Innholdsfortegnelse for 1 March 2015 i MacFormat

Using your Mac or iOS device is barely half the experience without the internet. It’s now a household utility rather than a luxury, but the experience we get can vary hugely. There are speed (and sometimes stability) factors that we can’t change, but even if you are on a slower connection there’s plenty you can do to make your home network better. We’re not just talking about the performance of devices either, there are other important factors such as how to extend networks, bridge them and even set up uncommon devices such as IP cameras. When you’re away from your home network the internet doesn’t have to end, of course, but until recently the experience has been nothing like being online at home. But 4G is here, and we’ll show…

01 iStylus Yet another Apple patent suggests the company may be introducing an iPad stylus – presumably for artists, and people who want that retro feel. 02 12-inch MacBook Air ‘imminent’ At press, claims Apple will ship a 12-inch MacBook Air are becoming even more frequent. 03 Apple GoPro? Apple has recently filed patents describing a rugged iOS-compatible camera. Is it planning to start competing directly with GoPro? 04 Intel outside Speculation continues that Apple will abandon Intel in favour of its own A-series chips in a future MacBook-type device. 05 Samsung inside Yet another series of reports claim Samsung will make A9 chips for the next iPhone. But these proved wrong last year.…

It seems only fitting that as we enjoy OS X Yosemite, two US climbers have made history by being the first to free-climb El Capitan’s Dawn Wall, in Yosemite National Park. Due to the steepness and smoothness of the route it was previously seen as unachievable.“I hope everyone can take [this] as an example of what’s possible,” said climber Kevin Jorgeson.…

MUSIC Slaves, The Hunter 99p Don’t miss the debut single from this UK-based duo. Already nominated for the BBC Sound of 2015 award, Slaves don’t play “nice” songs. These post-punk mavericks are clearly more influenced by the angry polemic of The Streets or John Cooper Clarke than the likes of Rihanna. PODCAST Freakonomics Radio Free The weekly Freakonomics podcast is hosted by journalist Stephen Dubner and economist Steve Levitt, authors of best-selling book, Freakonomics. They try to show “the hidden side of everything” with content covering a wide series of thought-provoking topics.…

Despite what we’ve seen in many Westerns, living in the Old West wasn’t much fun. Life was cheap, times were hard and people didn’t smell so good. I reckon it was particularly bad for the gunslingers – the good ones, the ones who lived long enough to become legends. What a pain in the backside their lives must have been, their fame ensuring that wherever they turned, some hip young gunslinger would be there to try and take them on. And eventually, one of those youngsters would win. The legend would have an off day, distracted by a whisky hangover, thoughts of lusty maidens or the kind of severe toilet disasters you’d be bound to encounter in an age of poor sanitation. A moment’s hesitation, a failure to check behind…

2006 Campus plans revealed In 2006, Steve Jobs announced to the Cupertino City Council that Apple had acquired nine properties in Cupertino to build a second Campus. No designs were revealed at the time, so nobody knew what to expect. The project was expected to be finished by 2015. JUNE 2011 The designs go public Steve Jobs radically updated Apple’s plans, which was the first time the public got to see what Apple intended. The plan view of the proposed site shows just how large Apple’s main building will be – it’s a building unlike any other in the area, nestled in a green oasis. FEBRUARY 2014 Demolition work started The first stage of the construction was to remove the existing office buildings and flatten the site. The full size…

Dual band routers are able to operate on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectra. Each has advantages and disadvantages. The 2.4GHz spectrum, which until around five years ago was the only option, is the faster of the two, but also the most congested. Not only do devices on 2.4GHz have to compete for bandwidth with other Wi-Fikit, but also with Bluetooth and microwave ovens. The 5GHz spectrum is less congested, but has a shorter range. If you’re having problems maintaining a stable connection to your router, and you’ve eliminated other obvious causes, such as the position of the router (it should, ideally, be away from walls and other obstructions), congestion could be the problem. Most dual-band routers can be configured in one of two ways. You can either create one…

One reason to extend your Wi-Finetwork is to connect a wireless IP camera. These cameras can be used indoors and outdoors, say as a baby monitor or a security camera, connect to your network and allow you to view their feed on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. With a little configuration, you can view the feed over the internet. Indoor cameras start at around £40. Those for outdoor use start at around £60, but can run to several hundred pounds, so it’s important to decide the features you need. If image quality is important, you’ll want a camera with a high-definition sensor. To see what’s happening when it’s dark, the distance its infrared lights project is key. Other features you should look for in an outdoor camera include the degree…

You can access the internet very simply while on the move very simply, using a 3G or 4G network, provided your iPhone is running iOS 8 your Mac is running Yosemite. See p40 to find out how to set up Personal Hotspot. If you have an older iPhone, or a Mac that’s not running Yosemite, you can still use the older version of Personal Hotspot, though it’s not as quick to connect to it from your Mac or iPad. In either case, you’ll need to check with your provider that your contract includes support for tethering – the generic name for using a mobile’s data connection on another device. If your network contract doesn’t support tethering, you don’t have an iPhone, or you don’t want to drain its battery using…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE A few minutes YOU’ll NEED iPhone, iOS 8, an Apple ID , at least one Contact with an iOS device or a Mac The Messages app is an obvious place from which to send text and multimedia messages, and it’s also packed with advanced features for managing conversations. Many of these features are tied into Apple’s iMessage system. An iMessage is a type of message that can be sent only between Apple devices, whether they be iPhones, iPads, iPod touches, or Macs – they just need to be online. You can stop intrusive conversations by suppressing notifications or blocking unwanted people Messages saves you resorting to a social network such as Facebook to arrange meeting up with a number of people.…

Berkshire & North Hampshire MUG Reading area i.j.burn@reading.ac.uk Bracknell Forest MUG, Bracknell, Berks bfmugoffice@gmail.com bfmug.org Bristol and Bath MUG info@bbmug.co.uk bbmug.co.uk ClubMac Ireland, Dublin secretary@clubmac.ie clubmac.ie Cork University College, Cork d.murphy@cs.ucc.ie ucc.ie/mug Cumbria Mac Enthusiasts, Barrow-in-Furness contact@macenthusiasts.co.uk macenthusiasts.co.uk Deaf Mac Users – website group for the hard of hearing tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/deafmacs Edinburgh MUG, Edinburgh Twitter: @edmug edmug.org.uk Exeter MUG, Exeter examug@mac.com examug.org.uk, Twitter: @examug Fife MUG, Fife johnvandieken@gmail.com famus.co.uk Harlech MUG, South Snowdonia ian@climb8.com London MUG, London secretary@lmug.org lmug.org.uk, @londonmacgroup Facebook: facebook.com/ groups/35108081221 Midlands MUG, Birmingham mmug.org.uk North West Mac Group, Near Warrington info@nwmug.co.uk nwmug.co.uk Norwich MUG, Norwich paul@durrant.co.uk nmug.org.uk, Twitter: @NorwichMUG OxMUG, Oxford oxmug.org South Essex MUG, Wickford, Essex seal-apple.co.uk South Wales MUG, Cardiff terlga@freenet.de swmug.org.uk Stroud Mac User Group, Stroud jmuy@aol.com Suffolk Mac User Group, Ipswich mikekwasniak@me.com suffolkmacusergroup.co.uk Surrey…

GET IN TOUCH If you have a technical issue that you need help with, please email us at: sos@macformat.com The case of the identical filenames Q I’m studying Business Computing and want to write C programs on my Mac that will eventually be run on Linux machines to be graded. Most libraries and source files we are given use the case to distinguish between files, so myFILE is different to MyFile, say. But OS X treats the filenames as identical. Can I make it recognise the difference, without manually renaming every file twice over? Brody Hamilton A The case sensitivity, or lack of it, isn’t part of the operating system, it’s part of the filing system that’s created when you format (or partition) the disk. The default filing system for…

GET IN TOUCH If you have a technical query with your iOS device that you need answering, please email us at sos@macformat.com Accidentally cloned phone Q I got my wife an iPhone 6 but when setting it up, I foolishly used my backup. Now whenever I receive a text, it appears on both phones! Andrew Mather A The carrier settings are tied to the SIM card, and you can’t change the phone number just by backing it up from another phone. I think all that’s happened is you have set it up for your iCloud account and her phone is receiving messages through Wi-Fifrom your account while it‘s in range of Wi-Fi. Tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings, to take the phone back to…

“Bose has re-invented its range for the styleconscious consumer” REVIEW MANIFESTO Our ratings explained Our reviews are totally independent; we’re not affiliated with Apple or anyone else, nor are we influenced by advertisers. You can trust us. Prices we quote for products are correct at the time of writing and are the best we can find from a reputable online dealer, excluding delivery. Rarely given; a brilliant thing that’s as good as you can get in its class right now A strong recommendation to buy; any concerns are comfortably outweighed by its strengths A good product you should consider buying, but there may be better options for you Fundamentally flawed either in concept or execution; there arealmost certainly better options for you A waste of your money and everyone’s time;…

£180 Manufacturer Braven, braven.eu Connectivity Bluetooth 2.1, 3.5mm line-in, 1x USB Output 2x10W Dimensions 24x10x7cm Weight 1.3kg Braven’s outdoor speakers have proven very popular, thanks to their sound quality and sturdy metal casing. The Braven 805 is a slight change of tack, as it’s primarily designed for indoor use. Available in several colours, the 805 looks almost identical to the 850 model, but it swaps aluminium for a more conventional plastic casing. That’s obviously less sturdy, but it allows Braven to shave almost £80 off to reach a more affordable £180. You can connect your devices to the Braven 805 using Bluetooth or a 3.5mm audio jack. The initial sound quality is good, although hardly exceptional for a speaker in this price range. However, the Braven 805 also includes a…

From £320 Manufacturer G-Tech, g-technology.com/uk Capacity 4TB, 8TB, 12TB Connectivity USB 3.0, FireWire 800, eSATA Format RAID 0, 1, JBOD. There’s nothing fancy about the G-RAID drive, but it’s a good option for creative users who need plenty of reliable storage. Designed with G-Tech’s trademark aluminium chassis, the G-RAID drive is a smart, if chunky, desktop drive that requires its own power supply. Prices start at around £320 for a model with 4TB capacity (consisting of two 2TB drives), but there are 8TB and 12TB models available for £525 and £840. Those prices are higher than conventional hard drives, but the G-RAID includes a number of features that help it earn its keep. The G-RAID is equipped with USB 3.0, eSATA and FireWire 800 interfaces, so it’s a good option…

£60 Manufacturer SteelSeries, steelseries.com 1 The original Stratus gamepad got mixed reviews, as it was too small for many people and cost a hefty £80. The new Stratus XL is a big improvement, providing a comfortable, full-size controller, with plenty of room for the various control buttons and two analog sticks. It uses Bluetooth to connect to your iPhone or iPad, and lasts for about 40 hours with two AA batteries. It’s still pricey, at £60, but the improved design makes this a good option for iOS gamers (but you should check the list of compatible games on the SteelSeries website first). It’s expensive, but the Stratus XL is more comfortable than most gamepads to use, and works with dozens of iOS games.…

$119.95 (about £80), $59.95 upgrade (about £40) Developer Alsoft, alsoft.com OS OS X 10.5.8 or later Requires 1GB RAM, USB port DiskWarrior 5 is the latest release of a revered Mac utility dating back to the late ‘90s. The software repairs and rebuilds damaged disk directories, the roadmap computers use to find files and folders scattered across all of those platters. Optimised, errorfree directories provide faster file access, fewer spinning beach balls and a more pleasant experience. Three years after the last major release, DW5 features a streamlined UI and finally delivers 64-bit support, which enables tackling the larger disk directories found on more voluminous modern drives. A new Directory Optimization Index provides a visual graph of disk efficiency even before clicking the Rebuild button. Version 5.0 ships on a…

$9.99 (about £6.50) Developer Kazuhiro Kawana, topoftree.jp OS OS X 10.9 or later Requires 64-bit processor This lightweight outline tool can tackle plain or rich text from various formats including OPML and Word, and allows tree views to be expanded vertically or horizontally. Version 2.0.1 retains what’s already great, including a minimalist UI and multi document access from Safaristyle tabs – you can now add new tabs with a double-click on the tab bar or by using the ‘+’ button. The adjacent button makes it easy to move a selected family into a new tab. Tree rewards users who learn keyboard shortcuts and this version adds support for applying colour labels without taking your fingers off the keys. The software is now 64-bit native and features shiny new icons. These…

£18.99 Developer Realmac, realmacsoftware.com/typed OS OS X 10.9 or later Requires speakers/headphones if using soundtracks Ever since distractionfree writing environment WriteRoom appeared, developers have tried to find the perfect balance between features and control, enabling writers to concentrate without clutter, yet not feel hemmed in by limitations. Typed has a keen sense of design, yet doesn’t overpower. There’s a minimal user interface, but you can display word/character counts, choose backgrounds and typefaces. For writing, markdown support and associated keyboard shortcuts make structuring documents a breeze. We thought we’d hate Zen mode, designed to boost concentration and focus with a fullscreen window and soundtracks. But the bundled soundtracks are mostly very pleasant, drowning out background noise without being distracting. So Typed is good, but is it better than its main rivals?…

The iPhone, especially in portrait mode, is just perfect for board-based strategy games, particularly of the hex type. There are countless examples on the App Store but few have kept me coming back as much as Hoplite, which surfaced in late 2013. I say ‘surfaced’ because that’s kind of where you start. The idea here is that your pixel Spartan warrior has to go on a quest for the Golden Fleece, descending deeper and deeper into the underworld. It’s very much in the dungeon-crawler mould (like Rogue), and you have a few skills and weapons to defeat enemies as you try to get to the next set of stairs to work your way down the levels. You can only move one hex tile at a time, unless you use energy…

79p Developer Last Automaton App Supply, rebelsauce.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch Version 1.0 Age 4+ Rebelsauce’s film-style presets for Lightroom on the Mac have come to the iPhone to give your crisp digital shots a bit of life and character. The 79p app includes 36 filters, additional packs of between 10 and 15 are 79p a pop, and the full collection is £4.49. Filters are applied with a single tap, making an immediate and often marked difference to your image. You’re not restricted to presets, though – more tailored edits provide control over grain, contrast, colour fading for an aged finish, rotation and more. Each adjustment is applied frame-wide, so everything is kept in proportion. We heartily approve of this approach, for the most part, but it means you…

£2.49 Developer DeskConnect, deskconnect.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0.1 Age 4+ Workflow allows you to lace together a series of common ‘actions’, like taking a picture or looking up songs, and process the results to create meaningful output. Each action’s already built, so you just drag it from the pre-installed library into a workflow. By default, it will take the output of an action that appears above as its input, and send its output to the following action. In less than two minutes we dragged in three actions that determined our location, grabbed the image for that spot from Google Street View and tweeted it. We saved the process on the Home screen as an app called Street Shot, with its own icon. Now, to show where…

DAYS SINCE REFRESH 113 UPDATE LIKELY? Recently updated BUY OR WAIT? Buy now Apple’s skipped 4K and headed straight for 5K to make this not only the Mac to have, but the desktop computer to own. It only comes in the 27-inch variety for now and sports a 3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (boosted to a 4.0GHz Core i7 as an option) and a 1TB Fusion Drive. There’s also 8GB of RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2GB video memory. The range elsewhere hasn’t changed, with two non-5K 27-inch models available and three 21.5-inch models. The entry-level model has a dual-core processor, but all others have a quad-core processor as standard. CHOOSE AN iMAC R = Retina display…

DAYS SINCE REFRESH 150 UPDATE LIKELY? October 2015? BUY OR WAIT ? Buy now When you’re deciding which iPhone to buy from the new line-up, your decision will be driven primarily by what size screen you want. The iPhone 5c (sadly relegated to one capacity, 8GB) and 5s have a 4-inch screens, while the 6 and 6 Plus have 4.7 and 5.5-inch respectively; think about how they fit into your life – literally. There are other differences; the 6 Plus’s camera has an image-stabilising lens, and both 6 models are faster. The iPhone 4s has sadly been retired by Apple but there are still some available from carriers (and second-hand, of course), so if you want that 3.5-inch, thumb-friendly design, you can still get it. The iPhone 4s will run…

As 2015 begins keen Apple watchers are staring at the space on their wrist and wondering if they need an Apple Watch on it. “The Apple Watch is powerful,” Forrester Research analyst Julie Ask told The Verge. “This does what a Fitbit or Jawbone or Nike FuelBand does, but it offers music and the apps integrated into the device.” The smartwatch’s integration with health and wellness is one big reason people may want to wrap Apple around their wrist. After all Apple's Health app works with many makes of fitness tracker. But Apple Watch aims to be the best around. Apple CEO Tim Cook sits on the Nike board and Nike ceased development of its own FuelBand fitness tracker last year. Alongside sensors including a heart rate monitor, Apple Watch…

Apple loves Tim Cook Apple employees rate CEO Tim Cook higher than employees at any other tech firm rate their boss, according to UBS Evidence Lab. UBS analyst, Steven Milunovich last year praised Cook, saying the Apple boss “thinks big” and predicting the company would transition to be less like a tech company and more a luxury lifestyle brand. Reflecting Apple’s continued success, CEO Tim Cook earned $9.22 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation last year, while company stock hit new highs. Other executives received 14% raises as the company board said results had exceeded expectations. Former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts received over $73 million in cash and stock, a payment that reflected special inducements required to attract her from the UK clothing firm. More board change Former Gap…

£1,800 bang-olufsen.com It integrates your music & streaming services with a mood-matching colour wheel What is it? Bang & Olufson is keeping up with the times by creating a music system that integrates your music collection and streaming services with a touch-sensitive wooden interface and a colour wheel. The wooden side of the detachable control panel is completely minimalist, working a bit like an iPod click-wheel, while the colour wheel allows you to set your mood, with the Beosound Moment choosing music to match. When’s it due? Available soon. Why are we excited? B&O is renowned for great sound and gorgeously styled audio products. The luxurious nature is obviously crave-inducing, but what B&O has done on the usability side is equally impressive. BrydgeAir From £112 brydgekeyboards.com What is it? In…

1 Hiding your network’s SSID will help protect you from being hacked It’s true that telling your router not to broadcast its SSID will make it ‘invisible’ to the average user scanning for nearby networks. It won’t protect it from hackers, though. The SSID, while not broadcast, still shows up in data packets, probe requests and responses. Any hacker who’s interested can use specialist software tools to scan for hidden networks. Guess which networks are more interesting to hackers: those which broadcast their SSID, or those which keep it hidden? 2 Filtering network access by MAC address will protect against hackers Allowing only devices with MAC addresses you specify will deter only the most casual of hackers. Anyone armed with a network-sniffing tool will be able to see devices connected…

802.11ac is the most recent Wi-Fiprotocol and supported by most modern routers. It offers a theoretical maximum throughput of 1300Mbps. That may seem like overkill, particularly if your broadband speed is measured in tens of megabits or even less. But that figure is a theoretical maximum, in practice you’ll get far lower speeds, something which is also true of 802.11n and 802.11g. Then there’s the issue of how many devices you have on your network. More devices means more competition for bandwidth. Suddenly 1300Mbps doesn’t seem so ridiculous. Besides, when you buy an 802.11ac router, you don’t just get 802.11ac. You get other modern features too, like beamforming, support for wide channels, WPS and guest networks. MIMO (multiple input multiple output), which allows for the use of multiple antennas to…

Wi-Fiisn’t the only wireless technology that allows you to access the internet. Since the advent of 3G a decade ago, mobile networks have been able to provide reasonably fast data connections, and 4G provides significantly improved bandwidth, making it a viable alternative to a fixed broadband line. The bad news is that while 4G started rolling out in the UK towards the end of 2013, and all providers offer it as at least an option, coverage is far from universal. If you can get 4G, most providers charge a premium to use it, Three being the exception. You can connect to a 4G network from a recent iPhone or cellular iPad, once you have an appropriate data plan. If you have an iPhone 4S or earlier, you’re stuck with 3G.…

Although you’ve been able to use an iPhone as a mobile hotspot for a Mac or iPad for a while, iOS 8 together with OS X Yosemite make it much easier. Personal Hotspot now forms part of Continuity, the suite of features which allow you to share data between Mac and iOS devices easily. There are three ways to connect a device to a Personal Hotspot. Wi-Fiallows you to connect any Wi-Ficapable device, regardless of its platform or operating system. Connection over Bluetooth allows you to share a data connection with a Mac or iOS device. Using a USB cable allows you to connect from a Mac or PC. To share a connection using Personal Hotspot over Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth and USB, you’ll need an iPhone 4 or…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU’ll NEED iPhone, Mailbox, either iCloud or Gmail accounts Love it or loathe it, email isn’t going away any time soon. With its deluge of spam, junk and adverts, many of us find wading through hundreds of emails a daily chore. But as long as business are using it it’s here to stay. However, inbox sifting doesn’t have to be an tedious task. While Apple makes a perfectly functional email app called Mail, there are plenty of vastly better email clients on the App Store. Our favourite is Mailbox. With Mailbox you can quickly skim through your messages, and swipe away the ones you don’t want. You can also swipe to read (or delete) all of the messages in…

Apple showcased the Anki Drive in 2013 but it took until this Christmas for it to become a hit. This isn’t a kind of hard disk. It’s a racing game. Physical toy cars race around on a play mat with special guidelines painted on that only show up in infrared. You can play against your friends or on your own, using an iPhone or iPad to control the cars. The cars all have some AI built in that lets them drive by themselves or react to virtual weapons that you can fire. It’s either a real-world version of the classic Sprint arcade game, or an AI version of Scalextric, depending on your point of view. It also costs £150 for the starter system of one race track and two cars.…

Tech21 Impact Snap Case for MacBooks £59.95, tech21.com 1 This slim case weighs just 270g, and is constructed from shockabsorbing material to protect against drops. Available in clear, pink, purple or black. Be.ez LA robe One TBC, amazon.co.uk 2 In a choice of black, blue or red, this fabric slipcase comes with memory foam and a soft inner fleece to provide protection Speck Durafolio £54.95, speckproducts.com/uk 3 Don’t be fooled by the slim case and colours (electric blue and fuchsia pink feature); this iPad mini case offers military-grade protection for drops of up to six feet. Tech21 Impactology Classic Shell £24.95, tech21.com 4 Protect your iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus with this case, which promises flexibility, resistance against scrapes and shockabsorbing capabilities. Atama Sesame 2 £39, atama.io 5 A…

Inkjet printers have had a rough ride in the last year or so. Big names such as Kodak and Lexmark have ridden off into the sunset, leaving the big three of Canon, Epson and HP to dominate the market, and there’s been continued criticism of the high cost of replacement ink cartridges. Even so, a printer is still an essential accessory for most people, and manufacturers continue to improve their products so they offer better quality and value for money. You can now get high quality photo prints even from cheaper models costing less than £100. Running costs are starting to come down too, thanks to the use of ‘high-yield’ ink cartridges that provide better value for your money. Most inkjet printers now on sale are also multifunction devices that…

£379 (6TB drive); £229 (128GB SSD add-on) Manufacturer LaCie, lacie.com Requires OS X 10.8.5 or later This drive pairs a Thunderbolt 2 connection with a 3.5-inch hard disk that can’t come close to using all of that interface’s 20Gbps bandwidth. However, the drive has two such ports, so you can daisychain other devices or a 4K display. The disk’s sequential transfer rates are good enough, peaking at 223MB/sec and 227.2MB/sec, and averaging 186.9MB/sec and 178.7MB/sec when reading and writing, respectively. But, like any single hard disk, transfer rates are lower for the random transfer of small amounts of data. However, LaCie offers an optional SSD upgrade, which you install as well as the 6TB drive. You buy it separately and it replaces the whole back panel with one that adds…

£270 Manufacturer Bose, bose.com Cable length 1.4m Weight 195.6g Power 1xAAA battery The success of Beats headphones has forced Bose to re-invent its premium range of cans to appeal to a wider, more style-conscious consumer base. These noise-cancelling QC25s replace its flagship QC15s and immediately feel more durable. The detachable cable is thicker, the hinges more robust and the included carry case two-thirds the size. One result is that the headband sits closer to the head, but it’s easily adjustable and retains its luxurious felt fabric for a snug, unobtrusive fit. The leather-lined earcups provide fantastically soft cushioning. An inline mic-remote lets you take calls and change volume, while a AAA battery drives the built-in noisecancelling technology and provides 35 hours of noise-attenuation, keeping ambient sounds and cabin drone out.…

£69 Manufacturer Olloclip, olloclip.com 3 We’ve always liked the Olloclip 4-in-1 iPhone lens kits. They allow you to get amazing 10x and 15x macro shots on your phone, as well as stylish fisheye and wide angle pics. This redesigned iPhone 6/6 Plus version still takes great shots, but is a bit fiddlier to fit, and covers both the flash (often not that a big a deal) and the ambient light sensor, meaning the screen darkens, playing havoc with your exposure adjustments. You can turn autobrightness off, but it’s not ideal. We still recommend this, but it’s lost some of its lustre here. Still a great package for taking macro and wide-angle pictures on your iPhone, but there are a few frustrations with this version.…

£149.99 Developer Apple, apple.com OS os X 10.9 or later Requires 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM Apple’s professional music package is a familiar site in commercial recording studios and on arena stages. It offers multi-track recording, great MIDI features, effortless loop-based music creation and stacks of virtual instruments. With the Logic Pro X release it gained tools for fixing timing and tuning, a vastly improved interface, better MIDI handling and the excellent Drummer, which allows incredibly realistic ‘live’ drumming. Previously, the drummers were fine if you wanted to make rock, folk, country or metal – not if you wanted to make dubstep, EDM or hip-hop. She’s electric With Logic Pro X 10.1 Apple has made the program more useful to electronic music makers. It has also fixed some bugs and introduced…

£29.99 Developer Corel, painterartist.com OS OS X 10.9 or later Requires 500MB hard disk, mouse or tablet We were impressed by the natural media painting tools in the recently released Painter 2015, but at over £300 Painter is far too expensive for most people. Painter Essentials 5 is not only cheaper (£29.99), but has a simpler, more streamlined (although somewhat dated) interface that is easier for newcomers. To help you out, the welcome screen in Painter Essentials 5 offers two different modes for creating your artwork. Beginners can start with the automatic Photo Art mode, which allows you to import a photo and then sit back while the program paints over it using a variety of different brush styles, such as watercolours, oil paints or pencils. Experienced users can create…

You might wonder why I would use Stickies when the newer Notes app, which also comes with OS X, has the advantage of syncing things between Macs and iOS devices using iCloud. But Stickies’ simplicity is precisely its appeal. I use it to keep task reminders and short notes isolated in the place where I’ll need to deal with them, contributing a little to my work/life balance. Rather than feeling overwhelmed when I check my calendar, reminders and notes, only the major events of the next few days come to my attention. To ensure things on sticky notes aren’t forgotten, I have the app set to Open at Login, and the most important notes are sat as floating windows (via the Note menu) so they don’t disappear behind others. Each…

£29.99 Developer Croteam, croteam.com OS OS X 10.5.8 or later Requires 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 512MB graphics card The ancient Greeks wandered the countryside and pondered the meaning of life. As you wander the beautiful islands of The Talos Principle, you’ll wonder the same thing – it’s as much a philosophical mystery as a puzzle game. Your avatar awakens to the voice of Elohim, a program-deity instructing you to use jammers, laser-focusing prisms, hexahedrons, and your brain to collect sigils. You’ll think inside and outside the literal puzzle boxes: problems are selfcontained, but extra challenges require you to break the rules and traverse multiple rooms. You’ll visit Greek, Egyptian and Medieval zones: it’s a bit like The Crystal Maze, except you’re solving the puzzles yourself instead of shouting…

£2.99 Developer Engine Software, engine-software.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0 Age 4+ Inspired by the art of Mondrian and Kandinsky, Proun+ is like a breakneck dash through the synapses of a painter’s brain. It is an explosion of colour as you wrestle a ball along tubelike rollercoasters covered in colourful barriers that stop you dead. Spin around the tube, avoid obstacles and finish in the top three to unlock a new track or challenge. Open up all of a level’s tracks and you can do it all over again – only faster. Proun+ can be dizzying, and it can frustrate until you understand a track’s layout, or if you get stuck on a survival race (one hit and it’s game over). But tracks with point gates and…

Free Developer Hipolabs, hipolabs.com/snipboard Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0 Age 4+ We’ve looked at several keyboard apps for iOS 8, but Snipboard is one that merely modifies the standard iOS keyboard so that you can quickly type out frequently-used ‘snippets’ of text, such as your email or postal address. Just launch Snipboard and you are prompted to type in the snippets that you want to store. When you’re typing in other apps you can tap the globe symbol on the standard keyboard to activate Snipboard, and you’ll see all your snippets displayed on screen, ready to be inserted with a tap of your finger. Some rival apps, such as TextExpander, are arguably more efficient, but Snipboard works well if you just need to store a few key…

HOMEBUDGET WITH SYNC £3.99 Developer Anishu, anishu.com 1 HomeBudget sets the benchmark for functionality, wrapping up all the core stuff (multiple accounts, bills, budgets, reports and so on) in a user-friendly, navi interface. Importing data from other apps is relatively straightforward thanks to OFX and QFX format support, and Family Sync support – if a bit fiddly to implement – allows you to stay in sync across other platforms too, including Mac and Windows. Backup via Dropbox and Wi-Fiis also available, as is downloading statements from banks. MONEYWIZ 2 £3.99 Developer SilverWiz, moneywizapp.com 2 MoneyWiz offers practically identikit functionality to HomeBudget, but edges it thanks to its greater flexibility and configurability – importing data is quicker and supports more formats, for example. Its sync capabilities are also the best on…

What’s your Apple Classic? Got a favourite Mac from days gone by? Email us about it at letters@macformat.com iPod Classic (sixth gen) We didn’t know it at the time, but the sixth iPod, the 2007 iPod Classic, was the last of the line. The iPod name would live on, but that iconic design wouldn’t. The Classic dispensed with the famous white casing and seven years later Apple would dispense with the Classic too. There would be no more scroll wheels, touch wheels or click wheels, no more hard disks, no more 30-pin dock connectors – and no more iPods whose sole purpose was music. Today’s iPods are computers with music apps. And that’s great. But while there were half-hearted attempts to add photos and videos to it, the iPod Classic…

Tim Cook www.apple.com “We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high.” Apple’s hanging high John Couch www.apple.com “We need to encourage every child to find their unique genius. Our goal really became how do we build a learning environment.” Apple’s education chief says why he does what he does Jean-Claude Biver www.tagheuer.com “I’m not just living in… the past, I want to be connected to the future. The Apple Watch connects me to the future.” TAG Heuer boss praises Apple Watch Michael McAuliff www.huffingtonpost.com “Wow. The press gallery over the House floor for the State of the Union address looks like a damn Apple ad.” A US reporter notes the Mac is back…

US listed companies report four times a year. In the UK you only need to report twice and the once a year results, the so called year-end, is the vital moment. For Apple, every three months, the so called 8-K results are a big hairy deal. The quarterly numbers are awaited with the kind of expectation white smoke from the Vatican gets. Its end of January results were terrific, and they spiked the share price $8 (7.5%) to $118 as I write. The market believes Apple will spend $200 billion to buy back its stock and pay dividends, a massive stock price supporting move, and will continue to be unstoppable with its world beating products. Why not? There no longer seems to be a reason Apple can’t carry on as…

TV SHOW The Musketeers £2.49/episode (HD) Set on the streets of 17th century Paris The Musketeers is a take on the adventures of elite soldiers and bodyguards at a time before the French Revolution. Classic yarns from the BBC. FILM Pride £9.99 Pride is a story about gay activists who decided to help the miners during the 1984 miners’ strike. A tabloid newspaper’s attempt to smear the gay supporters fails, and the miners march at the Pride rally to support their gay friends.…

Apple Juice $40 (about £27) photojojo.com What is it? Battery packs for your iPhone tend to take the form of a boring black box, so it’s nice to see this juice carton-like alternative brighten up your desk. You get two to three servings (full charges) from it too, so it’s a lot longerlasting than many other top-up solutions. When’s it due? Power up now! Why are we excited? It always feels like you’ve been defeated when you have to pluck a black box from your pocket and connect it up for that extra bit of charge. With this though, emergency charging feels a lot more fun, and you won’t be embarrassed about connecting it up. In fact, it looks like it belongs in your lunchbox or picnic hamper. We like…

When Steve Jobs said he had the best architects in the world working on Apple Campus 2, he wasn’t kidding. He was talking about Foster + Partners. It all started when Norman Foster, the founder and chairman, received a phone call from Jobs out of the blue. Speaking in the promotional video about Apple Campus 2 he recollects the call. “It’s Steve. Hi Norman, I need some help,” he remembers. “I was out there three weeks later.” Foster + Partners is a world renowned firm of architects based in London with offices worldwide and has been involved in creating innovative workplaces and many other types of structures for over four decades. Its groundbreaking designs include the UAE Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, the Millennium Bridge in the UK, Kuwait…

The first port of call for many Mac users when choosing a wireless router is Apple’s AirPort Extreme. And with very good reason; it’s an excellent router. It supports the latest 802.11ac wireless protocol, with its theoretical maximum throughput of 1300Mbps. It also supports 80MHz-wide channels. And it has beamforming technology, which focuses the signal from the router to your device, meaning you should always get the strongest possible signal. The other reason you should consider an AirPort Extreme, or a Time Capsule, is that you can be confident of compatibility with all your Apple devices. While that should be the case with other routers too, WDS (wireless distribution system) implementation varies between vendors, and having your router and devices from a single vendor is likely to be optimal. If…

There are a number of ways in which you can extend the range of your Wi-Finetwork. In addition to using a second router, as described in the sections on roaming and powerline networking, you can improve the performance of your current router. Following our tips on how to speed up your network (p34) should also help extend its range, but if that’s not enough, you might want to consider a Wi-Firepeater or extender. This is a device that sits at the outer edge of the range of your Wi-Finetwork and rebroadcasts the signal, thus allowing it to carry further. These devices are relatively inexpensive, usually costing between £30 and £40. They do, however, have a few problems associated with them. The first is that in order to be effective, repeaters…

How long is a piece of string? The answer to when you’ll be able to access 4G depends on where you live and which network you use. The simplest way to find out is to go to your network provider’s website and use its coverage checker. Type in your postcode and the checker will tell you whether 4G is available now and, if not, when you can expect it to become available. However, even that won’t give you the full story. Every network has pockets within coverage areas where signals are weak or, sometimes, non-existent. So while, for example, 4G may be available from your provider in Exeter, if you move beyond the centre of the city, you might find the signal disappears. Within Greater London, there’s a large area…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it IT WILL TAKE 45 minutes YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.6.8 or later, Photos Duplicate Cleaner or Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto Just how much space on your hard drives is taken up by duplicated photos? Thanks to two free programs – Duplicate Photos Cleaner and Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto – you can easily go through a selected drive, folder or iPhoto library and weed out unnecessary copies, potentially freeing up many gigabytes of drive space. Both apps are available free through the App Store and – once installed – work in a similar way. The only real difference is how you select what to scan – the step-bystep guide opposite reveals what to do with Duplicate Photos Cleaner, while Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto will first…

STAR LATTER Wi-Fistorage woes In your February 2015 issue the article Improve Your Mac had some great advice. But sometimes all the pieces do not mesh together perfectly, especially when Apple throws a late-cycle spanner in the works. Under Wish You Had Bought Bigger? you mention the use of external storage devices, and especially wireless ones via Wi-Fi. And under Upgrade Your iOS Device you say “you can also stream movies and TV shows bought from the iTunes Store”. It is important that people know that late in the iOS 7 period, and continuing in iOS 8, Apple has modified the DRM decode routines in iOS such that movies and TV shows purchased from the iTunes store will no longer play if they are stored on wireless storage devices. In…

Enjoying your movies and games on the big screen doesn’t mean you need to shell out a small fortune on an enormous TV. With Epson’s EH-TW490 projector, you can have the home cinema experience at a fraction of the cost that a brand new television would cost you. But here you could win one! It comes packed with Epson’s 3LCD technology to provide vivid colours no matter what you’re watching, making it perfect for viewing live sports or playing games on screens of up to 318 inches. The 12,000:1 contrast ratio will banish any thoughts of washed out pictures, while the 720p resolution delivers beautifully crisp images without the screen artefacts that can often afflict projector systems. Thanks to its compact design and weight of just 2.4kg, the EH-TW490 can…

Here’s some features you might have missed, and ways to remove some minor niggles, in OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. 1 If you want to prevent your iPad from receiving the same texts as your iPhone, tap Settings > Messages > Message forwarding on the iPhone. Turn off the switch next to your iPad in the list of devices there to prevent it receiving texts. 2 If you have an external mouse with a middle button, you can close tabs in Safari by middle-clicking the tab… 3 … but that trick won’t work on a Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse because they don’t have middle-click functions. You can configure gestures that will simulate a middle-click using the free MagicPrefs utility, which you’ll find available at magicprefs.com. 4 The Markup…

1 Log into iCloud Log in to icloud.com with your Apple ID and password on any device, then click ‘Find my iPhone’. After a short pause, you should see a map showing all your connected devices. Click the one you can’t find – if it’s close by, click the Play Sound button to locate it. 2 Enter Lost Mode If you’ve left your iPhone or iPad in a public place and can’t get to it, click Lost Mode instead. If it’s not got a passcode, create one to lock it, then enter your phone number (click Use Anyway if prompted) and a short message providing your contact details. 3 Device returned Anyone switching on your iPad or iPhone will then see your message. Your device will be listed in Lost…

£349 Manufacturer Libratone, libratone.com Connectivity Bluetooth 4.0, aptX, AirPlay, 3.5mm line-in, USB Output 120W digital amp Dimensions 33cmx8.3cm Weight 2.7kg Libratone’s Loop turned a few heads when it appeared about a year ago. Along with its attractive design and sound quality, support for AirPlay made the Loop a good choice for owners of Macs and iOS devices. However, its £400 price tag was pretty steep, and the lack of Bluetooth limited its use with other devices. This new version is still quite expensive, but Bluetooth has been added, along with support for the high-quality aptX codec. The design of the Loop remains the same, with a distinctive saucer shape that looks like a small satellite dish. There’s a conventional stand that lets you prop the speaker up on a shelf…

£457 Manufacturer Samsung, samsung.com/uk Ports 1x USB 3.0 Dimensions 71x9.2x53.2mm Weight 30g Features 256-bit AES encryption (optional) Samsung’s T1 surprised us with a design that’s not just small and light but which also looks and feels good, even though its body is plastic. Its curved edges make it comfortable in the pocket too. Samsung says the T1 can reach up to 450MB/s, but we measured its peak sequential read speed at 438.8MB/s – only 1.3MB/s slower than Angelbird’s SSD2go (see MF282). However, the T1’s mean speed lags 73.4MB/s behind the SSD2go, although its 366.5MB/s is comparable to similar drives. When writing sequentially, the T1 peaked at 394.4MB/s – 9MB/s faster than the SSD2go – though its average trails behind on 330.8MB/s, which is 48.5MB/s slower. The T1 excels, though, in…

£160 Manufacturer Devolo, devolo.com/uk Connectivity 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Dual Band, 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports If you’ve ever had trouble getting your devices wired up to your router or have Wi-Fideadspots in certain rooms, you’ll know all about powerline solutions. The technology has matured to deliver theoretical 1,200Mbps speeds and this two-plug kit from Devolo goes further by adding 802.11.ac Wi-Fi. This broadcasts a second Wi-Finetwork (with a default Devolo SSID), but uses the router’s DHCP so your devices retain their IP addresses. First time sync between the HomePlugs is simple with Devolo’s push button approach, and even when you move the second plug to a different room it syncs up, although not as fast as some products. Our tests delivered speeds around 700Mbps (dLAN 650s delivered around 500Mbps). It’s a welcome…

£35 Manufacturer OneForAll, oneforall.co.uk 4 The SmartZapper turns your iPhone or iPad into a universal remote control that can control your TV, set-top box and other devices all at once. Just tell the SmartZapper app what type of TV and other devices you are using, and the app uses Bluetooth to connect to a little plastic transmitter that sends out control signals just like an ordinary remote control. It’s hardly an essential accessory, but it’s kind of fun to control your TV from your iPhone or iPad, and at £34.99 the SmartZapper is one of the cheapest universal controls available for iOS devices. Slightly gimmicky, but the SmartZapper works well and is an affordable alternative to a conventional remote control.…

$49.99 (about £33; single user), $89.99 (£60; family pack) Developer Chronos, chronosnet.com OS OS X 10.10 or later Requires 400MB disk space While some are content to carry thousands of digital images on mobile devices, there is still a contingent of loyal Mac users who fancy the notion of preserving memories in hardcopy for future generations to enjoy. With the fifth edition of its popular scrapbook application, Chronos appeals to both camps. iScrapbook 5 assists users in creating digital scrapbook albums in single or dual page spreads. Individual pages or entire albums can be printed on paper or exported to PDF, TIFF, JPEG or PNG files. With more than 15 new feature categories, including texture, glass and simulated old film overlays, this version creates pages that look more authentic. Shine…

£10.99 Developer Macphun Software, macphun.com OS OS X 10.9 or later Requires 8GB RAM Storage may be cheap, but modern DSLRs can blaze away at speeds in excess of 10fps and this can lead to a great many similar, if not identical, images. Snapselect offers image recognition that can run while importing pictures from your camera as well as on existing Aperture or Lightroom libraries or folders on a hard drive. The app will group your images by capture time into similar and identical piles, and can take some time to do this depending on your CPU and the number of images. We didn’t see it make a mistake, but it’s up to you to check through them and export the best to a working folder. You can share directly…

£23.95 Developer Softorino, softorino.com OS OS X 10.9 or later Requires iPhone, iPod touch, iPad iTunes is infamous for rigid adherence to MP3/AAC and MP4 formats for audio and video, but a new Mac application called WALTR has managed to find a way to circumvent those restrictions, allowing unsupported files to be easily added to the native Music or Videos apps without conversion, jailbreaking, or other tomfoolery. The software is a model of simplicity: launch WALTR without iTunes running, plug in any currently supported iOS device, then dragand-drop one or more files onto the unobtrusive window. After roughly 30 seconds of processing, files will be copied to the device (a 750MB AVI movie took about 45 seconds), ready for playback alongside previously synced media or iTunes in the Cloud media.…

£14.99 Developer 11 bit studios, 11bitstudios.com OS OS X 10.6 or later Requires 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 512MB graphics card This War of Mine is a survival simulator about guiding weary citizens through the rubble of their city. A few times per week, Franko comes to your camp to trade: five cigarettes is the going rate for a can of food in occupied Porogen. Vegetables are pricey – moonshine or jewellery – but they’re also more nutritious of course. During the day, survivors purify water, pack homemade bullets and tend paltry gardens. At night, one person goes ‘scavenging’, gathering supplies from ruined hospitals and supermarkets, using basic stealth and combat to avoid or fend off other desperate refugees. What you find at night affects how much you accomplish…

£2.29 Developer DeNA Co, manicgamestudios.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 1.0 Age 4+ Mix a standard colour-matching block game with a Rubik’s cube and you get Polyform. There’s a 3D shape made up of cubes of different colours, which you can view from all angles. You drop more cubes on the shape, and if you connect four or more cubes of the same colour, they vanish. Clear the whole thing as quick as you can! Simple. You can play just by spamming cubes of the same colour, but the game rewards you for building up to eliminate, say, seven or eight in one go instead of just four. Neither approach is explicitly correct, so it means the game can be as complex as you make it. Special cube…

£2.29 Developer Ngoc Luu, 1writerapp.com Works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Version 2.0 Age 17+ 1Writer stands out among the distraction-free Markdown/text editors on the App Store. The basics are all here, but 1Writer goes further than most. It is visually stripped back, but it has theme options, a dark mode and enables line height and font size changes. You can link documents in local searches using hashtags. There’s also a Today view widget to get at recent edits. The really clever feature is JavaScript actions that extend the app. On adding an action you can manipulate text, jump to document sections, and send content to a service, all with one tap. More than 30 actions are available, and you can write your own. The app rarely stumbles, but there…

SPQTLIGHT The Apple kit we’re most excited about Rumours may be swirling about Retina screen updates and single reversible USB ports, but the 2014 MacBook Air is a highly capable Mac in a tiny package. You can build an 11in model with an i7 CPU and 8GB of RAM that’s good for anything short of 3D rendering or heavy gaming, and with an external monitor becomes a solid workhorse. It’s hugely portable too, so there’s a lot to love about the Air the way it is right now. Light fantastic The smallest MacBook packs the same spec as the Mac mini and the low-end iMac, and is a good choice if you don’t run many CPU- or GPU-intensive apps Battery life is awesome, 13” models last up to 12 hours…

DAYS SINCE REFRESH 415 UPDATE LIKELY? Possible soon BUY OR WAIT? Wait if you can Eschewing the traditional tower design, the new Mac Pro is cylindrical, coming in at one eighth of the previous model’s size – standing just 9.9 inches tall – but it packs a lot of power. And we mean a lot! Designed around a thermal core that cools its components, the tiny Mac Pro boasts next-generation Xeon processor options, dual workstation-class GPUs, Thunderbolt 2, PCIe-based flash storage and fast ECC memory. Six Thunderbolt 2 ports sit at the back, flexible enough to provide a huge 20Gbps of bandwidth in one direction and able to daisy chain up to six peripherals. It’s fully backwards compatible with the original Thunderbolt port too, so if you already have Thunderbolt…