Macworld UK - Complete Guide

NEW 11 & 13in MacBook Air reviews T H E W O R L D ’ S B E S T- S E L L I N G A P P L E M A G A Z I N E

SUMMER 2014

COMPLETE GUIDE TO APPLE’S NEW

OS X Yosemite

The Best Features in New Look OS X 10.10

+iOS 8

Office for iPad

Full reviews of Microsoft’s new iPad Office apps

WorldMags.net

£19.99

MORE

N E W DOMAINS

Per year

Plus £5 application fee*

Prices ex VAT & valid at time of print. Minimum registration 1 year.

.email .exper t

*Non-refundable £5 application fee payable for each .London domain name priority application at point of order.

Search for your perfect domain name and register it instantly. And with 100’s of new domains becoming available, what better time to find something that makes your business different from the rest?

Find out more at fasthosts.co.uk or call 0808 1686 777 SERVERS • WEB HOSTING • DOMAIN NAMES • EXCHANGE EMAIL

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Contents S U M M E R

14 13

7

2 0 1 4

Karen Haslam How Continuity might help to make our lives easier in the future

8

News Apple unveils iOS 8, OS X Yosemite, Continuity and Swift for coders

14 COVER STORY OS X 10.10 The complete guide Everything you need to know about Apple’s OS X Yosemite

20 Best Mac accounting apps We put spreadsheet apps MoneyWorks Gold 7, AccountEDGE Plus, QuickBook for Macs and Billings Pro to the test

20

23 Tech tricks for business Three handy techniques that can make setting up your meetings easier

24 MacBook in the Cloud Staying in sync is easier than you think

25 Calendar events in Excel Say organised and let Automator help compile records of your whereabouts

26 Macs and Thunderbolt We compare Thunderbolt’s file transfer performance against gigabit ethernet

28 Tame your Twitter feed Overwhelmed by Twitter? Don’t be! Use lists to tame your Twitter feed

29 Hidden text tools This hidden OS X contextual menu has plenty of handy text-manipulation tools

30 Group test: Mac security 32 Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac 33 Avira Free Antivirus for Mac

30 WorldMags.net

34 ClamXav 2 35 Eset Cyber Security 36 Intego Mac Internet Security X8 37 Kaspersky Internet Security SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 3

WorldMags.net

Contents

40 Reviews 40 11in Apple MacBook Air (2014) 41 13in Apple MacBook Air (2014)

40

42 Silverstone TS10 42 Silicon Power T11 120GB 43 Kodak i3250 44 VCam247-HD01080 45 ISaw Extreme 46 Hider 2 47 Tesla Effect

48 Help desk

60

Answering your Mac and iOS questions

56 David Price Why Apple opened up

58 New and noteworthy The best new kit for your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

60 iOS 8 explored Everything you need to know about iOS 8 for your iPhone & iPad

66 iOS 7 beyond the basics A raft of expert tips and tricks to make you an iOS 7 ninja

82 Office for iPad Word, Excel and PowerPoint finally come to Apple’s tablet

92 iOS Home An automated iOS-controlled future could be just around the corner…

94 Buyer’s guide The best hardware and software products and buying advice

114 Ashleigh Allsopp How Apple got its mojo back

82 4 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

CHEAPER THAN YOUR DAILY MORNING COFFEE. (AND MUCH EASIER TO ORDER)

ONLY

£2.45

£3.45

PER DAY

PER DAY

DOUBLE SHOT, VENTI FRAPPUCCINO WITH EXTRA MILK, WHIPPED CREAM, AND CHOCOLATE SYRUP

OUR FLEXI-LEASE PACKAGES INCLUDE:

020 7111 1643 WWW.HARDSOFT.CO.UK

27” iMAC

3 year full warranty

Tech support and loan machinery

Option to upgrade after 2 years

Buy for just £1 at the end of the lease

WorldMags.net

HARDSOFT

Established for over 25 years

WorldMags.net From the Editor’s desk By Karen Haslam contact...

Better together…

EDITORIAL Editor Karen Haslam

[email protected]

Technical Editor Andrew Harrison Group Managing Editor Marie Brewis

[email protected]

Art Director Mandie Johnson

[email protected]

Production Editor Rob Woodcock

[email protected]

Multimedia Editor Dominik Tomaszewski

[email protected]

Senior Staff Writer Ashleigh Allsopp

[email protected]

Consumer Tech Editor Chris Martin

[email protected]

Online Editor David Price

[email protected]

Associate Editor Neil Bennett

[email protected]

Associate Editor Jim Martin

[email protected]

Editor-In-Chief Matt Egan

[email protected]

Contributors Jeffery Battersby, Christopher Breen, Serenity Caldwell, Martyn Clayden, Hayden Dingman, Kirk McElhearn, Ryan Faass, James Galbraith, Rob Griffiths, Joad Jackson, Joe Kissell, Gregg Keizer, Stephen Lawson, Dan Miller, Robin Morris, Philip Michaels, David Sparks, Marco Tabini ADVERTISING Head of Advertising Tom Drummond

[email protected]

Account Manager Edward Longmate

[email protected]

Account Manager Julian Tozer

[email protected]

MARKETING [email protected]

Marketing Manager Ash Patel Head of Marketing Design James Walker Affiliate Manager Letitia Austin

[email protected] [email protected]

SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS Subscriptions hotline idg.subscribeonline.co.uk/subscriptions/macworld 0844 322 1251 or 01795 414 606 SUBSCRIPTION RATES

CWO

DD

14 issues

£43.99

£39.99

Europe (14 issues)

£100

£100

Rest of world (14 issues)

£125

£125

FINANCE Financial Director Chris Norman Credit Controller Dawnette Gordon Purchase Ledger Clerk Vicky Bentley Management Accountant Parit Shah PUBLISHING Publishing Director Simon Jary

Apple’s next update will integrate iOS and OS X like never before

[email protected]

[email protected]

Managing Director Kit Gould

Macworld is published by IDG UK IDG UK, 101 Euston Road, London NW1 2RA. Tel: 020 7756 2800 Printer: Wyndeham Press Group Ltd 01621 877 777 Distribution: Seymour Distribution Ltd 020 7429 4000 No material may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission. While every care is taken, the publisher cannot be held legally responsible for any errors in articles, listings or advertisements. All material copyright IDG UK 2014

T

he new versions of Apple’s operating systems just previewed at WWDC (read our features on pages 14 and 60) are designed to integrate more seamlessly than ever before. As iOS has matured over the years we’ve celebrated the fact that we can compose and read emails, or create documents and presentations on our iOS devices when we don’t have access to our Macs. We’ve reached for our iPad rather than our laptops to browse web pages, or we’ve chosen to edit photos on our iPhones, rather than on our Macs. Despite weaknesses – like battery life, screen size or keyboard error – we still prefer to compose an email on our iPhone rather than pull our Mac our of our bag. The device you use depends on your location and circumstances, and we’re willing to make compromises for the sake of accessibility. Apple has given us tools that we can use wherever we are, and we’re grateful enough not to complain when certain elements of the experience aren’t as smooth as we’d like. Any other company would be satisfied with that, but Apple strives for perfection. It wants its customers to have the best experience and not have to compromise. As a result of this philosophy, the next evolution of iOS and OS X will mean fewer compromises. As Apple explained in its WWDC keynote, Continuity is the future. Apple is introducing the Continuity framework to iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. This will integrate both operating systems more closely than ever. With the advent of Yosemite and iOS 8 you’ll be able to answer phone calls on your computer; start an email on your iPhone and finish it on your Mac; view your entire photo library on any of your Apple products (no longer limited to 1,000 photos in your Photo Stream); Airdrop between Macs and iOS devices (at last); easily

We still prefer to email on our iPhones than to pull a Mac out of our bag store and access all your documents via the Dropbox-like iCloud Drive on any of your devices (including a PC running Windows!); and so much more. Thanks to Continuity you’ll be able use the right device for the right task at the right moment, and shift between devices smoothly. And crucially, everything you need will be available. You won’t need to lug your laptop about just in case you need access to files on it, because that data will be available on all your devices. Any concerns that OS X is evolving to be more like iOS are unfounded. The two operating systems are evolving together in such a way that will eventually render the hardware invisible and put the focus on the work you’re doing. In many ways iOS is evolving more towards OS X. What might Continuity mean for a product like the iWatch? Soon we could find ourselves performing many of the tasks we use our iPhones for, on an Apple gadget tied to our wrist, just for the sake of accessibility. Interesting times ahead…

SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 7

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

News

Apple unveils iOS 8 & OS X Yosemite Worldwide Developers Conference focuses solely on software BY ASHLEIGH ALLSOPP

A

pple’s WWDC 2014 (Worldwide Developers Conference) kicked off with a keynote on 2 June, during which the company unveiled iOS 8 and OS X 10.10, as well as new tools for developers that are going to revolutionise the way apps work on iOS. Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage during the event, joined by the likes of Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi and other Apple executives who each showed off what Apple has been busy working on behind the scenes.

Minimalistic approach Apple unveiled OS X 10.10 Yosemite, which takes some design inspiration from the iOS 7 redesign, including translucency and more minimalist icons. In a strategy change, Apple said that the OS X Yosemite beta will be available to the first million non-developers who register for the OS X Beta Program. They will be able to download the prerelease version of the software for free, while providing feedback on its performance. This is the first time since 2000 that Apple has let large numbers of outsiders get an early look at an upcoming Mac operating system. Find out more about OS X 10.10 Yosemite on page 14. Apple went on to show off its new mobile operating system called iOS 8. New features include a Health app, as well as lots of improvements to the Notification Centre, Safari, Messages, Camera and more. There’s also a new iCloud Drive feature as well as Family-

Sharing for those of us with iOS-loving children. Read about iOS 8 on page 60. Apple’s new Continuity features (see the opposite page for more details) helps bring its two operating systems closer together than ever before. For developers, Apple is offering exciting new tools that’ll mean apps are able to do lots more than anyone thought possible. The new Software Developer Kit (SDK) for iOS 8 gives developers access to many of Apple’s apps, so their own third-party apps can communicate with the default ones. Also, the Touch ID fingerprint sensor will work with thirdparty apps, as will the iPhone’s camera.

Key figures Cook boasted that iOS 7, which debuted at WWDC 2013, is now installed on 89 per cent of all iOS devices, while just 9 per cent of all Android devices are running the latest version of their OS. Cook said that iOS 7 has earned a 97 per cent overall satisfaction rating from its users.

8 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

“We’ve now sold well over 800 million iOS devices,” Cook said during the event. The iPad has sold 200 million units, the iPhone, 500 million units; and the iPod touch – 100 million units. According to Apple, more than 130 million customers who bought an iOS device in the past 12 months were buying their first Apple device. “Many of these customers were switchers from Android,” as Cook proudly pointed out. iOS devices are prominent in the enterprise, too, Cook highlighted, noting that 98 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies now use iOS. “We’re going to get the last two,” Cook added confidently. Plus, with over 1.2 million apps in the App Store – which 300 million people are visiting each week – over 75 billion apps have been downloaded. Apple also talked a bit about the Mac’s numbers during the keynote. Cook pointed out that, while overall sales in the PC market declined by 5 per cent last year, Mac sales grew by 12 per cent. The Mac now has an installed base of 80 million units, and over 50 per cent of Mac users are on the latest version of that OS. By contrast, Cook pointed out, Windows 8 is on just 14 percent of PCs, despite being available for a year longer. When talking about the numbers for WWDC itself, Cook said that there were 5,000 engineers at WWDC from 69 countries, and 70 percent of those were there for the first time. The youngest developer at the conference was 13 years old, and in the past year, registered Apple developers have doubled to nine million.

WorldMags.net

Continuity across Apple devices Apple’s Continuity initiative is all about using the right device for the right task at the right moment B Y R YA N FA A S

T

here had been several predictions ahead of the 2 June event that Apple’s WWDC keynote would be on platforms that aggregated data, tasks and functionality from a range of solutions and across Apple’s various products and services. And indeed, that theme played a prominent role in the keynote. Apple’s Continuity initiative is all about using the right device for the right task at the right moment and shifting between devices seamlessly. It leverages all of Apple’s solutions to create a very smooth flow from iPhone to Mac to iPad and, in some instances, to iCloud.

Airdrop sharing now a reality One of the major features under the Continuity umbrella is AirDrop, Apple’s self-configuring content-sharing system that’s been available in OS X since Mountain Lion’s release two years ago; and in iOS 7 since last winter. There was one glaring deficiency: Macs could only detect and share files with other Macs and iOS devices could only see or share with other iOS devices. The big news is that AirDrop will now work between iOS 8 devices and OS X Yosemite. Macs and iOS devices won’t even need to be on the same network to be able to share content – as long as they’re near each other, they can detect and easily establish ad-hoc access. Building on that effortless ease-ofsharing is Handoff, a new feature that will allow users to, well, hand off a task from one device to another. You can, for instance, begin composing an email on an iPhone and then finish the process on a Mac. Handoff really demonstrates, perhaps more than anything else that Apple announced at the keynote, the value of its ecosystem and the company’s continued focus on delivering an incredible end-to-end user experience.

Handoff isn’t the only way Apple showcased this experience. The ability to relay text messages and voice calls (complete with caller ID and the contact information associated with the caller) from an iPhone to a Mac, or to initiate calls on a Mac – using an iPhone or making the call directly from the Mac – gives us another look at the unified vision, centred around the user, that looks to be Apple’s goal moving forward. Another feature Apple’s execs highlighted, sure to be a hit with road warriors and those of us who occasionally work in coffee shops, is an automatic hotspot feature. There’s no need to configure a network or pair your Mac to your iPhone using Bluetooth; the connection simply occurs automatically with your iPhone appearing in the network menu in the Yosemite menu bar. Apple also announced family-sharing capabilities that create a seamless experience across multiple devices and Apple IDs, in part, based on the credit card associated with those accounts and devices. The feature allows sharing of

iTunes purchases, photos and photo streams, reminders and calendars. It also appears to be Apple’s effort to put the in-app purchases scandal – in which kids spent hundreds of thousands of pounds without their parents’ knowledge – behind it. Purchases made by children now require parental approval, and parents will get a request alert on their devices asking for just that. Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of US business for Kantar WorldPanel Comtech, was impressed with Continuity and its implications for Apple. “Really, if you have an iPhone and iPad, how long will it take you to get a Mac after today?” she asked. Milanesi has been a firm believer in Apple’s multidevice strategy as opposed to Microsoft’s push to combine devices (like the Surface Pro 3) and saw Continuity as evidence that it would find favour among the customers Apple most now wanted to court: those with one Cupertino-designed device who haven’t been convinced that an all-Apple ecosystem can work.


WorldMags.net

News

WorldMags.net

Future of apps and App Store revealed Developers are getting lots of new tools this year, and searching the App Store is about to get easier B Y M A R C O TA B I N I A N D P H I L I P M I C H A E L S

A

pple used its WWDC 2014 keynote to announce a slew of new tools for the people who write software for iOS and OS X. This means that a lot of new features will appear on your iPhone, iPad and Mac. Specifically, the company released a new version of its software development kit (SDK) which introduces over 4,000 new programming interfaces, which developers can use to build their apps. Those new features include a new Extensibility API that allows apps to share functionality and data without user intervention and without compromising the safe confines of iOS’s software sandbox. This makes it possible for third parties to provide custom filters from within Photos, or to translate a web page in Safari at the tap of a finger. Apple’s also opening up Touch ID to all developers, allowing third-party apps to use the company’s fingerprint technology to secure all kinds of information. During the presentation, Apple vice president Craig Federighi stressed that a user’s biometric data isn’t disclosed to third parties, and continues to remain stored on the A7 chip’s ‘secure enclave’. In the realm of home automation, Federighi unveiled HomeKit, which provides an integrated ecosystem through which users can interact with compatible devices like garage doors, locks, lighting systems and climate control appliances. HomeKit appears to be designed as an umbrella under which various systems can be brought together to take advantage of iOS’s ecosystem. For example, once you connect all your external devices, a simple Siri command like ‘Time for bed’ could automatically turn off all the lights, check

that all your doors are locked, and turn down your heating, reprogramming your thermostat for night-time temperatures. Among the remaining changes, Apple is introducing APIs that let developers build games for iOS with ease, and adding a completely new programming language called Swift, which we talk about on the following page. While a less significant change from a user’s perspective, Swift has a number of features with the potential to dramatically improve developers’ productivity.

Improving the App Store Changes to the App Store alterations were framed as part of the new developer tools that will be available to app makers as part of iOS 8. But make no mistake: these are changes that are every bit as important to app downloaders. “What we want to do is make the App Store even better,” said Cook. To do so, Apple is adding an Explore tab to the App Store, which Cook explains will help users find what they’re looking for. Cook didn’t delve into specifics, but it looks like subcategories will figure prominently into any app discovery improvements. Perhaps in the App Store of the future, the Productivity


WorldMags.net

section, say, makes it even easier to differentiate between note-taking apps, task managers, calendar tools and whatever other mobile offerings out there promise to manage your life more efficiently. Apple also vows to add trending search features, which should work a lot like trending topics in Twitter, and a continuous scrolling feature to make the search process run more smoothly. A welcome addition for bargain hunters will be app bundles. Developers will be able to combine multiple apps for a discounted price, which you and I will be able to buy with a single tap. Apple is also promising more in the way of Try Before You Buy features. First, developers will be able to add video previews to their App Store entries, so you can get a quick look at an app in action. “Users can make certain that it’s an app they want,” Cook said. Apple also plans to incorporate the TestFlight beta service, which will let app makers invite users to test out apps. We’ve got some time before we find out what Apple promises and what the company delivers as many of the iOS 8 changes Apple plans on implementing won’t take effect until the autumn.

WorldMags.net

Apple unveils programming language Swift will replace Objective-C, the ageing language that was created back in the 1980s BY J OA D JAC K S O N

W

ith plans to slowly retire the long-used Objective-C, Apple has introduced a new programming language, called Swift, for designing apps and applications to run on Apple iOS devices and Macs. Apple designed Swift to be as intuitive and easy to use as popular interpreted languages such as Python and JavaScript, while maintaining the speed and flexibility of compiled languages such as C++. “Swift is fast. It’s modern. It’s designed for safety and it enables a level of interactively and development you’ve never seen before on the platform,” explained Apple CEO Tim Cook, who introduced the language to the surprise of the audience at WWDC 2014. Swift is designed to eliminate entire categories of common programming

errors. It includes modern constructs such as generics, closures, type inference, multiple return types, operator overloads and other time-saving capabilities that many developers have wanted to see in their languages. Many Apple developers expressed cheer at the news of Swift. The enthusiasm is understandable given the shortcomings of the ageing Objective-C, which was created in the 1980s and came to Apple when it purchased Steve Jobs’ NeXT workstation company in 1996. Swift has all the power of Objective-C, but without the “baggage of C,” Cook told the audience. He compared some

benchmarks that showed Swift code running faster than Python and just as quickly as Objective-C. Apple is working to make the transition to the new language even easier. “Your Swift code can fit alongside your Objective-C code and C code in the same application,” Cook explained.

Cook knocks Windows and Android Apple CEO Tim Cook bashes rivals during WWDC software announcements BY GREGG KEIZER

A

pple had a lot to tell everyone during its WWDC keynote, but that didn’t stop CEO Tim Cook from taking time to knock his arch rivals Microsoft and Google. Cook, who opened and closed the two-hour presentation, but actually spent little time on stage, tossed a brick at Microsoft early on. “This is the fasted adoption ever of any PC operating system in history,” Cook boasted of OS X Mavericks. “Now you may wonder how that compares to Windows. I knew somebody was going to ask, so I made a chart.” Behind Cook, the pie chart showed that Windows 8, which Microsoft launched in October 2012, still only

accounted for a small sliver of Windows use overall. “It’s at 14 per cent. Need I say more?” Cook continued, to applause and laughter from the very pro-Apple crowd. Cook has a reputation for flinging barbs at competitors. In the quarterly earnings calls he’s done since his 2011 promotion, Cook has compared hybrid devices – those that blend traits of both tablets and PC notebooks – to everything from a toaster-refrigerator combo to a car that flies and floats. About half way through the keynote, Cook returned to the stage and took aim at another rival, Google. As he touted the 130 million customers who bought an iOS device in the last 12 months, and were new to the Apple

ecosystem, he said: “Many of these customers were switchers from Android.” “They had bought an Android phone,” he said, pausing a beat for the punch line, “...by mistake. Then they had sought a better experience – and a better life.” Cook also took a swing at Android users in the same way he’d swiped at Windows 8 users, contrasting iOS 7’s 90 percent penetration with the nine percent adoption of Android 4.4 (KitKat).


WorldMags.net

News

WorldMags.net

Apple to buy Beats for $3bn Apple’s biggest acquisition is designed to help the company stay on top in the music business BY ST E P H E N L AW S O N

A

pple has confirmed the widely rumoured acquisition of Beats Electronics in a $3 billion (£1.78bn) deal designed to help it stay on top of the fast-changing music business. The deal will bring Apple the Beats headphones business along with Beats Music, a subscription service launched in January that directly competes with Spotify among others, and Beats Audio. Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre will join Apple as part of the deal. The acquisition had been rumoured in May, and was made official on 28 May. Apple expects to close the purchase in the fourth quarter, it said. Dream team From left: Jimmy Iovine, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Dr Dre and Eddy Cue

Bonus streaming service Beats may be best known for its headphones and other audio gear, but the company’s streaming service is probably Apple’s main reason for the acquisition, the biggest in its history. Apple’s iTunes service still dominates the music downloads business, but these have been going out of style with the growing popularity of streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora. Revenue from music downloads declined by one percent last year, to $2.8 billion (£1.67bn), while revenue from paid subscription services increased 57 percent to $628 million (£374m), according to record industry figures. This means that streaming services accounted for 21 percent of music industry revenue in 2013 – up from just three percent of revenue in 2007. Apple launched its own streaming service, iTunes Radio, last September. It’s a free service supported by adverts, but, so far, isn’t available in the UK. “The addition of Beats will make our music line-up even better, from free streaming with iTunes Radio to a worldclass subscription service in Beats, as

well as buying music from the iTunes Store – as customers have loved to do for years,” said Eddy Cue, head of Apple’s Internet Software and Services group. Iovine, who founded Interscope Records before starting Beats with Dr Dre in 2006, claimed he had always known in his heart that Beats belonged with Apple. Of the $3 billion (£1.78bn) purchase price, Apple will pay $2.6 billion (£1.54bn) up front, and, over time, will invest around an extra $400 million (£238m). In a fun addition to Apple’s WWDC keynote, the company showed off OS X Yosemite’s ability to make phone calls by calling Dr Dre, who proceeded to chat with Craig Federighi for a minute or two about working with Apple in the future.

Android keeps Beats (but not HP) Apple has said that it will continue to offer Beats Music apps for Android and Windows Phone after it closes the deal to acquire Beats Electronics. The Beats Music service had 250,000 paying subscribers, far fewer than the 10 million Spotify subscribers, explained Iovine. If Apple wants Beats to continue growing, it


WorldMags.net

means facing up to the fact that Android is the world’s most dominant mobile OS. “Beats could serve as the first experience with an Apple product for billions of potential customers,” wrote Ben Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies on techpinions.com. “I’d argue that Apple paved the way for their future success with iPhones and iPads by bringing iTunes to Windows. “It helped get iPods in the hands of millions of people who never owned an Apple product. Lots of research indicates that once a customer tries one of your products they strongly consider more.” HP, on the other hand, has confirmed that the company will drop Beats Audio from its line of high-end PCs and tablets by the end of 2015 due to the Apple deal. Beats Electronics currently supplies the technology included in 15 to 20 percent of HP consumer PC products. “HP maintains the rights through the end of 2014 to offer new products that include Beats Audio, and we’ll continue to offer a line-up through the year to include new products that offer the Beats Audio experience,” an HP spokesperson said.

DOMAINS | MAIL | HOSTING | eCOMMERCE | SERVERS WorldMags.net

NEW HOSTING TOP APPS NOW EVEN BETTER!

WordPress and more with 1&1! 1&1 Expert App Support 24/7 Evaluation version for all applications Q Security notifications (version updates and more) Q 2 GB RAM guaranteed – ideal for app performance Q Optimised for WordPress and over 140 other popular apps (Drupal™, Joomla!™, TYPO3…) Q Q

Powerful Tools NetObjects Fusion® 2013 – 1&1 Edition included 1&1 Mobile Website Builder Q PHP 5.5, Perl, Python, Ruby, ASP.NET and more... Q Q

Successful Marketing 1&1 SEO Pro 1&1 Search Engine Marketing Q Facebook® and Bing® credits Q 1&1 Newsletter Tool Q Q

EVERYTHING FOR

State-of-the-Art Technology Geo-redundancy for maximum availability Over 300 Gbit/s network connectivity Q 1&1 CDN powered by CloudFlare ® with Railgun™ Q Q

PROFESSIONALS

Starting at

0

£ .99

first year* excl. 20% VAT

All Inclusive Free domain (.com, .net, .org, .co.uk...) Unlimited power: Webspace, Monthly Traffic, E-mail Accounts and MySQL Databases Q Linux or Windows® operating system Q Q

1

TRIAL TRY FOR 30 DAYS

1

CLICK UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE

1

CALL SPEAK TO AN EXPERT

0330 123 0274 * 1&1 Hosting packages with 30 day money back guarantee. 1&1 Basic (Linux) £0.99 for 1 year with 12 month minimum contract term, paid in advance, then regular price applies. Prices exclude VAT. Visit www.1and1.co.uk for full offer details, terms and conditions.

WorldMags.net

1and1.co.uk

Features

WorldMags.net

COMPLETE GUIDE TO OS X YOSEMITE

COMPLETE GUIDE TO

6:?@6:,40;, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT APPLE’S LATEST OPERATING SYSTEM By Karen Haslam

A

pple has unveiled the future of its operating system, revealing some of the features of the upcoming OS X 10.10 Yosemite. In this article we’ll sum up the key facts we know so far. If you want to read about all the exciting changes coming to iOS 8, read our in-depth guide on page 60.

FAQs When will Yosemite launch? You can expect Apple to launch the new version of the Mac operating system this


autumn – but you can apply for access to the beta this summer. (For further details visit tinyurl.com/o8rucb2.)

How much will Yosemite cost? Apple has confirmed that it will be free, as was OS X Mavericks.

How to get the OS X Yosemite beta Developers can already get their hands on the OS X Yosemite beta, but what about the rest of us? Apple started allowing non-developers to download beta versions of OS X Mavericks this April, and now, with the launch of

The first million lucky people who sign up to Apple’s Beta program this summer will get early access to Yosemite as an army of prerelease bug testers WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Flat, but fizzy Translucent bars in the Dock and at the top of the screen are part of the new look which has a more 2D ‘iOS’ vibe.

Yosemite, Apple is allowing interested consumers to sign up to take part in the Beta program. If you’re one of the first million people who sign up for the public beta of OS X Yosemite, you’ll be able to get your hands on the operating system this summer – but please note, you’ll be a tester providing bug reports, so don’t expect a polished operating system. Opening up the beta program this way should allow Apple to get much more data, and, theoretically, that should result in a better system when it’s ready for launch. Third-party developers will also benefit by being able to test their software on Yosemite before it’s released, which should mean that your essential apps will work when the OS goes live.

Thanks to Apple’s efforts in this area, AirDrop now works between iOS and OS X. The service is Apple’s method of sharing files between Macs and iOS devices, but although it’s already

Handoff means that all your devices are linked up in such a way that OS X and iOS 8 know what task is being performed (at which stage) on each device Is Yosemite like iOS 7? It certainly does seem to have received an iOS 7-inspired visual makeover, with a flatter look, but this facelift wasn’t the most significant aspect of the iOS/OS X integration. Far more important are the changes Apple has made to make iOS and OS X work better together – Apple is referring to these new features under the banner of Continuity.

available for both platforms, you can’t AirDrop something from your iPhone to your Mac, or vice versa. Currently, we have to plug an iPhone or iPad into a Mac in order to copy over a

screenshot or photo to illustrate a feature we’re writing, so we can’t wait for Apple to implement this. But it doesn’t just stop there. Apple has also introduced Handoff. This new technology means that all your devices are linked up in such a way that OS X and iOS 8 know exactly what task is being performed on each device. This means that if you started writing an email on your iPhone, but then decided that it would be better to write it in Mail on your Mac, you can switch over to your Mac, click on the Mail icon in the Dock, and Mail will open up the message you were in the middle of composing.

Continuity Continuity is a handful of features that aim to make it easier to work with, and switch between, all your Apple devices, OS X and iOS. The aim is to make switching between a Mac and iPhone or iPad as seamless an experience as possible, so you can use the best device for any particular task. Redesigned controls Eagle-eyed observers will notice that the traffic light controls in the corner of windows have inherited new icons.

WorldMags.net


Features

WorldMags.net


Similarly, if you’re viewing a web page in Safari on your Mac, a Safari icon will appear in your iPad’s lock screen. Swipe it and the same one will open in iOS – so you can continue where you left off. Some of the new Continuity features bring your iPhone to your Mac. For

You’ll even be able to send and receive text messages that have come from your non-iPhone touting friends. In another brilliant effort to improve communication between iOS devices and Macs, Apple has made it easier to share a mobile data connection from

Continuity features mean you can initiate phone calls on your iPhone from a Mac via Contacts, or if you click on a phone number on the web (or in an email) example, when your handset is nearby and a call comes in, your Mac will not only alert you to the call, it will display caller-ID information and allow you to accept the call using the speakerphone on your Mac (or reject the call if necessary). You can even initiate phone calls on your iPhone from your Mac via Contacts, or if you click on a phone number on the web, or one that appears in an email. You’ll also be able to view and send SMS text messages on your Mac, not just iMessages. This means that all your text messages – whether sent via iMessage or via standard text message will appear on your Mac (so there won’t be annoying holes in the conversation).


an iPhone to a Mac. Instant Hotspots makes it easier than ever for a Mac user to join the network being shared by their iPhone. The device now appears in the Wi-Fi menu – select it and the iPhone will set up a secure Wi-Fi hotspot that you can connect to. Your Mac will show your iPhone’s signal strength and battery life, and it will even disconnect you from the mobile network when you aren’t using it, so you won’t be needlessly eating up data and battery life on your device. With many apps now available for both iOS and Mac OS X, it can be frustrating when they aren’t easily shared between the different devices and their different applications. For example, a PDF saved

to iCloud via Preview on your Mac can’t easily be opened in any other application on your Mac or iOS device. With iCloud Drive it’s all changing for the better. iCloud Drive is more like Dropbox – rather than stored documents being associated with an app, you’ll be able to see all your iCloud-stored documents – even the ones that you’ve manually dragged into the iCloud folder. Some documents associated with a particular app will be stored in appspecific folders, but everything will be visible. Any data in the iCloud folder will be synced and available on all your Macs, and on all your iOS devices, and you’ll also be able to open any document you like in your app of choice. Apple is even making iCloud Drive available for Windows.

Features Apple revealed a number of new features in the WWDC presentation on 2 June. We expect to see even more unveiled over the next few months. Here are a few:

The Dock The Dock gets a flatter look, with new icons – including a more modern-looking Finder icon and a iOS-style iTunes icon.

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Show and tell OS X Yosemite introduces a new Favorites view – click the search field and your favourite websites will appear.

Even the Trash icon gets a redesign, with a new white look. The transparent elements you’ll see around the new OS also make an appearance here.

be able to offer widgets though the Mac App Store. This might finally put the often-ignored Widgets from Apple’s Dashboard in front of people (although we’re not taking any bets on it).

New features include the ability to search via Spotlight, not just for documents on your Mac, but also for apps from the App Store, iTunes media and iBooks, and news from popular websites. Spotlight also taps into internet sources, so you’ll also see results from Bing and Wikipedia as well as Maps, so you could easily search for a particular movie and see its local cinema listings. Similarly, if you search for Yosemite it will show you the location in Maps as well as the Wikipedia page. You can also perform unit conversions – from centimetres to inches, for example. Spotlight can also do an instant unit conversion which can save you precious time – type in a figure in miles and it will convert this to kilometres, for example.

Dark Mode There’s also a new Dark Mode option. We only saw a glimpse of this in the presentation, but it works by toning down the bright colours of the OS so you see less obtrusive greys and blacks. It’s the perfect option for those who regularly use their Macs in dark environments.

Notification Center Notification Center gains a slightly new, more translucent look. It also offers a new Today view for an at-a-glance look at what you have coming up in your Calendar, Reminders, and the Weather. It’s similar to Notification Center in iOS 7, but in addition to showing the Today preview, it lets you add widgets for weather, stock information, reminders, social networking and a world clock. Third parties will also

Spotlight now taps into apps from the App Store, iTunes media and iBooks, as well as Maps and news from popular websites including Wikipedia Spotlight

Calendar

Spotlight first arrived on the scene with Mac OS 10.4. Until now it has primarily been used to search your drive for data. You can also search for dictionary definitions, and search the web, but few people use these last two features. Spotlight is getting its first major overhaul in Yosemite. The most obvious change being that it pops up in the middle of the screen, rather than at the top right corner. As well as moving centre stage, it also gains some useful skills.

Calendar gets a new-look week view, an all-new day view, and a new sidebar for user location information. You can view the day’s meetings on the left, and the accompanying details on the right.

Messages Messages, which made its way from iOS to OS X with Mountain Lion, also gains some improvements in Yosemite. You can now choose to add and remove people from an existing Group Message and

WorldMags.net


Features

WorldMags.net


iCloud Drive Rather than stored documents being associated with an app, you’ll be able to see all your iCloud stored files in one go.

change the name of the thread at any time. You can also see the location of each member of the discussion, if they choose to share it, which is a little like Find My Friends. If you want to leave a Group Message you can. Just set that thread to Do Not Disturb using the toggle. You can also view all the media attached to that discussion without the chit-chat. The new Soundbites feature lets you record an audio clip and then send it as part of a Messages conversation. Messages also gains a new look with a translucent sidebar and a titlebar that reacts as you scroll content underneath.

Mail In Yosemite, Mail is getting an overhaul – you’ll now be able to sign PDFs and make marks on images using the new

When you add a file to Yosemite Mail OS X uploads the file automatically and invisibly and then, as long as your recipient is using Mail in Yosemite, OS X will download it automatically and

Need to send a few large files by email? The new Mail Drop feature works with files of up to 5GB, with each one safely encrypted in transit Markup Feature from within the app. With Markup you’ll also be able to edit and annotate attachments on the fly, replying without ever leaving Mail. You’ll be able to add signatures, draw lines, shapes and arrows, add text and cartoon bubbles. Zooming in to part of an image will be possible and, if you’ve a trackpad, so will drawing using your finger. Excitingly, Apple is introducing a new way to share photos and files via email that’s designed to get around limits to message and attachment size. Rather than upload your file to a remote server and then sending a link to that file for the recipient to download, as we do currently, in Yosemite you’ll be able to sent an email with a large attachment without a second thought.

invisibly at their end. If your recipient is on another platform, or using another email client, the message will include a download link for the file. This system – Mail Drop – will work with files up to 5GB

in size and those files will be encrypted for safety while they’re in transit.

Safari There are significant tweaks in Safari in Yosemite. It gains a cleaner interface with simpler navigation controls. Many of the functions you normally see in the toolbar have been hidden, but they’re still there. For example, the Favourites grid now only becomes visible when you click on the smart search field. Simply click on the icon to be taken to the site. Also new is a smart search field and Sharing and Tabs buttons. Click on the Tab View button in the top-right corner of a window and all the open tabs will

Bonus browsing Click on the Tab View button in the new Safari to see all the tabs you have open on all your other devices.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Getting involved Want to help with Yosemite’s development? Sign up as a Beta tester to help iron out any prerelease OS X wrinkles.

be displayed. If you have multiple tabs open from a single site you’ll see those thumbnails stacked. Also visible are the tabs you have open on your other devices when you click on Tab View. This is useful if you regularly swap devices throughout the day. Swipe thought the tab bar to find what you’re looking for.

Safari has also extended searching features in what we can’t help but see as an assault on Google. Enter a search term in the smart search field and you’ll see Google and Bing results, plus results from Wikipedia, Maps, your news feed and iTunes. Safari also gains a Private Browsing mode that won’t track your browsing habits. You can already turn on Private Browsing in Mavericks Safari, but the new Safari in Yosemite will allow you to create a window and devote it, and its tabs, to private browsing. You will be able to tell which window is private by its colour. Safari also gains many improvements under the hood. Apple’s Craig Federighi describes the new version of Safari as more responsive and more energy efficient thanks to JavaScript engine

optimisation. It will also support HTML5 Premium Video and WebGL. Safari offers sharing improvements. You can subscribe to an RSS feed in a website and now those RSS feeds will show up in Shared Links. New privacy settings mean you can create a new private window and all the content in that window stays private. You can get instant access to all your favourite sites from inside the search field. There’s easy access to the sidebar for bookmarks, your reading list, and shared links. If you perform a search you can access far more than simply a Google search result. Search for ‘Ansel Adams’. Hitting Return will take you to a regular old Google search, but also a spotlight suggestion and a snippet from Wikipedia. Safari’s top bar is much more like iOS Safari and, kind of like iOS, you can now get a handy bird’s eye view of all your tabs to make it far easier to find the particular one you’re looking for. Finally, sharing something is quicker than before. When you click to share a web page, click Share from the Safari share sheet and you’ll see a list of recent recipients, so you can send with one click.

WorldMags.net


Features

WorldMags.net

BEST MAC ACCOUNTANCY APPS

Best Mac accountancy apps Though Intuit’s QuickBooks dominates the accounting app category, it has some stiff competition B Y J E F F E R Y B AT T E R S B Y

L

ots of excellent web-based apps are available for tracking your business’s finances (see tinyurl. com/ndjzagf), but if you don’t like keeping your company’s financial information in the cloud, a traditional Mac app is the best bet. I looked at four apps for managing your business invoicing and finances: Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold, the Acclivity Group’s AccountEdge Plus, Intuit’s QuickBooks for Mac and Marketcircle’s Billings Pro. The first three of these are traditional invoicing and accounting applications; Billings Pro has great features, but requires additional software to complete the package. All of these apps also offer excellent tools for managing your business finances.

TOP CHOICE: MoneyWorks Gold 7 The most familiar accounting programs for the Mac are AccountEdge Pro and QuickBooks. Although Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold 7 (£465, tinyurl.com/ qyb3Lz2) isn’t as well known, this fullfeatured, networkable business accounting application supports multiple users and works on both Macs and PCs. MoneyWorks uses a flowchart-like interface resembling the ones that AccountEdge and QuickBooks for Mac rely on. Its interface consists of two parts: a large main window, which displays a flowchart that changes depending on the particular item you’ve selected; and a sidebar displaying navigation links to MoneyWorks’ collection of financial tools, where you select items for main-window viewing. In MoneyWorks, as also in AccountEdge and QuickBooks 2014, the

flowchart attempts to map a visual relationship between various business activities. This arrangement does make the applications a bit more interesting visually, but in practice I’ve rarely used the flowchart to figure out how the many aspects of a business are related. Most of the tools you’ll regularly use appear in the Navigation section under the ‘Day-to-day’ heading. Here you can generate quotes, sales orders and

In MoneyWorks, most of the tools you’ll use appear under the ‘Day-to-day’ heading in its Navigation section, but also appear elsewhere 20 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

Fast press MoneyWorks gives you quick access to all of your business data, as well as useful options for sharing your data with any Mac and PC users on your network.

invoices; reconcile your bank accounts, create and receive purchase order items, and review accounts payable. Each of these tasks is also available in other areas of the application, and selecting other navigation options gives you access to a deeper set of tools and features. For example, the ‘Items and Inventory’ option provides tools for receiving stock on items that you’ve ordered, viewing a journal-style list of all the stock you have on hand and building

WorldMags.net new stock from items that are already present in your existing inventory. MoneyWorks includes almost a hundred types of reports, including sales tax reports for Canada and VAT reports for the United Kingdom. If none of the application’s existing reports fit your specific needs, you can create custom reports. Reports are available either from the Reports menu or, when you select a specific navigation area, from the main application window. For example, by selecting ‘Chart of Accounts’ from the Navigation section, you can obtain links for a number of account-related reports. Two MoneyWorks features are especially noteworthy: multiuser network capabilities and cross-platform client applications. To share your MoneyWorks file on the network, simply open Sharing and Users from the File menu and check the box to turn on sharing. (A Datacenter version also permits access via iOS devices and multicompany hosting.) By default, the application allows anyone on the network to have access; to restrict access, you must passwordprotect your data file. After doing so, you can add users and limit their access to features. Unfortunately, MoneyWorks doesn’t provide a group option for managing user access to data, so you must individually manage the profile for every user who needs to have access.

TOP CONTENDER: AccountEdge PLUS Depending on how you look at it, the Acclivity Group’s AccountEdge Plus (£319, tinyurl.com/o6a529q) is either a little stale or as reliably consistent as ever. AccountEdge’s looks have changed little in the past dozen years, but it remains a solid accounting application. AccountEdge has long allowed users to work in a networked environment on both Macs and PCs. Like MoneyWorks, it lets

you control who has access to specific parts of your company’s financial data. AccountEdge has great tools for securing your data without losing access to your accounting and inventory data in a multiuser, multiplatform environment. Though the front end of AccountEdge looks quite similar to the way it did in previous versions of the program, the 2014 Plus edition has added a few new features, including master inventory categories that let you generate dozens of subcategories without having to create distinct inventory items for each one. For example, you might decide to create a category called “Whole-Bean Coffee” and subdivide it into caffeinated and decaffeinated versions of specific roasts.

AccountEdge Plus 2014 edition includes a new master inventory category feature that let you generate lots of subcategories quickly and easily

Invoicing Billings Pro offers customisable invoice, estimate, and statement documents.

The result is much easier management of your inventory. Acclivity has also rebranded and updated its web front end, offering cloud-based features such as options for creating invoices and other transactions from a web page.

The rest of the pack Intuit hasn’t changed QuickBooks for Mac 2014 (£149, tinyurl.com/q5b2gbb) since we last reviewed it (tinyurl.com/ojtpbcq) – which comes as no surprise, given the company’s track record of updating its Apple products infrequently. The latest version of this business accounting application simplifies the task of transferring your data to and from your accountant, but it can’t handle mixed Mac and PC environments. Still, as long as you understand its limitations,


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

BEST MAC ACCOUNTANCY APPS

QuickBooks for Mac will take good care of your business finances. A new, overhauled user interface gives QuickBooks a look and feel similar to that of Intuit’s Mint.com and to the new web interface for QuickBooks Online (tinyurl.com/oeo3vjv). The new look provides a great at-a-glance overview of your financial status. Though it’s not everything you might want, QuickBooks for Mac 2014 gives you all the essentials for your business accounting needs. It may sound like a Montana-centric program, but Marketcircle’s beautifully designed Billings Pro 1.6.5 (free, £3, and £6 for various per-month, per-user plans, or £60 per year, per user; go. macworld.com/billingspro) combines an application with a subscription-based service you can use to create invoices and estimates, as well as to collect time-billing information via your Mac OS or iOS device. One of the most elegant features is that while you perform and manage all of your work locally, you’re then able to sync it to a database hosted on Marketcircle’s servers. I have used the Mac and iOS versions of the original Billings application for years, and like many other people, I was quite disappointed when Marketcircle dropped the stand-alone application in favour of a client-server subscription model. But after about a month of using the new Billings Pro, I found that I liked it better than the old stand-alone version. Billings Pro isn’t an accounting application, but you can export Billings Pro data directly into QuickBooks for Mac or MoneyWorks 6. (Marketcircle says that support for MoneyWorks 7 is on its way.) Aside from the attractiveness of the customisable documents it provides, Billings’ greatest strength is the way it handles time billing. Practically every business accounting package lets you enter time-billing information into time sheets, but Billings Pro lets you track your

time in the field and create an invoice directly from the collected information. This feature is integral to the way many people bill for services, and no other application here offers it. Billings Pro’s workflow requires you to set up everything you do as part of one or another project, which means establishing a project and adding Working Slips to it, and then billing based on information you collect in the slips.

Summing up AccountEdge Plus remains an excellent application for managing your business

MoneyWorks Gold offers all of the accounting features you’ll ever need, but at a significantly higher price than the versatile AccountEdge Plus 22 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

Walled-garden accounting The Mac-only QuickBooks for Mac 2014 has excellent small-business accounting tools.

finances, and it’s one of my personal favourites, but MoneyWorks Gold offers all the accounting features you’ll probably ever need, but at a significantly higher price than the versatile and reliable AccountEdge Plus. Billings Pro, which doesn’t offer any true accounting features, is the only invoicing application available that lets you create invoices from time-billing information that you collect – and for me, that’s a hugely valuable feature. QuickBooks, though a good solid overall option, lags behind the others because it lacks the cross-platform capabilities necessary for any business that relies on both Macs and PCs.

WorldMags.net

TECH TRICKS FOR PLANNING MEETINGS

Features

Tech tricks for planning meetings Three techniques that can make setting up your meetings easier B Y D A V I D S PA R K S

D

espite all the technology at our fingertips, the task of scheduling and planning meetings is a pain. Luckily, you can use your Mac, iPhone and the web to make it all go more smoothly.

Automate confirmation When scheduling meetings in advance, changes in plans or forgetfulness can cause problems – so send out meeting confirmations on the day before the meeting. Every day, check the next day’s scheduled meetings, and send out email reminders to all of the participants. To save time, simply automate this process by using a fill-in TextExpander snippet. For instance, when I type ‘meetingconfirm’ in an email window, TextExpander creates a custom email message that lets me fill in the recipient’s name, the agenda, and the anticipated length of the meeting.

Reserve meeting times Finding a mutually convenient time to meet with someone can be an exercise in frustration. Instead of taking turns suggesting available times, try writing an email message like: “Let’s have lunch together. How about Wednesday at Cardiac’s House of Cheese at 11:45am?” Putting the idea of lunch with the relevant details in the first message can reduce subsequent email traffic. In my experience, most people accept the proposed meeting in their first reply. Another trick is to save a proposed meeting time as soon as you send out the first email message, so you won’t be tempted to schedule another meeting at the same time while waiting to hear back from the person you approached earlier. To indicate hypothetical meeting times, I put a question mark in front of the event name, so when I check my calendar later I’ll know which events are booked

Save a proposed meeting time as soon as you send out the first email message so you won’t schedule another meeting at the same time

On schedule The Doodle online service helps all members of a group agree a time.

and which are still only hypothetical. If the other person writes back and accepts, I remove the question mark; if they decline, I delete the event.

Use a web service to set up a big meeting Try to set up a meeting for six people, and you’ll receive an endless stream of messages vetoing schedule suggestions because of various conflicts. Why not let a meeting-planning site do it for you? My favourite, Doodle.com, lets the meeting organiser set several potential blocks of time aside for a meeting. Doodle then either sends email messages to the prospective participants or provides you with a emailable link. Potential participants can then log on to Doodle and identify the blocks of time they’re available. Once everyone has completed this task, the organiser knows everyone’s availability. This arrangement works so well that I often set up Doodle events for other people’s meetings when I’m an invitee, just to avoid the hassle.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

TECH TRICKS FOR SYNCING WITH THE CLOUD

MacBook in the cloud: work with the same files on multiple Macs Staying in sync is easier than you think… BY JOE KISSELL

K

eeping your data and software in sync when you have more than one Mac poses quite a challenge. Apple’s iCloud service offers some sync capabilities for passwords and user account data, but it doesn’t widely support app data. When you get a new computer, you either have to clone the old drive to the new system or copy non-Mac App Store applications. Also, a Mac laptop has a lot less storage than its desktop Mac cousins. Still, you can make your laptop into the perfect satellite computer with only a few minor tweaks – and conserve its hard drive space. Here are some tips for syncing your computers with the cloud.

Sync selectively Your Dropbox folder lets you store files on one computer and have them appear instantly in the same folder on a second system. You can also access them on the web and, with a paid account, you can effortlessly sync up to 500GB of stuff. I pay for a 100GB plan, but I don’t want my entire Dropbox on my laptop. The service’s Selective Sync option allows me to choose specific subfolders to sync from Dropbox on any given system. To turn on Selective Sync, go to Dropbox’s menu bar icon on your Mac, click the Settings gear icon, and choose Preferences. Then select the Account tab and, under Selective Sync, click Change Settings. You can sync entire top-level Dropbox folders, or you can choose subfolders in Dropbox without

having to download the folder that contains them. To do the latter, just switch to Advanced View.

Keep your apps in tune Dropbox is good for a lot more than just saving static files – some apps, like BBEdit, let you sync application support files within the folder. The key to this resides in your computer’s Application Support folder, hidden within the Library. Your programs use information from that folder to save your preferences, load unsaved data, and more. To sync this data, drag an app’s support folder from /Library/Application Support to a new Application Support folder in Dropbox. Other apps provide Dropbox sync support as well: AgileBits’ 1Password offers a Dropbox sync button directly within the application, while launch

You can sync entire top-level Dropbox folders, or choose subfolders in Dropbox without having to download the whole parent folder 24 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

Pick and choose Selective sync allow you to decide which Dropbox folders to put on a Mac.

manager Alfred can store a single preference file on the service.

Easy remote access These Dropbox tricks work fairly well to keep a MacBook in sync, but sometimes you need to return to the source. With Back to My Mac, you can access your iMac from your laptop, no matter how far apart the two machines are. When you open a new window on your desktop, any awake and online computers linked to your iCloud account should appear under the Shared pane. In case Back to My Mac doesn’t work, you can set up backup options. Edovia’s Screens software for Mac and iOS (edovia.com) has become my go-to program when Back to My Mac fails – it’s a great client on iPhone and iPad, too. Whatever your screen-sharing program of choice, Screens is an excellent lastditch option for tasks you can’t quite accomplish on your laptop.

WorldMags.net

COLLECT CALENDAR EVENTS IN EXCEL

Features

Collect Calendar events in Excel Let Automator help compile records of your whereabouts, so you can learn where and how you spent and earned money during the preceding year BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN

T

he financial pain of the new tax year that began in April may have served as a fresh reminder of how valuable are reliable records of how and where you spent your money over the preceding 12 months. Automator can help you create such records.

Go with the workflow With this Automator workflow and the click of a single button you can create an Excel worksheet containing a record of every 2013 event in the calendar(s) of your choosing. For this to work you must have Microsoft Office 2008 or 2011 Home & Business edition. Launch Automator. In the resulting chooser window select Workflow and click Choose. In the Library pane select the Calendar section and drag three actions from it into the workflow area to the far right: Get Specified Calendar Items, Filter Calendar Items and Event Summary. Next, click on the Utilities section and drag the Copy to Clipboard action to the bottom of the workflow. Finally, enter Excel in the search field near the top of the window, and drag the Create New Excel Workbook and Paste Clipboard Contents into Excel Workbooks actions into the workflow. Now go back to that first action – Get Specified Calendar Items – and click the Add button; in the sheet that appears, select calendars from which you want to pull events. Configure the second action (now called Filter Calendar Events) so it reads All of the following are true and has two date conditions. The first will read Date starting is after 12/31/2013 and the second Date ending is before 1/1/2015. The rest doesn’t require any adjustment.

All the details Setting up an Automator workflow for Calendar events involves six actions.

You’re welcome to save the workflow, but there’s a good chance you’ll run it just once, so there’s no need. To run it, click the Run button in the top-right corner of the workflow window. When you do so, Excel will launch and create a new workbook, and all the events within the chosen calendars will appear in a list, each separated from the next by an empty row. You’ll see a count

of the event (as Event X of Y), plus summary, status, date and time fields, and notes when appropriate.

Instant documentation And that’s all there is to it. In the five minutes it takes to assemble this workflow, you may save your future self hours of tedious combing through your calendars for elusive data.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

USE THUNDERBOLT TO CONNECT TWO MACS

Use Thunderbolt to connect two Macs We ran tests to see how Thunderbolt’s file-transfer performance compares to that of gigabit ethernet BY JA M E S GA L B R A I T H

T

hunderbolt is both fast and flexible. While the original version is capable of bidirectional throughput at 10Gb/s on each of its dual channels, Thunderbolt 2 can reach a maximum of 20Gb/s on a combined channel. The technology can transport PCIe, USB 3.0, FireWire, Mini DisplayPort and gigabit ethernet data. But that’s not all: you can daisy-chain up to six compatible devices on each Thunderbolt port on your Mac. With six available Thunderbolt 2 ports on the new Mac Pro, that adds up to a plethora of connected peripherals. In Mavericks, Apple added the ability to create a 10Gb/s connection between Macs via IP over Thunderbolt. Considering that Intel is planning to bring the same functionality to Windows computers for the first time, Macworld Lab figured it was as good a time as any to find out just how well Thunderbolt Networking actually works.

Setting up a direct connection The setup on a Mac is relatively simple. 1. Set up file sharing: Arrange for file sharing in System Preferences → Sharing.

Be sure to record the username and password for each system. 2. Connect the two Macs: Attach a Thunderbolt cable linking the two Macs. Open System Preferences → Network and choose Thunderbolt Bridge in the network interface list on the left side of the window. Grab the IP address. If you click the Advanced button, you’ll discover a set of tabs with additional options. Under the Bridge Status tab, you can see whether your Thunderbolt connection is active. 3. Connect to Server: Go to the Finder and press 1-K (or select the menu command Go → Connect to Server). Enter the connection’s IP address in the Server Address field and click Connect. A dialog box will pop up, requesting that you type in the username and password for the shared system. Enter that information, select the volume you want to mount, and click OK. If you want to see that mounted volume on the Desktop, go to Finder → Preferences and then enable the Connected Servers checkbox in the General menu.


WorldMags.net

Ready to share Before you can enjoy the benefits of Thunderbolt Networking, you have to set up file sharing. While you’re in the Sharing preference, remember to write down the username and password for each system.

Benchmark tests When we tested two new Mac Pros over a gigabit network connection linked by a standard ethernet cable, we noted write and read speeds of just below 100MB/s for a 10GB file. When copying a set of smaller files, we recorded a write speed of 64MB/s and a read speed of 78MB/s. The file-transfer speed increased when we disconnected ethernet and used IP over Thunderbolt. The speeds for our 10GB file jumped to 241MB/s (write) and 390MB/s (read). The results of our files-and-folders test were less impressive, with the Thunderbolt connection reaching a write speed of 133MB/s and a read speed of 243MB/s, but even so the scores were faster than those of gigabit ethernet. Next we connected a LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt (with two 512GB SSDs

WorldMags.net

Sign in, please Once you’ve established a Thunderbolt connection, log in to the shared system and choose a volume to mount.

in a striped array) to one of the Mac Pros, and enabled file sharing on a volume on that drive. With the IP-over-Thunderbolt connection still in place, we mounted the shared LaCie volume on the other Mac Pro and ran our suite of tests again. The results weren’t as fast as when we tested with a folder residing on the Mac Pros, but the differences were slim. With our 10GB file, the write speed was about six percent slower on the external drive

share, while reads were about 12 percent slower. Writing our set of files and folders was about 25 percent slower in this external-share arrangement than working

Of course, you can always copy files from one Thunderbolt-equipped Mac to another by using Target Disk Mode. When we ran our tests under that setup, all of the results were faster than the IP-overThunderbolt transfer speeds. We found that the 10GB-file writes and reads were about 7 percent faster. On the files-andfolders write test, results were 83 percent faster, while the read test results were 21 percent faster. The downside of this configuration is that you have to boot one of the computers into Target Disk Mode, making it an external drive and thus rendering it completely unusable as a computer for the duration of the test. In our final test we connected the LaCie storage device to a Mac Pro directly over Thunderbolt and ran the benchmark suite

Using a Thunderbolt network may not be as fast as using a directly connected Thunderbolt drive, but the latter method requires several steps with a shared folder stored on one of the Mac Pros, and reading the files and folders was a little more than 10 percent slower on the external share.

again. This configuration was by far the fastest we tested. The 10GB-file write speeds were nearly double those of the closest configuration, the Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode; the 10GB-file read speeds were 55 percent faster than those posted in Target Disk Mode. The filesand-folders results were 59 percent faster (write) and 77 percent faster (read). Using a Thunderbolt network may not be as fast as using a directly attached Thunderbolt drive, but if you’re seriously thinking of sharing files via the latter method you should take into account the number of steps it requires. Firstly, you have to write the data to a drive, then disconnect that drive, then attach it to another Mac, and then copy the files from the first drive onto the second Mac. Using a Thunderbolt network is certainly faster than using gigabit ethernet, at least.

Building bridges After you’ve hooked up a Thunderbolt cable between the Macs you wish to network, you can view the status of your connection and various access options.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

TAME YOUR TWITTER FEED

Tame your Twitter feed Overwhelmed by Twitter? Before you unfollow everyone, try using lists to organising your feed BY KIRK McELHEARN

timeline, without updates from those accounts, for your main Twitter feed.

Use apps and websites

Order out of chaos It’s easy to create a new list on the Twitter website.

Y

ou can cure the Twitter overload blues effortlessly by using lists to organise the accounts that you follow and to manage them more efficiently. Ready to unclog your timeline? Read on…

Getting started When you follow people on Twitter, their accounts get added to a single long list. Your timeline contains all the tweets (and retweets) from all those accounts. But you can create lists to organise the accounts you follow and view each list individually, unclogging your timeline. Create a list: To view and edit lists on the Twitter.com site, first log in, click the gear icon near the top and choose Lists from the resulting pop-up menu. To start a new list, click the Create List button. Give the list a name, add a description, and decide whether to make it public or private. Add people to your list: save the list, and search for users – by username, first name, and so on – to add to it. If you’re already looking at a person’s user page,

click the gear icon and choose Add or Remove from lists. Then, in the Your Lists window that appears, select any list that you want to include that person in. Be aware of list limits: Twitter restricts you to 1000 lists and no list can have more than 5000 users. List names can be no longer than 25 characters and they can’t begin with a number either. Add people to lists without following them: You can add people to Twitter lists even if you don’t follow them. By doing so, you can continue to use your regular

The official Twitter client on OS X won’t work with your lists (free, tinyurl.com/ psc92pn, needs 10.7 or above); but many other apps, including Twitter’s iOS app (free, tinyurl.com/nauLah9) do. Tap a user’s icon, and then tap the gear icon and choose Add/Remove from lists. With Tweetbot for OS X (£13.99, tinyurl. com/p84rwj9), you can find someone you follow, click the gear icon next to their name, and select ‘lists’ to add them to. Various Twitter clients support lists, so you have many options. Websites like Twitlistmanager.com let you manage multiple lists. After signing in with Twitter, you’ll see a matrix of the accounts you’re following and your lists. To add or remove users from a particular list, check or uncheck the appropriate box and then click Save Changes. When I used Twitlistmanager to create lists, it sometimes created two or three with the same name. I prefer to create my lists on the Twitter website and then manage them from Twitlistmanager. But adding members to your lists is easy at this site. You can even use the ‘Toggle unlisted friends’ feature so that only accounts not yet in lists show up.

Listomania You can use Twitlistmanager to organise your list memberships.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

SECRETS OF OS X’S HIDDEN TEXT TOOLS

Features

Secrets of OS X’s hidden text tools A contextual menu holds a bunch of handy text-manipulation tools that many Mac users overlook BY KIRK McELHEARN

O

S X has a set of systemwide text-manipulation tools, but they aren’t necessarily easy to find and their functions may not be obvious in some instances. Right or -click in an app’s editing window to see the available tools. Some of these settings are also available from the Edit menu. Here’s a look at some of the menu items below the more familiar Cut, Copy and Paste options. Fonts: From the Font menu you can choose the font for your document (Show Fonts) and set its formatting, such as Bold or Italic. You can also use styles – preset combinations of font, size and formatting – with some text editors. Spelling and grammar: In order to toggle OS X’s spelling and grammar checker on or off, select the Spelling and Grammar menu and then choose the appropriate submenu item. Substitutions: The Substitutions menu lets you control certain elements of your text’s display, such as Smart Copy/Paste (to ensure that appropriate spaces are inserted when you copy and paste text), Smart Quotes (to type curly instead of

straight single and double quotation marks), Smart Dashes (to automatically convert two or three hyphens into an en- or em-dash) and Smart Links (to make any URL clickable). You can use Data Detectors to locate dates, email addresses and other types of text so you can perform actions on them. Activate Data Detectors, and you’ll be able to create a new Calendar event by hovering your cursor over a date and then clicking the downward-pointing triangle. Alternatively, you can add an email address to Contacts by hovering and clicking the triangle. Text Replacement lets you set up specific snippets of text that OS X will automatically replace with longer words or phrases. You can instruct the program to replace sy (when you type it) with ‘Sincerely yours’, or you can have © replace (c). First, though, you must add them to a list: Open System Preferences, click Keyboard, and click the Text tab. Then click the add button (+) to add a new replacement to the list. These replacements can sync across all of your devices via iCloud. So you can set up replacements on your main Mac

Text Replacement will set up text snippets that OS X automatically replaces with longer words or phrases and syncs across all devices via iCloud

Get smart Choose ‘Smart Quotes’ to replace dumb (straight) quotation marks with smart (curly) ones throughout your document.

and access them on another one, or on your iPhone or iPad, if you’re syncing them all via Apple’s web service. (To see the shortcuts on an iOS device, choose Settings → General → Keyboard, and scroll down to the Shortcuts section.) You can turn any of these on or off for your app in general, or you can apply them to a particular document or text selection. To do the latter, choose Edit → Substitutions → Show Substitutions. This will cause a floating window to appear. You can turn the various substitutions on or off, and you can apply them to an entire document (click Replace All ) or only to a specific selection (click Replace in Selection). The Text Preferences button lets you quickly access the Text Replacement settings discussed earlier. Transformations: This menu lets you change the case of selected text. Want to change some text to ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, without doing any retyping? Select the text, right-click or click it, and choose Transformations → Make Upper Case. Want to Capitalise The First Letter In Each Of A Bunch Of Words? Select Transformations → Capitalise. To put all of the selected text back into non-capital letters? Choose Transformations → Make Lower Case.


WorldMags.net

Group Test

WorldMags.net

SECURITY SOFTWARE

:LJ\YP[` ZVM[^HYL

Keeping your Mac safe from web nasties is more important than ever, writes Andrew Harrison. He puts six of the best through their paces

M

acs are secure and are immune to viruses. Not true. Apple computers are like any other – if they’re on they’re a malware target and just as vulnerable to cyber attack as every other PC. Somewhere between these two statements lies the truth. But what we do know with certainty is that when compared to the most widely used and exploited computing platforms – Windows for desktop PCs and Android for mobile phones – the Apple Mac has all but evaded the widespread attention of criminals. Most malware developers seek to infect and control computers for profit, pursuing platforms that are the most popular by number and least secure by design. For these reasons Mac OS X is still far from top of their to-do list. But dangerous malware for OS X exists, albeit in limited numbers. It’s a sign of just how limited it is that when an outbreak of a ‘Mac virus’ occurs, it’s front-page news on tech sites, sometimes even being discussed in international news channels. Especially when the victim is a high-profile user such as Google or Apple itself, as was disclosed in February 2013 when a Trojan broke those companies’ defences, aided by that old perennial of malware facilitators, the cross-platform Java software. Whether malware-detection software was used at Apple and Google campuses we don’t know, but targeted attacks at gateway individuals will typically use malware that’s not on any AV firm’s blacklist; or use zero-day exploits in the PC’s OS, or any application running on it. Sadly for Mac users, the widespread adoption of Apple’s desktop computing platform by keenly targeted companies like Google – which has migrated away from Windows almost entirely after a wave of spear phishing attacks in 2009 – means that criminal and state-run hackers will be honing their techniques specifically against OS X now more than ever. To counter this, in recent years Apple has added technologies to OS X to keep your Mac secure. Gatekeeper ensures the apps you download are safe; Sandboxing blocks malicious code; FileVault encrypts your data; iCloud Keychain helps you create strong

passwords and remembers them for you, and Xprotect keeps a look out for known malware. With Apple’s built-in security features you may be wondering whether a thirdparty tool is even necessary to protect your Mac. Spyware was a popular form of intrusion on Windows PCs up to around 10 years ago, but it’s now rarely discussed or highlighted by antivirus software. The reason is that spyware is now more pervasive and used against every internet-connected platform, whether laptop or desktop, smartphone or tablet. It’s almost reached respectable status, in that many people aware of the problem are hopelessly resigned to its use. So now, spyware is employed by commercial companies in order to track web users’ through more insidious processes than just installing a secret .exe on your PC. Spying and tracking your computer use is now standard operational procedure for social networks and thousands of web-analytics startups, all focused on reading and writing your browser and Flash cookies, hiding invisible tracking pixels and deploying assorted JavaScript tricks, triggered by clicking ‘Like’ or ‘+1’ buttons, for example. To reduce the effects of privacy-invading web tracking spyware on your Mac requires a different strategy than installing antivirus software. Good starting points would be to use Ghostery or Disconnect browser plug-ins, with a cookie manager such as Sweet P Cookie. Similarly, if you’re turning to security software to help combat remote surveillance, be sure to ask how an antivirus company is treating your data. Most antivirus programs are reasonably upfront that they will – usually with your opt-in consent – check every web page you visit, harvest suspect files from your computer for their own analysis, and collect what they consider suspicious emails, including their contents. Such data mining is more prevalent in ‘free’ software, where the developer can recoup their investment by using you the user to harvest more data on their behalf. But even paid-for AV software will have some form of ‘user community’ or customer feedback system that collects data from you.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Security software We assembled a group of six Mac malware-detection suites, half available to download for free, half based on a yearly subscription model. The former group carry the usual caveat about ‘free’ products, whereby you may be paying through other means – agreeing to have your files uploaded to the vendor, for example. Ideally, antivirus software should detect, and remove where necessary, all and every piece of malware that comes close to your computer. It should do so without ever making the mistake of wrongly identifying innocent files as malware. It should do so transparently enough that you aren’t disturbed by notifications that it’s just updated itself, or needs registering or in any other needless way. Finally, it shouldn’t slow down your computer while it’s operating silently in the background.

Unfortunately, by these definitions there’s no such thing as ideal security software. All current software available to Mac or Windows is afflicted by one or several issues from this wish list. To help decide the most important aspect of stopping and detecting malware, we turned to Mac anti-malware specialist Security Spread, a website that publishes full lab tests of antivirus software for OS X. We used the results of Security Spread’s last round-up in April 2014, including an application’s ability to detect over 400 strains of real malware installers, installed malware traces and its propensity to label innocent software as evil. We also looked at the impact of running security software on your Mac, which may be far more debilitating than is commonly realised. Some tasks took a worrying 14 times longer with real-time scanning enabled. SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 31

WorldMags.net

Group Test

WorldMags.net

SECURITY SOFTWARE

contents of your emails. Mail and web screening can be switched off if required. During installation, Avast! tries to sideload Google Chrome as your default browser. In use, the program reports analytics information to Google. It also enrols your Mac into reporting back to its developer to ‘participate in Avast! online community’, but this can be switched off. It installs an extension into the Safari browser – Avast! Online Security and Web Reputation Plugin – with plug-ins also made for Firefox and Chrome. The software must be registered within 30 days for a one-year licence requiring annual renewal and your agreement to the latest terms of use. During the course of writing this review we tried to browse the Avast! forums, but these had been taken offline after a major hacker intrusion that had obtained users’ names, email addresses and hashed passwords. For a company that sells security services, we can’t see how this would inspire confidence among its user base.

AVAST! FREE ANTIVIRUS FOR MAC

Design and interface

Free • avast.com/en-gb • tinyurl.com/phmm26k Avast! was founded in communist Czechoslovakia in 1988 and maintains a headquarters in Prague. Its cofounders still serve as directors, although the company has had significant foreign investment, with one-fifth of its revenue in 2012 coming from Google. Like many antivirus companies, Avast! (née Alwil Software) rose to fame with the ascent of Windows 95 as the world’s most popular and vulnerable computing software. More recently, it’s diversified with antivirus products for other platform such as Android, Linux and Mac. Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac 8.0 is the company’s only Mac software, although a paid-for Pro version is also offered for businesses since its licence terms block commercial use of the free edition. Strangely, the Pro option doesn’t support remote management as well as the consumer version. The software includes a core antivirus component, along with a Mail and Web Shield. The company’s privacy policy explains that the software will report URLs of sites you visit, metadata and the

The application is a little more difficult to disable or pause than some, as you must go into your Mac’s System Preferences, where the app’s preferences are accessed via an administrator password. The interface is easy to navigate, based on a sidebar that links to scanning, report and maintenance sections. The main pane shows Status, with a running graph indicating the passing scans on files. For on-demand scans, you click on Start new scan, and select between Full System Scan, Removable Volumes Scan, your home directory, and Custom Scan for selected folders and files. There’s no contextual Finder shortcut to scan local files. In lab malware testing, Avast! scored highly, coming in second overall with 95 percent malware detection. It was also good at finding traces of preinstalled malefic components (scoring 71 percent). Avast! also proved one of the best ways to slow down your Mac, turning a 50-second file copy operation into one lasting over 12 minutes. This suggests it’s at least monitoring every file you possess, where some other, less thorough anti-malware software will happily turn a blind eye to pre-existing files on your hard drive. Avast!’s on-demand scan test put it near the bottom of the list, too, when it took around six minutes to scan our folder of files, but only reported checking around half of them. In terms of needless panics, it additionally raised the alarm for four out of 11 lab false-positive test files. And in our use it wrongly accused an OS X system file of being a decompression bomb.

Macworld’s buying advice The free price looks attractive, and its malware-finding abilities are among the best of current products. Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac 8.0 could make a good fallback for monitoring known Mac malware, although our tests suggest it can slow your Mac to a crawl in daily use when simply running in the background. The Avast! ‘free’ business model is based on personal data gathering and marketing to a larger degree than most others, so may be less attractive to many Mac users looking for protection, but trying to avoid spyware. PROS: Decent malware detection

Getting carried away Avast! can occasionally be over-zealous and sometimes accuses Mac OS X system files of being malware.

CONS: False positives; system slowdown


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Design and interface

AVIRA FREE ANTIVIRUS FOR MAC

Free • avira.com • tinyurl.com/mnpoory Avira is another long-running Windows virus specialist, founded in the 1980s and based in the Germany town of Tettnang. Its most popular product was AntiVir and its umbrella logo is well known. Avira is still focused on Windows products, including a free Windows antivirus program, and now offers Android and OS X products, while Unix and Linux protection has been discontinued. A clear privacy policy indicates that Avira doesn’t collect any personal information while the software sends samples to its German servers, and that such sampling is only active in its paid-for products.

After installation, a restart isn’t necessary, and the application automatically updates itself with latest definitions, then proceeds to a Quick scan. It declared that “all the security risks have been fixed successfully” even though it had done nothing, so far. The Avira software has a clean, square, monotone look, with a white background, charcoal sidebar and a red umbrella icon. By default, it doesn’t scan all files, only those it considers potentially dangerous. Nor does it scan inside archives until you change the default setting in its preferences. Heuristic scanning is included, a new tactic employed by many Windows antivirus programs in a bid to deal with the tsunami of subtly tweaked Windows malware that’s released every week. Such viruses will have the same payload, but with code tweaked just enough to create a different checksum and so avoid detection by fingerprint. Heuristic looks at the way a new file starts to behave upon arrival, and try to deduce if it’s following any of the familiar modus operandi of known threats. By Avira’s own warning, though, activating this can elicit more false positives. A three-position slider for heuristic detection level can be set to Low, Medium or High to adjust its sensitivity. Another tab offers different threat categories that can be screened, by ticking those to watch from a list. While adware/spyware is unsurprisingly on by default, Dubious Application, Joke and Security privacy risk require manually engaging, for example. For real-time protection there’s an option to scan inside archives. Disabling real-time protection also requires an admin password. Besides real-time protection, Avira can be set to undertake scheduled scans on a regular basis. As with on-demand use, you can select a quick scan which only checks the Mac’s most vulnerable system directories, or a full system scan. As well as offering a certain time on a certain day of the week – or simply every day – you can also program it to make scheduled scans more than once per day.

Performance In the last Security Spread malware study, Avira identified 399 out of 422 assorted Mac nasties, or over 93 percent of the sample group – a good result. When confronted with 107 different stray components of malware already in place on a test machine, it spotted 38. This suggests that if you installed Avira on an already infected Mac, there’s also a two-in-three chance it wouldn’t be able to warn you. The lab test had only one false positive and in our testing we saw no evidence of misflagging safe files. System performance wasn’t hindered in our file duplication test, suggesting that no real-time screening is undertaken on files already on the Mac. When we tried an on-demand scan of the same file basket, it took over six minutes, almost the same time as Avast!, and curiously indicated that it had chosen the same number of 23,691 out of around 40,000 files.

Macworld’s buying advice Avira’s free AV software displayed good malware-spotting skills and a tidy user interface that doesn’t detract from its duties. The suite shouldn’t make its presence known when working behind the scenes. PROS: Better privacy policy

Suspicious? Mined Heuristic file detection is included as standard, to help spot and neutralise as-yet unidentified possible threats.

CONS: Nothing for the price SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 33

WorldMags.net

Group Test

WorldMags.net

SECURITY SOFTWARE

basic system details to the developer and this is easily deselected if preferred. ClamXav 2 has no real-time scanning facilities. You can still set it to run scheduled scans on important directories or volumes, up to once per day. To help compensate, there’s an invaluable Sentry option, where you can choose a certain folder for ClamXav to monitor, as well as inserted disks. USB drives could also be set for scan, even if this infection vector is minimal today. Note that the app and its Sentry function don’t auto-launch after reboot, but it’s easy to add ClamXav 2 to your user login items. You’ll also need to select ‘Launch ClamXav Sentry when you log in to this computer’ from the app’s preferences for this function to always be engaged. ClamXav is available to download via the Mac App Store, but that version doesn’t include the Sentry function.

Design and interface

CLAMXAV 2

Free • clamxav.com • tinyurl.com/ok8ba72 ClamXav 2 is a little different to most other anti-malware software programs. Not only is it free, this venerable command-line program is also based on a free, open-source project. The ClamAV project was originally made for Unix and is typically used for server-based email screening – Apple even includes it in OS X Server for this very reason. Ports are available for both Windows and Linux, and ClamXav 2 for OS X with a GUI developed by Mark Allan using the GPL code. It’s supported by donations through the British developer’s website (clamxav.com), and is a free download on the Mac App Store. If you get it from the developer’s site, the first time you run ClamXav 2 you must install the Clam Antivirus engine separately. When checking for application updates, the app will optionally send

The interface is sparse, but Mac-like. Across the top of its small application window are buttons for Start Scan, Stop, Pause; and then links to Update Definitions, Open Scan Log, Open Update Log and Preferences. The left sidebar of the application’s window is the Source List, which shows your user directory, Documents and Desktop folders by default. To scan any of the above, just click the icon or drag any folder or volume to the sidebar, highlight it and click Start Scan. Detailed results about what’s been scanned and the results are available via OS X’s own Console.app, and stored in ~/Library/Logs. Other options include setting your quarantine folder, where suspect files can be sent for closer examination; and Exclude Files, which lets you set ClamXav to overlook certain file types. There’s even a link to another site’s tutorial on using regular expressions.

Performance The clamscan engine that does the heavy lifting of signature-based malware scanning usually takes up the resources of one processor thread, and in our tests this was typically pegged at 100 percent on our four- and eight-core Intel processors when active. In our performance tests ClamXav 2 was the slowest to finish in on-demand scans of our test directory – almost three times longer than the next-best apps. Malware detection wasn’t bad though, at 89.3 percent from the April 2014 malware zoo, which includes unwanted applications like commercial keyloggers. For the latter category alone, ClamXav 2 found 89 percent of the 37 test apps. Discovering previously installed malware traces was the least impressive of these six AV suites, at 34 percent and just behind Avira. False positives were flagged for two of the selection of 11, just above the average of one incorrect call, and better than the worst offender Avast! – which mistook four innocent samples for malware.

Macworld’s buying advice This free and open-source port of Clam AV works well on a Mac. It’s the slowest in its scans, but has no real-time scanner component to slow down day-to-day work. Lab tests put it last in this group in malware-spotting, but the application is regularly maintained by its volunteer developer base and plentiful signature updates. PROS: Free, open source

Eyes in the back of your head There’s no real-time scanning, but Sentry can watch your back for malware and other nasties.

CONS: Slowest on test


WorldMags.net


ESET CYBER SECURITY

£30 per year • eset.co.uk • tinyurl.com/o86zpna Eset is a Slovakian company known for its Windows antivirus software and it offers two versions for OS X – this standard version and Cyber Security Pro which adds a firewall and parental controls. The standard Cyber Security provides malware protection through both traditional signature recognition, and ‘heuristics and advanced heuristics’. The heuristics component found in Windows malware recognition is less common with Mac security software. By default, during the installation stage, the app will enrol your Mac into the company’s Live Grid Early Warning System. This submits suspicious files for analysis, along with anonymous statistical information. You’re also asked if you’d like to enable detection of potentially unwanted applications, as distinct from the hardcore malware. The malware-scanning capability of Eset may explain why our first virus signature database update was a hefty 47MB.

This application has a simple-looking interface showing a computer icon with a ticked green screen when all is well; and likewise for Web and Mail – referring to web browsing, email and antiphishing protection. The options within Cyber Security are extensive: you can delve through Real-time file system protection to enable file open, file creation and file execution – then delve further for ThreatSense Engine options to select whether you want Heuristics, Advanced Heuristics and/or Eset Live Grid. In short, Eset’s Mac security software is best suited to someone who likes to configure exactly how it works. The company details its Advanced Heuristics as using binary-translation code emulation, as well as non-advanced analyses with an unspecified algorithm to detect unlisted malware. We noticed that Advanced Heuristics is switched off by default until you dig through the extensive options to turn the feature on. Live Grid is Eset’s two-way communications that sends information about potential new threats to their servers. The Preferences interface is very well laid out, resembling Apple’s OS X. Other options include Anti-Phishing Protections, which checks your web browsing against the company’s database of suspect sites. For those occasionally dodgy looking files, a context menu option is also available, and it’s a useful shortcut for checking suspect files when you see them through the Finder. Simply right-click or Ctrl-click any file and select either a full scan or clean or scan/clean only.

Performance Overall, Eset showed a good blend of malware detection without as much system slowdown as other products (like Avast!). In our essential malware detection, it caught 396 out of 420 selected samples, returning a rate of just over 94 percent. Focusing on the unwanted applications category, it found all but 11 out of 37 of them in real-time scans; but another seven in a separate on-demand scan. This was one of the better solutions for finding preinstalled malware at 53 percent detection. False positives were kept low too, the application incorrectly labelling one file from 11 as bad news. Performance of the Mac will be slowed by simple copy operations, as we found when duplicating our 4.26GB mbox archive. Rather than skip any screening, the Eset engine sifted the contents for malware, stretching duplicated time on the MacBook Air’s SSD from around 50 seconds to nine minutes, 15 seconds. That’s a considerable slowdown, but, actually, it’s the fastest of any security app here that did any automatic on-access scanning. When faced with an on-demand scan of the same basket, Eset took just over a minute, also the fastest on test, and indicated that it had examined around three-quarters of the contents.

Macworld’s buying advice Eset Cyber Security for Mac is a sophisticated security application with impressive malware detection. It also has very little impact on system performance when running in the background. This is software best suited to users that like to tweak, but it’s still easy enough for anyone to install and provides comprehensive protection. PROS: Sophisticated options available

Making sense of it all The ThreatSense Engine has many advanced setup options including reporting threats back the Eset Live Grid.

CONS: Complex to configure SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 35

WorldMags.net

Group Test

WorldMags.net

SECURITY SOFTWARE

The main window shows a Real-Time Scanning function (enabled by default) and Scheduled Scanning (which requires you to input your preferred date and time). To see what suspect files have been found, click the Quarantine tab on the app window; or for a fuller log of what has been scanned and the relevant results, click Window from the top bar, then Logs.

NetBarrier

INTEGO MAC INTERNET SECURITY X8

£40 per year • intego.com • tinyurl.com/Lyfznco Almost all Mac AV software comes from companies who made their name selling software to Windows users. Intego Mac Internet Security X8 is different. The company, founded in France in 1997, focuses on Mac security only. Intego now has its head office in Seattle and keeps a European office in Paris. Its latest security software is only available at its most basic as a suite made up of two main parts – the core VirusBarrier malware scanner and a NetBarrier firewall. The company also sells Family Protector, a parental control app; and a package that includes all its consumer software together – Mac Premium Bundle X8 – which adds a cleaning utility called Mac Washing Machine.

VirusBarrier After installation, the VirusBarrier application launches, with a useful arrowed overlay highlighting the interface’s important areas. It’s a simple-looking app that doesn’t need much guidance, especially when compared to complex programs such as Eset.

This can serve as a two-way firewall, monitoring and blocking data that travels to and from your Mac, where required. By default, the app opts in to ‘Allow anonymous information to be collected’ which reports on your app use back to Intego, but this can be switched off from the preference pane. The main window is divided in two down the centre. To the left is an animated chart showing external internet traffic in and out of your Mac, as well as the same for local network traffic. To the right are four slide switches which allow you to toggle filters for ingress and egress. You can dig deeper using the Exceptions button. If Incoming Internet Connections is set to the red Block position (as it is by default for all three of the Home, Work and Public presets), you can add exceptions which will whitelist this traffic. Outgoing Internet Connections is set to the green Allow position, and additions here will blacklist those you’d prefer to now block. NetBarrier has none of the level of customisation and control as dedicated network filters like Little Snitch; but this software is aimed at people who want a simpler overview of network activity, and the ability to restrict certain connections. Finally, an Application Monitor floating palette illustrates with flowing arrows which applications and background processes are sending and receiving data.

Performance In malware protection tests, Intego VirusBarrier X8 detected 415 out of 422 samples, returning a score of 98.8 percent, the highest rate of all security suites on test here. Oddly, it failed to detect three samples that had been picked up by it predecessor, Intego VirusBarrier 2013. VirusBarrier X8 also had the best results in rooting out installed malware traces, missing only one component from 107 traces to give a detection result of 99 percent. False positives were limited to one erroneous result from the 11 samples fielded. System slowdown tests indicated that Intego VirusBarrier does not attempt to scan files that are copied within the host Mac; the mbox archive copied as quickly with Intego real-time protection enabled as without. For on-demand scans, Intego was one of the fastest – it also indicated the highest number of files that were actually scanned, even if the 42,523 figure exceeds the 39,925 reported by Finder for the same directory.

Macworld’s buying advice If you want software that consistently scores highly for spotting malware, Intego is for you. In the last lab test, VirusBarrier X8 and its predecessor took first and second place. It’s a simple program to install and setup, lacks a few deeper tweaking options, but it also proved to have minimal slowdown of Mac resources in normal use. PROS: Effective malware solution

Safe and sound This versatile security suite also includes a simple two-way firewall to control what goes in and out of your Mac.

CONS: Not as configurable as some


WorldMags.net


KASPERSKY INTERNET SECURITY

£40 per year • kaspersky.co.uk • tinyurl.com/nkkvhhz The Russian virus specialists released Kaspersky Antivirus for Mac five years ago. We found this to be unstable, so were interested to see how the company’s latest offering measures up. As an internet security suite, it includes more than just simple antivirus protection – in this case you get a parental control module. This is designed to provide limits to web use, time spent online, sharing of personal data and use of social networks. Kaspersky Lab also includes a section it calls Web Antivirus, which checks the reputation of any site you visit. As with all prescreen site checks, thorny privacy issues arise as every site URL you type or click will be sent to Kaspersky for verification. Software licences also explain that after automatically opting you in to the Kaspersky Security Network, it will collect information about your computer including suspect files on it, applications you download and use, as well as upload suspect files to its server. Although typical for most AV companies, you can deselect this option during or after installation.

The main interface window of Kaspersky Internet Security is modestly small, taking up the least space of any security program we’ve tried. The metal-coloured window is dominated by a large glassy dome window, which is illuminated in green when all is well; and a thundery red (complete with cloudy lightning graphic) when it detects security issues. When it initially detects a threat, the application can be heard to roar in alert if you have your speakers turned up. At the bottom of the window are areas that link to the three main sections of the program – File Antivirus, Web Antivirus and Parental Control. Click any one of these and a larger Preferences window overlaps the main interface with a wealth of new options. Annoyingly, it’s easy to quit the app to entirely disable any real-time protection. We also found a few stability issues. It gave up half-way through one custom file scan, and later froze and became unresponsive after we’d downloaded an EICAR test file. Several minutes later, the application righted itself and became usable again. A potentially useful feature could be the on-screen virtual keyboard. This is in a bid to defeat keylogging software that silent captures every keystroke, and is a favourite way to steal passwords from a target’s computer. There’s less need for this feature on a Mac, since OS X already has a very serviceable keyboard palette available.

Performance Kaspersky Lab’s security suite proved relatively capable in its malware protection. From the sample set of 422 Mac malware installers it caught 396, returning a score of 91.6 percent effectiveness. From the smaller 107 set of malware components already installed, the suite identified 46, or 43 percent. That puts it in the lower half of the six products reviewed here. False positives were low, only identifying the same single sample of BitVanity source code as malignant as every other security product. In use, we weren’t troubled by any similar false alarms. The software seems to check all file movements on the Mac’s boot drive, as we discovered when duplicating our test directory. This took over 11 minutes, one of the slowest times on test. On-demand scanning proved better than the norm at one minute, 44 seconds for a 38,359 files. A subsequent scan on the same folder took just 11 seconds and indicated that 23,730 files had been examine. This speed-up of batch scanning suggests that additional fingerprinting of ‘safe’ files was in place after their first scan. But quitting and restarting the app put it back to a full directory scan, so this information can’t be cached between launches.

Macworld’s buying advice Kaspersky’s Mac security program has improved dramatically since its first appearance many years ago, although we still found a few issues that make us hesitate in recommending it. For one thing, it’s at the top end of the price bracket at an eyewatering £40 per year, and the suite wasn’t as stable as we expected for a premium-priced product. Also, rather surprisingly, its malwarespotting credentials were bottom in this six-way test. PROS: Simple interface

Big brother is watching you Kaspersky Security Network shares your online use, while browser extensions monitor sites you visit.

CONS: Pricey; unstable SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 37

WorldMags.net

Group Test

WorldMags.net

SECURITY SOFTWARE

How we test For this Macworld UK group test of Mac antivirus software, we looked at how well each application could identify malware, in both raw installer form and after it has infiltrated an OS X filesystem; we also looked at the application’s interface, features and quality of design. Another consideration is how much the developer is likely to use their software to earn money from selling your data. Central to any evaluation of malwareprevention software is whether it can identify malware. For this part of our feature, all credit must go to independent security researcher Jay at Security Spread. Using a combination of Mac Pros as servers running OS X guests as virtual machines in VMware Fusion, and subsequently by investigating real Trojans and rootkits as they infiltrate real machines using low-level event viewers, Kay was able to check on the behaviour of many different security products. We offer only a round-up of six out of 14 AV suites that were tested in April 2014. Software was presented with multiple variants of the limited number of threats found in the wild to target OS X. For the most prevalent Trojans such as the notorious Flashback Trojan, 60 subtly different variations seen in the wild were included in the mix. More details can be found at securityspread.com. Note that in some cases the lab-tested product has been updated with new version

names and numbers since lab testing in April. But AV software testing is a fluid and ever-changing game – it only takes one nightly download of signature updates to skew results by several percent. To get a good picture of any given app’s efficacy, keep an eye on the history of its results – products from developers that take a close interest in malware threats are more likely to show consistently high results, even if they don’t hit peak detection rates during any single, isolated survey. We ran extra system slowdown tests in the Macworld UK lab. Starting with OS X guest VMs inside VMware Fusion, we settled on multiple partitions of an 11in MacBook Air (mid-2014) for the best consistency. A packed directory of email and attachments (in mbox format and containing around 40,000 files from 12 months’ of work

email) was used as the scan subject. In the first test, the mbox directory was simply duplicated on the Desktop, and timed to compare to a baseline system that wasn’t running antivirus software. The latter clean system took between 47 and 51 seconds to complete; most systems with AV installed took considerably longer as the bulk of the folder’s contents was analysed one by one by the software. In the second speed test, we started a manual scan on the same folder, otherwise known as an on-demand scan. Here we can simply compare the time taken between different vendors to complete the task. All software was left in its default state, although some of the products on test are capable of even deeper and more methodical scanning at the expense of lower speed and greater processor overhead.

AVAST!

AVIRA

CLAMXAV 2

Product name

Free Antivirus For Mac

Free Antivirus For Mac

ClamXav 2

Version

8.0.40795

2.0.4.58

2.6.3 (315)

System requirements 10.6.8 or later, 256MB drive space

10.8 or later, 200MB drive space

10.6 or later (10.4-5 versions also available, 20MB

Core function

Antivirus

Antivirus

Antivirus

Real-time scanning

Yes

Yes

No

Heuristic scanning

Websites only

Yes

No

On-access (duplicate 2012.mbox)

12 minutes, 11 seconds

51 seconds (not scanned)

None

On-demand (scan 2012.mbox)

6 minutes, 4 seconds (23 691)



Malware detection (/422)

94.5% (399)

93.1% (393)

89.3% (377)

Dangerous app detection (/37)

70% (26)

92% (34)

89% (33)

Traces detection (/107)

71% (62)

35% (38)

34% (36)

False positives (/11)

36% (4)

9% (1)

18% (2)

Free

Free


WorldMags.net

Free

WorldMags.net Conclusion Do you need to run a full-time virus scanner on your Mac? The answer for most people today is still probably no, although there are organisations for whom the added level of security is worthwhile – including financial institutions and cautious corporations, along with security researchers trawling the web’s underbelly. Apple does include some rudimentary malware protection within the Mac operating system, Xprotect, and this will screen incoming files for a limited number of Trojans that have caused some trouble in recent years. As of June 2014, we noted 37 different malware signatures on Apple’s wanted list, representing some of the most annoying Trojans that have troubled some users. But if you’re serious about security, you’ll need software that has more timely updates and stops the variants that aren’t already on this watch list. Running antivirus all the time in the background can have a remarkable effect in slowing down performance, so you may like to consider running regular system scans when you’re not using the machine and disabling real-time protection at times when you don’t want to wait ten times longer for some tasks to complete. From the group we reviewed here, the three free solutions all proved reasonably adept at spotting malware, although open-source ClamXav 2 can only scan on-demand. Nevertheless, you can set a ‘watch folder’ for it to keep tabs on at all times. Avast! is consistently near the top few recent lab tests by Security Spread, although we also found it somewhat intrusive in its privacy policy, with strong links to companies known for breaching personal privacy laws. Avira seems to strike a better balance, with high malware detection rates, a clean and simple interface and a clearly worded stated compliance with German privacy laws. Of the paid-for antivirus software packages reviewed here, Kaspersky Lab’s latest was perhaps the most disappointing. The company has a good pedigree in chasing down Windows malware, and the product has improved since we last tested their software five years ago. But it still proved a little unstable, at times. Its file fingerprinting could help mitigate against slow repeated scanning

of the same directory, although this may be of little benefit if the results aren’t cached between launches. Our two favourite security application from this group were Eset Cyber Security (£30 per year) and Intego Mac Internet Security X8 (£40 per year; Editors’ choice) – but for quite different reasons. Eset appealed to our tweak-happy side, giving many options for fine-tuning the application to balance malware-seeking efficacy against resource hogging and false positives. Even while running with default settings, it showed some of the least-intrusive impact on Mac processor use. It also features an easy, but extremely effective external volume utility that can block most usual data ports, or warn on USB thumb drive insertion, for example.

If you want antivirus for your Mac that has the best chance of spotting incoming danger, the consistently highest scoring solution looks to be Intego VirusBarrier The company has obviously put a lot of time into designing and developing its Cyber Security software for Mac users, and supports it well. In malware detection terms, it’s a few down from the top, but like most, will keep you safe from 9 out of 10 known Mac threats. If you want antivirus for your Mac that has the best chance of spotting incoming danger, the consistently highest scoring solution looks to be Intego VirusBarrier. It’s also rated best for picking up on nasties that have already distributed themselves around your hard drive. Now packaged with NetBarrier for the entry-level Mac Internet Security X8, the software, along with Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, is the most expensive at £40 every year. The software’s stability, limited resource diversions and tremendous ease-of-use make it the best choice for Mac security software converts.

ESET

INTEGO

KASPERSKY

Cyber Security

Mac Internet Security X8

Internet Security for Mac

6.0.91

10.8.1

14.0.1.46


10.7 or later, 1.5GB drive space


Antivirus

Antivirus, two-way firewall

Antivirus, parental controls

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes


47 seconds (not scanned)


1 minute, 3 seconds (31 363)

1 minute, 53 seconds (42 523)

1 minute, 44 seconds (38 359)/11 seconds (23 730)

93.8% (396)

98.3% (415)

91.6% (387)

89% (33) / 70% (26) real-time

(36)

(36)

53% (57)

99% (106)

43% (46)

9% (1)

9% (1)

9% (1)

£30 per year

£40 per year

£40 per year


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Reviews

Apple MacBook Air 11in (2014) Now available for £749, Apple has made only minor trade-offs to hit this price BY KAREN HASLAM

Pros: Compact; great value; good runtime Cons: Slow storage and data write speeds Star Rating: Company: Apple, apple.com/uk Price: From £749

A

pple recently unveiled its revised MacBook Air range, and the entry-level 11in model with 128GB of storage now costs just £749 (the 256GB model costs £899). It’s also added a slightly faster 1.4GHz Core i5 dual-core processor (previously 1.3GHz), which is the same chip found in the 13in models. The £899 11in Air can be customised with a 1.7GHz Core i7 chip, bumping up the price by £130. Nothing else has changed in the MacBook Air’s spec. As before, Apple lists four standard configurations: two with 11.6in screens; two with 13.3in screens (reviewed opposite). Each is coupled with either 128- or 256GB of solid-state storage (upgradable to 512GB for £240), 4GB of DDR3 memory (add £80 for 8GB) and Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics. This means there’s no need to sacrifice power for portability when purchasing the 11in model. Retina has yet to make its way to the MacBook Air, and the display remains an 11.6in panel with 1366x768 pixels – slightly lower than the 13.3in 1440x900pixel display of its bigger brother. Adding a Retina display would reduce battery life, which may be why Apple has so far been reluctant to do so. The unibody design is incredibly thin, tapering from 3- to 17mm. This 11in version weighs a tiny 1.08kg and measures 300x192mm, both shorter and lighter than the 325x227mm, 1.35kg 13in Air. Both models have same ports and connections, with two USB 3.0, one Thunderbolt (not v2),

MagSafe 2, and an audio jack. The 13in model adds an SDXC card slot. The MacBook Air is known for its excellent battery life and, despite the faster processor, Apple still expects this 11in model to last 9 hours away from the mains. And it suggests iTunes movie playback is possible for an extra two hours over the 2013 model, now for as long as 9 hours. That’s not as long as the 13in model’s 12 hours, but easily enough for a full working day and beyond. In our own tests, which involve looping an iTunes movie at 200cd/m2 with Wi-Fi switched off and the keyboard dimmed, this 11in Air kept going 9 hours 39 mins, 20 minutes longer than its predecessor. This could be evidence in defence of Apple’s claims that OS X Mavericks can boost battery life.

Copying 6GB of data took 28 seconds on the 2013 11in Air with a 256GB SSD, but 53.9 seconds on the 2014 model with a 128GB SSD. Lower-capacity SSDs often produce slower performance, but we found the same thing when comparing this laptop to the 2013 13in, 128GB model. Compressing a 6GB folder took 146.2 seconds longer on the new MacBook Air, and unzipping it took an extra 83.6 seconds when compared to last year’s 11in MacBook Air. Blackmagic Design’s Disk Speed Test showed the 2014 model averaging 306MB/s writes and 620MB/s reads, while the 2013 model averaged 445MB/s writes and 725MB/s reads. Disk Utility indicated the four drives in the models we tested were indeed different, two from Samsung, one from Toshiba and one from SanDisk.

Performance We tested the £749 11in MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD using Speedmark 9, then compared it to both the 2013 11in model and 2014 13in MacBook Air with 256GB of storage. As expected, the new Airs beat their predecessors in the majority of tests, and the 13in model was in most cases faster than the 11in MacBook Air. However, the smaller model kept pace in Photoshop and Cinebench, and actually beat its bigger brother in MathematicaMark 9, PCMark 8 Office, and our Unigine Heaven and Valley GPU benchmark tests. The MacBook Air hasn’t improved in all aspects of performance, however, and its flash storage appears to be slower than that of its predecessor – most likely to help Apple keep down costs. In our tests this could drag down the Speedmark score.


WorldMags.net

Macworld’s buying advice At £749 the 11in MacBook Air is a great purchase, and you needn’t sacrifice power for portability. Storage is slower however, and a discounted 2013 model may offer a better deal.

Read more at tinyurl.com/ L578zrc

WorldMags.net

Apple MacBook Air 13in (2014) Apple’s larger MacBook Air has fallen in price, but what else has changed? BY KAREN HASLAM

Pros: Light; cheaper and faster than before Cons: Slow storage; non-Retina display Star Rating: Company: Apple, apple.com/uk Price: From £849

I

n common with its little brother, the recently updated 13in MacBook Air isn’t all that different to its predecessor. It, too, is £100 cheaper and has seen a small bump to its processor’s clock speed. This price decrease is welcome, and silences those who might have been wondering why you would buy the 13in MacBook Air when the 13in MacBook Pro with Retina display costs just £1,099. And that’s another thing that hasn’t changed, with Apple seemingly reluctant to fit powersapping super-high-resolution displays to its ultraportable line-up. As we noted on the previous page, there are four standard configurations of the MacBook Air. Each comes with a 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor, although

you can specify a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7 for an extra £130 on the top model. Here you also get a 13.3in (1440x900) screen, 128- or 256GB of storage (add £240 for 512GB), 4GB of RAM (add £80 for 8GB), and Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics. Key differences between the 11- and 13in MacBook Airs are screen size, price and battery life – the larger chassis allows Apple to fit a higher-capacity battery to its more expensive Air and, as with its predecessor, claims a battery life of 12 hours away from the mains. We measured 12 hours, 13 minutes in our own tests, which involve looping an iTunes movie at 200cd/m2 with Wi-Fi switched off and the keyboard dimmed. This is an increase of 23 minutes over the 2013 Air. Nothing has changed in the MacBook Air’s design. It still features a very thin unibody design that tapers from 3- to 17mm, and it weighs 1.35kg. Around its edges you’ll also find two USB 3.0 ports, one Thunderbolt (not v2) connection, a MagSafe power port and an audio jack, plus an SDXC card slot.

Performance We tested the £999, 256GB 13in model using Speedmark 9. The faster processor was notable in some tests although, as was the case with the 11in model, storage performance was down on last year’s Air. We were also surprised to find that whereas once the 13in MacBook Air was significantly faster than the 11in Air, in some tests the little MacBook managed to beat it. In iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, Handbrake, Aperture, Photoshop, Cinebench, MathematicaMark 9, PCMark 8 Office, Unigine Heaven and Valley the 13in MacBook Air turned in faster performance than the 2013 model. Interestingly, in the latter tests – notably the GPU benchmarks – the 11in MacBook Air was slightly faster.

The overall Speedmark score was dragged down by storage performance, however, and our inspection of the Disk Utility application confirmed that Apple has indeed swapped in a different brand of SSD. The £100 it shaved off the asking price had to come from somewhere. We found that copying 6GB of files and folders took 34.8 seconds on the 2013 13in MacBook Air, and 38.6 seconds on this year’s model. That’s despite this 256GB Air being pitted against a 128GB 2013 model, given that lower-capacity SSDs are typically slower performers. Compressing a 6GB folder took just over 38 seconds longer on the new 13in MacBook Air, while unzipping took 39.6 seconds longer when compared to last year’s 13in MacBook Air. We ran Blackmagic Design’s Disk Speed Test, which showed the flash storage in the new models running slower than the same capacities in the previous generation. The 2014 Air with a 128GB SSD averaged 306MB/s writes and 620MB/s reads, while the 2013 MacBook Air with 128GB of flash storage averaged 445MB/s writes and 725MB/s reads. The 2014 MacBook Air with a 256GB SSD averaged 520MB/s writes and 676MB/s reads, while the 2013, 256GB model averaged 687MB/s writes and 725MB/s reads.

Macworld’s buying advice As anticipated, Apple has reacted to the very minor price difference between the MacBook Pro with Retina display and 2013 MacBook Air by reducing the Air’s price. This means the entire MacBook Air line-up is available below £1,000 (standard configurations), which should serve to make it even more popular. Storage performance has taken a hit in meeting this price point, however, so if you can find a discounted 2013 model it might offer a better deal.

Read more at tinyurl.com/Lbdvaft


WorldMags.net

Reviews

WorldMags.net

SilverStone TS10 This USB 3.0 drive caddy takes advantage of slim SSD storage BY ANDREW HARRISON

Pros: Stylish; portable; cheap Cons: No carry case included Star Rating: Company: SilverStone, silverstonetek.com Price: £15

T

hanks to the interest in thin-andlight laptops, equally thin SATA hard drives and SSDs have become widely available, including products that take advantage of them such as this SilverStone TS10 caddy. The TS10 accepts only 7mm-thick SATA drives, which is almost every new SSD and some hard drives. Comprising a black-anodised aluminium extrusion with plastic end caps, the TS10 is simply constructed.

To make a working unit, simply attach a 7mm drive to its SATA connector, then slide the drive into the slim outer case where it’s supported by friction fit. You then nip up two tiny screws to secure the removable end. There’s a tiny screwdriver in the box. Construction quality is good and, while the drive’s electronics may look simple, we noted that the TS10 supports UASP to bolster USB 3.0 performance. We tried a variety of recent SATA Revision 3 SSDs to gauge performance. Measured with QuickBench, the SilverStone TS10 enclosure could allow maximum sequential reads of 432MB/s and maximum sequential writes of 429MB/s. Those figures are as good as any we’ve seen from a USB 3.0 drive. The UASP mode should also allow higher queue depths (multiple parallel

data streams), which can assist the simultaneous high-speed passage of many small files.

Macworld’s buying advice The SilverStone TS10 is a smart and extremely compact enclosure to connect a 7mm SATA drive to your computer. In our tests performance was just as good as from any other USB 3.0 drive we’ve tested. A great buy at £15.

Read more at tinyurl.com/p6dgbfs

Silicon Power T11 120GB A fast and compact Thunderbolt drive for storing files BY ANDREW HARRISON

Pros: Small; lightweight; fast storage Cons: Beaten by USB 3.0 drives Star Rating: Company: Silicon Power, silicon-power.com Price: £215

I

f it’s fast storage you seek, there’s nowt faster than a Thunderboltconnected device. Thunderbolt’s nominal 10Gb/s performance is hindered by bus-powered devices, however, and this 340MB/s Silicon Power T11 can serve up less than one third of the connection’s potential. The T11 is not alone in this regard and, while it’s severely reined in by the current laws of silicon physics, it’s still pretty damned fast as a pocketable flash drive.

Only one capacity is available, and this 120GB drive costs £215. The unit was FAT-formatted out of the box, which can be read and written to by a Mac, and it’s a simple matter to reformat into HFS+ in OS X’s Disk Utility. You’ll need to do this if you plan to store on it any single file larger than 4GB. At just 74x15x62mm it’s significantly smaller than Elgato’s chunky Thunderbolt SSD (tinyurl.com/nxmtqpL). It’s light, too, at 61g, made from smart satin aluminium, with Apple-inspired white plastic trim on each face of the extruded chassis. An mSATA SSD resides inside, whose controller should take care of the essential housekeeping as the flash blocks become full, tired or worn out. We measured transfer rates higher than 340MB/s, with 382MB/s for sequential reads above 20MB data size.


WorldMags.net

In the small-file range single-threaded transfers were recorded at 20MB/s for random writes, and 22MB/s random reads – both excellent results. Averaged from 4- to 1024kB, the drive recorded 168- and 143MB/s for reads and writes respectively.

Macworld’s buying advice Silicon Power’s T11 is lightweight and compact drive with good performance. It falls short of real Thunderbolt speeds, but this is true of all bus-powered drives. Construction quality and style are on-trend for Apple peripherals.

Read more at tinyurl.com/kgc9u2p

WorldMags.net

Kodak i3250 An accurate A3 document scanner for the workplace BY ROBIN MORRIS

Pros: Powerful; accurate; very fast Cons: Expensive; large and heavy Star Rating: Company: Kodak, kodak.co.uk Price: £2760

O

ffices with a need for heavyweight scanning facilities will relish the prospect of Kodak’s i3250, the most powerful and versatile A3 document scanner we’ve tested. It’s no shrinking violet, though. The Kodak’s 432x371mm footprint will consume a sizeable part of any desk, while its 18kg mass means it’ll need a good set of legs to rest on, too. The size, though, is large only in comparison with typical desktop models. Placed next to industrial scanners the Kodak cuts a rather more compact figure. Its recommended daily volume has been pushed up to 15,000 pages per day for the sheet-fed, making this a model that should cope with very high workloads. Assuming you have room for the i3250, you’re unlikely to find it wanting. Like its predecessor, it comes with a choice of feeds. Bundles of documents will be swallowed up by the 250-sheet feeder. We found this to be mostly reliable, although a batch of Vanity Fair articles, complete with jagged edges, did cause a few mishaps. Most other document types, though, slipped through without a glitch. The interface works best with USB 3.0, and the speed is astounding – a 50-page document went through in 29 seconds at 200dpi. With OCR on it was converted into a searchable PDF within a further 10 seconds. Without OCR, the extra time required slipped to six seconds. That amounts to a stunning 85.7 pages per minute (ppm). And around four seconds of that time arose from the i3250

dropping everything into place, so larger bundles would complete at an even greater rate. Higher output rates are available, and 300and 600dpi scans were completed within 41- and 102 seconds respectively. The Kodak handles A3 just as comfortably as A4, requiring a second for each sheet. The i3250 also has another scanning option up its sleeve – an A4 flatbed component. This scans single sheets at a time, but it means you don’t have to entrust your precious documents to a potentially harmful sheet-fed. Since the pages on a flatbed aren’t sucked into the machine there’s no risk of damage.

Book club This option also benefits from a brilliant book-edge feature, which sees the scanning glass run right up to the edge of the Kodak. If you want to scan a book you no longer have to cram the entire volume underneath the scanning lid. Instead, you can let half of the book hang down at a 90-degree angle. The other half will be tightly gripped and held flat within the flatbed component. This means you won’t see the book’s spine, and every letter of every sentence will be correctly rendered. As a way of successfully scanning books without damaging them or putting up with substandard results, this is a brilliant method. It also works better than the book-edge feature on lesser models, as the flatbed component is situated toward the middle of the machine. This ensures that you have plenty of weight bearing down, so you don’t have to hold down the lid in order to stop the books from popping back up.

Quality is, as you’d expect from a scanner in this price range, supreme. Text is boldly defined, even at the Kodak’s lower resolutions, while the palette is rendered with immaculate attention to detail. It can jump from text to pictures to intricate charts and codes without dropping a notch. We’ve yet to review a more accurate document scanner, and the Kodak i3250 combines pace and accuracy in one stunning package. The software drivers are easy to use, and the OCR works very well. Having said that, Kodak expects that if you’re spending this much on a scanner you’ll be using professional third-party software to create the very best results. So while you can scan in high-quality mode out of the box, you shouldn’t expect the raft of software titles that you might get with a model lacking a four-digit price tag. The drivers are powerful, though.

Macworld’s buying advice Next to many smaller models, the Kodak i3250’s price tag may seem prohibitive. It is, however, an extremely powerful device that looks up to more industrial models – the majority of which cost and weigh even more. For many serious businesses the price tag won’t be much of an issue, given the stunning performance. Whether you’re feeding in 200-plus page bundles or scanning books, this is a fantastic option for the office with very high aspirations.

Read more at tinyurl.com/q2bmb6k SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 43

WorldMags.net

Reviews

WorldMags.net

UCam247-HDO1080 Keep an eye on your home or business with this user-friendly IP camera BY JIM MARTIN

Pros: User-friendly; night mode is useful Cons: Framerates are choppy; app is buggy Star Rating: Company: UCam247, ucam247.com Price: £190

I

P cameras are great if you want to keep an eye on your home, whether it’s for security or peace of mind that your pet is safe and sound when you’re away. However, there haven’t been many advances in the past decade, with most IP cameras requiring a degree in computer science to configure, while delivering poor-quality footage. Things are improving, though, thanks to smartphone- and tablet apps. These make the setup process a breeze, and also allow you to view live footage and even change settings wherever you are. The UCam247-HDO1080 is a good example. In addition to iOS and Android apps, it’s a full-HD camera, which can be mounted outdoors and has a ring of infrared LEDs for use at night. The setup process is similar to that of rival IP cameras, but the app makes it seem easier. You simply hook up the camera to your router using a network cable. The free app then discovers the camera on the network, and you can immediately view the video feed. You’ll need to choose a new password, but then it’s up to you whether you adjust any other settings. Most people will want to use the camera via Wi-Fi, and the app allows you to choose a Wi-Fi network and enter its password. Once the settings are saved, you can disconnect the camera from your router and unplug its power supply. When you power it up again it will automatically connect to Wi-Fi. Similarly, you’ll probably want to enable motion detection and alerts, as well as ‘alarm recording’, which records a short video clip when motion is detected.

The easiest way to record clips is to unscrew the front of the camera and insert a microSD card (up to 64GB). Alternatively, you can set the camera to record clips to a NAS drive. Through the app you can select the video quality for the primary- and secondary streams. It’s best to use the highest (1920x1080, 20fps, 4Mb/s bitrate) for the primary stream, as this can be saved to the SD card or NAS drive. To remotely view the footage on your smartphone you’ll want a lower-quality secondary stream. In our tests we found the default setting (512x288, 10fps, 256Kb/s) works well with a 3G connection. You can also set a pre-record buffer of three-, five- or 10 seconds.

Tweaking the action Via the UCam247’s traditional web-based admin interface (similar to that of a wireless router) you’ll find a whole load of extra options. These include the ability to turn off the flashing red LED on the front of the camera and define the motion-detection area. If you use the toggle switch in the app you’re enabling motion detection on the entire image. This could lead to a lot of unwanted alerts and recordings, but in the web interface you can resize the detection window, and it’s possible to have up to three small rectangles detecting motion in separate areas. You can adjust the sensitivity and threshold sliders for each, which will help avoid ‘false positives’ such as trees swaying in the wind. You can also set a schedule that determines when motion is detected, opt to have a JPEG image emailed to you when motion is detected, browse the SD card’s contents and download individual videos and photos. Once we’d honed the detection area(s) and sensitivity, we were impressed with the UCam247 system. Motion alerts are almost instant and as we’d set up the


WorldMags.net

camera above a front door, we could use it to see who was at the door within a few seconds. Video quality is very good. Detail levels are comparable with action cameras such as a GoPro HERO3 Black Edition (tinyurl.com/bnzkqja), but framerates of both live- and recorded clips are a bit choppy – not as smooth as the 20fps claim suggests. However, both faces and car number plates can be recognised and read, so any footage would be useful in the event of a crime. At night, due to the use of infrared LEDs, you’ll get a black-and-white image, but it’s still nice and sharp and you can see people and objects up to around 15m from the camera. We tested the iOS app and found it a little buggy. UCam247 told us the app is being constantly improved, and to quit and relaunch the app after changing any settings. Live footage is shown along with the resolution in portrait mode, but you can rotate the phone to landscape mode.

Macworld’s buying advice The UCam247 presents a big step forward for in usability and video quality for IP cameras. The price is easy to justify, and the UCam247 will be worth the investment if it catches a thief in the act. It might be overkill for keeping tabs on your pets, but it’s ideal for protecting an expensive possession such as a car.

Read more at tinyurl.com/qbdaurt

WorldMags.net

Isaw Extreme The Isaw Extreme undercuts the GoPro market leader by £100, and does so in style B Y M A R T Y N C L AY D E N

Pros: Cheaper than rivals; lots of features Cons: Poor battery life when using Wi-Fi Star Rating: Company: Isaw, isawcam.com Price: £249

M

ention the phrase ‘action camera’ and the name that comes most readily to mind is GoPro. But GoPro’s imitators and rivals are starting to think and build harder. The latest contender in the market is the Isaw Extreme, which includes many of the same features as the GoPro HERO3 Black Edition (tinyurl.com/bnzkqja). However, Isaw has shrewdly decided how much to prune and how much to boost, enabling it to create a camcorder around £100 cheaper than the market leader. The Extreme certainly has a more sobering appearance than the HERO3, dispensing with any glittering silver in favour of matt black with dramatic red indicator lights at two corners. It’s also markedly larger at 61x43x32mm and substantially heavier (110g compared to

the HERO3’s 74g), although much of this is due to the built-in 2in colour LCD on the rear. This allows instant preview and review of the sequence you’re setting up. You would have to purchase this as an accessory on the HERO3. It also means navigating through the menus on the Extreme is a lot simpler and quicker, as you make use of the Power/REC button on the top and the Setup and Mode buttons on the front to sort through tabs to the settings you need. The HERO3, on the other hand, has to make do with a much smaller mono display near the lens to provide you with the same choices, and scrolling through these is a lot more laborious. Both cameras have a 12Mp CMOS sensor, but Isaw has opted for a f/2.4 lens as opposed to GoPro’s f/2.8. The Extreme’s resolution range is less extreme than the HERO3, dispensing with the high-end 4k and 2.7k for full-HD via 1200p and 720p to 480p. While the GoPro’s 4k quality is excellent, you can shoot it at 15fps only, so Isaw’s omission may be a sensible cost-saving decision. The Isaw Extreme’s top three resolutions can be captured at either 60- or 30fps, with additional 120fps Slow Motion recordings available at 720p, and 240fps at 480p. Both the Slow-Mo and the included Time Lapse effects worked extremely well in our tests, maintaining smooth action with good detail. For underwater filming up to a depth of 60m there’s a dedicated Aqua scene setting that does an effective job of altering the white balance to reduce blue bias. Where the GoPro HERO3 scores higher is with its additional features such as Auto Low Light, the Ultra Wide Protune FOV for enhanced video quality and a Spot Metre for, say, shooting out of dark cars towards the light. On the still photo side, the GoPro can also achieve 30 photos per second in burst mode, whereas the Extreme lags

behind at 11 photos per second. However, the Isaw does have 4x zoom compared to the GoPro’s 3x lens. The Extreme’s accessories package will look very familiar to GoPro fans. The transparent waterproof housing is almost identical – and, in our tests, the seal was effective. As well as the selection of flat- and curved mounts and varied length connectors, you can also swap out the watertight backdoor for an open version, which will still afford some protection to the camera while allowing clearer reading of the LCD. The HERO3 was the first in the range to introduce onboard Wi-Fi to allow control via a mobile phone app, and the Extreme has followed suit. You can now remotely stop/start both video and take still images. The range is said to be up to about 120m, using the free Isaw Viewer app for iPhone or Android. Setup was quick and problem-free and the Isaw proved to be a handy supplement when it came to filming a friend in action. Software updates can be uploaded via the supplied USB lead, and the HDMI port lets you view all the footage stored on the microSD card. The LCD on the Extreme is a valuable means of checking the Wi-Fi and battery levels, although red external lights will also warn you when changes are needed. Isaw claims a battery life of two hours, but using the Wi-Fi it offered less than an hour. It might be worth buying spares if you’re planning a day’s activity.

Macworld’s buying advice It’s difficult not to like the Isaw Extreme when you see how much is included in the package – both in terms of functions and accessories. The big advantage over the GoPro is the built-in LCD and the considerably lower cost. The market leader is still the best all-rounder for serious action photographers, but it’s time it began glancing over its shoulder.

Read more at tinyurl.com/nbme57g SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 45

WorldMags.net

Reviews

WorldMags.net

Hider 2 Create a secure digital hidey-hole on your Mac with Hider 2 BY SERENITY CALDWELL

Pros: Easy to use; 256-bit encryption Cons: No secure-delete function Star Rating: Company: MacPaw, macpaw.com Price: £13

W

ith growing concerns over user security, it’s not surprising that you might want to shield your files from prying eyes. A number of overly complicated solutions are available, including the use of Terminal commands and expensive consultants, but software developer MacPaw eases the task for the average user with Hider 2. The app is a major update to its successor MacHider, which let you hide files from public view by making them invisible. Hider 2 builds on that utility by adding a Mavericks-refined interface, a system-wide menu, AES-256 encryption for files and folders, and support for notes, tags and external drives. When you first launch Hider it asks you to supply a password for your vault. You can choose to store that password in your OS X Keychain. Once you’ve created your vault you’ll see a window with the vault’s contents (initially empty, of course). You get a single vault – you can’t create separate vaults for, say, your work documents and your personal files. Adding items to your vault – and therefore hiding them – is as simple as drag-and-drop: just find the files or folders you want to protect, drag them into the window, and Hider 2 immediately encrypts and hides those items from public view. Next to each item in your vault is a Visible/Hidden toggle that lets you make that item visible again. However, unlike many hiding programs, Hider 2 doesn’t just make your files invisible to the average user. It copies those files to the app’s own

private, encrypted space on your hard drive, then deletes the items from their original locations. (If you have multiple drives you can choose which one Hider 2 uses for its encrypted storage.) When you toggle an item’s switch to Visible, Hider 2 copies the item back to its original location.

Hide and seek While Hider 2’s approach is more secure than simply hiding files in place, there are a few important caveats to consider. First,

Hider 2 doesn’t securely delete files that you’ve moved to your vault – the original files are simply deleted as if you’d moved them to the Trash and emptied the Trash. This means savvy malcontents could theoretically recover that data from your hard drive. If you have data you need to keep absolutely secure, Hider 2 isn’t your best encryption option – for now. MacPaw told us it will be adding secure deletion in a future version. In addition, every time you hide or unhide a file or folder, that item must be copied and encrypted or decrypted, which can take time. With small files the processing time is almost instantaneous, but larger folders take significantly longer. Finally, this processing time wouldn’t be as much of an issue if you could preview or edit files while they’re in your vault, but you must remove an item from the vault to view or modify it.

Macworld’s buying advice Hider works remarkably smoothly. It’s a great little tool for anyone looking for a digital hidey-hole, and the encryption is a nice bonus.

Read more at tinyurl.com/Loxo823


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure Tex Murphy’s latest is a nostalgia-fuelled FMV romp – until it turns into an actual game B Y H AY D E N D I N G M A N

Pros: Hilariously cheesy Cons: At times confusing and tedious Star Rating: Company: Atlus, texmurphy.com Price: £14

T

esla Effect marks the return of the Tex Murphy franchise – a hilariously cheesy set of cult-classic, full-motion video (FMV) games from the 90s. It’s like an unholy combination of a bad B-movie and a point-and-click game. Tex Murphy is a man out of time. He’s a hard-boiled, film noir private investigator, just as likely to lead off a conversation with an overly serious monologue as he is to lead with a pun. He’s the luckiest bumbling idiot in New San Francisco, the remnants of the city after a nuclear war. This time Murphy’s awoken in the midst of an abduction, and soon discovers he has amnesia. He’s forgotten everything that’s happened in the seven years between his last case (1998’s Tex Murphy: Overseer) and the present. Which is good, since his friends tell him he became a jerk in the meantime. All Murphy has to work with is a few clues in an alleyway, and then it’s off to solve a crime that involves everything from a sleazy rival PI to famed inventor Nikola Tesla. The plot is pulp-noir, full of doublecrosses and potential double-crosses and people who seem just a little too shady. Except this is more Naked Gun than The Maltese Falcon. Everything is tongue in cheek; Tesla Effect is saturated with jokes – some hilarious, others less so. The FMV sequences are rendered in gorgeous HD, and numerous actors from the original series make a comeback in this iteration. It’s everything that fans of the game could want.

A game of two halves Tesla Effect is in effect two different games. There are the FMV sections, in which you’re questioning friends and suspects in pursuit of clues, flirting, telling dumb jokes and trying to uncover details of the past seven years. The interface is a bit clumsy, but otherwise the FMV areas are a joy to play. Bolted on to this is a 3D-environment adventure game in which you wander around, pick up objects and solve puzzles. This aspect of the game will test your patience, whether or not you’re a Tex Murphy fan. The first half of the game isn’t too bad. I always had an idea where I was going, what I should be doing, and what object I was scouting for. There are a few awkward points where the game halts progress until you to talk to everyone you’ve met about a topic, but I enjoyed exploring the game’s recreation of Chandler Avenue, Tex’s home, and the puzzles are decent. Things start to go bad when you hit one too many ‘find all the pieces of this object scattered around this environment’ puzzles. There are two difficulty modes in Tesla Effect: Casual and Gamer. Gamer mode turns off hints and stops highlighting objects, making

these puzzles a tedious nuisance, and there’s no way to change the difficulty mode once you’ve started the game. And then the game stops being a pure adventure game and brings in enemies. I was baffled. After having a fairly fun time running around by myself and solving puzzles, the game turns into a weird stealth-puzzler, but without any of the technical prowess of a true stealth game. Getting caught by enemies automatically ends the game – and you’ll get caught over and over again, helplessly watching your hard-earned score drop because you can’t figure out what you’re supposed to be doing. Combine this with some lazy puzzles and a number of cheap, pixel-hunt item hides in the back half, and Tesla Effect becomes a chore to play.

Macworld’s buying advice I kept laughing at the dad-joke humour and admiring the FMV throughout, but it was increasingly the strained, animalistic laugh of a person under duress. I want to see more Tex Murphy and FMV games in general – it’s one of my favourite genres. I just hope our next outing doesn’t require me to grind down to nubs half my teeth just to reach the end.

Read more at tinyurl.com/m6wa3bu SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 47

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Help Desk

Answering your questions about getting the most from your Mac and iOS device

OS X and iOS hints The insider tips you won’t get from Apple BY DAN MILLER

Find and delete duplicate entries in 1Password Lately we’ve been inundated with one news story after another about this or that website being hacked, and all of its user IDs and passwords falling into the hands of ne’er-do-wells. It has never been more important to (a) employ good, strong passwords and (b) use some kind of password manager to keep track of them all. That’s why we like the advice that Gabe Weatherhead posted over at Macdrifter.com. He pointed out that 1Password (£34.99, tinyurl.com/ohfhjmm), the password manager of choice for many Macworld staff, offers some excellent tools for not only storing and recalling your passwords, but also determining whether they’re any good. Specifically, he reminded 1Password users of the app’s built-in Security Audit tool. Open that section of the sidebar, and you can view lists of passwords that the app considers weak (it classifies them as Terrible or Weak), duplicates and those you haven’t changed in a while. These are broken down into those more than six months old, older than a year old or more than three years old. But there’s a more granular way to check on duplicates of specific passwords: create a smart folder. To do so, select File → New Smart Folder.

In the search bar that appears, select Password from the drop-down menu, and then type in one of the passwords that you know you use too often. 1Password will then show you a list of all the accounts that currently use it. Once you have that list, you can use 1Password to log in to those particular sites and change each password to something strong and unique.

Encrypt PDFs from Preview (again) Previously, you could encrypt a PDF file from within Preview by way of the standard Save dialog box. In recent versions of Preview, however, that Save

1Password’s Security Audit tool allows you to view passwords that the app thinks are weak as well as duplicates and those in dire need of updating 48 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

Password audit 1Password can assess your passwords’ strength as well as unearth old ones you should update.

option no longer produces a dialog box. It just saves the file instead. You still have a way to encrypt PDFs by saving, however. To find it, first hold the key as you open the File menu. The menu’s Duplicate option changes to Save As. Click that, and you’ll get the same opportunity to select the Encrypt checkbox. When you do so, you’ll be prompted to add a password for the PDF file. (Alternatively, you can select Duplicate and then choose Save on the copy of the file; here the Save dialog box will offer the Encrypt checkbox.)

Change RTF margins in TextEdit If you’re editing a Rich Text Format document in TextEdit, you can customise

WorldMags.net TextEdit tweaks To make changes to an RTF document’s margins, dig into its code view.

Use your portrait as a signature in Preview

the margins so that the document will print the way you want it to. The first step is to save your document as a Rich Text Format file (by adding the . rtf extension when you save) and close it. That done, reopen the document and enable Format → Wrap to Page. Now open TextEdit’s preferences, go to the Open and Save tab, and now select Display RTF files as RTF code instead of formatted text. When you open the document again, you’ll see at the top of the file the raw code that defines how the document appears. Look for a row that includes ‘margl1440\margr1440’– this code defines the left and right margins. (That’s what the ‘l’ and ‘r’ after marg stand for.) You can customise those strings to define new left and right margins. And logically enough, you can add new specifications – ‘margt’ and ‘margb’

– to define top and bottom margins; the correct order – left to right and bottom to top – is ‘margl’, ‘margr’, ‘margb’ and then, logically enough, ‘margt’. The number units in use here are twips; one twip is equal to 1/1440in. So,

Hints reader chaunceyjb found one of those “It’s cool, but is it useful?” tricks that we sometimes run across in OS X. You probably know that you can insert a digital signature into PDFs in Preview. You sign a piece of paper, and then you capture the signature in Preview by selecting Tools → Annotate → Signature → Create Signature from FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in) – or whatever your Mac’s camera is called – and holding that signed piece of paper up to be scanned by the camera. So what’s the trick? Instead of holding up a bit of paper, you can present your own smiling mug to the camera. Under the right conditions, Preview will save a pen-and-ink-style image of your face, which you can then insert into PDFs.

For Preview to recognise your features, you need to have the best lighting and background (lots of the former on your face, something light for the latter) 360 twips produce a 0.25in margin, 720 twips represent 0.5in, 1440 twips are one inch, and so on. When you’re done tweaking, save the modified document and then turn off the Display RTF files as RTF code instead of formatted text option. When you reopen the document, your custom margins should be in effect.

That “right conditions” part is critical, though. Several Hints readers weren’t able to get chaunceyjb’s tip to work. You need the appropriate lighting and background for it to work as described (lots of the former on your face, something light for the latter). Readers also report that holding a piece of paper so that its top edge lines up with the blue line in the signature-preview screen helps, too. Want another variation? Print out a black-and-white photo of your face and hold that up to the camera. The point is that Preview is doing some image-processing here, looking for a high-contrast image (dark ink on white paper). So you have to create those conditions for your face to trick Preview into perceiving it as a signature. Say cheese Under the right (high-contrast) conditions, Preview will be able to accept your portrait as a custom signature.


WorldMags.net

Help Desk

WorldMags.net

iOS and Mac SOS Solutions to your most vexing Mac and iOS problems BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN

Speed up a sluggish iPhoto library Q: I’m a photographer with about 10,000 pictures in my iPhoto library. Sadly, iPhoto now runs so slowly that it’s essentially unusable. I just want to organise photos by date and event, and do some very light editing. What do you recommend that’s faster? Marty Schettler A: Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop offer more features and complexity than you need. Even Photoshop Elements 12 may demand a bigger technical leap than you might be prepared to make. Although you could look at some less expensive and less complicated options such as Lyn (£16, lynapp.com) or Pixa (£17.49, tinyurl.com/ph3twug), or even the free Picasa (picasa.google.com), I suggest that you stay largely where you are at the moment – running iPhoto, but with the help of the versatile iPhoto Library Manager (£18.50, tinyurl.com/L9yeooL). I suggest this approach because you seem to be familiar with iPhoto and, I presume, you’ve organised your photos in a way that pleases you. Why start from scratch with another application? With iPhoto Library Manager you can continue to run iPhoto, but you can use it to create multiple smaller libraries, which sorts out the thorny speed issue. Think about how you’d like to split up your library. For example, you might wish to group together images by their years, by the camera you used, or by face or location. Once you’ve made that decision, launch iPhoto and choose File → New Smart Album. In the sheet that appears,

configure the conditions to match your specific grouping strategy. For instance, you’d set Date is in the range 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2010 to gather images created in 2010. Assign a name to your smart album and click OK to create it. Now launch iPhoto Library Manager and click the Create Library button in the top-left corner. Give the album a descriptive name – 2010 Photos, for example – and finally click Create. Select the iPhoto Library entry (this item reflects your current iPhoto library plus all the events, albums, projects and slideshows it contains) and then locate the smart album you created. Drag this album to the album you made in iPhoto Library Manager. It will then copy those particular images to a new album (this procedure can take a while and tie up your Mac). Repeat the process if you want to create additional libraries (see Smaller and Faster, above).

With iPhoto Library manager you can continue to run iPhoto, but you can use it to create smaller libraries, which sorts out the thorny speed issues 50 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

Smaller and faster Manage smaller image libraries with iPhoto Library Manager.

If you simply want to browse your images, you can do that directly within iPhoto Library Manager. Launch the app and select an album. The images it holds will appear as thumbnails to the right. When you want to work with one of these libraries in iPhoto, you have two options. The first is to launch iPhoto Library Manager and double-click the library you want to view; it will open in iPhoto. The second is to hold the key while launching iPhoto. Do so, and you’ll be prompted to choose a library.

Share presentations Q: I’m giving a presentation to a remote group soon and, as in the past, I was going to use Messages to do that. Now, in Mavericks, it doesn’t seem to work. What am I doing wrong? Keith White A: The glib answer is “You’re running Mavericks.” The less-glib answer is that Messages’ iChat Theater feature has gone from the Mavericks version.

WorldMags.net For the “Wait, what?” crowd, allow me to explain. In iChat and later in Messages prior to Mavericks, you could share a Keynote presentation by having a copy of Keynote on your Mac, engaging in a video chat (both parties had to be on the same service, namely AIM, Bonjour, or Jabber, but not iCloud) and then dragging a Keynote file into the bottom half of the video-chat window. The presentation would then appear on the other person’s Mac, with a small video window of the presenter. Under Mavericks, in contrast, if you attempt to do this you only get the solitary option of sending the file to the other person. My hope is that Apple hasn’t got around to reinstating this feature, but intends to do so, as I’ve found it useful when conducting remote presentations. What are your alternatives? If you like doing this kind of thing through Messages, then I’d suggest that you install a copy of Mountain Lion and Keynote on another drive connected to your Mac. Boot from that drive and use Messages as you once did. The person on the other end doesn’t have to be running Mountain Lion; even if they’re using Mavericks, they’ll still see your shared presentation. If you’re not committed to Messages, take a look at Zoom (zoom.us), an online meeting service that’s free for up to 25 participants. (Group meetings are limited to 40 minutes, but one-to-one meetings can run for an unlimited amount of time.) Zoom lets you share a specific window on your screen (which would be your open Keynote window) and it displays your video image as you talk. You must register a free account and allow Zoom to install an app, after which you invite people to your meeting. When they click the meeting’s link, their default web browser will launch and then they must download and run the Zoom app (though they’re not required to have an account).

Backup solution Q: I have a Mac in my home office that I’d like to configure so that it can back itself up via Time Machine, but also back up two other computers on my

local network. I know that I could use Apple’s Time Capsule, but I already have spare hard drives that I could devote to the job. Any suggestions? Gene Thomas A: We have a £13.99 solution we think you’ll like a lot – OS X Server. You’ll find it on the Mac App Store (£13.99, tinyurl. com/ngeyrmb). Once you’ve downloaded the app, attach a backup drive to the Mac that’s going to run Server. Use Disk Utility to format the drive as a Mac OS X Extended (Journalled) volume. Now launch Server, select the Time Machine service on the left side of the Server window and flip its switch to On. Click the plus (+) button at the bottom and then click the nearby Choose button. Navigate to your backup drive; this will be where your networked volumes store their backups. Click Create and that volume will appear as a backup destination (see Serving your backup needs, at the top of this page). Move to each Mac on your network that you want to back up and click the Time Machine preference within System Preferences. Click Select and you’ll spy the drive you just configured for Server backup. Select it as a destination for each of your networked Macs; Time Machine will start backing them up to the drive. The Mac that’s running Server has to stay on while other Macs are backing up to it – otherwise Time Machine on the networked Macs won’t find the backup destination. For this reason, it’s best to run OS X Server on a Mac that uses minimal power – a Mac mini, for example, rather than an old Mac Pro.

Serving your backup needs OS X Server has an inexpensive network-backup option.

Create a reminder on your Mac in an instant Q: I’m accustomed to creating quick reminders on my iPhone by using Siri. Obviously Siri isn’t available on my Mac, but is there an easy way to quickly create a reminder without having to launch the Reminders app? Robin Lee A: Launch Automator and in the workflow template, choose Service. At the top of the workflow, configure the pop-up menus to read Service receives no input in any application. Select the Calendar library in the pane to the far left, and, from the Actions pane to the right, drag New Reminders Item into the workflow area. Click Options in the Action pane and enable Show this action when the workflow runs. Save and name your workflow as Quick Reminder. Launch System Preferences, select Keyboard, click the Shortcuts tab and choose Services in the pane on the left. Locate your Quick Reminder entry near the bottom of the services list, click to the right of its name, and enter a keyboard shortcut; I’ve used 1--R. Now when you want to create a new reminder without opening the app of nearly the same name, use this shortcut. You’ll get a New Reminders Item window that contains ‘Title’, ‘Add to’, ‘Priority’ and ‘Due date’ entries. If you’ve enabled the ‘Due date’ option, you can add an alarm and click Continue. The reminder will be added to the Reminders app.


WorldMags.net

Help Desk

WorldMags.net

Dismiss Mac App Store notifications Q: Every time I start up my Mac, I see an alert about application updates waiting for me. Some of them I don’t want. How can I shut off these alerts? David Gilbert A: Start by launching System Preferences, selecting App Store and disabling Automatically check for updates. Do this, and the nudging stops. Of course, it also means that you may miss out on some important updates. To avoid that, you might create a weekly calendar alarm or reminder that gently suggests that you check for app updates manually. To do this select the App Store preference and click the Show Updates button. Within the App Store application, click the Updates tab and locate updates that appear under the Software Update heading. Click the More link and then -click (right-click) any updates you don’t want, such as printer-driver updates you’ll never use. A Hide Update command will appear; select it and your unwanted updates vanish. (You can make them reappear by choosing Store → Show All Software Updates.) This option isn’t available for all updates, as third-party updates display no such command and will remain in the list. You can also hide items in the Purchases tab – something that you might want to do if you never intend to install an application that you bought years ago. To do this, simply click (right-click) an item in the list and choose Hide Purchase. (You can unhide these items by choosing Store → View My Account, logging in to your account, locating the Hidden Purchases entry, clicking Manage, clicking the Unhide button that appears next to each hidden application and clicking Done.) Now you need never see that annoying old app you bought on a whim ever again.

Mac SOS

Make exported iPhoto image titles sticky Q: When I add a title to a photo in iPhoto and drag that image to the desktop, the file reverts to its original name, such as ‘IMG_0697.jpg’. Is there a way to title an image in iPhoto and make that name stick when I export it? Ed Dorroh A: Yes there is, and you’ve accidentally hit on the key word – export. As you’ve observed, when you drag a file from iPhoto to the desktop, it retains its original filename. An image that was originally in the JPEG or PNG format also retains that format. Raw images convert to JPEG images. Any metadata that you attached to the image – a title and description, for example – vanishes. However, if you instead use the Export command (File → Export), you can export images with your added information. Choose that command, and in the resulting Export window make sure that the File Export tab is selected and from the File Name pop-up menu, choose Use title. If you’d like to embed title, keyword and location metadata in the image too, enable the appropriate checkboxes. When you’ve configured everything to your liking, click Export. The program will export your selected images, and each photo will bear the title you’ve assigned to it.

Set up iOS Calendar events the quick and easy way Q: Why does it take so much work to create an event in my iPhone’s Calendar app? I’m tired of tapping the plus button and entering the event’s day, time, details and so on. There must be a better way! Can you help me? Andy Gillman A: As a matter of fact, you have a couple of better ways. The first is to use Siri. Rather than launching Calendar, tapping the plus and then going through the machinations to create an event as simple as a Friday lunch meeting with your cousin Jo-Jo, just press and hold the Home button and say, “Schedule lunch with Jo-Jo on Friday at 1pm”. Siri will confirm the details and schedule the event when you give it your approval. It’s possible, however, that you’ll want to create an event in a place where

You can even hide items in the Purchases tab – something that you might want to do if you never intended to install an older application 52 MACWORLD • SUMMER 2014

WorldMags.net

talking to your device would be rude (yes, such places still exist). Although the following solution isn’t as complete as the standard Calendar procedure, it still cuts out a couple of steps. On an iPhone, launch the Calendar app, navigate to the day of your planned event and tap and hold on the screen. A New Event block will appear. Drag it to the time of the event. (In Day view, you can also drag it to the right or left side of the screen to move forward or back a day at a time, respectively.) When you do, the Add Event screen appears with the date and time filled in. If you rotate your phone into landscape mode so that it displays Week view, you can tap and hold on the screen to make a New Event bubble appear. In this view you can drag it to any day within the week (or place it in the All Day area to create that sort of event). The iPad procedure is similar, with the difference being that you can choose Day, Week, Month or Year view by tapping a button at the top of the screen. Day and Week view are the most efficient in that they not only allow you to create an event on a particular day, but also to drag it to the time you’d like it to start.

WorldMags.net

Don’t miss a single copy of Macworld by subscribing digitally Subscribe from as little as £1.99

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Subscribe to

SAVE UP TO

50%

ON YOUR SUBSCRIPTION

idg.subscribeonline.co.uk/subscriptions/macworld TERMS & CONDITIONS The above offer is a Direct Debit offer only. If you would prefer to pay by cheque or credit card, then this will cost £29.99 for a seven-month subscription and £43.99 for a 14-month subscription. Your subscription will start with the next available issue. Offer expires 9/07/2014. For overseas rates please call 0844 322 1251 or 01795 414 606 and quote reference SM14.

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Macworld ick up a 14-issue subscription for just £39.99 or 7 issues for £27.99 Enjoy these benefits Subscribe and save ££££’s Our best offer to date PRIORITY delivery to your door Never miss an issue

0844 322 1251 1795 414 606 and quote reference SM14 Whether you’re new to Apple and are looking for advice to help get you started, or a Mac fanatic looking to justify your next buy, Macworld is the magazine to ensure you make the right decision

[email protected] WorldMags.net

Spotlight WorldMags.net By David Price

Why Apple opened up WWDC saw the birth of Apple mark II - one that welcomes (limited) customisation of the user experience

L

ike all the best grudge matches – Manchester United/Arsenal, Oasis/Blur, Lannister/Stark – the current ding-dong between Apple and Google at the top of the mobile tech industry is about more than just two combatants vying for domination. It’s a clash of philosophies. Historically we would have described Google and Apple’s attitudes to software design as open and closed respectively (although, since ‘closed’ has such a negative feel to it, Apple fans would sometimes substitute a euphemism like ‘curated’ instead). Google plays things reasonably fast and loose with Android, letting the user or hardware manufacturer reconfigure the way things look or behave. You want to reskin Android? Sure! You want to add widgets? Go for it! Apple’s attitude is a bit more securityguard-in-a-fancy-art-gallery. You want to make Dolphin your iPhone’s default web browser? We’d prefer it if you didn’t.

But is that about to change? Well… maybe. Don’t expect Tim Cook to be tweeting jailbreaking tips just yet, but at WWDC 2014 we heard the unexpected but pleasing news that with the advent of iOS 8, apps will be (to a strictly limited extent) allowed to talk to one another, and third-party developers will be permitted to create extensions and widgets that run in other apps and across the OS as a whole. This is huge. Take the iOS system keyboard, that boring but vital and omnipresent part of the user experience. A persistent criticism of iOS 7 and its recent predecessors is that the keyboard is a queasy mix of dated and inflexible: the default keyboard has none of the innovative features (such as Swype’s predictive sliding) that users of other operating systems enjoy, yet users aren’t allowed to download an alternative. But now, with iOS 8, systemwide third-party keyboards are allowed

– including, if the demo is anything to go by, one by Swype itself. And take Safari. Poor old maligned Safari isn’t actually that bad, but there are better mobile browsers out there, and it’s always been frustrating that iPad and iPhone users can’t make them the default. You still can’t, but iOS 8 Safari will at least let you import new features by other companies and mould the browser to your own preferences. Software chief Craig Federighi showed off a Bing Translator extension (Bing? Do you need some lotion for that burn, Google?) that lets you change the language of web pages on the fly, but the entire point of this feature is its open-endedness. Then there’s the Notification Center, which is now customisable with widgets. Accessible from any screen with a single swipe, Notifications are a hugely important part of the OS, and being able to put chosen apps in there is a fantastic – and necessary – step forward.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net can be sure that the company will also impose strict controls on the extensions and widgets in the apps it approves. You could argue that this isn’t really true openness at all, and you might be right; after all, without wishing to sound too Orwellian, complete freedom and total security cannot co-exist. But this remains a significant change: a conscious relaxation on the limitations preventing users and third parties from being creative within Apple’s platforms.

The new Apple

Key change With iOS 8, you’ll be able to install keyboards from third-party developers.

The merits of closed design All of this positivity, however, raises an obvious question. If openness is so great, why did Apple champion the closed OS for all those years? To put it another way, what took you so long, Apple? The answer is that openness has its faults too: a few months on Android is enough to convince most (although not, of course, all) that Google’s offering has at least as many problems as stupid old closed iOS, and probably rather more. iOS’s airtight security, for instance, would be impossible without Apple’s strict controls; break down the walls and all kinds of mischief-makers can climb over. So would its consistently high level of user-friendliness. Which makes it all the more important that we get an Apple kind of openness: one that remains accountable to a central authority with users’ interests at heart. Federighi made it clear that Apple takes the security aspect of extensions seriously (the sandboxes aren’t really being broken down – the walls are just being made slightly more porous), but we

The App Store is one of Apple’s greatest and most financially lucrative modern-day successes, but Steve Jobs – or so the story goes – had to be persuaded to allow third-party software on there at all. What would have been Apple’s single most damaging corporate mistake was avoided by getting Jobs to think (for once) in collaborative terms. Apple could benefit, he was persuaded to see, by building a platform and then allowing other people, and other companies, to be creative with it. You can’t build 1.2 million apps by yourself. What we saw at WWDC 2014 was that philosophy given free rein. Tim Cook’s Apple is a very different beast to the one that Jobs built, as we’ve known for some time, but this was the first time we’ve seen Cook’s Apple speaking with the confidence of its new convictions. We’re now seeing an Apple that embraces its partner companies instead of keeping them at arm’s length. Half the iOS 8 presentation was aimed in technical language at the software developers in the audience, reeling off a bucket list of hoped-for features and developer-centric accommodations that encourage innovation. Developers have always been central to WWDC’s raison d’être, but they’ve been reduced in past years, at least for the showpiece opening speech, to the role of trophy-expert set dressing while Apple is talking to the world’s mainstream media. This year’s developer focus was a visible acknowledgement that non-Apple designers and programmers have valuable contributions to make, and that

Take note You’ll also be allowed to add your own widgets to the Notification Center.

allowing them greater creative freedom will be beneficial for Apple and its users. Because we’re also seeing an Apple that responds to its users and their wishes. While we didn’t see an iWatch as users had hoped and some incurable optimists had expected, the ways in which iOS and OS X have changed reflect many of the things most wished for in forums and on discussion boards. Not least among them a number of features previously seen (or similar to those seen) in Android… and Android’s broader openness to greater user customisation. So, even if their approaches to user and third-party customisation may remain strongly divided, the days of describing Google and Apple as the yin and yang of open and closed software design appear to be over. Which might lead consumers to view the companies in a different light; perhaps, if Apple’s sly plugging of per-tab private browsing and the non-tracking DuckDuckGo search engine have the desired effect, they may start to contrast the two firms’ attitudes to user privacy. Good luck with that, Google.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

New & noteworthy

Ashleigh Allsopp presents the best new iPad and iPhone accessories

Ted Baker Audio Fastnet £199 inc VAT tedbaker.com This fun and stylish new product from Ted Baker Audio may look a bit like a camera, but it’s actually a wireless, folding Bluetooth speaker with integrated microphone. Available in four gorgeous colours, the Fastnet speaker folds to protect it from knocks, and that foldable portion doubles as a stand for use while listening. There’s a built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery that Ted Baker says will last for six hours between charges, too.

Braven 710 Gold Edition £149 inc VAT braven.com We rather like the new, gold limited edition Braven 710 speaker, a new version of the company’s portable Bluetooth speaker. Matching nicely with the gold of Apple’s iPhone 5s, the device features aptX for high quality encoded audio streaming over Bluetooth, TrueWireless Pairing for left and right stereo between two Braven 710 speakers and the additional functionality of a speakerphone. It should last for 12 hours between charges, too.

HoverBar 3 £60 inc VAT twelvesouth.com Now in its third iteration, the HoverBar 3 lets you attach your iPad, iPad mini or iPad Air to surfaces such as desks, kitchen counters, bedside tables or even your iMac, as shown here. Use it to help you follow a recipe hands-free, keep an eye on your calendar or Twitter feed at work, or talk via FaceTime with someone you’re collaborating with. It includes three iPad Fit Clips that will hold all current iPads, plus a handy kickstand.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Hard Core £39 inc VAT goballisticcase.com Ballistic’s Hard Core case for the iPhone 5 and 5s offers highimpact protection against falls of up to 12 feet, with raised edges and reinforced corners for maximum ruggedness. Ballistic offers the case in black, black and pink, or black and red, and the case has a built-in screen protector.

Acme Made Skinny Book for iPad mini £39 inc VAT acmemade.com Available for both the iPad mini and Air, the Skinny Book offers three useful viewing angles in one slim package, including a Portrait Mode, which many iPad cases lack. There’s also a Type Mode and a Landscape Mode for watching movies or TV shows. In addition to the folio-style cover, the Skinny Book has a protective inner-shell, and the overall case is designed to be stain and water-resistant for extra durability. The stretch band helps secure the iPad in place for extra protection.

CATWALK The best-looking cases for your iPad

dge ok Rutle BookBo Air for iPad VAT c in £55 uth.com s e twelv o

Gelaskins – Fruits by Christina Song From £12 inc VAT gelaskins.com

Everything Tablet Flip case and stand for iPad mini £19 inc VAT everythingtablet.co.uk


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

COMPLETE GUIDE TO iOS 8

COMPLETE GUIDE TO iOS 8 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT APPLE’S LATEST MOBILE OS

i

OS 8 was officially unveiled to the public at WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference this June. It was demonstrated by Apple executives in the keynote and in sessions at the conference, so we got to see what the operating system looks like, how the design has been tweaked from iOS 7 and what new features we can look forward to in the new version. But when can the public get their hands on iOS 8? Initially it will be restricted to a beta testing programme, which app developers (or those willing to claim they are app developers) can pay to sign up to. These betas will be unfinished versions of iOS 8 that are likely to contain flaws, glitches and design elements that are later changed, but joining the beta means

By David Price you can get a good idea of iOS 8’s broad design ideas and main features before committing to the final version. Expect iOS 8 proper to be rolled out to the public around September or October – most likely alongside the iPhone 6.

Visual design and interface After a succession of operating systems that looked roughly the same, iOS 7 was a stark departure: brighter, lighter, less skeuomorphic and far more modern than iOS 6. As we expected, Apple hasn’t done anything as radical as this for iOS 8. The broad aesthetic cues are, as far as we can tell, almost the same as iOS 7 – with the same clean, minimal icons, and transparency effects in place of iOS 6’s skeuomorphic design elements.


WorldMags.net

It retains the bold (but very slightly toned down) colour palette of later iterations of iOS 7, which saw the bright green of iOS 7 darkened a touch. iOS 8’s interface is largely the same as iOS 7’s too. There are a few changes (the app-switching interface now shows recently ‘used’ contacts and lets you ring them up or send them a message very easily) but these are largely to cope with new features, which we will look at next.

New features for users iOS 8 has a host of brilliant new features, which we’ll look at one by one in the following section. But it’s worth remarking before we start on one interesting aspect to Apple’s presentation: a lot of emphasis was given to developer-specific, highly

WorldMags.net technical parts of iOS 8 as you would expect from a presentation to developers; but also key was the company’s new openness in allowing app developers to do many things within iOS 8. So we’ll divide this into two parts: innate features that iOS 8 itself can do, and developer features that will let apps do new things.

Messages Messages, which Apple software head Craig Federighi pointed out is the most used app in iOS, gets lots of tweaks. Group messages are organised far more conveniently. You can use iOS’s Do Not Disturb mode on a per-thread basis, such as situations when a group message thread has got out of hand and your device keeps buzzing with notifications of new messages. Or, in a more drastic measure, you can leave a group message thread at any point. If lots of people in the thread have been posting images or videos, you don’t need to worry about keeping track of them all, because Messages organises all the attachments in a particular thread at the bottom of it. Finally, you can share your location with other members of a thread indefinitely or for limited periods of time. You can also send voice and video messages which will self-destruct (to save memory) according to Federighi, after a period of time unless you save them. Brilliantly, voice messages sent via Messages appear in the lock screen with a waveform graphic, and you can listen to the message in question by simply lifting the iPhone to your ear – iOS detects the motion and interprets the gesture automatically. As usual, we look forward to testing this out and seeing how accurate it really is. You can reply, without pressing any onscreen controls, by simply speaking your reply, then lowering the phone to send the message. It’s not clear how Apple intends to keep voicemail private in this scenario.

You can use gestures to delete, flag or ‘unread’ messages, swiping across a message to perform the chosen action. It’s a single swipe to mark as unread, flick across and tap to flag, or drag the message all the way across to delete. We’ve seen gesture support like this in third-party apps, but it’s nice to see Apple taking developments on board. In a form of in-app multitasking, you can flick a message down to the bottom of the screen, check or copy material from another message, and then return to it with a single click. From the demo, it appeared to be roughly the same as minimising a window on a desktop OS.

Federighi also showcased the ability of Mail to recognise an invitation in a marketing email as an event, and offer to add it to Calendar. This whole process looked very slick, but we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve tried it ourselves. A new feature called MailDrop provides a solution when you need to send a large attachment. Rather than sending the file via the email server, it’s uploaded to iCloud and downloaded seamlessly at the other end.

Interactive notifications As you’ll have noticed when we replied to a voice message from the lock

Mail The Mail app has been updated with gesture support and a wide range of small, but convenient tweaks – plus a raft of brilliant, new features.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


screen, iOS 8 lets you accomplish far more without leaving the app you’re in, thanks to more responsive notifications. Facebook, Messages or Twitter notifications pop down into your screen and can be responded to there and then – you get the option to reply or Like, accept or decline Calendar invitations and so on, all from the lock screen or Notification Centre. Alternatively, notifications can be flicked away.

suspects you may wish to use based on the particular context, in a little palette that appears above the keyboard. For example, if you type a message to a friend suggesting dinner, predictive typing will add a word-selector above your keyboard that could include “and a movie” to speed up typing. Furthermore, Apple says iOS 8 will be able to learn the words you typically use and understand the context in which you’re typing, such as a business or

The main changes in the way you use Safari, however, are likely to be seen in the developer changes we’ll discuss later – the ability for third-party apps to share data with Safari and be added to the sharing pane, for instance. (The examples given were a Pinterest ‘pinning’ feature and an in-Safari translator by Bing. Neither of these are innate to Safari, but third-party apps will be able to create new optional features that you can import.)

Camera

In Messages, Mail and similar apps, iOS 8 will offer entire words that it suspects you may wish to use, based on the context, in a palette above the keyboard Continuity This could be the biggest attentiongrabber of all, and affects Mac OS X Yosemite as well (see page 14). Continuity is the name Apple is giving to enhanced compatibility between its new desktop and mobile platforms, enabling you to, for instance, answer iPhone calls on your Mac (a notification will appear even if your iPhone is upstairs charging), or continue a message started on iPad on Mac or vice versa. If you’re composing an email on your phone and walk up to your Mac, Mail on the Dock in Mac OS X will prompt you that you’re composing a message; simply click it to continue the email on your Mac. Finally, Continuity allows you to seamlessly AirDrop files between your mobile device and the Mac. We look at the new Continuity features in more detail in our complete guide to OS X Yosemite on page 14.

QuickType predictive typing We’ll return to typing in the developer section, but iOS 8 will have bakedin support for QuickType, a form of predictive typing that looks far more ambitious than the auto-correct-level predictions in previous versions. We’re not just talking about completing words you’ve nearly finished typing. In Messages, Mail and similar apps, iOS 8 will offer entire words that it

personal communication – messages it sense are intended for business use would see more formal suggestions. In order to safeguard privacy, all the information QuickType acquires about your writing style will stay on the device, Federighi insisted.

Safari Here’s a small but attractive change to the Safari interface: on iPad – you can see a new tab view that shows open tabs, and groups those from one site into stacks. And the sidebar from Mavericks is now present in Safari on iOS. Apple didn’t announce it during the event, but Safari users will be able to use DuckDuckGo – a highly privacy-focused search engine – as the default search. This was one of several subtle shots at Google – whose business model is built around gathering large volumes of user data – that Apple took during the night (along with a few less subtle ones). In a further nod to privacy fans, Safari on iOS 8 will enable Private Browsing on a per-tab basis.


WorldMags.net

Apple didn’t discuss this on stage, but there are some nice updates for the app. Time-lapse video: Probably the most imaginative of the Camera updates; it’s a surprise this didn’t get a mention on stage. iOS 8 introduces a new Time-lapse video mode, whereby the Camera app will take photos at dynamic intervals to create a, well, time-lapse video. Camera timer: For everyone who’s struggled with a selfie, iOS 8 has a timer. Burst and Panorama modes get more inclusive: In iOS 8, graphics optimisations will give users of older iPhones access to the quicker burst mode previously only available to the iPhone 5s (other phones used to get a slower version of this feature, which only snapped images once every half-second or so). The iPad gets access to Panorama photos, too. Separate focus and exposure controls: There are several ways the Camera app could implement this useful new feature, including straightforward tap-to-focus with an exposure slider or via two separate tap-to-focus reticles.

WorldMags.net iCloud Drive This is a sort of Dropbox-esque cloud storage service with seemingly wide cross-platform, cross-app compatibility (but we need to test it out). If you’re in an app like Sketchbook, for instance, you can bring up the iCloud Drive pane, and access the files there. Any edits you make are saved back to the original location. You’ll have access to all of those documents on your Mac and Windows, too. For further details turn to page 16.

Related to this, Apple also announced HealthKit, which will enable third parties to build their own compatible software. Given the many differences between the healthcare systems in Britain and the US (not least the corporate spending power it commands in America), it’s debatable how much we’ll see the examples shown

the last 1000 photos taken on your iOS devices and stored in iPhoto on your Mac. With iOS 8 this could extend to all your photos. You can pay $1 (60p) per month to purchase 20GB of storage space in iCloud – 5GB is free. To cope with the enormous volumes of photos you will be able to access on

Family sharing will automatically configure photo sharing, location tracking and the free sharing of digital media across up to six family members

Health We expected this. Health is a new app that brings together a variety of health and fitness-related metrics – collated from fitness bands and various third-party devices – that you can monitor easily in a single easy-to-understand interface. Some expected new hardware to accompany Apple’s health-related software updates – maybe even a health-monitoring iWatch? Instead, these features will work with third-party fitness bands and health accessories. (Nike and Withings products were displayed as examples.) Naturally, this doesn’t rule out some kind of Apple-built wearable or health-monitoring accessory in the future.

at WWDC – a healthcare monitoring system from a private firm called Mayo Clinic – replicated over here, but it all looks well designed.

Family sharing Family Sharing is a lovely idea, that sounds both safe and convenient. You set up as a family (informing iOS of the various members of your family and their devices) and it will automatically configure photo sharing, location tracking and the free sharing of digital media across up to six family members (they need to share a credit card). It looks simple, although of course we’ll have to reserve judgement until we’ve wrestled with the feature ourselves. In a response to controversies with high-spending toddlers, Family Sharing includes a parental lock feature for app downloads: when your kids try to buy an app, they have to get permission (and a permission request automatically appears on your device). Some had hoped for a way to manage multiple users on one device. Unfortunately, this isn’t it.

Photos Currently, Photo Stream means you can see

your devices, Apple is talking up the enhanced smart search features in iOS 8 Photos. Search terms are returned as locations, times and album names. You can edit photos within the Photo app (using auto straightening and cropping, for instance, and smart editing based on ‘intelligent image analysis’) and the edits are transferred across to other iOS devices, pretty much instantly. All of this worked seamlessly in the demo, needless to say. Will our mileage vary? We’re also a little concerned about the free allocation of space provided with iCloud, which may get used up quickly. Whether users will be willing to pay for more storage is debatable – although the pricing schemes do seem reasonable.

Siri Another new feature we expected was Shazam, and sure enough, it’s integrated into Siri: Apple’s AI can recognise songs that are playing nearby, and then lets you buy them from iTunes. But that’s not the only upgrade for Siri in iOS 8. Oh no… Apparently car-bound Siri users can now fire it up by saying “Hey Siri!” No need to tap the controls. (Presumably this means the device is always listening out for commands? Will this impact battery life?) And there’s ‘streaming voice recognition’, which simply means Siri displays what you’re saying (or what it thinks you’re saying) while you’re saying it. If nothing else, this will be a godsend for those incredibly irksome moments where you carefully dictate a long question and then see


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


Siri had absolutely no idea what you were saying. Last of all, there are 22 new languages accepted for Siri voice recognition, and 24 new dictation languages.

New features for developers This might not seem relevant to the average iPhone or iPad user, but the developer-centric updates in iOS 8 are likely to result in some very interesting new apps and app features. Its new willingness to allow app developers more freedom in modifying the user experience and (with permission) affecting the behaviour of other apps is a totally new, but very welcome, direction for Apple. A lot of the most intriguing stuff in iOS 8 isn’t about the features Apple is providing, but about the opportunities it’s creating for third-party app developers. Widgets, Extensibility, Touch ID API, keyboards, home-automation APIs – we’ll only grasp the significance of all this once the developer community has got its claws properly into the new kits. Here are some of the most appealing new developers’ features…

App Store improvements First up, Apple announced some changes that will make it easier for developers to sell their wares on its store. App bundles are now permitted: if developers and publishers allow it, you’ll be able to buy bundles of multiple apps with a single click (and presumably a discounted price). As well as screenshots, devs will be able to post preview videos on the App Store. Apps should also be easier to find as Apple says its new Explore search facility is far better at showing the apps you want. (Spotlight also now suggests apps to buy that fit your search criteria when you search within iOS itself, which may lead to a few extra sales.) Finally, you’ll be able to join beta tests of new apps using Apple’s TestFlight beta test service. That’s brilliant news.

keen to stress the security measures safeguarding this process as any data transferred will move via iOS’s security. This means, for example, that Pinterest can share its data with Safari and allow the user to add a Pinterest entry to the Safari sharing pane. Or Safari could gain a Bing translate feature. (Interesting for Apple to be pushing Bing, isn’t it? That’s one in the eye for Google, then.) But doesn’t that sound a bit like... Widgets? Yes! iOS 8 finally gets widgets. You can download widgets from apps and customise their position on the Notifications screen. The example Craig Federighi gave was a (rather brilliant) eBay widget that lets you observe the progress of your auctions, and make a bid from the Notifications Centre itself. In general, the Notification Centre has been empowered to carry out far more actions without having to resort to individual apps’ own interfaces.

Extensibility and widgets Apps can now ‘talk to each other’, sharing data and modifying each other’s behaviour in small ways, but Apple was

Third-party keyboards On a related theme, but worth its own entry due to its significance, iOS 8 is open


WorldMags.net

to system-wide third-party keyboards. This is huge, and tackles one of the biggest complaints we had about iOS in the past – its inflexible and backwardlooking keyboard. With this change, you’ll be able to download a keyboard that suits you (the Swype keyboard upgrade was shown in the demo) and use it throughout iOS 8. This small, simple feature – Swype lets you type by moving your finger smoothly across the letters you want without leaving the screen – is the one element in Android that we used to be the most envious of. Between this and QuickType, iOS 8 now has state-of-the-art typing options. Assuming QuickType is as good as it looks, typing will be great out of the box, with a range of system-wide upgrades available for power users.

Third-party Touch ID Touch ID, the fingerprint scanner offered on the iPhone 5s (and presumably on further iOS devices yet to be launched) is now being opened up to third parties, too. So instead of being confined to

WorldMags.net unlocking your device and a few key preinstalled apps, you can use your fingerprint to log into banking apps, make secure payments and so on. As with most of these new tools, it remains to be seen how this will actually affect the user. But we’d be surprised if we don’t see extensive use of the Touch ID API in third-party apps, because of its great security and convenience.

Home automation & HomeKit API The last of the features we predicted, under the speculative heading of ‘iHome’. Instead it’s known as the HomeKit API, which will let devs code their home-automation gadgets, so you can access your thermostat or garage door from an iPhone. One example given was the ability to say “Get ready for bed!” to Siri, causing the system to check that all doors are locked and lights dimmed, but the possibilities are endless. Our homes will soon be smart, thanks to Apple.

BitCoin and other virtual currencies A change to the App Store guidelines may allow virtual currencies to be transferred and accepted. The relevant clause in the Purchasing and Currencies section reads as follows: “Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions.”

Metal graphics system We’re really getting into developer tech now, but the nutshell summary of the new Metal graphics system is quite appealing: more efficient rendering of detailed 3D graphics. Obviously, we look forward to testing the fruits of Metal thoroughly and seeing for ourselves how effective it is. Tim Sweeney, the boss of Infinity Blade developer Epic Games, was brought on stage to demonstrate a new Zen Garden game built with the Metal technology. He described the new possibilities as “an order of magnitude increase of detail” – with 10,000 petals at one point being simulated, and 3,500 individually animated butterflies. You’ll soon be able to see for yourselves how impressive this all is, because the Zen Garden demo app will be made available for free on the App Store in due course.

Swift programming language Last of all (and exciting the developers in the audience very much), Apple announced a new programming language for both iOS and Mac, called Swift. Reporting Apple’s announcement that Swift features ‘closures, generics, namespaces, multiple return types and type inference’ our US colleague Dan Moren pointed out: “The biggest cheer at this event came at ‘namespaces’!”

How do I upgrade to iOS 8? Upgrading is easy – once the update is rolled out to the public. You simply go into

the Settings app, General, then Software Update, and if there’s a new version of iOS, you can download and install it from this screen. It will be a free upgrade. Bear in mind that, in theory, you will only be able to upgrade to the absolute latest version of iOS at the time of upgrading. If iOS 8.1 has come out by the time you upgrade, for instance, you’ll be able to get that one, not iOS 8. But occasionally iOS users have found themselves forced to upgrade via an intervening version. That’s not supposed to happen, but doesn’t seem to cause any long-term problems.)

Will I be able to downgrade from iOS 8 to iOS 7 (or iOS 6)? Based on past behaviour, probably not. It’s possible that Apple will run things differently with iOS 8. We hope so; it would be nice if Apple let the public try iOS 8 and then go back if it wasn’t for them. But this would be a surprise.

Beta program This allows early access to iOS 8 before everyone else, and (assuming Apple repeats its policies for iOS 7) give you a get-out clause if you don’t like it. But there are down sides to joining the beta, some of which are ethical – the beta programme is for app developers, not curious, snarky iPhone users, and a lot of blameless apps suffered with unfairly low review scores last time around because people who didn’t know what they were doing signed up to the iOS 7 beta and then found that (obviously) many apps weren’t yet optimised for it. Don’t be like them. Joining the beta also costs money, whereas an iOS update is normally free.

Bottom line Initial impressions are hugely positive: it has a host of small, but convenient tweaks (particularly in Messages, Mail and Photos, but throughout the system), and opens up new possibilities for app developers to get creative. Widgets could add an extra level of personalisation, third-party keyboards are a huge addition, and we can’t wait to see what games developers do with Metal.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

iOS 7: BEYOND THE BASICS

THE

IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH TO GET STARTED on an iPhone or iPad: they’re pretty much pick-it-up-and-use-it devices. But mastering them takes a bit more effort. Some useful settings aren’t immediately obvious, specific workflows can take a while to remember, and certain apps do things in less-than-linear ways. That’s why we’ve compiled, in the pages that follow, a list of things that we think all savvy iOS users should know how to do. If you’ve been using an iPhone or iPad (or reading Macworld stories about them) for any length of time, you probably already know a lot of these tips. But as we’ve said before in similar stories, we bet you don’t know all of it. Well, not quite yet, anyway…

BY MACWORLD STAFF | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK JOHANN


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


MANAGE YOUR RINGERS

3 WAYS TO CUSTOMISE THE INTERFACE

1.

Make the text larger and bolder: The Helvetica Neue font can be difficult to read at times. If you have trouble reading text on your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings → General → Accessibility → Larger Text to increase the default font size on your device. To make that font size even larger, enable Larger Accessibility Sizes in apps that support the feature. And to make Helvetica Neue show up just a bit bolder, visit Settings → General → Accessibility and enable the Bold Text slider. (You’ll have to restart your iPhone after doing this.)

2.

Bring back the buttons: iOS 7 has ditched most of the traditional buttons that past versions of the mobile OS offered. But if you’re missing the classic look of that old

familiar arrow shape, you can easily enable it via Settings → General → Accessibility → Button Shapes.

To choose tones for calls, texts and the like, go to Settings → Sounds. You can also set the ringer volume here, in the ‘Ringers and Alerts’ section. You can use the two buttons on the left side of your phone (or the toggle switch on the right side of your iPad) to change the volume; but the precise functions of those buttons may vary. If ‘Change with Buttons’ is active in Settings → Sounds, pressing the volume buttons will alter the ringer volume, as long as you’re not listening to music or podcasts, playing games, or watching videos. Otherwise, the volume buttons will adjust your media playback volume. The mute button on an iOS device turns off the ringer, notification sounds and sound effects. If you have an iPad, the button above the volume buttons can mute the device or lock its rotation.

3.

Control the contrast: Some of us like white text on light backgrounds, but others find that it gives them headaches and hurts their eyes after a while. If you’re in the latter group, you’ll find several handy options that make for easier viewing under Settings → General → Accessibility → Increase Contrast. To increase text and background contrast for features such as Control Center and Notification Center, activate the Reduce Transparency option. To darken the highlight colours found in an app’s menu and tab bar (the pink colour of the Music app, for instance), toggle the Darken Colors switch. And to darken the white backgrounds found in apps such as Settings, use the Reduce White Point screen to bring the piercingly pure white coloration down to a far more eye-friendly light shade of grey.


WorldMags.net

Set ringers If the ‘Change with Buttons’ option is inactive, the volume buttons on your phone won’t change the volume of the ringer.

WorldMags.net

CUSTOMISE BACKGROUNDS You can individualise the look of your iOS device’s screen by adding images to its lock and home screens. To do so, go to Settings → Wallpapers & Brightness and, in the Wallpaper area, tap Choose a New Wallpaper. Then select a dynamic pattern (one that moves), a still image created by Apple or, from the Photos area, an image of your own. A preview of the selected image will appear on your device’s screen. Move it

To activate one or the other of these functions, go to Settings → General. To mute an iPad quickly, press and hold the bottom volume button. Or bring up Control Center on any iOS device, and tap the Do Not Disturb button (it has a crescent moon icon).

MANAGE NOTIFICATIONS Pop-up notifications can be a boon or bane, depending on how you feel about them. Most of the controls for them are located in Settings → Notification Center. At the top of the screen are two settings for lock-screen notifications. By default, when you swipe down on the lock screen, you’ll see three notification options: Today, All, and Missed. If you disable Notifications View in the Notification Center setting, but leave Today View switched on, you’ll see notifications for the current day only.

around by dragging it, and scale it with pinch and stretch gestures. When you have it where you want it, select suitable options from among Set Lock Screen, Set Home Screen, Set Both, and Perspective Zoom (On or Off). You can turn Perspective Zoom off if you dislike its quasi-3D appearance. To restore it, return to Settings → Wallpaper & Brightness and tap the image of the lock screen (the one that lacks icons) in the Wallpaper area. In the resulting screen, turn Perspective Zoom to On. Then return to the Wallpapers & Brightness screen, tap the image of the home screen, and turn Perspective Zoom to On there as well.

If you also switch off Today View, Notification Center won’t appear when you swipe down on the lock screen. The Today View section allows you to configure what will appear in Notification Center. You can turn on or off options such as Today Summary, Calendar Day View, Reminders, and Tomorrow Summary. Each option is self-explanatory. If you find that Notification Center is beginning to look too crowded, switch off any option you don’t want. In the Notifications View section, you can choose to view your notifications manually or sorted by time. If you choose Sort By Time, the most recent notifications will appear at the top of the list and the oldest at the bottom. If you choose Manually, you can then tap the screen’s Edit button and, from the Include list of apps below, drag apps to put them into the order you prefer.

No lock screen Turn off notifications you don’t want to appear in your lock screen here.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


20 THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH SIRI

1.

Handle the basics: Siri can perform many tasks for stock iOS apps: Calendar, Clock, Contacts, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Phone, Reminders, Safari, Stocks and Weather.

2.

Search the web: Siri can also carry out internet searches (using Bing, Google or Yahoo), get answers to questions via Wolfram Alpha, find reviews of businesses (on Yelp), search Wikipedia, find reviews of movies (on Rotten Tomatoes), make restaurant reservations (using OpenTable), and find sports results (via Yahoo). Ask a natural language

question and tap a search result to go to the source site (or app).

then add the person’s nickname. You can now use that when giving Siri commands.

3.

5.

Teach Siri relationships: Instead of saying the full name of a person in an instruction to Siri, say “[your wife’s name] is my wife”– and Siri will remember that designation. In the future, you can just say “Text my wife,” and Siri will know exactly whom to text. Alternatively, edit your own record in the Contacts app, tap Add Related Name, and choose a relationship and a corresponding contact.

4.

Teach Siri nicknames: To help Siri understand complicated names, or to differentiate between common ones, give your contacts nicknames. Open a person’s record in the Contacts app, tap Edit, tap Add Field, tap Nickname and


WorldMags.net

Correct Siri’s misreadings: If your friend pronounces her name “Heh-lee-na,” but Siri says “Hel-eh-na,” tell Siri, “That’s not how you pronounce Helena.” Siri will provide you with a few different clips of examples. Choose the one that sounds closest to the actual pronunciation, and Siri will use the new pronunciation from then on. Similarly, if Siri misinterprets a command, just tap the onscreen bubble containing the incorrect text. Then edit the text and resubmit the command. Alternatively, when editing the text, tap the microphone icon on the onscreen keyboard to speak the corrected text. Or say “Learn how to pronounce [name]’s

WorldMags.net

12.

name,” and Siri will comply, first asking you how to pronounce the first and last names, and then offering you options for replicating that pronunciation.

Get directions: For directions from Siri based on iOS’s Maps app, say, for example, “Show me how to get to San Jose”. For transit or walking directions (which Apple’s Maps app doesn’t yet support), add “via transit” to the end of your command, and Siri will display a list of installed and App Store third-party routing apps. Tap one – such as the Google Maps app – and Siri will launch that app, pre-configured with your destination. (Instead of choosing a transit app, you can opt for a third-party navigation app, such as Navigon.)

6.

Change settings: You can tell Siri to turn on or off Bluetooth, open a specific Settings pane, and even turn on Airplane Mode. If you can’t remember how to get to the screen for a setting that Siri doesn’t directly support, you can open many top-level settings groups, and some second-level screens, in the Settings app. Say “Open Notification Center settings,” for example, or “Open Accessibility.” This feature doesn’t work for every section of the Settings app – in particular, those related to security.

13.

Take notes: Say “Make a note...” or “Note that...” and you can quickly dictate a new note in Notes. Alternatively, say “Make a note called [note name],” and you can then add text to the note by saying “Add text”. You can add content to an existing note later on by saying “Add text to [note name]”.

7.

Send a message: Siri lets you create and send text and email messages easily. Say “Send my wife an email” or “Text my wife” and Siri will create a new message and ask you what you want the message to say. After you dictate your message, Siri will display a preview (say “Read my message” to instruct Siri to read it back to you) and it will then prompt you to send the message. Say “Send!” and off it goes.

8.

Be efficient: Put as much detail as possible in your initial command to Siri. For example, instead of saying “Text my wife,” waiting for Siri to ask you what you want your text message to say, and then dictating “We need to pick up the kids from the party at 4pm” just say: “Text my wife that we need to pick up the kids from the party at 4pm”. This works for calendar events and reminders, too.

9.

Get the message(s): Say “Do I have any new messages [or voicemail or email]?” and Siri will tell you how many new text messages (or voicemails or email messages) you’ve received. You can ask Siri if you have messages from a particular person, too. This makes messages even simpler to use. Just ask “Do I have email from my wife?” Say “Read my new messages [or email]” or “Play my new voicemails,” and Siri will read or play them back to you.

Help Siri If Siri can’t pronounce a contact’s name properly, you can teach it to do so.

10.

Fill your calendar: Siri will add an event to your calendar if you say “Make an event for 10am. Friday called [event name]”. But if you add “to [calendar name],” you can choose a specific calendar; say “with [contact name]” and Siri will add that person as an attendee – and will send the person an invitation if he or she is in your Contacts. You can also edit events: “Move my Friday 10am [event name] to 1pm” moves the event to the afternoon; “Add Ed Wood to Monday’s 12.30 meeting” adds that person as an attendee. Siri can check your calendar, too. Say “When’s my meeting with Dan Moren?” and Siri will tell you. Say “Show me Tuesday” and Siri will show you your scheduled events for that day.

11.

Set a timer or alarm: Siri makes the built-in Clock app’s timer and alarm-clock features more convenient. Say “Set a timer for 10 minutes,” and Siri will create (and start) a 10-minute timer in the Clock app – you don’t have to open the app. “Set an alarm for 7am” creates a new alarm for that particular time.

14.

Set reminders: You can use Siri to schedule reminders by saying something like “Remind me to call Dan at 10.30am tomorrow”. But Siri can also handle reminder math: “Remind me to cancel my trial subscription in 14 days”. And it can configure location-based reminders: “Remind me to call the Y when I get home”. (Say: “Show me my reminders” to quickly view your tasks.)

15.

Eat out: To find nearby restaurants, ask Siri. Say “Are there any good delis nearby?” to call up a list of butchers with prices, location and Yelp ratings. You can search by location, cuisine, price, indoor or outdoor seating, or any combination of these. Tap a listing for detailed information. Say “Find me a table for four for dinner tonight” to see nearby restaurants with openings; tap one to make the reservation. You can even check for reservations at a specific restaurant: “Book me a table for two at 7pm at the Romantic Candle” for example.

16.

Launch apps: Say “Open [app name],” and Siri will open that app (assuming you have only one app by that name). If your phone is locked, Siri


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


will prompt you to unlock so that it can open the app as you requested.

17.

Play media: Siri can launch the Music app, but it can also start playback directly. Say “Play playlist Road Trip” and Siri will start playing the playlist called “Road Trip”. Other things you can tell Siri to play include artist names, album names, and track names.

18.

Be more social: If your hands are occupied, Siri can post to Twitter or Facebook for you. For example, say “Tweet that the scenery in Napa is beautiful” or “Post to Facebook that the weather in Seattle is surprisingly sunny today” and Siri will do the rest. It can also search Twitter for you. Say “What are people saying about Lady Gaga?” or “Search Twitter for Lady Gaga,” and Siri will show you some relevant tweets. Similarly, say “What’s Stephen Fry saying?” and Siri will show you that person’s ten most recent messages.

MAKE SIRI KEEP LISTENING

ADD SPECIAL CHARACTERS

Does this ever happen when you speak to Siri? You: “Remind me to…” Siri: “What would you like me to remind you?” Siri may be there for you 24/7, but sometimes it doesn’t listen as attentively and as patiently as it might. If you have iOS 7.1 installed, however, you can hold down the Home button to make Siri listen for as long as you like. Siri won’t stop listening until you lift your finger. This feature is extremely helpful when you want to record long messages and reminders without being interrupted.

Some characters that you may want to type on an iOS device don’t appear on the built-in keyboard, even when you tap the <123> key (for numbers and punctuation) or the <#+=> key (for less common punctuation). Many special characters are available, but are hidden. To insert one of these characters, first touch and hold the appropriate key (as listed in the chart at left), slide your finger over to the accented variant or other special character in the pop-up menu, and then let go. To produce an accented

19.

Be sporty: You don’t have to unlock your phone and open your favourite sports news app to get the latest scores. Just say “What’s the score of the England game?” and Siri will tell you. But Siri actually knows a lot more about sports than that. For example, you can get detailed information about teams, players, and schedules by asking things like: “Who’s first in the Premier League?”

20.

Pick a flick: Siri can also tell you all about movies, if you’re planning a night out and aren’t sure what’s showing nearby or what’s any good. You may be aware that you can ask Siri for movie show times, but try asking about particular movies and actors. “Is the new X-Men movie any good?” and “What time is Edge of Tomorrow showing?” are both useful. Also try something like “What movies had both Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in them?” Siri will instantly show you the results, and you can tap any movie or rating for more information you might need – you can even view trailers for current movies. Tap any cinema to view its location in the Maps app.

SEARCH YOUR iPHONE OR iPAD From any home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen. Type search terms in the ‘Search iPhone’ or ‘Search iPad’ field at the top of the screen; results will display as you type. From that search field, you can also look for items in various categories, including apps; email; contacts; notes; calendar events and reminders; voice memos; messages; as well as music, videos, audiobooks and podcasts.


WorldMags.net

To choose which types of items the search results should display, go to Settings → General → Spotlight search. Tap a category you are interested in to check or uncheck it, and drag specific categories up or down in the list to change the position where they will appear in your search results. To search for text in the bodies of email messages, you must use the Mail app itself. Tap a mailbox, and then swipe down to display the search field. Your OS device can search email messages on your mail server, but doing so can take a while if you’re using a mobile network, so be patient.

WorldMags.net DICTATION MACHINE To use dictation on your iOS device, tap the microphone icon next to the virtual spacebar. To have Siri insert a punctuation mark, capitalisation, or a symbol or special character as you speak, use the word or phrase listed in the following chart. Say this…

To get this result…

Say this…

To get this result…

Dot dot dot or ellipsis

…

CAPITALISATION Note: New sentences, lines, and paragraphs are automatically capitalised, as are recognised proper nouns, names, and places. Cap

Capitalise the next word.

Caps on … caps off

Add initial capitals throughout a section of text.

All caps

Uppercase the next word.

All caps on … all caps off

Uppercase a section of text.

No caps

Lowercase the next word (one that would be autocapped). Lowercase a section that would otherwise be autocapped.

BASIC PUNCTUATION New paragraph

A new paragraph

No caps on … no caps off

New line

A new line

CONTROLLING SPACES

Period or full stop

.

Spacebar

Question mark

?

Prevent a hyphen in an autohyphenated word.

Exclamation point

!

No space

Omit a space between the next two words.

Colon

:

Semicolon

;

No space on … no space off

Prevent a section of text from having spaces between words.

Comma

,

NUMBERS

Apostrophe or single quote

'

Dot or point

.

Numeral

Quote

"

Represent as a numeral instead of as a spelled-out word.

Underscore

_

MORE PUNCTUATION

BASIC SYMBOLS Asterisk

*

Percent sign

%

Ampersand

&

At sign

@

Degree sign

°

Pound sign

#

Open parenthesis or open parens Close parenthesis or close parens

(

Open bracket Close bracket

[ ]

Open brace Close brace

{ }

Hyphen

-

Greater-than sign

>

Minus or minus sign

-

Less-than sign

<

Dash or en dash

–

Forward slash

/

—

Backslash

\

Caret

^

Copyright sign

©

Registered sign

®

Em dash

)

character such as à, ç or é, for example, touch and hold the base character (A, C or E, respectively); for capital letters, tap the key first. On the iPad’s alphabetic keyboard, you can slide upward on the comma key to type an apostrophe (‘) and slide upward on the period key to type a quotation mark (“). On an iPad or an iPhone, slide upward on the <123> key and then over to any key

Touch and To get these sign-off “Kind hold this... symbols... regards, Joe A ãåāàáâäæ Kissell” simply C čçć by typing rjk. E ėęēêèéë To set up a I ìįíîïī shortcut, go L ł to Settings → N ñń Keyboard → O õøōœòôöó Shortcuts and tap U ūùûüú the plus sign (+). S šßś Type the word or Y ÿ phrase that you Z żžź want to automate , ! [iPad] ' (for example, . ? [iPad] " your full name, 0 ° your address, ͼͿ΄ or a commonly / \ used expression), $ ₩£¢€¥ and then type a & § shortcut (typically . … just a few letters) ? ¿ that will expand ! ¡ into your ’ `’‘ chosen phrase. ” «„”“» You can apply % ‰ this technique to correct misspellings that iOS 7’s built-in autocorrect feature won’t pick up. When using this feature to correct your spelling, you don’t need a shortcut: iOS 7 checks to see whether what you’ve typed is close to any of your defined phrases, and offers to correct it if it suspects a misspelling.

MORE SYMBOLS

on the numeric keyboard to type the matching number or punctuation mark.

TYPE WITH SHORTCUTS To save time and improve your accuracy when you type on an iOS device, you can set up shortcuts, each of which expands a short string of characters into something longer. I’ve set up a useful shortcut that enables me to produce the all-purpose


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


6 WAYS TO LIMIT YOUR DATA USE

1.

Monitor data use: To see how much data your iPhone or iPad uses in the current period, go to Settings → Cellular, and scroll down to Cellular Data Usage; to zero out the amount listed there, tap Reset Statistics at the bottom of the screen. To create a reminder in Calendar to perform this step regularly, find the billing cycle dates on your phone bill. Create a new event on the morning of the first day for each cycle, and then set it to repeat every month.

2.

Monitor data use by individual apps: Go to Settings → Cellular and scroll through the app list. Under each program’s name is a listing of the data it has used in this billing cycle. Scroll to the bottom to see how much your hotspot, messaging services, and the like have used. You can also reset the numbers to zero with the Reset Statistics button.

3.

Turn off cellular data entirely: If you don’t want to keep track of how much of your monthly data plan you are using, you can turn off cellular data for all apps and services. Go to Settings → Cellular and slide the Cellular Data toggle off. This turns off mobile data access only; so you can still use your iPhone to make and receive calls and texts as usual.

HOW TO USE A VPN A virtual private network encrypts Internet data flowing to and from your iOS device, to combat eavesdropping on Wi-Fi networks. Providers such as Cloak (getcloak.com), PublicVPN

4.

Turn off data for specific apps: To disable cellular data for particular apps, go to Settings → Cellular. But which should you remove access for, and which should you leave enabled? Video apps (such as YouTube) and streaming music apps (such as Apple’s Music app, Pandora and Spotify) are especially data-hungry and make good candidates for removing data access. Ones to leave on are favourite web, email and Twitter apps that you may want to use when you’re away from Wi-Fi.

Other apps, like Facebook, may not require such an extravagance. To disable the Background App Refresh feature on an app-by-app basis, go to Settings → General → Background App Refresh. From there, either turn off the feature altogether or disable apps individually.

6.

Stop automatic app downloads: If you’ve enabled cellular data for the iTunes and App Store apps, you can fine-tune the control you have over what those apps can do with their connection. Go to Settings → iTunes & App Store and toggle iTunes Match on or off. Likewise, you can decide whether to enable automatic downloads for music, apps, books and software updates.

5.

Disable Background App Refresh for certain apps: Apps like Mail need to be able to access data even if the program isn’t running in the foreground.

(publicvpn.com) & WiTopia (witopia.net) offer paid VPN accounts. iOS 7 provides built-in support for several common types of VPNs. To configure it with your account settings, go to Settings → VPN → Add VPN Configuration, fill in the details for your account and tap Save. To turn the VPN

on or off, go to Settings → VPN and tap the on/off switch. Some VPN providers offer their own apps that further simplify configuration and use. For instance, you can configure the Cloak app to activate your VPN automatically when you’re using an untrusted network.


WorldMags.net

TECHWorldMags.net PRIZE GIVEAWAYS Have you got what it takes to win our Weekly Tech Quiz? Visit: pcadvisor.co.uk/weekly-quiz ...and take part in this week’s FREE online tech quiz to win a prize. One lucky winner will be picked each week.

WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


MAIL

BOOKS

COPY OR BLIND-COPY When sending email messages, you may want to carbon-copy (Cc) people other than the main recipient(s), and you may want to blind-carbon-copy (Bcc) someone so that person will receive the message without the other recipient(s) knowing. To send either type of copy, tap the Compose button in Mail and then tap the Cc/Bcc, From line, which expands to show individual Cc, Bcc, and From fields. Tap the Cc or Bcc field, enter the address(es) of the recipient(s) you want to include there, and then continue composing your message as usual. If you have multiple email accounts – or multiple addresses for a single account – set up on your device, you can choose which one to send the current message from (and thus determine which address

CREATE AND PRINT ANNOTATIONS You can use your finger as if it were a marker to highlight new text or to expand an existing highlight. And you can print the notes you’ve made. When you select text, a pop-up menu will appear; tap Highlight and select a colour. Or touch some text, and when the magnifier appears, start dragging; everything you touch will be highlighted in the current default colour. Expanding an existing highlight works the same: touch, pause and drag. Fail to pause and you’ll flip the page instead of highlighting the text.

will receive any replies). To do this, tap your address in the From line and then tap a different address.

MOVE MAIL ELSEWHERE

Move mail Before you can transfer mail from one mailbox to another, you must select the relevant message or messages.

When you receive email messages while on the go, you can file them into mailboxes to get them out of your inbox and organise them to your liking. To move the message you’re currently viewing, tap


WorldMags.net

An AirPrint printer can print notes from your iPad; or you can email the notes to yourself and pick them up later on a computer that has printer access. The procedures are the same for both operations until the last step. Tap the Contents button at the top of a page, and tap Notes on the Contents screen. To show page numbers from the printed version of the book (if the book’s file format permits that choice), tap at the bottom of the screen. Tap the Share icon at the top of the screen, and tap Edit Notes in the pop-over. Tap the notes that you want to share, or tap Select All at the very top of the screen. Finally, tap Share and then tap Mail or Print in the pop-over.

the folder icon followed by a mailbox name. To move multiple messages out of the current message list, tap Edit, select the messages you want to move, tap Move, and then tap a mailbox name. To move messages between accounts, follow the procedure outlined above – but instead of tapping a mailbox at the end, tap Accounts and an account name, followed by a mailbox in that account.

WorldMags.net

HOW TO ADD FLAGS

Mail attachments Instruct Mail where to position an attachment in your message.

ADD ATTACHMENTS iOS 7 simplifies the process of adding attachments to outgoing messages in Mail for iOS. Compose a message as usual, and tap the spot in the message where you want an attachment to go. In the pop-over control, tap Insert Photo or Video followed by the location (such as Camera Roll, My Photo Stream, or a photo album), followed by the photo or video. Then tap Use. Repeat as desired. Mail shows the message’s total size in the ‘Cc/Bcc, From’ header area. When you tap Send, your iPhone or iPod touch will prompt you to shrink the photos first. On an iPad, tap Image Size, then Small, Medium, Large, or Actual Size and Send. Though this technique works only for photos and videos, you can email other file types from any app that has a Share button that lists Mail as an option.

Mail in iOS 7 doesn’t have the seven multicoloured flags of Mail in OS X, but you can flag any message to make it easier to find later. To flag the message you’re viewing, tap the flag icon followed by Flag; to remove a flag, tap Unflag. (In the same control dialog, you can tap Mark as Read/Unread or Move to Junk, as needed.) You choose whether a flag in a message header or list will look like an

Trash. Like smart mailboxes, these newer options display matching messages from multiple mailboxes and accounts. To add a mailbox not in the list, tap Add Mailbox and navigate to the one you want to use. To rearrange items, drag them up or down, using the handle to the right. Tap Done, and only the selected items will appear in the top-level Mailboxes view.

ADD RICH-TEXT FORMAT By default, Mail sends your messages in plain text. To add a bit of formatting as you compose a message, select any text

UNTRASH MESSAGES When you accidentally delete or move a message you didn’t mean to change at all, you can exit the account, enter the Trash, and move the message back to your inbox – or you can give your iOS device a shake to make an Undo dialog box pop up. Tap Undo to put your message back where it belongs.

and tap the BIU button in the pop-over, followed by Bold, Italic or Underline to apply that formatting to the selected text. The Mail app in iOS 7 doesn’t provide controls for font, size, colour, indentation, alignment, bulleted lists, and the like, but it preserves such formatting in messages that you forward or reply to – so you can compose a styled message on your Mac, send it to yourself, and keep it on hand in a mailbox on your iOS device. To send someone a message that includes those styled elements, first forward that message, select all the text, and tap Quote Level then Decrease to remove the quote bars. Finally, edit the text, subject and address and send it.

SEARCH ALL MAILBOXES In iOS 6’s Mail, you could search only the mailbox that you were currently viewing. In iOS 7, when you enter a search term, you can pull down the search results to reveal a toggle that lets you choose between searching only the current mailbox or searching all mailboxes.

EDIT MAILBOXES VIEW Mail’s top-level Mailboxes view – with All Inboxes, each account’s individual inbox, and a list of account names – is customisable in iOS 7. To add or remove items, tap the button in the upper-left corner of Mail’s list view until you see the heading Mailboxes. Then tap Edit, and tap items to select or deselect them. New options in iOS 7 include Flagged, Unread, Attachments, All Sent and All

orange dot or an orange flag icon. Go to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → Flag Style, and tap either Color (for a dot) or Shape (for a flag). Remember, any item flagged in (iOS) Mail appears with a red flag in Mail for OS X.

PHONE

BLOCK CALLERS

View mailboxes You can select the mailboxes that you’ll subsequently see in Mail.

The Phone app in iOS 7 lets you block all calls from certain numbers or contacts. In the Recents pane of the Phone app, tap the i button next to a number. Scroll down to the entry ‘Block this Caller’. (Or tap the i button next to any voicemail message in the Voicemail pane, or


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


choose a contact stored in your device.) Tap Block this Caller, and you’ll get a warning that activating this option will block not only phone calls but also iMessages, text messages and FaceTime calls. Also, to block calls and messages from a contact, tap Add New… on the Blocked screen and select a contact. To unblock a number, go to Settings → Phone and tap Blocked to see a list of all blocked numbers. Swipe right to left on any entry and tap the Unblock button to restore that number to good standing.

EDIT CONTACTS To update your address books on your iOS device, first tap the Contacts button in the Phone app’s toolbar, and select the contact you want to update. Tap the Edit button in the upper right, and tap any text field to alter the information in it. To remove an old phone number, email address, street address or other entry, tap the red minus (–) icon next to it and then tap the Delete button. To add an entry, tap the green plus (+) button next to it. When you’re finished, tap the Done button in the upper-right corner. Often you can assign a label to help differentiate multiple entries in a contact record. When entering a phone number, tap the label to the left to choose from among common options such as home, work, mobile and fax. You can also create custom labels by scrolling down and choosing Add Custom Label. Once you’ve created a custom label, it’s available whenever you select a label. If you can’t see a specific field that matches the type of information you want to enter, it may be hidden. Scroll down toward the bottom of the contact record until you find the Add Field button. Tap that button to expose less commonly used fields such as phonetic names, nicknames, and suffixes.

ADD FAVOURITES For quick access to the people you call most often, add them to your favourites (tap the Favorites icon in the Phone app’s toolbar to access this feature). You can make a call to anyone on that list simply by tapping the appropriate name.

To add a person to your favourites, tap the plus (+) button in the top-right corner of the Favorites screen, and select or search for the contact you want. If that contact’s entry has only one phone number, the Phone app will ask you whether the favourite connection should be a standard voice call, a FaceTime Audio call or a video FaceTime call. If the contact’s entry includes multiple numbers, you’ll jump to the contact card; just tap the number that you want to assign to your favourites. You can add favourites from anywhere you can view a contact card. Scroll to the bottom of the card, choose Add to Favorites, and select the number and/or type of call that you want to add. If need to reach someone in multiple ways – via both a mobile number and a work number, say – add each number to Favorites separately. Next to the person’s name, the Phone app will put the label attached to that number or calling method. To rearrange the Favorites screen, tap the Edit button found in the upper-left corner and drag entries to their new destinations. While you’re in Edit mode, you can also remove entries from Favourites by tapping the red minus icon

MAKE THE CLOCK APP WAKE YOU WITH A SONG To set up a musical alarm in the Clock app, tap the Alarm button, tap the add (+) button, and set the time. Then tap Sound, tap Pick a Song, and choose a song in your list. The song will begin playing, so you can confirm that it’s the one you want; tap it again to stop it. The Sound list will hold up to five songs, for easy selection. Next, tap Back and then Save. To assign music to an existing alarm, tap Edit on the main Alarm screen, tap an alarm, and then pick up with the instructions earlier in this paragraph, starting at “tap Sound (above)”.


WorldMags.net

Edit contacts in Phone You don’t have to open the Contacts app to edit contacts; you can do this directly from the iPhone instead.

that appears to the left of each item and then tapping the Delete button that appears on the right-hand side.

CLOCK

WorldMags.net MAKE CONFERENCE CALLS

Favourites list Collect contact links for the people you call most often in a favourites list.

FACETIME AUDIO If you don’t have a phone number for a contact, you may be able to call that person by using FaceTime Audio, which routes audio over the data portion of your mobile network (à la Skype) instead of over the phone portion. Such usage will come out of your data plan, rather than counting

The Phone app’s conference call feature lets you speak to multiple people simultaneously. To use this feature, start a phone call as usual. After connecting to your first participant, tap the Add Call button. The Phone app will put the first participant on hold and place a second call. When that call connects, tap Merge to bring both participants on the line. You can add up to five parties to a call. To merge incoming calls, tap the Hold Call and Answer button when a new call comes in, and then tap Merge call. To break off into a private conversation with one party during a conference call, tap the i button next to the name of the call, and then tap the Private button next to a specific call. Tap Merge calls to return to the conference. If you want to drop a single party from the call, tap the Conference button and tap the End button next to that call. You can now carry on speaking as normal.

against your overall voice minutes. To set this up, in the Contacts pane of the Phone app (or in the Contacts app itself), select a contact and tap the phone icon next to the FaceTime entry. During a FaceTime Audio call, just as during a normal phone call, you can tap Mute or Speaker, and you can switch to a video call by tapping the FaceTime button. To access your Contacts list, tap the Contacts button.

Out of conference Tap the ‘Private’ button if you need to quickly enter into a private conversation during a conference call.

AUTOMATE CALL CODES In many instances, joining a conference call entails dialing hard-to-remember extensions or conference room codes. To simplify the process, go to the Keypad section of the Phone app and enter the phone number you dial. When you get to the end of the regular number, tap and hold the pound key until it turns into a semicolon. Enter the passcode or extension, and add the whole shebang to a new or existing contact record. This means that the next time you dial that contact or number, you’ll see a small button in the bottom left that reads Dial with the code you entered; tap that to have Phone enter the code on the keypad automatically. PHOTOS

SAVE BURST MODE IMAGES Burst Mode on the iPhone 5s can help you capture fast-moving action, but you don’t want to clog your device’s storage space with duplicate images. So after capturing a series of photos in Burst Mode by pressing and holding down the shutter button for a few seconds, tap Camera Roll to view your images. Your burst will appear as a single photo in the album, represented by the image that iOS 7 deems to be the best photo of the bunch. To go back and look through the full burst collection, tap the Favorites button; tap the photo (or photos) you’d like to showcase, and tap Done. From there you can keep the entire burst to look through whenever’s convenient at some point in the future, or you can delete the unwanted images.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net


PERMANENT FILTERS If you like having a specific filter on the images you capture via iPhone or iPad, you can set Square or Photo mode to launch by default with the image manipulation of your choice already in place, ready to go. To set the filter, simply tap the Filter button in the Camera app while in the mode you want. Switch to another mode, and you’ll have a clean slate again; but when you return to your original mode, your filter of choice will remain in place.

ENABLE AUTOMATIC HDR iOS 4.1 introduced the High Dynamic Range (HDR) feature, which let users take a photo of a subject with both sharp light and deep shadow and have it render as evenly lit. But HDR images took longer than non-HDR images to shoot, and users had to turn it on manually when they

wanted to use it. The feature was honed in iOS 7 with several useful tweaks. With iOS 7 and the iPhone 5s, you can turn on automatic HDR mode. In normal light, your iPhone shoots a regular photo. In settings with multiple light patterns, however, your device can automatically recognize that an HDR photo might be better; if it does, it tries to capture that shot instead. (In these cases the iPhone takes two photos: an untouched one and an HDR version. Go to Settings → Photos & Camera → Keep Normal Photo to save both images to your Camera Roll.)

SHARE A PHOTO STREAM

Saving burst shots Tap a collection of burst shots in the iPhone 5s’s Camera Roll, and then select your favourite individual shots.

Shared Photo Streams, which debuted with iOS 6, permitted users to share groups of images with friends for liking and comments, but the friends you shared your streams with were still unable to add images or any video of their own. Well, not any more. iOS 7 lets you open a Shared Photo Stream to anyone you choose. When you create a shared stream, you’ll see two tabs: Photos and People. Tap the People section to access your stream’s settings and to toggle the Subscribers Can Post option on or off. (You can also choose to create a public website, add or delete friends to or from your stream, as well as show notifications for the stream.)


WorldMags.net

SAFARI

SET WHAT’S ON THE FAVOURITES SCREEN Safari in iOS 7 has a Favourites screen with URLs and folders in the Favourites category of your Bookmarks list. The Favourites screen appears when you don’t have any open pages or tabs, when you tap the plus (+) button to add a new tab on an iPad, or when you tap the Pages icon followed by the plus button on an iPhone or iPod touch. To add a site to your Favourites screen, go to that site, tap the Share button, and then tap Bookmark. Make sure that Favorites is selected next to Location, and tap Save. To edit, move, or rearrange favourites, tap the Bookmarks icon in the toolbar followed by the Bookmarks tab, tap Favorites, and then tap Edit. After making changes, tap Done.

ENTER PRIVATE MODE As you browse the web, Safari keeps track of the sites you visit, the searches

WorldMags.net you perform, and the contents of some forms you fill in. Private mode lets you hide your browsing history from anyone who has access to your iOS device. It also temporarily prevents Safari from storing cookies (which also provides evidence about the sites you’ve visited). To enable Private mode on an iPhone or iPod touch, tap the Pages button at the bottom of the screen; to do so on an iPad, tap the plus (+) button to add a tab. Next, tap Private at the bottom of the screen. If any non-private (public) pages are already open, Safari asks if you want to close them first. While in Private mode, Safari takes on a gray background. To turn off Private mode, follow the same steps you used to turn it on. Note that Private mode doesn’t prevent websites from collecting data about you, including your IP address (which can reveal your physical location).

USE TABS On an iPad, Safari for iOS 7 lets you open multiple tabs at the same time, in much the same way as Safari in OS X does. To create a new tab, tap the plus (+) button. You can switch to a different tab by tapping it, and you can drag tabs to rearrange them. On an iPhone or iPod touch, you can have multiple pages open at once, but they won’t appear as tabs; to switch to a different page, tap the Pages button in the lower-right corner. If you use Safari on multiple Macs that run OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later, or on iOS 7 devices, and you are signed in to iCloud on each device with the Safari category enabled, you can see which tabs (or pages) the other devices have open. On an iPad, tap the cloud icon in the toolbar; on an iPhone or iPod touch, tap the Pages button in the lower-right corner and swipe upward to show which

REMINDERS

CREATE LOCATIONBASED REMINDERS In the Reminders app, simply tap the information (i) button next to an item, slide the switch for Remind Me at a Location and tap the Location field. On the following screen you can search for an address or select a prefilled location option.

Your selected location will appear on a small map, beneath a set of buttons for specifying whether or not to send the reminder to you when you arrive at the location, or when you leave it. Drag the handle on the perimeter of the circle around your location to indicate how near you should be when the reminder goes off. Return to the Details screen and tap Done. The location will appear in small text below the reminder item.

tabs and pages are currently open on all your other devices.

OPEN BACKGROUND LINKS To open a new web page on an iPad without leaving the one you’re on, touch and hold the link until a pop-over control appears; then tap Open in New Tab. The new page or tab will open in the background without affecting the current page or view. On an iPhone or iPod touch, the analogous command is ‘Open in New Page’ – but tapping it jumps you to the new page. However, iCab Mobile (£1.49, tinyurl.com/oex3vzo) or the free Google Chrome browser (tinyurl.com/ q6bsm9c) on an iPhone or iPod touch offers the open-in-background feature.

VIEW PASSWORDS AND CREDIT CARD INFO If you configure Safari to save entered passwords and credit card information (by going to Settings → Safari → Passwords & AutoFill, and confirming that ‘Names and Passwords’ and ‘Credit Cards’ are turned on), Safari will record your credentials as you browse. (If you use iCloud Keychain [tinyurl.com/Lazsqet] to sync this information across devices, anything you store in Safari on one device will be available on your other devices as well.) Usually you’ll want to let Safari fill in this information automatically. But if you need to view stored passwords and credit card details, return to Settings → Safari → Passwords & AutoFill and tap either Saved Passwords or Saved Credit Cards. Tap an item and enter your passcode if prompted to do so, and Safari will display the details. You can edit your credit card details by tapping the Edit button. However, though an Edit button appears in the Passwords list (enabling you to delete entries), you can’t edit individual passwords in the Settings app. You will be able to edit them in the Keychain Access utility on a Mac, if you first use iCloud Keychain to sync them. Contributors to this article include: Serenity Caldwell, Joe Kissell, Kirk McElhearn and Sharon Zardetto


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

OFFICE for iPad

WORD, EXCEL AND POWERPOINT FINALLY COME TO APPLE’S TABLET lmost as soon as the iPad appeared in 2010, people wondered when Microsoft Office for iPad would arrive. The theory was that once the office suite was available, Apple’s tablet would become a real business-computing device in its own right. Well, the iPad has long since become just that, even without Office. So when Microsoft finally released Excel, Word and PowerPoint for iPad, that move still didn’t set the world on fire. That’s too bad, because the wait was well worth it. With Excel and Word particularly, and even PowerPoint to some extent, migration to the iPad has been a huge success. These aren’t just Mac apps ported to the tablet – they’re tablet apps through and through.

A

SUMMER 2014 20 4 • MACWORLD 83

WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

OFFICE FOR iPAD

EXCEL for iPad

THE BEST SPREADSHEET APP FOR THE iPAD

BY ROB GRIFFITHS

Excel for iPad PRICE:

Viewing files, free; editing and creating files, £79.99 per year or £7.99 per month for an Office 365 Home subscription COMPANY:

Microsoft, microsoft.com/ en-gb

lthough you can easily find any number of spreadsheet apps for the iPad, the market changed dramatically the day that Microsoft released the full Office suite for iPad, including a solid version of Excel. Microsoft has done an excellent job of transferring the power and capabilities of Excel for OS X to Excel for iPad. The program loads quickly, and it deftly handles the transition from keyboard-andmouse input to a more elegantly styled full-touch interface.

A

THE INTERFACE Excel for iPad’s interface is surprisingly well thought out. The window features six small buttons along the top left and right of the screen, plus five tabs in the centre. The toolbar is small and tidy, unlike the one in the desktop version of Excel, which I often find too big and cluttered to navigate easily. Each tab (Home, Insert, Formulas, Review, and View) contains just a single row of text and icons. The default view opens to the Home tab, which contains often-used formatting options, such

as font face, colour, and style; font fill and borders, and text alignment – as well as cell formatting and style drop-down menus. The other tabs are relatively self-explanatory, except perhaps Review, which you use to scan comments on worksheet cells. You can’t actually create cell notes in Excel for iPad (though you can delete them), so you’ll use the Review tab only to browse through existing comments. When you’re in a worksheet, touch actions function as you’d expect them to – a two-finger drag

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS The numeric keyboard, which combines mathematical symbols and numbers on one panel, greatly speeds the entry of formulas.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net ALL DRESSED UP Enhance the look of your charts by inserting a wide variety of lines, shapes and even photos you have stored on your iOS device.

scrolls the worksheet, while pinch gestures zoom and unzoom it. A single tap selects a cell, while a double-tap opens the cell for data entry (and displays the keyboard). You can add cell references to formulas by tapping (and tapdragging) other cells as you’re working on the formula. When entering data in cells, you can also use the numeric keyboard (see Strength in numbers, left). Excel for iPad supports external keyboards as well. Once you’ve selected (highlighted) a cell, you can simply tap and drag on one of its corners to expand the selection to a range of cells; you can then move that range (or just one cell, if that’s all you’ve selected) with a tap-andhold operation. You can also bring up a contextual menu by tapping and holding on a selected cell. Here you’ll see a bar in which you

can cut, copy, clear, fill or wrap the cell. If you choose the fill option, small arrows pop up on the cell’s right and bottom sides; you can then drag those arrows to easily fill adjacent cells, just as you would in the desktop version of Excel.

THE FEATURES Microsoft did an incredible job of migrating a lot of Excel’s power to the iPad version of the app, which has more than 400 formulas. If that’s not all of the desktop version’s formulas, it’s still a very useful set of formulas. Most of the chart types have also migrated. To create a chart, you just select the data, tap the Insert

tab on the ribbon, choose a chart type, and then tap-drag to select a region for the chart. You can also choose from a large assortment of shapes, add text boxes and even insert images. However, the image browser is restricted to photos stored on the iOS device; you can’t access media files in your Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage, for example. The thorough help system includes a comparison table that shows what you can do in each version of Excel (iOS, OS X, and Windows), along with a touch guide that explains how to interact with your data. Excel for iPad has most of the desktop version’s best features:

MICROSOFT HAS DONE A BRILLIANT JOB OF MIGRATING MUCH OF EXCEL’S POWER TO THE iPAD VERSION OF THE APP, WHICH HAS MORE THAN 400 DIFFERENT FORMULAS


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

OFFICE FOR iPAD

both the iPad and OneDrive, but, annoyingly, no preview is available. Excel doesn’t support Google Drive or Dropbox, which isn’t surprising – you won’t find support for OneDrive or Dropbox in Google Sheets or in Apple’s Numbers. The lack of support for other cloud services is troubling, but it’s not crippling, as Dropbox’s Open In menu supports Excel. Happily, Microsoft has addressed one other limitation: an update has added the ability to print from the iPad version of Office.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE OFFICE

NICELY PACKAGED Excel for iPad’s interface takes up minimal screen room, and the toolbar is easy to work with even if you have large, bumbling fingers.

functions, fonts, cell borders, cell merging, table styling, the ability to hide and shuffle worksheets in a workbook, and so on. Some of the features are less robust, of course – the iPad app has fewer cell border styles – but there’s enough here to meet the needs of even heavy-duty spreadsheet users. As for performance, I was deeply impressed with the iPad app’s silky responsiveness, even when I was working on several pretty large worksheets. Scrolling was fluid and smooth, and I didn’t notice any slowdowns or other issues.

A FEW LIMITATIONS As good as the tablet version of Excel is, it’s missing a few of the features of the desktop version. As mentioned earlier, you can’t create comments; you also can’t name cells or ranges (though you can work with existing names), or create conditional formatting rules. Any included array formulas work, but you can’t enter new ones. And while you can see existing any sparklines, you can’t create new ones (a sparkline is a full graph

contained in one cell). Finally, references in formulas to cells on external worksheets won’t update. One last limitation is that you can use Excel for iPad on only one workbook at a time. If you’re wrangling two worksheets, and they’re in different workbooks, you’ll have to close one workbook to focus on the other. By default, Excel for iPad constantly saves your work all the time – so if you’re dealing with a mission-critical workbook, you’ll want to duplicate it before you begin, in case you make a serious error. (You can disable auto-save via an option in the same menu you use to duplicate workbooks.) You can save files to the iPad (and transfer them to and from it via iTunes’ Apps section), or you can save them to your OneDrive cloud disk. A nicely laid-out file organiser lets you browse through files on

The big sticking point with Office for the iPad is the Office 365 subscription model, which includes Excel for iPad. While you can use the app for free as a spreadsheet viewer, to actually edit workbooks you’ll need an Office 365 subscription, which costs £79.99 per year, or £7.99 per month for the Home edition. With that, you get 20GB of OneDrive cloud storage and the ability to use all of the Office apps on up to five computers (OS X and Windows) and five tablets. (See Office 365: To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe, opposite.)

BOTTOM LINE Putting aside the issue of the Office 365 subscription, Excel for iPad is the best spreadsheet app on Apple’s tablet. The touch interface is well thought out, and support for the full set of desktop functions means you can handle complicated workbooks remotely. Saving files on OneDrive keeps them in sync across all your devices and available wherever you go.

SAVING FILES ON ONEDRIVE KEEPS THEM IN SYNC ACROSS ALL OF YOUR DEVICES AND AVAILABLE TO USE WHEREVER YOU MAY BE


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

OFFICE 365

TO SUBSCRIBE OR NOT TO SUBSCRIBE?

BY ROB GRIFFITHS

here’s been an uproar over the pricing model for Microsoft’s Office for iPad. The apps are free to download, and you can use them to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. However, you can’t use the apps to edit existing files or to create new files without buying a subscription to Office 365, Microsoft’s online Office-everywhere service. The Home edition (£79.99 per year or £7.99 per month) is the appropriate choice for typical home users. So should you pay to create and edit documents with the iPad Office apps? The answer depends on how you use them on your computer(s) and/or tablets, and how many computers your household has.

T

I NEED THE FULL OFFICE SUITE ON iOS If you need full access to the Office suite on your iOS device, obviously you’ll be ponying up the money. (Note that Amazon is selling a one-year subscription for around £15 less at tinyurl.com/Lfqyfjh.) Yes, Apple offers alternatives via its iWork for iOS suite (free with new iOS devices, £7.99 otherwise). But for users who need the highest level of Excel, PowerPoint and/or Word feature compatibility, the iWork apps just don’t cut it.

I NEED ONLY AN OFFICE STYLE SUITE ON iOS If you don’t need 100 percent compatibility with Microsoft Office, and you rarely need to create or edit Office-type documents on your iOS device, you have plenty of

In short: ΄ Subscribe to Office 365 if you need Office on your iOS devices, as it’s the only way to get it. ΄5^]ͭcbdObPaWORWS you have no need for Office on iOS and you have only one Mac.

CONTROVERSIAL KEYNOTE Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the Office for iPad launch, where he announced that an Office 365 subscription would be required for working in the new tablet apps.

good alternatives to Microsoft’s subscription plan. The aforementioned iWork for iOS apps may be all you need, given that they can output Office-compatible file formats when required.

I USE OFFICE AT HOME, BUT NOT ON iOS DEVICES Even if you have no interest in using Office on iOS, Office 365 may still be worthwhile, depending on how many computers you have and how often you upgrade Office. If you’re just one person, with a single Mac, you don’t need Office 365, even if you upgrade each time there’s a major release (roughly once every three years). Assuming a new release appears in 2014, you could expect to use it for at least the next three years. Assuming this has the same £83 price as Office 2011 for Mac (Home and Student edition; tinyurl.com/ pf2esm8), then that option would

be cheaper than the £240 you’d pay for an Office 365 subscription over the same three years. But say you have three Macs at home. Since Microsoft sells Office with only single-machine licenses, your up-front cost is now around £249. Subscribing seems like the best choice, right? It does, but you must still answer one more question: do you intend to keep subscribing to Office? Subscribing to software is like leasing a car. You don’t own anything at the end of the subscription term. Let the subscription lapse, and you won’t be able to edit your Office documents. At that point you’ll need to buy Office, which will obviously increase your costs. So if you think you’re going to stop subscribing, it’s best to do it when a major release comes out. That way, you’ll get three or more years’ use out of your investment.

΄2Zb^P^]bWQRa subscribing if you have multiple Macs, even if you don’t need Office on iOS, depending on how often you upgrade Office and your odds of re-subscribing.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

OFFICE FOR iPAD

WORD for iPad

THE NEW STANDARD-BEARER FOR MICROSOFT’S WORD PROCESSOR

B Y J E F F E R Y B AT T E R S B Y

Word for iPad PRICE:



leek, streamlined, and well organised, Word for iPad simply offers everything that’s great about the desktop app without any of the clutter. That said, Word for iPad is different from any Office application before it. While you can download the app for free, it requires a subscription to Office 365 (£7.99 per month, or £79.99 per year) if you want to do more than just view Word documents. (See Office 365: To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe, on page 87.) Once you’ve set up your subscription, Word opens to a template browser, where you can either create a fresh document from one of 15 templates, or open existing documents stored in your Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage service or in any other location supported by Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration software. Word for iPad’s templates are similar to the desktop app’s, but the selection isn’t nearly as rich as the variety of templates you’ll find in Word for Mac. From this window you can also manage your Office 365 account and add new OneDrive or SharePoint locations. The process works in the following manner – you have to download documents stored on your OneDrive to your iPad before

S

A CLEAR VIEW Microsoft Word for iPad offers the best capabilities of the desktop application.

you can work on them; as you work, they sync dynamically to your OneDrive at intervals, when you aren’t actively typing in a document. Download times vary depending on the document size and the speed of your internet connection, but I found the process took just a few seconds. Documents you’ve opened from your OneDrive are cached locally on your iPad, and you can open them even if you don’t currently have access to the internet. You can also save documents directly on the iPad and then move them to your OneDrive later on.


WorldMags.net

ROBUST TOOLS Editing documents in Word on the iPad is a pleasure. Although it has an “essentials only” look and feel, it’s no stripped-down version of the desktop app. It doesn’t offer everything Word for Mac does – it has fewer templates and no scripting tools – but this isn’t the disappointing Word on the iPhone. Editing tools are robust and capable – you should be able to do everything you need to and more.

THE INTERFACE The document editor sports a single simplified toolbar with five

WorldMags.net tabs at the top: Home, Insert, Layout, Review and View. Additional tabs appear depending on the types of elements you’re working with. If, say, you’re working in a table, a tab appears with tools for adding, removing and formatting cells. Tapping a tab once reveals its tools; tapping it again hides them – giving you extra editing room when needed. Word for iPad offers a complete set of text-editing tools, including nearly 120 fonts and the usual tools for formatting them. You’ll also find the common paragraph-alignment, list, spacing and indentation tools, as well as a Style menu for quickly changing paragraph styles. Unfortunately, you can’t create new styles based on formatting changes you make in your document. However, you can easily share documents you create by simply tapping a Share button. Because these documents are stored in your OneDrive, other users can edit and

BECAUSE ALL DOCUMENTS ARE STORED IN YOUR ONEDRIVE, OTHER USERS CAN EASILY EDIT AND UPDATE THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY update them simultaneously, and you can track the changes they’ve made on other devices. In my testing, I found that simultaneous editing worked well enough, but because you have to refresh documents manually to see the updates others are making while you’re editing a document, both you and your collaborators may find after a refresh that your changes appear in a slightly different location than you were expecting. That said, I didn’t experience any loss of data. Word for iPad has some minor limitations, particularly if you created the original document using the desktop Word app. While the app does a great job of handling document formatting, in

some cases the fonts you’ve used on your Mac may not be available on the iPad. I also found that when I was using templates, objects were not always what I expected them to be – I spent five minutes trying to resize what I thought was a coloured text box in a document when it was actually a table with a coloured cell. Only when I saw that the Table tab had appeared in the toolbar did I realise my error.

BOTTOM LINE The Office 365 subscription required to use Word for iPad may deter some users from giving it a try, but it really shouldn’t – it’s an impressive app. It’s streamlined, fast and beautiful – exactly the kind of thing I’d like to see on my Mac.

COLLABORATIVE EDITING You can collaborate with others on a Word document that’s being stored on your OneDrive.


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

OFFICE FOR iPAD

POWERPOINT for iPad

CLOSE, BUT NOT QUITE THERE YET

B Y J E F F E R Y B AT T E R S B Y

PowerPoint for iPad :



owerPoint for iPad lets you open, edit, create and present native PowerPoint files on your iPad – without requiring any file conversion. This is a boon for anyone who often uses PowerPoint on a Mac or PC, but prefers the iPad’s portability. Compared to PowerPoint for OS X 2011 (tinyurl.com/o2nb9sh) and Apple’s Keynote 2.0 for iOS (tinyurl.com/Lzqmyyp), however, PowerPoint for iPad offers a disappointing range of features.

P

OFFICE 365 As with the other Office for iPad apps, you must have an Office 365 subscription (£7.99 per month, £79.99 per year for the Home edition) if you want to create or edit presentations on your iPad. (For more on Office 365, see page 87.) Each subscription includes access to the OneDrive cloud storage service, which you’ll need to transfer files to and from your iPad. (You can add a location supported by Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration software, but there’s no support for other cloud storage services, such as Dropbox.) If another app contains a PowerPoint file, you can use the Open In command to send it to PowerPoint. PowerPoint can read .ppt files, but it converts them to the newer

.pptx format before you can edit them. All the different PowerPoint files I imported from my Mac opened without incident. Whatever else you might say about PowerPoint for iPad, Microsoft got the touch interface right. The controls are where you expect them to be, and every operation – from applying boldface to rotating a graphic – is intuitive. When creating a new slideshow, you can choose from 20 themes in widescreen or standard aspect ratios. Oddly, there’s no overlap between the themes in the iPad and Mac versions – and no way to create new themes. The iPad

version also lacks templates, but it’s hardly a major dealbreaker.

STYLES AND LAYERS PowerPoint for iPad includes a sufficient selection of text-editing controls – you can adjust font, size, style, colour, alignment and indentation; apply bulleted or numbered lists in a variety of styles; and use any of 20 predefined text styles. You can also add and format tables, add a number of shapes and lines, and insert graphics from elsewhere on your iPad. You can also apply picture styles, shadows and reflections to imported images – and resize or

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS You can use OneDrive or a SharePoint folder to store documents in the cloud.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

PICTURE THIS You can choose from several predefined picture styles, which include frames and other visual elements.

rotate images – but you can’t crop them. PowerPoint for iPad doesn’t include a built-in chart capability, but you can copy one from Excel for iPad to paste into a slideshow. You can adjust the front-to-back layering of each element on a slide, and apply any of 36 different slide transitions, including 11 that don’t appear in PowerPoint for OS X. Control over transitions is limited, however. For example, you can choose a direction for a wipe or dissolve effect, but not a duration, sound effect or delay. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of what you can change on a slide. You can’t add animations to a slideshow, nor can you edit existing animations in imported slideshows. The app also doesn’t support SmartArt graphics or audio. Any videos in a slideshow appear as static thumbnails. You can re-order slides, but there’s no Outline view. And though you can

see comments added in the desktop version, you can’t edit or delete them – or add new ones. PowerPoint is also a bit disappointing when it comes to playing slideshows. On the plus side, you can touch and hold to summon a simulated laser pointer, as you can do in Keynote for iOS, as well as write on the screen with a pen or highlighter. There’s also a handy black-screen button, which Keynote doesn’t include. But PowerPoint for iPad lacks a presenter view – your slideshow always displays full screen. It’s especially odd that you can add and edit speaker notes, but you can’t see them at all during the slideshow. You also don’t get an

onscreen timer or a thumbnail view while presenting, even when you’re using AirPlay or a video adaptor connected to an external display. Keynote offers both. Microsoft declined to comment on whether it might add any of these features, but said that it has made several updates to Office 365 in the last year, and it’s listening to customers’ feedback. BOTTOM LINE As far as it goes, PowerPoint for iPad works well, but it just doesn’t have enough features. Keynote for iOS is a lot more powerful. Even so, PowerPoint 1.0 is a good starting point, and it shows considerable promise for the future.

POWERPOINT FOR iPAD LACKS A PRESENTER VIEW – THIS MEANS THAT SLIDESHOWS ALWAYS DISPLAY USING THE FULL SCREEN


WorldMags.net

Features

WorldMags.net

HOW iOS COULD HELP MAKE SMART HOMES A REALITY

Wall-to-wall Apple: How iOS could make its way into your home Our homes are ready to venture into an automated future and Apple’s mobile tech could lead the way B Y M A R C O TA B I N I

O

ur homes are long overdue for a technological makeover. Through the years, more and more electronics have found their way into our houses and flats. Small internal computers run most of today’s modern appliances – thermostats, ovens and washing machines – and wireless networks carry significant amounts of data through many homes. All the pieces are finally in place for home automation to shift from a rare luxury to a everyday reality. What’s missing is a unifying technology that allows appliances to communicate with one another, but it’s on its way. Although Apple hasn’t announced any specific plans in this regard, it has been

quietly building technologies that could turn iOS into the hub of our smart homes.

Location detection Home automation isn’t anything new. Systems that allow you to manage your lighting and heating remotely have existed for years, and simpler tech – such as motion-activated lights – has been around for several decades. Many of these systems, however, rely too much on users’ active participation.

A motion sensor can ‘see’ you only if you move. This means you can’t expect it to know, for instance, that it should illuminate the living room while you quietly read a book in your armchair. Apple’s technologies have been slowly developing the ability to keep track of its users’ whereabouts. Lots of people carry some sort of iOS device around with them. Add a temperature sensor to an iPhone or an iPad, and you’ve got a thermostat that follows you through the

Add a temperature sensor to an iPhone or iPad and you’ve got a thermostat that follows you through your home feeding back climate-control data


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net house and can tell your central heating system which rooms need climate control. The precise localisation features Apple has been engineering into its Bluetooth initiatives complement this “presence awareness”. The company’s iBeacon technology (tinyurl.com/qdhsr5u) allows tiny, inexpensive devices to pinpoint your location with a high degree of accuracy inside any building. With this technology in place, it’s not hard to imagine a compatible heating and cooling system, or lights that automatically turn on and off as you walk from room to room.

Apple conquers the living room So far, Apple’s efforts in the home media automation market have produced mixed results. At £99, Apple TV is considerably less expensive than many of its competitors, including Microsoft and Sony consoles, but it doesn’t offer interactive features such as games or apps. And Apple’s set-top box comes at a steeper price and takes up more space than Google’s Chromecast (£30, tinyurl.com/mwx4aex), although the latter can’t function as a stand-alone device. In the past, Apple minimised the role of the set-top box in its business, calling it a “hobby”. Now Apple executives are revising that view (tinyurl.com/Lz87db4), with an eye to the device’s healthy sales – over £600m – in 2013. One area where Apple could set its media centre apart from the competition is in the user interface. Remote controls are clumsy devices, and replacing them with a smartphone – something Apple’s Remote for iOS makes possible – only marginally reduces the complexity of interacting with your television. The company may have an ace or two up its corporate sleeve. It acquired

Switching to copilot Siri’s functionality has been expanding, and the virtual assistant may find its way into the home – or the family car – where it could interact with smart apps.

3D-sensor pioneer PrimeSense at the end of last year; so the next Apple TV could use 3D technology to detect your presence when you walk into the living room and may allow you to control your viewing experience with simple gestures. (FYI: PrimeSense was behind the original version of Microsoft’s Kinect.) In addition, recent versions of Apple TV support Bluetooth LE, which is exactly the kind of technology you’re likely to find in wearable devices – a market that Apple seems to be eyeing with increasing interest (tinyurl.com/n8y3puo). Who knows? In the near future we may finally stop looking for lost remotes under the sofa cushions and control our TVs from devices on our wrists, instead.

Siri, Siri everywhere Since its introduction in 2010, Siri has been a little hit-and-miss. Even though it’s shed its “beta” label, Apple’s virtual assistant still fails to complete basic tasks. But Siri is really just an interface that permits us to interact with a massive web of artificial intelligence and algorithms. As iOS’s ability to interact with the real world increases, it will be able to feed data collected from the environment around us

I feel your presence Apple’s acquisition of PrimeSense, which specialises in presence sensors, is a sign that the company is serious about microlocation technologies.

directly into Apple’s digital brain. And its output, rather than as a stream of nasalsounding consonants coming out of a speaker, could control a raft of smart appliances all over your home. For example, low-power sensors spread through a home could collect real-time information about temperature and humidity, and then use Siri’s power to apply the latest climate-management techniques – keeping you comfortable and reducing your energy use. Wearable devices and smart household appliances, such as scales, could collect health data – even while you’re sleeping – for medical analysis that would then alert you to visit the family doctor. In both cases, Siri’s AI wouldn’t just automate our homes: it would improve our lives by incorporating expert knowledge behind the scenes.

Welcome to the dark side Of course, many of the innovations that make home automation interesting could also herald an unprecedented level of privacy invasion. Do we really want companies to know how much time we spend asleep, what our resting blood pressure is, or whether we like to keep the house balmy in the middle of winter? These kinds of questions are hard to answer, but Apple has made an open commitment to security in a white paper that aims to show it treats customer data with care (tinyurl.com/ohn9bnh). Apple’s ongoing efforts at maintaining data transparency could go a long way toward helping these cutting-edge technologies gain future acceptance.


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Buyers’ Guide Mac Pro

UPDATED

iMac

19/12/13

Apple’s late 2013 Mac Pro has been completely redesigned inside and out. The new model has a cylindrical case, and the entire top acts as a carrying handle. That’s possible because the new version is about one-eighth of the size of the previous Mac Pro tower, and stands at 9.9in tall. The new design is built around a ‘unified thermal core’ that aims to keep the Mac Pro cool. Under the hood, there’s an Intel Xeon E5 processor. It can have up to 12 cores, and offers double the CPU performance of the current Mac Pro. It uses a third-generation PCI Express architecture, and 1866MHz ECC DDR3 RAM. When it comes to graphics, the new Mac Pro has dual AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs, and can run three 4K displays. It’s up to two-and-a-half times faster than its predecessor, and delivers seven teraflops of computer power. Apple is outfitting the new Mac Pro with PCIe-based flash memory, which is 10 times faster than traditional desktop hard drives. It has four USB 3.0 ports, six Thunderbolt 2 sockets, gigabit ethernet and HDMI. Apple was forced to remove the previous Mac Pro from sale in Europe after an amendment to a safety regulation.

UPDATED

24/09/13

Apple’s latest iMac has been updated to include the fourth-generation Intel Haswell quad-core processors. The benefits of Haswell for desktop computers are not as profound as for laptops, as a big factor is lower power consumption, and therefore better battery life. But, Haswell could mean you’ll save on your electricity bill, and it will help your machine stay quieter and cooler. The 2013 iMac retains the slimline aluminium design of its predecessor along with the beautiful-looking display. It’s available in 21.5in and 27in sizes, with prices starting at £1,149 for a 2.7GHz quad-core i5 version of the smaller model. Among the build-to-order options is the Fusion Drive – a hybrid storage device combining flash storage with a regular hard drive. The 1TB option is available for an extra £160 on all iMac models, while the 3TB drive can be installed only on the 27in machines and costs £280.

Price: From £2,499 Pros: PCIe flash memory; six Thunderbolt 2 ports Cons: No internal expansion options

Price: 21.5in £1,149 to £1,299; 27in £1,599 to £1,749 Pros: Thin design; updated processor; improved graphics Cons: No optical drive or FireWire 800 ports

Macworld preview: tinyurl.com/prj4vp9

Full review: tinyurl.com/me5utn5

MacBook Pro

UPDATED

11/06/12

Apple removed the 15in model from its non-Retina MacBook Pro range, so only a 13in version is available. Apart from this nothing has changed – it has the same unibody design, upgradability and price, and it remains the only MacBook to have an optical drive. On the inside, there’s an Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor, 4GB RAM and a 500GB, 5400rpm hard drive. Connectivity options include USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, FireWire and ethernet. While these specs aren’t as impressive as Apple’s other MacBooks they are still more than enough for the non-creative professional or the home user. If you want to future-proof your computer, then a number of configuration options are available at the point of purchase, including a 2.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive. Plus, it will run OS X Mavericks, and any other Mac software you may already have.

MacBook Air

UPDATED

29/04/14

This year’s MacBook Air line-up isn’t all that different to last year’s model, apart from a substantial price decrease. As previously, the 2014 options are available in four standard configurations: two with 11.6in screens and two with 13.3in screens. The new prices place the entry-level 128GB 11in MacBook Air at £749, down £100 from £849. Pricing changes aside, there’s a subtle increase in processor speeds for the new machines. All four configurations have the same Intel 1.4GHz dual-core Core i5 processor, which is 100MHz faster than the 1.3GHz dual-core Core i5 processor found in the mid-2013 Air. Everything else is the same as last year’s model: 4GB of DDR3 memory, Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics, and either 128- or 256GB of PCIe-connected flash storage. The 11.6- and 13.3in displays keep the same resolutions, 1366x768 and 1440x900, respectively – the new Air doesn’t include a Retina display like some analysts had predicted. We were disappointed that the new Airs didn’t perform as well in our speed tests as last year’s models, although in many tests the newer models outperformed the 2013 versions.

Price: £999 Pros: USB 3.0; Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors; nVidia graphics; Thunderbolt Cons: No 15in model available; no Retina display

Price: 11in £749 to £899; 13in £849 to £999 Pros: Stylish; super-slim; great battery life; price has been reduced Cons: Still no Retina display

Full review: tinyurl.com/nsbusw4

Full review: tinyurl.com/Ldxfyks


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

MacBook Pro Retina display

UPDATED

22/10/13

The groundbreaking MacBook Pro with Retina display has not only been updated with some impressive specs, but it’s also had its price cut. On the inside, Apple has added Intel’s Haswell processors to boost speed and improve efficiency, which is reflected in the increased battery life. In our wireless web browsing test the entry-level 13in model lasted for 10 hours, 51 minutes, compared to the previous MacBook’s seven hours, 15 minutes – a big improvement. The screen itself hasn’t been upgraded, but it’s still stunning: the 15in version offers a resolution of 2880x1800 pixels; while the 13in option has an equally striking 2560x1600 pixels. Connectivity options are just as impressive and include 2x Thunderbolt 2, 2x USB 3.0 and 1x HDMI ports. Apple has also managed to make it slightly lighter and thinner than the previous model, making it more portable than ever.

UPDATED

Mac mini

23/10/12

Of all the hardware changes unveiled at the end of 2012, the Mac mini’s were probably the most modest – at least on the outside. Externally, it’s more or less unchanged from its previous incarnation, save for the introduction of USB 3.0 ports. It still has Thunderbolt- and HDMI sockets, as well as an SDXC card reader. It’s 7.7in square and 1.4in deep, which is where it earns its ‘mini’ name. Inside, however, it has faster processors. Apple claims it’s up to twice as fast – a 2.5GHz dual-core i5 chip and 500GB hard drive in the £499 model, and a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 chip with a 1TB hard drive in the £679 option. Both have improved graphics, while the new Fusion Drive is an optional configuration. An £849 mini with OS X server is also available, featuring a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 processor, improved graphics and larger hard drives.

Price: 13in £1,099 to £1,449; 15in £1,699 to £2,199 Pros: Stunning Retina display; USB 3.0; thinner design; Haswell processors Cons: No optical drive; expensive; small storage options

Price: £499 to £679; mini with OS X Server £849 Pros: USB 3.0; quad-core processors; optional Fusion Drive Cons: No optical drive; doesn’t come with a monitor or keyboard

Full review: tinyurl.com/mwvpxmw

Full review: tinyurl.com/oc3uyL5

iPad mini with Retina display

UPDATED

22/10/13

On the surface, the latest iPad mini looks a lot like its predecessor, however, delve a little deeper and you’ll find a device with some impressive additions. The most obvious of these is the gorgeouslooking Retina display, which offers 326ppi, compared to 163ppi on the first-generation model. In adding a Retina display, the device requires a more powerful processor, so it wasn’t a surprise to see that Apple has opted for the same A7 chip found in the iPad Air and iPhone 5s. To power these, Apple has added a bigger and heavier battery, and while there’s a minimal weight increase and the depth is a fraction more, it offers just as much battery life as its predecessor. That’s up to 10 hours surfing the web, watching video and listening to music over Wi-Fi, nine if you are on a cellular network.

iPad Air

UPDATED

22/10/13

Apple has updated its iPad range, and this time around the company seems to have followed the mantra that thinner is better. Indeed, the Air seems almost ethereally light when you pick it up. However, despite its low weight, it feels solid enough. If you’ve got reasonably big hands, you should be able to grip Apple’s tablet with one hand – it’s only 170mm wide. This highlights just how light this tablet is, helped by the thickness: 7.5mm, compared with the iPad 4’s 9.3mm. One of the headline features of the Air is the inclusion of the A7 processor. Its clock speed isn’t quoted, but Apple says the Air is around twice as quick – both in terms of overall processing speed and in graphical tasks – as the iPad 4. But what about the screen quality? The short answer is that it’s the same as ever, which is to say, exceptional. Once again, we’re looking at 2048x1536 pixels and 264ppi.

Price: Wi-Fi £319 to £559; Wi-Fi + 4G £419 to £659 Pros: Retina display; performance; impressive battery life Cons: A touch heavier than original iPad mini

Price: Wi-Fi £399 to £639; Wi-Fi + 4G £499 to £739 Pros: Slimline design; good performance; light weight; improved graphics Cons: Expensive

Full review: tinyurl.com/L8bzb5q

Full review: tinyurl.com/pfu6xox


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Buyers’ Guide

iPhone 5c

UPDATED

20/09/13

The iPhone 5c is the cheaper iPhone model; however, this isn’t ‘cheap’. As our Macworld US colleagues put it, the 5c “looks a bit like the iPhone 5 had a baby with the plastic-backed iPhone 3GS”. This is the first time Apple’s handset has been available in anything other than black and white – it’s available in pink, yellow, blue, green or white. It’s constructed from a polycarbonate shell, crafted from a single piece of plastic, and feels good to hold and well built without being heavy. The polycarbonate surface is grippy, too. It’s slightly longer and a little heavier than the iPhone 5. On the inside is a A6 chip, the same processor as the iPhone 5.

Price: 8GB £429; 16GB £469; 32GB £549 Pros: Feels good to hold; won’t slip out of your hand; colourful; cheaper than 5s

iPhone 5s

Price: 16GB £549; 32GB £629; 64GB £709 Pros: Improved camera; new colours; fingerprint sensor; good performance

Cons: Too expensive; colours not to everyone’s taste

Cons: No battery improvements; more expensive than iPhone 5 Full review: tinyurl.com/kn36zee

UPDATED

12/09/12

In the case of the iPod nano, bigger is definitely better, but this is by no means a big nano. It’s the thinnest iPod model yet, a massive 50 percent leaner than the previous generation at 5.4mm. It has a built-in pedometer for fitness fans, although the lack of a clip could prove a problem to joggers. The 2.5in display is sufficient for the operating system run by the nano.

Price: £129 Pros: Elegant, slimline design; Bluetooth

iPod classic

Cons: Sluggish interface; unresponsive controls Full review: tinyurl.com/ol5wzn5

Price: 16GB £199; 32GB £249; 64GB £329 Pros: Colour choices; compact camera alternative

09/09/09

Price: £199 Pros: Excellent battery life; improved UI

Cons: Expensive; low-resolution screen

The iPod touch has the same 4in Retina display as the iPhone 5c and 5s. It also features an A5 chip, allowing it to run Siri, as well as a 5Mp iSight camera, which can record 1080p HD video. A recent update adds a ‘space grey’ version.

UPDATED

Lacking the connectivity and wide screen of the iPod touch and the nano’s array of tricks, the classic doesn’t feel innovative. It’s brilliant if you want to carry a large collection of your media. It’s got 160GB of storage space, but you may prefer a flash storage device, which has no moving parts that could be damaged.

Full review: tinyurl.com/npLaqqt

iPod touch

20/09/13

As with previous iPhone ‘s’ model launches, the 5s looks very similar to its predecessor and feels similar, too, with no noticeable added weight and not much new to look at. However, there are three new colour options: silver, gold and ‘space grey’. In addition to these colours, the 5s has a metallic ring around the Home button, which is part of the new Touch ID fingerprint sensor feature. This unlocks the device, although you’ll still need a passcode as a backup to access the device. In addition to unlocking the 5s, the sensor can be used to make secure purchases from the iTunes Store or the iBookstore. On the inside there’s a new A7 chip, making it the first 64-bit phone. According to Apple this means the 5s is twice as fast as the 5. The camera has also been given a significant boost. While it’s still 8Mp, it features a new five-element Apple-designed lens with a larger f/2.2 aperture. A dual-LED flash should mean better low-light photos.

Full review: tinyurl.com/qjogxkf

iPod nano

UPDATED

UPDATED

12/09/12

iPod shuffle At £40 for 2GB of storage, the fourthgeneration shuffle is not only the perfect entry-level iPod, it’s also a solid second device for iPhone users who want to keep it simple while exercising.

Price: £40 Pros: Smart looks; much-improved controls

Cons: No remote on the headphones

Cons: No way to lock controls

Full review: tinyurl.com/LxL3f3y

Full review: tinyurl.com/of7nxde


WorldMags.net

UPDATED

12/09/12

WorldMags.net Product

Processor

Mac mini

Mac mini with OS X Server

Display

RAM

Storage

Ports & connections

Graphics card

Star rating

Price

Speedmark 9 score*

Dual-core Intel Core i5 2.5GHz

None

4GB

500GB (5400rpm)

Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, HDMI, SDXC, 4x USB 3.0

Intel HD Graphics 4000

N/A

£499

Not tested

Quad-core Intel Core i7 2.3GHz

None

4GB

1TB (5400rpm)



£679

149


None

4GB

2x 1TB (5400rpm)



£849

Not tested


21.5in LED (BL)

8GB

1TB (5400rpm)

2x Thunderbolt, SDXD card slot, 4x USB 3.0, gigabit ethernet

Intel Iris Pro

£1,149

179


21.5in LED (BL)

8GB

1TB (5400rpm)


nVidia GeForce GT 750M with 1GB GDDR5 memory

£1,299

189


27in LED (BL)

8GB

1TB (7200rpm)



£1,599

211


27in LED (BL)

8GB

1TB (7200rpm)



£1,749

235

Quad-core Intel Xeon E5 3.9GHz

None

12GB

256GB (configurable to 512GB or 1TB)

4x USB 3.0, 6x Thunderbolt 2, dual gigabit ethernet, HDMI 1.4 UltraHD

Dual AMD FirePro D300

N/A

£2,499

291

Six-core Intel Xeon E5 3.9GHz

None

16GB

256GB (configurable to 512GB or 1TB)

4x USB 3.0, 6x Thunderbolt 2, dual gigabit ethernet, HDMI 1.4 UltraHD

Dual AMD FirePro D500

N/A

£3,299

323


13in Retina

4GB

128GB flash storage

2x Thunderbolt 2, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI, SDXC card slot

Intel Iris Graphics

£1,099

151


13in Retina

8GB

256GB flash storage


Intel Iris Graphics

£1,249

159


13in Retina

8GB

512GB flash storage


Intel Iris Graphics

£1,499

177

Quad-core Intel Core i7 2GHz

15in Retina

8GB

265GB flash storage


Intel Iris Pro Graphics

£1,699

Not tested


15in Retina

512GB flash storage


Intel Iris Pro Graphics

£2,199

252


13in LED (BL)

500GB (5400rpm)

2x USB 3.0, SDXC card slot, FireWire 800, Thunderbolt


£999

Not tested


11in LED

128GB flash storage

2x USB 3.0, Thunderbolt


£749

131


11in LED

4GB

256GB flash storage

2x USB 3.0, Thunderbolt


£899

131


13in LED

4GB

128GB flash storage

2x USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, SDXC card slot


£849

138


13in LED

4GB

256GB flash storage

2x USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, SDXC card slot


£999

138

iMac

Mac Pro

MacBook Pro with Retina display

16GB

N/A

N/A

MacBook Pro

MacBook Air

4GB

4GB

*Speedmark 9 is Macworld’s standard test tool for benchmarking systems running OS X Mavericks

N/A

*Higher is better

How we test When Apple updates its operating system, the Macworld Lab updates its overall system performance benchmark suite, Speedmark. With Speedmark 9, it’s brought the suite into line with OS X Mavericks. In addition to refreshing the operating system under which Speedmark 9 tasks run, it’s updated the individual applications to their current versions and increased the file sizes used by some tests. It’s also updated the

baseline system, the Mac whose performance results it uses to compare the results of all other Macs. The baseline system is assigned a score of 100 points and its performance serves as the reference value that is compared to the individual test performance of every other system. It’s a 2011 13in MacBook Air laptop with a dual-core 1.7GHz Core i5 processor, a 256GB SSD, 4GB of DDR3 memory and integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics. SUMMER 2014 • MACWORLD 97

WorldMags.net


APPLE HARDWARE

Apple AirPort Time Capsule

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lh6pjqu apple.com/uk, 2TB £249, 3TB £349 Back up your Mac with AirPort Time Capsule, Apple’s wireless hard drive that works with Time Machine in OS X. This new version is also a Wi-Fi base station featuring 802.11ac technology, which is said to provide up to three times faster Wi-Fi than 802.11n. Pros: Easy to use; combines network storage and high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi in a single unit Cons: Expensive; doesn’t include an ADSL or modem cable

Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station Full review: tinyurl.com/mfdLLsc apple.com/uk, £169 The latest version of the AirPort Extreme Base Station offers dual-band Wi-Fi technology to provide wireless access for devices including Macs, iOS devices and the Apple TV. Pros: Excellent performance; nice design; easy to set up Cons: Expensive; lacks advanced features

Apple Lightning to 30-pin adaptor Full review: tinyurl.com/nkqfbfz apple.com/uk, £25 If you want to connect the iPhone 5, 5s or 5c to an speaker system with a 30-pin dock, or other 30-pin audio or synching dock device, then this is the way to do it (although we’d suggest the version with a cable to avoid the precarious balancing act). We’re disappointed that it works only with audio and not video. Pros: Enables you to connect the iPhone 5, 5s or 5c to older dock and speaker systems Cons: Puts an extra 2cm on the iPhone 5; Lightning feels a bit small to be holding up an iPhone; doesn’t output video; expensive

Apple Thunderbolt Display

Full review: tinyurl.com/nkhkzm8 apple.com/uk, £899 For owners of the 2011 MacBook Air, the Thunderbolt Display is a fantastic way to get iMac-like features in one of the lightest laptops available. If your Mac doesn’t have Thunderbolt, the inflexible Thunderbolt Display is a little less interesting. Pros: Can charge Apple laptops; USB 2.0, FireWire 800 and ethernet connectivity; single cable from Mac cuts down clutter Cons: Stand lacks flexibility; reflective screen limits display placement; few customisation options

Apple 27in LED Cinema Display

Full review: tinyurl.com/onaxe2n apple.com/uk, £899 Apple’s 27in LED Cinema Display makes a good companion to any Mac with a Mini DisplayPort connection, but is especially well suited to portable Mac users who can take advantage of the MagSafe power connector and the display’s USB ports to attach peripherals. Pros: MagSafe connector to charge Mac portables; built-in speakers and iSight Cons: Limited adjustment options; glossy screen is prone to glare; Apple doesn’t officially support using the display with anything but Mini DisplayPort

Apple Magic Trackpad

Full review: tinyurl.com/qd474vb apple.com/uk, £59 If you’re a desktop Mac user and a fan of the multitouch trackpads on Apple’s laptops, the Magic Trackpad is for you. It gives you the same clickable glass surface and multitouch gestures as those laptop trackpads in a wireless desktop model, with the bonus of nearly twice the trackpad area. Pros: Large multitouch surface; works identically to Apple’s laptop trackpads; rugged, portable design matches Apple’s keyboards; easy setup Cons: Not as precise as using a mouse or trackball; not ideal for large screens or multiple displays

Apple Magic Mouse

Full review: tinyurl.com/nc9o95e apple.com/uk, £59 Although it’s not perfect, the Magic Mouse successfully combines design and usability. It’s great as a two-button wireless mouse, but if you need more than two buttons, the Magic Mouse is not for you. Pros: Looks stunning; multitouch is easy to master; excellent tracking; very fast reconnect after idle Cons: Low profile; may not be comfortable for larger hands; some modes are confusing; buttons and speed settings can’t be programmed; expensive

Apple Keyboard

Full review: tinyurl.com/px5rj8c apple.com/uk, £56 As a portable option that makes typing on the Mac more comfortable, Apple’s own Bluetooth keyboard also complements any iOS device, although you would need an additional case or stand for your iPhone or iPad to make typing truly convenient. Pros: Low profile; lightweight; portable; Apple function keys; instant pairing; great brushed-aluminium styling Cons: Some function keys missing; no carry case; no numeric keypad; could be too cramped for some users; no dock for iOS devices

Apple TV

Full review: tinyurl.com/or86u3u apple.com/uk, £99 At £99, the third-generation Apple TV continues to offer as excellent value as the previous model - and now it supports higher-quality video, too. The available content keeps growing, but is still rather limited. Pros: Minimal design; easy to set up and start using; automatically syncs with iTunes; small and quiet; much lower price than before Cons: No longer offers a hard drive; focused on movie and TV rentals via iTunes but prices seem high and the model may not suit the UK audience

Apple AirPort Express Base Station Full review: tinyurl.com/q4xqszq apple.com/uk, £79 Owning an Apple router is a great option for those with multiple Apple devices, and it’s an easier and smarter way to set up and manage a network in the home or small office. Its big brother’s faster ethernet connections and external hard drive support may be worth paying the extra for. Pros: Small and neat; AirPlay functionality; dual antennae; good software interface that can be used from Mac or iOS device Cons: No longer plugs directly into a wall; has only 100base-T ethernet sockets


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Full reviews: tinyurl.com/nfgavnz apple.com/uk, £139 Logic Pro X offers a lot of great new features at a price that even starving musicians can afford. Thanks to its easier-to-use interface, Logic Pro X becomes a viable next step for GarageBand users, and everyone with an iPad should be happy with the convenience wrought by the free Logic Remote app. Pros: Affordable; easy-to-use interface; realistic sounds; great new features Cons: Not compatible with 32-bit plug-ins

Apple iTunes 11

Full reviews: tinyurl.com/q6z4jL2 apple.com/uk, free iTunes 11 is worth installing. The speed- and stability improvements alone make it worthwhile to us. We also like most of the new features, especially Up Next and the visual Album Folders. The cleaner style is welcome, too. On the whole, it’s a lot better than its predecessor. Pros: 64-bit code runs much faster than before; Up Next, Playback Sync and MiniPlayer all great features; cleaner more stylish interface Cons: Removal of Sidebar is a bit of a shock (you can get it back, though); iTunes Match could be better; no Gapless Playback or View Duplicates

Apple iLife: GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto

Full reviews: tinyurl.com/Lpz6sdL, tinyurl.com/L55ycea, tinyurl.com/qa5bq4z Apple has overhauled its iLife range of applications, which have been redesigned to work with both OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. Along with support for iCloud integration and 64-bit coding, the software offers users a streamlined interface and hundreds of new features. apple.com/uk, free upgrade or £10.49

Pros: GarageBand: Drummer track option; iCloud support. iMovie: Better editing tools; new interface. iPhoto: 64-bit support offers improved performance Cons: GarageBand: Crashes some older Macs; can no longer create a podcast. iMovie: No more chapter markers. iPhoto: Photo Stream sharing options are poorly explained

Apple iWork: Keynote, Numbers, Pages

First reviews: tinyurl.com/mkfd9to, apple.com/uk, £13 each tinyurl.com/nov5uor, tinyurl.com/ofht5qg It’s been a long time coming, but Apple has finally updated its suite of iWork applications. Each program has been designed to be used on the Mac, iOS and iCloud, so you’ll be able to edit a document from different devices. Not only that, but the suite has a new interface that promises to make creating beautiful documents easy. Pros: Keynote: Simplified toolbar; new transitions and animations. Numbers: Beautiful interface; saves documents online. Pages: Excellent editing tools; Format Inspector Cons: Keynote: Interface over-simplified. Numbers: Scrappy Excel conversion. Pages: Missing standalone page-layout tools

iWork for iCloud beta: Pages, Keynote, Numbers Full review: tinyurl.com/kk5cvyv,

N/A apple.com/uk, free tinyurl.com/osz2w97, tinyurl.com/nfn843c The different applications that make up iWork for iCloud are beautiful to behold and capable of making equally gorgeous documents. Although we encountered a few bugs, for example, you can’t collaborate with others in Pages, it is still in beta. And it’s free. Pros: Gorgeous interface; can access and edit documents anywhere; saves documents online; free Cons: Not compatible with all browsers; not as many tools as desktop counterparts

Apple Aperture 3

Full review: tinyurl.com/ppc2d6d apple.com/uk, £54 A lot has changed in this version of Aperture, so much in fact that it feels a little different, but it’s all the better for it: improved RAW engine, updated sorting options, more powerful search features, much more versatile adjustments tools, among many others. Pros: Vastly improved slideshows; impressive new brushes; multitouch aware; ability to split and merge libraries; easy export to Flickr and Facebook Cons: Sporadic reports of problems when upgrading older libraries; web page creation not overhauled; need a powerful Mac and lots of RAM to run well

Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3

Full review: tinyurl.com/qge2d5k apple.com/uk, £199 With FCP X 10.0.3, the ugly ducking feel is receding. While many improvements are still needed, especially for those who work in multi-user environments, this update indicates that Apple is listening to the concerns of the video community that put Final Cut Pro on the map. Pros: Multicam; relink media; automatic backup; migrate previous projects; multiple small improvements Cons: External monitoring still in beta; reliance on third-party support for key features

Apple Logic Express 9

Full review: tinyurl.com/qcyo2yu apple.com/uk, £159 Logic 9 is first-class home-recording software for all types of musicians, especially guitarists. It offers streamlined audio editing, plenty of loops and instruments, stacks of virtual amps/speakers and pedals for guitarists, and it reads GarageBand files. Pros: Plenty of virtual amp/speaker/pedal combos; ability to add chord diagrams to printed music; lots of loops and instruments; high-quality effects Cons: Interface still dense despite streamlining; could use more templates and a tutorial for beginners

Apple OS X Mavericks

Full review: tinyurl.com/kL98qg4 apple.com/uk, free Mavericks is the operating system that will make us, and our Macs, more productive. Apple’s taken great care to squeeze every last drop of battery performance out of our hardware and software, plus it clearly believes that there are better ways for us to organise our data. Pros: Better support for multiple monitors; Finder tabs; improvements to performance and battery consumption; new Maps and iBooks apps; and updates to Safari and Calendar Cons: Evolution rather than revolution

Apple iOS 7

Full review: tinyurl.com/neyno5u apple.com/uk, free This is Apple’s first new mobile operating system since Jony Ive took over as lead designer and his influence is clear in the radical redesign. There’s a lot more to this than looks alone, though. New features include background multi-tasking, and the Control Center, which ensures all your apps are only a swipe away. Pros: Radical new design; background multi-tasking; animation effects; Control Centre Cons: Will not be avilable for older devices; some features limited on iPhone 4 and 4S, and iPad 2 and 3


WorldMags.net

APPLE SOFTWARE

Apple Logic Pro X


iOS APPS: GAMES

Space Hulk

Full review: tinyurl.com/n4osb9f spacehulk-game.com, £6.99 Space Hulk for iPad is a solidly crafted digital port of a classic board game, retaining the tension and much of the elegance of the original. It’s not perfect, but many of the complaints about the PC edition – the glitches, the unskippably slow animations – are far less of an issue here. Pros: Wonderfully tense; great graphics (except for the Genestealers); atmospheric sound design Cons: Expensive; the Genestealers look blocky; default animations are a bit slow

Hitman Go

Full review: tinyurl.com/kaL73ot hitman.com, £2.99 There’s a lot to like about Hitman Go, from the bold choice of genre to the elegant, restrained presentation. Unfortunately, the puzzles themselves are a too dry to grab the average player. It’s disappointing, given our surprise and pleasure at its aesthetic choices, that this turns out to be a solid puzzle game, rather than a great one. Pros: Stunningly beautiful presentation; bold choice of genre Cons: Puzzles can be a bit dry; solutions often seem to involve lots of undignified shuffling between two nodes

FTL: Faster Than Light

Full review: tinyurl.com/nt7ymmk ftlgame.com, £6.99 It’s not cheap for an iPad game, but FTL: Faster Than Light is well worth the money, thanks to its gripping, merciless gameplay and rich depth of content. (This game incorporates the Advanced Edition that PC gamers will be familiar with.) Highly recommended. Pros: Tense gameplay; addictive; every game is different Cons: Expensive; some might find it off-puttingly cruel

Surgeon Simulator

Full review: tinyurl.com/ovbmLuh surgeonsim.com, £3.99 Terrible controls, basic graphics, limited number of levels, all in very bad taste. In other words, it’s brilliant. Surgeon Simulator is a very good joke that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and a pretty fun game in its own right. Pros: Very funny; new types of operation; good sharing and multiplayer modes Cons: Only four levels

Threes!

Full review: tinyurl.com/qzyqwwL asherv.com/threes, £1.49 Threes is a great iPhone puzzle game. Attractive, potently addictive, simple yet full of strategic depth, Threes (or ‘Threes!’ to give the official title) is an early contender for iOS game of the year. A wholehearted recommendation. Pros: Beautifully simple interface; real strategic depth Cons: Lack of instant restart button

iOS APPS: VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHY

Adobe Lightroom Mobile for iPad

Full review: tinyurl.com/pmet6r7 adobe.com/uk, free as part of Adobe Creative Cloud If you are a Creative Cloud subscriber and a power user of Lightroom 5.4, downloading this to your iPad is a no-brainer. Despite several glaring omissions, which hopefully will be addressed in version 2.0, it offers a useful mobile extension to a professional photography workflow. Pros: Sync with Lightroom Desktop; Collections; range of image adjustments and preset effects; integration with iOS camera roll Cons: Limited rating system; no keywording; no RAW support; available only to Creative Cloud subscribers; slow to sync; no Flickr or Behance; exports low-res proxy files

VSCO Cam

Full review: tinyurl.com/mLu542x vsco.co, free A great set of editing tools along with some beautiful, evocative photo presets, available in both free and paid versions, makes VSCO Cam an essential app for anyone who takes photos on an iPhone. It elevates simple snaps to something approaching art, while showcasing the creative potential of Apple devices to all. Pros: Stunning photo presets; excellent photo editing tools; ability to import images; full-resolution image making and editing; good support Cons: Some tools are available only on newer iDevices; nine ‘Top In-App Purchases’ could prove expensive if bought individually over time

Analog Film

Full review: tinyurl.com/ngynyos ordinaryfactory.wordpress.com, £1.99 It’s difficult to determine how authentic Analog Film is in relation to the film stock it claims to recreate digitally, but the results are both attractive and evocative. Despite the lack of even basic editing tools, we love the choice of black-and-white effects, which can add style and substance to even the most casual of snaps. Pros: Around 250 film stock presets produces subtle yet varied film-like results; plenty of black-and-white variations; simple user interface; compatible with older iOS devices Cons: Lacks editing tools, including ability to adjust, crop, straighten images; no frames or borders

Scout Camera

Full review: tinyurl.com/n6Ltopk crushapps.com, £1.49 Scout Camera’s great strength is to place emphasis on the photographer capturing a moment, not the process of editing images retrospectively using your iPhone or iPad. Although you can combine the app with others to good effect, it still excels as a creative tool that requires little more than a keen eye and steady hand. Pros: Great range of adjustable colour filters and artistic crops; beautiful, understated user interface; emphasis on capturing the moment not editing images endlessly Cons: No optional grid lines for ensuring straight photographs; no ability to import existing photos for editing; lacks full range of editing tools; rather modest iOS 7 makeover

Perfect B&W

Full review: tinyurl.com/nzz24jc ononesoftware.com, £1.49 There are plenty of photo manipulation apps on the market, but for getting arty with monochrome images, especially with one-click looks, this one is great. Precision tools among the Options would be interesting, but at this price it’s hard to compare the app with more powerful features present in desktop image-editing software. Pros: Instant preset artistic looks; takes full advantage of iOS camera; integration with social media; compositional aids; non-destructive workflow; inexpensive Cons: Some of the manual adjustment options could be fine-tuned and improved; more border/frame choices would be welcome


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Full review: tinyurl.com/oLgnzqk crushapps.com, £1.99 Paperless will appeal to those who want to keep track of daily tasks, and anyone who has more long-term goals and even dreams. As Paperless doesn’t set date sensitive goals, it’s a good way to ensure things get done at your own pace, free of the disappointment of missing deadlines. Pros: Attractive, productive user interface; wide appeal; good range of features including ability to sync notes via Dropbox; search function; password protection Cons: Procrastinators may find the lack of set deadlines and alerts frustrating; no desktop version; slightly steeper learning curve than some list-making apps

Vesper

Full review: tinyurl.com/ktkbbdc vesperapp.co, £2.49 Vesper shows a lot of potential with a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing user interface that’s a pleasure to use. It’s a fine example of Apple’s iOS 7 radically streamlined redesign, and we only hope new features – synching of notes particularly – are on the developer’s to-do list. Pros: Clean, attractive interface; intuitive design makes for productive note-taking and good navigation; ability to add and adjust text and add photos; shows great potential Cons: Synching options on the to-do list; no iPad native version; no Mac version; cheaper and free alternatives; a few iOS 7 bugs noted on Twitter

Clear+

Full review: tinyurl.com/L4twwm8 realmacsoftware.com, £2.99 Embracing Apple’s iOS 7 redesign and new features, Clear+ is one to-do list that’s done right, leaving no excuses not to start organising your daily tasks. Beautifully considered, Realmac Software have crafted an app that’s intuitive to use and has real longevity, one that best showcases Apple’s recent focus on simplicity of design. Pros: Potential to speed productivity and organise daily tasks; now with iOS 7 tweaks and enhancements; attractive, intuitive interface; modest learning curve Cons: No Reminders as yet; not a radical overhaul of the previous Clear app; iOS 7 only update; some features are iPad only, interface may look like a Windows phone app

Day One

Full review: tinyurl.com/qgtjm44 dayoneapp.com, £6.99 With Day One, the filters are off. Free of the Facebook effect, your life and thoughts become your own. There are no work colleagues to fear offending, no friends who’ll feel left out. It’s a diary for the social-media age that you don’t need to share. Pros: Integrates with iOS version; markdown support; calendar-based input Cons: No local encryption; only one image per entry

Parallels Access

Full review: tinyurl.com/p68ebm2 parallels.com/uk, £54 per machine, per year It’s a shame that a truly innovative piece of software that shows real transformative potential is so expensive. Compared to its free rivals, Parallels Access is the clear winner on feature count, and its ability to rejig a desktop display on to an iPad’s screen is second-to-none, but at £54 per machine per year it’s more than we’d pay.

iOS APPS: BUSINESS & PRODUCTIVITY

Paperless

Pros: Appification process is fantastic; makes Mac remote desktop much easier to use Cons: Too expensive; replaces a similar but cheaper app; currently works only on iPad

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lyn5xLL facebook.com, free On the whole Facebook 8.0 for iPad and iPhone is an improvement over the previous version. It’s a slick and clean app that’s easy to use, and with it installed you may hardly ever use the Facebook website again. We’re also glad to see that Facebook improve matters with a slew of speed enhancements and bug fixes. Pros: Clean interface; ability to limit sharing to select audiences; good integration with iOS Cons: No easy way to just view stories from Friends; not so easy to manage friends lists; no trending or detailed information

TuneIn Radio Pro

Full review: tinyurl.com/LLuLqo5 tunein.com, 69p The addition of ads on what’s billed as a pro app aside, TuneIn Radio Pro is still an excellent choice for enjoying radio from the UK and anywhere in the world. The ability to catch up with on-demand podcasts and record content for offline playback is a bonus, which only enhances an already great listening experience. Pros: Impressive choice of content from around the world; ability to catch up with podcasts; record function; option to save favourite channels Cons: Recent addition of ads on TuneIn Radio Pro; broadcasters restrict some content due to regional rights; similar TuneIn Radio is free

Flipboard

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lb3qg83 flipboard.com, free Flipboard is a must-have app, more so with the introduction of iOS 7, one that showcases Apple’s invention to great effect, while maintaining a lead over similar socialnews aggregators. Beautifully tactile and responsive, it makes reading anything on your iDevice an absolute pleasure. Pros: Attractive, clean user-friendly design; good range of pre-defined news categories; ability to customise news and sources to suit own interests Cons: Some new features are iOS 7-specific; minor bugs reported

Shazam

Full review: tinyurl.com/ndbht56 shazam.com, free For music fans, Shazam is an essential app, one that should also appeal to casual users who simply want to identify a song from an ad or drama. Its ability to identify even the most obscure tracks is very impressive. Pros: Excellent hit rate identifying tracks; improved user interface; good iTunes and YouTube integration; ability to share track information via Facebook and Twitter Cons: Auto Tagging currently iPad only; mainstream tracks dominate music discovery extras in Shazam Pulse and interactive maps

Yahoo Weather

Full review: tinyurl.com/qemq7zn uk.yahoo.com, free Yahoo Weather stands out thanks to accurate forecasts, good balance of information and an attractive yet simple design. The addition of Flickr photos reflecting different times of the day from across the world, is both a worthy addition and a distraction on days when you wouldn’t want to go out unless you had to. Pros: Accurate forecasts; attractive design; cool use of Flickr/Project Weather photos; ability to save locations to favourites; interactive radar, satellite, heat, and wind maps Cons: No Notification Centre integration or weather alerts; Ultraviolet information is available only in select countries


WorldMags.net

iOS APPS: ENTERTAINMENT & LIFESTYLE

Facebook

WorldMags.net Buyers’ Guide Simple Audio Listen

SPEAKERS

Full review: tinyurl.com/pompxbn www.simpleaudio.com, £399 A price tag of £399 is pretty steep for a set of speakers that will just sit on a desk with your computer. However, we were impressed by the sound quality, and they will earn their keep if you use your Mac and Windows PC as your main music system at home. Pros: Compact design; impressive sound quality with firm bass; Bluetooth option for mobile devices Cons: Expensive; no equaliser controls

Maxell MXSP-BT3100

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lf4y4he uk.maxell.eu/en/, £170 The Maxell MXSP-BT3100 is around half the price of the similarly specified competition, which makes it look better value. But £170 is still no small outlay and we’d expect better quality and a less plasticky or spitty sound for the money. Against some higher-priced wireless speakers we’ve reviewed, it doesn’t look such bad value. Pros: Relatively intelligible voice reproduction; extended and harmonious treble compared to much competition Cons: Plasticky coloration; squawks at higher volumes; no aptX capability

Edifier Luna Eclipse

Full review: tinyurl.com/onbz63n edifier-international.com, £150 Fabulous styling goes some way to endear these speakers, and some clever electro-acoustic tricks help move the sound upscale for their size. Ultimately, the speakers proved just too wearing on the ears, brought down by low-grade amplifiers and a third-rate Bluetooth audio codec. Pros: Sleek; modern styling; discreet; spacious sound; active crossovers Cons: Edgy; brittle sound at times; lacking in musical naturalness

Bayan Audio Soundbook X3

Full review: tinyurl.com/oevqdp7 bayanaudio.com, £250 This is a smart and well-made compact Bluetooth speaker, with the added benefit of an easy-tune FM radio. While competent for quieter if muffled background kitchen chat radio, it lacks any subtlety when in its full-volume element. It may have some style and convenience, but it’s overpriced. Pros: Clever industrial design like an opening book; neat style Cons: Muffled indistinct sound; no high-frequency presence; tune-free bass

Audio Pro Addon T10

Full review: tinyurl.com/qbnzny6 audiopro.com, £300 The Audio Pro Addon T10 can appeal with its retro square box, and its decent build quality, plus enormous potential for sheer volume that helps to justify the high price. Overall, though, it failed to inspire thanks to a flat, monotonic sound and lower mid-range. Pros: Loud and full of bass Cons: Little subtlety; expensive for available sound quality

IOS ACCESSORIES

Everything Tablet 360° Rotating Case Full review: tinyurl.com/ntzoo6w everythingtablet.co.uk, £29 Everything Tablet’s 360° Rotating Case is a highly protective yet lightweight accessory for the iPad Air, and its stand (provided you avoid the rear-most slot in portrait mode) is stable and versatile. The price is okay, too. There are three colours to choose from: cherry red, orange and black. Pros: Protective; lightweight; clever stand function Cons: Stand becomes unstable in certain slots in portrait mode

Covert Slim Folio Case

Full review: tinyurl.com/n7m89k3 covertaccessories.com, £19 The Slim Folio iPhone 5s case is great value and packs in a lot of useful features without it feeling like overkill. Due to the vibrant and limited colour options, though, it would likely fare best with a younger audience. Pros: Affordable; stylish; viewing stand; credit card holder Cons: Card holder is a bit tight; no neutral colour options

Kensington KeyFolio Pro

Full review: tinyurl.com/oc522pm kensington.com, £99 The KeyFolio Pro keyboard hits a sweet spot of functionality and weight. We’re particularly keen on the removable keyboard that enables the case to function without its additional weight. This works extremely well. Pros: High quality professional-style case; detachable keyboard; thin and light keyboard with raised chiclet-style keys; keyboard has Function keys; magnetic clasp stand Cons: Enclosed case for iPad; at 898g it is bulky with the keyboard included; doesn’t function well when on your lap

Kensington KeyCover Plus

Full review: tinyurl.com/md57p3h kensington.com, From £99 We liked the Kensington KeyCover for iPad Air. It’s a lightweight keyboard cover for the iPad Air with a solidly backlit keyboard. We have reservations about the battery life of the device, and you’ll need to be careful to keep the backlit keyboard off, and turn off the device when not in use. But it’s a small, light and functional option. Pros: Sturdy protective case; solid plastic keys; easy to type on; good Function keys; backlit key feature Cons: iPad Air clips in only face down; backlit keys can drain battery

Kujali case for iPad mini

Full review: tinyurl.com/ompg9tv kujali.com, £29 The Kujali iPad mini case is an all-around winner. It’s durable, sleek, functional and affordable. We’re excited to see what other tech accessories the Kujali brand will offer in the future. Pros: Attractive; sturdy; extra protective skin; lifetime warranty Cons: Just one colour option


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Full review: tinyurl.com/n3cjhjj uk.akg.com, £15 At £15, it’s hard to be too unkind to the AKG K311. They’re not the best set of earphones we’ve heard, though they’re not the worst either. And at this price they’re the cheapest we’ve come across for a long time. We’d probably suggest going up to the Apple EarPods at £25, but for £15 this is a good set of headphones. Pros: Extremely cheap; comfortable; sturdy Cons: Sound quality is markedly average; no iPhone controls

Klipsch Image X10i

Full review: tinyurl.com/qzrfmh3 klipsch.com, £249 Klipsch’s Image X10i in-ear headphones come with a two-year warranty, which is reassuring when you are spending a whopping £249. But, if you have that sort of money to spend, and you’re looking for a good, comfortable pair of in-ear headphones – without caring so much about making calls – then these are a great buy. Pros: Incredibly comfortable; light; good acoustic seal; really clear sound reproduction; you can find them for under £100 on Amazon Cons: Bling; not great for phone calls

Nocs NS600 Crush

Full review: tinyurl.com/mztrp96 eu.nocs.se, £149 If you’re into dance and electronic music, then these headphones deliver exceptional quality. They’re not cheap, though, and if you have a wider taste in music you should probably go for something a little more accurate.

IN-EAR HEADPHONES

AKG K311

Pros: Powerful bass; stylish design; Kevlar-coated wire; great for dance fans Cons: Mid-range isn’t so hot for traditional rock music

Plantronics Backbeat 903+

Full review: tinyurl.com/pkdayrx plantronics.com/uk, £50 It can be a bit tricky getting the darn things hooked over your ears, but the light, rugged design of the Backbeats make them a good choice when you’re exercising at the gym or out running in the park. The audio quality is also very good, considering the current low price. Pros: Affordable; lightweight; good sound quality Cons: Can be fiddly hooking them over your ears; the maximum volume level isn’t very high

Altec Lansing Muzx Ultra mXx606 Full review: tinyurl.com/nr8tra4 alteclansing.com, £80 These in-ears have a smart-looking remote on the cable and excellent overall sound quality. The sound is rich and warm, with good breadth across the spectrum; the bass feels punchy without overshadowing any of the upper notes. Pros: Interesting designs; fantastic sound quality across a wide spectrum of musical styles Cons: Slight artificial feel to some guitar music

Full review: tinyurl.com/qawoz9L turtlebeach.com, £349 The asking price seems a bit high and puts these in the same league as Bose and Sennheiser. We’d also expect noise cancellation for this kind of money, but the surround sound quality is superior, and as a result, we suspect that it would take a lot of external noise to distract you. Pros: Great selection of audio presets available via iOS app; use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi at the same time Cons: No noise cancellation; audio levels aren’t uniform; high price

Logitech UE 6000

Full review: tinyurl.com/pLfv8bh logitech.com/en-gb, £169 We like these headphones a lot. They combine stunning bass and superb treble audio with nice styling, and the active noise cancellation technology makes them ideal for long journeys. They come with a padded carry case, an audio splitter and a replaceable audio cable, too. Pros: Amazing bass and treble audio; iPhone controls; separate earphone cable; noise-cancellation technology Cons: Heavy weight; audio not great for rock and vocal music

The House of Marley Buffalo Soldier Full review: tinyurl.com/L7r9dzy thehouseofmarley.co.uk, £79 The Buffalo Soldier headphones are a decent pair of on-ears with good environmental credentials. The audio is on a par with other headphones at this price point, but we were impressed with the fit and finish. Pros: Great build quality; good audio; solid environmental credentials; it’s nice to have tech products made from wood Cons: The whole Bob Marley branding thing seems a bit strange

Logitech UE 9000

Full review: tinyurl.com/odr6b4b logitech.com/en-gb, £299 The high price of the Logitech UE 9000 is what’s stopping us recommending them outright. If you can find them at a discount in the sub-£200 price range, we’d give them serious consideration for the convenience of the combination of Bluetooth and high-capacity internal battery. Pros: Very well constructed; plenty of detail across all frequencies Cons: Mediocre active noise cancelling; minimal headband padding; high price

Jabra Revo

Full review: tinyurl.com/nzfghmh jabra.co.uk, £187 Although the Jabra Revo wireless headphones are not exactly cheap, they warrant their price tag thanks to the good looks, features, comfort, durability, wireless performance and overall sound quality. These are a very solid pair of headphones. Pros: Stylish appearance; comfortable; durable; impressive audio performance; good battery life; NFC pairing available; touch control panel Cons: Not cheap


WorldMags.net

OVER-EAR HEADPHONES

Turtle Beach i60


SLR CAMERAS

Canon EOS 1200D

Full review: tinyurl.com/oy6m7Ly canon.co.uk; £349 (body only), £399 (18-55mm lens) While the 18Mp EOS 1200D might not offer all the bells and whistles of models higher up the range, such as a tilting and swivelling LCD screen, it’s possible to get professional-looking results. As such this is a very affordable route to getting sharper, more obviously ‘pro’ pictures from the get go. Pros: Affordable; well built; professional-looking results; easy to operate Cons: Fixed LCD screen; no built-in wireless connectivity; maximum capture speed is modest

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10

Full review: tinyurl.com/obaywbj sony.co.uk, £1,049 Resembling a cross between a digital SLR and a Howitzer cannon, the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 looks like a serious contender for serious photography, alhough it isn’t an inexpensive option, when you add up what a semi-pro DSLR body and a similar zoom would cost, investing in this makes for a sound investment. Pros: Solid magnesium alloy build; tilting LCD and eye-level viewfinder; impressive zoom; knockout image quality Cons: High price may limit appeal; big lens means bulky body

Nikon 5300

Full review: tinyurl.com/kbb342p nikon.co.uk, £829 For a beginner’s camera, the D5300’s layout is as busy as a photo enthusiast would want, while it’s as speedy to get up and running from cold as we’d expect from a DSLR in this price bracket. More importantly, it’s capable of capturing an impressive degree of detail. Pros: Excellent image quality; tilting LCD screen; built-in digital effects; easy-to-navigate user interface Cons: Glossy body cheapens look; pricey

Pentax K-3

Full review: tinyurl.com/q8tq23e pentax.co.uk, £1,199 (18-55mm lens) Providing excellent rendition of colours and sharp images, the Pentax K-3 offers slightly more bang for your buck than the Nikon D5300. If you need a lens, the 18-55mm zoom kit is the best bet at £1,199. Pros: Solid feel; professional-grade body; in-body image stabilisation; switch on or off anti-aliasing filter Cons: No Wi-Fi connectivity; blocky design

Nikon D610

Full review: tinyurl.com/qcczouz nikon.co.uk, £2,299 (24-85mm lens) Nikon’s DSLR comes across as a subtle update of the previous D600 rather than major overhaul. Like its predecessor, the D610 is an affordable route into full-frame photography for anyone wedded to the Nikon brand. You can’t fault the images, so this is a purchase where the head wins out over the heart. Pros: Large full-frame sensor; waterproofed body; workhorse-like build; swift response times; large and bright optical viewfinder Cons: No integrated Wi-Fi; expensive if you don’t need full-frame DSLR; chunky and bulky

Sony A58

Full review: tinyurl.com/ouje6wb sony.co.uk, £419 (18-55mm lens) Sharp and well-saturated images from the camera, as well as ultra-smooth video clips, confirm this cheaper-than-average model as a jack of all trades. So if you don’t mind an electronic viewfinder as opposed to the traditional optical version supplied by a regular DSLR, the Sony A58 can be considered a steal. Pros: Well saturated colours and warm feel to images; rear LCD can be tilted up or down; DSLR-style handling yet quicker to get video recording up and running Cons: The rear LCD screen is smaller than most rivals (even if it can be tilted)

Pentax K-50

Full review: tinyurl.com/pf5xgkn pentax.co.uk, £599 (18-55mm lens) The Pentax K-50 is so nearly a great camera, but a slightly bland design and lack of adjustable LCD when used as viewfinder let it down. However, if you plan on using this camera in the rain and snow, the semi-pro level of ruggedness makes for a worthy investment. Pros: Camera body and supplied lens are both weatherproofed, while internal sensor shift shake reduction mechanism means specially image stabilised lenses are not required Cons: Body design reflects price in being chunky with big buttons and relatively frill free; LCD is fixed rather than angle adjustable

Sony DSC-RX1R

Full review: tinyurl.com/ma6sqxs sony.co.uk, £2,599 (35mm lens) Thanks to a lens aperture range from f/2.0 to f/22 plus a focal distance up to infinity, it’s a jack-of-all-trades device, providing lovely shallow-depth-of-field results where a subject’s sharp but the background’s attractively soft. Superb it may be, but whether the RX1R is worth it depends on the application to which you may wish to put it. Pros: High-resolution full-frame sensor in a small-ish camera package; high-quality bright aperture lens; built-to-last metal construction suggests a device fashioned for war Cons: Hard to justify on price alone; no viewfinder built in (accessory viewfinder is pricey, too); short-ish battery life of 200 plus shots

Alpha A580

Full review: tinyurl.com/ndf7qok Sony, www.sony.co.uk, £569 (body only) or £649 (including 18-55mm lens) The A580 has many of the same core features as the smaller A55 for £100 less – including a top whack light sensitivity setting of ISO 12800, although shooting video isn’t quite as fluid or intuitive. Pros: A cheaper alternative to the A55 with identical resolution and many of the same core technologies Cons: Chunky build

Nikon D7100

Full review: tinyurl.com/o57zqLr nikon.co.uk, £1,099 The Nikon D7100 is a new range-topping 24Mp APS-C sensor DSLR for aspirational amateurs. It’s a respectable showing, although if extras such as weatherproofing aren’t required there are cheaper alternatives delivering a very similar still image quality. Pros: Weather resistant; high-res backplate LCD; high res sensor; top plate LCD window as shortcut to key settings; compatible with over 60 Nikon lenses; 51 selectable AF points Cons: Basic image quality no better than most DSLRs costing £500+; non-angle adjustable LCD; common image artefacts such as pixel fringing still present


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Full review: tinyurl.com/o423c5w fujifilm.eu/uk, £269 While the S9400W may not excel, it’s one of the very best options out there in terms of zoom range, build and handling within its lower-priced section of the market, which is why we’re happy to give it an above average score. Pros: Big zoom power offers a wealth of framing opportunities; affordable; good build and handling; manual features alongside the fully automatic Cons: Small-ish sensor; no rechargeable Lithium-ion battery supplied with this model, small and pokey viewfinder; fixed LCD screen; results no match for the DSLR it resembles

Fujifilm X-E2

Full review: tinyurl.com/k89vvdc fujifilm.eu/uk, £1,149 (18-55mm lens) Improvements over the earlier X-E1 (tinyurl.com/Lk8j3qy) seem to be largely performance based, and come down to enhanced speed and accuracy. That said, if you’re considering spending this amount, then we’d also recommend taking a look at Fujifilm’s X-T1 (tinyurl.com/ogstmv6). Pros: Semi-professional compact system camera with an eye-level viewfinder; rangefinder-like controls; build quality is reminiscent of an even pricier Leica camera Cons: Pricey if you don’t need an eye-level viewfinder; other CSCs are more intuitive to use

Fujifilm X-A1

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lej65yq fujifilm.eu/uk, £359 (16-50mm lens) The X-A1 is Fujifilm’s handsome-looking entry-level interchangeable lens X-series compact, a range noted for reviving the critical fortunes of the brand with its classic styling and a feature set more geared to enthusiasts and professionals than the happy-snappy brigade. Pros: Premium look and feel; swift and accurate autofocus; plenty of effects and Fujifilm’s Film Simulation modes provide a point of difference; tilting LCD Cons: A larger handgrip would have been useful; longer zooms in danger of making the camera feel a tad ‘front heavy’; no built-in eye-level viewfinder

Sony A5000

Full review: tinyurl.com/kysrxfy sony.co.uk, £419 (16-50mm lens) It might not look the flashiest on test, but the stripped back Sony A5000 is one of the easiest and most accessible routes to achieving more professional-looking shots for anyone upgrading from a smartphone. It’s affordable, too. Pros: Large 20.1Mp resolution from an equally big APS-C sensor results in detailed shots; tilting LCD screen; built-in flash; fairly priced kit with Power Zoom Cons: No viewfinder or hotshoe

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM1

Full review: tinyurl.com/m3jupwp panasonic.co.uk, £569 (12-32mm lens) Pocket-sized if you remove the lens, the GM1 maintains a premium feel thanks to a lightweight yet sturdy aluminium frame and a DSLR-like magnesium-alloy finish. Images are surprisingly detailed, while colours straight out of the camera are engagingly warm. Pros: Playing card dimensions; sturdy DSLR-strength build provides a premium feel; size hasn’t unduly affected handling and the images are a knockout Cons: So-so battery life; touch-sensitive onscreen icons are small, as are the hard keys on the backplate; lacks an eye-level viewfinder

Olympus OM-D E-M10

Full review: tinyurl.com/ko3dpng olympus.co.uk, £699 (14-42mm lens) Offering 16Mp stills and full-HD video in one compelling package, the Olympus E-M10 is the retro-styled camera for photo enthusiasts who couldn’t justify spending a *grand on previous OM-D E-M1 models (see below). Pros: Classic design provides a premium feel; pop-up flash and Wi-Fi connectivity; tilting LCD screen with high resolution; 1.4-million-dot eye-level finder Cons: Smaller sensor size than other big-name rivals; nose butts up against LCD screen when using eye-level viewfinder

Canon PowerShot S120

Full review: tinyurl.com/p56qdLc canon.co.uk, £449 If you’re looking for compact that will ape a digital SLR’s quality without sacrificing portability, then the PowerShot S120 is a good choice. Despite its pocket size and slender proportions, it’s solidly built. It’s also easy to use and the images it produces are rich. Pros: Solid feel; high-quality construction; touchscreen control; customisable lens ring function will appeal to those who love getting hands-on with camera operation Cons: For the money, you could buy a cheap DSLR; lacks a handgrip; omits an eye-level viewfinder

Olympus OM-D E-M1

Full review: tinyurl.com/k3e4u6v olympus.co.uk, £1,299 (12-50mm lens) Despite a few reservations, the OM-D E-M1 is right up there at the pinnacle of what a compact interchangeable-lens camera can achieve. For most of us, in comparison with a DSLR, the image and build quality will be more than good enough to prompt a possible switch of allegiance. Pros: Solid build quality; dust- and waterproofed; in-body image stabilisation; decent image quality Cons: Small image sensor; buttons feel squashed in

Canon PowerShot G16

Full review: tinyurl.com/oz6ddq8 canon.co.uk, £529 Aside from the rock-solid build quality and DSLR-feature set, the pictures are also worth treasuring, with colours beautifully realistic and detail pin-sharp. If you stick under ISO 6400 to avoid an obvious deterioration of fine detail, you’ll find this compact hard to beat Pros: High-end premium shooter; solid set of features; impressive pictures Cons: Missing tilting rear LCD panel; price a little on the high side

Samsung NX2000

Full review: tinyurl.com/qaqz27b samsung.com/uk, £499 (20-50mm lens) More evolution than revolution, the NX2000 should prove popular with photographers on a budget, who want a better quality of camera for those special occasions, but not the added bulk of a DSLR and larger lenses. For those who already own Galaxy phones and tablets, navigating its menus and icons will feel familiar. Pros: Good value; large touchscreen; sharply detailed and colour-rich images straight out of the camera with minimal effort; increased connectivity options Cons: If you do need to remove the media card it’s a pain, as the NX2000 has opted for the small and fiddly fingernail-sized microSD; no onboard flash or eye-level viewfinder


WorldMags.net

CSC CAMERAS

Fujifilm FinePix S9400W

WorldMags.net Buyers’ Guide AOC Q2770PQU

MONITORS

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lkcejxc aoc-europe.com/en, £420 AOC’s latest professional display may not be packaged in the finest of chassis, but the Q2770PQU is a high-quality model that’s well suited for use with a Mac. It’s also the finest quality panel we’ve tested at this price. Pros: High 2560x1440 resolution; superb image quality; telescopic, rotating stand; low power consumption Cons: Bland styling

NEC MultiSync E243WMi

Full review: tinyurl.com/kncgvou necdisplay.com, £200 The NEC MultiSync E243WMi could prove ideal as a high-quality monitor that you can run all day without adding much to your electricity bills. Specified at just 13W, this monitor ought to prove cost-effective over time. The display is neat and accurate, well-built and functional. Pros: Nicely built; fully adjustable stand; excellent overall colour accuracy; well rendered text; good screen uniformity; decent sRGB coverage; Eco modes and low power use Cons: Menu system poorly implemented; more expensive than budget consumer designs

Philips 234E5QHAWL

Full review: tinyurl.com/o2ggrv8 philips.co.uk, £130 The Philips 234E5QHAW is a good-value IPS panel at the popular 23in size. It should have reasonable luminance consistency and good colour coverage and accuracy. There’s some penny-pinching on the frame and the stand is weak, but this monitor offers good quality and modestly stylish looks. Pros: Cheap; AH-IPS; good-quality display; great viewing angles; easy-to-use menu controls; nice looks; HDMI and MHL connectivity; speakers; ultra-thin bezel Cons: Not 100 percent sRGB coverage; poor stand; average build quality average; not a lot of interfaces

AOC i2769Vm

Full review: tinyurl.com/Ldtanwc aoc-europe.com/en, £200 While the build quality is average, reflecting where the costs have been saved, it’s not bad to look at and, while it wouldn’t take a lot of punishment, it isn’t particularly flimsy. Throw in the excellent colour uniformity and consistency, and you have a decent, large-screen, budget 27in IPS option. Pros: Large screen for £200; IPS panel; wide viewing angles; good colour consistency; configuration options Cons: Mediocre build quality; awkward menu system; more luminance variation than most IPS panels

Samsung S24C650PL

Full review: tinyurl.com/pkLazjr samsung.com/uk, £170 Although Samsung’s bland-looking 24in PLS screen offers excellent colour accuracy and consistency, it’s let down by light leak and inconsistency in luminosity. For general use, the viewing angles make it a good screen to demonstrate ideas to a group, but for designers and photographer there are better options. Pros: Very good colour consistency and accuracy; 5ms refresh rate; telescopic stand; rotates and swivels; USB hub in base Cons: Light leak all along the bottom of the screen; awful luminance consistency; bland looks; not 100 percent sRGB; weak and tinny speakers

NEC MultiSync EA273WMi

Full review: tinyurl.com/n6yahxr nec-display-solutions.co.uk, £285 The relatively low resolution for the size and the mid-range price tag mark it out as a solid performer. For standard office duties where the power-saving features can come into play, it’s a decent quality display that will serve well. Pros: Good viewing angles; excellent colour uniformity; plenty of contrast; solid build quality; display rotates; eco power saving features; lots of interfaces Cons: Middle of display brighter than everywhere else; boxy design; relatively low resolution for the size; impossible to see menu controls in dark rooms

Asus PQ321QE

Full review: tinyurl.com/k2rLs8a asus.com/uk, £2,999 Amazing detail on the screen makes it ideal for all manner of applications where you need detail rather than speed. The quality of the screen is commendable making this a great purchase for those editing 4K video or needing as much detail as possible. Pros: Fantastic resolution delivers incredible detail; excellent colour accuracy; puts out a large amount of light; good contrast; stand swivels; monitor tilts Cons: Expensive; requires high-end graphics to produce 60Hz mode; only a single DisplayPort interface; colour gamut is some way off sRGB

Samsung S27B971D

Full review: tinyurl.com/pwc4yph samsung.com/uk, £850 Although the price is a little high, you can’t argue with the build quality or colour consistency and accuracy as these are excellent. For photographers and designers who want something stylish and don’t mind paying for it, there’s lots of screen space to enjoy. Pros: Great build quality; stylish looks; touch-sensitive menu controls; high 2560x1440 resolution; lots of screen space at 27in, bundled leads; excellent colour accuracy Cons: Expensive; contrast and brightness aren’t anything to write home about; stand doesn’t offer much flexibility

Hanns.G HW246HBB

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lrt48o3 www.hannsg.com/eu/en, £117 For general Mac use, this is a good purchase, offering stylish looks, lots of screen space and good contrast ratio. The colour uniformity and accuracy are both commendable and only the lack of complete sRGB coverage and the uneven luminocity are drawbacks. Otherwise, this is a lightweight and well priced panel. Pros: Lightweight; plenty of screen space; stylish two-tone looks; good value; great colour accuracy and good uniformity; plenty of contrast Cons: Stand is fairly insubstantial; average brightness; two areas of wildly differing brightness; limited interfaces; mediocre sRGB coverage

BenQ GW2760HS

Full review: tinyurl.com/nf3wvfy benq.co.uk, £210 This is a superb monitor to choose to go with a Mac mini or as an external display for your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. At around £200, it offers premium quality and high performance at a price normally associated with a much lower-quality display. Pros: Large 27in display; flicker-free technology; non-glossy AG matte coating; fantastic colour gamut range; unobtrusive bezel; amazingly low price Cons: Resolution not as high as Apple Cinema Display; colour accuracy isn’t as good as a high-end monitor


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Asus USB-AC56

Pros: Upgrades Wi-Fi to 11ac; fast real-world speed; increased range Cons: Bulky add-on; rudimentary software

StarTech Thunderbolt Station

Full review: tinyurl.com/o98xwd6 uk.startech.com, £230 If you need to expand your port count or just make it quicker and easier to interface a MacBook with your home/office setup each day, then the StarTech Thunderbolt Station will serve you well. Pros: HDMI output; three USB 3.0; relatively inexpensive; cable included Cons: HDMI limited to full-HD; USB 3.0 working slowly; won’t charge iPad

View Quest Hepburn

Full review: tinyurl.com/ku9bvnw viewquest.co.uk, £149 Overall, we’d suggest that the View Quest Hepburn speaker is ideal for anyone with a love of vintage or retro-style, as it’ll sit nicely in a living room or kitchen and provide satisfactory sound that will suit a dinner party, barbeque or general background music for a day bustling around the house. Pros: Gorgeous vintage design with multiple colour options; Bluetooth speaker & DAB radio combination; easy to use and simple setup Cons: Some distortion at highest volume; no rechargeable battery; high price tag considering the sound quality

Pure Evoke D2

Full review: tinyurl.com/ohnrvoa pure.com, £99 The Pure Evoke D2 packs great audio quality for the size. The combination of digital radio and Bluetooth ensure it has a lot of functions. Its small stature will keep it from being your main speaker, but it makes a great digital radio with iPhone or iPad connectivity for the kitchen or bedroom. It offers a lot of functionality for the price. Pros: Small footprint; good audio clarity; Bluetooth connection; easy to set up Cons: Separate Pure ChargePAK required to use portable battery; small size limits volume

CalDigit Thunderbolt Station

Full review: tinyurl.com/kdhyLdn caldigit.com, £179 The CalDigit Thunderbolt station is a useful addition for anyone who needs up to three USB 3.0 ports, or a quick way to connect all their peripherals. Improved audio quality and consistent HDMI operation would make this product stand out from the crowd. Pros: USB 3.0; gigabit ethernet and HDMI 1.4 available to any Mac with Thunderbolt; convenient Cons: Poor audio quality; erratic HDMI issues; no FireWire; low bus power on USB ports

Elagato EyeTV Netstream 4Sat

Full review: tinyurl.com/qemoawc elgato.com/uk, £259 If you have a satellite dish, or can accommodate one and wish to dovetail your media with your computer network, then Elgato’s Netstream 4Sat is a delight. Performance, styling and build quality are first-class, and being able to record four different HDTV channels is worth every penny of the asking price. Pros: Four satellite tuners in one box; great build quality; smart software Cons: Cumbersome channel editing for iPhone/iPad; unable to update firmware on a Mac

IK Multimedia iRig Pro

Full review: tinyurl.com/nu4dx6w ikmultimedia.com, £120 As an all-in-one unit for connecting your live instruments to a DAW, the iRig Pro is very easy to recommend. IK Multimedia has thought carefully about the needs of musicians and built something simple to use that produces great results. It might be small in size, but it packs a seriously impressive punch. Pros: Easy to use; no discernible latency; excellent sound quality Cons: Gain dial is a little fiddly to adjust; no headphone out

Focusrite iTrack Solo

Full review: tinyurl.com/ozfszdx uk.focusrite.com, £129 in essence, the iTrack Solo does the one thing you ask of any recording device, it simply gets out of the way and lets you make music without any fuss. Focusrite also includes a code for its Scarlett plug-in suite and Ableton Live Lite 8 in the box, which makes an already excellent package even better value for money. Pros: Excellent audio quality and a simple setup with the iPad Cons: The Device Link cable feels frail and awkwardly short

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock

Full review: tinyurl.com/ponv8ho belkin.com/uk, £249 The Thunderbolt Express Dock was worth the wait. It’s not the cheapest of the available solutions, but it’s the more versatile with its Thunderbolt pass-through function. When a dock like this ‘just works’ as intended, it’s a joy to use and greatly simplifies the use of a Thunderbolt-equipped notebook on the desktop. Pros: It just works Cons: Notable shortfall in USB performance

Epson EB-1945W

Full review: tinyurl.com/ndaco5p epson.co.uk, £1,300 This is a great projector for the office or classroom. The weight is a big issue, though, and we certainly wouldn’t recommend adding 4kg to your travel pack. It’s also very expensive, however, images are crisp and clear, and impressive even in daylight. Pros: Powerful projector best suited to a fixed office and classroom environment Cons: Bigger and heavier than most portable projectors; expensive


WorldMags.net

DIGITAL LIFE

Full review: tinyurl.com/n3dm7kq asus.com/uk £60 The Asus USB-AC56 is an effective upgrade that can bring faster wireless networking to your Mac. You’ll need a USB 3.0 port for best results, but under the right conditions you may get close to half-gigabit wireless transfers at short range, and the benefit of increased performance at longer ranges, too.


LASER PRINTERS

HP Colour LaserJet Pro M177fw

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lzzgbpf hp.com/uk, £274 The £274 price tag represents good value for money, as the LaserJet Pro provides excellent print quality and useful connectivity features. However, running costs for both colour- and mono printing are above average, which means that it can be recommended only for small businesses that need laser-quality on an occasional basis. Pros: Excellent print quality; ethernet; Wi-Fi and AirPrint connectivity Cons: Slow colour printing; very expensive toner cartridges

Samsung M2070W

Full review: tinyurl.com/nnhmt6k samsung.com/uk, £129 The M2070W is a neatly designed and versatile laser printer that will appeal to home workers and small businesses that need a fast, high-quality mono printer for letters and other business documents. However, the relatively low capacity of Samsung’s toner cartridges means that running costs are above average. Pros: Initial purchase price; built-in Wi-Fi; iOS app for Apple mobile devices Cons: Expensive toner cartridges; no ethernet or automatic duplex printing

Dell C1765nf

Full review: tinyurl.com/no2evbb dell.co.uk, £189 It’s not often that we recommend Dell hardware to our readers. However, there aren’t many colour laser printers available for £200 or less, so the Dell C7165nf is a good option for home workers or small businesses that need an affordable workhorse printer. Pros: Fast, affordable laser printer; 30,000ppm duty cycle; iOS and Android apps; USB and ethernet Cons: No Wi-Fi; modest capacity; colour printing is expensive

Epson AcuLaser C3900DN

Full review: tinyurl.com/L8Lxjk7 epson.co.uk, £400 It might be overkill for many small businesses – especially the self-employed people who work from home – but the C3900DN will earn its keep if you need a fast printer that can handle fairly high volumes of work with competitive running costs. Pros: Fast; good print colour for mono and colour; competitive running costs Cons: Initial purchase price of toners is very high

Kyocera FS-C5150DN

Full review: tinyurl.com/mun9sa6 kyocera.co.uk, £240 If you need to print lots of colour documents every day, then the FS-C5150DN may not be fast enough for you. However, its competitive running costs ensure it’s still a good choice for any business needing a high-quality printer. Pros: Low purchase price; competitively priced toner cartridges Cons: No Wi-Fi or AirPrint; colour printing is relatively slow

INKJET PRINTERS

Canon Pixma iP2850

Full review: tinyurl.com/nwvxLw7 canon.co.uk, £40 The low cost of the iP2850 is certainly attractive, so it’s bound to appeal to home users and students who need a basic, affordable printer. Print quality is also very good for such a low-cost device, but the high cost of the black ink cartridge outweighs any savings you might make on the printer’s initial purchase price. Pros: Inexpensive to buy; pigmented black ink produces very good mono text Cons: Black ink cartridges are very expensive; no Wi-Fi; Mac support could be improved

HP OfficeJet 4630

Full review: tinyurl.com/p9hLgme hp.com/uk, £89 The purchase price of the OfficeJet is hard to beat, especially as it includes two-sided printing, a document feeder and AirPrint connectivity for under £100. Print quality and speeds are also respectable for such an affordable printer. Unfortunately, printing costs are higher than we’d like – especially for mono printing. Pros: Initial purchase price is very competitive; built-in Wi-Fi and AirPrint; fax and document feeder Cons: Expensive ink cartridges; no ethernet interface

Epson Expression Home XP-412

Full review: tinyurl.com/n3g7kLq epson.co.uk, £89 The Expression Home XP-412 could certainly be faster, and lacks a few useful options such as duplex printing. However, it’s a compact and affordable printer that provides good quality and reasonable running costs. It’s a good option for home users who need to print only occasional documents or photos. Pros: Affordable inkjet printer; supports Wi-Fi and AirPrint; good text and graphics output Cons: Slow; no duplex printing

Epson Expression Premium XP-610 Full review: tinyurl.com/kd5mvvq epson.co.uk, £149 The Expression Premium XP-610 crams a lot into its neat and compact design. Text output is excellent, with smooth, clean text outlines, and the photo-black ink adds contrast to photo output, producing crisp, bold colours. It’s fast, too, for such a compact printer, turning out 11ppm for text, and 8ppm for colour. Pros: Compact and affordable multifunction printer for home users; supports Apple AirPrint; duplex printing and AirPrint for iOS Cons: No ethernet; modest capacity; cost for text printing is a little high

HP OfficeJet 7610

Full review: tinyurl.com/q96qdkg hp.com/uk, £200 It’s good to see a printer that provides an affordable A3 printing option, and the only real disadvantage with the OfficeJet 7610 is that it’s pretty bulky. However, it produces very good results, with bright, strong colours and crisp smooth text that comes close to laser quality. Pros: Versatile A3/A4 printer; includes scanner, copier and fax; supports Apple AirPrint Cons: Big and bulky; duplex printing is an optional extra


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net promise.com £2,499, 18TB As much as the blistering speed available from a tightly knitted collection of fast hard disks, the Promise Pegasus2 R6 impresses with its cool and confident character. That, and the attention that’s gone into support of the whole drive through its advanced management software utility. Pros: Huge 18TB capacity; SSD-like speeds; comprehensive software management Cons: Unique capacity/speed combination doesn’t come cheap

WD My Passport Pro

Full review: tinyurl.com/ke53fap wdc.com/en, £239, 2TB; £349, 4TB Portable drives generally trade performance for portability, but the My PassPort manages to provide desktop-levels of performance wrapped up in a portable design. It’s also competitively priced when compared with other Raid drives, making it a great choice for professional users who need a fast, portable backup device. Pros: High-performance and high-capacity; Thunderbolt interface; supports Raid 0; Raid 1; JBOD Cons: Bigger and heavier than a conventional portable drive; no USB interface

Western Digital My Cloud EX4

Full review: tinyurl.com/L2gfr6L wdc.com/en, £319 There are faster NAS drives available but the My Cloud EX4 should be perfectly adequate for the small businesses for which it’s designed. It’s also much easier to install and run than many of its more business-oriented rivals, making it a good choice for people who want a reliable, high-capacity system for use in their office. Pros: Easy-to-use NAS drive for home and small offices; up to 16TB storage; ‘personal cloud’ apps for remote access on mobile devices Cons: More expensive than a single-bay NAS drive; modest performance

PROFESSIONAL STORAGE

Promise Technology Pegasus2 R6 Full review: tinyurl.com/Ldda3u8

Asustor AS-604T

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lf72oym asustor.com, £450 There’s no denying the Asustor AS-604T is a very well featured and sturdily built NAS drive. But given its close facsimile to Qnap products there’s little reason to choose the newcomer – except price. If data write performance could be improved it’d be a closer match, with the Asustor becoming even more attractive. Pros: Sturdy construction; accessible modern software interface; decent performance under certain conditions Cons: Very poor performance with small files; derivative design

Synology DS1513+

Full review: tinyurl.com/qbf3w4y synology.com, £630 While the new DSM 5.0 software interface falls victim to the opinion-dividing Windows 8 look, the performance and feature set of this Synology NAS drive lift it clear of all competitors. Its performance in serving files is second to none, which lets it earn its keep.

Sony HD-SG5

Full review: tinyurl.com/pubdtnf sony.co.uk, £75 If performance is your main priority, then there are faster Thunderbolt and SSD drives. However, the slimline design of the SG5 is both attractive and practical, and it’ll be a particularly good choice for owners of the MacBook Air who want a portable backup drive that they can carry around with them. Pros: Slimline design; weighs just 130g; USB 3.0 Cons: Modest performance; no Thunderbolt

Silicon Power T11

Full review: tinyurl.com/kgc9u2p silicon-power.com, £215 (120GB) The Silicon Power T11 is a lightweight and compact storage drive with good performance. It falls significantly short of real Thunderbolt speeds, but this is true of all current bus-powered Thunderbolt drives. Construction quality and style are on trend for Apple peripherals, and it will make a useful, if expensive, desktop accessory. Pros: Small, lightweight storage device Cons: Falls far short of Thunderbolt speed; beaten by USB 3.0 drives

Seagate Central

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lf3x47a seagate.com/gb/en, £100 Most of Seagate’s NAS drives are aimed at business users, but the Seagate Central drive is designed for use in the home. There’s nothing innovative about this drive, but it gets the basics right. It’s competitively priced and easy to use, if very slow when writing files to disk. Pros: Attractively priced; easy to use; good support for Mac and iOS devices Cons: Very slow for copying files; no Raid protection of data

Western Digital My Cloud

Full review: tinyurl.com/pnqmn9k wdc.com/en, £120 (2TB) To make a home hardware-based personal cloud, the device and software must be easy to set up and use, and be completely reliable. With the My Cloud, Western Digital has made that setup straightforward, even if the need for separate device and WD server accounts is asking for trouble. Pros: Relatively quiet; clear and approachable web admin interface; smart iOS apps Cons: Slow write speeds; Java requirement for Mac remote access; problems in setting up remote access; security issues with US-based DDNS

Elgato Thunderbolt Drive+

Full review: tinyurl.com/kovvuuu elgato.com/uk, £760 (512GB) The Elgato Thunderbolt Drive+ is the revised edition of Elgato’s portable storage device, the world’s first bus-powered Thunderbolt drive. It’s a weighty affair, made from two solid shells of cast aluminium that encase a 2.5in SSD inside, all finished in dark metallic paint. Beware of knocking this one, though, as the paint will chip. Pros: Great performance; choice of interfaces; solidly built Cons: Fragile paint finish; expensive; relatively heavy


WorldMags.net

CONSUMER STORAGE

Pros: Fast; easy-to-learn interface Cons: Windows 8-like software interface; pricey


CREATIVE SOFTWARE

Adobe Premiere Elements 12

Full review: tinyurl.com/pygte69 adobe.com/uk, £78, £63 (upgrade) If you’re a home movie buff who wants to use titles and other effects to create more professional results, then Premiere Elements 12 will provide all the editing tools you need at an attractive price. Its new Guided Edit mode also makes it a great option for beginners who want to learn more advanced editing techniques. Pros: Powerful video-editing tools at a competitive price; Guided Edit mode provides help for new users Cons: Requires fast processor and plenty of memory to edit HD video

QuarkXPress 10

Full review: tinyurl.com/oz7fha9 quark.co.uk, £959, £359 (upgrade) If you’re a QuarkXPress 8 or 9 user, there are plenty of reasons to upgrade. (If you’ve got an earlier version, you’ll have to pay the full price). And anyone unhappy with Adobe’s switch to a rental-only model for Creative Cloud will appreciate the fact you can still buy or upgrade QuarkXPress 10 outright. Pros: New user interface; improved image displays; new tools; Cocoa code Cons: Expensive; loss of some familiar menus

Smith Micro Manga Studio 5 EX

Full review: tinyurl.com/psadd3s manga.smithmicro.com, $210 (£130) Whether you opt for Manga Studio 5 or 5 EX, you’re getting a worthy upgrade to 4 EX that isn’t just a powerful tool for creating comic book art – but, as many artists are proving, is powerful for creating amazing digital art in general. Pros: Excellent performance; updated brush engine; layer modes; multiple file handling; custom brush creation; new user interface; EX4 page and story file importing Cons: Only two features differentiate between the cheaper standard version and the EX version

Maxon Cinema 4D R15

Full review: tinyurl.com/nprhhdu maxon.net; Prime £720, Broadcast £1,380, Studio £3,120, upgrade from £276 Overall this release adds stability and refinements, as well as more flexibility and power — especially on the rendering side. Most of the updates seem to have been well thought-out, and definitely build on what was already a very solid package. Pros: Ease of use; new Team Render; newly developed Irradiance Cache; updated Bevel tool; Intel Embree in physical renderer; extremely stable Cons: Hoped for more updates to modeling workflow; no updates to BodyPaint 3D; no updates to UV editing

Autodesk Mudbox 2014

Full review: tinyurl.com/o3mmgt4 autodesk.co.uk, £840, upgrade £588 Regardless of any retopology issues, Mudbox remains a great choice for producing digital sculptures and is unmatched in 2D/3D texture painting. However, since the main new features in Mudbox 2014 are for retopology – and they’re not up to par with those found in the competition, it’s difficult to recommend the 2014 upgrade. Pros: Top-notch 3D sculpting and 2D/3D painting workflows; shallow learning curve Cons: Retopologising imported or scanned models requires that models be prepped prior to retopology

Avid Media Composer 7

Full review: tinyurl.com/kjg3hst avid.com/uk, £862, £262 (upgrade) Most of the changes with Media Composer 7 are performance related rather than adding killer new features. Existing Avid customers will love these changes as they speed up the workflow significantly, but if you’re not already committed to Media Composer then this probably won’t convince you. Pros: Ability to dynamically extract resolution from hi-res sources; more audio options; cheapest version yet Cons: Relies on keyboard shortcuts; stereo workflow requires 16GB RAM; spanning markers are clunky; window system can be messy

Adobe InDesign CC

Full review: tinyurl.com/m3gvmqo adobe.com/uk, £17 per month single-app plan, £37 a month for teams InDesign CC contains very few new features – from a user’s perspective this isn’t a major upgrade. However, if your work involves creating ePub books, you’ll want it just for the improvements to ePub formatting. Numerous enhancements to the font menus make choosing fonts much more efficient and flexible. Pros: Retina display support; font menu and ePub improvements; QR code generator Cons: Meagre new features

Adobe Edge CC

Full review: tinyurl.com/kw7po7t adobe.com/uk, £17 per month single-app plan, £37 a month for teams Unless you require the animation features of Edge Animate, we would find the price hard to justify. For more experienced teams, we’re not sure how useful are these tools when simpler tools may suffice. However, if you’re already a Creative Cloud member and heavily wedded to Adobe’s app ecosystem, they may prove more useful. Pros: Tight integration with other Creative Cloud applications; preview design and code easily on iOS and Android devices; use web fonts on your desktop Cons: Applications lack native UI and share an inconsistent design; preview functions limited to Chrome browser; applications not available to purchase separately

Adobe Illustrator CC

Full review: tinyurl.com/kcuu7uv Adobe, adobe.com/uk, £17 per month single-app plan Illustrator CC introduces three new features that will be a useful addition to every designers toolkit. The first of these is the Touch Type tool, which lets you individually edit each letter. Secondly, you can now have a brush made up of a raster image. And finally, there’s the Kuler online palette generation tool. Pros: Smarter workspace appearance; extensive resources; Kuler iPhone app interaction; improved type control Cons: Commitment to CC, uninspiring bitmap image strokes

Adobe Dreamweaver CC

Full review: tinyurl.com/ny34xej Adobe, adobe.com/uk, £17 per month single-app plan For those wedded to Dreamweaver, upgrading is a no-brainer, even if there’s hardly a glut of new features. It’s also a powerful tool for working on sites created with the program itself, as you’d expect. For those who’ve abandoned Dreamweaver, there’s little reason to return. For newcomers, it’s a decent product. Pros: Edge Web Fonts integration; user-friendly responsive site workflow; great CSS Designer panel Cons: Default responsive layout is dated; still a weighty – and sometimes sluggish – app; ‘Adobe OS’ UI can be fiddly


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net GIMP 2.8.10

Pros: Free; constantly updated; OS X Mavericks support; many useful and some unique tools; new cage transform; rotatable brushes; layer groups and improved text tool Cons: Slow operation; clunky dialogs; proprietary file format; no file management/image organisation

CyberLink PhotoDirector Ultra 5

Full review: tinyurl.com/p4em2fq cyberlink.com, £79 Still keeping focus on organisational tasks, the 64-bit PhotoDirector also gains strength in the image-processing and correction areas with this release. Features such as HiDPI support, HDR Bracketing, Split Toning and Channel Curves are welcome, as is automatic stacking in the Photo Browser. Pros: HiDPI and 64-bit support; RGB channel curve adjustments; auto-stack groups of shots; bracketed HDR; output to 4K video slideshow Cons: No .PSD support; lens profiles database needs more expansion; automatic stacking a bit hit-and-miss

Pixelmator 3.0 FX

Full review: tinyurl.com/naztkjL pixelmator.com, £20 Pixelmator feels bit like a cross between Photoshop, Motion and QuarkXPress – although there’s no CMYK support for print workflows. It would be nice if filters could be applied as live or ‘smart’ effects, but the power and variety on offer here is welcome. Pros: Good value; rewritten for OS X Mavericks; new Layer Styles and Effects; liquify tools; versatile; Retina display support; GPU acceleration via Core Image Cons: No photo management/cataloguing; smart effects would be a bonus; lack of cross platform support might bother some; App Store download only

Corel AfterShot Pro

Full review: tinyurl.com/ouay3y7 corel.com, £80 Decently priced and powerful, there’s a lot to like about AfterShot Pro. The lack of some tools is a downside, but you can assign an external editor in the Preferences for fine detail work. This is a fast and powerful Raw tool, with strong colour correction, while using Layers and Regions is good for selectively sorting portions of a photo. Pros: Speedy Raw workflow; Layers and Regions adjustments; Adjustment presets; third-party plug-ins support; GPU hardware acceleration Cons: No .PSD support; relatively low number of tools; not the most powerful cataloguing workflow; no Retina display support

Alien Skin Exposure 5

Full review: tinyurl.com/kL5tcxL alienskin.com, $149 (£89) While this isn’t a radical update in terms of the number of effects you are getting, the interface change so that far more grunge and grime effects can be applied at once is very welcome. It’s also still the best film- and retro effect plug-in money can buy. Pros: New Polaroid film emulation; new lighting effects; redesigned interface; changes to some of the presets; save own combinations; grunge-orientated effects more flexible Cons: Not enough new effects; can only flip effects not rotate them; previews are split screen with no side-by-side option

PicSketch

Full review: tinyurl.com/n5mv36z softease.biz, £2.99 PicSketch produces some good effects, but making the surrounding scribbling part of a separate mode that doesn’t even turn the photo into a sketch is a little stupid. It’s cheap, but the sketch styles get repetitive too quickly, making this app one for the occasional conversion rather than if you need to do it all the time. Pros: Cheap; good results easily attainable; various paper backgrounds; some preset sketch effects; blending and colouring options Cons: Control for brush size is a blunt instrument; surround scribblings in a separate mode; Preset mode doesn’t turn photo into a sketch; not enough control over process

Adobe Photoshop Elements 12

Full review: tinyurl.com/kLbb49o adobe.com/uk, £78, £65 (upgrade) While the user interface could use some tweaking to make it more intuitive, this has many useful photo-editing and organising tools for hobbyists who don’t want to fork out for the professional version of Photoshop. We’d suggest looking into cheaper alternatives such as iPhoto or Aperture before purchasing Elements, though. Pros: Effects, textures and frames add fun ways to edit photos; new features such as Content-Aware Move and Pet Eye are frequently useful Cons: Some textures, frames and Guided Edits are gimmicky; interface is clumsy and unintuitive; Revel feature costly if more than 50 photos are required

Corel Painter X3

Full review: tinyurl.com/nkd2bmd corel.com/uk, £315, £158 (upgrade) If you’re looking to upgrade from a previous version, there are some pretty enticing improvements to X3 that may well make it worth your while, but like all upgrades, it’s whether you feel that the additions will be of use to your own creative process. Pros: Intuitive improvements; affordable Cons: Steep learning curve

Adobe Photoshop CC

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lo9Leu9 adobe.com/uk, £17 per month single-app plan This release has plenty for you to get your teeth into. There’s something for everyone, but the real star is the Camera Shake Reduction filter. The improvements to the 3D engine are also notable. As it is, this is a decent release with usable functions rather than unnecessary bloat. Pros: Camera shake filter; 3D performance increased; Spot Removal in Camera Raw excellent; upsampling is better than CS6; vector objects with corners can be re-edited Cons: Smart Sharpen not massively better; upsampling not as good as third-party plug-ins; limited 3D-format support; numerous windows use old colour scheme

Adobe Lightroom 5

Full review: tinyurl.com/Ljcwse2 adobe.com/uk, £57 or from £17 per month for Creative Cloud subscription Busy photographers may view Lightroom 5 as the release that enables them to let go of Photoshop for most tasks. New features keep coming and propel Lightroom ahead of Apple’s Aperture. The fact you don’t have to subscribe to own your copy is also good. Pros: Lots of ways to sort images; build catalogues; creative presets; Healing Brush good for simple areas; considerable control over exposure; retrograde geotagging Cons: Library getting overly complex; some bugs; Upright tool well hidden; Advanced Healing Brush not called that in the app


WorldMags.net

IMAGE EDITING

Full review: tinyurl.com/k7wnsux gimp.org, Free When using GIMP, you soon realise just what the little paid-for productivity touches are worth in other applications. There are interface niggles and it’s also slow at times. However, it’s free, so giving it a trial should be a no-brainer. You’ve got nothing to lose but time.


PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE

Nuance Dragon Dictate

Full review: tinyurl.com/mfwrcwg nuance.co.uk; £125 (£65 upgrade) Although OS X includes voice-command software, Nuance Dragon Dictate for Mac 4 is a far more mature product. The speech recognition is excellent and the addition of the transcription feature could prove invaluable to students and those who need to write up speeches or presentations. Pros: Excellent speech recognition; new multiple-profile transcription mode and Gmail integration Cons: Browser control a little lacking; no punctuation in transcription mode

Draft

Full review: tinyurl.com/k5cvwua draftin.com; Free, $3.99 (£2.40) per month, $39.99 (£24.40) per year Drafts is currently free to use as the developer, Nathan Knotny, improves and adds features. Note that it’s all the work of just one guy. You’re encouraged to subscribe to keep the project going – and we think it’s worth it. Pros: Collaborative document editing; strong version control Cons: A little slow when switching between views or importing

SimpleTax

Full review: tinyurl.com/n6pudsf

gosimpletax.com, Free SimpleTax is a great service for those with straightforward tax affairs but who lack the confidence to do their own calculations. Accountancy fees can be an unwelcome expense, but this does a similar job – and for free. Best of all, it demystifies the whole process, showing in simple terms what you can and can’t claim for. Pros: Free; import data from your own sources; calculations performed for you Cons: You’ll need to have all your tax details to hand before you start

FileMaker Pro 13

Full review: tinyurl.com/nwsp3hc filemaker.co.uk, £286 If you’re already a FileMaker user, the upgrade shouldn’t take much thinking about. This version builds significantly on the offering you already have – especially if you need to deploy to mobile devices. And if you’re looking for a database-building tool for the first time, FileMaker Pro 13 has many attractions. Pros: Fast database design with Starter Solutions; styles and templates; deployment to web and mobile devices Cons: Additional costs build up for web deployment

Extensis Suitcase Fusion 5

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lpwyxgp extensis.com; £84, upgrade £42 The latest upgrade to Extensis’ font-management system doesn’t give you as many new features as did v.4 but, as designers adopt Creative Cloud, Suitcase Fusion users will inevitably need the new plug-ins. The QuickComp feature is attractive and works well if you’re doing initial concept work. Pros: Adobe CC in-app support, QuickComp template previewing, tweaked user interface Cons: No support for Adobe Typekit

NoteSuite 1.0

Full review: tinyurl.com/px4wrd3 notesuite.io, £2.99 NoteSuite is a good note-taking app, even if it can’t outgun rivals such as Evernote. However, its outstanding feature is the smooth iCloud synching, which will definitely appeal to anyone that uses an iPad or multiple Macs. Pros: Affordable, versatile tools for organising notes and to-do lists; automatic iCloud synching; works on Mac and iPad Cons: No iPhone version; fewer features than the iPad version

TopXNotes

Full review: tinyurl.com/q9kh4xk

tropic4.com, £27 TopXNotes’s price is pretty steep, but it’s clear its features were designed for those who take seriously the task of keeping notes. If you fall within this audience, the app does its job capably and efficiently, with an impressive array of features and a user interface that’s well thought out and provides an excellent user experience. Pros: Plenty of functionality at your fingertips; effortless search features; helpful MultiView for perusing multiple documents Cons: MultiView windows don’t resize properly

Scapple for OS X

Full review: tinyurl.com/oo6vv93 literatureandlatte.com, £10 If you are prepared to embrace thinking visually, Scrapple is a useful tool that could turn small ideas into big ones without too many headaches. Equally, it’s a handy way of collecting scraps of ideas that may not come to anything, but make more sense when seen together. Pros: Drag-and-drop simplicity; freeform note making; Scrivener integration; ability to easily export notes for sharing and printing; iCloud support; MathType support; inexpensive Cons: Users need to start mapping ideas visually and regularly; some features including iCloud support dependent on OS X

SiteMaker Moonfruit Standard

Full review: tinyurl.com/ndfemre moonfruit.com, £7.20 per month Moonfruit is a polished, slick, web-design application, with nearly all the features you could need. It’s well-designed and makes it easy to customise a template. All the key features are in place to create a modern-looking, full-featured site that’s easy to edit. Pros: Very well-designed; easy to select and customise a template; key features in place Cons: Low storage allowance

1&1 MyWebsite Personal

Full review: tinyurl.com/ojxq2oy 1and1.co.uk, £6 per month, £72 per year 1&1 MyWebsite Personal is a decent tool for putting together a standard website. There are a lot of predefined templates (300 to be precise), so finding something from which you can work is easy. Pros: 300 templates; straightforward; automatic picture-size optimisation Cons: Template categories are less than helpful


WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Concentrate

Full review: tinyurl.com/p8qb3eb getconcentrating.com; free Developing an Activity for the first time in Concentrate is time-consuming as you customise each component, but this is a minor moan because, once created, Activities can be reused. And, as a bonus, lots of common social media, video and distracting URLs are prepackaged so that you don’t have to manually enter them. Pros: Create specific rules for set Activities; Launch or block applications; comes bundled with suggested distractions to block Cons: Takes time to configure an Activity; Skype; Google Hangouts and Facebook messenger unsupported in chat status; development on the app has ceased

Full review: tinyurl.com/qfzu3ks intego.com; £24, free upgrade from Mac Premium bundle While Washing Machine 2014 has an interesting take on data cleaning, this may be a case of style winning over substance. If Intego’s intention is to increase your Mac’s speed and performance, it needs to include some additional tools. In comparison with CleanMyMac (see below), it’s definitely a little feature-light. Pros: Excellent user interface with explanatory overlays; easy to use; useful organising feature Cons: Some anomalies in use; no QuickLook support for previewing files; needs more data-cleaning tools

VMware Fusion 6

Full review: tinyurl.com/nc8y3fe vmware.com/uk; £48, £98 (professional) VMware Fusion 6 may not have some of the useful extras now found in Parallels 9, such as Thunderbolt and FireWire support, but it remains a powerful and easy-touse choice for virtualising Windows and other x86 operating systems. Pros: Support for 16 CPU cores; 64GB memory; mild performance improvements; trusted developer; added security and configuration options Cons: Incomplete support for OS X guests; unable to customise video memory

Parallels Desktop 9

Full review: tinyurl.com/qjepsw4 parallels.com/uk, £64 Parallels has added some useful new features to its Desktop 9 application, keeping it the highest-performance virtualisation package for OS X. It’s support for OS X guests is embarrassingly poor, but Windows and Linux both work very well, and with terrific graphics that make these VMs feel like native installs in full-screen mode. Pros: Fast and fluid for Windows and Linux VM guests; good integration for Windows 8 and 8.1; easier installation from disk images; better battery economy Cons: Mac OS X as guest machine almost unusable

Cocktail 6.7

Full review: tinyurl.com/noq5co6 maintain.se, £10 While most of Cocktail’s features already exist on the Mac, being able to access them without using a number of system tools and Terminal make Cocktail a highly useful utility. The unregistered version of Cocktail allows for 10 launches before timing out – that should be sufficient for you to decide whether it is right for you. Pros: Comprehensive set of repair and maintenance tools; additional Automator actions; automatic Pilot mode; software frequently updated Cons: Some tools are complex to use

Freeway Pro 6

Full review: tinyurl.com/kx9toz4 softpress.com, £104 This design-led tool will let you publish content-rich websites in modern browsers, simply and at a very fair and reasonable price. It’s not perfect: laying out elements could do with some automation, for example, and Freeway Pro apparently has only one level of undo. Pros: Publish content-rich sites; fair price; HTML 5 support; 20 percent discount to education, charities and the elderly Cons: Could do with more automation; one level of undo

Samepage.io

Full review: tinyurl.com/Lxgbhjc kerio.co.uk, free Kerio Samepage.io will appeal to small businesses and individuals who have used Workspace before, but it’s far more accessible to newcomers, with its much reduced learning curve. It’s free to try, too, so if you’re managing team projects, take a look. Pros: Cloud based; remotely hosted; build your own team collaboration or project space; 10GB storage in free version Cons: Workspace users may be disappointed the software has been replaced by Samepage

CleanMyMac 2

Full review: tinyurl.com/qftexvd macpaw.com, £34 This seasoned utility can deal with almost every aspect of data cleaning. It’s expensive when compared with single-function open-source apps, but its integrated approach is well worth the money. There’s a good reason why CleanMyMac has built up an enviable reputation, and this version will only further enhance that. Pros: Excellent user interface; comprehensive set of tools; clear explanations of scan results; highly configurable Cons: A little expensive

PrivacyScan 1.2

Full review: tinyurl.com/qygtfer macscan.securemac.com, $14 (£9.70) PrivacyScan is a worthwhile addition to your set of security tools. It’s easy to use, handles most modern web browsers and also supports common Mac apps. As long as you remember to run it, you can rest assured that your privacy will remain protected. Pros: Easy to use; can remove an array of privacy threats; supports most modern browsers and essential Mac apps; includes secure shredding as well as standard delete Cons: No scheduling or automation features; no ability to preserve some data

Extensis Portfolio Server 11.0.1

Full review: tinyurl.com/o73r6tx extensis.com, Studio £1,798, POA for Professional and Enterprise editions Portfolio Server effortlessly handles media management, and support for more file types and client customisation is welcome. Flash is required for all Client and Server web browsers, so may restrict your Client base. The Studio version has a one catalogue/three-user restriction. Pros: Rapid and effective cataloguing of growing range of assets; more user customisation; AutoSync folders; enhanced keywording and metadata features Cons: Flash-based web clients restricts some use; Studio version is limited to one catalogue and three users


WorldMags.net

UTILITIES

Intego Washing Machine

WorldMags.net Spotlight By Ashleigh Allsopp

Apple, refreshed Cupertino’s finest are back with a bang (and some silly jokes)

S

ince Apple’s cofounder Steve Jobs passed away, I’ve always thought the company seemed a little unsure of itself during keynote speeches. It’s not surprising, as Jobs had always been the face (and voice) of Apple. He dominated all its keynotes with an incredible stage presence that captivated audiences the world over. So when it was Tim Cook’s time to take over, it was clear to everyone that there was a gaping “personality-shaped” hole where Jobs had been, and Cook was all too aware of that. It was almost as though Cook was unsure of himself, like he hadn’t quite found his feet, and Apple seemed a little lost. The keynotes were never bad, but it didn’t feel like Apple had a definitive personality. WWDC 2014 changed all that, and I absolutely loved it. Apple executives – ‘Superman’ senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi in particular – were cracking jokes left, right and centre, and most of them were really funny, if a little silly. I found myself genuinely laughing out loud throughout the two-hour-long presentation, and wore a smile on my face long after it had ended. It’s almost as if someone hit refresh, and Apple sprung back with excitement, enthusiasm and wit. Despite the lack of any hardware announcements, I came away from its latest keynote feeling more optimistic and excited about the company than I have in a long time. Each executive who took to the stage was confident and upbeat, and it was a joy to watch. From jokes about Craig Federighi’s hairstyle to the suggestion that Apple considered calling OS X Yosemite OS X Weed, Apple was having a ball, and wanted the world to know it. “It was just a year ago here at WWDC when we narrowly averted a major OS X

Apple has turned into a lovable friend. It’s inviting us to be part of the team by allowing the public to beta test OS X Yosemite naming crisis,” joked Federighi as he was about to introduce OS X Yosemite. “Well, it’s time for another year and another name, so we collected our crack product marketing team, shoved them in their VW minibus, and sent them out on the road… “They boldly ventured north, landing at OS X Weed. Strangely, this one had large pockets of support within the marketing organisation, but saner heads did prevail.” Later, when demonstrating Mail, Federighi said: “To give these people some inspiration about what they might be able to experience at karaoke night, I’ll summon a picture from last year’s karaoke night”. Up popped a picture of Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, singing (and wearing Beats headphones, of course). “That oughta get them going.” Continuing the Mail demonstrations later in the keynote, Federighi got a


WorldMags.net

message. “It says: ‘Great collaboration. You and Jony [Ive] have really come together well!’” read Federighi, clicking to reveal a Photoshopped photo of Ive with Federighi’s grey hair. “Oh dear God!” Federighi continued. “This may be a good time to demo our quick-delete feature!” While showing off iMessage threads, iPhone marketing guy Greg Jozwiak took a brilliantly funny selfie with his iPhone, to which another Apple executive replied via a voice response: “Impressive Joz, you’ve totally mastered the duckface selfie!” Soon after, Federighi sent Jozwiak a video message starring himself wearing a grey wig that resembled the hairstyle of a mad scientist. “Joz, we’ve got a serious situation back here! You’ve got to do something,” said Federighi as someone behind him approached with a hedgetrimmer to tackle the problem. Yes, it was all a bit silly, but it was just great. The audience loved it, and so did I. It was playful and human, and restored my faith that the company is still pretty confident about its position, despite the ever-improving competition. The new attitude reflected many of the announcements from WWDC 2014, too. Apple is opening up elements of iOS to developers to let apps work together, and it seems like the company is listening to both developers and consumers more than it used to, introducing new features that were top of our wish lists. Apple has become a lovable, approachable friend. It’s inviting us to become part of the team, not only by giving consumers more personalisation and developers more freedom, but also by allowing members of the public a chance to beta test OS X Yosemite. This is the start of a new, incredibly exciting period – and I can’t wait to see what Apple’s going to do next. I can’t wait for the next keynote, dad jokes and all.

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net

Macworld UK - Complete Guide

Recommend Documents