MacLife June 2020

As you may recall from the last issue of Mac|Life, I’ve had to make a few changes around here to keep the magazine in a strong position during these particularly difficult times. Having to take away pages from the people that keep supporting us is something I thought I would never have to do during my tenure, and it greatly saddens me to have to give you less when the entry fee for reading remains exactly the same. But I’ve been working hard to maintain standards around these parts, so you’ll be pleased to hear that, although we can’t print as many pages as before (for the next couple of issues, anyway), content is as good as ever — in fact, I’d go as far as saying we’ve got even more…

APPLE HAS RELEASED an updated version of the iPhone SE that features its A13 Bionic chip, the fastest chip used in a smartphone and also found in the top–of–the–range iPhone 11 Pro, but at a price starting at just $399. Apple discontinued its previous budget iPhone, also called the iPhone SE, back in September 2018, so the new model fills in a gap at the bottom of the iPhone price range nicely. In terms of specs and design the new iPhone SE is very similar to the old iPhone 8, so it features a Home button (which means it uses Touch ID, not Face ID) and has a 4.7–inch Retina HD display, 12MP rear–facing camera and a 7MP front–facing camera. The original iPhone 8 only came in 64GB and 128GB sizes, but…

I HAVE TO say, Apple really missed a trick with the release of iOS 13.4, which added real support for mouse and trackpad control for the first time. It was released on 24 March, just over a week before the iPad’s 10th anniversary (3 April was its official release date). I don’t think I could’ve resisted the sentimentality of launching its next phase as it hit double digits. I’ve been testing the new cursor concept with a Brydge Pro+ keyboard, which doesn’t quite have all the functionality that Apple’s Magic Keyboard does, but it gives me a feeling for the overall experience. And so far, it’s proved… interesting. Perhaps still half formed, though that’s partly down to apps not necessarily supporting it — I tried to start doing my work on…

As surprising as this might be, we've only been asked this question about three, or maybe four times in the last couple of years. So, to explain — the magazine that you read in the Mac|Life app is made specifically just for the iPad. We call this edition the HD (hi–def) edition. It’s built from the ground up to work specifically in portrait mode, with pages that can be scrolled, buttons that navigate to different parts of the issue, and some other nice features that just make it a more premium reading experience. This whole process takes about five days, from start to finish (including designing and building it, a production person checking over it, and the editor giving it a final once over). Now, if we were to make the HD…

I’ve seen your evaluations of password apps, and most recently your Letter Of The Month highlighting yet another, but you’ve always left out the one I use, which I have enjoyed since the days of my HTC phone in the early 2000s. It’s called eWallet by Ilium Software. It works seamlessly across my iPhone, iPad, and iMac — I can sync via the cloud and they all match up immediately. It supports both Touch ID and Face ID. It’s got a password suggestion feature that can use up to 30 characters including standard upper and lower case, number and punctuation options, but also provides memory aids — pronounceable, dictionary (standard or warped), or none. It’s not just for websites, either. It stores bank accounts, clothing sizes, credit cards, drivers licenses, SSN, software…

1 Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance bang-olufsen.com $2,250 This is almost the most expensive smart speaker ever made (Bang & Olufsen itself made the only one more expensive), but there’s a lot more tech here than just Google Assistant support. Speaker and processing developments from B&O’s massively expensive and large Beolab range mean that the shelf–sized unit has twin bass drivers in opposition (to reduce unwanted vibration), adaptive sound for where it’s placed in the room (like the HomePod), two clever audio profiles, and a gorgeous design in real wood and sound–transparent cloth. 2 Gocycle GXi gocycleusa.com $4,799 There’s a lot of clever stuff in this slick ebike. For a start, you can fold it up or down in 10 seconds (or so), and it really lives up to that claim, even if we did just vague…