Índex per June 2022 a Macworld

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is kicking into gear, with the keynote starting off the weeklong event on June 6. While it’s an event aimed toward developers, WWDC is also the day Mac enthusiasts look forward to, because Apple takes it as an opportunity to introduce the next versions of its macOS operating system. Though we haven’t heard much about macOS 13 from the rumor mill just yet, we do have thoughts on what we’d like to see in the next major revision of macOS. FIXES, OPTIMIZATIONS, AND STABILITY If Apple Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi came on stage and said, “macOS [insert name-of-idyllic-California-location-that-fits-the-macOS-nomenclature here] will feature only optimizations and updates to make it the most stable OS on the planet,” dropped the mic, and walked off stage, I’d…

For a number of years now, Apple’s Logic Pro X music production software has been one of the quiet jewels in the company’s crown. Yes, the iPhone, iPad and Mac will be used by more people, but when it comes to quality, value for money, and continual addition of new features, Logic takes some beating. Now with Apple Silicon support to match your creative ambitions, plus plenty of fun and forward-thinking new features, Logic Pro X is the best it’s ever been. To see how the pro-level software compares to the free music production app that comes with every Mac, read our Logic Pro X versus GarageBand feature. Logic Pro has a free trial here, it costs £174.99 ($199.99) as a one-time purchase, after which subsequent updates are free. NEW…

As announced last year, Apple has launched its official Self Service Repair Store with an array of parts and tools to fix broken iPhone SE (third-gen), iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 models. The store offers more than 200 individual parts and tools, from security screws for $0.10 apiece to Pro Max displays for more than $300. The Self Service Repair program doesn’t appear to offer significant savings for the most common iPhone repair—a cracked screen. For example, Apple charges $269.95 for an iPhone 13 Display Bundle, which includes the display, screw kit, adhesive, and two security screws, with a credit of $33.60 for returning the broken display after fixing it, for a final cost of $236.35. The same repair would cost $279 if you brought it to an Apple Store, a savings of…

The new iMovie 3 for the iPhone and iPad has a feature called Magic Movie. It’s great for anyone who wants to quickly make a longer-form video out of a set of short video clips and a few photos. Those quick video “snapshots” can easily be used for a Magic Movie. Here’s a look at how to use Magic Movie, using several short videos and a couple of photos taken with an iPhone. The video tutorial below uses an iPad mini, and the tutorial article that follows involves iMovie 3 for iPhone, but it’s basically the same process on either device. iMovie 3 is free in the App Store, but your device needs to run iOS or iPadOS 15.2 or later. HOW TO MAKE A MAGIC MOVIE IN iMOVIE…

It’s been 12 years since the iPad first arrived, amid hype that it was the next iPhone and pessimism that it would never live up to that hype. After some dramatic early years, the iPad has become a comfortable business that’s raking in about $30 billion a year in sales. It’s not the next iPhone, but in terms of Apple’s platforms, it’s roughly the size of the Mac. What were the pivotal moments in the iPad’s 12-year history? What were the key events that led it from there to here? I’ve forced myself to rank the top moments. HONORABLE MENTION: THE iPAD LAUNCH (JANUARY 2010) Before we get started, I’m going to admit that the announcement of almost any product is perhaps its most important historical moment. How could it…

The Numbers spreadsheet app puts numeric power into your fingertips, but you might not be aware of some of the most common ways to use the keyboard to your advantage. When you type in a cell, Numbers automatically presents a list of matching options based on the first characters you type from all other entries in the same column in the table. These three keyboard actions can help work with suggestions: > Use the down and up arrows to select one of these existing entries, or click in the drop-down list. > Press the right arrow to accept what you typed and ignore suggestions; otherwise you can accidentally choose a suggestion. > Press Esc instead of clicking or using the arrow keys to revert the cell’s contents to what it…

Sony’s headphones need no introduction. Their over-the-ear headphones rank among our favorites, and they are perennial contenders as our top pick when it comes to noise-canceling headphones. Translating regular headphone success into a true wireless earbud is no simple task. Yet that’s what Sony is trying to do with its flagship, the $279 WF-1000XM4. Do these true wireless headphones live up to Sony’s legacy? You bet. They are a winner by any measure. Sony’s WF-1000XM4 come in your choice of silver or black. My review set came in the latter. The earbuds and companion charging case have a matte finish, which I found to be a nice change from the slippery, gloss finish on so many earbuds. The finish on the earbuds and case gave me confidence holding them. These…

When I started working for MacUser magazine in 1993, I was assigned to a gray cubicle with an old Mac IIci inside. (The summer intern didn’t get the latest and greatest.) I don’t know how that was nearly 30 years ago, but here we are. Over the last few years, I’ve spent a little time buying a few old Mac models and getting them up to speed. Within five feet of me as I write this are a working G4 Cube, G4 iMac, Mac Plus, PowerBook 170, and even a Power Computing Mac clone. As much as using old computers can be a fun nostalgia trip, it also makes me appreciate what we have today all the more. You remember the good times, but forget the bad! As someone who recently…

Batch processing is a powerful process for applying the same operations to a set of inputs—raw text, images, and more—as a set that’s cycled through instead of manually, one at a time. The first batch implementation arguably dates back to 1890, with the first punch-card–based processing of the U.S. Census. It’s a constant theme in modern software, particularly when dealing with a group of like things, such as images that are in one file format and that all have the same starting parameters you need to convert. Realmac Software’s Squash is a single-minded batch-processing imaging app that offers configurable compression along with automatic application of image correction, color and monochrome grading effects, and stripping out metadata. If you work with lots of images regularly, it could hit the spot with the…

Apple has acknowledged an extremely serious fault afflicting some units of the Apple Watch Series 6, which can cause their screens to go blank permanently. The company has agreed to service affected devices for free. A similar fault, known colloquially as the Black Screen of Death, has been seen from time to time with a variety of Apple Watch models, including the Series 2, Series 3, and Series 5. But complaints became more frequent with the Series 6 in the second half of last year, and Apple has now admitted there is a problem, while doing its best to emphasize the “very small percentage” of devices that are affected. Affected Apple Watches often appear functional in other respects, making the usual sounds when the user taps the screen or clicks…

We all know that the battery life of a phone is not limitless and that iPhones do not have a great reputation for lasting as long on one charge as other smartphones. Unless you stick close to a power outlet, you’ll need a power bank or battery case to top up on the move. Apple’s recent iPhones boast a technology called MagSafe that offers a tidier solution than carrying around a cabled power bank. It allows enabled accessories to magnetically latch on to the back of the iPhone for wireless charging or other functions. Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack offers a power boost when your iPhone’s internal battery is inconveniently running out on you. DESIGN The Apple MagSafe Battery Pack is a compact (96cm×64cm×11cm) white brick that weighs 114g. Clamped to…

More than two decades after its introduction, Apple has quietly announced that it has discontinued macOS Server. The end of macOS server comes just over 23 years after its introduction on March 16, 1999. The final version of macOS Server is 5.12.2. During the latter part of macOS Server’s run, Apple incorporated many of its features into macOS as part of a phasing out of the software. For example, the File Server, Caching Server, and Time Machine Server were included in macOS High Sierra. The command-line tools to manage Xsan (Apple’s storage garage network and clustered file system) were included in macOS Big Sur. Apple outlines which services and features are available through a support document announcing the discontinuation. There was a time when the software offered an inexpensive way to…

When it works correctly, email can feel seamless. But a failure reveals its two separate components: one kind of server handles your mail app’s retrieval of messages; another sends them out. These distinct components might reside on physically different hardware at your internet service provider or the company hosting your email account, such as Apple, Google, or Microsoft. It’s rare once you’ve set up an email account that you have more than intermittent errors in downloading messages. Those are generally due only to communications issues at the mail-hosting company. In my experience, and that of Macworld readers, it’s much more common that the outgoing mail server requires troubleshooting. Apple’s Mail app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS reveals errors that occur when a connection to an incoming or outgoing mail server…

I typically expect good sound from Bose products, and the weatherproofed $149 SoundLink Flex easily fulfilled my expectation. In fact, I was a tad surprised to discover that it was a monaural speaker given the dulcet tones radiating from its enclosure. The Flex is a bit bass-centric, but given the younger audience, that’s both understandable–and desirable. To heck with that. I like it as well. DESIGN AND FEATURES The SoundLink Flex measures 3.6x7.9x21 inches (HxWxD) and weighs 1.3 pounds. It feels substantial, but not like an anchor in the backpack. It’s available in stone blue, black, and white smoke. I tested the stone blue, and to be honest, it’s my favorite of the three colors. The non-grill areas of the Flex are covered in a grippy silicone material, so it…

Sometimes I like to spend the morning working at my local coffee shop. The atmosphere is nice, the owner always greets me with a sincere “Hello, my friend, it’s good to see you!”—and it’s a lot warmer than my garage office at home. The problem is, the internet connection isn’t great. The streaming background music in the shop acts as an audible network connection monitor—every so often you’ll hear it stutter and pause as a sign that the connection has gone wonky. When that happens, the Wi-Fi in the shop stops working—most of the time, it’s just for a moment, but it’s a flag that gets raised, and it means I need to be aware of something I really shouldn’t have to pay attention to at all. Free Wi-Fi isn’t…

VICTROLA V1 MUSIC SYSTEM The Victrola V1 Music System is a versatile, all-in-one solution that includes a turntable, speaker, subwoofer, and RCA inputs allowing you to connect a CD player or tape deck. If you prefer to play audio through another speaker—or wireless headphones—the Vinyl Stream setting uses Bluetooth for streaming. You can also use the built-in speaker and the subwoofer as a Bluetooth receiver to play music from a phone or other device. The V1 System is a solid choice for a someone who wants to keep their setup as simple as possible or who’s just getting started with home audio. —ROMAN LOYOLA AMAZON ECHO FRAMES The Echo Frames are sturdy, handsome, cleverly designed, sound good (although not as good as dedicated Bluetooth headphones), and deliver on all…

If you’re waiting for Apple to finally unveil an iPhone with a USB-C port, we have bad news: It’s not happening this year. But there’s still some serious intrigue in prospect for the iPhone’s lone port in the months ahead. Let’s start with the iPhone 14. According to iDropNews, Apple is “working on [USB] 3.0 speeds for the iPhone 14 Pro connector.” The current Lightning port is rated for USB 2.0, which has an abysmally slow transfer rate of 480 Mbps. USB 3.0 offers a transfer rate of around 5Gbps or about 10 times faster than the current Lightning port. LeaksApplePro reports that the feature will likely be exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Apple actually used a faster Lightning port on the original 12.9-inch…

Watch someone else use their iPhone for a few minutes, and you’ll quickly discover that they do a lot of things quite differently than you. You might discover some interactions you’ve never seen before, and you probably have a lot of suggestions for them. It’s not surprising that the average iPhone user doesn’t use many of its best features. Modern smartphones have grown into enormously powerful and complex devices, and unless you pay close attention, you’re going to be simply unaware of all they can do. So let’s learn some new ones. Here are 10 iPhone tips and features that a surprisingly large percentage of users seem to be completely unaware of. These tips should work on most modern iPhones (those made within the last few years) and they assume…

Apple began including screen sharing nearly 20 years ago in its Mac operating system. If you have multiple Macs in your home or office on the same local area network (wired, wireless, or both), you can observe or control another Mac on that network. Some regular users aren’t aware it exists because they’ve never needed to use it. It’s not entirely obvious how to set it up or access it as it requires changes on the Mac to be shared and looking in the correct place on the Mac viewing the other’s screen. It can be handy to use if you have multiple Macs in different places or a Mac without a keyboard and mouse used as part of a home A/V system, or one bereft of head (display) and…

Last week’s strange news tidbit: The full-size HomePod, that most recent of Apple’s perhaps misguided product choices, is going at a premium on the resale market after having been discontinued back in spring 2021. It’s odd but not inexplicable. As my colleague Jason Snell pointed out, the HomePod was a case of Apple making trade-offs that ultimately appealed only to a niche audience—but a niche audience that was very excited about it. The lesson I take away from all this is that though the full-size HomePod was not necessarily a market success, Apple should be willing to take risks on product categories that may not be obvious crowd-pleasers. Macs, iPhones, iPads—all of these are established products these days, ones that the company can count on selling in droves when they release…

TRANSFER AN EMAIL ADDRESS AND PURCHASES FROM A SHARED APPLE ID The brittleness of the Apple ID account management system can lead to some funny but common situations. Picture the following that a reader asked about: You share an Apple ID with someone else or more than one person. You use iCloud email aliases to allow each of you to have your own account in effect. But you now want separate Apple IDs. What happens to the email address? And all the stuff you’ve collectively purchased? There’s a solution for both issues. Forward your iCloud email Whether an iCloud address is in use for email or as the primary or login email on an Apple ID account, you can’t migrate it to another account. (There is a method if you’re using…