Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i MacLife

Whether you only use your Mac occasionally or you’re the kind of power user who spends hours sitting or standing in front of it every day, it’s likely that you sometimes become frustrated because it won’t run as quickly or as smoothly as you’d like it to or you think it should. It’s also likely that you’ve encountered the dreaded beachball, and that you know that there are things you could do differently that would make using your Mac more productive but haven’t got around to figuring out what they are. That’s exactly what we’ll do over the next pages. From everyday housekeeping tasks that will keep your Mac running smoothly, to tips and tricks to make you more productive, to third–party apps that can do a lot of the…

Anyone who has used a Mac for more than a few weeks knows that while you might start out with a pristine storage drive with lots of free space, it doesn’t take long before you start to fill it with apps, images, music, and other files. Given that many Macs still ship with only 128GB of storage, it’s often not long before your Mac starts to groan under the weight of all that data. The good news is that there is plenty you can do to free up storage starting with the built–in Manage storage feature. This handy tool, accessed by clicking on the Apple menu and choosing "About this Mac", then Storage > Manage will tell you what is taking up space on your drive and give you lots…

Fans of Automator will know how useful, and how much fun, creating automated workflows can be. The same goes for Shortcuts in iOS or iPadOS. Now, Shortcuts has come to the Mac with macOS Monterey and it’s Automator with rocket boosters. As you’d expect, Shortcuts on the Mac syncs with iCloud, so any shortcuts you’ve created in iOS appear in the Gallery on your Mac. Shortcuts are comprised of actions, and actions can be almost anything that you do on your Mac, from copying text to playing a track in your Music library. You build shortcuts by adding actions and passing their output to the next action in the sequence. A shortcut can be as simple as adding one reminder to a list, or have multiple actions involving several apps.…

MANY OF THE best–loved apps on our devices haven’t cost us a penny. They make our Macs work the way we want them to, make the internet considerably less annoying, protect our privacy, guide us through projects, and help us create all kinds of things. They provide hours of entertainment, help preserve our old home videos and introduce us to people, publications and podcasts from around the world. The apps that you’ll discover over the next few pages aren’t “freemium”, where the free version of the app isn’t really usable without in–app purchases or subscriptions. Instead, most are free as in genuinely gratis, or are funded by unobtrusive advertising, and the ones that do have paid–for versions are still useful in their own right. So let’s discover the best free apps…

VECTORNATOR From vectornator.io Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS Vectornator is a free, fully featured Adobe Illustrator–style vector–drawing and editing app, and the developers say it’ll remain free until they work out how or if they’re going to make money from it. No matter what kind of Apple device you design with, you’ll love using Vectornator on it — but, be warned, older Macs can’t join the Vectornator party, as you need macOS 11 Big Sur or later to use it. GIMP FOR MAC From gimp.org Available on Mac The open–source GIMP image editor used to be a bit of a faff on the Mac, but it’s now easier to install, learn, and use. It’s still a little buggy compared to commercial image editors, but then again those cost money and…

TELEGRAM From telegram.org Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS Telegram promises to be the fastest message system on Earth, with end–to–end encryption. It syncs across all your devices and offers unlimited file–sharing and storage, and if you start typing on one device you can continue instantly on another. TWITTER From twitter.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS The Mac app isn’t great — stick with the website — but the iOS and iPadOS versions of the Twitter app are easy to use and do everything you’d expect; hashtags, trends, image and link–sharing, following, and, of course, muting and blocking too. INSTAGRAM From instagram.com Available on iOS The “cooler” Facebook that it’s okay to like doesn’t seem to suffer from the same problems as the main Facebook app or website. That’s…

AMPHETAMINE From Mac App Store Available on Mac Amphetamine is designed to keep your Mac awake even when it wants to sleep, and you can use it to keep connected displays awake too. You can enable Amphetamine for specific apps or for specific tasks, so for example you might want your Mac to stay awake while you’re using headphones or prevent the main display from going to sleep when a particular app is open. It’s really easy to use but it’s also packed with options and statistics. ONYX From titaniumsoftware.fr Available on Mac OnyX is an excellent app for cleaning up your Mac’s temporary files, caches, and other data, as well as changing how key apps work and getting rid of problematic files. But be cautious: if you’re unsure of…

$1049.99 From benq.com Features HDRi, built–in speakers and subwoofer, USB–C one–cable connectivity Ultrawide screen formats and curved panels are both acquired tastes. So, the new BenQ EW3880R isn’t going to be everybody’s bag. But at 38 inches, with a relatively gentle 2300R curve, plus a seriously extreme 21:9 aspect ratio, this is an awful lot of monitor, on paper. And it costs a great deal of money. Since 2016 the monitor market has moved on dramatically. Arguably, the EW3880R has been slightly left behind. It’s rated at 1,000–to–one for contrast and 230 nits for typical SDR brightness, both underwhelming figures. It does support HDR content, but even in that configuration, it tops out at just 300 nits, which is positively pedestrian. As for other highlights from the spec list, the…

$219.99 From ankerwork.com Features 2K camera, dual speakers, VoiceRadar Needs Mac with USB–C The increase in the number of people working from home has brought to the fore the issue of how poor many computers’ webcams are. And video conferencing also shows up deficiencies in sound and lighting that can make people appear less than their best. Anker’s B600 Video Bar is an all–in–one attempt to solve these problems. The unit has a very high–end feel, with an adjustable foot that can be rotated to rest securely on top of a thicker monitor or TV, or on a thinner laptop screen. The bar powers over USB–C either from your computer or using the supplied power adapter. There are two USB–C ports, and a USB–A port is also provided for connecting…

ALL THESE SYSTEMS provide reliable storage for Time Machine backups, and could replace a Time Capsule and provide shared storage for photos and documents. They differ in the other services available, expandability, and cost. As an appliance, WD My Cloud is ideal and inexpensive, but won’t do much more than those basics. The four conventional NAS systems offer many different services and expansion potential. Their manufacturers also offer related models: QNAP’s four–bay TS–453D compares with the Synology tested, and Asustor offers its AS3304T. They’re similar in that each is a Linux computer with a file system more complex than your Mac’s, controlled through a browser. If you’re uncomfortable with that, or need macOS–specific services such as Content Caching, making your own NAS using a Mac is fine, if expensive. Picking…

EVERYWHERE YOU GO on the internet, someone is trying to track you. Apple would rather they didn’t. Apple’s commitment to protecting your privacy isn’t just marketing. It’s clearly committed to making Safari the browser that protects your privacy in a market where many of the big names do exactly the opposite. As Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice–president of software engineering, told the European Data Protection and Privacy Conference: “The solution has to start with not collecting the data in the first place.” And as we’ll see here, Safari has been designed to make it very difficult for sites to collect data that might identify and track you. Apple’s philosophy is simple: “Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites — and they…

REQUIRES MacFamilyTree, macOS 10.13 or later YOU WILL LEARN How to record places accurately in MacFamilyTree IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes GEOGRAPHY PLAYS A key role in family history. Were your ancestors globetrotters or did they spend their entire life within the confines of a single town? The more accurate your place data, the better able you are to trace your forebears’ journey and take advantage of MacFamilyTree’s mapping tools. The way places are recorded in MacFamilyTree is influenced by the GEDCOM genealogical standard. While GEDCOM doesn’t allow you to set up specific buildings such as a home or church as a “Place”, you can get around this within MacFamilyTree to ensure your mapping tools are as accurate as possible. When you have a street address, we recommend recording the…

REQUIRES Cloud Battery, iOS 12.1, macOS 10.15 or later (optional) YOU WILL LEARN How to keep track of all your iOS device battery levels IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes THE MORE APPLE devices you accumulate, the harder it is to keep track of what’s charged up and what isn’t. Sure, there’s a battery widget in iOS, but this offers no customization and very little info. There’s got to be a better way. Thankfully there is, and it comes in the form of Cloud Battery. This app can send you notifications whenever your devices’ batteries drop below a certain level, so you know when to charge them. It can also tell you when they’ve been juiced up above a set level so you don’t overcharge them. Plus you get Apple Watch…

YOU WILL LEARN How to use a DAC and wired headphones for high–quality music MANY DACS ALSO INCLUDE AN AMPLIFIER TO GIVE YOUR MUSIC EXTRA VOLUME AND POWER KEY FACT Apple Music provides three levels of audio quality (as do most rival streaming services too). The lowest quality is “standard”, and can be played by any Bluetooth or wired headphones. However, you will need wired headphones with a DAC in order to really enjoy lossless music — equivalent to CD quality — and the very best high–res lossless you can get. WHEN APPLE ADDED new high–quality “lossless” and “high–res” audio formats to the Apple Music service last summer, it was forced to admit that its own AirPods range of headphones are unable to actually play these new audio formats —…

MORE AND MORE, I’ve heard people saying they wish Apple wouldn’t push itself to yearly software upgrades. As iOS becomes increasingly complex, its releases become increasingly notable for bugs and little frustrating issues. And it’s not just new releases either — I’ve found that the camera too–regularly stalls when changing between lenses for a good couple of years now, even across multiple software updates. WHAT IF MORE PEOPLE UPDATE THEIR PHONES LESS OFTEN BECAUSE OF LESS PRESSURE Apple has already made some concessions to this, by announcing features that will be part of a new version of iOS, but holding them to release in a .1 or .2 update — giving itself fewer things to nail in the initial release. Updates to other products often filter out later than iOS,…

PORTABLE SPEAKER DROPPED Apple–owned Beats has discontinued the Beats Pill+, the only portable wireless speaker available under either the Beats or the Apple brand. The Bluetooth speaker, which featured a 12–hour battery and a Lightning port for recharging, was the first new product released by Beats after the company was acquired by Apple in 2014. It was also the last speaker from either Beats or Apple before the HomePod and HomePod mini, and was never updated with newer features such as support for Siri, AirPlay, or Apple’s H1 audio chip. MICROSOFT BUYS ACTIVISION BLIZZARD FOR $69 BILLION Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a cash deal that values the gaming company at $68.7 billion. The acquisition brings heavy hitters including Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush into the Microsoft…

Technology has come a long, long way since the first Mac was launched way back in 1984. One thing that hasn’t changed though, is how we interact with it. While some people use voice commands and dictation software, for most of us, telling our Mac what we want it to do involves a keyboard and either a mouse or a trackpad. When it comes to choosing which keyboard to use, most Mac users stick with the one that came with their Mac (unless you use a Mac mini or Mac Pro, in which case you’ll have to supply your own). But that’s not always the best idea. The same is true of your mouse or trackpad. For example, if you use a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air predominantly at a…

Analysis of your Mac’s storage can reveal that a big chunk of space has been taken up by media files, such as music, movies, or TV shows. If so, you have a choice: delete them or move them. You can do the former safely if the files are downloaded from Apple Music, the iTunes Store, or the TV app, because you can re–download them another time. However, if they are files you’ve ripped from a CD or created yourself, it’s a different matter. The best thing to do is to move your library to another drive. We’ll show you how to do that for Apple Music and Photos — the following pages will demonstrate how to move your media library, and how to get rid of duplicate files. HOW TO…

Exhausted all our fantastic ideas here but feel your Mac still isn’t running as well as you’d like? There are still things you can do to give it a boost. You should start by making sure macOS is up to date. Click on the Apple menu, choose "About this Mac", then Software Update. Unless you have a good reason not to, you should also check the box that tells macOS to install updates automatically. Next, make sure the apps you run regularly are up to date. You can usually check for updates using the app name menu in an application or on the Mac App Store for apps you’ve downloaded from there. Check your Wi–Fi and broadband connection. So much of what we do on our Macs relies on a…

GARAGEBAND From apple.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS GarageBand is an extraordinary app for making all kinds of music and other audio. And for many musicians and podcasters it’s all the software you could ever need. It’s essentially a friendlier, simpler version of the mighty Logic Pro X, and its selection of auto–playing instruments means you don’t have to know how to play in order to make something magical. It also includes some superb artist lessons to help inspire you. SPOTIFY From spotify.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS If you don’t already have a streaming music subscription, then Spotify offers a very good experience without too many adverts. You don’t get Spotify Connect, Spotify Radio, or the highest quality audio on the free tier so this isn’t one…

KHAN ACADEMY From khanacademy.org Available on iOS, iPadOS The Khan Academy is a non–profit organisation dedicated to providing free, world–class education to anybody anywhere, and its app is packed with knowledge. The information here is universal, and it’s particularly strong on maths and science topics. PBS KIDS VIDEO From pbskids.org Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS This is a brilliant app for parents of young children: it provides safe, ad–free access to your kids’ favorite PBS Kids shows, which combine education and entertainment. You can download video for offline playback too, which is great for road trips. DUOLINGO From duolingo.com Available on iOS, iPadOS, iMessage Duolingo can help you to learn new languages or brush up on the ones you already know. It’s a friendly and charming way to broaden…

POLARR PHOTO EDITOR From polarr.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, online Polarr is more of a filter app than an editor, enabling you to adjust various properties — color, light, lens, curves, and so on — and to apply interesting and eye–popping color filters. There’s a paid–for version with more tools and better layer handling, but the core set in the free version is impressive and the interface is easy to use. If you’re looking to do more than Photos can do, it’s worth downloading. iMOVIE From apple.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS Ever since it debuted on the iMac DV in 1999, iMovie has been one of the best video apps on the Mac — and more recently, on iPhone and iPad. It may lack the power features of…

GHOSTERY Ghostery blocks ads, trackers, and other content that advertisers and others may use to try and track your online activity, and it does so without any noticeable effect on Safari’s performance. We’ve found that without the trackers, many websites load faster and perform better. ADBLOCK PLUS We don’t want to deprive websites of money but neither do we want to be blasted with ads, autoplay videos, and pop–ups — especially when we’re on mobile data. AdBlock Plus enables you to block the worst offenders without blocking everything. SIMPLEURL Internet addresses seem to be getting longer and longer, which is a real pain when you want to post them to social media or share in Messages. This little extension converts even the lengthiest of URLs into something much shorter, and…

$42.99 (caddy only), $94 (1TB), $119 (2TB) From owcdigital.com Features Thunderbolt 3 compatibility, up to 540MB/s transfer speeds Needs USB–C 3.2 or USB–A OWC makes a range of high–end and enterprise–class storage solutions but also has drives for users with more everyday needs. The Mercury Elite Pro mini uses a spinning drive rather than a solid state drive and is thus much more affordable, while still offering performance that will be perfectly adequate for a good many people. Extremely lightweight, it is nonetheless very well built and comes with a USB–C cable plus USB–A adapter from which it also draws its power. It’s plug–and–play and compatible with more or less anything from computers to gaming consoles, as well as being bootable and Time Machine ready. The HDD versions come in…

$29.99 From cyan.com Needs macOS 11.5 or later Almost 30 years after its original release, puzzle classic Myst has been updated for the modern age. The new version brings improved textures and lighting, virtual reality support, and better performance thanks to Metal 2.1. Is that enough of a reason for Myst veterans to pick it up again? The answer is most definitely yes. Three decades is an eternity in computing terms, and so much in Myst has been improved. The most striking change comes to the graphics. Now, the game looks absolutely stunning. Crank up the settings and you’ll get beautiful god rays, detailed shadows, enhanced lighting, and high–resolution textures. It’s incredible to look at. The only thing lacking are the 3D face models, but you can swap those out…

Ever since the release of iOS 14, you have had a lot more control over how your iOS Home Screen looks. Whether through creative widgets, app icon changes, or the installation of whole themes for your device, these tools give you a blast of device design freedom. We’ve put together six of the best. You’ll have had a hard time avoiding 1. WIDGETSMITH (free with in–app purchases from Cross Forward Consulting, david–smith.org) over the past couple years. The app’s success birthed the Home Screen redesign cottage industry, and for good reason. It lets you create a huge range of custom widgets, from calendars and fitness trackers bursting with info to simple photos, clocks, and motivational phrases. It’s super easy to use and packs in a ton of functionality. If you…

THE CHANGES APPLE has made to Safari are designed to stop online surveillance. But you can make your browsing even more secure with a few well–chosen Extensions. Safari Extensions are little apps that easily plug into Safari on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad to give it new powers. Those powers could involve finding voucher codes for online shops, or they might block all kinds of online irritations. In this section we’ll focus on the latter to help you browse sites more effectively. We’ll also look at a very powerful Safari Extension called Social Fixer. It’s designed specifically for Facebook and does an excellent job of undoing a lot of the things that really annoy us on the social network, such as filling our feed with unwanted content and recommending things we…

REQUIRES Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022, macOS 10.15 or later YOU WILL LEARN Animated overlays, portrait to landscape and AI effects IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes SOMETIMES A SHOOT can produce disappointing results. For example, when snapping a child blowing dandelion seeds you may fail to capture enough floating seeds. Photoshop Elements 2022’s new Animated Overlay tool enables you to bring static shots to life by adding floating particles. You can even modify the particles to float in front or behind the subject as we’ll demonstrate. Photoshop Elements caters for the fact that many photos will be shown off on sites such as Instagram or Twitter. It now makes it even easier to export your edited shots in shapes and sizes that will make them look their best on social media feeds,…

REQUIRES Numbers 11.2 or later YOU WILL LEARN How to use pivot tables in Numbers IT WILL TAKE 45 minutes GENIUS TIP The values field defaults to summing the values in the data type, but you can also make it show the average, the number of records, the maximum, or the minimum. WHILE NUMBERS SURPASSES Microsoft’s Excel in some areas, it is lacking in others. Excel, ahem, excels at slicing and dicing data and allowing you to build scenarios. While Numbers doesn’t… until now that is. The most recent version of Numbers on Mac, iOS, and iPadOS supports pivot tables. And in case you don’t spend your days knee–deep in spreadsheets, pivot tables are tables that allow you to “pivot” data from another table. So, if you have a table…

I couldn’t agree with Stephen Santangelo more (Letter of the month, issue 189)! Managing media with Apple products — and getting help from Apple support — has become a nightmare. Last weekend, for example, I ripped a CD (that isn’t available on iTunes or Apple Music) and wanted to transfer the album to my iPhone. Sync wouldn’t work and Airdrop wouldn’t work, so I called Apple Care technical support. The support person didn’t understand what “ripping a CD” meant. She kept asking me if I bought it from iTunes. I had to keep explaining to her that I purchased a physical CD, inserted the CD into an external drive, then ripped it. She said, “You probably can’t sync it because it has copyright protection issues.” “No. I bought a physical…

1 Samsung Odyssey Ark ($TBC) From samsung.com The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a great time to see some outlandish tech, and Samsung did not disappoint this year with its Odyssey Ark monitor. This display behemoth is a mammoth 55 inches across — more than double Apple’s largest 27–inch iMac — and uses a heavily curved screen to make using it a little more comfortable and immersive. Like the latest MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, the Odyssey Ark uses Mini–LED tech to ramp up the display quality and offer increased contrast and brightness. You can rotate the screen 90 degrees into a portrait orientation, and thanks to its curvature and enormous wingspan, this makes the monitor loom ominously overhead — to the height of three 16:9 monitors stacked on top…

Smart Folders Smart Folders are a really useful way to keep track of files you regularly need access to. They update live, so as new files are created or edited and meet the criteria, they appear in the folder. Files aren’t actually moved or copied, they’re just referenced in Smart Folders. To create one, search for something in the Finder’s search box and press Return. Click the "+" to add more criteria for the search and use the options to filter the results. Then, click Save and choose where to save the Smart Folder. The Finder is the Mac’s file manager. Everything you do with files — whether launching an app, copying, pasting or moving files, or using Quick Look to preview them — is done in the Finder. There…

When you first launch a brand new Mac it zips through the startup process. Then, as you continue to use it, startup slows down. As you use your Mac and install software on it, some of that software installs launch agents or launch daemons which load before login and thus slow down the startup. In addition, some apps install login items, which load after you have logged in, but before your Mac has finished starting up. Login Items are fairly easy to manage — see below. In general, apps or menu bar items that want to launch when you login should ask permission. Launch agents and launch daemons are different. They are background processes, many of which are installed by Apple and without which your Mac wouldn’t run properly. Others…

YAHOO WEATHER From mobile.yahoo.com Available on iOS, iPadOS Apple’s own weather app had a huge update on iPhone recently; on iPad the weather widget takes you to weather.com. Yahoo’s weather app remains one of our favorites with hourly and long–range forecasts, all kinds of info and some nice location–aware photos too. AN OTTER RSS READER From anotterrss.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS Promising to be “the most okayest and minimalist RSS reader on iOS and macOS”, this is a simpler, more visually appealing alternative to the likes of NetNewsWire for RSS feeds. You don’t get the power–user features of rival readers, but An Otter does the basics brilliantly. NETNEWSWIRE From netnewswire.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS NetNewsWire does for reading what Overcast does for podcasts. It enables you to subscribe…

PAGES, NUMBERS AND KEYNOTE From apple.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS Chances are the best office apps for you are already on your device. The recently updated Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps are Microsoft Office compatible (including change tracking and comments in Word documents) but do their thing with a distinctly Apple sensibility. Pages doubles as a pretty great desktop publishing program, the mobile versions are fantastic and fast, and the apps all integrate brilliantly with your Photos library too. SPARK From sparkmailapp.com Available on Mac, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS Spark is like the standard Mail app with superpowers. It offers a smart inbox and smart search, email snoozing and mail templates, shared composition, email scheduling, follow–up reminders, and excellent notifications. The free version has up to 5GB of shared file…

CYBERDUCK From cyberduck.io Available on Mac Cyberduck began as an FTP app but it’s more than that; it’s a cloud browser with support not just for FTP and SFTP but WebDAV, Amazon S3, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure and OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. It’s great for remote file management. BBEDIT From barebones.com Available on Mac Although BBEdit is a paid product, its free mode isn’t just a demo; it’s effectively TextWrangler, a code and text editor with multiple undo, multiple clipboards and tons of customization. Its multi–file search–and–replace features are very good and it’s fast. TRANSPORTER From apple.com Available on Mac Apple’s Transporter used to be a command–line tool for uploading content to Apple, and now it’s an app. It’s a drag–and–drop app that will upload and validate…

$599.99 From arlo.com Features 2x Arlo Ultra 2 cameras, 1x SmartHub, 4K video with HDR, siren and spotlight, 6–month rechargeable battery, HomeKit support, dual–band Wi–Fi, SD card slot Arlo’s top–of–the–range Ultra 2 security camera is pretty expensive, but it’s one of the few that works with HomeKit for Apple devices, and that’s a key feature that might actually save you some money in the long run. The Ultra 2 starts at a hefty $599.99, for a set — available in black or white — that includes two cameras, and a SmartHub that connects to your broadband router and acts as the central control point for your cameras. It has the same 4K resolution with HDR as the original Arlo Ultra — still on sale on some online stores — but…

ON TEST… AsustorDrivestor2 Pro AS3302T QNAPTS253D SynologyDiskStationDS920+ TerraMasterF2422 WDMyCloud Home Duo FOR A DECADE Apple sold millions of Time Capsules, simple appliances combining Wi–Fi router and network storage. Popular with families and small businesses, they quietly kept Time Machine backups for several Macs. Now we’ve got better Wi–Fi, and their hard disks are reaching end of life, what should you replace yours with? What’s the best way to store backups, shared photos, and documents on your network? These are among the many roles that can be served by Network–Attached Storage, or NAS. Here, we look at five leading NAS systems aimed at homes and smaller businesses, with the primary role of storing Time Machine backups for several Macs. They range from systems similar to Time Capsules without the Wi–Fi, to…

Free (Premium $12/month) From slapdash.com Needs OS X 10.10 or later; separate version for Apple Silicon SLAPDASH Easy to manage online services Can control Mac, too Spaces keep things organized Documentation is difficult to find EXCELLENT Spotlight is the Mac’s Swiss Army Knife. It can do everything from launching apps to performing calculations, all without moving your fingers from the keyboard. Imagine, then, a tool that can do many of the same things, but also access your documents in cloud storage sites, manage Slack conversations or your Google Calendar, and toggle light/dark mode on and off. That’s exactly what SlapDash does. The idea is that you “connect” SlapDash to the online services you use, such as Dropbox, Slack, Todoist, Trello, or Zoom and then use SlapDash’s web based tool or…

THE INTERNET SHOULD have a sign above it that says “here be dragons”. Social networks follow you around the web to see where you go and what you like; advertisers use all kinds of tools to build up incredibly detailed profiles of you to sell on or use to target you with ads; and all kinds of sites use dirty tricks that make the web a whole lot less fun. But Safari gives you the tools you can use to fight back, to keep your privacy protected, and to disable the features that some websites use to make your life more difficult. Despite impressive competition, Safari is still our everyday browser — and its privacy features are a big part of that. Unlike search engines and social networks that make…

APERTURE The iPhone 13 Pro Max’s wide aperture of f/1.5 allows a low ISO speed, which reduces any ugly digital noise. CHEVRON OPTIONS Tap here to access controls such as the Night mode dial and the Flash settings. EXPOSURE ADJUSTMENT Go to Settings > Camera > Preserve settings. Then toggle on Exposure Adjustment to display the exposure adjustment indicator. EXPOSURE ADJUSTMENT Tap here to summon a dial that enables you to brighten a dark scene by up to two f–stops. REQUIRES iPhone 11 or later YOU WILL LEARN How to capture low–light shots using the Camera app IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes IN LOW–LIGHT, NEWER iPHONES HAVE THE EDGE OVER THEIR PREDECESSORS DUE TO WIDER APERTURES AS THE NIGHTS draw in we have less daylight hours to shoot in. And,…

REQUIRES iOS 15.1, macOS 12.1, Apple Music and/or Apple TV YOU WILL LEARN How to share media and even workouts using FaceTime IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes WHEN YOU USE THE SHARED LISTENING OR VIEWING FEATURES, SHAREPLAY ISN’T A STREAMER, IT’S A SYNCHRONIZER IT’S ALWAYS BETTER to show somebody something than tell them about it, or to play them a song rather than describe it. And with Apple’s SharePlay, which is now part of FaceTime, you can do just that. That song you’re raving about? You can play it in full quality for everyone to hear. So far, SharePlay is available on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV. And, it’s finally become available on Mac too via the 12.1 update to macOS Monterey. Let’s find out what SharePlay…