Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i MacLife

1 C Seed M1 cseed.tv Around $400,000 MicroLED is here, and it’s completely out–of–its–gourd crazy. The C Seed M1 takes advantage of every one of the new screen tech’s core features to create a TV the likes of which we’ve never seen before and will (unless something very strange happens) never see in our own homes. This folding, expanding hideaway TV is a feat of engineering as much as it is a leap in innovation. It’s the sort of TV you build a room around — quite literally, given that it’s supposed to emerge from a mechanized hole in your floor and unfurl its 165–inch panel automatically, then tuck itself back into the floor when it’s done. The M1 pulls off that feat by using MicroLED’s unique ability to form…

1 Decide what to share iCloud Photo Library won’t share your entire library with other people, and few of us would want that anyway. Instead it lets you create shared photo albums that others can access. First, decide what you want to share. 2 Create a new album If you hover over the Shared Albums link in the sidebar, a little “+” sign will appear. If you click on it, you can then give your new album a name, choose the people you want to invite to view the album, and add a comment. 3 Pick your pics Here’s a fresh new album just waiting for some photos to share. To add images, either click on the Add Photos And Videos link underneath the album’s name or drag and drop…

Sometimes we delete important things by accident. Thankfully, iCloud can help us recover them. If you log in to iCloud.com and click on iCloud Drive, you’ll see an icon at the bottom-right of the window saying Recently Deleted. Click on that to open the Recently Deleted folder, which keeps deleted files and folders for up to 30 days. (You’ll see a label under each file or folder name telling you how long it has left before it’s gone forever). To get files back, just select them and click on Recover. You can also restore other things from within iCloud.com. If you click on your name in the top–right and then on Account Settings, you’ll see links to restore contacts, calendars, and bookmarks too.…

We strongly recommend Apple’s two–factor authentication (2FA) to add an extra layer of security to your iCloud account. This ensures that people can’t log in as you from other devices even if they have your Apple ID and password. With 2FA enabled, when you try to log in to an iCloud service from a new device, Apple sends a one–time code to your existing devices. No code, no login. If it’s not enabled on your device you can turn on 2FA in Settings.…

You can also share Apple services and your iCloud package with family members. Family Sharing enables you to share all kinds of things with up to five other Apple IDs so you can share photos, storage, and apps. If you’re thinking “wait a sec, aren’t Apple IDs unavailable to under–13s?” you’re right, but Apple enables you to create Apple IDs on their behalf. You can share iCloud storage, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, location data, iTunes, App Store purchases, and Apple Books. Family Sharing also lets you set up Screen Time and parental controls. You may find your third–party apps here too. You can only share services you subscribe to, although you can share iTunes purchases or iCloud Music Library. To share Apple Music, you’ll need to have an…

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$129.99 From Logitech, logitech.com Features Split layout, sloping body, wrist rest, Bluetooth 5.0, USB–A receiver dongle, 2x AAA batteries (included) Many of us spend an enormous amount of time sat at a desk working on our Macs. The problem with all this typing is that it can create a real strain on your body — not just your wrists, but your arms and back too. Logitech has decided to do something about this with its new Ergo K860, an ergonomic keyboard designed to make things easier on your body and offer a more comfortable typing experience. The first thing you notice about the K860 is its layout. The keys between Caps Lock and Return are divided into two banks, with a large wedge between them. The keys themselves follow an…

$149.95 From Hex, hexbrand.com Features 17.5–liter capacity, antimicrobial fabric technology, wireless charging pocket, 1680D Cordura ballistic bottom, YKK EYL woven zips, padded laptop pocket Whether you’re travelling for work or for pleasure, you need a great bag to tote all your stuff — especially if your stuff includes a MacBook, iPad, iPhone, a ton of peripherals, and your lunch. The Hex Technical Backpack has room for all that and more, and it’s beautifully made too. Boasting a storage capacity of 17.5-liters (just under four gallons), it comes with padded, cosseting spaces for both the aforementioned MacBook (up to 16–inches) and iPad, plus myriad pockets for everything else — from your Apple Pencil and Lightning cables to your iPhone or passport (there’s a pocket just for them). It’s made from waterproof…

$399.99 From Linksys, linksys.com Features 802.11ax Wi–Fi (aka Wi–Fi 6), dual–band 2.4GHz and 5GHz, 1.8GHz quad–core CPU, 2.4GHz and 5GHz beamforming, 1x Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, 4x Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, 2x USB 3.0; 2.36x11x6.7in, 33oz Linksys provides a number of Wi–Fi 6 routers and mesh systems, and its new MR9600 is its top–of–the–range router. Like all Wi–Fi 6 routers, the MR9600 is compatible with devices that use the older 802.11ac, but you will need newer devices with Wi–Fi 6 to get the full speed and benefits. At $399.99, the MR9600 is on the pricey side. We’ve seen rival Wi–Fi 6 routers offering similar performance for less but, as well as acting as a conventional router, the MR9600 includes the same mesh networking technology as Linksys’ popular Velop mesh systems,…

$59.99 From Twelve South, twelvesouth.com Features Metal MacBook/iPad stand, 18° viewing angle, cable management The 2021 ParcSlope has an all–metal stand with rubberized inserts at the top and bottom for holding a MacBook or iPad in place — either of which sit at an 18° angle. It aims to give a more comfortable typing/Touch Bar experience when used with a MacBook (Pro) and an equally pleasant sketching/drawing experience when using an iPad. And that almost is all there is to it. Build quality is excellent and it offers cable management, plus cooling for your MacBook thanks to its angled design and cutouts. Typing on a MacBook using it feels weird at first, but you soon get used it. It also elevates the screen to a more convenient angle than resting…

Enter the M1’s 1 True Recovery mode by continuing to press its Power button when starting up until it’s loading. Then click Options and use Disk Utility to erase its System and Data volumes before installing a fresh copy of macOS. That isn’t a complete wipe and install, though. To do that, you need to put your mini into DFU mode and connect it to another Mac running the latest version of Apple Configurator 2, as detailed at bit.ly/mac363config2. This erases the entire internal SSD and installs your M1’s firmware and system software from an IPSW image file, which Configurator downloads for you. Installation should take less than 15 minutes. Neither of these should be necessary. Thanks to Big Sur’s new Sealed System Volume, it will only start up macOS…

Your Mac’s internal hard disk is sick. This isn’t surprising, as it’s around ten years old now, and most hard disks last no more than five years, so it’s done well. Although it might be possible to reformat it and install macOS, chances are that it will run into further problems quickly, and at any time could die suddenly. To format its disk, you would either need to start up in Remote Recovery Mode, by holding down the Opt+Cmd+R keys during startup, or from a bootable external disk. If the rest of the Mac is in good working order, and you want to prolong its life, locate a local repair shop and get them to replace its hard disk. That should be inexpensive, and give it another year or more…

You need the official installer for Mojave, available via the App Store link in bit.ly/mac363macoslegacy. This is delivered through Software Update. When you open Parallels for the first time it should display a splash screen to step you through creating your first virtual machine (VM). If it doesn’t, use the New command in the File menu. In the window, select the middle option to Install Windows or another OS. If that doesn’t offer the installer app you’ve downloaded, click on Choose Manually and navigate the Open File dialog to select the Apple installer that you’ve downloaded. Parallels then steps you through creating the VM and installing Mojave, then starts it up so you can log it into your iCloud account.…

THE FINDER IS such a core component of macOS, used by everyone every day, that we often take it for granted. Yet there are a lot of ways you can customize it to perfectly suit your needs, adding extra features or removing those you don’t need to create a much more streamlined and tailored Mac experience. In macOS Big Sur nearly every element of the Finder can be customized, from the folders and shortcuts in the sidebar and the buttons in the toolbar to the size of the icons and text displayed with each file. You can set your preferences to apply to a single folder or every folder you subsequently browse, based on your needs. You can even add a background picture if you like. In this tutorial, we…

APPLE HAS WADED deeper into the fitness fray with its own health subscription service called Apple Fitness+. For $9.99 a month you get a library of workouts in a range of styles, from yoga and dance to strength and rowing, and many more. Every workout is led by an experienced trainer who can help motivate you to work harder and reach your goals. You can see your progress towards closing your rings on screen, and each session’s accompanied by a music playlist designed to keep you focused and in the zone. To sign up, open the Fitness app on your iOS or iPadOS device or Apple TV and tap Get Started (on iPhone you must first tap the Fitness+ button at the bottom.) Apple Fitness+ requires an Apple Watch and…

Re: “Missing hardware diagnostics” query in Mac|Life’s “Ask” Q&A section, (April 2021, p73):Re: “Missing hardware diagnostics” query in Mac|Life’s “Ask” Q&A section, (April 2021, p73): “My iMac can’t enter hardware Diagnostics. When I hold down the D key during startup, it complains that it can’t load EFI/Driver/TestSupport.efi and I have to restart. How can I check its hardware?” Though the answer to this question was quite good, my first go-to question whenever someone says they can’t access a startup function is: “What kind of keyboard are you using?” Every time (in my experience) it turns out they’re using an aftermarket board. I first encountered this with my wife’s iMac years ago; I had gotten her a Matias board which was at–a–glance nearly identical to the stock iMac board. But Recovery,…

Apple’s online adventures haven’t always been brilliant. There’s a famous story about Steve Jobs being reduced to foul–mouthed firing–people fury over the half–baked launch of MobileMe back in 2008. But while the road to today’s iCloud may have been a rocky one, there’s no denying that today’s Apple is so much better at delivering online services than it was back in Jobs’ day. The iCloud family is absolutely packed with genuinely useful features and services that make your Apple devices more flexible, more useful, and more fun. So what is iCloud? As we’ll discover in this feature, it’s a little bit of everything — a mix of cloud storage and cloud–based services designed to make your Apple experience even better. It’s a place to store your stuff, and a way…

The iCloud Photo Library automatically copies any photos or videos you take on your devices and stores them in iCloud. You can then access them on your other Apple devices or share them with others. It supports the most common photo and video formats, including Apple’s favored HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format) and HEVC (High Efficiency Video Codec) formats and the standard JPEG, RAW, PNG, TIFF, MP4, and GIFs used by most image apps. It integrates seamlessly with your Photos app (and the data it syncs includes your People album, which is the one that uses image recognition to recognize people in your photos). You can also access your library from any web browser via iCloud.com. One of the things we really like about iCloud Photo Library is that its…

iCloud is what iDisk became when it grew up: Apple’s original cloud storage service was shelved in 2011 and replaced by iCloud Drive in 2012. It’s evolved into a very clever and powerful tool. iCloud enables you to store files and data on Apple’s servers, and there are few limits to what you can store. Provided it’s less than 50GB and you have sufficient iCloud space, you can upload pretty much anything — although Apple does advise against storing app folders, libraries, or .tmp files. iCloud Drive enabled apps such as Pages and Numbers to use it to store documents, so you can use the Mac ones on iPhone or iPad and vice versa, and you can use it on Mac like you would a USB drive or other removable…

1 Share online If you use iCloud Drive it’s easy to share documents with people, even if you’re away from your Mac — just log into your account at iCloud.com and click on iCloud Drive. To share a file, click the icon that shows a person with a “+” sign on it. 2 Set sharing options By default, sharing is only available to the person you’re sending the document link to and they can make changes to it. If you prefer, you can enable anybody who has the link to open it and/or make the link read–only. 3 Share in apps It’s pretty much identical inside Apple’s iCloud–enabled apps. In Pages you’ll see the same icon in the toolbar at the top, and if you click on it you’ll be…

1 Find yourself The Find My app looks more or less identical on Mac, iPhone, and iPad; it’s effectively Apple’s Maps. If you haven’t previously enabled location sharing, you’ll be prompted to do so the first time you run the app. 2 Set your sharing Tap the Me icon to adjust the settings that say whether other people can find your location. You can also rename your location to something that’s easier to remember such as home, gym, school, or work. 3 See your stuff Tap on the second tab, Devices, for a list of all the devices that are connected to your iCloud account; if you have Family Sharing it’ll also show your family members’ devices here. Tap on a device to see where it is. 4 Look for…

iCloud Keychain is far and away our favorite iCloud feature because it remembers important things so that we don’t have to! Keychain stores website and app passwords, Wi–Fi login details, internet account logins, and credit and debit card details. It holds the data securely so others can’t access it and makes it available across your devices, so for example you can log in to a Wi–Fi network on your Mac that you’ve previously connected to with your iPhone. All you need to do is authenticate, so for example when you try to log in to a site that iCloud Keychain already knows about you’ll be asked to verify via Touch ID, Face ID, or your iCloud password. If you’re on iOS 13/Catalina or later, you must enable two–factor authentication to…

iTunes Match was launched in 2011 and compared your Mac’s music library with the songs in the iTunes Store. If it found a match you could then stream or download Apple’s version even if it was higher quality than your copy. If not, Apple would copy the song to the cloud. You could add up to 100,000 songs over and above the ones you’d bought from iTunes. iTunes Match still exists as a stand–alone service, but it’s also bundled with every Apple Music subscription and called iCloud Music Library. Unlike your Photos library, the space it takes up doesn’t come out of your iCloud storage. Just be aware that the songs you download from Apple Music aren’t purchases — they’ll no longer work if you cancel your subscription.…

$24.95 From Magoshare, magoshare.com/disk-clone/mac-disk-clone.html Needs OS X 10.7 or later Cloning disks and making backups looks deceptively easy, and shouldn’t be complex. AweClone is a new contender in a market with well–proven alternatives to bundled utilities such as Disk Utility and Time Machine. It’s cheaper and simpler, but how well does it negotiate the bear traps in macOS, which have only been getting worse? It offers two functions: disk copying and the creation of “image” backups. These aren’t anything like cloning and proper backups, though. AweClone makes copies of whole volumes by copying individual files into a folder. This happens fairly quickly, at around 320GB per hour to a regular SSD, but its copy doesn’t match the original. Try this with Big Sur’s System and Data volumes and you end…

$9.99 From TLA Systems, pcalc.com Needs OS X 10.9 or later At 28, PCalc is older than some of its users, but wears it very well. The latest version for Mac continues to add new features and support the latest additions to macOS. Specifically, 4.9 adds what developer James Thomson describes as “a fully featured button layout editor” for the main calculator and the widget version that sits (optionally) in the Finder menu bar. This customization is in addition to the choice of themes, colors, and button shapes that were already present. As well as adding rows and columns to any layout, you can change the function of any button or delete it from a layout. Buttons can also be re–sized by dragging corners and layouts can be duplicated, saved,…

$329.99 From Razer, razer.com Features 10 ports, dual 4K or single 8K video output, Razer Chroma Underglow lighting Razer’s glowing Chroma dock is the first of the new generation of Thunderbolt 4 docks that have just begun to arrive. Fortunately, the differences between Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 have more to do with the way that Thunderbolt works on Windows PCs, so the Chroma should work fine with most existing Macs that have Thunderbolt 3. It’s a little expensive, but the Chroma provides an impressive array of ports and connectors. The dock measures just 7.5–inches wide, 3–inches deep and 1–inch high, so it’ll fit neatly under your Mac’s display. It does require a wall power supply, though, so it’s very much designed for indoor use. You can plug a whole…

$89.99 (512GB); $139.99 (1TB) From ADATA, adata.com Features 512GB/1TB, RGB lighting panel, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C (USB–C to USB–C and USB–C to USB–A cable included), 3.9x2.3x0.7in, 4.8oz The ADATA SE770G provides portable, high–speed external storage with a colorful twist. Once you attach it to a USB port, using either the USB–A or USB–C cables, the plain black side generates a light show as its RGB LEDs cycle through a rainbow of rich colors. The USB port on the drive is Type-C and the two included cables are around 8–inches long, making them fine for laptop users but decidedly short for desktop computers. In our benchmarking, CrystalDiskMark 7.0 recorded 954MB/s reads, and 898MB/s writes, and in the AJA System test these translated into 857MB/s reads and 862MB/s writes. Many…

$369.99 From Seagate, seagate.com Features 4TB hard drive, expandable M.3 NVMe SSD slot, 1x Thunderbolt 3 port, 1x DisplayPort, 4x USB 3.1 Gen3 ports, 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 battery charge port, 1x RJ45 Ethernet port, 1x 3.5mm audio-in/mic port, 1x 3.5mm audio-out port; 10.6x2x5.3in, 94oz The Seagate FireCuda Gaming Dock is like a supercharged external hard drive combined with a USB hub, bringing with it 4TB of storage and a bunch of extra ports. Plugging your MacBook into the gaming dock instantly gives you a high–speed Ethernet port and extra USB connections, as well as Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort 1.4 sockets if you need to connect an additional display. You’ll need a Thunderbolt 3–equipped MacBook or iMac to use with the FireCuda Gaming Dock, though it uses the familiar USB–C…

Spring is upon us, and that means now is the perfect time to get out in the garden and put your green fingers to work. But while gardening may seem like a very traditional pastime, it can really benefit from a touch of digital assistance. Whether you want to grow your own veg or nurture a field of beautiful flowers, there are plenty of apps to help you. We’ve rounded up six gardening apps that do everything from identifying plants and offering growing tips to planning your dream garden in minute detail. Best of all, they’re all completely free to get started. What will you do with your green space? ALEX BLAKE ISCAPE Free (IAPs) From iscapeit.com Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch To have a thriving garden, you first need…

For an immersive training experience, virtual reality is the way to go. We’d recommend the self–contained wire–free experience of the Oculus Quest 2 (from $299), which has a bunch of games that’ll get you sweating while you’re having fun. Your day–one purchase should probably be Beat Saber, one of the best rhythm games ever made, with a wildly varying level of challenge to it. We’d also recommend boxing sim Thrill Of The Fight (provided you have the room to move around). Going three rounds with its AI opponents will have you dodging and swinging through a surprisingly tough workout. If you really catch the VR bug, there are specific workout apps to scratch your itch. FitXR (formerly BoxXR) is well–presented with a wide range of activities, while OhShape will have…

Before accepting this is a hardware problem, try software remedies. Disable the lower and slower 2.4GHz band on any Wi–Fi routers, which often interferes with Bluetooth as they share the same radio frequencies. Try connecting your Trackpad using its charging cable to see if the freezing issue stops. If it continues freezing, then the problem isn’t with Bluetooth. Reinstalling macOS is another step worth taking. If the Bluetooth drivers have become damaged, or another process is swamping the processor, perhaps with repeated crashes, that can cause identical signs. Finally, when you can rule out those more common software causes, run Diagnostics by holding the D key during startup with both your Trackpad and keyboard connected by their charging cables. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth hardware is part of the main logic board,…

Dragging the app to the Trash leaves behind some of its components, so you should uninstall it properly. This has to be done from within the AVG AntiVirus app because the app installs a System Extension, as do most anti–malware apps, whose removal is best carried out by the app itself. Open the app and ensure its window is active. In the app menu, use the Uninstall AVG AntiVirus command. Confirm that you want to uninstall it in the dialog, and authenticate using an admin account if you’re prompted to give your username and password. If you trashed the app without doing this, download a fresh copy, install that, then uninstall it so macOS removes its extension properly. System extensions are usually installed in the System Extensions folder in Library,…

WHEN APPLE ANNOUNCED its Macs were transitioning from Intel processors to its own M1 chips, one of the touted benefits was being able to run iOS apps natively on your Mac. And the really good news is that this is extremely easy to do, which we will outline in this tutorial. That said, there are some things to be aware of. For one thing, macOS and iOS work in different ways. Mac apps can use multiple windows, for example, while iOS apps cannot; Mac apps are designed for mouse or trackpad control, not finger–based gestures. Not every iOS app has been optimized for macOS, so running an unoptimized iOS app on your computer may not be quite what you expect. When browsing the Mac App Store for iOS apps, look…

THE APP LIBRARY is Apple’s answer to cluttered Home screens. Rather than rely on users to create folders to store apps neatly, Apple took matters into its own hands and made a way for apps to organize themselves automatically. The idea is that you have a few Home screens with your most–used apps, widgets, or folders, then hide the rest and access any apps that aren’t on those screens from the App Library. You can choose whether or not newly downloaded apps are automatically stored in the App Library and whether notifications are visible on Library folders. Note that Library Folders are created and named automatically, and you can’t get rid of them or rename them. The App Library has its own search bar; just tap in it to type…

THE MAC MINI has undergone something of transformation since its launch in January 2005 at the MacWorld Conference and Expo with a PowerPC G4 processor. Two models, a 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz version, were originally available, both with ATI Radeon 9200 graphics and 32MB of dedicated DDR memory. At the time, Steve Jobs declared the new Mac mini as “an incredibly compact Mac for a price that almost anyone can afford,” and that original pitch remains, opening the Apple ecosystem to users who may have otherwise been priced out of it. While it can sometimes feel a bit forgotten, the gap between significant updates too wide, the Mac mini’s history nicely outlines the development of Mac processors. Just over a year after the original G4 models were launched, the Mac mini…

APPLE ALMOST NEVER discloses upcoming products ahead of official announcements, but signs are that a new model iMac is coming soon, powered by a next–generation Apple chip and possibly with a new design. In March, Apple said the iMac Pro was being discontinued and would be available only “while supplies last.” It is now no longer available to buy on the online Apple Store, and no longer appears in the product lineup on the site. AppleInsider.com says remaining references to iMac Pro, on Apple’s support pages for example, have changed from “2017 and later” to “2017,” suggesting no new model is planned for the pro machine. Also, two configurations of the 21.5–inch 4K iMac appear to have been discontinued. The model is no longer available with 512GB or 1TB SSD,…

AS I WRITE, there are strong rumors that the new MacBook Pros coming soon will drop the Touch Bar as part of a new design, and will revert to using good ol’ fashioned function keys. This may not turn out to be true, but if it’s ever going to be removed a full redesign feels like the time, where it can take a bow quietly while the conversation focuses on what’s new rather than what’s gone. I feel oddly sad about the idea of its removal, considering that I’ve barely used it over the years. I’ve found it to be an interesting idea with lots of theoretical potential, but it has a fatal flaw that isn’t really its fault. Where the Touch Bar shines is exposing options that are hidden…

Photos For many of us, Photos is the killer app of iCloud. By storing all our images and videos in the cloud it doesn’t matter what device we’re using when we want to look at or edit our photos and movies — they’re available on our Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs. It can make sure your photos don’t take up too much room on any device, and it also enables you to quickly and easily share your photos with your friends and family. Two–factor authentication Your various iCloud services use the familiar Apple ID and password, but for even better security you can set up two–factor authentication. This adds an extra layer of security that makes it much harder for various villains to get into your iCloud account. Apple…

One of the best things about iCloud Drive is that you can access it from almost anywhere. There’s an iCloud app for Windows that makes iCloud Drive work in much the same way as it does in your Mac’s Finder, appearing like a network drive; on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch it lives in your Files app. You can access iCloud Drive using any modern web browser by logging in at iCloud.com, which enables you to download files and photos as well as interact with them.…

The Find My app combines two location apps in one: Find My Phone and Find My Friends. It enables you to track the location of all kinds of Apple devices — not just Macs, iPhones, and iPads but AirPods and Apple Watches too. You can access it from the Mac or iOS app, or via iCloud.com on the web. Find My is designed to do two things. It can let you know where devices are, whether that’s an iPod touch that’s fallen down the back of the sofa or the iPhone of a family member who can’t remember where they last had it. And the second is to take action if a device has fallen into the wrong hands. The location–based part of Find My works really well. It can…

Because iCloud synchronizes data between devices and Apple’s servers, it’s moving lots of your personal documents and data, so it’s important to protect that data from being intercepted by the wrong people. In order to do that, Apple uses extensive encryption provided you have two–factor authentication enabled (see “Protect iCloud privacy with 2FA”). Encryption encodes your data in a format that is essentially impossible for others to intercept and decode, and Apple uses encryption on all your data transfers and almost all the data stored on its servers too. The only thing it doesn’t encrypt by default is your iCloud Mail, but if you want to encrypt that too you can enable S/MIME encryption in your mail apps. Not everything’s stored on Apple’s servers — some data may be stored…

1 Choose your apps On your Mac, go into System Preferences > Your Name, then select iCloud from the sidebar. This shows you which apps and services are currently using iCloud on the current Mac. You can uncheck any apps you’d like to exclude. 2 Change iCloud Drive Click on the Options button next to iCloud Drive to see a list of the apps that store their documents and data in iCloud. In this example, we’re syncing quite a bit of stuff, including Messages and GarageBand projects. 3 Sync other apps Some third–party apps can access iCloud data. For example, Fantastical 2 can connect to iCloud calendars and reminders and you can edit them in the app. To keep iCloud secure, Apple needs you to create passwords for those apps.…

1 Open up Preferences On your Mac, the Family Sharing features live in System Preferences (top–right). On iOS and iPadOS, you’ll find Family Sharing in Settings. In this tutorial, we’re assuming the person with the iCloud account you want to share is you. 2 See who’s sharing We’re already using Family Sharing, so as you can see we have four accounts listed here — the family organizer, who’s the person that’s sharing their iCloud services, and the other family members that have been invited. 3 Invite everybody If your family already have iCloud accounts, you can send an invitation to start sharing with them straightaway. You might notice that our available apps include Tweetbot — some third–party subscriptions work with Family Sharing. 4 Add the kids For under–13s, Apple enables…

$60/year (up to 10 computers) From Sophos, home.sophos.com/en-us.aspx Needs macOS 10.13 or later This cross–platform security suite scans for malware and removes it, blocks ransomware and rolls back encrypted files using Cryptoguard, and protects from known malicious websites. Features that duplicate those available in recent versions of macOS include control over access to camera, microphone and shared personal information, and parental web filtering. Installation on an M1 Mac isn’t as slick as it should be, and its apps aren’t yet Universal, but they run happily in Rosetta 2. Its initial small installer downloads and installs the full apps, but those then need to update themselves before they can install the endpoint security extension. There’s a more serious issue that Sophos should’ve resolved now: it stops Big Sur’s Time Machine backing…

$129.99 From Kingston Technology, kingston.com Features USB–C port, 1x USB reader Kingston’s new Workflow Station is a specialized dock for creative users who have large amounts of photos or video stored on SD memory cards. It connects to your Mac via a USB–C port, but also requires its own wall power supply, so it’s primarily designed for indoor use. It has four large slots into which you can insert Kingston’s modular “reader” devices. There’s one USB reader included, which provides one USB–C and one USB–A port, and you can buy additional readers for $34.99 that provide either two SD card slots or two micro–SD slots (memory cards not included). This means that the fully loaded Workflow can connect eight separate memory cards or USB devices at once. However, each reader…

$104.99 From Kew Labs, kewlabstech.com Features 7.5W charging, tool–free installation, works with surfaces up to 1–inch thick How do you make your Qi charger stand out? Go invisible — that’s the premise of Kew Labs’ UTS–1 charging pad. Unlike other chargers that sit with pride of place on a surface, the UTS–1 attaches to the underside of a table, or whatever you choose, and charges wirelessly through the surface — just place your device on the designated charging spot and get up to 7.5W of power. It’s all very neat and futuristic. Installation is tricky, however. Not physically attaching the UTS–1, we might add, because strong sticky pads mean there’s no drilling required (it also comes with screws, if you wish). What is difficult is aligning your iPhone to initiate…

$44.99 (64GB); $59.99 (128GB); $89.99 (256GB) From SanDisk, shop.westerndigital.com Features 2–in–1 flash drive, USB–C 3.1 and Lightning connectors While you can use AirDrop to shuttle files between devices, sometimes an external drive works best, especially if your iPhone, iPad, or Mac has limited storage. The iXpand Flash Drive Luxe aims to solve this. Transferring files between the two devices isn’t seamless. The Apple TV app on iOS/iPadOS, for example, won’t recognize iTunes media on external drives, but it’s possible to play third–party videos using iOS/iPadOS compatible apps. One way to make accessing the contents of the drive easier on iOS/iPadOS is to use SanDisk’s iXpand Drive app, which makes it easy to back up and sync photos, videos, and other files… if it worked. In iOS and iPadOS 14.4 on…

ON TEST… > Any.do > GoodTask > OmniFocus > Things 3 > TickTick > Todoist APPLE’S CALENDAR AND Reminders apps provide basic tools for nudging you to do things at specific times, but they don’t really extend to task management or tracking, or indeed anything but the most basic types of collaboration. To–do apps, on the other hand, elevate many of these processes to an art form, providing comprehensive tools that enable you to record and track tasks and reminders in granular detail and across all of your devices. It’s likely that if you’re in the market for a dedicated to–do app, your needs go beyond simple birthday reminders. The apps on test here range from having a more personalized focus through to more heavyweight project management and the ability…

Getting smart about getting fit is all about doing the right things at the right time. Even if you’re free of specific movement restrictions and curfews, the way we go about our daily business likely isn’t changing for a while. So now would appear to be the perfect time to put that expensive gym membership on hold and dial up your activity in and around your home. There are a host of devices and apps that'll get you moving, with more released in the past year than ever before, but let’s start with those that try to bring that authentic gym experience into your home. Subscriptions are a big thing now, and they’re only getting bigger. Apple, of course, has its own: Apple Fitness+ ($9.99 per month) fired out of…

CAN MY iPHONE TELL WHERE I’VE BEEN? This is enabled with Location Services. In Settings tap Privacy > Location Services. At the bottom of that list tap System Services > Significant Locations, protected by FaceID, which lists places considered significant, starting from your Home. You can disable this, and clear its history. HOW TO MINIMIZE EFFECTS THAT TRIGGER VERTIGO? iOS has excellent support for minimizing effects that can trigger and worsen vestibular disorders such as vertigo. Open Settings, tap Accessibility, then Motion. Enable Reduce Motion, the main control, and consider disabling auto–play of effects in Messages and video previews. WHAT WI–FI SPEEDS DO M1 MACS SUPPORT? All three M1 models are the first Macs to support the new Wi–Fi 6 standard (aka 802.11ax). Although this isn’t inherently much faster than…

It’s most likely that your MacBook Pro’s battery is healthy, and what you’re experiencing is the result of changed charging patterns introduced recently by Apple to extend the working life of the batteries inside its devices. Many laptops spend most of their working lives connected to wall power, which previously kept their battery at a fairly constant full charge. It’s thought that doing so shortens the battery’s working life, and has been related to problems like battery swelling too. Instead, it’s better to allow the battery to discharge before recharging it. That’s what this recent change in power management in macOS aims to do. To see this happening, open the Battery pane in System Preferences and check on its history. Rather than seeing a series of bars level at 100%…

Although macOS and apps have specific data types to represent different types of number, including time and dates, when you copy and paste most numeric data, including from spreadsheets, the contents of the cells are transferred as plain Unicode text. To enable that, the app which you’re copying from converts numbers, times and dates into text separated by tabs — it doesn’t even use Comma–Separated Value (CSV) format — which is placed in the Clipboard. Then when you paste that data, the receiving app has to recognize the table structure and convert each cell’s contents back into number formats. It’s a minor miracle that it works at all. One common error is that multiple empty cells collapse into a single cell, shifting those to the right of it and disrupting…

LUMINAR AI’S TEMPLATES panel is a useful springboard to producing a range of creative looks in a few clicks. Luminar AI analyses a photo and suggests a collection of templates that might suit its subject in the For This Photo section. You can ignore its recommendations and take manual control by scrolling through the categories in the Templates panel. We’ll demonstrate how to speed up your workflow by creating your own favorite collections of Luminar’s most useful templates. You’ll also learn how to edit an existing template to enhance the look it produces. For example, we’ll use a template to evoke the warm “golden hour” hues of sunset. We’ll then use the Edit workspace to enhance this look and create a user template we can apply to other photos. We’ll…