Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 173 i iCreate

In April Apple updated its iWork office suite of apps, comprising of Pages, Numbers and Keynote, and made them totally free to download on macOS and iOS. Previously, these apps were only available free to customers who purchased a new Mac or iOS device, but now Apple owners new and old can download and use them. If you aren’t yet familiar with the apps, they are Apple’s answer to Microsoft’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint office apps, but much more intuitive and easier to use and backed up by iCloud, so all of your docs are accessible from anywhere. In our iWork For Free feature on page 14 we provide plenty of hints and tips to help you become an instant expert in these apps. Elsewhere, we decided to turn the…

Apple’s plans to release its own self-driving car have been in development for several years now but, while the ideas might be flowing, the technology hasn’t quite been there to match it. However, big strides have been made in both the automotive and technology industries of late, and Apple’s self-driving dream may soon become reality. Codenamed ‘Project Titan’, the exact design of the car is still relatively unknown but if initial reports are to be believed, it’s very much going to be a futuristic looking piece of kit. Now of course, it wouldn’t be Apple if it didn’t look the part, but it’s vastly more important that Apple manages to envelop the wider market and look past just its core user base. To aid with the design, it’s been noted…

Enter your data Entering text and figures into Numbers is easy. You can freely input data into the cells of a blank spreadsheet. If the data you are entering needs to be in a specific format then click on the Cell tab in the Format menu and click on the Data Format menu to choose the style, such as plain ‘Text’, for example. Click on the Text tab in the Format menu to style the text, change the colour and align it within the cells. If you wish to quickly style your table up into a particular theme, click on the Table tab in the Format menu and you will see a variety of different table styles at the top – then you can click on one to instantly apply…

Video layers In the Precision editor we have two video clips. On the top layer there is a clip which features a city location. On the bottom layer we have the same scene but this time with our actor present. Transition This Cross Dissolve transition causes a mix from the empty location to the clip featuring our actor. As the actor is the only thing that changes during the mix he appears to materialise out of thin air. Export and import After adding a cross dissolve to make the actor materialise, we’ve exported a version of the statically framed scene. We can import this version into iMovie and add a camera move using the Ken Burns effect. Finishing touches No TV teleportation would be complete without an accompanying sci-fi sound…

Separate layers For this project we shot two video clips. One clip contains a cityscape with a dull flat blue sky. The other clip features a more moody cloudscape. We can combine the clips using parallel layers and a mask. Compound clip Once our sky and ground layers have been mixed together using a graduated mask we can merge them together into a single compound clip. We can then grade the compound clip’s colours and tones to unify the separate components. Graduated Mask As its preview thumbnail suggests, this effect makes a video layer become gradually transparent. This enables us to combine sky from one layer with ground from another in a gentle and gradual blend. Fine-tune the gradient We’ve used the Graduated Mask’s control points to tilt the gradient…

Some monitors don’t work fully with Macs; they display the content perfectly well but are designed for Windows when it comes to making finite adjustments to the tones and other aspects you would normally be able to customise. Drivers are also not always available which means you are left with the default setup. There are some solutions available however… “Some monitors display the content perfectly well on Macs but are designed for Windows” 1 Find a driver Find the model number of your monitor and then go to the manufacturer’s website to see if there is a Mac driver available. If it is not, try searching the Apple Support Communities for an alternative solution. 2 Try an app There are apps available that can control a second screen when there…

There will be websites that you know well which will benefit from whitelisting for a number of reasons. Remember that when you block advertising, you are removing the site owner’s ability to make money from their work so it is not simply a case of blocking with no drawbacks at all. Consider whitelisting as many sites as you reasonably can, if you trust them and want to support the creators of the content. “There will be websites that you know well which will benefit from whitelisting” 1 Find the option Some websites will not display properly because they need specific add-ons in order to work. Whether this is the case or if you just want to whitelist a site, click the Ghostery icon in the Safari bar at the top.…

App Cleaner is good to start with but it can be made even better by tweaking the settings. Some files belonging to an app might be in system folders and you need to configure App Cleaner to look for them. You might also want to protect system or important apps from being accidentally deleted. “App Cleaner is good to start with but it can be made even better by tweaking the settings” 1 Search system folders Go to the App Cleaner & Uninstaller menu and select ‘Preferences’. On the General tab, tick the checkbox ‘Search Service files in the System folders’. You will be asked to authorise this, but it improves the app’s cleaning functions. 2 Protect your apps Select the ‘Skip List’ tab. Any apps added here will not…

Difficulty Time needed Your AirPod batteries give five hours of listening time and two hours of talk time on a single charge. Boost their life by keeping them in the case when they’re not in use and limiting the number of times you open and close the charger lid. You can also hold the setup button on the case for 15 seconds until the light flashes amber then white if you find they drain too quickly. But how do you tell when the juice is running out? There are three options: listen for the low charge tone in the AirPods; for Macs, open the case lid or remove the buds, click the Bluetooth menu and hover over AirPods; and for iPhones, see below. Step-by-step Monitor an AirPod’s charge status 1…

Difficulty Time needed You may have dozens of apps which have been abandoned by the developer or left without an update for a good while. Last year, Apple told developers that it was going to axe such programs from the App Store, and it appears the tech giant is going to kill support for 32-bit apps too, so future iOS updates could cause many of the apps on your device to stop working. Warning boxes are already appearing on your screen when you open old apps, telling you they need to be updated. But how can you find out which apps are about to die and need deleting? The answer lies within the Settings app and a new tab called App Compatibility. Step-by-step See a list of abandoned apps 1…

1 Find Theater Mode Swipe up from the bottom of your Apple Watch screen and you will see a new layout after you have installed watchOS 3.2. In the bottom right-hand corner will be a new icon. 2 Enable Theater Mode Tap the new icon and it will turn orange. Once it is enabled, when you lift up your wrist the screen will remain dark and silent mode will be automatically turned on. 3 New colours A selection of new Apple Watch straps has been released and so Apple has made some tweaks to the colours available within the watch faces. The colours are very subtle. 4 A consistent style The new colours mean that you can choose one of the new straps and match the watch face so that…

1 Take action When an app freezes or otherwise behaves as it shouldn’t, press and hold the side button for a few seconds. This will allow you to regain control over your Apple Watch. 2 Don’t power down You will be taken to the Power Off screen but don’t tap anything on the display. Instead, press the Digital Crown and hold it down for a few seconds before letting go. 3 Restart the app The app will force quit and the Watch will take you back to the homescreen of apps. You can restart the app if you wish or get on with doing something else with your Watch.…

1 Open the Settings app In the Settings app of Apple TV, go to Remotes and Devices and select ‘Touch Surface Tracking’ which you will find is set at Medium by default. You can change it to Slow or Fast. 2 Make your choice The Slow setting means you will have to move your thumb much further on the Touch surface to navigate the screen. Fast means using smaller movements, making it more sensitive.…

1 Find Audio Output In the Settings app of Apple TV, select ‘Audio and Video’ from the main menu and look at the entry displayed next to Audio Output. If it doesn’t say ‘AirPods’, then select it. 2 Choose your AirPods You will see at least two options: to output via Apple TV itself or your AirPods. Move down the list and select the AirPods. Use ‘+’ and ‘–’ on the remote to adjust the volume.…

My Mail app is constantly showing that it is downloading messages in the activity pane. This has been going on for a few weeks. Is there any way to stop this? Start off by clicking on the ‘Window’ menu bar item within the Mail app and select ‘Activity’. This will bring up an activity monitor that will show if any messages are currently downloading. If this is clear then it may be time to rebuild and reindex your Mailbox. Start off by clearing your Junk and Trash mailboxes and then click on the ‘Mailbox’ menu bar item within the Mail app and select ‘Rebuild’. You will need to do this for each mailbox and the process can take hours, rendering your Mac less responsive than usual. As a last resort,…

“AmpliTube can make even the cheapest of guitars sound great” Requirements iOS 8.0 or later • iPad (iPhone version available) Learn more ikmultimedia.com Available from iOS App Store Although IK Multimedia’s excellent AmpliTube app has been available on iOS for several years already, we felt that the recent free update and the bolstering of new gear available via in-app purchases merited a stock-taking review. In case you aren’t familiar with AmpliTube, it invites you to connect your electric guitar or bass guitar to your iOS device via the iRig adaptor (sold separately) and then use the vast selection of in-app amplifiers and stomp boxes to obtain pretty much any tone or effect you could desire. Then, like GarageBand, you can record your guitar feeds, loop sections to build up…

Oliver Hill This issue, Oliver has been exploring a technological highway that Apple hasn’t sped along yet – roads – and delivers a full report into the world’s first iCar. Read about it on page 8. Shaun McGill This month, tech expert Shaun provides hints and tips on how to become a YouTube sensation, starting on page 46. From mastering the service to building a brand, there is plenty to discover. George Cairns George specialises in creative visual apps and, as well as providing tutorials for Final Cut Pro X and Photos, also demonstrates how to create a cool teleportation effect in iMovie on page 26.…

Audible An audiobook is a great way to pass the time on your daily commute, and no app has a better selection of titles than Audible. Simply download your favourite book before you leave and have CarPlay read it to you. Spotify As far as music streaming services go, Spotify has to be up there with the best with them. Through its CarPlay integration, Spotify users are able to create and automate their favourite playlists. Castro Castro looks to offer up hundreds of podcasts, which cover a wide range of categories and topics. The podcasts on offer can be downloaded while you are in the car, and they will play back instantly. Pandora One of the reasons Pandora is on this list, is due to the simplicity of this handy…

Create masks from shapes You can create eye-catching presentations by dropping images into shapes. Use the Shape menu at the top of the interface to pick a shape and then once it has been placed on the page, simply drag and drop an image into it. You can then use the masking tool at the bottom of the interface to determine what is framed within the image. Once you have finished, click ‘Done’ in the masking tool and everything not framed within the shape will be hidden. Shapes can be very handy for framing pictures and you can build up stunning looking images using this process to make your slides truly captivating. Using Instant Alpha You can easily remove the background from an image using the Instant Alpha tool, if…

Knowledge base Faster shooting Your iPhone isn’t the most efficient gadget when it comes to capturing photos of a spontaneous event. You have to unlock it and tap on the camera icon before you’re ready to compose the image and trigger the shutter. By then the photo opportunity may have passed. You can quickly access the camera without unlocking the iPhone by swiping your thumb to the left. View burst contents After double clicking on a thumbnail in the Bursts album you can view the contents of the selected burst in Photos’ large display. All the photos in a burst appear as consecutive thumbnails here. Favourited shots will feature a check mark. Quality control After ticking the best shots in a burst, click ‘Keep Only Selection’. The remaining photos will…

Knowledge base Apple Loop types As you’ll see from a quick browse, there are two types of Apple Loops in the library. Those shown with a green icon are software instrument loops that can be edited like MIDI regions – in other words, edited note for note. Blue loops are audio recordings and can only be added to audio tracks, as regions that are editable as waveforms only. View pop-up & buttons At the very top of the Loop Browser is a View pop-up menu that selects the whole library or between installed collections or Jam Packs. Buttons below then toggle between column and keyword button views. Keyword buttons This bank of buttons can be customised, but by default they can be toggled on to filter a loop search to…

Manual on/off Audition the effect by clicking the send’s on/off button to enable or disable it manually. This is the control you’re automating with this technique. Knowledge base Many happy returns In Logic’s mixer, audio signals can be moved around or ‘routed’ from one place to another, a bit like water in a plumbing system. You can send a signal from one channel via a ‘bus’ to a different ‘return’ channel on which you can insert an effect plug-in. The effect is heard only in the return channel, leaving the original channel unaffected. Read all about it When you activate automation, the default mode is ‘Read’ mode, in which all automation moves programmed by moving control points on the curve are played back. Track/Region-based This button enables you to automate…

Difficulty Time needed There are many ways in which you can improve your macOS experience, from adding extra RAM to changing the keyboard and mouse, but one of the most cost effective methods is to add a second screen to your setup. The benefits such a change offers are huge and with the cost of good quality monitors dropping all the time, you should be able to greatly enhance your Mac setup for a fraction of the cost of the Mac itself. We will show you how to physically add a second monitor and then how to set it up so that you can use both screens in a natural and efficient manner no matter what you need to get done. You will begin to see your Mac through new…

Difficulty Time needed Ghostery is a browser extension which is designed to take all of the clutter away from the modern web when used with your browser of choice. It has good compatibility with all of the popular web browsers, including Safari, and once installed will largely work in the background to make your daily computing experience quicker and more efficient while at the same time protecting your data and potentially saving some space on your Mac. It is free, easy to set up and, when used correctly, will be a tool that you will not want to live without again. We will show you how to set up Ghostery, how to make the right choices and will also help you to consider how to use it in a responsible…

Difficulty Time needed App Cleaner & Uninstaller is a great free app in the Mac App Store that enables you to recover disk space and clean up the system. It can find and remove all the files associated with an app, even if it was deleted months ago. Select an installed app and it lists every file it created outside of the Applications folder. It is then easy to select and delete them using App Cleaner. If you dragged apps to the Trash to delete them, even a long time ago, App Cleaner is able to list all the files that were left behind and you can easily select and remove them. Some features are limited in free mode, but there are still enough to make this a must-have tool.…

Security is a constant worry and your choice of a Mac instead of other computers we could mention is certainly a good decision and it helps to keep you safe from threats on the internet and elsewhere. However, this does not mean that you can ignore security and there are threats that can affect your Mac. Phishing attempts, bad email attachments, sharing too much at public Wi-Fi hotspots and so on, are all security problems that can affect your security. To make sure you stay safe on your Mac, we have listed our ten best security tips. Work through each of of these security tips and make sure that your Mac is well protected, especially if it is a MacBook that you use with public Wi-Fi. 1 Disable file sharing…

“Looping a YouTube video is incredibly easy and this simple feature offers many advantages” YouTube is of course just a website, but you’ll find there is a lot you can do to enhance your experience when enjoying the vast array of content. Many of the tricks are very simple and easy to set up, with only a few minutes of your time needed to accomplish a better end result. How to… Loop any YouTube video Looping a YouTube video is incredibly easy and this simple feature offers many advantages that you may not have previously thought about. To set it up, right-click on the main video panel when a video is playing and then click ‘Loop’ in the resultant menu that pops up. The video will play as normal and…

“Play with the colour temperature, contrast and saturation options” Keep it simple Try not to go mad with slow motion and time-lapse features. They look great and can add some entertainment value, but ultimately most people want to see videos play at normal speed and to enjoy a consistent experience. Using filters If you select a filter, it will be previewed immediately and you can see how it compares to the original clip as well. The right filter can make any clip feel a lot more inviting than the competition. Tweak the picture As with photos, spend some time playing with the colour temperature, contrast and saturation options. With some patience, they can make a fairly dull clip feel much more inviting and you can use similar options over every…

Difficulty Time needed One of the best things about owning an iOS device, is having access to a fantastic rear-based camera. However, too many photos can soon lead to you running out of enough internal storage for other things. Backing up your photos to an online cloud account may not be difficult, but being able to automate the process is something entirely different. One of the benefits of the Shoebox app is that users are able to automate any and all images they take on their iOS device. Not only does the app detect and upload any images you take, it even works with images that you upload to your Facebook account. Shoebox is a near-essential app for all photo buffs to enjoy, so here’s how to master its basics.…

Difficulty Time needed With the 1.1 version of Apple TV comes iPad support at long last and, like its iPhone counterpart which has been around for a while, it allows you to use the tablet to control your viewing. It’s easy to set up and uses the same selection of buttons as the tiny Remote. There are a few extra tricks up its sleeve such as the ability to play games more comfortably, Siri support and simple methods of shuffling and replaying audio. Tapping ‘Details’ when playing a video allows you to see chapters, audio tracks and captions and you can also view audio playlists and lyrics. You must have iOS 10.3 or later for these, however. The same functionality exists for the iPhone version too. Step-by-step Set up the…

Difficulty Time needed We expect our messages to be private and secure, however they can be intercepted as they wing their way from your device to a server. The only way to ensure just you and the intended recipient can read a message is to use end-to-end encryption. This scrambles and locks a message from the moment it leaves your device until it lands on the other person’s. The message can then only be unlocked using a private key and it is so effective, even the messaging service cannot read the content. But while some services such as WhatsApp use end-to-end encryption by default, others such as Facebook Messenger need it turning on… Step-by-step Start a secret conversation in Messenger 1 Secret Conversations Open Facebook Messenger and tap your profile…

Knowledge base It’s evolutionary The changes in watchOS 3.2 are deliberately restrained, but they are significant in that you will use them every single day. Just like Night Shift and Do Not Disturb in iOS, once you have them set up they start to feel invisible, but they will offer huge advantages over and over again. There are nothing but positive features in the new watchOS. A tiny change The only obvious visual change in watchOS 3.2 is the rearrangement of the control panel. Every other part of the main operating system looks identical to before. A simple indicator When Theater Mode is enabled, a small icon will be the only indicator that it is currently running. It’s an incredibly useful feature that works in many different situations. Future focus…

Having to make lots of movements with your thumb on the Touch surface of the Apple TV Remote in order to navigate the menus can be a bit of a pain. Fast scrolling, however, makes life much easier by allowing you to make exaggerated movements in order to rapidly move around the screen. Accelerated scrolling has been integrated into tvOS 10.2 so you will need to upgrade the operating system of your Apple TV to the latest version in order to benefit from it. Once done, though, you’ll find a massive improvement, since it will allow you to get to the content you want much faster than before. Third-party developers are being encouraged to integrate it too so if you can’t use it right now in a favourite app, don’t…

An iPhone or iPad will instantly pick up on a pair of AirPods but other devices, including Apple TV, will not. For those, you have to pair up manually but it’s worth doing because it means you’ll be able to use your AirPods to the max. That’s because with Apple TV there are other benefits to be had from using the AirPods as opposed available to other buds. Audio and video will pause when you pop them out of your ears, for instance, and you can also double tap them for the same effect. Here we look at how you can establish the link between Apple TV and the AirPods but if you need to unpair for any reason, just go to Settings>Remote and Devices>Bluetooth>Your Airpods and tap ‘Forget Device’.…

I have switched to using WhatsApp as my main texting app and wondered if there was a quick way to clear messages instead of deleting them individually or in batches by pressing and holding on a message? Mercifully, yes. Instead of pressing and holding on a message and then choosing the ‘Delete’ option, back out of the conversation until you are on the main Chats screen and then swipe left on a chat. Now tap on ‘More’ and choose the ‘Clear Chat’ option. My iPad mini needs to be updated to iOS 9.2.1 so that I can download some newer apps. However, when I try to update the operating system it says, “Failed verification because you are no longer connected to the internet”. But I am! Can you help? This…

Key features 23.8-inch • 1920x1080 FHD • Wide viewing angle with IPS Technology Learn more benq.com Available from amazon.co.uk The GW2406Z IPS LED monitor from BenQ provides 178°/178° wide-viewing angles and offers flicker-free, uncompromising image quality that won’t melt your eyeballs. Taking on board Bauhaus’ ‘less is more’ minimalism design philosophy, this monitor shuns needless gimmickry and unifies simplicity and functionality into pure aesthetics. As such, it will look at home anywhere in the home. It also features BenQ’s exclusive eye-caring technology, flicker-free feedback and unique Low Blue Light Technology, which filters out harmful blue light, thus reducing eye fatigue and irritation through staring at it for lengthy periods of time. The monitor also comes with IPS (In-Plane Switching) Technology, which presents accurate colour and image reproduction from…

iBook G3/600 14-inch Release date January 7, 2002 • 600MHz Power PC 750cx (G3) • 256k ‘on chip’ level 2 cache • 256MB RAM • 20GB Ultra ATA hard drive • Tray-loading DVD-ROM/CD-RW ‘combo’ drive • 2x AGP ATI Rage Mobility 128 graphics with 8MB of VRAM • Airport (802.11b) Original price (8GB version) £1,399/$1,799 Price now £199/$199 Since the MacBook Airs came along and impressed the hell out of us with their weightlessness, Apple laptops seem even bulkier beasts and this early millennial iBook weighed in at a thigh-numbing 2.7kg. The frosted snow design was in keeping with Apple’s style trends at the time, which included early iPods, and you could effortlessly detach and lift up the keyboard to insert an AirPort card for wireless internet connectivity, still a…

Beautiful Mac desktops Kit macOS out with some stunning wallpapers Exclusive video tutorials Discover how to get more out of your devices Tutorial project files All the assets you’ll need to get creative All of this is yours… • Over 15 minutes of expert iOS and macOS video guides from MacMost • This issue's creative tutorial files to follow along with • Royalty-free fonts • Stock video clips to enhance your video-editing armour • Stunning new wallpapers to freshen up even the dullest Mac desktop Log in to www.filesilo.co.uk/icreate Register to get instant access to this pack of must-have creative resources, how-to videos and tutorial assets File silo  The home of great downloads – exclusive to your favourite magazines from Future Publishing Secure and safe online access, from anywhere Free…

“The biggest change is the exclusive, off-white coloured strap” It has already been seven months since we saw the initial release of Nike’s attempt at its own branded Apple Watch. Although tailored for use by fitness fanatics, the new Watch gained rave reviews from many. To build on that initial success, Nike has now announced a new special edition Apple Watch, with an exclusive new band colour. Touted as the Apple Watch NikeLab, large parts of its design are the same and it includes the same waterproof coating that has made previous models successful. The biggest change is the exclusive, off-white coloured strap, with aeration holes provided for ventilation and sweat management for fitness lovers. This adds another colour option to the numerous other straps that have been designed by…

Using templates If you opt to use a template to create a Pages document, you can click on existing dummy text to replace it with your own and click on the picture icons within the images to import your own. The app links to the Photos app so finding images from your own collection shouldn’t be a problem. You can also click and hold to drag the various text boxes and picture frames around the page to personalise it more – hold down the Command button to temporarily remove the Snap Guides. If you click on the Format icon in the top-right you can use the Style tab to add borders and shadows to images to make them really stand out. “You can use Advanced Gradient Fill to create unique,…

It can be a challenge when you want to photograph fast-moving subjects such as children or pets. One way to increase your chances of capturing an effective image is to use your iPhone’s burst mode. This rapid fire option swiftly captures a series of consecutive stills. You can than peruse a burst of images in your iPhone’s Photos app and select the best ones to keep there and then. However, it can be tricky to tell which photographs are the best when viewed on the iPhone’s small screen. It’s also more fiddly to edit on an iPhone. Here we show you how to shoot a burst on your iPhone and then transfer all its contents to your Mac’s Photos app to view and edit. If you can’t use AirDrop, plug…

Teleportation is a sci-fi special effect that’s been around since the early days of cinema. The teleportation technique is easy to produce in iMovie. You shoot a subject on location and then shoot the same location without your subject present. You then use an iMovie Cross Dissolve transition to mix between the two shots and make the subject magically appear out of thin air. Variations on this simple cross-fade editing technique have been used for decades to make the Tardis materialise or bring Captain Kirk to new planet. Traditionally most teleportation effects were statically framed because the camera couldn’t be moved without spoiling the mix effect. To make your teleportation look more convincing we’ll add a post-production camera move to enhance the effect. Shoot your sequences as a single video…

In TV dramas and Hollywood movies it’s common practice to replace a bland overcast sky with a more interesting one. In this walkthrough we’ll demonstrate how to use a simple masking technique to combine two layers of video together to replace a cityscape’s flat and featureless sky with a more textured cloudier version. You can download the replacement sky and landscape footage we’ve used, or follow the steps using your own footage. We’ll show you how to tweak contrast to tease out more detail in the replacement sky. You’ll also learn how to grade both layers of video to give them a unifying wash of colour, and turn daytime footage into a striking sunset. To summon (or dismiss) the Effects browser press Cmd+5, click on its icon or choose Window>Show…

GarageBand is probably the most accessible music creation platform across every device. The reason for this? In a word, the answer is loops and the enviable library of Apple Loops available out of the box. This growing collection of royalty-free, professionally pre-recorded samples is pivotal to getting every user assembling impressive, harmonious songs within minutes. They can similarly be used to quickly build backing tracks to perform and record alongside, with an array of beats, melodies and even vocal lines to choose from. All these sounds are indexed, browsed and searched via the intuitive Loop Browser panel packed with tools to make discovery a breeze. The Browser’s Scale drop-down menu filters those melodic loops that follow major or minor scales, and indeed those that work for both or neither.…

It’s always a joy when an app is updated so that you can do something you’ve always wanted to do. Such is the case with Logic Pro X 10.3 and the automation of auxiliary sends in the mixer. Prior to this version, the automation system could control changes to the level of the send but not its on/off status – the workaround was to replicate turning the send off by drawing instant drops in send level to zero on the automation curve, while re-enabling the send was achieved by using the curve to return the control to its previous level. That’s all history now, as the facility exists to turn the send on or off directly – a much quicker way to generate spot effects at specific moments. Logic Pro…

Difficulty Time needed Storage remains as fundamental as ever in computing and in an era of photos, videos, music and apps we all crave more. Despite pocketing devices boasting the sort of GB capacity that would have made Deep Blue blush, this fervent file retention now sprawls online – a move with useful implications for desktops too. With macOS Sierra, Apple has recognised this increasing storage flexibility by adding custom management tools for decluttering your system drive. Useful for improving performance, not least clearing room for more stuff, the features embrace iCloud and iTunes and can be tweaked to the max. So in this advanced guide we take a closer look… Step-by-step Using macOS Sierra’s management tools 1 About This Mac From the macOS desktop, begin by navigating to and…

Difficulty Time needed When it comes to the world of video editing apps, there are a lot of options out there. Some will focus on helping you create the next AAA blockbuster, while others are tailored for those wanting to add a bit of flair to their own video library. Apple’s latest first-party app is Clips, a video editing app that blends together advanced and basic video edits into one complete package. At its core is a range of tools, all of which change different elements of your chosen video. Elements such as adding text overlays, playing with colour levels and blending together files are all possible within Clips. Here’s everything you need to know about the app. Step-by-step Personalise your video clips 1 Choose your file Open the Clips…

“Piccam arguably offers the best management tools” 1 Piccam Piccam arguably offers the best management tools out of the apps featured here. Photos can be split between different events, locations and even keywords. 2 Google Photos Not only can you upload your image into the Google Photos app, but you can also perform some impressive edits to anything and everything in your account. 3 iCloud How could we ever forget iCloud? The best reason for using iCloud is that it brings together your entire photo library across your iPhone, iPad and even your Apple Watch.…

Difficulty Time needed Apple’s AirPods are great for listening to music and chatting hands-free but their small size means there is every chance that you will misplace them from time to time. With a replacement of a single bud from Apple costing £65/$69, you could be seriously out of pocket. Thankfully, help is at hand. As of iOS 10.3, Apple has made it much easier to find missing AirPods. It has integrated a Find My Airpods function within the Find My iPhone app, so you don’t have to aimlessly rip your house apart to find they’re stuck down the back of the sofa. A chirpy sound will lead the way for a couple of minutes instead. Step-by-step Track down your missing buds 1 Open the app To track your AirPods,…

The evolution of the Apple Watch and watchOS has been carefully managed by Apple and there are good reasons for this. With a device the size of a watch, it would be extremely easy to overcrowd the screen and to make things too complex so Apple has decided to only add new features that are truly useful. Also, limited battery size and processing power means that the experience is defined by how easy everything is to use and, with this in mind, practicality is high up the list. The latest system update, watchOS 3.2, fits in perfectly with this mindset and will give you subtle new features that you will use time and time again. The best features are those that become invisible and this is true of Theater Mode,…

Although you may expect all of your Apple Watch apps to run like clockwork, unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the rotating dial spins for what seems like forever or bugs cause an app to behave in a peculiar manner. Apps can also freeze, preventing you from doing anything else with your wearable. Yet if any of these things happen to you, don’t fear. Help is at hand with a couple of button presses. Just as you can force-quit an app on your Mac, iPhone or iPad, you can do the same on your Apple Watch, even if it does feel a little trickier to pull off the first time you try it (more so since, prior to watchOS 3, it was a simple case of double-clicking the side…

Apple Music This is Apple’s subscription-based music streaming service that lets you listen to any music whenever you want to. You can also listen to specially-curated playlists to suit any mood or occasion. Email draft When composing a new email you can save it as a draft to finish later by retrieving it from the ‘Drafts’ mailbox in Mail. iCloud Drive This is where important macOS and iOS data is stored in the cloud and made accessible for other devices connected to the same iCloud account. Parental Controls This is a section in the macOS System Preferences that lets you set up new accounts for children and then limit what they can access, in terms of web content, and how long they can spend on the Mac at any time.…

How do I turn on private internet browsing in Safari on my iPhone? In Safari, tap on the tabs icon in the lower-right corner to display all open Safari tabs. Next, tap on ‘Private’ in the lower-left corner (the interface should go dark) and then tap the ‘+’ icon to open a new private tab. To disable this, tap the tabs icon, close the private tab and then tap ‘Private’ (the interface should go light). I have only had my iPhone 7 for six months but already my fully-charged battery is dying in about two hours. How can I prevent this? On your iPhone, go to Settings>Battery and you will be given a rundown of what apps and services have been draining your iPhone’s battery. You may also have certain…