Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2017 i MacLife

IF IPHONEX is a little too rich for your tastes, then Apple has you covered with the upgraded iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, priced from $699 and $799, respectively. Echoing the design of last year’s iPhone 7, the new models feature a toughened glass front and back (rather than the aluminum back of its predecessor), and include higher quality Retina HD displays with True Tone tech that uses ambient light to adjust output to look more natural. Inside you’ll find the same A11 Bionic processor as the iPhone X, although since the iPhone 8 features a regular Home button with Touch ID rather than Face ID, the iPhone 8 uses its considerable power to help you enjoy Augmented Reality (AR) apps, and to help apps work faster and more…

REMEMBER WHEN THE iPad launched, over seven years ago? Many people didn’t have a good grasp of its purpose or how it would fit into their workflow. Even Apple seemed unsure of what the iPad was, opting to go with a clunky label of “post-PC device.” But to some of us, it was clear then that the iPad was a new platform, in many respects the future of computing for millions of people, myself included. I think the iPhone is at a similar milestone. Apple held its typical fall event in early September, announcing some pretty big stuff: Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular features, a new Apple TV with support for 4K displays (think: the next big step in HD), the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, but also…

$3.99 From Grailr, meetcarrot.com Made for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch Needs iOS 10.0 or later Marrying accurate forecasting with a twisted artificial intelligence, Carrot Weather is an anomaly: a fun weather app. Select a location and the app provides the usual data: current conditions; rainfall warnings; hourly and daily outlooks. It adds a layer of twisted snark. It’ll merrily LOL if it’s about to pour with rain, call you a “meatbag,” and note that it hopes you get “embarrassing tan lines” when the sun appears. But this isn’t a mere gimmick, because beyond the oddball commentary, Carrot Weather is a usable, colorful, data-rich app. On iPhone and iPad alike, Carrot’s interface makes it easy to glance at an overview or delve into details by tapping on any given hour or…

$9.99 From Matthias Hochgatterer, hochgatterer.com Made for iPhone. iPad, Watch Needs iOS 11.0 or later iOS 11’s improvements to HomeKit are available to third-party apps as well, enabling them to provide alternative ways to manage your smart home that are arguably less confusing to use than Apple’s own Home app, which makes extensive use of long/firm presses to reach accessory settings. This alternative shows accessories in tappable rows, and uses equally conventional controls, such as sliders, to adjust settings. It’s a matter of taste whether this or Apple’s larger controls are better; though the latter can seem fussy, they’re arguably quicker to use. If you have more than a handful of accessories in your setup, Home 3’s color-coded icons next to accessory names guides your eyes faster than the large…

$2.99 From Milkbag Games, milkbag.me Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 8.0 or later In contrast to most of its competitors, Sidewords is unique. That’s probably because it’s not reimagining crosswords or ripping off Scrabble. The game involves a blank grid, along the top- and left-hand edges of which are two words. You must select at least one letter from each, to make a word of three or more letters. Every letter you prod blasts a laser-like line across the grid. Squares where these lines collide are filled with your word when you confirm it by prodding a big tick. There’s crossover with anagram games, then, but Sidewords is also a logic puzzle. Completed word blocks cannot overlap, but can be removed with a tap. Often, you’ll sadly remove big…

Free From Fourdesire, walkrgame.com Made for iPhone, Watch Needs iOS 7.0 or later Billed as a “galaxy adventure in your pocket,” Walkr turns walking into an intriguing game in which you build your own universe and watch it grow. The idea here is that your “walking energy” is transformed into fuel that powers your ship on its mission to discover and colonize more than 100 fascinating new worlds. Naturally, most of this universebuilding is done from the iPhone, where Walkr taps into your Apple Health data. From the watchOS app, space fans can keep tabs on their exercise, receive notifications of rewards and missions, and even check the weather at their current location — on Earth, naturally. Sure, the Watch app is just a fancy pedometer, but if you’re an…

$180 From Logitech, logitech.com CIRCLE 2 Features Wi-Fi (dual-band), 1080p camera, Auto night vision (up to 15 ft), speaker The original Logitech Circle was a fairly straightforward smart security camera, but it benefited from Logitech’s welldesigned and easy-to-use app. So, needless to say, we were really keen when Logitech told us that the new Circle 2 would add support for Apple’s HomeKit too. A firmware update that adds HomeKit support was released just after the Circle 2 started shipping, so you might need to download it if you buy a unit that shipped early on. Even if you’ll use Circle 2 alone, rather than in a broader HomeKit-powered setup, it proves to be a useful security device. It has a handy tilt-and-swivel stand, and Logitech includes a wall-mount bracket with…

$200 From G-Technology, g-technology.com Features USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1) port, 45W power delivery, 5,400rpm disk This drive’s mid-2000s aesthetic belies a very modern capability: it uses USB-C’s power delivery feature to charge your MacBook while you’re using the hard disk. The port provides 45 watts, limiting it to the 12-inch MacBook if you want full charging speed even under heavy processor load. A data-only USB-C to USB-A cable is also supplied. The interface conforms to USB 3.1 Gen 1, so its theoretical maximum transfer rate is 625MB/sec, which is way faster than the single disk inside can manage anyway. The fastest transfer rate in our tests was 186.8MB/sec when writing sequentially, and mean average sequential transfer rates were 151.8 (reading) and 144.1MB/sec (writing). That’s decent enough, but nothing spectacular.…

$429 From Corel, painterartist.com Needs OS X 10.10 or later This release of Painter has many new features that will make the digital artist in you quiver in anticipation. Let’s start with the Thick Paint option. This set of painting tools goes beyond the Impasto tools that were present in earlier versions, accurately mimicking the look and feel of traditional oil and acrylic paint. You can pile on the paint, push it around, scrape the paint, and realistically blend it. The default brushes have been inspired by their traditional equivalents, and Corel says that the brush variants have been created by artists familiar with traditional media. One wonders how they were designed in previous versions. Still, the brushes are flexible, with new options for blending underlying brushstrokes and variable opacity.…

$70 From Accell, accellcables.com Requires USB-C port, USB-C power supply The HDMI version of Accell’s Mini Dock caught our attention thanks to its HDMI 2.0 support, rather than HDMI 1.4 on Apple’s Digital Multiport Adapter ($79), enabling it to extend your desktop onto a 4K display at 60Hz for smooth motion. It has its own drawback, though: its USB-C charging port supplies insufficient power for larger MacBooks to charge at full speed – our 15-inch model received 54 watts – that’s good enough for a 12-inch MacBook, and you might only notice a slightly slower charging time on a 13-inch Pro. To add HDMI 2.0 output to a 15-inch Pro, we recommend Accell’s single-port USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter instead, if you have a port free. Another niggle is that…

THE LANDLORD’S face is a picture of both concern and confusion. “Are you saying the lock’s broken?” “No, the lock’s fine; I just thought it would be nice if we could use a smart lock instead.” “To open the door? You press a button on your phone and the door pops open?” “Well, technically there’s not a button involved. I’d just walk up to the door, and…” I sense I have already lost the battle, ending my impassioned plea for smart locks with an elaborate mime in which I bound into the house unimpeded, grocery bags piled in my arms. My landlord looks like I’ve asked permission to install a climbing wall or a Swedish sauna; part-curious, part-horrified. “I just…” he looks down at the keys in his hand, frowning.…

Free No matter how much someone loves to hunt, fish, or shoot, they can’t spend every single day outdoors, but now they can live vicariously through others with this new app for Apple TV. Promising “quality outdoor television,” Hunt Channel offers the widest selection of hunting, fishing, and shooting shows on any platform. On-demand content is sorted into categories, with most programs lasting around 25 minutes, and with new episodes added every week. Navigating between them is a breeze. We did have issues with videos not playing initially, and the image was decidedly web quality when they did. Hopefully these early kinks will be fixed by the time you read this.…

REQUIRES macOS High Sierra YOU WILL LEARN How to enable Type to Siri for silent interaction, and fall back on voice control when you prefer it. IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes IF YOUR MAC HAS A TOUCH BAR If you’ve managed to remove Siri’s icon from the Touch Bar, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Customize Control Strip, then drag the icon from your Mac’s main display down to the Touch Bar. WHEN APPLE’S personal assistant made its way from iOS to the Mac in macOS Sierra, it lacked a capability that you might think essential if you work in a shared space such as a cafe, office, or library: the ability to ask questions or give instructions without having to talk. That has been remedied in…

REQUIRES iMovie for macOS. Some video footage; captured from a DSLR gives greater scope for color correction, but you might be surprised by what you can do with iPhone footage. YOU WILL LEARN How you can use iMovie’s advanced image controls to get your video looking exactly how you want it IT WILL TAKE 1 hour WE LOVE IMOVIE. At its heart it’s a fantastically easy-to-use video editor: simply drag and drop your clips into the timeline, move them around, hit Share and voilà. Other common jobs, such as adding soundtracks and sound effects, are equally straightforward. But beneath iMovie’s simple-looking interface beats the heart of a powerful video editor that can be used to make projects far beyond the scope of the pre-built themes you were so impressed with…

REQUIRES iOS 11 YOU WILL LEARN How to make use of automatic or manual offloading of apps to reclaim storage space when it’s needed for something else. IT WILL TA KE 15 minutes ? MANAGE YOUR ICLOUD STORAGE If you want to manage your iCloud storage in iOS 11, open Settings and tap your name/Apple ID at the top of the first page, then iCloud, followed by Manage Storage. IOS 11 INCLUDES a storage management improvement that can save a lot of time and frustration in moments when you need extra storage space. Apple refers to it as offloading unused apps, and there are two ways to use it. Offloading removes the app from your device, but not your personal data associated with it. If you want to use that…

APPLE FINALLY did it. It unveiled an iPhone, named iPhone X, that lacks a Home button. That iconic feature, notably present even in basic depictions of the smartphone, has been with us for 10 years. But in laying out its plans for what the future holds for its flagship product, Apple has demonstrated it’s not afraid to cast off something that’s familiar to millions of people around the world. This means some upheaval. Some of the interactions you’ll have grown used to over the years – returning to the Home screen, taking screenshots, and opening the app switcher, to name a few – require you to adapt to new ways of doing things. Most of the changes will soon be like second nature, but there’s one that stands out: opening…

APPLE HAS FINALLY bowed to the inevitable and launched a next-gen Apple Watch with built-in 4G LTE connectivity, enabling you to use the device without the need to keep your iPhone close by all the time. Long expected, the new GPS + Cellular models come with a specially designed antenna built into the Watch’s OLED display, enabling you to make and take calls, check your messages, and much more. You will even be able to stream any song from Apple Music later this year using the redesigned Music app in watchOS 4. Apple Watch Series 3 includes its own eSIM, which is a hundred times smaller than a regular SIM. Apple says you’ll be able to use your existing cell phone number with the device, and that participating carriers will…

HOW IT’S MEANT TO WORK The central idea behind iCloud is that Apple’s service can securely store all of your photos, videos, documents, music, and apps – and then keep everything up to the second across all your devices. The thinking is that whenever you need access to something, it’ll be ready and waiting, regardless of the device you happen to be using at the time. HOW TO MAKE IT WORK With iCloud and storage, the devil is in the detail. Where are documents accessed? How much space is there? Access varies by system and app, and is explored on the following pages. But the amount of storage you have is the most important consideration, because that impacts everything. By default, Apple provides 5GB for free. When iCloud launched, this…

HOW IT’S MEANT TO WORK By using iCloud Drive and associated features across macOS and iOS, your saved documents are available on any device, happily living inside whatever folder hierarchy you’ve created for them. HOW TO MAKE IT WORK Again, this one is complicated. Apple sees a future in which you never need to worry about having saved a file or folder on the “wrong device” again, thereby temporarily putting it out of reach when you most need it. But we’re not there yet, and the system Apple’s ended up with is sub-optimal and messy, due to years of accumulated cruft on the Mac side and false starts on iOS. As of macOS Sierra, you can optionally sync your Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud. Again, this is reliant on…

$49.99 (Standard), $99.99 (Pro) From Omni Group, omnigroup.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 10.3 It’s testament to OmniGraffle’s versatility that its appeal lies with such an incongruous collection of fans. Website wireframers, illustrators, and process flow junkies all line up to praise its simple, unfussy approach to diagram creation. Version 3 for iOS remains delightfully straightforward. You don’t need artistic talent to create diagrams. Instead you can drag elements to a canvas from a built-in collection of shapes and objects, called stencils. And your choices are infinitely extended thanks to a built-in link to the Omni Group’s enormous online stencil repository. Visually, the obvious change in version 3 is a fresh, paneled look. Sidebars sandwich the canvas in Landscape mode on bigger iOS screens – they appear from the…

$9.99 From Plotagraph, plotagraphs.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 10.0 or later Of late, cinemagraphs have become big on mobile. These magical photos have small areas of looping movement, and are typically constructed from video clips where all but a small area has been frozen. Plotagraph+ is more ambitious, adding movement to any still image. On iOS, Plotagraph+ is a tactile affair – especially when you’re armed with an iPad and Pencil. You can quickly define animation points by dragging out arrows, and freeze areas of your image by setting anchor points and drawing masks. Editing any element requires a trip to the Select tool, but this at least avoids, for instance, accidentally mucking up carefully placed animation arrows when dragging anchor points about. Beyond that, you can adjust…

Free From The Chamberlain Group, chamberlain.com Made for iPhone, Watch Needs iOS 10.0 or later If your children have a habit of leaving the garage door open every time they get their bikes out, you’re bound to be pleased by Chamberlain’s Wi-Fi-equipped replacement door, which you can open or close remotely simply by tapping in the MyQ Home Control app for iPhone and Apple Watch. Naturally, you can also use MyQ Home Control to take charge over other Chamberlain smart home gear such as your home lighting. But, best of all, the brand-new MyQ Home Bridge hub connects these products to Apple’s HomeKit, enabling you to create scenes that are integrated with light switches, smart plugs, and other products – and then control them all using Siri. Like many watchOS…

$49 From Optoma, optoma.com Features Bluetooth 4.1, USB-A to Micro-USB charging cable, AAC codec support We’re big fans of Optoma’s NuForce line of wireless earbuds for good reason: they offer a lot for the money – and these new budget headphones are no exception. If you’re looking for an affordable, but high-quality alternative to Apple’s AirPods, you’ve just found it. The Optoma NuForce BE2 uses the same design ethos as two of our favorite sets of earbuds from the company, the BE6i and BE Sport3. So, you get angled drivers, a flat ribbon cable, and a water-resistant remote control. And since the BE2 earbuds are IPX5-rated, they’re also water- and sweat-resistant too – perfect for workouts. You won’t want to dunk these headphones in water, but they’ll certainly survive being…

When Apple announced the HomePod back in June, it also mentioned that the speaker will include both the HomeKit software for smart home automation, and the AirPlay software that is built in to Macs and iOS devices that enables them to stream music over Wi-Fi over your home network. More importantly, both HomeKit and AirPlay are being updated as part of iOS 11, which will be launched just ahead of the HomePod. These updates will enable HomeKit and the new AirPlay 2 to work together for the first time. The full details are still under wraps, but if you have a speaker that works with AirPlay 2 – which can be one from another manufacturer, not just Apple’s HomePod – then you’ll be able to control that speaker using the…

$24.99 If you own an antenna and an HDHomeRun device, there’s no better way to receive live, overthe- air broadcasts than Channels. Although it’s on the pricey side, you get a quality TV guide, full HD streaming with surround sound and closed captioning, as well as the ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward live TV shows. With the latest version, DVR capabilities are also in the mix, although you’ll need a computer or supported NAS device to run it from, but the feature is super-easy to set up and use. Currently in public beta, DVR also requires a $8 per month subscription. And as the DVR feature comes with Comskip, you’ll be able to skip adverts with a double-click of the Siri Remote.…

I have a 3TB AirPort Time Capsule. How can I use this to replace my ISP’s router? Your ISP will likely have provided you with two devices in a single box: a modem (DSL or cable) and a router, usually incorporating a Wi-Fi base station. Time Capsule can’t replace the modem part, but it can operate as your router for both Ethernet and Wi-Fi. To use it in this role, connect it to your modem?router, and turn off the modem-router’s Wi-Fi and DHCP services. This is usually performed through its web admin interface, and you’ll have to consult its user guide to find out how to do that. Connect one of the modem-router’s Ethernet LAN ports to the Ethernet WAN port on your Time Capsule, and any local Ethernet network…

REQUIRES macOS High Sierra (Many features work with older versions.) YOU WILL LEARN How to quickly find the message you want among the many you’ve received in the past. IT WILL TAKE 20 minutes APPLE’S MAIL APP provides several great features to help organize messages and quickly locate the exact one among many that you receive. You’ve probably created a few mailboxes to store things based on their topic, for example. Maybe you were lured into filing your messages by the promise of “inbox zero” nirvana, but even if you’re the world’s most organized person, it’s likely you’ll have to depend on Mail’s more refined search features to find that one message you need from among many. Your first port of call is likely to be Mail’s search bar. Enter…

REQUIRES macOS High Sierra YOU WILL LEARN What to look out for when something attempts to install a kernel extension on your Mac, and how to respond to it. IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes THERE’S A CHANGE to how kernel extensions are handled in macOS High Sierra, for which Apple has published advice for system administrators, yet this change may have a small impact on you even as a regular Mac user. Basically, kernel extensions added to your Mac after you install High Sierra require user approval. After installing High Sierra, we ran into this scenario two times in as many days. The action that’s consequently required on your part is trivial, but we recommend paying closer attention than you might normally do when installing software. For example, we encountered…

REQUIRES Nirvana for GTD YOU WILL LEARN How to create and manage projects and tasks. IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes ? GENIUS TIP Use tags and timescales to make searching for tasks easy. You can create as many tags as you like. DO YOU EVER look at your to-do list and just go “meh?” If you do, you’re probably suffering from that curse of the information age: too much stuff to do. Thankfully there’s a solution called Getting Things Done (GTD). GTD is a time-management system - a kind of triage for information overload: if something needs doing right now and can be done right now, then do it; if it doesn’t need to be or can’t be done right now, then defer it or delegate it. To make this…

APPLE HAS ANNOUNCED the best iPhone it’s ever made, delivering a killer combination of advanced features that put it back at the forefront of the smartphone space. The new iPhone X (pronounced “ten”) is also the most expensive iPhone it has ever made. With prices ranging from $999 for the 64GB version to $1,149 for the 256GB, iPhone X had better deliver – it does on paper. For a start, it comes with a 5.8-inch Super Retina HD display that almost fills the whole of the front of the device, save for a cutout at the top which contains the new TrueDepth camera among other innnovations (more on these in a moment). The almost bezel-less display has a resolution of 2548x1125 pixels at 458 ppi. It also marks a shift…

GAMERS, IT’S TIME to get excited. Thanks to iOS 11 and ARKit, games are about to enter an entire new realm: The real world. Apple’s tools are cutting edge, they work, and indie game developers are putting together fascinating concepts. ARKit is Apple’s development framework for augmented reality. The idea is to add to what is in physical space by graphically overlaying elements on it. Pokémon Go was a very rough prototype of the idea, having you hunt Pokémon in the real world; it’d detect the ground, plot out the space around you, and enable you to walk around the Pokémon as if it were physically there. Soon, you’ll be able to take family portraits with Pikachu. We promise not to judge. All this sounds like science fiction, but it’s…

Free From Anchor FM, anchor.fm Made for iPhone Needs iOS 8.1 or later Podcasting is hard. You need audio equipment, a computer to record on, web hosting, an RSS feed – wait, what’s an RSS feed? It’s been this way for a while, so we’re really happy to see Anchor, a new iPhone app that takes a shot at lowering the barrier to entry for publishing audio. Anchor is a “Twitter for audio.” You can post short clips simply by talking into your iPhone, and follow other “stations” to get your daily mix of musings on news, philosophy, music, gaming – just about anything you want. It takes just a couple of taps to drop in background music to help smooth over the smartphonequality recording and any background noise. There…

Free From The Rocket Science Group, mailchimp.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 9.3 or later MailChimp is mighty big in mailing list services. If you have something to say or sell, it’s a great choice. That is, unless you’ve wanted to create email campaigns on your iPad or iPhone. Its iOS app hasn’t really allowed creating or editing email campaigns – until now. MailChimp on iOS has mostly been a place to view details of subscriber activity and sent campaigns. New in MailChimp 4 is the ability to create and edit new campaigns (the industry name for the emails you send). You can add nearly every kind of supported content, reorder your content “blocks,” change most formatting details, preview your work, and press the big red button. Whether you’re…

$3.99 From Flashbulb Apps, pressplay.dk Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 10.0 or later A puzzle game disguised as a side-scrolling platformer, Kalimba has you control two characters – one pink, the other green – who move at the same time along two far from identical tracks. Make jumps, collect pickups, and get to the end. It sounds so simple, but trying to do it both above and below at the same time starts to twist your mind. That’s only the early levels, too – new mechanics are quickly introduced and seem to keep coming, like switching your characters over, stacking them on one another, bumping one into a rock so they don’t move but the other can, and matching their color to barriers they can pass through if the…

$4.99 From Due Apps, dueapp.com Made for iPhone, iPad, Watch Needs iOS 9.3 or later Apple’s built-in Reminders app does a serviceable job of keeping you notified about upcoming tasks, but there’s always room for improvement. With the release of version 2.5, Due steps up to the plate by offering persistent reminders – mark each one as done, or tasks will keep on coming back to haunt you. While nagging hardly sounds like a killer feature, most other reminder apps don’t work hard enough to make sure users follow through. That’s not a problem with Due, which uses auto-snooze to keep overdue reminders returning like the undead in intervals of one, five, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes – or not at all. WATCH TIP Tapback messages To add flair…

1 KILL SWITCH If you’re becoming too dependent on hitting the Snooze button every morning, open Alarms on your Watch to break that habit once and for all. 2 ONE BY ONE Tap on the alarm whose Snooze feature you want to disable. If there’s more than one, you’ll have to repeat this and the next step for each of them. 3 SNOOZE OFF At the bottom of the Edit Alarm screen is a switch for toggling Snooze – tap to turn it off. Don’t blame us when you can’t get out of bed tomorrow morning!…

$70 From Elgato, elgato.com Features Temperature and humidity sensors HomeKit enables remote control of smart devices located anywhere in your home. But sometimes a more tactile approach works best, such as keeping tabs on a room’s climate on a display in plain sight. Elgato Eve Degree is a handsome 2.1-inch square with rounded anodized aluminum edges, and a black LCD face that switches between temperature or humidity by pushing a button located on its back; viewing both at the same time can only be done from supported apps. A mere 0.6 inches thick, Eve Degree is easy to mount on a wall. We found the LCD display a little hard to read at a distance in darker rooms, and there’s no backlight available. Temperature readings are accurate to +/– 0.54…

1 B&W ZEPPELIN WIRELESS $700 bowers-wilkins.com B&W’s Zeppelin was one of the first, and best, AirPlay speakers. Sadly, the current model, the Zeppelin Wireless, can’t be updated for AirPlay 2, although it still sounds fantastic. B&W is planning a new model with AirPlay 2 for later this year. Expect the excellence to continue. 2 B&O BEOPLAY M5 $599 beoplay.com The HomePod-like M5 is one of a number of AirPlay speakers that B&O says can be updated for AirPlay 2. Although it’s expensive, the M5 makes up for it with stunning build and sound quality, plus a powerful 130W output. It also offers Bluetooth audio streaming, and support for services such as Spotify. 3 APPLE HOMEPOD $349 apple.com There’s a lot riding on the HomePod; it has to sound great and,…

TCL 55P607 $800 • TCLUSA.COM One of the best budget TV models for 2017, this 55-inch panel supports Dolby Vision with bright, colorful HDR, and Roku TV is baked right in for the occasional times when a channel you want to watch isn’t available on Apple TV. Check your expectations with upscaling and black levels, but otherwise this one’s a winner. SIDECLICK SC2-APG4K $30 • SIDECLICKREMOTES.COM One remote to rule them all! This unique gadget attaches to your Siri Remote and adds the ability to control multiple IR devices, such as a TV, Blu-ray player, or AV receiver from the same place. It includes eight programmable buttons, and Sideclick provides a better grip than just holding the Apple TV remote in your hand.…

When my wife sends texts containing emojis from her iPhone SE, some people say they see small boxes, or brackets and dots instead. They look fine on my MacBook Pro, though. What can she do? Text messages originally used characters from the Roman alphabet, and used symbols in emoticons, the precursors to emoji – such as :) for a smiley. On more modern phones, messages changed to use Unicode, a cross-platform standard which has grown to support more than 100 script systems covering thousands of languages, a wide range of other symbols, and emoji. Older operating systems used on less sophisticated devices don’t support the latest Unicode 9 standard, as iPhones, iPads, Macs, and some other devices do. When your wife writes a message that includes Unicode 9 characters, it’s…

REQUIRES macOS High Sierra YOU WILL LEARN When to expect a Mac to use APFS, how to use APFS on external drives, and the new file system’s impact on other Apple products and features. IT WILL TAKE 25 minutes NORMALLY YOU DON’T have to concern yourself with the file system that’s used to store data on drives, whether internal or external. In fact, the only time you may ever have thought about this in the past is when setting up new storage, such as an external hard drive or a USB flash drive. In the past, the choice was easy: you would use Mac OS Extended (also known as Hierarchical File System Plus, or HFS+) if a drive would only be used with Macs, or FAT or ExFAT if it’ll…

REQUIRES Affinity Photo for iPad YOU WILL LEARN How to quickly fix up a picture in Affinity Photo, by brightening and sharpening the image IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes WITH AFFINITY PHOTO being the only pro-grade photo editing app on the App Store – at least until Adobe inevitably gets into gear with its touchbased Photoshop – we’re going beyond the realms of the one-click filters and automatic fixes of most iOS image editing apps, pushing into territory previously held by expensive Mac apps. Of course, a touchscreen interface needs to be tailored to the needs of the user rather than just to the product – an app populated by tiny pop-up windows, floating palettes, and histograms that can be adjusted by what feels like one pixel at a time…