and expose for the sky. If you’re using an iPhone, hold a finger on the…

IT WILL TAKE › 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN › How long pressing makes life easier YOU’LL NEED › iOS 11 or later Genius tip! › Safari’s icons are full of long-press fun. Try the New Tab icon for your recently closed tabs list, or the Show All Tabs button for tab options. One of our favourite things about iOS is the long press. It’s when you tap on something and keep your finger on it for a moment, and as you’ll discover it can save a lot of time and messing about. It’s not the only way to interact with icons in iOS. There’s also 3D Touch, which uses pressure sensors to detect not just the contact, but the force of it. The big difference is that a long…

Smartwatches have come of age and are now a mainstream category in 2019. The wearables are no longer seen as awkward playthings reserved for technophiles, but more rightly regarded as a functional accessory that can reduce your smartphone screen time, help you keep better tabs on your health, and potentially even save your life. Apple has been the main force for innovation here, with Apple Watch now in its fourth generation and sporting dramatic design changes, not to mention life-saving features like ECG (in the US at least). Yet having cemented its position as the most popular wearable of 2018, Apple has had little time to rest on its laurels, with dozens of other companies now creating smartwatches that deliver notifications, apps and more. No longer the playthings of technophiles,…

› $4.99 (about £3.79) › FROM macEnhance, cdock.macenhance.com › NEEDS OS X 10.10 or later The Dock is indispensable for access to apps and folders, but there are few options for customising it. Fortunately, cDock offers dozens of options for altering the way the Dock is able to both look and behave. To install in El Capitan or later, you have to temporarily disable macOS’s System Integrity Protection (SIP). Instructions are given and you can turn SIP back on after installation, but it may be enough to dissuade you from trying the app. cDock allows you to change the background colour of the Dock, or specify an image to be used as the background; you can also change the width, the radius of its corners, as well as the transparency.…

› Free, offers in-app purchases › FROM Lofopi, lofopi.com › NEEDS iOS 11 or later There’s a glut of painting apps for the iPad, but Art Set 4 distinguishes itself with its DIY interface. By default, you get just a pencil tool in the bottom toolbar; even changing stroke width means delving into the pop-up menus. Tap the pencil to choose a brush, which can then be tweaked from the Adjust tab. Or tap the + to see other options, from geometric shapes to tone adjustments. Once you start to see the options you need, you can drag their icons out of the menus and onto the toolbar – or to the other sides of the screen to create toolbars there. Keen artists who like their tools set up just…

Welcome to MacFormat’s Store Guide, the place to go to find out about all the Apple kit that matters, whether you’re looking for your next iPhone or a powerful new desktop Mac. We’ve highlighted the model of each product that’s ideally suited to your needs, whether you’re a recent convert or a seasoned Apple user. So be sure to check our handy tables to see which Mac, iPad or iPhone is best for you. We’ve also handpicked the gold standard in audio, storage, monitors, and many other categories, helping you complement your Mac or iOS device with the best accessories. All of these third-party devices have been reviewed in the magazine. UPDATED OCT 2018 EXPECTED LATE 2019 From £799 Mac mini ›It was a long wait, but Apple has finally…

According to patent applications disclosed by sources such as specialist website patentlyapple.com, Apple has been working for some time on a future MacBook concept with dual screens, one of which can function as a touchscreen virtual keyboard. The main problem with virtual keyboards, though, like those on iOS devices, is that they’re flat sheets and you have to locate the keys by sight. Touch-typists work by feel, and a newly published patent application, recently revealed by patentlyapple.com, suggests that Apple is working on a way to make this possible. The solution is a thin top layer of glass, less than 40μm (micrometres) thick, which could be moulded with subtly raised key-like shapes (or “protrusions, contours, recesses, and/or other shapes” to define distinct regions). This would mean you could align your…

Apple’s Senior Vice President of retail, Angela Ahrendts, is leaving the company in April. The former chief executive of fashion retailer Burberry was a high-profile recruit in 2014. Commentators said Ahrendts is going due to last quarter’s drop in iPhone sales, but that seems more related to price and other market factors than retail operations, and Apple has embraced her initiatives. In Ahrendts’ five years in charge, Apple Stores have evolved into ‘town squares’ hosting workshops, tutorials and even music performances, in an effort to make visiting a store “a much more human experience”. Apple’s head of HR, Deirdre O’Brien, an employee for 30 years, will become SVP of Retail + People. Meanwhile, the Apple exec in charge of Siri for the last seven years, Bill Stasior, has moved to…

› AirBuddy (bit.ly/mfairbd) adds iOS-like battery info to macOS for headphones with Apple’s W1 chip inside. Open your AirPods’ case near your Mac and a window with battery info pops up – you can choose whether that’s at the top left, centre or right of the desktop. Bear in mind that info is already in macOS’s Bluetooth menu. The window can take a few seconds to appear, just like on iOS, but often takes under two. It offers a practical benefit: you can click in it to switch your AirPods from your iPhone, say, to your Mac, rather than dig into a menu. It’s a pity the clickable area is just the words ‘Click to connect’, though. It’s AirBuddy’s other feature you may find most useful, provided you own an…

The bare necessities The simplest form of backup storage is an USB hard drive. It’s tempting to use a USB stick, but, as mentioned earlier, they are easily lost and have very limited space – most models top out at 128GB, while a Photos library can easily be 200GB; the larger capacities really aren’t cost effective. An external USB hard drive represents better value for money and has more space. That’s important for apps such as Time Machine and for backing up Macs that use larger amounts of storage. Using an external drive with Time Machine is easy. Simply plug it in, tell Time Machine to use it and let it get on with the job of backing up your Mac: the first backup is the big one, so it…

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology uses multiple disks that your Mac sees as one drive. If one disk fails, the data still exists on the other disks in the array. You can create an array using a software tool like Disk Utility or SoftRAID ($49 – about £39, from softraid.com) and multiple hard drives, or you can buy an array that manages its contents using dedicated hardware. It’s wise to use disks from different batches in case of a production fault. RAID uses two key methods. Striping combines the capacity of all disks and spreads data among them. The other mode, mirroring, is good for backups. It copies the same data to each disk. A mirrored array’s capacity, is the same as the smallest disk in it. The…

The issue with on-site backups is the risk of something happening to them. Someone could break in and steal your Mac and external drive, or if there’s a fire or other disaster in the office, you can be left without any way to get your data back. An off-site backup provides an extra layer of protection, which is why it’s part of the standard backup strategy for many businesses. In the pre-cloud era, off-site backups involved taking backup tapes or drives out of the office and storing them somewhere safe. Today, we’re more likely to use online storage. It’s important to stress the difference between cloud storage and cloud backup, though. The former is designed to be a convenient sync service so you can access your data wherever you are.…

IT WILL TAKE › 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN › How to focus your mind and reduce stress YOU’LL NEED › Apple Watch or iPhone – see apps’ sites for compatible systems Mindfulness has taken off in a big way in recent years, with scientific research backing claims that it can help improve your concentration and reduce everyday stresses. So what is it and how does it work? Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing your attention to what you’re experiencing in the present moment, rather than thinking about the past or imagining the future. Techniques for gently nurturing this kind of centred awareness can include simple guided meditations that focus the mind on body sensations without judging them. Other methods for developing the skill, such as interactive sound therapy…

The explosion of HomeKit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is great news. The more new compatible devices there are, the simpler and more universal the setup steps will be; the more old devices gain it, the more awesome my automations will become. It’s partly down to Apple’s recently relaxed gatekeeping policy, but even with the list growing at CES there’s still a way to go – the number of devices gaining that support at some nebulous future date suggests there’s still a lengthy approval process. Now, it would be great if everything worked as one, but that won’t happen. HomeKit won’t spread its net as wide as Google Assistant and Alexa any time soon. That’s not a bad thing, though. HomeKit is a different protocol with different goals,…

› £169.99 › FROM Devolo, devolo.co.uk › FEATURES G.hn powerline network spec, mesh Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n/ac, 2.4 and 5GHz) In many ways, the power adapters work better than other mesh router systems Devolo’s powerline adapters allow devices to use your home’s electrical wiring to transmit network data. A powerline system gives you the stability of wired networking without the need to trail cables through your home. Magic 2 kit uses the G.hn tech spec – which promises faster speeds than the previous powerline standard. In fact, Devolo claims that Magic 2 can reach speeds of up to 2,400Mbps, a big leap over its last-gen Devolo dLAN 1200+, which was capable of up to 1,200Mbps. The Starter Kit comes with two units for £169.99; a single unit, for extending existing setups, costs…

› £79.99› FROM Satechi, satechi.net › FEATURES USB–C rechargeable port, Bluetooth Looking for a Bluetooth keyboard for a 2018 Mac mini? Satechi’s Aluminum Bluetooth wireless keyboard has plenty to offer. The keyboard looks great and is very well constructed. It also has a numerical keypad, something sorely lacking in Apple’s own Magic Keyboard. The Satechi also has dedicated Bluetooth buttons that allow you to quickly switch between three different devices – handy if you have a Mac, iPad and/or iPhone sitting side by side. Setup involves nothing more than a trip to System Prefs’ Bluetooth pane. The keyboard charges via a USB-C slot and comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable. We found the keyboard reasonably comfortable to type on, although the keys are smaller than those on an Apple…

› £1,250 (bare enclosure) › FROM Drobo, drobo.com › FEATURES 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, 8x 3.5in disk bays, 1x 2.5in bay for caching The Drobo 8D supports the hot caching feature to speed up file access Drobo’s storage drives combine the capacity of multiple disks as one large volume, much like in RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) systems, though its BeyondRAID system has a notable added benefit. If a limited number of disks fail, you swap the broken one(s) and slide in a replacement of at least the same capacity without having to shut it down. The drive sets aside some capacity, spread across the disks, to cope with one disk failing. That’s the default, but you can set aside more space to deal with two simultaneous failures without…

Fitbit’s continued focus on fitness makes the Versa feel less of a smartwatch and more of an activity tracker, yet it has fewer features than 2017’s Fitbit Ionic. As for the Google Wear watches, the Diesel On impressed the most, thanks to its great screen, stylish watch face extras, contactless payments, and built-in GPS. But like the others, so much work is necessarily offloaded to the watch that battery life suffers. Additionally, not all Wear OS features work on an iPhone – you’re unable to respond to notifications from third-party apps like WhatsApp, for example. With new features, a fresh design and blistering performance, the Apple Watch Series 4 is our winner Contrariwise, iOS staples like iMessage and HealthKit aren’t supported by Wear OS, but Apple Watch beautifully integrates both…

› Free › FROM Takeshi Ogihara, bit.ly/typist3 › NEEDS OS X 10.9 or later Typist has been around since the 90s, but version 3.0 now adds support for features such as Dark Mode in macOS Mojave. The app is free to download and it focuses on traditional touch-typing skills, starting with the correct placement of your fingers on the main ‘home keys’ on the middle row of the keyboard. There are three main options, with Quick, Standard and Long courses providing exercises with different levels of complexity. There’s also a set of exercises that focus on improving typing speed, as well as exercises designed for people who use Dvorak ergonomic keyboards. There are even drills for speeding up data entry using the numeric keypad. Each set of exercises provides stats…

Some big-name iOS apps have been recording your every move, even the personal data you input. That’s despite App Store guidelines requiring your explicit consent to record activity. TechCrunch reports that it’s down to third-party analytics code in apps from Expedia, Hotels.com, Air Canada and others. The idea is that developers can use ‘session replays’ to fix bugs and make “informed UI decisions.” But few if any apps tell you they’re recording you, and Air Canada’s app for one failed to mask sensitive data such as passport numbers. Apple has been notifying developers that it will take immediate action. “Protecting user privacy is paramount in the Apple ecosystem,” Apple told TechCrunch. One developer, however, complained online: “I have no issues with notifying the user that I’m using [analytics] and why.…

Unless it’s massive, your backup drive will eventually fill up. That might be because your Mac is storing more than when you started out, or you’re backing up multiple Macs. Or it may be because you’re using incremental backups, so versions of files that change over time add to the total backup size. The latter isn’t an issue for Time Machine, as it removes old versions as a drive fills up. In the other scenarios, it’s time for a bigger drive. 1 Add the drive To add a new, bigger drive, just connect it and then go to > System Preferences > Time Machine. Click Select Disk and you’ll see a list of available drives. Select the new one you just connected, then click Use Disk. 2 Perform a backup…

Be wary of photo sharing services › Don’t consider services like Google Photos and picture-sharing social networks like Facebook as backups, as they don’t necessarily store the hi-res originals – at least, Google doesn’t unless you pay; its free option allows unlimited uploads, but provides access only to the ‘High quality’ upload setting, which may resample uploads and affect their fidelity. Investigate the storage limits Even dedicated photo sites such as Flickr aren’t ideal for backing up, as not only do their free versions have fairly limited storage – the free 1TB service was killed off in February 2019; free accounts are now limited to 1,000 images – but getting your images back out again can be laborious. Export settings The bulk export option in Flickr sends images at the…

Genius tip! › It might be convenient to reuse a password to join your Wi-Fi and log in to your router’s admin interface, but this is risky, just like reusing credentials across multiple websites. Nowadays, just about everyone has a broadband connection, and in a residential setup, it’s the job of a wireless router to facilitate that connection. The router may connect to a separate modem, or optical network terminal if you’re fortunate enough to have a fibre-optic connection, and routes traffic to client devices that are requesting data, such as a web page or a video stream. With gigabytes of data passing through a router every day, it’s wise to invest some effort in making sure your router is as secure as possible. Otherwise, you could be in danger…

IT WILL TAKE › 5 minutes YOU WILL LEARN › How to borrow free ebooks and audiobooks from your local library YOU’LL NEED › Libby, iOS 9 or later It has always amazed us that UK library services don’t do more to publicise the fact that you can go online and borrow ebooks and audiobooks from your local library completely free of charge. Admittedly, the process hasn’t always been easy; the app you needed to use - originally called OverDrive - was a bit tricky to install and set up. However, the company behind OverDrive recently launched a new iOS app, called Libby, that is much easier to use. Your local library will only have a limited stock of ebooks and audiobooks, and you might have to join a waiting…

You know you want an awesome new iPhone. But with seven models currently on sale, and earlier models still going strong on eBay, the question is which one will you go for? Today’s iPhone family ranges from the 7, first launched in September 2016, which costs £449 with 32GB of storage, up to the latest XS Max, which starts at £1,099 with 64GB. That’s a wide variation in price, but also in display size: the 6.5in XS Max needs a 30% bigger pocket than the 4.7in iPhone 7. The 7 and 7 Plus have a slim aluminium case inherited from the 6 and 6s, while the 8 and 8 Plus maintain the format but with a thicker glass back for wireless charging. The XS directly replaces the iPhone X, which…

Apple typically shies away from major events like CES. The company prefers to run its own dedicated showcases, but there was no avoiding its smart presence at this year’s show. CES 2019 may well have marked the turning point for HomeKit: the number of new devices latching on to Apple’s smart home system grew massively, and many more companies offered promises of forthcoming compatibility in 2019. AirPlay, too, saw a big boost in support, and much of that was in a new direction… Namely, TVs. Sony’s forthcoming Z9G, A9G and X950G Series TVs, for example, feature AirPlay 2 integration, making sending content from iOS and macOS devices seamless and easy. The same A screens also support HomeKit, though quite what this will involve at this point is vague – Sony…

› £34.99 › FROM Amazon, amazon.co.uk › FEATURES Alexa-enabled, Wi-Fi (for internet access), Bluetooth The Echo Input is dinky… but it will bring smart assistance to your stereo While we’re yet to find the perfect voice-activated smart home assistant, Amazon’s Alexa stands out. It remains reliable, versatile and accessible, working well alongside plenty of third-party connected gadgets and internet-reliant services. So an Alexa-equipped Amazon Echo speaker is an obvious consideration if you’re in the market for a new audio system. But what if you’re happy with the amp, Bluetooth speaker or hi-fi stereo you’ve got, but wish it boasted smart capabilities? Enter the Amazon Echo Input, a small intelligent device to pair with your old-school stereo. The device costs £34.99 – that’s £15 cheaper than Amazon’s speaker-equipped Echo Dot. Its…

> £379.99 > FROM GoPro, shop.gopro.com > FEATURES 4K video at 60fps, 1080p at 240fps, 12MP, HyperSmooth stabilisation, SuperPhoto, live streaming, waterproof up to 10m (33ft) GoPro’s thinking for the new Hero7 Black flagship model is clearly less about boosting frame rates or packing more pixels, and more about improving user experience. The core specs are essentially carbon copied from the Hero6 Black – you get the same 12MP sensor and the same wide-angle lens, for example, and the top video specs of 4K at 60fps and Full HD to a maximum 240fps for 8x slowed-down footage are also unchanged. Change and control The front display, which shows key info such as current frame rate and resolution, has been condensed into a smaller space, and battery life and remaining card…

› £95.99 › FROM Cazoobi, blocsapp.com › NEEDS OS X 10.11 or later Blocs splits up web page designs into stacked blocs that contain arrangements of content brics Even in 2019, there’s something special about designing your own website rather than relying heavily on hard-to-adapt templates. Blocs helps you design your way to that goal with tools that work visually and are easy to use, without learning to code. Blocs’ toolset is on trend for crafting pages that have a contemporary feel, enabling you to animate objects onto or off a page as it scrolls, add parallax scrolling for a sense of depth, and ensure layouts adapt well to different displays. The app’s name comes from the way it asks you to think about page design: splitting it into horizontal…

› £3.99 › FROM Podcast Media, pocketcasts.com › NEEDS iOS 11 or later Pocket Casts is packed with enough features to help you tame even the most packed playlists. The latest version introduces new functions such as the ability to play a podcast without first having to subscribe to it; automatic syncing; a search feature that includes specific episodes; and a greatly improved Discover screen. There are lists of interesting topics, a ‘what’s trending’ chart, and an algorithm that studies what you listen to and looks for similar content. The interface has been streamlined to make it more attractive, with improved light and dark themes and a new extra dark theme for OLED iPhones. The interface feels sparse on iPad, as if it was designed primarily for the iPhone’s smaller…