HUGE APPLE NEWS SPECIAL! Issue 341 August 2019 macformat.com @macformat
The most powerful Mac ever made Apple unveils the Herculean new Mac Pro and 6K display
Brand new
INTRODUCING
macOS
Better than ever!
Better multitasking + Install fonts + Plug in USB drives!
New apps + Improved security and privacy + Extend your Mac’s desktop onto your iPad
Dark Mode + New photo tools + Enhanced Siri Shortcuts
iPadOS Catalina iOS 13 43
mighty Mac tips Simple but effective effective ways waysSimple to boostbut your productivity to boost your productivity
AMAZING NEW
5 HomePod alternatives AirPlay 2 speakers on test
MacBook Pro with 8 cores Apple’s high-end laptop gets a massive processing boost
Issue 341 August 2019 macformat.com
Brand new
6
INTRODUCING
macOS
Better than ever!
iPadOS Catalina iOS 13 20
APPLE CORE 6
rumourS & news
The latest updates from Cupertino and beyond
9
apps & GAMES
Our top picks of the month for Mac and iOS
11
facts & figures
All the stats behind the Apple iPhone
12
Letters
Have your say on all things Apple related
14
opinion
On the new Mac Pro: Apple really is listening
15
split view
The team’s reactions to the latest WWDC
APPLE HOME 71
smart tv reborn
The new age of smart TV
72
streaming options
Using Google’s Chromecast and our pick of the top TV streaming services
75
62
4k-capable streamers
Add smart extras and great shows to your TV
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Issue 341 CONTENTS
Subscribe today!
& get a great gift GENIUS TIPS 56
Genius Tips
Howard Oakley solves all your Mac hardware, software and iOS issues
57
iOS software
Swipe away your touchscreen troubles
78
58
PERIPHERALS
Refreshing the parts other tips can’t reach
APPLE CHOICE 77
APPLE CHOICE
New kit and apps – we’ve got all the latest hardware and software reviews
98
STORE GUIDE
60
Save up to
51%
off the cover price!
Win!
Get help with picking accessories and apps to go with your Apple kit
TURN to Page 34
Prizes WORTh Around
38
back issues
Head here if you’ve missed an issue
104 photo stream Send us your Apple-related shots
105 Next Month What’s coming in MF342 on 30 July
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icloud drive
Make the most of Apple’s online storage
An STM Goods Myth 18L backpack
REGULARS
48
APPLE SKILLS
£500
76
macOS
Sagacious solutions to your Mac maladies
40
GET TO GRIPS WITH imovie
Import and edit footage into a slick sequence
42
browse with edge
Try Microsoft’s new web browser for Mac
13
44
create a sunset
Give a photo a warm glow and a sunset effect
46
custom folder icons
Design icons to help tell your folders apart
69
APPLE HOME Smart TVs are actually getting really smart!
48
apple mail for ios
Master Apple’s email client on iOS
50
long-exposure shots
Get creative with the Spectre Camera app
52
the new apple tv app
A single place to find all your favourites
54
iwork templates
Make templates for Pages documents
august 2019 | MACFORMAT | 5
Brand new
INTRODUCING
macOS
iPadOS Catalina
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macformat.com @macformat
Better than ever!
iOS 13
There were plenty of surprises at this year’s WWDC – from new OS features to the welcome return of the Mac Pro Written by Adam Banks
T
here was something for everyone at this year’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC)… New versions of macOS and iOS; a dedicated version of iOS just for iPad; and very welcome OS updates for Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple also unveiled its hotly anticipated replacements for iTunes on Mac: separate, dedicated apps for Music, TV and Podcasts, with seamless device syncing via the Finder. And to the delight of creatives everywhere, Apple announced its replacement for the ‘trashcan’ Mac Pro – a new highly modular version with a display to match. Read on to find out more…
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What you’l need macOS 10.15 Catalina >A Mac introduced in 2012 or later
iOS 13 >iPhone 6s or later, iPad Air 2 or later, iPad 5th generation or later, iPad mini 4 or later, and all iPad Pro models
watchOS 6 >Apple Watch Series 1 or later (only the original Apple Watch is incompatible; Series 1 was released alongside Series 2 in 2016)
tvOS 13 >Apple TV 4th-gen (now called Apple TV HD) and Apple TV 4K
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APPLE SKILLS Mac software
Manage iCloud Drive Make the most of Apple’s convenient online storage facility it will take 30 minutes you will learn How to use iCloud Drive to store and manage files across your Apple devices You’ll need OS X 10.10 or later, iOS 8 or later. (Some features may look different in older systems.)
iCloud Drive is the file storage part of Apple’s iCloud services. It’s a super-easy and convenient way to access your files from any of your devices, and operates very similarly to Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive, if you’ve used those. It shows up as a folder in Finder and you can drag files and folders to and from it like any other. By default, a copy of everything in your iCloud Drive is stored locally on your Mac. Files you place in iCloud Drive are synced to
Apple’s server and made available on all the Mac and iOS devices signed in to your iCloud account. (Make sure yours are signed in: go to > System Preferences > iCloud on a Mac, and Settings > [your name] > iCloud on iOS.) Files stored in iCloud Drive are encrypted, both in transit and on the server, as long as you have two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID. Confirm this by signing in at appleid.apple.com and checking that this has been switched on under the Security heading. Kenny Hemphill
How to Manage iCloud Drive
Genius tip! If you buy more storage for iCloud, you can use Family Sharing to share a 200GB or 2TB plan with your family members. Each person’s storage is private to them.
1 Configure your Mac apps
In > System Preferences > iCloud, click Options next to iCloud Drive in the list on the right. You’ll see a list of apps that store files and other data in iCloud Drive. Clear the box next to apps you don’t want data stored for.
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2 Configure your iOS apps
On iOS, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud. Scroll down to the list of installed apps; toggle off any apps you don’t want data stored for in iCloud Drive. Note though that this might hinder some apps’ functionality.
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iCloud Drive APPLE SKILLS
CONTINUED… Manage iCloud Drive Genius tip! When you add more iCloud storage, it’s shared by Mail, iCloud Backup, iCloud Photos and other services that use iCloud, as well as files in iCloud Drive.
3 Put your desktop online
4 On the web
5 Low on local storage?
6 Create Finder shortcuts
You can have the same Desktop and Documents folders across compatible Macs, and access them from iOS devices and the web too. Click Options next to iCloud Drive, then tick Desktop & Documents Folders.
If your Mac is filling up, iCloud Drive can intelligently free up space: in its options, tick Optimise Mac Storage. It will try to keep files locally that it thinks you’ll need. Others are redownloadable by clicking their cloud icon.
With those folders set to sync to iCloud, you can sign in at iCloud.com in a web browser on other computers. Click iCloud Drive, then open the Desktop or Documents folder to access files saved to those places on your Mac.
You don’t have to start at the top of iCloud Drive to find something. Just like regular folders on your Mac, you can drag folders from it to Finder’s sidebar or the right end of the Dock to create shortcuts.
Genius tip! Some iPad Pros have more storage than many Macs, but (as of iOS 12) there’s no option to download all of your iCloud Drive, like on a Mac. Ensure you prepare for any offline period by downloading what you might need.
7 Prompts when removing
Finder asks for confirmation if you try to move online files to your Mac’s local storage. If that gets annoying, go to Finder > Prefs > Advanced and turn off ‘Show warning before removing from iCloud Drive’.
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8 Get more space
The space available on iCloud Drive is the capacity of your iCloud account minus other data stored in it (see tip, top right). To add more, go to iCloud’s prefs and click Manage, then Buy More Storage/Change Storage Plan.
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We love the Mac, but some of its helpful features are near-invisible. Let’s start saving time. (After all, we love that as much as our Macs.)
D
Written by Alan Stonebridge
o you ever think “There must be a better way to do this simple thing”, but you’re at a loss over how or where to do it? Welcome to the club! Even people who’ve used Macs for years miss out on invaluable shortcuts that can, over months and years, help you do things faster and more comfortably. Here, then, is an assorted collection of indispensible techniques that make Mac life even better.
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Much (but not all) of what you’ll learn here makes use of the modifier keys: ß, ≈, å and ç. You’ll have seen those symbols throughout your Mac’s menus, where they tell you the key combo to press in future for instant access to the adjacent item. They’re used for many more things beyond menu shortcuts though. As well as knowing which keys to hold down, you need to know where to then click or drag. Allow us to help…
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Essential apps Feature
Let’s get started… Six ways to protect your files and avoid window overload
1 Encrypt a USB drive
2 Accidental trashing
3 Quickly close windows
4 Quickly quit apps
5 Organise Safari tabs
6 Minimise clutter
Back up the drive, then open Disk Utility, select it on the left and click Erase. Set its scheme to GUID, format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) for the broadest macOS compatibility or APFS (Encrypted) for 10.13 up, confirm, and set a password.
Hold ç and press † to open the app switcher. Press † repeatedly until the app you want is selected, then release ç to go to it. However, the switcher has other uses. Press Q to quit the selected app, or H to hide its windows, which will return when you next switch to that app.
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It’s especially easy to delete an important file when trying to free up storage space. Select one in Finder, choose File > Get Info, tick Locked in the top group and then close the Info window. Finder will want confirmation if you try to put the file in the Trash.
With quite a few pages open, Safari’s tab bar can get disorganised, making it hard to find what you want. The visual overview can help, but for a little help to tidy things up head to Window > Arrange Tab By. This menu contains options to sort tabs by title or, more helpfully, by website.
If you’ve opened a lot of tabs or windows in an app and want to close them all, you needn’t press ç+W repeatedly. Instead use ≈+ç+W to close all at once. If any docs haven‘t yet been saved at all, you’ll be asked to confirm what to do with them.
It’s easy to end up with a bunch of Finder windows cluttering the desktop. You can help yourself to avoid this by holding å when doubleclicking a file to open it. Finder will send the file to the corresponding app as normal and close its own window at the same time.
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APPLE CHOICE Group test
HomePod alternatives with
AirPlay 2 Third-party multiroom, multi-faceted smart speakers to give HomePod a run for its money Reviewed by Alex cox
on test... > Libratone Zipp 2 > Bluesound Pulse Flex 2i > Sonos One > Beoplay M3 > Yamaha MusicCast 20
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9000
AirPlay 2 speakers APPLE CHOICE
mazingly, AirPlay has now been with us in one form or another for some 15 years. As AirTunes, its first incarnation, it was primarily there to send music from iTunes to an Airport Express; when the transition to AirPlay came in 2010, its support extended to third-party apps and devices. It’s clearly a very capable streaming protocol, and one which has grown beyond audio to support video streaming, screen mirroring and more. But for all its expansion, it’s still a top-line way of streaming audio. Harnessing Wi-Fi rather than Bluetooth increases both the potential range and the streaming resolution, while also making setup a breeze. AirPlay 2, which came to us with the release of HomePod last year, truly cemented that reputation. There’s a lot that’s new. AirPlay 2 adds a host of extra controls, putting devices into
How we tested
A
AirPlay 2 adds extra controls, improves buffering, and adds multiroom support Apple’s Home app and allowing Siri to boss them around. It improves buffering, ensuring glitch-free streaming. And, most crucially, it boosts the interoperability of speakers, adding multiroom support and, at least in the case of
AirPlay 2 brings easy setup and multiroom convenience, as well as reliable streaming and great sound quality.
HomePod, stereo pairing. Our testing here showed that it’s not possible to pair up different speakers of different manufacturers, though all five of the devices here were happy to play multiroom audio as part of one seamless network, and they’ll work perfectly well with a HomePod, too. A device doesn’t need to be built for AirPlay 2 to support it. Indeed, the Yamaha MusicCast 20 has only just received the firmware update that added support in; there will likely be far greater support for AirPlay 2 cropping up in speakers (and, indeed TVs – see p71) in future months. So if you’re looking to fill your home with sound, AirPlay 2 is the choice to make.
Things to consider… Everything you need to know before getting started
1
Perfect placement
For a smart speaker (or any speaker, for that matter) to sound its best, it needs to be in the right place. Sound waves bouncing off reflective surfaces can cause audio disruption, while tucking one away on a bookshelf could neuter surround sound.
2
Extra smarts
If you already have a burgeoning smart home, an interface to an assistant (like the HomePod’s Siri integration) means you don’t just get easy audio, you also get additional access to your smart home kit.
3
On-board controls
Fighting your phone to tweak the audio coming out of a speaker is no fun – if you need
Image credit: Naim Mu-So – Naim Audio
Each speaker was set up side by side, first on a coffee table in the middle of a large room and secondly at the back of a desk abutting a wall, with appropriate environment settings triggered if available. As well as using a range of music, we also ran Audiolab’s Audio Test Tones album, in order to test each speaker’s ability to handle high and low end tones.
Higher… Naim Mu-so 2nd Gen £1,299 naimaudio.com The latest version of the Mu-so is a huge AirPlay 2-supporting sound machine that’ll blow you away time after time. Absolutely phenomenal sound – at a price.
to turn it down fast, on-board controls are essential. Conversely, if there are small volume-abusing fingers around, this might not be such an asset.
4
Sound quality
… or lower?
There are hundreds of low-cost Bluetooth speakers around, but one listen will tell you they’re generally very poor. You’re not just investing in an AirPlay 2 device for multiroom convenience, but for superior sound quality as well.
5
Extra inputs
It’s a great protocol, but why tie yourself exclusively to AirPlay 2? Some smart speakers offer more ways to play, from Bluetooth streaming to the classic 3.5mm jack input.
AirPort Express Around £40 ebay.co.uk It’s been discontinued, but if you can find the 2012 model on eBay or through a second-hand retailer, it received an AirPlay 2 update for any speaker you connect to its audio port.
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