Innehållsförteckning för July 2016 från MacLife

TWO NEW WI-FI standards are coming soon, but they do different jobs. 802.11ad is also known as Wireless Gigabit (or WiGig), and is extremely fast – perhaps up to 7Gbps. 802.11ah is also known as Wi-Fi HaLow, and is very slow, but is capable of covering a huge area from a single router. The normal 802.11ac technology being used now will also continue to evolve and improve, so why are future technologies going in different directions? The answer, as with all complex things, is physics. A simple tenet of Wi-Fi technology is that you can increase data transfer speeds considerably by increasing the frequency of the signal, but as you do so, you decrease its range. If you have a dual-band router, using both the 2.4GHz band and 5GHz band,…

THE CANARY in the Mac gaming mine has just died. Unfortunately, Blizzard is not bringing its latest masterpiece, Overwatch, to the Mac. Since World of Warcraft came to OS X, Blizzard has been one of the most dependable stalwarts of Mac gaming. The blockbuster Starcraft 2 debuted on Mac in 2010, and the expansions followed. Diablo 3 came to Mac, and even Hearthstone was built with the Unity engine, making the port an easy affair. Overwatch is the latest Blizzard game, a team-based shooter where you have to work in groups to complete objectives. And to the shock of many Mac gamers, it’s not coming to OS X. “With the technology behind Macs and the way Overwatch runs, it’s just too challenging for us at this point to support it,”…

> NOTES You’re able to follow up on bright ideas anytime, anywhere KEEP A NOTE ON ONE DEVICE Notes you don’t want to sync can be stored locally on your Mac or iOS device. In iOS, go to Settings > Notes and turn on the “On My iPhone/iPad” account. On a Mac, choose Notes > On My Mac Account from the menu. You can always move them to iCloud later. MULTIPLE ACC OUNTS Notes can sync with other services. On a Mac, choose Notes > Accounts, and on iOS go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, then work your way through your various online accounts enabling or disabling syncing of notes. Other services don’t support all of iCloud’s features, so if you move a local note with an interactive checklist…

HAVE YOU ever considered whether the way you take on tasks is the most efficient use of your Mac, and if taking just a bit of time to learn shortcuts and discover hidden features in tools you use daily could actually save you time in the long run? Every issue of Mac|Life helps you with these things, naturally, but to make things really easy we’ve put together a collection of tips here to help you work faster on your Mac. The advice here will help you work with Mail more efficiently, create more advanced documents in iWork apps, speed up working with text, and more besides. However you use your Mac, there’s something to help you get more done. All of the tips here have been written with the latest…

SIGN DOCUMENTS >>> You can “sign” documents in Mail. Click the Sign button in the Markup toolbar and you’re asked if you want to write your signature by hand, using your trackpad. The tool can also use your Mac’s camera to take a photo of your signature on paper. HANDOFF >>> OS X’s Handoff feature lets you start writing an email on your iOS device then switch to Mac to attach a photo or file. Devices must use the same iCloud account, be on the same network, and be a model listed at apple.co/1I34axX. iCLOUD RULES >>> As well as processing mail as it arrives on your Mac, you can set rules at iCloud.com to deal with any whose subject mentions, say, Viagra before it reaches your devices. In iCloud…

GO FURTHER >>> With careful planning, OS X’s text replacement system is hugely useful, but it has drawbacks – notably, some shortcuts taking time to become active (sometimes requiring an app restart), and limitations to formatting and content. If you feel restricted, try TypeIt4Me (£14.99, ettoresoftware.com), which enables images, advanced formatting, markup and macros, with better tools for managing snippets. AUTOCORRECT >>> Under Text in the Keyboard preferences pane are options for activating spelling correction (which defaults to automatic by language). In many apps, you may have to manually turn on spelling correction: go to Edit > Spelling and Grammar, and activate the relevant options (Check Spelling While Typing and Correct Spelling Automatically). CHARACTER VIEWERS >>> These tips explore OS X’s character viewers, which make it easier to find all…

THE STANDARD file type for contacts is .vcf, which is a vCard file. If you export contacts from Apple’s Contacts app, this is what it uses, and it’s also used by the likes of Outlook and Microsoft’s Contacts app on Windows. iOS can read .vcf files by default – if you’re sent one, just tap to view it. For calendar event files, Apple uses the .ics file type, and again, iOS can read this file type without any extra apps, so just tap the file to open it. If you’re sent a .vcs file, you can’t open it natively, but there is a workaround: copy the file to Dropbox (or a similar service) and rename it, manually changing the file extension to .ics, then send it to yourself via email.…

WHEN IT COMES to advanced creative file types, you’re pretty much reliant on third-party apps. For Adobe Photoshop .psd files, Pixelmator ($4.99) is a great way to view them, and even make edits, though layers may be flattened depending on the complexity. Pixelmator’s own file type, .pxm, can be opened in that app, of course. You can view Adobe Illustrator’s .ai files and Adobe InDesign’s .indd files through SneakPeek ($9.99) – it’s another one that hasn’t been updated in a long time, but still works. You can’t edit either of these file types, though. One useful thing to note is that the Dropbox app can preview .psd and .ai files when you select them inside it, though it’s limited. There’s also a free app named ADOView that can view .indd…

$1.99 Developer Xebula Ltd, xebula.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9 or later Jottit combines note-taking and task management in a single app, enabling you to create notebooks containing notes, checklists or a mixture of both. The core app covers the essentials – reminders, swiping to change items’ status, due dates – if you want themes, better organization of notebooks, Markdown light support and the ability to create master notebooks that can contain multiple notebooks inside them, you’ll need to pay an additional $1.99 to unlock the app’s Advanced Mode. Once you’ve created a notebook it’s easy to add items and to set due dates and reminders. There are dedicated screens for scheduled tasks and for reminders, and you can use half-swipes and full swipes to set reminders or mark items…

99¢ Developer Tinrocket, tinrocket.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9.2 or later This app sits very firmly in the minimalist category. Want to annotate your images without a plethora of typeface and color options to confuse? Then This will do the job very nicely. Tap on the camera icon, then either take a shot or select one from your photo library, then tap on any part of the image you’d like to caption and you’ll see “(This)” text on the screen with a pointer. Hit the text element, and a text bar pops up. Simply overwrite the default text, choose from either black or white for your text and annotation marker and then choose what kind of arrow head you’d like – such as a bullet point or a heart. So,…

$2.99 Developer LeftRight, facebook.com/lnrgame Platform Universal Requirements iOS 7 or later Platforming, especially on iOS, is a crowded marketplace. As well as other original offerings, you’re up against ports of console classics with years of goodwill behind them. In order to truly differentiate yourself, you’ve got to be either very distinctive or very good indeed. And that’s where Star Knight stumbles. Armed with the usual backstory, you head out into a cutely animated 2D world. There are ledges to leap between – some that crumble beneath your feet, others that shoot out spikes – plus doors to unlock and monsters to skewer. It’s all fairly competent stuff, with the levels often encouraging you to explore in order to collect runes that unlock extra moves, and some pleasingly precarious parkour sections.…

$2.99 Developer Felix Lisczyk, snipnotes.de Platform Universal, watchOS Requirements iOS 8.2 or later APPS AND GUIDES TO GET MORE FROM YOUR WATCH You know what’s odd? There’s no Apple Watch support for the Notes app built into iOS. Who couldn’t use the convenience of wrist-ready access to their notes? Perhaps it will arrive with iOS 10, but for now it feels like a pretty glaring omission. Enter SnipNotes, a third-party alternative that takes most of its design cues from Apple Notes, but mixes things up just a bit. Although it lacks some of the recent improvements to Notes (there are no checklist or drawing features, for example), in many ways it’s a more powerful solution. For starters, you can send or receive content to and from just about anywhere using…

1 GET UPDATED Make sure you’re running watchOS 2 or later – this feature doesn’t work on earlier versions. (From the Apple Watch app: General > Software Update.) 2 SCROLL DOWN From a new notification or an existing Watch email, scroll to the bottom and tap Reply. 3 SPEAK IT You can choose from a list of preconfigured responses or select emoji. Better yet, tap the microphone to dictate a reply, then Done to confirm. Don’t forget to Send or your message will never leave your Watch!…

$39.99 Manufacturer Picktorial Innovations, picktorial.com Requirements OS X 10.9 or later Photo editing apps tend to go one of two ways. You’ve got your one-shot filtering programs, such as Priime Styles, and your more Photoshop-like apps which offer in-depth tools to edit your photos in any way you like. Picktorial has aspects of both, however. While there are no layers to work with, you do get non-destructive editing, skin-smoothing, raw image file support for a growing list of cameras, white balance adjustment, a curves adjustment histogram, and compatibility with existing Aperture catalog files – although it doesn’t feature that app’s organizational abilities. The interface is clean and uncluttered, with editing tools in an “inspector” panel at the right, and file browsing to the left and below the main image window.…

1 DOORBIRD VIDEO DOOR STATION D101 $350 doorbird.com > One of the more unusual applications of this kind of tech, the D101’s motion sensor and night-vision mode enable it to detect movement around your front door all day long. It can stream a video image to your phone so that you can see what’s going on outside, no matter where you are. 2 NETATMO WELCOME $199 shop.netatmo.com > The Welcome is one of the more expensive security cameras for home use, but it’s packed with clever and useful features. As well as motion detection, it features face-recognition technology (so it knows if an “intruder” is just a family member) and a memory card, so you can store video without paying for online storage. 3 ARLO WIRE-FREE From $160 arlo.com >…

1 Cocoon cocoon.life $432 >>> We weren’t able to include the Cocoon in our security feature this issue, because it’s only just emerging from its own crowdfunding shell on IndieGogo. It’s not due to go into full-scale production until this summer, but it could be a real game-changer for home security products. The device ticks all the usual security camera boxes with a Full HD 1080p camera for video, night-vision mode, motion detection, microphone and a roof-rattling 90dB siren. And, of course, there’s a compatible app. There are plenty of other security cameras that provide those features, and at the $400 mark the Cocoon is quite expensive. However, nestling inside the Cocoon is a technological butterfly called Subsound. Many cameras use a microphone to enhance motion detection capabilities, but the…

Free (with In-App Purchases) Part Mad Max, part LEGO homage, Hovercraft: Takedown is an action game combining custom vehicle building with physicsbased combat racing. Start with a prebuilt design or create something completely new — a band of thugs have taken over the highways, and it’s your job to assemble a hovercraft capable of taking down the bad guys! There are plenty of options for doing just that. Custom hovercrafts can be armed to the teeth with guns, missiles, and more, including long-range sniper cannons, 360-degree tracking lasers, and triple-fire homing rockets for maximum impact. You’ll be blasting your way through scenic rocky mountain passes in no time. Of course, hovercrafts are made from blocks, so as you sustain damage the vehicle will start to vanish before your very eyes.…

PANASONIC VIERA TX-58DX902B £2,799 (AROUND $4,100) PANASO NIC.COM Panasonic’s DX900 range isn’t out in the US yet, but we had to feature this model, because it’s the world’s first Ultra HD Premium panel. This is the new standard for high dynamic range 4K video, producing an image unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Watch out for its launch! GRIFFIN SURVIVOR PLAY $19 GRIFFINTECH NOLOGY .COM Apple’s Siri Remote is almost too svelte for its own good. Survivor Play is built for not just protection, but also comfort with a non-slip grip that makes it easier to hold while gaming. The impact-absorbing silicone doesn’t get in the way, but protects the back of the remote. Available in either clear or black.…

HOW TO DO ANYTHING ON YOUR MAC, iPHONE & iPAD REQUIRES > Safari 9 LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 5 minutes IF YOU USE the web to search for and buy gifts for a family member, or perhaps if you indulge in personal browsing on a work-owned computer during breaks, you may want to keep that activity hidden from other people’s sight. Keeping browsing private, then, means you need to make sure the browser and your account forget you ever visited the web pages in question. But there’s another consideration, in the form of tracking. You’ll have noticed that when you research a new purchase online, you seem to be pursued endlessly by adverts for the very products you’ve been investigating. That’s because your browser stores “cookies,” which…

REQUIRES > iPad and iCloud Account, friend with iOS device (and iCloud account) LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 30 minutes FROM SETTING UP day trips through to arranging holidays and planning parties, we’d be lost without iOS sharing. The trick to getting more out of Calendar and Reminders is to set up sharing with family and friends. Once sharing is enabled, you can add events to Calendar, and they’ll appear on all the shared iOS devices. If you change an event, such as moving its time or location, it’ll automatically update on everybody’s device (including any alerts that you’ve set). Sharing items in Reminders is even more useful. We often use Reminders to remember urgent tasks stuff, but it’s an excellent to-do list app. Reminders are ideal for…

REQUIRES > iPhone 4s or newer, iPod touch (5th or 6th generation, or an iPad 2 or newer. OS X 10.11.4 (optional) LEVEL > Medium IT WILL TAKE > 20 minutes DON’T BE fooled into thinking that iOS 9.3 has little to offer. Yes, it fixes and tweaks some existing features, but it also adds some significant new ones. Its headline feature is Night Shift, which reduces the amount of blue light emitted by your device’s screen. Research suggests that this kind of light may disrupt your circadian rhythm and sleep quality. You can counteract this on the Mac, in the form off.lux (Free, justgetflux.com). If you have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, more of iOS’s built-in apps offer 3D Touch shortcuts when you press firmly on their Home…

REQUIRES > iTunes, fonts to transfer, an iOS device running iOS 8 or later, AnyFont LEVEL > Medium IT WILL TAKE > 10 minutes IN THE EARLY days of computing, you were limited to a tiny selection of ugly fonts, but today’s computers typically come packed with plenty of much nicer typefaces. The only problem is that what you get on one system may not match what’s on another. For example, even if you’ve never added to your Mac’s font collection, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger than your iPad’s. This would all be fine if people still used a single device to do everything; but with the magic of the cloud, you’re now just as likely to be sending presentations and other documents between a Mac and…

WE’RE IN A period of change for the world of technology. Smartphones have already begun to revolutionize computing, moving a lot of the smaller tasks away from the desktop and into our pockets, but we all know they’re not suitable for every task. So if you’re a company that makes smartphone, tablet, and desktop computers, what’s the best experience for people who flit between those devices? Should they all look and work roughly the same? Or should they all work however is best for the form factor, and make the experience seamless when it comes to your information, not its appearance? Apple’s approach is the latter, and it’s worked well. Each device gets to play to its strengths: the iPhone stays simple, given its size; the iPad is picking up…

APPLE RECENTLY announced that it has invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-sharing service that is comparable to Uber in the United States. It’s an interesting move for Apple, which usually shies away from making large public announcements unless it’s a big acquisition – such as Beats – or a new product. The company does of course make investments, but generally on a much smaller scale. The motivations behind the deal, which came together in a period of just a few weeks, are mostly unclear. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Reuters that the company is “making the investment for a number of strategic reasons” including a fresh look at China, which is one of Apple’s key markets, but saw a decline in iPhone sales last quarter of 20%…

Some think the inevitable spread of robots into modern society will ultimately doom us to a future that looks like something out of Terminator. Others think our little robotic friends will be more like Bender from Futurama or something from the The Jetsons. Either way, we’re about to find out. What are now simply called “bots” have been here for some time, though relegated to limited use or niche industrial purposes. But a variety of companies have been working on bringing them to nearly every facet of everyday life, and we’re approaching the tipping point. Fast. To set the stage: McDonalds has been testing bots that could replace cashiers and some preparation duties. Panasonic created medicine delivery bots that just won approval for use in Japanese hospitals. Self-driving cars go…

SET UP iCLOUD ON YOUR MAC 1 For the full iCloud experience, upgrade to the latest version of OS X that your Mac supports. Apple lists requirements for each feature at bit.ly/iclreqs. 2 Open System Preferences’ iCloud pane and make sure you’re signed in. It’s easiest (and less confusing) to use the Apple ID you use with the App Store, though you can use a different one if you prefer. 3 Enable the apps and services whose data you want to sync with iCloud and with your other devices by checking the appropriate boxes. 4 Use the Options buttons next to Keychain, Photos and iCloud Drive to make additional choices, such as whether to enable the ability to create shared online photo albums. SET UP iCLOUD ON AN iOS DE…

RATHER THAN carry files on a USB thumb drive, you can save things to iCloud Drive to make them available on all of your Macs and iOS devices with no extra effort. To use iCloud Drive, you’ll need at least OS X Yosemite, iOS 8, or Windows 7 or higher with the iCloud for Windows software installed. On the Mac, iCloud Drive is found in Finder’s sidebar. Similarly, it appears in File Explorer’s sidebar in Windows. On iOS devices, most apps simply save to their own folder at the top of iCloud Drive. You can add an app for browsing Drive’s folders and sharing files; if you rejected iOS 9’s initial offer to add this, go to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive and switch on “Show on Home Screen.”…

> iWORK FOR iCLOUD The online iWork apps help you to stay productive with just a browser By saving iWork documents to iCloud Drive rather than your Mac or iOS device’s storage, you have the option of working on them in a web browser on any computer. There are some limitations, such as the fonts you can work with, but the web apps substitute others, and your original choices are reinstated when a doc is reopened on a Mac or iOS. The browser-based versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote also enable you to work on shared files: click the center icon at the top of the Document Picker to see files others have shared with you. To share one of your own, right-click it, then choose Collaborate from the menu.…

Free (with IAPs) Developer Apperto Ltd, apperto.com/videorama Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9 or later THIS MONTH’S MOST INTERESTING iPHONE & iPAD APPS Videorama is one of the latest contenders in the video-editing market, with a focus on combining clips and photos with complex effects. Videorama sits in a clever space between a simple, fast editor and an effects powerhouse, happily charging only for what you need. Videorama excels by keeping its feature set fairly simple and focused, in most cases for the better, but occasionally to a fault. For example, even though you can create projects in landscape, portrait, or a 1:1 square, both the iPhone and iPad version are locked to running only in portrait. That said, it’s easy to get started and add clips. Videorama does a good…

Free (with IAPs) Developer Failbetter Games, failbettergames.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9.1 or later Fallen London is a text-based roleplaying game set in an alternate-reality fantastical Victorian London under the sea, populated by the lords and ladies and merchants and urchins you might expect, as well as the devils and tombcolonists and tentacled creatures you might not. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but the basic setup is a map with several unlockable locations that each feature several unlockable “storylets,” plus an “Opportunity Deck” of a limited number of cards with extra adventures. Each storylet or opportunity begins with a brief description and one or more possible actions that either end or progress the mini adventure, but since even death leads to more storylets, there’s no such thing…

Free Developer Etermax, triviacrack.com Platform Universal, watchOS Requirements iOS 7 or later Fancy a game of trivia? Apple Watch owners can now get a quick brain-flexing fix while the iPhone stays in your pocket, courtesy of Trivia Crack. The game itself is free, but there are In-App Purchases for coin/life packs, and you can pay $2.99 to go for the ad-free version. Spin the virtual wheel, choose questions from six categories, and win the game by being the first to get six crowns – but stay sharp, there’s a rematch that could trip you up! You’ll first need to log in on the iPhone, but after that the fun all takes place on your wrist. Players compete in a variety of different languages with friends or random opponents around the…

$299 Manufacturer Philips, philips.com/monitors Features 1920x1080, HDMI, DVI-D, VGA, audio pass-through Most monitors produce color that almost anyone would be happy with, but if you’re serious about your Photoshop work, video editing, page layout or any other media design creation, you shouldn’t settle for average. Philips says this new 27-inch display in its E-Line range reproduces “99% of Adobe RGB,” the color space that’s relied on by media pros. This focus on color reproduction means it doesn’t have any extra features; there are no pass-through USB ports or built-in speakers, but it does have a pass-through audio jack if you connect using HDMI. It’s a moderately elegantlooking device, with a white bezel around the 27-inch LCD panel, and rests on a slim curved aluminum base. There’s a 25-degree range of…

>>> MY REASONS for buying one of the new Apple TVs are threefold. One, I watch a lot of TV; two, I am fancy; three, I want to spend the rest of my life explaining to guests what Apple TV is. One of my girlfriends asked, incredulous, “Why on Earth don’t you just plug your laptop into the TV?” as if I had spent $199 on a motorized spaghetti fork, or Paul Simon’s Graceland on LaserDisc. I really do love it though; all my ondemand TV shows plus my film and music library in one place plus the dorky ability to track domestic flights and stare into the cold black eyes of captive sharks. They’re so quick and simple to access, to the point where it’s sometimes too easy to…

Free If your kids like to create with Play-Doh, there’s now a free Apple TV app that will keep them busy all summer long doing just that. The aptly-named Play Doh Fun isn’t an officially sanctioned Hasbro app, but does offer plenty of ideas and instructional videos on how to turn everyone’s favorite flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil-based modeling compound into all kinds of cool stuff. From assembling Play-Doh activity sets to doll craft and fun time do-it-yourself projects like a paint set, corn-on-the-cob, and rainbow with a pot-o-gold, the ideas are endless. There’s even a video on how to create a smartphone out of Play-Doh, a Pac-Man complete with four ghosts, and of course, a Minion from the popular films. Many of the videos are hosted…

REQUIRES > iBooks Author, iBooks, and some media files LEVEL > Medium IT WILL TAKE > 30 minutes APPLE’S IBOOKS platform is fantastic for digital publishing, and its iBooks Author app is a powerful and surprisingly easy tool for creating beautiful interactive books. Rather than basic Kindle-style ebooks, iBooks Author lets you create proper page layouts with beautiful typography, and enhance the pages with a range of interactive media features. It’s free, and so is publishing to the iBooks Store. You can keep your creations to yourself, but why not share them with the world? iBooks Author will feel familiar to anyone who’s used Pages, Keynote or even Numbers. In fact, you can even import Pages and Keynote documents directly into an iBooks document. But before you begin, sketch out…

PARKITECT $17.99 This game of building a theme park gets back to the sim genre’s roots. You start with an empty plot of land and build elaborate rollercoasters of your own design, other simple rides, and give the whole thing a theme. The game’s basics are here, but it lacks a campaign mode so far, so is a little aimless (but still fun). VERSION TESTED: ALPHA 2A EVENT HORIZON $5.99 Head out into the galaxy in a space ship you create yourself and explore! Well, kind of. You can build ships, customizing their engines, power plants, weapons, and armor, but it’s lacking any storyline, so you can pretty much just fight and trade - and they’re not especially fun. Keep an eye on this, but don’t buy it yet. VERSION…

1 HAIL, CAESAR! George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Josh Brolin $14.99 The Coen brothers’ latest film is quintessentially Coen, from its amazing cast to its odd humor and considered shots – and, for some, an overall feeling of maybe not landing with the satisfaction that it should. Set in the ’50s, it follows a day in a movie studio, as Josh Brolin’s studio head tries to keep things together during conflicts between stars and directors, a kidnapping of a major actor, and keeping secret the real life of a “perfect” starlet. It’s full of in-jokes about oldschool Hollywood (and nods towards events such as McCarthyism), and is undeniably stylish and clever – and very, very Coens. 2 OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO! Oceanhouse Media $2.99 Our favorite Dr. Seuss book (the…

APPLE’S ONLINE service is the glue that binds together everything you do on your Mac, iPhone and iPad. While sitting quietly in the background, it’s the conduit apps use to keep your data up to date everywhere: Photos sends your shots from your iPhone back to the library on your Mac; your Pages documents are always ready to work on, whichever device you’re using; and notifications from Reminders pop up on your Mac even if you set them elsewhere using your iPhone. This makes iCloud the ultimate timesaver, providing a seamless working experience as you switch devices. The above uses are almost entirely passive; however, many apps require you to be more active in using iCloud. Screens can sync login settings for remote Macs using iCloud, and asks you to…

> DROPBOX Fast, simple, and with great OS X integration Dropbox (dropbox.com) integrates with a wide variety of Mac and iOS apps. As with iCloud Drive, a shortcut to it sits in Finder’s sidebar, and right-clicking a file in that folder lets you create a link to share the file. A free account gives you 2GB, while Dropbox Pro gives you 1TB for $9.99 a month or $99 a year. See bit.ly/dbboost for ways to boost a free account’s capacity (you’ll need to register for an account first). > Google Drive Enterprise-level features with a friendly face Every drive.google.com account comes with 15GB of storage, with upgrades starting at 100GB for $1.99 a month, up to a ridiculous 30TB for $299.99 a month (see bit.ly/ggldupg). That’s shared by Google Photos,…

1 CHECK ICLOUD SERVICE STATUS If anything seems to be broken, the problem may not be your end, in which case you’ll need to wait. Point your browser at bit.ly/applservstat for a rundown of every Apple service. 2 SYNCING TAKES TIME Be patient. We’ve found changes made on one Mac or iOS device don’t always immediately sync to every other device immediately. Give it time to filter through. If one of your Macs is running OS X Server 5, it can cache personal iCloud data so that your other devices can obtain it from your network rather than downloading it. 3 FORCE AN UPDATE MANUALLY If you’re still not seeing timely updates in apps that sync data or documents, many allow you to force a manual refresh by scrolling to…

MASTER THE BASICS >>> It can pay to keep your hands on the keyboard and not get distracted by desperately trying to finding items buried in the menu bar. If possible, try to memorize commonly used shortcuts, especially Cut (c+x), Copy (c+C), Paste (c+v), Undo (c+z) and Select All (c+A). LEARN FORMATTING BASICS >>> Whether you’re working on a formatted rich-text document or a Markdown file, you will sometimes need to emphasize text. You can typically make a selection bold, italic or underlined by pressing c+B, c+I, or c+U, respectively. USE ARROW KEYS >>> The arrow keys move the insertion point a character or line at a time, but you can make larger jumps by combining them with modifier keys. Press Alt+“ or Alt+‘ to move the insertion point one…

iOS ’S BUILT-IN image support enables you to view .jpeg, .tiff, and .png files without the need for any additional apps. You can use the Open In… command to open these images in many apps if you want to edit them – iOS does not lack for photo-tweaking apps! iOS can also view .gif images, but support for animated .gif files is limited. The best option is to open them in GIF Viewer, a free app for organizing your .gif files. Raw images are where it gets complicated. iOS has no support for raw files directly – so you’re limited to using third-party apps to view these images. If you’re sent a raw image file that has been shot with a JPEG preview, you can open it with Pixelmator ($4.99),…

Free Developer EasilyDo Inc, easilydomail.com Platform iPhone Requirements iOS 9 or later Since the early days of mobile email we’ve been frustrated by iOS email apps: many of them are very good, but don’t quite hit the spot – and the ones that came close, such as Mailbox and Sparrow, were shut down. But now we’ve discovered EasilyDo Mail, which is pretty close to perfect. Let’s get the imperfect bits out of the way first. Exchange and iPad support isn’t coming until late summer, and you’ll need to wait for the next build to use Gmail aliases. And sometimes the formatting is a bit off. Now for the good stuff. It’s extremely fast – much faster on Gmail than Apple’s Mail app – and it has smart Assistants that automatically…

Free (subscription required) Developer theSkimm, theskimm.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9 or later The sheer number of ways we digest news and information in the mobile era can be overwhelming at times. Maybe what we need is an app that could skim the headlines, serve up news based on your particular interests, and even give a heads-up about future events right in your calendar. That’s the premise behind theSkimm, a Universal app that starts you off each morning with a curated feed of the current day’s important news and events called the Daily Skimm. Instead of a long-winded article, theSkimm presents a bite-sized take on stories with a light-hearted, witty tone. Should you prefer to take a peek at what’s on the horizon, Skimm Ahead provides a look at upcoming…

$1.99 Developer State of Play Games, inksgame.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 9 or later Think “pinball game” and your mind probably jumps straight to cheap thrills: flashing lights, gaudy graphics, high-score buzzers. Inks is a surprise – a minimalist table, almost devoid of color. A blank canvas, in fact. That is, of course, until you start playing. Hit any of the colored bumpers dotted around the table and ink blooms prettily, your ball drawing trails across the white background. Hey presto, you’re an artist! Not only does your pigment-splattered play area look like Jackson Pollock: The Spirograph Years, it also serves as a visual record of where you’ve been; it’s a map of which portion of each flipper (activated by tapping the lower edges of the screen) sends the ball…

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re taking a break from checking out what people are sharing online. If you too are itching to share what you love with the world, there are plenty of great ways to do it. We’ve rounded up the best of them to help you choose where to share. You could think of PINTEREST (Free, Universal) as a public scrapbook, or scrapbooks. As one of the top 50 most-visited sites in the world, it’s where hundreds of millions of users go to find, pin (save), and share everything from recipes, to inspirational quotes, to home improvement ideas, to fashion gotta-haves. You can create multiple “boards” to organize “pins” however you like, and the whole thing is free and supported by advertising. With aspirations…

Free Developer Christopher Adam Overholtzer, overdesigned.net/cheatsheet/ Platform Universal, watchOS Requirements iOS 9 or later If you find it difficult to remember things, Cheatsheet delivers snippets of information to a Notification Center Today widget or your Apple Watch. This quick notes app also functions as a keyboard extension for quick pasting up to 50 cheats from virtually anywhere on all of your iOS devices. With a Force Touch on the Watch face, users can add new cheats or refresh existing ones added on another device. Each entry can also be tagged with a hint icon to help remember what each one is used for, with a Glance that shows your top 10 cheats. It’s great for small, short term hints, such as a hotel room number or temporary authorization codes, and…

ARCHIVE YOUR OWN VIDEO common If you’re technically ambitious, you can set up your own FTP server – online, or by using OS X Server – to store video from Netatmo Welcome without any extra fees. JARGON BUSTER IFTTT (If This Then That) is an interoperability standard, similar to Apple’s HomeKit, that enables devices from different manufacturers to work together. Netatmo’s Welcome app can work with the IFTTT app (free, App Store) so that it turns on a Philips Hue lighting system, say, when the camera sees you enter a room. 1 On the cards In many ways, Netatmo’s Welcome is a typical security camera, but it has appealing extras, including both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, and an 8GB memory card to store video without needing to pay a fee…

Free (with In-App Purchases) If your television set always seems to be tuned to the Smithsonian Channel show Aerial America, it may be time to expand your horizons just a little. FromSky by PureScreens serves up on-demand landscapes from around the globe in high definition, all shot from above and accompanied by the atmospheric sound of wind as you soar through the sky. After installing the free app, there’s a brief delay as a moving HD video preview background is downloaded, at which point you’ll be able to select from seven different, endlessly looping destinations. The Balkans are included free with download, but also available for 99 cents each are a pair of paradisiacal landscapes for Polynesia, the Mediterranean pearl of Greece, two different breathtaking views of Iceland and a…

REQUIRES > Affinity Photo ($49.99, Mac App Store) LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 60 minutes A BIG PROBLEM for landscape photographers is the large difference in brightness that scenes often exhibit. Even on days with blue skies, the top part of an image can often be extremely bright relative to the ground in the bottom part of a shot. That means if you set your camera to provide the correct exposure for the sky, you can end up underexposing the ground beneath – or vice versa. This is why many professionals opt for a graduated filter. This sliver of glass is translucent at the bottom and dark at the top, graduating in between, so the bottom part of an image exposes faster than the top part. If you…