Índex per Autumn 2020 a MacFormat

Whether you’re buying a new iPhone this year or not, there’s always one upgrade you can get for free – and that’s a fresh new version of iOS. To that end, we’re celebrating the imminent arrival of iOS 14 by taking an in-depth look at some of its incredible new features – from its dynamic and customisable Home screens and widgets to App Clips, App Library and the host of other welcome improvements and changes that Apple has made along the way. The party starts on page 12. Mail for Mac is one of those Marmite apps you either love or hate, so on page 52 you’ll discover some great ways to make the most of it, some must-have add-ons that will make it even smarter, plus some awesome alternatives…

When it comes to distraction-free writing apps, few are as polished or easy to use as Ulysses (last reviewed in MF356). Now version 20 has arrived, adding several new features, including a dashboard – a handy side panel that contains a stack of useful tools, including a style and grammar checker, document stats and any keywords you’ve added, plus Ulysses’ outline navigator. The navigator gives an at-a-glance view of the structure of your document, while enabling you to jump to key passages, headlines, and so on. The outline navigator is improved on Mac, but is all-new on iOS and iPadOS, bringing even more flexibility to the app on those platforms. Ulysses is free to download, but you’ll need to subscribe to keep using it. Doing so costs £5.99/month or £48.99/year…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to calibrate your Mac’s display both manually and by using a colorimeter YOU’LL NEED macOS Catalina, a colorimeter such as the Datacolor SpyderX Pro Most modern Macs look great straight out of the box, thanks to the inclusion of Retina displays that meet P3 display standards for colour accuracy. However if you’re doing colour critical design work, photography, or video editing and need to make sure the colours you see onscreen are truly true to life, then there are some handy extra steps you can take – steps that are particularly important if you’re using a third-party external monitor that may have some display quirks of its own, or should you want what comes out of your printer to be a…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to allocate CPU resources more efficiently across your Mac YOU’LL NEED Turbo Boost Switcher Free or Pro, AppPolice Naturally, running your processor at the faster speed means it generates more heat Your Mac is usually very smart when it comes to optimising its energy usage, whether it’s maximising the battery life of your MacBook, balancing the demands between multiple applications running at once or simply preventing your Mac from overheating. That said, there are times when you may wish to reduce energy consumption further, and we’ve dug out a pair of complementary apps that let you sacrifice raw power for longer battery life and a cooler Mac. Pair them with Macs Fan Control (bit.ly/mac357fanctrl – see issue 354) and you have…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN You will learn a smoother way to make social plans YOU’LL NEED iPhone, Howbout app, iOS 11 or later Trying to get all your friends together can sometimes feel like herding cats: when Alex and Jai are free, Arusa and Jamie aren’t. If the simplest social activity seems to involve endless emails, calendar checks and texts, you’ll be delighted to discover that there’s a simpler and much less annoying way to sort out your social life: Howbout. Howbout, formerly known as Zyng, uses calendar sharing to make your social planning much smoother. Simply connect to your friends (if they don’t already use the app you can send them an invitation), enable calendar sharing and the app can automatically find out when everybody…

Not since the invention of Marmite has anything beginning with M so radically polarised opinion. A vocal minority of users – and they range from newcomers to Apple veterans – dismiss Mail as slow, clunky, glitchy, and all in all the Mac app they’d most like to never use again. Others insist that, like Marmite, they’re unjustifiably salty. Mail works fine for them, and they can’t see any reason to replace it. Except that it would be nice if it did that, and this, and organised things more like so… In this feature, we’ll take a tour of Mail’s key features, so you can see if there’s anything you’ve been missing, and then look at some leading add-ons and alternatives. One of our favourite aspects of Mail – aside from…

IN PRINT ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 356 OCTOBER 2020 The ultimate Apple Music guide! OS X remembered – goodbye old OS… 6 apps to help you get more done Build your own Time Capsule ISSUE 355 SEPTEMBER 2020 macOS 11: Say hello to Big Sur! Plus: iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and more Kit out your dream home office Boost your MacBook battery ISSUE 354 AUGUST 2020 Verdict: 13-inch MacBook Pro Make iWork documents great again Digital detox tips and tricks for Mac Do more with Photoshop for iPad To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_backissues or phone +44 (0)330 333 1113 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and keep them forever in your personal…

£549.98 (enclosure only) FROM Synology, synology.com FEATURES 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Celeron J4125 processor, 2x M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots, 4x drive bays (expandable up to nine), 4GB of memory (expandable to 8GB), 2x USB 3.0 ports (one front, one rear), 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1x eSATA port The four drive bays have a maximum storage capacity of 64TB Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides a simple solution to a vexatious problem – providing oodles of always-available storage for multiple devices. That’s particularly true if you have iPads, iPhones and Macs at home with limited storage - sure, you could stream all your Apple TV or Apple Music library content over the web, or use a series of external drives to back up individual Macs using Time Machine. Or you could attach…

from £79.99 (perpetual) or £69.99 (annual sub); upgrades £39.99 (perpetual) FROM Parallels, parallels.com NEEDS macOS 10.13 or later FEATURES Fully compatible with Big Sur host and guest, runs 10.15 and older macOS guests, runs 32-bit and incompatible apps in macOS 11, runs Windows 10 and older guests, compacts VMs to reclaim storage We’re now at peak virtualisation. Whichever operating system you want on your Mac, this is the easiest time to go virtual, and the latest version 16 of Parallels Desktop should prove an excellent platform for almost any Intel Mac. Parallels has long been a convenient way of running Windows on your Mac without having to resort to Boot Camp, although if you have that already installed, Parallels can also run it as a guest operating system or virtual…

Back in 1978, Apple was the wunderkind of the computer industry. The Apple II – the first complete system you could take home and use – was selling well to enthusiasts, and corporate users would soon flock to it with the arrival of Dan Bricklin’s VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. It was time to plan the next machine for the lucrative business market. For $2,000, Apple’s marketers decided, it should offer a built-in green screen, more professional than the Apple II’s TV set connection, and a high-capacity floppy drive. When the original project manager told Steve Jobs it would be impractical to deliver such a product by 1981, he was replaced by John Couch, assisted by Jef Raskin. It was at this time that Raskin persuaded Jobs to visit Xerox’s PARC…

For months now, Apple has been subject to repeated criticism over the way it manages the App Store – and the 30% commission it levies on developers. In July, Tim Cook appeared in front of a US congress sub-committee investigating anti-trust issues, and the company has been accused of anti-competitive/monopolistic behaviour, somewhat ironically in some cases, by the likes of Microsoft, Facebook and others. One particular point of contention erupted in August when Apple banned game and software developer Epic Games from the App Store, because it was encouraging players of its incredibly popular Fortnite game to make purchases outside the Store, which is against Apple’s rules. Epic Games retaliated by filing an anti-competitive lawsuit against Apple, arguing “At the most basic level, we’re fighting for the freedom of people…

One of macOS Catalina’s key security features is being undermined – by Apple itself. Notarisation was introduced last year as a way for third-party developers to get legitimate apps, not available through the Mac App Store, past Gatekeeper in macOS. Only, a recent security audit run by Apple on an Adobe Flash installer failed to spot that it contained a hidden malware payload, and so that malware ended up being notarised. Luckily, the malware had been planted deliberately by security researchers Peter Dantini and Patrick Wardle who were testing the notarisation process, so when they flagged what had happened to Apple, Apple duly revoked the Flash installer’s security certificate. But when Dantini and Wardle did the same thing a second time, again using a common macOS malware called Shlayer hidden…

EXPLAINED Guides, zones, charts – it’s all here to help 1 Curated guides Maps has curated guides to a few cities with places to eat, visit and stay. They can be saved and update automatically. 2 Cycling routes If you tell Maps you are cycling to your destination, it will route you along cycle lanes, cycle paths and cycle-friendly roads. 3 Congestion zones In cities with congestion zones, Maps shows you the charge and allows you to route around it. 4 Severe weather warnings The Weather app and widgets display alerts about some severe weather like storms and flash floods. 5 Precipitation charts The multi-day forecast includes the chance of rain for the day. In the US, a chart also shows intensity. EV routing If you have a compatible electric…

It’s easy to subscribe… SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND SAVE! www.magazinesdirect.com/mac/eclipse20 Or call: 0330 333 1113 and quote ‘Eclipse20’ Other benefits of subscribing to the UK’s best-selling Apple magazine… ✓ For more than 25 years we’ve been helping Apple fans get the most from their kit. ✓ Our tutorials and guides empower you with the knowledge to get things done in smarter and faster ways. ✓ MacFormat is for Apple fans of all experience levels. Whether you’ve just bought your first Mac, iPhone or iPad, or have been using one for years, we’ll ensure you don’t miss out on top tips and techniques. Choose your package! 6-MONTH PRINT & DIGITAL + GIFT £32.50 every 6 months (two instalments required for 13 issues) 13 issues of MacFormat in print and digital, plus your Eclipse 3-Way…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to remove sweaty hotspots, reduce wrinkles, mimic a studio look and apply virtual make-up YOU’LL NEED PortraitPro 19 PortraitPro 19 enables people pictures to look their best by overcoming problems such as spots or external issues such as dodgy lighting. Indeed the app can even mimic a professional portrait studio’s lighting and ‘model’ the face to flatter features such as cheekbones. It can also capture the look of a studio portrait by replacing a shot’s messy background with a clean studio style backdrop. We’ll start off by performing some standard photo fixes such as removing blemishes and enhancing complexion. Then we’ll look at creating a slick studio portrait look before moving on to perform some more creative retouching by changing hair…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to recover missing purchases from the iTunes Store YOU WILL NEED macOS Catalina, an iTunes Store account, Music or TV app One of the many quirks of the Music and TV apps on macOS Catalina is that they can sometimes display the same album, TV show or movie twice, especially if your Media Library has somehow conspired to get its knickers in a twist. Sometimes removing one of the ‘duplicates’ ends up removing both, because it turns out that that ‘duplicate’ wasn’t a duplicate after all. Sigh. You may also want to hide unwanted purchases or, ahem, gifts [cough – that U2 album] or receive an unwelcome reminder that your Mrs Brown’s Boys-obssessed uncle is coming for the weekend and you’d…

Mail’s left sidebar gathers all of your email accounts into a single Inbox folder, showing all your incoming mail in the list to the right. Click the disclosure triangle to reveal individual accounts, and you can select one to list its incoming mail individually. Each account’s badge shows how many messages are unread, totalled up for the Inbox when collapsed. If there’s a connection problem with one of your email accounts, its badge becomes a lightning bolt; simply click this to check its settings. Your Apple email address – @mac.com, @me.com or @icloud.com – is added to your Inbox when you sign in to iCloud in System Preferences and tick Mail. To add other accounts, go to Mail > Add Accounts. Gmail, Microsoft Exchange and other services are listed for…

As a tech reviewer I install a whole lot of kit at home, sometimes only for a week or so, and every new bit of tech seems to involve handing over personal details or at least my email address to goodness knows who. Though I’ve got things locked down, there’s no telling what’s happening to my data. But I’m not about to argue with the march of progress. If I need a smart toilet which feeds back data to some company on the frequency and intensity of my flushes, so be it. If I need a smart lock on my front door that my parents can’t fathom how to open when they pop in to feed the cats, those little blighters will just have to go hungry. But ‘need’ is…

£129 FROM Urbanista, urbanista.com FEATURES Active noise cancellation, 5 hours battery life (plus 4x charges using charging case), in-ear detection, Ambient Sound Mode, USB-C to USB-A cable, 3x pairs of spare ear tips Music quality noticeably improved with active noise cancelling on As we discovered in MF348, Apple’s AirPods Pro have some stiff competition in the wireless headphone space. We crowned the Master & Dynamic MW07 Plus as champions, but at £279 they are hardly wallet-friendly. Can the £129 Urbanista London earphones come close for less than half the price? The first thing you will notice about these is the luxurious feel. The charging case feels smooth and weighty, a far cry from the cheap plastic containers of many wireless earphone sets. Both the lid and the slots for each individual…

£54 FROM skylum.com/luminar NEEDS macOS 10.12 or later, 64-bit processor The AI sky replacement has been enhanced Luminar is an image-editing application that also works as a plug-in inside Apple’s Photos, and Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. It features several of those applications’ capabilities while adding something rather unique of its own in the form of AI-powered analysis and enhancements. Version 4.3 adds some useful new stuff but before we get to that, a quick outline for those new to the package. Luminar is a nondestructive image editor designed primarily for retouching and enhancing photographs. You can work natively with all major image formats including Raw, and there’s layer support as well as undo history. In addition to the kinds of colour grading and general tweaking tools you’d expect, the app…

The latest news from The China Times suggests that the first Apple silicon-based iMac model could arrive in early 2021. With a redesigned chassis and 24-inch Retina display, Apple’s 64-bit Arm-based architecture will also ditch support for AMD graphics in favour of Apple GPUs. According to The China Times, Apple is currently working on a graphics processor codenamed ‘Lifuka’, which is destined to be used in future iMacs. Like Apple’s upcoming A14X processor, it will use TSMC’s 5nm (nanometre) process and “provide better performance-per-watt and higher computing performance. It has tile-based deferred rendering technology that allows application developers to write more powerful professional application software and game software.” The China Times also reports that the first Apple silicon Mac to arrive this year will be a 12-inch MacBook, as we…

Apple could soon update its Apple TV streaming box. Last refreshed in September 2017 with the arrival of the Apple TV 4K, the little black box could soon get a more powerful processor, more storage and support for Find My – making it easier to find the super-slim Siri remote. Rumours of an update first surfaced last January, following the launch of the Apple TV+ streaming service and Apple Arcade, but nothing has surfaced as yet despite persistent rumours – possibly because Apple wants to equip a redesigned Siri remote control with its forthcoming AirTags tech to help pinpoint lost devices. Bloomberg suggests that the new Apple TV could be equipped with the same A14 processor as the iPhone 12 (the current Apple TV has an A10X), and come with…

Let’s face it: Mac webcams are terrible. While every other aspect of Apple’s computers has improved over time, its built-in cameras feel like they are stuck in 1995. At the same time, iPhone cameras are some of the best in the world. If only there was a solution… Well, there is! Enter Camo, an app designed to let you hook up your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac. That gives you all the benefits of the iPhone’s superior video lenses, without needing to shell out on an expensive third-party webcam. It has a wealth of options to tweak your video quality to perfection, from focus controls to ISO settings and more, and it integrates with over 40 video-calling apps with more on the way, so no matter which video-calling…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to pair and unpair Bluetooth devices in macOS YOU WILL NEED macOS Catalina, a compatible Bluetooth device The Bluetooth radio built in to your Mac makes it incredibly easy to connect compatible devices wirelessly, and is usually switched on by default. If not, head to System Preferences > Bluetooth and click the Turn Bluetooth On button to activate it. You can also see whether Bluetooth is active at a glance – and which devices are using it – from the menu bar. To do so, make sure the ‘Show Bluetooth in menu bar’ option in System Preferences > Bluetooth is ticked. If there are lots of Bluetooth devices in your home or office, it can take a while for your Mac…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to replace a dull sky, enhance a portrait and fix common problems with colour and tone YOU’LL NEED Photoshop Camera The Photoshop Camera app (or PsC) is designed to create eye-catching images for social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. PsC uses artificial intelligence to analyse an image and then replace certain areas with graphics. For example, the Blue Skies lens (or filter) can identify and replace an overcast sky with a range of summery blue skies, complete with fluffy clouds. This type of job would be a challenge to perform on the desktop version of Photoshop, but the PsC app performs an effective sky replacement automatically (as we’ll demonstrate)! We’ll also show you how to quickly turn a portrait…

By default, Mail lists only the most recent message in a conversation, also known as a thread (messages replying to each other with the same subject). The total number is shown in blue below the date, with a double chevron that you can click to list them all. In the preview, or when you open a message, you can scroll down to see previous messages. This is separate from any quoting within replies; to minimise scrolling, Mail collapses quoted text with a ‘See more’ link. If you turn off View > Organise by Conversation, messages in threads are all listed separately. If View > Highlight Conversations is ticked, selecting any message in a conversation tints the others blue, or the colour set in Mail > Preferences > Viewing > Highlight…

The Internet of Things is everywhere. That’s a fact of modern life. Enterprising companies have created smart devices, or at least devices which purport to be smart, which slot into virtually every market vertical because it’s so easy; the wide availability of off-the-shelf networking packages and software solutions means connecting something to the internet has become a mere triviality. You could probably connect your cat to the internet if it could just bear to wear the appropriate hardware for five minutes. There’s obviously something of an argument against the speedy expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s entirely justified, too: those stock components, those thrown-together software packages from companies often more familiar with (say) pet food dispensers than coding secure applications, have the potential to be equal parts inefficient…

From £1,799 (£4,628 model tested) FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES 5120x2880-pixel Retina display, 3.6GHz 10-core Intel Core i9, 32GB 2667MHz DDR4, 1TB SSD, AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16GB, 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, 4x USB-A ports, SDXC card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone jack, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 How does it perform? From startup to shutdown, this iMac is fast Paul says… This iMac has the best screen the range has ever had. The laseretched glass fixes an issue I remember having with my old iMac, when in a bright office the screen became almost unusable. It’s just a shame the treatment costs a whopping £500 extra – hard to justify, especially if you’re on a tight budget. This could be your last chance to own an iMac in its current…

£99.99 FROM belkin.com FEATURES Charges iPhone with wireless charge capability, Apple Watch, AirPods with wireless charging case The dock didn’t appear to charge any slower with three devices charging at the same time With Apple’s AirPower charging mat seemingly still in limbo, perhaps even abandoned, a variety of accessory makers have come up with their own multi-device charging solutions. Belkin’s latest is the Boost Charge 3-in-1 wireless charger for compatible iPhone and AirPod models and also the Apple Watch. Available in black or white, it’s lightweight but solidly built and comes with a wall mount power adapter and circular plug which fits to the back of the unit. Some charging docks have a USB-C input from which to receive power, but this has a standard UK plug. Some docks also have…

Ruark MR1 £329.99 FROM Ruark Audio, ruarkaudio.com FEATURES Bluetooth, 20W amplifier, remote Design With its rounded corners, Soft Grey lacquer finish and grey cloth grille, the MR1 looks both retro and classy, although it’s available in Rich Walnut too. Build quality is excellent and the speakers have real heft, at 3.5kg for the pair despite their modest 170x130x135mm size. Features Each speaker contains a 20mm textile dome tweeter and a 75mm long-throw woofer, powered by a 20W amplifier (housed in the right-hand speaker). There’s a 2m woven interconnect to link both speakers. You also get switchable inputs with Bluetooth aptX, digital optical and auxiliary options. There’s a subwoofer output, but not AirPlay 2. Audio performance Sounds as good as it looks with rich, warm vocals, punchy bass and a crisp…

£77-£390 FROM DEVONtechnologies, devontechnologies.com NEEDS macOS X 10.11 or later Once the data’s in you can convert, annotate, organise and classify DEVONthink is a universal inbox for every kind of information, enabling you to store, find, and reuse any kind of content. If you’re already a DEVONthink user, you’ll be pleased to discover that version 3.5 brings an updated sidebar, more options for automating repetitive tasks, syntax colouring for Markdown, better web page capture, and improved performance and stability. DEVONthink comes in three versions: Standard (£77), Pro (£150), and Server (£390). Server is for teams, and Pro takes the Standard edition’s features and adds OCR for scanning documents, the ability to automatically stamp and number documents, email archiving, custom metadata and item grouping. There are lots of ways to get…