Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i MacLife

YOU’LL FIND IMAGES imported into your Mac’s Photos app are stored inside the Photos Library.photolibrary file. This self-contained file is not designed to let you browse for images by looking at its collection of sub folders. (But if you Ctrl–click on the file you can choose to Show Package Contents and take a peak in the Originals folder.) However, we’d strongly advise that you explore the contents of the Photos Library by using the Photos app itself, as it provides powerful tools for getting your images and video clips organized. Since the Photos Library hides its folders, some photographers prefer to store their shots in labelled folders — especially if they use third–party apps such as Photoshop. They can then browse to the relevant folder from within their chosen app,…

Once you’ve organized your photos, you may want to share them with friends and family, or on your social media feed. There are many ways to do this from within the Photos app. Ctrl–click on a pic’s thumbnail to summon a Sharing menu option that lets you export it via Mail, Messages, AirDrop, etc. The iOS Photos app also has a sharing icon — tap it to send a photo to contacts in your iPhone or upload it to social media feeds via installed apps such as Twitter or Instagram. 1 Shared album In Photo’s Shared section, click “+” next to Shared Albums. Label the album. Invite contacts to view its contents. Click Create. Double–click on the Album then click “Add photos and videos” to populate it. 2 Stop sharing…

1 Analyze histogram Select a problem shot and click Edit. The Histogram graph shows the shot’s spread of tones. Here we can see the undulating graph is clumped towards the left, indicating strong shadows and an under–exposed photo. 2 Brighten it up Dragging Exposure right boosts all the tones equally. By dragging Brilliance right we can lighten shadows and midtones. The histogram graph slides right, indicating more detail in the midtones and highlights. 3 Selective adjustments If we drag Exposure too far right we’ll blow out the highlights. We can selectively lighten the shadows without altering the highlights by dragging Shadows right. Claw back missing sky detail by dragging Highlights left. 4 Color boost When you reveal missing shadow detail the brightened–up areas can lack color. In the Color panel’s…

People are a popular subject for a snap, but they can be disappointed if a shot fails to show them in a flattering light. Photos captured in artificial light have a warm hue, which makes Caucasian skin tones look orange. Fortunately, you can set the Photos app’s White Balance tool to cool down skin tones for a natural look. A burst of camera flash can turn black pupils red. This is more noticeable when using a compact camera or an old phone. Again, Photos can cure cases of red–eye in a couple of clicks. 1 Skin tones If indoor lighting causes people to look orange, set the White Balance tool to prioritize for people by choosing Skin Tone in the menu. Click the eyedropper on a person to create more…

Keyboard Maestro $36 FROM Stairways Software, keyboardmaestro.com NEEDS OS X 10.11 or later Your Mac already has a whole range of handy built–in timesavers thanks to keyboard shortcuts and trackpad swipes. Keyboard Maestro takes that a step further, enabling you to automate a huge number of tasks with both pre–programmed and custom options. You can automate almost any task you can think of. Launch apps at the touch of a button, rearrange the windows on your desktop, control your music playback, fill out website forms — all these features and more can be activated with a touch. The app can manipulate text, too. With a few quick clicks you can complete calculations, expand text abbreviations into full words and phrases, create reports, convert images to text, and use multiple clipboard items.…

$19.99 From Structured Path, diagrams.app Needs macOS 10.14.6 or later; 64–bit processor The Mac isn’t particularly well served when it comes to diagramming apps. At the top end there’s OmniGraffle, then there’s a bunch of mind–mapping tools and diagramming apps, but not many that are simple to use. Diagrams aims to change that, and it certainly scores on the simple part. You’ll be struck by the sparseness of its interface. You start by adding a shape, which can be a rectangle, oval, or diamond in one of four colors. Then you add another and link it to the first using one of 12 options to denote a relationship. You can add text to shapes, and labels to relationships, but that’s it. There are no other options for shapes or elements,…

From $69.99/year (one Mac) From Intego, intego.com Needs OS X 10.9 or later Intego is designed to stop malware on Macs. You can purchase Intego’s basic antivirus, Mac Internet Security, by itself, but the entire protection suite — Mac Premium Bundle — also includes a vulnerability scanner, system cleaner, parental controls, and a firewall. During the test, a compressed file with over 130 malware designed to attack Mac devices was downloaded. Intego blocked 97% of these threats including spyware, worms, and Trojans. Five threats were able to sneak in disguised as legitimate Mac programs. However, after a deep virus scan with Intego, these remaining threats were found and immediately quarantined. Overall, Intego does very well in recognizing and stopping malware before it infects your computer. In addition to its VirusBarrier,…

The need for isolation in 2020 has left a lot of people feeling a bit, well, isolated. But keeping in regular contact with people in another town, state or country has never been easier. We’ve collected some great apps for video chatting, giving you as close to the full social experience as possible. But it’s not just about people you know — to help stave off cabin fever, we’ve also got apps to help you discover new communities in this time when meeting people in real life isn’t an option. HANGOUTS Free Made for iPhone, iPad Obviously, FaceTime is an option for video chatting with friends who are all on Apple gear, but for going cross–platform, Hangouts is our chat app of choice. It works on everything, including in apps…

Around $289 From airthings.com Features Radon detection, temperature, air pressure, humidity, CO2 Radon monitoring is rare in the smart space, but it should be a home essential. Airthings says the gas, responsible for lung cancer, kills six times as many people as house fires and carbon monoxide combined. Levels fluctuate, and it could turn up anywhere, so the Wave Plus — which adds monitoring for CO2, barometric pressure and volatile organic chemicals to the radon, humidity and temperature sensors of the non-Plus model — is a great choice. It’s not quick to get its initial bearings and it’s also not the most connected device, using low-power Bluetooth for its communication, so you need to be in the vicinity of an issue to find out it’s happening. But that’s not a bad…

REQUIRES An iPhone or iPad YOU WILL LEARN How to free up storage space on your iPhone or iPad IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes NO MATTER HOW much space you have on your iPhone or iPad, it never seems to be enough. You may well find that you’re a serial app downloader — because, let’s face it — you just have to find out if that new one is better than the one you’ve been using for years, or you might frequently swap messages with attachments, or download podcasts and then never actually listen to them… There are endless ways to fill up precious storage space. Fortunately, there are also lots of ways that you can free up space without compromising how you use your device. Whether you make better…

REQUIRES An iOS device running iOS 12 or later YOU WILL LEARN How to use shortcuts in iOS IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes APPLE’S SHORTCUTS APP is a powerhouse of automation and customization. With it, you can do everything from asking Siri to take notes you dictate to creating complex routines that are triggered when you arrive home from work. There are a number of different ways to create shortcuts, from responding to suggestions from Siri to choosing from the Gallery in the Shortcuts app to building your own from scratch. And there are numerous resources online with ideas, along with details of how to create them. There are also apps that allow you to build and organize shortcuts. Some shortcuts rely on third–party apps that support them and have…

Sunday, June 29, 1975 is when Steve Wozniak clearly remembers being the first man to press a button on a computer keyboard and see the character appear on a screen in front of him. Originating as a homemade circuit board and sending an output to a television, Wozniak’s impressive creation went on to be sold as the Apple I when he and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer in late 1975. The breakthrough for the fledgling company came when Paul Terrell, from the newly founded Byte Shop, ordered 100 Apple I computers, fully built, for $500 each. This $50,000 deal was a surprise at the time, but only marked the beginning of the story for Apple Computer.…

After Apple’s less–than–adequate showing at the Personal Computer Festival a year before, Steve Jobs and Co decided that a far more impressive display was required at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977. With venture capitalist Mike Markkula now providing funding and advice for the company, Apple had far more show potential. Steve Jobs ensured he signed Apple up to the show early enough to obtain a well–positioned booth right by the entrance, and over $5,000 was put into the design. A plexiglass sign, backlit with Apple’s logo and name, featured alongside black velvet drapes around the booth. Three Apple IIs were on display with a big screen showing just what the machines were capable of. Just before the show, Jobs decided he didn’t like the plastic cases provided and…

YOU CAN IMPORT images to your Mac in a variety of ways. If you shoot on a DSLR or compact camera, you can import your shots directly from your camera’s memory card into a folder on the Mac. You can also share shots from your iPhone to your Mac using AirDrop (if your Mac is on the same Wi-Fi connection); in the Photos app, tap on a shot then tap the Share icon, tap the AirDrop icon and the selected photo(s) will transfer to your Mac’s Downloads folder. AirDrop is useful when transferring a few shots, but they don’t automatically appear in your Mac’s Photos Library. Use the Mac’s Photos app to import them from the Downloads folder. To share pics via AirDrop with other Wi–Fi enabled iPhone owners, go…

An attractive way to share your digital shots is to give them a physical presence. If you have access to an AirPrint–enabled printer, you can export a photo to it by tapping the Share icon and then scrolling down to Print. You can also use the desktop Photos app to create amazing–looking photo books. Apple doesn’t offer this service through its own channels anymore, so to do so, you’ll need to download a third–party app such as Mimeo Photos. Mimeo installs itself as a Photos extension. In Photos Projects section, click “+” and choose Book > Mimeo Photos.…

LIKE MOST CAMERAS, the iPhone Camera app can automatically set shutter, aperture and ISO to capture detail in a subject’s shadows, midtones, and highlights. Most iPhones have an HDR mode that snaps three consecutive exposures which are automatically merged into a single shot that displays detail throughout the entire tonal range. You can also manually set an exposure by tapping on the sky to capture detail in the brighter areas and then fine–tune the exposure by dragging the sun icon downwards. Despite your best efforts, a scene may still be over– or underexposed in certain areas and will require a bit of editing. We’ll look at how to tackle problem tones in the Fix Exposure Issues walkthrough on page 22. The human eye sees true colors in a range of…

1 Remove color casts If a shot is too cold (blue), click the Edit button and toggle open the White Balance panel. Grab the eyedropper and click on an area that should be grey or white. Here a cold shot has been warmed up to create true colors. 2 Tackle tints On an Auto White Balance setting a photo might suffer from a green or magenta tint. Go to the White Balance panel and set the drop–down menu to Temperature/Tint. Drag Tint left to reduce magenta. Drag right to rescue green tints. 3 Make it mono The Black and White panel has a slider you can drag to lighten or darken objects in the scene according to their original color. Here we’ve darkened the sky to make the buildings stand…

YOU CAN EXPAND Photo’s abilities with third-party extensions and enjoy using powerful tools from the comfort of Photos’ workspace. After downloading an extension app, go to Apple > System Preferences > Extensions. Check the Photos Editing extensions of the apps you want to use. In Photo’s Edit workspace, click the Extensions icon at the top, then click to launch an extension. AFFINITY PHOTO $49.99 From affinity.serif.com Enables more adjustments than Photos. For a one–off fee, it has similar functions to Photoshop without the subscription. As well as running standalone, it adds tools to Photos as extensions. 1 Access an extension Water particles in the air can cause haze. The resulting flat midtone contrast makes it difficult to discern distant details. Click Edit, then click on the Extensions icon at the…

From $999 From Apple, apple.com Features 1.1GHz dual–core Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB 3,733MHz memory, 256GB storage SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics, 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports Much of the March 2020 MacBook Air is based on the October 2018 model, so let’s start things off with what’s not been updated. First, the bezels. Unlike the 16–inch MacBook Pro, this MacBook Air update doesn’t do anything to push the screen out any further towards the corners. And that’s unfortunate. A lot of Apple’s competitors have gone edge–to–edge, and doing so allows for a bigger screen in the same size casing. It’s also still standard sRGB gamut, not the wider P3 gamut of the Pro, so that’s something for photographers to keep in mind. The new Air also has the same T2…

$269.99 From Philips, philips.com Features 24–inch display, 1920x1080 resolution, USB–C, four USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet It’s taken a while, but USB–C is now being adopted for a much wider range of devices, and it’s a particularly good option for monitors such as the new Philips 243B1. When hooked up to a late model Mac, it enables you to improve your connectivity options — more ports is always a good thing. The monitor itself is fairly straightforward, offering a 24–inch display with 1920x1080 resolution. Admittedly that’s a relatively modest resolution these days, but it’s fine for a monitor of this size, and perfectly adequate for streaming video at home or working on documents in the office. Image quality is good too, with a crisp, detailed image and nicely balanced colors. The…

We tested the bags over a couple of weeks, using them to stash a 15–inch MacBook Pro, chargers, cables, an iPad, a drinks bottle, and lunch. We assessed each one for how much room there was, how easily items could be safely stowed, and how comfortable it felt to carry all those goodies around using the shoulder strap. We also assessed their robustness and design. ▲HIGHER… KNOMO BUNGO knomo.com $349 The black or brown leather Bungo touts itself as “the ultimate laptop messenger bag.” Capable of stowing 15.6–inch laptops, it has an 11.5L capacity. ▼…OR LOWER? WENGER UNDERGROUND wenger.ch Around $67 With room enough to stow a 16–inch MacBook Pro and an iPad, this Swiss–made 9L bag is affordability exemplified.…

Self–preservation is a universal core instinct of every living organism on the planet, from the top of the intellectual tree down to single–celled bacteria. If you’re building yourself a smart home, that’s something you should absolutely have in mind. A smart home that doesn’t have the sense to understand when there’s something wrong with your living space is, at least within this somewhat strained analogy, dumber than an amoeba. Such sensing doesn’t even have to be an extra — it could be the core feature of your smart home. You can completely sidestep things like smart assistants or fancy lighting if they’re not your sort of thing, and just use the ever–growing litany of tools available to invisibly make your home safer. And we’re not just talking about security here,…

WITH MINI AND MICROLEDS YOU GET BETTER BRIGHTNESS AND CONTRAST AS YOU’VE GOT MORE LEDS TO ADJUST FANCY CONNECTING YOUR Apple TV to a 292–inch display? At this year’s CES, Samsung displayed its massive screen, which it calls The Wall. LG also had a 145–inch microLED display. And the same microLED tech is coming to smaller screens — one day, you might even have it in your Apple Watch. It’s been repeatedly rumored that Apple plans to begin switching from standard LED displays to miniLED ones in the coming year, and it has been granted multiple patents involving even more impressive microLED displays. Apple’s laptops, iMacs, iPads and Cinema Displays use LED displays, just like most of the big TVs you’ll find in your local audio–visual emporium. It’s a mature…

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak first met through their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez. Both enjoyed pranks and electronics and, despite a five–year scholastic age gap, the pair became firm friends. One of the first highlights of the pair’s friendship was the development of the Blue box, built by Wozniak after reading an article in Esquire magazine, that tricked telephone exchanges into allowing free calls. The pair developed and sold the devices to students at Berkeley University, long before they began developing and selling the computers that would eventually lead to them forming a company called Apple Computer.…

In 1975, two men from Commodore, then a small computer company looking to extend its product line, visited Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at their garage/HQ in California. No strangers to buying fledgling outfits, Commodore inquired as to whether they could buy Apple, after the success of the Apple I. Jobs was open to the idea, and set his terms: $100,000 of Commodore stock and an annual salary of $36,000 for Wozniak and himself at Commodore. Commodore turned down the proposed deal and the rest, as they say, is now Apple history……

When Apple programmer Randy Wigginton found that more than six weeks of work on a new version of BASIC had been wiped from the Call Computer time–sharing system that Apple used for storage, he called the company to ask them to mount the tape reel with the previous backup on it. The owner of Call Computer, Alex Kamradt, was already annoyed with the two Steves for not paying their bill for months and refused. Jobs spoke to Kamradt and arranged that if he’d personally come to Apple’s HQ, a check would be waiting for him. The only condition was that Kamradt loaded the backup reel Wigginton had requested before he left. As the butch head of Call Computer made his way to Apple, Wigginton downloaded the backup, stored it and…

Steve Jobs was without a project in 1981 after being excluded from the development of his own computer, the Lisa. After trying to can Jef Raskin’s Macintosh project three times, he now decided he wanted in on the computer for the masses. Instead of simply helping, the 26–year–old Jobs wanted to include elements of the Xerox PARC style user interface and began wrestling Raskin for control of the project. Inevitably the situation reached boiling point and, following a crunch meeting between Raskin, Jobs and Mike Markkula, Jobs was made head of the Macintosh project and the defeated Raskin took a holiday.…

I HAVE TO say, Apple really missed a trick with the release of iOS 13.4, which added real support for mouse and trackpad control for the first time. It was released on 24 March, just over a week before the iPad’s 10th anniversary (3 April was its official release date). I don’t think I could’ve resisted the sentimentality of launching its next phase as it hit double digits. I’ve been testing the new cursor concept with a Brydge Pro+ keyboard, which doesn’t quite have all the functionality that Apple’s Magic Keyboard does, but it gives me a feeling for the overall experience. And so far, it’s proved… interesting. Perhaps still half formed, though that’s partly down to apps not necessarily supporting it — I tried to start doing my work…

1 Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance bang-olufsen.com $2,250 This is almost the most expensive smart speaker ever made (Bang & Olufsen itself made the only one more expensive), but there’s a lot more tech here than just Google Assistant support. Speaker and processing developments from B&O’s massively expensive and large Beolab range mean that the shelf–sized unit has twin bass drivers in opposition (to reduce unwanted vibration), adaptive sound for where it’s placed in the room (like the HomePod), two clever audio profiles, and a gorgeous design in real wood and sound–transparent cloth. 2 Gocycle GXi gocycleusa.com $4,799 There’s a lot of clever stuff in this slick ebike. For a start, you can fold it up or down in 10 seconds (or so), and it really lives up to that…

NIKON COOLPIX A1000 $479.95 FROM nikonusa.com This compact lets you get closer to your subject than an iPhone thanks to a x35 optical zoom lens. Bluetooth and Wi–Fi help you share your shots. CANON REBEL SL3/EOS 250D $649.99 FROM usa.canon.com This lightweight DSLR offers full manual control. The flip–out screen helps composition, and you can choose from a variety of compatible lenses. WIDE–ANGLE + MACRO INTRO LENSES AROUND $39.99 FROM olloclip.com Expand your iPhone’s shooting options with clip–on lenses. Choose the right clip for your particular model. You’ll need an olloclip iPhone case too. PIXI SMART TRIPOD $39.99 FROM manfrotto.com This compact tripod and smartphone mount enables you to snap group selfies on a self–timer or shoot rock–steady video footage. CANON PIXMA TS9120 $199.99 FROM usa.canon.com Print high–quality photos directly…

LACIE MOBILE DRIVE $159.99 for 5TB From lacie.com This hard drive combines portability with up to 5TB of storage. USB–C and USB 3.0 connectivity lets you transfer and process pics quickly. SANDISK EXTREME PRO SSD $189.99 for 500GB From shop.westerndigital.com SSD drives are fast, so it’s quick to process Raw files, but cost more than a standard external hard drive. LACIE 2BIG RAID $469 for 8TB From lacie.com You can use this to create two identical drives, preserving photos if one of the drives fails. Or you can combine the two for faster processing. SANDISK IXPAND FLASH DRIVE GO $69.99 for 256GB From shop.westerndigital.com Transfer shots from your iPhone to this to free up storage. Then plug it into your Mac to transfer images. SANDISK IXPAND WIRELESS CHARGER $159.99 for…

1 Typical problems This shot’s horizon is tilting at an angle. It also lacks balance due to the offset lampposts. The man on the right is neither in nor out of the frame. Click Edit. Click the Crop button, then choose Original Aspect ratio. 2 Rotate and crop Drag the rotate wheel to counteract the tilted horizon. Drag the corner handles to crop out any distraction at the edges (eg, the man on the right). A rule of thirds grid helps you create a more balanced composition. Click Done. 3 Perspectival distortion The iOS Photos app enables you to counteract perspectival distortion. Tap Crop then drag the vertical perspective correction slider for straighter structures.…

1 Unwanted elements When composing a shot, sometimes we may not notice distracting elements in the frame, such as a telegraph pole poking up behind our subject’s head, sensor spots, plane contrails, or distracting strands of grass. 2 Retouch Click on the Retouch brush icon. Drag the adjacent slider so the brush is larger than the unwanted object. Spray over the unwanted items; the Retouch brush replaces them with appropriate sky pixels. 3 Take control To remove complex objects that overlap the subject, simply hold down the Opt key and click to define a clean area of the image to sample. When you spray the sampled pixels are placed over the unwanted object. 4 Fine–tune Click on the Retouch brush icon to deselect it, then click on it again to…

WHENEVER YOU GET a new Apple device, it’s likely you have a go–to list of essential apps that you always install first. Whether that’s professional–grade apps like Adobe Photoshop or social media favorites such as Facebook and WhatsApp, we’ve all got our favorite apps that we can’t live without. But there’s much more to discover if you dig a little deeper. The Mac and iOS ecosystems are absolutely chock full of small developers and independent programmers making superb software that can take your Apple kit to the next level. The trouble is that many of these superb apps are actually hard to find, buried in the darkest recesses of the App Store or the web. That’s where we come in. We’ve scoured every corner of the web to find the…

OnyX Free FROM Titanium Software, titanium-software.fr NEEDS macOS 10.15 or later Sometimes, macOS doesn’t behave as it should. There are a few built–in things you can try, but they’re often deeply hidden, confusing to use, or both. OnyX is a brilliant app that gives you power–user features with no cost attached. If you suspect that macOS isn’t working properly because something is broken, OnyX can come to the rescue. The app lets you repair your disk permissions, rebuild Spotlight and Mail indexes, and restore various databases and caches that may have become corrupted. As well as that, you can use OnyX’s many tools to perform a spot of spring cleaning on your Mac, cleansing caches, logs and cookies that could be slowing your system down. OnyX really is a powerful tool…

From $799 From Apple, apple.com Features A12Z chip, ProMotion, wide and ultra–wide cameras, Wide Color (P3), True Tone Apple’s latest generation of iPad Pro comes in the same 11 and 12.9–inch sizes but also brings a combination of minor upgrades and some substantial improvements. You get a marginally improved processor and a second, wider camera; you also get an intriguing new LiDAR scanner and, coming this month, a full–on laptop mode thanks to a scissor–switch, trackpad–powered Magic Keyboard. Much of the second–gen 2018 iPad Pro remains. The screen is the same 120Hz ProMotion, P3 wide color gamut LCD Liquid Retina panel. The Face ID camera is still 7MP and sits at the top in portrait mode or on the side in landscape. The charger for the Apple Pencil is now…

$199.95 From PhoneSoap, phonesoap.com Features UV–C lights, manual and auto modes, two charging ports (USB and USB–C) With the PhoneSoap HomeSoap, you can remove harmful germs without the need for messy, wasteful disinfectant wipes. Big enough for an iPad Pro (but not a MacBook), it’s an all–in–one bacteria–busting solution that’s ideal for families and offices alike. Like the rest of the PhoneSoap lineup, the HomeSoap uses UV–C light, a type of light that uses a shortwave, ultraviolet light that can break apart virus DNA. UV–C can also neutralize those ever–pesky superbugs that have developed a resistance to antibiotics. The HomeSoap measures 5.96 x 11.15 x 15 inches outside, and 3.66 x 9.24 x 13.18 inches inside, offering 27–times the sanitizing space of the original PhoneSoap. To operate, you simply open…

Email Mac|Life at ask@maclife.com Get official documentation at support.apple.com | Get help with hardware at support.apple.com/repair > Cleaning up a PUP I’ve been looking for the cause of my Mac’s poor performance and I’ve found a suspicious app called Dolanbaross. What is it, and how should I remove it? Dolanbaross is one of dozens of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) which are easily installed on your Mac from sites pushing adware and other annoyances. It isn’t actually malicious, but risks delivering something more nasty. Most PUPs also have significant impact on your computer’s performance, particularly your browser, and subvert search and other functions. Ensure you have the latest, fully updated version of a good malware protection tool such as Malwarebytes, and use that to scan for and remove it if possible.…

REQUIRES macOS 10.13 or later YOU WILL LEARN How to install Windows using Boot Camp IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes THE EFFORTLESS APPROACH of the macOS has always been the key element that sets the Mac apart from PCs that run Microsoft Windows. It’s a lot more straightforward and easier to use than Windows — however we do still live in a world dominated by Windows, and there are often times when many of us need to fit in and do things the Microsoft way for a while. Fortunately, it is possible to install Windows on your Mac if you need to run some key Windows apps or games every now and then. And, of course, Apple’s solution is typically elegant — it’s called Boot Camp, and it allows you…

REQUIRES An iPhone with iOS 13 YOU WILL LEARN How to use your phone to help you sleep IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes WHEN IT COMES to your health and fitness, sleep is just as important as exercise. The average adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep every night. A lack of sleep can lead to poor decision–making, high blood pressure, low mood, and weight gain, among a host of other issues. Now for the good news — your iPhone can help you get a good night’s rest! Over the years, Apple has built several tools into iOS, such as Do Not Disturb, that can be used to help you sleep. You may also be tempted to use a sleep–tracking app, but did you know Apple has that…

REQUIRES iOS 13/iPadOS YOU WILL LEARN How to use all of the latest Apple Maps features IT WILL TAKE One minute or less AFTER DISPLACING GOOGLE Maps as the default iOS navigation app in the fall of 2012, Apple Maps drove straight into a storm of controversy when it turned out to not quite live up to the hype compared to its predecessor. Thankfully, engineers in Cupertino shifted the project into a higher gear in recent years, culminating with the arrival of iOS 13, plus subsequent enhancements rolled out for those of us in the United States earlier this year. If you haven’t given Apple Maps a second look since that ill–fated launch, now would be a great time to do so. Among the awesome new features are Collections for…

In the seventies Steve Jobs worked for Atari while his friend and eventual Apple co–founder Steve Wozniak worked for HP. The story goes that Jobs was approached to design a new game called Breakout, a variant of Pong, which involved hitting a ball against a brick wall to “break out” of it. Jobs was offered an extra $1,000 if he completed the design with fewer than 40 computer chips. Working late at night, Jobs enlisted Woz to do the design for him while he provided the Cokes and sweets for the late–night session. Woz completed the design in 44 chips — an amazing feat but it only scooped him a $700 bonus. It is alleged Jobs lied about how much he was given when paying Wozniak.…

In the summer of 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak took an unfinished version of the Apple II to the inaugural Personal Computer Festival in Atlantic City. On arriving at the event, both Steves, still high from the success of the Apple I, fell to earth with a bump when they saw the competition. Not only were there many competitor computers on display, rivals also tested them in the marketing department with lavish stands and, most importantly, complete working computers. The Apple II was, at this stage, housed in a wooden box and, when combined with a sub–standard booth, the entire Apple setup looked positively amateur. The show provides a distinct contrast with the stylish brilliance of today’s Macs and the grandiose nature of Apple events.…