Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2021 i MacLife

I recently listened to a tech podcast — Apple was mentioned several times as being one of the principal culprits in restricting customers from getting their electronics repaired. It is not alone in using planned obsolescence, [but] it seems to be taking it to a greater level with each new update to its devices. You used to be able to replace memory or upgrade it yourself on a Mac mini, for instance, but now you are stuck with whatever is there when you open the box. Apple makes it virtually impossible for you or a third party to replace a phone battery or screen. Nearly all components are soldered or glued into place. The podcast said Apple won’t repair products that are over five years old. To give Apple its…

THIS ISSUE, I wanted to write something about spatial audio, because it’s just arrived in the Music app, yet only a fraction of people who see that Dolby Atmos logo next to songs will be able to actually try it, because it remains limited to AirPods Pro and AirPods Max owners so far. Well, I say people will see the Dolby Atmos logo next to songs, but the selection it’s available on right now is both limited and kind of odd — an alarming amount of hair metal and 2000s emo rock — so maybe you won’t see it that often yet. And the reason I want to tell you what it’s like is because it’s…not what I expected. It’s not the same as increasing the quality of your music…

Mouse and trackpad tips 1 DEFINE YOUR CLICKS It can be tiring repeatedly pressing down on a trackpad to trigger actions, so don’t. Instead, head into the Trackpad pane in System Preferences and turn on Tap to click. Now, a light tap is all you need. In both Trackpad and Mouse, define whether you want secondary clicks activated (for bringing up things like context menus) and how they should appear, from the various options provided. 2 CONTROL THE WAY YOU SCROLL AND ZOOM If you’ve reasonable dexterity and are comfortable using the pointer, there’s no need to keep to the default tracking speed. In the Mouse and Trackpad panes, ramp up Tracking speed to whatever gives you the best balance between usability, accuracy and not having to swipe multiple times…

OFFLOAD WEB PAGES If you’re often distracted by clicking on interesting articles in Safari — or end the day with a dozen unread tabs — change your browsing habits. Use an RSS reader like NetNewsWire (free, netnewswire.com) to subscribe to favorite sites and peruse their headlines and articles at your leisure. And when you more randomly chance upon something interesting, send it to Pocket (free, getpocket.com). Both apps also have excellent iPhone and iPad incarnations that you can try out. USE VIPS Email can seem like a never–ending deluge, but there are ways of coping with the flood. For any vitally important contact, click their name in an email and select Add to VIPs. Their emails will then appear in the VIPs mailbox, thereby filtering your inbox between what’s important…

1 Move your Dock Your Mac’s display is widescreen. Placing the Dock at the right–hand screen edge maximizes vertical screen space Make this change by Control–clicking the Dock separator and choosing Right from “Position on Screen.” 2 Empty your Dock Apple fills the Dock with loads of apps you won’t use. Remove them and start afresh. The Dock then only displays currently launched apps. If you want one to stay permanently, Ctrl–click it and go to Options > Keep in Dock. 3 Add folders The lower half of the Dock (when it’s on the right) can house folders dragged from Finder. Add Applications, Downloads, and any other important folder. Ctrl–click and use display options best suited for the folder’s content.…

A ADJUST YOUR VIEW Activity Monitor can overwhelm with its wealth of data. Use View > Columns to refine its output to what’s important to you. Consolidate the view by, for example, adding Memory and Energy Impact columns to the CPU tab. Also adjust which processes are displayed. You’ll mostly want to display those relevant to your account (via My Processes), although All Processes, Hierarchically is useful if you suspect an issue with the component of a specific app. B FORCE QUIT APPS Sometimes apps lock up and get stuck. This is noticeable when you are in an app and the spinning rainbow cursor appears, prior to the app becoming unresponsive. Sometimes, this issue goes away — apps are best left alone for a short while to see if this…

$29.99 From satechi.net Features Folding design, fits 12 to 17–inch laptops, 17.1 ounces This no–nonsense stand from Satechi comes in silver or space gray to match your Mac, and is constructed from 0.16–inch thick aluminium. It’s solid, though at 17.1 ounces it’s hefty too. Luckily, it folds completely flat, meaning it won’t take up bag space. The flush fold–out stand pivots smoothly from a cutout in the body. Neatly, the stand’s hinges are just stiff enough to enable you to adjust the angle of the stand, and therefore the height of your MacBook. Rubberized grips top and bottom keep your machine in place, and one on the lower edge of the stand prevents slipping when it’s rested on a desk. Satechi says the stand will fit a wide variety of…

$599 From apogeedigital.com Features 192kHz recording, Symphony ECS Channel Strip Needs macOS 10.15 or later, USB–C The Duet 3 is the newest member of Apogee’s pro audio family, a supremely portable high–end audio recording interface for Mac and PC, though iOS is not supported. Beautifully constructed, its low profile is decidedly Apple–like. It has two USB–C ports and is bus powered, the second port being usable for external power if you’d rather not power from your Mac. USB–C and A cables are supplied. To maintain its compact frame, I/O is mostly handled via a breakout cable. A proprietary plug splits off to two 1/4in instrument inputs and two line outputs as well as two mic/line inputs in XLR format. A 1/8in headphone output can be found on the body. So…

$1,699 From us.xgimi.com Features 3840 x 2160 (4K), 30–300 inch image, 2200 ANSI Lumens, HDMI x 2, USB 2.0 x 2, Optical, Wi–Fi, Bluetooth XGIMI’s flagship 4K HDR projector offers an impressive 2,200 lumens brightness, excellent 4K recreation and a stunningly–designed compact case, it’s a joy both to handle and to watch its images in action, albeit with a handful of exceptions. The Horizon Pro excels with native 4K content, and works best as a key part of your home theater system, ideally with 4K Blu–rays (or high quality streams). Its image quality is close to what you’d see on a quality flat-screen, with exceptional brightness control — an area that many projectors fall short in. The 30–300 inch projection size is flexible, and the short throw ratio means it…

$229.99 From canon.com 1 Well–built and finished though still just 72 ounces, the TR150 prints at 4800x1200dpi and supports edge to edge printing which is great for photos, where this printer excels. It can connect to your Mac over USB–C and supports easy joining of your local network or a Wi–Fi Direct connection when no router is available. There’s a handy set of onboard buttons plus an OLED screen for setup and management, as well as for printing up to five preset document types. The battery is an optional extra but will deliver around 330 sheets when using a USB data connection. In general use you’ll get a print speed of just under 9ppm in mono and around 5 in color. The power, USB, and lock ports are collected in…

KEYNOTE IS THE THIRD application in Apple’s iWork suite of tools. And of the three, it’s the one that’s probably most viable as an alternative to its Microsoft rival. While Pages is a very different beast to Word, and Numbers is not considered to be a serious rival to Excel in business use, Keynote can go toe–to–toe with PowerPoint, albeit with Apple’s unique focus on slick design. Keynote’s interface is similar to those in Pages and Numbers and uses many of the same tools in the Inspector (the sidebar on the right). If you followed our guides to the first two applications, then Keynote will feel very familiar. You start by choosing a template, then add your own words, pictures, and videos to customize it for your own needs. Templates…

CAN I SET A DIFFERENT RINGTONE ON MY SECOND LINE? iPhones with dual SIM support let you add a second line, but there’s currently no way to set a different ringtone for each line. You can, though, set custom ringtones for specific callers in their entries in Contacts. HOW TO GET SOME OF MY APPS WORKING AGAIN IN iOS 14.6? Several apps, including Momento Classic, are prone to stop working when you update to iOS 14.5 or later. To fix that, you could delete the app and reinstall it, but that wipes all its data. A better approach is to offload the app instead, using Settings > General > iPhone Storage, tap the app then Offload App. Moments later, revisit this and tap Reinstall App. CAN I RUN MY LESS–USED…

Anyone with two or more Macs sharing an Apple ID should set one as a Content Caching server. Choose a Mac which is left running all or much of the time, with a good internet connection and sufficient free space, which can be on an external disk. Identify where updates are going to be stored, open the Sharing pane and check mark Content Caching. Decide whether you want it to cache only shared content including updates, or to add iCloud content. Click on Options to set the Cache Location using Edit, adjusting its max size. When you next start other Macs and devices, they’ll connect to this service and your server will only download one copy of updates and content. When you update macOS or anything of size, complete that…

At present, no. Of the two major vendors of virtualization software for Macs, VMware doesn’t yet offer a product which runs native on Apple’s M1 Macs, while the other contender, Parallels, does run native but doesn’t yet support running macOS in a virtual machine (VM). Parallels already runs the ARM version of Microsoft Windows and several different varieties of Linux, again built only for ARM processors. There’s quite a lot of work required in getting macOS Big Sur to work reliably, and Parallels anticipates having that ready for release by the autumn of this year. Hopefully that will also include support for Monterey VMs too. VMware is a bit further behind, and is still working on its ARM native release and support for Linux and Windows VMs. Initially it stated…

ONE OF THE best things about using a Mac is the way it works seamlessly with other Apple devices in all kinds of ways. Apple collectively calls the features that make it easy to switch between Mac, iPhone and iPad “Continuity”. Perhaps the best–known Continuity feature is Handoff, which enables you to start using an app on one device and pick up exactly where you left off on a different device. However, Handoff is only one single element of Continuity… Other features include Continuity Camera, which lets you use your iPhone’s camera to scan documents to your Mac, or take photos, controlled from your Mac, and Instant Hotspot, which allows you to connect your Mac to your iPhone Personal Hotspot and use its mobile data connection. Making phone calls and…

APPLE MUSIC IS a wonderful service. It’s the ultimate jukebox, the greatest ever music collection, an always–on, always–updated compendium of the most exciting artists of all time. But sometimes we can’t help feeling that it’s maybe a little too modern, a little too shiny, a little too digital. Remember the feeling when you pressed play on a tape deck or dropped the needle onto a vinyl record? For some Apple Music users, the answer is no: physical music formats are historical artefacts, just like floppy disks, monocles, and unicycles. But there’s something magical about music on vinyl, and Vinyls attempts to transfer that magic to the world of digital music. It’s a great interface for your Apple Music albums and playlists. Vinyls looks like a record player emulator, and it…

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While reading about Microsoft Teams on pages 90-91 of the Sept 2021 (#184) issue of MacLife, I noticed that no mention was made of what I and those I work with consider a serious limitation of Teams. A video call using the enterprise version of Teams will not show images for more than nine participants at a time. Once the limit is reached, the program will cycle through based on who is talking and has talked. A contact discussed the enterprise limit with the Teams support team, and they stated there were no plans to change. During the pandemic, we have required more than 25 personnel onscreen. We hit the Teams limit last February and had to scramble. As one of our staff commented, “No wonder Zoom is eating their…

1 DEFINE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS You likely know keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy, paste, and other tasks. But explore application menus to see if others exist to trigger actions you commonly use. If one’s missing, add it in the Keyboard System Preferences pane. In the Shortcuts tab, click +, choose an application, type the exact name of the menu command, and define a shortcut. Be mindful to not use a combination that’s in use in the app or system–wide, or you will override the original shortcut. 2 USE COMMAND+? When working on text-oriented documents, keeping your hands on the keyboard is more efficient than using the mouse pointer to navigate menus. But what should you do when you forget a keyboard shortcut, or a command doesn’t have one? Bring up the…

1 TURN ON iCLOUD If you’re not using iCloud, turn it on in System Preferences > Apple ID. Ideally, activate everything, including iCloud Drive, Photos, Email, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Safari, and Keychain. This gets vital content into the cloud, making it accessible on any Apple device you’re signed into with your Apple ID. Although it’s not a backup, it provides a measure of protection, in that if you lose a device, you can sign into your account on another. 2 USE TIME MACHINE Apple makes it easy to backup your Mac — plug in an external drive and you’ll be asked if you want to use Time Machine. Mobile hard drives will do — an external 1TB one costs under $50; or you can opt for speed with an SSD,…

GIVE iCLOUD A NUDGE Apple’s iCloud is a boon on your devices — when it works. But when information won’t sync, it can be deeply frustrating. First, check there’s not a problem with the system: apple.com/support/systemstatus/. Next, assuming your devices are all up to date in terms of their operating systems and you haven’t hit your iCloud storage limit (check in System Preferences), try signing out of iCloud and then back in again. If that still doesn’t fix things, restart all affected devices. Still no luck? Ping Apple support. PRUNE LOGIN ITEMS If an app opens unexpectedly when your Mac boots, open System Preferences. In Users & Groups, select your user, and then Login Items. Select or delete any app you don’t want there. In some cases, you’ll instead need…

THE SECOND–GEN MODEL REPLACED THE HARD DRIVE WITH 8GB FLASH AND APPLE SAW SALES SOAR THOUGH SALES IN the Apple TV’s initial period were reasonable, it took less than a year for Apple to rethink the whole concept. Apple TV Software 2.0 was revealed by an uncharacteristically humble Steve Jobs during the company’s keynote at the 2008 Macworld Expo. “We’ve all tried to figure out how to do movies,” he said. “And you know what? We’ve all missed. No one has succeeded yet. We tried with Apple TV. Apple TV was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer. It’s not what people wanted. We learned what people really wanted was movies… And we weren’t delivering that. So we’re back with Apple TV take two.” The new software…

APPLE TV+ From $4.99/month From apple.com If you’re not already taking advantage of Apple’s subscription service, you’re missing out. The content is strong (we recommend the tremendous Ted Lasso) and it’s only getting stronger. AMAZON PRIME VIDEO From $8.99/month From amazon.com Prime subscribers get access to Prime Video included, and while there’s a lot of strange bargain–basement content on there, Amazon’s original shows are some of the best. NETFLIX From $8.99/month From netflix.com There’s a reason Netflix’s name is on everyone’s lips. Although licensed content is slowly creeping away on to other services, its own shows and movies are Hollywood–level quality. YOUTUBE Free (IAPs) From youtube.com Want to keep the kids quiet? Want factual and documentary content? Want to watch a man slowly mow a lawn? It’s all here, and…

$299 From masterdynamic.com Features 11mm Beryllium drivers, hybrid ANC, IPX5 water resistance rating, charging case Master & Dynamic’s MW08 True Wireless headphones, are its latest model to hit the market, an upgrade over the outgoing MW07s. They feature hybrid active noise-canceling, with various modes depending on what sort of sound isolation you need. The charging case is now tall and thin rather than flat as it was with the older model, and its stainless steel finish feels more premium than ever. The headphones are ceramic and equally high–end. There are six gorgeous color combinations for both headphones and case, all for the same price. Charging over USB–C via the bundled cable, with an additional USB–A adapter, the case offers 30 extra hours of charge to add to the headphones’ 12,…

$29.99 From nativeunion.com Features Folding design, fits 13 to 16–inch laptops, 4.2 ounces Like a Japanese work of art, Native Union’s Rise transforms from flat (it’s 0.10–inch thick!) to a MacBook stand in seconds, with an origami–style folding center section that raises your machine. Made from nylon and glass fibre, the stand weighs next to nothing, and seems flimsy, but in practice it works well. It’s not as stable as a solid stand, but definitely more portable. The only minor downside of the Rise is the fact that you have to stick it to the underside of your MacBook, using the stand’s built–in adhesive gel — revealed when you peel back the plastic backing. Some might not like the idea of semi–permanently tethering it to a Mac, and the added…

$54.90 From raindesigninc.com Features Folding design, carry case, 4.6 ounces There’s very little to the Rain Design mBar Pro, which might leave you wondering why its price tag is so high. But the mBar Pro is a very clever stand, indeed. Not only is it one of the lightest stands in this test, it’s footprint is the smallest when folded down, and it even comes with its own soft microfiber carry case to prevent bag–related scratches. It’s not as slim as the Native Union Rise, but it’s much sturdier when folded out. The solid aluminium construction is gorgeous, and once you fold out both lower legs, the mBar Pro offers a resting place for your MacBook that’s as good as any here. Rubberized grips in all the right places keep…

ON TEST… > Canon PIXMA TR150 > Canon Selphy CP1300 > Epson WorkForce WF–110W > HPRT MT800 > HP OfficeJet 250 > HP Tango X YOU’RE NOW MORE likely to own a mobile computing device than a desktop one, with MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones selling in greater numbers than iMacs and Mac minis by a considerable margin. Printer technology however has traditionally remained largely confined to the home. But a new generation of mobile printers has evolved that’s designed to be portable, often with battery power, and free to work without a local Wi–Fi network. They also have dedicated iOS apps for printing from an iPhone or iPad — and for device setup and management. A portable printer can be ideal for anyone working on the move, be they a…

$129.99 From canon.com 2 Putting a modern twist on the Polaroid concept, this printer provides a bunch of hands–on controls as well as a tilt–up 3.2in color screen for managing settings. There’s great connectivity with Wi–Fi and Wi–Fi direct, USB from a computer or camera, USB memory stick, or an SD card. The big, slightly toy–like buttons actually make it pretty easy to work with and you can select print sizes, borders, and finishes onboard. The Canon Print app can also send images directly from iOS for printing. You max out at 300x300 dpi and there’s a maximum postcard sized print of 5.5x3.9in plus a selection of smaller options. Large prints take around 50 seconds to print and small ones around 30. The battery pack is optional which is unfortunate…

$39.99 From metrothegame.com Needs macOS 10.15 or later, Intel Core i7–7820, 16 GB RAM, Radeon Pro 560 (Radeon RX 5700 XT recommended) After two games spent in the claustrophobic gloom of the Moscow Metro, it’s a strange sensation to suddenly be staring across a vast, sun-bleached desert. Exodus is a post-apocalyptic road trip through a nuke–blasted Russia, and an arid expanse of what was once the Caspian Sea is one of a number of locations visited by Artyom and his band of survivors. Your primary mode of transport in Exodus is a Soviet–era steam train called the Aurora. The game begins in familiar surroundings: the shattered, radioactive ruins of Moscow and the labyrinth of tunnels beneath it. But it’s not long before the Aurora is speeding out of the fallen…

Time Machine has had problems with backing up items like the hidden version database, and apps like Xcode containing huge numbers of small files. Although Big Sur’s new ability to back up to APFS backup volumes brings great improvements, when it backs up over a network, this old problem returns, largely because of performance problems, even pesky bugs, in Apple’s own SMB implementation. The simplest answer is to exclude folders containing a great many files. Big Sur does this automatically for the version database, and you can manually add others such as Apple’s Xcode app. If you’re unsure which items are causing this problem, The Time Machine Mechanic (T2M2), free from bit.ly/ mac368t2m2, can help find them so you can add them to the list of inclusions using Options in…

This is redaction, and it’s fraught with dangers which have led to the revelation of many secrets. The rather naive approach of superimposing black boxes doesn’t work because others can easily remove them to reveal the underlying text. The PDF format is far from ideal in this respect, as it’s relatively simple to extract text from sections of a document which you think have been removed, as they’re retained in the file. Preview now offers a simple redaction feature, but when tested it can easily leave hidden text behind, which you can’t see but can be recovered. Third–party PDF utilities offer improved reliability, but the only app to trust is Adobe Acrobat DC. Although, Acrobat DC is expensive and tricky to use. Many simply print the document, redact it using…

THE WEB IS teeming with incredible articles to read, from eye–opening interviews to explorations of fascinating subjects. Whether you want to settle in for a long read or just get the latest news, the web leaves you spoiled for choice. But with so many places to find all this varied and amazing content, just knowing where to start looking can be a daunting prospect. And what do you do if you come across a particularly enticing read but don’t have time to get started? It’s a bit of a problem. Thankfully, Pocket (free with in–app purchases) is a Safari extension and app that cuts through the potential chaos. It lets you save articles to a central repository, where you can tag and organize them for later reading. You’ll never again…

THE $99 HOMEPOD mini is a tiny ball of audio prowess, topped with Siri assistant smarts. You can control it from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac running the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS and you can issue instructions using your voice — see the “Use Siri on HomePod mini” (right). The HomePod mini is versatile too. You can use it solo (perfect for a bedroom, study, or kitchen), use multiple HomePod minis in multiple rooms (thanks to AirPlay 2), and you can even use two HomePod minis as a stereo pair — perfect for listening to your favorite sounds in your living room. Plus, because it supports HomeKit and Thread, it can be used as a controller for your smart home, as well. It’s important to…

5 THINGS YOU MUST DO RIGHT AWAY! SECURE YOUR MAC In System Preferences, set a sleep password in Security & Privacy. Set up Touch ID if available. GET DOCS IN iCLOUD In Apple ID, click Options next to iCloud Drive. Turn on Desktop & Documents Folders to get them in the Cloud. DEFINE FAVORITES In Finder, drag commonly used folders to Favorites in the sidebar. This also makes them easy to access when saving. UNLOCK WITH WATCH Got an Apple Watch? In Security & Privacy, check "Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac." INSTALL ITSYCAL Our first app recommendation! The free Itsycal (mowglii.com/itsycal) puts a calendar right in your menu bar.…

1 REDUCE MOTION In System Preferences, open Accessibility and select Display from the scrolling pane. In the Display tab, turn on Reduce Motion. This replaces several macOS animations with simpler crossfades. The feature is designed to aid people with vestibular conditions but removes visual noise for every user and makes the aforementioned actions feel faster. 2 REDUCE TRANSPARENCY The Reduce transparency button takes semi–translucent elements of macOS and makes them solid. Again primarily designed to assist people with vestibular disorders, the setting also makes macOS more broadly legible and stops semi–transparent elements from being a distraction if something’s moving/playing behind them. 3 ADJUST MORE SETTINGS Poke around in Display and you’ll find more goodies. “Increase contrast” is a bit extreme, but handy if you fail to locate buttons. You can…

ROKU STREAMBAR $129.99 From roku.com Roku’s streamer/soundbar combo is perfect if your TV needs an upgrade in terms of audio as well as content capability. Very compact, very neat. AMAZON FIRE TV CUBE $119.99 From amazon.com The Cube has an Amazon Echo speaker built in, and a hexa–core processor which makes it quite a bit snappier in apps. NVIDIA SHIELD TV PRO $199.99 From nvidia.com If gaming is your aim, the Shield TV Pro’s GeForce streaming features may appeal — and it’s great for Android games, too. XBOX SERIES S $299.99 From xbox.com Microsoft’s console is a great device to have attached to your TV, if you’re happy to wrestle with its esoteric interface to take advantage of its media streaming. XIAOMI MI BOX S $59.99 From mi.com Basic, yes,…

$59.99 From twelvesouth.com Features Built–in cable tidy, 11 ounces Twelve South’s ParcSlope is the only stand here that doesn’t actually fold flat, making it somewhat less travel–friendly. That said, it’s still got a pretty low profile, and it’s pretty light. The stand is substantial enough for larger MacBooks (though Twelve South doesn’t specify which sizes it works with), and the large upper section offers a solid resting platform without compromising cooling. Silicone sections top and bottom offer loads of grip, to keep your MacBook in place, while iPad–specific ridges mean you can also securely place an iPad, too. One neat feature is a cutout in the rear of the section, which allows you to pull your MacBook’s cables through, keeping the surrounding area much neater. Supports MacBooks and iPads Doesn’t…

$299 From wearfauna.com Features 2–way sound system, two mics, 250Hz–20kHz, Bluetooth 5.0, IP52 dust/water resistance We’ve seen “open audio” gadgets before and felt the addition of speakers has either ruined the look of a pair of perfectly good glasses or, more importantly, not impressed in terms of audio ability. The Fauna audio glasses both look and sound great. Fauna do clear glasses and sunglasses, and the Fabula Crystal Brown sunglasses we reviewed are light and fashionable. We were expecting a weight penalty thanks to the temples’ audio control bars but at 1.8 ounces, they’re like most designer shades. The case is chunky but it’s also light (6.9 ounces) considering it acts as the charging station. The case has a QR code in the lid, taking you to the Fauna website…

$299.99 From us.anker.com Features 90W MacBook charging, 20W Power Delivery, triple 4K display support Anker’s latest dock for Intel MacBooks, comes with a 120W external power supply and Thunderbolt 4 cable which carries both data and up to 90W of power directly to your Thunderbolt–equipped laptop. It also supplies 20W to its USB–C port with Power Delivery, so you can charge your Mac and iOS device at full power at the same time. It has a total of 12 ports split between its front and rear sides. In addition to the main Thunderbolt 4 and USB–C port on the front are an audio jack, a power button and an SD card 4.0 UHS–II slot for fast data transfers. The rear has four USB–A ports; two USB 2.0 and two USB…

$299.99 From epson.com 3 At just 12.2 x 6.1 x 2.4in and 56 ounces this printer would easily slip into a bag alongside a laptop or iPad. Powering from the mains also charges its internal battery which provides power for 100 monochrome or 50 color pages, with an optional external battery available. A full recharge takes 3 hours. Wi–Fi setup is easy thanks to the small LCD screen, and in addition to USB and network printing it can use Wi-Fi Direct to connect directly to your computer. MacOS downloads the required drivers automatically, and print quality is excellent with a reasonable 7 pages monochrome or 4 pages per minute in color. The Epson iPrint app for iOS is well–designed and handles printing easily. Other clever features include a fold–down paper…

$13.99 From ixeau.com Needs macOS 11 or later One of the new features in macOS Big Sur is the ability to share your screen when you make FaceTime calls. It’s a great way to show colleagues how work is progressing, or help friends or family fix problems with their Mac. Keystroke Pro 2 takes this help one step further by displaying the keys you press as you press them, freeing you up to to talk about other things happening on the screen. You can choose how long each key press remains on screen, whether every key is displayed or only modifier keys, and if you have a multi–display setup, you can specify which screen you want the keystrokes to appear on. However, Keystroke Pro won’t display keys pressed when you…

Studying is a great way to learn new skills, change your career, and broaden your knowledge base. And as phones and apps become ever more important, the ways we study are changing all the time. That’s great news whether you’re a full–time college student or learning at home in your spare time. With a few well–chosen apps, you can make learning easier and more efficient than it has ever been. We’ve trawled the App Store to find the best apps for studying. From planners and organizers to document editors and revision aides, these six apps will help you breeze through your studies. FOREST – YOUR FOCUS MOTIVATION $1.99 From forestapp.cc Made for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iPod touch Concentration is vital to effective studying. Forest is your weapon of choice here,…

NOW YOU KNOW how to edit slides in Keynote, you have everything you need to create a basic presentation. But who wants to create a basic presentation? We want to wow our audience with a slideshow they will remember long after it’s finished. One way to do that is by using animation. Keynote makes it easy to not just add transitions between slides, but to animate the appearance of elements within a slide. Want bullet points to arrive one at a time? You can do that. Want an image to fade in slowly after the audience has seen the headline? You can do that. How about video and audio? Keynote has you covered there too. Before you jump in and add all the effects you can lay your hands on,…

If you can still load them on your iPad, that shows they’re being saved correctly, but to the wrong location. Tracking them down and moving them to iCloud should solve the problem. The first place to look is local storage on your iPad. Open Numbers and, at the top left, tap the word Numbers to open the sidebar with Locations and Tags. If the selected location is On My iPad, tap that to see a list of local folders in which the app can save its files. Tap the Numbers folder and see if your missing files are there. If you can’t find them, use the Search bar at the top. Enter the name of one of the files and that should reveal every copy of that document and its…

Although some recent Safari updates have brought problems, this isn’t one of them. It’s most likely that a new version of Safari on your Mac is crashing when it loads the Start Page, another important setting has broken, or it has an incompatible extension. Start your Mac in Safe mode, holding the Shift key, then try opening Safari. If it works normally, clear its history using that command in the Safari menu; you should be able to restart in normal user mode and use it again. If that doesn’t help, manually check and remove potential causes. Remove old or unrecognized files from the Internet Plug–ins folders in Library folders. Other locations worth checking are those inside the Safari folder in the Library of your Home folder. You can manually clear…

Apple doesn’t publish limits on the size of Photos libraries. Early versions struggled with a few thousand, but as the app has matured it has coped better with larger. However, as libraries grow, more users encounter problems. Now, trying to keep a library of more than 100,000 images is probably pushing Photos to its limits. Those are a combination of: the number of files in the library, the size of the database which Photos uses to organize them, and how much you use features like albums, which can’t break your library down into more manageable chunks. The only way to do that is by splitting it into separate libraries. Switching between libraries isn’t convenient, as you have to open the app with the Alt key held to select the library.…

NO ONE WANTS to be in an emergency, but if things wind up that way, your iPhone and Apple Watch can offer a lifeline in the form of Emergency SOS. This calls the emergency services when you really need them and provides vital information like your location and medical details. It’s easy to activate and could save your life. Emergency SOS usually needs a signal. If you do not have any, you must be connected to a Wi–Fi network and have Wi–Fi calling enabled in Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling. Make sure this is sorted before you need it. Emergency SOS gets even more useful with an Apple Watch. If you fall, it can call the emergency services with an automated message that explains your situation, gives your location…

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN an ordinary pencil and an Apple Pencil is pretty clear. The former is for writing, drawing, and shading on paper; the latter, for writing, drawing, and shading on iPads. The Apple Pencil may look a lot like a normal pencil but there’s a lot of technology crammed into its compact case. Which is just as well, as it costs quite a bit more than a normal pencil does. The first–generation Apple Pencil was launched in 2015 and is still on sale; the second–generation launched in late 2018. If you’re buying one, it’s important to know that not all iPads support the first–generation, or any generation. See below to check what works with what. The short version is that if your iPad has a USB–C connector, it only…

IN JULY 1985, Aldus PageMaker 1.0 was released for the Macintosh. Along with the LaserWriter printer, it helped create the modern desktop publishing industry, with Apple devices right at the heart of it. (A version of the software for IBM PC didn’t start shipping until January 1987, and the PC release of subsequent versions trailed behind that for the Mac.) Indeed, Apple and Aldus played off each other, with the former’s ground–breaking graphical user interface the perfect platform on which to use design software like PageMaker. The popularity of PageMaker also helped drive Macintosh sales in the mid–late 1980s and the two firms worked closely together for years. PageMaker 1.0 included key features such as free–form drag and drop to position page elements and a variety of type and drawing…