Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 228 i iCreate

“The amazing new incarnation of macOS is pretty in pink” If you’re counting the days until Apple rolls down its new wave of major software updates then we’ve got a treat in store for you this month – the full hands-on preview of Monterey, the amazing new incarnation of macOS that is pretty in pink. Interestingly though, with the new M1-powered Macs beginning to populate homes and offices around the world, many of Monterey’s key features are reserved exclusively for Apple’s super-Macs. Sadly, this means that the old Intel-based computers won’t be able to handle some of the more eye-catching components of Monterey, such as Live Text, on-device dictation and Maps’ new interactive globe. But don’t worry, there is still plenty for those of you with dustier machines to enjoy,…

JOURNALISTS, ACTIVISTS, AND OTHER GROUPS AROUND THE WORLD HAVE SEEN THEIR PHONES INFECTED WITH SPYWARE WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE — AND WITHOUT THEM HAVING TO TAP A THING TO INITIATE THE DOWNLOAD. Back in 2019, Pegasus, spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO, hit the global headlines for being put to use by some governments for snooping on human rights activists and journalists. Now, in a redux of the same story, a global investigation by a clutch of 17 media organisations along with Amnesty International and the Paris-based non-profit organisation Forbidden Stories has claimed that Pegasus was used to extract messages and information from the phones of journalists, politicians and activists in many countries, including India. Pegasus infects Android devices and iPhones, even without any interaction on the part of the…

Photos Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available As photographers, we can plan to be at a specific time and place in the hope of capturing the sun setting behind a scenic landmark. Apps such as the Photographer’s Ephemeris enable us to see precisely where (and when) the sun will rise and set on a map. However, despite our best plans we may not be able to capture a decent sunset shot. Fortunately, we can use the Photos app’s tools to tease out colour and texture to give our sunset more impact. This post-production processing is especially effective if we shoot in the Apple ProRAW format, because this gives us more to work with and leads to better results. The power of ProRAW Tease out extra colour and detail…

Garage Band Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed GarageBand’s Compressor plug-in is arguably the most important one. However it’s also one of the most misunderstood too. Doesn’t a Compressor squeeze and therefore thin my sound? Why is that good? Both are common, logical questions among novices. A Compressor helps to even out a sound wave, by eliminating the disparity between high peaks and low troughs. This is important for getting a more produced and professional sound for individual tracks, but also for the song, overall. This guide examines the plug-in itself while explaining some golden rules for using it correctly. Step-by-step Using the Compressor plug-in 1 Track Selection With an example project open, select a track. Ideally this will be an instrument such as guitar, bass, drums or vocals. Open Smart…

Safari Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Are you the sort of person that has 24 tabs open at a time in Safari? Sometimes we go a bit crazy with tabs – we have even heard of people having 50 or more. How do you manage so many tabs? One way is to organise them into groups or collections using bookmarks. For example, you could have one group for news, one for your interests, and one for work-related sites. It is up to you what to group together. Safari has a type of bookmark for multiple websites, and one click can open all the tabs. It is also possible to manually organise bookmarks into folders. It is a bit more flexible, and takes only two clicks to open all the…

System Preferences Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed If you are easily distracted by video streaming websites, social media sites, or other online content, then set time limits for websites. You can set a time limit for a single website, or for a whole group of websites, like all social media sites. If you get carried away with using them when you should be getting your work done, you will be notified that the allotted time has been exceeded. This will help keep you focused. As an administrator on your Mac, you can bypass any limitations – it’s just a gentle reminder that you need to stop wasting time. Standard users, such as a child’s account, can be locked with a PIN to prevent them exceeding limits. Screen Time limits…

ProtonMail Developer Proton Technologies AG Difficulty Time needed For those occasions when you need to send personal and private information that only the intended recipient can read, use ProtonMail (protonmail.com). Accounts are free, and the app is free on the iPhone. Email messages are sent through mail servers on the internet. Although communications between mail servers are secure, messages are decrypted on each server, which raises the possibility of them being read. ProtonMail encrypts emails from end to end so they are secure and cannot be read, even if intercepted. It is also a useful to have an alternative account as a backup to whatever you use in Apple Mail. Step-by-step Send/receive encrypted email messages 1 Get ProtonMail Download ProtonMail on the iPhone, and sign up for a free email…

Apple TV Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The Apple TV branding can be confusing. Aside from the Apple TV device, there’s the Apple TV+ subscription service and the Apple TV app. The latter lets you enjoy Apple TV+ on many devices, and watch content from many other streaming services, such as the BBC, Disney+, All 4, HBO Now and Hulu – depending on where you live. As such, Apple TV is a brilliant hub, bringing your favourite services together. Although you’ll be sharing your viewing data with Apple, you’ll benefit from recommendations, and you can pick up where you left off without hopping from one app to another. Here, we show you how to maximise your available content by discovering the services you can connect with. Step-by-step Add streaming…

Dawn Patrol Developer Dawn Patrol Surf Tracking Difficulty Time needed It is often the case that the most beneficial apps are the ones that are created by people who understand an activity inside out, and those who specialise in niche hobbies or sports. Surfing can, of course, not be accurately described as a niche, but an app that offers multiple benefits is a hard one to ignore for those who take the sport seriously. It tracks all of your surf sessions and will even count the waves. Many other data points, such as water time, are also included. As an added bonus, your surfing will be measured against your activity rings and you will get full credit for all of your efforts. We will show you how to set up…

Plex Developer Plex Inc Difficulty Time needed Although you can play lots of great modern games on your Apple TV, it’s hard to beat the nostalgia of a retro blast or two. With Plex Arcade – a subscription service that has a 30-day free trial – you can enjoy more than 20 Atari titles and even add your own emulators and game ROMs. Doing the latter isn’t as hard as you imagine: just place Atari, Sega and Nintendo ROMs into a folder on a Mac (or PC) running the Plex Media Server, and link to it when prompted. The main problem is the legality of doing so, but if you opt for legal homebrew games, then you can’t really go wrong. As a bonus, you can enjoy all of these…

David Crookes This issue, our iOS expert guides you on how to add streaming services to the Apple TV app, create your own podcast stations and watch YouTube videos in Picture in Picture. Shaun McGill Our tech expert shows you how to manage your health on iPhone by showcasing the best apps for the job and showing you how to collate all of the data into the Health app. George Cairns Our creative genius demonstrates colour editing in Photos and outlines how to give footage a Hollywood makeover. He also shows how to enhance your vlogs.…

iMovie Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available Thanks to social media platforms such as YouTube, you have the opportunity to express your opinions or share your hobbies as vlogs. You may even be able to earn cash from your vlogs. A key factor in attracting viewers to your channel is high production values. Shaky handheld camera work will put people off, especially when there’s better quality vlogs to view. Your iPhone may stabilise the footage, but this doesn’t stop the horizon getting tilted or your fingers getting in shot. Poor sound quality will also put people off subscribing. Luckily, you can improve your show’s production values using these tips. Enhance sound and vision Use gadgets to improve quality Gesture control The gimbal can be triggered to start recording…

Logic Pro Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available The term ‘articulation sets’ refers to the ability to control and switch between different playing styles, usually when working with sampled acoustic instruments such as strings or brass. Articulations enable you to achieve different types of sound – for example pizzicato, legato, staccato, etc. Developers of sound sample libraries include samples of these playing techniques to provide an interpretation of an instrument that sounds like it was played by a human. Logic’s own Studio Strings instrument contains a selection of several articulations, so follow along to learn how to switch between them to create ultra-realistic string parts. See ya later, articulater Use articulation sets to create more efficient string and brass parts CPU Saver This technique means that you don’t…

Disk Utility Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The problem with beta software is that it is unfinished and may be unstable, which is why installing it onto an external drive rather than your main Mac hard drive might be a sensible option. By installing the new macOS 12.0 Monterey beta on an external drive, you can connect it and choose it as your main startup disk whenever you want, with no harm to your main Mac HD. The only downside is that it is quite a time-consuming process, and you will need to install an official macOS release (such as Big Sur) on your external drive first. But once done, you’ll be able to explore the future of macOS now, without affecting your Mac’s HD. Step-by-step Set up your own…

Opera GX Developer Opera Software Difficulty Time needed Games demand a lot of the Mac’s hardware resources and they require processing power, graphics power, memory and internet bandwidth. It is hard running a game and using a browser at the same time because browsers are also demanding. They use high CPU, RAM and internet, which affects the game you are playing. It is a problem when chatting with others while playing a game using numerous services. But with Opera GX there are benefits for any Mac with limited resources, but it is clearly focused on gamers. It enables you to set CPU, RAM, and network limits to avoid impacting game performance. You can get Opera GX by going to opera.com. Step-by-step Get started with Opera GX 1 Check CPU usage…

Settings Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Every now and then, Apple issues an update that users say is draining the iPhone’s battery. This happened with iOS 14.6, and users are advised (albeit unofficially) to find out what apps are using excessive battery power and either close or remove them. It’s worth keeping an eye on your battery’s health too. Unfortunately, the iPhone’s battery is only designed to retain up to 80 per cent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. But how do you know how many cycles your iPhone has completed, given the information is not included in the Battery section of the Settings app? Simple! Follow the steps below. You know how to charge your iPhone, but how healthy is the battery? Monitor the health…

YouTube Developer Google LLC Difficulty Time needed YouTube is the most popular video service but not without problems. The lack of a Picture in Picture mode for iOS users, for instance – a feature that allows videos to be watched in a floating window so that you can use other apps. Android users have had this function for a while and now you can too – but at a cost. YouTube has been rolling out Picture in Picture for YouTube Premium subscribers only in the first instance. It plans to widen that to all iOS users in the United States but whether other countries will also benefit remains to seen. Still, it’s a step in the right direction and, if you have YouTube Premium, then we’ll show you how to…

iPadOS Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed When the iPad launched, you could only work on one app at a time. It made some tasks difficult, like browsing Safari while taking notes, so there was a cheer when multitasking arrived. It has allowed you to have apps sitting side-by-side or floating on top of others. Thanks to the magic of drag-and-drop, you can grab text, images or files from an app and move it to another. With a slight drag of the first item, you can select others to move in bulk. Here is a refresher on how Slide Over and Split View work. We also touch on Picture in Picture and look at the App Switcher. Don’t forget App Expose, though. If you long-press an app icon and tap…

Watch to 5K – Couch to 5km Run Developer Ben Callis Difficulty Time needed The thought of running just over three miles may sound ridiculous if you don’t usually run long distances, but it has been proven to be feasible for most people, if they follow a set routine. Commonly called ‘Couch to 5K’, the Watch to 5K app is designed to make the experience as portable as possible. It is so minimal that there isn’t even a functional iPhone app to sit alongside it, but this does not affect the functionality in any way. You can install it, put on your running shoes, give the first run a try and you may be surprised at just how easy it is! Even if the first run is impossible, you can…

Download available Tutorial project files All the assets you’ll need to get creative with our projects. Look out for the above icon to see if there are downloads available. Exclusive video tutorials Discover how to get more out of your devices with a selection of iOS and macOS video guides from MacMost. Loads of other cool stuff! Customise your Mac with stunning wallpapers, grab some royalty-free fonts and watch more how-to guides. Log in to www.filesilo.co.uk/icreate Register to get instant access to this pack of must-have creative resources, how-to videos and tutorial assets For digital readers too! Read on your tablet, download on your The home of great downloads – exclusive to your favourite magazines from Future Publishing Secure and safe online access, from anywhere Free access for every reader,…

Final Cut Pro Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available Your iPhone captures colours and detail throughout shadows, midtones and highlights. By using Final Cut to adjust hue, saturation and lightness you can change the mood of your footage and give it a more cinematic look. Traditional filmmakers use the bleach bypass process to produce desaturated colours and strikingly high contrast. You could mimic this technique by using Final Cut’s drag-and-drop Bleach Bypass effect but it tends to look over-processed. We’ll show you how to recreate the look so you can explore a range of colour and tonal grading techniques. We’ll add letterbox bars to evoke a widescreen shape. Get the look Adjust colour, tone and shape Sound Our original seaside source footage suffered from wind noise. By searching…

System Preferences Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed If you have an iPhone, you will be used to switching to Low Power Mode to reduce the device’s power consumption and make the battery last longer. It is essential when it drops below 20 per cent, and you still need to use your phone. This low power mode is coming to the next version of macOS, and will enable MacBooks to reduce power consumption and keep you working that little bit longer. But you do not have to wait until Monterey is released later this year to save power on your MacBook; you can do it now. It is not as simple as clicking a button to turn on Low Power Mode, but it is not difficult to cut power usage.…

Safari Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed You will be aware of the need to protect your identity, your bank accounts and your passwords by now and also of the threats that can be avoided with some simple measures. To this day, however, no matter how sophisticated the threats become we still largely rely on passwords to gain access to accounts and because of this we really do need to do everything we can to keep them noted securely. It makes a lot of sense to change them regularly and to use a different password for every account, but this can be hard to manage without help. We will show you how macOS can do a lot of this work for you and how a third-party app can also help…

Getting a new Mac up and running requires little more than signing in to iCloud and choosing a few basic options. However, we often spend a whole day setting it up, installing apps and customising the settings. Whether you have just bought a new Mac, or freshly installed macOS, here are some of the most useful and important settings that you can customise before you properly start usng your Mac. Most of the settings are in System Preferences, but some are elsewhere, such as in Finder. Many are visual settings, some are security-related, and a few change how macOS works. These are our preferences and yours may be different, but hopefully they will inspire you to customise your new Mac or fresh macOS installation. Essential security tweaks Quick tweaks in…

Amazon Alexa Developer AMZN Mobile LLC Difficulty Time needed Alexa is built into a number of smartspeakers, from the Amazon Echo, and the smaller, inexpensive Echo Dot, to speakers made by Sonos, Audio Pro, Ultimate Ears and more. They’re great alternatives to Apple’s HomePod minis: some are cheaper, while others are better quality. But does buying an Alexa-enabled speaker mean you’re stuck with Amazon Music? Well, no. If you decide to buy an Alexa-enabled speaker, you can link your Apple Music account to Alexa. In fact, the only difference you’ll feel is that you’re calling on Alexa rather than Siri before kicking back with your favourite tunes. Step-by-step Link Apple Music to Alexa 1 Launch Alexa app To set up your Alexa-enabled speaker, such as an Amazon Echo, you’ll have…

Podcasts Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed One of the most useful features of the Podcasts app is Stations. It gives you the ability to produce playlists of the shows you love, and have the app play the latest episodes. Once you’ve set up a station, you can kick back and enjoy episode after episode knowing the app is pulling in completely fresh content – you can even tell it to skip anything you’ve already heard. You’re not limited to just one station. You can set up as many as you wish around any theme. Just follow the relevant podcasts then set each one of them up. You can add as many or as few shows as you wish. Step-by-step Set up a podcast station 1 Create a new station…

Shortcuts are a feature of iOS and iPadOS that do not get the recognition they deserve. Some people understand what they can do – usually those who are capable of coding to some degree – but they are in fact designed for all of us, and can be used for anything, from saving a few seconds here and there to creating complex automations that will help you get things done more efficiently. Toolbox Pro is an app that utilises shortcuts where it can, outside of Apple restrictions, and it will also help you to discover and install new solutions that will most certainly be of benefit. There is no single way to use Toolbox Pro, and indeed the Shortcuts app, but we will do our best to highlight the most…

Weathergraph weather forecast Developer Thomas Kafka Difficulty Time needed There are very few Apple Watch apps that are wholly standalone and that do not come with an iPhone app host, but this is the case with Weathergraph. It is designed to display the weather conditions and forecasts in a way that maximises the space available, and we have to say that in terms of the design it is a winner. It almost feels like a trick when you first look at a Weathergraph complication because there is so much information included, but once you understand what you are looking at, it becomes hard to consider any other Apple Watch weather option. We will explain how it works and what you can do with it, but we are confident that you…

£179.99/$199.99 Key features Backlit keyboard • High-precision trackpad • Smart connector Learn more logitech.com Available from amazon.co.uk WITH APPLE DOING ITS OWN BIT TO BLUR THE LINES BETWEEN MACS AND iPADS by enabling more cross-over between devices, third-party peripheral companies such as Logitech, have been aiding the cause by releasing cool contraptions like the Combo Touch that instantly turn your iPad into a Mac in all but name. Track and trace With many of us likely to continue flexible working, iPad keyboard cases are proving themselves as effective tools for hot-desking or home working and provide a cost-effective way of creating a lightweight laptop. And the Combo Touch, recently updated to accommodate the iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) and iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation), is as good as they get…