Innehållsförteckning för 1 May 2015 från MacFormat

Apple has once again wowed us all with its latest announcements. The all-new MacBook is a truly revolutionary Apple notebook, bursting with groundbreaking tech and a form factor we can scarcely believe exists – it’s just 1.31cm tall! We explore this exciting new product on page 8. Of course, the world will be about to get its first taste of an Apple wearable as you read this. The Apple Watch is a brave new world for Apple, and us. It opens up a whole new element to the Apple ecosystem we’ve all invested so much in over the years and we can’t wait to see what direction it takes mobile computing in. We’ve spoken to plenty of in-the-know developers who have set out their visions for the immediate future of…

Force Touch trackpad Available in the MacBook and the updated 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple’s pressure-sensitive Force Touch trackpad introduces a new dimension to Mac’s user interface: it can distinguish between a tap and a click, and it’s able to tell how hard you’re pressing. The trackpad provides haptic feedback and its built-in force sensors mean you can click anywhere to initiate an action. It will perform different actions depending on how much pressure you apply. So, while you might tap lightly to select a file, a harder press (Force click) invokes different actions, such as looking up word definitions or opening a details inspector for calendar events etc. Launched by Apple CEO Tim Cook in March, the new MacBook builds upon years of learning about miniaturisation during iPad and iPhone…

MUSIC Joust & Jostle 99p A teaser track taken from influential punk and post-punk band Wire’s upcoming self-titled 14th album, ‘Joust & Jostle’ is ample proof of the permanent state of self-reinvention that characterises the group, one of the unique and enduring survivors of the original 1970s punk explosion. TV Poldark From £1.89 Following the success of Wolf Hall it’s not especially surprising this new BBC interpretation of the Winston Graham novels is winning hearts and minds with its everyday story of love, passion and Cornwall, plus the great adventure of launching a tin mine during a recession.…

Standard apps Many of the built-in apps we’re familiar with on iPhone and iPad are also available on the Watch. You can check your email, send iMessages, update your calendar, check the weather and control your iPhone’s camera. Health and fitness Watch’s killer apps will relate to health and fitness. Its array of sensors will allow it to track all sorts of data, from how often you stand up to how many calories you burn, and how your heart rate changes. Installing apps Apps are added via an iPhone. You can rearrange them by tapping and holding an icon and then dragging them into position, just like you would on your iPhone. Good vibrations Watch vibrates at different speeds and varying intensity, so the vibrations can be used to send…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.8 or later, Hazel 3 Most of us know two facts about housekeeping; it’s necessary and it’s incredibly dull. We know that clearing files and folders from the desktop, emptying caches, archiving documents and sorting out iTunes is important to keep our Macs running smoothly. But, frankly, who has the time, or come to think of it the inclination, to spend hours weeding out files and then filing, trashing or renaming them? For some, of course, this isn’t an issue. If you’re a whizz with AppleScript, or love creating new Automator workflows, you can automate much of the process and let it run by itself without ever having to worry about it again. Most of…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.10, an email account configured in Mail, an iCloud account Mail in OS X has always been a sleek, uncluttered email client compared to many alternatives, and features Apple adds tend to be really useful. Often they’re things you hadn’t even realised you needed. Markup in OS X Yosemite’s version of Mail is handy for making notes or highlighting areas on an attached image or PDF without having to open it first in another app, such as Preview. Say you want to attach a photograph and point out a person, or add some text notes. It’s easier to do with Markup than by writing lengthy explanations in a message. Annotating things with Markup is easier…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.10 (Mac), iOS 8 (iPhone) The Voice Memos app is one of the unsung heroes of iOS. It’s incredibly useful for making notes while you’re out and about without having to tap them into the Notes app. It is also the go-to app if you want to make an audio recording of a meeting. Once you’ve made a recording, it’s stored in the app and can be played back, edited or deleted. But what if you want to use it somewhere else? Say, on your Mac for example. You’ll need to get the memo off your iPhone. There are a number of options for achieving this, including syncing with iTunes. Many of us, however, prefer…

Bracknell Forest MUG, Bracknell, Berks bfmugoffice@gmail.com bfmug.org Bristol and Bath MUG robert@bbmug.co.uk bbmug.co.uk ClubMac Ireland, Dublin paul@cotsmug.org cotsmug.org Cork University College, Cork d.murphy@cs.ucc.ie ucc.ie/mug Cotswold MUG paul@cotsmug.org cotsmug.org Cumbria Mac Enthusiasts, Barrow-in-Furness contact@macenthusiasts.co.uk macenthusiasts.co.uk Edinburgh MUG, Edinburgh Twitter: @edmug edmug.org.uk Exeter MUG, Exeter examug@mac.com examug.org.uk, Twitter: @examug London MUG, London secretary@lmug.org lmug.org.uk, @londonmacgroup Facebook: facebook.com/groups/35108081221 Midlands MUG, Birmingham mmug.org.uk OxMUG, Oxford oxmug.org South Essex MUG, Wickford, Essex seal-apple.co.uk Suffolk Mac User Group, Ipswich mikekwasniak@me.com suffolkmacusergroup.co.uk Sussex MUG adamfield@gmail.com sussexmug.org Three Counties MUG Luton, Bedfordshire chris@3cmug.org.uk 3cmug.co.uk Wessex MUGs Fareham, Dorchester, Bournemouth & Salisbury info@wamug.org.uk wamug.org.uk…

The other day, I was erasing the hard disk of an old iMac, prior to selling it. It has a blown graphics card, so it doesn’t boot anymore. I was selling it for parts (even a dead iMac is still worth about £70 to £80 for its screen) so I wasn’t planning to reinstall OS X. I just wanted to take my data off the disk first. So I connected it with a FireWire cable to a Mac mini, booted it in Target Disk Mode, and then used Disk Utility to perform the minimum, one-pass secure erase to overwrite it with zeros. While that was running, a friend popped round for coffee and asked what I was doing. He sucked through his teeth when I explained. “One pass isn’t going…

The App Store is often described as the Wild West of software: oft-uncharted territory where hardy pioneers battle it out in a stern, frequently brutal survival of the fittest. In recent years, though, corners of the App Store have become murkier and without any semblance of honour, akin to a bootlegger’s paradise. Rather than striving for innovation and quality, certain developers instead resort to outright trickery, stealing icons, names, artwork, App Store descriptions and even the codebase of entire apps or games, and then try to make a fast buck selling the results to unsuspecting iPhone and iPad owners. Clone wars A commonplace tactic is to essentially rip off a popular app or game, and use a similar name, aiming to confuse people searching the App Store for specific terms.…

£130 Manufacturer Netatmo, netatmo.com Connectivity Wi-Fi Display e-ink Compatible with gas, oil and wood boilers Netatmo joins the growing band of learning thermostats from the likes of British Gas (with Hive), Honeywell and Googleowned Nest. All play nicely with iOS devices and enable you to remotely change your home temperature as well as set up heating programmes and tell it when you’re away or want frost protection on. You can also view graphs of your home temperature over time so that you can see when you should be trying to cut down on energy use – perhaps your home is unnecessarily warm during the day, for example. As with similar devices, there are several parts to the Netatmo package – a relay that goes next to and attaches to your…

$99 (around £65) Developer Prosoft Engineering, prosofteng.com Requires OS X 10.7.5 or higher, Core 2 Duo or better, second hard drive This heavyweight tool has long offered one of the best shots at recovering data. It’s capable of reading and copying data from physically failing drives as well as recovering lost or deleted files. So long as the drive is visible to OS X, Data Rescue can probably help. Version 4’s main new feature is BootWell. This requires a USB flash drive – you can supply your own or buy one pre-built for $15 (around £10) plus shipping – and works outside of OS X to recover data from your main drive. It also implements NTFS support for recovering data from BootCamp drives and makes fewer demands on your Mac,…

£2.99 Developer: Gianluca Troiano, thefoxsoftware.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0.7 Eschewing the realism preferred by modern footie games, Active Soccer 2 resembles classic overhead fare like Sensible Soccer and Kick Off 2. As such, matches are fast-paced, almost akin to pinball at times. Despite not looking realistic, they still feel close to how you imagine high-octane matches to be. The controls can be a touch flaky (although they’re rock solid with an MFi game controller) and the game itself is raw, but there’s tons of depth, including championships and full seasons. Starting at the bottom is tough, given that your team’s best strikers won’t be able to hit a barn door that’s right in front of them, but the game rewards perseverance. Play as Chelsea on ‘easy’…

The big surprise at the Apple Watch reveal was ResearchKit, an open-source software framework that turns your iPhone into a diagnostic tool for medical and health research. Jeff Williams, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations, said: “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before”. The software makes it easier to recruit research subjects, improving the quality of data by enabling 24/7 data collection and sharing. Apple worked with several reputable medical research teams in the development of ResearchKit, which ships this month. There are five initial apps: mPower from the University of Rochester, Xuanwu Hospital at Capital Medical University and Sage Bionetworks looks into Parkinsons Disease; Diabetes app GlucoSuccess comes from Massachusetts General Hospital; Heart Disease research is…

£22.99 Developer NeverCenter, nevercenter.com Requires OS X 10.6.6 or higher, 64-bit Mac CameraBag 2 is the Mac app you need if you want to get more from your photos. Elegant and easy to use, this award-winning non-destructive image editor is packed with features and tools. Developer Never-center built proprietary technology to edit images in 32-bit at, it’s claimed, “blazing speeds”. The software lets you perform image editing actions you don’t often find in other photographic tools, such as layering multiple tone curves. CameraBag’s tile-based workflow lets you immediately see what adjustments you’ve applied at any point. New in this release are the Gamma Curve tool to help you precisely control brightness levels and a Filtered B+W tool that helps find the perfect tone balance for your black and white images. The…

Steve Jobs recruited John Sculley from Pepsi with a line that would become famous: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” During the Apple Watch event, Tim Cook sold sugar water, announcing a deal with Coca-Cola to make more than 100,000 vending machines Apple Pay compatible – but the irony wasn’t lost on internet wits. And then he announced plans to change the world. I don’t mean that in the usual way. We’re not talking about a slightly thinner laptop or a slightly bigger smartphone. We’re talking about reducing human suffering. When Apple announced ResearchKit, it gave medical research a major shot in the arm. Within hours of the announcement, a Stanford…

The first wearable gadget from Apple beams messages, Facebook updates and simplified apps to our wrists, eliminating the all-too-common need to take out our Apple devices to constantly check notifications. The Watch and the iPhone are intimately connected and should be considered as one system together. There are more than a dozen ways to interact with the Watch, from receiving glanceable notifications, to feeling ‘taptic’ feedback, to summoning Siri, according to the WatchKit documentation for developers. It’s becoming inconvenient to pocket the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and even bigger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus in your jeans, or to always stow the thin, but tall 9.7-inch iPad Air 2 in a bag, so the Watch is designed to be your ‘always on’ notification friend. Is that phone call from a telemarketer not…

Var CyClip TBC (under $50 – about £34) thecyclip.com Apple has always pushed the Watch’s active credentials, and the Var CyClip is the perfect way to get out and about with your new timepiece – simply snap it to your bike and fire up your fitness app of choice. It’s due to become available in June and should sell for under $50, say its designers. Pad & Quill Roll Up Kit $50 (about £34) padandquill.com If you don’t need heavy duty protection but still want to carry your Apple Watch extras in style, smart pouch could be perfect. It’s made from full-grain leather and has space to store an additional strap and Pad & Quill’s equally elegant Watch charger. Netatmo Welcome £169 netatmo.com Though it isn’t a dedicated Watch accessory,…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE Depends on the duration, quality and destination YOU’ll NEED Final Cut Pro X 10.1, a completed project When your video has been cut, tidied up and embellished with titles and effects, you can publish it directly to a variety of social networks direct from Final Cut Pro – there’s no need to export the movie to a file first. Final Cut can share to YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo, with extra quality settings that iMovie lacks. If those still lack the flexibility you need, you can export a Master File to process in another app that offers greater control of its output, such as Apple’s Compressor (£34.99 / $49.99 from the Mac App Store) or Hand Brake. Final Cut can export any…

SKILL LEVEL Could be tricky IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.10 There was a time when all computers were controlled using a command line – you typed in strings of characters to make your machine do something. The Mac’s graphical interface superseded this way of working (for good reason), but in fact the command line lives on as a way the technically minded can often perform certain tasks more quickly than with a graphical interface; it’s also frequently a means by which to activate ‘hidden’ settings that Apple has decided not to enable general access to. In other words, it’s about control. Terminal can be found in Utilities within the Applications folder; open it and you see a text-based prompt. At this point, it’s not obvious…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU’ll NEED iPhone, Fantastical, events in your Calendar app While iOS comes with a perfectly usable Calendar app, there are some more powerful alternatives. One of our favourites is Fantastical (£3.99) an app that sits alongside Calendars and Reminders on your iPhone offering a huge range of additional features. The most impressive thing about Fantastical is the ‘parser’ which enables you to create events and reminders using natural language. Rather than writing ‘Meeting’, and setting the location and time manually, you can write: “Meeting in Starbucks at 2pm on Monday” to create an event with those details. This alone is worth the asking price, but there are a lot of other great features in Fantastical. It integrates with your…

There are still plenty of little tricks in Yosemite that most people haven’t yet discovered. How many of these did you know about already? 1 When a Spotlight search includes folders in the results, you can highlight one of the folders with the cursor keys and then press to jump to the list of files and folders inside it. Hit to jump back to the main list of search results. 2 You can create repeating reminders in Calendar with just about any interval – the third Saturday of the month, say, or ‘every four years on the last weekend day of March and October’. Click ‘repeat’ on a new event and choose Custom. 3 iTunes shows an album art as a thumbnail at the top of its window, next to…

It’s one thing when fairly generic games get ripped off, but when you’ve worked on something unique, like minimalist live calligraphy puzzler Blek, you might feel a bit miffed – especially when the clone is literally called Cloned Blek. “I don’t recall my first reaction, but I probably laughed, because it is actually funny… kind of…”, mulls Blek creator Denis Mikan. “But all Blek clones so far have been comparatively awful, and we do get emails and complaints from people who’ve played one and apparently somehow think we are responsible for the fact they bought the wrong game”. Mikan says while he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about app fakers, he’s “ready to take legal action if necessary”, and he has reported rip-offs to Apple: “Cloned Blek’s name…

£170 Manufacturer Withings, withings.com Features 5-megapixel CMOS sensor, 1080p HD video camera, night vision, 135° viewing angle, 2W two-way speaker Networking Ethernet, Wi-Fi The connected home is coming of age and affordable home surveillance systems are becoming much more than a plasticky webcam stuck on a shelf somewhere. Withings knows about style and this HD camera with builtin air monitoring has an excellent build quality and looks that suit modern or period homes. The cylindrical camera is covered in a lightly toned wood cladding and it can be twisted to hide away the lens when idle. At the bottom is the colour-changing light which acts as a night light for a nursery or ambient glow for any room. The camera then sits on a magnetic dish, which enables you to…

£149 Manufacturer Røde Microphones, rode.com 4 The iPhone mic isn’t great for podcasts, reporting or video projects. This stereo microphone from Røde, which connects to your phone via the Lightning connector (a 30-pin version is available too) offers a huge improvement in recording quality. The half-inch cardioid condenser mics are fixed 90º apart to dampen background noise, and the iXY can record at rates up to studio-quality 24-bit/96kHz. It’s expensive, but Røde has thought it through down to the pyramid-shaped carrying case – the quality and level of thought is almost Apple-like. A smart and solid, if pricey, portable microphone that equals a stand-alone audio recorder in so many ways.…

As you’d expect, these speakers all include a 3.5mm audio socket for connecting to your Mac and – with one exception – they include Bluetooth so you can stream music from your iPhone or iPad. Audioengine is the odd man out here, as its A2+ speakers lack Bluetooth (although they offer an optional wireless adapter instead). The A2+ also includes a connector for a subwoofer, as well as USB audio input, which some people may prefer over the 3.5mm line-in. However, the winner in terms of its range of features is Roth’s OLi POWA-5. Tucked around the back of the left-hand speaker you’ll find an additional RCA stereo connector, two digital inputs for use with a TV or set-top box, and a connector for an optional sub-woofer. It even includes…

Roth’s OLi POWA-5 speakers look big and bulky even sitting alongside a 27-inch iMac, but as soon as we heard them it was obvious they were in a class of their own. With a rich, detailed sound and firm bass, the OLi POWA-5 brings hi-fi quality to your desktop for just over £200. They handled all genres with equal aplomb, and their 80W output will really get things going when they need to. They’re packed with useful features too. There are multiple digital and analogue inputs for use with devices such as a set-top TV box, and as well as providing Bluetooth streaming for mobile devices they even allow you to plug in and charge your iPhone. They can’t charge an iPad, unfortunately – but no one’s perfect… FINAL RESULTS…

£3.99 Developer Crescent Moon Games, crescentmoongames.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 2.2 The year is 2375, the place is a planet far, far away, and your mission is to take down a corrupt government. That means trekking through vast 3D space deserts, infiltrating space bases and shooting down space beasts, but also riding around on hoverbikes and controlling mechs. If that sounds great, it’s a shame that, whether following the main story or veering away, there’s so little to do or find. There’s always a giant worm or two to shoot, but side missions are few and far between. The controls are too fiddly for combat precision, but at least it’s easy to beef up stats so you can stand and shoot from afar. There are several weapons…

£11.99 Developer Rahul Dewan, duetdisplay.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0.0 A second screen can be handy while mobile, either for monitoring your email at a busy time, or for extra tools in productivity or creative apps. This is where Duet Display comes in, letting you use an iPad as a wired extra monitor. The requirements are simple: a Mac that can run OS X 10.9 or higher, and any iOS device that can run iOS 7 or higher (though an iPad is best). Grab the free utility from Duetdisplay.com and install it on your Mac, buy the app on your iPad, connect the devices, launch both apps and you’re ready to go, your iPad charging from your laptop as you work. There’s effectively no display lag, as…

SPOTLIGHT The Apple kit we’re most excited about The Watch is the first new category of Apple product in the post-Jobs Apple structure. Tim Cook loves to diversify Apple’s offering and nothing signifies it more than Apple’s first wearable. We can’t wait to test it long-term, and, for once, the MacFormat team all want different ones! That couldn’t be said of most of the other Apple products. The Watch won’t be for all but it’s sure to become indespensible for many iPhone lovers. Fashionable band To appeal to the widest possible audience, Apple Watch comes in sporty, casual and bling editions! If serious jewellery is your thing then Apple offers that now too Apple Watch DAYS SINCE REFRESH 0 UPDATE LIKELY? Not until 2016 BUY OR WAIT? Buy now Apple…

Tim Cook www.apple.com “Steve felt that most people… think they can’t influence or change things a lot. I think he would probably call that a limited life.” Apple CEO talks Jobs Eddy Cue www.apple.com “Not a reflection of the Steve I knew.” Apple’s iTunes chief slams ‘Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine’ documentary Steve Wozniak www.woz.org “Computers are going to take over from humans.” Apple co-founder predicts the future Jony Ive www.apple.com “I see design as a way you look at the world and a thought process.” Inside the head of the Apple design chief Jean-Claude Biver www.tagheuer.co.uk “Apple will get young people used to wearing a watch and later maybe they will want to buy themselves a real watch.” TAG Heuer CEO’s view on Apple Watch…

FILM Boyhood £13.99 A coming of age movie filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Boyhood follows a boy, his sister and their single mum, capturing the life and experiences of a child until he reaches 18. PODCAST Comedians Telling Stuff Free Sofie Hagen’s ‘anecdotal comedy podcast’ in which six comedians are asked about the most revealing or humiliating moments of their professional lives. Hilarious, humiliating, engaging and fun for the ears.…

Apple is once again set to refine, or simply ‘define’, a new market. Wearable tech might have been a buzzword for the last 18 months but we all know that it truly meant very little until Apple entered the market. When we got the teaser back in October 2014 our appetites were whetted, but it’s finally time to get the new device that will complete the modern Apple ecosystem. Unlike phones, though, we’re all pretty much new to wearables, so why is the Watch the ‘one more thing’ Apple thinks we need in our lives. We’re so used to packing bags with a MacBook, iPhone and iPad that the thought of yet another device to remember fills some with dread. There is such a thing as overkill, especially if they…

The Apple Watch app (installed with iOS 8.2 on iPhone 5 and newer) allows you to pair and sync your Watch with the iPhone and to customise some basic settings. When you open it, you’re greeted by an introductory screen which prompts you to pair your Watch with your iPhone. Tapping ‘Start Pairing’ takes you to a screen where you can use the iPhone’s camera to pair the phone with an Apple Watch. You need to hold the Watch up to the camera and align its display with the viewfinder to pair the devices. There’s also an option to pair manually, which takes you to a more traditional list of devices for you to identify your Apple Watch. To find out your Watch’s name, you tap on the ‘i’ icon…

The great thing about Apple’s iWork suite of applications – Pages, Numbers and Keynote – isn’t just that most of us have them (sometimes for free!) on our Macs, iPhones and iPads, but that they’re really easy to get started with. Yet that same ease with which you can quickly throw together a document, use one of the built-in templates to create a beautiful presentation, or track some household expenses might mean you don’t dig further into the iWork apps to discover just how much more you can get out of them. As always, MacFormat is here to help! Over the next few pages, we’re going to uncover some of the tips, tricks and techniques that true iWork masters know and use daily to produce more beautiful and useful documents…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 30-60 minutes YOU’ll NEED Internal OS X and router settings, web browser, Self-Control, Noizio, Coffitivity, Typed It’s all too easy to sit down to work and find yourself still browsing Facebook, Twitter, the BBC or Wikipedia 30 minutes later. Permanent online connections are great for research and streaming, but they also represent terrible temptation. We’d never claim manual typewriters represent some kind of golden age, but there were fewer distractions when all you had to look at was ribbon and paper. Indie developers ape these simpler days with distraction-free word processors such as Typed, Writer and Byword, which take you back to basics. Having fewer buttons and toolbars – the idea goes – means you should do less fiddling and more…

SKILL LEVEL Could be tricky IT WILL TAKE About an hour YOU’ll NEED An iOS device, a Mac with Bluetooth LE, Pushbullet for OS X and iOS Notification Centre lets apps tell you when things happen. iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite are smart enough that when you dismiss a notification that appears on more than one of your devices, it disappears from the others. However, it falls short in that you might need to keep checking each of your devices to stay informed. Pushbullet gathers notifications from all of your Apple devices to Notification Centre on your Mac. When you dismiss a notification on your Mac that originated on iOS, it will vanish from the mobile device too. Pushbullet is especially good news if you use iOS-only software, such…

Welcome... There’s always plenty to say about Apple, whether it’s good or bad. And we’d particularly love to hear what you think! Write to us at letters@macformat.com and remember, the Star Letter wins a prize! GET INVOLVED Apple Mail 60 Photo Stream 62 Mac User Groups 63 Me and My Mac 64 Win Elgato kit 65 Ask the Experts 67 JOIN US ONLINE Email your questions to letters@macformat.com Visit macformat.com for more great Mac news Join the conversation with our Facebook page Keep up to date by following us on Twitter at @MacFormat Are you on App.net? So are we! We’re @MacFormat there too Subscribe to our videos at youtube.com/MacFormatUK STAR LETTERS Watch this space I am really bored with Apple Watch already. Talk about ramming it down your throat!…

GET IN TOUCH If you have a technical issue that you need help with, please email us at sos@macformat.com Locked out of my iCloud account Q I have a late 2006 iMac running OS X 10.7.5. Its only issue is that my iCloud mail account will not set up on it any more. Setting it up in Mail reports ‘iCloud IMAP server “p03-imap.mail. me.com” is not responding’. If I turn on Mail & Notes in iCloud’s settings, it soon unchecks itself. The iMac is fine with my other email accounts, and the iCloud account works on other Macs, iPads and iPhones. Dom Hurley A First try signing out of iCloud in its System Preferences pane and then sign in again. If that doesn’t fix things, make sure you don’t have…

GET IN TOUCH If you have a technical query with your iOS device that you need answering, please email us at sos@maformat.com Culling unwanted iPad apps Q I have hundreds of apps on my iPad 2 – you know, you try, you don't like, and that builds up the quantity. How can I get rid of all the apps I don’t use? Gerry Vessem A There are two ways. You can tap and hold on any icon on the Home screen until they all start to jiggle. All downloaded apps will have a little ‘X’ at the top-left. Tap this to uninstall the app and its data. Or, with your iPad connected to your Mac, click the iPad icon at the top-left of iTunes. Select Apps from the left sidebar…

Clear, by Realmac Software (realmacsoftware.com), is a highly regarded to-do manager with a decidedly minimalist bent. Its emphasis on flat colours and gestural controls is now what you’d expect from an iOS app, but upon its release, most iPhone apps remained heavily textured. Naturally, Clear’s pioneering nature didn’t go unnoticed by App Store fakers, as Realmac’s Product Manager, Nik Fletcher, reveals. MacFormat: Do you recall when Clear was first cloned? Fletcher: We announced Clear in January 2012 at the Macworld/iWorld Expo in San Francisco, with a trailer video and hands-on demos, then submitted the app in early February. A few days before we launched, a clone arrived on the App Store ahead of us. The confusion was substantial, particularly on Twitter, and it was frustrating to see a poor imitation…

Handbrake video encoding test We use this free video conversion software to transcode a 30-minute video file of quality comparable to a Blu-ray movie to the H.264 format, for playback on Apple devices, using a built-in preset. A lower time to completion is better. Batman: Arkham City running at 1080p This test assesses a Mac’s graphics processor by running the built-in frame rate test in a recent videogame, with the resolution set to 1920x1080. A higher score is better. Battery life test With the MacBook using a Wi-Fi connection to get online, we continuously stream content from BBC iPlayer until a MacBook’s battery is depleted. The display’s brightness is set to 50%. Higher values are better.…

£550 Manufacturer Acer, acer.co.uk Display 27-inch, anti-glare IPS panel Resolution 3840x2160 Connectivity 1x HDMI 2.0, 2x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x DVI, 1x 3.5mm audio It’s not the cheapest 4K monitor out there, but Acer’s new S277HK provides excellent image quality and an attractive, slimline design. The 27-inch display has a very Mac-like design with a smart aluminium frame and brushed-metal finish. The screen panel measures just 20mm thick and is noticeably more compact than the 27-inch screen of the iMac or Apple’s Thunderbolt Display. Apple’s displays still have a chunky 25mm border around the edge of the screen, but the design of the S277HK shrinks that down to a barely noticeable 6mm, so the Mac desktop almost fills the entire screen area. The design isn’t flawless, though. The monitor sits quite…

£299 Manufacturer Bang & Olufsen, bang-olufsen.com Dimensions 4.4x14.2x25.6cm Weight 1.1kg Connectivity Bluetooth 4, aux-in This is a really expensive portable Bluetooth speaker. Three hundred pounds is a lot to spend on something that probably isn’t even your main sound system, but this isn’t like vanity headphones – the BeoPlay A2 sounds just phenomenal for its size. Despite being less than two inches thick, it’s perfectly capable of filling a room with music. There’s a speaker on each of its large, flat sides, meaning its designed to blast audio in all directions, giving a lovely open sound. Stick it in the centre of a group when you’re sitting around outside, or on the table in the middle of a room, and everyone gets the same great sound. It’s thin and stands…

Portable speakers are designed for mobile devices, and there are times when only a proper set of 2.0 stereo speakers will do for plugging into your Mac, particularly if its a Mac mini or iMac that stays where it is in your home. Many people use their Mac as their main music system in their house, so a good set of 2.0 speakers (with two separate satellite speakers for the left and right channels) will really make the most of your music, whatever its format. There are plenty of other more creative uses for desktop speakers as well. They’re essential for recording music, of course, as well as for videoediting, and even a standard PowerPoint presentation will benefit from a decent set of speakers. A 2.0 speaker system has a…

Some of the 2.0 speaker systems reviewed here include connectors that allow you to add a subwoofer, but it’s not always practical to set up a bulky sub-woofer in a bedroom or office. However, there are other ways of adding an extra bass boost to a conventional 2.0 system. Less expensive speakers, such as the Creative T30 Wireless may use a ‘bass port’ – a cavity built into the body of the speaker that acts as a kind of echo chamber and adds a little extra bass rumble to the sound. The other option, favoured by more expensive speakers rivals such as Harman’s Nova, is called a ‘passive radiator’. This is a simplified driver unit that has no built-in electronics of its own, but which vibrates in response to the…

$49 standalone, $25 upgrade (approx £33.50/£17) Developer Rogue Amoeba Software, rogueamoeba.com Requires OS X 10.9 or higher Thanks to the software gurus at Rogue Amoeba, fears that your Mac might not actually be recording that important interview or musical session are now a thing of the past. Once a clunky app, Audio Hijack has been completely rebuilt in version 3 to make it stupidly easy to record every sound your Mac makes, or only those from specific applications and devices. This core functionality existed in previous versions, but often with some degree of mystery as to what the final recording would sound like after fiddling with various menus and settings. That’s no longer the case: gone are those archaic controls, replaced by templates used to set up recording sessions for…

£3.99 Developer iLove App Studio, ilovemacapp.com Requires OS X 10.6 or higher If we’re being charitable, then iLove Drag Dock pays homage to the brilliant Yoink (as opposed to being an outright rip-off ). Yoink – reviewed back in MF284 – makes it easy and convenient to shuttle files, folders and selected app content between destinations via a discreet tray. It’s packed with tweakable options and works brilliantly. In contrast, iLove Drag Dock offers only a tiny subset of Yoink’s features: you can only transfer files and folders, identifying marks – if you’re lucky – are restricted to a file type or folder icon, and you have to hover your mouse over an entry just to identify it by name. You can at least pin items to keep them in…

£3.99 Developer Shiro Games, shirogames.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.2.12 Evoland is a retro-inspired journey through the history of gaming. With nods to cherished classics such as Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda, it’s a novel idea with a compelling story and some gorgeous graphics. Progress is rewarded with gradually upgraded visuals and new abilities that mirror video game development, all accompanied by humorous (if somewhat sarcastic) comments on your newfound powers. It’s an intriguing concept, ultimately let down by clumsy controls that border on the frustrating. And while recreating the worlds of yesteryear has its charm, there are some ghosts of gaming past we’d rather weren’t revived (such as constant random encounters). With a few minor tweaks, Evoland could have stolen our hearts, and we wish…

£14.99 Developer The Soulmen, ulyssesapp.com Works with iPad Version 2.0 If you’ve used Ulysses for Mac, you’ll feel right at home on the iPad, as the three-column interface is the same. The two platforms sync via iCloud, so it’s easy to start a document on your Mac and finish it later on the iPad. Even on an iPad mini there’s plenty of room to work, as the file-management columns slide away to devote the whole of the screen to your typing. The keyboard takes on an extra row of buttons, too, to handle tabs and cursor movement, undo and so on. If you’re not au fait with Markdown you can insert elements such as images and videos from popup menus and have them convert to HTML on export. When you’ve…