Índex per November 2020 a MacFormat

Well, I think it’s fair to say that despite the world being in somewhat chaotic times, Apple is not sitting back and resting on its laurels. Want an OS update? You’ve got two. Want a hot new product? There are plenty for Apple fans to get excited about. For possibly the most significant update, turn to p12. We’re bringing you our comprehensive guide to macOS 11, aka Big Sur! You’ll find a host of new features to help you organise, customise and control your Mac, as well as more reassuring security tools, fun stuff to play with, and lots more. And that’s not the only OS to get the 2020 refresh! watchOS 7 brings in more personalisation features, and significant advances in health and sleep tracking. Find out about all…

WE ASKED… What’s your favourite product from the Time Flies event? Log on and see next issue’s big question! twitter.com/macformat facebook.com/macformat Never knowingly resold…? A Canadian electronics firm has been caught red-handed after reselling over 100,000 Apple products that were meant to have been recycled. Geep is estimated to have sold at least 103,845 iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches instead of dismantling them and recycling components. Geep pointed the finger at three of its own executives. Apple is suing the firm anyway for lost profit and £10.2 million in compensation. The scam came to light after Apple carried out an audit and discovered that products it had sent for recycling were missing. It then noticed that some 18% of those missing devices were active on various networks.…

The European Union’s ongoing battle against big tech took a turn in October when it announced draft legislation that would stop products from being sold with pre-installed apps – a move that could directly affect Apple devices like the Mac, iPad and iPhone. The EU’s Digital Services Act aims to create a level playing field for third-parties, giving consumers the choice over what to install on their devices. The Financial Times says of the EU bill: “The draft suggests that Big Tech may be banned from preferential treatment of their own services on their sites or platforms, to the detriment of rivals, and that companies should not be allowed to pre-install their own applications on hardware devices, such as laptops or phones, or force other companies to exclusively pre-install their…

There are a couple of aesthetic shifts across the new macOS. One is the standardisation of the icons in the sidebar of Finder windows and default apps. Catalina’s media apps had a neat set of their own, with white symbols over rounded rectangles with gradient fills. They’ve all now been rationalised into a wireframe design, and the first few icons in each sidebar take on an ‘accent colour’. This is blue for the Finder, while Music is red, Books orange, Podcasts purple, Photos, er, blue again, the App Store… also blue, and TV a nervous turquoise. News didn’t get the memo, and has white-on-gradient squircles. The coloured icons look rather weak in Light Mode, and there’s little logic to the use of colour. In System Preferences > General > Highlight…

1 First steps After downloading the program installer from its website, open Porting Kit and choose File > New Custom Port. Type in the name of the application you’re installing to easily identify it. Click OK. An installer wizard will open. 2 Set Wine version Click Next, skim the license agreement and click I Agree. You’ll be prompted to select an engine – choose the latest 32-bit version (WS11WineCX19.0.1-1 or later). Leave the dependencies unticked and click Next. 3 Choose destination Click Next again to select destination – Applications > Games folder by default, so click Change Install Location to change it to Applications or to create a new subfolder inside Applications for Windows apps. Click Save. 4 Select app installer Click Install and wait while the app wrapper is…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to use Clario for online security YOU’LL NEED Mac, iOS or Android device, Clario subscription Online security is more important than ever these days, especially now that we’re all spending so much time shopping online, making Zoom calls, and bingewatching Baby Yoda on Disney+. But staying safe online can be a confusing business. There are many different types of threat to look out for, from malware that tries to hijack your Mac to online fraud and identity theft. There are things you can do to protect yourself, of course, such as using a VPN to hide your identity, or anti-malware software to protect your Mac from viruses and other threats. However, these apps and tools can be confusing for anyone that…

1 Allow screen recording Click on the Record Screen folder to open it, then on Record Window. If you haven’t used this before, you’ll need to enable it in the Screen Recording list in the Privacy tab. Click Continue when you’ve done that. 2 Make your recording Start recording by clicking on the window you want to record. When you’re finished, click the Stop button in the floating controller or press command. You’ll then be invited to check the movie in QuickTime Player. 3 Convert your movie To convert your screen recording to a different format use the Convert Video tool. Click on its gear icon tool to set output resolution, format and location. Click Done then drag and drop the movie onto its window.…

Many of the tools in Parallels Toolbox add items to your menu bar, and can make it grow out into the middle of the screen if you’re not careful. When it’s getting overloaded, click on the Hide Menu Items tool to fix this. Drag items you’re only going to use occasionally to its alternate menu bar, which you access through its special menu item. These can include regular macOS menu bar items such as Spotlight, which can’t normally be removed. As with most of the other tools, this is useful both inside a macOS VM and in your host macOS.…

1 Say goodnight Tap the settings gear icon, then tap Night Owl Reminder. Tap Bedtime to choose when you go to bed. OffScreen will remind you to put your phone down at this time. You can choose how often and how aggressively it reminds you. 2 Know your limits Use the Challenge settings to adjust how assertive OffScreen is in reminding you to have a break. For example, tap Continuous Use Challenge, then raise or lower the limit to set when the app suggests you take a breather. 3 In sharp focus Focus mode can be adjusted in settings too. You can alter the number and duration of pauses you are allowed, the style of white noise the app plays, which apps are allowed through the Focus firewall, and more.…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to keep your files in order YOU’LL NEED iMazing 2 on your iOS device and your Mac, iOS 4 or later, OS X 10.9 or later Keeping on top of your files can be a hassle on iOS and Mac. Apple splits all things into separate apps, which is great for using them day-to-day, but fiddly if you want to deal with them in one place. That is where iMazing 2 comes in. This app lets you manage all your files in one central location, saving you time and effort. You can view, adjust, export, and import your documents right from your Mac. It is quicker and easier than trying to do so in each app on your iOS device, or…

1 Import from your Mac Click Contacts. Under On my iPhone, click All. Now click Import from Contacts. Select which entries you want to import, then click Copy to Device. You can select all the entries or import from a file by clicking Choose. 2 Export to your Mac To send contacts the other way, click an export button at the bottom of the app (there are options for vCard, Excel, and CSV). Select whether to export every contact or just the selected one, then choose a save location. 3 Clear out old contacts To remove a contact, simply select it and click Delete. Note that this will only work for contacts on your device, not for those saved to iCloud or other services like Gmail. There is no confirmation…

Conversion to Apple File System Q I intend upgrading my Mac mini from Sierra to Mojave. It has an internal SSD and a hard disk. When they’re converted to APFS during macOS installation, will they be turned into a Fusion Drive? How can I prevent that from happening? A When you upgrade any Mac from a version of macOS prior to the introduction of Apple’s new file system APFS to Mojave or later, the installer automatically changes the format of its startup disk from older HFS+ to APFS. You have no option, as those recent versions of macOS require starting up from APFS. High Sierra is different, as it doesn’t support APFS on Fusion Drives and doesn’t require it on hard disks either, but it still converts an SSD to…

Q Recently, I got warnings that my iMac 27-inch 2017’s 2TB Fusion Drive is in a ‘critical condition’, according to both Kaspersky Security Cloud and TechTool Pro. Disk Utility doesn’t report any problems, though. So which is right? A Kaspersky isn’t a specialist disk utility, but a current version of TechTool Pro should definitely be taken seriously. How seriously isn’t so straightforward to answer. Determining imminent disk failure is based largely on the disk’s SMART indicators. Those vary considerably across different models of disk, and some use different values. This requires the software reading them to interpret values according to the make and model of disk, something which doesn’t always work out. Even specialist tools such as DriveDx can sometimes get it wrong. Apple will normally only trust the result…

Q My MacBook Air 2019 drives two 4K displays, which I normally leave running all the time. Every week or so, the Mac just freezes and I have to restart. How can I stop that? A This appears to be not uncommon experience at present, particularly if those external displays are scaling their image rather than being used at their default resolution. What happens is that the WindowServer process steadily consumes more memory until it finally freezes altogether, which you can observe in Activity Monitor. It then needs to be restarted, which can often be accomplished by logging out and back in, provided that it hasn’t gone too far. WindowServer is responsible for compositing individual windows and other items to be shown on the display, ensuring that they’re correctly layered…

Let’s meet some new faces. Chronograph Pro includes a tachymeter with selectable intervals, has four Complications slots and looks really nice in darker hues. X-Large now includes a large complication to make it clever as well as big, Photos enables you to apply colour filters to your images and the most colourful face of all, Pride, comes in new designs. The most fun face-related feature in watchOS 7 is face sharing. This enables you to install watch faces from other people, and if you don’t have any other Apple Watch users handy you can get shared faces from the App Store and from sites such as buddywatch.app. As you’d expect the quality varies, but there are some really beautiful, really useful and really fun faces in the fastgrowing collection. It’s…

1 Turn it on You can enable or disable the new handwashing detection feature in Settings > Handwashing. There are just two options here: one for the time and another for reminders, so you remember to wash your hands when your get home. 2 Allow location sharing Handwashing reminders need to know where you are, so you’ll need to enable location awareness for it in the Watch app on your phone. If you don’t enable precise location tracking you won’t be able to turn the feature on. 3 Now wash your hands Your watch should automatically detect when you’re washing your hands; it does this by listening for the tell-tale sounds of soap and spray. It’ll then count down for 20 seconds and tell you “well done!” afterwards.…

In a 2016 presentation at the Defcon security conference, researcher Anthony Rose presented the findings of his investigation into smart lock security. Using reasonably common tools, Rose found he was able to successfully break into 12 of the 16 locks he tested. Four essentially had no security whatsoever, sending their data over plain text, effectively broadcasting passwords to anyone listening out in the vicinity. A further four could be breached by replay attacks, where communications sent to the lock could be recorded and simply replayed – even though that data was encrypted, the same encrypted data was valid for a later unlock. One of the locks Rose tested had its password hard coded into its app; another lock reverted to an error state when it was repeatedly sent bad keys;…

£119.99 FROM Logitech, logitech.com FEATURES Toughened iPad (7th/8th gen) case with keyboard and flexible kickstand, Apple Smart Connector That robust design will certainly earn its keep when you’re out and about We think it’s a shame that Logitech’s Rugged Folio case is only available in a single size – for 7th and 8th generation iPads with 10.2-inch screens. Its super-sturdy design will appeal to many owners of other iPad models. At first glance, the design of the Rugged Folio looks fairly conventional, with a protective case that covers the body of the iPad and a wrap-around keyboard panel that folds over the screen to keep it safe when the iPad isn’t in use. There’s a kickstand that folds out of the back of the case to support the screen, and…

$58.80 (about £45) per year FROM Canvas GF, canvasgfx.com NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later You can import and export dozens of different file formats The Mac has always been a popular tool for graphics and design work, with programs such as Adobe Illustrator leading the way ever since the desktop publishing revolution of the 1980s. However, graphics software on the Mac has always tended to focus on the ‘creative’ side of design work, creating eye-catching illustrations and magazine layouts. But there are plenty of Mac users who work in more technical fields, such as architecture, engineering and product design, which require a slightly different set of tools. If your work requires precise and accurate drawing tools for technical illustrations and documents then a more specialised drawing tool such as Canvas…

From £1,299 In November 2019, Apple replaced the 15in model with a MacBook Pro 16-inch. The larger screen machine comes with a Magic Keyboard with a redesigned scissor mechanism, and a six-speaker sound system. The notebook also brings back a physical escape key, while retaining the Touch Bar. The MBP 16in can be configured with a six- or eight-core ninth-gen Intel processor and 64GB of memory. There are 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB or 8TB options. The 2.3GHz model comes with an AMD Radeon Pro 5500M GPU, while the 2.6GHz model comes with the 5300M; build to order options include a 5600M chip to provide desktop-level graphics. The new thermal design increases airflow, and the larger 100Whr battery, the largest possible in a notebook, offers up to 11 hours of browsing…

From £799 After a long wait, the Mac mini was updated in March 2020, although the changes to Apple’s smallest computer were minimal compared to October 2018’s total redesign. The entry-level model has a quadcore, eighth-generation Intel Core i3, while the step-up model gets a six-core Intel Core i5. A six-core Core i7 is a build-to-order option. The base model starts with 8GB of memory that can be boosted to 64GB. All models come with SSDs as standard, going from 256GB all the way up to 2TB. As with other recent Macs, the Mac mini has the T2 security chip built in, enabling HEVC encoding that’s up to 30 times faster. The Mac mini benefits from speedy connectivity, with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, as well as two USB-A ports…

Apple’s Time Flies launch event in September came and went without the announcement of a single iPhone – what we got instead were two new iPads and a brace of Apple Watches. You can read our definitive reviews of the eighth-gen iPad, Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE starting on page 66. What we’re looking at here, though, is the brand new iPad Air, which should be on sale by the time you read this. The fourth-gen iPad Air is certainly a major departure from the models that preceded it – the thick bezels on the previous model have gone, replaced by an all-screen design that echoes the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. That extends to its squared-off edges, giving the iPad Air a more futuristic look. The…

If Safari, Chrome and other browsers leave you cold, hail an iCab – an alternative web browser for macOS that’s been around for over 20 years. Available as shareware for just 10 Euro (about £9), iCab 6.0 is ground-up rewrite that packs in a ton of modern surfing features, despite its slightly retro feel. We love that you can choose from a long list of search engines as the default (from Google and Bing to iMDb, Startpage and DuckDuckGo) and it’s great to have iCloud synchronisation for all your bookmarks and favourites onboard too. We’re particularly fond of its Filter Manager, that helps protect your privacy by enabling you to install third-party ad blockers and the like, and iCab also includes phishing/malware protection. Other goodies include a Web Storage Manager…

PRIZES WORTH £650 These days, you don’t need a canvas and set of brushes to create realistic paintings – you can do it all on your Mac. Especially if you have Corel Painter 2021, one of our favourite digital painting apps. As we said in issue #355, Painter “represents the latest evolution of what it is possible to achieve in digital art.” One of Painter’s main strengths is its huge range of superb brushes – Painter 2021 boasts over 900. The latest version brings a new range of thick brushes that bump and drag and swirl over the canvas, creating incredibly lifelike strokes with every pass. You can adjust the way Thick Paint interacts with surfaces and other colours it meets for detailed finetuning. Also new is the clever ‘photo…

1 Status symbols Dropping down from a new icon to the left of Siri, the Control Centre looks much like in iOS, showing various system options and status indicators. To move sliders, hover and scroll. 2 Dig in Click the icons to turn features on or off. In the Now Playing panel, the icon at the left opens the active audio app. Click elsewhere in a panel to see options, such as these for Display. 3 Mix and match To customise your Control Panel, go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and look under Control Centre in the sidebar. Items listed first are fixed; others can be turned on or off. 4 Don’t look twice Options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Screen Mirroring are now in Control Centre but…

The Photos app had a visual overhaul in Catalina, with a new variable-grid Days view to showcase your pics. Big Sur expands on the same ‘fluid navigation’ principle, where pinch-zooming transitions from Years to Months to Days and into an individual photo, and back out again. Oddly, this is still exclusive to Magic Trackpad users: there’s no key-plus-scroll equivalent for the Magic Mouse. Double-clicking has a similar effect to zooming in, and you can flick between the four view tabs using command+1 to command+4. Pinch-zoom now also works in Albums and Media Types, with some inconsistencies. Memory Movies, the auto-generated slideshows of pics from a single time and place that appear in the Memories view, are smarter, with a wider choice of music – selected by clicking the cogwheel in…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to make the macOS Dictionary app work for you YOU’LL NEED macOS Catalina or later Apple Music and TV may get all the girls (or boys or pets), but the Dictionary app is like that clever kid that’s always hanging out in the kitchen at parties – smart, brilliant and cuter than you think. How? Whenever you come across a word or phrase you don’t understand, a simple control-click pops-up a menu that enables you to see that word means - and it’s Dictionary that does the heavy lifting. It’s like having Countdown’s Susie Dent living in your Mac. Now the Dictionary app usually chooses your System Language as its default (see System Prefs > Language & Region) – but you…

1 Try for free Clario is a subscription service, available from clario.co. It costs £21 per month, or £120 per year, with special offers available occasionally. There’s also a seven-day free trial if you want to check it out first. 2 Protect your devices Once you’ve set up your account you can download the Clario app to protect your devices. Your subscription allows you to use Clario with three different devices, which can be Macs, iOS or Android, with Windows coming soon. 3 On the dashboard The Clario app for Macs has a ‘dashboard’ that provides protection in six main areas – Identity, Browsing, Device, Money, Network and Files (the iOS app is more limited). Just click on one of these big buttons to get started. 4 Safe browsing Let’s…

1 Enable the tool Click on the Clipboard History tool to enable it and add it to your menu bar, so that anything you copy will then be added to it. The first time that you do this, it informs you how to access items from its History. 2 Copy and paste To copy an item, select it in the drop-down menu, then simply paste that into your document. You can also paste it direct by placing the cursor at the insertion point and double-clicking on the item in the History. 3 Preview and edit control-click an item in the History to preview or delete it from the Clipboard History. You can also add apps from which a clipping has been obtained to its ignore list, to bypass adding from…

IT WILL TAKE 10-15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to understand and curb excessive iPhone usage YOU’LL NEED iOS 11 or later, OffScreen Screen Time is designed to show you how you use your phone and help cut down your usage. It is not perfect, though. Sure, you can limit how much time you spend on your device, but you only get a couple of choices over how to do that. Your usage data is more or less restricted to the number of pickups and notifications you had. It is fine, but not outstanding. OffScreen offers features that Screen Time lacks, from multiple focus modes to detailed stats on how you use your device. It also incorporates tools that Apple has scattered about iOS (like bedtime reminders) in one place,…

1 Categorised data OffScreen’s main screen shows your iPhone usage broken down into a range of categories. At the top is a timer showing how long you have used your phone today. Each section has a card, which you can tap to get more detail. 2 Drill down Tap Pickups. You will see a weekly overview of how many times you unlocked your phone each day. Tap Day to get an hour-by-hour breakdown for each day. Underneath is a summary of average pickups, highlights, and more. 3 View historic data Tap the calendar icon in the topright, then select a date. You can browse statistics from this day as you do for today’s data, with everything sorted into categories. Tap Back to Today to return to the present.…

1 Send events Click Calendar in the left-hand column. In the central column, control-click one event, click Open With, then select an app to open the event in. You can hold command and click several entries to open multiple events at once. 2 Export your calendar Alternatively, click Export to save your calendar to the. ics format. This is highly compatible with other apps and enables you to send your calendar from your iOS device to your favourite Mac calendar app. 3 Export to Excel If you need to analyse your calendar info, you can export it to an Excel or CSV file. To do so, click Export to Excel or Export to CSV, choose whether to export everything or just the selected item, then choose a location.…

In the left-hand column is an entry for Files, which is useful for viewing any items you have saved to Apple’s Files app on your iOS device. As on your iPhone or iPad, iMazing divides your files by app, making it easy to find what you are looking for. There are various options in iMazing to help manage the contents of the Files app. You can create new folders, copy items to your Mac or your iOS device, or delete files. You can also create shortcuts to certain content and get info on a folder to find out how much space it is occupying.…

Setting up a RAID system Q I’m just about to connect an external Thunderbolt 3 four-slot SSD RAID to my Mac. Should I use AppleRAID, and should I enable TRIM? A You currently have two options if you want to configure this as a RAID drive: format it using Disk Utility into AppleRAID, or install OWC’s SoftRAID and use that instead. The latter offers a wider choice of RAID levels, but relies on a kernel extension which can be tricky to use in recent versions of macOS, or with Macs equipped with a T2 chip. If you’re happy with choosing between just two RAID levels 0 (striped) and 1 (mirrored), but not both, then you may find AppleRAID best until SoftRAID version 6 ships. If you want anything more sophisticated…

1 Listen in The Noise app listens to the sound around you and will warn you if you’re listening to potentially dangerous levels that could damage your hearing. You can set the threshold for those warnings in Settings > Noise. 2 See the levels Noise data is shared with Health on your iPhone, so you can take a look at the overall trends. This can be useful to see if you’re being exposed to too much noise at work. In this case much of our exposure is from loud music. 3 Protect your ears You can enable Reduce Loud Sounds in Settings > Sounds. This analyses the volume of your headphones and cuts it when it detects potentially dangerous audio levels. It doesn’t significantly change how your music sounds.…

LIVE SMARTER The smart home is here – live the Apple dream today! As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader, my family has to put up with a lot with me around. This month it was a day of drilling, sawdust, and terror as I loudly secured my office door with a host of smart locks. That wasn’t so bad, but my wife was unimpressed with my need to install Yale’s Conexis L1 lock (£199.99) on our front door, convinced that I would somehow ruin our home security. As if. The most surprising thing about my bout of DIY was not that I was able to install the Yale lock easily in about half an hour, but that Mrs Cox loves the Conexis L1 just as much as I…

August Smart Lock Pro £274.99, august.com Use this to convert a pre-installed single-cylinder deadbolt into a smart one. The August bridge (sold separately) is required for Wi-Fi connectivity, but it’ll connect to HomeKit via Bluetooth. Danalock V3 £163, danalock.com You’ll typically need to install the V3 on your own cylinder lock, unless you can find a bundle, and do make sure you opt for the HomeKit version as there are non-HomeKit versions available. Ultraloq UL3 BT £169, u-tec.com The UL3 is a seriously cool fingerprintreading smart lock, and you can even open it with a secret knock. U-Tec assures us that HomeKit compatibility is on its technology roadmap.…

IN PRINT ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 357 AUTUMN 2020 iOS 14 Superguide: new tips and tricks Hack your CPU and power up your Mac Make Mail work your way On test: 27-inch iMac (2020) 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 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…

Fortunately, it’s easy to take decent photos with your iPhone thanks to all the wizardry Apple does behind the scenes, such as improving exposure, sorting shake, and nailing focus. And it’s simple to edit photos to adjust your framing or make them a bit brighter. That’s all expected these days but, with the right apps, your iPhone can do things to your photos that you never imagined. You can add lighting into a picture in 3D, change the focus after you’ve shot, scan negatives to turn them into regular digital photos, and more. So this month, let’s look at some cool photo tools… £2.99 NEEDS iOS 11 or later When you take a Portrait Mode shot, a 3D map of it is created. This app exploits that fact to enable…

Apple’s media streamer has been around since 2007, when it ran Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Four generations later and it’s a different beast entirely, running its own OS (tvOS) and available in Apple TV HD (£149) and Apple TV 4K (from £179) guises. Both enable you to rent and buy movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store. Plus you also get Apple TV+, as well as access to third-party content using apps such as BBC iPlayer. You can also use it to play Apple Arcade games, stream photos and your music library, and more.…

From £329 In September 2020, Apple brought out the 8th generation iPad featuring a new six-core A12 Bionic chip. The processor update allows for a Neural Engine to support image processing and Augmented Reality experiences. Built for iPadOS, the iPad is great at multitasking. You can slide a second app over the right side of the one you’re working on. Picture in Picture enables you to watch video in a corner of the screen. There’s also Split View, which lets you work on two apps side by side. iPad also supports external drives, as well as the Xbox Wireless Controller and the PlayStation DualShock 4 for a more immersive gaming experience. The iPad comes in Gold, Silver and Space Grey with 32GB or 128GB options. At 490g, it is light…

For those of us who are forever dropping or scratching our iPhones, help could soon be at hand. A patent application submitted by Apple in January, but which has only just come to light, suggests Cupertino may have found a solution – in the form of a self-healing display. The patent application – Electronic Devices With Flexible Display Cover Layers – appears to be attempting to solve a problem common to foldable phones like the Samsung Galaxy Fold, where dirt and other detritus can cause damage to the display. Not only does this add more weight to the rumour that Apple is working on a foldable phone, but that a solution to those display snafus could be coming. The patent refers to trying to solve the issue of damage caused…

These days, it’s not often that you ever need to restart your Mac. But, after installing macOS Big Sur, you might find yourself looking for reasons. Long ago, in simpler times, booting up from cold would produce an unmistakable chime – the startup sound – thrillingly audible to your bookish intern across the boho Village loft in which you conducted both your high-end interior design business and your casual relationships with the bass players of next-to-bediscovered fusion bands. Well, those times are back. The Apple logo above that monochrome progress bar may be too large, too unpixellated, to truly evoke the 128k heyday, but consider this a Tron: Legacy; a Blade Runner 2049ing of the original Macintosh user experience, without the icky Jared Leto bits. Good news: your Mac just…

Safari had some notable tweaks in Catalina, but Apple software chief Craig Federighi reckons Big Sur sees its biggest update since macOS X. You could be forgiven for missing just how big it is, because a lot of the improvements are behind the scenes, improving efficiency and reliability, particularly for sites that make heavy use of JavaScript. MacBook users will be pleased to know their battery percentage should go down more slowly while browsing the web, lasting three hours longer when streaming videos in Safari than in Chrome or Firefox. And, talking of video streaming, Safari now supports HDR, 4K and Dolby Vision, if your Mac and screen are compatible. Safari does look noticeably different in a few ways, partly reflecting Big Sur’s broader user interface changes. The default start…

Rather than update macOS’ Messages app, Apple has effectively brought the iPadOS version to Big Sur using its Catalyst development software. It looks and feels a lot more like the mobile versions. Animojis, which respond to your facial expressions, aren’t possible on current Macs, but Big Sur intriguingly contains support for the required depth-sensing Face ID camera. For now, you can design your own Memoji and apply it to messages as a choice of stickers with appropriate expressions; send messages with effects like balloons and confetti; and even use ‘invisible ink’ that appears blurred until the recipient swipes over it. As in iOS, you can bring up a selection of trending images and animated GIFs to add instantly to your messages. There are practical innovations too. You can pin up…

IT WILL TAKE 25 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to run 32-bit Windows apps on your Mac in Catalina YOU’LL NEED Porting Kit (macOS 10.8 or later), SIP disabled (Catalina only) There are several ways to run Windows-only apps on your Mac, but only one allows you to run them directly from your Mac desktop, and that’s Wine (winehq.org). Its command-line nature makes it fiddly to use, but thankfully more user-friendly variants exist. Of these, CrossOver for Mac 19.0 (bit.ly/cwwindonmac) is by far the best way to get Windows apps working on your Mac, but it’s not free: prices start from £32. Luckily, there are several free alternatives – they’re not quite as user-friendly, but of these Porting Kit (portingkit.com) still manages to take a lot of hassle out of…

1 Learn the lingo To change the default dictionary (or add a new one), open the Dictionary app and select Preferences. You’ll see a list of over 35 dictionaries - from the Oxford Dictionary of English to the Politikens Nudansk Ordbog. Tick what you need. 2 Look it up! If you don’t know the meaning of a word or want to check the spelling, you can check. Mouse over the word, control-click it, then select Look Up ‘[word]’. In the pop-up that appears, choose Dictionary to see definitions and suggestions. 3 Mind your language Worried your little ones might look up ‘rude’ words when you’re not looking? Go to System Prefs > Screen Time > Content & Privacy. Turn On Screen Time, then untick the Allow box for ‘Explicit Language…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN To record a window movie, manage your clipboard, and make presentations easier YOU’LL NEED macOS 10.11 or later, Parallels Toolbox The 45 incredibly useful tools in Parallels Toolbox work with both your Mac and in any virtual machine (VM) you’re running in Parallels Desktop. You can use its Record Screen and Take Screenshots tools for any window including those in an active VM. These are particularly helpful when copying and pasting between an app in a VM and one running native in macOS, or an iPad connected using Handoff. Even if you only run a VM occasionally, you’ll find these tools more generally valuable. If you run a full-screen Windows VM, try Toolbox for Windows, otherwise use the Mac version. Many of…

1 Configure the tool Click on Presentation Mode’s gear icon to choose features also in separate tools. These ensure that your Mac detects a display or projector, cleans up your Desktop, and blocks interruptions, such as notifications or sleep. 2 Enable and disable Engage this tool by clicking on it, and it’ll remain active until the end of the day. When you’ve finished your presentation, click on the tool again and your Mac will be returned to normal, messy Desktop and all. 3 Switch display mode The Switch Resolution tool can also be useful when presenting: click on it and choose between almost any resolution available, far more than normally offered in the Displays pane, and switch between them instantly.…

1 Pomodoro timer On the Focus screen, tap Pomodoro. Tap Default next to ‘Focus on’ and pick a category. To change the length of your session, slide the bar on the tomato icon; you can choose between 10 and 120 minutes. Now tap Start to Focus. 2 Countdown to success Tap Countdown on the Focus screen. Like Pomodoro, you can choose a category for your session. While Pomodoro is designed for short study periods, Countdown mode lets you stay focused for up to 24 hours at a time. 3 Add Time The final option is Add Time, which works like a stopwatch that tracks how long you stay on target. Choose a category, then tap Start to Focus. When you are finished, tap the pause or end buttons in the…

OffScreen Pro comes with a host of useful extras, besides the ones we have covered so far. It lets you back up your data to iCloud, and you can sync your sleep and focus times with Apple’s Health app. We also like that you can create unlimited custom tags for your focus sessions. But you do not need to pay to get useful bonus features. The free version of OffScreen gives you daily and weekly reports, for example, which summarise all your key stats into an easy-to-digest card. You can save these cards for future reference or share them.…

1 Extract messages Click Messages in the left-hand column. At the bottom of the window is a range of export buttons; click one and you will see various options, such as whether to include the name of the chat session, sender info, and more. 2 Export attachments To export attachments from a conversation thread, click Export Attachments (bottom of the window). By default, this selects everything; click an attachment, then click Export Attachments to just retrieve that item. 3 Print messages If you have a particularly important message, you can print it. Click Print in the bottom-right corner, choose your options, then click Print. Make sure you only print selected messages if you have a very lengthy chat history!…

Q My high-specification MacBook Pro 2017 15-inch has a Displaylink hub to drive wired Ethernet, USB and two monitors, so it consumes a lot of power when running from its battery. Is it wise for it always to run on mains power? What’s best to manage its battery life? A You’re right to be concerned about keeping it plugged in: even with useful new battery management options which were introduced for some models in Catalina, running a laptop from mains power all the time doesn’t normally result in good overall battery life. It may be worth using a traditional method of addressing this: on one or two days each month, disconnect it from the mains and let your MacBook Pro run off battery alone until its charge has fallen to…

1 Pick a face First of all, pick the kind of watch face you want to edit from the Face Gallery in the iPhone Watch app. You can customise its colours and complications here, but we find it’s much better to do that on the Watch itself. 2 Choose complications On your Watch, press and hold the watch face and then tap on Edit. The first screen enables you to change colours with the Digital Crown. Swipe left to see the current Complications for your watch face. 3 Change complications Tap the Complication you want to change, scroll through the available ones and tap the one you want to use. If an app offers several complications, you can put different ones in different parts of your watch face.…

From £269 (40mm)/£299 (44mm) FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES 40mm or 44mm case size, Apple S5 processor, Retina display, 18 hours battery life, GPS, mobile connectivity options In most other respects, the Watch Series 6 and SE are practically identical Should the Apple Watch Series 6 be too to rich for your tastes, you have options. At the budget end sits the Apple Watch Series 3 (available from £199) and in the middle is the new Apple Watch SE. Prices start at £269 for the 40mm version and £299 for the 44mm model. Both are available in Gold, Silver or Space Grey with a variety of straps and loops available, so you can easily choose one to suit your style. In terms of tech, the Watch SE eschews some of the…

£299.99 FROM PFU, hhkeyboard.com FEATURES 60-key US ANSI layout keyboard with Topre capacitive keyswitches, Bluetooth 4.2LE (can be paired with up to four devices), 1x USB-C port, three height settings, size 294x120x40mm, weight 540g, needs macOS Sierra or later, iPadOS 13 or later, iOS 11.4 or later Like vinyl, flat whites and artisan jam, the Happy Hacking Keyboard is de rigeur among trendy types – managing to be ironically retro, pleasingly clunky and achingly expensive. If you want a mighty QWERTY weapon to go with your keyboard warrior status, wheel your penny farthing this way. The HHKB is the brainchild of UNIX expert Professor Eiiti Wada who believes that a) the computer keyboard is as important to its user as a saddle is to a horse rider, b) that that…

From £999 Apple’s thinnest and lightest laptop is also its cheapest, with prices starting at just £999. Even the step-up model costs just £1,299. – and both have vastly improved specs following their refresh in March 2020 with more power, more storage and the same Magic Keyboard as the 16in MacBook Pro. It may be Apple’s most affordable laptop, but the MacBook Air certainly doesn’t feel it, thanks to its 100% recycled aluminium unibody, and a 13.3in LED-backlit Retina display, which has a resolution of 2560x1600 (227ppi) and True Tone, which automatically adjusts the display’s colour temperature depending on the ambient light. Inside the MacBook Air’s 1.61cm thin, 1.29kg body, you’ll find a new 10th-generation Intel Core i3 1.1GHz dual-core processor in the entrylevel model and 8GB of 3,733MHz LPDDR4X…

From £419 Apple’s smartphone line-up now comprises three different models – the iPhone SE, the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro. Launched in April 2020, the iPhone SE features Apple’s A13 Bionic processor and a choice of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB storage options, plus a 4.7in IPS LCD display, 12MP main camera with Portrait photography modes, plus 4K video recording, Touch ID and Haptic Touch. The mid-range iPhone 11 has the same A13 processor and storage options, but boasts a 6.1in Liquid Retina display, Wide and Ultra-Wide 12MP cameras, plus Face ID for easy unlocking and Apple’s new U1 chip for ‘spatial awareness’, improved AirDrop performance and device-tracking capabilities. The iPhone 11 Pro goes further still, offering a triple-lens rear camera system and up to 512GB of on-board storage.…

DESKTOP SPEAKER Ruark MR1 £329.99 ruarkaudio.com Winner of MF357’s head to head, the MR1 speaker set looks and sounds the business. The dome tweeter and longthrow woofer can handle a variety of audio styles with aplomb. You get a good variety of connectivity options, and we love the chunky function/volume dial too. IN-EAR EARPHONES M&D MW07 Plus £279 masterdynamic.com Master & Dynamic’s MW07 Plus offer 10 hours of listening time, and the charging case holds an additional three charges (so you get 40 hours in total). These greatsounding earbuds are IPX5 rated, so they’re excellent for workouts and commuting. The marble-effect finish gives them a premium aesthetic, as does the stainless steel charging case. PRINTER Canon Pixma G6050 £319.99 canon.co.uk With a refillable ink tank, the Canon Pixma is both…

The LaserWriter was one of Apple’s most significant products, but, as you might have guessed, the story of the laser printer starts at Xerox. Twenty years after the company sold its first photocopier based on the xerographic process, combining photography with electrostatic printing, Gary Starkweather replaced photography with a laser beam, making it possible to output an image created digitally. It was 1969, and work would continue at the famous Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to develop the technology into commercial products. Xerox, IBM, and others released laser printers for larger offices, and by 1979 the Canon LBP-10 had brought the technology to the desktop. HP’s LaserJet, based on Canon’s CX engine, followed in 1984. So what was the big deal about the Apple LaserWriter, another CX printer that arrived…