Innehållsförteckning för August 2018 från MacLife

Last issue we waited with baited breath to see exactly what tricks Apple had up its sleeves at the WWDC 2018 event. There were all sorts of rumors flying around prior to the start, including an iPhone 2 SE, new iPad Pro, and a big refresh of the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro lineup. But much to our — and I’m sure your — chagrin, new hardware certainly wasn’t on the cards. That said, we certainly can’t complain because the two big announcements that actually did come out of WWDC, that is macOS Mojave and iOS 12, are pretty spectacular. Even if the idea of a new operating system doesn’t exactly light your fire — something that’s understandable, given that macOS High Sierra wasn’t the most thrilling of updates —…

ACCORDING TO COMMENTS by unhappy owners on social media and online forums, Apple’s first HomePod firmware update has altered the device’s sound characteristics, with a particular impact on its bass performance. AppleInsider reported that the update, by default automatic, apparently modified “the speaker’s onboard DSP or preconfigured equalization algorithm. “The general consensus among detractors,” the report continues, “is that the firmware [update], while delivering a more prominent midrange, noticeably degrades bass impact and loudness.” As a result, bass-heavy tracks lack the punch they previously had on the HomePod. “HomePod’s ability to produce clean, powerful bass was a standout feature for many reviewers,” AppleInsider points out, adding: “A drastic EQ overhaul would be of major concern for users who purchased HomePod based on their initial impression of the speaker, especially considering…

What was your first iPhone purchase? A South Korean cellphone shop will be selling the 3GS again, so we wanted to know which model of iPhone made you a lifetime customer. I’ve had every one, usually on the first release day. I never did an all-nighter, but did show up really early most of the time. JEFFREY BAER I still have my first iPhone — the 3G. I now use it for the gym; it has an audio jack so I don’t need a heaphone dongle. JIM MULLIN I jumped on the iPhone train when Verizon first started selling the first iPhone. Now I’m a happy iPhone X owner. SAM ANDERSON I started out with an iPhone 4s and have since bought every single ‘s’ model. I’m keeping my 6s…

MANY OF US wonder if we’re spending too much time scrolling through stuff on our screens, and kids have social media, cyberbullying and addictive game design to contend with. So iOS 12 has Screen Time to provide ‘insights and control over how you spend your time’. A weekly activity summary charts apps you have used, categorizing activity into social networking, entertainment, productivity and so on. (This won’t be so helpful if you access a lot of content within Safari.) You can see how often you picked up your device and which apps nagged the most. Then you can set App Limits, which block an app when you’ve spent your allocated time for the day in it. You can override this, but the summary will remind you how often you did…

ANIMOJI — CARTOON AVATARS that animate to match your speech and movements — were an instant hit when they launched with the iPhone X. iOS 12 adds four more (ghost, koala, tiger and T-Rex) plus Memoji, a system for generating your very own Animoji. As demonstrated by Apple’s Kelsey Peterson, this feature offers enough attributes, from eye color to freckles to hairstyles, to make it recognizably you. Once your Memoji is set up, you can record it lip-syncing you to make a video message — a new option shows a live feed with the cartoon head replacing yours — or even use it live in FaceTime. Tongue tracking now makes Animoji stick out their tongues when you do. There are obvious comparisons with Bitmoji, the avatar app that integrates with…

GIVEN THAT IT houses your notes, photos, reminders and much more, iCloud is unsurprisingly pretty secure. Between your Apple ID, iCloud Keychain and Apple’s encryption methods, your files are kept safe and sound in the cloud. One simple way to keep your iCloud account secure is to set up two-factor authentication (2FA). This adds an extra layer of security to ensure that someone can’t gain access to your account if they have your password — they also need a code sent to your trusted devices. We’ve outlined how to set up 2FA on the page opposite. Bear in mind that you should set up 2FA for every Apple ID you have. If you signed in to iTunes on an old Windows PC years ago, then bought a Mac and set…

$69 From Skylum, skylum.com/luminar Needs OS X 10.10.5 or later Skylum, formerly known as Macphun, likes to take a different approach to photo editing from other products on the market. Its Luminar app is often compared to Lightroom, but it doesn’t have the asset management abilities of Adobe’s software (Skylum is working on this, however), although they do share a dark gray interface. Luminar is a non-destructive editor, which means your original image file isn’t changed by the edits you make, instead they’re only applied when you export your edited photo as a new file. Effects are added as filters, which can be faded out, piled on top of one another, or applied selectively to part of an image. There are cropping and rotation tools, along with Lightroom-like sliders to…

We used our note-taking apps in the toughest environment imaginable: on our lap in an indoor play space for kids, trying to scribble with a stylus or tap on the screen. We also took our iPad Pro and stylus to night classes, and used them for homework. As well as writing notes, we also imported existing documents, notes and blog posts where possible. HIGHER… PDF EXPERT readdle.com £9.99 If your work revolves around PDFs, this is the app for you; it enables you not just to annotate but to edit them, too. …OR LOWER? NOTES apple.com Free Apple’s own note-taking app is good, especially on iPads that support Pencil. Naturally, it uses iCloud to sync between devices.…

$1.99 From Kyrylo Kuzyk / Stampede Games, stampedegames.net Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 8 or later .projekt certainly isn’t the first game to ask you to play with shadows, but it does do things slightly differently to other silhouette-based titles. It plays out like a lovechild of a monochrome Lego set and Shadowmatic, asking you to place blocks on an isometric grid so that their shadows match the gray patterns on the backdrops behind. You can flip the board around in 90-degree increments, which adds an extra level of head scratching to the level designs. Although things start simply enough, by the time you’ve unlocked levels that task you with using a minimum number of blocks, you’ll be creating modernist cube structures that could give artists in the Museum…

$1.99 From Alex Vilassak, ovivogame.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 9 or later Ovivo is a stylish, gravity-bending platform game that requires you to think in two different directions at once. The entire game is solely in black and white, with no text and no instructions — just a moveable blob and monochromatic platforms for you to jump to and from. Each time you switch from black to white, the gravity direction reverses, which gives you the momentum and direction needed to complete each level. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do, it’s satisfying to dip and dive between colors. The gravity and color are changed with a swipe, and the forward-backward controls can be done in one of three ways: using virtual left/right…

Free (IAPs) From AISense, otter.ai Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 9 or later Artificial intelligence has seeped into many parts of our lives, from voice-activated assistants like Siri to predicting our searches before they’re fully typed. One of the more compelling uses for this technology is accurately transcribing speech in near real-time, great for taking notes or capturing meetings. Otter Voice Notes is a new universal iOS app that does just that. Although free to download, users are limited to 600 minutes each month. Unless your life is spent in the boardroom, that’s quite a lot, but you can upgrade anytime to a whopping 6,000 minutes with the $9.99 monthly or $79.99 annually Premium plan. When you first launch Otter, the app prompts you to sign up…

$4.99 From Tapbots, tapbots.com/tweetbot Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 10.3 or later With over 330 million users, Twitter tends to move fast — too fast, potentially, for the syrupy official app. That’s where Tweetbot comes in. It’s quick to update, quick to scroll through your feed, and eschews those little extras (or annoyances) that Twitter sees fit to provide as part of the mainline app. There’s no ‘you might have missed’ — you’re thrown straight into the action. Jumping into threaded conversations is as simple as a swipe, and there are stacks of shortcuts for common interactions, accessed with swipes or by long-pressing the buttons on the bottom menu. Tweetbot offers several interface niceties, too: swipe two fingers down (or set it to trigger at a certain…

$1.99 From Tech Box, appcodemaker.com Made For iPhone, iPad, Watch Needs iOS 9 or later A mobile design app doesn’t sound like something in need of Apple Watch support, but the developers of this app apparently felt users might benefit from such a feature while creating logos and other visual layouts. Unfortunately, the watchOS app is little more than a remote control for the iPhone version, allowing designers to switch between various tools and in some cases, adjust tool settings like brush size and transparency. This is neat the first time you use it, but the novelty of taking your fingers off the smartphone screen to make selections on your wrist wears off pretty quick. The bigger issue is that the Apple Watch app is just a bunch of colorful…

Smart lighting, we have to admit, looks on the outside like little more than a gimmick. Even now it’s had a few years to mature, the marketing surrounding the process of making your home lighting smart revolves around the pretty RGB colors, and almost entirely sidesteps the more subtle and useful features of clever bulbs. But it shouldn’t: used properly — and for the right reasons — smart lighting can completely transform your home. First and foremost, let’s dispel any kind of intimidation: smart lighting is easy to get on board with. There’s no need to throw out all of your existing light bulbs and start again; you can add smart bulbs to your current lighting setup piecemeal, and they’ll work alongside dumb bulbs just fine. Smart bulbs aren’t listening…

TOUCH ID HAS STOPPED WORKING. IS IT BROKEN? In Settings > Touch ID & Passcode, enter your passcode and check that your iPhone is set up to use Touch ID for unlocking, Apple Pay, and Apple’s various stores. If that looks okay, shut down your iPhone, wait a minute or so, turn it on and retry. HOW CAN I KEEP PRIVATE NOTES AWAY FROM ICLOUD? In Settings > Notes, turn on the On My iPhone account. You can make this the default location in the setting immediately above, if you want. To make a private note in Notes, tap the item at the top left until you see the folders list, then tap a list in the On My iPhone section. Lists there are stored only on that particular device.…

Look in the Keychains folder in your Home folder’s Library — in Finder, hold Alt and choose Go > Library. Among other files, you should see a keychain there named login.keychain-db, which is your user account’s current (login) keychain. View its contents using Keychain Access, which you’ll find in /Applications/Utilities. If that login keychain is almost empty, your previous keychain became damaged, perhaps when your Mac restarted during the update, and macOS has replaced the old one with a new, almost empty one. You can still restore a keychain from before the update, but under a different name. Then, use Keychain Access to copy passwords and other items from the old keychain and paste them into the current one, although that becomes tedious. With each paste you’ll normally be prompted…

macOS Recovery The Recovery system contains tools to help you look up info online when macOS won’t start, and to repair or reinstall the system. Learn more at bit.ly/mlrecovery SAFE MODE When you start your Mac in Safe mode, macOS performs extra checks and stops certain third-party software from running. See how to use it at bit.ly/mlsafemode RESET SMC & NVRAM These features handle low-level functions and store key settings for your Mac, respectively. Resetting them can fix various issues described at bit.ly/mlresetsmc and bit.ly/mlresetnvram HARDWARE ISSUES Your Mac includes tools that check for certain hardware issues without going to a Genius Bar. For Macs introduced in June 2013 or later, see bit.ly/mldiag, otherwise see bit.ly/mlahwt…

THE UNIVERSAL SERIAL Bus (USB) arrived on 6 May 1998, at Flint Center, Cupertino. Specified by an Intel-led industry partnership, it had already appeared in a few PCs, but it was only when Apple unveiled the first-gen iMac, with the traditional interfaces abolished, that we knew USB was the future. USB 1.1, capable of speeds up to 12Mbps, was “the new generation of I/O,” announced Steve Jobs. Simple, he said. Elegant, he said. And he was basically right. Although, if he’d envisaged that 20 years later USB would cover two data protocols running over six physical connections in five speed classes, he might have used some different words. The iMac’s ports were USB Type-A, the now familiar rectangular receptacle with a plastic tab across the middle. Its mouse and keyboard…

▸ INTEL PATCHES EXPLOIT Last issue we reported on new Spectre-like vulnerabilities found in Intel chips. Intel has released beta patches to tackle the “Variant 4” exploit. It rates this “moderate” because it says several issues it causes are already addressed by January’s patches for the original Spectre and Meltdown flaws. Best advice: install Apple updates and security patches when they appear. ▸ STEAM GAMING FOR iOS? In May Apple rejected Valve’s Steam Link app for iOS, saying it violated guidelines about in-app purchases. Steam Link uses Valve’s In-Home Streaming functionality to stream gameplay video from a Mac or PC to an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV on the same network. Valve is trying again with a revised app with no purchase option in it. If this app is approved,…

We first saw Stacks in OS X 10.5, where multiple files were organized behind icons in the Dock, such as for Downloads. In Mojave, the files break out onto the desktop, automatically tidying up files you place there. Stacks are generated according to file types or tags — a neat way to impose some order without the inflexibility of dragging files into folders, forcing a single sort criterion. If this proves as useful as we think it will, we’re going to want Stacks in Finder windows as well, not just on the desktop.…

THE iBOOKS APP, which handles e-books, audiobooks and PDFs, is renamed Apple Books, and has a new design that aims to help you find new content that’s of interest to you. This app is as much about organizing content, though, and the new Reading Now tab keeps your last book open where you left off, while also reminding you of other recent reads. The Stocks app celebrates its debut on the iPad by integrating business feeds from Apple News. Also coming to bigger screens is Voice Memos, complete with iCloud syncing across all your devices. For CarPlay, improvements focus on faster and smoother operation. Third-party navigation apps finally get support too, subject to their developers updating them.…

BUILDING ON iOS 11’s subject and scene recognition — which lets you search for things like ‘cars’ or ‘flowers’ — the Photos app in iOS 12 actively sorts your pics, offering sets based on Moments, People (using face detection) and categories generated by analyzing your shots, like Sports or Dog. You can enter names of businesses or events to find related photos, and perform advanced searches with multiple criteria. Photos will also suggest which effects might enhance an image. Sharing Suggestions makes all this even more personal by offering to share a photo you’ve taken with any friends detected in it, or related to it, if they also use iMessage. They get the full resolution pic, and their Photos app then recommends pics of their own to share back. Third-party…

ONE OF THE major benefits of iOS 12 is its compatibility with older devices. The new operating system will work on devices all the way back to the iPhone 5s, the iPad mini 2 and iPad Air — great news if you’re using an older device and don’t feel like upgrading yet. However, that extensive backwards compatibility does not apply to macOS Mojave. In fact, Apple has announced that Mojave will work with a more limited number of computers. While macOS High Sierra supported Macs from as far back as 2009, Mojave will only run on models from 2012 or later, or a 2010 Mac Pro running a Metal-compatible graphics card. Apple’s Metal looks to be the reason for the raised requirements. Key features on Apple’s roadmap, such as machine…

AS AWARENESS OF online security threats has spread, a lot of websites have started offering ways to protect yourself. One of the main ways websites do this is through two-factor authentication (2FA). By enabling 2FA, these websites know it's really you trying to log in, thus shutting out anyone trying to gain unauthorized access to your account. As well as that, browsers have begun integrating new security features. Safari, for example, now enables content blockers, which can stop malicious code (such as malware embedded in adverts) running on your Mac or iOS device. Another way to stay safe is to use a web browser extension like TrafficLight (bitdefender.com). It uses a traffic light system to show you which sites are safe, with results displayed in search results. Ideally, you should…

ONE OF THE best things about the iPad is its convenience and portability, which is why it’s a great platform for taking notes. The size, shape and screen are ideal for scribbling, wherever you are, and the arrival of high-quality styluses such as the Apple Pencil can deliver a paper-like experience, backed up by the iPad’s connectivity and media capabilities. There’s more than one way to take a note, though. Some of us are scribblers; others, touch typists. Some of us scrawl comments on photos; others prefer to record information using voice memos. Some of us are all about the text; others mix and match every kind of media. As a result, the App Store is packed with apps promising to deliver the perfect note-taking experience, in a variety of…

LIKE FOR LIKE, OneNote leaves Evernote in the dust. The only niggle is that you have to use OneDrive to sync its contents. However, it’s rather like Microsoft’s other behemoth, Word: it can do everything, and sometimes you crave something simpler. Something like Bear, perhaps. It’s a brilliant app for writers, and it happens to be handy for notes and lists, too. It’s very good, but limited in this company. GoodNotes is better for stylus and Apple Pencil users: it’s useful for scribbling on PDFs, and making and finding handwritten notes. It isn’t for power users, but it’s practical and useful. Notebooks is a serious tool for serious business, while Whink feels more like a creative’s canvas. They’re both brilliant, flexible and genuinely useful, but they’re going to appeal to…

Around $535 From Studio 19, studio19.london Features HDMI-ARC, Bluetooth, 3.5mm jack, 8,800mAh battery, active 3-band EQ The most important aspect of any speaker is the way it sounds, and Studio 19 leaves that up to you, in a sense — active, tactile EQ sliders are given as much prominence as the volume control on the top of this 22-inch tower. However you tweak them, the Solo’s output is quite remarkable. Forget room-filling, this is a home-filling speaker, which throws out DSP-modeled directional audio on a vertical and, subtly, horizontal plane. It’s bouncy and crisp in equal measure, as adept at separating out the subtleties of sound as it is at blasting out the big guns. The air compression-based bass tech inside delivers seriously low frequencies — there’s no need for…

$4.99 From Ben McCarthy, obscura.camera Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 11 There are quite a few “pro” camera apps that leverage iPhone hardware in ways Apple’s own Camera app doesn’t allow, but not many approach iPhone photography from the same angle as Obscura 2. Specifically, it has been designed to be easy to use while holding the phone in one hand. This is more of an issue than you might think — the Plus-series iPhones and the X are tall phones. Reachability helps, but it’s a workaround. Obscura 2 presents its controls in a straightforward way. The main screen shows you a semicircle of tools and options which can be scrolled easily with your thumb and is ‘infinite’ so when you get to the end it just…

$1.99 From FutureTap, futuretap.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 9.3 or later It’s been almost six years since Apple kicked Google Maps to the curb in favor of Cupertino’s own troubled navigation service, and while Apple Maps has come a long way in that time, the app still lacks any kind of 3D street view. Thankfully, Google Maps app does offer this feature, and it’s as neat as you remember. But if you’re looking for a better Street View experience on iOS, we’re partial to a paid third-party app called Streets, which can be summoned from within Apple Maps and offers a more elegant user interface than either popular mapping solution. Powered by Google, Streets allows you to search and browse panoramas by city, address, or contact, marking favorite…

Free (IAPs) From FOURBOX, weatherkit.org Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 11 or later Checking the local weather forecast on a smartphone has become so second nature to most of us, it’s hard to remember what life was like before the iPhone. But finding the right one from hundreds of available free and paid options can be a daunting task. If you prefer a minimalist approach, WeatherKit is worth a look — but only if you’re prepared for the sticker shock of paying $0.99 every month, $8.99 annually, or a one-time $15.99 to own it for life. That’s because the free version is handicapped by design when compared to almost every other weather app. Despite advertising a five-day forecast with “ExtremeAccuracy” and an air quality index, you’ll quickly…

Free From Formagrid, airtable.com Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 8 or later If you’ve read anything about Airtable, you’ve probably heard it described as a relational database tool. And if you’re anything like us, that’s probably enough to make you stop reading there and then. So, we’re going to lose the jargon — Airtable is a tool for managing information on a project-by-project basis, and is designed for teams of people working together. Those teams could be as small as two, or as big as an enterprise workgroup. And the project could be anything from planning a garden or buying a home, to executing the overhaul of an IT system or rolling out a new product. The key to Airtable’s iOS app is ease of use. Behind…

$0.99 From Ricco Nowak, whabble.me Made For iPhone, iPad, Watch Needs iOS 10.3 or later Instagram nuked watchOS support in a recent app update, the latest in a series of departures from Apple Watch. Perhaps it’s for the best — who wants to squint at a tiny screen to look at pictures of someone’s cat? But there’s no denying that this is a step backwards for the smartwatch platform. InstaWrist offers a cheap way to keep the Instagram party going, but it’s not as simple and intuitive as the native app used to be. You’ll first need to open InstaWrist on the connected iPhone to log into Instagram, but after that you can view the explore feed or recent profile activity on the Watch itself. To be fair, this isn’t…

IKEA Trådfri $17.99 From Ikea, ikea.com Features E26 LED bulb, 980 lumens We’re looking here at the white spectrum Trådfri bulb, available individually for $17.99; the color versions cost a little extra. The bulb is quick to change in brightness or temperature, bright enough to replace a dumb LED light, and affordable. The Trådfri line can be controlled by wall-mountable remotes, independently of any smart functionality, to toggle or dim one or a group of bulbs. On the minus side, however, the Trådfri Gateway hub (individually $29.99, or $79.99 with two bulbs and a remote control dimmer) can be awkward to set up and is often unresponsive. Trådfri works best in its ‘less smart’ mode. Hue White and Color $49.99 From Philips, meethue.com Features E26 LED bulb, 806 lumens The…

LEARN ABOUT THE IMAC PRO’S DISPLAY QUIRKS When the iMac Pro goes through the start up procedure or installs updates, the display can do things that you might not normally anticpate from previous Mac experience, so to find out what to expect, go to bit.ly/ml144ask1 GET TO GRIPS WITH NEW FEATURES IN IOS 11.4 If you’re wondering what to expect from this latest update to iOS, including AirPlay 2, HomePod Stereo pairing, Messages in iCloud and more, head to bit.ly/ml144ask2 INSTITUTION SUPPORT ON THE HEALTH APP If you want to use the Health app to store and view your health records, find out which healthcare institutions work with it at bit.ly/ml144ask3…

That update included an EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) update for every Mac, which for some people has brought trouble and left their Macs in limbo. Force your MacBook Pro to shut down by holding the power button, leave it for a few seconds, then power on and immediately hold Cmd+R to enter macOS Recovery. If the EFI update went wrong, recent models should automatically recover, displaying a progress bar while they do. Macs that still play a startup sound will inform you by making three long, three short, and three long tones. However, recent models of MacBook Pro are silent at startup. Once in Recovery, open Disk Utility and run its First Aid feature on your startup disk. Afterwards, you should use Recovery’s option to reinstall macOS over the top…

AT THE RECENT launch of the sixth-generation iPad, Apple also unveiled new iOS versions of the iWork apps: Pages, Keynote and Numbers. And Pages 4.0 now lets you create and edit documents more flexibly than ever. Among the additions are Pencil annotation; ePub templates for more ambitious book designs; editable shapes for adding graphics; and paragraph and character styles, borrowed from the Mac. First, let’s look at facing pages. Pages documents come in two flavours: word processing and page layout. Facing pages can be used with both kinds — in word processing documents for text-based books, and in page layout documents for magazines, and other multi-page bound or folded publications that have fixed page layouts combining text and pictures. Facing Pages doesn’t quite work as we’d like, and Pages isn’t…

▸ You’ll be able to make a call or play a game on your iPhone or iPad without interrupting playback on AirPlay 2 enabled speakers. ▸ Messages in iCloud: Enable this in Settings > [your name] > iCloud, and you can store messages, photos, and other attachments in iCloud and free up space on your devices. ▸ All your messages appear when you sign into a new device with the same iMessage account; if you delete messages or chats, they’re removed from all your devices. ▸ Enables teachers to assign their students reading activities in iBooks using the Schoolwork app. ▸ Fixes an issue where certain character sequences could cause the Messages app to crash. ▸ Includes bug fixes for Google Drive, Google Docs, Health, CarPlay, and more.…

THE IPHONE AND iPad have had a uniquely pervasive journey into our lives. They both started as contentious devices, then saw a flurry of attention over the years as we started learning just how useful they could become. But these days, many have started asking whether we use our devices too much. In iOS 12 this fall, Apple wants to help us answer that question and, possibly, to use our devices less. As our devices have become more useful to virtually every aspect of our lives, people have started discussing the notion of ‘smartphone addiction.’ We are creatures of habit, after all. We’re so habitual, in fact, that some US states, and other countries, passed laws to discourage us from using our phones while driving. Are you scrolling Instagram with…

The introduction of AirPlay 2 has certainly made justifying the purchase of a HomePod (or two, if you’re feeling rich) much easier than ever. As well as stereo pairing, let’s not forget about the addition of multiroom support, so that you can stream music to multiple HomePods around the home, though you’ll still need an Apple Music subscription if you want to use Siri voice control to ask HomePod which songs to play. You won’t necessarily need a HomePod either, as there will be a number of wireless speakers supporting AirPlay 2 in future. Find out more about the state of things on page 8. Printing digital pages I have to say your tech tips are great, but I think they would be even better if you could add a…

It’s fair to say Apple’s News app, which aggregates stories from selected media outlets, hasn’t revolutionized the way iOS users keep up with current events, but for what it’s worth it’s coming to the Mac. Syncing means you can start reading on your iPhone and pick up later at your desk. And if you thought that sounded inessential, the second migrant from mobile is the Stocks app, now more customizable for those with a day-trading portfolio, and about as interesting to the rest of us as an unrequested U2 album. Of more use is the arrival of a macOS version of the Home app, so you can dim your Philips Hue lights and pop the central heating on without reaching for an iOS device. Also new for the Mac is…

GOODBYE, iTUNES? Thanks to UIKit, the iTunes app, a vestige of a less frictionless age, seems likely to be replaced soon by ports of iOS’s separate (and less annoying) Music, TV, iTunes Store and Podcasts apps — although nothing has been confirmed as yet. SIMPLE SCREEN RENDERING LCD font smoothing, an option found in System Preferences’ General pane, is unnecessary on Retina displays, and Mojave removes it entirely as part of a drive to simplify screen rendering. COMPLEX MATCHES Leveraging Apple’s Metal tech, a new tool called Create ML allows developers to train models for machine learning, enabling more apps to perform complex matching or recognition tasks. THE FIRST MOJAVE In 2007, Microsoft tried to turn around the dislike of Windows Vista by demoing it disguised as a product called ‘Mojave,’…

CONFERENCE CALLING HAS been a much-requested FaceTime feature, and it arrives belatedly but in style in iOS 12 with up to 32 participants per call. Showing them all on screen obviously presents some interface challenges, especially on iPhones (the feature is also supported on the Mac in Mojave). Apple’s solution is to arrange participants’ live feeds as floating tiles in a sort of 3D cloud, with those who are currently talking enlarging and drifting to the front; less active participants are relegated to the ‘roster’, a band across the bottom which also includes your own view. You can manually bring anyone to the front by double-tapping their tile. A single tap displays the contact’s name, which will be a godsend in virtual meetings where you suddenly realize you don’t know…

THE UPCOMING iOS update will feature version 2 of ARKit, supporting apps that let virtual objects interact in real spaces, via the camera, on your screen. ARKit 2 will recognize more types of surfaces, and the augmented world can be preserved for later, with objects in place, or shared in real time for multiplayer AR. These capabilities were demoed using a game built by LEGO. Matt Moss (twitter.com/thefuturematt), one of 350 students awarded WWDC scholarships, quickly released an iPhone demo of on-screen buttons operated just by looking at them. He pointed out the accessibility potential of this. ‘Nope ads won’t abuse this,’ tweeted more cynical security engineer Josh Pitts (twitter.com/midnite_runr). Tara Reddy (twitter.com/taralouisereddy), whose social gaming startup LoveShark plans to release its first title in July, sees more enticing possibilities,…

Apple’s hardware protections Although they’re both intended as convenience features, rather than security features, Face ID and Touch ID on iPhone and iPad are still very secure. That is due to their built-in Secure Enclave, an isolated hardware mechanism used to protect your fingerprint and facial data. That doesn’t store that data as an image, but as ‘a mathematical representation’, which can’t be reverse engineered. That data is encrypted and is not sent to Apple, and it’s protected with a key that’s only available to the Secure Enclave itself. That’s not the only method Apple uses to protect your data. The latest MacBook Pro, for example, comes with a Touch ID sensor embedded in its Touch Bar. This is powered by a dedicated T1 chip, which houses the Secure Enclave…

IN MARCH 2018, news emerged of a mysterious box called GrayKey, which allowed anyone to gain access to an iOS device’s contents, locked or otherwise. While the device is intended for law enforcement use, it highlights an issue that’s relevant to us all: weak device passwords can be a real security issue. That’s because GrayKey reportedly uses a ‘brute force’ attack to repeatedly guess the target device’s password until it gets it right and gains access. Matthew Green, a security researcher at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, suggests increasing the length of your password (as well as mixing in alphanumeric characters). According to his calculations, a 10-digit password would take GrayKey (or other brute-force attackers) around 12 years to crack. A four-digit one, on the other hand, would take 6.5…

HERE AT MAC|LIFE we believe you should only buy the things that you really need, which is why our Reviews section is so important to us, and you. We don’t want you to waste time and money on inferior products, and while we aim to include only the best hardware and apps, occasionally we like to include products that look promising, even if they don’t always deliver. We only use carefully selected experts, with specialist knowledge in their respective field, so no matter which review you’re reading, you can be confident the person who’s tested it knows their stuff, allowing you to make an informed purchase. Each review is rated using a five-star system, with half stars, which is easy to understand because we give an explanation next to each…

1 SYNCING TO OTHER DEVICES Can you easily get notes onto your Mac or your school or office PC, or will you need to export your work in a different file format? 2 HANDWRITING RECOGNITION Most apps store handwriting as images, but if you want to be able to search, you’ll need an app that offers Optical Character Recognition (OCR). 3 DRAWING TOOLS Many apps offer simple sketching capabilities, but the results can be, well, sketchy. Shape correction can be helpful, although sometimes you’ll find that it tries to correct bits of your handwriting, too. 4 UPLOAD LIMITS If you’re reliant on cloud storage, will you run out of space fairly quickly? Is there a data transfer limit, or can you sync as many notes with as many big images…

$4.99 From Savage Software, procreate.art Made for iPhone, iPod touch Needs iOS 11.1 Procreate Pocket has long been considered one of the best painting and sketching apps for the iPhone, but it’s been a couple of years since its last update, so version 2.0 has been long awaited. It’s a major upgrade too, with a new graphics engine that uses Apple’s Metal software to improve performance. The app ran very smoothly on an iPhone 7, handling a variety of complex brush styles and effects without any hint of delay, so you can experiment to your heart’s content when inspiration hits you. Version 2.0 doesn’t work with Apple Pencil — that option’s only available on the more expensive iPad version of Procreate — but it does support 3D Touch on recent…

$3.99 From Fedor Danilov, nordunit.com Made for iPhone, iPad, iPad touch Needs iOS 9 or later Hyperforma imagines the process of hacking into computer cores as a complicated game of Arkanoid, in which you drag on the screen to manipulate a 3D collection of blocks shielding the core from your attacks, while your character bounces around the outside, ricocheting off the walls and — at the tap of an on-screen button — diving toward the core on an attack vector. Bash away enough of the shielding, and the core becomes vulnerable. Hit it, and you’re in. Cores don’t give up their secrets too easily, though, as special blocks that can’t be bashed, or which reset the blocks to their original configuration, get in your way. Luckily, you have special powers,…

$9.99 From Mailr Tech, canarymail.io Made For iPhone, iPad, Watch Needs iOS 9 or later Email on a tiny smartwatch sounds like a lamebrain idea and works about as well as you would expect with most watchOS apps. Even the built-in Mail app offers fairly limited functionality — more often than not you’ll see the dreaded “The full version of this message isn’t available on Apple Watch” warning instead of the actual text of your email. Third-party email client Canary Mail recently threw its hat into the Apple Watch ring, and the results are decidedly mixed. On the plus side, the watchOS app provides a much better preview of incoming missives, showing up to 10 lines of text compared to a mere four on the native Mail app. Canary Mail…

DIRECTV NOW 2.0 Free Following a lengthy beta, subscribers of AT&T’s live and on-demand streaming TV service have a new app to binge on. The cable-style guide remains, but it’s been pushed to the background in favor of new Watch Now, My Library, and Discover views. The service now also includes 20 hours of DVR for free. DIGGERMAN Free Whether you fondly remember Dig Dug or like to play in the mud, this freebie is a great way to get your virtual hands dirty by rescuing your beautiful sweetheart from the evil clutches of the Huge Angry Mole. Don’t stop digging — there are a surprising number of underground enemies to challenge you along the way. EASY WD MYCLOUDHOME $2.99 Own one of the newer WD MyCloud Home devices but…

WHEN YOU PICK up your first smart bulb, you really plant your flag in an entire smart lighting system. Although initially investing in Hue is reasonably expensive, once the cost of individual bulbs is spread out across your home, you’ll probably find it cheaper than spending on the same number of LIFX lights. Yes, IKEA’s Trådfri system is a whole lot cheaper, but we’re unconvinced by the quality of its smart services right now. This may well improve; ask us in a year, and there could be a completely different winner on the table. Currently, though, Hue is the right investment to make. It’s a proven system, highly reliable and flexible, with a huge number of accessories, and alternative bulb options to extend it further. It’s also great to use…

MAIL HANDLES EMAIL from all your accounts in one place. You can set up mailboxes, either within each online account, or offline by hovering over On My Mac and clicking the +. You can organize messages in these by dragging them manually, or by using Mail Rules. Using Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox, you can collate messages based on your criteria. Mail Drop lets you send large attachments. Read on to find out more. 1 Make mailboxes Hover over an account name, click the +, or Ctrl-click its Inbox and pick New Mailbox, to add a mailbox. In your Inbox, drag messages to mailboxes to file them. 2 Set up Mail Rules To file emails automatically, go to Preferences > Rules. Click Add Rule, set it to match a sender…