Macworld July 2022

Whether you’re making the jump into the Apple ecosystem or updating from an older machine, picking up a new Mac can be a great way to supercharge your productivity. How do you decide which type of Mac is right for you? With so many options to choose from, as well as different types of Macs, finding one that fits your setup and delivers everything you need can be tricky. If you’re going to pick up a new Mac, then going with a MacBook can have some distinct advantages over Apple’s desktop options. Don’t get us wrong, all of these machines are perfectly capable of doing what you need them to do, but there are some places where Apple’s laptops shine brighter than the iMac and other desktop machines. As such, here…

Whether you’re making the jump into the Apple ecosystem or updating from an older machine, picking up a new Mac can be a great way to supercharge your productivity. How do you decide which type of Mac is right for you? With so many options to choose from, as well as different types of Macs, finding one that fits your setup and delivers everything you need can be tricky. If you’re going to pick up a new Mac, then going with a desktop Mac can have some distinct advantages over Apple’s portable MacBook options. Don’t get us wrong, all of these machines are perfectly capable of doing what you need them to do, but there are some places where the desktop Macs shine brighter than the MacBooks. As such, here are…

One of the world’s least-exciting sentences is, “Let’s talk about technology standards!” But I promise I’m not digging down into wiring schematics, pinout diagrams, and 1,000-page protocol descriptions. Rather, I want to help you get up to speed on how USB and Thunderbolt work separately and together so you know how you can best use them—and troubleshoot them when incompatibilities arise. The path forward relies on the latest standards: Thunderbolt 4 and USB4. While not perfectly compatible with each other, they are nearly so. Most importantly, the two standards have effectively converged on a single cable type you can purchase and use almost universally with Thunderbolt 3 or 4, and USB 3.1, 3.2, and USB4 via USB-C. USB: THE ONCE AND FUTURE UNIVERSAL STANDARD USB was at one point the great hope of…

Few pieces of Mac software can claim the history of PopChar, a utility that makes it a click and a hover to see the appearance of individual characters in fonts installed on your Mac. Released in 1987 for System 5 and revamped as PopChar X for Mac OS X 10.2 in 2002, many current users weren’t born when some of us relied on PopChar as a critical part of our daily workflow in PageMaker, QuarkXPress, and InDesign. (Or even Ready, Set, Go!) From its earliest days, PopChar popped. When you click in a preferred corner of the screen, the utility pops out, giving you easy access to hundreds to tens of thousands of characters in a given font in its palette-like window. Examine the repertoire available in the font. Hover over…

Apple had a habit of being stingy with ports on its Macs for many years. The low-water mark was the 12-inch MacBook, the first of its computers with USB-C—and it sported just a single USB-C port for power and peripherals. Later iterations of the MacBook Air at least upped the count to two USB-C ports. Apple is changing, though—the company became downright baroque with the 2021 M1 Pro and M1 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, providing something closer to a pre-2016 range of built-in connectivity options. But many laptop owners and some with desktop Macs still long for more ports—sometimes a lot more. If you ever felt, “What I really need is a dock with 18 jacks in it that draws over 200 watts of peak power,” the CalDigit…

SONOS ROAM Introduced last year, the Sonos Roam portable spear was available in Black or White. The company has now expanded the color choices to include Olive, Wave, and Sunset. It’s still 6.1 x 2.4 x 2.4 inches, weighs a hair less than a pound, and has a 16mm tweeter and an oval mid-woofer. And given its compact form factor, the Sonos Roam still packs in exceptional—sometimes shockingly exceptional—sound. The Roam’s audio quality gets a solid assist from its Auto Trueplay feature, which automatically tinkers with the sound whenever you pick up the Roam and place it down in a new location. —BEN PATTERSON PRO-JECT E1 BT This Pro-ject turntable connects has a built-in phono preamp and it can connect to a line-level input of any receiver or integrated amplifier, even the auxiliary…