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Macworld March 2015 UK

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Mi: WORLD’S BEST-SELLING APPLE MAGAZINE | =SIDG MARCH 2015 10 AMAZING THINGS YOU DIDN'T // KNOW YOUR MAC COULD DO Which low-cost Mac is best for you? + 2.8GHz Mac mini Sell your iPad, iPhone, MacBook or iMac with Macworld’s mResell service Did you get a new Apple device for Christmas? Macworld would like to introduce you to mResell, an Apple-trusted site that helps you sell your old Apple products. Our service will help you get a great price in a safe and secure way. But don’t just take our word for it - get an instant, no obligation quote now. Enter your Apple serial number now: mresell.macworld.co.uk mResell Macworld | mResellindd 126 ic ssn2o14 1628 | | | (003_004 Contents MAR15.indd. 3 Macworld Contents MARCH 2015 Spotlight: David Price Apple vs Samsung News Apple's best ever quarter Best-value Mac If you’re looking for a low-cost Mac we'll help you choose 10 amazing Mac tricks Bet you didn’t know your Mac did this Set up a new Mac We show you how to get started 10 apps for a new Mac Enhance your user experience 15 iTunes tips & tricks Get more out of iTunes 12 Mac security options Four essential security tools Ask the iTunes Guy We demystify artwork and wishlists Apple Watch revolution Taptics, haptics and the body fantastic 10 fascinating Apple facts Test your Apple knowledge Lessons for Apple Seven lessons Apple could learn from Microsoft Group test: Smart heating 41 Tado Smart Thermostat 44 Hive Active Heating 46 Nest Learning Thermostat 48 Heat Genius Group test: Cameras 55 Canon EOS 7D Mark Il 55 Fujifilm X-T1 56 Kodak PixPro S-1 56 Nikon D810 57 Olympus OM-D E-M10 57 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 58 Samsung NX1 58 Sony A7 Mark II MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 3 0322015 16:15, | 60 Reviews 60 Apple Mac mini 2.8GHz 62 Mac mini 2014 vs mini 2012 64 OS X Yosemite vs Windows 10 67 Epson Ecotank L555 68 Synology DS414j 69 Seagate NAS Help Desk Answering your tech questions 70 72 Spotlight: Neil Bennett Are weak passwords okay? 73 Locating iPhoto images Find your long-lost photos 74 New and noteworthy Best new kit for your iOS device What is Homekit? Apple's smart home vision 76 79 Top tips for Safari iniOS 8 Master Apple’s updated browser 4 MACWORLD + MARCH 2015 | (003_004 Contents MAR1S.indd. 4 80 82 87 88 90 91 92 94 14 Best iPad work apps Boost your productivity Best free iPhone games 14 of our favourites Spotlight: Ted Landau The iPad isn’t doomed Steve Jobs: The Movie Everything you need to know Turn off Autocorrect If AutoCorrect is getting on your nerves, relief is at hand Spotlight: Andrew Harrison Let's get metaphysical Subscriptions Getting the latest issue of Macworld Buyers’ guide The best hardware and software Spotlight: Simon Jary After five years, I’ve fallen out of love with the iPad contact... EDITORIAL Editor Kacen Haslam Senior Staff Weiter Ashleigh Allsopp Online Editor David Price Group Managing Editor Marie Brewis {Art Director Mandle Johnson Production Editor Rob Woodcock ‘Multia Editor Dominik Tomaszonskt aten_haslam@idg.co.uk ashligh_alsoppaidy.co uk david_piceaidg co.uk marie brewistd. co.uk ‘mangle johnsonaidg co.uk rb_granvaid. co.uk mink tomaszewskiaidg cou Technial Editor Andrew Harcson ‘Consumer Tech Editor Chis Martin Associate Editor Nell Bennett, Associate Editor Jin Martin Editor. n-Chiet Matt Egan revlewsaidg co.uk cths_marinaidg.co.uk nell_bennetidg co.uk Jim_martinaidg co.uk matt_egandidg.co.uk CContibutors Christopher Breen, Martyn Cassety, Jason Cipriani Glenn Fleishman, ‘Brian S. Hal Lou Hattrsey, Peter Kernan, Gregg Keizer, Topher Kessler, Kid MeEtheam, Cain MeGary, Clif Joseph, Ted Landau, Suse Ochs, ‘Mikael Fins, Gavin Stoker, Keir Thomas, Jake Wiliams, Leah Yamshon ADVERTISING Business Director Helen ClforéJones helen lift joneseidg co.uk tom_drummondaidg co.uk Jonathan_busseaidg co.uk Senior Aecount Manager Edward Longmate ward longmatenidg co.uk Senior Account Manager Dave Lees dave lees. co.k ‘Account Manager Julian Tozer Julian tozeraidg co.uk ‘Account Director Tom Drummond ‘Account Director Jonathan Busse MARKETING Marketing Manager Ash Pate! Head of Marketing Design James Walker Affliate Manager Lettia Austin, ash_patelaidl.co.uk James walkeraidg co.uk lta austinaidg co.uk ‘SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS: Subscriptions hotline idgsubscrbeonlin.co-u/subserptionsimacwerld (0844 322 1251 or 01795 414 606 SUBSCRIPTION RATES wo DD “aissues £43.99 #999 Europe (14 issues) #100 £100 Rest of word (14 issues) £125 £125 FINANCE Financial Director Cis Norman Creait Controller Dawinete Gordon Purchase Ledger Clerk Vicky Bentley Management Accountant Pat Shah PUBLISHING Publishing Director Simon Jory ‘Managing Director Kit Gould simon jarytidg.co.uk NATIONAL feletey talkimgnewspapers and magazines ‘Macworld i published by IDG UK 16 Ux, 101 Euston Road, London NVM 2RA. Tel: 020 7756 2800 Printer: Wyndcham Press Group L1a 01621 877 777 Distribution: Seymour Distribution Lid 020 7429 4000, [No material may be reproduced in whole or part without watten permission. While every cae is taken, the publisher cannot be held Fegallyresponsibie for any errors in artls, listings or advertisement. ‘A material copyeght IDG UK 2015, S IDG ltitcdss 03/02/2015 1615 | | Future proof your facility with advanced 4K SD, HD and Ultra HD mini converters! Blackmagic Design’s new high performance mini converters switch instantly between all SD, HD and Ultra HD video formats so they're ready for Ultra HD when you are! Mini Converters are available in regular or heavy duty models that are machined from solid aluminum so they look beautiful and are super tough! Choose from models with 6G-SDI, HDMI, analog, optical fiber connections and more. ye Mini Converters instantly switch between Ultra HD and all SD or HD formats, including NTSC, PAL, 1080PsF23.98, 1080PsF24, 1080PsF25, 1080i50, 1080i59.94, 1080i60, 720p50, 720p59.94 and 720p60. Updates can be loaded via USB. Auto Switching SD, HD and Ultra HD = Redundant SDI Input Mini Converters feature a redundant input and loop through SDI output. Connect a redundant SDI cable to the second input, and if the main SDI input is lost, Mini Converters will automatically switch over in an instant. That's great for mission critical tasks such as live events. Pro Analog and AES/EBU Audio Standard 1/4 inch jacks are included for professional balanced audio that switches between AES/EBU or analog. Unlike other converters you don’t need expensive custom audio cables so you'll save thousands of dollars! www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk “SRP is Exclusive of VAT SDI 6G-SDI Technology Mini Converters include multi rate 6G-SDI so you're always future proofed! 6G-SDIis fully compatible with all your existing SD and HD SDI equipment and will automatically switch when you need to run Ultra HD! A : give you even better performance when used with SDandHD! Yougetlowjitter, the longest SDlcable lengths and the highest quality broadcast video and audio performance available Broadcast Quality Designed with Ultra HD technology, Mini Converters Mini Converters Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 4K. Mini Converter HDMI to SDI 4K. £189* £189* Mini Converter SDI to Analog 4K.......£189* Mini Converter Analog to SDI £189* Mini Converter SDI to Audio 4K. £189* Mini Converter Audio to SDI 4K. £189* Mini Converter Optical Fiber 4K £315* Mini Converter SDI Multiplex 4K. £315* Mini Converter SDI Distribution 4K....£189* Mini Converter Sync Generator. £199* Blackmagicdes | Digital mag 216.indd 126 26/01/2015, 207 | | A == world MAC PRO — FIRST LOOK ‘The new Mac Pro is revolutionary, but wilt meet your needs Macworld MacBoo Air “gl eee ‘tHinch & 13-inch: expert review, \W FEATURES - OS X 10.9 )VANCED TECHNOLOGIES =D BY JONATHAN IVE DUD ALTERNATIVES joney’s worth Adobe solutions: Apple's ‘all-day’ battery claims examined Shock speed test results Read our advice before you buy ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD Should you upgrade? Find out inside [PLUS 6. EW PHOTOSHOP REVIEWED 4 § y LIGHTROOM REVIEWED ual) Don’t miss a single copy of !Viacworld by subscribing digitally Subscribe from as little as £1.99 "+ ZIMO DOWNLOAD MW Digital filer.indd 138 By David Price) Spotlight Apple’s bumper results Good news for Apple, bad news for Samsung (and the rest of us) ne day the predictions will come true and Apple will get knocked off its perch; transit gloria cupertini. But that day has yet to come, as we discovered at the company’s earnings call last month. There is only one thing we say to Death: “Not this fiscal quarter’. In fact, Apple did a great deal more than put off the Grim Reaper for a few more years, which is what you might have expected from those predictions | mentioned just now: some of the analyst comment before the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus came out verged on the apocalyptic. The firm's Q1 2015 was the most lucrative quarter of any public company in American history and arrived, with brutal timing, just days before erstwhile rival Samsung was obliged to trot out its own (less than triumphant) numbers. The great handset war of the first half of the 2010s may be drawing to a close. If the fat lady isn’t singing quite yet, she’s definitely doing her gargling exercises. Yet | for one hope that the present dip in the fortunes of Samsung’s mobile business is not terminal. (It does at least have numerous other subsidiary businesses to lean on, from insurance to theme parks, although some would argue that the Korean giant's sprawling jack-of-all-trades approach is one of the reasons why it's losing to laser-focused Apple.) Competition is good for everyone, and in hardware terms, Samsung has been Cupertino’s most credible rival for years. An unchallenged Apple is a far less appealing prospect. Google and Amazon are Apple's real rivals, of course, and in broad terms the second half of this decade will be all about those three companies fighting it out for tech-market dominance. But each one currently concentrates on a different segment: Google rules data gathering sic | 007 David Price.indd 7 Competition is good for everyone, and in hardware terms, Samsung has been Cupertino's most credible rival for years and free software services, Amazon is the king of content and distribution, and Apple does the best and most popular hardware. The sad fact is that, if Samsung were removed as a credible threat, none of these companies would be truly tested in their own realm. Areas of overlap Granted, outside the specialisms listed above there are areas of overlap. Google continues to assault Apple's homelands through proxy hardware makers. Apple and Amazon are both phenomenal shifters of digital content, and while they presently slide past one another somewhat (music, video content and — most lucratively of all — apps are Apple’s cash cows, while Amazon is unrivalled in the field of digital books) these areas are likely to blur. And from time to time, the big three make more overt land grabs on one another's territories — but they are usually repelled. Google makes a smartphone; Amazon makes a tablet; Apple makes a mapping service; things generally proceed much as before. Each giant seems too strong to be defeated on its own turf, reminding me a little of the politically convenient perpetual war between the three superstates in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nobody would argue that tech consumers face a future as dystopian as that, but a world of semi-competing but largely separate monopolies is a dispiriting thought. As an Apple fan, | like the fact that Samsung gave the company a run for its money in the premium smartphone space: it forced it to innovate, to sharpen up its software, to show up the bad ideas and copy the good ones. It made the iPhone what it is today. For an idea of what Apple is like when it sits in splendid isolation, take a look at the unchallenged first-party apps on iOS - the ones you're obliged to keep as the default even when better alternatives exist. Calendar is a pale shadow of Fantastical. iBooks is weaker than the Kindle app. Newsstand and Stocks simply aren't very useful for most people. Imagine if all these apps had to fight for their place on your iPhone. Imagine how brilliant they could be. So | hope Samsung lives to fight again, and that Apple has to keep releasing amazing smartphones to stay competitive. Then again, the mechanisms of free- market capitalism are pretty reliable at filling competition vacuums, and perhaps we just need to wait for the next Asian success story to take Samsung's place. How about it, Xiaomi? MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 7 03022015 11:01 | News os | Apple’s Q1 2015 was most profitable quarter any company has ever had Apple reported profits of $18 billion in its latest earnings call, with $74.6 billion revenue BY SUSIE OCHS pple on 27 January announced its earnings for Q1 2015, revealing that it made $18 billion in profit in three months. It's not only the best quarter Apple has ever had, it's the best quarter any company has ever had. The jaw-dropping 74.5 million iPhones sold is a big reason behind this success. But a record-shattering $74.6 billion in revenue wasn't the most interesting part of the earnings conference call, in which Tim Cook took questions from analysts about the rest of Apple's plan for success, & and how to keep this momentum going. Apple Watch hints The Apple Watch has a more solid ship date — sometime in April (at least for the US). Cook said in his prepared statement, “Development for Apple Watch is right on schedule, and we expect to be shipping in April. Developers are hard at work on apps, notifications and information summaries that we call Glances, all designed specifically for the watch’s user interface. The creativity and software innovation going on around Apple Watch is incredibly exciting, and we can’t wait for our customers to experience them when Apple Watch becomes available. An analyst later pressed for more detail, and Cook took the opportunity to make us jealous — he already has an Apple Watch. “My expectations are very high on it. I'm using it every day, and love it, and | can’t live without it. We're making great progress on the development on it, the number of developers that are writing apps for it is impressive and we're seeing some incredible innovation.” Apple sold a record number of iPhones in the quarter, 74.5 million units. That's & MACWORLD + MARCH 2015 l | o08.041 Nows:nad 23.4 million more than the same quarter last year. Cook doesn't expect the iPhone train to stop rolling anytime soon, either: “I would point out that only a small fraction of the installed base has upgraded, so there's a lot more people within the installed base, but | would also point out that we had the highest number of customers new to iPhone last quarter than any prior launch. And also that the current iPhone line-up experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the past three launches in the three previous years.” Cook declined to break out figures of iPhone 6 versus 6 Plus, but he did say this: “What | can tell you is that iPhone 6 was the most popular iPhone last quarter. But obviously to sell 74.5 million, they were really all popular. And all did well. There is clearly a geographic preference difference, where some geos would skew much higher on their preference to iPhone 6 Plus than other geos. So it’s not consistent around the world.” Apple's growth in China also contributed to the iPhone 6's successful launch. Despite not being on sale for the full quarter in China (the iPhone 6 launched there in mid-October), Apple saw 100 percent year-on-year growth. Expect China to become a bigger chunk of Apple's revenue over time, too. “We'll hit 20 [Apple Stores] soon and we're doubling that by mid 2016,” Cook said. “Our online revenues in China last quarter were more than the sum of the previous five years.” iPad sales were soft this quarter at 21.4 million, which is 4.6 million fewer than that sold during the same quarter last year. But Apple remains bullish on the iPad’s long-term prospects. First, iPad is attracting new customers: “I see that the first-time buyer rates are very high. By very high, | mean that if you look at some of the developed markets, like the US, Japan and the UK, you would find that 50 percent of the people are buying an iPad for the first time. If you look in China it's over 70 percent. And so when you have that kind of first-time buyer rates, you don't have a saturated market.” People who like their tablets use them a lot, too: “When | look at the usage, the usage is six times our nearest competitor. Usage measured in web browsing is like 71 percent of total tablets.” Over time, Cook thinks people will keep buying iPads, but probably not as often as they tend to upgrade their iPhones. With iPhones getting bigger and MacBook Airs dropping in price last year, the iPad is also getting squeezed from both sides by Apple’s own products: “There's probably some level of cannibalisation going on, with the Mac on one side and the phone on the other.” The Mac had a great first quarter, selling 5.5 million, up 14 percent year on year. Globally, PC sales continue to creep down slowly, but the Mac’s market share has grown in 34 of the past 35 quarters. Cook also teased that 2015 would hold big advancements for HealthKit, HomeKit and CarPlay. cacon01s 1425 | | os | Apple acquires Semetric’s Musicmetric Apple's acquisition of UK company Semetric shows it wants to know more about your listening habits BY MIKAEL RICKNAS pple has acquired UK firm Semetric and its Musicmetric analytics platform, which could allow the company to keep better track of ‘ Vane Ado he —sfttre thy what its customers listen to. There is little doubt that Apple has plans to step up its music push following last year’s acquisition of the Beats headphone vendor and streaming music service for about |v serie ve vom] a SS Ss demographics and see what's happening on social networks. Musicmetric Pro can also be integrated with iTunes (the two firms are not new acquaintances), Spotify, Facebook Insights and Google Analytics data for in-depth analytics. Integrating Musicmetric would possibly help Apple makes its own offerings more attractive to artists and labels, which depend on attracting $3 billion. The acquisition of Semetric and Musicmetric hints that Apple has larger plans for its future offerings and associated services. In early January, Semetric changed its registered address, as recorded at the UK Companies House, to that of Apple Europe. The move was first spotted by Music Ally, which also pointed out that Semetric has a new director: Gene Daniel Levoff of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California — Apple’s global headquarters. Apple hasn't confirmed the deal and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. What Apple might use Semetric’s platform and know-how for remains to be seen, but Musicmetric would allow it to dig deep into user behaviour. The Musicmetric Pro offering first gives a quick snapshot of how an artist is performing online. It is then possible to drill down to keep track of downloads, as many users as possible, but also making them as attractive as possible for labels and artists. Having a strong analytics platform would help with that. Apple could also use the underlying technology to improve recommendations for users of its services. In addition to music, Semetric’s platform can also be used to analyse the use of television, film, e-book and video game services, which makes the company an even better fit for Apple. Patent reveals plans for an Apple GoPro GoPro shares fall as patent hints at a similar product in the works at Apple BY CAITLIN MCGARRY oPro shareholders may be panicking after Apple's patent application for a wearable camera was approved. One look at Apple’s plans shows why — the application details a GoPro-like wearable for action shots and underwater recording. Apple even takes aim at GoPro in the patent filing. Apple might not ever make a wearable camera, but if it does it'll be a GoPro on steroids. The patent covers a camera that can be mounted to bike helmets and scuba masks or fastened to motorcycles and surfboards. The patent also details l | 008.041 Nowsinad 9 plans for waterproofing so an iPhone could be used for underwater snapshots. Apple critiqued GoPro’s action cameras in the filing, specifically the HD Hero 2 camera sold as part of an ‘Outdoor edition’ bundle. It said that the Hero 2’s single image-capture system causes “excessive wind resistance” and has a large profile that sticks out from the camera “making it more susceptible to damage”. Apple aims to create a camera that can be used in handheld- and mounted modes, with high-quality results both ways. The patent covers an image sensor, optical system and a remote control. GoPro shares fell by more than 12 percent in light of this news. MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 9 oaanors 1404 | | News App Store broke sales record on NYD Apple has announced that 1 January 2015 was the biggest day ever in App Store sales history BY LEAH YAMSHON pple has announced that 1 January 2015 was the “single biggest day ever in App Store sales history’, with customers spending nearly half a million dollars on both apps and in-app purchases. Apple's press release went on to boast of record-breaking sales in 2014, too. App Store sales rose 50 percent in 2014 — and that's just in paid apps and in-app purchases, not including free apps and upgrades — and generated more than $10 billion in revenue for developers. Taking a look back, 2014 was a great year for apps, with the range including HealthKit apps that communicate with the iPhone's M7 or M8 co-processor to deliver your personal data in an easy-to- understand format, and third-party keyboard apps. Plus, some of the games released in 2014 could rival the quality of console titles, not to mention amazing puzzlers and titles from other genres. The launch of iOS 8 could have had something to do with this highly successful year. iOS 8 introduced Apple's Swift programming language and the Metal graphics technology to developers, giving them different tools to create rich, robust apps more efficiently. Other campaigns could have contributed to this success, too, such as Apple's year-end (RED) initiative where all proceeds from specific app purchases when to the Global Fund to fight AIDS. Apple also introduced app bundles to the App Store in 2014, which lets developers package their apps together for users to purchase at a lower price than what those apps would cost if bought individually. “We're so proud of the creativity and innovation developers bring to the apps they create for iOS users and that the developer community has now earned over $25 billion,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet and Software services. Apple sued over iPhone storage space Apple accused of misrepresenting the amount of user-accessible storage on 16GB iPhones and iPads BY GREGG KEIZER pair of Florida men have sued Apple for allegedly misrepresenting the amount of storage space available to owners of 16GB iPhones and iPads. Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara accused Apple of “unfair, unlawful and fraudulent business acts or practices’, including false advertising, and asked a California federal judge to designate the lawsuit as a class action so that others can participate. In the complaint filed on 29 December, Orshan and Endara’s lawyers claims Apple failed to tell buyers that a fifth of the 16GB in low-end iPhones and iPads is 40 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 l | 008.011 News: 10 occupied by the operating system and preinstalled apps, leaving consumers less than the full amount for their own content. “Reasonable consumers do not expect this marked discrepancy between the advertised level of capacity and the available capacity of the devices, as the OS and other storage space unavailable to consumers occupies an extraordinary percentage of their devices’ limited storage capacity,” the complaint states. By the plaintiff's calculations, a 16GB iPhone 6 has 13GB of space available to the user, while the 16GB iPhone 6 Plus and 16GB iPad Air have 12.7- and 12.6GB respectively. The portions of the 16GB inaccessible to users ranged from 19- to 21 percent. The lawsuit also charges Apple with a strategy that used the disparity between the advertised- and actual user-available storage space to push customers into paying for iCloud premium plans. The class-action lawsuit is similar to one that targeted Microsoft in 2012 over the available space on Surface tablets. On its website Apple explains how it calculates storage space on its iOS devices, but has not published figures for user content. Lawyers for the iOS lawsuit's plaintiffs have not responded to questions. caco01s 1425 | | Apple updates OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 os | OS X Yosemite adoption has been swift, but iOS 8 is running on only 68 percent of iPhones and iPads BY CAITLIN MCGARRY, GREGG KEIZER, LEAH YAMSHON pple pushed out OS X Yosemite 1010.2 and iOS 81.3 on 27 January to fix bugs on Macs, iPhones and iPads. For Yosemite users, 1010.2 aims to fix the sluggish Wi-Fi issues that 10.101 also promised to fix but didn't. Updating to 1010.2 should also improve iCloud Drive and VoiceOver, and keep Spotlight from grabbing remote email content in search when you have specifically told it not to. iOS 8113 is said to reduce the amount of storage required to perform a software update. If you were waiting to upgrade from 7 to 8 because your phone didn't have enough space, now may be the time & to get onboard. Apple requested just 136MB of space on our iPad for the iOS 8.1.2 download, and 248MB on an iPhone. The update also aims to fix a glitch that prevents users entering their Apple ID password for Messages and FaceTime, and another that prevents multitasking gestures on the iPad. Both updates are available for download, with Yosemite 1010.2 available in the Mac App Store and iOS 8.1.3 by going to Settings + Software Update. OS X Yosemite adoption Apple's OS X Yosemite continues its rapid pace of adoption since its October release, with uptake exceeding that of any of its predecessors, according to data from analytics vendor Net Applications. The numbers hint that as Apple’s 2013 decision to give away upgrades becomes the norm, future OS X adoption will increase in speed. In December Yosemite accounted for 45 percent of all instances of OS X tallied by Net Applications, and for the first time became the most popular OS X edition. By comparison, OS X Mavericks, an October 2013 upgrade, ended December 2014 with a user share of 37 percent. l | 008.048 News:nas 11 Mountain Lion, released in 2012 and Apple's last paid upgrade, ended its second year post-launch at 26 percent. Mavericks and Mountain Lion took 4- and 12 months respectively to reach Yosemite's two-month mark. Although Yosemite had a head start — unlike Mavericks, Yosemite was offered to Mac owners as a beta for several months before launch — the preview no longer was the cause of the gap. The eight-point difference between the two was double the four points provided by Yosemite's beta before official release. Yosemite's brisk uptake tempo also indicates that even though many have questioned Apple's software quality and called for the company to slow down its release pace, large numbers of Mac owners have continued to upgrade. Net Applications’ data tells nothing about customer satisfaction with Yosemite, of course; rolling back to an earlier version after upgrading requires a backup and more time than most people would want to spend. What's clear is that Apple's bet on free OS X upgrades has been more successful at moving Mac users to the new edition than low-priced upgrades. iOS 8 adoption Apple has shared its latest data on iOS 8 adoption. As of 5 January, 68 percent of iPhones, iPads and iPod touches are running the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. Apple tracks iOS adoption by looking at devices that access the App Store, and marking which version of iOS is running on each of those devices. — a The App Store Distribution data also shows that 29 percent of devices are still running iOS 7, and 4 percent are still clutching to iOS 6 or earlier. Apple’s last iOS adoption data was from November 2014, which showed 60 percent of devices had upgraded to iOS 8. An 8 percent uptick in two months is pretty slow, given the sales boost Apple must have seen during the Christmas season. iOS 8 had a particularly tough time getting off the ground compared to older versions of iOS. iOS 8 saw sky-high installs when it first launched — it hit 46 percent of devices just six days after it launched in September 2014 — but then downloads steadily tapered off. By comparison, iOS 7 hit 74 percent of devices just three months after launch, and quickly became Apple's fastest growing mobile operating system. There are several theories on why iOS 8 installations are lagging. Bugs plagued early releases — iOS 8.01 made some iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models basically unusable. It continues to have little problems here and there, and some older devices might not be equipped to handle the update even if they are technically compatible. Or, it could have been the massive size of the install itself, which has significantly reduced since iOS 81.3 arrived. MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 11 caco01s 1425 | | — ll Ue * | | Features 8ST VALUE MAC, BEST DESKTOP MAC TA \ VAL DESKTOP (012_019 best value macindd 12 as 0202/2015. 14:01 o ae IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A LOW-COST MAC THE £399 MAC MINI AND THE £749 MACBOOK AIR ARE LIKELY TO BE YOUR TOP CHOICES, BUT WHICH OF THE PAIR WILL GIVE YOU THE BEST DEAL? PLUS, iMAC VS MAC MINI — WHICH DESKTOP MAC IS BEST? By Karen Haslam he £749 entry-level MacBook Air is almost twice as expensive as the £399 Mac mini, but there is a great deal missing from the Mac mini - not least a mouse, keyboard and display. On the other hand, you may decide there is a better deal to be had if you buy the £799 version of the Mac mini, with its faster processor and larger storage options. The new entry-level Mac mini and the MacBook Air have a lot in common. The cheapest Mac mini has the same 1.4GHz dual-core processor as the MacBook Air range, for example. The two Macs also share the same Intel HD Graphics 5000 integrated graphics card. There are three standard Mac mini models and four MacBook Airs, plus a number of build-to-order options. So let's look at the pros and cons of each and offer buying advice to suit your needs. SPEGS: Let's start with the MacBook Air. It comes in two different sizes: an tin model and a 13in. The main and most noticeable difference is the resulting screen size — an 11.6in diagonal on the tin MacBook compared with a 13.3in diagonal on the 18in model. You'll notice that the aspect ratio is different too: the lin MacBook Air is 16:9, like a widescreen TV, while the Port paradise With an HDMI port as well as Gigabit Ethernet and Thunderbolt 2, the Mac mini offers more ways to get stuff in and out. 012.019 best value mac.indd 13 —_— 13in is 16:10. This means that there is a little more height in the 13in version, which might be beneficial. Beyond that there is little difference between the MacBook Airs other than storage capacity and price. Each offers a 1.4GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor as standard, along with the Intel HD Graphics 5000 integrated graphics and 4GB of RAM. The only choice is between the 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. There are also build-to-order options for the MacBook Air. You can get it with 8GB of RAM at point of sale for another £80 — and we recommend you do so. You can also swap out the standard 1.4GHz chip for a 17GHz dual-core Intel Core iS for an extra £130. If you think you might need 512GB of flash storage, then that will cost you £240 extra. And then there’s the Mac mini range, which was updated at the end of 2014. Portable paradise The MacBook Air comes with its own keyboard and an integral 11.6in or 13.3in screen. The mini is sold in three configurations. The cheapest has the same 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core iS processor and integrated graphics chip as the MacBook Air and entry-level iMac desktop. It also has a S00GB hard drive. These are essentially the same specs as the £899 iMac, but at a cost of just £399; that’s a saving of £500, more than enough to buy a separate monitor and keyboard and mouse. The other Mac mini models offer quite a step up from the entry-level model, although they lag behind the now discontinued 2012 Mac mini. The 2.6GHz dual-core iS Mac mini offers 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard disk, and Intel Iris Graphics. It costs £569. The RAM can be upgraded to 16GB at point of purchase. There are also options for configuring the Mac mini with flash storage or a faster i7 processor. The £799 2.8GHz dual-core i5 Mac mini offers 8GB of RAM, a 1TB Fusion Drive (combining a hard drive and flash storage), and Intel Iris Graphics. These two Mac minis — the 2.6GHz and the 2.8GHz — have comparable MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 43 conoaois 1421 | | Features BEST VALUE MAC, BEST DESKTOP MAC processors to those inside the 13in Retina MacBook Pro, but you can expect the faster flash storage in the MacBooks to give those models a boost. Specs verdict Given the similarities of the specs, it is no surprise that the new Mac mini’s processor and graphics performance is similar to that of the MacBook Air. In our tests the entry-level 2014 Mac mini scored 5401 points in the multi-core speed Geekbench 3 processor/memory test. Back in July, Geekbench 3 indicated an average score of 5392 for the lin MacBook Air and 5400 for the 13in model we were testing. While those results aren't identical, the difference is mainly due to the Mac mini being tested while running OS X 10.10, while the test MacBook Air device was running 10.9. We would expect the MacBook Air to be slightly faster than the Mac mini, thanks to its flash storage. STORAGE The storage options vary enormously for the MacBook Air and Mac mini ranges. The Mac mini features a 500GB hard drive at entry-level, a 1TB hard drive at the mid-range, and a 1TB Fusion Drive at the high end. The MacBook Air offers the choice of a 128GB or 256GB SSD - this flash storage is considerably faster than the old- fashioned hard drive in the Mac mini. However, the Fusion Drive option in the top-of-the-range Mac mini offers the best Extras With a keyboard and monitor added, the Mac mini can be a powerful desktop. of both worlds — the additional storage offered by a hard drive combined with faster flash storage. The ability to get a 1TB Fusion Drive as standard on the £799 Mac mini is in its favour; you can't upgrade the MacBook Air to a Fusion Drive at all. The most storage you can get in a MacBook Air is 512GB, and that will set you back £240. Storage verdict If you're prepared to pay £799 for your new Mac, the Mac mini with its 1TB Fusion Drive for £799 may well be a better option than the entry-level MacBook Air, with its paltry 128GB of storage. However, you could always buy an external hard 44 MACWORLD * MARCH 2015 l | o%2.o%@best vate macings 14 drive to store media files on that might fill up your limited storage; it’s pretty simple to run your photo and music library off an external hard drive, for example. PORTS The Mac mini's big plus here is that it includes an HDMI port, making it really easy to plug into your TV, and so a perfect choice if you want a media centre for your living room. While you could use an adaptor to turn the Mini DisplayPort output on the MacBook Air into HDMI, that would come at an extra cost. Prior to Apple's 2014 upgrade to the Mac mini, FireWire 800 was another port the Mac mini had and the MacBook Air didn’t. That, however, is no longer the case. The old MacBook Pro is the only Mac that still features this port. Other ports on the Mac mini include Gigabit Ethernet, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3 ports, the HDMI port, audio in and a headphone port, an IR receiver, and an SDXC card slot. The ports on the MacBook Air are: one Thunderbolt port, one USB 3 port, and a Width-wise The tin MacBook Air has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and the 13in model a 16:10. conoaois 1421 | | headphone port. Only the 13in model offers an SDXC card slot. Crucially the MacBook Air lacks Gigabit Ethernet, so you can only use it wirelessly unless you buy a Thunderbolt or USB to Gigabit adaptor (25 each). Ports verdict Here the Mac mini has the edge because of its HDMI port, which is great if you're hoping to attach it to your TV. The Mac mini also comes with faster Thunderbolt 2 ports, and Ethernet, although the ports offered by the MacBook Air may be enough for your needs. DISPLAY OPTIONS The MacBook Air comes with an integrated 1in or 18in display. Screen resolution is 1440x900 for the 13in model and 1366x768 for the Min The 13in version has the usual 16:10 MacBook aspect ratio — a good balance between 16:9 widescreen for fullscreen video, and a taller display that aids productivity. The 1lin model of the 2014 MacBook Air has a 16:9 display. Unfortunately, the display on both MacBook Airs stands out as the poorest performing of any current Apple product. We measured only 63 percent of the sRGB colour gamut with our Datacolor Spyder4Elite display calibrator, and viewing angles for the twisted-nematic (TN) glossy panel are limited. You could always plug in an external display and use your MacBook Air with that when at your desk. The Mac mini doesn’t come with a display supplied as standard, so you will need either to use one you've already got, or buy one. You can pick up a separate monitor for around £100. Or you could spend more than twice as what you lay out for the Mac l | 012 o19best vate macings 15 mini itself and buy an Apple Thunderbolt Display for £899. As mentioned, you can also plug your Mac mini straight into your widescreen TV. However, we wouldn't recommend working on a Mac with a television screen as a monitor, though: Display options verdict The key difference here between the MacBook Air and a Mac mini is the former's integrated display, but given that this display is small and not as good as other Apple screens, you may find yourself factoring in the cost of a display anyway. If you add the cost of a decent display to the price of the lower-cost Mac mini it doesn’t look like such a cheap, option, but you may want to factor the cost of a decent display into the price of the MacBook Air too. PORTABILITY The (lin MacBook Air is the lightest Mac you can get, at just 1.08kg. The 13in model isn't much heavier at 1.35kg. The iPad Air 2, for example, weighs 444g, so the lin MacBook Air is approximately the same weight as two iPad Airs. The tin MacBook Air measures 30cm by 19.2cm and is 1.7cm thin, tapering to 0.3cm at its edge. The 13in model is 32cm by 22.7cm and, like the lin model is 17cm thin, tapering to 0.3cm at its edge. The 2014 Mac mini, on the other hand, is a tiny 20cm square box that's less than 4cm deep. You could probably carry it around in your bag, although you'd also need to drag around a monitor, mouse and keyboard too. But if it's a desktop Mac you want that takes up very little space, then the Mac mini is perfect. Portability verdict The MacBook Air is clearly more portable than the Mac mini. And while the Mac mini might be light, it’s not really one to carry around given its limited use without a monitor. UPGRADABILITY One of the best things about the 2012 Mac mini was that it was more upgradable than any other Mac. It used to be possible to upgrade both hard drive and RAM with parts purchased separately, rather than having to choose the upgrade options available from Apple at point of purchase. Sadly the new 2014 Mac mini is not so upgradable. Apple has soldered the RAM in place. However, there is one factor in the Mac mini’s favour: you can still upgrade its storage. iFixit.com gave the old Mac mini a repairability rating of 8 out of 10 in its teardown. The new 2014 Mac mini soldered-on RAM makes it impossible to update it at any time after purchase. iFixit gave the 2014 Mac mini a 6 out of 10. The MacBook Air ships with only 4GB of RAM; you can boost this to 8GB for an extra £80 when you buy it and we recommend you do so because there will be no opportunity to upgrade later on, because, as with the new Mac mini, the RAM is soldered on. As with the Mac mini, you can upgrade the storage, although doing so would void your warranty. iFixit gives the 2014 MacBook Air a repairability score of 4 out of 10. Light as Air The smaller MacBook Air is the lightest Mac around at just over 1kg, while the 13in model isn't much heavier at 1.35kg. MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 45 conoaois 1421 | | Features Upgradability verdict The Mac mini used to be the Mac for people who liked to tinker. Not any more. You won't be able to touch the RAM, for example, as it is soldered on. The MacBook Air is a similarly tricky machine to upgrade, although if iFixit’s rating is anything to go by, the Mac mini still has the edge. BEST VALUE The Mac mini is Apple’s cheapest Mac at £399, but you will have to factor in the cost of a monitor, mouse and keyboard. Add even the cheapest monitor (around £150) and the cheapest Apple keyboard and mouse options (£40 each), and you are looking at around £629 altogether. The cheapest MacBook is the £749 ‘tin MacBook Air, with a 1.4GHz processor, 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD. The entry-level laptop is almost twice the price of the entry- ® level Mac mini. For £50 more you could get the ultimate Mac mini with a BEST VALUE MAC, BEST DESKTOP MAC faster 2.8GHz processor, 8GB of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive. Best value verdict The price of the £399 Mac mini — along with a monitor, mouse and keyboard — is comparable to the £749 MacBook Air with its 11in monitor. That model has the same spec as the Mac mini and you get a built-in display. However, any display you buy to use with the Mac mini is likely to be much larger than the MacBook Air's in or 1in options, so we reckon the Mac mini has the edge there. Ifyou have the budget for a £749 MacBook Air and already own a screen, we recommend spending the money instead on the 2.8GHz Mac mini, which costs £50 more at £799 and includes 8GB of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive as standard. That's assuming that you don't need a portable Mac, though. Possibly the best value way to buy a Mac is to purchase it second-hand. There are a variety of ways you can do this. Apple's Refurbished store (at tinyurl. com/Spdvyo) sells Macs that have been returned (if there was a fault it will have been rectified and the Mac still has a one-year warranty). You may also find a good deal on eBay or on Macworld's own mResell site (mresell.macworld. co.uk), where we buy and sell old Macs, iPads and iPhones. Which is the cheapest of them all? The entry-level Mac mini for £399, BEST DESKTOP MAC: iMac vs Mac mini fyou are in the market for a desktop Mac, you may be wondering whether to buy an iMac or a Mac mini. The Mac Pro is also a possibility, but as. that’s such a very high-end Mac, with a very high price, we'll consider just the iMac and the Mac mini here. SPECS There are six different iMacs and three different Mac minis available with a number of build-to-order options. The iMac is an all-in-one desktop computer with an integrated display. Screen sizes available include 21.5in and 27in (a 21.5in and 27in screen diagonal respectively), and there's a variety of chip speeds (all processors are Intel's Haswell generation), hard-drive sizes, graphics cards and RAM options. 46 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 l | o%2.or@best vate macinds 16 Last year Apple introduced the 21.5in iMac, with 1.4GHz dual-core processor and 8GB of memory (not upgradable, even at point of purchase, as it is soldered on), Intel HD Graphics 5000 and a 500GB hard drive. It costs £899. Joining the iMac line-up at the end of 2014 was the Retina 5K iMac. At the other end of the scale from the £899 iMac, this 27in model offers a 3.5GHz quad-core i5 processor with 8GB of RAM as standard (you can add 16GB or 32GB of RAM and a 4GHz quad-core Intel i7 at point of purchase — for a price). The Retina 5K will cost you £1,999, more than double the price of the entry-level model, and even more if you spec it up to the max. There are four other standard versions of the iMac to choose between. These were introduced in October 2013 and have not been updated by Apple since. The standard chip in those models is an Intel quad-core iS that ranges from 2.7GHz to 3.4GHz (although there is a configuration option of a 3.5GHz quad- core Intel 7). Each comes with 8GB of RAM as standard (configurable to 18GB or 32GB at the high end) and a 1TB hard drive as standard (configurable to 3TB, an SSD option or a Fusion Drive, which combines an SSD and a hard drive). One of these standard models offers the Intel Iris Pro Graphics card — a step up from the Intel HD Graphics 5000 in the £899 model. The rest offer variants of the nVidia GeForce GT series (750M, 755M and 775M). This dedicated graphics card has its own 1GB of memory on most models (2GB on the high-end model, configurable to 4GB). All the iMacs feature an SDXC card slot, four USB 3 ports, two Thunderbolt ports conoaois 1421 | | Eye-stretchers There are six iMac models, all supplied with a 21.5in or 27in screen. (Thunderbolt 2 on the Retina model), Gigabit Ethernet and a Mini DisplayPort output. All come with an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse. The 2014 Mac mini is a different beast altogether. It fits in a tiny 20cm square box less than 4cm deep. There is no monitor, mouse or keyboard included. Updated at the end of 2014, the Mac mini is now sold in three configurations. The entry-level Mac mini and the entry-level iMac introduced in mid 2014 have much in common. The cheapest Mac mini has the same 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 chip and integrated graphics chip as the entry-level iMac. It also features a 500GB hard drive. For what are essentially the same specs as the £899 iMac, you pay just £399 for the Mac mini — that's a saving of £500, more than enough to buy a separate monitor, keyboard and mouse. The other Mac mini models include one with a 2.6GHz dual-core i5 chip, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard disk, and Intel Iris Graphics. It costs £569. At point of purchase it is possible to upgrade the RAM to 16GB, and add flash storage or a faster i7 processor. The 2.8GHz dual-core i5 Mac mini comes with 8GB of RAM, a 1TB Fusion Drive and Intel Iris Graphics. It costs £799. Specs verdict In terms of specs the iMac is a better deal than the Mac mini because of its more l | 0%2.o1@best vate macinds 17 modern processors, bigger RAM and better graphics. It also offers an integrated monitor. However, if you look to the top-of-the-range Mac mini models, the specs are impressive for the price. STORAGE The iMac and Mac mini storage options are very similar. Each offers a 500GB hard drive at entry-level, a 1TB hard drive at the mid-range and a 1TB Fusion Drive at the high end. os | Being able to pick up a Fusion Drive as standard on the £799 Mac mini (it’s a £160 option for the mid-range Mac mini and a £200 option for the £399 model) is undoubtedly a point in its favour. Having a Fusion Drive will make a huge difference to your Mac’s performance. The iMac range also offers Fusion Drive options. You can add a Fusion Drive to the entry-level iMac for £200 — worth doing because with the Fusion Drive the machine is as good as the next step up and will still cost less. The Fusion Drive upgrade is £160 across the other iMacs. Storage verdict The storage upgrade options are the same, but the starting price is so different that you can essentially get a pretty decent Mac mini for less than the cost of the entry-level iMac. PORTS, When it comes to ports, the Mac mini has the advantage of including an HDMI, which makes it really easy to plug it into your TV to act as a media centre for your living room. You could use an adaptor to turn the Mini Bigger picture Add the cost of a good display and the Mac mini is not so cheap. MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 47 conono1s 14202 | | Features BEST VALUE MAC, BEST DESKTOP MAC DisplayPort output on the iMac into HDMI, but that would cost extra. Other ports on the Mac mini include Gigabit Ethernet, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, four USB 3 ports, the HDMI port, audio in and a headphone port, an IR receiver and an SDXC card slot. The ports on the iMac are: Gigabit Ethernet, two Thunderbolt (only the Retina iMac has Thunderbolt 2), four USB 3, a headphone, a Kensington lock slot and an SDXC card slot. Ports verdict Here again the Mac mini has something of an edge because of its HDMI port, which is great if you were hoping to attach it to your TV. However, you wouldn't need to connect the iMac to your TV in the first place as it comes with a screen as standard, which takes us to our next point. To boggle at The Retina screen of the top-range iMac displays 147 million pixels 48 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 l | 212 o%9best vate macings 18 DISPLAY OPTIONS The iMac comes with an integrated 21.5in or 27in display. The ultimate iMac has a Retina display boasting an astonishing 5120x2880 pixels — a total of 14.7 million. The other iMac displays may not be as ground-breaking, but they are still good quality. They feature IPS (in-plane switching) technology, which makes a huge difference to colour vibrancy and reproduction. Earlier iMac models were criticised by some for too reflective a display. The 2013 model remedied this and the Retina iMac went one step further, adding a special film that improves off-axis viewing. However, if you are a designer and need colour accuracy, you might be better off with another display. The good news here is you can plug another display into the back of your iMac and have two displays. The Mac mini doesn’t come with a display at all, so if you don't have one already, you'll need to buy one separately. You can pick up a monitor for around £100, or you could double the cost of the Mac mini by buying an Apple Thunderbolt Display for £899. Although you can plug your Mac mini into your TV, we wouldn't recommend a TV screen as your working monitor. Buy with an eye to the future Because upgrading an iMac is not for the faint of heart. Display options verdict The key difference here is the presence of the integrated display on the iMac. If you add the cost of a decent display to the price of the lower-cost Mac mini it doesn't look like such a cheap option. UPGRADABILITY One of the 2012 Mac mini’s best features was its enormous upgradability. You could not only upgrade the hard drive and the RAM, but do so at any time with parts purchased separately. The new 2014 Mac mini is very different. Apple has soldered the RAM in place, so it can't be changed. You can, however, still upgrade the storage. iFixlt.com gave the old Mac mini a repairability rating of 8 out of 10; it gave the 2014 Mac mini a 6 out of 10. When it comes to the iMac, upgrading is no job for the faint-hearted. If you aren't prepared to pull your Mac apart, you may be wise to fully spec the iMac out when you buy it. There are a number of build- to-order options, so if you think you may need more RAM or a bigger hard drive, or an SSD at a later date, get it put in when oaeanors 1404 | | you buy it. However, you will pay much more for the extra RAM and storage doing it like this than if you do it yourself. You can't add your own RAM to the 21in iMac without hassle. You'll need to take it apart and cut through a lot of adhesive to get to the memory slots, which are hidden behind the logic board. So unless you really like to get your hands dirty, you are stuck with Apple's base 8GB or expensive build-to-order options. As for other upgrades, don't even go there. The CPU is soldered to the logic board, so it can't be replaced if something goes wrong. Upgrading the RAM in a 27in iMac is easier. According to iFixit's teardown of the 27in iMac, the hard drive and CPU can be replaced, although you'll need to cut the adhesive. The Retina iMac scored 5 out of 10 for repairability on iFixit, the 21.5in iMacs even lower: 2 out of 5 for the entry-level 21in iMac. Upgradability verdict The Mac mini used to be for people who liked to tinker. No more. The RAM, for example, is untouchable. If you buy an iMac (especially the 21.5in model), your specification is pretty well fixed. There again, it has better specs than the Mac mini to begin with. BEST VALUE The Mac mini is Apple’s cheapest Mac at £399 although it lacks monitor, mouse and keyboard. Add even the cheapest monitor (£150) and Apple keyboard and mouse options (£40 each), and the total price is around £629. That makes it comparable to the £899 iMac, which has the same spec as the Mac mini. To compare like for like, you'd need a more l | 012 o19bestvatiemacings 10 expensive monitor to go with your Mac mini, although you may already own that monitor. So in terms of the entry-level iMac and Mac mini, it certainly looks like the Mac mini is the best value. The iMacs and Mac minis are less comparable outside the entry-level category, as the Mac mini uses dual-core chips while the iMac has a quad-core. So even if you take the most highly specced Mac mini — the £799, 2.8GHz dual-core — and compare it to the £1,049 2.7GHz iMac, the latter has a quad-core chip and Intel Iris Pro Graphics (the Mac mini has Intel Iris Graphics). The one thing in that Mac mini’s favour is its 1TB Fusion Drive, which will help speed it up. The iMac will cost you £250 more than the Mac mini in this case, and another £160 if you wanted to add the Fusion Drive. That's at least £250 for a quad-core processor, which is essentially the only difference, apart from the display. Mod quad iMacs have a quad-core chip, as well as more RAM and better graphics than the Mac mini Basic bargain The entry-level Mac minis starting price is so low it has to be considered. Beyond those two iMacs there isn’t really a comparable model to the Mac mini range. Best value verdict We'd recommend the entry-level £399 Mac mini over the iMac. But beyond that it gets a bit murky. If you are considering only the entry- level Mac mini, the price of the iMac is significantly higher. You could equip the cheaper Mac with a monitor, mouse and keyboard, and still have cash left over. So the Mac mini is undoubtedly the cheapest way to buy a Mac. But if it's cheap you are after, it’s worth considering the £749 MacBook Air, which has the same specs as the entry-level iMac and Mac mini — 4GB of memory and 1.4GHz dual-core Intel i5 chip. It also has an Intel HD Graphics 5000. The only difference is that the MacBook Air ships with 128GB of flash storage — which will make it faster than the Mac mini — and an lin display, which may be big enough for your needs. That entry-level MacBook Air costs £350 more than the Mac mini. MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 19 oaeanors 1404 | | | oO e l | 020.022 Mac Trcksinss. 20 Features / 10 mac TRICKS MAC TRICKS 10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNO ~ YOUR MAC COULD DO MACS ARE INCREDIBLE COMPUTERS BUT WITH A LITTLE SECRET KNOWLEDGE AND A HANDFUL OF ADD-IN APPS YOU'LL BE STUNNED BY WHAT THEY’RE REALLY CAPABLE OF BY KEIR THOMAS DISPLAY iPAD AND IPHONE GAMEPLAY Beaming iOS games to your TV is possible via an Apple TV box and AirPlay, and is great for sharing your fun with others, but what if you want to show iOS output on your Mac's screen? If your Mac is running Yosemite or later, and your device is running iOS 8 and has a Lightning USB connector, then you've everything you need. Just attach the iOS device to your Mac, then start QuickTime Player on the Mac. Click File + New Movie Recording, and you'll see QuickTime Player attempt to record via your Mac’s iSight camera. However, if you click the small down arrow next to the record button on the controller, you can select your iOS device under the Camera and Microphone headings. There’s no need to actually record anything, and moving the mouse cursor out of the window will hide the controls and window border. You can even switch the QuickTime Player window to full-screen in the usual way by clicking the green maximise button. 20 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 o —| 20pm Anewly hotchedfshis called afry.Se ceuel cealy OS) Score a total of 50 points from the crabs. Level 26 4210 got 1POOPERS Baa Not got the hardware or software required? Try using AirServer, which runs on a Mac or PC and works with any iOS device capable of AirPlay (iOS 4.2 or later). () conono1s 1945 | | y 5) RUN WINDOWS APPS NATIVELY There's still a handful of Windows-only apps around that many people absolutely rely on, such as Quicken financial software. A solution here is provided in the form of CrossOver Mac, which is a commercial version of the Wine project, which aims to recreate the Windows under-the-hood components on both Linux and Mac. It’s not cheap at £38, but there’s a 14-day free trial available, and it's worth noting that CrossOver Mac can even run many Windows games. Ifyou fancy a free-of-charge approach, then try the more hands-on WineBottler. CrossOver lets you run Windows ‘applications on your Mac. By scittone 8B contacts 5 FB cannes @ crattacedock.com (Meira (Ey Srey (@ Enable This Account Update Profile Phates. your Mac, then you can raid the social networks’ profile pictures to update your iCloud address book. To do this, open System Preferences, click Internet Accounts, then select your Facebook or Twitter account at the left. Then click the Update Profile Photos button. = ee GRAB CONTACT PHOTOS @= BO SS FROM FACEBOOK ace a | _ If you've signed into Facebook or Twitter on | l | 020.029 Mac Ticksings 24 BEAM MOVIES TO YOUR TELLY — WITHOUT AIRPLAY AirPlay is a terrific way of viewing movies on your TV or listening to songs, but it requires an Apple TV. If you've a modern internet-compatible TV, though, you might find it's compatible with DLNA, which means you can beam files directly to it over the network. Alternatively, most games consoles are DLNA-compatible. To use DLNA on your Mac, you'll need an app like PS3 Media Server, which regardless of name should work with all DLNA-compatible TVs and is free although you have to install Java (you'll be prompted during installation). Once the app is installed you'll need to point it at where your video or audio files are stored on your Mac by clicking the Navigation/Share Settings tab, and then clicking the Restart Server button. Your Mac should then appear automatically on your TV or PS3 in the list of available devices to play from. MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 24 conono1s 1945 | | Features / 10 MAc TRICKS USE ANDROID GAMES AND APPS By installing GenyMotion on your Mac, which is free for personal use, you can use a virtual Android tablet. Click the Add button on the GenyMotion toolbar and then select Custom Tablet in the Device Model drop-down list. Choose Custom tablet — 43 — API18 — 2560x1600. Once the emulated Android installation has been set up, you'll need to add in a few hacks in order to make it into a full Android system. Start your emulated tablet by double- clicking its entry in the list so it boots to the unlock screen. Then on your Mac download the ARM translation software, and drop the zip file you downloaded on top of the tablet emulation program window (don't unzip it first! Click OK to install, wait until a second dialog box appears, then close and restart your emulated tablet (if you see a failure “ Genyrotion for personal usa - Custom Tablet 4.3 APL 18 - 2560x1600 (2560x1600, S20cp) — 192.168 56.101 Top DEVELOPER eee R.AIAM people thi To get you Biddy ot Fate & review pres: More by Rovio. ‘ur th Birdy message, just restart anyway). Then on your Mac, download the Google Apps zip and again drop it over the emulated tablet window, and follow the instructions before restarting (again, don't worry if you see a failure message). Angry Birds When you restart the tablet, you'll then need to follow the instructions in order to set it up as a new device, but you should find that Play Store is now available and will allow you to install apps and games. CREATE A FILE SERVER An old Mac you no longer use you can be turned into a file server for other Macs and Windows computers to store data on — useful for backup purposes, especially if you attach an external hard disk. Just open System Preferences, click Sharing, and then put a tick alongside File Sharing. You'll be shown an address to use. On a Mac that wants to save files on your new server, open Finder and click Go + Connect To Server, then type the afp:// address provided. On a Windows computer, open the Start menu and in the Search field type two backslashes and just the part of the address following the afp:/ part of the list (something like \\192.168.15). Your users can log in using the Mac's username and password if they don't mind seeing each other's files, or you can use the Users & Groups component of System Preferences to create a separate account for each user. 22 MACWORLD - MARCH 2015 l | 020.022 Mac Trcksinss 20 ee < Computer Name: MacBook Pro MacBook-Pro.local On Service Screen Sharing File Sharing Printer Sharing Remote Login all volum: Remote Management Remote Apple Events Internet Sharing Bluetooth Sharing (uvesktop (Documents [ovies + )= Sharing Q ‘Computers on your local network can access your computer at © File Sharing: On Other users can access shared folders on this computer, and administ , at “afp://192.168.1.5" or “smb://192.168.1.5" Shared Folders: (N)DTP's Public Folder [Bikeir Tho... lic Folder uthorin.li¢ Folder [Bicreate's... ic Folder Edit... tors Options. Users: Aor Read &Write ¢ 3 Staff ReadOnly = ¢ fab everyone No Access $ rS oaeanors 1045 | | RUN VINTAGE MAC OS If you want a nostalgia blast, you can run older versions of Mac OS on your Mac. Apple’s made the older Mac OS 7 and 9 releases free of charge and although you can get System 9 directly from them (tinyurl.com/m3q3www), System 7 has been lots to the mists of time. However, a quick Google will reveal it for download at several sites. The equally free Sheep Shaver software is able to run them. Getting it all working can time-consuming, however, and by Googling you may find some ready-made operating system images you can install and double-click SPEAK WHAT YOU WANT This is an old trick but one that’s been given a new lease of life in recent versions of OS X because of extremely realistic voice synthesis. To make your Mac say what you type, open a Terminal window (you'll find it in the Utilities folder of Finder), then type ‘say’ and hit Enter. Then type what you want to say and hit Enter after each line. When you've finished, just close the Terminal window. ker — sey — 72x21 — 81 Macbook-Pro:~ ketr$ say hello keir is cool ‘as everybody knows macworld is also cool l | 020.022 Mac Trcksinda 20 RESCUE FILES FROM A DAMAGED MAC If a Mac is misbehaving to the point where it won't boot, but you believe the hard disk is still intact, then you might be able to use another Mac to access its files. Turn on the Mac that’s broken and immediately hold down the T key. This will boot it into Target Disk Mode, which should work even if the Mac can’t boot normally. Then connect the Mac to the second Mac via a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The damaged Mac will appear in Finder as an external drive, just like a USB stick. Jece 7 - DTA (= tween 0) ‘At Soman og CEXIETI) tnan gin Tenn Ameren Eng Arwen Engin Trent Hepa >) Grammar ‘neve year grammar hs begun enjoy pater pominese an ie ‘eos important of ese puters at eleva setae ofeach Word, as eg gudancs ca language se wells Wor means. For empl, withthe word bomb, pose dstingush he main senses of he verb sun one ass othe rama wheter he Ver aks Set object no det bec orbs dct Sex pis obo Ersehs cemezense ack apace or bt” wid a Bomb of bmb ‘hey bombed he ta de anne ema (teasers mach be ic obetin he example wit the backer tem, trike detain cemzanse rat (of Sl ple, or ter ven fay jt become anti bt im that bomb ooo) TEACH YOURSELF DEEP ENGLISH Most people know that Macs include a very capable Dictionary app, which can be found in the Applications list. But what most people don't know is that it not only contains the entire dictionary, but also introductory pages explaining how the English language is structured and how dictionaries are created. To access it, just open the Dictionary app, then click Go + Front/Back Matter. MARCH 2015 - MACWORLD 23 02/02/2015 1240 | | Features / seTTING UP ANEW MAC Setting up a new Mac Getting anew Apple Mac computer is cause for celebration. Lou Hattersley shows how to get started etting up a new Mac should be easy, quick and above all fun. It's not every day you get a brand new Apple computer, so it's best to start off on the right foot. In this article we're going to look at setting up and getting started with a new Mac. We'll look at switching on the computer, running through the setup process, entering your account details and transferring data from an old Mac. Starting your new Mac Starting a new Mac couldn't be easier. Unbox it and plug in the power supply (most MacBooks carry some charge from when they were tested, but it's 24 MACWORLD + MARCH 2015 | (024_025 Set up aNew Mac.indd 24 best to plug it in anyway). If you've got a new Mac mini or brand new Mac Pro, then you'll also need to attach a monitor, and either a USB keyboard or mouse. Make sure that you have batteries Setting Up Your Mac. inside the Apple Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse or Apple Wireless Keyboard. Press the Power button! Setup Assistant When an Apple Mac runs for the first time, it launches a program called Setup Assistant. This is used to help you set up your Mac, connect to the internet and guide you through the account creation process. It also runs you through the legal documents and helps you decide on your privacy settings (these affect apps such as Find My Friends). Each screen offers selections and a Continue button. Here are the screens on Setup Assistant: 20212015 10 | | * Welcome to your new Mac This screen displays a Map. Select a country near you and press Continue. Select your keyboard. Check that the keyboard is set to British (not US). You may need to click Show All to reveal the British keyboard layout. * Choose your Wi-Fi Network You need to connect to a network. These will typically be a Wi-Fi network. Choose your network’s SSID (name) and enter the password. If you don’t know your Wi-Fi password it may be written on the side of your router. * Transfer information to this Mac If you are upgrading from an old Mac, you can use the Time Machine backup to transfer information to your new Mac. This uses a program called Migration Assistant. It's worth noting that you can Tun Migration Assistant at any time, you don’t need to do it just now. So click on Not Now and Continue. if you don’t fancy getting an Apple ID you can click Skip and sign up for one later. * Terms and Conditions You'll now be asked to read and agree to the Terms and Conditions. Read through these and click Agree, then Agree again. * Set up iCloud Next you'll be asked to set up iCloud. This requires you to have signed in with your Apple ID. We think iCloud is fantastic. It syncs up your contacts, calendars, Mail accounts, web browser information, reminders, notes and provides you with SGB of storage space to store documents in the new iCloud Drive. Enable Set Up iCloud on this Mac and click Continue. * Setting up FaceTime and Messages The next window asks whether you want to use your email for FaceTime and Messages. Your iCloud email will appear by default, but if you have registered other emails with Apple they may appear. We'll look at switching on the computer, running through the setup process, entering your account details and transferring data from an old Mac * Enable Location Services Location Services enables apps to locate your position on earth. You have to give each app permission to do this, and Apple apps and services, like Maps and Find My Friends make good use of this. We think it's a good idea to tick Enable Location Services on My Mac and Continue, but it’s up to you. * Setting up your Mac with Apple ID It's now time to enter your Apple ID and Password. This is the same Apple ID that you use to make purchases from the App Store. It is an email address, and usually one that ends in ‘icloud.com’. If you don't have an Apple ID, then it's a good idea to create one by clicking on Create a Free Apple ID. You'll need to provide a credit card to get an Apple ID, but it can be used to locate missing Apple Mac computers, provide a good password lock, and it enables you to download new (often free) apps from the Mac App Store. But | (024_025 Set up aNew Mac.indd 25 Tick the checkbox next to email addresses you want to use with FaceTime and Messages and click Continue. * Find My Mac Now you'll be asked whether you want to use iCloud with Find My Mac. This is a service Apple runs which helps you to locate lost Macs. A Mac you own will send its location when you ask it from another devices, or from the iCloud.com website when you sign in to it. We think it's a great idea to tick this on and click Continue. * Accounts You'll next be asked to set up your account. You need to fill out the Full Name field, this will give you an Account Name and Password fields. Makes sure you pick a good password, but also one you can remember. In this screen you will also see two options: Allow My Apple ID To Reset This User's Password; Require Password When Logging In. We think it’s a good idea to keep both of these ticked on. Click Continue. * Select your Time Zone If you agreed to Location Services earlier, you can just leave the Set Time Zone Automatically Using Current Location and click on Continue. This way the Mac will change time zone if you enter a new time zone area. Otherwise pick the time zone you want to use and click Continue. * Diagnostics and Usage This is a new feature in OS X Yosemite. In this window Apple requests whether you want to share information with Apple and other app developers. There are two options here: Send diagnostics & usage data to Apple Share crash data with app developers The first option is ticked by default, the second you'll have to tick manually (if you agree to sharing crash data with developers). We share our crash data with developers because we want them to be able to improve the apps we use, but it depends on your privacy concerns. Click Continue when you are ready to move on * Should you register your new Mac with Apple? Finally, you can choose to Register your Mac with Apple. We tend to register my Macs with Apple, and they already send me marketing emails (which are the few marketing emails we welcome). But you can click Skip if you don't want to get marketing from Apple. That's it. The final screen will simply say Thank You. Click Continue and start using your Mac. The best thing you can do before going any further is to click on the App Store app and click on Updates. Now click on Update All. There will almost certainly have been some new software released since the Apple Mac left the factory, and updating the software before you go any further makes sure you are off to a good start. MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 25 20212015 1308 | | Features / 10 APPS TO INSTALL ON A NEW MAC The first 10 apps to install on your new Mac Glenn Fleishman reveals 10 apps that will enhance your user experience t used to be all the rage to photograph in excruciating detail the ‘unboxing’ of a new piece of gear, especially hardware that few people (or no-one else) yet had. This was great, but it's sort of like a wedding: the event is relatively brief and the important stuff comes afterwards, 26 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 | (026 029 10 Apps to Installindd 26 as you spend years together. Likewise, unboxing a new Macintosh may be exciting, especially if it's a surprise. But the important part comes next. While Apple includes some software, and offers more to download for free via the Mac App Store, what else should a new user or a fresh system get? We have 10 suggestions that will make your life better by shaving off the irritations that remain in OS X Yosemite and in Apple's bundled software. A new Mac user will be happier than otherwise, while a veteran user looking to refresh a system will find the time and effort savings rewarding as well. 03022015 10:57 | LaunchBar Devine OS X's Launchpad and Spotlight can, in different ways, let you quickly find and open apps, documents, and other things, they can be maddening. Launchpad’s interface is hardly useful when you have more than a handful of apps, and Spotlight searches everything, rather than specific categories and in specific ways. Instead, pick LaunchBar (obdev.at, €23 [£18] individual; €39 [£29] family), which indexes and links to all sorts of stuff: music, contacts, apps, emoji, search history, bookmarks, and more. ® Graphie..veror9 Cony xe eye tere one The app can be invoked from a keystroke — we use the default 3¢-Escape. Then you just type a few letters to select the thing you want, and press Return to launch it or open it with the appropriate app. LaunchBar’s bar, however, also lets you perform most Finder actions with a 38-shortcut and carry out calculations. LaunchBar can also add Clipboard depth, turning into something like the old pre-OS X Scrapbook: you can revert to and cycle through previous items you've copied or cut. Default Folder 2 ec are three elements of Yosemite itself that we spend more time interacting with than any other: the Open dialog, the Save dialog (and variants like Export), and Finder window navigation. Default Folder (stclairsoft.com, £25.50) enhances all of these to your advantage in efficiency and organisation. When installed, the app wraps your open and save dialogs in a bunch of extra interface items. On one side, you can select from volumes and special | (026_029 10 Apps to Installindd 27 locations, Finder windows, favourited locations, and recently visited folders. The file-navigation dialogs can also be set to snap to the last document opened or other locations, while pressing Alt, plus the down or up arrow cycles backward or forward through recent folders. Another item allows a variety of Finder-style file actions directly within the dialog, like rename, duplicate, and move to trash. A pane at the bottom reveals a preview, Spotlight comments, tags and permissions, as well as file data such as creation date and whether the item is locked or not. There's a host of other options, too: tap a key combination, and the current folder is opened in the Finder. With Default Folder installed, you never have to painstakingly navigate your drives and folders. TextExpander 3 eWe know this is crazy talk, but what if you could replace the tedious repetitive typing of common phrases with a few keystrokes? Such shortcutting dates back decades — once known as ‘macros’ — and TextExpander (smilesoftware.com, £26 individual, £35 family) is the modern mature version of it. Start with figuring out a few characters to type instead of your name or mailing address, then advance to using its tools for tapping a few keys to insert the current date, formatting it as you like. As you become more familiar with the software, you can move on to employing prefabricated AppleScript to tap into URL shorteners, handling the round trip from clipboard to a tiny path. Graduate to its fill-in forms, which allow you to compose Beo eats a message with selectable fill-in values to automate replies. Smile revised its iOS version, TextExpander 3 (£3.99) to work within the add-on keyboard approach in iOS 8. Snippets can sync using Dropbox among Mac and iOS devices. Password Security pundits recommend that you create a unique strong password for every site or service you use. That's impossible for most of us to manage, but an integrated password generator and secure storage app such as 1Password MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 27 03022015 10:57 | | TT & Features 10 APPS TO INSTALL ON A NEW MAC 6) Password vers insichtarany? © length —O- 8 a san Separator (tinyurl.com/ohfhjmm, £39.99) handles that with ease. It can create random password according to rules you set, or those absurd ones imposed by sites, and then securely store them for you. That would be perfectly dandy, but not terribly useful if that's alll it did. However, 1Password also comes with web browser plug-ins for Safari, Chrome and Firefox, which let you invoke the app while visiting a site. Tap a keystroke, and it either prefills a username, password, and more, if there’s only one match; or lets you choose among multiple accounts for a site. When creating an account, the password generator can be invoked in the same way. 1Password also stores and can fill in one or more identities (address information), as well as credit card details. Versions are available for Windows, iOS, and Android, and a password database can be synced among them. (The App Store version is required for iCloud sync with OS X and iOS.) The similarly featured LastPass (tinyurl. com/mj77n44, free) is an alternative for those who want to be able to gain access to passwords via website, which 1Password doesn't offer. Dropbox 5. Keeping files up to date among multiple computers was a pain for many years. It wasn’t until Dropbox (dropbox. com, free tier with 2- to 16 GB; 1TB Dropbox Pro, £7.69 per month or £79 per year) appeared — a harbinger of cloud storage — that it became simple. Dropbox has a single folder into which you can place anything, and it’s copied to its 28 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 | 026_029 10 Apps to Installindd 28 internet storage in your account, while also synchronised to any computer logged into the same account. (You can selectively omit specific subfolders on each machine.) That would be enough, but it also offers two kinds of sharing. Shared FaTy ics ae - Pause Sirona ut oper folders sync the contents to any members who have joined the folder. A shared link allows any recipient to download a file or folder, or browse a folder’s contents. Because Dropbox keeps a copy centrally, it keeps track of every change. Older versions and even deleted files are available for up to 30 days after a change or removal, and an upgrade to Dropbox Pro, called Extended Version History, extends that to a year. Dropbox's iOS client lets you browse its cloud-stored versions, forward files, and download them to the app or open in other apps. Fei You already have FaceTime available on your computer and iOS devices, so why would you need Skype (skype.com/en, free)? Because not everyone you know has a Mac, iPhone or iPad, and because FaceTime doesn't come with a calling plan, even though in Yosemite, OS X can access your iPhone la ry a ion lo ° to make and receive calls to landlines and mobile numbers. Skype has a tattered history of Mac updates, but it remains the lingua franca for person-to-person and group internet telephone calls. The service also has inexpensive calling plans for making unlimited phone calls to specific countries (such as the US), and cheap per-minute rates without a plan or to countries not included in a plan. You can pay for one or more incoming ‘real’ phone numbers, too, placing them in countries from which you routinely receive calls, making it a local call for residents there. It offers audio only and video calls, as well as screen sharing, file transfer, and instant messaging, along with SMS. I've used Skype for years as my main incoming and outgoing business line to avoid the fixed cost, and as it's typically higher quality than a mobile call. CrashPlan y pee (code42.com) can back up any selection of files to a locally connected drive, a local-area network volume, a peer’s drive elsewhere, or its cloud service — in any combination. Only the cloud storage comes with a fee attached, $5 (£3.30) per month individual, $15 (£9.90) per month family. The latter subscription option lets you pull in any of your otherwise backup-adverse relatives without them having to manage the details of a separate account themselves. The peer-to-peer option allows you to push your encrypted files to someone else's drive anywhere on the internet. That other person gives you a code, and off your files go onto their backup volume or a separate volume you could provide, offering true offsite backup without a recurring fee. CrashPlan isn't a full-system clone, though. For that, Time Machine or Super Duper (shirt-pocket.com, £20.40) is a better option. Rather, CrashPlan is best at archiving your documents, preferences, and applications, and can store endless revisions of the same files for recovering older drafts. We have about 1.5TB stored with CrashPlan’s cloud service across our own 03022015 10:57 | computers, and have relied on restoring files from the cloud and local drives many times, both through its Mac interface (including over 600GB after a recent drive failure) and its iOS app (tinyurl.com/mzw3kmy, free). CrashPlan's major down side is that it continues to require Java, an extra installation in OS X for years. Installing Java for CrashPlan is safe, because it’s not enabled for use on the web without extra steps. Still, if that's a stumbling block, Backblaze (unlimited storage, $5 (£3.30) per month for each computer) is a good option. Airfoil AirPlay is one of the best things about Apple's ecosystem of audiovisual- friendly devices, and many strictly audio devices support AirPlay audio playback, too. But AirPlay has a number of limits. For example, iTunes is the only Apple software that has a specific AirPlay option, which includes simultaneous playback to multiple devices. Otherwise, you're limited to choosing a single device from Sound preferences to which to shunt all system audio. ® iTunes Airfoil ©) Computer Available [© Glenn's MacBook Air (3) Available The Office AirPort Ex. Available Airfoil (rogueamoeba.com, $29 [£19] works around this limit by letting you take just the audio output of any software or audio input device and route it to one or more AirPlay-compatible receivers, including an Apple TV or AirPort Express. Better still, Rogue Amoeba offers Airfoil Speakers apps, free software for receiving Airfoil audio for Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Linux VLC VLC (videolan.org, free) is the Swiss Army knife of video playback software. QuickTime Player can handle most popular formats, but for those it can't there's VLC. It can play internet streaming video of all sorts, read various disc formats, and convert some files it can’t read. If you deal with older file formats, say, those used by people that eschew H.264 because of patent issues, or video created or distributed for Windows and Unix variants, VLC is a one-stop shop. Beyond video file support, VLC can open and convert tons of audio formats, which you might find in sorting through several decades of rubbish on the web and in your own digital history, depending on your age. It can also directly open YouTube URLs, subscribe to podcasts, make video playlists, and play Internet radio stations from a large, built-in list. GraphicConverter 1 0.x: VIC is to video (and audio) formats, GraphicConverter (lemkesoft.de, €34.95 [£26.30] is to image files. While Apple's Preview offers a decent subset of image viewing and manipulation controls, GraphicConverter has more in common with Photoshop. It can open just about anything, offers photographic (non-linear levels) and image-editing (gradients, fills, and like) tools, and the basics such as cropping, canvas resizing, and up- and downsampling. We often use GraphicConverter’s Browse command to view images in a directory, where we can preview and see file data, as well as rename or delete them. You can directly import images from scanners and cameras (including in RAW format), and GraphicConverter can upload directly to Google+, Flickr, and other services. And if you need to process a number of images — converting a folder from TIFF to JPEG, for instance — the program has simple batch processing, with more advanced options available to those who need them. | 026_029 10 Apps to Installindd 29 MARCH 2015 * MACWORLD 29 03022015 10:57 | | (030_032 15 iTunes Tips.indd 30 Features / iTUNES TIPS AND TRICKS iTunes tips and tricks Martyn Cassely's tips will help you get more out of iTunes 12 ROMANCE ‘op Store fBReoy 3 & ae || fase me (A te nome == Wine (Pa) an a pe faded Sige posed) Rerresott Show sidebar Vetooe has been hiding the sidebar in recent versions of iTunes. To get it back in iTunes 12 simply select the Playlists options at the top of the screen and it will appear on the left. Temporary playlists Right-click a track and select the option Add to Up Next, and the song will be placed in the queue. To see what songs are lined up, go to the play windows at the top of iTunes and click on the three horizontal lines to see the playlist. My Muslo Pi 2000 Miles (Stockhol | Saw That Years Ago Home Sharing To set this up, go into iTunes and select File + Home Sharing + Turn on Home Sharing and enter your Apple ID. Now repeat the process on your other machine, then you'll see a little house appear in the top left of the main iTunes window. Click this to see the content on other machines. 30 MACWORLD « MARCH 2015 Family Sharing Family Sharing Go to System Preferences, choose iCloud » Set up Family and follow the instructions. Then you can add the Apple IDs of your loved ones and make the each others content available to your Mac or iOS device. & 0310272015 1100 | | I can name that tune! | think it's ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town’ by Bruce Springsteen. Use Siri to fin what 5 song is playing If you're out and about and suddenly hear a song that you must have, but don’t know what it’s called, Siri can help you. Simply ask “what song is this?” and the digital assistant will search its data FRA Santa Claus Is tage Comin’ to Town —= banks and return with the results. Then you can click on the iTunes store link and the track will be purchased and added to your library. ShES2REeE - a a iTunes University 6 In this separate store, you'll find a wealth of courses from renowned educational bodies such as Oxford University. Each course is broken into several lectures, with many including notes that you can read on your iPad or print out. The best part is that they are all completely free. Album artwork 7. Click Store + Sign and enter your Apple ID and password. Now click iTunes + Preferences + Store and ensure there is a tick in the ‘Share details about your library with Apple’ option. Now Ctrl+click any album and choose Get Album Artwork. Manually add artwork Bucicx an album cover and select all the tracks in this list beneath it. Choose File + Get Info (or press 3¢+l). Open Safari and search for the image in Google Image Search. Drag the image directly from Safari to the Artwork box to add it to iTunes. @_Tiunes File Eat View Controls e mae Home Onn Recently Added iTunes Match Quiyou have iTunes Match, you can use it to upgrade music you have imported from a CD. Delete a track but don’t click the Also Delete This Song from iCloud button. The song will still be in your iTunes library. Click the iCloud icon to redownload it. The download will be at the full quality. | (030_032 16 iTunes Tips.indd 31 Create a playlist to update to iTunes Match 1 O cis on File + New + Smart Playlist. Set Match to all of the following: Bitrate is less than 256kb/s; Media Kind is Music; iCloud Status is Matched. Click OK. Repeat the process but replace the last line with iCloud Status is Purchased. MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 31 o3/022015 1100 | | Features / iTUNES TIPS AND TRICKS CR von Co 2 Yih = WVehows * View Optene. ‘Show Saint mt den Cou = = = = Show duplicate items 1 Choose My Music and click on the drop-down menu on the right side of the screen, just beneath the Search Library box, then select Songs. Choose View + Show Duplicate Items, to see just the songs of which there are more than one copy. Now you can go through and manually delete the unwanted tracks. 12 Change media kind ‘elf you add movies to iTunes to watch, then you're probably wondering why they're always added to Home Movies. You can change them by clicking on the file and choosing File + Get info. Choose Options and use the Media Kind window to move it over to Movies (for Films) or TV Shows. Use the MiniPlayer 13 .cc up to the artwork displayed in the play window at the top of the iTunes app and you'll notice a couple of small squares appear, click on this to switch to the player. Otherwise you can go in iTunes to Window + Switch to MiniPlayer. ee, € = Sd 14 device: device: Use multiple AirPlay devices ‘elf you have multiple AirPlay devices (such as an Apple TV and AirPlay speaker), you can play music through all s at once. Click AirPlay and Multiple, and tick all the s you want to use. 15 Redeem a payment card ewith iSight Ifyou have an iTunes store card, you can redeem it by holding up the card to your iSight camera (instead of tapping in the code). Apple iTunes will scan the card using the camera and redeem it for you automatically. Open the iTunes Store and click on Redeem and select Redeem with Camera. 32 MACWORLD - MARCH 2015 | (030_032 15 iTunes Tips.indd 32 Redeem Code itunes spansson204ss Redeem your gift card using your computer's camera. ‘You can aio ener your code mera o3/022015 1100 | | a || MAC SECURITY OPTIONS / Features Mac security options Topher Kessler reveals the four Mac security options everyone should know Enable the OS X firewall The firewall in OS X is a network filter that allows you to control which programs and services can accept incoming connections. While classic firewalls do this on a per-port basis, OS X’s can work on a per-application or per-service basis, giving you more flexibility. To set up your firewall, go to the Security & Privacy system preferences, click on the Firewall tab, and then unlock the preference pane, after which you will be able to click the Turn On Firewall button. This basic option is the best for most purposes, but you can also click the Firewall Options button to see the specific settings for each application, as well as access some extra features, such as stealth mode and an option for blocking all connections. The firewall is a good option to enable if you're connected to a public Wi-Fi network, such as one at a cafe, library, or other hotspot. For home networks, you can usually rely on your router’s firewall for protection, though, enabling the OS X firewall for added security generally won't cause additional problems. Enable FileVault FileVault is the full-disk encryption routine in OS X that will secure all files on the drive. To enable it, go to the FileVault tab of the Security & Privacy system preference, unlock the preference, and click Turn On FileVault. When you do this you'll be asked to choose the user accounts that are authorized to unlock the disk. Click Continue and your Mac will begin encrypting your drive. Full disk encryption is primarily useful for protecting a stolen Mac. When your drive is unlocked, files on it can be read. However, before it’s unlocked, all data on the drive will be scrambled. This prevents data recovery by unauthorised third parties, who might try to access it using Target Disk mode on your Mac or by removing your Mac's hard drive and attaching it to another computer. Password management If you use numerous online services regularly, then you will (or should) have different credentials for each one. These may be difficult to remember. In OS X, you have a built-in alternative for managing passwords called the keychain. The keychain is enabled by default to store your various passwords for online services, email accounts, and other authentication routines. Whenever you see a checkbox for saving your password, or in a drop-down menu when using Safari, this is OS X asking you to store these passwords in an encrypted file called the login keychain. This can be managed using the Keychain Access utility (/Applications/ Utilities). In most cases, there’s little need to use this. Instead, use the option to save your passwords and OS X will automatically enter them when needed. Locking and locating A final couple of options for protecting your Mac include securing your computer when you have to leave it unattended and enabling remote access to it — not only to interact with it from afar, but also to track and lock it down, if needed. You set up the first of these options in the General tab of the Security & Privacy system preference. Just enable the Require Password option and choose Immediately or five seconds from the pop-up menu and you'll be required to enter a password to use your Mac after it's gone to sleep or the screen saver has started. The shorter the time interval you use in this feature, the better. Just close the lid to lock the system. For Find My Mac, if your system is ever stolen you can log into iCloud.com or use the Find My iPhone app on an iOS device to locate your device, send it a command to lock it down unless a password is supplied, have it issue a sound (also a great option for locating a misplaced iOS device), or remotely wipe the device. Overall, while Apple can do very little to prevent your computer from being stolen, OS X does its best to protect the data it holds as well as offers a chance that you can pinpoint its location. With these options enabled, you can be sure your Mac’s data is as safe as possible, with little to no inconvenience for you. MARCH 2015 « MACWORLD 33 | (083 Security indd 33 & 02/02/2015 1318 | | Features / itunes Guy Ask the iTunes Guy Kirk McElhearn demystifies artwork, wish lists, and alerts in iTunes 12 With increasing numbers of users updating to iTunes 12, we've been getting a huge amount of questions about how to use this new version. This month, we look at questions about iTunes 12. We discuss adding artwork to files, deleting artwork, and changes to the iTunes Store’s Wish List and My Alerts section. Q: How do | add album art to my music and movies in iTunes 12? A: iTunes 12 has changed the Info window that appears when you select one or more items and press %-I. The old window had an Artwork well, where you could either drag or paste graphics to add album art to your files. In iTunes 12, the Info window is different. 34 MACWORLD - MARCH 2015 | (034_035 iTunes Guy.indd 34 a || Bach, Johann Sebastian ‘tof Fugue - Hewitt EI wor options sorting ‘Bach, Johann Sebastian ‘tof Fugue - Hewitt ‘Bach, Johann Sebastian Keyboard ‘Album is a compilation of songs by various artists Bach, Johann Sebastian ‘Artof Fugue - Howitt Detats BEESETI optons soning Note that the window you see displays information about files that already have album art, but it doesn't show that album art when you select multiple items. (The iTunes 11 Info window didn’t show graphics in the Artwork well either) There are now three ways to add album art to your files: * Click the artwork square at the top-left of the window — the one with the musical notes — and it becomes highlighted. You can paste a graphic that you've copied to your clipboard by pressing 3-V or you can just drag a graphic onto that square. * Click the Artwork tab and paste a graphic, or drag it onto that pane. * Click the Artwork tab, click Add Artwork, choose a file that’s anywhere on your Mac, such as one you've downloaded, and click OK. These techniques work for multiple items, such as the songs on an album, or for single items, such as a movie or TV show. Q: How can | delete artwork from all the tracks of an album in iTunes 12 iTunes 12 Info window On the leftis the window that shows a summary and the main tags of your files. On the right is the Artwork tab of that window. A: As we said in the previous answer, iTunes 11's Info window had an Artwork well. If you checked a box next to it and then clicked OK, that told iTunes to reset that metadata to what was in the well. If the well was empty, iTunes would delete the artwork. In iTunes 12, since you can't see the artwork when you display the Info window for multiple items, it doesn't look like there's any way to delete artwork. The same is the case on the Artwork tab in the Info window; there’s no artwork visible, and no sign of anything that lets you delete the existing artwork. The trick is to click the artwork square in the Info window, then press the Delete key. That square then looks like the figure to the right. Click OK and iTunes will remove the artwork. Click Cancel if you change your mind. Q: | used to have several hundred tracks in my iTunes Store Wish List, but after upgrading to iTunes 12, all but 32 of those tracks have disappeared. | don’t see any button that says ‘See All’ or ‘Show Entire List’ or anything of 20212015 roa | Details Artwork year track — of 21 rating genre Keyboard Add Field Bach, Johann Sebastian Art of Fugue - Hewitt Options Sorting artist Bach, Johann Sebastian album Art of Fugue - Hewitt composer Bach, Johann Sebastian options ~ Album is a compilation of songs by various artists Cancel the sort. Is there any way to get those tracks to appear again? A: Apple did something strange with the iTunes Store Wish List in iTunes 12. Not albums you've added to the Wish List display. (I didn’t test with other types of content, but it's likely the same.) We admit that this is confusing, especially since Apple wants you to add In iTunes 12, since you can't see the artwork when you display the Info window for multiple items, it doesn't look like there's any way to delete artwork only is the display different, but it shows, as you say, just 32 tracks. However, the tracks you saved aren't lost. If you delete some of them — hover over a track and then click the X icon at the top-right corner — and then press 3£-R to reload the Wish List page, you'll still see 32 tracks. In other words, the Wish List only shows the most recent 32 tracks in your Wish List. We also tested this with albums. And it’s the same story as only the last 32 | (034_035 iTunes Guy.indd 35 tracks to the Wish List — notably if you use iTunes Radio — so that you buy more music. There's also no Buy All button, which seems counter-productive, but that's been gone for a while now. Q: | recently updated to iTunes 12, and it seems that now the ‘My Delete item Hover your cursor over an item to remove it from the iTunes Store Wish List. When you click The artwork square, then press the Delete key, iTunes sort of shows you that the artwork is being deleted. Alerts’ section of the iTunes Store is gone. | am disappointed by this, as that was the best way I had of knowing when artists | like have released new stuff. A: Several readers wrote in about this as it seems to be a popular section of the iTunes Store. First, you can set up alerts for any artist by going to their page — to get there click on the artist's name on an album page, for example — and then look for the tiny share button near the top of the page. Click that button and then choose Alert Me. As the reader pointed out, there used to be a link for My Alerts, but the latest redesign of the iTunes Store removed that. If you go to the main page of the Music store and scroll down a bit, you'll see a New From Your Artists section, which seems to include both art

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