Innholdsfortegnelse for Feb-14 i MacLife

MORE MAC|LIFE, LESS PAPER The Hottest Articles on MacLife.com 8 Apps for Getting a Good Night’s Sleep Sometimes you need an aid to get your eyes to stay shut. We’ve found eight apps designed to make sure you wake up every morning feeling refreshed. http://www.maclife.com/8AppsForSleep BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea—Episode One Review BioShock Infinite’s first story-driven add-on returns the series to its roots in the undersea nightmare city of Rapture—before everything really goes crazy. www.maclife.com/BurialAtSeaEp Papa Sangre II Review You’ll have nightmares for days after playing this spookily excellent audio-only survival-horror game. Papa Sangre II returns you to the land of the dead in a hunt for trapped memories, guided by the voice of Game of Thrones star Sean Bean. www.maclife.com/PapaSangreII Why 2014 Could Be Apple’s Biggest Year Yet Back…

FEED YOUR MIND. FEAST YOUR EYES. APPLE ACCESS-ABILITY For a select group of people, iOS 7—and, to a lesser extent, Mac OS X Mavericks—is life-changing. Most of us take for granted that we can tap, swipe, and pinch the iPhone screen or use a mouse and keyboard with ease, but not everyone has that luxury. With these new updates, Apple has elevated physically disabled users to first-class status, giving them full access to an enormous library of apps and games and providing an injection of independence that will have a huge impact on their day-to-day lives. “I can now do almost any gesture you can imagine, without actually doing it,” says Christopher Hills, a video-production student with athetoid cerebral palsy—a motor condition that left him quadriplegic. He tried an iPhone…

THE GEAR WE’RE LUSTING AFTER CHRIS S. IBT44 BLUETOOTH RETRO BOOMBOX www.ihomeaudio.com $199.99 » Long before I was editor-in-chief of Mac|Life, I was poppin’ and lockin’ on the mean streets of Greensboro, NC. Now I can relive my breakdancing glory days with the iBT44 Bluetooth portable FM stereo boombox. Featuring a rubberized retro design housing 4-inch woofers and 1-inch tweeters, the iBT44 boasts SRS TruBass digital signal processing and lets me stream wirelessly from any iOS device. MIKEL LOGITECH POWERSHELL CONTROLLER + BATTERY http://gaming.logitech.com $99.99 » Touchscreens are great, but iOS games that try to emulate their console cousins call for console controls. Logitech’s solution, the iOS 7–only PowerShell, has a sturdy feel and iPhone-friendly design that make it as much a case as an accessory—and its extra battery can…

Thirty years ago, the world of computing was changed forever. Apple had already started a revolution once by bringing computers to the masses with its original line of Apple-branded machines, but in January 1984, the company unleashed the Macintosh, and the computing landscape was again irrevocably altered. Built around an easy-to-understand graphical user interface and using a bundled-in mouse as an integral input device, the original black-and-white Macintosh brought computing out of the dark ages of keyboard-only controls and commandline input to usher in a new era of possibilities. Sure, these ideas weren’t all original, but in true Apple form, the Mac delivered them like nothing else had, and new standards were set that are in effect even today. In the time that followed its debut, the Mac has gone…

Whenever Tim Cook speaks in front of a slide show at a media event, you’re seeing Keynote, iWork’s presentation software, in action. The new edition has received a single-window design, with an adaptive sidebar and an approachable user interface. 1 NEW TEMPLATES In the new Keynote, Apple has downsized the selection of pre-built templates from 44 to 30. That may sound like a big step back, but the ones they cut looked particularly dated. They’ve also added a number of new, modernlooking templates and updated many of the ones they kept. The current selections are nicely varied, but if you can’t find one that fits your needs exactly, you can still alter them or create your own. 2 ADD SLIDE BUTTON The Add Slide button has been shifted to the…

Of all the iWork and iLife apps, iPhoto has received the fewest changes in its latest update. You could argue that the most obvious difference is the icon (which is now blue instead of orange), but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find a handful of changes and new features. 1 APPLE MAPS INTEGRATION iPhoto can now display the location your photos were taken using Apple Maps, which is integrated directly into the iPhoto software. Apple Maps may have its detractors, but the graphics are clean and appealing, and if you’re not using them for directions, they make a nice-looking addition to the new iPhoto. If you do much traveling, Places is a fun way to sort your photos, since it shows you a map of the world, with…

Faster and easier filmmaking Newly exclusive to iOS 7, iMovie 2.0 is a big leap forward for mobile video editing. Apple nixes the movie-theater motif of earlier versions in favor of a more streamlined UI here, making it easier than ever to create slick projects complete with slow motion, titles, and transitions. And unlike earlier versions that sometimes behaved sluggishly, iMovie 2.0 offers 64-bit support for the iPhone 5s and new iPad models, accomplishing every task with breakneck speed. The app even eliminates some older pain points with audio implementation. Much of the magic is accomplished with the new Adjustments Bar, which hides at the bottom of the display until needed—particularly welcome on the iPhone. Sadly, some niceties are exclusive to iPad, including the ability to perform split edits or…

Mobile money magic Square Cash is a deceptively simple new way for consumers to send money using only email and a debit card. Unlike competing payment services, there’s no password to remember, fees at either end, or an account to set up, although you can use an existing Square login should you have one. Here’s how it works: open the app, enter a dollar amount on the keypad, tap “Attach to Email,” and enter the recipient’s email address. After you hit send, the app’s job is complete—Square replies via email, requesting your debit card number, expiration date, and zip code. The recipient also receives an email heads-up that money is coming, and once he or she accepts payment, funds are deposited directly into the target bank account within one to…

Really has a way with words In Device 6, a work of spy-themed interactive fiction, text is used with verve and clarity, as sharp prose maps out protagonist Anna’s journey around a mysterious island. The game isn’t simply text-based—in fact, the text dances around the screen. As Anna turns down a hallway, the words also bank at a hard right angle; when she climbs a spiral staircase, her story and your device screen spin with her. The story of Device 6 unfurls as you drag a finger across the display, scooting the text along. It’s a striking effect, and the interaction amplifies Device 6’s spooky ambiance and surrealist mystery; as your finger moves, Anna’s footsteps ring out, and distant voices become clearer and louder. Device 6 isn’t a horror game,…

Don’t sprint from this bash Unlike Jungle Run, its breezy-feeling predecessor, Rayman Fiesta Run has teeth. A revised level progression paired with brutally precise platform action makes for an absorbing and terrifically challenging experience, and even if you’re not the type to play and replay stages for high scores or collectables, Fiesta Run will pinpoint your perfectionist streak and make you leap and lunge until every last glowing Lum is in hand. As with last year’s game, Fiesta Run sends the cartoonish lead and his allies sprinting ahead on side-scrolling stages, with taps and holds of virtual buttons used to jump, glide through the air, and punch or kick enemies and hazards ahead. Much of Jungle Run was segmented based on ability, but most of Fiesta Run’s 75-plus stages put…

Make images pop without bursting your wallet Ever wonder what makes the work of professional photographers stand out? Talent and years of experience aside, sometimes it boils down to knowing how to make images look their best—a feat now made easier with Intensify Pro. Available as a standalone Mac App Store version or the Pro edition reviewed here, Intensify offers powerful, under-the-hood algorithms for precise control of every pixel. Whether using hundreds of included presets or customizing individual settings with exacting precision, users will see fantastic results within seconds. Intensify is the latest Mac software from the creators of Snapheal, and users of that corrective tool will feel right at home inside the familiar dark user interface. Rather than try to be an all-in-one solution, Intensify focuses on four techniques…

Wacom’s Cintiq Companion Hybrid has just about everything you could want from both a drawing tablet and a modern Android slate. There’s a generous, widescreen, 13-inch multi-touch display with 1920x1080 resolution. It runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. It also packs a 2-megapixel camera up front and an 8-megapixel camera on the back, built-in speakers and mic, a headphone jack, a USB 2.0 port, HDMI out, and about 12 hours worth of battery life. All of this is paired with a Wacom Pro Pen that has 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. Drawing on the Companion Hybrid is a blast. The display looks great and renders colors faithfully. And the tablet features Wacom’s standard ExpressKeys and a Rocker Ring for various shortcuts in pre-loaded apps that…

Leave your mark (again and again) Death is permanent in Rogue Legacy, but it is never final. When a plucky Barbarian Queen is invariably fried by a warlock or chewed up by a warg during her quest to conquer Castle Hamson, one of her children will always be available to take up the mantle. Here’s the catch: almost everything in Rogue Legacy is randomized, procedurally generated, or otherwise the result of some cosmic dice roll. New adventurers’ classes, skills, and traits are highly variable, ranging from the useless (an Archmage who shoots spells backwards) to the devastatingly powerful (a Hokage ninja with hypergonadism). Rogue Legacy is as much about genetics as it is throwing scythes at flying skulls, so it’s fitting that the once-recessive traits of ’90s classics—vibrant pixel art…

Apple’s all-in-one gets a graphics and speed boost across the range The late-2013 update of Apple’s iMac range has come slightly early, being less than a year since November 2012’s radical redesign. It’s no surprise, then, that it’s an internal refresh—Apple has upgraded the processors to Intel’s newest chips, the Wi-Fi to the new, fast 802.11ac standard, and the graphics cards to Nvidia’s new GeForce 7–series GPUs. Solid-state storage—available as an option when ordering from the Apple Store online—is now PCIe-based, for faster SSD and Fusion Drives. Last year, a beautiful new slimline build replaced the iMac’s old chassis. The optical drive was dropped due to lack of space, but we got USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a great new screen with a huge reduction in reflections, and new…

OS X’s built-in Wireless Diagnostics makes it easy to spot those nasty snags In the December 2013 issue we showed you how to extend your wireless—and wired—network throughout your home to practically any place you’d reasonably want to use it (Get Super-Fast Wi-Fi in Every Room, p45). However, there are those occasions when technology doesn’t play the way we’d like it to, and that’s when you need to grab your diagnostic toolkit and play detective. Fortunately, from OS X Lion onward, Apple’s given us some useful tools to add to our ever-expanding resources. Problem is, they hid them pretty well, and didn’t exactly shout about them: but that’s where we come in! So, if your Mac’s on OS X Lion or Mountain Lion, open up a Finder window and navigate…

MAC|LIFE’S MAC MEM Here’s to 30 years of the unforgettable Mac As you probably noticed from elsewhere in this issue, the Macintosh is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, here are the Mac|Life staff’s personal favorite retro Mac memories. Chris Slate I still have a real fondness for my old iMac G4—the one that used a swiveling arm to connect a thin, flat-panel display to a curved base. Its cool, distinctive design has held up really well. By contrast, the original iMac G3—which had also been revolutionary for its time—looks like a big, lumpy, CRT dinosaur. The G4 wasn’t just a computer; it was a conversation piece. My non-Mac friends would lust over it whenever they came by the house. Its tech is too outdated to be…

30 YEARS PC users are all techie nerds, and Mac users are all hipster creative types—at least, according to Apple’s old “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads. That’s obviously a gross generalization, but as is often the case with stereotypes, this one contains at least a kernel of truth. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the things we buy can reflect who we aspire to be. My first impression of an Apple computer was a stark contrast to what I had come to expect from a typical beige-box PC at the time: it was easy to learn—friendly, even—attractive, and seemed to inspire creativity. From that moment, I knew: I’m a Mac. I became one on August 5, 1998 with the launch of the first iMac. I didn’t know much…

It’s an odd phenomenon: though Apple continues to sell an obscene number of iOS devices at a steady clip, the sales of paid apps are dwindling. The reason why has surely eaten away at the minds of many app makers for some time, but the debate has taken on a new tenor recently as developers speak out on the end of the App Store “gold rush.” How can creators continue to support themselves on premium software within a crowded marketplace in which free (and freemium) software is thriving? It’s doom and gloom on many developers’ blogs, and these are the folks seeing it firsthand. “Yep, paid apps are dead,” reads the title of a post by Jeremy Olson of Tapity, the developer of translation app Languages. Instapaper creator Marco Arment…

This is going to be a great year for new Apple products. Apple CEO Tim Cook says there will be “exciting new products from us” coming “across 2014,” the everactive rumor pot is newly a-bubblin’ with a rich stew of possibilities, and some new technologies are arriving just in time to make the most fervid fanboy’s dreams come true. I may have no insider insight into Apple’s brain trust, nor can I add any meat and potatoes to the tasty casserole of speculation, but I can explain into some of the toothsome tech that could season such oft-rumored devices as, say, the iWatch. Reports of a wrist-mounted iDevice have been spinning out of the rumor mill since at least 2000, and Apple’s design guru Jony Ive and a 100-engineer team…

Apple has released a major redesign of their iWork and iLife apps for Mac. More than just iterative updates, these new versions bring modern layouts to the software and improve their cross-platform capabilities on Mac, iOS, and even the web. The iWork suite for Mac—which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—has lost some features but has gained a new unified aesthetic. The results are gorgeous, with clean, intuitive designs that eliminate redundancies and are easy to grasp for new and casual users. iLife, GarageBand, iMovie, and iPhoto are still very much individual apps, with unique interfaces and separate capabilities, but Apple has brought them closer in line with their professional-grade music, movie, and photo apps. These new designs are not without their drawbacks. Many users have run into compatibility issues when…

Now more than ever, GarageBand looks and acts like a beginner’s version of Logic Pro X, Apple’s music-making tool for pros. To that end, they’ve cranked up the music-making capability of the app and removed everything else, including some features many people use regularly. 1 SMART CONTROLS In previous versions of GarageBand, you could select a track and make a number of changes and adjustments to the sound. With the new version, they’ve included what they call Smart Controls. Smart Controls give you the controls you’d expect to find on a given instrument, displayed with knobs and switches that look like the real thing. For instance, clicking on the controls for a guitar track shows you an amp-like control panel with different settings depending on which effect you’re using. Even…

Last issue, we touched on numerous new features for OS X Mavericks, but we’re digging deeper this month. The following collection of how-to guides will help you take full advantage of top new Mavericks features: iCloud Keychain, Tags, Maps integration, and using Airplay as a secondary display. We’ll even explain how to roll back some of the changes in Mavericks for those who would prefer to have it behave more like Mountain Lion. These guides are easy enough for everyone to follow, so let’s get started! FIX MAVERICKS ANNOYANCES Many users have upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion with the best of intentions, but if your workflow revolved around some of the things that changed with Mavericks, then you may be less than excited about the new features. Some of…

Each month, the Mac|Life staff gives you a peek inside our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches to show you the latest gems, oddities, and WTFs that we’ve uncovered in the App Store Crunchyroll The crossover success of Attack on Titan got me interested in anime again, and for $6.99 a month, I can binge-watch tons of it via the Crunchyroll app (free, universal). Different packages include manga and Asian dramas, with some of the best content hitting at the same time as it does in Japan. Nice! Dumb Ways to Die Last year’s viral, adorably morbid Australian train-safety PSA video makes a natural transition to iOS. Dumb Ways to Die (free, universal) tasks players with keeping suicidally stupid creatures safe in a series of brief, simple microgames. It gets tough…

Tweetbot 3 for Twitter embraces everything good about iOS 7, and the interface feels more alive than ever, with rich transparencies and playful transitions that create a full and immersive experience. It starts with your timeline—the background and navigation bars have been completely bleached, with the only blasts of color coming from the blue links and icon accents, plus the new circular avatars. Refinements and enhancements are everywhere you look, from the instant dark mode for active tweets to the bouncing alerts, while crisp transitions move you between screens. The interface is delightful, but it seems designed more for enjoyment than speed, and we can see how power users could have complaints—like with some removed shortcuts. The bottom line. Tweetbot 3 loses its trademark robot theme, but its new human…

Survival and dependence take on new meaning in Duet, an abstract minimalist game of two tethered dots navigating a perilous world of unforgiving white shapes. It’s both brutally hard and beautifully meditative, offering up something special beyond its intense challenge as you navigate the equidistant points on a circle—by tapping to rotate it—around an array of hazards that line the path. Duet is mostly about trying again: it’s a test of your patience, persistence, and resolve as much as it is your skill or reflexes, and the Zenlike flow is aided by a mesmerizing backdrop, plus hypnotic music and cryptic messages that tease out a story. Beneath Duet’s simple façade lies a wealth of depth and complexity. The bottom line. Duet’s elegant brilliance is starkly defined against its unforgiving difficulty,…

Homeschooling isn’t just for rich kids and celebrities. With a little help from Wikipedia and Quora, parents everywhere are transforming their kitchens into rich, multimedia learning environments ready to teach reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. But while you might breeze through the ABCs and 123s, things can get a little tricky once it’s time for fractions and the French Revolution. That’s where your iOS device comes in—a few smart downloads from the App Store and you’ll be teaching like a tenured professor in no time. Before you can pick up your red pen, you need to set a curriculum, and any old notes app just won’t do. With so many subjects to keep track of, you’ll need a powerful outliner, and you’ll find one in MindNode ($9.99, universal). With a neat…

Lightning in your pocket Unless you’re in dire need of power, it’s easy to forget something like a charging/data-transfer cable when you leave the house. Fortunately, Bluelounge’s Kii makes it even easier to always be prepared—assuming you have access to the appropriate USB ports, that is. About the size and shape of a car key, the Kii is a Lightning-to-USB device that has the Lightning connector locked into a metal fob. (A 30-pin-to-USB version—which is half the price of its sibling—also exists, but we didn’t receive one for review.) Sliding a switch on the fob unlocks the actual Lightning-to-USB portion, which, at approximately 2 inches long, is smaller than most USB flash drives. In the press materials, Bluelounge says the Kii was designed for laptops. Laptops have horizontal USB ports…

It’s time to tackle “Freebird” If guitarists are only as good as the songs they know, then Capo 3 can help you become even better. This app doesn’t teach you how to play the guitar, but if you know the basics, Capo makes learning your favorite songs a whole lot easier. To start, you choose a song from your iTunes library and drop it into the app. Capo quickly scans the song and displays all kinds of musical information about it in an easy-to-digest format. First, it shows the song’s waveform, divided into bars and beats. Below that is a ghostly spectrogram of the notes in the song, lined up on a grid like the keys of a piano. Lastly, the app shows you which chords to play, and when.…

Telltale’s neo-noir mystery starts strong Policing a secret community of refugee fairy tale characters isn’t easy, even when you’re the reformed Big Bad Wolf in human form. And it doesn’t get any easier when they start turning up dead in public places, and you—as Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown—have to solve their murders. Like Telltale Games’ excellent The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us (based on hit comic series Fables) involves a mix of point-and-click investigation, often-bloody action sequences driven by simple keyboard and mouse prompts, and conversations that (based on your choices) can alter the course of the story and determine the kind of peacekeeper Bigby is. He can be polite, abrasive, compassionate, or violent, and other characters will respond according to his actions—which, as the series continues, could…

TECH SUPPORT & TECHSPLANATIONS » THE SOUND OF SILENCE I just upgraded to an iPhone 5s from an iPhone 4S, which was set up to vibrate and flash rather than ring when a phone call came in. I cannot seem to find a way to do this in iOS 7 on the new iPhone. Can you help? A lot of the settings have moved around in iOS 7, but you can re-enable vibration and flashing to alert you when you receive a notification or a phone call. To begin, turn off the ringtone and alert tones in Settings > Sounds. Drag the “Ringer and Alerts” volume slider all the way to the left, and turn off the “Change with Buttons” feature, then ensure that “Vibrate on Ring” and “Vibrate on…

Securely sync files across your network and the Internet for free The idea of backing up and synchronizing data across the Internet is nothing new, with new cloud-based solutions popping up all the time. If you like the idea of syncing files from A to B in a stress-free way, but don’t want to store a copy of your files online or pay someone for the privilege of doing so, BitTorrent Sync is the tool for you. BitTorrent Sync—BT Sync to its friends—is a free, cross-platform tool that works on Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android to make it easy to synchronize folders and share files between different devices across your local network or the wider internet. All files are encrypted before they’re sent, and go straight from one device to…

YOUR OPINIONS, RANTS & RAVES LETTER OF THE MONTH People seem to love ranting about things, but I’m about to do the opposite. I noticed a problem with my iMac’s HDD just three months after the end of a warranty extension for the very same problem. Long story short: I walked my way through three assistance levels, with people who treated me in an exquisite manner, and the result was that Apple will still repair the HDD, plus an unrelated LCD malfunction, free of charge. This is the sort of thing that makes me love Apple.—Antonio Mestrón Glad to hear that Apple’s taking good care of you. Ideally you wouldn’t have had any hardware issues at all, but things inevitably go bad sometimes, and the last thing you want is…

Few video game designers in this day and age have their name featured before each game title they create, but now in his fourth decade in the industry, Sid Meier has certainly earned that right. Meier cofounded MicroProse in 1982 before leaving to establish Firaxis Games in 1996, where he remains today—and series like Sid Meier’s Civilization and Sid Meier’s Pirates! have garnered significant praise and sales over the years. While large-scale computer games have typically been Meier’s bread and butter, the strategy mastermind has recently turned to iOS for the development of his Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol series. Unlike the big-budget, multi-year projects that usually bear his name, the original free-to-play Ace Patrol and recent premium sequel Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies both found him working as the designer and…

THE THREE FLAVOURS CORNETTO TRILOGY $24.99 (HD or SD) Created by the team of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, the unconnected “Cornetto” films are some of the finest comedies of the past decade—and now that the trilogy is finally complete, they’re available in one package. The World’s End, just recently out of theaters, is probably the big draw, but Shaun of the Dead’s classic zombie splatter is worth the price all on its own, as is the murdermystery/vigilante-cop silliness of Hot Fuzz. MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE $9.99 Thanks to a constant stream of jokes from a stranded space-janitor and his robot friends, one of the worst films ever committed to celluloid somehow became amazing. Manos remains one of the most iconic MST3K episodes,…

While the previous edition of Numbers had enough power-user features to make it a reasonable alternative to Microsoft Excel, the new Numbers is geared toward casual users. It’s still a powerful program, but many features have been simplified or cut to make the app more inviting to the general spreadsheet-fearing public. 1 FUNCTION BUTTON Just like in Pages, most of the cluttered toolbar items from the previous edition have been relegated to the attached sidebar, where they have much more room to breathe. What remains on the toolbar are many of the same buttons as the other iWork apps like Table, Chart, and Comments, plus a Function button. The Function button is an easy way to apply a formula to all entries in the column above the selected cell. For…

The new update of iMovie, Apple’s video-editing app, retains most of the features of the previous edition, but the interface has been completely overhauled. Instead of putting lots of editing options on display from the get-go, Apple has placed them behind easy-to-understand buttons with names like Adjust and Share. The power of the program is still intact, but the simplified interface is much more beginner-friendly. 1 IMPORT Importing clips is the first step toward creating a new iMovie project. The Import screen shows your devices on the left, including any hard drives or cameras plugged into your Mac. All you have to do is click Import All, or select the clips you want and click Import Selected. That populates your clip library in the main editing view of the app.…

It’s safe to say that GarageBand has become the most popular (and accessible) music-making program on both Mac and iOS, with an excellent balance of power and total ease of use. And like the rest of Apple’s mobile iLife suite, the newly refreshed GarageBand 2.0 for iOS 7 is now free to download with the purchase of an iOS device, albeit with an in-app fee needed to restore the full range of musical instruments and sounds found in the previous version. Cosmetically, GarageBand 2.0 doesn’t look very different than the previous version, though there are some slight visual tweaks to bring the overall aesthetic in line with the rest of the flattened-down look of iOS 7. Perhaps the single most important functional change is that you can now create compositions…

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) connects iOS users with the remaining users of BlackBerry’s smartphones via an app that takes UI design cues from the shiny new BlackBerry 10 operating system. It’s a mostly capable messaging app, complete with emoticons, delivered and read symbols, and push notifications so you won’t overlook a single incoming missive. Unfortunately, BlackBerry makes it cumbersome to actually join. Users have to complete a lengthy sign-up process and then send a PIN code to people they want to interact with. BBM has the right idea with two-way opt-in, but other features—like sending super-compressed photos—aren’t as fully realized. Overall, though, BBM feels rather tardy to the cross-platform messaging party. The bottom line. BBM’s appeal will likely be limited to iPhone users with a dwindling base of BlackBerry-toting friends.—J.R. Bookwalter…

A decent Dark Knight fight Batman is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, possessing a genius-level intellect and an endless arsenal of gadgets that let him maneuver and solve problems in interesting ways. He’s also known for getting into plenty of fistfights with thugs, and it’s this latter aspect that Batman: Arkham Origins focuses on. While Bats unravels mysteries and terrifies criminals in the robust console and PC versions, his iOS adventure couldn’t be more straightforward, as he tackles tap-heavy oneon-one fights against a seemingly unending procession of goons. None of what makes the larger-scale Arkham games interesting is represented here, but for a freemium brawler, Arkham Origins’ action isn’t half bad. While it’s mainly about tapping to create punch combos and blocking incoming attacks, the potential monotony is…

Continuing the first Ace Patrol’s tactical take on aerial combat, Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies fast-forwards to World War II, as American and Japanese aces mix it up in missions ranging from simple dogfights to defending or destroying vital resources. The action is turn-based, with your planes moving a little each round as you tap on arrow markers. The available maneuvers start out simple—climb, dive, turn—but as your pilots level up, they earn more complex moves (including loops and rolls) that make them much deadlier. Dogfights can still get repetitive, but with four campaigns, asynchronous multiplayer, and no pushy freemium nonsense, it’s an impressive package. The bottom line. It isn’t a drastic reinvention, but adding more content and refined gameplay to an already-great strategy formula is hard to argue with. —Mikel…

Heir apparent to the tablet crown Deftly evading the conundrum of how to brand its core tablet after four previous models—the last two of which were largely similar—Apple’s iPad Air arrives with a new name, but more importantly, a refreshed design. Truth be told, the iPad Air looks a whole lot like a super-sized iPad Mini, but the sublime sensation of holding it in your hands suggests a much more calculated design philosophy. The iPad Air aims to deliver the same full-sized tablet experience with much less extraneous material and weight between you and the content—and it does so spectacularly. Shedding 28 percent of the weight and one-fifth the thickness of the previous model while curtailing the excessive bezel around the display, the device feels positively svelte without losing its…

Is this drive the ultimate one-stop storage box for all your files? WD’s new network-attached storage unit is an attempt to tap into the newfound consumer enthusiasm about cloud computing or, in other words, storing stuff online. But instead of storing your files on the Internet, WD’s My Cloud is a local networked repository for your content, so you can access it from your Mac as well as your iPad or iPhone, using free WD My Cloud apps. Provided that your drive and router are on (and your router allows it), you can even access your drive when you’re not at home—although its speed is bottlenecked by your broadband’s upload speed, so might be slow compared to, say, Dropbox. Available in 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB capacities, WD My Cloud offers…

Apple’s approach to its major tentpole products—iPhones, iPads, iMacs, and MacBooks—can be viewed in two distinct phases: revolutionize and refine. Save for last year’s introduction of the Retina display, the MacBook family has been solidly in the refinement zone, and this year’s 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is no different. That’s not to say that Apple hasn’t made some welcome changes underneath the machine’s svelte—and oh-soslightly slimmer—chassis to please new buyers, or those who must be forever on the cutting edge. This year’s shift to Intel’s new Haswell i5 processors hasn’t so much brought a new class of speed, but rather a focus on more energy efficiency. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display (2.6GHz, 8GB RAM as tested) managed a Geekbench 3 score of 6,312—not much better than…

Taking a chance on longevity The iPad is an excellent device for playing board games, and the App Store is packed with digital versions of some of the greats, not to mention original affairs. But part of the appeal of playing board games is the tactile sensation of rolling the dice and interacting with the myriad pieces. DICE+ fills the former role, at least. It’s a physical (and digital) die that connects via Bluetooth to compatible games, letting you expand the field of play beyond your tablet screen. Colored numbers display and flicker on each rubberized side, and due to the wireless connection, your roll will automatically input into the game—which both saves time and frankly proves to be pretty cool. DICE+ holds up to a 20-hour charge, and is…

Send things directly to the people around you AirDrop is a convenient way to share things with people close to you. That is, nearby in the physical sense. It establishes a direct, encrypted connection between iOS 7 devices over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Perhaps you want to send an iPhone picture to a friend privately rather than posting it on Facebook, or maybe you need to pass on your résumé. It only takes a few taps, and you don’t have to connect to a Wi-Fi network and clutter the other person’s email inbox. However, there are restrictions. It only works between recent devices—iPhone 5 and newer, iPad mini, and the fourth-gen iPad with Retina display—and they must be running iOS 7. Also, despite sharing a name with a similarly presented feature…

Set up a gift allowance and limit access to your iTunes library and accounts Are you fed up with your kids (or anyone else) bugging you to download the latest apps or buy them music from iTunes? If so, you should make use of one of iTunes’ little-known gifting options, which lets you set up a monthly allowance for someone using the iTunes Store. The process creates an Apple ID for them (if they don’t have one already), and you can credit their account with any amount from $10 to $50 per month. Your child gets his or her own password they can use to log into the iTunes Store, and then they can start spending the money on downloading apps, music, or anything else that can be purchased from…