Innehållsförteckning för No. 242 från iCreate

When a new version of iOS is released, it tends to paint over everything before it, so you quickly forget much of the old layout and features and assume that much of what is new is actually old. This makes it very easy to overlook many of the finer nuances of a fresh new iPhone update. Thank god you’ve got us then, right?   iCreate is the only magazine that goes at an iOS update like a starving buzzard, pecking every sinewy bit of flesh off the bone for your enlightenment – and this issue we do it again with the big iOS 16 update. We’ve collected together 78 secret features to help you become an instant expert in iOS 16, revealing key features and improvements that you can exploit…

Good news, the big iOS 16 update will be available to download any day now, and to help you hit the ground running with all of the key new features and settings, we have wrung the update dry to bring you 78 top tips for mastering iOS 16. Beyond the marquee features that we showcased in the Apple WWDC keynote (which we also get you acquainted with here), we have drilled down deep into the core of iOS 16 to uncover a wealth of other hidden gems that are well worth exploiting. These include many new additions to existing apps and settings you wouldn’t necessarily know about, yet could improve the functionality of your device and how you interact with it. As ever with a new update, look out for…

The Spot Colour effect is often used by movie makers to highlight a specific subject in the shot. We’ll show you how to focus attention on a particular red bus while desaturating all the other colours in the scene (including other red buses). You’ll use two powerful tools to create this selective colour effect. Hue/Saturation Curves enable you to target and desaturate specific colours in a clip so that only red remains. A mask enables you to preserve the colour of a red bus on the timeline’s top layer while revealing a separate monochrome bus on the layer below. Masks and Curves Make selective colour adjustments Step-by-step Selective colour effects 1Desaturate clip Import SpotColour.mov. Drag it to the timeline. Go to the Color Inspector. In Color Wheels scroll down to…

One of the best features in the latest update to Keynote is dynamic backgrounds. They are easy to apply to slides and are easily customised to produce your own unique background effects. We have all sat through dull presentations and felt like nodding off; dynamic backgrounds help maintain the interest of your audience. Instead of a static slide image, dynamic backgrounds are in perpetual motion. Waves of colour cross the screen, hills and mountain peaks move toward you or away. Your slides will never be dull anymore! OK, it’s not the perfect antidote to dull presentations, but dynamic backgrounds really help. Step-by-step Get to know dynamic backgrounds 1Select a theme Open Keynote and click the button to create a new presentation. The template library now includes a small Dynamic section.…

There are many new features in macOS Ventura, like background sounds. Sounds like the ocean or rain are useful in several situations, such as masking sounds in a busy open-plan office or when you are working from home. Calming background sounds can help when you are stressed, too. Background sounds are available right now in any version of macOS and there is no need to wait for Ventura. Ocean sounds, rain, running water, white noise and more is in Apple Music. We show you how to find them. All you need to do is add them to playlists. Play them in the Music app and minimise it to mask distracting sounds. Step-by-step Play background sounds in Music 1Create a playlist A playlist is not essential, but is useful if you…

You may have been using macOS for many years, but there are still things you probably do not know. Some of them are useful, but others are just strange. For example, you can speak selected text in funny voices. Why? It is just weird! There is a Lord of the Rings calendar hidden in a system folder, with every major event that happened in Middle-earth listed. Strange! There are hidden menus and some are very useful, which makes you wonder why they are hidden and not on the regular menu. You can set a folder background in one view, but not another, which is odd. Why not every view? Here we dig deep into the macOS system and find useful, not so useful and simply strange things, just for fun.…

Sports fans looking for the latest news and scores have many options, from newspaper websites to dedicated apps such as LiveScore. But now you have another way of staying up to date with the sports and teams you love: the My Sports section in the News app created for iPadOS 16. As with the news, it draws upon multiple sources for the ultimate sports offering. Expanding on the previous sports offering, My Sports allows you to select what you’re interested in and make use of a dedicated section. Available in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, you’ll get live score updates, be directed to any live TV streams and have access to the latest news, analysis and videos. It’s a very welcome addition to the app and it’s also very…

Sky has finally developed its Sky Go app for Apple TV. Previously only available for Apple users on an iPhone, iPad and Mac, it will allow you to watch shows and movies when you’re out and about. Simply hook your Apple TV device to a television and you can continue to enjoy the channels you’re already shelling out good money for. Or at least you can if you pay a little extra! The Sky Go app on Apple TV will only work if you subscribe to Sky Q Multiscreen or Sky Glass Whole Home – if you try it without either of these packages, you’ll be thrown back to the sign-in screen. This isn’t the case with the Sky Go apps on iPhone, iPad or Mac nor on games consoles…

Thanks to the versatility of your iPhone’s Camera app you can shoot stills, clips and Live Photos – ahybrid between the moving and still image. The iOS Photos app stores these assets and also enables you to edit properties such as colour, tone and duration without needing to export clips to a dedicated editing app such as iMovie. This enables you to use your iPhone to create short clips that are perfect for sharing via social media without leaving iOS Photos. Photos also has some unique video editing tools that enable you to produce creative effects such as long exposure motion blur. Video editing How to adjust colour, tone and duration Knowledge base HDR v SDR Your iPhone 13 pro can shoot clips in high dynamic range (HDR) or standard…

Learning how to work with loops is a fundamental part of digital music production. Whether it’s drum beats, bass grooves or guitar riffs, composing with cyclical parts is taken for granted. GarageBand comes with a huge library of royalty-free loop packs and it also allows us to create our own cuts for later use. This can be quite tricky for beginners and relies on some key actions including using the cycle area. We’ll show you how to isolate a repeatable section and cut it to size for saving into the Loop Library. From here you can build up a collection of custom or edited loops ready for your next projects. Categorising loops Examining the ‘Add Region to Apple Loops Library’ dialog box and the various options Step-by-step Create and save…

Every now and then, when you’re on a call, you will spot something on your Mac that you’d love to share with the person you’re talking to. In some instances, another Mac user may be having a problem with their Mac – rather than explain what to do, wouldn’t it be easier to just have them share their screen? Apple has made it relatively easy to share a Mac’s screen, allowing the entire display or just a single window to be shown. As well as being very useful for work-related tasks, you can also have a bit of fun by sharing movies, TV shows and music. Online parties, troubleshooting and collaborations are just a few short clicks away. Step-by-step Use the Screen Sharing app 1Launch Spotlight First of all, find…

Do you have an email inbox with a mountain of disorganised messages? You can use smart mailboxes to show only what you need to see. They are similar to a saved search. For example, enter “from: bob@ somewhere.com” into the search box and messages from Bob are listed. A smart mailbox saves you having to type searches like this and enables you to build more complex ones. It uses rules, like mail from a specific sender, contains a keyword, is a VIP, to filter messages and it shows only mail that matches those rules. Use smart mailboxes to show only work or personal emails, those sent in the last week, and more. Advanced smart mailbox Smart mailboxes that work on smart mailboxes Step-by-step Create rules for smart mailboxes 1Show mailboxes…

At 7am, your iPhone bursts into life with an alarm that sets your teeth on edge. Yes, it has certainly stirred you from your slumber and ensured you’re not going to be late for work, but what if you would rather wake to something more enjoyable, such as a favourite song? With the Clock app, you can do just that, setting alarms that can use any tune you wish as an alarm tone. With just a few taps, you can select any downloaded songs from the Music app – although if you want to make use of rival services such as Spotify, you’ll sadly have to find an alternative method such as Music Alarm Clock Pro or Morning Alarm for Spotify. Step-by-step Wake up to a tune 1 Tap alarm…

For some people, it is vitally important that they spend their time in environments where the air is as clean and healthy as possible. This is not always easy to achieve in built-up areas and so this kind of tracking becomes even more important. The fact is, however, that we all need to be aware of our environments no matter how healthy we are and this is where an app like Air Matters can prove so vital. Air Matters works extremely well on an iPhone and offers all of the information you need, but on an Apple Watch, as a companion app you have the ability to check various aspects of the air around you with a simple lift of your wrist. You may think this app is not important,…

Glossary The place to come for key terms made easy Focus A new feature of macOS Monterey and iOS 15, Focus is an expansion of Do Not Disturb that lets you create new ‘Focus groups’ for any given time period and determine exactly which apps and people can contact you when it’s in effect. Private Relay Private Relay is a new feature of macOS Monterey and iOS 15 that keeps your internet activity private by hiding your IP address and browsing activity in Safari. It protects your unencrypted internet traffic so that no one, including Apple, can see who you are. Safari Reader This is a special reading mode in Safari that strips out ads and clutter around a web page, making it much clearer and easier to read. If…

When you’re on holiday it can be hard to resist recording clips to show off the highlights of your location to family and friends. iMovie enables you to present your clips in a professional looking package complete with travel-themed maps, titles and transitions. These animated themed assets make it more entertaining to watch your holiday footage via social media sites such as Facebook. We’ll show you how to unlock extra travel-themed titles and transitions in a standard iMovie project. Our supplied holiday clips will give you ideas on how to create a simple narrative that links your clips together. Holiday highlights Access extra travel-themed assets Knowledge base Shooting tips We captured all of the assets for this holiday project on an iPhone 13 Pro Max as HD quality clips. The…

Since its debut in version 10.5, Logic’s Step Sequencer has allowed you to create parts by filling in blocks on a timing grid, where each row represents a note value or drum kit piece and each column corresponds to a beat division value. Logic’s 10.7 update added significant new features, however. Previously, the step sequencer could only be programmed by clicking grid cells to place and remove notes. Now though, you can record using live MIDI input from your MIDI controller while a pattern is playing, resulting in a pattern that you can edit as if you’d programmed it in methodically by hand. Pattern play Record events directly into pattern regions with Live Input Recording Step-by-step Setting Up Live Input Recording 1Set up In your Logic 10.7 project, create a…

Although Apple has some great images for the Mac desktop, you might want a change. You could select another wallpaper in System Preferences or use one of your own photos, but there are some more exciting alternatives. Unsplash is a popular source of free images with a collection of three million. With the Unsplash app on your Mac you can have a new desktop image every day. 3Planesoft has a collection of animated desktop wallpapers and here we look at three free ones. Earth 3D Lite shows impressive views as if from aboard the International Space Station, and The Lost Watch 3D Lite shows the time and date underwater. Step-by-step Install and use animated desktop wallpaper 1Earth from space Find Earth 3D Lite in the Mac App Store – it…

Apple has slowly added the ability to personalise iOS in a variety of ways, but it would be fair to say that options are still limited when compared to other platforms. There is logic to this because any device should ideally be used to get things done and to help you get through the day with personalisation being a mere distraction to some. If, however, you want to work within an environment that feels more personal you should take a look at moloko which can theme your device in just a few seconds. Profiles are used to enable this, but the advantage is much less manual intervention to create a new look. Playing with and trying out new themes will become an enjoyable experience for the first time. 📖 Knowledge…

You may have to take a leap to truly believe in the benefits of Endel when you first use it, but the fact that it can be tested for free means you have nothing to lose. No matter what you are doing there will be a session available that fits and we have found in our testing that it does appear to offer benefits. Of course we are all different and your mileage may vary, but whether you use it on an iPhone or an Apple Watch, you will have a calming tool with you for all occasions. The use of an Apple Watch app means you can plug your headphones in when exercising and be completely free while simultaneously leaving all other distractions behind. Few apps work as well…

Key features Bluetooth 5.2 • 35Hz-20kHz • RCA • 3.5mm AUX-in Learn more marshallheadphones.com Available from amazon.co.uk WE KNOW HOW A ROADIE FEELS AFTER A LONG NIGHT AT THE CORN EXCHANGE after unboxing the Woburn III, the biggest in Marshall’s Homeline III range that also includes updated Acton and Stanmore models. Measuring 400 x 317 x 203mm and weighing 7.5kg, the Woburn III looks like the classic Marshall amp, except there’s no quarter-inch guitar lead jack anywhere to be found. What it does have is RCA-in, 3.5mm AUX-in and HDMI ARC, so you can reap its benefits from the TV too. “It looks like the classic Marshall amp, except no quarter-inch guitar lead jack anywhere to be found…” The overall design of the Woburn III is pleasingly sparse. The brass…

• Chip: S5L8900 • CPU: 412 MHz ARM 1176JZF-S • Memory: 128 MB LPDDR DRAM • Storage: 8, 16 and 32 GB • Display: 3.5-inch (diagonal) 3:2 aspect ratio, 262,144-colour (18- bit) TN LCD, scratch-resistant glossy glass covered screen • Graphics: POWERVR MBX Lite GPU • Input: Multi-touch touchscreen display, volume buttons, microphone, built-in speaker, voice control, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope • Connectivity: Wi-Fi • Original price (8 GB version): £199/$299 • Price now: £25/$25 The words on the screen behind then Apple CEO, Steve Jobs read, “We’re not done yet…”. And indeed they weren’t, for at that Apple September event in 2007, Jobs answered the question of when Apple was bringing its iPhone multi-touch display technology to iPod by promptly reaching into his pocket and pulling out the iPod touch. This…