Indholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2025 i Essential Apple User Magazine

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FRITZ!Fon Phones FRITZ!Fon X6 Wirelessly connect a FRITZ!Fon such as this X6 model to your router and you can put it anywhere in the house; it doesn’t need its own telephone socket. FRITZ!Fon C6 The FRITZ!Fon C6 is a great all-rounder, with high-definition audio, a great colour display, long battery life and even a built-in media player! FRITZ!Fon M2 The FRITZ!Fon M2 has a black and white screen, but it boasts the same quality features as the other phones. It even has email and RSS feeds.…

At the IFA 2024 technology show, AVM introduced the FRITZ!Box 4690, another new Wi‑Fi router that can be easily connected to an existing modem to offer the full FRITZ! experience on any type of connection, including fibre. Just the thing if you have fibre optic Internet, but the router your ISP gave you to go with your modem isn’t very good. The FRITZ!Box 4690 shares the full fibre optic bandwidth of up to ten Gbit/s via its ten Gbit/s WAN (Wide Area Network) port, which is a ten Gbit/s LAN port. The router also has three 2.5 Gbit/s LAN ports for fast cable connections across the entire home network. If your computer is close enough to your router, for example, you can plug in an Ethernet cable for a direct…

1 A cabled connection, using Ethernet, is easy. Using an Ethernet cable, like the one pictured here, connect one end to your FRITZ!Box (one of the yellow ports) and the other to the Ethernet port on your computer or Internet device. These cabled connections are known as your LAN (Local Area Network). 2 To connect a Mac to your wireless network using Wi-Fi, click on the Wi-Fi icon in the right hand side of the top bar, and find your wireless network’s name (this is called the SSID) in the list. Select it, and enter the FRITZ!Box’s wireless password, which is found on a sticker on the base of the router. 3 If you use a Windows device, click the Wireless icon in the bottom right corner of the taskbar. Click on your…

Device Guide While most of our reviews cover most devices, we have added these icons to give you a quick reference to what device is best suited for the product or software.…

The StormBox 2 offers a great feature set for the price. Building on the success of its predecessor, the new speaker has 34W of peak power, two 48mm full-range speakers, 24-hour playback time and the latest Bluetooth 5.3 technology, which gives a range of up to 150 feet. XBASS technology really delivers at the lower end of the sound spectrum, and you can pair two StormBox 2s with one as the left channel and the other as the right. It’s IPX7 waterproof, which means it can be submerged in water of up to a metre in depth for 30 minutes without coming to any harm. Just the thing for pool parties. There’s an app for it too, with an equaliser you can tune to your own tastes. A versatile portable…

Norwegian company reMarkable achieved considerable success with its reMarkable and reMarkable 2 paper tablets, and now it has followed them up with the reMarkable Pro, a larger device that offers colour. Featuring an 11.8-inch colour display, adjustable reading light and unmatched paperlike writing feel, reMarkable Paper Pro is designed to help knowledge workers capture, refine, and elevate their thoughts in a world full of distractions. For the first time on a reMarkable paper tablet, users can write and read in colour. This experience is made possible by reMarkable Paper Pro’s biggest innovation; the new Canvas Colour display stack, custom-made by reMarkable. The introduction of colour creates completely new opportunities to express, visualise and arrange thoughts. You can sign a contract in blue pen, mark up a report in red ink…

We mentioned the FRITZ!Box 7690 in this issue’s big AVM feature, but as it’s brand new and very popular, let’s give it a showcase too and go into more detail. The FRITZ!Box 7690 offers a great performance for DSL Internet connections. It features Wi-Fi 7 for top Wi-Fi speeds, Supervectoring for DSL up to 300 MBit/s and a 2.5 Gigabit WAN for use with the fibre optic modems. Thus you can use it with a wide range of Internet connections; if you have a DSL service, the built in DSL modem is used. If you’re on a full fibre connection, connect the router to the fibre modem supplied by your ISP. Speedy Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 7 brings top Wi-Fi speeds and offers even more powerful connections for multiple devices. It’s therefore…

With six main modules, a smart assistant, and 25+ tools, the new CleanMyMac features a fresh design, serving as the go-to central place for optimising, decluttering, and maintaining Macs with ease. The all-new design introduces smart, intuitive tools for Mac optimisation, decluttering and system performance, built within a fresh, 3D animated interface that makes Mac management not just easier, but enjoyable. The new CleanMyMac truly serves as the go-to central place for all Mac users’ needs. The new CleanMyMac introduces a next-level design. It offers a completely reimagined experience for for when you Clean, Protect, Optimise and Maintain your Macs. The sidebar has been rebuilt with fewer modules and more organised category groups for streamlined navigation. The app’s Assistant acts as a go-to resource for ensuring your Mac receives the…

When faced with a video no other app can open, most Apple users turn to the popular (and free) VLC. But there’s another option. Infuse is also free, with extra features available with an IAP, it’s available on Macs, mobile devices and Apple TV, and it’s far more Apple-like than its open source rival. This new version, Infuse 8, features fresh new designs for all devices, revamped app internals, new player controls, and an all-new app for Apple Vision Pro. As well as enjoying the full array of Infuse powerful features available on other devices on a massive virtual screen, Vision Pro users get additional Vision-specific features such as 3D video and immersive environments. Some of these features are in progress, and will be available soon. Changes… Lots of things…

What an incredible game. Already a hit on the consoles, Feral Interactive’s Mac port was equally well received at the end of 2023. Now Feral has brought it to the iPad and iPhone, and made no compromises on the quality. There’s no compromise on the cost either. The entire game is available at a budget price, with nothing else to play. All DLC that was available for the console and desktop computer editions is already included in this Deluxe Edition. The game makes very high demands on your hardware, though. On the iPad, you need the latest iPad mini or a tablet with an Apple Silicon chip. To run it on your iPhone, you need an iPhone 14 or later, though if you have a Pro model you can use…

Feral Interactive has released a lot of SEGA’s Total War games on Apple gear, and now yet another one is here. Once again it blends turn-based empire management and tactical real-time battles. Set in the 18th Century’s age of exploration, conquest and revolution, it features intuitive touch controls, a redesigned UI and new quality-of-life features suited to mobile play. Total War: EMPIRE invites players to lead the great European powers during a turbulent era of rapid scientific advances, momentous political change and widespread military conflict. Commanding one of 11 playable factions on a Campaign Map spanning Europe, India, and the Americas, you must consolidate your domestic power while racing to establish a foothold on new continents. Through shrewd diplomacy or sheer might, each faction looks to strengthen its global standing…

Berlin-based networking company AVM is world-famous for its FRITZ!Box range of routers. In its native Germany, around 80% of Internet users have a FRITZ!Box, and the brand is catching on all over Europe too. The company has some exciting releases for early 2025, which are either already out or imminent, depending on where you live. So let’s take an in-depth look at the brand new FRITZ!Box 7690, 4050 and 4690, as well as a quick peek at other products in the FRITZ!Box range. Your FRITZ!Box can be the hub for your entire home network, including repeaters for Mesh, smart home products and even DECT phones.…

DSL routers like the 7690 on the previous page consist of two parts; a modem and a router. The modem brings the Internet into your home by converting an outgoing digital signal into an analogue format suitable for transmission over the phone lines, and converting incoming data back into that digital format. The router then directs incoming traffic on your home network to whichever device requested it. For example, if you want to watch a Netflix movie on your TV, your smart TV sends the request through the router to the Internet, and the movie is then streamed from the Internet to your modem before being passed to the router and directed to y our television. If you don’t need a modem bundled with your router, you could buy a…

More Routers from FRITZ!Box FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro Includes Wi-Fi 7, including the new 6 GHz band, for fibre optic or DSL connections. Offers. Zigbee and DECT for the FRITZ! smart home too. FRITZ!Box 5590 Fibre The 5590 supports fibre optic connections at up to ten Gbit/s, has Wi-Fi 6 and the 2.5 gigabit WAN port transforms into a data turbo for your local network. FRITZ!Box 5530 Fibre Thanks to the exchangeable modules, the FRITZ!Box 5530 Fibre can be used flexibly on all common European fibre optic connections.…

Finding Your FRITZ!Box Controls 1 Regardless of what model you have, you can access the FRITZ!Box’s settings interface using a regular web browser. Here we’re using Safari on a Mac, but it can be any browser and any Internet device, as long as it’s connected to your FRITZ!Box, either wirelessly or through Ethernet. 2 To access the FRITZ!Box interface, type ‘fritz.box’ in your browsers address bar, seen here at the top of the window, and press Return/Enter. You’re taken to the router’s log-in screen, where you should enter the password you’ve set up to access the FRITZ!Box, and then click Log In. 3 If you haven’t set up a password yourself, use the default password for your router. This can be found on the sticker on the back of your FRITZ!Box. Here, as…

Drones have come a long way over the last few years, and are now used for all sorts of tasks. But they’re not always practical to carry around, and can often be a bit of a ‘faff’ to set up and fly, especially if you’re trying to capture a moment quickly. Selfie drones are not new as such, but they have really started to progress to a level where they are now portable and affordable. DJI has been at the forefront of drones for many years, and are the market leader by a country mile (as the drone flies of course!). Back in August 2024 it properly ruffled the feathers of the drone community by launching the Neo. A pocketable drone with covered props and weighing in at a feather-light…

This attractive 27-inch screen is built with gamers in mind. It runs at 165Hz with a response time of up to 1ms, for super speed. It’s height-adjustable, and can be rotated through 90 degrees if you want to use it in portrait mode. Connectivity is through HDMI or DisplayPort, so you need an adapter or hub to connect it to most modern Macs. It has a 2560 x 1440 Quad HD resolution, which isn’t quite 4K, but it’s pretty close. On-screen text certainly looks clear and well realised. It’s not quite retina-quality – if you look closely, you can see the pixels – but given the price, it doesn’t disappoint. Amazing Images It’s great at reproducing images too. Our Photodisc test picture looked sharp and precise, with great flesh tones.…

Projectors are great fun, but they have a few drawbacks. Until recently, picture resolution was an issue. Also, they can be inconvenient to place. The BenQ GP520 addresses these problems, with 4K video in a projector designed specifically for modern open-plan living spaces. Perfect for young families who value quality time together, the GP520 delivers the onboard cinema experience of Netflix and Google TV with premium 2600 ANSI-lumen HDR picture quality and ambient adaptive technology, coupled with smart auto setup for stunning viewing quality, regardless of the wall colour, lighting conditions, or room layout. Movie Time! Delivering a viewing experience superior to that of other home projectors, the GP520’s Auto Cinema Mode uses smart environmental detection to adjust image settings in real-time, ensuring exceptional colour performance across various wall colours,…

What a lovely way to enjoy your pictures. Looking Glass Go is a spatial display for holographic memories. It’s more than just a photo frame. Its companion iPhone app turns 2D photos into 3D holograms. You can see your snaps in 3D, with no headset required. It’s easy to set up and use. Download the app, and connect the Looking Glass Go picture frame to your 2.4GHz WiFi. You can then upload photos to the device using your iPhone. The software uses advanced image conversion to add depth to your photos, instantaneously giving them a great 3D effect. If the picture isn’t up to scratch as a hologram, you can use the app’s editing features to fine-tune it. You can update the focus, depth and zoom level of your hologram,…

The latest release of BeLight Software’s Art Text 4.4 adds a great new feature – Artificial Intelligence. The app still makes it quicker and easier for graphic designers to create exciting headlines and lettering, with a great range of professional text and typography effects. But the Art Text 4.4 update introduces the AI Wizard that enhances graphics created within Art Text or generates entirely new designs based on the user’s prompts. Like all BeLight products, it’s much easier to use (and cheaper!) than pro-level apps such as Photoshop. You can get excellent results far quicker with Art Text. That’s not to say there isn’t a learning curve, but the balance between professional-quality features, outstanding results and ease of use is a good one. Getting You Started To help get you…

Apple’s Fitness+ service has an exciting lineup of new ways to stay active and mindful in 2025. Offerings include new programs for strength, pickleball, yoga, and breath meditation, and a new collaboration with Strava. Apple Fitness+ kicks off the new year with a progressive strength training program designed to take the guesswork out of putting together the perfect routine, along with a conditioning program for pickleball, one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. A new workshop-style yoga program helps users improve their skills with popular peak poses, while a breath meditation program supports managing stress, boosting energy, and enhancing focus. The Artist Spotlight series features more of music’s biggest stars, including Janet Jackson, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and Kendrick Lamar, while new Time to Walk episodes feature Adam Scott, Rita Ora, Daddy…

If you like your massively multiplayer online strategy games and prefer serious, military-based offerings to fantasy or cartoon-like titles, you probably know about Warpath already. Developed and published by Shanghai-based Lilith Games for PC, iOS and Android devices, it has achieved around 40 million downloads since it first launched three years ago. A new update adds a brand-new Naval Force system featuring nearly 100 unique, realistic ships across six major combat categories. All ships bring unique strengths and weaknesses, adding a new layer of strategy in battle. This Naval fleet replicates iconic vessels from World War II to modern times, including the Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier, Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer and Project 971 Class Submarines. Each ship in the fleet is designed to replicate its real-world combat capabilities, delivering a dynamic and…

ARK: Ultimate Mobile Edition is a new free adaptation of the popular prehistoric exploration game ARK. It features the full-scale ARK: Survival Evolved experience found on PCs and consoles, plus all the ARK Expansion Packs; Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Genesis Parts 1 & 2 the fan favourite Ragnarok community-created map and more. It features gigantic worlds to explore, taming and training of over 150 dinosaurs and primeval creatures, multiplayer tribe dynamics and, of course, crafting and building, all while setting a new standard for graphical and feature expectations on mobile devices. The app launches with the original ARK Island Map, Scorched Earth and Aberration expansion maps. All additional expansions will be available by the end of 2025. Do the Dinosaur In this free experience, ARK players are stranded naked, freezing…

The new FRITZ!Box 7690 is AVM’s flagship router. Setting new standards in terms of speed, performance and versatility, it can be used in all DSL networks and achieves speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s on the connection. So if your current router supplied by your Internet Service Provider is an ADSL model connected to your phone line, you can upgrade to a FRITZ!Box 7690. The FRITZ!Box 7690 supports the brand new Wi-Fi 7 wireless protocol on both the 5 GHz and the 2.4 GHz bands. Wi-Fi 7 – also known as IEEE 802.11be, and EHT (Extremely High Throughput) – is a revolution in wireless networking. It can transfer data at much faster speeds, has lower latency and can support more devices connected to the router simultaneously. Thanks to its 4x4…

Apps for FRITZ!Box MyFRITZ!App MyFRITZ!App for iOS and Android lets you access your FRITZ!Box remotely to retrieve FRITZ!NAS content or operate Smart Home appliances. FRITZ!App Fon Make landline calls via your smartphone or tablet with this app. HD telephony and Bluetooth headset support ensure full flexibility when working remotely. FRITZ!App TV FRITZ!App TV great for FRITZ!Box Cable. You can watch and stream unencrypted channels from your cable provider on your iPhone and iPad.…

1 If you didn’t get your FRITZ!Box router from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you have to set it up. Go online, and get the instructions from your ISP’s help page. Here, for example, is the settings page for the UK ISP TalkTalk; select the one that’s appropriate for your router, and print it out. Follow the guide that came with the router to plug it in. 2 If your computer isn’t connected to the router through an Ethernet cable, wait for the WLAN light to come on, and log onto the router using Wi-Fi. It may take a minute or two to appear. Open a web browser, and type ‘http://fritz.box’ in the address field. You access the router’s interface from here, which is where you change its settings. 3 You now need…

If you use your Mac notebook as a desktop when at home, connecting it to an external screen, you’ll want to hear about BenQ’s new MA range. These new displays are specially designed for MacBook users. Physically, it boasts a sleek style that perfectly complements MacBooks, and they set a new standard for external macOS monitors by providing perfect colour consistency and seamless integration with Mac devices. The series launches with two screens; the 32-inch model showcased here, and a 27-inch version, the MA270U. But what’s so special about them? “Most external monitors struggle to replicate the exact colours displayed by MacBooks,” said Peter Huang, CEO of BenQ Corporation. “MA Series debuts our proprietary Mac colour-tuning technology, ensuring MA Series monitors provide consistent, true-to-life Mac colours that perfectly match those…

Swann Security’s SwannBuddy4K Video Doorbell introduces SwannShield, which is described as the world’s first AI-powered home security Voice Assistant. SwannShield engages with visitors in real-time across different scenarios, from package deliveries and identifying guests to deterring potential criminals. SwannShield uses the latest adaptive generative AI technology and user instructions to respond to visitors with natural, human-like interactions when they press the doorbell. When activated, homeowners can benefit from the first smart doorbell complete with an AI Voice Assistant that can speak to visitors or intruders on their behalf with a realistic voice in a British accent — even when they are not present. These messages are not prerecorded, but are dynamic, AI-generated responses reacting to the specific situation. Getting Personal You can personalise SwannShield, activating it at the times you…

The revolutionary Professional Go Portable SSD with Hub is a simple concept. Plug it into your mobile device’s USB-C port, and it acts as an external drive. Use the hub section as well, and you can connect peripherals such as microphones too. It’s great for shooting seamless video from a mobile phone, especially ProRes videos on the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max. It’s compact (about the size of your thumb, and weighs only 13 grams. It’s available in 1TB and 2TB capacities, delivers USB 3.2 Gen 2 performance with 1050MB/s read speeds, 1000MB/s write speeds for shooting Apple ProRes 4K 60fps video, and you can perform post-production processes right on the drive. Flexible Friend The flexible combination of the portable SSD and hub, which features four…

Carbon Copy Cloner has long been the Mac’s favourite tool for cloning your hard drive. It’s the perfect companion to a Time Machine backup. If one of your drives goes down, with a recent clone you can be up and running again within minutes. You can set up tasks to be carried out automatically according to a schedule too, so you can forget about it until something goes wrong. This seventh version of the application offers several new features. There’s a Backup Volume Setup Assistant that prepares a backup drive, formatting it in the best way for your backups. Permanent Snapshots allows you to mark a specific backup as one you don’t want to be overwritten, even incrementally. This is great if you want to clone your drive before updating…

Macs are far less prone to malware maladies than their Windows-based counterparts, but no computer is immune. It’s always wise to install security software just in case. ESET Home Ultimate is the company’s top-of-the-range suite, and has all the features you’d expect from a security package. Naturally, it keeps the viruses at bay, and also offers anti-spyware facilities too. If someone tries to add software to your Mac that allows criminal groups to access it, ESET will identify and neutralise it. Emails are scanned as they arrive and potential threats identified, and the entire package runs in the background, its very small system footprint taking up very few resources. Online ‘orrors. When web surfing, it’s easy to stray onto the wrong site and have your Mac compromised. Thankfully, ESET Home…

Do you want to keep up with today’s technology? Are you interested in how to use the best electronic gear around? You need a Papercut magazine! To celebrate the grand reopening of our official Papercut online store, where you can buy all our print and digital titles, we’re giving away over £10,000-worth of titles. Our great give-away is easy to enter. Just point your web browser at our Facebook and/or our Instagram page, and like, follow and share it. The first 501 people on Facebook and the first 501 people on Instagram each win one of our digital titles, which we’ll send as a web link and a download code. It’s only one win per person, but if you like, follow and share both our Facebook and Instagram pages, you’ll…

City of Springs is an exciting new cyberpunk adventure from indie developers Alterego Games and The Naked Dev. You play as Val, a brilliant mechanic from the big slum district of the last city on Earth. A cruel and strict regime controls every aspect of life in the city, and any transgression is taken out of your rations. The city is like a broken clock. Someone has to stand up to the ministries and fix it, and guess what? That someone is you! To take the fight to the government you must craft and modify robot drones to fight the robotic guards of the city in one-on-one duels, where timing and strategy are key. You explore the city’s nooks and crannies for resources to help craft new abilities, help the…