Innehållsförteckning för No. 174 från iCreate

There’s no denying it, Apple completely stunned us with its ‘Super Six’ WWDC 2017 unveiling of iOS 11, the new iPad Pro, macOS High Sierra, new Macs, watchOS 4 and, of course, its house-shaking new smart speaker, the HomePod. By announcing exciting, feature-packed operating systems and new weapons of mass distraction (and ramping up the specs of all of its existing hardware across the board), Apple ensured that everyone present, as well as the watching world at large, became totally re-enthused in a company that has been short on punchy new tech over the past year. Needless to say, we bring you the full report on this ground breaking event in our extended news section. Also this issue, we focus on the iPhone and how it can enhance your summer.…

In a badly kept secret, Apple launched a smart home speaker called HomePod to tackle Amazon and Google head on after the wild success of their own rival smart speakers, at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference. Apple is calling it a “breakthrough wireless speaker for the home” but what makes it special, or indeed smart? Well, rather surprisingly, Apple has placed a big emphasis on the quality of audio. But when you look at the specifications, and importantly compared these with its main rivals, this could be HomePod’s biggest selling feature. Inside HomePod are seven beam-forming tweeters, which should provide a smooth and balanced sound output, as well as an upward facing woofer to keep the bass clean and deep. An A8 chip under the hood provides the brains behind…

Messages This features a redesigned app drawer and all messages are synced to iCloud, with only the latest taking up space on your device. Apple Pay Send and receive money through the Messages app. Money received goes on an Apple Pay Cash Card that can be used for purchases or transferred to your bank. Siri Now features a more expressive voice, a more visual interface and can instantly translate for you. You can also use Siri with even more third-party apps. Camera Utilises High Efficiency Video Coding for videos and High Efficiency Image Format for pictures to half the space they take up on your device. Photos New features, such as trim, select key photo, loop and bounce breathe new live into Live Photos and Memories can now be viewed…

Due for release in December, the new iMac Pro is the fastest, most powerful iMac ever, boasting a 27-inch 5K Display, next-generation Intel Xeon processors with up to 18-cores and Radon Pro Vega GPU with 11 Teraflops of single-precision compute power and 22 Teraflops of half-precision computation. The unit will also support up to 4TB of solid state storage and up to 128GB of ECC memory, a 10GB Ethernet port and four Thunderbolt 3 ports for unrivalled speed and precision. Finished in Space Gray, the iMac Pro will eradicate the boundaries of imagination.…

“Highlights included Denon’s new flagship 13-channel AV receiver” The future of Bluetooth speakers is sounding great This issue, iCreate was invited to attend the D&M European Dealer Conference in Malaga to experience the very latest audio ear-porn from Denon, Marantz, Polk and Definitive Technology. Highlights from the show included Denon’s new flagship 13-channel AV receiver (coming in 2018), Polka’s Bluetooth Signa S1 Sound Bar (boasting incredible sound for only £199), and Polk’s MagniFi Mini Sound Bar that is small enough to position anywhere in the home but with a colossal audio kick to really blast out your Apple Music tunes via Bluetooth. Also on display was Denon’s new Envaya range of portable Bluetooth speakers (due for release in October). These come in three sizes: Envaya Pocket (£89), Envaya Mini (£129)…

When shooting a fast-moving subject such as a child, hold your finger down on the shutter icon. You’ll hear multiple shutter clicks and see a counter indicating the amount of shots that you’ve captured. In the Photos app you’ll see a single thumbnail with a Burst label. The amount of shots that you captured in the burst will appear in brackets. Click Select at the bottom of the screen and scroll through the individual images captured in the burst. Tick the images that you like and click Done. You can then keep your favourites and delete any of the unwanted frames from the burst.…

FabFocus £3.99/$3.99 The iPhone 7 Plus enables you to add a background blur to your shots. This flattering effect can be added to portraits on any iPhone using FabFocus. It works automatically but you can fine-tune the blur effect to perfection with a few swipes. Anker Selfie Stick £8.99/$7.99 When shooting a selfie you might obscure the shot with a finger. The Anker selfie stick lets you trigger the shot remotely. It also gives you a wider frame of view rather than limiting you to arm’s length. Manfrotto Pixi Tripod with phone clamp £34.95/$39.95 This tripod helps you shoot in a more disciplined and considered way, leading to improved composition. It also holds your video footage rock steady, resulting in more professional looking footage (rather than undisciplined amateur ‘hosepipe’ style…

To add extra texture and mood you can mimic the black and white look produced by retro analogue cameras. By using advanced tools you can add artefacts such as vignetted edges. You can also add clumps of analogue film grain. Vignettes In the Adjustments window click Add and tick Vignette. Drag the new Vignette slider right to darken the edges of the frame. This mimics the look produced by more primitive lenses and adds mood. Extra definition Go to Add and tick Definition. By dragging the Definition slider to the right you can increase midtone contrast even more, tease out delicate textures and create a black and white print with more punch. Go with the grain Drag the Black & White panel’s Grain slider right to add clumps of film…

You can set up a shared album on your iPhone so a group of friends can enjoy your pictures or clips. Your friends will need to have an iCloud account to view your shared photos in their own device’s Photos app. 1 Turn on Sharing In your iPhone go to Settings>iCloud. Tap Photos. Scroll down to iCloud Photo Sharing and turn it on. This setting also enables you to view shared albums created by other iPhone users. 2 Create an album Go to Photos. Tap ‘Select’ and choose the thumbnails of photos that you want to share. Click and drag to choose multiple thumbnails quickly. Press the Share icon. Click ‘Next’, then tap iCloud Photo Sharing. 3 Share the album Tap iCloud Photo Sharing. In the next screen, label your…

People love showing off their pets. Indeed, many pets have their own YouTube channel where subscribers can enjoy their ongoing antics. Pets tend not to respond well to direction during a shoot, but if you film them doing something repetitive (such as chasing a ball) then you can capture enough material to be able to stitch clips together into a short slick video sequence. To create a variety of clips for your pet project it’s best to use multiple cameras. For our pet video walkthrough here we’ve used an iPhone to capture stunning slow motion sequences, a harness-mounted GoPro to provide a dog’s eye view of the world and a DSLR camera for cinematic-looking shots with a shallow depth of field. We’ll also plunder iMovie’s themed assets to give your…

Tempo Track This special project track is dedicated to adjusting the project tempo during a project’s duration, speeding up or slowing things down. Tempo changes, controlling bpm increases or decreases, are applied using automation curve points. Groove Track The Groove Track isn’t an extra track at all, but marks a particular project track as a timing leader. Denoted by a star within the track’s header, any others selected will match that track’s timing. Quantize Control Time Quantize controls including a dropdown and strength slider are shown within the Editor inspector for selected MIDI or Audio regions. These shift the timing of all or selected notes by a set value. Flex Time The timing of audio regions can be manually edited using Flex. In the Editor panel, a series of markers…

On track As well as the methods already shown, The ‘Convert Regions to New Sampler Track’ command can also be found in Logic’s main Track menu. Marker respect Logic uses Flex Time to analyse the audio file and place transient markers accordingly. The ‘Convert to New Sampler Track’ feature bases the position of its slices on these markers. Regional variations Alternatively, you can use the scissors and fade tools to create a number of audio regions by hand, which takes a bit more time and effort, but can yield a more accurate result. One shot With this option ticked, each sampled chunk of audio will play through to the end of the slice regardless of the length of the trigger note. Useful for loops and drum sounds. Knowledge base Tempo…

Have a nose around the desktop wallpapers on your Mac (in the Desktop & Screen Saver window in System Preferences) and you may think you have a good selection of images at your disposal. But did you know there are many more images ready and waiting to be used? You may have seen them when you’ve been altering your screen saver but there is an easy way of putting them to use as wallpapers too. The 3,200 by 2,000 pixel images include numerous gems from the lenses of National Geographic along with stunning aerial shots, images of our wonderful universe and amazing patterns from nature. Here we look at how to make the best use of them… Step-by-step Add and use extra wallpapers 1 Find the wallpapers Four folders full…

Although some of us stay rigidly loyal to Apple in terms of computers, phones and tablets, not every Mac user owns an iPhone. And while there have always been ways to connect Android smartphones to Macs to transfer and sync files, these have not always proved efficient and many users experience connectivity issues that prevent data from being transferred. However, we have found a decent alternative to the likes of Android File Transfer and Smart Switch that not only allows you to transfer data from your Mac to your smartphone quickly and easily, but also wirelessly too. The HandShaker app can be downloaded for free from the Mac App Store and is a breeze to set up and use. Here we guide you through the process and show you how…

The Mac’s keyboard has 26 letters, 10 numbers and a few symbols, but there are actually hundreds of characters including accents, umlauts and more. There are sometimes eight or nine different variations of a single vowel for example. There are hundreds of emoji characters and pictographs. Currencies from around the world use special symbols, there are maths symbols, Greek letters and many more. How do you enter all these characters? There are a couple of ways and one is to use the keyboard viewer, which shows how modifier keys like Option change the character typed. Another way is to use the Character window to select characters and symbols. Step-by-step Learn to type awkward characters 1 Typing accents Suppose you are creating a document and need an accented letter. Long press…

Sometimes we read documents and eBooks all the way through from the beginning to the end. However, sometimes we scan them, our eyes glancing over the text going forwards and back, looking for the information we need. So why not make it easier for readers of long documents and eBooks by inserting bookmarks? The idea is the same as links on web pages. Click a bookmark’s underlined text and it takes you to another part of the document that contains the information you need. A table of contents in an eBook or document is handy, but to use it you must return to the start. Bookmarks can be within the text at key places and can link to related information. This makes them very useful. Here’s everything you need to…

View zip contents When zips are opened the contents are listed. Some items that look like files in Finder, such as Pages documents, are really folders. Treat them like files. Select one and press space to view them. Monitor downloads Go to the Dr Unarchiver menu and select Preferences. There is an option to monitor the downloads folder. When zips are downloaded you are asked if you want to extract them. It’s your choice. Open zips Any zip, even password protected ones, can be opened in two ways. Drag the zip to the Dr Unarchiver window or right-click a zip file and select ‘Open With>Dr Unarchiver.app’. Sort the contents The files and folders in the zip archive can be sorted by clicking the column headings. Click again to reverse the…

No menus Many keyboard shortcuts take the place of menus that would otherwise need to be navigated with a mouse. When writing, for example, pressing one key will keep the inspiration flowing without interruption. Finder shortcuts It is well worth checking to see which Finder shortcuts are available. On a busy Mac loaded with thousands of files, the shortcuts available will make you a master of locating and managing Mac content. Extra options Some keyboard shortcuts show hidden menu options in apps and extra information in the default macOS setup. There are a huge number of options that can be unlocked using your Mac keyboard. The keyboard settings Take some time to play with the keyboard settings to see what can be tweaked to suit your exact needs. You may…

If you have an iPhone, you already have one of the most secure mobiles available. From the fingerprint scanner to the tracking of lost or stolen phones, the hardware and software combine to make the device secure and private. However, there are several optional settings that affect the security and privacy of the iPhone and they may or may not be enabled. By turning on these optional features you can make the iPhone even more secure, which can never be a bad thing. For example, advertisers and websites can track you across the web, but only if you allow them. The question is, are the settings in your phone allowing them? Do you put off iOS updates until it is more convenient? It may put your security at risk. We…

A scanner is a device that turns printed documents and receipts into images or PDFs. It is like a photocopier, but instead of the output being another piece of paper, it is files that are saved to disk or uploaded and stored online. There is no need to keep bundles of paper that are fading and growing yellow with age. Scan everything when you get it and you have a pristine copy that you can refer to, email, print or share. Scanners are bulky devices, but an iPhone fits in your pocket and the camera can be used as a scanner. Free scanner apps, such as Scanbot (apple.co/2pLkBhu), photograph paper documents and save them as PDF files. These can be saved to iCloud or other online storage and accessed on…

End and Pause As well as also displaying the time and the activity you’ve embarked upon, this screen allows you to pause and end your current workout. Normal workouts You can lock the screen when you are taking part in any activity. Just open the Workout app, select an activity and swipe right to see this screen. Lock the screen Tap the water icon to lock the screen. If you have a Series 1 Watch, the icon will look like a padlock because this version of the device doesn’t have a waterproof function. Turn the Crown When you have finished your workout and you want to unlock the Watch, you can turn the Digital Crown to remove any water from the speaker. The Apple Watch Series 2 received a huge…

If you update Google Photos to version 2.14.0 then you can beam your photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad straight to your Apple TV because the app can now make use of one of iOS’s most useful features: AirPlay. Only it’s perhaps not as straightforward as it could be. When the feature was announced there was little mention of there being no actual AirPlay button within the app itself. Instead, you have to mirror your iOS device screen on Apple TV but thankfully Google has ensured the images are not confined to a letterbox or pillarbox. Indeed, by trying to fill as much of the screen as possible, it makes showing off your photos a real pleasure. Here’s how it’s done. Step-by-step Set up AirPlay on iOS 1…

Accessibility This is a selection of settings in iOS and macOS that let you change certain aspects of your mobile device or Mac to make it easier to use. Useful if you have a physical impairment or impaired vision or hearing. Clamshell mode When you connect a closed MacBook to an external monitor and then use it like a desktop Mac with an external keyboard and mouse. iCloud Drive This is where important macOS and iOS data is stored in the cloud and made accessible for other devices connected to the same iCloud account. Sidebar This is the bar at the side of Finder windows on your Mac that lets you quickly access apps, services and devices. It is fully customisable through the Finder Preferences.…

What with the recent delay in rolling out iOS 10.3 to my model of iPhone, I am worried that iOS 11 won’t work on my iPhone 5C at all. Do you have any news on this ? Yes, and we’re afraid it’s not good. Unfortunately, iOS 11 will only run on the iPhone 5S and above. What’s more, all 32-bit apps will also become obsolete. So unless updates become available, you may have to ditch some of your old favourites in time. I have heard that there is a way to hide certain options in System Preferences on my Mac, how is this done? Open System Preferences, and then click and hold on the grid icon on the top bar. This should list all of your preferences. Scroll down the…

Key features Double Air Compression Driver with dual cable • Comply ear tips Learn more denon.com Available from amazon.co.uk It’s a screaming testament to the quality of these earphones that put them in and you’ll want to kick back and listen to your entire music collection as it all sounds cleaner and clearer than before. This is largely thanks to Denon’s patented Double Air Compression Driver which uses two 11.5mm drivers, one in front of the other, to deliver powerful, low-distortion bass and amazing clarity. This design also uses separate wires from the plug to each driver for the ultimate signal purity. The drivers themselves are mounted in die-cast aluminium and resin casings that are designed for rigidity and vibration-damping, while dual Denon Acoustic Optimiser ports to the…

Dave Clews Recording engineer Dave is our resident Logic Pro X expert and this month he demonstrates how to resequence audio to transform loops and expand your EXS sampler library. Shaun McGill Our tech expert has produced the ultimate iPhone summer survival guide this month. From booking holidays to getting the most out of the hottest music festivals, your iPhone has it covered. George Cairns George is an expert in iPhone photography, which is why he was tasked with putting together our masterclass on how to take stunning iPhone photos this summer.…

“Siri now boasts new translation capabilities” iPad Dock A customizable iPad Dock can be used to store frequently used apps and can be accessed on any screen or in any app by swiping up. App Switcher It is now easier to see what apps you are currently using and it even maintains your app spaces with your app pairings in Split View – impressive. New-look Control Centre All of the features of the Control Centre have been incorporated back into a single, full-screen panel that utilizes 3D Touch for numerous extra features. Camera enhancements Images in portrait mode support optical image stabilization on compatible devices and will also be able to take advantage of True Tone flash and HDR. Apple announced the latest version of its mobile operating system at…

Although Apple products are certainly wondrous feats of engineering which assist, enthrall and entertain us on so many levels, they aren’t totally infallible and need a little help from us to keep operating at peak performance. This could involve quitting multiple apps to free up memory, condensing windows into one, and emptying caches to erase unwanted files. All of these tasks are quick and easy to perform and will undoubtedly enhance the performance of your Mac, iPhone or iPad. 1 Quickly close your open apps Although having all of your most-used apps constantly open on your iPhone may save time when you want to access them, it can also affect the performance of your device. So why not give your iPhone a breather and shut some of them down? 1…

Levin Waterproof Case £10.99/$9.99 Thanks to this waterproof case you don’t need to stop shooting when you hit the beach – you can snap shots under the sea! Make sure that you buy the case from Levin Direct’s official Amazon page to avoid inferior knock-offs. Clas Ohlson 6700 Powerbank £14.95/$19.95 Snapping, processing and uploading photos on your iPhone can use up your battery, so to avoid missing a photo opportunity pick up a charger. This one will recharge an iPhone 6 up to three times while out and about. Veho Muvi X-Lapse tripod £14.95/$17.95 This clever clockwork tripod rotates really slowly but very smoothly, enabling you to add pans to your iPhone’s time-lapse sequences. It has an iPhonefriendly mount and can be picked up for less than the recommended price…

Your iPhone’s Photos app enables you to change an image’s mood using creative filter effects. You can add effects as you snap a shot, but this gives you less choice than when adding a filter to an unfiltered shot in the editing stage. 1 Apply filters in-camera Before taking a photo with your iPhone’s camera, tap the Filter button. Nine thumbnail preset previews will appear indicating a range of different looks. Tap the look that you prefer and snap the shot. 2 Apply presets after To apply a filter in Photos, tap the Edit Photos icon, then tap the Filters icon. Swipe through the filter preset previews to see how the shot might look. Tap a preset to apply the look to your photo. Click ‘Done’. 3 Fine-tune filters Free…

In pre-digital days we had a tiny trickle of photos to share compared with the deluge produced by today’s digital format. Our analogue camera’s film canister was converted into 24 or 36 hard copy prints that we could cherish and share in physical photo albums. Today our Mac’s Photos library may be filled with thousands of shots that will never see life as a physical print, so they run the risk of gathering digital dust languishing unseen on a hard drive. Fortunately Photos is packed full of functions and features that are designed to help share your shots with ease. Here’s our roundup of the key sharing options. Step-by-step Share your photos to a variety of destinations 1 iCloud sharing To share with a group of iCloud using friends, select…

SloMo Our pet project contains a range of clips sourced from a variety of devices. An iPhone’s SloMo mode provides an effective way of showcasing a fast moving pet. Slow motion also adds variety to your video. Icing on the cake Themed titles help introduce your pet (and other protagonists) to their audience on social media. Titles also help give a video a more professional look. Themes You can add a Theme to a project at any time (or change existing Themes) by clicking on the Settings icon. This gives you access to the Change Themes browser where you can add new themed transitions and titles to your pet project. POV shot Mount a lightweight GoPro camera to your pet to capture unique POV (Point Of View) camera angles that…

Timing can also be corrected by matching the timing of multiple tracks to that of a master or ‘Groove’ track. GarageBand does this automatically and non-destructively, meaning it can simply be turned on and off without editing a region. To use this technique, first navigate to Track>Track Header>Show Groove Track from the main bar. With it shown, you can then toggle which project track is designated as the Groove Track before picking those that will follow. “Match the timing of multiple tracks to a ‘Groove’ track” 1 Starring role You will want to pick a track that sets the timing most accurately within a project. Hover the mouse pointer over the left edge of the chosen track header to see a star. Click to mark this as the Groove Track.…

Deprived from the distractions of colour, black and white footage helps draw attention to shapes and textures in a scene. High contrast monochrome clips also add a classy look that harks back to the days of vintage cinema. In fact some recent Hollywood films have been re-released in black and white special editions. However, by simply desaturating a colour shot you’ll end up with a wash of dull greyscale tones. An effective mono conversion should add some white highlights and contrasting jet black shadows. Here we’ll show you how to use a histogram to ensure a striking contrast, and how to mimic photography filter effects to selectively darken specific areas in the black and white footage based on their original colour. Step-by-step Create classy black and whites 1 Import clips…

The red button When you select a wallpaper it will instantly become your desktop. There is no need to press a save button. Instead, just click the red close button in the top left-hand corner. Add and remove The ‘+’ button enables you to add a folder to your list of wallpapers. But if you wish to remove a folder instead then simply highlight it in the list and select the ‘–’ button. Random ordering If you really want to live life on the edge, then you can have the Mac decide which wallpapers to show and when. To do this just select the option for ‘Random Order’. Change picture If you want to add some variety to your desktop throughout the day, you can decide to rotate through the…

Media categories All of the media categories will be listed here. Click on one, ‘Gallery’ for example, and you will be able to select images on your Android phone and then drag them to your Mac. Phone info Basic info about your Android device will be displayed here, such as the model, current battery level and the amount of storage that has been used/is available. Select and delete You can delete content from your device by clicking on it to highlight it and then clicking on the red trashcan icon that will be displayed in the top-right corner of the interface. A prompt will ensure nothing is deleted by mistake. Android files By clicking on ‘Files’ all of the apps and services on your Android device will be listed with…

Keyboard display This onscreen keyboard is not static and it changes depending on which keys are pressed. These are the symbols and characters that are entered when the Option key is held down for example. Accents To type accented characters like this one, press and hold the key until a widget appears containing all the character variations. Click the one you want or press the number below it. Fun characters To enter fun characters like these weather symbols, press Ctrl+Cmd+spacebar. This opens the Characters window and you can browse the categories or use the search function to find them. Keyboard viewers Add this menu bar item in System Preferences and click it to show the emoji and keyboard viewers. They help you to find and enter any character you need…

Insert tool This is the ‘Insert’ button and among the many items that can be inserted into Pages documents are bookmarks. They are a type of link, similar in some ways to a web page hyperlink. Add bookmarks Open the Bookmarks sidebar and click the ‘Add Bookmark’ button to insert a bookmark wherever the cursor is. If no text is selected, Pages will use the first three or four words for the name. Sort bookmarks Bookmark names and the pages they are on are displayed in a list. Sort the bookmarks by name by clicking this column header. Sort bookmarks by page by clicking the Page header. Clickety click Click once on a bookmark to go to that location in the document. Ctrl+click a bookmark for rename and delete options.…

You may get a sense of déjà vu when you start to use Instagram’s new face filtering feature. That’s because it looks to have been ‘borrowed’ from Snapchat but that doesn’t make it any less fun. Available as of version 10.21, it allows you to add a series of eight augmented animations which stick like glue to your face as you record or take a photo and move around. What’s more, it also works with Boomerang which stitches a series of images together and creates a forward and backward playing mini-flick, bringing extra life to your Instagram content. It’s one of a number of new additions to Instagram, another being cool hashtag stickers accessed by taking your shot and tapping the Sticker icon in the top-right of the screen. Step-by-step…

“You can incorporate all the guitar sounds you generate in AmpliTube into GarageBand” There is much to enjoy about the latest version of iOS guitar recording app, AmpliTube (reviewed last issue), such as a rack of new pedals and some authentic-sounding vintage amp setups. Well the good news is that you can incorporate all of the guitar sounds that you generate in AmpliTube into GarageBand to utilise a vast new tapestry of sounds in your projects. The feature is known as Inter-App Audio and it enables you to route and record the sound output from third-party music apps directly into your GarageBand song. The option to use Inter-App Audio is only available in GarageBand 2.0 (or later) when at least one other compatible music app is installed on your device.…

Personal safety is very important which is why Apple built an SOS function into watchOS 3, allowing you to make an emergency call by simply pressing and holding the Side Button. There have been numerous stories of how it has saved lives – including that of a student who made such a call when his Jeep flipped over in April – and it is a great lifeline for those with health problems. But there have also been tales of the function being accidentally activated. If this worries you, then it’s possible to turn off automatic dialling of the emergency services. You’ll still have access to the feature by going to the Power-Off screen and sliding Emergency SOS. Step-by-step Deactivate Emergency Services (SOS) 1 Open Watch app By default, you can…

Landscape view When you are mirroring Google Photos from your iOS device to Apple TV, you may feel more comfortable viewing the app in the landscape orientation mode. Unlock the view in the Control Center and rotate your iDevice. Different sections You are able to view images that you have stored in both the Photos tab and within Albums so tap either of these on your iDevice when you’re linked up with your Apple TV to explore your personal library of images. Searching for images Google Photos uses AI to automatically tag images and make them searchable. So typing ‘cat’ in this search bar on your iOS device will find any images of felines you have. Your images Tapping on any of your images will allow them to appear on…

Do I need any special software or cables to connect my MacBook up to an external monitor? I have seen people at work do this and their Macbooks remain closed. This is called ‘clamshell’ mode. To use it, connect your Mac to the external monitor by whatever means you want (HDMI, Mini Display Port, Thunderbolt, DVI, Mini-DVI or Micro-DVI) and ensure that you also have an external keyboard and mouse and that the MacBook is connected to a power source. If you are using a wired keyboard and mouse, make sure they are connected and then simply close the lid of your MacBook. Your desktop should then automatically appear on the monitor. If you are using a Bluetooth external keyboard and mouse then make sure that they are paired correctly…

Beautiful Mac desktops Kit macOS out with some stunning wallpapers Exclusive video tutorials Discover how to get more out of your devices Tutorial project files All the assets you’ll need to get creative All of this is yours… • Over 15 minutes of expert iOS and macOS video guides from MacMost • This issue's creative tutorial files to follow along with • Royalty-free fonts • Stock video clips to enhance your video-editing armour • Stunning new wallpapers to freshen up even the dullest Mac desktop Log in to www.filesilo.co.uk/icreate Register to get instant access to this pack of must-have creative resources, how-to videos and tutorial assets Filesilo  The home of great downloads – exclusive to your favourite magazines from Future Publishing Secure and safe online access, from anywhere Free access…

“Your watch’s enthusiasm for getting you active is relentless” Even on a superficial level watchOS 4 delivers, because the new faces it brings to the fore are brilliant. The first one, powered by Siri, provides a constant rolodex of information that it thinks you will require as the day goes on. The second forms a kaleidoscopic effect from the colour schemes of your favourite photos to produce a truly trippy effect. And the third extends the Disney link by introducing fully animated Toy Story characters (Woody, Jessie and Buzz). We love them already. Beyond the face-value fun, the main focus of watchOS 4 is on fitness, specifically the Activity app. This provides smarter fitness coaching to create monthly goals based on feats that you got close to accomplishing the previous…

Summer brings you many photo opportunities. Longer days allow more time to photograph family activities. Summer holidays abroad present you with picturesque landscapes and beautiful buildings to capture on camera. Summer sunshine brings out more contrast and colour in your shots. This feature is designed to help you shoot better summer snaps that will make your subjects look their best. You’ll learn how to polish your summer themed shots to perfection using the Photos app, both on the move via your iPhone and from the comfort of your desktop Mac. We’ll show you how to organise your iPhone stored images and clips so that you can find files faster. To stop your summer-sourced shots gathering digital dust on your iPhone we’ll demonstrate ways to share them in a variety of…

A picture’s tones are made up of a series of greyscale levels that are represented by a histogram graph. This graph displays shadows at the left, with midtones in the middle and brighter highlights at the right. 1 Summon Levels panel Here we have an under-exposed shot. The Histogram graph is bunched to the left, indicating lots of shadows and midtones but a lack of highlights. Go to Add and choose Levels. A Levels panel will appear. 2 Brighten highlights Click on the Levels panel’s fly-out icon and change the graph from RGB to Luminance. This allows you to change tones while preserving colours. Drag the white control handle left to selectively brighten the highlights. 3 Lighten midtones Click the grey levels’ control handle at the middle of the histogram.…

When it comes to music, like comedy, the notion of good timing is pivotal. In GarageBand this is no exception and therefore no laughing matter when things skip a beat. Thankfully, the app avoids this for the most part by ensuring regions and loops adhere to a strict project tempo. Set to 120bpm by default, this can of course be adjusted in real time to slow or speed performance. Region ‘timing’ is then linked to this but isn’t exactly the same thing, being more about where notes or peaks fall either side of the beat. Here GarageBand provides tools for tweaking tempo and correcting timing including Flex, Quantization, plus Tempo and Groove Tracks. In this guide we’ll overview each technique to better understand how they can sharpen up wayward timing.…

Logic’s EXS24 sampler has been a part of the app since long before Apple purchased Emagic in 2002, which you could argue makes it a bit long in the tooth. It’s still incredibly useful, however, especially when you consider one particular talent it has which you may not be aware of – the ability to import any audio region, slice it up and instantly arrange the chunks as samples over the length of your MIDI keyboard. It’s a great way to resequence drum loops to create new variations and fills, excellent for arranging vocal ad-libs as a performance, and just a brilliant one-click way to expand your library with custom sampler instruments. Follow the tutorial to see how it works… Step-by-step Create new sampler instrument tracks 1 Import audio First…

Custom conversions By clicking on the Black & White effect’s colour pop-up in the Inspector you can choose a custom colour filter. The red filter darkens blues in our clip, which is an effective way to make the clouds contrast more with the sky. Adjust tones The Color Board enables you to adjust a monochrome conversion’s shadows, midtones and highlights independently of each other to create a more high contrast black and white conversion. Black & White effect This powerful effect does more than simply removing a clip’s original colour information. It also enables you to lighten or darken greyscale tones based on their original colours. Helpful histogram This histogram graph shows the spread of greyscale tones in our mono makeover. We’ve adjusted the tones so that they have a…

The hidden images we are discussing here were actually intended to be used as part of a screensaver so they are not of the high resolution you may expect of a standard Apple Mac wallpaper. They will appear smaller than usual on Macs that have a hi-res display but if you really love the image there are some things you can do to make them look better on your screen. The options are contained in the Desktop & Screen Saver window in System Preferences. “They will appear smaller onMacs that have a hi-res display” 1 Filling the screen By default, an image will fill the screen and you may well be happy with that. On some displays, this can result in a lack of sharpness, however, so you might want…

If you are experiencing problems connecting your Android phone to the HandShaker app then you can connect your Android device to your Mac via USB. To ensure that this is possible you will need to enable the USB Debugging mode on your Android device. The only time you really need to connect via USB is when transferring large amounts of data, though you can still do this over Wi-Fi if you are patient. “You will need to enable the USB Debugging mode on your Android device” 1 Go to Settings Ensure that your phone is updated to the latest version of Android and then launch the Settings app. Once this is done, scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see a set of options called ‘Developer…

Holding down the Ctrl, Option, Shift and Command keys on their own or in combinations affects the character that is entered when a key is pressed. It is impossible to remember them all, so there is a handy keyboard display that can be shown. To resize this keyboard, position the mouse one pixel above the top edge and click and drag it up or down. It can be made as big or as small as you like. “Holding down the Ctrl, Option, Shift and Command keys affects a character entered” 1 Add menu tools Add a menu bar icon by going to System Preferences and clicking the Keyboard icon. Select the Keyboard tab and tick the box next to ‘Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar’. Click the icon…

Although it is possible to create zip archives and extract the contents using the macOS user interface, two very important features are missing. One is password protection. You cannot lock a zip with a password to prevent people from accessing the files it contains. Password protection is important if you want to send zip files over the internet. The other missing feature is the ability to extract only the files you need. Suppose a zip contains 100 files and you need just one. You have to extract all the files and drag 99 to the Trash just to get the one you want. Dr Unarchiver enables you to view the contents of zips and extract only the files you need. Step-by-step Extract files from zip archives 1 Install and run…

There are many well-known keyboard combinations that let you do things on a Mac much quicker than with a mouse, but there are also some that add functions you may not be aware of. Chances are that if you need to do something regularly, there will be a keyboard trick that you can use over and over and it will become so natural to you that using the mouse may eventually feel like something you only do when absolutely necessary. We will highlight some lesser known tricks and also explain what they do with the aim that you can use them each day to speed up and expand your Mac usage. macOS is designed to utilise the keyboard for much more than mere typing in a variety of ingenious ways.…

Inadequate storage is a common problem with iPhones. Once we have filled our phones up with photos, videos and music, we all too frequently come up against the dreaded iPhone storage full warning. So what is the solution? An external storage device! For the purposes of this tutorial, we have used the 64GB iStore ‘n’ Go USB Drive from Verbatim (£55.99/$75.99), which is double-ended with a USB connector on one end and a Lightning connector on the other. This peripheral also comes with a free app (available from the App Store), that makes it easy to transfer files from your iPhone onto the external storage device. So read on to find out how to shift your media on to iStore ‘n’ Go. Step-by-step Using an external storage device 1 Insert…

Dash cams are becoming more popular thanks to YouTube and other services showing what they can capture. Whether you want to use one to protect yourself in the event of an insurance claim or you want to make your own YouTube videos, you can do so relatively easily. Taking the idea even further, you can actually use your iPhone as a dash cam for virtually no extra cost with a simple app and the right holder in your car. The setup is minimal and the end result is good enough to use in an insurance claim so this could be a good first step in deciding whether you want to upgrade to a standalone dash cam. You will be ready to record your trips within minutes. Step-by-step Create an iPhone…

Inter-App Audio You can select to record a sound feed from other music-making apps installed on your device, potentially opening GarageBand up to all manner of exciting new soundscapes. Metronome If you enable the metronome in GarageBand then you will be able to hear it during the Inter-App Audio feed from the third-party app – in this case, AmpliTube. Monitor If you want to hear yourself playing your connected guitar through the GarageBand app then you need to tap on the guitar lead icon and then ensure that the ‘Monitor’ option is ‘on’. Noise Gate You may get unwanted instrument sounds when recording a plugged-in instrument. By turning on Noise Gate you can adjust a slider to set the level for reducing input noise. Knowledge base Audio Units Effects You…

We’re all familiar with barcodes and QR codes and their ability to hold scannable information. So Spotify’s decision to roll out its very own set of music-based codes may not, on the face of it, be the most innovative of moves. In the ongoing battle with Apple Music, however, they could prove quite crucial. By allowing musicians to place them on posters and advertisements and by letting users generate them in an instant on a smartphone, they have the potential to become ubiquitous. All you have to do is scan the code (whether it’s in print or on someone’s phone or computer screen) by granting Spotify access to your camera, and within a split second you’ll have the music ready to play on your iPhone. Step-by-step Scan a Spotify code…

There is more to Scanbot than the actual scanning function. Some advanced features are only in the Pro version, but all the basic tools are in the free version. For example, you can apply filters to enhance scanned images, crop and rotate them. Scans can also be emailed to others. Let’s take a look… 1 Use editing tools When a scan has been created, a toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen with useful editing functions. Tap ‘Filter’ and you can choose between colour, grey or black and white images. 2 Email a scan After scanning something, one option is to email it. You can also press Cancel on starting the app, select a previous scan and select ‘Send to’. The scan is automatically attached as a PDF file…

Replying to messages Instead of turning off read receipts on your Watch, you could always send a quick reply. One nice way is to tap the emoji icon beneath the message and select an emotion. Viewed messages When messages have been viewed, read receipts are usually sent to the sender. If your sender doesn’t get a reply then it could lead to some confusion. Keep scrolling Scroll down the screen and you’ll also see some quick replies such as ‘Thanks’, ‘Cool’, ‘Yeah’ and ‘Talk later’. Your Apple Watch is built for convenience. If a notification is sent to your phone, you can take a quick peek at your Watch display and, if you’re too busy to deal with it at that moment, sort it out later. With Messages, however, there…

The red number next to the Mail icon on my iPhone screen tells me that I have 3,892 unread messages. Is there any way to stop this number from appearing? Not unless you read your unread messages and then stay on top of your incoming emails. Open Mail, select ‘All Inboxes’ or the name of the account you are using and then tap the ‘Edit’ option in the top-right corner. Now tap the ‘Mark All’ option in the lower-left corner and choose ‘Mark as Read’. The number should then vanish within a few seconds, until you get new mail. Is there any way to reduce the brightness of the Control Centre flashlight my iPhone? That depends on what model of iPhone you have. If you have an iPhone 6s, 6s…

• 233MHz Power PC 750 G3 processor • 512k backside level 2 cache • 32MB RAM • 4GB EIDE hard drive • Either ATI Rage IIc graphics with 2MB of VRAM or ATI Rage Pro Turbo graphics with 6MB of VRAM Original price £1,299/$1,299 Price now £89/$99 When Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the merger with his company, NeXT, in 1997, he set about reviving the flagging company and chose a design that British industrial designer Jonathan Ive was working on to develop as a prototype for a new Apple product. The result as the iMac G3 Bondai Blue, which effectively saved Apple from going bankrupt. Among the computer’s innovative features was the incorporation of a digital media drive and an internal modem. It also ditched the…