Índex per January 2013 a Macworld

The Fusion Drive, available as an option for the new iMacs and for one of the Mac minis, is a hybrid that merges a 128GB flash drive with a hard drive into a single volume. You get the speed of a solid-state drive and long-term storage caching on the cheaper, more affordable hard-drive part. Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing, explained at Apple’s event that Mountain Lion and the apps that ship with a Mac (such as iTunes and iPhoto) reside on the flash drive, while user data fills the hard drive. But the Fusion Drive is smart: If you use Numbers more than iMovie, for example, it will move Numbers to the flash side, with iMovie shifting to the traditional-drive side. Mac OS X decides which…

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a public letter, in the fashion of his predecessor, addressing the ongoing hullaballoo surrounding the company’s Maps app in iOS 6. In his letter, Cook writes that Apple “fell short on [its] commitment” to make “world-class products that deliver the best experience to our customers” with the launch of iOS 6’s Maps. Cook says that Apple is “extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers,” and promises that Apple is “doing everything we can to make Maps better.” Cook seems to subtly address recent reporting suggesting that Apple’s decision to abandon Google as the mapping-data provider for the app was spurred by the search giant’s refusal to allow Apple to add necessary improvements to the mapping experience: “We wanted to provide our customers…

Bad Piggies GAMES These poor pigs can’t seem to catch a break with their pursuit of the Angry Birds’ eggs. In Bad Piggies, the pigs remain on the hunt for sustenance: Their chief engineer has devised a foolproof scheme, but mishaps cause his detailed blueprints to scatter to the wind. The only response is to build vehicles to recover blueprint segments. Bad Piggies shares its predecessor’s colorful environments and love of physics, but it’s a wholly new adventure. Every level begins with a glimpse of a scrap of paper or wood you’ll need to fetch, employing a vehicle you’ll build from spare components. That’s enough to earn a single star and unlock the next level. This game breaks free of the Angry Birds mold to deliver a fun, well-polished experience…

Here’s what some major iPad case makers have released for the mini so far. Cygnett The Purple Armour, shown above ($40, go.macworld.com/armour), offers extra protection in a stylish purple or black case with a padded, microfiber lining. You can use the case to prop up your tablet at multiple angles for viewing in landscape-orientation. The Armour also provides unhindered access to ports and cameras. Dodocase The company has updated most of its models for the new tablet’s format. These include the Dodocase Classic ($60; go.macworld.com/classic), available in black with a red, blue, or charcoal lining; the Dodocase Solid ($70; go.macworld.com/solid), in red, light blue, or gray, each with a tan interior; the Hardcover Classic ($35; go.macworld.com/hcclassic2), in black with a red, blue, or charcoal interior; and the Hardcover Solid ($40;…

Q& Today’s Calendar application is more than a simple date book. With it you can view your life’s doings in multiple ways, enter events in nearly natural language, receive alerts to events by unexpected means, and add multiple bits of information to your events. Not everything about Mountain Lion’s Calendar app is obvious, however. Here are answers to some of the questions I hear the most. Q: What’s the quickest way to create events? A: In Lion’s iCal and Mountain Lion’s Calendar, one quick way to create an event is to press command-N or click the plus-sign (+) button at the top of the window. In the resulting Create Quick Event field, enter something like Brunch w/Claire March 17 11 AM and press <Return>. This creates an event for that…

You’ve worked on a project that has generated multiple versions of many files burdened with next-to-useless names, and now you need to send the best ones to your colleagues. But how can you efficiently rummage through the candidates, when even the apps that created them can’t give you a good overview of multiple files? All you need is the often-overlooked features of OS X’s Quick Look. Move Through Previews Once you’ve selected multiple files, open-ing the Quick Look window displays the first item. The right-arrow or left-arrow key displays the next or previous file, respectively, cycling around to the beginning again. You can also use a two-finger swipe on your trackpad to move around. Get a Comprehensive Overview With the Index Sheet The index sheet is the crux of Quick…

We’re heading for the NFL playoffs, and football calls for the slab-serif styling of designer Meredith Mandel’s ChunkFive typeface (free). Highlights include macho brackets and parentheses for delivering sideline commentary; a bouncy cheerleader asterisk; and an @ sign that stays in character for easy communication to players in the field. But Coach Mandel should bench the % and $ signs, as both symbols sport changes in their stroke weights uncharacteristic of the rest of the font. ChunkFive is not made for paragraphs, but it provides emphasis for subheads, titles, and single-statement items such as slogan T-shirts. ChunkFive’s no-nonsense block serifs are at home on wanted posters, newspaper front pages, and signs such as “Saloon” and “Grub” This download’s license lets the user create, but the font itself is protected from…

At the Apple Special Event on October 23, the company introduced major upgrades to its iMac and Mac mini lines. The Most Beautiful Mac In unveiling the redesigned iMac, Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller called it “the most beautiful Mac we have ever made.” While the familiar aluminum design remains, the new iMac is much thinner than its predecessor. The company has reengineered the iMac’s internals and display, and Apple says the display system is 45 percent thinner and 8 pounds lighter. The new iMacs are available in 21.5-and 27-inch models, with displays that support native resolutions of 1920 by 1080 pixels and 2560 by 1440 pixels, respectively. Previous models had a 2mm air gap between the glass and the display; that gap is gone in the new iMac.…

Nothing says “foolish” like trying to predict what Apple will do at its next media event. So what do you call trying to predict what Apple will do with its products over the next 18 to 24 months? We can’t, of course, make any real predictions. But we can make informed guesses by looking at what we know about technology trends and mapping those trends to Apple’s product lines. We make no guarantees that any of our projections will come true. But they should give you an idea of what’s realistically possible over the next year or so.…

Higher-definition. Less power-hungry. Thinner. Those are some of the terms describing the displays on Apple’s latest iMac models and MacBook Pros. And you can expect those same traits to define the monitors on the company’s desktop and laptop systems for the next two years. Buyers want, even expect, longer battery life and sleeker design with every new generation of Apple products. And we should see Apple continuing to put out machines that satisfy that market, partly because the company recognizes that the display is a crucial part of the user experience. That isn’t typical of the rest of the computer-display market, however. Monitor makers have hit hard times lately, in large part because corporate IT departments nowadays treat their products as afterthoughts: Better-quality displays simply aren’t a high priority. That,…

The new dream in computing is keeping all of your files in “the cloud,” storing them on remote servers that you can access from anywhere at any time. Apple’s cloud-based syncing and storage service, iCloud, debuted in June 2011, but only since the release of OS X Mountain Lion have enough applications started to support iCloud document syncing for this feature to be useful. Working with iCloud is fairly simple, but you need to know the ground rules if you plan to start storing your documents in the cloud. Activate Documents & Data If you don’t have a free iCloud account, or if you’re just becoming familiar with it, be sure to see “Getting started with iCloud, Apple’s new sync service” at macworld.com/a/1162963 for an overview of how to set…

HOW-TO Many digital SLR owners tell me that they rarely change their camera’s lens, because they’re worried about getting dust or dirt in the camera. That’s a reasonable concern. But having interchangeable lenses is the whole point of using a digital SLR. To help ease your concerns about switching lenses (especially outdoors, on the go), let’s look at the best technique. If you leave your camera’s lens port open to the elements for too long, debris can find its way in. And removing dust and other contaminants from a camera isn’t a trivial problem, so be as careful as possible when changing a lens. Preparing for the Swap First, make sure that both the lens currently on your camera and the lens you want to switch to have their caps…

Edit the Share Menu in Mountain Lion to Remove Items Though Mountain Lion’s new Share menu is handy, it’s not especially smart. Specifically, it insists on offering sharing options for services that you haven’t signed in for in the Mail, Contacts & Calendar preferences pane. Here’s a way to remove the items you don’t use from that menu. Copy the file/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SHKServicesOrder.plist to a folder where you have write permissions. Duplicate it and keep a copy of the original in case you want to revert to the standard Share menu, as you’ll be overwriting the system version. Open the file with any text editor and erase the lines corresponding to services you don’t use. For example, if you don’t use Facebook or Twitter, you can delete them. Save the file and…

Extract Voice and Text Messages From an iPhone Q: A Mac-using relative recently passed away, and we’d like to have copies of some of the SMS and voicemail messages on her phone. Is there any way to extract those things? Amy Campbell A: When you back up an iOS device to your computer, SMS and voicemail messages are part of that backup. The backup resides in youruserfolder/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. Don’t bother rooting around in that folder, though: Unless you’re intimately familiar with SQLite databases, the files will look like so much gobbledygook. Instead, use a tool to extract the info you want, either directly from the phone or from an iPhone backup. For this kind of job, I use Ecamm Network’s $30 PhoneView (go.macworld.com/phoneview). If you’d like to recover information directly…

Review RATING PRICE $1699 (128GB); $1999 (256GB) COMPANY Apple URLapple.com When Apple released the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, it was only a matter of time before the Retina display spread to other Apple laptops. That time is now, and with the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, a compelling argument can be made that Apple’s newest laptop is a perfect blend of performance, portability, and features. Making a Small Laptop Feel Big The 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen offers a native resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels—that’s 4,096,000 pixels. Under the Display system preferences, OS X has four scaled resolution settings: 1680 by 1050, 1440 by 900, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640. For comparison, the 13-inch non–Retina MacBook Pro (which Apple still sells) has a native resolution of…

Apple recently released GarageBand 1.3 for iOS. Among the music-creation program’s new features are the ability to import songs from your Music library and—on the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and models newer than those two—to play or record with GarageBand while you’re using other apps. However, another new feature definitely requires you to run iOS 6: the ability to create and save custom ringtones for your iPhone or iPad on those devices. Here is how this new GarageBand function works. First, create your jingle in GarageBand. You’ll want your tune to be no longer than 30 seconds; otherwise, GarageBand will automatically truncate your tune at the 30-second mark anyway. If your song is shorter, your ringtone will play it as a loop. Once you are happy with your new song,…

When the iPad debuted, many called it just a big iPod touch. Most people soon realized that such claims were misguided, as the iPad turned out to be much more: more powerful, more capable, more useful—more everything. Instead of being arithmetically bigger than the iPod touch, the iPad offered exponentially more of what was good about it. Now that the iPad mini is out, some of the same people are calling it just a smaller iPad. This time around, such a description is much more apt, as the iPad mini offers nearly all of the features, power, and capabilities of its full-size siblings. It even runs all the same apps. The result is a device that—far more than the Mac mini, or even the old iPod mini—gives you nearly everything…

Imagine a 13-inch MacBook Air model, sporting a Retina-class display, that weighs a few ounces less than the current version of the Air. Or imagine a model that weighs the same but can work all day without your having to plug it into wall power. Each of those visions could become a reality—if Apple adopts Intel’s next-generation CPUs, currently code-named Haswell. Rumors have suggested that Apple may be moving away from Intel processors for its MacBook and iMac lineups, but given the progress of Intel’s CPUs and the difficulty of making such a switch, it’s unlikely that Apple will abandon Intel chips in the near term. CPU Tweaks Intel’s Haswell is a new architecture that focuses more on improving efficiency than on upping the raw CPU performance. (Processors based on…

The next two years promise much faster short-range and medium-range wired and wireless networking, and zippier mobile connections. What’s the point of these increasing speeds? Video, primarily. The name of the game is streaming or downloading high-definition video—across a room or from one end of the house to the other—while leaving enough room for other activities such as file downloads, Facebook, and email. Connecting Devices When Thunderbolt technology was still under development, Intel (its main mover) said that optical cabling would enable multiple-gigabits-per-second connections to displays, peripherals, and networks, and that it would allow cords to run as far as 30 meters. Apparently optical cabling was hard to produce and expensive, so Apple and Intel switched to copper wiring. That wiring still supported the Thunderbolt spec’s two channels of simultaneous…

Skooba Design’s $180 Laptop Weekender V.3 (www.skoobadesign.com) is a collapsible nylon duffel bag that promises to simplify travel. The bag is small enough to fit in an overhead bin and capacious enough to hold a few days’ worth of clothes plus most of the gadgets you’re likely to take on the road. The inside compartment is for your clothes, while the outside pockets are for your gear. The gear pocket beefs up your laptop’s protection with Bumper Bars, additional strips of padding intended to cushion the bag’s sides and bottom. The Weekender also includes a special pocket designed for an iPad. A stitched flap on the exterior allows you to secure the bag to a rolling suitcase’s retractable handle for easy maneuvering through airports. This bag’s flexibility and solid construction…

First released in early 2012, Apple’s education-themed ebook-creation tool took bold steps as the first WYSIWYG ebook program to export a perfect book, just as you envisioned it. But that version was very much a 1.0 product, with strange omissions and odd workflows for those who didn’t want to build textbooks. Now we have iBooks Author 2.0 (go.macworld.com/ibooksauthor2), which brings simplified tools, new templates, portrait-only options, and a better publishing workflow. Not Just for Textbooks Though the software still clearly slants toward the education market, this second version acknowledges that people might want to create books of other styles and types. Included are three new landscape templates: Photo Book, which emphasizes big images alongside text; Antique, reminiscent of an old storybook; and Cookbook, which is self-explanatory. Portrait-Only Options A new…

FIRST LOOK SmugMug has launched an iPad version of its Camera Awesome mobile photo and video app, expanding on the artistry of the iPhone app (both are free). With a redesigned interface, Camera Awesome for the iPad uses the device’s larger screen size to make still images and video easier to shoot and edit. “The major difference is that we completely rethought the camera interface,” Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, told us. “Simply blowing up the interface from the iPhone version made the app feel awkward and hard to use.” Icon Tools In both portrait and landscape orientation, the app offers controls that sit on both sides of the screen, within thumb distance. On the iPad, the first thing your left thumb finds is a straighten tool. As in the…