Table of contents for February 2017 in MacFormat

Game-changing tech from the world of Apple and beyond CMRA Turn your Watch into something Q would be proud of If you feel the Apple Watch lacks a certain degree of James Bond finesse, the CMRA watch strap is for you. It features two integrated cameras (an 8MP outward-facing one and a 2MP one for selfies), so you can snap photos and video on the go, straight from your wrist. The sporty elastomer strap also has a built-in microphone and is powered for ‘all-day’ battery life if you’re taking photos, or 30 minutes of 1080p recording or video chat. Everything you snap with the strap can be synced to your iPhone over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. $249 (about £201) includes CMRA watch strap website getcmra.com works with Apple Watch…

1 2,0000% Apple bought Multi- Touch gesture company FingerWorks in 2005 and used its patents while developing the touchscreen iPhone. FingerWorks’ stock grew 2,000% as a result. 2 90% Before iTunes there was SoundJam MP, which Apple bought in 2000. SoundJam's 90% market share of the MP3 niche was clearly an attractive prospect to Steve Jobs. 3 $390 million One of Apple’s most expensive acquisitions was of Israeli firm Anobit, which designed controllers for flash memory. Apple paid a whopping $390 million for the takeover. 4 $8 PER SHARE PE Not far behind the Anobit purchase is Apple’s acquisition of biometric tech maker AuthenTec, for $356 million at $8 per share. Its tech was put to use in TouchID. 5 50,000 NEXT only sold around 50,000 computers in total. Nevertheless, Apple…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! SAVE 57%! Turn to page 56 “WHAT SHOULD BE APPLE’S PRIORITY PRO DUCT IN 2017?” Alan says… Alex says… Tim Cook’s message to Apple workers about planning new desktops is huge! We’ve been crying out for new iMacs for a while now, he seems to have noticed! My 2011 iMac still performs pretty well. The Retina 5K display on current models tempts me to upgrade, but it’ll take a really powerful graphics boost before I do so. Well, now that Thunderbolt 3 has debuted in the MacBook Pro external GPUs may become an option on the Mac. If Apple supports them, of course. That would be great, especially for low-end models and the Mac mini, though I’m not holding out much hope that Apple will go for it. Speaking…

Genius Tip! Once you’ve set up an iPad or Apple TV as your Home Hub, you can invite other family members to share control of your HomeKit devices. In the Home app’s Home tab, tap the arrow at the top left, choose Home Settings, tap your home’s name and then tap Invite. 1 HomeKit-compatible apps HomeKit devices can work together, and even show up in each other’s apps. This is Elgato’s Eve app, which we’re using to set up a contact sensor – note that the Eve app can see and control our Philips Hue lights as well. 2 Room to room Apple’s Home app also lists all your HomeKit devices and enables you to group them in rooms and automate them. Not every app for managing HomeKit is as…

T he time when you had to decide which music to spend your hardearned cash on is a thing of the past. Apple Music gives you access to so much of it that you’ll always have something fresh and exciting to play, for no more each month than you might have paid per album in the past. It provides recommendations tailored to your individual tastes, and you can search its millions of tracks manually too, add them to playlists, and download them to play offline. Not everything available from the iTunes Store or rival services is on Apple Music – as some artists have resisted streaming services. Nevertheless many new releases are often available on day one or soon after. Even Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, initially said to…

Tailored suggestions are all well and good, but what if you simply want to hear the latest music, perhaps to broaden your horizons. In this case, head to the Browse page. Just like For You, there are several subsections listed next to the heading at the top of the Browse page. (On iOS, they’re simply listed lower down the page). These enable you to browse what’s new, charts of what‘s popular, videos, playlists curated by Apple Music’s editors and third parties (such as BBC Music, Abbey Road Studios, Motown and other brands both big and small), or you can browse by genre to find more specific sounds. The content in the Browse section isn’t tailored to you. Rather, it’s about promoting things on the basis of them being new or…

The adjacent item is in iCloud Music Library and can be streamed; click this to download a local copy. This icon tells you a version of this item is already in your library, so this one wasn’t duplicated in iCloud Music Library. You’ll see this icon next to items that have yet to be matched or uploaded to iCloud Music Library. The song may have been added on iOS but can’t be matched; if you have the song on your Mac, enable iCloud Music Library on it. Songs removed from iCloud using iOS are still on your Mac. You must delete its copy manually. This means a track was ineligible to upload due to size or quality, or bought using another Apple ID. Uploading failed. Choose File > Library >…

N aturally, Apple Music faces competition from rival services, some of which have been around longer than it, while others are still trying to carve out their own niche. Rivals exist for a wide range of devices, from game consoles to multiroom speaker systems, but here we compare direct competitors – those you can access on your Mac and iOS devices, and often on other kinds of devices as well. Making your mind up A major reason to stick with Apple Music is its tight integration with iTunes and your other Apple devices. Connecting iTunes to iCloud Music Library so that it puts your existing music online takes just a few clicks. However, Apple Music isn’t alone in offering this kind of feature. Notably, Google Play Music’s free plan enables…

IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to use stacks, tags, document templates, Finder shortcuts and more. YOU’LL NEED OS X 10.10 or higher. Quicksilver. Hazel. Learn these techniques to help ensure that your Mac works for you, not the other way around Genius Tip! For quick access, you can set apps to open at log in by adding them to Login Items in System Preferences’ Users and Groups pane. Time is precious. It can be bought, wasted, made up for, or well spent. Certainly, with more people using Macs at home and work, we would all prefer our time with them to be the latter. However, that’s not as easy as it sounds. In places, macOS has the same qualities as a great work of art: great…

IT WILL TAKE 1 hour YOU WILL LEARN How to sync images to Lightroom for iOS, work with collections, and sort and edit pics. YOU’LL NEED Lightroom for Mac. Lightroom for iPad. A Creative Cloud subscription that includes Lightroom. All changes you make to photos on your iPad work their way back to Lightroom on your Mac Genius Tip! Lightroom for iOS’s camera abilities were recently updated with a ‘pro’ mode. This gives you shutter priority, ISO and other controls. Perhaps one of the most compelling features of a Creative Cloud membership for photographers is the tight integration of Lightroom between desktop and mobile devices. The two apps work in harmony, syncing image collections over the internet, enabling you to begin editing a set of images on your Mac, then…

Crucial 4GB DDR3-1066 module kit £37 uk.crucial.com This would max out the memory in a 13-inch, 2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook, yet costs less than £40. You’ll need to dispose of what’s already fitted. Kingston 8GB DDR3-1333 module kit £56 kingston.com Earlier MacBook Pros (from 2011 onwards) can be upgraded, and this 8GB kit from Kingston, rated at 1,333MHz, will again provide you with the maximum boost. Corsair 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L SODIMM kit £125 corsair.com This ultrafast 1,600MHz memory will work with most upgradeable MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac minis shipped after 2011.…

1Erase your disk Hold c+R as soon as you power on your Mac to start it up in macOS Recovery. Keep the keys held down until the macOS Utilities window appears. Choose Disk Utility from the range of options it presents and erase your startup disk, setting its format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). 2Reinstall the system Quit Disk Utility and pick Reinstall macOS. You’ll need to be connected to the internet in order to check your Mac’s eligibility to receive the system, after which it’ll take some time for the full installer to download. When it opens, specify the volume you’ve just erased as the destination. 3Wait for a while That’s all you need to do. The time it’ll take depends on your Mac and the speed of your…

£1,749 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk features 2560x1600-pixel Retina display, dual-core 2.9GHz Intel Core i5, Intel Iris 550 GPU, 8GB memory, 256GB SSD With the right app, the Touch Bar is brilliant, and we’re utterly sold on the Touch ID button, too VERDICT A good portable Mac, but with some inconveniences; we’re also not convinced they justify its price. + Touch Bar is great + Highly portable - Minor power gains - Expensive for its performance T he 13-inch MacBook Pro has got thinner and lighter again, but just as an upgrade, does this Touch Bar model match up to the huge leap forward of 2012’s Retina display? Well, the Touch Bar is excellent. It feels great and has huge potential to really change the way you work – we found ourselves…

239 (21.5-inch, about £193), $259 (27-inch, about £210) FROM AOGEK, aogek.com Features Interactive touchscreen display for iMac, adhesive for quick installation VERDICT It’s an interesting concept, but macOS limits MaskTouch’s true potential. + Easy to set up - Too imprecise MaskTouch fixes to any 21.5-inch or 27-inch iMac from 2009 or later, including current Retina 4K and 5K models. About 0.5cm thick, the glassless frame uses an infrared beam to detect when your fingers are placed on your iMac, turning the entire display into a touchscreen. It works without software drivers, and requires no tools for installation. The frame ships with double-sided tape on all four corners, meaning mounting is as easy as peel and stick. A short USB cable snakes under the iMac, plugging in to a free port…

£99 FROM HP, hpsprocket.com FEATURES Zink printing, Bluetooth, 11.6x7.5x2.3cm VERDICT Print quality isn’t the best and there’s no video integration, but it is undeniably fun. + Decent app - Pricey S ocially minded photographers get a taste of HP’s printer prowess with the Sprocket. This 172g device packs in a lithium-ion battery and Bluetooth, and prints out sticky-backed sheets with the same Zink tech as LifePrint. A 20-sheet pack costs £10. Load the paper and install HP’s Sprocket app and you’re ready to go: pairing our test iPhone with the Sprocket over Bluetooth was painless, and once the app is open you can choose images from your Camera Roll, or from Flickr, Instagram or Facebook. The app includes various editing tools and filters, including the de rigeur washed-out effect beloved…

£32.70 FROM Softorino, softorino.com NEEDS OS X 10.9 or higher VERDICT The best £30 you’ll ever spend; makes sending media from Mac to iOS a breeze. Fast wireless transfers Content recognition No ringtone limit Some small glitches W ALTR is a simple Mac utility for converting and transferring videos, music and ringtones to iPods or iOS devices without having to use iTunes. We’ve found WALTR 2 an improvement in pretty much every way, from its ability to perform wireless data transfers at nearly wired connection speeds (up to 5MB/sec) to automatic content recognition when it comes to adding artwork and metadata to movies, TV shows or music, together with iBooks support for ePub or PDF files. This version of the app is awesome. It’s also the first and thus far…

£1.49 FROM Tijo, opener.link Needs iOS 8.0 or higher VERDICT This is a strong app extension for everyone who requires more flexibility from iOS. + Easy to use + Easy to set up + Fills a void in iOS - Some iOS constraints T here’s still no way to set default apps in iOS. That makes it frustrating when links you tap open in Safari and not the app you intended. Opener tries to fix that. Put simply, it opens links in the apps of your choice, like using ‘Open With’ in Finder’s ≈-click menu in macOS. So, instead of opening YouTube links in Safari or Google’s app, Opener can send them to ProTube, a third-party app we prefer. Instead of opening Twitter links in Twitter’s official (and poor) app,…

Equipment iPhone 7 Plus We revisited our Instagram account with a shot of our lovely Apple AirPods – see the full review on page 93. We’re looking for pictures of your Apple gear – we want to gaze upon your newly unboxed Christmas kit; to wonder at the Zen-like calm of your office; to leer emerald-eyed at your mint-condition Macintosh Portable. So, share your pics with us using the hashtag #MacFormat. In each issue we’ll pick our favourites to feature on this page, and in the meantime we’ll repost your photos through our Instagram account. So, give us a follow… What to do! 1 Open an Instagram account. 2 Follow @MacFormatUK (of course). 3 Take a picture of your lovely Apple kit. 4 Share it on Instagram or Twitter. 5…

L ast month we took a look at Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Pro and loved it, but it’s had its fair share of critics. Now Consumer Reports has joined the fray, and for the first time ever a MacBook has failed to be awarded the watchdog’s ‘recommended’ verdict. In justifying its decision, Consumer Reports said it found the MacBook Pro’s battery life to be “highly inconsistent” across a number of tests, which included 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, both with and without the Touch Bar. For instance, Consumer Reports stated that “in a series of three consecutive tests, the 13-inch model with the Touch Bar ran for 16 hours in the first trial, 12.75 hours in the second, and just 3.75 hours in the third”. The group’s test saw…

For our latest subscription offer see page 56! A pple recently recategorised a number of its Macs as ‘obsolete’ or ‘vintage’. This specifically affected the Early 2009 Mac mini and Mid 2009 13-inch MacBook (obsolete), and the 15- and 17-inch Early 2011 MacBook Pros (vintage). What does this mean, and what can you do if you own one of these? Obsolete means that Apple will no longer offer official repair support through its retail stores and third-party resellers. Vintage is the same in all regions except California and Turkey, where residents can get limited support on certain products up to two years after they become obsolete. Life in the old Mac yet Apple tends to classify its products as obsolete between five and seven years after manufacturing has been discontinued.…

PRIZE WORTH £599 Buying a high-quality display is not a decision that should be taken lightly – it may be essential to your work. Even if it’s not, using an amazing screen with your home Mac will be an absolute joy. One lucky reader will be able to get just that with this issue’s competition prize – a Philips 328P6VJEB display. This amazing 32-inch 4K display is so good, in fact, that we gave it five stars in our review this issue (see page 90) and an Editor’s Choice award. What’s so great about it? Well, it has superb colour accuracy. It hits 100% of sRGB, 93% of Adobe RGB, and 97% of the P3 colour space that Apple and LG’s latest displays use. That means you can get close…

Belkin WeMo Switch £40 belkin.com/uk This is one of the most popular smart plugs available, and a second model, Switch Insight (£50), also monitors and analyses your energy usage. The Switch works with the Nest Thermostat and Amazon Echo, but HomeKit isn’t supported. Devolo Home Control Starter Pack £180 devolo.co.uk This includes a contact sensor and a smart plug, plus a Central Control Unit that links them together. You can add more sensors, such as a motion detector, smoke detector and even a flood sensor to check for leaks. mydlink Home Wi-Fi Motion Sensor £44 dlink.com/uk This sensor is a simple and affordable way to monitor a single room, or a location such as a hallway. It plugs into a wall socket for power supply, and connects to your Wi-Fi…

One Person £9.99 per month If you haven’t got a partner or kids to share your music collection with, and you’re not a student, this is the Apple Music subscription for you. It provides you with access to all of the features we mentioned on the page to the left and that you’ll read about in detail over the next few pages. If the disproportionate cost of an individual subscription compared to a six-person family sub rankles, make sure you read the money-saving advice just below, which can help you save a significant amount on a year’s subscription. Family £14.99 per month Up to six people in a family can get a more affordable rate than by each signing up for their own sub. Each member can play different music…

You’re not limited to using the For You and Browse pages to find things in the huge Apple Music library, of course. Click in iTunes’ search bar or tap Search at the bottom of Music on iOS, then ensure the option to search Apple Music rather than your library is selected. Before you type anything in the bar, check the lists of your recent searches and others that are popular among Apple Music subscribers below it; you may not need to type anything at all. You’ll also see an option to clear your recent searches. Otherwise, click or tap in the search bar and then type; suggestions of what you might be looking for are shown in the list; use the arrow keys and ® to choose one, or continue…

NEW IDEAS Your new-look guide to getting more from your Apple kit CREATE YOUR OWN TYPEFACE P52 Understand iOS gestures A tap is a brief contact of (usually) one finger on your device’s screen. To drag is to move a finger across the screen to scroll or pan around content. Swipe means move one or more fingers across an item or the screen, then let go. A flick is like swiping, but it’s quicker, and is often used to scroll content more quickly. Pinch means move two fingers together or apart, usually to zoom in or out. Touch and hold means lightly rest your finger on an item and wait for a reaction. Master Mac keyboard shortcuts When you see a shortcut like comamnd+option+C, hold all but the last key,…

IT WILL TAKE 45 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to run FontForge on your Mac and start drawing some character shapes, or ‘glyphs’. YOU’LL NEED XQuartz. FontForge. FontForge is pretty clunky, but it creates fonts for free FontForge is a comprehensive open-source tool for creating and editing typefaces. It is made for Unix’s X11 windowing system, which you’ll need to install in macOS to be able to use it. FontForge is pretty clunky, which is why most type designers pay for alternatives like FontLab Studio (about £526, store.fontlab.com). But it does the job for free. In this tutorial we can only give you a quick introduction. Creating a typeface requires planning and organisation, and if you want to get into the subject in depth, the process is thoroughly explained atdesignwithfontforge.com…

Released in 1999, a year after the eye-catching iMac G3 and just before the clamshell iBook, the PowerBook G3 is supposed to be sober and serious. We are now in the era of the stylish white Apple logo, instead of the old rainbow design, but the rest of the case is as grey as a banker’s suit. Mine is the mid-range model, known as Lombard. I bought it for £35 on eBay including delivery, so I wasn’t expecting miracles. When the PowerBook arrived in a very battered and underpadded cardboard box, my pessimism deepened. Sure enough, I was rewarded initially with a stubbornly blank screen, and, on the second try, with a system error. But it is the middle of winter, after all, and my poor laptop had been sitting…

1Check free disk space Choose ??> About This Mac, click the Storage tab and check available space on your startup disk; a general rule of thumb is to keep 10% capacity free or macOS will have trouble organising itself and your Mac will run slowly. Archive old files to an external drive. 2Slowdown at login In System Preferences’ Users & Groups pane, select your account, then click Login Items. How many things open after you enter your credentials? Each one consumes resources. Reduce this number to the bare minimum if your Mac is getting sluggish. 3Check drive health Apple-provided storage can selfdiagnose (some) problems. Open Disk Utility, select the drive on the left and check SMART status in the table. Anything other than Verified indicates a problem, which can cause…

Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3C 128GB £37 kingston.com You can’t upgrade the memory or SSD in the 12-inch MacBook or MacBook Pro models released in late 2016, but Kingston’s microDuo Flash Drive fits into the USB-C port to provide up to 128GB of removable storage. Sandisk Ultra II SSD 120GB £45 sandisk.co.uk Lower capacity SSDs are perfect for ageing computers that are used for office tasks rather than games, video editing and similarly demanding duties. Perfect for those on a budget, this drive costs less than £50. Crucial MX300 SSD 2TB £490 uk.crucial.com How deep are your pockets? This SSD is pricey, but it’s capacious – even Apple doesn’t offer one larger than 2TB – and fast, so it represents a significant upgrade for any MacBook that’s able to accept a…

BUYING ADVICE Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices Apple airPods p93 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 to give an honest assessment of a product’s worth. The prices quoted for products are correct at the time of writing and are the best we can find from a reputable online dealer, excluding delivery. A brilliant thing in all regards, and worth every penny Strongly recommended; any flaws are only minor concerns Worth considering, though there may be better options Fundamentally flawed; look at alternatives as a priority A waste of your money and everyone’s time; do not buy! The Mac Format Awards Awarded to a five-star…

£679 from Philips, philips.co.uk Features 32-inch display, 3840x2160 pixels, wide colour gamut, 4x USB 3.0 ports, DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, DVI and VGA inputs, 2x 2W speakers Alan says… This display’s colour accuracy makes me want to replace my Dell UP2414Q, which won our first 4K group test a few years ago, to better edit wide colour photos from my iPhone 7 Plus. Sadly, it’s a bit too large for my desk, so I’ll wait to see how the next iMac update compares. Philips is well respected for its monitors, despite giving them names that are either literally unpronounceable or a full sentence long. The Philips 328P6VJEB, also known as the Brilliance 4K LCD monitor with Ultra-Wide Color, shows why both these things are true. This is a 32-inch 4K desktop…

£159 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk features Lightning cable for charging, beamforming microphones, optical sensors and motion accelerometers The buds are comfortable to wear for a long time, and they didn’t fall out once in weeks of testing VERDICT AirPods sound great and are really comfy, but limited controls and mic performance against loud noise may irk depending on where you use them. + Solid sound quality + They stay in your ears - Double-tap inflexibility - Mics on loud streets A pple’s previous forays into headphones managed to elicit mockery from many people, so let’s make a couple of things clear about its new wireless AirPods right away. They sound great and they’re surprisingly comfortable to wear for a lengthy duration, even though their visual similarity to cabled EarPods may make…

£229.99 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk needs OS X 10.11.4 or higher In the timeline, reducing roles into coloured bars makes it easier to use on a MacBook VERDICT Workspace tweaks and colour-coded roles make this a compelling option for video editors. + Better workspace + Colour-coded roles - Tools tricky to find - Compatibility issues with older projects A pple has made key changes to both the form and function of Final Cut Pro in this release. Indeed, it recommends you back up your old Final Cut Pro library before you upgrade it to be compatible with version 10.3, due to the new ‘roles’ feature, whereby all components of a project are assigned a role (titles, sound, video or effects). When an old project’s multichannel audio clips are given a role…

£49.99 FROM Aspyr/Firaxis Games, aspyr.com needs OS X 10.11 or higher Each rival leader sets ‘agendas’ that guide their behaviour and relationships VERDICT Its subtleties reveal themselves over dozens of games, making the series as addictive as ever. + Flexible gameplay + Interesting choices + Great music and art - AI is diplomatically and tactically uneven C ivilization, or Civ, has never strayed from its expansionist spirit in its 25-year history. Turn by turn, tile by tile, you build structures and units to grow your mighty empire and fight (or engineer) your way to victory. The sixth entry in the series arrives with a colourful (if slightly cartoony) art style, a new way to win, and a refreshed focus on city administration. Of the four victory conditions available in Civ…

APPLE RUMOUR tv (5th generation) From Apple’s hobby to a key part of your smart home Apple TV hasn’t received many updates over the years since its introduction in January 2007. It’s now more than a year since Apple introduced the fourth-generation model with the tagline “The future of TV is apps”. Literally so, if tvOS 10.1 is anything to go by; it added a TV app as a single place to visit to catch up on new episodes of your favourite shows – at least in the US. It was recently rumoured that Apple is no longer developing its AirPort range of networking hardware, and that the staff responsible for them have been reassigned to the Apple TV team. What could that mean? Well, it’s unlikely Apple TV will…

Primitive is an image-filtering app with a difference. After you select which image to use, you choose a shape that Primitive uses as a base, be that rectangles, triangles, ellipses and more. Once that’s done, Primitive gets to work. It replicates the original image using the shapes you choose to create artwork ranging from abstract and unusual to beautiful. That all depends on how many shapes you want Primitive to work with. Tell it to create your image with 100 shapes and the result will be more abstract. Go for 900 and you’ll get a much more realistic rendition. It comes with a host of other customisable options, from colours and shape size to how long the app should spend on detail. It’s a great way to add a new…

If one meme sums up our collective consciousness going into 2017, it’s photos doing the rounds on Twitter of Tim Cook’s face at Donald Trump’s 14 December meeting with industry titans. To his right, Peter Thiel, a fellow gay man at the top of tech but far from a like-minded ally: a right-wing libertarian who believes democracy is incompatible with freedom and that women and the poor stand in the way of political progress. To his left, Safra Catz, co-CEO of Oracle, the database company that was seen as close to Apple during Steve Jobs’ second tenure, who shortly after the meeting joined the president-elect’s transition team herself. And two chairs away, The Donald, a man so ignorant about technology that his pronouncements on it aren’t even wrong, flanked by…

LIVE SMARTER The smart home is here – live the Apple dream today! Security, lights and heating are the three main types of device that tempt people to get started with home automation, and we regularly see new security cameras, smart lights and thermostats, which are covered in these pages every issue. However, there are many smaller, less eye-catching devices that help to join the dots between those three major product categories, making your home smarter overall. They include sensors that detect movement in a dark room, warn when a window is opened, or give you an early warning from a smart smoke alarm or flood sensor. Apple’s HomeKit platform has the capability to automate behaviour based on what these devices report, to help keep your home comfy and secure. In…

Having on-demand access to millions of songs is just part of what an Apple Music subscription offers, and you may be wondering what happens with all the music that’s in your iTunes library. You may have acquired tracks from the iTunes Store and its rivals, and imported tracks from CDs or other physical formats. From the latter type, you may have music that isn’t available through Apple Music or any other download or streaming service. Thankfully, the music in your iTunes library isn’t confined to your Mac. Apple Music provides a feature called iCloud Music Library that makes your personal music collection stored in iTunes available on all of your devices, including Windows PCs running iTunes and Android devices using the Apple Music app. This is achieved without you having…

If Apple Music isn’t for you, due to cost or a rival suiting you better, you can end your subscription (or trial) at any time. In iTunes, choose Account > View My Account, sign in and scroll down to Settings, then click Manage next to Subscriptions. In iOS’s iTunes Store app, tap your Apple ID at the foot of the front page, sign in and tap Subscriptions. In either place you can cancel your sub, though it remains active for the period you’ve already paid for. You don’t need a subscription to listen to Beats 1. Other features are inaccessible once your sub ends but remain visible in iTunes and Music. To hide them in iTunes, open itspreferences, click General and switch off Apple Music there; this disables iCloud Music…

IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to find the optimal settings for your virtual machines. YOU’LL NEED Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox. You need to reserve some resources to enable that macOS runs efficiently in the background Genius Tip! In Parallels, ≈-click a Windows VM, choose Configure, click the General tab and then Change to optimise for gaming or productivity. On the face of it, virtualisation sounds too good to be true: it enables you to run completely different operating systems, from Windows and Linux to older versions of OS X, in a window within macOS. Sadly, in some ways it is. While Windows in a virtual machine (VM) may let you run apps and play games that aren’t available on the Mac, there’s a price…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN Many different ways you can use 3D Touch to take shortcuts. YOU’LL NEED An iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7 or 7 Plus. 3D Touch is used in various places in iOS to provide you with quicker routes to get things done The screen in the iPhone 7 and 6s series (but not the SE) can sense the amount of pressure you apply to it, enabling apps to react differently than if you simply tap on an item. Apple calls this tech 3D Touch and uses it extensively throughout iOS to provide you with quick routes to many useful features. On the Home screen, 3D Touch provides shortcuts – or Quick Actions, as Apple calls them – to popular features in many apps…

Issue 308 JanuAry 2017 Amazing macOS timesavers Go pro with your iPhone and iPad Smart devices to keep your luggage safe Learn to paint on your iPad Issue 307 DECEMBER 2016 Master iCloud Drive 2017 Apple gift guide Get fit with smart sports kit Work better across all your devices Repair your old family photos Issue 306 Novembe r 2016 80 ways to get more from macOS Sierra Learn iOS 10’s Lock screen Run very old Mac software Reviewed: Watch Series 2, iPhone 7 and 7 Plus To order back issues of the print magazine, go to http://goo.gl/B7aFdk or phone +44 (0)844 848 2852 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and keep them forever in your personal library. bit.ly/macformatipad…

Everyone loves a new computer, but with Christmas just behind us, the job market shaky, and Apple raising its prices to compensate for the falling pound, you’re probably wondering how you can put off upgrading for a little while longer. Here’s where we’ll give you the answer. As long as you’re running an Intel-based MacBook, MacBook Pro, Air or desktop model from 2012 or later, there’s a lot you can do to make it last longer. In this feature, we’ll walk you through some of the most practical tweaks and component upgrades you can perform on a Mac of this vintage – with a particular focus on notebooks. None of them is particularly tricky, and though you might have to buy some components or apps, they all add up to…

From £1,449 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk features Dual-core 2.0GHz Intel Core i5, Intel Iris Graphics 540, 8GB memory, 256GB SSD This Mac’s two Thunderbolt 3 ports don’t go very far when one of them is also used to provide power VERDICT We really like this MacBook Pro – it’s fast, usable, and has a lovely screen. But one of the other models may suit you better. + Thin and light design + Good usability improvements - Just two ports - Questionable price You could be forgiven for thinking the low-end model of Apple’s newest MacBook Pro range is a Pro in name only. Apple hasn’t equipped it with its new Touch Bar tech, and compared to the two models that have that feature, it has fewer ports and a considerably lower…

£100 FROM Olloclip, olloclip.com Features Fisheye, superwide and macro (15x) lenses VERDICT A great starter kit for taking better iPhone shots – though it’s not without issues. + Fun macro lens - Horizon distortion The Zeiss iPhone lens we examined in MF308 was impressive, but it was also expensive. If its £200 price was too high for you, Olloclip has a more affordable option with three lenses for £100. The Core Set for iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has superwide, fisheye and 15x multiplication macro lenses (with the macro lens being revealed when you unscrew the fisheye). You can attach two lenses to the frame that sits on the iPhone, so changing lens simply means flipping the frame and snapping it into place. The superwide lens is great for landscapes,…

£135 FROM LifePrint, lifeprintphotos.com FEATURES Zink printing, Bluetooth, 12.7x7.6x2.6cm VERDICT A neat idea, but the print quality and steep price impacts on its overall desirability. Cool Hyperphotos Poor print quality S haring precious moments on social networks is fun, but nothing beats holding memories in your hands. This 200g portable printer attempts to merge the past with the digital present. It’s among the smallest printers we’ve seen. Powered by a rechargeable battery, this Bluetooth-connected device prints 3x2-inch images from your iPhone or social media using special sticky paper, which can be peeled and attached to anything. LifePrint uses Zink technology for ink-free printing, so image quality and colour reproduction leaves a lot to be desired. Prints take about 30 seconds, but it seems longer because the app first uploads images…

£160 > FROM Razer, razerzone.com FEATURES Mechanical keys, stand, adjustable backlight Design and portability The Razer keyboard isn’t the most elegant or portable keyboard we’ve seen. It’s the heavier case here, weighing 1kg on its own – and a hefty 1.7kg once the iPad is attached. It’s very sturdy, though, and provides good protection. Keyboard quality The sturdy design pays off when it comes to quality. Razor uses traditional mechanical keys, which have a nice, firm feel. You can type up a storm when you’re working, but, like the Brydge, the keys can be annoyingly noisy at times. Added extras Although pretty heavy, Razer’s Keyboard Case allows you to separate the case and the keyboard, so you can use it for protection on its own. The case section has a…

£7.99 FROM Bjango, bjango.com NEEDS OS X 10.10 or higher VERDICT iStat is a feature-rich, stat-heavy app that still manages to be highly approachable. + Easy to set up and use +Gives plenty of detail - Network tools - No way to export data Y ou may be familiar with iStat Menus, a utility that runs in the menu bar, providing readouts about your Mac's usage activity. iStat for Mac is in similar territory, but it’s for remote monitoring. Install the server app on the target Mac you want to monitor, then add in server details (such as name, address and port). If you’re on the same network as the target, iStat will likely automatically detect it for you. We find this kind of user-friendliness very welcome, which is just…

£2.29 FROM Secondverse, secondverse.org Needs iOS 8.0 or higher VERDICT A good alternative to the iPhone 7 Plus’s Portrait mode – and a whole lot cheaper. + Easy to use + Masking tool is quick + Boosts iPhoneography - Face detection issues L ooking to take your iPhone photo skills to the next level? Give FabFocus a try. It's a point-and-shoot app that aims to produce images that mimic DSLR quality. The ideal situation for using FabFocus is to simulate those high-end portrait shots you can take using the iPhone 7 Plus’s dual camera setup. Simply open the app and snap a portrait (preferably one with a distant background). Using the masking tool, you paint over your subject. From there, you can blur the background and even change the way…

LETTE R OF THE MONTH ! APPLE’S GONE BANANAS I fear Apple is slowly but surely heading down the same self-destructive path Microsoft forged many years ago. Why? Its products have become compromised. The iPhone 6’s power button is opposite the volume buttons, so one often inadvertently powers off the phone when trying to lower the volume. The latest MacBook has no indicator LEDs, so when you open it and nothing happens for 20 seconds you have no clue whether the battery is dead or the Mac is just very slow to wake, as it seems to be with Sierra. And the iPhone 5 and 6 battery reading is unreliable after upgrading to iOS 10. I could go on and on. It seems to me that Apple has grown too…

Musical interlude Before the acquisition of NeXT Inc, Apple had been working on Copland, an OS whose codename was a nod to American composer Aaron Copland. This was to be released in 1995 and then replaced by (another composer George) Gershwin in 1996 – until Apple realised Copland wasn’t a coherent OS but a collection of very handy features. The replacement OS – which eventually became OS X - was codenamed Rhapsody which is, of course, a reference to George Gershwin’s most famous record. The spinning beach ball of death Early Mac OS had a watch face as the wait cursor. Following the acquisition of NeXT by Apple, Mac OS took on NeXTSTEP’s wait cursor – a spinning optical drive. With the advent of colour, it soon became known (and…