Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i MacFormat

Whether you love taking photos on your iPhone, iPad or a digital camera, Apple’s Photos app is a great place to start. It works beautifully with iCloud Photos, makes it easy to manage all the images you shoot, and offers an increasingly sophisticated range of photo-editing tools. Plus it supports third-party app extensions too. In our in-depth guide starting on p20, you’ll discover how to make the most of Photos across all your devices, the key similarities and differences between each version, and how machine learning can help you find your favourite shots faster. We’ve also included our top recommendations for third-party apps that can help you take your photos even further. Sticking with the theme of discovery, on p62 we take a deep dive into the evolution of interface…

WE ASKED… Which Mac will you buy next? Log on and see next issue’s big question! twitter.com/macformat facebook.com/macformat Apple Watch body temp sensor The Apple Watch Series 8 could get a useful new feature that was absent from the Series 7, if a reputable analyst is to be believed. Tipster Ming-Chi Kuo explained in early May that Apple had originally planned to include a body temperature sensor in the Apple Watch Series 7, but ran out of time before the device entered the manufacturing phase. Instead, Kuo believes it could now make it into the Series 8. However, that depends on whether Apple can get the feature’s algorithm right. Body temperature can quickly fluctuate, making it difficult to accurately gauge for a smartwatch. That means the feature could be delayed…

Apple has announced it will remove apps that have not been updated in a “significant amount of time” from the App Store. The policy came to public attention in late April through developers who were worried that apps that were fully functional yet considered “finished” would be deleted. At first, Apple gave developers 30 days to update their apps. However, following a backlash, this notice period was extended to 90 days. It was noted by observers that several outdated apps were still in the App Store despite not receiving updates, including the once-popular Pocket God game, last updated in 2015. Apple later clarified that it was removing apps that had not been updated in the past three years and did not meet a “minimum download threshold” (meaning “the app has…

1 Emerge Wave-1 $450 (about £415) > emerge.io Virtual reality (VR) headsets are a great way to see a new world, but they’re not always adept at making you feel that novel experience — what about your sense of touch? The Emerge Wave–1 is an unassuming box that could rectify that by emitting ultrasonic waves that produce a tactile sensation in your hands. Just reach your arms out and you get an extra level of immersion in your virtual world that takes the whole thing up a notch. For instance, when you reach out to hold someone’s hand in virtual reality, the Wave–1 blasts a precise wave of pressure towards your palms so you can ‘feel’ the other person. Instead of focusing on sight and sound like most standard VR…

Whether you’re a camera enthusiast or just someone who takes cat photos on their iPhone for fun, Apple’s Photos app is your go-to destination. In this in-depth guide we’ll help you discover the key features of Photos, from importing your media, to creating albums and processing your pictures to perfection so that they impress family, friends and social media followers. We’ll also explore Extensions for Photos and demonstrate how to make the most of the Photos app on iPad and iPhone too. It’s a one-stop shop for photography lovers everywhere. As well as showing you the ropes when it comes to fixing common picture problems with colour, tone and composition, we’ll demonstrate techniques to help you come up with really creative results. Of course, you’re not tied to the Mac…

The iPhone’s smaller screen can be a bit cramped for photo editing. The iPad gives you the freedom to edit your images wherever you like with the added bonus of a larger display (and the ability to enjoy using a stylus to retouch masks in a more organic way). Pixelmator Photo £6.99 FROM pixelmator.com Pixelmator Photo features many of the tools found in macOS Photos and it displays them in similar looking panels, so you’ll master it in minutes. It packs in many more filters than Photos so you can stylise shots more quickly. You can also enjoy making selective colour adjustments on the go while Denoise reduces the presence of compression artefacts. FaceTune 2 Free (IAPs) FROM facetuneapp.com If your model’s expression is a bit straight, use Facetune 2’s…

We spend a lot of time snapping and sharing our shots to social media sites. Thanks to Luminar Neo’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools we no longer need to spend ages processing our pictures to make them look their best. Luminar Neo can improve a careless composition in a click, and turn a dull overcast shot into a more colourful and interesting one thanks to a range of creative colour and tone grading presets that suit a range of subjects. The app has plenty of manual tools up its sleeve too, but we’ll show you how to hit the ground running to produce eye-catching results with the minimum of effort. You can even banish ugly bits of street furniture (such as power cables) using one-click AI assisted tools. Unplugged or plugged…

Hollywood movie makers can adjust their camera’s aperture to change the strength of a clip’s background or foreground blur. This selective focus enables them to draw the eye to particular people or blur out background distractions. A wider aperture (such as an f-stop of 2.0) creates a shallower depth of field and a correspondingly stronger background blur. If you have an iPhone 13, you can produce a Hollywood-style selective focus effect using the fantastically versatile and effective Cinematic shooting mode. The Cinematic mode is a video version of the Camera app’s Portrait mode. It recognises people and objects in the frame, and creates an animated mask that keeps the chosen subject looking sharp while digitally blurring the background (or vice versa). Cinematic mode works its magic automatically but you can…

Safari is one of the most important apps on your iPad, because it’s your way into the worldwide web. And if you want the fully fledged web experience without being locked into the walled gardens and restricted features of some website-specific apps, it can also be your online ally. The latest version of Safari is the best yet, with plenty of features that will help you browse better, protect your privacy and eliminate all kinds of irritations. But the arrival of this Safari was also rather controversial. As with iPhone, Safari’s Tab Bar was moved to the bottom of the display. And while that works fine for the smaller iPhone, it felt daft on the bigger iPad – so, thankfully, Apple reconsidered and it’s back to its proper place. However,…

EXPERT ADVICE Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems Contact us Email your queries and your questions to genius@macformat.com How Monterey is looking up It’s magic to select a photo of a dog and be told that it’s a Havanese, or pick a painting and learn that it was created by Camille Pissarro. These are examples of Monterey’s Visual Look Up in action, and a reflection of Apple’s growing use of machine learning. Notable landmarks, flowers and plants, dog and cat breeds, and paintings can be identified almost immediately on recent Macs and Apple devices. There are small catches. This is currently only available for certain combinations of language and country; what we can do in macOS 12.3 in the UK doesn’t work yet if you’re using English…

Amiga OS (1985) Commodore’s 1980s Amiga has a special place in the hearts of gamers and musicians. It was fast, did proper multi-tasking and boasted arcade-quality games, but sadly Commodore couldn’t maintain the momentum. BeOS (1990) BeOS hoped to be a rival to Apple and Windows, and it courted Mac clone makers to ship it on their computers. Apple considered buying it but passed; Steve Jobs would find a better parent for Mac OS X. NeXTSTEP (1989) While exiled from Apple, Steve Jobs set up NeXT, with hardware running NeXTSTEP OS. It wasn’t a big hit – although Tim Berners-Lee created the web browser on it. Apple bought it in 1996 and made it part of Mac OS X. Newton OS (1993) The Newton offered a mobile Apple experience that…

Safari in iOS 15 If design is how it works, the resdesign of Safari in iOS 15/iPadOS 15 was a big step backwards; it was confusing to use and it made everyday tasks more difficult. And if design is how it looks, it failed on that front too. It was hastily redesigned. Big Sur We’re used to it now, but the radical redesign of macOS Big Sur really upset a lot of people who felt it prioritised style over functionality. It was definitely prettier, but alerts and dialogs were cramped and many felt Apple had gone too far. iOS 7 Control Centre The combination of light colours, thin lines and transparency in iOS 7 made the Control Centre almost unreadable on iPhones with light wallpaper, and the newly flat design…

Sketch (sketch.com) is where developers and designers turn their ideas into apps and, over the years, Chief Design Officer Emanuel Sá has seen many interface design trends come and go. Where do you think we’re headed now? “Design is a living thing that’s evolving a bit slower than in the past,” he says. “User interfaces today aren’t as plastic and exaggerated as in skeuomorphism days, but nor are they as plain as iOS 7 was.” Instead of past extremes, “I believe we’re on the path to finding balance: where interfaces don’t get in the way, but merge with hardware more organically.” What crime design would you ban? For Sá that would have to be any kind of revival of skeuomorphism. “I get why designers miss skeuomorphism,” he says. “But I…

There are a number of options for creating contacts. You can sync via iCloud to pull them in from your iPhone. You can type them manually. And you can import them from other internet accounts. Or, you can import files in a variety of formats such as .vcf. Contacts is even smart enough to monitor apps like Mail and suggest additions to a contact, such as a new email address, if it finds something it thinks is relevant. The more flexibility you give Contacts to pull in information from elsewhere, the more likely you are to end up with duplicate contacts. So, Contacts enables you to merge entries easily if you find multiple cards for the same person or company. Creating groups is a useful way to keep in touch…

BUYING ADVICE Our authoritative reviews help you make more informed choices Contact us Email your queries and your questions to letters@macformat.com Our ratings Our reviews are totally independent; we’re not affiliated with Apple or anyone else, nor are we influenced by advertisers. A truly exceptional product. Award given solely at the discretion of the editor. The best example of its kind when pitted against comparable products. A brilliant thing Strongly recommended Worth considering Notable flaws A waste of your money…

$109.95 (about £105) FROM nuphy.com FEATURES 2.4G wireless connection, AirFeet, PBT keycaps The NuPhy Air60 wireless mechanical keyboard is 60% the size of a standard keyboard. This makes it as portable as you can currently get while still achieving a tactile response from the keys. Weighing just 450g, it’s well built with an aluminium case and ‘AirFeet’, so you can place it on top of laptops without touching their keys. It comes with USB-A and USB-C cables and works in wired mode, over Bluetooth 5 and also 2.4GHz wireless via an included USB-A dongle. Charging over USB offers up to 48 hours of operation – or a little less if you use the RGB backlighting, which has 20 different modes. Up to four devices can be paired and switched and…

£90.95 FROM joby.com FEATURES Panning video, timelapse and panoramic still modes he latest iPhone models enable you to capture smooth handheld panning video clips when using Telephoto or Wide lenses. The Ultra Wide lens will produce shakier clips as it doesn’t use Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS). However, if you pop your iPhone on the Joby Spin, the electronic rotating tripod head enables you to capture smooth and stable wide-angle pans (up to 360º). The Spin is easy to control thanks to the dedicated Motion app. You can swipe the iPhone screen to rotate the Spin and tap to set in and out points. Tap Go and the Spin will rotate while recording the preprogrammed pan. You can even set a delay that enables you to appear in the clip so…

£69.95 FROM stmgoods.com FEATURES Qi wireless charging stand, USB-C port (USB-C cable supplied) While Australian firm STM Goods is chiefly known for its laptop bags, it makes a bunch of other accessories too. Available in black or white, this charging stand comprises a sloping shelf with Qi wireless charging pad for the iPhone 8 or later (there’s no express MagSafe support, notably – although it does work with MagSafe iPhones too), plus a swing-out arm for an Apple Watch that can be tucked away behind the stand when not in use. Also located behind the stand, at its base, is another wireless charging pad for AirPods and AirPods Pro – although you’ll need to place the earbuds in their wireless charging case if you have one (if not, you can…

£17.99 FROM theblueplum.com NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later Home Inventory doesn’t try to hide its database back end with interface niceties The idea of logging and managing inventories of your possessions has been around as long as computers have been in homes. And the Mac has had its fair share of very good apps that do just that. Home Inventory, you won’t be surprised to learn given its name, has also been developed to do just that. Home Inventory makes good use of modern macOS features such as Continuity Camera, enabling you to take pictures or scan documents on your iPhone or iPad and add them directly to your inventory. As well as adding document scans and images to items, you can assign them to rooms, supply a value for…

One of the most interesting products at Apple’s Peek Performance event in March was the Mac Studio, not just for its all-new design, but for the behemoth of a chip it contained. The M1 Ultra was the most powerful Apple Silicon chip we’d ever seen – but it looks like Apple could have something even stronger in the works. That’s because a number of sources have talked up the possibility of a new, super high-end chip dubbed the M1 Extreme. If they’re right, this formidable chip will be destined for the upgraded Mac Pro, which could be unveiled on-stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. Here’s what we can expect. At the Peek Performance show, Apple teased that the Mac Pro was due for an Apple silicon update,…

When it comes to editing photos on your Mac, Pixelmator Pro is one of the best apps out there. Its latest update brings a slate of welcome changes, including refinements, new features, and speed optimisations. There are now over 200 new vector shapes, plus support for Apple’s new M1 Ultra chip, which makes machine learning ‘blazingly fast’. And you can tweak compositions (nondestructively) with new colour adjustments and effects layers, putting more tools at your disposal. Elsewhere, there’s a new scrubby zoom mode to drill down into images quickly, a redesigned layers sidebar, and other interface tune-ups that show useful info at a glance. These improvements make Pixelmator Pro an even better choice for editing your photos, whether you’re a photography professional, enthusiast or hobbyist. [iOS APP] Dey: Minimal Calendar…

Why the PowerKick is perfect for your day-to-day A portable wireless power bank delivering both functionality and convenience with clever suction cups to secure your smartphone (or other device) to the charger. An innovative kickstand props the device in either landscape mode for video viewing or portrait mode for video conferencing, all while charging. Indicator lights provide the status of the device charging as well as its own current battery charge, so you’ll never be caught out by a lack of charge! Call or visit our website… www.magazinesdirect.com/mac/A45K Or call 0330 333 1113 and quote ‘A45K’ Other benefits of subscribing to the UK’s best-selling Apple magazine… ✔ For more than 25 years, we’ve been helping Apple fans get the most from their kit. ✔ Our tutorials and guides empower you with…

There are lots of different ways to move between open applications in macOS, depending on how you like to work. You can move the mouse pointer down to the Dock and select the application you want from there. But let’s face it, even if you’re a demon with a mouse or trackpad, it’s kinda slow. If you tend to work with applications in full-screen mode, you could tap the Mission Control key on your keyboard, or invoke it with a three-fingered swipe over the trackpad and choose the application from there. You could even fire up Spotlight, start typing the application’s name and select it when it appears in the results. But if you really want the fastest way to move between applications, there’s only one option: the App Switcher.…

Haptic Touch has its roots in a couple of different Apple technologies. It provides much of the same functionality as the old 3D Touch on iPhone, enabling you to access app features and menus without actually opening the apps, for example. But the process no longer relies on a touch-sensitive layer on the screen that used to detect a ‘firm’ press. Instead, it now uses the length of press to determine what you’re trying to do. The other technology is haptics, where the device, whether it’s an iPhone, Apple Watch or a trackpad, provides feedback that you can feel with your fingers. The Taptic Engine provides this feedback. The Taptic Engine was introduced in 2018 with the iPhone XR, though it wasn’t until the following year that it featured across…

Wouldn’t it be great if your Apple Watch changed its face at a particular time, such as when you arrived or left work, or at sunset, or on Tuesdays? With the Shortcuts app on your iPhone you can get it to do just that. Shortcuts enables you to create handy automations, which means apps will do specific things when certain criteria are met. And this includes the Watch app for your Apple Watch. In this tutorial, we’ll keep it simple by setting a daytime face and an evening face. But you can use exactly the same tools to set different triggers, such as changing the face when it’s time to leave for work or college or when you arrive at the gym. And, as we’ll discover, it’s really easy to…

Apple says Microsoft’s Windows shamelessly copied the Mac; Bill Gates says he was inspired by different software long before. But there’s no doubt that when the Mac launched with its GUI, Microsoft’s only OS was the text-based MS-DOS. Its first GUI, the half-baked Windows 1.0, didn’t arrive until 1987 and Microsoft didn’t really get it right until Windows 3.1 in 1992. Windows 95 made the PC cool, arguably eclipsing the Mac, but Microsoft fell into a design rut that it didn’t escape until the launch of Windows 10 in 2015.…

As personal computing moves from your desk to your wrist or your head, its interface won’t be like your Mac or iPhone. Your Apple Watch’s interface is very different from those devices, and your Apple augmented reality (AR) headset will be even more dramatically different. Does an Apple AR device – or a Facebook VR or a Microsoft Mixed Reality one – mean interacting with the kind of interface you’ve only seen in Iron Man, Minority Report or in the case of Facebook’s Metaverse, VRML websites from 1997? The short answer is: probably not. Simplicity is the key here. To take a real-world AR example, a reversing camera that overlays parking directions or the heads-up display in a car is an AR device; if it more than simply shows the…

Once you’ve mastered the basics of the Contacts app, there’s plenty more you can do with it. As well as messaging, calling or emailing a contact from within the app, you can share contacts, show their address on a map, or see their birthday in Calendar. Contacts also enables you to print an address label from within the app, or create a PDF for printing later – by combining Contacts with the macOS ‘Save as PDF’ feature print dialog. When it comes to editing existing contacts, you can add photos or other pictures to their card, and you create custom fields for adding entries like website or social media URLs. One really useful feature is the ability to add a nickname that you can use with Siri when you want…

£199.99 FROM uk.creative.com FEATURES 2.1-channel soundbar with Dolby Atmos, 120W RMS power output (60W soundbar, 60W subwoofer), Bluetooth 5.0, 1x HDMI ARC port, 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, 1x digital optical input, 1x USB flash drive port (firmware updates only), 1x subwoofer output, remote control, 565x75x88mm (soundbar)/422x115x250mm (subwoofer) With hundreds of movies available on iTunes with Dolby surround sound, it’s no wonder many of us eschew the puny speakers in most TVs in favour of external speakers. Whether that’s in the shape of fully-fledged home cinema systems or compact, but big-sounding soundbars. The Creative Stage 360 takes the second route – offering a blackclad compact soundbar with support for Dolby Atmos, plus a welter of connectivity options that enable you to hook up your TV, Mac, Apple TV, a games console…

£229 FROM Moleskine.com FEATURES Smart pen, smart notebook, free iOS/iPadOS app This is perfect if you need to write anything lengthy before typing into a Mac There’s something about the creaminess and thickness of the paper in Moleskine notebooks that makes you feel like A Proper Writer. But the downside is, sooner or later, you may need to turn your beautifully penned words into digital text for use in Word, Pages or Scrivener. That’s where the Moleskine Smart Writing System comes in. It uses a smart pen and special notebook that contain an invisible grid, enabling the pen to record what you write and send it to your iPhone or iPad. The pen is unusual looking, but it feels nice in the hand, and while it is a little more…

£51.99 FROM gamesir.hk FEATURES Lightning connectivity, Turbo and Micro Switch buttons The majority of casual, touch-based games on iPhone need no assistance – you simply tap and/or swipe. But for 3D shooters, or driving and flying games, the sheer number and location of on-screen controls can make precise control difficult, hence accessories like this one. The X2 Lightning is a gamepad that securely holds your iPhone between its two spring-loaded halves with buttons, a joystick and four-way cursor control on the left; plus another joystick and additional buttons on the right. At the top are pleasingly clicky L1, L2, R1 and R2 shoulder buttons. The X2 Lightning comes with a main Lightning port to connect your iPhone, from which it draws a minimal amount of power. Plus, there’s a Lighting…

$77 (about £70) FROM rogueamoeba.com NEEDS macOS 10.14 or later Record a conference call, or a multimic podcast Audio Hijack is a clever app that can intercept and record any audio playing on your Mac, be it from a connected microphone, a Skype call, a video playing in Safari or anywhere else. A simple use for it would be to record a conference call but you could also record a multi-mic podcast, or digitise and clean up your vinyl collection. It records directly to a file and doesn’t have any editing tools though the developer makes Fission which does, and the two can be bought together at a discount. You start with a Session, and numerous templates are provided for common tasks. Your Grid contains Blocks which represent inputs, outputs…

£6.99 FROM pixelmator.com NEEDS iOS/iPadOS 14 or later Pixelmator Photo is a desktop-class image-editing app for iPhone. It’s a nondestructive app with Raw image support, so edits aren’t made to the original image, but stored in a separate file until you export a new version. It works rather like Lightroom on Mac, only with extra machine learning (ML). Two ML tools present themselves when you open a photo: one that ‘fixes’ the exposure and contrast of your image, and another that increases its resolution without arte-facting. Does it work? Sort of. But export an AI-edited image and zoom in 100% on a desktop and you can see swirls and patterns in the detail. AI cropping does a good job of identifying the subject of a photo, though it would be…

WIRELESS HEADPHONES Beats Fit Pro £199.99 beatsbydre.com Expect almost all of the features of AirPods Pro, but at a more affordable price. The Fit Pro sound good too. MF375 OUR TOP 3 USB-C MONITORS BenQ EW3280U › £579 › MF364 › benq.eu/en-uk HP E27d G4 › £478.80 › MF364 › hp.com Lenovo Q27-10 › £299.99 › MF364 › lenovo.com WIRELESS KEYBOARD Logitech MX Keys Mini £99.99 logitech.com Beautifully made compact Bluetooth keyboard with concave backlit keys and multi-device support. MF375 OUR TOP 3 PORTABLE PRINTERS Epson Workforce WF-110W › £199.99 › MF370 › epson.co.uk Canon Pixma TR170 › £229.99 › MF370 › canon.co.uk HP OfficeJet 250 › £259.99 › MF370 › hp.com EXTERNAL DRIVE OWC Envoy Pro SX From £345 owc.com Life is hard and so is this external SSD,…

When Apple launched the Studio Display, many reviewers were immediately disappointed with the webcam quality. The feeling was so strong that Apple publicly announced that the fault lay with its software and that an update would be released to improve the output quality. However, the update only marginally fixed the problem, and it now appears the issue might be related to the webcam’s hardware. That claim was made by 9to5Mac writer Filipe Espósito, who ran some experiments comparing various Apple devices. He concluded that Centre Stage – which is present in the Studio Display and recent iPads – is to blame. That’s because although the Studio Display has a 12MP camera like the front-facing lens on the latest iPhone, the Studio Display’s front camera has an ultra-wide lens that uses…

1,000 kilowatt-hours Reduction in the amount of energy used by a Mac Studio over a year, compared to a typical desktop PC. $4.7 billion Amount of money issued in green bonds to businesses that will help Apple reduce its global emissions. 2030 Date by which Apple is expecting to achieve net zero throughout its entire supply chain. 23 million Number of metric tons of carbon emissions Apple avoided in 2021, due to its commitment to using 100% renewable energy across all its facilities. 22% Amount of Apple’s gross carbon footprint it says accounts for energy use by customers when charging their devices. It’s addressing this through increased energy efficiency, and is developing a strategy to account for any other emissions that remain. 1 million Metric tons of carbon Apple is…

For our latest subscription offer see page 34! One of the many pleasant aspects of owning a Mac is how ‘oven-ready’ the devices arrive. There’s very little that needs to be done in terms of setup. If your data is all backed up properly you can usually load it on to your new device within minutes with just a few clicks. There are a few specification choices to be made at the purchase stage – memory, storage, colour etc – but generally, it is all an intentionally straightforward process. However, once that decision is made, there is no going back. Macs generally cannot be user-upgraded, to the consternation of some. That said, most Apple machines perform at a decent level for a few years too – this piece is being…

Every now and then, you’ll probably need to take a screenshot or video recording of your Mac’s screen. Rather than take a blurry photo using your iPhone, you can use the built-in tools in macOS to get a crisp, clean capture instead. You might know that pressing Command+Shift+3 will grab a screenshot of your entire Mac screen. But there are more options, and much more power baked into macOS that enable you to save what you want with minimal fuss. For instance, you can draw a selection box on your screen, then move it around to the perfect position before firing the shutter. You can save a picture of a single app window, or even screenshot your Mac’s Touch Bar. There are tons of little-known options that bring a real…

Thanks to social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, there are plenty of opportunities to share selfies with friends, families and followers. And if you’re keen to present yourself in the best light without creating an unrealistic version of your portrait, there’s an easy way to do this. Digitally editing people’s features can be a contentious issue. However, if you err on the side of subtle improvement, you can tastefully turn a lacklustre headshot into a striking portrait. Much like the effects of a hygienist, you can use an app to work on yellow coffee stains for whiter teeth. Or, like applying a bit of foundation, you can conceal a temporary blemish blighting someone’s complexion; and instead of dabbing powder on to skin, you can reduce distracting shine in…

Apple didn’t invent the graphical user interface (GUI); that was the work of Doug Engelbart in the 1960s. Researchers at Xerox PARC built on his work and made the 1973 Alto, the first personal computer with a GUI. It had many of the things we take for granted today: a mouse and pointer; windows for different things; icons; and menus with drop-down menus. That operating system spawned another, Gypsy, the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. And it lead to the 1981 Xerox Star, a computer that incorporated many of these ideas. A certain Steve Jobs was particularly impressed by the PARC’s work as Apple made its own GUI, helped by many former PARC members. The first GUI product Apple shipped was the Apple Lisa in…

ISSUE 378 JUNE 2022 › 54 hacks for Mac, iPhone and iPad › Tested: Mac Studio & Studio Display › Which iPad is right for you? › Shortcuts for Mac made easy ISSUE 377 MAY 2022 › M1 iPad Air in-depth review › Tested: second-gen iPhone SE › Music and TV masterclass › Mac Studio – the next-level desktop ISSUE 376 APRIL 2022 › Do more with iCloud and iCloud+ › Make any Mac easier to use (and your iOS devices too) › Power up your passwords To order back issues of the print magazine, go to bit.ly/macformat_backissues or phone +44 (0)330 333 1113 and we’ll post them out to you. Download back issues onto your iOS device at any time and keep them forever in your personal library. bit.ly/macformatipad…

£299.99 FROM nanoleaf.me FEATURES 32 Nanoleaf Shapes smart lighting panels (4 Triangles, 28 Mini Triangles) plus accessories, Wi-Fi, Thread Border Router support, HomeKit support, over 16 million colours, touch actions, layout detection Nanoleaf’s LED smart lights come in all kinds of shapes, and millions of colours, but for this limited edition set, Nanoleaf has pulled something else out of the bag – a tie-in with the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie. That means the 32 Nanoleaf Shapes (four Triangles and 28 Mini Triangles) can be arranged to create colourful, abstract versions of your favourite Sonic characters with preset lighting scenes to match. As you’d expect, the Starter Kit comes with everything you need to get up and running – the lighting panels themselves, of course, plus the linkers and double-sided…

ON TEST… › 2Do › GoodTask › Microsoft To Do › OmniFocus 3 › Things 3 › Todoist There’s no shortage of productivity apps on the Mac. But that can make choosing the best one all the more difficult. They range in complexity from the simplest, text-based to do list apps, to fullblown ‘getting things done’ (GTD) task managers that while extremely powerful, require an investment of time in learning how to use them and a commitment to use them regularly. So, the first question to ask yourself when you’re trying decide which is right for you, is ‘what do you want to do with it?’ Do you want an app where you can make the occasional to-do list and check things off when they are done, or do you…

£4.99/month (Apple Arcade) FROM gibbongame.com NEEDS macOS 12 or later Watching the sun-dappled trees and raging fires as you fly from tree to tree is mesmerising Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is more than just a game. It is, according to its developer, a story of “freedom and survival” amid “the destructive force of human civilisation” that hopes to raise awareness of Southeast Asia’s critically endangered gibbons. While swinging through the trees as one of the eponymous apes, you must avoid poachers and rescue your child as you see the destruction of the rainforest first-hand. That makes it sound like Gibbon is a depressing game, but that’s not the case. Instead, it’s a gorgeous 2D platforming experience with fluid gameplay and plenty of replay value. We just wish the main story…

£2.99 (IAPs) FROM phnsft.com/products/safe NEEDS iOS/iPadOS 14 or later Safe+ is more than just a password manager. It takes a couple of different apps that require encryption and sticks them together, liaising with a Mac app for an Apple-only ecosystem of protection. So Safe+ is also a secure wallet for health insurance data, passports, images of travel documents, and boarding passes. It’ll hold membership cards and store cards, even credit cards. Spend on IAPs and you can back up your photos (free), videos, docs, and contacts. Support for Face and Touch ID means you don’t even need to remember your master password on a regular basis. A Safari Action enables you to access encrypted data from the browser. You set up categories, then open them to add items, such as…

iMac From £1,249 Ever since the Bondi Blue iMac debuted in 1998, Apple’s all-in-one desktop computer has been setting standards for design and performance. The current 24in model is certainly Apple’s finest yet – thanks to its 4.5K (4480x2520) Retina display and the Apple-designed M1 chip, which is available with either an 8-core CPU/7-core GPU at the entry-level, or an 8-core CPU/8-core GPU on the mid-range and top-tier versions. All models come with 8GB of memory as standard (upgradeable to 16GB), with solid-state drive (SSD) storage ranging from 256GB on the entry-level and mid-range versions to 512GB on the top tier, although you can add more – up to 1TB on the entry-level and up to 2TB on the mid-range and top-tier models if you wish via Apple’s build-to-order options.…

PHOTO EDITOR Luminar AI £59 skylum.com If you want to improve your photos without spending too much, this is the app for you. MF361 OUR TOP 3 ANTI-VIRUS Intego Internet Security X9 › £60/year › MF377 › intego.com Bitdefender Antivirus › £30/year › MF377 › bitdefender.com Clario › £53/year › MF377 › clario.co DISK UTILITY Carbon Copy Cloner 6 £30 bombich.com Backup, cloning and snapshot management utility which handles complex tasks with ease. MF368 OUR TOP 3 WEB BROWSERS Firefox › Free › MF369 › mozilla.org Opera › Free › MF369 › opera.com Vivaldi › Free › MF369 › vivaldi.com TEXT RECOGNITION TextSniper 3 £6.99 textsniper.app TextSniper can quickly recognise and extract text from anything you can see on your Mac’s screen. MF364 OUR TOP 3 EMAIL Spark › Free…

MacBook: the hits and the history ›From the Mac Portable to the MacBook Pro, we lift the lid on the laptops that shaped Apple’s destiny Make the most of Maps ›From its curated guides to its wow-inducing flyovers, Apple’s Maps app is better than ever. Fancy a test drive? ALSO INSIDE… › Create a must-read newsletter on your Mac ›Achieve inbox zero! We show you how ›Enjoy music on your Watch … and much more! Contents subject to change 28 JUN 2022 ISSUE 380 ON SALE DON’T MISS IT – SUBSCRIBE TODAY! IN PRINT & ON YOUR iPAD Our print and digital bundle gets you the paper magazine as well as our iPad edition magazinesdirect.com/macformat-magazine-subscription ON YOUR MAC Read digitally on your Mac: subscribe with Zinio at bit.ly/ziniomacf…

When I think about how technology has changed over the last 40 years, it’s the rise and fall of the digital camera that always strikes me as the most dramatic. While SLRs are still in demand, the cheaper end of the digital camera market has all but collapsed thanks to the ubiquitousness of smartphones equipped with 12MP cameras that are as good as most people ever need. Apple, of course, started the smartphone trend and is currently leading the way with the iPhone 13 Pro’s three camera system that’s capable of stunning macro photography, but if you leaf back through the pages of Apple’s history you’ll find that the iPhone wasn’t its first foray into the digital camera space. Leading the charge back in 1994 was the Apple QuickTake 100,…