Innehållsförteckning för Mar-13 från MacLife

The Hottest Articles on MacLife.com The 25 Best Free iPhone Games Free games seem to multiply each time we load up the App Store. Luckily, there are plenty that offer entertaining gameplay and aren’t lite versions. http://bit.ly/ML_BestFreeiPhoneGames The Best Mac Games of 2012 There’s never been a better time to be a Mac gamer, and if you’re looking to catch up on last year’s best releases, we have 10 sizzling experiences ready to captivate. http://bit.ly/ML_BestMacGames2012 Giant iPhone 4 Commemorates Steve Jobs in St. Petersburg, Russia A six-foot-tall statue, sculpted by designer Gleb Tarasov, displays photos and videos as a tribute to the Apple co-founder’s life. http://bit.ly/ML_GiantRussianiPhone BitMonster Releases (THRED), an iOS Game with a Cause This free-to-play game uses in-app purchases to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight…

As soon as I stepped off the plane in Las Vegas for the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, I felt that little tickle. No, not my money attempting to leap out of my pockets every time I passed a slot machine; the tickle was in my throat. Dear Reader, I got sick. I got utterly flattened by the nerd flu. Everything after that was a daze of swirling carpets and crystal-encrusted iPhone cases, of which I saw about 2 billion. But sprinkled among the huge booths of cases I stumbled across some cool things; technologies and gadgets (and, yes, iPhone cases) that were a breath of fresh air, a cool washcloth on the forehead, the fresh side of the pillow during a fever dream. Including some really cool things that…

Carbon’s public image has been taking quite a beating recently, what with global warming, ocean acidification, melting arctic ice, sea-level rise, überdestructive weather events, and all that “end of the world as we know it” jazz. But cut that tetravalent non-metal element some slack. Besides being the basis of all life on Earth, good ol’ atomic number 6 may also help microprocessor designers crash through the brick wall toward which they’re rapidly hurtling. But first, a word or two about that brick wall. In a brief but celebrated paper published in 1965 (http://reg.cx/1ZmF), Intel cofounder Gordon Moore made the visionary prediction that the number of transistors that could be crammed onto the same size area of a chip would roughly double every two years or so. Although Moore pushed his…

Business before pleasure? Hardly. Apple has been delivering both for years now, and the way we see it, the company is perfectly positioned to continue that trend. Time and time again, Apple has proven its ability to change our lives with devices such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, often perfecting existing ideas or filling voids that nobody else realized existed. But given the secretive nature of the crew in Cupertino, Apple fans and analysts alike constantly find themselves wondering: how will they follow it up? What’s the Next Big Thing? We admit that we’re no different, and it’s all too easy to let our imaginations run wild about the type of mouth-watering tech that Apple will unveil next. We’re not talking about an iPhone 5S, a beefier iPad Mini,…

Steve Jobs believed in a simple fact: everything around you “was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that people can use.” Jobs definitely practiced what he preached. While all the other technology firms were churning out products with all the wow factor of a tumble dryer, Apple set out to change the world with innovative computers and gadgets, again and again and again. As we’ll discover, Apple products have revolutionized the way we work and play and listen to music. It has transformed entire industries, created new kinds of computing, and done some truly frightening things to bridges. Read on and be inspired. THE APPLE-1 “No more switches, no more lights”…

SUSIE Pocket Planes When former editor Nic Vargus was obsessed with Tiny Tower, I steered clear. But then I got hooked on Pocket Planes (free, universal) by the same developer. Now I’m running an airline across three continents, delivering blocky 8-bit people and cargo, and raking in pretend dough. I can’t put it down. MIKE Mr. Driller Mr. Driller ($0.99, iPhone) is a deceptively simple arcade puzzler. At first it seems like you’re just digging down through colored blocks, but the real challenge is in clearing the unstable levels by matching falling blocks by color. It’s tough, but endlessly addictive. ANDREW You Don’t Know Jack Forget the earlier single-player version. Like the beloved old computer versions, You Don’t Know Jack (free, universal) is best enjoyed with opponents, and this fresh…

The most thorough and well-thought-out camera app I’ve used to date on the iPhone, KitCam includes more than 60 different lenses, films, and frames to enhance your photos. The difference from many comparable apps is that accessing such features doesn’t pull you away from the actual picture-taking process, as everything is conveniently overlaid upon the same screen. You can even use the app’s bag of tricks to enhance your existing library shots. KitCam is all about showing the user exactly what they’ll get before they snap a photo, using live previews, face detection, and onscreen composition guides to help shoot like a pro, with full control over the end result. The bottom line. Until Apple allows its default apps to be replaced, KitCam is the closest users are likely to…

While still a thinly veiled “homage” to the Call of Duty first-person shooter series, Modern Combat improves its formula in small but meaningful ways with Zero Hour. The single-player campaign delivers more variety, with on-foot moments alternating with airborne and ground drone vehicle segments. The dialogue grates and the story is forgettable, but this action-packed bash through scads of terrorists is a step up for the series. Online multiplayer is once again the star, with remarkably enjoyable 12-player deathmatch battles and team objective–based modes. Be warned, however, that the game runs at a non-Retina resolution on older devices—even the 3rd-gen iPad. The bottom line. What Modern Combat 4 lacks in originality it makes up for with excellent online play and a solid campaign. MODERN COMBAT 4: ZERO HOUR 1.0.0 Gameloft…

Your TV is probably augmented by an ever-growing collection of boxes that plug into it—and you have a remote for every one. Remembering what setting everything has to be on can be frustrating. Enter Harmony Touch. Tell it what devices you have, and assign them to Activities, such as “Watch a Blu-ray.” Tapping an activity switches the relevant gear on and selects the correct channels. It knows all this because you spent time setting it up on your Mac beforehand. Still, it’s something you probably only do once. You can associate up to 15 devices (from a list of over 225,000), but for a PlayStation 3 you have to buy a $59.99 adapter. It’s pleasant to use. The stone-like surface on the rear divided opinion, and the touchscreen is a…

Text editors. To some people, they can be as exciting as they sound, as in “not very.” But for writers, editors, software developers, web designers, bloggers, and anyone else who deals with large quantities of text or code, a great text editor is probably the most-used application on their Mac. FoldingText is a brand-new text editor from Hog Bay Software, maker of WriteRoom and TaskPaper. FoldingText uses a tweaked subset of Markdown, a simple set of codes for formatting text. Single asterisks surrounding text will italicize it, for example, while double asterisks create bold formatting. But the most useful feature of FoldingText is the actual folding. Starting a line with a # creates a section heading. Sections can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on the hash mark, easing document…

With Evernote 5.0, it feels like the note-taking service that spans web, desktop, and mobile has come of age—on the Mac at least. The redesigned user interface and the dozens of genuinely useful new features all build on a solid base to deliver a much better note-taking experience. At its heart, Evernote remains what it has always been: a tool for quickly jotting down notes, with options for filing in notebooks and adding tags to link together related notes from different books. What version 5 does is present this in a much more efficient and friendly manner, illustrated perfectly by the new sidebar, which provides fast access to different areas of the program, as well as pinned favorites—whether notes, notebooks, or tags—and recently accessed notes. There are also new views,…

Last May, I gave four stars to Nokia’s Lumia 900, which Mac|Life hailed as “an attractive, Macfriendly alternative we’d easily recommend over any Android handset.” The same can be said of the Lumia 920, a superior sequel released only eight months later, which also makes an ideal choice for those suffering from iFatigue. Powered by a Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM, the Nokia Lumia 920 is better than the Lumia 900 in every way. Its 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display packs 1280x768 pixels (332ppi) under Corning Gorilla Glass. Compared to the iPhone 5, the Lumia 920 is thicker (10.7mm vs. 7.6mm), slightly taller (130.3mm vs. 123.8mm) and wider (70.8mm vs. 58.6mm). At 185 grams, it’s also significantly heavier than the 112-gram the iPhone 5, which seems shockingly light…

ScreenFlow is hands-down the best application for recording a “screencast,” or a video of your Mac’s desktop. Pretty much all you have to do is hit Record and go for it. And now with version 4, developer Telestream has filled ScreenFlow with new features that make it even better. None of the additions affect ScreenFlow’s recording ability: the resulting videos are smooth and stutter-free, as always. The changes are nearly all in the editing section, making it more attractive and powerful so that you won’t want to edit your footage in another app. A large timecode now graces the editing interface, making frame-accurate cuts a breeze. Further, as you resize clips, a floating menu lets you clearly see how many frames you’re altering it by. The same applies when moving…

When Gearbox released Borderlands in 2009, the studio managed to simultaneously combine the shooter and role-playing genres while creating one of the most enjoyable cooperative-play experiences ever devised. Borderlands 2 doesn’t rewrite the book—really, the changes are somewhat minor—but when a formula works, sometimes a follow-up only requires just enough in the way of improvements and an expanded story to bring fans back into the fold. Returning to the junkyard-western planet of Pandora, Borderlands 2 introduces four new playable characters, offering slight variations and improvements from its predecessor’s original slate of Vault Hunters. The Siren returns, albeit with some new abilities, while the Commando is a more streamlined turret specialist, the Gunzerker is a little dude with amazing gun prowess, and the Assassin can prove deadly with a sword or…

GETTING THE iMESSAGE I have an iPhone 5, and have iMessage turned on; however, when I send a message, sometimes the iMessages are switched over to texts even though I have the “Send as SMS” setting turned off in Messages settings. To avoid your iPhone using SMS when you wish to send an iMessage, you will want to be sure that a few items are set correctly in Settings > Messages. First, you’ll want to check that iMessage is turned on, and confirm that your iCloud account and receiving addresses are correctly set in the “Send & Receive” section. Also, you’ll want to set “Send as SMS” to Off. To ensure that all of your messages are ever sent through the iMessage network, consider sending iMessages only to the email…

Preview is yet another unsung app in OS X. It’s been a constant in the operating system ever since the release of Public Beta in 2000, yet so few people really harness its full power, or even remember what it can do, even on the most basic level. As well as giving you the ability to quickly view PDFs and images, Preview is an excellent editor and can help you resize an image in a matter of seconds. These are the two key features we will focus on in this tutorial. Using Preview negates the need for a somewhat lengthy import, edit, and export procedure in iPhoto, Aperture, or Photoshop. If you simply want to pull images from the SD card port on your Mac, from the web, or from…

A MATTER OF PERCEPTION After having adhered to a fairly consistent cycle of annual updates to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod lines, Apple skipped ahead last November by introducing the fourth-generation iPad just eight months after the previous model. Now, rumors are circulating that yet another round of new iPads may be on the way as early as March. Would this be too much, too soon? And even if the rumors are proven false, what should the ideal amount of time be between hardware updates? Nobody likes to spend hundreds of dollars on something only to have a better version hit stores shortly after. We all know that technology moves at a fast pace and that the product we buy today won’t stay cutting-edge for long, but when it’s replaced…

It’s not like we haven’t been patient with Instagram. When it decided to fling open its doors to anyone with an Android phone, we didn’t freak out. When it was sold to Facebook for a small fortune, we kept an open mind. But the latest gaffe by the once iOS-exclusive photo-sharing service has got us thinking twice about uploading our photos to its servers. After a few days of outrage over changes to its advertising policy—prompting co-founder Kevin Systrom to assure users that he really had no intention of selling their photos to Wendy’s for the next Baconator campaign—even diehard Instagrammer Justin Bieber threatened to turn his back on the social network. It’s hard to tell just how large a dent was made in its sizable universe, but it’s clear…

NIGHT VISIONS Imagine Dragons $9.99 If you haven’t heard of the Las Vegas–based alternative rockers Imagine Dragons, you will soon. Night Visions is their first album, and it’s blowing up everywhere—on the radio, in movie trailers, and in my car, which everyone knows is the final stop before superstardom. The album was mastered for iTunes and enjoys a five-star rating there. Choice tracks include the hook-heavy hit “It’s Time,” the stomping rise-and-revolt “Radioactive,” and the angsty “Demons,” which totally inspired a story I’m writing. Thanks, guys! LOOPER $12.99 SD ($17.99 HD) This is the rare awesome movie that stars the old, bald version of Bruce Willis. It also features rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun who grew up to be Robin, Cobra Commander, and…

Over the last few pages, you’ve seen our top three ideas for where we’d like to see Apple go next, but there’s practically no end to the concepts the company could implement to usher in new ways to work and play. Sure, some might not be especially practical or realistic, but that didn’t stop our imaginations from running out of control. MACFORMERS What’s better than an Apple product? An Apple product that transforms into a robot! Aimed at children of all ages, MacFormers are fully functional Apple devices that transform into highly articulated robotic action figures. There would initially be two models: the heroic iPad (which would feature a new type of LCD screen that could be separated and reconnected without any visible seams) and the evil Mac 512K, who…

Calendar never really grabbed me on the iPhone, and for whatever reason, neither have the non-Apple scheduling and day-planning options that I’ve tried. But when I heard Flexibits’ Fantastical was making the jump to iPhone and iPod touch, even I was intrigued. I had read so much about its much-loved Mac app that I couldn’t resist the urge to try a cheaper, mobile version. It’s easy to see why Fantastical is so revered. Right off the bat, it integrated with the scant entries I had in Calendar, so those with carefully crafted calendars won’t be overwhelmed with a blank slate. The interface isn’t all that different from Apple’s—a split screen shows the current month and the corresponding day’s events—but it’s significantly more polished, with neat rows of floating numbers and…

In the world of console gaming, the Skylanders franchise—spun off from the once-popular Spyro the Dragon series—has been one of the biggest surprises over the last couple of years, enthralling kids and adults alike by letting them collect physical figurines that can be imported into the game using a portal peripheral. Following a couple of digitalonly iOS entries, Skylanders Battlegrounds finally brings a similar experience to iPhone and iPad, though while the toys and process are much the same, the game built around it struggles to captivate. While Skylanders Battlegrounds can be downloaded from the App Store and used on its own, the complete experience comes in a $50 physical box, which includes a Bluetooth-enabled Portal of Power, three character figurines (plus a treasure chest), and a download code for…

Foldify brings papercraft figure creation to the iPad, and while the idea is simple, the way it’s implemented makes this app truly great. Choosing from 10 available shapes, you’ll then see the editable cutout section on the right and a 3D version on the left. As you decorate the shape, the 3D model is updated in real time, making it easy to see how your creation will look once complete. Painting is done with your fingers, and you can zoom in and out to create finer or broader strokes. Once your work is complete, you can print it out via AirPrint or save a PDF to email, as well as upload to the flourishing community. The bottom line. You don’t need to be a designer to have fun with Foldify’s…

Proving the pen is mightier than the sword, combatants in Writer Rumble duel not with fireballs, but letter tiles. Dragging your finger across the grid of letters to spell words creates not only terminology but also projectiles, which are flung at the opponent to cause damage. The longer and more complicated the word, the more powerful the attack. Think Boggle, but more violent. Online wordplay showdowns are the highlight, but games are slow to connect and drop mid-match too often to fully enjoy. Finding players isn’t difficult, but completing a full match is uncommon. Multiplayer is a blast when it works, though; just be prepared to feel that sting of defeat when your opponent counters your “tab” with “desolate.” The bottom line. Despite connection woes, flinging words as a literary…

Bartender is one of those apps that really ought to be a feature of OS X itself. Once you allow software to populate the menu bar with icons, there should be decent means of management, beyond Command clicking to drag the icons around. When you have more than 10 or so apps running up there, your menu bar starts to look crowded, and that’s when you signal for the Bartender. Dispensing with visual clutter is what Bartender is all about. Sure, it’s nice having those app icons at the top of the screen where you can get to them quickly, but what about some lesser-used ones? What about critical information like your battery status that just takes up too much space? Bartender has all that covered. Once installed, Bartender opens…

Whether directly aping a popular franchise or simply picking and choosing elements from top genre entries, Gameloft’s usual M.O. is to deliver a console-like gaming experience on your iPad or iPhone. While folks might groan about its lack of originality, no other company is consistently putting those kinds of resources into glossy shooters, racers, and similarly robust titles. The Duo Gamer lets you take an extra step toward console gaming, as the physical Bluetooth controller and stand let you prop up your iPad, or smaller iOS device, and play compatible Gameloft games much like the better-known titles they resemble. It’s not the most ergonomic game controller I’ve ever used, but it does check all the boxes: dual analog sticks (for first-person shooters), an old-school D-pad (ideal for fighters and side-scrollers),…

Unlike the strictly viewing-only Logitech Alert apps for iOS and Android, the new Logitech Alert Commander for Mac offers complete control over up to six indoor or outdoor Logitech Alert cameras, including digital pan, tilt, and zoom, and digital DVR recording and playback. We tested the software with the Logitech Alert 750e Outdoor Master System, a weatherproof, night-vision-capable single security camera with HD video capture and motion-triggered alerts. The handsome, durable camera was a snap to set up, aside from physically mounting it with the included hardware. The equipment requires no additional wiring beyond plugging a Wi-Fi-enabled adaptor into our network—the rest works through existing AC power lines, which is a nice touch. Getting the camera and software talking to each other was equally effortless: Alert Commander adds any cameras…

Visit www.maclife.com/iphone5cases for the full scoop on these 10, plus every other iPhone 5 case we’ve ever reviewed iLUV DIARY $39.99 GOOD 3.5/5.0 INCIPIO STASHBACK $39.99 EXCELLENT 4.5/5.0 INCIPIO FAXION $34.99 SOLID 3.0/5.0 UNIEA SOFT SUIT FOLIO $34.95 GOOD 3.5/5.0 MOSHI ORIGO $25 EXCELLENT 4.5/5.0 ROKFORM ROKSHIELD V3 $49 GOOD 3.5/5.0 HEX SOLO WALLET $39.95 SOLID 3.0/5.0 MOSHI iGLAZE ARMOUR $39.95 EXCELLENT 4.5/5.0 SPECK SMARTFLEX CARD $34.95 SOLID 3.0/5.0 X-DORIA ENGAGE BAMBOO $34.95 AWESOME 5.0/5.0…

The Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are great computers. Whether you need ultra-high resolution, or ultra-portability, those machines are stunning workhorses. But there’s a trade-off. Both come with fixed flash storage, so you might need to pack an external drive to house all your data. Recent offerings from Western Digital and G-Technology bring signature Mac style to svelte little external drives that are at home on your desk or in your pocket. Western Digital’s My Passport Edge for Mac is a sleek little box, just 4.4 x 3.4 x 0.4 inches. The all metal construction lends a comfortable-feeling heft and durability to the drive, but it still only weighs 5.8 ounces. The rounded-rectangle shape and the color scheme—matte black with silver accents—complements your existing Apple gear. The G-Drive Mobile…

Brash as its title might seem, Awesomenauts pretty well lives up to its confident billing by delivering a stellar side-scrolling take on the surging Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre, in which small teams work together to storm the enemy base while protecting their own. While the core mechanics should be familiar to anyone who’s played one of the genre’s more traditional top-down 3D entries (like League of Legends), the fun tweaks and personality are what make its cartoonish combat so engaging. Each match begins with teams on opposite sides of the 2D map, with the three-person squads—comprising online or split-screen players, or computer-controlled allies—looking to push through the opposing fortifications to eventually destroy the enemy base. Doing so means coordinating with teammates to try to topple certain bullet-spewing turrets…

If you’ve used an iOS device for a while, you’ll know two things: One, organizing apps is easy. Two, organizing more than a few apps is time-consuming and tedious. The same’s true for Launchpad, which is essentially the iOS home screen on the Mac. Launchpad is great from a discoverability standpoint—just prod the Launchpad key and all your apps are there, waiting to be launched. But updating the grid is done in much the same manner as it is on iOS—one app at a time. Worse, Apple pre-populates Launchpad with all the apps it finds on your Mac, but you can only remove those bought from the Mac App Store—and doing so deletes them. One solution (much like on iOS) for little-used apps is to bung them in folders, but…

You have physical labels, tabs, and other forms of organization in the real world, but what about the digital world of your Mac desktop? Sure, you may use an app for that, but there’s a little-known feature that gives you the same flexibility in organizing your files and folders in the Finder. Labels are OS X’s way of visually organizing and tagging your files for future use, and we’ll quickly show you how to label your files and folders, and then search for them using their labels. WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy » A Mac » Files to organize 1 Customizing the Labels You can customize the meaning of the labels by opening Finder > Preferences (or by pressing Command +, [comma]). Select the Labels tab; here you can change…

LETTER OF THE MONTH While reading January’s Letter of the Month, I was somewhat taken aback to learn that anyone would be shocked that Apple would remove optical drives from its new iMacs. Apple started eliminating optical drives from its products years ago and complaints flew like dead leaves after the fall color had left only brown, dead ones. I took the change in stride and purchased the true and more powerful MacBook Air without the external optical drive, and have not looked back. Software installations and updates now come to us online from the Mac App Store, and storage is easy with hundreds of free or cheap off-site storage options, such as iCloud. One only has to jump into the water to find that if he doesn’t panic, he…

Navigating the world on our favorite mobile platform has taken another dramatic turn, thanks to the return of Google Maps to the Home screens—and hearts—of users everywhere. But the competition hasn’t stood still since Google’s exile, and that means more options for you. To help you pick the best way to find your way, we compared six popular map apps. The value of their features—like the quantity and quality of reviews about local destinations—depends largely on where you are, but since each app is free, there’s no reason not to dive right in and start exploring. MAPS Apple www.apple.com Cartography, Cupertino-style Apple’s maps are gorgeous—with street names and informative, interactive icons that fade in and out as you zoom—wrapped in an easy-to-use interface. Its turn-by-turn directions are equally uncluttered, and…

SLATE BERLIN BOOMBOX www.berlinboombox.com €65 Remember boom boxes? Remember break dancing on cardboard? If so, Berlin Boombox will feel like a blast from the past. Starting life on Kickstarter, this kit comes with a die-cut structure and all the electronics you need to make a 14x10x4-inch boombox that works with an iPhone or other audio device. You don’t need glue or tools—or even laces in your Adidas sneakers. HOFFMAN SATECHI UNIVERSAL REMOTE www.satechi.net $24.99 Check out p52 for our review of the $249 Logitech Harmony Touch universal remote, but if that’s a little rich, the Satechi Universal Remote is one-tenth the price. The dongle pops into the headphone jack of your iPhone or iPad, and the free RemoteBean app guides you through setting it up to work with all your…

Every Mac power user knows the might of the OS X menu bar. For the rest of us, that ever-present beam topping our desktops has been ignored for too long. You’ll likely see a few icons there already—system items such as Wi-Fi signal and volume, for example. Apple calls these “Menu Extras.” What we’re interested in, though, are third-party menulets or “applets”—super-charged icons that when clicked offer quick access to inspired utilities and novel services. If you’ve got a Dropbox account, you have one; likewise if you have Growl. But there are many more out there just waiting to be discovered. Here’s 20 of the very best. Applets for Productivity Utilities and services to help keep your work top of the menu Fantastical $14.99 www.flexibits.com The Calendar applet to rule…

Initially pronounced the best mobile mapping solution on the planet, the reimagined iOS 6 Maps has become a PR disaster for Apple. Like a knight in shining armor, Google now comes riding back onto the iPhone with its own option a mere three months after being banished from the castle. The free Google Maps isn’t exactly the same app iOS users have loved since its debut in 2007; in fact, this one has an entirely new look and feel. Google has followed design cues from recent updates to its Gmail and Search apps for iOS, and while it takes a few moments to adjust to it, overall the new UI works well and it’s a big step in the right direction (pun intended). Despite its issues with map data, Apple’s…

Twitterrific was one of the earliest standout options on the App Store for mobile Twitter perusal, but the field has become incredibly competitive since that time. Cue the brand new Twitterrific 5 app, which comes across as a reboot for the popular tool, at least in terms of aesthetic. Rather than copy the likes of Tweetbot and the official Twitter app, Twitterrific 5 makes a bold statement with its minimalist, customizable design. With two quick taps, you’ll gain access to font type, size, and spacing options, along with icon size and light or dark themes, letting you tweak your feed to your liking. Twitterrific’s streamlined approach also makes it nicely speedy in use, with smooth scrolling throughout plus helpful gestures for reading conversations and replying. Power users need not apply,…

Grand Theft Auto III was arguably the most influential game of the early ’00s, ushering in a new age of huge open worlds and criminal antiheroes, and its release on iOS was a pretty significant achievement for mobile gaming. And just as it did 10 years ago, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City improves on its trailblazing predecessor in nearly every imaginable way. Set in a Miami-inspired, neon-drenched metropolis, Vice City delivers a bigger focus on story, with an actual fleshed-out protagonist—Mafia outcast Tommy Vercetti—who claws his way up through an ’80s underworld that’s equal parts Scarface and Miami Vice. The city is bigger and more colorful than GTAIII’s, and therefore more fun to explore—something you can do by driving around at high speeds, piloting boats through its waterways, or running…

Long before the boom of iPads and iPhones, I grew up playing in bands, making loud music in friends’ basements and garages, and rocking out at local dives for a cut of the door money. It was an absolute blast while it lasted, but like a lot of folks, I eventually settled down and retired my gear into storage. A decade later, I’m finally rekindling my love of making music—albeit with less distortion and screeching—and finding that it’s a very different rock ’n’ roll world out there. Starting a band, getting gigs, and building a small fan base can be a ton of work, even if you’re just doing it for the fun of it and don’t care much about “making it.” The good news is that technology is on…

Hard drives are cheaper than ever, so there’s no excuse for not keeping your precious data backed up. Drobo’s affordable storage solutions use data-aware tiering to protect against a single drive failure, traditionally at the expense of speed—until now. The company’s latest Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini products offer the protection of a RAID storage array coupled with modern, lightning-fast Thunderbolt and USB 3 connectivity. While the new Drobos essentially do the same thing, they’re aimed at different users. In either case, you’ll need to supply your own bare internal hard drives or SSDs, starting with a minimum of two. As your storage needs grow, you can add additional drives our even swap out existing drives for larger ones, without losing any data. Drobo 5D includes five 3.5-inch SATA drive…

I use my MacBook Pro with its lid closed so often, I almost forget it has its own screen and keyboard. But Cooler Master’s L Stand is the first stand I’ve tried that isn’t open on the top. The thin aluminum frame is handsome, but since it’s closed you have to thread your MacBook in through the side. That’s a little more fiddly, plus it requires more clearance; I often had to move a few things on my desk to clear a path. Weirder still is the fit of the MagSafe adapter. In all the images on Cooler Master’s site, they show the L-shaped MagSafe adapter plugged into a MacBook Pro with the cable end pointing up, toward the other ports. Well, doing that would cover the adjacent port (namely,…

Why would you need an extra Thunderbolt cable? Lots of reasons. For example, did you know you can connect a Thunderbolt MacBook Air to an iMac with Thunderbolt, and press Command-F2 on the iMac’s keyboard, and you’re instantly using its display as an external monitor for the Air? And as more and more Thunderbolt hard drives and RAIDs hit the market, they don’t always come with a cable. StarTech offers quality cables at 0.5 meters, 1m, 2m (all $48.99), and 3m ($89.99), while Apple’s own Thunderbolt cable only comes in 0.5m ($29, www.apple.com) and 2m ($39). Either option works fine. Apple’s cables only come in white, and with a sturdy thickness that makes them feel like they’ll last, but they don’t want to coil nicely when it’s time to store…

Audio editing applications come and go like the seasons—Bias Peak and Apple’s Soundtrack Pro are now history, and while GarageBand, Logic, and Adobe Audition all vie for attention (along with Audacity and a few others), Sony has finally brought the popular Windows editor Sound Forge Pro to the Mac. While this should warm the hearts of Mac musicians and audio engineers, the fact is that this first version has enough rough spots to give us pause in considering it ready for prime time. Sound Forge Pro delivers powerful editing tools and processing abilities, but it takes some time to master. That’s not surprising for pro-level editing software, and the documentation is clear and concise. But some aspects of the interface show that this app has DNA from the other side…

I love writing on my iPad (I’m doing it right now), but anything longer than a two sentence email reply takes too long to tap out on the software keyboard. I’ve been a slave to my Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Case (4.5 stars, Sep/12, p76), but the Brydge aims to be more Apple-like. It’s made of aluminum to match the iPad’s construction, and the strong, sturdy hinge can hold the iPad at nearly any viewing angle—it opens to almost 180 degrees. So if you’re tall, for example, and the limited angles of most iPad keyboard cases don’t work for you, the Brydge is a great alternative. The keys have more space between them than the Logitech Ultrathin’s, so they’re smaller overall. My fingers felt a little cramped at first, leading to…

Batman: Arkham Asylum pushed superhero games in directions that nobody really expected, but everyone wanted (and almost immediately began to copy). Its rhythmic fights were immediately satisfying and endlessly fun. Its wonderfully creepy, secret-filled world was a joy to explore. And its atmospheric detective puzzles and stealth challenges explored a side of Batman that seldom came through in games. So how does Arkham City top that formula? By giving us much, much more of it. In place of the creepy asylum, we have Arkham City, a sprawling, open-world, slum-turned-prison colony that’s become an unhappy home to all of Gotham’s most vicious criminals. A dark jumble of candy-colored neon and crumbling Art Deco architecture, Arkham City is enormous, offering up endless opportunities to scale its tall buildings with Batman’s grappling hook,…

The reasoning behind the phrase “mother knows best” is that the opinions of senior figures are based on greater knowledge than those of younger folk. And it’s a phrase we could imagine printed as meter-high text on every wall at Apple HQ, such is the manner in which Apple makes irritating changes to its operating system without providing the means to undo them. In some cases, such updates are, admittedly, a matter of taste—Calendar’s leather and the Contacts app’s odd sort-of-a-book styling, for example. But elsewhere, some of Apple’s “like it or lump it” decisions are irksome, such as hiding the user Library folder, and defaulting to iCloud as a save location every single time you access a Save dialog in certain apps. It’s enough to make a grown Mac…

3 TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH Apple doesn’t do CES, not as a company. But we hope the people who make Apple products are already hard at work getting these gee-whiz technologies showcased at this year’s show inside a new generation of Apple gear. Stronger Glass Corning showed Gorilla Glass 3, touted to be 20 percent thinner and 40 percent more scratch-resistant than before, and they’re also developing Willow Glass, which can flex to allow for curved displays. UK-based Plastic Logic even showed a prototype flexible tablet called PaperTab that rolls right up, but it’s still about five years out. Until then, we’ll settle for less-breakable iPhones and iPods, thanks. Better Wireless The next-generation Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac is getting closer to being finalized by the IEEE, but compatible gear is trickling out…