Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i MacFormat

The more things change, the more they stay the same – and that’s certainly the case with the new version of macOS that Apple revealed at WWDC 2020. macOS 11 Big Sur marks both the end of the OS X era and the beginning of a whole new one - the transition to custom-designed Apple silicon inside Macs rather than Intel – and yet virtually all the things we love about macOS are still intact, just more elegant and refined. Certainly, the future for the Mac looks to be an exciting one. While Apple hasn’t spelled out exactly how its silicon roadmap will evolve, we do know that part of that future is already here – for one thing its macOS 11 demo at WWDC 2020 was conducted entirely on…

1 ShiftCam MultiLens case for iPhone 11 Pro £100 > shiftcam.com If the triple-lens camera array on the iPhone 11 Pro isn’t doing it for you then maybe this MultiLens case from ShiftCam will. It packs five separate lenses in a patented slider mechanism that lets you quickly switch between each one – no offboard lenses needed (although ProLens add-ons are also available). As Steve Jobs used to say “It just works”. The supplied lenses are cool too: you get a 180-degree Fisheye, a 4x Telephoto, 10X and 20X Macro lenses and a circular polariser, while the case (available in transparent and black) has a lens cover. Say “cheese”. 2 Marshall Emberton £130 > marshallheadphones.com/gb/en While its design may echo the Marshall stack speakers of yore, the Emberton is tiny…

Suffice to say, it’s been a pretty weird year, and despite the familiarity of sitting down to watch Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on live stream – after all, only a lottery-selected coterie ever got to attend in person – there was little sense of normality when Tim Cook walked out on stage in an empty Steve Jobs Theater. But what followed, in an impeccably produced two-hour keynote and more than 100 online video briefings, was a reassuringly Apple-like picture of progress, polishing and surprises. For the Mac, not only does the long-expected shift to Apple’s own chips finally become official (see p6), but macOS takes a leap forward to version 11 with what software chief Craig Federighi called a “major new design” delivering “unmatched levels of power and beauty… the…

A mini Mac? We’re kidding – Apple’s platforms each have their own distinctive personality – but the proliferation of features like multi-paned apps and menus undeniably lends iPadOS some of the feel of a desktop operating system. In iPadOS 14, sidebars become a major element of apps like Photos, Files, Notes, Calendar and even Apple Music, using the screen space lacking on iPhones to provide permanently visible navigation. It’s a departure from the tendency of iOS to hide functions behind gestures. But there are still almost no UI cues for iPadOS’ split-screen multitasking options, which remain powerful but invisible until you know the trick. Universal search Previously, to search in iPadOS you dragged down on the Home screen and the display was taken over by a search bar and Siri…

Fantastical has an excellent weapon hidden in its arsenal: calendar sets. These let you quickly change tasks and events you see on your calendar, adding flexibility to your daily and weekly outlook. That means instead of a single calendar that is crowded with work, personal and family tasks, you can separate your events into different sets and view each individually. That helps to keep you organised and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. Interesting Calendars A lot of calendar apps include public holidays and anniversaries, and Fantastical is no different. But Flexibits’ app goes one further, letting you add ‘Interesting Calendars’. For example, you can add fixtures for the upcoming football season so you never miss an important game, or you could include the weekly schedule for your favourite TV channel.…

If you’re musically minded, you’ve probably used Voice Memos to capture ideas. But while Voice Memos is a great app it’s also very basic. Apple’s Music Memos for iPhone and iPad takes Voice Memos and adds stacks of musician-friendly features to create a brilliant and useful app for guitarists and piano players. The first thing you’ll need to do is record your tune – and to do it in tune, thanks to the built-in acoustic tuner that works for all kinds of stringed instruments. When you play, Music Memos works out what chords or notes you’re playing and enables you to add bass and drums to it: these automatically follow the tune, and you can adjust the sound and the playing style and get them to drop in and out…

For many of us, the last few months have involved far more working from home than we have ever done before. Going from an office-based job to spending the vast majority of your time at home can mean you are thrown into a world you are unprepared for, with little in the way of tools to help you work efficiently and effectively. That is the problem this guide aims to solve. We have rounded up the best accessories for your home office, whether you use a MacBook, a desktop iMac or Mac mini, or even an iPad. Take the products on the following pages for a spin and you will hit the ground running in your new environment. But this article is not just for home-working novices. There is plenty…

We’ve looked at Loupe Ventures’ research in these pages before, and the company’s most recent suite of AI IQ tests has determined that the Google Assistant is the smartest thing going. That’s both in its digital assistant form (as in, when accessed through a phone) and when powering a smart speaker. It understands best, and it provides relevant responses most frequently. That said, each time Loupe Ventures does a new test, every major platform improves a little; Alexa took the ‘most improved’ crown in the most recent suite. Too bad for Siri? Not so fast – it seems that Apple’s assistant is, by their metrics, by far the smartest in the ‘command’ category, which relates to its ability to perform on-phone functions like texting, calling and emailing. We’re not surprised,…

Garmin Drivesmart 65 £269.99, garmin.com The Drivesmart 65 builds Alexa support right into it. You can ask for directions, or use any Alexa feature you like. You get hands-free calling, full European map regions, and it’s a good size. Roav VIVA Pro £39.99, goroav.com This two-port 12V charger gives access to Google Assistant even when your phone is locked; connect it via Bluetooth or an aux cable to your car stereo, and it’ll pipe your tunes right in. Neat, tidy, and pretty cheap. Nextbase 522GW £149, nextbase.com One of the best dash cams you can buy, with great resolution, a strong suite of safety features, automatic emergency calling and, yes, Alexa built in. The camera features are great, and Alexa is a bonus.…

£1,399 FROM Samsung, samsung.co.uk FEATURES QLED, 4K, HDR; TVPlus, Tizen; 50-inch; 4x HDMI 2.0, 2x USB, Ethernet, optical, terrestrial, cable input, satellite input, CI slot Samsung The Frame TV is a TV designed as much around its place as decor as it is a display for television shows. Design-first features include sleek cabling solutions and bezel options that ape an actual picture frame, and dedicated modes for accessing iconic artworks or ‘ambient’ imagery. The Frame is available in 43-, 50-, 55-, 65-, and 75-inch sizes (with a 32-inch model coming soon). We reviewed the 50-inch. At £1,399, it’s not the cheapest QLED in 2020 (the Samsung Q60Tis £799 for its smallest 43-inch size), so is the extra expense worthwhile? The idea is that there are hours of the day when…

£359.99/£179.99 Upgrade FROM Corel, painterartist.com/en/product/painter NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later A powerful package with a dizzying array of tools and options Corel’s graphics applications were among the first to ever become available to users with personal computers. Several decades on, Painter 2021 represents the latest evolution of what it is possible to achieve in digital art without ever going near a real paintbrush. A powerful package with a dizzying array of tools and options, Painter rewards skill, like any professional creative software, but is also accessible for less experienced users to experiment and learn to create. At its heart is a configurable canvas into which you draw content using a massive selection of over 900 brushes, each with its own settings and, if required, a number of types of layers.…

You know you’re in good hands when the software you use is also favoured by the likes of NASA and Yale – as is the case with Canvas, which specialises in graphic design and technical illustration apps. The macOS version, Canvas X Draw, is perfect for all kinds of projects – from creating app icons and business logos to flowcharts and diagrams, as well as architectural and technical drawings. Canvas X Draw is flexible in other ways, with full support for 2D vector and raster graphics as well as AutoCAD, text and web content, including files imported from apps such as Adobe Illustrator. The application is also keenly priced at £47/year compared to £20/month for Adobe Illustrator. Its hardware needs are modest too – it’ll play happily on almost any…

A new look for your Mac Alan Dye, who joined Apple in 2006 from a background in branding and fashion, has taken over human interface design from Sir Jonathan Ive. He and his team have tweaked macOS with two perhaps conflicting aims: to improve consistency across all of Apple’s OSes and to ensure your Mac feels like a Mac. App icons now sit within a squircle and share symbols with iOS and iPadOS, but depart from the flat look introduced in iOS 7 with “highly crafted” shading. Aiming for “reduced visual complexity to keep the focus on users’ content”, buttons and tools recede to grey when inactive but make more use of colour, while text has been respaced. Even sounds are remastered. New directions for Apple Maps The bigger your…

What’s new on your Watch The youngest of Apple’s platforms, watchOS hits version 7 with a variety of updates. Although it seems we’ll have to wait for the next hardware upgrade for any dramatic innovations. There’s still no way to add completely new Watch faces, but Apple’s standard list gains two more – Chronograph Pro, for those who like lots of analogue-style detail, and X-Large, basically the exact opposite – and ‘rich complications’ allow app developers to offer multiple sources of additional information that you can add to your favourite faces. Your finished setups can then be shared with other users. Handwashing It’s not often we see Apple rushing out features based on ‘passing trends’, but coronavirus brings an exception. watchOS 7 will detect when you’re washing your hands (based…

Battery life is the Achilles heel of any laptop and, while Apple has made huge strides with batteries, there’s always room for improvement. That’s why it introduced an iPhone-style Battery Health feature in macOS 10.15.5, although you’ll only see it if your laptop has Thunderbolt 3 ports: older Macs don’t have the necessary hardware. Battery Health monitors your battery temperature and its charging patterns, and it optimises charging in order to make your battery last as long as possible. We don’t mean last as long as possible between charges; we mean last as long as possible before you have to buy a new battery. Batteries become less efficient as they age, and Battery Health aims to reduce the speed at which that efficiency degrades. Power anxiety Doing that is a…

Control Centre is one of the most useful, but perhaps also one of the most under-used features in iPadOS. Not many people realise how useful it can be and that you don’t have to stick to the default controls. There is much more to Control Centre than adjusting volume or brightness, or turning Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on and off. Whether you want to use the Home app to switch a light on, scan a QR code, or make a recording of the iPad’s screen, you can do it all from Control Centre – with a little customisation. In addition to choosing which features are accessible, you can configure the layout, and specify whether it’s accessible when you’re running an app, or only from the Home screen. Once you’ve got it…

Better battery management tool Q I thought that macOS 10.15.5’s new battery management would give me controls like those on my iPhone, but was disappointed. What’s the best app to do that for a MacBook Pro? by JEFF QUIGLEY A Apple introduced this new battery health management system in the macOS 10.15.5 update, but it doesn’t give the user any more information about or control over their battery. It also doesn’t apply to older models of MacBook Pro, but is available on all those with T1 or T2 chips and some recent models without. Its purpose is to prolong the lifespan of your Mac’s battery before it needs to be replaced, which it does by reducing the maximum charge given to the battery as it ages. That also means that…

Kingston Nucleum USB-C Hub £56.95 FROM Kingston, kingston.com FEATURES Seven ports, 60W passthrough power Every modern MacBook uses USB-C ports exclusively. When you are working from home, you might find your peripherals – like a printer or external hard drive – do not fit. Enter the Kingston Nucleum, which offers seven ports of expansion. You get HDMI, USB-A, USB-C, SD, and microSD, meaning you are never short of options when you need them. Twelve South HiRise for MacBook $59.99 (about £64) FROM Twelve South, twelvesouth.com FEATURES Adjustable height, non-slip arms and base, supports laptops up to 7lbs If you are working long hours from home, hunching over a laptop will quickly give you back pain. Twelve South’s excellent HiRise for MacBook can stop this problem in its tracks. While many…

My wife uses Alexa more frequently than anyone else in the house, but she’s constantly complaining to me about the robot ignoring her. I’ve moved our Echo speakers, we’ve done voice training, I’ve set up specific routines to make things easier, and still the errant AI keeps either blanking her or giving spurious responses. I am too polite to tell her that it’s probably more to do with her marble-mouthed, heavily accented delivery than it is a problem with Alexa itself. Not that I haven’t fixed a few things. Our light dimming routines were hit and miss, because Alexa struggles to distinguish “Lights up” and “Lights off”; a simple rewording (and subsequent retraining of our brains) was enough to make them more reliable. Sometimes the answer isn’t hardware or software…

IN PRINT ISSUE 354 AUGUST 2020 Verdict: 13-inch MacBook Pro Make iWork documents great again Digital detox tips and tricks for Mac Do more with Photoshop for iPad ISSUE 353 JULY 2020 iPhone SE – the definitive verdict Plus: handy iOS 13 tips and tricks Ultimate Apple buying guide Use Sidecar with any Mac ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 352 JUNE 2020 Become an expert photo editor New! MacBook Air and iPad Pro Apple’s tablet: 10 years of iPad Connect a second display to your Mac To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_back or phone +44 (0)844 848 2852 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and keep them forever in your personal library. bit.ly/macformatipad NEVER…

£539 FROM Philips, philips.co.uk FEATURES 34in 21:9 curved LED-backlit VA (Vertical Alignment) LCD, 3440x1440 WQHD resolution, 5ms, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x USB-C (3.2 Gen 2) with power delivery, 4x port USB 3.2 hub, 1x USB- Way back in MF #352, we marvelled at Philips 24-inch 243B9 monitor – chiefly because of its sensible pricing, single-cable USB-C connectivity and extreme practicality. Now its bigger brother is here: the 34in ultra-wide 346B1C. The display boasts a 21:9 aspect ratio, which is kind of like placing two regular monitors side by side but without the ugly join in the middle. You can easily run a web browser in one half of the screen and a productivity app in the other and still view each one at a decent size. It’s…

Free FROM Edison Software, mail.edison.tech NEEDS OS X 10.10 or later A dig around in Preferences reveals a plethora of options Edison is one of our favourite email clients for iOS, in part because of the way it uses AI to organise messages into categories such as Bills & Receipts, Travel, and Packages. It also has tons of other features that make it a compelling option to replace Mail as your email client. Sadly, categorisation isn’t as consistent in the Mac version as it is in the iOS version. Messages that appeared in a category on one version didn’t appear in the other. And on both platforms it misses more messages than it hits in terms of identifying them as belonging in a category. The presentation on the Mac isn’t…

Free (IAPs) FROM The Iconfactory, linea-app.com NEEDS iOS 12.4 or later It’s a beautifully simple app with a range of custom canvas sizes iOS devices are excellent tools for creating graphics when paired with the best apps for the job. Linea Sketch is a vector drawing app with comprehensive support for the Apple Pencil, including its unique double-tap function, but of course it also works well if you use a finger to draw. Version 3 makes the app universal across all supported iOS devices, although Apple Pencil support is only on the iPad version. iCloud sync means that you can easily pick up a project in progress from any device at any time. Tools and time-lapse It’s a beautifully simple app with a range of custom canvas sizes. And now…

Personal computers and tech support were never meant to go together. In 1976, when Steve Jobs pitched the Apple I to Paul Terrell, manager of The Byte Shop, the deal was that Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak would deliver the machines to the store. What happened after that wasn’t any of their concern. Dealing with customers was the retailer’s job, and that was largely how it would stay in the low-margin, high-volume microcomputer market. Even when direct-sales giants like Dell and Gateway sprang up offering PCs over the phone, the last thing they wanted to invest in was a shop front to which users could bring their problems. It was only after Jobs returned to Cupertino in 1997 that his legendary control-freakery shifted Apple’s sales focus from working with…

HOT TOPIC! Apple announces ARM transition Macs to be Apple silicon powered, ending Intel era Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) lived up to its billing in June with new versions of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS (see main feature, p14), but it was Apple’s future plans for the Mac that caused the biggest buzz of all. That’s because, as expected, Apple is moving away from putting Intel silicon at the heart of the Mac, and putting its own-design ARM-based chips in there instead, with the transition beginning with products being announced later this year, and concluding by the end of 2022 – that means every Mac from the MacBook Air to the Mac Pro will eventually have Apple not Intel inside. Speaking during Apple’s keynote address on the…

While iOS 14’s official release is in September, developers are already getting a taste for how it will work – and it’s revealed some fascinating insights into the way some third-party apps behave. One of the key new privacy features is ‘clipboard snooping’ detection, in which iOS will send you a notification every time an app tries to access your iPhone’s virtual pasteboard. While most of the time this behaviour is benign, it could potentially be used to access things like passwords, bank details and other confidential information, which can then be shared in plain text – a clear security risk. Some apps have already been found to be accessing the pasteboard when they had no real reason to do so, most notably LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, Starbucks, AccuWeather and TikTok. TikTok’s…

[ALBUM] None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive The Streets £10.99 Hip-hop star Mike Skinner teams up with Tame Impala and friends for his new mixtape-style album. [BOOK] Dear NHS Various artists £10.99 Famous folk from Naomie Harris to Sir Paul McCartney recount stories about the NHS, which is 72 years old this year. [PODCAST] The Socially Distant Sports Bar Elis James, Mike Bubbins and Steff Garrero set up a bar to talk sports – then do (mostly) anything but.…

As Mac users, we love good design, yet it’s amazing how many of us spend all day staring at ugly, blocky monitors. Is there anything better? It turns out there is – AOC’s 27-inch Q27T1 shows things do not have to be this way. It’s a sleek, svelte display with a 1440p panel and razor-thin bezels, letting the screen expand right to the edges of the frame. The screen itself is perched atop a curved, minimalistic stand that’s both eye-catching and unobtrusive. These features combine to give the display a beautiful, modern look that will look right at home with all your Apple gear (and could even put a thick-bezelled iMac to shame). But the AOC Q27T1 is not just a pretty face. Its 1440p display performs admirably, hitting 107%…

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There are many things to consider when shooting portraits of people, and you’ll want to start by shooting in good light, with a natural-looking subject on a sympathetic background. Even great Raw images will need some post production, and less great ones considerably more. That’s where Luminar comes in. It has a whole section of tools dedicated to manual as well as AI-assisted portrait enhancement. The artificial intelligence can really help if you’re not an experienced retoucher, since it is able to automatically detect which areas of an image contain skin, eyes, lips, teeth and more. You can even change head shape or remove shimmer from shiny skin. What used to require hours of masking can now be done in a few minutes and the results are excellent. Of course…

Accounting for iCloud space Q According to my iCloud account, I have 127GB of documents, but I can only identify a few files. How can I account for all that missing space? by PHIL THOMPSON A Both macOS and iOS now provide detailed listings of what is held in your iCloud storage. In macOS, open the Apple ID pane and at its foot click on the Manage button. After a moment loading, it shows a detailed breakdown by app; it then suggests ways to reduce used space for each item. iPhones and iPads offer similar through Settings > [Apple ID] > iCloud > Manage Storage. These won’t be the same – each Mac and device also has its own data as well as that common to all that can access…

Twelve South MagicBridge $39.99 (about £32) FROM Twelve South, twelvesouth.com FEATURES Slots for device ports and switches, lightweight polycarbonate construction, non-slip silicone feet Using your iMac’s Magic Keyboard in tandem with a Magic Trackpad gets a whole lot better with Twelve South’s MagicBridge. This holder brings both devices together, meaning no more reaching for one when it slips out of position, and making lap-based working a cinch. You can put the trackpad on the left or right of the keyboard – great if you are left- or right-handed. Blue Yeti Nano £99.99 FROM Blue, blue-designs.co.uk FEATURES 20Hz-20kHz frequency response, cardioid and omnidirectional recording patterns, 48kHz sample rate Working from home means virtual meetings galore, but your iMac’s built-in microphone is barely up to the task. Enter the Blue Yeti Nano,…

£299 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES Full-size QWERTY keyboard with backlit keys, offering 1mm of key travel, multitouch trackpad, smart connector, USB-C port for charging iPad Pro, compatible with 11in iPad Pro (1st or 2nd gen) running iPadOS 13.4 or later The ‘hover’ design allows for plenty of keyboard space In terms of fit and feel, the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro 11-inch is similar to the Smart Keyboard Folio. It uses the same silicone exterior material and the same soft microfibre lining. Instead of a case that you snap the iPad Pro into, it’s designed so that you simply ‘plop’ the iPad Pro onto the magnetic mounts. The magnets are reassuringly strong, although this means that it’s also quite tricky to remove the iPad Pro! The magnetic mount and…

£3.49 per month FROM Lars Gerckens, tyme-app.com NEEDS macOS 10.13.2 or later Tyme 3 introduces an improved interface with Dark Mode Tyme is an app that solves one of the biggest problems with time tracking, which is that it’s often a pain in the backside. Tyme automates it – it can even use location awareness to log you on and off when you enter or leave a specific location – and it doubles as a good organiser and project manager, too. The Mac app syncs with iPhone and iPad, and you can control timers via Apple Watch. Tyme 2 was quick and easy, and good at getting out of the way so you could get on with things. Now, Version 3 introduces an improved interface with Dark Mode support as…

For safety’s sake, it looks like it’ll be sensible to spend as much time away from other people as possible for several months yet. That means more time at home, but lots of people will already be running dry on things that keep them engaged. It’s good news, then, that your iPhone and iPad unlock a world of things you can do. We’re skipping over games and streaming apps here, and going for apps that help you polish up skills, or even learn completely new ones. Want to try your hand at podcasting? It’s easy! How about learning to draw with the help of masters? Or making your own music? You can dabble with all of these a little at a time, or dive in for hours. GarageBand Free NEEDS…

MONITOR Dell P2219HC £170 dell.com Dell’s monitor offers great colour accuracy and impressive performance at a very affordable price. The monitor packs four USB-A ports, one USB-C, two DisplayPorts and an HDMI input, all with a 21.5-inch 1920x1080 resolution screen. It’s also lightweight and easy to move. IN-EAR EARPHONES M&D MW07 Plus £299 masterdynamic.com Master & Dynamic’s MW07 Plus offer 10 hours of listening time, and the charging case holds an additional three charges (so you get 40 hours in total). These great-sounding earbuds are IPX5 rated, so they’re excellent for workouts and commuting. The marble-effect finish gives them a premium aesthetic, as does the stainless steel charging case. PRINTER Canon Pixma G6050 £319.99 canon.co.uk With a refillable ink tank, the Canon Pixma is both economical and environmental friendly. With…