Innehållsförteckning för 1 October, 2015 från Macworld UK

Apple is reentering the living room with the 2015 Apple TV, a new set-top box that streams video, plays games, and uses Siri to answer your every entertainment whim. While the basic shape of the new Apple TV hasn’t changed, it is about 10mm taller than its predecessor, presumably to make room for all the added computing power under the hood. Gone is the crusty old A5 processor, and in its place is a 64-bit A8 chip. Around the back, there’s HDMI and ethernet, but no optical audio output. At first glance, the new Apple TV has a similar interface to that of its predecessor. A strip of recommendations sits on top, followed by a list of apps underneath. The big difference is that there’s an entire App Store, rather…

Considering the problems it can cause for some users, why does Apple release public betas of its operating systems? Because there’s only so much that can be done in a development lab – bug testing needs to be done on a large scale. If you’re ready and willing to use Apple’s beta operating systems, that’s great – you get to try out the newest features. However, remember what the purpose of the beta is for, and let Apple know what went wrong. On the El Capitan public beta, you report issues through the Feedback Assistant app, and iOS 9 has a Feedback app too. When you install one of these betas, the app installs automatically, and El Capitan’s Feedback Assistant app even auto-launches as a reminder to file reports. If…

Safari’s major overhaul occurred when Yosemite was released last year. By comparison, the changes in El Capitan are just a few, but they will have an immediate effect on how you browse the web. Safari tab mute This feature alone is worth upgrading to El Capitan. Whenever you’re in Safari, there’s a very good chance that you have multiple tabs open. And many websites auto-play media, so you can end up with sound coming from a tab you aren’t currently looking at. The problem is trying to find which tab the sound is coming from so you can mute the audio. In Safari 9, tabs with audio playing show a sound icon in the tab. This makes it easy to spot where the audio is coming from, but Apple goes…

This is the fourth part of our ongoing guide to System Preferences – you can find the other parts in our previous issues. You can download the Newsstand version of these from tinyurl.com/pevjevb. Here we look at parental controls, dictation and speech, and more. Parental controls This System Preferences pane is for restricting accounts. Although it’s primarily designed to limit a child’s access to certain apps, the web, or the entire Mac, its various options have scope for wider use, for example with the guest account. You’ll need to click the lock and enter admin details to make any edits inside Parental Controls. Prior to working on an account, you can optionally check ‘Manage parental controls from another computer’. This makes it possible to define any given Mac’s parental control…

The third founder The history of everyone’s favourite start-up is a tech fairy tale of one garage, three friends and humble beginnings. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves… The two Steves – Jobs and Wozniak – may have been Apple’s most visible founders, but where it not for their friend Ronald Wayne there might be no iPhone, iPad or iMac today. Jobs convinced him to take 10 percent of the company stock and act as an arbiter should he and Woz come to blows, but Wayne backed out 12 days later, selling a holding that today would be worth $72bn for just $500. How Jobs met Woz Jobs met Woz at the Homebrew Computer Club; a gathering of enthusiasts in a garage in California’s Menlo Park. Woz had seen his…

Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications OS X 10.6.8 or later; 5.72GB disk space Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications OS X 10.6.8 or later; 5.72GB disk space Compared to Yosemite, the updates in El Capitan must count among the most minor of any OS X update, stretching right back to when the operating system was introduced in 2000. In fact, you’ll have to look closely to see much difference. However, new features are there and some of them are extremely welcome, as we discover in this comparison of the beta of El Capitan and Yosemite. Performance Spotting performance improvements between versions of OS X is increasingly difficult now that Apple almost universally utilises solid state storage across its Mac range. Tasks such as launching an application occur near-instantly. Despite this, Apple…

Deauthorising OS X software before moving to a new device Q: Is there a place on Yosemite to find programs that are currently authorised on my Mac? I am specifically interested in those that must be deauthorised before moving to a new device. I’m already aware iTunes must be. Philip Shook A: As Philip notes, iTunes lets you deauthorise a computer (Account > Deauthorize This Computer). Doing so frees up a slot in the total count of five computers that you can use the same music and videos on with the same iTunes account. For general software, if it’s purchased from the Mac App Store, there’s no requirement to deauthorise. As Jason Snell wrote in 2011 when the Mac App Store first appeared, there’s no limit on the number of…

Cowin Ark £149cowinmusic.com The Ark is a two-piece Bluetooth speaker setup by Cowin, and looks to be one of the more interesting speaker systems on the market. The top part, called Cruze, is a Bluetooth speaker that has two drivers and passive radiators with an eight-hour battery life, while the bottom section, called Ark, houses a 5in ported subwoofer. What makes this 35W setup so cool is that the two parts of the system are wirelessly connected, and whenever the Cruze is sat on the Ark, it’s wirelessly charged. Moov Now $99 (£64)moov.cc Dubbed the ‘Siri of Sweat’, the Moov Now fitness tracker doesn’t only track exercise, but also provides you with audio and visual guidance on a range of activities via an iOS app. For example, when running, it…

Unlike Notes and Maps, Apple’s native Mail app hasn’t been given a makeover in iOS 9, but a few tweaks have been made that will make managing your email less of a headache. Plus, Mail reaps the benefits of iOS 9’s iPad multitasking features, which are game-changing on their own. We’ve been playing around with Mail since the iOS 9 public beta opened two weeks ago, and here are the biggest changes you can expect when Apple’s new mobile OS is released in the autumn. (Keep in mind that since this is a beta, features could change between now and the final release.) Attachments The biggest change is the long-awaited support for file attachments. Now you can attach a document with a long press in the body of a message.…

The iPod was Apple’s original rock star. Back before the iPhone became a global sensation and the iPad led the post-PC revolution, the iPod was the device generating long lines and record-breaking sales. Apple’s annual music event – where the latest in iPod technology was unveiled to much fanfare – created enough buzz to sustain sales for the next 12 months, and its popularity was such that it created a so-called halo effect that spurred sales of Apple’s other products, namely iMacs and iBooks. Even when its would-be assassin was announced at Macworld San Francisco, Steve Jobs stressed the “widescreen iPod with touch controls” aspect as one of its three tent pole features. In fact, it was the very first thing we learned the iPhone could do, and Steve waited…

Small business owners. Have you ever considered going mobile? That is, making an app for your business, whether it’s a restaurant, store, or events company? It’s not a bad idea. After all, you know your customers are on their phones 24/7, so you might as well capitalize on that. The good news is that doing so isn’t nearly as difficult or as expensive as you might think. In fact, you don’t even need to hire an outside developer to create an app for your business. There are plenty of DIY app-building services on the market, which offer intuitive app-creation tools and app hosting for a low monthly fee. We tried out several DIY services and found that Appy Pie, Como, and GoodBarber are all especially user-friendly for people who have…

There are actually two standard MacBook models available, both with a 12in screen (measured diagonally). Dimensions for both unit are identical: 28.05cm by 19.65cm, and 3.5mm at the edge tapering to 131mm thick (theMacBook Air tapers from 17mm to just 3mm). The new MacBook weighs less than a kilogram at 920g. The key difference between the two modelsis the amount of storage available, andthe speed of the processor, although the most obvious difference is that there are threecolour choices: gold, silver and space grey, just like the iPhone. The entry-level MacBook unit offers a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.4GHz), and 256GB PCIe-based flash storage. The other MacBook unit offers a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz), and 512GB PCIe-based…

With so many Macs to choose from, each with very different features and specs, it can get a little tricky when it comes to deciding which Mac to buy. How do you know which Mac is best for you? Should you buy a Mac mini, an iMac or a Mac Pro? Or would you be better off with a MacBook, MacBook Air or a Retina MacBook Pro? Which Mac is best for you really depends on your needs and how much you are prepared to spend to meet them. As a rule Macs are more expensive than PCs, but that’s really because there are more low-cost PCs available. If you want a laptop that costs less than £300, then you will have to settle on a PC (or find yourself…

The Apple TV is a connected set-top box, measuring 23mm by 98mm by 98mm and weighing 27g, that offers access to iTunes TV shows and movies, as well as content from Netflix, YouTube and Vimeo. You can also stream content to your TV from your Mac, iPhone and iPad. It costs £59. The Apple TV isn’t a TV in the normal sense of the word, because it doesn’t have free-to-air channels or a digital video recorder to store shows to watch at a more convenient time. However, it does offer what could be described as channels, and this content keeps on growing, leaving us hopeful for a future where the Apple TV will include links to on-demand services just like our iPhones and iPads do – think the iPlayer and…

The iPad Pro, revealed during Apple’s recent event, is the most powerful iOS device ever made, and “the biggest iPad news since the iPad,” CEO Tim Cook said from the stage. The iPad Pro also has two new accessories: the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil. Apple’s king-size tablet measures 12.9 inches on the diagonal. With 5.6 million pixels in a 2732x2048 resolution, the iPad Pro has a higher resolution than the 15in MacBook Pro with Retina display. And according to Apple, the new multitasking capabilities in iOS 9 were specifically designed to make the most out of the iPad Pro. Available in November, it will be available in Silver, Gold and Space Grey. While no UK pricing has been announced, we can get an idea how much you’ll have to…

Was installing the El Capitan beta on your Mac a big mistake? Have you had a change of heart and want to go back to Yosemite? Here’s how to revert back from El Capitan What you can’t and can do Before you start there are a couple of things that you can’t do. First off, it’s not possible to boot your Mac into Recovery mode and revert to Yosemite because this method can only be used for reinstalling the system that’s currently on the Mac, which in this case is El Capitan. Secondly, you can’t run the Yosemite installer within El Capitan, because the Mac always wants to have the latest version of OS X. What you can do is erase the beta of El Capitan, reinstall Yosemite, and then…

Partitioning a hard drive, or an SSD drive, involves creating multiple volumes from one physical storage medium. The volumes appear separately in the Finder and are treated separately by your Mac. You can format them independently and use them for different purposes. You may not know it, but your Mac’s boot drive, assuming it’s a recent model, is already partitioned. Modern Macs ship with a hidden partition, which hosts OS X’s Recovery System, a set of first aid tools and an installer that allows to re-install the OS X on your boot disk if you’re unable to boot from it. There are occasions, however, when you’ll want to create another partition, and here we’ll show you how. Why partition your Mac? There are several reasons why you might want to…

There are four different models of laptop in Apple’s line-up: the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro with Retina display, and new for 2015 the Retina MacBook. Further still, each of those laptops is available in different sizes and configurations, with various build-to-order options. It’s not surprising, then, that many people have difficulty deciding between them. Here, we’re helping you make that decision by examining the options and providing expert advice about which MacBook is best for you. First, let’s take a look at what’s on offer. One thing to consider if you work with large files, as many creative professionals do, is the capacity of the storage inside the Mac MacBook Air Four configurations of MacBook Air are available. Two have an 11in display, while the other two come…

What is Photos for OS X? The goal of the Photos app is twofold. First, to bring to your Mac the same simple yet powerful photo management experience that we’re all used to on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, not only in functionality but also in terminology – Photos understands HDR, for example, and applies an icon label to each of the HDR versions of your snapshots. Photos also brings to your Mac iCloud Photo Library, which syncs your snapshots harmoniously and invisibly via the cloud. Secondly, to make Photos a reality, Apple has killed-off not only its iPhoto line but also the enthusiast/pro-level Aperture app. You can still keep these installed alongside Photos but they’re banished from sale via the Mac App Store and won’t be updated with…

Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications OS X 10.6.8 or later; 5.72GB disk space Free Windows 7 and 8.1 users £99 inc VAT (Home) £189 inc VAT (Pro) Contact microsoft.com/en-gb Specifications 1GHz or faster processor; 1GB for 32-bit or 2GB for 64-bit Windows 10; 16GB drive space for 32-bit or 20GB for 64-bit; DirectX 9 or later graphics card; 1024x600 pixels or higher display It’s been a rough few years for Microsoft but Windows 10 has seen a resurgence of interest. It’s feels like the 1990s all over again as PC users coo with delight at what appears to be a genuinely usable version of Windows. But while PC users might be thrilled, how does Microsoft’s latest offering compare to OS X Yosemite? Desktop Yosemite’s desktop was visually overhauled with…

The Apple Watch’s Activity app is designed to help you get fit and stay healthy. It does this by setting and tracking three daily targets: to sit less (your target is to stand for at least one minute in each of at least 12 separate hours), to move around more (measured according to the calories you burn), and to log 30 minutes of brisk activity every day. The Activity app is accessible from the Home screen. Press the Digital Crown to go the Home screen and tap the icon showing three concentric coloured rings – red, green and blue. Getting started Tap ‘Get started’ and fill in your personal details: sex, age, weight, height, and so on. (When entering information, it’s generally more accurate to scroll up and down through…

1. Teach iOS your routine iOS 9 has arrived (in beta form, at least, but the final version will be with us very soon), and we’re enjoying its plethora of new features. In this article we’re going to walk you through some of our favourites, and help you to master the new features. We’ll start with a little something we call ‘Proactive’. This tries to stay one step ahead, always doing its best to work out what you’ll want to do next and then offer a shortcut to that behaviour. Ring your mum at a certain time each week? iOS will start placing her contact icon in your Search screen when the appointed hour approaches, so you can make the call with a single swipe (left from the first Home…

Apple’s native Maps app currently sits in a folder called Junk on the second page of my home screen, where I banished it as soon as it launched close to three years ago. Mainly because it lacked public transport directions. That’s how I get around the city, and while Maps points you to third-party apps for underground information, I need an all-in-one solution. Google Maps tells me how to get where I’m going by foot, in a car, or on the train, so it’s my go-to whenever I leave my flat. But iOS 9 makes Apple Maps a strong contender with the addition of mass transit directions that, so far, are just as accurate as Google’s. Plus, it has a bevvy of other improvements, like better communication with your Mac…

Website controls In the previous issue, we looked at the Restrictions section of the Settings menu, and how to control in-app purchases and limit what Siri can access. Here we’ll start the second part of our guide to iOS settings by continuing to look at Allowed Content and the website option, which allows you to limit the websites that can be viewed in Safari. By default, this is set to allow ‘all websites’, but tapping on Limit Adult Content will automatically filter out most adult websites. You can, however, still allow or block access to specific websites by entering the address in the ‘always allow’ or ‘never allow’ panels. The second option, labelled Specific Websites Only, is the safest bet for young children as it blocks all websites apart from…

Welcome to Macworld’s in-depth guide to every Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod that Apple makes, as well as other hardware and software that comes out of Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, California. The first two pages offer a quick summary, with detailed looks on the following pages. Apple makes six different kinds of Mac, and each has subcategories and variations in specs and features. Some Macs are faster and more powerful, while other Macs have slower processors but are cheaper. This guide should help you identify which Mac best suits your needs. There are now four different iPhones and five iPads to choose from, along with a collection of iPods and the Apple TV. Plus, we should soon see the launch of the Apple Watch. Read on to understand every product…

There are four standard MacBook Air models available, in two sizes. In March 2015, each MacBook Air was updated and now offers a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 6000 as standard. There are also build-to-order options that let you add a faster Intel processor (the 2.2GHz dual-core i7, for £130), more storage (512GB SSD for £240) and 8GB of RAM (for £80). The only real differences between the different models are the size of the screen, the amount of storage and battery life. Both the 11in and 13in MacBook Air offer either 128GB or 256GB SSD options. The 11in MacBook Air offers nine hours of battery life, compared with the 12 hours of the 13in MacBook Air. The 11in MacBook Air weighs…

You may think the iMac was only recently updated, with a new 5K Retina iMac joining the one introduced in October 2014. However, the rest of the iMac range, with the exception of the £899 model introduced in June 2014, has not been updated since September 2013. The iMac line-up includes three 21.5in versions, one 27in model and two Retina 27in systems. The £899 entry-level 21.5in iMac has a 1.4GHz dual-core i5 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Next up is an iMac that for another £150 gives you a faster 2.7GHz i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. For another £150, the top-of-the-range 21.5in iMac offers a 2.9GHz i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. All the 27in iMacs also offer quad-core…

Apple sells three types of iPod: the iPod shuffle, the iPod nano and the iPod touch. The iPod touch is far more than just a simple music player. It comes equipped with essentially all the features of a fully fledged iPhone bar the call capabilities. The iPod nano is also a capable device, and small enough to carry anywhere, while the iPod shuffle is simple, inexpensive and tough. Currently, the iPod shuffle offers a humble 2GB of storage, while the iPod nano boasts a rather more spacious 16GB. It’s worth bearing in mind that this means the shuffle can hold around 450 songs encoded at 128kb/s, with the nano’s 16GB topping out at around the 4,000 mark. The only model to go higher than 16GB is the iPod touch, which…

Apple unveiled the Apple Watch back in September 2014, band finally went on sale on24 April 2015. The best news here is that Apple’s not just launching a smartwatch but a whole raft of smartwatches. By combining the three different Apple Watch categories, the two different face sizes, and the accompaniment of straps, there is the potential for 38 different Apple Watches, so there will be a style to suit anybody. And crucially, since Apple is offering two watch face sizes, the Apple Watch will be as comfortable on a female wrist as it is a man’s. Where other companies have failed to come up with a smartwatch design that suits anyone, Apple has solved the issue by coming up with multiple designs to suit everybody. Rather than try and…

Apple has updated what’s left of the iPod line. It boosted the processor and improved the camera on the iPod touch and added some new colours. It also added new colours to the iPod nano and shuffle. You may wonder why Apple is still selling the iPod shuffle. After all, when you can have an iPhone that runs apps, takes photos, records and plays HD video, and uses GPS to give you directions – or an iPod touch with most of those features – why keep selling a tiny little device that does nothing more than play audio? Because the iPod shuffle plays audio and nothing more. I’ve owned several shuffles over the years. I bought the initial model, which looked like a white USB stick, back in 2005, when…

I’m not feeling a lot of love for OS X El Capitan out there. That might not be surprising, given that it’s firmly in the tradition of Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard – new-feature-light, speed-and-stability-focused OS X updates. But as someone who reviewed both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, I can tell you that not only did these releases contain a bunch of bug fixes and other internal tweaks, they also managed to add a bunch of new features, too. Apple can’t help itself. So let me present to you six reasons to be excited about what’s coming. Spotlight as search engine Some people love clicking around looking for things, whether it’s on their computer or on the internet. For those people we have navigation bars on websites and the…

One of the more interesting features of OS X El Capitan is the new Split View, which lets you run two apps side by side without any distractions. It’s sort of like full-screen mode, except with two apps. I’ve never been a huge fan of Full Screen Mode, but adding a second app to Full Screen Mode gives the feature an extra dimension that makes it much more intriguing to me. It’s not just that the new feature allows Full Screen Mode to now encompass all of the tasks I perform by switching between two apps. It’s also that, at least on my 27in Retina iMac, it’s a waste of space. To bring Split View to El Capitan, Apple has modified Full Screen Mode so that it can display two…

One of the key benefits of running a Mac is that you can enjoy the unique experience of having OS X and Windows on the same computer. In this feature we explain how to install and run Microsoft’s latest operating system on your Mac. Boot Camp or virtual machine? As with running any non-OS X operating system on your Mac, there are two ways to get Windows 10. Your first option is to install the OS on a separate partition of your hard drive using the built-in Boot Camp. Thus you can boot your OS X device directly into Windows 10, as if it was a Windows PC. Alternatively, you can run Windows as a virtual machine inside an OS X program. In general, we recommend using Boot Camp to…

Battery life is one of the most common concerns readers have when Apple, or indeed any manufacturer, releases a new laptop. After all, no-one wants to run out of power, and Apple uses batteries that are not user-replaceable. I ran two different battery tests on the new MacBook, 13in MacBook Air and 13in Retina MacBook Pro. The first produced results that jibe with Apple’s specification. The second produced results that fell short, but there are a lot of factors that influence how long a battery can last. I used the following settings: Screen brightness: Set to 75 percent Automatically adjust brightness: Off Wi-Fi: Off for the iTunes movie test Notifications: Off In Energy Saver system preference (Battery Tab), I used the following: Put hard disks to sleep when possible: Checked…

1. Apple USB-C Multiport Adaptor Price: £65 Most people who buy the new MacBook will have existing devices, such as printers and hard drives, that can’t be plugged directly into the MacBook’s solitary USB-C port. The good news is that Apple has a number of adaptors that can help you out here. The bad news is that these are pretty expensive. The cheapest option is the basic USB-C to USB Adaptor, which costs £15 and allows you to plug one USB device into your MacBook. Unfortunately, you can’t charge the laptop at the same time. If this is a problem, you’ll have to shell out £65 for one of Apple’s USB-C Multiport Adaptors. Two versions are available, which include either an HDMI interface for connecting to HD TVs and monitors,…

Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications OS X version 10.7.5 or later; Apple Music requires OS X version 10.9.5 or later; 400MB of available disk space; iTunes Extras require OS X version 10.10.3 or later It’s safe to assume that you’ve read plenty about the new Apple Music streaming service by now – the millions of tracks that are available, the big-name DJs that Apple has hired (and that little spat with Taylor Swift…). But reading about it isn’t the same as using it. Things are straightforward on iOS devices, where the new streaming service and radio features have been integrated into a new version of the iOS Music app. Unfortunately, that’s not the case when listening to your music on a Mac or PC. Instead of producing a new Music…

1. Native apps One of the features we’re most excited about is the ability to run apps natively on the Apple Watch. Third-party apps are one of the device’s biggest downfalls, because they’re slow and buggy. That’s because they rely on the iPhone that the smartwatch is connected to, rather than using the power of the Watch itself. This will all change with the watchOS 2 update, which means the apps will be able to run entirely on your Watch. 2. New tech for apps Letting apps run natively on the Apple Watch also opens up access to sensors and other technology within the smartwatch, including the Taptic Engine, Digital Crown, accelerometer, heart-rate sensor, speaker and microphone. This means that the possibilities for apps on the Apple Watch will significantly…

If I were Tim Cook right now, I wouldn’t be worrying about Apple Watch sales potential. Oh, it will sell. The new TV ad is inspiring, and the stainless steel polish on these watches looks amazing. Add in Apple’s trademark surprise-and-delight, and all signs point to long lines on launch day. I’d be more concerned about people using the Watch than buying the Watch packed silly with features – far too many of them borrowed from the catalogue of smartwatch failures. A troubling number of smartwatch owners eventually toss their gadgets aside. The most detailed data on this problem, a July 2014 Endeavor Partners study (tinyurl.com/obx4d9k), tells us that about a third of all smartwatch and fitness band owners abandon their wrist wearables after six months. Poor battery life certainly…

The Notes app for iOS has always existed as a utilitarian way to quickly jot down whatever comes to mind. It’s devoid of fuss, which is perfect for times when you just need to make a quick list, but the lack of features opened the door to other, better note-taking apps such as Evernote, Awesome Note and OneNote. But in iOS 9, Apple’s native note-taking app catches up to those feature-filled rivals from third parties – and if you don’t need a cross-platform solution, Notes might just become your go-to organiser. Formatting The most obvious change when you start to add text is formatting. You can finally adjust font size by selecting the title, heading or body – you don’t have a range of font point sizes to choose from,…

If you’re a regular user of iCloud Drive, Apple’s Dropbox-like storage solution for managing file syncing between your Mac and iOS devices, then your life is about to get a little bit easier. Apple has designed a standalone iCloud Drive app and bundled it within iOS 9, placing all of your iCloud Drive files in one easy to access spot. But, surprisingly, the iCloud Drive app doesn’t automatically appear on your iOS device’s home screen – it’s instead tucked away within Settings, and you’ll have to tell your iOS device that you want to see it. Besides that, it’s a pretty straightforward app. I spent some time with it while checking out the iOS 9 public beta, and here are some quick tips on getting started. Turn it on I…

While four (or six, eight, or more) gigabytes of cellular data probably sounded like a lot when you first signed up for your iPhone data plan, thanks to the latest data-hungry iOS apps and features, a gigabyte of mobile data isn’t what it used to be. Indeed, you’d be amazed how quickly your iPhone (or your LTE-enabled iPad, for that matter) can use up mobile data – particularly if you’re watching HD-quality Netflix videos, streaming iTunes Match songs, using your iPhone’s personal hotspot with your laptop, or letting iOS update your apps automatically. Stop automatic downloads With the right settings enabled, iOS will automatically download any new music, apps, or iBooks purchased by any of your iCloud-connected devices. Even better, your iPhone can automatically download and install updates for all…

It’s easy to buy a brand-new Mac, iPad or iPhone from Apple. The simplest way is to got to store.apple.com/uk to purchase from theonline store. Here you will find every currentMac, iPad and iPhone, and lots of accessories. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to try the product out, you could walk into the Apple Store on your high street or in your closest shopping mall. Not sure where your closest Apple Store is located? Apple has stores all overthe country, 39 in total, and you can look for your local store at apple.com/uk/retail. Unfortunately, as a rule Macs are not cheapbut if you are looking for a bargain you can also pick up a Mac, iPad or iPhone second-hand from Apple. It’s possible to buy refurbished Apple Macs, iPads, and other…

There are five standard Retina MacBook Pro models available, in two sizes, as well as a non-Retina MacBook Pro, which we will cover at the bottom of this page. In March 2015, Apple updated the 13in models, and in May 2015 it updated the 15in models. The key selling point is the Retina display, so called because it delivers maximum optical quality – the human eye is unable to distinguish any more pixels. That make a Retina display about as precise as you can get, ideal for creative work. The 13in model offers 2560x1600 Retina resolution at 227 pixels perinch, while the 15in model offers 2880x1800 resolution at 220 pixels perinch. Unlike the MacBook Air range, the five Retina MacBook Pro models are substantially different in terms of spec, with…

The iPhone 6 Plus wasn’t the only larger iPhone to launch in 2014. The iPhone 6 wasalso introduced, with a screen that measures 4.7in (diagonally) and offers 1334x750 resolution at 326ppi. This suggests that the iPhone 6 has the samepixel density as the iPhone 5s, but Apple has still dubbed its new screen ‘Retina HD’, presumably because it is counting the total number of pixels on display, rather than how close together they are. The iPhone 6 Plus offers a higher pixel density of 401ppi and is also described as Retina HD. Despite the similar sounding pixel count between the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s, Apple has also made modifications to the newer screens’ design, adding dual-domain pixels that allow for improved viewing angles, and other features that enhance the…

With four iPhones and four iPads to choose from, each with very different specs, it can be tricky to decide which iOS device to buy. Those who want a ‘phablet’ experience – midway between a phone and a small tablet – might be interested in the iPhone 6 Plus. Fans of gaming and movies will also like the 6 Plus’s big screen. Some business users may find the big screen good for productivity apps. The 6 Plus is likely to be the phone of choice for early adopters and others who like to have the latest thing, and for those ona big budget. If the iPhone 6 Plus is a bit too big (and more than a few buyers have found this), then you might go for the smaller iPhone…