Indholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2024 i MacLife

APPLE QUIETLY LAUNCHED a new MacBook Air earlier this month (check out our in–depth review on p62). No doubt the lack of fuss was intentional: this is last year’s model with an M3 chipset to replace the M2 version, which in fairness hasn’t been around all that long. But, progress and all that. Though more power is always welcome — as is the ability to now output to two displays for improved productivity at a desk, albeit with the lid closed — and make no mistake, this is certainly a technological leap, owners of the M2 MacBook Air will sensibly skip this upgrade. Thankfully, Apple has kept the price tag of the new MacBook Air unchanged from the 2023 version, making it decent value for the entry–level 13–inch model at…

> TRANSCRIPTS FOR PODCASTS Making podcasts more accessible and easier to navigate, Apple has introduced transcripts for Apple Podcasts. You can read the full text of an episode, search an episode for a specific word or phrase, and tap on the text to play the podcast from that point. As an episode plays, each word is highlighted, making it easy to follow along. Transcripts can be accessed from the bottom–left of the Now Playing screen and are available in iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 for podcasts in English, French, German, and Spanish (in the language of the podcast, not in translation) “shortly after episodes are published”, with back–catalog episodes being added over time. > FREE APPLE SPORTS APP Apple Sports is a new free app for iPhone that gives sports fans…

WE LOVE SHAZAM almost as much as trivia night quizmasters hate it; it can automagically tell you what song is playing after listening to just a few seconds of it. That makes it a menace if your rival quiz team is using it to cheat during a music round, but it’s helped us discover and fall in love with some of our favorite artists. If you can hear it clearly, Shazam can usually tell you exactly what it is. Since Apple bought Shazam, it’s been integrated tightly with the Music app and with Siri on your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. That makes it even more useful — as we’ll discover, you can get it to automatically add recognized songs to your Apple Music playlist. Shazam used to be a…

> Where you can’t use an alias My Mac has an external disk named Mac User. Can I create an alias to it in the Volumes folder so I can also access it using a different name? Sadly, it’s not as simple as that, as the top–level Volumes folder can’t be changed by the user, only by the system, which uses it to automatically mount volumes. There’s one notable exception to that: it also mounts a link to your current startup volume there, for convenience of access. No matter how you try to create a Finder alias file there, you’ll be refused. The simplest way to address this is to change the name of that volume on the external disk. There’s no easy way to mount a volume using two…

CleanMyMac X > From $39.95 per year > https://cleanmymac.com > Needs macOS 10.13 or later There are many system–cleaning and maintenance apps available for macOS, but CleanMyMac X is a lot smarter and more user–friendly than most. It’s an all–in–one tool that can not only clean up the unnecessary clutter from your drive, but also detect and remove malware. In addition, it promises to speed up your Mac to make it feel like new again, in performance terms at least. From the app’s slick interface, you can start off by simply clicking the large Scan button to do a Smart Scan on your system. This then runs through a series of tools, starting with disk cleanup to detect unneeded junk files, then moving on to checking for potential malware threats,…

$1,000 From www.mobilepixels.us Features Dual 24–inch stacked monitors, 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution, 60 Hertz refresh rate, 2x USB–A, 2x USB–C, 2x HDMI ports, built–in webcam, speakers and microphone, 65W USB–C pass–through charging, adjustable height and viewing angle YOU CAN NEVER have too much desktop space, and this stacked system from Mobile Pixels gives you two 24–inch screens for the same desktop footprint as one. The Geminos positions one screen on top of the other, treating them as if they were separate monitors. It folds down for transportation (but at 20lbs, there’s nothing particularly mobile about these pixels), and as well as having both screens at 90 degrees to your desk you can angle the bottom one, which lowers the upper screen. This is most useful for the Geminos T model,…

Andrew Cottle Art Editor Andy reckons Inkulinati (p75) looks like a lot of fun, and evokes fond memories from his teens — playing quirky strategy games like Age of Empires, Populous and Utopia. Rachel Terzian Production Editor Perhaps an iPad plus Apple Pencil is what Rachel needs to evolve her artistic skills, so she can stop creating hilarious monstrosities during online drawing games with friends…? Ian Osborne Contributor Ever a popular feature in Mac|Life, Ian’s guide to keeping your Mac running (p56) proves that there’s still life in the old dog yet.…

WHEN APPLE ANNOUNCED that it would be handling the EU’s new rules forcing it to allow sideloading and alternative App Stores by introducing a review/approval process for any apps someone makes, not just those sent to its store, a lot of people I spoke to said it was a “typical Apple” moment. You know — “typical Apple, swapping Lightning for USB–C on the iPhone 15, but limiting it to USB 2.0 speeds” or “typical Apple, still putting 8GB of RAM in pro laptops and then overcharging to upgrade”. This one was “typical Apple, even when the law says it needs to open up the system, it invents new methods of control”. I wasn’t very surprised to see that Apple wanted to retain some measure of control over apps (to stop…

ON YOUR iPAD, there are several ways you can multitask. The most obvious is Split View, whereby you divide the screen, with one application on one side and another on the other. You can then drag content between them, quickly and easily. You can even open the same application twice if you choose. To open a second app in Split View, drag up from the foot of the screen to open the Dock, and either drag a second application out of the Dock onto the left or right side of the screen, or tap the App Library, and drag an app to the left or right. You can drag the line dividing the two apps to resize them. You’ll need an iPad Pro, 5th gen iPad or later, iPad Air…

THE iPAD HAS always been an excellent device for enjoying music and videos, but as it grew in power and scope, it became a superb tool for creating media too. Popular everyman–level apps such as the iMovie video editor and GarageBand music creator were ported from the Mac to the iPad, with redesigned interfaces built to take full advantage of the tablet’s touchscreen. Last year Apple’s pro–level media creation apps Final Cut Pro (video editor) and Logic Pro (music creator) were also brought to the iPad, again with interfaces built around the touchscreen. It’s amazing how few compromises have been made in bringing these applications to the iPad. Apple’s tablet might be smaller than the Mac, but with the latest model of iPad Pro boasting an Apple silicon M2 System–on–a–Chip…

AS SOON AS you start building a collection of files on your computer, you run into the problem of organization. Sure, you can divide things into folders and endless subfolders, but shouldn’t there be a quicker, more visual way to find what you want? As it turns out, there is. Tags, a built–in feature in macOS, lets you add small colored dots to your files in Finder. They give you an instantly recognizable way to organize items, add labels, and then locate them with just a click. You can use tags to denote file progress: to do, completed, etc. Or you can label files as belonging to a project or assignment, such as work you did for different clients. They also give you a quick way to find files —…

APPLE PACKS PLENTY of great stuff into iOS, but the alarm setup inside the Clock app is about as basic as they come. It took until iOS 17 for Apple to allow us to set multiple timers at the same time, after all. If you’ve been crying out for something better, Midnight Alarm Clock might be just what you need. It enables you to set multiple alarms and store them inside folders, meaning you can keep related alerts together for repeated use. It syncs with your calendars (so you can turn on alarms for specific upcoming events), shows you the weather when your alarms are due to go off, and is all wrapped up inside a beautiful interface that is a joy to use. EXTRA BENEFITS Add in some particularly useful…

Finder doesn’t leak after all KEEP A WATCH on how much memory the Finder uses while you’re browsing images and other files with custom thumbnails or icons, and you’ll see that increases steadily. Browse or select hundreds of files, and it can rise to GB. Many had assumed that’s a memory leak, and the only way to get that memory back is to restart the Finder. We were wrong! That memory hasn’t leaked away, it has just been borrowed. If your Mac’s memory comes under pressure, or after a couple of days, the Finder should return its loan. Although this may not be the way you’d want the Finder to behave, its purpose is to keep thumbnails handy in case it needs to display them again. This makes scrolling through…

$24.99 From www.yazagames.com Needs macOS 11 or later INKULINATI TAKES THE weird and wonderful creatures found in the margins of medieval manuscripts and turns them into battling beasts in this enjoyable turn–based strategy game. Draw new fighters to add them to the battlefield, use religious blessings to buff your friends, and take swipes at your enemies with your illustrator’s hand. It’s fun, challenging and a little irreverent to boot. You journey through consecutive battles, interspersed with chances to refresh your forces or spend your winnings. Along the way are several types of encounters, each requiring different skills and strategies. Standard battles put your illustrator (or “tiny”) on the page, meaning you can draw new beasts each turn. Kill your enemy’s tiny and you win, even if their beasts remain on…

I’ve been pondering the whole $3,500 price issue with the Vision Pro. I get why Apple would charge that sort of money when the R&D and raw cost is bound to be millions, and obviously Apple needs to make a small profit on each set, making the raw unit price probably about $3K. Apple has always taken the long forward–looking attitude and has seen the short ups–and–downs as the price of doing business in the 21st century. The tendency is forever upward. Unless Apple has many, many billions in the cash reserve, they have to eat the new product cost that may not be coming back anytime soon. But as they say, it takes money to make money and unless there is a clinker every so often, how do you…

APPLE’S iWORK SUITE for iPad — that’s the Pages word processor, Numbers spreadsheet, and Keynote presentation app — have gone from strength to strength. While the iPhone versions of the apps are fine for viewing and editing docs on the go, the larger screen offered by Apple’s tablet makes the iPad’s iWork apps as powerful and easy to use as their Mac counterparts. To get the most out of Pages, Numbers and Keynote, you ideally need a keyboard. Apple’s own Magic Keyboard works well, as it offers a trackpad that’s great for the precision needed when selecting a spreadsheet cell or piece of text. You might consider getting an Apple Pencil too. The Apple Pencil is an excellent optional extra that again gives a greater level of precision. You can…

NATURALLY, YOUR iPAD isn’t limited to the tasks we’ve outlined so far. There’s a wealth of apps designed to increase your productivity. Arguably the most productive thing you can do on your iPad is to use the App Store efficiently. Remember, the search engine isn’t just for finding specific apps. You can enter what it is you want to do and the search results give you apps that fit the bill. For example, if you type “catalog record collection” into the search field, you’re shown appropriate apps. Type “website builder” and you’re offered apps that help you build websites. There’s scarcely a limit to what you can do on the iPad. With a popular tool like Duolingo you can learn another language, and for straightforward translations there’s Google Translate and…

REGARDLESS OF THE Microsoft Excel World Championship, spreadsheets are generally considered boring. But your reams of data can spring into life if presented in the right way. Step forward trusty column, bar, line, area, pie, bubble, radar and doughnut charts which can easily be created within Apple’s own spreadsheet app, Numbers (as well as in Pages and Keynote). With 2D, 3D and interactive options, you’re sure to find something that will work perfectly for the information you’re trying to illustrate. Here we show you how to create those various charts and graphs before looking at how you can customize their color and style to suit. There are loads of flexible options to play around with and you can even change the chart type on the fly without having to start over,…

NOTES IS A great app, but it’s very easy to lose your work amid a plethora of lists, ramblings and jotted half–ideas. You can search for notes, yes, but what if you can’t remember exactly what you need? The answer is to use tags (#) and Smart Folders. In combination, these tools make finding and organizing your notes a cinch. In fact, Smart Folders do all the organizing for you, shouldering the burden so you don’t have to. A tag can be added anywhere in a note, including its title. You can’t add spaces to a note’s tag name, but it can have hyphens, numbers and underscores. Once you’ve added some tags, you can then search by those tags to find similar notes and group them together. SMART SORTING Another…

> Private Relay impairs connections? Web connections seem less responsive when I’ve enabled iCloud+ Private Relay. Is that right, and how do I improve their speed? It’s not uncommon for some to notice a reduction in network responsiveness when using iCloud+ Private Relay, even though their connections are still transferring data at high speed. This isn’t something that’s assessed reliably by normal online speed tests. Apple introduced a new command tool in Monterey, networkQuality, that’s designed to measure network responsiveness according to a new standard proposed by some of its own network engineers, led by the expert who pioneered what we now know as Bonjour. If you’d rather not use it in Terminal, it’s built into Bryan Christianson’s WhatRoute, donationware from https://whatroute.net. To use this, select the Net Quality test…

$2.99/month, $24.99/year, $79 lifetime From https://edovia.com/en/screens Needs macOS 14.0 or later, iOS/iPadOS 17 or later THERE’S STILL SOMETHING magic in checking documents on your Mac when you’re hundreds of miles away, or sorting out your mom’s Mail problem without having to drive to her house. Those are typical of what you can achieve using a VNC remote desktop like Edovia’s Screens. Virtual Network Computing, or VNC, is 25 years old, and Screens 5 is the latest version of a product that has brought VNC to Macs and devices for half that period. It requires macOS Sonoma or iOS/iPadOS 17, although it can connect to Macs running OS X 10.4 Tiger, and systems running Windows, Linux, or Raspberry Pi. macOS contains all it needs for you to share the screen and…

$99.99 From www.adobe.com Needs macOS 12, macOS 13 (13.4 or later) THE FULL MONTHLY subscription version of Adobe Photoshop features many tools that the casual photographer won’t require. As a result, it is a challenge for the Photoshop novice to wade through the full version of the app’s menus to find the desired photo–fixing tools. Fortunately, the streamlined Photoshop Elements focuses on the needs of the average photographer to help them quickly edit their photos to fix problems with color and exposure. Elements also offers plenty of fast ways to produce creative image content that will catch the eye of friends, family and social media followers without you having to be an expert image editor. Adobe understands that the average iPhone photographer doesn’t want to spend hours pushing pixels around,…

GENIUS GUIDE Flummoxed by a plethora of problems plaguing your Mac? We’ve got fast fixes for all the most common issues, to help you get your Mac back on track ALSO INSIDE… Keep your old Mac up and running (pt2) Get readyfor a second round of amazing ways to help you bring an old machine back to life ISSUE 219 on sale 23 APR 2024 The ultimate HomeKit hardware guide Put that smart home plan into action: we’ve compiled the best HomeKit devices to upgrade your home with …and much more Contents subject to change…