Innehållsförteckning för No. 214 från iCreate

Apple TV get multiuser support for gaming tvOS 14 Apple is expanding the gaming possibilities of Apple TV with multiuser support via the Control Centre in the upcoming tvOS 14, so that your games will be able to remember who is playing and start you off from the position you got to last time. Support for Xbox Elite 2 and Xbox Adaptive Controllers has been added, and Picture in Picture is being extended across the entire Apple TV experience, so you’ll be able to keep up with the news in a window while doing a workout, for example. Apple also announced it is working on a new Apple TV+ original based on the Isaac Asimov Foundationnovels. AirPods Pro gets surround sound and new auto-switching feature Apple AirPods There’s some good…

Mixing layers Here is a close-up of the ‘ghost’. By mixing footage of the actor with an identical but empty background you can create a semi-transparent ethereal figure. You can reduce the top layer’s opacity in the Inspector. Compound clips After mixing two layers to create a ghostly effect you can collapse them into a single compound clip layer. This enables you to mix compound clips together to enhance your ghostly effects. Mask control A graduated mask enables you to combine layers together. Here the man on the right half of the top layer is free from the motion blur and transparency effects that have been used to ‘ghost’ the actor on the lower layers. Motion blur The ‘Visual Echo’ effect causes moving objects (such as our ghostly subject) to…

Find your device Make sure you have ‘Find My Mac‘ ticked in System Preferences>Apple ID>iCloud. Then in the event of you losing your Mac, go to icloud.com in any browser, log in and then click on ‘Find iPhone’ to reveal its location on a map. Location alert It is important to enable Location Services in System Preferences>Security & Privacy>Privacy so that you will get location alerts when somebody is trying to use your Mac. You can allow or disallow access remotely. Verification codes With Two-Factor Authentication enabled, a verification code will be sent to your other trusted Apple devices when someone is trying to access your account. You will need to enter your password and this code to complete authentication. Two-factor authentication When first setting this feature up you will…

Syncing and other iCloud account problems could be because of something on the Mac, but it could be the result of something on another device, like an iPhone or iPad. To get iCloud working you may need to fix it not only on the Mac but also on every other device that uses it. All devices use the same account and so you may need to disable syncing or sign out everywhere and then power the devices off and then on again. 1 Stop using iCloud A fix that may work is to stop using iCloud, then start again. After disabling everything on the Mac (step three), disable everything on iOS devices in Settings>your Apple ID>iCloud. 2 Sign out Sign out everywhere – Mac, iPhone and iPad. On iOS, go…

The key to finding files is to create the right filters and select the appropriate attributes to search for. Different files have different attributes, so a photograph may have aperture information, focal length and ISO speed embedded within its metadata, and these can be searched for. A music file has authors, composers, album title, genres and so on. All can be searched for and here we take a quick look at searching for specific types of music using advanced Finder filters. 1 Search for audio Select your home folder in the Finder sidebar and then enter ‘.m4a’ into the search box at the top. Finder suggests Apple MPEG-4 audio in the dropdown list. Select it. 2 Search for composers If you want to find all music by a certain composer.…

1 Enable Ask Siri Make sure that the ‘Enable Ask Siri’ box is ticked as this effectively turns on Siri. You can also tick the ‘Show Siri in menu bar’ option to provide a handy shortcut. 2 Create a shortcut Rather than clicking on the menu bar item, it is far quicker to press a keyboard shortcut to call up Siri. Go to Keyboard Shortcut>Customise to create your own. 3 Language and voice Obviously, ensure that the language is set to your native tongue, unless you are studying a foreign language, and click on the ‘Siri Voice’ menu to select the accent. 4 Voice feedback? This refers to you being able to hear what Siri is saying to you. You can turn it off and still fire commands at Siri,…

Use Text Replacement Tap here to see and add Text Replacements. For example, type ‘omw’ and it is automatically replaced with ‘On my way!’ Add your own shortcuts for common phrases to make typing faster and easier. Use predictive text Enable this to show words you probably want to type next and tap them to save typing. Disable Predictive if the suggestions are not useful and the keyboard shrinks to show more of the screen. Activate keyboards The iPhone comes with many foreign language keyboards and ones downloaded from the App Store appear here too. Go to ‘Keyboards’ to select a keyboard or to finish installing and activate it. Auto-fix typing Does Auto-Correct get in the way and change what you type into something else when words are not recognised,…

£99.99/$99.99 Key features Wireless Bluetooth keyboard • Smart illumination Learn more logitech.com Available from amazon.co.uk THIRD-PARTY MAC KEYBOARDS have generally got to be spectacular if they are to tempt us away from the Apple model that perfectly complements our iMacs. Logitech’s MX Keys, a wireless keyboard with smart illumination, is built for your Mac, presents several key advantages over the standard keyboard, and is by far the strongest temptation yet. Let there be light By going to a setup website, you can download special software for your Mac that you can use to assign controls to the various keys either for general use or specific to certain apps. If you are also using Logitech’s MX Master 3 mouse (see page 79), then that, too, is fully customisable, allowing creative Mac…

Activ5 Tiny Gym in your Pocket £129.99/$139.99 amazon.co.uk If you want to stay toned, but don’t have space for dumbbells then this device provides an all-over workout, in your pocket. It is essentially a pressure pad that you can connect, via Bluetooth, to the Activ5 Training App. After a quick and easy set up process in which your strength is measured, you’ll be presented with routines tailored to your ability. It’s an amazingly simple way of keeping in shape but it’s utterly compelling as the routines are more like fun games on your iPhone screen. It also comes with an iPhone training stand. Groov-e Retro Personal Cassette Player £19.99/$19.99 groov-e.co.uk Following on from the big vinyl revival, cassettes are also enjoying a comeback and if you want to revisit the…

White Balance The White Balance eyedropper samples pixels that should be white or a neural grey. If they have a cold blue cast then the tool warms them up to create pure white pixels. This creates more accurate colours throughout the shot. (It will also cool down warm orange pixels.) Selective Colour This unique macOS tool enables you to target and tweak the hue, saturation and luminance of specific colours to enhance your image. Here we’ve boosted the saturation and luminance (brightness) of the reds to enhance the sunlit background. Retouch brush The iOS version of Photos lacks a Retouch brush. This macOS Photos tool enables you to sample pixels from one area and spray them over unwanted objects, such as the people in the background of our example image.…

Modify The Modify menu provides two different ways to freeze a frame of footage. Flash and Freeze Frame creates a burst of DSLR-style camera flash while also adding a zoom to the chosen frame. Adding Freeze Frame simply pauses the action. Change duration By default, Add Freeze Frame halts the action for three seconds. Drag this icon to make the frozen frame longer or shorter. Alternatively, you can type a value into the Duration box (see step four on the other page). Faster flash The regular flash effect lasts for 0.5 seconds. This is a little slow. Double-click on the fade-to-white transition in the timeline and type a shorter value of 0.2 for a faster burst of camera flash. Make your move By default the Flash and Freeze Frame command…

Quantize start This setting determines the start/stop behaviour of all cells and scenes. With the track playing, every scene or cell you trigger will be queued until the next division selected here. A setting of ‘1 Bar’ will trigger all queued cells/scenes on the downbeat of the next bar. Radar love As loops play, a circular progress marker sweeps round like a radar screen to mark the loop’s current playback position. Press the spacebar to pause and restart playback. Pressing the return key resets playback to the start of the loop. Double DAWs You can have both the new Live Loops area and the traditional Tracks area visible at the same time, enabling you to drag regions or cells between them in either direction. This button lets you choose which…

Find music If you click on search, three tabs will appear in the top-right corner that let you focus your search on Apple Music, Your Library or the iTunes Store. Visit the store Strangely, access to the iTunes Store isn’t granted by default. However, if you go to Music>Preferences>General then you can add it as an option in the sidebar. Click on it to visit the store and purchase digital music to add to your Music library. Up next By clicking on the ‘…’ icon next to a track and choosing the ‘Play Next’ option you can create playlists on the fly. Click on this icon to see what is playing next and you can also click and drag to change the running order. Create a Station By selecting ‘Create…

Boost your security Apple will suggest a password that fits the requirements of many websites and apps. The passwords will be stored in iCloud Keychain and you can activate them via Face ID or Touch ID when logging in. Enter a password Tap the password entry box and iOS should fill it with a strong, suggested password while giving you an option of choosing your own. Ask for a suggestion Sometimes iOS won’t automatically fill the box but you can still request assistance. Tap the Password option which appears above the keyboard and select ‘Suggest New Password’. View the password When asking for a secure password via Safari, it will show you the suggestion. Tap ‘Use Suggested Password’ if you are happy with it. Knowledge base Ask Siri for your…

Toggle Measurements Just as on the Watch, you can toggle Environmental Sound Measurements to allow your wearable’s microphone to assess how loud the audio levels are around you each day. Visit the Noise section You can reach this screen by launching the Watch app on your iPhone, selecting ‘My Watch’ and choosing the option for Noise. Noise thresholds Tap this to set the threshold at 80, 85, 90, 95 or 100 decibels – we’d advise against setting it at 100 decibels since anything above 85 can be damaging over short periods. Notification Grouping Set this to Automatic if you want your Noise notifications to be grouped intelligently, that is by topic or thread. Knowledge base View your sound levels If you want to see the sound levels you are exposed…

“Featuring AptX technology and 10mm Neodymium drivers, the sound quality is truly magnificent” £149.99/$149.99 Key features Adaptable digital noise cancellation • AptX technology Learn more cleeraudio.com Available from amazon.co.uk WE RAVED ABOUT CLEER’S ALLY in-ear headphones back in issue 203 and, truth be told, not a lot has changed in the following year. This isn’t a bad thing though because the Ally Plus headphones maintain the same high standards while making a couple of subtle cosmetic alterations. Touch sensitive controls The earwings that helped keep the buds in place were deemed surplus to requirements and the charge case is a slightly different shape, but beyond that we’re squinting for differences. The Ally Plus earphones pair together as soon as they are removed from the case and become auto-detectable to your…

Price Arcade subscription Requirements macOS 10.13 or later, 64-bit processor • 501.8 MB Learn more wherecardsfall.com Available from Mac App Store WINNER OF AN APPLE DESIGN AWARD, Where Cards Fall is a delightfully odd coming-of-age adventure in which the central character must navigate through the insecurities and emotions of high school that are played out in strange, dialogue-less dream sequences. The cards from the title come in the form of stacks dotted through the terrain. You can click on a stack to move it into a key position and then expand it so that the cards form a structure that bridges gaps, allowing you to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’. “You can understand exactly what is going on without a comprehensible word being uttered” When you have used a stack,…

Release date August 1995 • Processor: PowerPC 603e 100-117MHz • Memory: 8MB expandable to 64MB (70 ns unique DRAM card) • Hard drive: 500MB • Display: 640x480 9.5-inch grayscale dual-scan (14-bit, 16 grays) LCD Original price: £1,300/$2,200 Price now: £160/$199 Although a notable release in Apple’s laptop timeline due to it being the first in the PowerBook range to sport PowerPC processors and ‘hot swappable’ expansion bays, the PowerBook 5300 was, by and large, universally hated. So how did it come to rank among the most derided Apple products of all time? Well, despite being the first PowerBook to feature the aforementioned hot-swappable expansion modules for a variety of units (including zip drives and PD card slots), there was insufficient space for an internal CD-ROM drive. Then there were problems…

THIS YEAR’S WWDC SAW PLENTY OF UPDATES TO APPLE’S OPERATING SYSTEMS, BUT BY  FAR THE BIGGEST NEWS WAS THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE SWITCH FROM INTEL TO APPLE’S OWN PROCESSORS IN MACS. In a move similar to the 2011 transition from PowerPC to Intel, Apple will gradually be transitioning its entire fleet of Macs to ARM-based processors, called ‘Apple silicon’, over the next two years. Apple silicon is already found in Apple’s iPhone and iPad models and its inclusion in Macs opens up new vistas of compatibility across all of Apple’s devices. Apple silicon, however, will require a complete rewrite from the ground up of all Apple’s software including its macOS operating system. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “From the beginning, the Mac has always embraced big changes to stay at…

KEY Both iPhone & iPad iPhone only iPad only WILL iOS 14/iPadOS 14 WORK ON MY DEVICE? Yes. If your device is currently running iOS 13/iPadOS 13 then the new update will work just fine. Compatible devices consist of the iPhone 6s and later, the iPad Air 2 and later, the iPad 5th-gen and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and all iPad Pro models. Home Screen All of your apps will be automatically organised into the new App Library so that you can find them easier, and you will be able to hide existing Home Screens filled with apps to reduce the visual clutter on your device. Widgets You can now drag and drop widgets onto your Home Screens to sit among your app icons and pick from one…

The iOS version of Photos may lack tools such as the White Balance eyedropper, Levels controls and the Retouch brush, but it does, however, have tools lacking in macOS, such as the ability to let you counteract lens-related problems such as perspectival distortion. This occurs when a tall building’s vertical lines appear to converge inwards towards the top of the frame. You can get them to run parallel with the edge of the frame using iOS Photo’s unique vertical correction tools. 1 Perspectival distortion This window is narrower at the top, but by using the Crop tool we can use the slider to counteract this. The edges of the frame become distorted so they are cropped out. 2 Video filters Unlike the macOS version of Photos, you can adjust a…

Cycle Area This yellow strip is toggled on in the tracks ruler via its control bar button (C). It’s so-called for cycling playback of active tracks positioned below, between its start and end points. Resize Pointer The resize pointer shows when you hover the mouse cursor over the lower left or right edge of a region. Click and drag in or out to shorten or lengthen according to the desired duration. Loop Browser This shows the contents of GarageBand’s loop library and is opened via View> Show Apple Loops, or with the ‘O’ key. Custom loops can be dragged into here from the tracks space. Loop Pointer This loop pointer appears on hovering the mouse cursor over the top-right corner edge of a region. Clicking, holding and dragging this will…

Stop iCloud sync You don’t need to stop permanently, just temporarily disable all these functions, restart the Mac and then return and enable them. You might need to do this on the iPhone at the same time. Sign out Signing out is a more drastic step, but has worked for some people. Click on the ‘Overview’ option and click ‘Sign Out’. Restart your Mac and then sign in again. Check the status Before you start trying to fix iCloud on the Mac, check it is not a system fault. Open a Safari window and go apple.com/ support/systemstatus. It will say if there is a problem. Clear caches iCloud may be working on the Mac, but not on the website. Visit icloud.com and open apps then close them. It may trigger…

Start here This is where searches start and it is useful to narrow the search results by entering the kind of file to find. Enter something like ‘kind: jpeg’ or ‘kind: mp3’ or ‘kind: pages’ and so on… Customise the filter After adding a filter, click the first item and select the attribute from the menu. Select ‘Other’ and a list of extended file attributes is displayed. Select the ones you need and add them. Save your searches Is this a one-off search or will you need it again? Click the ‘Save’ button and there are options to save it and also to add it to the Finder sidebar. One click then performs the search. Filter controls Click the ‘+’ button to add a new filter. Each one continues from…

Add your photo folders Create folders in the Pictures folder and copy photographs to them so they can be used as desktop images. Then click the ‘+’ button below and select the folder to add it to the list. Photo thumbnails To create an effect like the macOS dynamic desktop that changes over time, you will need to take several photos throughout the day. We faked it by using Preview to darken and lighten an image. Desktop wallpaper options Photographs may not be the same resolution or aspect ratio of the screen, so this menu lets you choose how to deal with them. Fill Screen is a good choice, but click the menu for more options. Ever-changing desktop image Tick the box, then go to ‘Change picture every’ and select…

Siri, your digital personal assistant, has been a part of macOS for years now and it grows in efficiency and effectiveness with each new system update. But how many of us even remember to use Siri and, when we do, how many of us bother to drill down into its many uses and the time-saving shortcuts it can provide? Unlike your iPhone, which listens out for “Hey Siri” commands like an attentive, twitching canine eager to serve its master, Siri must be summoned on Mac by either pressing a determined keyboard shortcut or clicking on the Siri icon in your Mac’s menu bar. But this extra effort pays dividends, for example, in the time it would usually take you to access and tweak settings in System Preferences, look up information…

Wait a while If you don’t want to pay to enrol in the Developer Program, you can wait a little longer (about a month) for the public beta of iOS 14 to be released at beta.apple.com. Install the profile Beta software profiles always need to be downloaded on the device you intend to install them on. In this case you will need to go here on your iPhone and then download the profile. Read the notes Before you install a new profile, click on the ‘Release Notes’ link and you will be enlightened about known issues with the software to help you make a more informed decision on whether to install it or not. Back up your device Before installing Apple beta software, always back up your device to iCloud…

Your Watch list Items that you are watching will be in the ‘Active’ list if the auction is ongoing or in the ‘Ended’ list if it has finished. Swipe left and tap ‘Delete’ to remove items from either list. Relisted items If you forget to bid on an item in your Watch list and it doesn’t sell, tap on it in the ‘Ended’ section and, if the item is being relisted, you can tap on the ‘View relisted item’ option to start tracking it again. Refine your list You can sort items in your Watch list into various categories by tapping on the ‘Refine’ option. The only thing you really need to worry about at this point though is when the auction finishes. Check for offers If you have added…

View a folder All shared folders have an icon showing two people. To alter the properties, long-press the icon, select ‘Share’ from the menu and tap ‘Show People’ to see the available options. Check a participant You’ll see a list of each person you are sharing a folder with as well as their status, such as whether they are invited. Tap a name to change their permissions or to select Remove Access. Add more people Want to open up your folder to more people? Just tap ‘Add People’ and follow the same steps detailed below, again granting individual permissions if need be. Stop sharing You can prevent anyone from accessing the folder by simply tapping ‘Stop Sharing’. Anyone with the link will be unable to view or edit the contents.…

Our Apple devices and the software on them are some of the finest products on the planet, but even they have their moments. We’re here to give you expert advice and get you back up and running in no time Contact us today Facebook iCreateMagazine Twitter @iCreateMagazine Instagram icreate_mag Email icreate@futurenet.com Glossary The place to come for key terms made easy Accessibility This refers to a group of settings on Mac and iOS that allow you to customise your device to suit your needs. There are settings that relate to physical and motor impairments as well as hearing or sight problems. Go to Settings or System Preferences to find them. Markup Tools Both macOS and iOS feature a built-in toolset that allows you to quickly mark up certain files, such…