Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2014 i MacLife

THERE’S A NEW WAR being waged in the world of smartphones, and the conflict isn’t limited to just the manufacturers. This time iPhone supporters are in the midst of a heated debate: should Apple supersize its flagship product to meet the threat posed by fatter phones, or stay the course with its smaller size? For months the Internet has been rife with rumors of new iPhones sporting 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch screens. If the talk is true, the smaller of the two models shouldn’t require much of an adjustment for people used to the 4-inch display of current iPhones. Even so, the possibility of any change at all has put some folks on edge. When surveyed via the MaclLife Facebook page, nearly 80% of 300-plus respondents were wary of any kind…

"AFTER A DECADE of innovation, the company’s well has run dry," declared Howard Gold of The Wall Street Journal after Apple’s last earnings call. It’s a common complaint, and one that’s often countered by pointing out that Apple’s biggest innovations have come several years apart - it’s not fair to demand a game-changer every year. This is true, though it ignores just how fertile the mid-2000s were for Apple: there was a major new product category or fundamental shift coming every year, from the Mac mini in 2005 through to the Intel switch, the iPhone, the Apple TV, and finally the MacBook Air in 2008. Then came the iPad and Retina displays two years later in 2010. Since then, you could argue that the iPad mini and Mac Pro are…

83O A recent tablet survey from J.D. POWER AND ASSOCIATES reveals that the cheaper tablets get, the less satisfied tablet owners seem to be. While overall satisfaction is generally trending downward, APPLE’S iPAD STILL LEADS the pack with an overall satisfaction rating of 830 OUT OF 1000, with the report noting that it "performs highest in all study factors except cost." SAMSUNG FOLLOWS in the rankings with a score of 822, with ASUS at 820, AMAZON at 817, and ACER lagging behind on 769. 25% According to APPLE INSIDER (www.appleinsider.com), 25% of iPhones sold in Qi 2014 were of the venerable iPhone 4s variety, potentially adding around 10 million new customers for Apple. The iPhone 5s was the big seller (71%), the iPhone 5c not so much (4%). $18.3 billion…

APPLE ATTRACTS THE best and the brightest, but the problem with the best and brightest is that they won’t necessarily stay with you forever. Some hires may think a little too differently to be comfortable in Cupertino, others may decide to risk everything on a moonshot rather than settle for corporate conformity. Some left because Steve Jobs started acting all weird to them, and some cut short their Apple tenure because, let’s face it, Sam Sung is a terrible name for someone who works in an Apple Store. (Sam Sung actually worked for Apple in Vancouver, much to the Internet’s amusement. He now works for a headhunting company.) Former Apple employees are everywhere. Here’s a selection of devices, services and startups whose stories began when their Apple adventures ended. 1…

1 THINGS A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME Biz Stone $9.99 When creative giants like Biz Stone squeeze their knowledge and experience into the pages of a book, they’re bound to have some life lessons worth listening to. Twitter’s co-founder is a case in point, and Stone tells a fascinating story about making something out of nothing and how hard work isn’t the road to success unless you start with a good idea. Contraints can challenge creativity, but they can also empower it. Twitter’s 140 character-limit hasn’t exactly held back the social network. 2 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey $19.99 HD ($14.99 SD) When 300 came out in 2006, it wasn’t just memorable for Gerard Butler yell-spitting "This is Sparta!" No. It also fused filmmaking…

SINCE 2004, podcasting has been the perfect way to create online radio shows, and to get yourself heard with surprisingly little fuss or expense. A podcast is basically an audio file, and an RSS feed that software can check to automatically download new episodes. Some are simply people talking. Others are professionally produced, affairs with music, ads and sponsors. Only a minority are pay-to-play. Subjects range from banter to academic discussions. There are many levels to aim for, from using a headset mic to investing in professional equipment. Here’s how to get started, whatever you need and whatever you know! Jump into podcasting How to create your show on a budget, without too much technical difficulty 1 AS WITH MOST creative projects, the temptation is always to rush out and…

An addictive stealth board game for iOS $4.99 Developer Square Enix www.square-enix.com Platform Universal Requirements iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 7.0 or later Hitman GO takes place on a series of game boards with a grid overlay, populated by security guards, night watchmen, and unwitting police officers. The iconically chrome-domed Agent 47 must sneak his way through each diorama, one space at a time, while completing objectives and avoiding detection by the patrolling enemies. If need be, Agent 47 can "kill" other pieces by occupying their space on the board. In keeping with the series’ tradition, 47 also has a few tricks at his disposal: a well-thrown rock can distract a wandering guard, for example, but a color-coded disguise can fool him altogether. These goodies add extra layers of…

$5.99 Developer Snowman www.builtbysnowman.com Platform iPhone or iPod touch The paid follow-up to a popular original, Checkmark 2 intelligently uses geolocation data to create more useful reminders. It also debuts a new Lists feature for organizing to-do items in a more traditional fashion. Although Checkmark does pretty much everything better than Apple’s own Reminders, the app couldn’t import nor access such existing lists. Thankfully, it took only a few moments to recreate them with more powerful tools, and Checkmark uses iCloud to keep them backed up and synced across multiple iOS devices (not natively on iPad yet, sadly). A slide-out panel assembles to-do items into When, Where, and Lists categories, and the iOS 7-style user interface is plenty intuitive. A new Location Groups feature is also a godsend for shoppers, although…

$0.99 Developer Fermenter www.fermentergames.com Platform Universal David’s blissful, serenely sparse world is populated by multitudes of terrifying two-dimensional shapes, all hell-bent on snuffing the life out of your little box-shaped hero. All you have in your defense are your wits and agility, along with a special projectile ability that takes a few seconds to charge. David’s physics-driven rumination on the struggles of life feels almost poignant at times, and its abstract design works mostly in its favor. Each of the eight main levels, and another that you can unlock later, is designed to fit an emotional theme. In Anger, a writhing mass of floating diamonds pursues your hero, while Anxiety puts you in a maze suspended above an altar that shoots dozens of glowing squares. Weird and wonderful. David never stops…

Tips and tricks for budding gardeners $7.99 Developer Growing Interactive www.gardenplanpro.com Platform iPhone or iPod touch Requirements iPhone, or iPod touch running iOS 6.0 or later Gardening may look easy, but there’s a subtle art to it. Even if you’re just growing herbs on your windowsill, each plant needs careful management, and the slightest deviation in your watering or fertilizing schedule can result in withered leaves and small, undernourished stalks. Garden Plan Pro thinks it can help. With a comprehensive strategy that maps every square inch of your plot of plants, the app doesn’t just keep track of your seedlings, it offers tips and guidance that promise to get your garden off the ground. Freshly redesigned with a clean iOS 7 aesthetic, you can make a scale representation of your…

Substance over style in the latest version of this genealogy app $29.99 Developer Avanquest ancestryshop.com Requirements OS X 10.5 or later, Intel CPU, DVD drive for installation, internet access for online features The family history market has shifted in the two years since Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 was released. Major updates to both Reunion and MacFamilyTree have seen them close the gap considerably, although FTM does manage to stay on top - just. This third iteration is a relatively low-key release, concentrating on making solid improvements. There is one new feature of note: the Family View. This provides a traditional top-down view of your tree as an alternative to Pedigree View, and makes it far easier to browse larger trees. Version 2 introduced TreeSync, a means of keeping your…

Become a digital Da Vinci and convert your snaps into paintings $49 Developer AKVIS akvis.com Requirements OS X 10.4 or later, Intel/G5, 4GB RAM, 2GB disk space AKVIS OilPaint 2 is a surprisingly easy way to turn photos into mini masterpieces and create stunning digital art without spending hours layering on light and tone. In some cases, the process only takes a few minutes. It’s available as a standalone app in four favours, as well as a convenient plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. The software is easy to handle. Simply import a photo, then apply one of the custom filter settings using the sliders on the right or use one of OilPaint’s predefined options. You can change everything from the brushstroke density and size, to the thickness of digital…

Convert videos to animated GIFs $19.90 Developer PearlMountain Technology Co Ltd www.pearlmountainsoft.com/videogif Requirements Mac OS 10.7 or later, webcam or a video file to use The animated GIF refuses to die. Even in our era of high-speed web access, it’s regularly used and it’s even making a comeback on websites that want to show moving images on index pages. The idea behind VideoGIF is to take a webcam image or video and turn it into a mini animation. Webcam recording only worked during testing when manually reducing capture settings, but dragging videos from Finder or iPhoto was fine. The built-in video editor is usable if basic, making it simple to trim footage, add effects and text, and resize the output. Annoyingly, you can’t preview looping until export, meaning you often to-and-fro…

The best read-it-later desktop feed collator just got even better $6.99 Developer Eltima software mac.eltima.com Requirements Mac OS 10.8.3 or later, 64-bit processor, 20.8 MB hard disk space It’s been almost a year since Google brought down the shutters on its RSS aggregator Reader, simultaneously opening the doors for a new web feeder to emerge victorious. But that never happened, partly because of users’ loyalties to a variety of existing sync services offering free and paid-for features. Fortunately, Readkit works to corral all of these services into one neat desktop interface, and with the arrival of v2.4 it does "read it later" better than ever. Support has been added for syncing Fever, NewsBlur, Delicious and Pinboard, the latter two allowing you to keep offline copies of bookmarked sites. But even if…

Never run out of battery power and charge two devices at once $129 Manufacturer Dark Energy http://darkenergytech.com Requirements iPhone, iPad or iPad mini Dark Energy is probably wondering when battery technology will keep up with everything else. Perhaps that’s why we have the Dark Energy Reservoir, an 8,000mAh battery pack barely bigger than an iPhone. The Dark Energy Reservoir is a small brick of a battery. Two USB ports are used for charging your devices, and the microUSB port between them is used for charging the device itself. Using the Reservoir is easy: when the battery pack is fully charged, you simply plug your USB cables into it and into your phone or tablet. It can charge two devices at once, but that’ll suck the power out of the Reservoir a…

You get what you pay for with these wireless home security cameras $229.99 (subscription required for extra features) Manufacturer Netgear www.netgear.com Requirements High-speed Internet connection and an available port on your router The trouble with most supposedly wireless network cameras is that while they may connect wirelessly for data, they still need one wire: power. This means that you’re limited in where you can place the cameras, because they still need to be plugged in. This is the problem Netgear has set out to solve with its VueZone system. The cameras are battery powered and so can be positioned wherever you want, thanks to some simple but clever hemispherical mounts. Cleverer still, the cameras aren’t designed to be on all of the time. They activate when you watch a video feed…

Set up the free Find My iPhone service to keep tabs on any device THAT MOMENT you realize you’ve A misplaced your phone, tablet or laptop can be a nightmare. But, with Apple’s Find My iPhone service (it’s called that, but it works on iPad and Mac too), you can -in most cases - track down where it is. Using Wi-Fi networks for all devices, and phone signal and GPS data for mobile devices, you can pinpoint the location of your Apple gadgets almost anywhere in the world. The devices respond to the request as long as they are connected to the Internet. You can look up your device’s location using a web browser on your Mac, or the Find My iPhone app on iPad or iPhone. If your device’s…

Tighten your Mac’s security to keep files and web accounts safe WHEN you FIRST set up your Mac, the only security measure that’s enforced is that you add a password to your user W account. The Setup Assistant makes no mention of extra measures you might want to enable, even though several are built into OS X. The features we’re about to look at are defenses against physical attack, rather than protection against online attacks. The measures are particularly important if you work in an open environment, such as a library, an office, or a café, and if your Mac is stolen, because they help to keep your data under lock and key. One thing that isn’t covered here is FileVault, which encrypts everything on your Mac so it’s unreadable…

The gadgets, services, and issues that we’re looking forward to 1 WWDC 2014 By the time you read this, the 2014 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will have come and gone, its focus squarely on iOS 8 and OS X 10.10. While iOS 7 introduced the new love-it-or-hate-it flat UI, it’s still far from being a fully polished product. Improvements to Siri, Maps, and Calendar, plus the arrival of the rumored new fitness apps are long overdue. On the Mac, meanwhile, Mavericks 10.9.3 wasn’t a major overhaul and a future OS X 10.10 (with a Californian codename to match) will potentially do more to bring the desktop software in line with changes to iOS. We’ll have a full report on WWDC 2014 in our next issue, digging behind the headlines…

J.R. Bookwalter is a recovering independent filmmaker whose tech credentials include daily news, product reviews and feature articles. An experienced veteran of film and video post-production, he can frequently be found lining up first to buy the latest Apple products, but also enjoys a trip to the dark side with Android or Windows Phone every now and again. andrew hayward is a freelance writer from Chicago who has been covering iOS and Mac games, apps, and happenings for more than five years — and previously spent about half of that as an editor at Mac|Life. He’s looking forward to a bigger, flashier iPhone, but not too big: a 4.7-inch display sounds just about right.…

NOKIA’S SMARTPHONE DIVISION may have been officially acquired by Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean that the long-time Apple rival gets to enjoy the Finnish smartphone maker’s talent as well. Former Nokia camera engineering executive Ari Partinen tweeted that he will "start a new chapter in Cupertino, California" in June. Here’s why this is a big deal. Partinen’s influence can be found throughout all levels of Nokia’s mobile camera division, but he’s perhaps best known for his work in developing Nokia’s PureView technology. PureView-equipped phones, such as the Nokia Lumia 1020 (pictured right), can take 41-megapixel images and smash them down to smaller, breathtakingly detailed photographs with the help of on-chip processing and pixel oversampling. As a bonus, the technology performs well in low light and has a zoom function that…

ONE OF the questions surrounding Apple’s rumored transition to larger iPhones centers on what Apple plans to do with the device’s screen resolution, and 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman suggests that Apple is testing an improved 1704 x 960 display for the units. Compare that to the current resolution for the iPhone 5s, which is 1136 x 640. With those new specs, any new 4.7- or 5.5-inch iPhones would be able to give us better images than what we’re familiar with from Retina displays. In the case of a 4.7-inch version, this would create a display with a resolution of 416 ppi and the same 16:9 ratio of the iPhone 5s; a 5.5-inch unit would theoretically sport the same resolution but feature a pixel density of 356 ppi. The report claims that…

1 Lytro Illum www.lytro.com $1,599 Enter the stylish and angular Illum, the second camera from Lytro that uses a light field sensor to allows the focus point to be shifted after the image has been captured. Yes. After. In fact, the software that comes with the Illum makes it possible to use virtual camera controls in post-processing to adjust aperture (depth of field), focus, and perspective, as well as tilt. 2 Mini Mobile Robotic Pocket Printer www.zutalabs.com, $240 A printer that you can fit in your pocket? It’s not so far-fetched. This Kickstarter-funded robotic printer looks suspiciously like a wireless mouse. But position this gadget on a blank piece of paper and it can print out pages from your iPhone, moving over any size of paper on tiny robo-wheels. The…

APPLE’S ICLOUD has come a long way since 2011. It started out as a successor to the oft-maligned MobileMe, and has since morphed into a powerhouse collection of features and services designed to enhance and change the way you work with Macs and iOS devices. From storing documents in the cloud and editing them across all your devices, to easily sharing and syncing photos, and even tracking down your lost iPhone, iCloud has expanded into a powerhouse suite of tools that you can use to enhance your Apple experience. To make sure you’re getting the most out of iCloud, we’ve rounded up 15 of our favorite ways to put iCloud to work for you. And since it’s free and baked into every Apple product, iCloud is the perfect way to…

Time to delete those third-party spreadsheet apps FREE (office 365 subscription required) Developer Microsoft www.microsoft.com Platform iPad Requirements iPad running iOS 7.0 or later Wherever Word travels, Excel cannot be far behind – and at long last, Microsoft has allowed the world’s number crunching favorite to follow the money trail straight into the App Store with a touchscreen version built just for iPad. Alongside the new Word and PowerPoint apps, Microsoft Excel for iPad ends years of sulering with lesspowerful third-party solutions that have been all too happy to encroach in Redmond’s absence. Like the Word app, Excel for iPad is in most respects a superior effort over the venerable Mac application, offering an impressively clean user interface that doesn’t skimp on features. In particular, the iPad touchscreen is put…

Super-slick film noir detective story $2.99 Developer Gameblyr www.gameblyr.com Platform Universal Requirements iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 6.0 or later Film noir combines beautifully with graphic novel aesthetics and stealth puzzling in Third Eye Crime, the debut effort from the ex-Bungie team at Moonshot Games. With a story full of twists and turns and a smooth lead character, it’s a super-slick offering, and there’s plenty of great level design to back up the style. This iOS original turns one particular film noir convention on its head, casting you not as a private dick but as Rothko, a telepathic art thief dragged into a mess he’d have rather avoided. Rothko’s uncanny ability to read minds enables him to anticipate where guards will look for him. Glowing red trails show where…

$6.99 Developer Gamloft www.gameloft.com Platform Universal IPassword for iPad is the first app we installed on our new iPads. It makes keeping unique, complex passwords, logins and other information secure, and it works in tandem with desktop and iPhone versions to keep everything in sync. You’ll never have to worry about forgetting your super-secure, 18-character password for the office network, or even worse, use the same simple password for everything because it’s easy to remember. In addition to things like website logins and credit card numbers, IPassword can also serve as a vault for software licenses and other sensitive or valuable information. And since everything is protected by your secure password, you can rest assured that your secrets are safely locked away in the unfortunate event that someone steals your iPad.…

FREE Developer Ubisoft www.ubisoft.com Platform Universal Although this Trials game broadly echoes its console counterparts, its soul has been ripped out and replaced with the festering guts of a stinking freemium business model, and then spray-painted in mobile-friendly colors and cuteness. Yes, this is still a physics-oriented bike-balancer, set across ludicrously difficult-to-traverse tracks, but it lacks refinement and elegance. It’s now largely about taking on missions from demanding toon characters, larger-than-life, over-the-top, hazard-filled courses (with explosions and fire and more explosions), and that encroaching sense that if you don’t spend some money on in-app purchases very soon, the game’s going to slam the door shut in your face, often, hard, and repeatedly. With controls that balance on a knife-edge between irksomely twitchy and reasonably solid, this is a Trials game in…

Hungry? Find your nearest eatery and pay with your iPhone Feeling hungry? Many restaurant chains now offer free mobile apps to make it easier to find locations near you, and some of them now even allow customers to pay with their iPhone as well. It’s time to start whetting your appetite with the best and brightest of eatery-related apps, and thankfully we’ve rounded up eight of the best that can be downloaded from the App Store right away. Bon appétit! When it comes to restaurant apps, STARBUCKS (Free, iPhone) is a poster child for the nearly perfect experience. The app can be used to pay at 7,000 U.S. shops and another 2,500 Target and Safeway locales, offering virtual tipping, Passbook support, email gifting to friends, and tracking or redeeming rewards.…

One of the cheapest, easiest ways to get iOS in your car, but is it practical? $79 Manufacturer Mobile Home www.drivewithsiri.com Requirements iPhone or iPod touch with Siri/Voice Control, factory or third-party Bluetooth hands-free system/device Apple’s CarPlay is in the news (see page 34), but what if buying a new car isn’t k possible in the next few years? As alternatives go, perhaps Mobile Home’s Siri Remote will suffice. It’s cheap, simple to set up, and gives some access to iOS in the car. Siri Remote is a Bluetooth-based patch-through that links your car’s hands-free function (or equivalent third-party device) and Apple’s Siri voice control system, giving access to the iPhone’s Siri-based features as you drive. Its single button duplicates the functionality of holding the home button down on an…

Desktop-style RAID storage in a pocketable, portable drive $299.99 (2TB), $429.99 (4TB) Manufacturer Western Digital www.wdc.com Requirements Mac running OS X 10.6.8 or later Portability seems to be ever more important to creative pros, with powerful laptops such as the MacBook Pro with Retina display often shedding as much weight as possible. Being thin and light often means shedding a hard drive in favor of solid-state storage. That’s great for performance, but it means paying through the nose for space. If you’re working with massive files on the move, you often can’t do without space and sacrificing performance isn’t an option. The My Passport Pro might be the answer. It’s a Thunderbolt drive that powers itself over a single Thunderbolt cable, and contains two 1TB hard drives. You can choose |…

Get iOS battery info on a Mac FREE Developer Softorino www.softorino.com/ibettercharge Requirements Mac OS 10.7 or later, at least one iOS device, Wi-Fi sync active in iTunes for each connected device The iBetterCharge software sits silently in the menu bar, waiting until any iOS device on the same network (and with "Sync this iPhone/iPad over Wi-Fi" enabled in iTunes) is down to 20% of its full charge. You then get a Notification Center alert to plug said device in. Simple, but also hugely useful. It’s an idea that’s so obvious and convenient we can’t believe Apple didn’t think of it first. There are a few options, such as ignoring specific devices, defining at what charge level a notification appears, and whether a second notification occurs when the device is charged. The…

A tropical paradise where zombies fester among the coconuts $19.99 Developer Techland techland.pl Requirements OS 10.8 and newer, Intel Core i5 2.7GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512MB Techland started development on Dead Island in 2005, but the zombie-themed first-person action-RPG hybrid didn’t shamble onto shelves until 2011. Three years later, publisher Deep Silver has finally deigned to grace the App Store with a Mac port, but it’s no surprise that the game’s design, writing, and structure feel a bit dated almost a decade into things. As the name suggests, Dead Island is a zombie action game set on a sprawling tropical isle called Banoi. Players split their time between a beach resort, a small city, and a research lab, but each area has an open world sensibility that…

Protect your valuables and track them by satellite $99.95 Manufacturer Spot www.findmespot.com Requirements Mac with an Internet connection, any iOS device (for tracking) Own something valuable and potentially I mobile and prone to theft? A motorcycle, boat, car, RV or even an ATV? Wouldn’t it be good to track its position and even receive automated alerts within moments should it unexpectedly move? Enter the Spot Trace personal GPS tracking device, a multi-purpose GPS gizmo the size of a box of matches. The basics of the Spot Trace involve a small black box containing the GPS hardware and motion detection. It’s powered by four standard AAA batteries (provided), delivering up to 18 months of battery life. You also get a mounting cradle with a quartet of sharp screws and a few adhesive…

A family member recently switched to a new iMac from a PC. The data transfer went smoothly except that I cannot add his Outlook calendar to the Mavericks calendar. In iOS 7, it was easy because Outlook is one of the choices listed when adding accounts. How can I do this on the Mac as well? Unfortunately Microsoft Outlook isn’t actually available on the Mac, but you can still add an Outlook calendar and solve this problem if you have a little patience. If you are running OS X Mavericks, head to System Preferences > Internet Accounts, and click on the New Account button (+). If your account supports Exchange, then you can easily sign in by clicking Exchange in the new account selection panel, then entering your account information.…

Not happy with iOS 7? You can change a surprising amount... 7 THE CHANGED DESIGN in iOS 7 has been divisive, but as of iOS 7.1, there are a few ways to tweak its appearance. Some options, such as Reduce Motion, speed up your phone by disabling animations. Others, such as Button Shapes and Bold Text, make some of the "cleaner" elements of iOS 7 easier to use. Get started in Settings > General > Accessibility. BY MATT BOLTON REQUIRES > An iOS 7 device LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 5 minutes A Larger Text A slider here lets you control the size of text in any app or system area that uses Apple’s dynamic text feature, making it all larger. The Larger Accessibility Sizes switch allows larger…

Incorporate titles into your project in Adobe Premiere Elements LOOK AT ANY MOVIE or TV show and you’ll be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t contain titles somewhere. You can have opening titles, closing credits, and anything in between, such as location information and lower thirds to introduce people. No matter how visual your story is, you’ll probably want your viewers to read something at some point, if only to know who helped bring your project to completion. Adobe Premiere Elements offers a range of credits and titles, organized into categories, to help you create a distinctive and coherent look throughout your project. You’re not forced to follow regimented guidelines, and with dozens of titles to choose from, selecting the right look for your project could keep you busy…

LETTER OF THE MONTH I really liked the design of the Pebble Steel when I first saw it, but then I opened the long-awaited box to find that the steel band - which had looked beautifully engineered from a distance - was sooo cheap! Even worse, there is absolutely no adjustment for smaller wrists. How stupid! There are a few things I like about wearing a Pebble, though, such as being able to see who’s calling, seeing when important emails come in, and easily inputting "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" for songs playing on Pandora. But despite having the very latest version of the iOS App and watch firmware, the Pebble is still very buggy and irritating. Seriously, by the time Pebble and its associated developers get everything working, it’ll…

WITH ALL THIS talk of iWatches and fitness bands, it’s easy to forget that there’s more to emerging wearable technologies than gadgets that you strap onto your wrist. Google Glass is undoubtedly the most high-profile (and expensive) plaything in this new category, a head-mounted 640 x 360 display that gives the wearer the experience of looking at a 25-inch screen from about eight feet away. But there’s still more to wearable tech. The MeMini camera is a wearable HD video camera with a twist. It constantly records loops of footage - adjustable from 10 seconds to 5 minutes. So any surprise moment you’d like to save has already been captured. You simply press a button to store it. LG’s Heart Rate Monitor Earphones (LG FR74) offer another take on wearable…

WHILE 2014’s WWDC points the way to the next version of the Mac OS, Apple released OS X 10.9.3 to general users last month after close to two months of developer testing. Along with several minor improvements, the update enhances 4K display support for the new Mac Pro and the 15-inch MacBook with Retina display. Also included in the update is a significant improvement to iTunes’s podcast interface. The new 4K support will allow objects in 4K displays to look sharper instead of simply smaller, and text should thus be more readable now on the relevant displays and onscreen elements should be more visible. Rather than leaving users to blindly figure out the best way to connect their Mac to a new high-def display, Apple posted a support document (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6008)…

HAVEN’T HEARD of "wearables" the Next Big Thing™ in I your digital life? You haven’t been paying attention! The Fitbit, the Jawbone UP24, Samsung’s bigger-than-your-head Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and of course Apple’s long-rumored iWatch - all want to be your indispensable companion when you’re living what the buzzerati call "the quantifiable life." WEARABLES WILL COUNT your heartbeats, steps, and stairways; monitor your blood pressure, glucose, and oxygenation levels. Not only will wearables be on your wrist and nose, but also in your shoes, on your clothes, on your skin, and, yes, eventually in your gut or even your bloodstream - the Fantastic Voyage without the shrink-o-matic Sci-Fi action. "ALL WELL AND GOOD," you might think, "but where will Apple and all the other wearables players find microprocessors small enough to…

TYPICAL APPLE. Having conquered the market for smartphones, tablets, personal Imedia players and high-end computers, Apple was expected to mount an assault on either the living room, with the long-rumored Apple TV screen, or on the wrist, with the iWatch, the current obsession of the tech echo-chamber. So while we were all looking there, suddenly the war for tech dominance opened up on an unexpected front: cars. Apple introduced CarPlay, its iOS-in-the-car system, at the Geneva Motor Show in March, along with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. Attempts to get smartphones and, a little longer ago, just your music into the car are not new, whether that’s using an adapter that runs from your iPod’s headphone jack to a fake cassette, or the emerging MirrorLink system that mirrors a smartphone’s display…

Presentations on the go FREE (Office 365 subscription required) Developer Microsoft www.microsoft.com Platform iPad Requirements iPad running iOS 7.0 or later Together with Word and Excel, PowerPoint for iPad makes up Microsoft’s newly mobilized Office trilogy. This trio of apps feature a touchscreen user interface often slicker than their desktop equivalents, but more importantly, documents can be opened and edited with complete confidence that they’ll look exactly as they do on Mac or PC. Editing or sharing files from iPad requires a monthly or annual Office 365 subscription - otherwise, PowerPoint is little more than a document viewer. At a minimum of $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, it’s an expensive proposition. When viewed as a complement to an existing Office 365 subscription, however, PowerPoint for iPad delivers a…

Making mobile scanning a breeze $0.99 Developer doo GmbH www.scanbot.io Platform iPhone or iPod touch Requirements iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 7.0 or later No matter how many different scanners we’ve tested over the years, we’ve still yet to find a truly elegant solution. We’re constantly stymied by blurry images, and slow, clunky interfaces. Even the simple, camera-based apps on our iPhones have their shortcomings, and we often find ourselves retaking and cropping images until we get them right. With a gorgeous interface and a good developer pedigree, we had high hopes for Scanbot. There’s a clean, simple aesthetic that runs through every screen, helping you capture and organize your documents with ease. The priority here is speed, as Scanbot’s foolproof interface can attest to, but it doesn’t come at…

A digital card game with a real kick $9.99 Developer Sirlin Games www.fantasystrike.com Platform iPad Requirements iOS 6 or later The key to winning a match in a fighting game is predicting what your opponent will do and then punishing him or her once you get the opening you’re waiting for. Focusing on this more mental component of the genre, Yomi for iPad introduces aspects of poker and rock-paper-scissors to turn that combo-happy experience into a strategic card game that still feels like you’re fighting. A match in Yomi is like one round in a fighting game: both sides try to take down the opponent to zero health with a mix of basic attacks, combos, and specials, guarding every so often or jumping away to avoid getting hit. Instead of physically…

Almost magical image compositing $1.99 Developer Pixite LLC www.pixiteapps.com Platform Universal Requirements iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 7.0 or later Pixite continues its string of clever iOS image-tweaking tools (following Tangent and Fragment) with Union, a compositing app that moves away from shape-based blending and instead approaches the process in a more conventional manner. Union is designed to combine images by knocking out specific colors as transparent, while borrowing some mojo from the company’s previous apps. It’s a pretty slick affair. That said, it still lacks some key features for optimum image blending. Union’s process is based on three essential image layers: a background image, a foreground subject, and a mask layer to combine the previous two. You can load any image from your device into those three slots…

Headphones that cost $1,070 more than Apple’s EarPods $1099 Manufacturer Oppo www.oppodigital.com Requirements Any devices with 3.5 mm stereo input There’s really no other way of saying it: these headphones cost more than $1,000. That’s right, $1,099 for a pair of headphones, enough to buy you 37 pairs of Apple EarPods; 22 iPod shuffles; or the metaphysical concept of shame. But suspend your disbelief and come with us on a journey through the PM-1’s credentials and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to the end of this review in the belief that they’re worth it. Oppo, of course, is better known for its kick-ass Blu-ray players and more recently its Android smartphones. The PM-1 headphones are the first such products Oppo has made, and the result of many years of research, development,…

Create rules and templates to efficiently manage an email flood $29.95 Developer Indev www.indev.ca Requirements OS X 10.8 or later, Apple Mail As you already have Mail, a competent email client that’s free with OS X, you might question paying for an add-on like this. However, heavy email users may find Mail Act-On indispensable. It’s designed to simplify email management, letting you define rules, create actions for filing and other workflow tasks, and adjust outbox messages before and after they’re sent. Rules and settings live in Mail’s preferences. Mail Act-On renames Mail’s rules to Inbox Rules and adds Outbox Rules and Act-On Rules. Outbox Rules can pre-process mail, for example changing the "from" address when sending to contacts, delaying delivery, or appending text. Post-delivery, messages can be flagged, and alerts can…

How fast can you go with this new version of the download manager? $19.95 Developer Eltima software mac.eltima.com Requirements Mac OS 10.8.3 or later, 64-bit processor, 20.8 MB hard disk space Folx Go+ 3 is the latest download manager from Eltima. The software is designed to help you more easily manage large downloads or multiple downloads in a user-friendly interface. Perhaps its most interesting ability is to manually set download speeds, so if you want to get a large file, and have the time to wait, you can get it without that one file monopolizing your Internet connection. You can split downloads into manageable chunks of up to ten threads too. Furthermore, this new version of Folx Go+ also lets you pause and resume downloads at will, which is fantastic for…

The smartest fitness tracker around, at least until Apple announces an iWatch $149.99 Manufacturer Jawbone www.jawbone.com/up Requirements iPhone 4s and newer, iPod touch 5th gen and newer, iPad 3rd gen and newer, iPad mini and newer The smart and sporty Jawbone UP24 is the most fashionable, lightweight and comfortable fitness tracking wearable you can buy, and it has a beautiful app to match. Of course, some functionality is sacrificed in the name of vanity. For starters, there’s no display on the device itself for on-demand workout stats or a web-based portal to chart the quantified self data it silently collects. All metrics have to be synced to an iOS app, but the UP24 improves over the original UP with Bluetooth wireless syncing to make data uploads almost effortless. Battery life takes…

A 2D adventure with a papercrafty feel $9.99 Developer Broken Rules www.brokenrul.es Requirements Mac OS X 10.6 or later, 2GHz processor, 1GB RAM, Intel HD 4000 Graphics or better Like the bird it puts under your command, Secrets of Roetikon is beautiful and majestic, with a papercraft-esque aesthetic that lends its cartoonish natural settings incredible charm. Soaring through the 2D terrain and soaking in the sights, it’s difficult not to soak in the serenity - but there are other qualities not borrowed from its starring creature. Nimbleness and fluidity come to mind, as this brief indie adventure delivers a cumbersome and frustrating experience beyond its attractive veneer, and somehow irritates both with linear level design and a lack of direction. Secrets of Roetikon takes the form of a breezy puzzle-solver of…

Unlock the neon key to a psychedelic synthesizer $14.99 Developer Phosfiend Systems fractgame.com Requirements OS 10.7 or higher, Core i5 2.2GHz or equivalent, 6GB RAM, Radeon 6750M or equivalent More than its surrealist cyberscapes or ambiguous puzzles, the weirdest thing about Fract OSC - the debut project from the Montreal-based husband-and-wife team called Phosfiend Systems - is its premise: it’s a first-person exploration and puzzle game, set inside a busted music synthesizer. Phosfiend provides few explanations or clear-cut goals, and it’s up to players to explore the world and piece the game’s mechanics together. This vague aimlessness might cause frustration (the game could really use a map), but that ill will is softened by Fract OSC’s beauty: rich navy caverns open onto neon green sites, while cantilevered spires tower over the…

Mimic in-camera motion blur with help from Photoshop Elements IF YOU’RE FEELING CREATIVE and ambitious with your photography skills, you can twist the lens barrel to zoom in or out from your subject while shooting with a slow shutter speed. This combination of lens movement and a slow shutter produces a dramatic burst of motion blur that radiates outwards from your central subject. An in-camera-produced zoom burst effect adds a sense of dynamic movement to the shot and helps draw the eye towards the main subject. It also helps to hide any distracting objects at the edge of the frame. An in-camera zoom burst effect can look great but, it’s a real challenge to capture one effectively. If your shutter speed is too fast, you won’t see much motion blur…

Make changes to your Dock, with spacers, stacks and visual effects THE DOCK PANE within System Preferences provides options to change many aspects of the Dock’s appearance and behavior. For example, you can adjust its size, edge position (left, bottom, right) and magnification level when you hover the cursor over icons. Additionally, there are two minimization effects to choose from, and settings for toggling the app-launch bounce, Dock auto-hide, and active application indicators. But System Preferences doesn’t tell the whole story, because Apple hides a number of extra options from the user interface. Even so, you can access them by using Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities. This command-line tool enables you to write to the Dock’s preferences file, turning on (or off) hidden preferences, and further changing the nature of your…

Powerful publishing on the move is now even easier with Pages ALL OF THE iWork apps got a makeover with the release of iOS 7, and when you buy a new device, all three are provided for free. Using Pages on an iPad is a much more pleasant experience than on an iPhone because of the screen size, and creating documents on your iPad is straightforward, largely thanks to the templates provided and the effective use of touch controls. Start by choosing one of the 63 available templates, and then customize it until it fits the bill precisely. Don’t like the headline typeface? Change it. Size and color? You can change those, too. Images can be replaced with photos from your Photos app, and there are dozens of shapes available…