Содержание выпуска: December 2020 — MacFormat

As predicted, Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event in October revealed four new iPhones – the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, giving you even more options if you’re planning to upgrade your smartphone this year – you can read all about the new devices on p6, plus you’ll find in-depth reviews of the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 on p72 and p75 respectively. We’ve also put the fourth-gen iPad Air through its paces on p76. One of the big new features of Apple’s 2020 iPhones is MagSafe, which delivers faster and more efficient wireless charging to those devices for the first time – and it looks like that’s just the start of Apple’s wireless charging plans. You can find out what else may…

When iOS 14 launched, it was the first version of Apple’s mobile operating system that allowed you to change your default email app and web browser – a degree of customisation somewhat rare in the world of iOS. At least, that was the promise, but it looks like a bug is now reverting your choices back to Apple’s own apps. The problem occurs when a third-party app that has been set to be your iOS device’s default mail or web client gets updated using the App Store. Once the update has finished, the default app is then reset to either Mail or Safari, removing your previous choice in the Settings app. This is not the first time a bug like this has occurred in iOS 14. Shortly after the mobile…

Compared to the wow factor of macOS Big Sur, you may think your iPad doesn’t look much different after installing this latest major update. That’s partly because it’s the desktop OS, this time, that’s borrowed ideas – and, via Apple’s Mac Catalyst, quite a lot of code – to catch up with the tablet, rather than the other way around. But you’ll soon find plenty that’s new. Freed from the iPhone, iPadOS is finding its way towards the power and flexibility of an all-purpose computer without losing the simplicity and immediacy of multitouch. Interface tweaks make your content more accessible and options more discoverable throughout. And while the spring saw users who wanted something more like a laptop generously served by the Magic Keyboard and trackpad, the autumn brings to…

Scribble is a new core ability of iPadOS. Almost anywhere you’d expect to enter text with the keyboard, you can now write with your Apple Pencil, and your scrawl is recognised as characters. This also works with direct Apple Pencil alternatives like the Logitech Crayon, but may not with other third-party styluses. The Notes app goes further, storing handwriting both graphically and as text. Scribble analyses how you make strokes, not just the end result. This helps to make it surprisingly accurate, even with cursive (joined-up) writing. Forming letters idiosyncratically can trip it up, though: if you draw a clear A, but from right to left, it won’t be recognised. So far, Scribble only works for English and Simplified Chinese, and trying to write in another language exposes how heavily…

We’re huge fans of Ulysses, the do-everything writing app for macOS and iPadOS. No matter what we’re writing – a document for review, blog post, magazine article, tutorial, book or song lyric or just a daily diary – we can write it in Ulysses and then share it in the appropriate format. Because everything we do in Ulysses is stored in plain text there’s no need to worry about using proprietary file formats; it also means Ulysses is blazingly fast. We can search our entire archive – many hundreds of thousands of words going back many years – and find what we want instantly. Version 20 is a big update to an already brilliant app. The biggest change is the new Dashboard, which is a sidebar at the right that…

Fed up with poor-quality webcam footage on your Mac? Camo is an app that uses the top-notch cameras on your iOS device to give your video calls a serious boost. All you need to do is download Camo on iOS and Camo Studio on your Mac, then connect the two devices using a Lightning-to-USB cable. All the processing is done on your iOS device, freeing up resources on your Mac. Camo offers in-depth adjustments that let you tweak your video image to perfection. It comes with a live feed of your video so you can see any changes you make in real time. There is a pause button (and hotkey) should you ever need to put the brakes on, and the app has full Dark Mode support to ease the…

Network storage keeps disconnecting Q My NAS is currently set up to get its network IP address using DHCP, with AFP turned on. Its share connection keeps breaking, which is awkward as I back up to it using Catalina. How can I make it more reliable? by DAVID PERRY A First, don’t leave fixed network devices like networked storage (NAS) devices connected using DHCP. Periodically, the DHCP server in your router will want to renew leases, and can assign any network IP address to your NAS when it does. Configure your DHCP server so that it leaves a block of IP addresses unallocated, and use those to assign fixed IP addresses to the NAS, any desktop systems, and laptops which spend much of their time on that network. This also…

IN PRINT ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 358 NOVEMBER 2020 macOS 11: in-depth guide to Big Sur On test: iPad and Watch Series 6 How to run Windows apps on Mac Secure your home with smart locks ISSUE 357 AUTUMN 2020 iOS 14 Superguide: new tips and tricks Hack your CPU and power up your Mac Make Mail work your way On test: 27-inch iMac (2020) ISSUE 356 OCTOBER 2020 The ultimate Apple Music guide! OS X remembered – goodbye old OS… 6 apps to help you get more done Build your own Time Capsule To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_backissues or phone +44 (0)330 333 1113 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and…

FROM £799 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display (2532x1170 pixels), A14 Bionic chip, 64/128/256GB of storage, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, 5G, MagSafe charging Like the iPhone 11 before it, the iPhone 12 is going to be the iPhone most of us are likely to buy – especially if you don’t want to pay a premium for features you don’t need, like the 2x Telephoto lens or the LiDAR scanner on the iPhone 12 Pro. Having said that, the differences between the Pro and regular iPhone are smaller than ever on the 12 – you get the same gorgeous OLED Super Retina XDR display, the same A14 Bionic chip (see p72 for benchmarks), Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, MagSafe charging, and 5G mobile connectivity. The differences, externally, extend to…

£79.99 FROM Logitech, logitech.com/en-gb FEATURES Bluetooth, USB-C charging, MagSpeed scroll wheel Designed for life on the run, Logitech’s MX Anywhere 3 for Mac is a compact five-button mouse that’s just at home on iPadOS. That’s because it has a three-position button on its underside that enables you to seamlessly switch between different devices using Bluetooth, and it includes niceties such as horizontal as well as vertical scrolling. Its pièce de résistance is its steel MagSpeed scroll wheel. Turn it slowly and its electromagnets give you ratcheted feedback; spin it more forcefully and the magnets let go, enabling the wheel to spin freely with a seamless transition between the two – ideal for scrolling long documents or web pages. The top-mounted Mode Shift button enables you to switch between Ratchet and…

£4.99 FROM GoodLinks, goodlinks.app NEEDS macOS 10.15 or later, iOS 13 or later Read-later apps Instapaper and Pocket make it easy to save articles for consumption at a more convenient time. Although both migrated to mobile from existing web services, a new breed of apps skip this step. With its minimalist UI, GoodLinks feels a lot like a read-later app Apple might have built, taking full advantage of technologies baked into macOS and iOS – sharing extensions and iCloud sync, for example – to deliver a unified experience. This approach extends to the developer’s business model: thanks to Apple’s new Universal Purchase, a single £4.99 payment unlocks the app across desktop and mobile, no subscription required. We’re big fans of this approach, but this is only the beginning. Unlike other…

Upcycle your Apple kit Think your old Apple device is redundant? Think again. You can modify it for an alternative use… ALSO INSIDE… Master Safari in Big Sur Use the new Retouch tool in Photos Create your own Smart Stack in iOS 14 … and much more! Contents subject to change DON’T MISS IT – SUBSCRIBE TODAY! ISSUE 360 ON SALE 15 DEC 2020 IN PRINT & ON YOUR iPAD Our print and digital bundle gets you the paper magazine as well as our iPad edition magazinesdirect.com/macformat-magazine-subscription ON YOUR MAC Read digitally on your Mac: subscribe with Zinio at bit.ly/ziniomacf…

During a jam-packed show on 13 October, Apple launched a raft of new products, including the iPhone 12 in four new, redesigned flavours, a smaller HomePod, and a range of magnetic iPhone charging accessories. The event saw Apple show off its largest-ever iPhone display and marked the first time the company has revealed so many iPhone models at once. One of the biggest stories of the day was, ironically, one of the smallest. Rumours that Apple was working on a 5.4-inch iPhone bore out as the iPhone 12 mini took to the stage. This pint-sized phone contains almost all the same features as the larger iPhone 12, including a flat-edge design borrowed from the iPad Pro, 5G connectivity, and an OLED display, just wrapped up in a smaller package. It…

Apple has only just started shipping the brand-new Apple Watch SE, but it seems some users are having noticeable heat issues with the device. While the problem does not appear to be widespread, it is still a concerning development for the more affordable Apple Watch model. Problems were first reported in South Korea, where several Watch SE users claimed to have felt the device get unusually hot on their wrists. Upon removing the watch, their wrists were marked red by the heat, with a yellow burn mark appearing in the top-right corner of the watch face. MacRumors later reported that an American Watch SE user had claimed to have suffered a similar issue, with their device getting hot while charging and experiencing the same yellow burn mark on the screen.…

One of the more out-there ideas revealed in Apple’s patents involves the incorporation of photovoltaic cells – basically small-scale solar panels – into Apple devices to help keep them juiced up. The idea, Apple says, is to overcome the cumbersome nature of both wired and wireless charging – you need a cable or a charging pad to hand, after all. With built-in solar cells, your device would charge passively without you needing to lift a finger. The patent illustrates its claims with drawings of devices that could include photovoltaic cells. These include a pair of over-ear headphones, as well as what appears to be a charging case for an iPhone or iPad. As these are merely illustrations, they do not necessarily mean Apple is actually working on a pair of…

Your Home screen remains similar to iPadOS 13. Unlike in iOS 14, widgets can’t be mixed in with your app icons, and there’s no App Library view when you swipe all the way left. On the first Home screen, swiping right squishes up the icons to reveal Today View, where you’ll start to see the differences: widgets appear in a new format, and no longer show titles. By default, the top widget is a stack: swipe up or down on it to rotate between widgets. To rearrange your Today View, press a widget and drag. To change widgets, press one and hold – ignoring the pop-up menu – until the Home screen goes into ‘jiggly mode’. Then tap ‘–’ to remove a widget, or tap ‘+’ at the top left…

Let’s be honest: your Mac’s audio settings are pretty basic. Volume up. Volume down. Left/right balance. And… that is about it. But not with SoundSource, a great app from Rogue Amoeba that adds a natty control panel to the menu bar volume button. It gives you everything you need to manage audio on your computer. The great thing about this app is it can be as simple or as sophisticated as you need it to be. If all you want is a way to send music to your Bluetooth speakers but keep everything else coming out of your Mac, it can do that. And if you want to go in deep with EQ settings, audio effects, and custom sample rates, it can do that too. It is all wrapped up…

Apple likes to keep your iOS device firmly locked down, and for the most part that is fine. Most of us are not interested in jailbreaking our devices and the risks that come with that, after all. But gaining more control does not have to entail risks – with iMazing 2, you can take a deep dive into your device and keep it well-maintained in a safe and easy way. The various tools provided in iMazing allow you to do several useful things that Apple will not let you do, whether that is through Finder or in the Music, Podcasts, and TV apps. For instance, iMazing adds features like a profile manager and file system browser that are simply not available from Apple. These provide an extra level of functionality…

Personally, I’d really rather my family wasn’t able to interrupt me in my home office by just dropping in to the Echo Dot on my desk. I did not cover my door with smart locks for a laugh, after all. And Siri is now looking more and more tempting as time goes on, particularly now that Apple has extended the platform with the far-more-affordable HomePod mini… But then, a lot of my smart home equipment is happy to work with Google Assistant, and I managed to bag a free Nest Mini thanks to my having a Spotify account. Realistically, it’s not that tough a situation to be in. I’ll fling my money at all the platforms and see what sticks; it’s my actual job to do so. I won’t be…

£34.95 FROM Joby, joby.com/uk-en FEATURES Silicone and polycarbonate case with aluminium legs Most photographers know that the best camera is the one you have with you. Now you have the best tripod too. Simply put, the StandPoint is a silicone and polycarbonate case from GorillaPod makers Joby that comes with an integrated, three-legged aluminium stand. When you’re ready to shoot handsfree, simply pop out the little legs out from their recesses on the case’s rear, set it down somewhere level and then set your iPhone to do its thing. The StandPoint is currently available for both iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models for just £34.95 (there are versions available for Android smartphones too). And, you know what, it works. Each one of the rubber-tipped legs can be moved individually,…

$29 (about £23) per year FROM Postbox, postbox-inc.com NEEDS macOS 10.13 or later Plenty of email apps struggle to dislodge Apple’s stalwart Mail app. Can Postbox 7 do the trick? Its $29 (about £23) one-year subscription – compared to the free Mail – may suggest not. Don’t be fooled, though: Postbox is worth it. The app is light and airy, with generous spacing and judicious colour highlights on buttons and certain sidebar items. Apple’s Mail app looks positively primitive in comparison, with its dense greyscale layout. But looks are not everything. Fortunately, Postbox has top-notch features to overcome Apple’s workhorse. Take the Focus Pane, a smart column that lets you drill down into your messages. You can select favourite contacts, frequently used tags, plus smart filters and folders, and everything…

Free (Starter Plan) FROM Connectify, speedify.com NEEDS OS X 10.10 or later, iOS 10 or later The COVID-19 pandemic forced many of us to work remotely from home, a challenge for those without the proper setup. Even with plentiful bandwidth, video calls can be a connectivity and buffering minefield. Speedify 10 addresses this problem with ‘channel bonding’, which allows more than one available internet connection to supply bandwidth to your Mac and iOS devices. This can be almost any combination of Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or cellular data – as long as you have internet access, Speedify can improve it. We installed the free app on a home office iMac, where Speedify automatically bonded the available Ethernet and Wi-Fi. Although both connections came from the same cable broadband, Speedify immediately went to…

£4.99/month, Apple Arcade subscription FROM Hello Games, thelastcampfiregame.com NEEDS macOS 10.15 or later Unfortunately, The Last Campfire is a game that looks better than it plays; a game that promises more than it can deliver. While there is no doubting the fantastic job Hello Games has done with the enchanting visuals and delightful world building, this is a puzzle game that never hits the heights you hope for. The Last Campfire sees your character – an ‘ember’ that is creatively also named Ember – stuck in a ‘place between places’, separated from their companions and desperately seeking a way out. Those who are lost in this world for too long eventually become ‘forlorn’ and lose their souls, trapped forever unless someone can restore their souls and rescue them. As you…

DESKTOP SPEAKER Ruark MR1 £329.99 ruarkaudio.com 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 M&D MW07 Plus £279 masterdynamic.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 great-sounding 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. USB FLASH DRIVE SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe 1TB £243.99 shop.westerndigital.com Yes, this flash drive is…

The first iMac took the world by surprise when it was introduced at Flint Center, Cupertino, on 6 May, 1998. After warming up the invited audience with other announcements, Steve Jobs outlined the machine’s technical specifications before literally unveiling it, whipping a black cloth off a plinth. Calling over a handheld video camera operator to shoot a tour, he pointed out the unit’s strikingly translucent case, its stereo speakers, its CD-ROM drive, and, to a cheer of its own, “the coolest mouse on the planet.” That mouse, Apple’s first to connect via USB, was certainly striking. But whether it was cool would be hotly debated. Nicknamed the ‘hockey puck’, the Apple USB Mouse was plastic, blue and bulbous, just like the iMac. But the iMac’s form followed function: it was…

Adobe’s cut-down versions of its 2021 photo- and video-editing heavy hitters have arrived. Starting with Photoshop Elements, it is more straightforward to replace skies, clear out unwanted objects, remove haze, and more. There are guided editing tools to move, scale, and duplicate objects in your shots, and a new feature that can ensure everyone is looking at the camera. As for Premiere Elements, you can now select a specific object or area in your video, then apply an effect that will track throughout your footage – useful for blurring a background or brightening a subject, for example. If you were hoping for quality-of-life improvements, Premiere Elements 2021 has those too. You can now see effects in real time without having to apply them, and there is an expanded music library…

Win one of five copies of Parallels Desktop Pro! As great as macOS is, it cannot do everything. Whether you need to use a business app that only runs on Windows or play a game that has not yet arrived on Mac, there are times when you just must use Microsoft’s operating system. Sure, you could do it with Boot Camp, but that involves rebooting your Mac every time you want to switch to Windows. A far better (and simpler) option is to use Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac Pro Edition. The app lets you run Windows inside a, well, window on your Mac, or invisibly in the background with Windows apps fully available in macOS. The Pro version – five copies of which we are giving away in this…

Right now, wireless charging still requires you to place your device into contact with the charging pad. But things might not always be that way – Apple is one of several companies working on sending power through the air, with no contact needed. Aside from the iMac patent we discussed earlier, Apple has also protected an idea for a system that uses beamforming antennae – like those found in many modern routers – to ‘direct’ radio waves to your devices and power them up. Apple is not alone here. A startup from the California Institute of Technology called Guru claims to have created a device that can wirelessly charge devices over the air, although your phone must be pretty close to be affected. That is the hitch that has held…

While iMacs and MacBooks have a green LED to show their built-in cameras are active, iPads don’t. But iPadOS 14 displays a green dot when any app is accessing the camera, or orange when the mic alone is in use. The dot normally appears to the left of the icons at the top right; in views that hide these, such as the Camera preview or a FaceTime call, the dot appears in the corner. When you allow an app to access your photos, you can now select which ones. It’s reassuring to know it won’t automatically see new pics, but we’d like to be able to select an album. In Settings > Privacy > Location Services, when you allow location access for an app, you can turn off Precise Location…

Once upon a time, iTunes used to have a gorgeous Cover Flow view that presented your music in full screen on your Mac – it was the closest Apple ever came to letting us rifle through our music, crate-digger style. While Cover Flow is still MIA, the Music app in macOS Catalina has an alternative – the Full-Screen Player. It simply presents the artwork for the currently playing album against a lava lamp-like backdrop that takes its colours from the artwork itself. It looks rather lovely and can be invoked at any time by either selecting Window > Full-Screen Player from the menu bar or by using Option+Command+F. It’s great for those times when you just want to pick a playlist and use your Mac as a jukebox while you…

macOS Catalina and Big Sur can’t run some older software. The best way to retain access to old apps that can print sticky labels, work with now-unsupported QuickTime formats, or which haven’t made it to 64-bit, is to run them in a Virtual Machine (VM). Provided yours is an Intel Mac, even if it can’t itself run that older version of macOS, it can when installed in a VM in Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or another virtualisation app. Running in a VM is often less trouble than trying to dual-boot between two different versions of macOS: the older may have problems with the newer macOS file system and other features. Dual-booting also only lets you run one macOS at a time, whereas with virtualisation you can copy and paste between…

Recovering from a bad update Q My Mac hasn’t been the same since I installed Mojave Security Update 2020-005. Its fans run up shortly after starting up, it seems to be forever short of memory, and much of the time dog slow too. What’s wrong and how to fix it? by ROGER PARISH A That particular Security Update had these effects on many of those who installed it. Sometimes simple solutions can resolve update issues quickly, such as resetting the SMC and the NVRAM. Starting up in Safe mode, with the Option key held down, leaving your Mac a minute or two so that it clears its caches, then restarting back into normal mode, can also work sometimes. In this particular case, for those Macs most severely affected, the only…

From £999 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display (2532x1170 pixels), A14 Bionic chip, 128/256/512GB of storage, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, 5G mobile connectivity, Lightning port, MagSafe charging, 12MP main camera with Ultra Wide, Wide and Telephoto lenses Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event in October introduced us to not one, not two, but four new iPhones for 2020: the iPhone 12, the iPhone 12 Pro, the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the all-new iPhone 12 mini. The 12 Pro Max and 12 mini weren’t available at the time of writing, so instead the first 2020 iPhone we’re looking at is the iPhone 12 Pro. Our iPhone 12 review can be found on p75. Whichever model you choose, you’ll find changes aplenty, including an all-new design that shares its flat-sided…

£259.99 FROM Edifier, edifier.com FEATURES 2-channel speaker system, 2x RCA inputs, 1x USB, 1x optical, 1x coaxial, Bluetooth 4.1, remote control Most digital speaker systems, including Apple’s new HomePod mini, consist of a single speaker and tend to focus on ‘smart’ tech, such as Wi-Fi and multi-room streaming. In contrast, Edifier’s new S880DB is a good old-fashioned two-piece stereo system that unashamedly concentrates on providing versatile wired connectivity for use with a desktop computer and other devices. The two speakers are neatly designed, with a sturdy cabinet that is finished off with smart wooden side panels. Each speaker stands 230x125x165mm, so they’re compact enough to sit either side of your monitor without taking up too much space. However, each speaker manages to house a separate woofer and tweeter, with the…

From £119.99 FROM Nanoleaf, uk-shop.nanoleaf.me FEATURES 5, 9 or 15 Hexagon LED light panels (depending on starter kit), 16 million colours with 1200-6500K white light temperature, touch and sound enabled, Apple HomeKit and Siri compatible Interior designers will have you know there are three kinds of lighting: task lighting (handy for chopping vegetables with sharp implements); ambient lighting (for when your date/mate/partner comes around to sample said chopped vegetables); and accent lighting (handy for showing off your etchings during the aperitifs). Nanoleaf’s Shapes Hexagon smart lights incredibly do all three. Available in three different Starter kits comprising five (£119.99), nine (£179.99) or 15 (£269.99) LED light panels, the Shapes Hexagon pack also comes with a controller, a 240V power supply, a suitable number of ‘linkers’, and some double-sided tape strips…

Free (IAPs) FROM Act Focused Media, slugline.co NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later Screenwriting’s formatting and style requirements mean that many writers turn to dedicated screenwriting apps rather than more general writing ones. The best-known is Final Draft, but it’s very expensive and may be overkill for many writers. Slugline is a much simpler and much cheaper alternative. Let’s start with the price. Slugline 2 is free to try, and if you’re writing shorts of six pages or less it’s free forever. Longer than that and it’s a one-off payment of £48.99. You can start with a blank page or use one of the templates to set out your basic structure: a TV pilot, a three-act structure of a specific length, or a beat sheet. Slugline 2 is deliberately minimalist –…

£4.99 FROM LateNiteSoft, latenitesoft.com NEEDS iOS 13 or later The developers behind Camera+ have turned their attention to video shooting with REC. It’s a refreshingly straightforward and well-designed app that unlocks the capabilities of the iPhone's camera hardware to give you more creative control over what you shoot. At its simplest, you can leave most of the settings on automatic, and choose which lens you want to use. This is device-dependent but any camera on your device will be available, including the front-facing camera. Owners of the iPhone 11 Pro will also get a choice of wide, ultrawide, and telephoto lenses. The app works in portrait and landscape modes, though it’s likely you’ll be shooting in landscape much of the time. There’s a selection of aspect ratios available covering 1:1,…

Well, the summer seems to have gone by fleetingly quickly, doesn’t it? We’re cruising to the stage of darker nights again. So, what we can do on those quiet nights over the autumn and winter? It’s the perfect time to learn something new, and your iPhone or iPad can help massively with that. Maybe you would like to learn something as a hobby, maybe there’s a topic you’ve always been curious about; maybe it would help your career, or maybe you’re one of the millions of people strongly considering a new profession once we’re clear(er) of the pandemic danger. Whatever it is, these apps can set you on the right path. Udemy Free (IAPs) NEEDS iOS 12 or later Udemy offers over 100,000 video courses created by experts. Lots of…