Macworld October 2015

Apple’s iTunes gets a lot of criticism, including a lot that I dish out, and much of this criticism is justified. iTunes has lots of problems syncing iOS devices, iTunes Match and iCloud Music Library are confusing, and the interface, particularly in iTunes 12, is confusing. To be fair, though, iTunes does get a lot right. You can condemn it for many problems, but it’s good to sometimes take a step back and give it credit for the features that work so well that you hardly pay attention to them. I’ve picked ten things that iTunes does right. 1. CD RIPPING If you remember back in the days before iTunes, CD ripping software—at least on the Mac—was far less user-friendly than iTunes. You had to manually enter tags for your music, and then…

Three years ago Twitter broke its covenant with the third-party developers (go.macworld.com/twitter1) who helped fuel its initial growth and create some of its most innovative features. The message was clear: Twitter was in charge of its own platform, and while other Twitter apps would be tolerated, they would only be so in limited fashion and for a limited time. Today Twitter is a company in turmoil, with investors such as Chris Sacca clamoring for change (go.macworld.com/sacca) after the exit of former CEO Dick Costolo and the interim takeover of cofounder Jack Dorsey. What can’t be disputed is that Twitter’s Mac app—introduced in 2011—is an extreme example of how Twitter has squandered the past few years. It drove third-party developers off of its platform in order to exert control, and then proceeded…

PRODUCTIVITY? SWEET! Office 2016 for Mac was a long time coming, but it brings plenty of new features and better feature parity with the Windows version than ever. Microsoft has done a lot to streamline the experience, with a customizable, collapsible Ribbon as well as cross platform keyboard shortcuts, but with any major Office update, there’s bound to be a learning curve. These tips for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneNote should come in handy. Office 2016 is available for Office365 subscribers, with a wider release in September. 1. DON’T FORGET TO SAVE! This is probably our most important tip: Don’t forget to save! When Apple introduced Auto Save and Versions into OS X, many Mac users started losing our ingrained habit of hitting Command- S often. Unfortunately, Office 2016 (except for OneNote—more on…

PYRAMID OF MAC TOWERS This is a combination of G5 Power Macs and 2008 Mac Pros. Apple used this basic tower design for over seven years. Apple is so focused now on lightweight, small computers, and the aluminum tower was everything but lightweight and small. With that in mind, here’s a disclaimer: Do not attempt to build your own pyramid of aluminum Mac towers. They are heavy machines, and lifting one above your knees is a difficult task. That tower up top? It nearly fell on my head when I tried to place it there. (The things I do for you people.) I really don’t want to hear about Mac enthusiasts inspired by this picture who were crushed by an avalanche of G5 Power Macs and Mac Pros. Don’t do it. WALLSTREET POWERBOOK This…

SO YOU’VE BEEN USING SPOTIFY for a while, and you’ve got a sidebar full of playlists, with songs and albums you’ve been saving. That’s quite a digital collection you’ve got there. But now Apple Music (apple.com/music) has come on the scene, and you want to switch. Spotify won’t help you—you can’t export your playlists, at least not in any usable format—and iTunes has no way of importing your music. What do you do? Go through each and every song on Spotify and search for it on Apple Music? Nah, that’d take too long; you want to listen to music, not fuss around. Fortunately, the $5 Move to Apple Music can help you out. Working with both Spotify and Rdio, this app makes a pipeline between your accounts, finding what you’ve stored on…

NO SINGLE MAC WEB DESIGN APP offers the ideal blend of power and accessibility. But Rage Software’s EverWeb (everwebapp.com) comes closer than most, helping you build attractive, useful sites with minimal hassle. A WEB-DESIGN APP THAT PLAYS NICE Every element of EverWeb’s simple interface is easily in reach when you need it, and out of your way when you don’t. The central layout window’s surrounded by your site structure on the left, a toolbar along the bottom of the screen, and a multi-tabbed Inspector pane for adjusting individual elements on the right. EverWeb includes numerous modern, fully editable templates, each with multiple page types and a mobile version. You can also build sites from scratch with a pleasantly powerful layout engine—though I did sometimes wish for adjustable guides or a grid to keep…