Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2020 i Essential Apple User Magazine

The team that gave us Pixelmator Pro, one of the most respected Photoshop alternatives on the Mac, has brought their undoubted image manipulation talents to the iPad. Pixelmator Photo is a very capable picture editor, boasting features more commonly seen on desktop computers, but you need a fairly recent iPad to use it. It’s amazing how much you can do to get the most from your snaps. Look out for correction tools such as Lightness, Colour Balance, Selective Colour, Hue, Brightness, Saturation and more. And if you’re in a hurry, there’s a single-button auto-enhance based on a machine learning algorithm trained using 20 million professional photos. As a result, your photos really sparkle, with none of the flatness or colour imbalance automatic processing sometimes imparts. If you want to take…

Now here’s a desktop with a difference. Earth 3D gives you an animated view of the globe, replete with city locations and exciting graphical details. From the pull-down menu in the top bar, you can switch to Screen Saver Mode, which covers up everything else on your desktop so you can enjoy your astronaut’s-eye view of the Earth accompanied by a relaxing tune. In Interactive Mode, you can change the level of zoom, click on a city, or detail, for a short snippet of information and more. Earth 3D is very configurable. You can turn the day/night feature on and off, choosing whether the correct half of the globe is in night-time, or lock the axis of rotation, changing how the Earth moves behind your files and folders. It extends…

Developed by a pilot, it is claimed Atmosphere Weather represents a ‘new way of checking the weather forecast’. Featuring a 24-hour clock, localised radar and calendar synchronisation (if you pay for the full version), it gives you the temperature, air pressure and wind direction in your locality up to four days ahead. You can also set it to give the weather for another location, but only in the UK. The app looks promising, but it might be more information than the average user needs, and it needs some work on its stability. Verdict LAST WORD An interesting, but inessential take on the weather app. RATING: 3/5 Info Concept Elements LLC http://atmosphereweather.com Free (IAP) Compatibility: iOS 10.0 or later…

CERN, the foremost European scientific research organisation, takes us on an epic interactive journey through the birth and evolution of the universe. It’s completely free, with no in-app purchases, and takes advantage of recent iOS devices’ augmented reality features. You can literally hold the universe in the palm of your hand. The main lessons, narrated by Tilda Swinton, are fairly short, but there’s plenty to go back and read later. If you’re remotely interested in space, or the stars, you should definitely download this app and learn more about this fascinating subject. Verdict LAST WORD An interesting – if short – physics lesson that offers a fascinating look at the cosmos. RATING: 3/5 Info CERN https://home.cern Free Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later…

Alfred is your Mac’s handy butler. He’s there to serve, speeding your workflow, increasing your productivity, and generally making your Mac’s features and functions more accessible. After summoning a Spotlight-like window with a user-defined key combination, you can enter the name of an app, contact, system preference, document or indeed just about anything, and Alfred offers results as you type; hit Return for the first option in the list, or a key combination for something further down. You can even control it from your iPhone using a free app. With the paid-for Powerpack, Alfred’s Clipboard History can: find any text, image or file you copied earlier and paste it again, manage your music, run Shell and Terminal commands and even open 1Password bookmarks directly from Alfred. With an app like…

This app could literally save your life. In fact, it’s already saved several, and police have advised everyone – especially hikers and travellers – to download it. The concept behind what3words is deceptively simple. The app divides the world into 57 trillion squares, each measuring 3m by 3m, and gives each one a unique three-word code. For example, ‘ahead.commented.charged’ puts you in Battersea Power Station, and ‘crops.cards.gifts’ is in Times Square. But how can this save a life? Simple. If you’re hiking through the Himalayas, or sailing on open waters and need the emergency services, you can tap an icon to centre on your current location (anywhere in the world) and get its three-word code. You then give this to your would-be rescuers, who can use their own app to…

How many times have you spent good money on an app you only used once or twice? How often do you wish you had an app for a specific job, but couldn’t find one? For these times, Setapp really shows the advantage of subscription services. Setapp is like Netflix or Readly for software. You pay a set monthly fee, for which you get unlimited access to over 150 apps. Use as many or as few as you like, and install and remove them as often as you wish. If, for example, you need Renamer for a one-off job of changing the titles on a batch of files, you can download it, do the job, and then delete it. There are plenty of apps you’ll want to use on a daily…

If you’re lucky enough to have an Apple Pencil to go with your iPad, you know how handy it is for taking handwritten notes. The longestablished Noteshelf app is built to help you do just that, by offering a handy note-taking environment and the means to manage, edit and store your handwritten notes. You don’t have to use an Apple Pencil, of course (Adonit and Wacom styluses are also catered for), but if you don’t have one, we suggest writing with a dumb stylus, as using your finger can be tricky. There’s a comprehensive set of tools on offer. You can choose from a variety of pens and crayons in a range of colours, or switch to a marker pen for highlighting. You can box off, magnify, or erase a…

DxO PhotoLab is a photo-editing suite for serious photographers with serious expectations. Its main selling point is it understands your camera setup, with profiles for over 50,000 camera and lens combinations included. This lets you get results more focussed on the equipment you use, instead of a one-algorithmfits-all approach. But as the previous version of DxO PhotoLab was only released last summer, is it worth upgrading so soon? The main enhancement in PhotoLab 3 is its approach to colour manipulation. Look out for the new DxO ColourWheel, which can fine-tune colour values on eight different channels. You can intensify or reduce a colour (or all the colours), set feathering values and even swap one colour for another. Repairs are enhanced too. If you want to cover up a spot or…

If you have something you no longer want, but is too good to simply throw away, you can advertise it on a service such as Freecycle or Freegle. If someone nearby wants it, they arrange to collect it. You can browse items other people are getting rid of and, if you see something you want, get in contact. You can even post requests for items you want, which people browse and, if they’ve one to give away, they can respond. All items given and received are free and it’s arranged according to geography, so you only see posts from nearby. Freecycle + Trash Nothing is an app that covers the Freegle and Freecycle services. It’s straightforward to use. Items offered by others are shown in yellow, while requests are in…

What a radical overhaul. If you already have Luminar 3, you’ll find the fourth iteration of this popular photo-editor a very different beast, but thanks to a user-friendly interface and useful video tutorials it won’t take you long to get up to speed. Luminar 4 can be used as a standalone app or a plug-in for existing editors such as Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Apple Photos or Apple Aperture. New features include Sky Replacement, Skin and Portrait Enhancers, Smart Contrast and a Structure feature that boosts detail without damaging the rest of the photo. The most important new additions are Skylum’s artificial intelligence-based tools, built on its machine learning technology. One such tool is Sky Replacement. It’s simple to use. The software identifies the sky in your photo, including all…

Backing up isn't all about Time Machine. To be adequately backed up, it's best to back up twice. That's where Carbon Copy Cloner comes in. It's excellent for making bootable backups of your main drive, so if there's a problem, you can boot from your backup as if nothing had happened. You can also back up specific files, documents and drives, and schedule your backups to take place at a specific time and day. These scheduled back-ups kick in even if your Mac is in sleep mode at the time. Naturally, it can back up only new and modified files to save time, and you can choose to where you back up, such as external drives or another Mac on your network. With the latest version, Task Scheduling is improved.…

Fotomagico 5 is the Mac's premiere slideshow maker, combining ease of use with in-depth features for those who need more than iMovie can offer. It's now arrived on the iPad and retains its versatility and flexibility, but at a high price. FotoMagico for iPad lets you compile slideshows with photos, videos, music and text. It's AirPlay-compatible, so you can stream your shows to AirPlay devices, or you can export them as high-definition stand-alone videos. The quality of your images and footage is preserved, so they look just as good in your slideshows as they do on your iPad. There are, of course, plenty of special effects to apply as you switch from one slide to the next, including Ken Burns-style pan-and-zoom, Creating your first slideshow is as simple as dragging…

If you spend a lot of time travelling, you know how tricky it can be to organise your trips. With flights, trains, accommodation and other such bookings, you soon end up with a lot of emails and attachments, all of which you need. TripIt is designed to collate your electronic travel data, so you can access them all in one place. After setting up an account, you can add plans by forwarding relevant emails to the app, add the address of your destination for instant access to a local map, have alerts sent to you by SMS, and set up a Siri Shortcut to take you straight to the trip in question. With a Pro subscription, you can add Seat and Fare Trackers, keep on top of earned rewards, send…

Ever wished you could use a website app as a self-contained application? If so, Flotato is what you need. It’s simple to use and works well. You can make your own apps, or choose from a range of preconfigured site/apps. Flotato isn’t as configurable as we’d like; for example, it would be good if you could box out a portion of a website for the app, instead of having to use the whole thing. Even so, it’s great if you’d rather have sites like your webmail page, Facebook or Twitter on an app. Verdict LAST WORD A useful free app that can free your regularly used websites from their browser. RATING: 3/5 Info Morten Just Petersen https://flotato.com Free Compatibility: 64-bit processor, macOS 10.12 or later…

As the Sega Forever catalogue continues to expand, each new release – while always welcomed – is a coin-toss between excitement and disappointment. With such an expansive and influential pedigree it feels almost inevitable that one gamer’s ‘classic’ is going to be another’s ‘time passer’, which is certainly the case here. After Burner Climax is your typical loud, well presented coin-op release from Sega’s legendary AM2 arcade division. The core gameplay remains basically unchanged from the original. Fly your choice of combat jet into the screen, blasting as many targets as possible, before the level ends or you’re destroyed by enemy fire. Despite the addition of new planes, fantastic 3D visuals and some high-speed action, this is, at heart, an arcade game and the lifespan is as limited as one…

This independent, real-time strategy opus is set in an alternate Middle Ages where three mighty powers vie for supremacy. Playing as Europe, China, or the Middle East, you must build cities, recruit new troops, and fight large-scale wars with your neighbours. Technology is of paramount importance. As artillery comes to the fore, superior numbers alone can no longer guarantee victory. One thing that’s always been true in war is the importance of engineers, and so it proves here as they build your defences and dig tunnels through which you can transport soldiers. As you might expect, each army has unique abilities not available to the others. European troops can form a phalanx, build a wall of stakes, invoke the Crusaders, and build gunpowder artillery. The Chinese can create smoke screens,…

Originally designed for the iPod and then brought to the iPhone, Apple’s interpretation of Texas Hold’em poker was the first game to feature on the App Store. Released in 2008 but removed from sale in 2011, Apple celebrated the Store’s tenth birthday by bringing it back. And it’s had a revamp. The new-look Texas Hold’em features high-resolution graphics, designed to take advantage of current devices’ larger screens. New characters have been added, gameplay is deeper and you can play against up to eight friends with Wi-Fi multiplayer. The beautiful locations, great animated opponents and dinky music tracks make it a joy to play. It’s definitely challenging, especially when you buy your way into the big league, and best of all, you can play poker without risking a fortune. Verdict PROS…

The Call of Duty franchise has made somewhere in the region of $15 billion. $15 BILLION! That’s simply an unbelievable amount, and it’s testament to just how popular, whether you like it or not, the games have been for the PC and consoles. Now, though, we’re playing it on the mobile platform. Let’s get the inevitable comparison with PUBG Mobile out of the way first. Call of Duty: Mobile is better. Much better. It ‘feels’ better, despite it being, more or less, a similar experience. The elements that combine to make it better are many. Better realism, more game modes, fluid combat experience, better graphics, and far better gameplay. PUBG Mobile fans won’t be pleased with those assessments, but there you go. Call of Duty: Mobile is the better game.…

Franchise fatigue is a very real issue, not for the producers so much but massively for the gamer. It’s mostly a self-inflicted injury, caused by recycling old ideas until they’re forced into the realm of trope and cliché. It’s something those of you who’ve suffered through some the latter editions of once-classic gaming series, such as Metroid, Castlevania and Megaman, will testify. Unlike many of its peers, which it sits alongside in the gaming hall of fame, Tomb Raider has not only managed to evolve and improve over its many sequels and incarnations, but it’s done so while retaining the gameplay and visual charm that initially drew us to Lara Croft's adventures. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the final installment in Square Enix's origins trilogy. So, those familiar with…

Back in Issue 2, we covered Scriptum, a free AR escape room for your iPhone or iPad that saw you locked in a famous writer’s study. Could you get out? This free game has now been joined by a couple of paid-for escape rooms accessed from within the same app, with more to come over time. Here, we look at the Horror room. The new room works in the same way as the free offering. You’re trapped inside a 360-degree room, which you explore by moving your mobile device around, interacting with your settings and looking for clues. The new room is more in-depth than the freebie that comes with the app download, but no less fun. It’s been improved by the addition of a ‘walk’ button so you can…

Wallets are getting fatter. Not because we’re getting richer, but because they’re bulked out with store-issued loyalty cards. Most people carry about half a dozen, and have you ever declined a card because you don’t want another piece of plastic in your purse? I know I have. Stocard aims to do away with all this. Just take photos of your cards’ barcodes, and they’re digitised by the app. So instead of carrying around a fistful of plastic cards, you store them in Stocard and have them scanned from your phone. It can record any card that uses a barcode, and if there isn’t a front-page graphic available for a particular store or card, use the camera to make your own. It’s compatible with the iPad and the iPod touch too,…

Apple Music doesn’t really cut it for classical music. Sure, there’s classical works on there, but in reality, the service is set up for popular music, in terms of artists, genres, albums and the like. Crucially, a classical work might have literally dozens of recordings of the same work, something that’s not an issue with rock and pop, and therefore is poorly served by streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. That’s where Primephonic comes in. Designed specifically with the classical fan in mind, it’s easy to search the library for a set piece. For example, a search for ‘Four Seasons’ yields 19 recordings of Vivaldi’s seminal work, making it easy to compare and contrast the different works. High-quality audio is also catered for, with two levels of service; Premium…

If you read last issue’s bumper photography special, you know how much we love Skylum’s Luminar 3 Mac photo editor. However, if you’re too emotionally attached to your existing graphics tool to consider a swap, you can give it a boost with Luminar Flex instead. It works as a plug-in that brings the power of Luminar to existing photo-editing apps. You can use it with Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Aperture and Apple Photos. In a nutshell, a plug-in is a program that adds functionality to another program. In this case, you can install it into some, or all, of the apps listed earlier – as many as you have on your Mac – and then use Flex’s tools from within that program to edit your photos, before quitting Flex and…

Graphics tools are getting cheaper. Sure, if you want, or need, the premium products such as Adobe’s Photoshop or Illustrator, you pay top whack, but there are scores of thirdparty alternatives that pack a surprising amount of power for a fraction of the price. Amadine is just such an app. A vector graphics application, Amadine is designed for both professional artists and the talented amateur. As you’d expect from a BeLight Software app, the tools are comprehensive and cutting-edge and the user interface as clean and intuitive as it can be, without sacrificing power. There’s a learning curve involved, as you’d also expect, though a few hours of practice can produce some surprisingly competent results and when you’ve mastered Amadine, the sky’s the limit. Take a look at the gallery…

This is what we were promised and this is what we’ve got. The new app from furniture store IKEA lets you browse their catalogue, pick out a piece of furniture and place it in your house using augmented reality. The camera on your iPhone or iPad shows the room in front of you, as always, and the app superimposes the chair, cupboard, bed, or other item, onto the screen. You can test it for size, rotate and move it around, and generally get a realistic idea of what it looks like in your house. You can even share a picture of it in place. Verdict LAST WORD This is the future of furniture shopping, and worth a look even if you don’t shop at IKEA. RATING: 4/5 Info Inter IKEA…

Odd one this, originally developed by Nik Software as seven individual plug-ins, the suite was bought by Google, and sold as a single package, before being bought by DxO, which added them to its own PhotoLab Essential app. And that brings us to this release, DxO Nik Collection 2, which works both within the supplied PhotoLab app and as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and Elements. By bundling the plug-ins with DxO PhotoLab as plug-ins through an image editor such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. Although this takes its toll on the price, as you can’t buy the plug-ins individually, it makes for an impressive and capable application package. PhotoLab Essential brings some great tools to the party and, with the addition of the seven Nik Software packages,…

Keeping tabs (literally) on all your oft-used browser pages can be a pain. Do you really want your Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Gmail, Spotify, Uber, LinkedIn and so-on stuck in your Safari browser as pinned tabs, taking up room and getting in the way? If so, Station could be the answer. It’s a browser specifically designed for oft-used productivity and social websites. Instead of browsing your way to the sites, you add apps and extensions that sit in a smart dock on the left of the window. Over 600 apps are available. Station uses its space very efficiently. For example, if you like to keep more than one tab open for a single page, e.g. a Dropbox tab for the home page and another for a project you’re working on, you…

If you own a Mac but want to use other operating systems too, virtualisation is the easiest way. Using a virtualisation app such as Parallels Desktop, you can install Windows, Linux distros and more on your Mac, and run them from inside macOS. You don’t even have to reboot. Parallels Desktop 15 makes significant advances on its predecessor. It’s fully compatible with Catalina and, with the Sidecar feature, even allows you to run Windows apps using your iPad as a second screen. If you like to play Windows, it supports DirectX 11, as long as you’re running Mojave or Catalina on your Mac. Utilising Apple's Metal API, Parallels 15 takes a significant leap forward with graphics-intensive apps, allowing even more Windows apps to run on your Mac, including pro-level software…

CleanMyMac X The ultimate Mac maintenance package. Optimise performance by cleaning out junk, safely uninstall applications, and seek out large and unused files. CloudMounter Mount your cloud services such as Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive, along with WebDAV, Amazon S3, and FTP servers, as if they were local drives. Bartender If you’re running out of space in your menu bar, you need Bartender. Organise your menu bar icons with this awardwinning software applications. Ulysses Another multiple award winner, Ulysses gives you a distraction free writing environment that’s perfect for creativity. Start your debut novel now. Disk Drill If you have a damaged drive you can’t access, or you’ve deleted a file by mistake, Disk Drill helps you recover it easily. …and over 160 more!…

The problem with annual updates is there might not be enough new material to justify the upgrade. The application itself might be great, but if you already have last year’s version, do the new features warrant another purchase? That’s what has happened here. For those unfamiliar with Photoshop Elements, it’s based on Adobe’s mighty (but expensive) Photoshop app, the industry-standard graphics editor, however it focuses on the home user rather than professional designers. It’s easier to use, but still offers extremely powerful features. The 2020 version adds a new pattern brush, the ability to colourise black and white photos, automatic skin smoothing, to perfect those portrait shots, oneclick selection and a few other bits and pieces. Adobe Photoshop Elements was, and is, an excellent graphics editor that’s perfect for those…

Since Apple stopped selling printed materials through the Photos app, third party companies have stepped up to offer similar services. Motif Photos is one such service. Available on the Mac, iPhone and iPad, the Motif app lets you design and purchase photo books (iOS and macOS), calendars (macOS only) and photo cards (macOS only). If you’ve ever produced a printed work using the Photos app, you’ll be instantly familiar with this. It’s easy to use, and versatile enough to give you some great layouts. On macOS, it runs natively within the Photos app itself, so you have instant access to your pictures without having to export albums and import them into another app. On iOS/iPadOS, it runs natively as an app, automatically curating and organising your pictures to get you…

If you have lots of videos you’d like to watch on your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV without transferring them to the device itself, Infuse 6 is just what you need. It can play a large range of formats, including MP4, M4V, MOV, MKV, AVI, WMV, MTS, ISO, VIDEO_TS and more. It can play them from a variety of locations too, streaming from your Mac, PC, your NAS server and more. You just open the app, point it to the video files stored on your network and Infuse 6 compiles them into a single list. It even adds metadata such as cover art and genre, which you can edit should your file be misidentified. It’s packed with features. You can browse your videos according to factors such as title or…

A whole new concept in digital messaging. WiWhen it comes to communication, the faster your merry missives are delivered, the better, right? Not according to this highly original social media app. The idea behind Slowly is to encourage more extended writing by introducing a delay into the conversation. Your messages take time to be delivered; the further they travel, the longer they take to get there. As a result, instead of the more conversational interactions made possible by Twitter, Messages and Facebook Messenger, a Slowly message is more like an electronic letter to a pen friend. As you know you're not getting an instant reply, you set down everything you want to say in one go instead of as a series of soundbites. After entering your birthdate, sex and nickname,…

Ever come across a video on YouTube and wished you could download it for offline viewing, or cut it to DVD and watch it on your living-room TV? Of course you have. Everybody has. With Airy, you can do just that. It's easy to use. Simply navigate to the YouTube video you want to download, then copy and paste the URL into the field in the Airy app, choose a resolution and click Download. You can download videos as MP4, FLV, and 3GP, with HD, 4K and 8K Ultra HD resolutions supported, or go for MP3 to download only the audio. Airy can also be integrated into most popular web browsers, such as Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Explorer too, to download directly from your bookmarks bar. If you've a…

Now here's a useful app to have on your phone. It can translate typed text into and out of 103 languages, as long as you've got an Internet connection. If you're offline, it can still translate 59 languages. If your typing finger is getting tired, you can simply point your iPhone's camera at a piece of text and translate it between 90 languages, or 50 languages at a higher quality if you use a photo. It can handle 95 languages using handwriting recognition and translate conversations in 43 languages. You can save translated words and phrases for future reference too. Naturally, it caters for all widely spoken European languages. It's a real boon for travellers. Not only can it make communication easier, if you're confused by signage or instructions, just…

Reddit is huge. It’s the fifth most visited site in the USA, and the 13th in the world. In a nutshell, it’s a socially run news aggregator; users post news items, links, and pictures on subjects that interest them, and other users then vote them up or down and add comments. It’s great for both information and entertainment, but the website can be unwieldy on a mobile device. That’s where Apollo for Reddit comes in. Developed by a former Apple engineer, Apollo makes sense of Reddit on your iPhone or iPad. Its simple interface belies some extremely powerful features that help you find your way around. There’s a jump bar for quickly navigating between subreddits, custom swipe gestures and a Dark Mode for those who prefer a darker screen. Taking…

The rise of the app brought hope to gamers that the days of invention that had been long stifled by the dominance of the huge names in gaming could be about to return. And for a while it really seemed this was the case, with the first generation of iOS games heralding classic apps that still top the charts today. Yet unlike their console cousins it wasn't the EAs, Activisions, Nintendos et al that spoilt our fun. No, it was greed! Greed in the form of micro-transactions, the one dirty word I will never become accustomed too. Why charge a few bucks for a game when you can sell the player success throughout its lifespan? Dr Mario World is a perfect example of the bottom line ruining a fantastic reimagined…

The First Person Shooter (FPS) hasn't faired too well on the Mac. At the genre's inception, PC gamers could immersive themselves in the depths of hell with Doom while we Mac owners tried to convince ourselves that Marathon was just as good. The Mac has never been judged as a gamer's machine. Yet, over the years the blurring of the internal specs and the sheer horse power of Apple's machines still hasn't seen a balance between Mac and PC gaming? For example: Activision's 2019 Mac release of their fantastic 2015 release, Call of Duty Black Ops III, yes it really has been over three years! The game is brilliant and offers everything you would expect from the franchise. A cinematic, single player mode, numerous multiplayer modes, and the Zombie Chronicles…

This game-streaming app has a rather colourful history. First promised in May of 2018, Steam Link was delayed by Apple rejecting it over and again due to ‘business conflicts’. A year later, those conflicts appear to have been resolved and it’s now available on all iOS devices, as well as Apple TV. The app is for streaming. The actual gameplay takes place on your Mac or PC, with the app beaming the video to your iOS device or Apple TV. As long as you have a decent Wi-Fi network, the experience is the same as if you were actually playing on the aforementioned devices. You can use a compatible controller or touchscreen controls, but you can’t make Steam purchases from within the app. We presume this is at Apple’s insistence.…

This rather odd title started out as a joke about billionaire Apple investor Warren Buffett’s childhood job as a newspaper boy, but then Apple released it, making it the first Apple iPhone game since 2008. You must work your way through Omaha, Nebraska (Buffett’s home city) and Cupertino, California (Apple’s HQ) avoiding vehicles, birds, and other obstacles as you deliver papers. Movement is on-rails and constant. You make your deliveries by pulling back on the touchscreen to set the trajectory, and releasing to throw the paper at the target. It’s fun, and free (no IAP). Verdict PROS AND CONS: + Good fun + Completely free - Not very original - Won’t last long LAST WORD No great cultural gem and a little derivative, but a pleasing way to pass a…

Have you ever killed a dragon? Have you donned your shining armour and hunted down your fire-breathing foe before hauling off his treasure horde? Fans of adventure games have probably done so a dozen times; killing the dragon has been an RPG trope since 1982’s The Hobbit, but Golden Treasure: The Great Green turns it on its head. Here, you have to be the dragon. Starting as a young hatchling, you must hunt prey, fight other dragons, gather treasure, and learn about the land of the Great Green as you grow to adulthood. Watch out for the ‘no-tails’, or humans, as they encroach onto dragon territory and hunt your kith and kin. We told you the trope is turned on its head. It’s a beautiful game; eschewing the usual pixels…

With the launch of each new generation of iOS hardware, the promise of a homeconsole experience at your fingertips draws ever closer. Over the last few years, as the experience blurred, I’ve spent more time playing games on my iPhone and iPad than on my consoles. After years of statements to the contrary, Nintendo entered the mobile market and their output has been mixed at best. Mario Run was great and showed how you could bring the core gameplay of the franchise to a new format unscathed. Can Nintendo work the same magic on arguably its second-biggest franchise, Mario Kart? Let's start with the positives, of which there are many. This game really does feel like Mario Kart. The touchscreen controls are initially a little awkward, but with some practice…

There’s something very pleasant in the way Untitled Goose Game starts. There’s a gentle piano tune playing in the background, and the graphical menus are large and well presented, it’s all very quaint. However, there’s nothing nice about the character you play: a particularly mean and vindictive goose. Untitled Goose Game, developed by House House and published by Panic Inc., lets you control a goose, loose on a rampage of mischief and terror. You’re tasked with a To Do list of objectives, based on your current location. You begin by inflicting all manner of trouble on a poor gardener. Move his rake into the village pond, steal his lunch, prize pumpkins and carrots, and lure him into a position where you can turn on the garden sprinkler and soak the…

From the pages of 2000AD, to the mobile screens of today, comes the legendary lawman Judge Dredd, in a zarjaz original tale from current Dredd writers. A card-collecting RPG, you get to build a deck of Dredd’s iconic weapons, including the Lawgiver, Lawrod, Stubb Gun and Daystick, along with a range of unarmed attacks to use on unsuspecting perps. It’s free to play, but you can spend real-world money on extra cards if you wish. Dredd and his world are well drawn, but barely animated, presumably to retain the comic-book styling. Dredd is voiced too, but it sounds more like your dad doing an impression of a tough guy than Mega City One’s greatest judge barking out his orders. However, the game’s real problem is it’s dull. Whether you’re beating…

Being an armchair pundit, manager, player, well; anything really, just as long as you can work on your sofa's butt groove at the same time, is the best job in the world. You answer to no one, you are paid well in self-worth and, most importantly, you're always right despite whatever you're told to the contrary. Obviously, as armchair football managers go, I'm one of the best! Each week, I know better than the current gaffer of my beloved football team, be it squad, formation, transfers, or even the away kit. Under my leadership, we wouldn't be facing relegation (AGAIN!) we would be looking toward Europe next season at the very least. Unfortunately, like all-too-many areas of life, it seems I'm wrong. Very wrong! Thanks a lot, Sega! But Football…

Clearly inspired by the much-loved Nintendo Entertainment System’s Tecmo Bowl, UK-based developers New Star Games’ Retro Bowl takes on the NFL. Gridiron has been a staple of gaming since the beginning. Much like soccer, with the development and advancement of the hardware on which we play, the pick-up-and-play fun has been diluted by realism. This is certainly not the case here. The casual style is a perfect fit for iOS. Gameplay is split into two genres; Roster management features press duties and maintaining the egos and fitness of your players (try to keep them fit, as an injury lasts forever!) The second is based on the playing field. Although featuring a full roster of teams, players and tactics, the gameplay and the plays themselves are limited but always fun. The…

As a film bore, I take huge joy in spotting onscreen references to other flicks or catching the unofficial inspirations for those 'mockbusters' that litter the darker recesses of Netflix. Good Job Games' Epic Race 3D doesn't look to the silver screen for its obvious and COMPLETELY unlicensed inspiration. Instead, it turns to the TV. Epic Race 3D takes its inspiration from Ninja Warrior, or American Ninja Warrior, or Sasuke in Japan; a gameshow that pits contestants against a huge and increasingly tough series of obstacle courses, with more than a dash of parkour and insanity. In any of its guises and locational re-brands, it’s brilliantly fun and unmissably entertaining. The game follows the basics of the TV show, albeit in smaller, bite-sized chunks of two or three obstacles per…

Described as ‘the definitive companion to the world’s most watched league’, the Premiership’s official iOS app is a comprehensive guide to this season in English football’s top tier. It’s a great way of following your team, or the League in general. The weekend’s Premier League matches are listed, with guides to each match and on which stations they can be watched or listened to. You can check out the current state of the league table, check your team’s latest news, review upcoming fixtures and more. You can even join the Premier League’s official fantasy football game. Although accessible and well presented overall, iPad owners might be irritated at how team names are frequently abbreviated despite there being plenty of room on the larger screen. It’s a pity the iPhone and…

It’s a simple concept. Yoink is a shelf on which to drag and drop folders, documents, and other data, using it as a temporary parking spot. Maybe you want to move a folder to a new location, or gather images before attaching them to an email. With Yoink, you can put them on the shelf (which doesn’t remove them from their original location), navigate to where you want them, and then drag them off again. It soon becomes so intuitive you miss it if it isn’t there. On iOS devices, it works in a similar way. Almost anything you can drag, copy, share, or download can be stored in Yoink for later retrieval, and you can copy to Yoink using the Share menu. The latest versions of Yoink for Mac…

When giving a presentation on your Mac, it’s easy for the pointer to get lost on the screen; a minor inconvenience for you, with your notebook right in front of you, but frustrating for your audience in the boardroom, or auditorium, watching a mirror of your screen on a 42-inch television. That’s where Mouseposé 4 comes in. A simple control panel lets you configure significant pointer effects, which make your presentations easier to follow. With a pre-recorded hot key, you can dim the screen, except for a userdefined circle around your pointer. When you click, the crowd are shown an expanding dot with, if you wish, an accompanying sound. Naturally, you can define different colours for different mouse buttons. You can also have a bar at the foot of the…

Agenda takes a new look at the note-taking app. Instead of individual notes stored in folders, like Apple’s Notes app, Agenda takes a date-based approach. You start projects (which can be arranged into categories) and then add notes to them, arranged in date order or dragged and dropped into a manual order. You can add files, links and other attachments to a note, as well as link them to Calendar events. Integration with the Reminders app is coming soon. Naturally, your notes are synced over iCloud or Dropbox, across both the Mac and iOS versions of Agenda. Both the iOS and Mac apps are free, with no time limits, but there’s an in-app purchase for premium features. This in-app purchase (£23.99/$24.99/27,99 €) permanently unlocks all current premium features and any…

Now here’s a useful app for when you take a stroll. Pedometer++ uses your iPhone to record how many steps you’ve taken and how many floors you’ve climbed. You can set daily and weekly goals, earn challenge badges, and keep track on how you’re doing using the companion Apple Watch app or the Today widget on the Notifications screen. It’s compatible with the Health app, so you can include its results in your overall fitness programme, and it’s free, with a small in-app purchase required to remove the very unobtrusive ads. Great fun! Verdict LAST WORD A useful and fun way of counting your steps. A lovely app that’s well worth having. RATING: 5/5 Info Cross Forward Consulting, LLC https://pedometer.app Free (IAP to remove adverts) Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later…

With its Affinity range of graphics software, Serif’s on-going attempt to eat Adobe’s lunch continues with Publisher, a desktop-publishing application that’s perfect for those that neither want, nor need, Adobe’s InDesign. Refreshingly eschewing the subscription model, Affinity Publisher is available for a very reasonable price considering its high-end, pro-level quality. One of its best features allows you, if you also have Affinity Photo or Designer installed, to use their features for editing pictures within Publisher; it’s called StudioLink. Just click the image you want to edit and the tools and menus from Photos or Designer appear, although you can still see the page layout. Publisher handles text very well, both in regular text boxes and in artistically produced headers. Font management is excellent, and you can define paragraph styles to…

It’s a great convenience to have your cloud services available as virtual drives, and the app is pleasingly unobtrusive too. After the 15-day trial, it’s available as a monthly subscription, but the £24.38/$29.99/27,20 € lifetime subscription for five Macs seems the best way to pay. Cloud storage is all well and good, but sometimes, you miss the convenience of having it all on a drive. However good a web interface is, an open Finder window on your desktop is so much more convenient. That’s where CloudMounter comes in. With CloudMounter, you can mount popular cloud computing services as if they were external hard drives. Dropbox, Amazon S3, OneDrive, Google Drive, WebDAV, and various FTP services are all covered and it’s easy to use. To add a service, simply click the…

The 18th release of Toast Titanium, Roxio’s long-established app for burning optical discs including data, DVD and more, brings few surprises. While its predecessor introduced a range of new features such as 64-bit compatibility, Dark Mode, multicam capture, and editing, this one is hardly changed from last year’s release. It even retains the bug where, on some Macs, accessing the photos media panel crashes the app and forces you to reinstall before you can use it again. As always, the Pro package includes extra software, which has been shuffled since Toast 17 Pro, but the core app – Toast 18 itself – gives little incentive to upgrade. If you own an older copy of Toast and intend to upgrade to macOS Catalina soon, an update is necessary. However, if you…

What a way to get the best seats in the house! LIVR (pronounced lie-ver) is a virtual reality theatre experience. Subscribe for £5.99 a month (or whatever that is in your local currency) and pop your iPhone in the free headset and you can enjoy a fully immersive 360-degree experience via the free app. It’s just like being there. Over 150 performances are currently available with more to come. Unfortunately, it’s not a Netflix-style all you-can-eat service. It’s more like Audible, with a month’s subscription buying you a single credit, which can be used to watch one show. Unused credits are rolled over, and if you don’t like a show you can email LIVR to get your credit back, as long as you’ve watched no more than 15 minutes. The…

Like its stable mate Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements is a version of a pro-level Adobe app designed for home users with less professional needs. The Elements version of Premiere is easier to use than its professional counterpart, but still very powerful. Like its Photoshop counterpart, Premiere Elements has three editing modes; Quick, only the most important tools; Guided, with tutorials; or Expert, giving full access to the app’s range of tools. You can edit your videos in all sorts of ways, including trimming the footage, combining videos and photos into a single movie, changing the sky, adding transitions, adjusting the audio and more. There are even templates on offer, making it even easier to create exciting movies quickly and easily. New features include an option to reduce noise and speckling,…

The long-awaited Photoshop for iPad finally arrived in early November, but not to universal applause. Many felt the app we finally got is not the one we were promised, and although billed as ‘the real Photoshop’, the final release is missing significant features. The main aim of Photoshop on iPad is to provide a companion app to the main Photoshop suite, so users can save their PSD documents in the cloud and work on them using their iPad while away from home. It manages this pretty well, but on your Apple tablet, you currently only have the most basic of features. Even straightforward functions such as rotating the canvas are impossible. To be fair, Adobe is wise to focus on having the iPad app use the same formats as the…

Slidepad is basically a web browser that sits off the desktop until you drag your mouse pointer to a userdefined edge of the screen. It can be as large or as small as you like, and when you’re done with it, you click an icon to hide it again. You can add as many ‘spaces’ as you like to the Slidepad window, either from the app’s list of popular web apps or by entering a URL. The advantages are clear. If you use services such as Gmail, Microsoft OneNote or One Drive, Google Calendar, Evernote and more, you can have them at your fingertips in a single mouse click. Or you could keep your social media and entertainment apps, such as Facebook, Netflix, Messenger and Readly on Slidepad, out of…

There’s more to this child safety app than you might think. At first glance, it’s an electronic diary that lets your offspring record their moods and emotions; functional, but unremarkable, you could say. But Own It’s real strength is its keyboard, which can be used across any iPhone or iPad app that requires one. Not only is it packed with emoji, gifs and other fun stuff, but it also recognises signs of cyberbullying, depression and more. If you type something threatening or offensive, you’re urged to reconsider. Enter personal details and you’re asked if you trust the person you’re messaging. If you seem to be having problems, you’re shown where to get help. Machine learning technology at the heart of the app analyses what’s being said, and learns the owner’s…

JustStream is an excellent alternative to AirPlay. It can stream video from your Mac to any AirPlay or Chromecast compatible device, as well as smart TVs from Samsung and LG, Roku boxes, Apple TV and Sony devices. It's great for viewing slideshows of photos with the family, for example, and as it can mirror your Mac's screen to the television, it's good for presentations and demos too, as well as playing movies and videos. You can queue videos and play them in sequence, no need to keep running to your computer room to load the next five-minute holiday movie. Subtitles are supported, and the entire app runs from a menu bar icon and is never in the way while you're streaming. It's very straightforward to use. Click on the JustStream…

Spam emails are the bane of everyone’s life. You know the sort of thing. Get rich quick schemes, we-know-your-password blackmail threats and some we won’t even describe. If you use email, you get spam. It’s as simple as that. Cleanfox is a free tool that helps you clean up your inbox and unsubscribe from mailing lists you no longer wish to receive. Pick out a rogue email, and with one click, you can get rid of it and all those like it. You no longer have to trawl through your mailboxes and delete the messages one at a time. It's easy to use. Just swipe an email right to keep it, up to delete it and left to delete and unsubscribe. It covers all the popular web-based email services such…

If you already use Microsoft’s To-Do app on the web, iOS, or Android, you’ll be pleased to know it’s been released as a Mac app. It doesn’t yet offer Planner integration, and we could do with a Dark Mode, but overall it’s a good combined GTD (Getting Things Done) app for those who need to be in Microsoft’s ecosystem. For everyone else though, you still can’t beat Wunderlist. Verdict LAST WORD A useful Mac release for a handy cross-platform app, but it needs some development before it challenges the Mac’s premiere GTD applications. RATING: 3/5 Info Microsoft Corporation https://todo.microsoft.com/en-gb Free Compatibility: macOS 10.13 or later, 64-bit processor…

Codemasters has long been the king of the rally sim, a position it maintains with DiRT 4. An in-depth simulation game with a pedigree dating back to the legendary Colin McRae Rally, it comes to the Mac courtesy of Feral Interactive. The game centres on rallying, driving from A to B as fast as possible with no other cars to beat. It’s just you against the clock. With no overtaking involved, the tracks are far narrower than in other games, presenting a new range of challenges. Best listen to your co-driver, who calls out forthcoming corners and hazards. When you’re done rallying, you can try out the buggy racing or rally cross, both of which take place on circuits, and involve you racing other cars, or vintage rallying in drives…

Story-driven puzzle games have always felt an uneasy pairing. By definition, the puzzle genre was devised as a quick-stop gaming fix rather than a sprawling narrative-driven adventure. This is why Nintendo sold a trillion GameBoys/Tetris packs back in the back in the dark ages. BeautiFun Games' rather misleadingly titled Professor Lupo and his Horrible Pets takes a fun and engaging maze-based puzzle and dilutes the experience with an under-developed plot and a questionable art style. The narrative, which attempts to build upon the learn the patterns, avoid/use the hazards and get-the-exit gameplay, falls almost entirely flat from the start. Our lead is so dull he isn't even given a name; it isn’t the titular professor, which is a little odd? This lack of excitement is reflective of the remaining cast,…

What’s in a name? Well, in the case of Almost Impossible 2, a lot of truth. This retro platformer really is almost impossible! You control a bouncing ball, incorporating a rather fetching pair of eyes, which bounces up and down automatically. By dragging your finger along the bottom of the screen, you set how far it travels horizontally, over pink spikes onto black or collapsible green platforms, gathering the gold rings. There’s 50 levels, but each one takes dozens of tries before you get it right. Thankfully, when you die the game lets you back into the action without delay. It’s great fun, and ideal for those who find most iOS games too easy. Verdict PROS AND CONS: + Cleverly designed + Simple yet fun + Inexpensive - Too difficult…

Retro gaming on modern hardware comes in various forms, ranging from emulation to the HD remake. There are flaws with both. For those seeking to recreate a vintage gaming experience, often the best option are games that wear their retro credentials on their sleeves. 3000th Duel is one such game, and a really good one at that. The narrative, regarding a nameless hero with no memory, plots a solid and pleasingly familiar gameplay, as anyone who has played games from the classic Castlevania franchise will attest. Visually it’s excellent. The retro 2D stylings are complemented by contemporary spot effects and lighting to bring the old and new together perfectly. The latter description is a perfect summation for 3000th Duel; the hack and slash/minor RPG gameplay is very much in the…

While SNK's The King of Fighters series never achieved the levels of popularity of beat-‘em-up legends like Capcom's Street Fighter or Midway's Mortal Kombat, the franchise continues to endure. It even has its own rubbish direct-to-DVD movie. Now this, the latest release in the series, has landed on the iPhone and iPad. The King of Fighters ALLSTAR breaks with tradition a little by moving the gameplay from the traditional one-on-one fighting style to the scrolling beat-‘em-up sub-genre. This decision will certainly alienate core fans, but bizarrely, this game works much better for those unfamiliar with the series. The gameplay retains the familiar control style, and direction-and-button-tap-combination special moves. The art style and character design are as attractive as ever, and the anime-style cut scenes are fantastic. The RPG and team-building…

If you've played the original Life is Strange, you'll be instantly at home with this sequel. The game mechanic hasn't changed; it's still a narrative-driven graphic adventure with the story interrupted – and guided – by regular multiplechoice options. These choices define the path the storyline takes and directly affect how it plays out. Like the first game, it's episodic, with the story split into five, self-contained chapters. However, this Mac version bundles all five together; we don't have to keep waiting for the next one to be released, as did console and PC gamers when it came out on those formats. It features a protagonist with a supernatural ability too. But for all its similarities, there's plenty that's new here too. The title no longer centres on college girl…

For a long time, I ignored the advice: "The app is best experienced via headphones." And that was silly of me. Audio hasn't played a huge role in my mobile gaming. Let me explain. The touchscreen of my iPad, or iPhone, activates an invisible barrier between myself and my wife's inane droning, aka telling me about her day. The inclusion of sound would break the spell and alert her of my utter lack of interest and force me to pay attention. Having the realisation that sound – via headphones of course – plays such an important role in the immersion into my gaming has done little to improve communication with my spouse. Yet it's a small price to pay to experience mobile games as they were intended. Having stressed how…