Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i MacLife

DEPENDING ON WHEN you pick up this issue of Mac|Life, you’ll either be staring at a pre–order page for the new Apple Vision Pro, and trying to figure out just how much storage space you really need, or you might be placing an order for one after the launch which takes place on February 2 (issue #216 went on sale three days prior). Either way, you’ll be wondering whether you really want to commit to the $3,499 entry fee, or if you want to wait it out and see where the wind blows. This month we’ve got an update (p4) on all the new features that Apple announced recently, as well as an early hands–on with the device, so you can be better informed about the potential purchase. The hands–on…

THERE’S A NUMBER of ways you can customize the Finder to suit the way you work, making it quicker and easier to navigate. CUSTOMIZE THE TOOLBAR Ctrl–click on a Finder window’s Toolbar and choose the Customize Toolbar option. You can then drag icons out of the Toolbar, or drag them into it from the window that pops up. Use the pull–down menu in the bottom–left corner of this window to view the Toolbar options as icons, text or both. CUSTOMIZE THE SIDEBAR The Finder window’s Sidebar is also customizable. You can drag a folder into it and then click on it in the sidebar to open it. Just the thing for easy access to your current project. When you’ve finished, Ctrl–click on it and select Remove From Sidebar from the…

THE SHORTCUTS APP is bundled with recent versions of macOS, including the current release macOS 14 Sonoma. It’s designed for creating macros. In computing, a macro is a set of instructions executed with a single action. For example, if you were to have a folder full of pictures you need to process, your routine might be as follows: open a picture; resize it to specified dimensions; add a watermark; save it as a specific image format in another folder; close the original file without saving it; move on to the next picture. With a macro, you can automate these actions so all you have to do is make sure the folders are in place and then activate the macro. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Apple’s Shortcuts app launched on the iPhone in…

ALTHOUGH MANY OF us have switched to the likes of WhatsApp and Signal for our preferred messaging service, there is still a whole heap of life left in Messages. In fact, there’s more than ever before now that Apple has spruced it up with the arrival of macOS Sonoma. With the updated app, communication is a little faster thanks to the ability to reply more quickly. You can also find information within Messages with greater speed due to more advanced search filtering, and you can save time when you receive an audio message — by avoiding having to listen to it and reading a transcript instead. Messages also helps you to feel more connected to friends and family — to the point where you could, with their permission of course, pinpoint…

OUTSIDE: EVENT COUNTDOWN is a countdown app for iOS that can even make taking out the trash on a wet Monday morning in January seem exciting! As well as letting you create one-off or repeatable plans that can be kept private or shared with friends, you can turn events into a countdown widget. This means you can constantly see your plans edging ever closer without having to keep opening the app. Two days to go before the trash is collected? Bring it on! All of the plans also remain within the app where they can be customized in multiple ways with wallpapers and styles. By reaching out to friends, you can use the app for group chats and for swapping photos and GIFs and it’s possible to meet new people via…

BACK IN THE Web 2.0 days of the early 2000s, the web was full of enjoyable toy–like websites and browser extensions that put a bit of fun front and center. Now that the web is a much more commercialized beast, we rarely see that playfulness anymore — but Web Roulette is a great way to bring it back. This brilliant little app is all about quickly catching up on your favorite websites before moving on to the next thing. To begin, you tell it which web pages you love visiting; you can then simply swipe left to view them all one after the other. The idea is you quickly check your top destinations without having to think too hard — as the developer jokingly puts it, it’s for “mindlessly” browsing…

> Back up an external drive How should I back up the media libraries I store on my external hard disk? Media libraries and document archives tend to change far less often than active parts of your Home folder, such as Documents, and normally don’t merit backing up every hour, as Time Machine would do by default. Unless you add many photos during the course of most days, they may not even need to be backed up daily, but just once a week. While Time Machine in recent versions of macOS does offer daily and weekly options, it can’t run two different schedules, one for your media libraries and another for your main Data volume or Home folder. If you already use Time Machine for hourly backups, you’d be better…

THE MAC WAS never intended to be Apple’s star: that was the Lisa, Apple’s first computer with a graphical interface. While impressive, the Lisa was also unreliable and incredibly expensive: when it launched in 1983 it cost $9,995. An IBM PC was around $1,500. While the Lisa was busy bombing, Jef Raskin’s skunkworks project was working on something much less expensive and, as it would turn out, much more important. Raskin, Burrell Smith and Apple co–founder Steve Wozniak were focusing on a more modest Apple computer without a hard disk, multitasking or as much memory. The team was joined by Steve Jobs, who effectively took it over when Wozniak was recovering from a plane crash. Their project, the Macintosh, was an instant hit. Software led Software deserves much of the…

IT’S NOT AS CLEAR AND SHARP AS YOUR NOTEBOOK’S RETINA SCREEN, NOR WOULD YOU EXPECT IT TO BE $429.99 From www.mobilepixels.us Features 14.1–inch 1080p FHD display; weighs 1.8lbs; auto–rotation and eye–care mode; 300 nits; 60Hz; 16:9 aspect ratio; plug and play via USB–C port; compatible with macOS/Windows/Linux/ChromeOS/Nintendo Switch/Samsung Dex Needs Mac with USB–C port STUDIES SHOW THAT having multiple screens makes you appreciably more productive. You can work on your main screen while keeping data and menu windows on the second, for example, or use the dual–screen setup to keep several open documents at once. When on the internet you can have your web browser on one screen and your email client on the other and, if your workflow allows, you can be working on your main display while playing videos…

Andrew Cottle Art Editor Reading 40 Years of Mac (p52) Andy has been reminiscing about his Power Macintosh at college, huge studio monitors and Zip disks. Who remembers their terrifying click of death? Rachel Terzian Production Editor Taking a look back at the Mac’s evolution across the years, Rachel now genuinely wishes she owned a colorful clamshell iBook G3, purely for the unique design aesthetics. Ian Osborne Contributor Not convinced by Vision Pro? Ian’s Power up your Mac guide (p12) might convince you that the Mac is still Apple’s finest technical achievement.…

For tech watchers, January means one thing and one thing only: the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and a trip to Las Vegas. Once there, attendees can discover all kinds of weird and wonderful gadgets, spot emerging tech trends and discover what some of the world’s biggest companies plan to waggle under our noses over the year ahead. As usual, Apple was conspicuous by its absence, but that didn’t stop it from being the talk of the show — and not just because it announced the on–sale date of its new Vision Pro (see p4) just as CES delegates were gathering. Across the booths of CES were all kinds of devices that will either work with your Apple gear, or have been designed to compete with it (like the Rabbit…

YOU KNOW HOW it is. When you first bought it, your Mac was satisfyingly speedy, but after a while it begins to slow down. Apps don’t open as quickly, the Finder seems sluggish and booting up takes longer and longer. Why is this? In a nutshell, it’s because, over time, your Mac gets clogged up with all the extra apps and data you’ve put on it. The hard drive gets full, meaning there’s less space for macOS to use as virtual memory. You’ve added far too many apps as login items, meaning they have to launch when your Mac first boots, slowing down the process. And maybe it’s been a while since you updated your apps and the operating system. Thankfully, none of these problems are insurmountable. There’s plenty of…

WITH A LITTLE foresight and planning, you can save time and effort when working on your Mac. These handy helpers will make things run more smoothly. FILE AND FOLDER NAMING AND ORGANIZATION When you create a new file or folder, take care to name it something that makes sense when you view it later or send it to someone else. For example, the screenshot at the top of this page was called Page 7_topshot.PNG when we passed it to the designer, they then knew it was for the top of the seventh page in this article. If we’d left the title as Screenshot 2024–01–02 at 1.13.37pm, it would’ve been much harder for the designer to know where to place it. Likewise, if you have a folder with a huge number…

THERE ARE PLENTY more ways to speed up your workflow and your Mac. Adding a second and even a third screen gives you more workspace, making you more efficient. After doing so, open System Settings and click Displays. Click the Arrange button, and you can relocate the menu bar, and also drag the secondary screen around the main one, setting their relative positions. HARNESS ACCESSIBILITY There’s a wealth of features in System Requirements’ Accessibility section. If you have any kind of disability — or even if you don’t — features such as inverting the screen colors, flashing the screen when an alert occurs or Voice Control might greatly assist your use of the Mac. Explore them and try them out. You can always turn them off again if they don’t suit…

DOGS AND CATS are such popular pets that our Photos library may be packed full of pictures of our canine and feline friends. In older versions of Photos, you could try to find pics of your pets by typing “dog” or “cat” into the Search field. You’d then have to scroll through hundreds of thumbnails of different animals to find the best shots of a specific pet. The Photos app has been able to identify people ever since its inception, but changes in macOS Sonoma, iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 mean that Photos can now identify individual pets too — as long as they are a cat or a dog! You’re out of luck if you want to quickly find shots of specific hamsters! In this walkthrough, we’ll show you how…

THESE DAYS, WE’RE all inundated with spam, scams, hoaxes and other tricks in our email inboxes. Luckily, most of that deluge should get automatically filtered off into the trash, but there are often one or two messages that escape the net. When that happens, you don’t want to fall victim to an internet ne’er–do–well with intentions on your passwords and credit cards. After all, just one mistake can be devastating. So, what can you do to protect yourself in this online wild west? AI ANALYSIS Antivirus firm Norton thinks it has the answer in the form of its Genie: AI Scam Detector app. This lets you upload a suspicious email to the app — either as a screenshot or as just the text itself — and Genie will use its…

THE TIMING OF Intel’s announcement of Thunderbolt 5 was surely no coincidence — 12 September, the same day that Apple launched the iPhone 15, and finally brought USB–C to the iPhone range as well. There’s an irony there, though, as Intel’s announcement was obviously overshadowed by Apple’s iPhone extravaganza, even though it’s always been Apple that championed the use of the Thunderbolt interface tech, long before it was adopted by the manufacturers of Windows PCs. But, believe it or not, it was actually Intel that developed Thunderbolt in the first place — although it was originally called Light Peak when it was first introduced by Intel in 2009. Light Peak was initially intended to run on fibre–optic cables, but Intel found that it was also possible to run a version…

> Check integrity of backups How can I check that Time Machine backups of my documents aren’t corrupt or damaged? In Sonoma there doesn’t appear to be any direct way to check the integrity of files in a backup, although you should periodically confirm you can restore items from your backups as a routine. In previous versions of macOS, Time Machine offered a consistency scan, shown by Ctrl+Shift–clicking the backup volume in its pane in System Preferences, but that has vanished from System Settings. The command tool tmutil also offers an option to verify checksums. Although running that seems to do something, it doesn’t take much time and delivers no result either, so can’t be trusted. Apple does describe another feature available from the Time Machine menu: open with Opt…

BY 1997, APPLE was close to going out of business. Returning CEO Steve Jobs quickly diagnosed the problem: Apple was making too many products and they weren’t good enough. To use Jobs’ favorite quote from hockey player Wayne Gretzky, Apple needed to “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been”. And with the iMac, Apple did. It’s hard to overstate the effect the iMac had on everything. Doomsayers mocked its lack of floppy drive and the candy–colored cases, but those colors were a tonic in a world of beige boxes and the iMac would influence the design of everything from steam irons to sex toys. Apple sold nearly 280,000 iMacs in just six weeks, and nearly half of its sales were to first–time computer…

WHEN YOU ADD a new smart device to your home using HomeKit, you usually have two ways to use it: either by using the device’s dedicated app, or by using the Home app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. You can even control your devices using your Apple Watch or Apple TV 4K (second–gen or later) as well as, of course, by using Siri. While automations are offered in many device–specific apps (see the Nanoleaf or Eve Home apps, for example), Apple’s Home app gives you the best overview of all the smart devices on your home network — and can even suggest some automations to you. You could choose to have smart lights automatically switch on at sunset, for instance, or have them switch off when you leave home. In…

$449.99 From https://edifier.com Features Wi–Fi and Bluetooth streaming; Alexa, Tidal, Spotify support; RCA and optical inputs; remote control; 5.5-inch aluminum bass speaker; sample rate up to 24-bit/192kHz EDIFIER’S S1000W WIRELESS speakers blend conventional tech with newer, with a bunch of ins and outs both analog and digital, in an attempt to provide you with lots of options. They’re 37lbs as a pair and really quite hefty. The left speaker contains all the electronics and power, and connects to the right via a special cable. This means that your signal only has to be sent to one device, making things simpler overall. Hooking up hi–fi gear is pretty straightforward, with two phono line inputs on the back as well as optical and coaxial inputs which can be useful for home cinema…

$180 From www.nomadgoods.com Features MagSafe charger, Apple Watch charger, Qi charging, 2.0m USB–C to USB–C cable NOMAD’S STAND ONE MAX is a 3–in—1 charger, allowing you to rest and charge your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods (or whatever Qi device you want to wirelessly charge). It’s a seriously hefty piece of hardware; one of the most substantial charging stands we’ve ever come across, in fact. The chunky base, with its rounded edges, measures in at 141mm x 82mm, and houses the Qi charger on the right–hand side. It’s constructed from solid aluminum, with a TPU top surface, while the underside features grippy rubber which ensures this thing never moves an inch, wherever it’s placed. To the left side of the base is the iPhone stand, which is also made from solid…

AS WE MOVE into 2024, I’ve been thinking about the future. Obviously, I thought about the past and present first, but those ghosts have left, and now I face a mysterious cloaked figure. He’d perhaps be chilling and scary if he weren’t asking me whether I think now’s a good time to buy AirPods Max or whether he should wait. Along those lines, here’s what I’m hoping to see from Apple in 2024. First is a development of the vision for Apple’s Vision line. This initial Vision Pro hardware is certainly one possible future of computing, but not a mainstream one at $3,500. It will be fascinating to see which parts Apple believes it can cut back on to create a more affordable non–pro Vision product. Probably not the sensors…

IF YOUR MAC is slow to boot up when you first switch it on, there’s several things you can do to get started with more haste. To begin with, make sure your apps and OS are up to date; then, click the Apple icon in the top–left corner to see if updates are available. Then try these tricks. DECLUTTER YOUR STARTUP DRIVE Open a new Finder window (click on the Desktop and press Cmd+N). Click on the Applications folder in the left–hand sidebar. If you now click on the Size column, you can show your apps in order of size, with the smallest or the largest at the top; if it’s the smallest, click Size again. With your apps arranged in size order, it’s easy to spot what’s taking up…

MANY PEOPLE BAULK at the idea of using the Mac’s Terminal but, as long as you’re careful, it’s nothing to be afraid of. Open Terminal — it’s in Applications > Utilities, or open App Launcher and find it in the Other folder. The Terminal window shows your username and a cursor. To use one of the Terminal commands from this section, type it in exactly as you see it here, with no spaces at the end, and press Enter. If you’ve used a Wi–Fi password before but can’t find it on your Mac, in Terminal, type security find-generic-password -wa “Wifi” changing “Wifi” to the name of the Wi-Fi SSID in question. You then have to type in your administrator’s name and password. You’re shown the password in question, provided it’s…

ONE OF OUR favorite things about macOS Sonoma is that more than ever before, you can make your Mac perfectly you. You can have iPhone–style widgets on your desktop, and Apple TV–style aerial screen savers to turn your display into an atmospheric view of incredible landscapes, dramatic skylines and beautiful natural scenes. In this tutorial, we’re going to concentrate on two simple but really effective tweaks that make your Mac look brilliant in any room: your wallpaper (this can be static, or it can switch as the hours or days change), and your screen saver. LOOKING GOOD Although screen savers were initially designed to prevent burn–in, which used to leave a ghostly shadow on the screens of old cathode–ray monitors if they showed the same thing all day long, today they’re…

YOUR MAC’S CLIPBOARD has always felt like it could be way better, yet here we are with the same feature–limited tool, year after year. You can only copy one item at a time, and if you copy something new, the old item gets overwritten for good. For such an advanced operating system like macOS, it feels like a feature that’s stuck in the past. Luckily, you can fix it with the Paste app. It has an unlimited clipboard history so you never lose anything copied, and it enables you to control how and where everything is pasted. All your copied items are housed in a handy overlay that lets you search for items, group them in folders, and more. Paste will change the way you manage your clipboard. It’s such a…

MANY OF THE interfaces on our devices are designed with the assumption that they’ll be used by people with two hands. That’s not always the case because not everybody has two hands, while other people have mobility issues that make two–handed operation difficult. And there are also times when two–handed people might not have their other hand available — such as when you want to decline a call while carrying a hot coffee, or you might want to pause your music while trying to control an over–active dog by its lead. Double tap on Apple Watch is designed to help in all situations. The Double Tap option used to live in the Apple Watch’s Accessibility features, but since watchOS 10.1 it’s now a major item in Apple’s Watch marketing. Quite…

> Securing my files How can I back up my docs in iCloud Drive, including those whose downloads have been removed? When you enable Optimize Mac Storage (from System Settings), iCloud Drive allows the files you store in it to have their local data removed, either automatically because they haven’t been used recently, or because you choose to remove the download and evict them. Before they can be backed up, those files must be downloaded to your Mac’s local storage. As that could take hours or even days, it’s not normally done while making a backup, and Time Machine won’t even try. Time Machine therefore only backs up those files if you manually download them all before it runs a backup. Third–party backup utilities including Carbon Copy Cloner can be…

THE VERY FIRST Mac launched in January 1984, and to celebrate its 40th anniversary we’re going back to the very beginning. In our historical tour we’ll discover the Macs that paved the way for today’s magical M3s, trace macOS from System 1.0 to Sonoma, and explore the evolution of our favorite Apple accessories too. You’ll find out how the first Mac changed computing for everyone, and see the many Macs that truly deserved the title of "insanely great". But we’re not going to pretend that it’s all been plain sailing. Some Macs didn’t "just work", and we’re going to breathe a big sigh when we recall some of the Mac’s less endearing designs and the decisions behind them. We’ll tut at the Touch Bar, wonder how you’re supposed to charge…

WHEN STEVE JOBS died in 2011, many pundits said it was the end of Apple: in the popular imagination, Steve Jobs was Apple and Apple was Steve Jobs. Who could fill such iconic shoes? Tim Cook? But Apple’s logistics wizard is not a man you should underestimate, and under his watch Apple became a trillion–dollar company in 2018. It was Cook who turned Jobs’ ideas — the iPhone, the iPad, and projects begun during the Jobs era such as the Apple Watch — into globe–conquering successes. But the question that dogged Apple from the day of his succession was simple: what would happen when Jobs’ ideas ran out? Those questions got louder when design guru Jonathan Ive left Apple in 2019, apparently frustrated by Apple’s move to a less design–focused…

$9.99/mth, $49.99/yr Fromhttps://portal.app Needs macOS 13.3 or later WITH MACOS SONOMA, Apple introduced video screen savers that, as they end, transition into a desktop wallpaper. The Portal app goes further by adding video backgrounds that loop indefinitely while you work or play. But this is no one–trick pony. Wallpapers are just one aspect of Portal, and it aims to help you relax, focus and be more creative. It does this through video backgrounds, yes, but they’re combined with ambient spatial audio that transports you to another place. The app even pairs with smart lighting from Philips and Nanoleaf, which syncs to match Portal’s visuals. You can choose from over 80 scenes, like a tranquil Slovenian lake or a calm Cornish bay, or a dramatic Icelandic waterfall for some powerful concentration–boosting…

$99.99 From www.adobe.com Needs Intel 6th Generation or newer; Apple silicon M1 or newer, macOS 12, macOS 13 (13.4 or later), 8GB of RAM PREMIERE ELEMENTS 2024 has some interesting new features to offer, but are they enough to motivate owners of older versions of Premiere Elements to pay for an upgrade? We’ll answer that key question in due course. One of Premiere Elements 2024’s key strengths is its ability to help the novice video editor create short video sequences from long, unedited clips. If you’ve no video editing experience at all, the Guided Edit workspace will show you step by step how to perform tasks such as trimming clips, adding transitions and adjusting shadows and highlights. As you gain confidence by following guided instructions you can then explore more…

$19.99 From https://lapoulenoire.fr Needs OS X 10.8.5 or later ROCK BAILEY HAS a problem: he’s too damn beautiful. But his struggles to bat away unwanted romantic attention soon pale into insignificance one night as he’s drugged, kidnapped and beaten to a pulp — and that’s just the start of his troubles. He soon finds himself thrust headfirst into a nefarious plot to abduct beautiful people all over LA. With gorgeous starlets and hunky singers going missing all over the city, Rock must move fast to save Tinseltown’s most stunning residents. Based on the satirical novel by Boris Vian (writing as Vernon Sullivan), To Hell With The Ugly is a comical, eccentric parody of the noir crime genre. Humor is laced throughout its dialog and is frequently found in the air–headed…