Índex per October 2017 a MacFormat

Nums Keep your fingers on the pulse Apple’s trackpads have always been miles ahead of the competition, but one company thinks they can be even better. Nums is a thin glass panel that sits on top of your MacBook trackpad, adding a full number pad that’s perfect for number crunchers and quick calculations. You can still use all the gestures you normally would, while Nums’ software lets you open the calculator, websites or your favourite apps with a flick of your fingers. There are versions for MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, so there’s sure to be one to fit your device. $39-$55 (about £30-£42) INCLUDES Nums trackpad overlay WEBSITE luckey.cn WORKS WITH MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro…

28 BATTERY LIFE OF THE eMATE 300 IN HOURS The new MacBook Pro’s battery lasts for 10 hours, but back in 1997 the eMate 300 kept going for an impressive 28 hours. Of course, it was a very different beast, aimed at the educational market and used in schools. 38.5MB CAPACITY OF APPLE TAPE BACKUP 40SC Launched in 1987, this device allowed you to back up your tape-based data. It could back up 20MB of files in approximately 17-18 minutes. $2.5 MILLION TOTAL AD SPEND ON MACPAINT Alongside MacWrite, MacPaint was one of the original ‘killer apps’ released with the first Macintosh in 1984. To advertise MacPaint, Apple spent $2.5 million to buy up all 39 advertising pages in the November 1984 issue of Newsweek magazine.…

For our latest subscription offer see page 42! It’s redefining how people analyse data and improve their lives Most of us know how hugely the iPad has shaped the world. The device that took the tablet world by storm (and gobbled up 75% of the market a mere nine months after it launched) is instantly recognisable and unmistakably Apple. While it’s now suffering much-publicised declining consumer sales, the iPad is shaking things up away from the glare of the consumer spotlight. In hospitals, classrooms and stadiums around the globe, it’s redefining how people analyse data and improve their lives. It’s the impact it’s having in these places that we’re exploring here. So join us as we take a look at the lesser-known ways in which the iPad is changing the…

LETTER OF THE MONTH! Love thy Mac “How do you like them Apples?”, asks Luis Villazon (issue 315). I much prefer mine sweet and crunchy. However, crunchy is sometimes indicative of that heart-stopping sound you hear when nostalgic Macs are put back on lifesupport. Now, I’m going to have to ask respectfully that copious snaps of Macs be curtailed – maybe to a pretty snap of one or two each issue. Why? Well, I have a problem. Just a peek of a Mac Plus or a Mac SE/30 or an Apple III, will have me scarpering up the ladder into my loft to caress one of them all over again. And once there, that is it. I could be there for days on end. Me and a heap of Apple…

GREG JOSWIAK apple.com “It’s absolutely incredible what people are doing in so little time.” Apple bigwig has been blown away by developers’ ARKit creations JOHN SCULLEY obiworldphone.com “Sometimes he was right and… sometimes he was wrong. But he was never in doubt.” Steve Jobs’ self-belief was unflappable, says former Apple CEO ANDY GRIGNON siberia.io “You created a pressure cooker of a bunch of really smart people with an impossible deadline.” Former iPhone engineer describes what it was like to work on the project RONALD WAYNE apple.com “If you had your choice between Steve Jobs and an ice cube, you’d nuzzle up to the ice cube for warmth.” Apple co-founder says working with Jobs was hard, but fruitful…

How it’s meant to work The central idea behind iCloud is that Apple’s service can securely store all of your photos, videos, documents, music, and apps – and then keep everything up to the second across all your devices. The thinking is that whenever you need access to something, it’ll be ready and waiting, regardless of the device you happen to be using at the time. How to make it work With iCloud and storage, the devil is in the detail. Where are documents accessed? How much space is available? Access varies by system and app, and is explored on subsequent pages. But the amount of storage space you have is the most important consideration, because that impacts on everything. By default, Apple provides 5GB for free. When iCloud launched,…

How it’s meant to work By using iCloud Drive and associated features across macOS and iOS, your saved documents are available on any device, happily living inside whatever folder structure you’ve created for them. How to make it work Again, this one’s complicated. Apple sees a future in which you never need worry about having saved a file or folder on the ‘wrong device’ again (thereby temporarily putting it out of reach when you most need it). But we’re not there yet, and the system Apple’s ended up with is suboptimal and messy, due to years of accumulated cruft on the Mac side and false starts on iOS. As of macOS Sierra, you can optionally sync your Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud. Again, this is reliant on you having…

On the surface, your Mac’s built-in web browser looks much like any other. It has a dual-purpose bar for entering the address of a website or page, or terms you want to search for, and a tab bar for all the pages you have open. But it packs in useful tricks for easier web browsing. Before we move on to those, let’s talk about a couple of shortcuts that are really helpful. First, rather than reaching for your mouse or trackpad to click in the search field, press command+l instead. This moves the input focus to the search field. Secondly, as you’ll see on the opposite page, typing in the search field displays various kinds of suggestions. Quickly move down them a category at a time by using command+page down.…

EXPERT ADVICE Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems How to recover ‘lost’ iCloud Keychain data Q Someone suggested I should reset my Network Settings in iCloud, to cure problems downloading music. I knew this would wipe my iCloud Keychain, but assumed I could restore that using a Time Machine backup. After the reset, I couldn’t find my keychain backup. How can I back up my iCloud Keychain, and can I recover my old keychain contents? by Tim van Someren A Reset Network Settings should only reset that iOS device, so shouldn’t have affected your iCloud Keychain at all. If whatever you did has cleared your iCloud Keychain, then your first step is to call iCloud support, the only people who might be able to recover it. If…

Why don’t some Windows docs transfer to iPhones? When running iOS 10.3, your iPhone uses Apple’s new APFS file system, which handles some characters such as ñ and Korean differently. This may make it look as if documents have vanished. Use iMazing instead of iTunes, or simply replace those characters with Roman. How to make favourite podcasts more accessible? In iOS 10.3, you can add podcasts to your Widgets. Swipe right from the first Home screen to your Widgets, and scroll to the bottom to add Podcasts by tapping its green + tool. Tap Done, and your Widget will show new episodes.…

BUYING ADVICE Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices 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 MACFORMAT Awards Awarded to a five-star product we believe is…

With the latest generation of 5K iMac and performance improvements in macOS High Sierra, virtual reality has finally come to Apple’s computers. The problem in the past was a combination of weak graphics chips and limited software support for fast graphics, but that’s no longer the case. At least, it’s not the case for every iMac. The iMac we’re reviewing here, despite costing nearly £1,800, isn’t VR capable. According to graphics card company AMD, virtual reality on the Mac is only officially supported on the top-of-the-range £2,249 model that comes with the Radeon Pro 580 8GB graphics chip. (The iMac Pro will also be VR capable when it arrives, of course.) Still, as time goes on, that level of power will reach the less expensive models in the range, so…

The Pioneer XDP-30 gives you an audio experience that’s worth staying in for £349 FROM Pioneer, pioneer-audiovisual.eu FEATURES Twin DAC, up to 192kHz/32-bit, 16GB storage (expandable to 416GB), normal and balanced outputs M usic fans are getting very excited about hi-res audio, which delivers sound that’s vastly superior to CD quality or standard downloads. There’s just one catch: hi-res audio players are incredibly expensive. Or at least, they were. Pioneer’s new XDP-30R is a very reasonable £349. It’s a pretty thing, black aluminium with a touchscreen, a copper volume knob, transport buttons and twin microSD slots: hi-res audio files are big, and you’ll fill the 16GB internal storage in no time. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a 2.5mm jack for balanced headphones, and it works with…

Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Dock £270 FROM Elgato, elgato.com FEATURES 8 expansion ports, lies flat Design Elgato’s elegant, Apple-like design persists from its previous docks. It stands in just one orientation, but is fairly compact. The cable to your Mac is just 50cm long, which limits positioning unless you buy a longer one. Connectivity There are three 5Gbps USB 3 (Type-A) ports: two at the back, and one up front. The front also has 3.5mm mic and headphone jacks, and the back has Gigabit Ethernet, full-size DisplayPort and passthrough Thunderbolt 3. Software Elgato’s utility allows for ejection of just one or all devices from the menu bar with a couple of clicks. With it installed (but not necessarily running), each of the dock’s USB 3 ports then provide 1.5 amps for…

Migrate your data Thinking of buying a new Mac but daunted by the thought of copying all your data from your old Mac or PC? Well, worry no more! Apple Migration Assistant can copy all your data, your user account and settings in one go. You can migrate from a Mac running OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6.8) or later, or from a PC running Windows later than Windows XP (Service Pack 3). Windows: Download the Migration Assistant app for free from the Apple website. Mac: Launch Migration Assistant from Utilities. Connect both your old and new devices to the same network (Wi-Fi is fine), then, on your old device, tell Migration Assistant to transfer information To another Mac. New Mac: When first starting up your new Mac, choose ‘Transfer from…

Ever since the iPhone came along, the iPod family has been feeling the pinch. Now, Apple has decided to finally discontinue the iPod shuffle and iPod nano, leaving just the iPod touch as its last remaining iPod. The move will probably not come as a surprise to many. Aside from a batch of new colour options released in 2015, the nano hadn’t been updated since 2012. The shuffle had gone even longer, and hadn’t seen a design update since 2010. This change means the sole remaining iPod on sale to the public is the iPod touch. Apple has phased out the old 16GB and 64GB models, leaving the 32GB and 128GB options as the only capacities. The prices of these models have been lowered to £199 and £299. “Today, we…

[MOVIE] THEIR FINEST £13.99 Set during the Blitz, a makeshift crew strives to create a film that will lift the nation’s spirits – giving a new meaning to ‘working under fire’. [PODCAST] NO DUMB QUESTIONS FREE Two people discuss the pressing issues of the day, from drone warfare to the practicalities of body-slamming people on planes. [TV SHOW] PREACHER SEASON 2 £24.99 A Texan preacher, his ex-girlfriend and an Irish vampire go on a road trip to find God, but end up in a battle spanning Heaven and Hell.…

The iPad is far from the only way Apple is focusing on healthcare. The Apple Watch is making a big push on this side of things, with a whole system designed around getting fit and healthy. That includes the Watch’s built-in workout apps, its heart rate sensor, its GPS and its water-resistant case. On the software side, Apple has released three frameworks to help developers build health-focused apps. The first was HealthKit, unveiled in 2014, which lets apps work together and share health information with each other and with medical professionals. Apple has also since launched ResearchKit, which allows researchers to collect health information from users, and CareKit, which is designed to help end users better understand and manage their own health and medical conditions. Apple is serious about health…

People will be unhappy, but Apple’s used to that by now… When the iPhone, and the smartphone market in general, was young and growing, all we ever expected from every new phone was more features. In the years when phones were exploding (but before Samsung’s were literally exploding), any company that took its foot off the accelerator pedal for adding new gizmos for even a second was leaving a gap for competitors to overtake it – and removing a feature was effectively unheard of, for the same reason. Even Apple, with all its marketing might, wasn’t immune to this danger. This volatility is what happens with new tech – the closest equivalent right now is smart home gear, where big names one year become also rans faster than you can…

Explained Interoperability HomeKit’s great strength is ‘interoperability’ – the ability to link devices from different manufacturers so that they work together. When you come home at night, HomeKit can automatically turn the lights and heating on, and maybe even play some relaxing music on your shiny new HomePod. Elgato Eve Door And Window £35 elgato.com Elgato was one of the first companies to support HomeKit, and these little sensors provide an affordable security option. However, you’ll need an Apple TV or HomePod if you want to receive alerts when you’re away from home. Logitech Circle 2 £170 logitech.com The original Circle security camera earned our ‘best on test’ award last year, and the new Circle 2 ups the ante by adding support for HomeKit too. Note, it’s only the wired,…

IT WILL TAKE 20 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to open, blend and share an image in Enlight. YOU’LL NEED Enlight, and some portrait photos to experiment. Enlight, an image editing app from developer Lightricks, is the winner of a 2017 Apple Design Award, and App Store app of the year in eight countries – and it’s easy to see why. Enlight is both powerful and easy to use, and a bit of practice produces some stunning results. Each time you open a tool you haven’t used before, a handy tutorial appears so you know how to use it – and you can either read it, or dismiss it and plough ahead regardless. The app runs the gamut from basic adjustments and one-shot filters, to complex image warping and, as…

Whether you’re new to the Mac or have upgraded to Sierra from a much older version of OS X (now macOS), the new desktop might look different from what you’re used to. Don’t worry, though: the basics are much the same as before (and much like Windows Explorer, if you’re coming to the Mac from a PC). Here’s an overview of Finder – the app you’re actually using when you view the desktop, open and manage windows, navigate around your hard drive and organise your files and folders. Close and minimise The three coloured ‘traffic light’ buttons at the top-left corner are used to close the window, minimise it, or show it full-screen. (Helpful symbols appear in the buttons when you move the pointer over them, as shown.) Click the…

Use your Time Capsule as a router Q I have a 3TB AirPort Time Capsule. How can I use this to replace my ISP’s router? by DEREK ORCHARD A Your ISP will have provided you with two different devices, probably rolled into a single box: a modem (DSL or cable) and a router, usually incorporating a Wi-Fi base station. Time Capsules cannot replace the modem part, but they can operate as three-port wired routers with Wi-Fi. To use it in this role, connect it to your modem-router, and turn the modem-router’s Wi-Fi and DHCP services off. This is usually performed through its web admin interface, and you’ll have to consult its documentation to discover how to do that. Connect one of the modem-router’s Ethernet LAN ports to the Ethernet WAN…

How do you make Time Machine backups regular? If backups become irregular, it’s probably the known bug in Sierra disrupting the mechanism which dispatches background activities. You may be able to fix this by forcing system sleep using Energy Saver. Can FileVault encrypt a memory stick for me? Select a volume in the Finder, and use the Encrypt command in the contextual menu to protect that volume. This currently only works if that disk has been initialised using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition scheme. Memory sticks usually use Master Boot Records, which cannot be encrypted. You can erase them to suit. How can you manually edit a preference file? macOS runs cfprefsd which can overwrite changes if you’re not careful. Use free Prefs Editor from bit.ly/ tt_prefs_ed or a…

With the end of September still looking likely as the release date for the iPhone 8, rumours of face detection technology are hotting up. Apple recently released early firmware for its HomePod smart speaker, and when developers dug deeper into it they discovered numerous references to infrared face detection hardware. Having infrared cameras on the front of the iPhone 8 would mean that face detection could be accomplished even in the dark. Hotly tipped features for the iPhone 8 still include a 5.8-inch OLED display that goes edge-to-edge with no bezel, faster A11 processor, glass body, removal of the Home button along with uncertainty about the retention of Touch ID. There are also rumours that the iPhone 8 will come in three different models, with possible delays to the high-end…

Apple has been given permission to start testing 5G data speeds in the US, paving the way for an iPhone with 5G capability in the (hopefully near) future. In May 2017, Apple applied to the US government for a license to test 5G, something that was swiftly granted. To be more specific, the tests involve 5G millimetre wave technology on 28GHz and 39GHz frequency bands. What does that mean to the average layperson? Well, the millimetre wave technology in question is able to transmit at high frequencies and small wavelengths, meaning it’s able to considerably reduce latency and increase the amount of data it can transmit. 5G is intended to provide data rates greater than 10GBp/s, as well as strong coverage over large areas. It is expected to be available…

40% Videos you record on iPhone 7 in iOS 11 are encoded using the HEVC standard, which cuts file size by up to 40% at the same picture quality as its H.264 predecessor. 13 iOS 11 brings a full-fledged Dock to your iPad that you can reveal even within apps. In previous versions of iOS you could store 4 apps at the bottom of your screen – now you can store up to 13. 1 In iOS 10, Control Centre had multiple pages of settings and information. In iOS 11 it’s all condensed into one and makes greater use of 3D Touch. 187,000 iOS 11 will not support 32-bit apps. According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, that means around 187,000 apps will stop working – about 8% of the App…

While Apple may have taken an early lead in getting its products into schools, these days it’s a much more competitive area. Both Google and Microsoft have made strong efforts to push Apple out and to replace classroom iPads with Chromebooks and Surfaces. The low cost has been an obvious factor. Until recently, an iPad could cost several hundred pounds more than a Chromebook, and didn’t come with a keyboard which, for some teachers, made it less geared towards productivity. And whereas Chromebooks and Surfaces look like they belong in a work environment, many students viewed iPads more as a device for playing games. But Apple is fighting back. The new, affordable iPad is a big step towards getting it into the classroom, and there are a range of affordable…

“HURRY UP WITH THE iPHONE 8, BRING ON AR!” Jo says… Graham says… So, it seems pretty certain that the iPhone 8 will boast a 3D sensor. I’m excited about that! Me too. I mean, what cooler security pass is there than an iris scan! Moving towards biometric security is so Minority Report! It’s the augmented reality application that I’m most interested in. Once your humble phone can scan your face, you can start appearing as the hero in your favourite game! It’s actually quite frightening at the same time. Have you seen that clip on Twitter? It’s supposedly an inter dimensional portal in a street, created using Apple’s ARKit. Talk about disorientating. It’s hilarious that when you’re in the AR world, the real world actually looks totally fabricated and,…

LIVE SMARTER The smart home is here – live the Apple dream today! Apple is well known for the almost fanatical secrecy surrounding its product launches, so its decision to unveil the new HomePod speaker a full six months ahead of its December launch was almost unprecedented. The reason, though, is simple – and it’s got nothing to do with Apple’s claim that it wants to “reinvent home music”. HomePod may be a great speaker, but what makes it different is the fact that it also lets you use Siri voice commands and HomeKit, which is Apple’s home-automation software for controlling lights, locks, thermostats and other devices in your home. Apple’s fallen behind Amazon in the home automation market, but HomePod is the start of its fightback. And the good…

The cloud is brilliant. It’s brilliant because we’ve long left behind the days where that single copy of your amazing manuscript vanished forever when the sole disk it was on got eaten by a ravenous and rabid Mac. It’s brilliant because that ideal of always having your documents available – whatever device you happen to have to hand – is reliant only on you having internet connectivity. And it’s brilliant in the world of Apple because iCloud is baked deep into the heart of every Mac, iPhone, and iPad, along with a huge range of apps and services. But the cloud is also infuriating. It’s infuriating because it can be confusing to newcomers. It’s infuriating because things can go horribly wrong, even when you think you’re an old hand at…

NEW IDEAS Your in-depth guide to getting more from your Apple kit ADVANCED EDITING IN IMOVIE p46 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 command+option+C, hold all but the last key,…

IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to add, organise and export notes in the Bear app. YOU’LL NEED Bear, free from the Mac App Store. Bear is a combination of two kinds of app: to-do lists and distractionfree writing How many different bits of information do you need to carry around in your head or on your Mac at one time? If you’re anything like us, it’s a lot; shopping lists and to-do lists and things to remember and things to download later and things to look up and things to find out about and… we’re tired just thinking about it. Wouldn’t it be great if you could shove all of that into a simple app that enables you to find what you need whenever you need…

MAC BASICS Your dedicated guide to getting more from macOS Sierra 12 HIDDEN FEATURES OF macOS p62 macOS Sierra requirements macOS Sierra works on Macs dating back to 2010, and MacBooks and iMacs to 2009. You need to be running Mac OS X 10.7 or later. You need 8.8GB of available storage. Back up your Mac before upgrading; go to support. apple.com/en-gb/HT201250 for advice on using Time Machine. Go to the Mac App Store and download the free macOS Sierra upgrade. The benefits of running macOS Sierra macOS Sierra introduces Siri to the Mac. You can use Apple Pay on your Mac with macOS Sierra. Picture-in-Picture – extract a video from a website and watch it from your desktop. By default, Desktop and Documents folders are uploaded to iCloud Drive. macOS…

Can I run two DHCP servers on the same network? Avoid doing so. Unless they’re carefully configured, or one is running ‘Double NAT’, the two servers may each assign the same IP address to different devices. That causes all sorts of mayhem on a network. It’s usually simpler to turn one off, although recent Apple AirPort devices offer ‘Double NAT’ to work around this. What does the RSSI value for Wi-Fi mean? This is a value for signal strength, on Macs normally given on a scale of -100 (weakest) to 0 (strongest), although other Wi-Fi receivers may use different scales, with highest values always strongest. You’re unlikely to see values better than -25 on standard Wi-Fi equipment. How do you run a check on Wi-Fi base stations? In Terminal, type…

There’s no simple way around this, other than to not use emoji or other characters Vanishing emojis Q When my wife sends texts containing emojis from her iPhone SE, some recipients say they can’t see those characters, instead seeing small boxes, or brackets and dots. They look fine here on my MacBook Pro, though. What can she do? by ROBERT RUSSELL A Text messages originally used plain text characters from the Roman alphabet, and emoticons, the precursors to emoji, such as :). With more sophisticated phones, messages changed to use Unicode, a cross-platform standard which has grown to support more than 100 script systems covering thousands of languages, a wide range of non-linguistic symbols, and emoji. Older operating systems still running on older and less sophisticated devices don’t support the…

IN PRINT ISSUE 316 SEPTEMBER 2017 New iMac: faster, brighter, better Install the macOS High Sierra beta iOS 11: we look at the best new features Discover the hidden secrets of iTunes ISSUE 315 AUGUST 2017 New Apple kit: Macs, HomePod and iPad Pro iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra Be your own Genius: 50 Apple fixes ON iPAD & iPHONE ISSUE 314 JULY 2017 Supercharge your Mac! iCloud: account and storage advice Stay fit with clever Apple kit Organise photos on your Mac To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_back 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…

Are there adaptors for 13w3 connectors? Yes and no. You can still find 13w3- to-VGA adaptors on eBay, but they are almost all designed for Sun workstations. The synchronisation frequencies supported by these adaptors won’t necessarily work with Apple monitors that may have different screen resolutions and refresh rates. Why is there a pin missing on my VGA plug? Originally, the VGA specification only used 14 pins. The 15- pin socket had pin 9 removed to stop you accidentally jamming a non VGA cable in the same port. Later on, pin 9 was added back in, to carry 5V power for the EDID chips inside the monitor. By this point the only 3-row, 15-pin, D connector still in use was VGA, so there was no risk of confusion. But it…

GEEKBENCH 3 SINGLE CORE TEST This tests the capability of a single processor core. Many more common tasks on a Mac will only use a single core at a time. Intel’s Turbo Boost technology comes into play here. HANDBRAKE VIDEO ENCODING We transcode a Blu-ray–quality video file into H.264 format using Handbrake to test multi-core processor performance, which pushes all cores to maximum output. TOMB RAIDER 1920X1080 For a real-world gaming test, we use the benchmarking tool in the game Tomb Raider, with the graphics settings set to High and the resolution set to 1080p.…

H omeKit enables control of smart devices located anywhere in your house. But sometimes a more tactile approach works best, such as keeping tabs on the room climate, where a physical display is preferred. Although its price is more expensive than most standalone thermometers, Elgato’s Eve Degree delivers much-needed style. This handsome 5.4cm square features rounded anodised aluminium edges and a black LCD display that switches between temperature or humidity when you push a button located on the back; viewing both at the same time can only be done from supported apps. A mere 1.5cm thick, the Eve Degree is easy to mount on a wall, and the CR2450 battery lasts up to a year before needing to be replaced. However, we found the LCD display a little hard to…

£4.99 FROM Ustwo Games, monumentvalleygame.com NEEDS iOS 9.0 or later Y ou know those brain-melting Escher prints of impossible pathways? Monument Valley 2 is a succession of these, turned into an indie puzzle game. You control Ro and her pintsized daughter, nudging them over bridges and through doors. The catch? You’ve got to build them yourself. At first, this is simple: twirling basic sections about so that they connect up from a different angle. Later, you’ll have to hone your spatial awareness as you pull out segments of the floor and manipulate them, before returning them to the layout. If we’re 100% honest, we didn’t come up against any segments that could not eventually be solved by trial and error – but mindlessly shifting shapes until they click into place…

MONITOR ViewSonic VP2772 £676 viewsonic.com If you’re not fussed about 4K but still want exceptional image quality, this IPS display is truly superb. It offers 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB colour space, 10-bit colour and a 2560x1440-pixel resolution. It has HDMI 1.4, DVI and Mini DisplayPort connections, and four USB 3.0 ports for expansion. NETWORK STORAGE QNAP TS-251+ 6TB £459 qnap.com We know a good NAS drive when we see one, which is why the 6TB TS-251+ won MF302’s group test. It’s one of the quickest NAS drives we’ve seen lately, with transfer rates of over 105MB/sec for large files. It has an HDMI port and a remote control for watching your media directly on your TV set. Four USB ports top it off. PRINTER Epson Eco-Tank ET-2600 £190…

GET ON INSTAGRAM Share your images with us by using the hashtag #MacFormat and we’ll print the best here in the magazine. While you’re there, follow @MacFormat (Twitter) and @MacFormatUK (Instagram). Have Mersey… Face appears in sky! BY SHAUNG22 Recognise the name? shaung22 was kind enough to send in a shot of a monk on his travels, looking reflectively out of a train window back in issue 311. shaung22 hasn’t gone quite so far afield this time, but he has dabbled in the dark art of black and white with this atmospheric shot of the Runcorn Bridge straddling the River Mersey, taken on his iPhone 7. We love the light and shade, and the fact that there appears to be a man in the sky! Share your pics with us…

The first two Apple stores opened simultaneously in 2001 at the Tysons Corner Center in Fairfax Country, Virginia and the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California. Since then Apple stores have continued to revolutionise the retail experience in some of the most desirable locations around the world. A key factor in the growth of Apple, here’s the story of how the Apple store took over the planet. May 2001 Determined to define its own retail experience, Apple opened its first two Apple stores. Steve Jobs personally opened the Tysons Corner Center and customers spent $599,000 over the weekend in both stores. November 2003 Apple opened its 73rd Apple store and its first store in Tokyo, Japan, which was also the first store to appear outside of the United States. November 2004…