Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2017 i MacFormat

The Side Winder Put an end to tangled MacBook cables There’s not a MacBook owner alive who hasn’t experienced some sort of frustration with their device’s charging cable. It gets tangled, it’s hard to pack away, it’s too long, you trip over it – there are a lot of reasons to dislike it. The Side Winder aims to do away with that exasperation, and it’s devilishly simple. Just plonk the power brick in the middle, close the lid and wind away. What was once a tangled mess becomes neat and easy to carry. And you can pull out as much cable as you need to reach the nearest plug socket – no more long wires dangling dangerously.From $29.99 (about £23) includes The Side Winder cable organiserwebsite fusereel.com works with All…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! GREAT NEW XMAS DEAL Turn to page 40 “IS IT FINALL Y TIME TO BUY AN APPLE WATCH? Paul says… Jo says… I’ve never really been that tempted by the Apple Watch. No doubt it’s a nifty bit of kit, but I’ve never felt like I’ve needed one. It’s always been on my radar, but the Series 3 has really piqued my interest in a big way. It might be time for me to make the plunge. I see what you did there I love the idea of making calls from my wrist. So James Bond! Definitely! I just wish it was available on my network in the UK Hopefully we’ll see more network options soon. Being able to leave my iPhone at home while I go out…

The possibility of saving some money on your heating bills meant that smart thermostats were among the first devices to emerge from the home automation market, and with energy prices rising all the time they continue to be a popular purchase. There’s plenty of choice these days, with a variety of different designs available. Most of these new thermostats will simply replace your existing model on a wall, although some do include a separate wireless adaptor that enables you to move the device from room to room. Some of them use high-tech touchscreen controls, while others opt for more old-fashioned buttons and dials that mimic traditional thermostats. Yet these design features are often just skin deep, and most smart thermostats concentrate on providing the same core set of features, which…

Explained… Finding a clearer perspective 1 Scan your drive Prettier apps exist to examine your Mac, but few are more usable than GrandPerspective (Free, grandperspectiv.sourceforge. net). Go to File > Scan Folder and the app will rapidly scan your Mac’s entire drive and give you a graphical overview. 2 Select items Click an item to highlight it. You’ll also see how it sits within any group of associated files (such as Applications, or tracks in iTunes). The Focus buttons (top left) move the selection up and down the hierarchy. 3 View item details Regardless of the selection you make, the path will be shown in the status bar at the bottom of the GrandPerspective window – along with the all-important value that states how much space its contents take up.…

Explained… Automate your Mac’s tidy up 1 Install Hazel With Hazel (£25, noodlesoft.com), you get an app that can automate the bulk of ongoing busywork, through you setting up rules. In short, the app monitors folders and performs actions on specific items. 2 Start defining your rules Add a folder using the Folder pane’s + button. Then create rules for that folder – each is added using the + button under the Rules pane. You can automatically have duplicates/broken downloads trashed from here. 3 Build actions If you’ve ever created a playlist in iTunes, the steps for creating rules are similar here. You define conditions that trigger actions when any, all, or none of the conditions are met. Use the Preview button to test a rule. 4 Remove apps In…

IT WILL TAKE From 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the subject YOU WILL LEARN How to use Photoshop’s manual and automatic selection tools, even on tricky subjects YOU’LL NEED Photoshop CC, a few test images, and patience In photography, isolated subjects, alone on a sea of white paper, can look spectacular. The easiest way to do this is to shoot your subjects in a studio environment, with a clean, white background – this gives you the smallest amount of work to do afterwards. However, that’s often easier said than done. Some subjects are too large to accommodate even in a big studio; others too restless. So, while capturing your subjects against plain backgrounds is the ideal situation, it’s not always achievable, which is where Photoshop can come to…

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing: our Macs are so good at so many things that some of their best features remain unexplored. There’s even a scientific name for it: the paradox of choice. Faced with lots of options we often stick with what we already know. That’s a shame, because some of these features could save you stacks of time or simply make your apps more efficient. That means it’s a good idea to go all Indiana Jones inside macOS, uncovering valuable treasures that might otherwise stay hidden. And unlike Indiana Jones, you don’t need to worry about booby traps: nothing here is going to send a big boulder rolling around your system. Over the next few pages, you’ll discover three kinds of lesser-known features…

macOS quick-fire questions How to make Time Machine backups quicker? Backing up to a large, fast Thunderbolt RAID array helps, but simplest is to archive existing backups and start a new series on a freshly formatted backup drive. You’ll be amazed how slow large and old backup collections become: what currently takes 10 minutes should be done in less than a minute. Why can’t Disk Utility format my USB memory stick? Sierra’s Disk Utility often returns an error the first time you try to format drives like memory sticks, but usually works properly when you repeat the action. In High Sierra, try unmounting the stick first, then select its greyed-out entry at the left and repartition it to the desired format. Slow to start with FileVault enabled Q Since upgrading…

Apple’s maps service now helps you to navigate indoors as well as out, thanks to the addition of interior maps for shopping malls and airports. This covers several major cities in the US and many popular destinations around the world already, with more set to be added every month. There are new features to help keep drivers safe and more informed, plus a useful tweak if you use ride-booking apps. Shopping centres and airports 1 Interior maps Floor plans for select shopping centres and airports are now available in Maps, both in 2D and 3D views. If you happen to scroll the map so that a place with an interior map comes into view, tap Browse, which slides in at the bottom of the screen (iPhone) and appears at the…

BUYING ADVICE Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices MARS HALL MONITOR BLACK P86 Manifesto – our ratings explained Our reviews are totally independent; we’re not affiliated with Apple or anyone else, nor are we influenced by advertisers. You can trust us to give an honest assessment of a product’s worth. The prices quoted for products are correct at the time of writing and are the best we can find from a reputable online dealer, excluding delivery. A brilliant thing in all regards, and worth every penny Strongly recommended; any flaws are only minor concerns Worth considering, though there may be better options Fundamentally flawed; look at alternatives as a priority A waste of your money and everyone’s time; do not buy! THE MAC FORMAT Awards Awarded to…

Box only has one individual paid-for plan, at £7 per month, which ups the storage from 10GB to 100GB and the maximum file size from 250MB to 5GB. Dropbox Plus is £7.99 per month for 1TB of storage. This increases the sharing bandwidth (improving download speeds), enables you to remotely wipe data from lost devices and enables you to create time-limited sharing links. With Google Drive, £7.99 gets you 1TB per month. iCloud charges £6.99 for 2TB per month. Mega offers 1TB storage with 2TB transfer for €9.99 per month. OneDrive’s 1TB tier is £5.99 per month and includes Office Personal 365. The licence covers one Mac, one tablet and one phone. We’ve stuck to the most similar offers for comparison here, but each service supplies other plans with different…

[MOVIE] BABY DRIVER £13.99 Baby is a getaway driver who blends death-defying heists with an enviable collection of retro iPods. Love action and Apple? Then give this film a shot. [PODCAST] A16Z FREE This podcast is a melting pot of all things tech, culture and news, with a healthy dose of future-gazing thrown in. Full of expert opinions and plenty of brain food. [TVSHOW] MR. ROBOT SEASON 3 £16.99 The cybersecurity thriller returns for a third season. Each character’s motivations come under scrutiny as relationships fall apart.…

LETTER OF THE MONTH! iOS end-of-life concerns Firstly, may I congratulate you on the Ultimate iPhone Buyer’s Guide in your November issue (#319). A constructive and objective assessment of key considerations in choosing which iPhone might best fit our needs, thus avoiding paying for features which, realistically, we do not need. May I suggest one further important criterion – namely iOS longevity, in terms of upgradeability and any associated security aspects. For example, an iPhone 6 might well offer all the required functionality for a relatively undemanding/low-tech user (such as me) for many years to come – and, of course, would represent a considerable saving over an 8 or X. However, if such a purchase were to be rendered obsolete by early discontinuance of iOS support – in other words,…

Explained… Make the most of iCloud 1 iCloud sync By using iCloud, documents and other info can be synchronised across your Mac and iOS devices, avoiding duplication, or having copies at various stages of completion. 2 Share Desktop & Documents Opt to store your Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive, and they’ll be accessible and kept in sync across Macs with Sierra or later, iCloud Drive in iOS 10 and Files in iOS 11, if signed in to your iCloud account 3 Optimise In iCloud Drive’s prefs, turn on Optimise Mac Storage. If space is low, your Mac works out what you’re unlikely to use soon and turns the local copy into a link that redownloads the file from iCloud. Be wary of files with dependencies. 4 Watched videos…

Explained… Breaking down storage information 1 Visit Settings Go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage and you’ll see something similar to the image shown above. Be mindful that it can take a short while for the entire page to fully load. 2 Check the breakdown At the top of the page, you’ll see your device’s maximum storage, and what types of media are currently eating up space. This feedback gives you a good starting point when it comes to pruning. 3 Offload apps As of iOS 11, your iOS device can automatically offload apps and games when storage is low. This can free up space, and you don’t lose anything – tap an app’s Home screen icon to redownload it; its docs and data will still be present. 4…

HIGH SIERRA We focus on getting more from macOS High Sierra 9 COOL THING YOUR MAC CAN DO P56 macOS High Sierra requirements You need at least a MacBook or iMac from 2009, or a Mac mini/MacBook Pro from 2010. You need to be running OS X 10.8 or later. You need 14.3GB of available storage for the upgrade. Back up your Mac before upgrading; go to support. apple.com/en-gb/HT201250 for advice on using Time Machine. Go to the Mac App Store and download the free macOS High Sierra upgrade. What’s inside 54-55 OPENING APPS ON YOUR MAC Explore the many ways you can open apps 56-61 9 COOL THINGS YOUR MAC CAN DO Discover all the superhandy features you might not know about Genius tip! Tables in Notes You can now…

EXPERT ADVICE Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems Q I want to try out High Sierra and APFS, but can’t switch to it completely yet. Could I make my iMac dual-boot using an external SSD? BY ANDY TEMPLAR A Yes, but here are two significant problems: Sierra can’t read or write High Sierra’s APFS file system reliably, and High Sierra does terrible things to Sierra’s Time Machine. The latest High Sierra installer should do this direct, but you may want to make a bootable USB memory stick to ensure all works well. Use DiskMaker X from diskmakerx.com or follow Apple’s instructions at bit.ly/bootable_installer. When you restart from that stick, with your external SSD connected, run Disk Utility from the installer to format the SSD as normal APFS,…

Mac software quick-fire questions How can I check what’s in an Installer package? When you open a package in Installer, the List Files command in the File menu can normally display its contents. To know more, use Suspicious Package (Free, mothersruin.com), which gives full details of the package contents, its installer scripts, and more. It also works as a Quick Look plug-in. How to put a dialog front end onto a shell script? Try AppleScript with its support for simple dialogs, or Swift in Xcode, which can do almost anything but has a steep learning curve. A quick, simple way is Pashua (Free, bluem. net/en/mac/pashua), which can provide a fairly sophisticated front end for most scripting languages. Q We’ve been using Microsoft Entourage 2008 as our email client on our…

Apple has improved Notes a lot in recent years. You can already add sketches, checklists and images, and format your text. iOS 11 builds on this with better-organised text formatting options, so text styles, list styles and indentation settings are accessed through more distinctive controls. But what’s really cool are the shortcuts that enable you to create notes from the Lock screen, plus all the new things you can add to notes. Quick note creation 1 Start a note You can tap your Apple Pencil on an empty part of the Lock screen (or use Control Centre’s new Notes button) to start taking notes. This shortcut can be turned off in Settings > Notes > Access Notes from the Lock Screen. 2 New or resume? You can choose to: always…

From £999 from Apple, apple.com.uk Features 5.8-inch Super Retina HD display with True Tone, Face ID, A11 Bionic chip, 12MP camera, wireless charging (charging pad not included) R A side from the original iPhone in 2007, the iPhone X is set to have the biggest impact on Apple’s smartphone direction. Losing key, reliable elements such as Touch ID and the Home button, and introducing new methods of navigating and unlocking – and charging a lot more for the privilege – seems risky. The price band could also be seen that way – the iPhone X costs £999 for the basic 64GB model, and £1,149 for the 256GB version. The 5.8-inch OLED display is leaps ahead of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus for many reasons: the sharpness, the quality, the…

The Mini looks as if Google turned the Home upside down, then smushed it down to size £49 FROM Google, store.google.com features Voicecontrolled AI, access to streaming services, Chromecast support, support for various smart home devices Google’s Home Mini speaker comes equipped with Google Assistant, which is always at the ready to help you find answers, turn on the tunes, dim the lights, start a TV show and more by using your voice. In this way, the £49 Home Mini is exactly like the larger, more expensive Google Home (reviewed back in our August issue, #315). But that’s where the comparisons end. While the original Home makes for a solid standalone speaker from a performance standpoint, the Home Mini can’t hold its own as the sole sound maker in your…

£299.95 FROM Beats By Dre, beatsbydre.com features Noise isolation, on-board controls, in-line remote, Bluetooth Pure ANC leaves the headphones with a slight low midfrequency noise bed These are Beats’ premier full-size wireless headphones. Beats’ build quality has been criticised over the years, but seems perfectly good here. Most of the frame is plastic, and the pads are soft synthetic leather; real leather would have been nice at this price, but ultimately doesn’t matter much. More importantly for Apple fans, the Studio3 Wireless feature Apple’s W1 chip so that connecting them to your iPhone is brilliantly straightforward. The headphones’ Pure Adaptive Noise Cancelling (Pure ANC) appears designed to avoid distortion caused by cancellation of louder sources. It doesn’t solve a big realworld issue, however: wind whistling around the pinhole microphone creating…

Box gives you 10GB of free storage and the Box Sync app, which creates a folder on your Mac that syncs with the Box service. The free Dropbox service is very good and very fast, with a decent 2GB of storage and effortless sharing. Dropbox integrates with Finder, and can automatically upload your photos when you connect a mobile device to your Mac or open its iOS app. Google Drive offers 15GB of free storage and its app integrates with Finder for automatic syncing, as well as uploading from connected cameras or SD cards. Photos are stored in Google Photos. iCloud gives 5GB of space and iCloud Drive in Finder and iOS’s Files app; you also get iOS backups and syncing of key apps. Mega offers a whopping 50GB of…

The whole point of cloud storage is sharing, either between different devices or different people, or both. Mega has the most limited set of features – it’s really about file sharing and nothing else – but the other services add some useful tools. Box and Dropbox enable multiple people to comment on the same file or document, with Box’s Twitter-esque @notifications working particularly well. But iCloud, Google and the paid-for OneDrive all offer good online collaboration and Office-style software in the form of iCloud.com, Google Docs and Office 365 respectively. In those environments multiple people can comment and edit. Box and Dropbox have document editing too – Box Edit and Dropbox Paper respectively – but they’re not as smooth as the online office suites that Apple, Google and Microsoft offer.…

£86.56 FROM Adobe, adobe.com needs OS X 10.11 or later, internet connection to activate There are new guided edits – effectively interactive tutorials Photographers can set their watches by Photoshop Elements’ yearly update – Adobe has clearly nailed some complex logistics. More complicated: coming up with an annual refresh that appeals every time. Photoshop Elements 2018 is either an £70.91 upgrade from an earlier version, or an £86.56 purchase if you don’t have it already. So what has Adobe added to keep photographers tempted? There are no huge interface overhauls here, something that has been true for the last few updates of Elements, and it’s starting to make the software look and feel dated, particularly since Apple’s Photos app has been given a new lease of life in macOS High…

Also inside… Personalise caller identification on your iPhone Remove blemishes and objects in Photoshop 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi routers group test Can you ditch your Mac for an iPad? … and more! Contents subject to change ISSUE 321 ON SALE 19 DEC 2017 DON’T MISS IT – SUBSCRIBE TODAY! In print & on your iPad Our print and digital bundle gets you the paper magazine as well as our iPad edition myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/macformat ON YOUR MAC Read digitally on your Mac: subscribe with Zinio at zinio.com/macformat Zinio subscriptions do not include a print copy of the magazine.…

1 50 Apple Watch Series 3 is water resistant to a depth of 50 metres, so you can take it for a quick swim in the pool or even out to sea. 2 1,000 The display on the Series 3 is twice as bright as the previous model, clocking in at 1,000 nits. 3 18 The Series 3 maintains the same 18-hour battery life as previous models of the Apple Watch. 4 46.4 There’s quite a difference in weight between Series 3 models. The 38mm non-cellular aluminium model weighs 26.7g, but the 42mm ceramic model is a more hefty 46.4g. 5 4.2 The Apple Watch Series 3 features Bluetooth 4.2, an upgrade from the Bluetooth 4.0 found on earlier generations. 6 16 GB Previous versions of the Watch all came…

Now everyone’s trying to ‘out- Apple’ Apple all the time Do you remember, not even that long ago, when Apple was pretty much the only company trying to make ‘Apple’ products? Even just 10 years ago, there effectively was no iMac equivalent worth a damn, you had to get some kind of damn ugly specialist PC to match the Mac Pro, and the only real competitor to the MacBook Pro was Sony’s VAIO range. But now everyone’s trying to ‘out-Apple’ Apple all the time, and I find myself wondering if this affects what happens at Cupertino. I’m sure people will line up to tell me that it doesn’t – that Apple always has the confidence to move in its own mysterious ways – but simple human psychology makes me think…

LIVE SMARTER The smart home is here – live the Apple dream today! Thermostats aren’t the most exciting gadgets that you can buy for your modern smart home, yet they are among the most practical and useful. With energy bills rising every year it makes sense to use a smart thermostat that can help you to manage your energy use and save money. These unimposing little boxes can hide some clever tricks up their sleeves, too. Several models can use Apple’s HomeKit system to work with lights and other HomeKit accessories – so you can turn off the lights and heating together at night, just by speaking to Siri. There’s an increasing range of options available too, as big energy companies like British Gas and EDF get in on the…

File system switching If your aim with starting from scratch is to clean your Mac and quickly reinstall all your personal user data from Time Machine, it’s worth noting that Time Machine backups are file system independent. So, if you tried the macOS High Sierra public beta and converted your Fusion Drive to APFS, which isn’t supported in the final public release, you can make one last backup, erase the Fusion Drive to macOS Extended format, install the non-beta macOS High Sierra, then use the Setup Assistant (or Migration Assistant after setup) to restore content from the backup. This also means that if your Mac’s startup disk is purely flash-based, and so is forcibly switched to APFS by High Sierra, your old Time Machine backups aren’t rendered useless to it.…

NEW IDEAS Your in-depth guide to getting more from your Apple kit CREATE A WINDOWS 10 VIRTUAL MACHINE P48 Understand iOS gestures A tap is a brief contact of (usually) one finger on your device’s screen. To drag is to move a finger across the screen to scroll or pan around content. Swipe means move one or more fingers across an item or the screen, then let go. A flick is like swiping, but it’s quicker, and is often used to scroll content more quickly. Pinch means move two fingers together or apart, usually to zoom in or out. Touch and hold means lightly rest your finger on an item and wait for a reaction. What’s inside 44-46 SELECT AND MASK Make quick and neat cutouts in Photoshop 47 BITESIZE…

iOS software quick-fire questions Best way to back up an iPad? If you can afford the cost and bandwidth, iCloud is convenient, but more expensive than iTunes. iTunes is the quickest and most reliable method, with your iPad connected to your Mac over USB, and the Mac in turn backed up using Time Machine or similar. Will iOS 11 change my files in iCloud? No. If you’ve updated to iOS 10.3, your devices are already using the new file system, APFS. When that moves files into iCloud, those are converted into iCloud’s storage format. However, some apps such as Notes have new features like tables: if you use them, you’ll need to use iOS 11 to access them fully. Got lost when moving country Q I lived in Spain, and…

There are many new and improved features in iOS 11, and the massive 75-tip guide in our Autumn issue was just the start of getting more from the new iPhone and iPad operating system. Whether you held off upgrading for a while, until Apple fixed a few bugs, have just upgraded to a new device in order to run the new system, or are simply hungry for even more tips and tricks, you’ll find plenty of them here. Over the next few pages you’ll learn about changes to: notifications and the Lock screen, including how to increase your privacy when your device is locked; improvements to Maps that help you to get around indoors, and to drive more safely; and – one of our favourites – the new things you…

IN PRINT ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 319 Novembe r 2017 macOS High Sierra: 50 essential tips The ultimate iPhone X buyer’s guide Apple Watch Series 3 goes phone-free The best Mac writing tools ISSUE 318 AUTUMN 2017 iOS 11: 75 tips and tricks Install macOS High Sierra Face to face with the iPhone X! Apple Watch Series 3 and Apple TV 4K ISSUE 317 OCTO BER 2017 Make iCloud work for you New 5K iMac: Apple’s brightest display Sierra’s hidden features revealed iPhone 8: we look behind the rumours 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…

All of our contenders offer decent web-based interfaces that are simple to use, but some go further: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and OneDrive all appear as folders on your Mac, and most services support multiple platforms. iCloud covers iOS and Windows as well as the Mac; Google Drive covers Windows, macOS, iOS and Android; Mega, OneDrive and Dropbox work on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone; and Box covers everything we’ve mentioned and BlackBerry too. If you’re invested in Apple products, iCloud is a clear winner here: it brings all your Apple kit together, sharing not just files and photos but desktop items, logins, location, calendars, email, iTunes purchases and even open browser tabs between macOS and iOS. It’s not so much that it’s easy to use; it’s…

If you have a mix of Macs and iOS devices then iCloud’s sharable 2TB plan represents superb value for money Mega is the first to fall here. It’s good at what it does, but it’s really quite limited in what it can do. That leaves us with five, and of those five Box and Dropbox are the best options for sharing across multiple platforms and multiple kinds of devices. iCloud, Google Drive and OneDrive do things differently because they connect with their online apps – iWork in iCloud, Docs and Sheets in Google Drive, and Office in the paid version of OneDrive. If you want or need Microsoft Office in any form, OneDrive is a bargain: you get the apps and a terabyte of storage for £5.99 per month. That leaves…

GET ON INSTAGRAM Share your images with us by using the hashtag #MacFormat and we’ll print the best here in the magazine. While you’re there, follow @MacFormat (Twitter) and @MacFormatUK (Instagram). We wood! A matching look for Apple kit BY WWWSRSPHOTOGRAPHY Love accessories that jazz up Apple kit? So does SRS Photography by the looks of it. He’s really rather pleased with these iPhone and MacBook Pro Driftwood decals from Extreme Skins. Eagle-eyed MacFormat fans may recognise our contributor – as SRS kindly sent us a pic of his customised Apple Watch Series 2 back in our September issue (#316). It’s good to know our readers are such a stylish bunch! Share your pics with us using the hashtag #MacFormat on Instagram. In each issue we’ll pick our favourites to…

The story of Apple’s camera tech is a journey from low to incredibly high resolution. Join us for a whistle-stop tour of Apple’s decades-long love affair with the photographic image, from the early QuickTake cameras to the latest 12MP, wide-angle and telephoto lenses of the iPhone X. The world’s favourite camera It might surprise you to know that, according to popular photo sharing website Flickr, the iPhone has been the world’s most popular camera since 2015. The figure comes from examining the EXIF data on pictures uploaded to the site. This means that more images taken on an iPhone are uploaded to Flickr than from any other camera. The iPhone’s success is unquestionably down to ease of use and accessibility – rather than having to port a separate camera around…