Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i MacLife

Well, what a busy few months it’s been for Apple. At the beginning of September we saw the launch of the Apple Watch Series 6 (p38), Apple Watch SE (p42), and the iPad 8th generation (p44) — and Apple also announced the new iPad Air. We couldn’t get one of these to review in time for this issue (a shame, because it looks stunning), but we’ll have an in–depth review next month — so hold fire on spending your cash before you see what we think. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of non–stop leaks from every corner of the internet, Apple made a strong, if slightly later than usual, entry for the fall Apple Special Event with the announcement of the new iPhone 12 and HomePod mini. (There…

APPLE HAS ANNOUNCED A NEW HomePod mini, which is essentially a smaller, cheaper version of its HomePod smart speaker, priced at just $99. The HomePod mini is 3.3–inches tall and has a few neat new features up its sleeve. “HomePod mini has everything customers want in a smart speaker — amazing sound for listening to music, a world–class intelligent assistant that delivers a personal experience to each member of the household, and like every Apple product, it’s designed with privacy and security in mind,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “There’s a lot of Apple innovation packed into such a small speaker, all at an affordable price.” One feature we like about the new HomePod mini is how it links together with all your other Apple…

APPLE’S QUEST TO bring macOS closer to its mobile platforms is at its clearest in the redesign of the Notification Center. Now it replicates the home screen widgets from iOS 14 in the same choice of small, medium, or large formats. The similarity isn’t just visual: a new WidgetKit API lets developers create widgets once for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS (where they appear in a separate column). Only time will tell if this can break the pattern of Mac widgets failing to catch on. For now, we were limited to trying Apple’s own widgets, such as Calendar, Weather and Stocks, which gains little day–view sparklines. As in iOS and iPadOS, the widgets available are those you’ve installed as part of apps through the App Store (Big Sur lacks the button…

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

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK FOR MAC From $69.99/year FROM microsoft.com FEATURES Analytics, calendar and task integration, iOS version with Shortcuts If macOS’ Mail divides users into lovers and haters, Outlook at least brings unity: everyone complains about it. If you’re a Microsoft user for work, though, it does integrate functionality like calendars and reminders well, with a My Day view to plan your time, and new analytics and AI features that can help with heavy email workloads. The latest version is faster and improves search. As with the other Office apps, a free web version is available (outlook.live.com), while the full app requires an Office 365 subscription. Of course, it’s on iOS too. BEST FOR Microsoft users. AIRMAIL $9.99/year FROM airmailapp.com FEATURES Efficient management, integrations, Markdown, iOS version with Shortcuts Airmail focuses…

Free ($4.99 p/m Pro subscription) From Gavin King, budgetburndown.app Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 12.0 or later During the unprecedented times we live in, it’s more important than ever to keep track of how we spend our money. Mobile apps are a great way to stick to a budget, but the most popular ones tend to be full of ads, overly complicated, or just downright spammy. Enter Budget Burndown, the ingeniously simple iPhone app that tracks your monthly spending by consolidating everything into one attractive chart. Set a monthly budget and the app charts your spending against that amount, so you’ll see at a glance exactly where things stand. Stay above the budget line and you’re in good shape. For the majority of users, this process is…

Free (IAPs) From Bloom Built, dayoneapp.com Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 13.1 or later In the year since we reviewed journaling app Day One Journal, it’s acquired several new features that may persuade you to give it a try — or to upgrade to premium if you’re still using the basic version. Top of the list of new features in version 5 is a Today view that redesigns the Activity Feed. It pulls together location, calendar, events, photos taken, entries for the day and those for On this Day, giving you a quick overview of any day. To access it, you simply tap a date, either in the calendar or timeline, or tap Today in the side menu. Version 5 also gets a new media picker that…

HOW TO UPDATE YOUR APPLE TV The latest version of tvOS (14) comes with some pretty significant changes, including Picture in Picture mode, and HomeKit camera support. To check you’ve got the latest version, and to update it if not, or to set up automatic updating, go to bit.ly/ml174ask1. WANT TO CREATE A HOME HUB? Using your HomePod, Apple TV or iPad as a home hub brings HomeKit to life, allowing you to control your smart home devices from afar. Here’s how to do it: bit.ly/ml174ask2. MIRROR YOUR SCREEN WITH AIRPLAY Ever wondered how to mirror the display on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad? Follow this link: bit.ly/ml174ask3.…

THE TRANSLUCENT iMAC was Jony Ive’s first big hit after being promoted by Steve Jobs to senior vice president of design. It arrived, in 1998, on the cusp of the transition from cathode–ray tube monitors to liquid crystal displays, and although Ive’s bulbous organic shape made a virtue of the cheaper but bulkier CRT, its successor would inevitably use a flat panel. The obvious way was to build in the electronics behind the screen. But, as told to biographer Walter Isaacson, that wasn’t elegant enough for Jobs: “Why have this flat display if you’re going to glom all this stuff on its back?” When Ive called round and took a walk with Jobs in his garden, his wife Laurene was growing sunflowers. The tall heads on narrow stalks sparked a…

APPLE GRACED US with not one but four different versions of its new 5G–compatible iPhone 12 at this year’s “Hi, Speed” event. The iPhone 12 has a 6.1–inch screen, and there’s also a smaller 5.4–inch iPhone 12 mini, as well as a 6.1–inch iPhone 12 Pro and finally the largest member of the family, a 6.7–inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. All versions of the iPhone 12 come with 5G connectivity, the super–fast A14 Bionic processor that debuted in last month’s new iPad Air, an edge–to–edge OLED screen with a Super Retina XDR display and a new toughened glass called Ceramic Shield, which is 4x more resistant to drops than the previous iPhone 11. While the Ceramic Shield is certainly a welcome addition for anybody who’s ever dropped their iPhone and…

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

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

HERE AT MAC|LIFE we believe you should only buy the things that you really need, which is why our Reviews section is so important to us, and you. We don’t want you to waste time and money on inferior products, and while we aim to include only the best hardware and apps, occasionally we like to include products that look promising, even if they don’t always deliver. We only use carefully selected experts, with specialist knowledge in their respective field, so no matter which review you’re reading, you can be confident the person who’s tested it knows their stuff, allowing you to make an informed purchase. Each review is rated using a five–star system, with half stars, which is easy to understand because we give an explanation next to each…

From $329 From Apple, apple.com Features 10.2–inch Retina display, A12 Bionic chip, 32GB or 128GB of storage, Wi–Fi only or Wi–Fi + cellular connectivity While it’s not been given the radical overhaul enjoyed by its iPad Air sibling, there’s still enough special sauce in this entry–level iPad to make it worth the upgrade. Chief among these is the six–core A12 Bionic chip from the iPhone 11, which also includes a second–gen Neural Engine for improved machine learning, photo and video editing, and Augmented Reality (AR). Apple says the A12 Bionic boosts iPad performance by 40% over the previous generation, with 2x graphics performance — more on this later. As before, the eighth–gen iPad is available in Wi–Fi only or Wi–Fi + cellular connectivity options. Plus you can choose between either…

Pro Type: $139.99; Pro Click: $99.99; Pro Glide: $9.99 From Razer, razer.com Features Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, USB–C charging, backlighting, multi–device connection Let’s get one thing out the way right off the bat: this mouse and keyboard combination from Razer isn’t designed specifically for Macs. It’s a Windows–style setup, meaning you won’t see a Cmd or Opt key where it normally would be, the mouse doesn’t have any macOS gesture functions, and you can’t create custom macros because Razer’s Synapse software only works in Windows. But don’t let that put you off, because this is a solid combination worth considering if you want a setup for both office work and gaming. Razer usually only focuses on gaming peripherals, but it’s turned its hand — possibly due to the Covid–19 pandemic —…

Free (IAPs) From Mustafa Yusuf, twitter.com/thetaskapp Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch Needs iOS 13.0 or later Apple’s Notes and Reminders apps are relatively basic, but Tasks for iOS takes managing your reminders to a new level. You start with a “project” which can contain multiple reminders and notes, and these can be shared with others who are also running the app. Within a project you can add tags, either preset or created yourself, to group reminders — things like family events, work meetings, holidays, and so forth. The free version allows just two projects at once and project sharing is also restricted to the purchased version, though iCloud sync and backup is free. Tasks can exist in three different states: To Do, Doing, or Done. They can be edited…

Free ($26.49/year premium subscription) From Forus Labs, timebloc.app Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 8.0 or later TimeBloc, as the name suggests, lets you block out chunks of time in your daily schedule. You can set time slots on an hourly basis, assigning tasks throughout your day. That makes it easy to open the app and immediately see exactly what’s on your plate. Each task can be given a name, start and end time, duration, tag, and icon. As you save entries, your daily view fills out with a timeline of your day. For recurring tasks, there’s a Routines screen, which saves you having to re–enter info every day for tasks you do regularly (such as going to the gym or commuting to work). The Statistics screen shows…

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

THE MAC MENU bar was always white with black text, or grey with white text in Dark Mode. In Big Sur, the bar picks up the colors of your Desktop background, and the text is white in Light mode too, with a shadow to keep it legible. Your choice of Desktop background becomes a more visible feature in every app. The sidebar of the active Finder window is also transparent, while others remain solid. Sidebars in apps like Photos show the same effect, revealing a blurred version of underlying windows, but in full screen the whole sidebar shows a flat average of the colors in the background. Opt out at System Prefs > Accessibility > Display > Reduce transparency, which also reverts Light Mode menu text to black. Like iOS…

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

From $399 (40mm)/$429 (44mm) From Apple, apple.com Features 40mm or 44mm case size, Apple S6 processor, always–on Retina display, water resistant to 50m, 18 hours battery life, GPS, cellular connectivity options Launched at Apple’s Time Flies event in September, the Apple Watch Series 6 is slicker, quicker, and more functional than ever. This year’s model builds on the success of the Series 5 (which took the radical step of incorporating an always–on display) by including a more efficient S6 processor and adding blood oxygen monitoring. The Apple Watch Series 6 is also available in a range of new colors, including (Product) Red. Prices start at $399 for the 40mm aluminium Watch and $429 for the 44mm model. You can opt for Stainless Steel (from $699/$749) or Titanium (from $799/$849) cases,…

$8.99 From Ginger Labs, gingerlabs.com Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 12.0 or later Notability is one of our favorite note–taking apps for iPad. It enables you to combine handwriting, illustrations, images, typed text, audio recordings, and external files such as MP3s in a single document; it enables you to import PDFs or scan printed documents and annotate or highlight them; and it has good support for a wide range of cloud–based services. It’s particularly good with the Apple Pencil on compatible iPads but it also works well on iPhone, and there’s a desktop version ($1.99) for easy syncing between mobile and desktop. The biggest change in version 10 is the arrival of the new Notability Shop, which enables you to purchase additional features, stickers, and themes. One…

$6.99 From Giant Games, pw.giant.games Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 9.0 or later Pascal’s Wager surprised many people when it was first demonstrated at an Apple event last year, as it seemed to bring the impressive graphics and challenging gameplay of the Dark Souls franchise to iOS devices for the first time. Even more impressive is the fact that the atmospheric 3D graphics work so well even on older devices, going right back to the iPhone 5S and iPad Air. You start the game as Terrence, an outcast Courier who’s attempting to turn back a creepy black cloud called the Sendril that’s overwhelmed the land of Heggem. Games of this genre are notoriously difficult, and we did initially find Pascal’s Wager frustrating — not just because of…

Free ($9.99/year Pro subscription) From Idea Studio, weatherontheway.app Made for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch Needs iOS 13.0 or later Apple Maps meets Dark Sky in this clever app. Enter your start and end points and Weather On The Way plots a route for you, with information bubbles placed at various points on your journey. Each bubble shows the weather when you reach this location, the temperature, and the time of day you should arrive (in local time). Zoom out and some bubbles are hidden to avoid clutter; zoom in and they appear more frequently. Compared to Apple Maps, its interface feels a little clunky (especially on the Timeline view), but it’s not enough to be a bother. Weather On The Way packs in most of the useful information you need…

macOS RECOVERY The Recovery system contains tools to help you look up info online when macOS won’t start, and to repair or reinstall the system. Learn more at bit.ly/mlrecovery. SAFE MODE When you start your Mac in Safe mode, macOS performs extra checks and stops certain third–party software from running. See how to use it at bit.ly/mlsafemode. RESET SMC & NVRAM These features handle low–level functions and store key settings for your Mac, respectively. Resetting them can fix various issues described at bit.ly/mlresetsmc and bit.ly/mlresetnvram. HARDWARE ISSUES Your Mac includes tools that check for certain hardware issues without going to a Genius Bar. For Macs introduced in June 2013 or later, see bit.ly/mldiag, otherwise see bit.ly/mlahwt. SHARE WITH US! EMAIL: ask@maclife.com FACEBOOK: facebook.com/maclife TWITTER:twitter.com/maclife Email Mac|Life at ask@maclife.com Get official…

HOW IT WORKS YOU WILL LEARN You’ll learn why LiDAR means much more awesome AR apps. LIDAR IS LIKE RADAR OR SONAR, BUT IT USES LIGHT INSTEAD OF RADIO WAVES OR SOUND WAVES You’ve heard of sonar. You’ve heard of radar. But you might not know LiDAR, the distance–sensing tech Apple added to the 2020 iPad Pro. Apple says it “delivers cutting–edge depth–sensing capabilities, opening up more pro workflows and supporting pro photo and video apps.” IT’S ALL ABOUT ECHOES If you’ve ever shouted into a cave or in an empty building — and let’s face it, who hasn’t? — you’ll be familiar with echoes. When you shout, the sound waves you’ve made hit the walls and bounce back to you, giving you an echo. That echo tells you how…