Innehållsförteckning för No. 221 från iCreate

While the threat of COVID-19 lingers on like the unpleasant stench of a dead animal carcass in your cavity wall, maintaining our fitness and mental wellbeing is of paramount importance. Whether you’re working out with Joe Wicks or, in a comical new addition to the YouTube fitness instructor roster, Bez from the Happy Mondays (check him out), your progress can be recorded and compiled easily with your Apple Watch and iPhone. Starting on page 14, we’ve got the complete guide to keeping fit using your Apple gear, which should help you stay lean, healthy and mentally sharp for when we emerge, blinking into the sunlight from our enforced lockdown hell. Also in this issue we help you get the most out of your macOS Big Sur web browsing experience with…

THE APPLE AIRPODS MAX ARE THE MOST WANTED HEADPHONES OF LAST YEAR, HAVING BEEN THE SUBJECT OF RUMOUR AND SPECULATION FOR TWO YEARS. As the first Apple over-ear headphones, expectations were high, especially considering the success of the Apple AirPods and the AirPods Pro, which have become the most easily-recognisable wireless earbuds available. We had expected some futuristic features to be built in, but the Apple AirPods Max are far more ordinary than many expected; albeit with extraordinary audio quality and brilliant quality of life features for those already devoted to the Apple ecosystem. We’ll deliver our full review next issue, but we’ve been hands-on with a pair of AirPods Max to give you our first opinion. Let’s take a look at the positives first; the best thing about the…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available The russet reds and glowing yellows of autumn leaves add warm colours to our landscapes and make an attractive backdrop for our portraits. However we may not always be able to shoot in a rural location when the leaves are at their most colourful. Fortunately we can use the Photos app to fast forward the season to reduce the presence of green and create a more autumnal looking colour palette. The Photos app’s Selective Colour panel enables us to adjust the hue and saturation of green leaves and shift them to a more autumnal looking red, without changing skin tones. We’ve supplied a shot to work with but you can apply this selective colour grading techniques to your own images if preferred.…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Getting vocals right is arguably the trickiest aspect of music production. There isn’t just the issue of singing the parts right, but also optimising the actual capture and post production too. Assuming you can sing and can tolerate your own voice, it’s vitally important to record on a capable microphone in the right environment. Steer clear of reflective surfaces, set a healthy signal volume that won’t clip (50-65%) and hit Record! Once you at least have some viable takes in the bag, GarageBand has all the core tools for processing things into better shape. In this guide we’ll start from a project that already has at least one vocal audio region tracked, before applying some essential processing tricks. Recording settings Here we examine the…

14 Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The majority of Macs sold are MacBooks and with the new M1 processor power behind the latest models there would be little need to buy an iMac unless you need more screen real estate than a MacBook can offer. An iPad can help you get around this issue, however, and it also lets you work in a much more flexible way thanks to the ecosystem that Apple has honed over the years. When used together you have the benefit of being able to chop and change as needed between the two without ever feeling like there is a delayed interchange taking place, and over time it will feel like the most natural setup you can use. It is time to understand how you…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed You either love or hate Apple’s Mail app and sometimes it seems the developers go out of their way to invoke the latter feeling. Certainly, the upgraded Mail app in Big Sur has rearranged a few items in the toolbar, wreaking havoc on your muscle memory. It also, by default, forces you to click a magnifying icon to see the search bar – but it may well be that you keep hitting the Move To option instead by mistake. Thankfully you don’t have to put up with this. You can move Get Mail and New Message back over to the left, for instance, or bring the search bar back by moving things around. Simply delve into the customisation options and you can make Mail…

Spotlight is a brilliant tool for finding things on your Mac and on the web and at first sight, Alfred looks to be a duplicate. However, it is different and in many ways is even better than Spotlight. Alfred (free from alfredapp.com or the App Store) finds things and performs functions that Spotlight cannot. A Spotlight search shows a bit of everything, a few web links, a few files, a dictionary entry, a bookmark or two and so on. Search with Alfred by pressing option+spacebar and the results are highly focused, showing exactly what you need without the clutter. What’s more, Alfred can be finely tuned to produce only the results you need and it can be customised and extended in ways not possible with Spotlight. Here we show just…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Although you can also use full-size landscape and portrait photos on Instagram, there’s something rather charming about posting one that’s square. The 1:1 ratio allowed the social media service to distinguish itself from rivals and it remains a popular format. So why not take snaps that way using the Camera app and avoid having to crop images later? Here we show you where the function is located, ensuring you can take square images using Camera with ease and then quickly share them to social media (or simply experiment with images of that ratio). In doing so, you needn’t worry about being stuck with that particular ratio either. That’s because square images can be reverted back to the original at any point using the Photos…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Just as Siri has been compacted in iOS 14 (meaning it only appears in a small section of the screen), incoming phone call notifications have also been consigned to a far less intrusive banner. It lets you continue the task you’re performing without pulling your attention away with a full-screen notification. And yet many users would prefer the old method because, in many cases, it’s easier to use. Not only does a full-screen notification make it more obvious who is calling (an image will show if you’ve associated one with a contact), it also immediately lets you access two extra buttons: Remind Me and Message, assuming the caller’s number isn’t withheld. The Accept and Decline buttons are also larger and using the speaker feels…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed While there are other image editing apps on iPad that leave it for dust, Apple’s Photos app remains a convenient and easy to use solution to common photo problems such as underexposure, poor composition, or the red-eye effect. There are a decent number of tools in Photos, from manual adjustments across the whole image to one-shot filters that provide a particular look. What you can’t do is make selections or create layers — Apple leaves these to other developers these days. Here, we’ll take you through some of the most frequent editing tasks using Photos, straightening and sharpening an image before sharing it or transferring it to the iPad port of Affinity Photo for further fine-tuning. Step-by-step Edit your images in Photos 1 Straighten…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Memojis were introduced in iOS 12 and they’ve enabled users to create a personal cartoon-like image of themselves. Likewise, Animoji have added another fun addition to the usual emoji so it’s great to see that Apple is expanding their use by letting them be used as a face for Apple Watch. Many users will already have a Memoji set up. You’ve been able to launch Messages, compose a new message and select the Memoji option above the keyboard to create one for a good while now. It’s also possible to create a Memoji on the Watch itself. Assuming you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or later, WatchOS 7 brings a dedicated Memoji app and if you launch it, you can select the ‘+’…

£226/$250 Key features AirPlay 2 • Bluetooth 4.2 • 55Hz-22kHz • Chromecast built-in Learn more audiopro.com Available from audiopro.com AUDIO PRO’S NEW WIRELESS MULTIROOM SPEAKER comes with a bumper load of features packed into its modest dimensions. It has a built-in Chromecast that lets you stream audio from more than 300 apps, Google Assistant compatibility that makes it receptive to over a million voice commands and it also works with AirPlay, so you can create a multiroom system with other AirPlay compatible speakers. Scandinavian style Standing at just 193mm tall, the G10 can be placed anywhere around your home and an optional extra in the form of Audio Pro’s new contemporary ceiling rail means you can even have it dangling from the rafters with the voice control features eradicating the…

Price Arcade subscription Requirements iOS 13.0 or later • 659.2MB Learn more oceanhorn.com Available from iOS App Store WE LOVE A GOOD HACK ’N’ SLASH ADVENTURE and Oceanhorn ticks all of the requirements that you’d want from a classic, old-school dungeon plunderer. It’s got things to break, enemies to cleave and secret areas to uncover, and it works well on the small screen without the need to connect a Bluetooth controller. Four players can team up, Gauntlet style and the experience is different every time you delve in thanks to randomised playing areas and juggled character stats that vary depending on which zodiac sign they’re bound to. If you don’t have enough available friends to play with then you can also switch characters on the fly so you’re not at…

David Crookes Our iOS expert shows you how to bring back full screen calls on your iPhone, explore Google’s array of new widgets and enable real-time audio monitoring in iOS 14.2. Shaun McGill Our resident tech specialist shows you how to use your Apple Watch, iPhone and even your Mac to get in shape, control your diet and sharpen your mind for the year ahead. George Cairns Our creative genius shows you how to create a video postcard in iMovie, artificially create autumnal tones in your photos and achieve film noir effects in Final Cut Pro.…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Download available With travel restrictions during the ongoing Covid crisis we may have lost the option to send postcards (or make social media posts) that show off exotic holiday destinations. However if we look closer to home we may find plenty of opportunities to share some of the video highlights of our city or town with friends, family and followers. Thanks to iMovie’s powerful postproduction tools you can creatively combine video clips of your local area into a short and snappy ‘video postcard’ that will be easy to upload and share on social media sites (or email to relatives). We’ll show you how to access animated assets such as classic postcard themed titles and transitions that you can use to frame your footage in…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The 10.5 update to Logic Pro X brought a veritable avalanche of excellent new features to the table, but buried in amongst the Live Loops, two new samplers, a powerful new step sequencer and many other delights was a nifty new drum sound generator plugin called Drum Synth. Offering a quick and easy way to call up and customise a range of popular electronic-style drum sounds, Drum Synth is not just a simple drum plugin per se – it’s been designed to work fully in conjunction with the newly-updated Drum Machine Designer instrument. So here, we’re going to look at both the plugin itself and how to use it together with Drum Machine Designer to assemble your own customised electronic drum kits. Step-by-step Use…

Developer CodeWeavers Difficulty Time needed To run Windows programs on the Mac, you might think Windows is required in Boot Camp, or Parallels Desktop running Windows is needed. However, it is possible to run Windows programs without Windows directly in macOS. What’s more, you can do this on Apple Silicon M1 powered Macs. CrossOver is an app that has been enabling Windows programs to run on Intel Macs for a long time and now it is available for M1 Macs. With no Windows support in M1 Macs at launch, this is a great way to run your favourite PC software. Even if Windows does come to M1 Macs, CrossOver saves money because a Windows licence is not needed. Parallels plus Windows is around £200, but CrossOver starts at £32. Try…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The new M1 Macs are fantastic and a giant leap forward in performance. Who wouldn’t want one? If you don’t have the cash to buy one outright, your old Mac can be used to fund it. Macs hold their price very well and you could get a sizeable chunk of the money needed for the M1 Mac from your old computer. There are a few steps to perform before handing over your beloved old Mac to its new owner, like backing up, signing out, reformatting and reinstalling macOS. Don’t forget to physically clean it too. Use a damp and dry cloth on the screen, keyboard and case to make them like new, but take care not to get water anywhere. You can also go…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed As of iOS 14.2, Apple has introduced a new way of protecting your hearing. If the audio you are listening to now reaches more than 90 decibels for too long, iOS (and iPadOS come to that) will send you a notification and turn the headphone volume down automatically. This goes over and above a European Union rule which prevents headphones from exceeding 100 decibels but the intention is well-meaning. Apple has also designed the restriction so that it can’t be turned off, at least in EU countries and the UK. Some say it’s nannying but it comes on the back of sound scientific advice. What’s more, there are other things you can do to manually keep an eye on your audio levels to prevent…

Developer Lasmit TLB Ltd Difficulty Time needed Countdown apps have been around on iOS right from the start and they are numerous within the App Store now. They all have one core functionality which is to display when events will happen, but they differ wildly in their approaches and how they actually present the information. The premise behind Countdown with Emoji is simple in that you will see a time displayed showing when the event will occur alongside an emoji, but it offers a feature that is currently unavailable in competing apps. It has the ability to display many events in a reasonably sized widget that will not dominate your Home Screen and as such can be viewed all of the time you are using your iPhone without any hindrance…

Developer axonic Difficulty Time needed Zenkit Base is a great organiser for a wide range of personal and work activities. It is online and has collaborative features that enable you to work with others. It can be used in many ways and it provides a collection of templates that cover a wide range of uses, like job applications, blog post writing, support helpdesks, CRM and sales, and personal calendars, to mention just a few. Here we barely scratch the surface of this excellent service and there is so much more that can be done with it. Go to zenkit.com and get a free account. We used Safari on a MacBook at the website in full screen mode for the screenshots and the iPad app is identical in almost every way.…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Apple TV screen savers are superb and a lot of time and effort has obviously gone into creating them. Appearing in 2015, they used to be entirely based on cityscapes, filmed using drones and helicopters. But then Apple began to use images taken from an even higher vantage point — the International Space Station — which gave us stunning views of Earth. As well as stunning panoramic landscapes, as of 2019, there have also been underwater video sequences produced in conjunction with the BBC – which actually makes the name of this bunch of screen savers (Aerial) feel rather redundant. But only now have you been able to choose the type of screen saver you can view with a set of filter controls in…

Price £19.95/$19.95 Requirements MacOS 10.10 or later Learn more macpaw.com Available from Mac App Store MODERN MAC HARD DRIVES ARE SO VAST THAT WE OFTEN give little thought to what we dump on them. But when they start to get full it can impair the performance of your computer, so where do you start with the cleanup? This app scans all corners of your Mac for duplicate files, including documents, folders, photos and music files, and then provides a handy overview of all of the space-hogging offenders so that you can remove them with confidence to free up space. A free, three-day trial is available so that you can try it out and if you delve into the Preferences then you can add files to an ‘ignore’ list and create…

Developer Apple Inc Time needed Difficulty Download available Removing colour from a clip forces the eye to focus on contrasting shapes and forms, such as a human figure in an urban landscape. Monochrome footage also evokes the stark look of the film noir genre. We’ll show you how to use histograms to ensure a strong contrast in your footage. We’ll also replicate a classic photography technique of using filters to make certain colours in a clip look lighter or darker in the black and white version. We captured our supplied clips on an iPhone 12 Pro Max in Dolby Vision. This High Dynamic Range (HDR) format contains more colours and tones than some Macs can display, so we’ll show you how to use the new HDR tools to bring colour…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The ability to install and run iOS apps in macOS Big Sur may sound like a novelty at first because the advantages are not immediately clear. If, however, you own an M1 powered Mac you can experiment with the feature and see how it works for you, and the end result will likely make you sit back and consider how you have lived without it in the past. The process to install apps is incredibly simple, but your mileage may vary depending on how well the app or game is suited to the completely different control mechanism. If, however, it is an app you use every day and you want the exact iOS experience on your Mac you will likely be delighted at the…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Although Apple has removed the Notification Centre icon from the toolbar at the top of the Mac screen, the function nevertheless remains. It’s still the place to manage incoming messages and you can also make use of widgets to view at-a-glance information from many of your favourite apps such as the Calendar, Weather and Screen Time. You’re in full control of what appears here. If you wish, you could remove all of the widgets or look for new ones that aren’t in the Notification Centre by default. It’s also possible to reposition them and change their sizes and you can determine what they will show by checking out any available options for each one. Here we take a look at the options available to…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed Do you consolidate your referenced photographs or leave them where they are? Do you name photos you save based on the moment? Importing and exporting photos from the Photos app has more features than you might think and there are many options to consider. Referencing, consolidation, original vs edited, naming by moment and file format options are just a few of the topics we cover here. The Photos app can be used on a very simple level, but under the surface are some powerful features and you can export images for use on the web, for emailing or sharing, and you can save edited photos in pixel-perfect full-size format, or as space-saving files that quickly load or email. Export photos Options when exporting photos…

Developer Stefan Liesendahl Difficulty Time needed There are countless task management apps available and then there is Siri which is also designed, among multiple other uses, to help you organise your day in a natural way. This can lead to you either building complex and impersonal task lists or using a solution that may feel a little disorganised at times because you are adding new tasks when out and about so often. What you need is something that resembles a traditional task management app, but which brings a personal touch to proceedings and this is exactly what Sam is designed to do. It isn’t completely obvious how to use the app at first, but there will be moments when some of the features come to you and it just may…

Developer Google LLC Difficulty Time needed As much as we love Apple, we must admit Google also has a solid set of amazing services, whether it’s Gmail, Photos, YouTube or the hugely successful search engine that remains the first point of call for so many of us. Google also appears to have a soft spot for Apple users too. Its developers have been working hard to produce a range of widgets for its key iOS and iPadOS apps, starting with a Search widget when iOS 14 was launched — something which has already proven immensely useful. The tech giant then proceeded to roll out more widgets when the iPhone 12 was launched and now there’s an even larger set on offer as Google continues to invest time in widget development.…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed The Apple Watch offers sleep monitoring and it is a great way to track your sleeping habits, but not everyone has one. For those that don’t, the iPhone offers a very simple and rough guide to the hours you spend in bed each night. Many people check their email, messages or social media updates right before they go to sleep. When they wake the next morning, checking for what’s new is one of the first tasks they do each day. The iPhone records when it was put down in the evening and again when it is first used the next day. It assumes you spent the intervening time in bed asleep. It is a rough way to measure sleep, but it is useful for…

Developer Apple Inc Difficulty Time needed There’s a limit to how much stuff you can store on your Apple Watch — install too many apps or make use of large amounts of media and you’ll likely discover that you’ve run out of room for more goodies. Indeed, having too little free space also means you may struggle to update your Watch to the latest version so that’s a double incentive to keep on top of your device’s storage. Here we show how you can identify the amount of space you have left, plus how you can delete unwanted apps and remove unnecessary clutter. But first, why not consider some pre-management too? By delving into the Settings, tapping App Store and turning off Automatic Downloads you can prevent new apps you…