Innehållsförteckning för No. 195 från iCreate

Apps are an alluring force that keeps our focus honed on our Apple devices for much longer than is probably advisable. We all have our favourites, all mentally tagged in a go-to order from when we first peel our eyes open to when they are gently eased into a Night Shift-aided slumber, but when was the last time you looked beyond the essentials? This issue, we thought it was time to trawl the App Stores for the best apps that you might not be familiar with – entertainment apps, navigational apps and apps to better aid your interests and hobbies. We have collected up 109 of these unsung must-haves on Mac and iOS in one handy showcase that you can read on page 16 now. Also in this issue, we…

During the winter season the shorter days and overcast weather can make it a challenge to capture a well-exposed shot. On Auto mode your camera may need to use a higher ISO speed to make its sensor more sensitive to light. However, this can lead to the presence of nasty luminance or chrominance noise, especially in under-exposed areas that have been brightened up using the Photos app’s tools. Unlike the organic clumps of film grain in analogue prints, harsh dots of digital noise are generally considered to be ugly and undesirable (especially if you’re trying to get them past a stock photo site’s quality control). Fortunately, Apple’s Photos has tools to smooth out nasty noise without blurring important details. Step-by-step  Smooth out noise while preserving detail 1 Import photo Go…

A powerful virtue of GarageBand has always been its remarkable versatility. One such usage that isn’t necessarily obvious is the ability to work with movie files and compose synchronised soundtracks. This brilliantly powerful feature allows users to open a selected movie and place it within its own ‘Movie track’ along the top of the project tracks area. GarageBand also cleverly places the original audio track of the video in its own region below and includes a special pop-out viewer window for monitoring. The new soundtrack can then be built just like a song, with a few tools added for assistance and the option to export the final result. Step-by-step  Create soundtracks with the Movie track 1 Open Movie Starting with a new, empty project, navigate to File>Movie from GarageBand’s top…

Having a preview of any screenshots you take is useful. It allows you to click the thumbnail and begin editing the screenshot, and it also makes deleting and sharing the images you create straightforward. But it’s not always entirely convenient. If you’re trying to snap multiple screenshots in rapid succession, then there’s a good chance you’ll accidentally capture the preview too. Having to wait for the preview to disappear can also be a pain. So what can you do? Luckily, there’s a way of preventing previews from launching, and it’s such a simple click that you can activate or deactivate the feature as and when you need it. Here we look at how it’s done as well as how you can still access editing features. Step-by-step  Deactivate screenshot thumbnails 1…

Buying drives for backups opens up a world of options. Here we’ve listed a few of our favourite choices in a range of prices. If you’re still not sure where to start, why not go for the cheapest option and upgrade later? Apple AirPort Time Capsule £129/$179 (2TB) Apple’s own option doubles up as both a Wi-Fi base station and a wireless backup drive for your Mac to back up to whenever it’s on its network. It’s not cheap, but it is very convenient. Western Digital My Passport for Mac £46.99/$49.99 (2TB) Western Digital’s My Passport for Mac drives have been around for a long time and have earned a reputation for being portable, reliable and ready to work straight from the box. Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go USB 3.0 Hard…

Although it’s best to start a back up with a brand new drive, partitioning off the free space on an old one (effectively creating a second, virtual drive) can be a worthwhile alternative. 1 Open Disk Utility To partition a hard drive on your Mac you’ll need to use a built-in app called Disk Utility. If you have never used it, the easiest way to locate it is through Spotlight. 2 Select your drive Select the hard drive and ensure it has enough free space for the partition you want and then (ideally) back up its contents before you get started on the process. 3 Slice the pie Click on ‘Partition’ then click on the ‘+’ icon to split up the pie representing the drive. Adjust the segment size and…

With a Time Machine backup running, you’re halfway there to having the perfect Mac backup plan in place. Remember the rules though. Make it automatic and back up in at least two different locations. Using an online backup service means your data is copied to a remote location (often on a different continent) on a regular basis, so you’ll always have a reliable backup to fall back on should you need it. There are a few options out there, such as CrashPlan and Livedrive, but we’re big fans of Backblaze for its price and compatibility. 1 Pick a template To get started, head to www.backblaze.com and sign up for a free 15-day trial. The service usually costs $50 (approximately £35) per year, but this is a great way to kick…

Thanks to the Photos app, iCloud and sync services, you can take photos on your iPhone or iPad and they are backed up to your online storage and also synced to your Mac and other devices. A photo can be taken on your iPhone and in seconds it is ready for editing on your Mac, or it is there in the Photos app the next time you are sitting in front of your computer. That’s the theory anyway. Sometimes you may experience difficulties getting your photographs and videos to sync. There are a number of possibilities and they range from the really simple, like forgetting to turn off flight mode on your iPhone to having to completely reset it. Here are the fixes. Step-by-step  Repair photo sync services 1 Sign…

Social media is far from perfect and one of the biggest problems has been control: while there can be great satisfaction in seeing something you post go viral, the thought that anyone can see your content (be it your gran, boss or ex-partner), can be rather off-putting, often causing you to be more guarded. By allowing you to create groups of close friends, social media can become more intimate, ensuring your private photos and videos are less likely to be distributed to all and sundry. Instagram is the latest to join this trend, letting you share posts in Stories to a more limited group. It should increase the levels of interaction to your Stories while giving you greater peace of mind. Step-by-step  Create your close friends list 1 Update the…

There are a few reasons why you may want to run your Apple TV display through your Mac. Two are obvious: perhaps you want to snap a screenshot, or maybe you just want to take a video of whatever content you’re viewing. Alternatively, you might want to have the Apple TV display in more direct eyeshot, allowing you to use your Mac while a window runs in the corner of the screen. Whatever your reason, the good news is that it’s entirely possible. With fourth-generation and 4K Apple TV’s all you need is tvOS 11 and above and macOS High Sierra and above and you’ll be up and running in no time. There is a cable alternative should you run into trouble or own an older device (see the boxout…

Terminal This is a command line interface (CLI) app that comes on all Macs and allows users to modify various characteristics of their Macs, including fonts, files and certain aspects of the desktop. USB-C This is a relatively new type of connector for delivering data and power to and from devices. Because the plug is symmetrical in shape it can be inserted any way up, and the latest versions of USB-C are capable of delivering superfast data transferral speeds. Xcode This Apple-developed application is free to download from the Mac App Store and is essentially a suite of tools used for developing software for macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS. It is designed to support source code for a wide range of programming languages, including C++, Java and Swift.…

David Crookes This month our iOS expert demonstrates the latest social networking features of Instagram and WhatsApp, including how to message single members of a group chat. Shaun McGill Tech expert Shaun has been trawling the App Stores this month to bring you the 109 most essential apps to download and try out on your Mac or iOS devices. George Cairns Our creative expert demonstrates how to reduce the noise in your photos, crop and compose your videos in iMovie and animate your footage in Final Cut Pro X. Facebook iCreateMagazine Twitter @iCreateMagazine Instagram icreate_mag Email icreate@futurenet.com…

Final Cut Pro X’s Effects browser provides a range of filters that can change a clip’s colours and tones in creative ways. Thanks to the updates added to version 10.4.4 you can now turn footage into cartoon-like art. Six new Comic Look presets provide a fun and effective way of creating an animated rotoscoped-style title sequence, or you could use them to enhance a montage within a longer programme. However, the problem with effect filters is that they can create a look that’s similar to that produced by hundreds of other Final Cut Pro X users. We’ll show you how to modify a comic effect filter’s properties in the Inspector so that you can create a more customised cartoon look that suits your source footage. Step-by-step  Turn footage into animated…

MacBooks and iMacs are self-maintaining, aren’t they? In theory, yes they are, but in practice they sometimes are not. Problems can occur when macOS and apps become out of date and contain bugs. Some MacBooks have just 128GB of storage, and it is easily filled, so you have to keep an eye on space usage. The file system used on internal and external drives can develop errors that could grow into ones that affect performance or reliability. It is better to prevent problems than to fix them afterwards as sometimes small problems grow and fixing them early on is easier, such as testing drives with First Aid and running maintenance scripts. In the boxout we look at a free maintenance utility that cleans unnecessary items. Step-by-step  Essential monthly maintenance tasks…

As you have no doubt discovered, coloured tags can be attached to files in Finder, but with default names based on colours they must be customised to be made more useful. You can rename the existing tags or create custom tags with your own names that make more sense and add them to the Favourites list so they appear on Finder’s File menu. Although coloured blobs make files stand out, tags are most useful when it comes to searching for files. By entering tags into Finder’s search box you can find files fast. Using advanced searching techniques with logical operators you can filter out unwanted files and highlight the ones you need. Tags are more useful than you might think. Let’s see how they work. Step-by-step  Create, customise and search…

Apple added a great new dynamic desktop in macOS Mojave that changes the image throughout the day. As the Sun rises and sets it changes from light to dark. There are also light and dark themes for macOS. Wouldn’t it be great if the theme changed from light to dark automatically in the evening to match the desktop? There is no macOS setting to enable this, but we can create the effect with the aid of the Automator app and Calendar. The light desktop theme can be used throughout the day, and then it switches to the dark theme automatically when it goes dark outside. Basically, we’ll create a little program to switch themes and then create a Calendar event to run the program every day at a certain time,…

One of the main reasons for having a screenshot preview is to allow for the quick editing of the resulting images. Preventing previews from appearing doesn’t affect the availability of this useful option. 1 Find the file Locate the screenshot within the Finder app and click once to highlight it. Now press the spacebar to activate Mojave's Quick Look feature. The screenshot will appear. 2 Click to edit Select the circled pen from the icons at the top of the Quick Look window and the editing functions of the screenshot utility will be available to you. Click ‘Done’ when complete.…

The final destination Your destination drive should be formatted macOS Extended (Journaled) and bigger than your Macintosh HD so it can be booted from if you need to in the future. Select your Source For a full clone of your Mac’s hard drive, select Macintosh HD (unless yours is called something different) as your Source in Carbon Copy Cloner’s Task Plan interface. All the files Under the Source section you’ll have the option to choose what you clone. As we want to be able to boot our Mac from this backup, ensure that ‘All files’ is set. Set a schedule For a fully bootable clone of your hard drive, we recommend setting it to be remade weekly or at least monthly so that you’ll always have relatively recent data ready.…

Dropbox Free (2GB) or £10/$15 per month (3TB) Dropbox’s seamless integration with MacOS (and iOS) makes it incredibly easy to set up and use. Anything you add to your Dropbox folder is synced to the Dropbox website and to any other devices you own. Google One Free (15GB) or approx. £7.00/$9.99 per month (2TB) As part of a recent revamp (it used to be called Google Drive) this service will provide double the amount of storage for paying customers as well as family plans, and it is very easy to use. OneDrive Free (5GB) or £5.99/$6.99 per month (1TB) Microsoft’s OneDrive is no different to Dropbox and Google One when it comes to file syncing, but the paid tier is slightly cheaper and does offer the full suite of Office365…

When you perform a manual back up in iTunes for the first time you’ll be asked whether you want to encrypt your data or not. This means that sensitive information, such as Health data and passwords, can be saved. If you decided not to encrypt there and then, don’t worry; you can still enable this setting ready for next time. 1 Tick the box Under the Automatically Back Up options, find and click on the checkbox marked ‘Encrypt iPhone Backup’. This won’t affect current backups but will encrypt any in the future. 2 Set a password You’ll be prompted to set a password, which you’ll need if you restore from an encrypted iTunes backup. This can be anything you like, but try and choose something original.…

New to iOS 12, if you’ve never before used the Shortcuts app – which you must first download from the App Store – then you’re seriously missing out on a host of goodies. That’s because Shortcuts (which is effectively a rebrand and enhancement of Workflow) takes the sting out of dull, repetitive tasks while often providing instant creativity, and it’s a great way of teaching your iOS device a host of new tricks too. In this tutorial we’re going to look at using a shortcut that allows us to grab all of the images from a website and launch them into Quick View. From there we’re able to view the images and decide whether to save, discard or share them. It’s perfect if a website is chock full of photos…

Let’s say you need to find specific content on a website using your iOS device. What do you do? Chances are you launch Safari, type the URL of the site, look for the search button or field bar and tap the word or phrase you’re after before scouring the results. With Quick Website Search, you only need to use this method once on each compatible website you visit. From that point, you’re able to perform the search via Safari before you even launch the website. That’s because Safari can make use of sites that have built-in search fields and once it has figured what to do, it doesn’t forget. It really is a nifty little time-saver, making web browsing a tad less fiddly while still showing the results of your…

Social network platform, Instagram has finally caught up with the likes of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Apple’s own Messages by allowing you to record snippets of audio to send to friends and family. Working via direct messaging, the feature operates like a walkie-talkie, which means you press and hold the microphone while you speak before the audio whizzes across the airwaves when you pull your finger away. Recipients can listen to the audio at any time, and it will remain permanently listenable as part of your chat history. There’s also an option to abandon messages halfway through. A great alternative to text while ensuring you don’t have to tie yourself into a call. Step-by-step  Record an Instagram voice message 1 Open direct messages Launch the latest Instagram app and tap…

Apple TV has been crying out for a good-looking dashboard for a long time, but now one is finally here, and it’s all thanks to the skills of former Apple intern Punya Chatterjee. Called DayView – Personal Dashboard, the free app looks and feels like an Apple product and it serves up a host of useful widgets. You can instantly discover the latest news, keep up to date with the stock markets and even check the weather for the next three days. There’s also room for Twitter, home accessories, calendars and various other tools to inform and enthrall you, each of which are customisable. Even better, it’s a work in progress, with Chatterjee intending to continue evolving the dashboard over the coming months. Certainly, if you like what you see,…

My iPhone is stuck in ‘headphone mode’. When I play audio on my device there is no sound coming out, and when I try to adjust the volume it says headphones are connected, even though they definitely aren’t! This can be frustrating, but thankfully there are some reliable fixes to try. First, trying plugging in your headphones and then unplug them again, as there is a possibility that the port that they’re connected to didn’t register that they had previously been disconnected. You should also check the audio settings on your device. Swipe up to access your Control Centre and then tap on the media controls pane. You should see an airwaves icon in the top-right corner, so tap on this and then select your iPhone from the menu. This…

Requirements macOS 10.13 or later • 64-bit processor • 6.7MB Learn more www.liquid.info Available from Mac App Store There are many minimalist writing apps on the market, each distinguishing themselves from the likes of Pages, Microsoft Word and Libre Office by adopting an uncluttered interface, thereby allowing users to primarily concentrate on their text. “It features a wonderful tool that remembers every piece of text that you cut” Liquid | Author is one of them, and, on face value at least, there’s very little to it. Here you have a clean writing environment footed by a word count, a Find button and an option to switch between read and edit views. But, as the user guide handily points out the first time you open the app, it offers more than…

Requirements iOS 9.0 or later • 191MB Available from App Store Learn more reignsgame.com If you’re starting to get twitchy as that 14 April season 8 premier edges ever closer to our screens then this iOS game provides a light slice of Westeros action to help distract you. Reigns is an app in its own right that has been awarded the prestigious Editor’s Choice award in the App Store, largely thanks to its simplistic play style mixed with far-reaching consequences for your actions. This version simply applies the GOT universe to the same laid back game engine, and it makes for a compelling experience. “Swipe left or right to trigger different decisions and responses” All of the main players are present and correct, including Cersei Lannister, Jon Snow and Daenerys…

Release date February 2008 Key features: 360° turntable to house your iMac • Keyboard panel with adjustable height and depth (interchangeable for left- or right-hand users) • Halo lamp for typing in the dark • Cable compartment • Gel-filled wrist rest, mouse pad and cup holder • 21.5-inch and 27-inch models Original price £249/$299 Price now £249/$299 At first glance resembling a menacing martian war machine, the iGo is in fact a very clever desk designed to house your iMac that also contorts into positions that are ergonomically sound for working. These spindly, industrial-style desks have been around for over ten years now but are still relevant and available today thanks to the principle design of the iMac having not changed for a very long time. What’s great about the…

There are apps that always seem to appear in ‘best of’ lists and others that are designed so well and with such originality that they often get a mention. In a world of millions of apps, however, there are many unsung heroes that perform indispensable functions and are most definitely worth your consideration. Whether on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, there are countless options available to you. Here we will cover some of the very best apps you should be looking at in 2019. Format: iOS Format: macOS Format: iOS/macOS 1 Pocket Earth PRO Format: iOS Comprehensive world maps, works offline with GPS and handy travel guides all in one place – this useful app offers the lot and much more. You get local search, topographic maps and even hiking…

Sometimes we can’t control the elements that appear in a scene. For example, we may find a person has strayed into the edge of the frame. Fortunately, iMovie enables us to crop a shot to lose unwanted edge objects. Cropping the clip also helps distant objects look more prominent in the frame (as if we’d zoomed in with our camera’s lens). iMovie’s cropping tools can also help to combine clips with different aspect ratios. Most clips that we watch on a TV screen are filmed in landscape orientation. On an iPhone you might shoot in portrait orientation. This can result in the iPhone footage having vertical black bars on either side. We’ll show you different ways to present this type of portrait oriented footage to avoid ‘pillar boxing’. Step-by-step  Crop…

Keeping track of different versions of a song arrangement or mix can be a headache. Does this song sound better with an eight- or a 16-bar chorus? Vocal up or vocal down? So with that in mind, Apple’s engineers have provided a way to easily save and keep tabs on multiple versions of the same song within a single project file. This way you can keep different versions saved at various stages during the process of the song’s development or alternative variations of a final mix. Somewhat overlooked in Logic’s vast lexicon of features, Project Alternatives allows you to flip between versions, going back to ideas you may have abandoned prematurely before they’re consigned to the wastebasket. Let’s see how it’s done. Step-by-step  Switch versions with Project Alternatives 1 Check…

TextEdit is a great word processor and it is capable of more than you might think. It could be all you need to create documents, and it is an alternative to Pages. We love Pages, but it is a big application (over half a gigabyte on the disk) that is best on a new Mac. If you don’t have the very latest top specification Mac, TextEdit is a compact and fast alternative that is more suited to quick and simple word processing tasks. Despite being around one hundredth of the size of Pages, TextEdit is actually capable of creating impressive documents. Here we will show you how to create a complex page layout using tables and tables within tables, and we’ll also take a look at advanced list handling. Step-by-step…

Apple has developed macOS into a great operating system that is practically perfect. However, there are still a few minor things that irritate, and while some features may be enjoyed by some users, they may annoy others. An example is having to confirm you want to shut down after you click the ‘Shut Down’ menu. Is that useful or annoying? It is hard to click ‘Shut Down’ accidentally. The degree to which these ten items annoy you will of course vary, but we have the solutions you need and we have also added a few extra items too – it’s more like a baker’s dozen than ten. There are lots of macOS tweaks here to make using your iMac, Mac mini or MacBook more pleasant (and less annoying). 1 Always…

If you want to make big backups happen faster, the solution might be to set up a RAID 0 array with two hard drives that splits the data across them for faster write speeds. 1 List the disks You’ll need to use Terminal. Fire it up and type ‘diskutil list’ to see the drives connected to your Mac. Note their identifiers. 2 Create your RAID Note the identifiers next to the drives you want to use and type ‘diskutil appleraid create stripe RAID0drive JHFS+ [first identifier] [second identifier]’.…

Creating a compressed disk image might sound complicated, but essentially it involves creating a single file that contains a copy of any folder on your Mac’s hard drive. For a one-off backup of your most important data it’s a great option and entirely free. 1 Select folders or files Fire up Disk Utility, head to File>New Image>Image from Folder and select the files or folder you want to include in your compressed disk image. You might want to organise these into a single folder. 2 Name and create In the Save dialog that appears give your disk image a logical name, select where to save it to and ensure that the Image Format is set to ‘Compressed’. When you’re ready click ‘Save’.…

When it comes to backing up your iPhone or iPad, you’ve got it easy. Apple provides a solid, built-in system for backing up that works automatically and keeps a copy of the most important files on your iOS device safe in the cloud should the worst ever happen. With iCloud Photo Library, the photos you take are covered perfectly too. Although iCloud backups and iCloud Photo Library are very much ‘set it and forget it’ systems, we’ve covered that first below to help you get started. 1 Open Settings Launch the Settings app and then tap on your Apple ID at the top of the screen. This provides access to all aspects of your iCloud account as well as all of the Apple devices that you are connected to. 2…

The Control Centre provides shortcuts to your most-used apps and, in some cases, allows you to cut straight to the chase in terms of accessing key features within these apps. For example, the Timer control can be tapped to take you straight to the Timer option within your Clock app, but long-pressing on the icon will allow you to set a time without launching the full app. Control Centre can also be fully customised to meet your requirements by going to Settings>Control Centre>Customise Controls. Here you can add controls by tapping the green ‘+’ icons next to any listed under ‘More Controls’ or remove them by tapping the red ‘–’ icons listed under ‘Include’. Here we provide expert insight into how to get the most out of your Control Centre.…

Almost every website, web service and app requires us to log in these days. The result is that we end up with dozens of usernames and passwords and other login information. Fortunately, the iPhone can remember them for us and when we need to log in to a site, it can automatically fill in forms. The iPhone can even remember credit card details and automatically enter them when we shop online. So where does iOS store this information, and how can it be accessed, for example, to update a password or delete or add a new credit card? We’ll answer these questions now as we show you how to manage your personal data on your iPhone. Step-by-step  View and edit form data 1 Enable AutoFill In order to automatically fill…

Sometimes you need to reach out to a particular person in a WhatsApp group chat. Perhaps they’ve asked for contact details or you need to discuss the behaviour of another group member. It’s generally been a hassle; you’ve had to leave the group chat and start a separate conversation. But that has now changed. WhatsApp has added a new ‘reply privately’ feature to the iOS app, allowing you to quickly send your missive away from the group. WhatsApp has also added two other features. You can add stickers to images, videos and GIFs and you can use 3D Touch on a compatible iPhone to preview any status updates created by your contacts. For these to work you will, of course, need the latest WhatsApp app, so make sure you update…

Although many of us will be ardent fans of Apple Music, a good number will prefer the cross-platform magic of its main rival, Spotify. If that’s the case for you then listen up: Spotify has finally created a decent app for Apple Watch, which means you can control and playback your tunes direct from your wrist. While it’s not entirely perfect – you can’t yet enjoy offline listening at the moment, even though it’s available on third-party Spotify Apple Watch apps – it does go some way to bridging the gap with Apple Music on your wearable. It has support for Spotify Connect devices, allows you to select songs and even lets you add tracks to your library. Spotify is promising further versions over the coming months, which should make…

Mojave seems to be draining my MacBook battery a lot faster. Have you got any tips for preventing this? Sharon Fairclough 1 Energy Saver Go to System Preferences> Energy Saver and set a short timeout for the display and disable Power Nap so that your Mac won’t wake from sleep to perform unnecessary tasks. 2 Dim the screen One of the biggest battery drains is the screen, and the amount of power used depends on its brightness. Adjust this and turn off Auto-brightness in System Preferences>Display. 3 Turn off updates Go to System Preferences> System Update and clear the option to automatically keep your MacBook up to date. This will prevent power being wasted as your Mac checks for updates. While exploring my iPhone Settings app recently I noticed ‘Emergency…