When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad in 2010,

it was seen of a more ‘lean back’ rather than a ‘lean

Meet the team
forward’ device like the Mac is – in fact Jobs took to
an armchair during his presentation to explain how
it was more “intimate than a laptop”. A lot has
Jo Membery
changed since then.
Operations Editor
Today’s iPads are so capable and so powerful
When she’s not working on
that you almost don’t need a notebook at all. Not
MacFormat, Jo likes to hang
only can you surf the web, edit photos and catch up
out at her local Apple Store
on your favourite TV shows, you can do way more
and pretend that she’s a
than Steve Jobs ever imagined. On p20, you’ll
Genius – the word ‘pretend’
discover some of the cool uses you can put your iPad to – from being
doing the heavy lifting here.
super-productive on the go, using features like multitasking and a Smart
Keyboard, to creating amazing artworks with an Apple Pencil. You’ll also
discover some of the best apps to do those things with too. Paul Blachford
Another thing that’s well worth exploring is Apple’s HomeKit and on p62, Art Editor
you can do exactly that. Our 8-page guide is packed with awesome add-ons Paul’s discovered a dog-
and accessories that’ll turn any home into a smart home and we even show clicker app for Apple Watch
you how to get started. Once you’ve finished reading, using a boring old light that’s rubbish for training
switch just won’t feel the same. his pooch, but brilliant at
But before you throw out the old in favour of the new, take a look at our getting his kids to come
guide to bringing back your legacy Mac (p70). In it, you’ll find some great running for their tea.
ways to breathe new life into your machine. Enjoy the issue, and don’t forget
print subscribers now get free access to all our digital editions – see p34.
Ian Osborne
Contributor
Ian’s iPad knowledge is
so complete, he can’t help
but shout out ‘Slide Over!’
ROB MEAD-GREEN whenever he asks friends
EDITOR to make more room on
editor@macformat.com his sofa at home.

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 Issue 403
May 2024
macformat.com

NEW MACBOOK AIR

6 M3 update and more in store

APPLE CORE
6 RUMOUR & NEWS
The latest updates from Cupertino and beyond

9 APPS & GAMES

Our top picks of the month for Mac and iOS

10 CRAVE 20
The hot new gear we’re lusting after

12 OPINION
We celebrate the audiovisual nerds at Apple
85 must-try
iPad tricks
13 FACTS & FIGURES
The M3 MacBook Air in numbers

14 LETTERS
Have your say on all things Apple related
Best apps + coolest features

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TODAY!
16
MACFORMAT INVESTIGATES & SAVE UP
Apple vs Spotify: the battle
between the world’s largest TO 21%
music services has escalated TURN TO PAGE 34

4 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024

 Issue 403 CONTENTS

44 Game with Apple Arcade APPLE CHOICE

78
62
Synology
APPLE SKILLS CREATE BeeStation
YOUR
38 EASILY SHARE YOUR DOCS DREAM HARDWARE

Distribute your documents securely

SMART 78 Synology BeeStation
40 CREATE AN INVENTORY
Keep track of your worldly goods on Mac
HOME 80 LaCie Rugged Mini SSD
Make your semi smarter
or your flat future-proof 81 1More Penta Driver P50
42 SORT YOUR BLUETOOTH KIT with Siri and the best 82 TP-Link Archer Air R5/E5
smart home tech
Manage and troubleshoot all your devices 84 Logitech MX Brio
44 GAME WITH APPLE ARCADE 85 Anker MagGo Power Bank (10K)
Discover how to set yourself up and get playing
SOFTWARE
46 REDISCOVER PODCASTS
Get your podcasts in order with Overcast

48 MAKE YOUR iPAD SMARTER

Do fun things with AI using ChatGPT

50 TRACK YOUR SLEEP 70 86

Check the quality of your shut-eye time
Keep your
Group test: Email apps
52 SET MULTIPLE TIMERS
Trigger concurrent timers for multitasking old Mac
54 SOLID-STATE SOUND
running 86 Group test: Email apps
92 Sonic Dream Team
The new silicon-based audio tech explained PART TWO
Get that Mac out of 94 Calm: Sleep & Meditation
the attic and fire it up

GENIUS TIPS or you’ll never know 95 Rainbow Weather

what it’s capable of! 96 App round-up: Six of the best
apps for text and speech
Howard Oakley solves all
56 your Mac hardware, software 76
and iOS and iPadOS issues 98 STORE GUIDE
BACK Get help with picking accessories
and apps to go with your Apple kit
ISSUES
Head here if you’ve 105 NEXT MONTH
missed an issue What’s coming in MF404 on 30 April

106 ONE MORE THING…

Reflecting on how magical AirTags are

Image credits: Apple Inc, Tactile Games Ltd, Nanoleaf, Synology Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 5
THE LATEST NEWS AND RUMOURS
Apple updates
MacBook Air with M3 chip
Plenty of other products expected this spring
pple tends to launch fresh
A products in the spring, and
with a new MacBook Air
already making an appearance this
year, the company hasn’t let us down.
Alongside that good news, there’s even
more that could be on the way.
Over the past few months, speculation
mounted that Apple was going to update
its MacBook Air line with M3 chips for
better performance. That was expected
to happen in March, and sure enough, a
new M3 MacBook Air was revealed in the
first week of the month. Apple says the
new laptop’s chip is up to 60% faster than
the M1 and 13 times quicker than the best
Intel MacBook Air. That’s possibly a little
6 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
HOT TOPIC!
bit of an unfair comparison, but the
improvement over the M1 is certainly
notable. Apple didn’t say what kind of
upgrade you can expect over the M2,
but we’ll be reviewing the new MacBook
Air next issue – so stay tuned!
The new 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip starts
at £1,099, while the 15-inch starts at £1,299.
Aside from the M3 chip, the new
MacBook Air can support up to two
external displays (as long as the lid is
closed), while it also has Wi-Fi 6E for
download speeds up to twice that of the
M2 version. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch
MacBook Air models got the update, so
their upgrade cycles should no longer be
out of step with each other.
Apple also made the point of saying
that the M3 chip makes the MacBook Air
the “world’s best consumer laptop for AI”,
which the company states is thanks to the
chip’s “faster and more efficient 16-core
Neural Engine, along with accelerators
in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device
machine learning.”

Apple Car hits the brakes
Apple has reportedly cancelled Project
Titan, its long-running attempt to build
a self-driving electric car. Bloomberg’s
Mark Gurman reported that the decision
was taken in late February and came as
a surprise to the almost 2,000 Apple
employees then working on it. Apple’s
self-driving car project has allegedly
Apple claims that working on spreadsheets in Excel is
now up to 35% faster than the 13-inch M1 MacBook Air.
More on the way
While a new MacBook Air is the big news,
at the time of going to press there were
a lot of other Apple products expected
to imminently make an appearance.
For instance, the iPad Pro is widely
rumoured to get an OLED display any
day now, while the iPad Air could get a
new 12.9-inch size. Plus, we’ve also heard
whispers that we will soon see new versions
of the iPad’s Magic Keyboard and Apple
Pencil accessories.
The Mac mini also remains a solid
possibility for changes this spring. It’s now
the only Mac that hasn’t made the jump to
the M3 series, and it seems unlikely that will
remain the case for long. However, it’s not
guaranteed to be imminently updated –
Image credit: Apple Inc
struggled over the years, with multiple
changes of strategy and an apparent
lack of clear direction. The company has
reportedly spent $10 billion over the course
of a decade but never came close to
launching a finished product. Apple will
now refocus its efforts on generative
artificial intelligence (AI), Gurman says.
we had to wait three years between its
previous updates (2020 to 2023), so Apple
might decide to hold off for now.
And let’s not forget the iPhone. While
new releases usually fall in September,
Apple has taken to launching fresh colours
in the spring. That could be the case again
this year. Apple updated its iPhone 15 cases
and Apple Watch bands with new colours in
March, so might new shades for the iPhone
itself be around the corner?
If you’re awaiting a host of other
products, however, we’d suggest you don’t
get your hopes up. Both the MacBook Pro
and the iMac, for example, are unlikely to
see any changes, as the latest versions only
launched in October 2023. We probably
won’t see any new models until autumn
2024 at the earliest.
The Mac Studio and Mac Pro could be
upgraded this year, but not until later. We
might see the former at Apple’s Worldwide
Developers Conference (WWDC) in June,
with the latter arriving later in 2024. Given
their longer upgrade cycles, it’s safer to be
a bit more conservative with these devices.
Still, there’s plenty left on the cards for
spring 2024. With the MacBook Air getting
a solid upgrade and big changes rumoured
for the iPad range, those devices alone
could make this a season to remember.
Apple’s “next
big thing” in
the works
pple is allegedly devising
A products that could be its
“next big thing” after the
Vision Pro. Those devices include
a smart ring, a set of affordable
smartglasses, and even a pair of
AirPods enhanced with cameras
and advanced sensors.
The news was broken by
Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman
in his Power On newsletter. The
smartglasses would supposedly offer
a lower-cost, more comfortable
alternative to the Vision Pro, with
the ability to overlay digital elements
onto the real world.
The smart ring, meanwhile,
will be a health and fitness device
that can measure your activities in
a more streamlined form than an
Apple Watch. Apple patents have also
revealed other potential uses for the
device, such as controlling your Mac
and playing Vision Pro games.
The AirPods, meanwhile, could
use low-resolution cameras and
high-tech sensors to feed info about
the world to you, perhaps to alert you
of danger or adjust audio based on
your surroundings.
Apple is apparently experimenting with the
idea of adding cameras and new sensors
to future versions of the AirPods.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 7

APPLE
NEWS
ROUNDUP
NOT-SO-
FINEWOVEN
iPHONE CASE
FACES CRITICISM
> Apple’s iPhone 15
FineWoven case has
come in for fierce
disapproval since
launching last year. Wall
Street Journal reporter
Joanna Stern, for
instance, likened her
months-old FineWoven
case to a “rotten banana”
on X (formerly Twitter),
saying it had suffered
“Peeling edges, scratches
and browning” and that it
looked like a “biomedical
concern”. It’s early days,
but it looks like a serious
miss from Apple.
HOMEPOD
WITH BUILT-IN
DISPLAY
SECRET PROJECT
STILL YEARS AWAY
> Apple is rumoured to be
working on a HomePod
with a built-in display.
Yet the project won’t
launch before 2025,
says Bloomberg’s Mark
Gurman, whose Power On
newsletter claims that
Apple has started early
work on the product but
may choose not to go
ahead with it. Gurman
also says that Apple is
mulling a HomePod/
FaceTime/Apple TV
mash-up, as well as an
iPad-like smart display
that can magnetically
attach to a wall.
8 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
The new Apple Sports app is
designed to give you scores
and stats in seconds.
Apple launches new Sports app
Designed for quickly staying up to date with your top teams
pple has launched a brand-new free or you might spend three minutes going play-
A app for tracking sports scores and
updates. Called Apple Sports, the
by-play because it’s the end of the game.”
You can follow individual teams or entire
app is designed to display your favourite leagues and the app will show you current,
teams’ latest scores, stats and more in a past and upcoming games, league tables,
straightforward, easy-to-navigate interface. goalscorers and betting odds. The choice is
In an interview with Fast Company, Apple’s a little limited at the moment – the only English
senior vice president of Internet Software and football division available is the Premier
Services Eddy Cue said the premise was simple: League, for example – and there’s no support
“It’s getting you in, giving you what you need, for Live Activities or the Dynamic Island.
and doing it really quickly.” He added: “We’re Hopefully that will be updated soon.
not trying to have you spend 30 minutes on Still, if you need a superfast way to stay
the app. You can spend five seconds to go look up to date with your favourite teams, it
at the score, or you might spend 30 seconds, could be worth a shot.
How sturdy is the Vision Pro?
Drop tests and hairline fractures for the spatial computing headset
iven how much it thanks to having additional It suggests that the Vision Pro
G glass it contains,
you’d think the
layers underneath the front
panel. As well as the drop
is a lot more durable than you
would imagine.
Vision Pro headset would be tests, Kohl repeatedly banged That said, it’s not all good
rather fragile and prone to it against a wall, all with only news. A handful of Vision Pro
breakages. That notion has minor scuffs to show for it. owners have claimed their
been called into question by device has developed a
a destructive series of drop noticeable crack along the
tests, but there’s still some front glass, despite never
cause for concern. being dropped or fumbled.
YouTuber Sam Kohl put his This fracture manifests as a
Vision Pro through a painful vertical line in the middle of
slate of drop tests, but it was the headset where the glass’s
only after the eighth fall – from curve is most pronounced,
the top of Kohl’s ceiling – that perhaps indicating some sort
the headset’s front glass finally of stress break at its weakest
cracked. Even then, the glass point. The problem doesn’t
The Vision Pro proved resilient in a set of
never shattered. In fact, the drop tests, but some are complaining appear to be widespread,
device still worked without about unexpected cracks appearing. but it is still concerning.
Image credits: Apple Inc, AppleTrack/iupdate
 Apps & games APPLE CORE

APP OF THE MONTH

Media
Picks
What you should
be playing and
reading this month

[A L BU M]
[M AC A PP]
Dark Matter
Topaz Gigapixel AI 7 $99 (about £95) Pearl Jam
£8.99
Sharpen your shots and banish blur for good Pearl Jam’s latest
opus is “a lot heavier”
Want to enlarge a photo but issues and artefacts. The AI engine has been
than you’d expect, says
can’t do it without the image updated to make it much faster in use, while
guitarist Mike McCready,
becoming a blurry mess? You the interface has also had a tune up to make
and comes from a band
might need Topaz Gigapixel AI 7. it easier to work through and apply changes
“playing as if their very
As the name suggests, it uses artificial to your images.
lives depended on it.”
intelligence (AI) to scale up your pictures while Whether you’re looking to print your
keeping the quality and sharpness intact, pictures out or sharpen them up for use on
making it brilliant for all kinds of projects. the web, the latest version of Gigapixel
The latest version brings improvements to AI should lend a helping hand. With up to
denoise tools and blur-removal consistency, 600% upscaling, it may be able to fix even
ensuring you’ll get better results with fewer your most forlorn photos.

[AU DIOB O OK ]
The Cure for Burnout
Emily Ballesteros
£7.99
We all work too hard, and
doing so is terrible for our
health. If you want to end
the overwork, this book
offers strategies to find
[iO S A PP] [iOS GAME] [M AC GA M E]
a healthier balance.
Globetrotter Devil May Cry: Inkulinati
FREE (IAPs) Peak of Combat £21.99
Apple’s Photos app FREE (IAPs) Inspired by medieval
generates videos This game brings manuscripts,
of photo memories, the Devil May Cry Inkulinati lets you
but it might leave you experience to your draw an army of weird and
wanting more. If that sounds iPhone. With a strong focus wonderful creatures and set [PODCAST]
familiar, try Globetrotter. It on building a fluid, intense them loose on your enemies. Oceans: Life
shows your images grouped combat experience, you’ll find Level up their abilities, unlock Under Water
at locations you’ve visited, hard-hitting combos, classic new beasts or, like a Monty Despite covering most
plots routes with photos characters and challenging Python scene, break the of the Earth’s surface,
you’ve taken along the way, bosses, all brought together fourth wall and intervene we know little about the
summarises your travel stats in a gorgeous gothic world in the battle directly with world’s oceans. This
for perusal, and more. that fans will really enjoy. your illustrator’s hands. podcast lifts the veil on
Why you need it: Relive your Why you need it: Classic Why you need it: It’s medieval the watery deep and
special travel memories. combat on the go. madness brought to life. its teeming wonders.
Image credits:Topaz Labs, Monkeywrench Inc/
Republic Records/UMO Recordings Inc, Blink
Publishing, Shihab Mehboob, Capcom Co Ltd, Yaza
Games sp zoo, Crowd Network/Greenpeace UK MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 9
 APPLE CORE Hot new kit
THE GEAR WE’RE LUSTING AFTER
BenQ PD3225U
Designer Monitor
> £1,099.99 > From benq.eu
> Created with Mac users in mind,
this 31.5-inch Thunderbolt display
could be your next must-buy upgrade.
Its 4K (3840x2160) IPS panel is
factory calibrated for colour accuracy,
where it meets 98% of P3 and 99% of
Rec.709 colour spaces, and has Pantone
and Pantone Skin Tone Validation,
making ideal for photo and video work.
Rounding out BenQ’s offer are
macOS-ready versions of the company’s
10 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
Display Pilot 2 software. Plus, it also
comes with Hotkey Puck G2, an external
controller that gives you quick access to
your most-used commands and settings.
The PD322U also has built-in HDR10
and DisplayHDR 400 support as well as a
height- and tilt-adjustable stand that can
pivot up to 90º. It’s also equipped with
two Thunderbolt 3 ports (one with 85W
power delivery), two HDMI 2.0 ports, one
DisplayPort 1.4, and a built-in USB hub. The PD3225U boasts a height- and tilt-adjustable stand.
Image credit: BenQ

Lexon Lantern
> €129.90 (about £130) > From lexon-design.com
> Winner of an iF Design Award, the
Lexon Lantern combines an indoor/
outdoor light with a Qi wireless charger
– perfect for boosting your iPhone’s
battery at home or in the garden.
Available in a Dark Red, Dark Blue, Dark
Philips Sleep
Headphones
> £284.99 > From kokoon.io
> Normally the last thing you’d think of
when trying to get to sleep is putting a
pair of headphones on your head, but the
Philips Sleep Headphones are different.
They’ve been specially designed to aid
restful sleep, thanks to an ultra-slim in-ear
design with combines passive noise
isolation with built-in Biosensors that help
mask external sounds – like a snoring
partner! To help you make the most the
headphones, Philips has partnered with
sleep app specialists Kokoon with a
one-year Premium subscription included.
Image credits: Lexon, Kokoon Technology Ltd, Belkin, Fantasia Trading LLC
Hot new kit APPLE CORE
Green, Black or White synthetic leather
(ABS) covering, the Lantern is waterproof
to IPX4 and comes with a built-in battery
that can light up your life for up to eight
hours at a time. Plus, its 200 lumen LED
array can show seven different colours
Belkin 2-in-1
Charging Dock
> £109.99 > From belkin.com/uk
> Once you’ve wrapped the Sleep
Headphones around your bonce, you
may be wondering what to do with your
phone. Luckily, Belkin has the answer. This
BoostCharge Pro 2-in-1 Wireless Charging
Dock is compact, and stylish, enough to sit
on your bedside table and has room for
both a MagSafe-equipped iPhone and
your Apple Watch. Available in Black or
Sand, it enables you to angle your iPhone
up to 70-degrees,while using StandBy. It
also has a non-slip base and is made from
60% post-consumer recycled materials.
as well as Cool White and Warm White
and has a brightness dimmer too.
The lamp itself can be charged via
USB-C (although you’ll need to add your
own power supply). It also has integrated
touch controls, making it a doddle to use.
Soundcore
Motion Boom 2
> £119.99 > From uk.soundcore.com
> Perfect for parties at home or in the
garden, the Boom 2 teams a blistering
80W of sound output with a waterproof
design (to IPX7) that even floats! Adding
even more joy to the party atmos are
multi-coloured lights, which pulse in time
to the music and give you seven different
effects to choose from, while the Boom 2’s
integrated handle, built-in Bluetooth and
on-device controls make it easy to carry
around and use. Its built-in battery is
long-lasting too, offering up to 24 hours of
frenetic foxtrotting between recharges.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 11
 APPLE CORE Opinion

MATT BOLTON…
LOVES APPLE’S COMMITMENT TO
PUSHING AUDIOVISUAL FORMATS,
EVEN IF THE HARDWARE DOESN’T
ALWAYS REFLECT IT
n top of being an oft-insufferable Apple
O nerd, I am also a huge audiovisual nerd.
I could regale you in agonising depth
about the differences between the types of OLED
TV screen, or what exactly makes Dolby Atmos
different from surround sound. So one of the
things I quietly appreciate about Apple is that
it seems to be full of AV nerds too.
Apple TV has long been a device for ‘enthusiasts’.
You can buy streaming devices with many of the same
features for less. But not ALL of the same features. You
don’t get as high streaming quality for purchased movies,
or future-proofed HDMI format switching for better 24fps Apple Vision Pro’s cinema mode now offers genuinely unique ways
to watch movies at home.
movie support. Most people don’t care about those things,
and Apple TV 4K is still a good product for them, but it’s a – let alone after that. I thought I might never see
particularly good product because of those extras to me. that movie anything close to the way its director
And then there’s spatial audio on AirPods. My goodness intended, but clearly the Vision Pro team has
did it sound like a gimmick at the time, but it’s now one of my people who feel that even if the tech in these
most-liked features on movies is at a dead end, there was value in
One of the things AirPods Pro, because I’m
a movie lover, and it works
the endeavour of the art.
Of course, sometimes the AV enthusiasm
I appreciate about best with Dolby Atmos
movies. I’ve tried attempts
hits against hardware. The Apple Music team,
clearly, is into delivering the highest quality
Apple is that it seems at spatial audio from others,
and on those it actually is a
audio with hi-res streaming. But the desire
for this doesn’t seem to be replicated by the
to be full of AV nerds gimmick. Apple nailed it
better than anyone else, and
AirPods team, which hasn’t supported any
kind of higher quality streaming over
gave more people a window into the potential of object-based Bluetooth, even though it’s possible.
audio without needing to spend huge amounts of money on a This AV tech may not be for everyone, but
home cinema system. Another example on these lines is support it’s a reminder that people at Apple definitely
for Dolby Vision HDR on the screens of Apple devices, again care about the things they work on. I recently
giving people a way to see alarmingly attended a TV demo session where the
premium image quality without spending TV product leads not only hadn’t seen
vast sums on an elite TV. Oppenheimer, they barely seemed to have
And most recently, we have Vision Pro heard of it. Whatever you think of Apple’s
bringing in support for both 3D and high approach to tech, I’ve no doubt that this stuff
frame-rate movies. I love both Avatar movies, is developed by people who love it like I do.
but never seen either of them outside the
cinema, as they’re made for a particular ABOUT MATT BOLTON
presentation that isn’t possible at home. Matt is Managing Editor at
There are movies such as Gemini Man that TechRadar.com, and previously worked
were designed to be trailblazers pushing the on T3, MacLife and MacFormat. He’s
technology of films forward, but were barely been charting Apple’s ups and downs
The Apple TV 4K includes some niche
options that only a few AV nerds care able to be seen in their intended 3D, HFR, since his student days, but still hopes
about, but we really care about them. HDR format even when they were in cinemas to hear “one more thing”.

12 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc/Warner Bros Entertainment Inc /Legendary
 Facts & figures APPLE CORE

THE M3 MACBOOK AIR IN

18 hours
> Maximum battery life of the
MacBook Air when watching
streaming video, that’s three
Discover the key stats behind Apple’s incredible new notebook hours longer than when
wirelessly surfing the web.

6K
> Maximum display
resolution of the MacBook
Air when connected to a
compatible external display.
It’ll also support a second
external display at 5K when
its lid is closed.

13x Wi-Fi 6E
faster
> Speed increase of the
> Team the M3 MacBook Air
with a compatible router and
you’ll get 2x faster wireless
M3 MacBook Air over
throughput than with the
its Intel Core i7-based
Wi-Fi 6 chip found in the M2.
predecessor. The new
model is also 1.6x faster
than the M1 MacBook Air.

Full
review
next
issue!
39%
> Percentage of Mac

24GB
> Maximum amount of
memory that can be fitted
to the MacBook Air at an
additional cost of £200-
£400. Entry level 13-inch
and 15-inch models both
come with 8GB as standard,
while the stock top-tier
version has 16GB.
8
> Number of CPU cores
inside the M3 chip in the
new MacBook Air.
40Gbps
> Maximum data throughput
of the MacBook Air’s two
Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports.
buyers who choose a
MacBook Air. Only the
MacBook Pro is more
popular, with 51% of
sales. The iMac, Mac mini,
Pro Studio and Mac Pro 79
make up the remaining
10%, according to
> Number of keys on the
MacBook Air’s keyboard,
Consumer Intelligence which includes 12 full-height
Research Partners. function keys and four
inverted ‘T’ arrow keys.

Image credit: Apple Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 13

 CONTACTS Get in touch

Contact us

Email your queries

and your questions to
Have your say on all things Apple! letters@macformat.com

LETTER OF THE MONTH! you want a tilt- and height-adjustable stand,

WHAT RUBBISH!
How dare you dismiss the 2013 ’trashcan’
Mac Pro as ‘a rare modern-Apple flop’
(‘40 years of Mac’ in #MF400).
The Mac Pro is the most futuristic,
interesting, well designed and well built
Mac ever. Designed in California and built in
the good ol’ US of A too. No glue, no tape,
no fragile connectors and best of all, no
’system on a chip’ nonsense. It has been the most reliable Mac I’ve ever
owned (of many). I take it apart every six months to clean and service
the heatsink, CPU and video cards. Everything unscrews and goes back
together again without breaking. I have upgraded the processor, blade
SSD and RAM. It runs faultlessly on Ventura with no problem and I love it.
This shiny black lump of gorgeousness attracts more interest than
anything else in my office and plays high resolution music all day, every day
without fault. It will be with me forever – which is more than can be said for
my M1 iMac. That piece of junk has gone to the great scrapyard in the sky.
by R I C H A R D E L L I S M AC A L L U M
that will set you back £1,899, so £400 extra.
That is a bit extreme. No wonder Apple
is now the first three trillion dollar company.
by JA S O N VAU G H A N
ROB SAYS…
We hear you! Apple does indeed charge a
premium for add-ons and accessories and
some of those prices are eye-watering, but
at least you have the option of spending your
money elsewhere. No, it’s the price of Mac
memory and storage upgrades we break out
the smelling salts for. You have no choice but
to pay Apple’s prices when you buy as you
can’t upgrade either after purchase.
X MARKS THE SPOT
When viewing a Twitter/X screen I’d like to be
able to crop a section before a screenshot!
Could Apple implement this please?
by S T E V E S A N F O R D

ROB SAYS… ROB SAYS…

There’s no doubt that the ‘trashcan’ Mac Pro (2013) is/was an incredible While cropping images before taking a
piece of engineering, but it was also one of Apple’s least successful screenshot isn’t possible on iPhone or iPad,
attempts to replace its predecessor – the Mac Pro tower. you can do so on a Mac. To do that, press
With the company struggling to meaningfully upgrade it, in 2017 Shift+Cmd+4 on your keyboard. With the
both Apple’s (at the time) VP for Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller and pointer now showing as a crosshair, click and
its software engineering VP, Craig Federighi, remarked on its relative drag with your mouse or trackpad over the
failure (and criticism from customers) at a press event. area you want to screenshot then release.
At the event, Federighi admitted that Apple had “designed ourselves The screenshot will then appear on your
into a bit of a thermal corner”, something Schiller then reiterated adding desktop ready for renaming and editing.
“It restricted our ability to upgrade it. And for that, we’re sorry to
disappoint customers who wanted that, and we’ve asked the team to
go and re-architect and design something great for… those Mac Pro
customers who want more expandability, more upgradability.”
The result was the Apple went back to basics and came up with
the reimagined Mac Pro it introduced in 2019 – a design that still
exists today with Apple silicon M2 Ultra chips onboard.

SORRY, HOW MUCH?

Now don’t get me wrong, Apple produces premium products and
you do expect to pay more for that. However, this should have limits.
For example, the Magic Mouse (White) is £79, (which is expensive for
a mouse) but the black one is £99. Really?
If you buy a MacPro, which is quite a purchase in itself, you can get Apple’s Studio Display is pricey to begin with, but add a tilt-
the Studio monitor for £1,499 which includes a tilt-adjustable stand. If and height-adjustable display? That’ll be an extra £400!

14 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

 Meet the
technology
experts

The world’s most comprehensive technology website

An unrivalled mix of news, opinions, reviews and features
All-new design, new homepage, new features and special reports
Backed by over 300 years of editorial experience

www.techradar.com

INVESTIGATES
The battle between the world’s largest music services
has escalated. We take a look at what’s happening
WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE HENRY
potify and Apple Music
S are the two largest
music streaming
services in the world,
attracting millions of listeners each
day. For years, their parent companies
have been locked in PR, political and
legal battles. Essentially, Spotify thinks
the iPhone-maker treats it unfairly and
favours its own product. Apple says that
Spotify has to play by the standard App
Store rules. This includes paying Apple
a 30% cut for payments made via the
App Store and accepting it has banned
other forms of transactions (read on for
more about changes here).
Spotify is classed as a reader app by
Apple. This means that it is allowed to
provide a link within the app that takes
users to a website from where they can
manage their account. But products like
Spotify cannot show that it offers
cheaper pricing via its website in the app.
Indeed, to avoid the so-called ‘Apple tax’,
16 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
Spotify does not give users the option to
upgrade their plan within its app at all.
You can see the price of its Premium
plans but cannot buy it on your iPhone.
Instead, there is simply a message that
says ‘You can’t upgrade to Premium in
the app. We know, it’s not ideal.’
Verdict and appeal
The battle between the two companies
started in 2019, when Spotify filed an
antitrust complaint to the EU about
Apple, prompting a formal investigation.
Apple hit back. In September 2019, it
released a statement tackling the various
allegations, including the idea that it was
blocking access to Spotify updates and
products. The company said at that point
it had “approved and distributed nearly
200 app updates on Spotify’s behalf,
resulting in over 300 million
downloaded copies of the Spotify
app. The only time we have requested
adjustments is when Spotify has tried
For our latest
subscription offer
see page 34!
Apple has just recently been hit with a hefty
fine from the EU.
to sidestep the same rules that every
other app follows.”
As covered last month, there are
more changes coming to the EU as Apple
responds to the demands of the Digital
Markets Act. Things have, though,
escalated in recent weeks. On 1 March
2024, Spotify signed a letter saying that
it and other tech companies “are very
concerned that Apple’s proposed scheme
for compliance with the Digital Markets
Act (DMA), as communicated on 25
Image credit: Shutterstock Inc
 Spotify sees itself as the underdog in the battle with Apple,
yet the popularity of the iPhone and the need for music
subscriptions has benefitted many streaming services.

Image credit: Apple Inc, Spotify Ltd MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 17

 APPLE CORE Apple vs Spotify
January 2024, will not meet the law’s
requirements therefore inhibiting our
ability to deliver the benefits of the DMA
to consumers as soon as possible.”
Just three days later, the EU hit
Apple with a €1.8 billion (£1.6 billion)
fine. Announcing the punishment
as a result of the aforementioned
investigation, EU antitrust chief
Margrethe Vestager said:
“For a decade, Apple has restricted
music streaming app developers from
informing their consumers about
cheaper options available outside of the
app. Apple has done so by contractually
imposing ‘anti-steering rules’ on music
streaming app developers.”
She added that Apple “did so by
restricting developers from informing
consumers about alternative, cheaper
music services available outside of the
Apple ecosystem. This is illegal under
EU antitrust rules.”
Apple, unsurprisingly, was not
happy and declared it would appeal.
“The decision was reached despite the
Commission’s failure to uncover any
credible evidence of consumer harm,
and ignores the realities of a market that
is thriving, competitive, and growing
fast,” it said in a statement.
“Spotify has a 56% share of Europe’s
music streaming market – more than
double their closest competitor’s – and
pays Apple nothing for the services that
have helped make them one of the most
recognisable brands in the world,” the
company added.
Spotify was, of course, far happier about the
EU’s ruling. It said that “Apple’s rules muzzled
Spotify and other music streaming services from
sharing with our users directly in our app about
various benefits – denying us the ability to
communicate with them about how to upgrade
and the price of subscriptions, promotions,
discounts, or numerous other perks. Of course,
Apple Music, a competitor to these apps, is not
barred from the same behaviour.”
Spotify also seems to be making a stand on behalf of other music streaming services.
18 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
Unlike Spotify, Apple Music
supports Dolby Atmos and
offers Lossless audio tracks
at no extra cost.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Pandora Media Inc, Deezer, TuneIn Inc, iHeartMedia Inc
The Swedish streamer also said that “by
requiring Apple to stop its illegal conduct in the
EU, the EC [European Commission] is putting
consumers first. It is a basic concept of free
markets – customers should know what options
they have, and customers, not Apple, should
decide what to buy, and where, when and how.”
Spotify’s case
Music streaming is different to the other scraps
for subscriptions currently taking place between
media services. In TV and movies, a wide range
of providers differentiate themselves by the
content they provide – who has the best exclusive
shows, who provides access to the latest
blockbusters and so on.
In music, both Spotify and Apple essentially
allow access to the same work and there are no
real major rivals to them. Tidal prides itself on
audio quality it offers but has mere fractions of
the listenership of Spotify and Apple Music.
Amazon Music has similarly never really
gathered momentum.
Apple Music and Spotify also both cost the
same – £10.99 a month for an individual account.
Spotify does offer a free version with reduced
functionality and adverts. Given their inherent
similarity, both services have to find other ways
to get users to pay up. The row between them
basically boils down to the question of whether
Apple is intentionally using its market position to
make it harder and less appealing for users to
access a service that rivals its own and, if so, what
laws or rules does this break. With that in mind,
there is certainly some merit to the irritation that
Spotify has felt for all these years.
For example, it is quite fiddly trying to use
the service on a HomePod or HomePod mini.
Getting set up to do so via AirPlay requires extra
steps, whilst it is all seamless with Apple Music.
Crucially, Apple Music is the default service used
by Apple’s smart speakers and this needs to be
manually changed in the Home app.
Ease of integration might be a factor that
encourages someone to subscribe to Apple Music
instead of Spotify, so it certainly arguable that
service is getting favourable treatment to that
end. It’s worth noting that some smaller services
– Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio and TuneIn
Radio – can all be used directly on HomePod.
Apple Music is also a native presence on the
company’s hardware – it’s there as soon as you
turn your new iPhone or Mac on. For many
customers, this is a huge benefit.
However, there is another possibility, one
that Spotify is less inclined to embrace. While

it is the biggest music streaming service in
the world, perhaps those who opt for Apple
Music do so because it is just… better.
It provides Dolby Atmos and Lossless audio
at no extra cost, something Spotify is yet to do.
There has been years of talk about a higher
priced plan including lossless audio, but,
at the time of writing, it is yet to emerge.
Spotify is determined to portray itself as the
underdog, yet Apple’s belief that it has helped
drive Spotify’s growth is to some extent true. The
growth of iPhones and mobile listening made a
music subscription an essential for many, and
Spotify has been the biggest beneficiary of that.
To its credit, Spotify has also developed a
service that offers things that rivals, including
Apple Music, do not. Notably, it is a hub for a host
Paying the piper
Separate to the complaints over
integrations, platforms and payment
methods – but still crucially
important as these platforms
develop – is the amount Spotify and
Apple Music actually pay the people
that make the music. Spotify is clear:
it pays rightsholders not musicians,
and it doesn’t have much to do with
how that money is divvied up.
It has long been understood that
Apple generally pays more per
Image credit: Apple Inc
Apple’s belief
that it has
helped drive
Spotify’s
growth is to
some extent
true
stream than Spotify does. In 2021,
the Wall Street Journal reported that
Apple could in fact be paying as much
as double – $0.01 – per play vs
$0.003 to 0.006. None of this is an
exact science as rates can fluctuate,
but Apple has always taken pride in
being the more generous payer.
But it’s not that simple. Even
though payment rates may be lower,
Spotify offers a far bigger potential
audience. Furthermore, artists can
Streaming music via AirPlay
to a HomePod is seamless
with Apple Music.
of audio content. This includes exclusive podcasts
and hundreds of thousands of audiobooks. (Paid
listeners get 15 hours a month of audiobooks
included with their plan.) It is an all-in-one
service of the kind Apple simply does not
provide. (Indeed, it was criticised for having such
an inferior product in the dying days of iTunes.)
There is also a reasonable case that Apple is
perfectly entitled to make its software work best
with its hardware. Apple TV+ is the streaming
service that works best on the Apple Vision Pro.
Mail is the default email app on all Apple
products. Why should music be any different?
However, as Vestager’s comments indicate, this
control of both software and hardware, and
Apple’s seeming bid to exploit that, could be
deemed anticompetitive.
sell merchandise and concert tickets
through Spotify, something they
cannot currently do on Apple Music,
meaning that Spotify is, overall,
probably a more profitable platform
for a musician.
It is not entirely clear how the
years-long battle between Apple and
Spotify will end. There is plenty more
legal wrangling in the EU to come, the
outcome of which could have ripple
effects around the world.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 19
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks

20 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

 iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
85 must-try
iPad tricks
Are you getting the most from
your amazing Apple tablet?
Written by Ian Osborne
B
ack when the iPad
was first released
in 2010, it was
criticised as being
OK for consuming media, but
not much use as a productivity
machine. Now, almost a decade
and a half later, things have
changed dramatically.
You can do all sorts of things
with your Apple tablet. In fact, it’s
so versatile, some people use it
as an alternative to a desktop
computer. And why not? Connect
it to a keyboard case and you have
a perfectly viable notebook.
If you need more storage, you
can use a USB-C flash drive or
portable drive. Pair an Apple
Pencil, and you’ve an excellent
digital drawing tool. And with
Apple’s Pages, Numbers and
Keynote productivity apps,
you can work on the go too.
Image credit: Apple Inc
The iPad is perfect for the
creative user. There’s plenty of
powerful, capable art packages
available, as well as in-depth photo
editors that go above and beyond
the already-impressive editing
tools offered by the Photos
app. For musicians, there’s
GarageBand and for video editors
iMovie, with third-party apps for
those who need a little more. And
yes, the iPad is great for watching
and streaming videos, reading
ebooks, playing exciting, console-
quality games and more.
In this feature, we take a look
at what you can do with your
trusty iPad, whether you’re
working on the go, creating fine
art, making a movie or simply
enjoying yourself. With our help,
you can get the most from your
Apple iPad and the latest version
of its operating system, iPadOS 17.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 21
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks

Multitasking for
greater productivity
You can get a lot more done if you master these important iPad features

M
ultitasking is, in a nutshell,
doing more than one thing
at once. On your iPad, there
are several ways you can multitask. The
most obvious is Split View, whereby you
divide the screen, with one application on
one side and another on the other. You
can then drag content between them,
quickly and easily. You can even open the
same application twice if you choose.
To open a second app in Split View,
drag up from the foot of the screen to
open the Dock, and either drag a second
application out of the Dock onto the left
or right side of the screen, or tap the App
Library, and drag an app to the left or
right. You can drag the line dividing the
two apps to resize them. You’ll need an
iPad Pro, 5th gen iPad or later, iPad Air 2
or later or iPad mini 4 or later.
Alternatively, Slide Over lets you open
a second application in a smaller floating
Watch a video or FaceTime while using another app.
window, which is by default on the right
side of the screen but can be moved to
the left. You can have multiple apps open
in Slide Over mode; to switch between
them, drag the line at the foot of the Slide
Over window upwards and hold it until the
apps appear as thumbnails. Then tap the
one you want. Slide Over requires an iPad
Pro, 5th gen iPad or later, iPad Air or later
or iPad mini 2 or later.
To close a Split Screen or Slide Over
app or switch between the two
multitasking modes, tap the ‘…’ icon
at the top of an app and choose the
option you want from the menu.
Picture-in-Picture
Another useful multitasking tool is
Picture-in-Picture mode. This lets you
watch a video or FaceTime while doing
something else. In the video application,
tap the icon with the white rectangle
pointing inwards to a black rectangle; the
video pops out and is superimposed onto
the iPad’s screen, where you can drag it
or resize it. Alternatively, while watching
a video or on FaceTime, swipe up from the
bottom of the screen to display the Dock
and choose another open app. The video
appears in its corner. To close the floating
video window, tap it to open the controls,
then tap the two-rectangles icon again.
Not every app is compatible with iPad
multitasking, but key Apple apps are.

5 best iPad accessories

Magic Keyboard
for iPad Pro
›From £319 ›apple.com/uk
›This handy keyboard case
turns your iPad into a
powerful notebook. It
connects to and draws
its power from the iPad,
so there’s no recharging or
Bluetooth pairing needed, and
it has a trackpad for more
precise pointer positioning.
Twelve South
Hover Bar Duo
›£79.99 ›twelvesouth.com
›Hover Bar Duo is two stands
in one. It has a clamp mount
you can connect to a bar or
bedstead, and a regular foot
for placing on a desktop or
kitchen worktop. It stands up
to two feet tall. Just the thing
if you want to watch a video
in bed, or follow a recipe.
Belkin Connect
USB-C 4-in-1
Multiport Adaptor
›£44.99 ›belkin.com
›If your iPad has USB-C, plug
this in and connect all sorts
of peripherals to your iPad. It
has a 4K HDMI port, so if you
want to connect to a big
screen, it’s ideal. It supports
pass-through charging, so
you can charge as you view.
Magic Keyboard
Folio for iPad
›£279 ›apple.com/uk
›Another Apple keyboard
case, this one features a
built-in trackpad, a 14-key
function row and a two-piece
case design that includes a
detachable keyboard and a
protective back panel. It has
an adjustable stand for
flexible viewing angles too.
OWC Envoy Pro
Elektron
›From £99.99
›owc.com
›iPads with a USB-C port can
connect to a portable drive,
and this is one of the best.
It’s available in capacities
between 240GB to 2TB, and
is crushproof, dustproof and
IP67-rated waterproof, with
speeds of up to 1,011MB/sec.

22 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Twelve South LLC, Belkin, Other World Computing Inc

How to Master Slide Over, Split View and Stage Manager >
1 Look for another app 2 Drag and move
To work in Slide Over, with an app
already open, swipe up from the bottom
of the screen to reveal the Dock. Look for
the app you want to open in Slide Over,
either in the Dock itself or in the App
Library on the right of the Dock.
4 Drag to one side
To work using Split View, follow
Step 1 above, but instead of releasing the
second app in the middle of the screen,
drag it all the way to the right or the left
until the open app makes room for itself
as shown here, then release.
7 Tap Stage Manager
Stage Manager gives the iPad the
closest thing yet to the Mac’s windows.
To turn it on and off, swipe in from the
top-left corner to open the Control
Centre, and tap the Stage Manager icon
(square window with three vertical dots).
Image credits: Apple Inc
iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
Drag the second app out of the Dock
or App Library onto the screen. It opens
in Slide Over. You can move the apps
between the left and right side by
pressing and holding the ‘…’ icon found
on top of the Slide Over window.
5 Split in half
When you release, the screen
is split in half and the two apps are
open at once. You can drag the dividing
line left and right to resize. On very new
iPads, you can open a Slide Over app
in Split View too.
8 Resize the window
In Stage Manager, resize the
window you have open using the handle
in one of the bottom corners. To open
another app, tap it in the Dock or App
Library, or tap the ‘…’ icon and choose
Add Another Window.
3 Add another
Tap the ‘…’ icon to bring up an
options menu. Drag another app out
of the Dock or App Library to open it in
Slide Over view. Swipe the grab handle
at the bottom up then release to switch
between Slide Over apps.
6 Swap things around
Press and hold the ‘…’ icon on top of
an app to swap its place, or drag it down
off the screen to close it. Tap the ‘…’ icon
for a menu; this enables you to opt for
switching between Full Screen, Split View
or Slide Over, or closing the app.
9 Switch between apps
You can switch between open apps
by tapping them on the screen, and you
can reposition windows by dragging
them. Tap a recently used app at the
side of the screen to open it. Use the
‘…’ menu to close an app.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 23
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks

Pages, Numbers & Keynote

The iPad and Apple’s iWork apps are great for working on the go

S
ince they were first released in
May 2011, Apple’s iWork suite
for iPad – that’s the Pages word
processor, Numbers spreadsheet and
Keynote presentation app – have gone
from strength to strength. While the
iPhone versions are OK for editing and
modifying docs on the go, the larger
screen offered by Apple’s tablet makes
the iPad’s iWork apps as powerful and
easy to use as their Mac counterparts.
To get the most out of Pages,
Numbers and Keynote you need a
keyboard. Apple’s own Magic Keyboard
Case is ideal, as it offers a trackpad that’s
great for the precision needed when
selecting a spreadsheet cell or piece
of text. You might consider getting an
Apple Pencil too. The Apple Pencil is
an excellent optional extra that again
gives a greater level of precision. You
can also use it to write by hand, with
your handwriting being converted
into editable text.
One of the best things about Pages,
Numbers and Keynote is that if you save
Pages is great for writing, and you can do a surprising
amount with it considering it’s free.
your work to their respective iCloud
folders, you can pick up where you left
off on another device, or even from
a web browser. This is very convenient.
You can, for example, start writing a
letter or memo in Pages on your home
Mac, save it to iCloud and then continue
with it on your iPad on the train. If you
created a Numbers spreadsheet at work
and want to add to it at home over the
weekend, you can do that too. And if you
need access to one of your iWork
documents when you’re out and about
without your iPad or notebook, you can
check it on your iPhone, or if you need
a bit of quiet or a research book, pop to
the local library and access it online at
icloud.com. You can even make edits,
directly from the browser.
All this for free
If you need to send an iWork document
to someone that doesn’t use Apple
devices, you can export them to their
Microsoft Office equivalents, as PDFs and
several other formats depending on the
app. For example, Pages can save as
EPUB, Plain Text and RTF documents,
and Numbers can export to CSV or TSV.
Best of all, Pages, Numbers and
Keynote are free for anyone with a Mac
or iOS/iPadOS device, and have been
since October 2013. If you don’t have
them on your iPad already, it’s a good
idea to download them. If you don’t use
them, give them a go. It’s surprising how
easy they are to work with.

5 best productivity apps

Scrivener OmniFocus Spark Mail Fantastical MindNode

ݣ22.99
›literatureandlatte.com
›If you need to
write in long form
– maybe because
you’re writing a novel or
screenplay, or a very long,
multi-part report – Scrivener
is essential. Available for the
Mac, iPad and iPhone, it has
every feature you need.
›Free (IAPs) ›omnigroup.com
›This powerful
task management
app is ideal for
keeping your personal and
professional life in order.
Syncing with the Mac
version, it has a modern,
easy-to-use interface, great
organisational tools and
plenty more.
›Free (IAPs)
›sparkmailapp.com
›If you need
more from an
email client than
Mail can offer, try Spark. It’s
great for managing personal
and professional emails. It’s
free to download, but you
need to pay a subscription
for advanced features.
›Free (IAPs) ›flexibits.com
›The award-
winning
Fantastical
has long been a favourite
Calendar alternative.
It brings a range of
productivity features into
one place. It even offers a
weather forecast. Perfect
for collaboration too.
›Free (IAPs) ›mindnode.com
›You can use this
brain mapping
app’s basic
features for free, but
MindNode Plus requires a
subscription. Its powerful
features let you capture
and organise your thoughts,
helping you to focus on
your projects.

24 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Literature & Latte Ltd, The Omni Group, Spark Mail Ltd, Flexibits Inc, IdeasOnCanvas GmbH

How to Create a presentation in Keynote >
1 Download Keynote
Keynote is for creating presentations.
Here we show you how to use tools also
found in Pages and Numbers, such as
tables and sharing features, and also
Keynote’s unique features. First,
download Keynote from the App Store.
4 Edit text
Tap on a piece of default text to
delete it. Type your own text over it. Tap
a text box and then tap the paintbrush
(top right). Play around with what you
can do with the Style, Text and Arrange
menus found here.
7 Edit pictures
Tap on a picture and twist it to
rotate it, or resize it by dragging the
handles. Double-tap and you can resize
the picture within its frame using the
slider. Tap the paintbrush icon for even
more options.
Image credits: Apple Inc
iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
2 Start a presentation
When you first get started with
Keynote, it’s best to begin with a
template and build your presentation
over it, so that’s what we’ll do here. Open
Keynote, tap the ‘+’ and select ‘Choose
a Theme’ from the menu.
5 Add a slide
Tap the ‘+’ (bottom left), then tap
one of the slide choices to use in your
presentation. You can reorder slides by
dragging them into place in the sidebar,
and delete one by tapping it twice and
then tapping Delete.
8 Add transitions
Tap a slide from the sidebar or an
object on a slide and tap the ‘…’ icon (top
right). Choose Animate, and you can add
the kind of effect you want to see as one
slide changes to another, or have objects
arrive or leave in style.
3 Look at templates
Find a template you like, and tap it
to download and open it. Its title is in the
top-left corner of the screen. Tap it and
choose Rename, then call it whatever
you like. It will be saved in your iCloud
folder by default.
6 Change pictures
To replace a picture with one of
your own, tap the ‘+’ sign in the bottom-
right corner of a photograph and choose
something else. To change the picture
again, tap it and then tap the photos icon
in the top bar.
9 Test the presentation
When you’re done, tap the Play
button at the top of the screen to run
through your presentation. Look for
mistakes you’ve made or things you can
improve on. Then, repeat the process
until you’re satisfied with the end result.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 25
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks

Photography & art

Because the iPad isn’t only for office apps…

T
he iPad is ideal for creating
digital art, especially if you
have an Apple Pencil, and
is also good for photo editing. In fact,
the Photos app – bundled with iPadOS
– includes a powerful photo editor that
helps you really get the most from
your snaps.
The iPad’s touchscreen and the Apple
Pencil’s precision drawing, low latency,
tilt sensitivity and pressure sensitivity
(unless you have a USB-C Pencil) make
it an ideal environment for creating
digital masterpieces with apps such as
Procreate, ArtRage, Adobe Fresco and
Affinity Designer. A word of warning,
though. These apps give you all the tools
you need, but don’t expect them to
produce your artwork for you. They help
you make the most of your skills, but
they won’t paper over a lack of skill.
Its a similar story with photo-editing
apps. Apple Photos is as much as most
people need, but if you want to take
things further, Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom gives you an impressively
Which Apple
Pencil is right
for you?
There are three Apple Pencil
models currently available:
Apple Pencil (1st generation)
for £109; Apple Pencil (2nd
generation) for £139; and the
Apple Pencil (USB-C) for £79.
You can produce some truly excellent artwork with Whether you buy a 1st-gen or
an iPad and an Apple Pencil.
2nd-gen model depends on
professional suite of tools. There’s which iPad you have; the
also Pixelmator, Snapseed, Photofox, USB-C model is a more
Prisma and more. Indeed, there’s dozens affordable version with similar
of photo editors available for the Apple system requirements to the
tablet, ranging from very straightforward Apple Pencil (2nd gen). To see
apps for simple retouching jobs to which Apple Pencil works on
high-end suites that keep even your iPad, go to apple.com/uk/
professional photographers happy, but shop/select-apple-pencil.
might confuse the enthusiastic amateur. If your wallet won’t stretch
Once again, the simpler apps with to an Apple Pencil, there’s the
automatic photo tuners are easy to use, Aniyoo Stylus Pen for Apple
but don’t expect a more comprehensive iPad 2018-2023, from £12.99.
editor to do everything for you.

Top 5 creativity apps

Tinkercad.com Affinity Photo Procreate Assembly Comic Draw

›Free ›tinkercad.com
›If you’ve always
wanted to try
computer-aided
design (CAD) but don’t know
where to start, give Tinkercad
a go. It’s free, and it’s great
for 3D modelling. It’s Apple
Pencil compatible, and is
great for beginners.
›£17.99 ›affinity.serif.com
›It’s amazing just
how powerful this
desktop-quality
photo editor is. Its interface
has been built around the
touchscreen, and its tools
rival anything its competitors
can come up with, even the
mighty Photoshop.
›£12.99 ›procreate.com
›Get out your iPad
and your Apple
Pencil and create
breathtaking pieces of digital
art with this pro-quality art
studio. It has over 200
hand-crafted brushes,
complete colour control,
powerful effects and more.
›Free (IAPs) ›pixiteapps.com
›Vector & SVG
Maker – Assembly
(full title) is an
easy-to-use modelling app
that brings design to the
masses. Using basic shapes,
pre-made stickers and a
snap-to-grid interface, you
can get great results.
›Free (IAPs) ›plasq.com
›Here’s one for
the budding comic
artists and writers
among us. Build your artwork
with layers, create custom
colour palettes, choose from
over 130 fonts and enjoy your
work on the integrated
full-screen reader.

26 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Autodesk Inc, Serif Europe Ltd, Savage, Pixite, plasq LLC

How to Easily edit your photos >
1 Launch Photos app
We’re going to look at all the things
you can do when editing a photograph
in the Photos app here. Launch the app
and open the photo you want to work
on. With that photo open, tap Edit in
the top-right corner.
4 Key editing tools
Exposure sets the brightness of
the entire image. Brilliance makes a
picture look more vibrant overall, and
Highlights/Shadows tweaks the lighting
in the photo’s brightest and darkest
places respectively.
7 Crop, flip and rotate
Tap Crop on the left and you can
crop the picture by dragging the handles
on its sides and corners. You can also flip
the photograph horizontally or rotate it in
90° steps using the icons with movement
arrows in the top left.
Image credit: Apple Inc
iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
2 Use the Magic Wand
From the categories on the left-hand
side (Adjust, Filters and Crop), choose
Adjust. The first tool available is the
Magic Wand. Tap it for an automatic
adjustment, which you can intensify or
reduce with the slider on the far right.
5 Reduce or increase
Tools such as Saturation and
Vibrancy affect the colour of the pic. You
can also adjust a picture’s Sharpness,
Warmth, Definition and more. In all cases,
reduce or increase the effect using the
slider on the right.
8 Use more control
The crop tools on the right-hand
side allow you to rotate the image with
more control (use the slider), tilt it
vertically and tilt it horizontally. Try out
these tools – they’re very useful when
you get used to using them.
3 Discover more tools
The Adjust tools all work in a very
similar manner. Swipe their icons up and
down to move between them. We don’t
have space to cover all of them, but the
following steps give you a guide to some
of the key tools.
6 Play with filters
In the left-hand tools, select Filters,
then drag the filter list up and down to
choose which one you want to try. By
default, they’re at maximum strength, but
you can reduce the level using the slider
to the right of the filters list.
9 Done, reset, cancel
At the top of the screen you see
Cancel (left), Reset (middle) and Done
(right). ‘Done’ takes you out of editing
mode with the edits intact, ‘Cancel’ does
the same but with the edits abandoned,
and Reset reverts the last edit.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 27
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks

Music & video

You can create amazing sounds
and clips using your Apple tablet

T
he iPad has always been an excellent device
for enjoying music and videos, but as it grew
in power and scope, it became a superb tool
for creating media too. Popular everyman-level apps such
as the iMovie video editor and GarageBand music creator
were ported from the Mac to the iPad, with redesigned
interfaces built to take full advantage of the tablet’s
touchscreen. Last year Apple’s pro-level media creation apps StaffPad, for the
Final Cut Pro (video editor) and Logic Pro (music creator)
were also brought to the iPad, again with interfaces built
traditional musician
around the touchscreen. Composers who can edit your work, repeat
It’s amazing how few compromises have been made in write their own musical sequences and add
bringing these applications to the iPad. Apple’s tablet might music using chords manually or
be smaller than the Mac, but with the latest model of iPad notation will appreciate automatically.
Pro boasting an Apple silicon M2 System-on-a-Chip (SoC), it’s StaffPad (staffpad.net). When you’re ready to
certainly not lacking in power. The results you can get Exclusively on the iPad, you listen to your masterpiece,
using media creation apps, third-party as well as the can write your music on the the app plays it back. Over 55
aforementioned Apple software, certainly reflect this. screen with your Apple Pencil, instruments are included,
The key advantage of having these apps on the iPad using blank sheet music and you can add more from
is you can create movies and music on the move, but when offered by the app. It’s then industry-standard sample
you’re at home you can hook up to an external monitor. If it typeset, so it looks as good as libraries. At £89.99 it’s not
has a Lightning connector you need the necessary adaptor, the scores bought from your cheap, but you’re getting a
but if it charges using a USB-C or Thunderbolt port, you local sheet music shop. You powerful app for your money.
might not. Full details are available at apple.co/3Ij5Sjr.

Top 5 apps for music & video

GarageBand Logic Pro iMovie Final Cut Pro Clips

›Free ›apple.com/uk
›Create music the
modern way with
this easy-to-use
app that’s free with your iPad.
Build your tune by adding
loops and beats from an
extensive library of
instruments and sounds.
It syncs with the Mac
GarageBand too.
›£4.99/month, or £49/year
›apple.com/uk
›For the musical
maestro, Apple
also has a
pro-level music application
that makes no compromises
for its iPad version. Built for
the touchscreen, it’s powerful
enough for even the most
discerning musician.
›Free ›apple.com/uk
›One for the
budding Steven
Spielbergs out
there. With iMovie, you can
make impressive videos by
editing footage with tools
such as colour correction,
transitions and image
stabilisation. It’s designed
to be easy to use.
›£4.99/month, or £49/year
›apple.com/uk
›Apple’s pro-level
iPad movie editing
studio might even
satisfy Steven Spielberg. It
has an amazing range of
tools, such as multicam, fast
cut machine learning, colour
presets, keyboard edits, Apple
Pencil support and more.
›Free ›apple.com/uk
›At the other end
of the scale is
Clips, for mobile
devices. It’s not a powerful
tool, but it’s ideal for making
short clips for social media,
with effects, emoji, captions,
filters and ‘Live Titles’, made
using speech to text. Great
for influencers.

28 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, StaffPad Ltd


How to Get started with iMovie >
1 Start a project
Let’s start a new iMovie project.
Open the app, tap Start New Project and
select Movie. Tap Video in the sidebar,
and then tap each video you want to
include and tap the tick icon that appears
above its reel.
4 Detach audio
We want to add a music track
behind the video, so we need to silence
the audio that’s already there. Tap a clip,
tap Detach Audio and then lower the
volume slider to zero; you haven’t lost
the audio by the way, just silenced it.
7 Discover more tools
Try the Mic icon to record a voice-
over for your movie. The Camera icon to
take new photos or videos. Tap the Play
icon to preview the movie you’ve created.
Tap the waveform icon to collapse and
expand the audio tracks.
Image credits: Apple Inc
iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
2 Create your movie
When you’ve chosen all the video
elements you want, tap Create Movie.
Your clips are turned into a continuous
video, playing one after another. You can
play it as it is, but we want to do more
with it, so tap the Edit button.
5 Add the chosen audio 6 Delete and undo
To add background music, tap the
‘+’ icon (top right), at the bottom of the
panel that appears. Tap Audio and then
navigate to the track you want. Tap the
‘+’ next to it. You might have to download
the track in Music first.
8 Go even further
Tap the gear icon in the top right of
this window. With the tools here, you can
set a project-wide filter, add a theme to
your movie, and various other actions
such as adding a Theme Soundtrack,
Fade In/Out and more.
3 Edit your clips
You’re shown your clips along the
foot of the screen. If you want to shorten
a clip, tap on it. You’ll see that it’s now
bordered in yellow. Drag the handles at
the start and end of the clip until you’re
left with the length of clip you want.
Tap a clip and you can edit it,
change its speed, add captions and use
filters using these tools. Tap a clip or
audio track and delete it by tapping the
Bin. Use the curved arrow next to the
Bin to undo your last edit.
9 Add transitions
You can change the way the clips
segue into each other during the video.
Tap the square icon found between two
clips and choose from the range offered.
When ready, tap Done (top left) and play
or share it from the next screen.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 29
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks
Other cool stuff you can do
There’s plenty more productivity tasks you can carry out on your iPad
N
aturally, your iPad isn’t
limited to the tasks we’ve
outlined so far. There’s a
wealth of apps designed to increase
your productivity. Arguably the most
productive thing you can do on your
iPad is to use the App Store efficiently.
Remember, the search engine isn’t just
for finding specific apps. You can enter
what it is you want to do and the search
results give you apps that fit the bill. For
example, if you type ‘catalogue record
collection’ into the search field, you’re
Things 3
£9.99 culturedcode.com
Things 3 is arguably the
best GTD (Getting Things
Done) app available on
Apple devices. It’s available for the
Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad,
and even the Vision Pro. Data syncs
between these platforms so your
to-dos and reminders are always to
hand. Each task in a to-do list can be
tagged, scheduled and broken down
into smaller steps. To-dos can auto
repeat, there’s widgets so you can
see today’s tasks on your Lock
Screen and it can integrate with
Calendar so you can see events
and tasks in the same place.
Things an excellent project manager, and it’s available
for the iPad. It’s on other Apple devices too.
30 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
shown appropriate apps. Type ‘website
builder’ and you’re offered apps that
help you build websites.
There’s scarcely a limit to what you
can do on the iPad. With a popular tool
like Duolingo you can learn another
language, and for straightforward
translations there’s Google Translate
and Apple’s own Translate app (both
free). You can explore virtual and
augmented reality environments, play
exciting or relaxing video games, surf
the web and more. The sky’s the limit.
PCalc brings comprehensive scientific
calculations to your iPad.
PCalc
£9.99 pccalc.com
When you need a
scientific calculator and
not just a regular four-
function model, PCalc is well
worth the £9.99 it costs on the
App Store. It offers an extensive set
of unit conversions, a paper tape, an
optional RPN mode and engineering
and scientific notation, as well as
support for hexadecimal, octal and
binary calculations. Different button
layouts are offered, and there’s an
editor to make your own. Ideal for
mathematicians, scientists,
engineers, and other people who
need a versatile, in-depth calculator.
The Voice
Memos app
Who needs a Dictaphone when
you have Voice Memos? Bundled
with macOS, iPadOS, iOS and
watchOS, you can use Voice Memos
to make a quick recording using your
Apple Watch or iPhone, and then
review it on your iPad or Mac. Great
for verbal notes on the go.
Freeform
Here’s an app you already
have. Freeform is bundled
with the iPad, iPhone and
Mac, and brings whiteboard
brainstorming to remote meetings.
You can design a mood board,
sketch out a project and more, all
while collaborating with your team
in real time. They see your edits as
soon as you make them, and you see
their changes in a similarly prompt
manner. Up to a hundred people can
collaborate on the same board.
Freeform’s shared space is very
versatile. As well as handwritten
and typed notes, you can add
pictures, URLs, sticky notes,
diagrams and more.
When the entire team is working from home, you can
still collaborate on a whiteboard with the Freeform app.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Cultured Code, James Thomson

Use your iPad as an extra Mac screen
Multiple screens make you
much more productive. If
you have a Mac running
10.15 (Catalina) or later and an iPad
running iPadOS 13 or later, and both
devices are new enough, you can use
your iPad as an extra screen for your
Automation apps
You can save time at home and
work by automating repetitive
tasks. As an iPad owner you already
have Apple’s own Shortcuts app,
which can chain actions covering
several apps into a single shortcut,
which can then be activated by Siri
as well as by tapping the screen.
There are third-party apps that
offer similar functionality too.
IFTTT (IF This Then That)
creates powerful business and home
automations, and requires no coding
skills at all. It’s compatible with over
800 popular home and business
apps. Look out too for Pushcut,
which lets you build fine-tuned
interactions for HomeKit, Shortcuts,
and custom workflows through
smart notifications and widgets.
Shortcuts is a powerful automation app that’s bundled
with recent releases of the iPadOS operating system.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Google LLC
iPad tips and tricks FEATURE
Mac. First make sure they’re on the
same wireless network and signed in
with the same Apple ID. Open System
Settings on your Mac and click Displays
in the sidebar. At the top, click the
menu showing a ‘+’ symbol, and add
your iPad to your Mac’s screen setup.
Google’s official app lets you search in new ways,
such as shopping or searching from an image.
Google apps
Google’s free apps are very
popular across all platforms,
and you can use them on the
iPad. If you have to sync calendars
with people who use non-Apple
platforms, your team will probably
use Google Calendar. You can too,
on your Apple tablet. There’s an
official Google app, which beefs up
your online searches, and Google
Chrome is an excellent alternative
to Safari for surfing the web.
Google’s web browser-based
office apps are keen alternative to
iWork. There’s Google Docs for word
processing, Google Sheets for
spreadsheets and Google Slides for
creating presentations.
Using an iPad as an extra
display is a really handy way
of maximising screen space.
Click the Arrange button and position
it where you want in relation to your
Mac’s screen. You can now move a
window from your Mac to your iPad
by Ctrl-clicking the green button
and choosing that option or simply
dragging it from one screen to another.
Software
development
If you want to try your hand
at programming, you can even
download developer tools for your
iPad. For the beginner, Swift
Playgrounds teaches programming
the easy – or at least easiest –
way. It’s genuinely fun to use, and
gives great results. If you want to
learn Python, JavaScript, SQL or
CSS code, there’s Enki, and for
Python, HTML, SQL and C++, there’s
Sololearn. There are also a lot of
apps that offer tutorials to help you
along on your programming journey.
It’s amazing how much you can do
on your iPad.
Apple’s Swift Playgrounds is designed to make
learning to program fun, and it’s available on the iPad.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 31
 FEATURE iPad tips and tricks
And relax…
Get comfy, it’s entertainment time!
T
he iPad isn’t all work, work,
work. There’s plenty of ways
to relax with your Apple tablet,
or to get the adrenaline flowing with
a fun game or an exciting movie.
Do you do Wordle? Every day,
The New York Times offers a different
Wordle puzzle. Try it yourself at
nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html.
Plenty of other newspapers and media
organisations offer daily crosswords or
puzzles. When you find one you like, you
can launch it from the Home Screen as
if it was an app. Just open the web page
in question, tap Share and choose ‘Add
Great for gaming
There’s some awesome games on
the iPad, from simple puzzlers
that use the touchscreen to
console-quality offerings such as
the recent Hitman: Blood Money
— Reprisal. You can pair console
controllers with your iPad too, for
an even better gaming experience.
These can be Xbox, PlayStation or
other Bluetooth gamepads, and all
you have to do to pair them is put
the gamepad in pairing mode and
in your iPad’s Bluetooth settings
and select it from the list of nearby
devices. But please do ensure
the gamepad is iPad-compatible,
before you buy.
Console-quality games like Hitman: Blood Money –
Reprisal are much more fun with a gamepad.
32 | MACFORMAT MAY 2024
to Home Screen’. You can read ebooks
on your iPad, using Apple’s own Books
app (bundled with iPadOS) and the free
Amazon Kindle app, which is ideal if you
also have a Kindle device.
You can explore augmented and
virtual reality environments too.
Look out for games like Smash Tanks
and (of course) Pokémon Go!, which
superimpose graphics onto the real
world as viewed from the camera.
And for the ultimate virtual pet,
check out AR Dragon (playsidestudios.
com). It’s free, with extra items available
for in-app purchases.
The iPad is great for listening to your favourite
tunes. Apple Music isn’t the only option.
Enjoy music
When it comes to enjoying your
music, your iPad is just as good
as your iPhone or your Mac. Pair it
with Bluetooth earbuds or AirPlay
speakers for the best sound.
Obviously, Apple Music is the key
app for iPad audio, especially if you
subscribe to the similarly-named
service. You can stream almost any
album by almost any artist. If you’re
not an Apple Music subscriber,
Spotify offers a similar service, and
has a free, ad-supported version
with some limitations. The more
cultured among us should try Apple
Music Classical too.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Feral Interactive Ltd, Vinted UAB Group
Streaming TV
and movies
Get yourself a stand or keyboard
case for your iPad, and you can
use it for streaming videos. You
probably already have the YouTube
app. With it, you can enjoy all sorts
of content from all over the world.
Subscribe to any TV-on-demand
services? If so, check to see if they
have an app you can use to stream
your content. Apple TV+ can be
accessed through the iPad’s Apple
TV app, of course, and popular ser-
vices such as Netflix and Disney+
have their own apps too, as do
many popular TV stations.
Online shopping
There’s more to online shopping
than eBay and Amazon. There’s
a wealth of apps and services out
there for buying goods online.
Apple itself has an Apple Store
app, which is ideal for buying new
Apple computers, mobile devices
and accessories. You can also use
it to book training sessions at your
local Apple Store and subscribe to
Apple services too.
Vinted is an eBay-like online
store that’s great for buying or
selling clothes and other items,
and for the latest bargains and
vouchers, check out Groupon.
Shop on Vinted to get some great bargains on
clothes, toys, entertainment and more.
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EDITED BY JO MEMBERY letters@macformat.com

Master Apple 38
shortcuts
macOS
Cmd is the Command key.
Alt or Opt is the Option key.
Ctrl is the Control key, also
shown as ‘^’ in shortcuts in
the menu bar.
The thick, outlined up
arrow is the Shift key.
The thin, left arrow or
outlined pointer with ‘X’
WHAT’S INSIDE
inside is the Delete key, which
deletes to the left. Pressing
the Function key (Fn) and the
38 EASILY SHARE YOUR DOCS
Delete key deletes to the right.
Distribute your documents securely
The thin, right arrow key with
a small vertical line at the end
40 CREATE AN INVENTORY
is the Tab key, which shifts the
focus between some controls.
Keep track of your worldly goods on Mac 40
42 SORT YOUR BLUETOOTH KIT
iOS Manage and troubleshoot all your devices
A tap is a brief contact
of (usually) one finger 44 GAME ON WITH APPLE ARCADE
on your device’s screen. Discover how to set yourself up and get playing
To drag is to move a finger
across the screen to scroll 46 REDISCOVER PODCASTS
or pan around content. Get your podcasts in order with Overcast
Swipe means move one or
more fingers across an item 48 MAKE YOUR iPAD SMARTER
or the screen, then let go. Do fun things with AI using ChatGPT
A flick is like swiping, but it’s 48
quicker, and is often used to 50 TRACK YOUR SLEEP
scroll content more quickly. Check the quality of your shut-eye time
Pinch means move two
fingers together or apart, 52 SET MULTIPLE TIMERS
usually to zoom in or out. Trigger concurrent timers for multitasking
Touch and hold means lightly
rest your finger on an item 54 SOLID-STATE SOUND
and wait for a reaction. The new silicon-based audio tech explained

Image credits: Apple Inc, Blue Plum Software Inc, OpenAI MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 37
Easily share your documents
Safely and securely share documents you’ve created
IT WILL TAKE Documents are often made for can also password-protect a document so
5 minutes sharing. This is certainly true if that unwanted eyes can’t catch a glimpse.
you’re knocking out a report for Here we’re going to walk you through your
YOU WILL LEARN work or writing an article for a various options – all of which are on top of the
How to collaborate on top-notch magazine such as this one. It’s more traditional method of simply saving a
and share documents why Apple makes it easy to allow others document on your Mac before finding and
(and even password to access your documents in Pages. attaching it to an email! In doing so, we’ll also
protect them) Whether you want to collaborate on explore the different file formats you can use
a document in real time, allowing other and how this may affect the way you approach
YOU’LL NEED people to make changes whenever they your work. As you’ll see, Pages is flexible and
macOS 13 or wish, or wish to finish your work and share can easily fit into any professional workflow.
later, Pages the end result, Pages has you covered. You David Crookes

HOW TO Collaborate on documents

1 Activate iCloud Drive

If you would like to use the
collaboration features to share Pages
2 Click to share
documents with others, make sure iCloud
Drive is turned on; click the Apple menu,
select your Apple ID, click iCloud then
toggle iCloud Drive to on.
Launch the Pages app and either
create a new document or open an
3 Select a contact
Choose up to 100 people to
collaborate with – a shareable link is
existing one. When you are ready to generated. A Collaboration button then
collaborate, simply click the Share appears in the toolbar listing all recent
button in the toolbar before selecting activity. You can communicate with
Collaborate from the menu. participants via message, audio or video.

38 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

 Share documents APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Export your documents

1 Save your file

Not everyone uses Pages so if you’re
sharing a Pages file with others, they
may not be able to open it. For greater
compatibility, you can export your
documents in other file formats.
Select File and choose Export To.
2 Choose a format
Microsoft Word is dominant so
select Word to ensure compatibility.
Be aware you’ll likely lose unique fonts,
marks, smart annotations and special
formatting such as page numbering –
the same is true with plain text/RTF.
3 Create PDFs
PDFs and images preserve
formatting and layout as well as
comments and smart annotations but
recipients may struggle to edit them.
EPUB is great if you want a doc to be
read in an ebook reader.

HOW TO Protect your documents

1 Set permissions
When collaborating, you can
determine what others can do. Click
Share and the menu below Collaborate,
then choose ‘Only invited people’ to limit
who can make alterations. For further
control, untick ‘Allow Others to Invite’.
2 View or edit
You can also prevent people from
editing documents by clicking the menu
below Permissions and clicking ‘View
only’. Change or stop permissions by
clicking the Collaboration button and
selecting Manage Shared Documents.
3 Add passwords
When exporting documents as
a PDF, Word file or Pages ’09 doc, you
can add a password; just tick ‘Require a
password to open’. Pages docs can also
be password protected via File > Set
Password. This will encrypt your doc.

Share Pages via iCloud

You don’t always need to launch the Pages app
If you’re away from your Mac, there are other ways of sharing Pages documents:
one is by signing into iCloud.com. By selecting Pages from the iCloud menu, you
can choose to Collaborate with Others or Send a Copy, either from your list of
saved documents or within a document itself (you can also export as a PDF, Word
or EPUB file by selecting Download a Copy). Opening a document in Pages on your
iPhone or iPad also gives you the option to Export, collaborate and share. Select
the ‘…’ button and tap Document Options if you want to set a password.

Image credit: Apple Inc APRIL 2024 | MACFORMAT | 39

Create a home inventory
Keep track of all your worldly goods – with a little help from your Mac
IT WILL TAKE While it’s easy to try to imagine While you could use a spreadsheet to do
30 minutes you have no possessions, in reality that it’s a bit unwieldy, so here we’re going to
most of us have far too many. And show you how to use Home Inventory 4 from
YOU WILL LEARN that can make it tricky to keep track Blue Plum Software (theblueplum.com). It’s a
How to create an of them all – especially when you need a list of snip at £20.40 and there’s a 14-day trial so
inventory of your most them for insurance purposes, a packing list when you can check it out before you pay up.
important possessions moving home, when writing a will, or for those The app will work on any Mac running
increasingly frequent occasions when Next macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later and can even be
YOU’LL NEED Door Norman pops around to borrow the used in conjunction with its free partner app
macOS 11 or later, lawnmower. Again. for iPhone and iPad: Home Inventory Easy
Blue Plum Home The solution is to create a home inventory: Entry. Best of all, the whole thing can be
Inventory 4 (£20.40) a detailed catalogue of all the things you own. synced with iCloud too. Rob Mead-Green

HOW TO Build your home inventory

1 Add your first item

Launch Home Inventory and you’ll be
asked if you want to start with a new
inventory or to import some sample data.
Here, we’re going to dive right in. Click
the Inventory Items tool on the left, then
click ‘+’ at the bottom of the left pane.
2 Enter some details
In the window that opens, add some
info about the item you want to log. Give
it an easily searchable name, add further
details like the name of the manufacturer,
its price when new, the cost of replacing
the item and some brief details about it.
3 Add a location
At the moment, the item doesn’t
‘belong’ anywhere. To fix that, click Save,
then click the Property Locations tool in
the left-hand toolbar, then click ‘+’ at the
bottom of the left-hand pane. Now add
some details about your home.

40 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Blue Plum Software Inc

CONTINUED… Build your home inventory
4 Add some rooms
Click Save, then head back to the
toolbar. Next, click the Rooms tool. Again,
clicking the ‘+’ at the bottom of the left-
hand pane each time, add each of the
rooms in your home – Bedroom, Kitchen,
Living Room, Garage and so on.
7 Include a picture
While you’ve added some key info,
your item still has one thing missing: a
photo. In the right-hand Documents pane,
click the ‘+’ button at the bottom to add
a picture from your Mac. Or click the
Camera button to take a photo of it.
10 Now get packing!
One of the main reasons to
create a home inventory is to ensure you
don’t lose anything when you move. To
help, Home Inventory has a Reports tool
that you can use to create packing lists –
handy for knowing what’s where.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Blue Plum Software Inc
Create a home inventory APPLE SKILLS
5 Choose a collection
The next thing you can do is add
an item to a collection, such as Furniture
or Computers. Head to the Collection tool
in the left-hand toolbar, then add any
collections you’d like to assign. You can
always add more later if you need to.
8Use Continuity Camera 9 Now keep going…
If your Mac lacks a built-in camera,
you can also use your iPhone to take a
photo. To do that, select Import > Import
From iPhone or iPad > Take Photo. You
can easily edit the imported image using
the app’s built-in Photo Editor.
11 Create a packing list
In the Reports tool, click Packing
Lists, then create a list to add items to,
checking the tick boxes to the left of each
item you want to include. If you’ve added
weights to the items in your inventory,
the app will give you a running total.
6 Refine your listing
Using the parameters you added in
steps 3-5, you can now add more detail
to your first item. Click the Items tool,
then your item, then in its window use
the appropriate drop-downs to add a
location, a room and a collection for it.
Cataloguing all the items in your
home is going to take quite a while, but
you can easily add items as and when
you have time. You can also use the
Home Inventory Easy Entry app for
iPhone to help speed up the process.
12 Add contacts
You can also assign items to
friends and relatives (or naughty Next
Door Norman). To do that, click the
Contacts tool, then use the Search field
in the right-hand pane to pull in details
from your Mac’s Contacts book.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 41
Sort your Bluetooth devices
Learn how to add, remove, prioritise and troubleshoot Bluetooth devices
IT WILL TAKE Bluetooth technology cuts the Here we look at ways of making the most
10 minutes cord on many devices, enabling of your Bluetooth devices whether you’re
you to enjoy a whole host of sticking with macOS’s excellent built-in options
YOU WILL LEARN kit from keyboards, games or looking a bit further afield. For the most part,
How to work with controllers, speakers, headphones, mice you shouldn’t encounter too many problems –
Bluetooth devices from and trackpads without the need for trailing Bluetooth tends to work well these days. But, if
headphones to speakers, wires. So long as your devices are within you do, try turning Bluetooth on and off again
keyboards to mice around 10 metres (33 feet) of your Mac, you via System Settings > Bluetooth, resetting your
can quickly connect and use your accessories. device, restarting your Mac, updating macOS
YOU’LL NEED But, for some reason, it’s not always easy or refreshing the Bluetooth module by opening
Mac, Bluetooth devices to connect. So how can you make working Terminal and typing ‘sudo pkill bluetoothd’.
with them a little easier? Time to get stuck in. David Crookes

HOW TO Pair and unpair devices

1 Add a Bluetooth device 2 Remove a device

Ensure your device is turned on then
select the Apple menu on your Mac. Click
System Settings and choose Bluetooth
from the sidebar. Your device should be
discoverable, appearing under Nearby
Devices. Click Connect.
Simply follow the initial same steps
as before, but this time hover over your
3 Assign priority
You may want your Mac to hook up
to a particular Bluetooth device before
device in the list and click Disconnect. trying another – for example, to a main
You can also click the Control Centre Bluetooth speaker over a small one. Do
icon in the menu bar to turn recognised this by adding devices in the order you
devices on and off. need them prioritised.

42 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, C-Command Software LLC
 Bluetooth devices APPLE SKILLS

HOW TO Pair some devices to multiple Apple ones

1 Connect across devices 2 Switch between devices 3 Activate Handoff

Some Bluetooth devices can be paired
to more than one Apple device. But a
mouse, keyboard or trackpad paired
with one Apple device will usually need
to be removed (unpaired) before it can
be directly connected to the other.
That said, if you’ve connected one
of those Bluetooth devices to Mac (or
an iPad/iPhone via Settings > Bluetooth),
Universal Control lets you use them
across all devices. Sign into the devices
with the same Apple ID.
Just enable Wi-Fi on your Mac and
iPad and turn on Handoff in the settings
(General > AirPlay & Handoff). Place the
iPad close to the Mac, move the mouse/
trackpad to the screen’s edge, and the
pointer will move across.

HOW TO Work with audio

1 Manually switch
Let’s say you’re listening to audio on
an iPhone via your AirPods but you want
to hear your Mac’s output instead. You
can open the Control Centre on your
Mac, click Bluetooth and select your
AirPods to manually switch.
2 Automatically switch
With later models, use auto-
switching. Go to your Mac’s System
Settings, click Bluetooth and select ‘i’
next to AirPods. Click Automatically.
Auto-switching can be turned on and
off on iPhones, iPads and Apple TV too.
3 Confirm a switch
Playing audio on your Mac and get
the sound playing on another device
linked to your Apple account? You may
be asked to confirm you want to switch
to that device or stick with your Mac,
potentially preventing audio hijacking.

Use third-party apps

Go beyond Bluetooth capabilities built in to macOS
If your Bluetooth device is about to run out of juice, you can check its battery life
on your Mac via System Settings or Control Centre > Bluetooth. But if the device
isn’t connected to your Mac, and is hooked up to an iPhone or iPad, you can use
an app like Cloud Battery (Free, alanyan.ca) which pulls in details about all your
Bluetooth devices regardless of where they’re connected. If you’d like to go even
further, consider ToothFairy (£5.99, c-command.com) which makes switching
between devices super-easy thanks to one-click connections from the menu bar.

Image credits: Apple Inc, C-Command Software LLC MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 43
 APPLE SKILLS macOS/iOS/tvOS/visionOS

Get started with Apple Arcade

Play the latest games on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Vision Pro
IT WILL TAKE You might have heard of most gaming platforms. For one thing, it works
10 minutes Apple Arcade, the gaming across almost the entirety of Apple’s product
subscription service from ecosystem. If you start playing a game on your
YOU WILL LEARN Apple, without ever really Mac, you can pick up your progress on your
How to set up Apple giving it a shot. Well, now is a great time iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or even a Vision Pro
Arcade and play games to get stuck in, as it’s chock-full of excellent headset, with all your saved games and
on all your devices titles that’ll have you battling, puzzling and achievement progress carrying over from
adventuring away for hours on end. Apple one device to the next. It’s all made to be
YOU’LL NEED Arcade tries to do things a little differently to simple and completely seamless.
Apple Arcade (£6.99/
month), macOS 10.15 or Green light for gaming
later, iOS 13 or later, There are no ads, no in-app purchases and
iPadOS 13 or later, tvOS no microtransactions, eliminating some of the
13 or later, visionOS most irritating aspects of the modern gaming
world. New games are being added all the
time, giving you plenty of reasons to stick
around and keep playing. And as long as
your subscription is active, you can download
and enjoy as many of Apple Arcade’s games
Genius tip! as you want with no restrictions.
Game Mode optimises Here, we will show you how to set up
your Mac to achieve Apple Arcade and start playing. We’ll mostly
consistent frame rates. be focussing on the Mac, but the steps laid
It automatically launches out here are very similar whichever device
when you start playing Apple Arcade games can be played on a range of Apple devices you want to use. So, let’s dive in and get the
a full-screen game. and your progress is synced over to each one. gaming goodness underway. Alex Blake

44 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, SEGA, Cornfox & Brothers Ltd

HOW TO Get started with Apple Arcade
1 Sign up
Open the App Store app and select the
Arcade tab. Click the Start Playing button
to sign up, or instead try downloading a
game (this will prompt you to sign up).
Now, follow the on-screen prompts to
start subscribing.
4 Add controllers
Lots of games work better with
controllers. To connect a controller to
your Mac, you’ll usually need to press
its pairing button, then select Connect
next to the controller’s name in System
Settings > Bluetooth.
7 Continue Playing
Your game progress syncs to your
other devices when you’re signed in to
iCloud and Game Center on them. To
open games played on other devices,
launch the App Store, go to the Arcade
tab, then scroll to Continue Playing.
Image credit: Apple Inc
Apple Arcade APPLE SKILLS
2 Browse games
You can now download and play
games from the Arcade tab. Find games
by searching or by selecting a category
at the top of the page. Select the Get
button to start downloading a game.
When it’s done, click Play.
5 Tweak controls
Some controllers’ settings can be
customised. In macOS 13 (Ventura) or
later, connect the controller, then go
to System Settings > Game Controllers.
Add a profile and change some of the
settings to your liking.
8 Achievements
Many Apple Arcade games come
with achievements. To see yours, open
the App Store and click your name in
the bottom-left, then select Game Center
Profile > Achievements and pick a game
from the resulting list.
3 Family Sharing
If you’ve set up Family Sharing
and Apple Arcade, all family members
automatically get shared access to your
subscription. Go to System Settings and
click your name at the top, then go to
Family Sharing > Set Up Family.
6 Assign a profile
Return to the Game Controllers
page and select your controller. Click
‘+’ in the bottom-left corner and add
a game, then select the menu next
to Use Profile and pick your new
configuration to use its modified controls.
9 Invite friends
You can invite friends to Apple
Arcade and see what games they have
been playing. Go to the Arcade section
of the App Store, then scroll down to
‘Friends are Playing’. You can install
any games from here if you want.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 45
 APPLE SKILLS iOS

Rediscover your
love for podcasts
This little app is the perfect podcast partner
IT WILL TAKE Overcast is an app that’s
10 minutes achieved a very rare honour:
a permanent place on our
YOU WILL LEARN main iPhone Home Screen.
How to subscribe and It’s also permanently in our Lock Screen
play podcasts in widgets when we’ve got Driving Focus
Overcast enabled. That’s because it’s a wonderful
little app that respects your time and
YOU’LL NEED privacy, and we use it daily to help us
iOS 16 or later. handle our ever-growing podcast habit.
Overcast (Free, It’s available for Mac and iPad as well as
offers IAPs) iPhone, and it works with Apple Watch and
CarPlay. It even has a sleep timer to stop
playback after you doze off.
Overcast is packed with useful things,
including automatic removal of long pauses,
automatic sound quality improvements and
useful playlist automation. And yet the core
app is free, with only some unobtrusive ads
(and no invasive trackers) to pay the bills.
If you don’t like the ads or just want to
support developer Marco Arment you can
upgrade to Premium for £8.99 a year.
It’s money well spent. Carrie Marshall

HOW TO Get the most from podcasts with Overcast

1 Find some feeds

Open the app and tap on the ‘+’ sign in
the top-right corner. This is where you’ll
find the podcast directory, which you can
browse for ideas or search for something
specific. You can also paste a podcast
feed address by tapping Add URL.
2 See what’s there
To see what’s in a podcast, tap on it
and you’ll be taken to this screen. Tapping
the ‘i’ icon tells you more about an
episode and tapping Follow adds the
podcast to your collection; the Follow
button then changes to Done.
3 Go back home
If you tap on the back arrow (top
left), you’ll be taken back to the home
screen where your new podcast(s) will be
available. Now we want to add an episode
or episodes to our to-play queue. To do
that, tap on the podcast.

46 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Overcast Radio LLC

CONTINUED… Get the most from podcasts with Overcast
4 See the settings
There are three tabs: the current
episode, all episodes, and Settings.
Settings is where you specify whether
to follow new episodes (and the order),
and to download and/or delete episodes
automatically. Tap on All once done.
7 Automate everything
In the main screen, tap on the icon
immediately to the left of the ‘+’ icon.
This enables you to filter the view, but
even better it enables you to create a
custom playlist. This is one of Overcast’s
very best features so let’s start using it.
10 Pick your playlist
As you can see, when you’ve
finished making your custom playlist it’ll
appear in the main screen with the icon
and colour you selected. Simply tap on
that playlist to see what’s there, and then
on whatever episode you’d like to play.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Overcast Radio LLC
Manage podcasts APPLE SKILLS
5 Start the queue
Tap on any episode and five icons
will appear. The one we want is the
second one, the ‘…’ in between the icons
for Share, Play, ‘Mark as Listened’, and
Trash. This brings up the menu shown
here. Tap ‘Add to Queue’.
8 Create custom playlists 9 Pick your priorities
Give your playlist a name, an icon
and a colour, then use Add Podcasts to
say what podcasts this playlist should be
adding episodes from. Once you’ve added
a few podcasts to your subscription, you
can start to customise things.
11 Skip the dull bits
When you tap on the Play button on
an episode, Overcast moves to this nice
clear playback screen. Swipe from the
right to see more information, or use the
progress bar or forward and backward
icons to move through the podcast.
6 Play your episodes
Do the same with as many episodes
as you like from as many podcasts as you
like before tapping the back arrow to
return home. Now if you tap on Queue
you’ll see your to-play list, which will only
include the episodes you’ve selected.
With a few podcasts lined up, you
can now choose to prioritise some before
others – so their episodes will appear
higher up in the playlist. To do that,
simply choose Select Priority Podcasts
and check the ones you prefer.
12 Make further tweaks
The icons below give access to
extra features. Tap on the sliders icon
and you can use Smart Speed to remove
gaps and Voice Boost to improve how
speech sounds. You can save different
settings for different podcasts.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 47
 APPLE SKILLS iPadOS
Make your iPad smarter
Your iPad’s personal assistant just got smarter thanks to ChatGPT
IT WILL TAKE Artificial intelligence (AI) has
5 minutes taken the world by storm, and
ChatGPT is the best example of
YOU WILL LEARN the capabilities of an AI chatbot
How to use an AI with seamless integration on iPad thanks to
chatbot to make a well-built dedicated app. ChatGPT gives
life easier access to GPT-3.5, which is perfect for most
everyday tasks, allowing you to do everything
YOU’LL NEED from creating a workout plan to finding you
ChatGPT (Free, info on any topic in a matter of seconds.
IAPs), iPadOS 16.1 ChatGPT will change the way you use your
Ask ChatGPT anything
When you open ChatGPT for the
first time, you’ll be met with a chat
thread almost identical to the one
in Apple’s Messages app.
From here, you can ask the
chatbot anything and get an answer
within seconds. To get started, you’ll
see some prompts to try out, such
48 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
iPad, allowing you to process tasks quicker
than you can imagine or gain knowledge on
the fly like never before.
With an almost unlimited amount of
capabilities, ChatGPT is something you need
to experience in order to see how powerful a
tool it can truly be. In this tutorial, you’ll learn
the basics of ChatGPT, a completely free app
for your iPad that promises to become one of
your tablet’s most useful pieces of software.
John-Anthony Disotto
as recommending a dish for dinner
or brainstorming names for your
fantasy football team. Try one of
the proposed prompts and watch
as ChatGPT gives you the solution.
If none of the prompts are to your
liking, type anything in the message
box and wait for a reply.
Image credits: Apple Inc, OpenAI OpCo LLC

HOW TO Get all the answers from ChatGPT
1 Learn a new language
One of the best things to ask ChatGPT
is, “Teach me (insert language).” This will
give you common phrases and enough
expressions to get by. You can even ask
for a structured learning plan to help you
learn a language over a few months.
4 Plan your week
Another fantastic use of ChatGPT
is the ability to plan your week by telling
the platform the tasks you need to
complete and how much time you think
each task will take. ChatGPT will then
fit everything into a weekly planner.
7 Find a recipe for dinner 8 Get gift advice
Struggling to find a midweek dinner
idea? Tell the app what you have in your
kitchen, and watch as it magically puts
together a recipe. You can even ask for
a quick recipe depending on the amount
of time you want to spend cooking.
Image credits: Apple Inc, OpenAI OpCo LLC
AI help with ChatGPT APPLE SKILLS
2 Get a meal plan
If you ask ChatGPT for a meal
plan with a set amount of calories and
preferences, the software can create
a weekly diet for you to follow. This is
a great way to plan out your week
and start eating healthier.
5 Draft emails
Need to write a quick email but are
unsure how to word it? ChatGPT will
create a quick draft for you. Simply ask
the chatbot to draft an email giving as
much detail as possible, for example, the
reason why you can’t make a meeting.
If you’re terrible at buying gifts,
ChatGPT has you sorted. You can give
some background on your friend or
family member, like what they like and
their hobbies, and a rough budget to
get some tailored gift guide advice.
3 Plan a trip
ChatGPT is fantastic for planning
trips. Ask for a travel itinerary for any
holiday destination over a number of days
and the chatbot gives you a curated plan.
You can even ask for specifics based on
preferences, like a foodie tour of Paris.
6 Explain it like I’m five
ChatGPT is fantastic when you want
an explanation of something complicated.
Ask, “Explain it like I’m five: (insert a
topic),” and get an easy-to-understand
explanation of the most complex topics.
Here we’ve asked about the atom.
9 Name picker
Maybe don’t do this one. But if you
want, you can ask ChatGPT to name your
newborn child. Simply give details like the
gender of the child or their origins, and
watch the AI chatbot compile a list of
names for you to choose from.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 49
 APPLE SKILLS iOS

Track your sleep

with Pillow
Check the quality of your shut-eye time
IT WILL TAKE A good night’s sleep is
8 hours essential for your general
wellbeing. Adults need between
YOU WILL LEARN seven and nine hours each day
To better understand but the quality of that time in bed can vary
your sleep patterns and wildly – a night of light sleep could leave you
how your body works at feeling rather groggy come the morning.
night To help, you could do worse than try
Pillow which monitors how well or how badly
YOU’LL NEED you sleep. It came top in a recent group test,
Pillow (Free, offers praised for providing an abundance of data.
IAPs), iOS 14 or later It’ll break down your sleep patterns, let you
record your snoring and sleep talking, create
presets for naps and longer sleep sessions
and, if used in conjunction with Apple Watch,
track many other personal metrics. It’ll work
in tandem with Apple Health and ease you
into the land of nod if you’re having trouble. a lot of data. But don’t worry. All personal data
None of this comes cheap; you need a is retained on your device (and, optionally, in
subscription (£6.99/month or £39.99/year) your iCloud account). Hopefully, that’ll help
to make the most of it. You’re also providing you sleep better. David Crookes

EXPLAINED…What Pillow knows about your night

1
Quality of sleep 3
Check how much Extra information
quality sleep you had, 1 Listen to recorded
how long it took to nod audio or tap the Heart
off, the length of time in 3 tab if you wore your
bed and your mood Apple Watch and see
when you woke. how well your ticker
fared overnight.

2 4
Stage analysis 2 Sleep trends
See how long you You can see how
were awake and the your sleep metrics
time you were in REM, change over time to
4
light or deep sleep, see if any issues are
with percentages and blips or long term.
recommended ranges.

50 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Neybox Digital Ltd

HOW TO Sleep better with Pillow
1 Enter personal details
After launching Pillow for the first
time, you’ll be asked for your birth year,
sex, weight and height. Optimal values
for different sleep stages vary from
person to person, so your answers
are vital for your reports.
4 Start sleep tracking
To track sleep in the iPhone app,
tap the Alarm tab then the ‘+’ button
and select a time to wake up or set a
duration. Use Smart Wake-Up to sound
an alarm up to 30 minutes before you
want to stir when light sleeping.
7 Use Apple Watch
For more detailed sleep analysis,
wear an Apple Watch. Tap ‘+’ and set
an alarm or nod off and have it check
your heart rate, blood oxygen levels,
respiratory rate, wrist temperature
and environmental audio levels.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Neybox Digital Ltd
Monitor your sleep APPLE SKILLS
2 Grant access to data
You’ll be asked if you want to use
data from a wearable device that shares
fitness data with Apple Health and for
permission to allow Pillow to access and
update your Health data. Sleep analysis
relies on lots of data.
5 Edit alarm options
Tap Alarm Options to set the volume
and whether you want phone vibrations.
You can choose to turn off the alarm
with a press and hold, or by shaking
your iPhone. Decide if you want relaxing
sleep aid music to nod off to.
8 Wake up and check in 9 Get some help
When you wake up, you’ll be asked
how you feel. You can, if you wish, toggle
Mood Reporting off if you don’t want this
option. You can then see an instant
report of your night’s sleep on your
Watch and on your iPhone.
3 Allow motion detection
For correct detection and analysis,
Pillow requires access to motion/fitness
activity. Next, decide if Pillow can record
and analyse sleep sounds and if sleep
sessions and audio recordings can be
backed up to iCloud.
6 Go to bed
When you’re ready to sleep, tap
Start. You’ll be asked if you want to
jot down some notes about what may
affect your sleep. You can then lay your
unlocked device face down on your
mattress near your pillow and nod off.
Sleeping badly? As well as
accessing personalised sleep insights
and tips by tapping the Snooze Lab tab,
you can also tap the Sleep Aid tab to
find meditations, stories, natural noises,
waves, ASMR sounds and more.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 51
 APPLE SKILLS iOS/watchOS

Set multiple timers

Use concurrent timers to help with all sorts of multitasking
IT WILL TAKE When Apple launched its fancy assisted cooking in your own kitchen. Your
10 minutes Vision Pro spatial computing iPhone, your iPad, and your Apple Watch
headset, one of the features can provide you with multiple timers too.
YOU WILL LEARN that immediately went viral If you’re surprised, we’re not surprised;
How to set multiple wasn’t its immersive video or its head until recently your iPhone wasn’t able to run
timers at once tracking or any of its other cutting-edge multiple timers concurrently. It’s taken a very
cleverness. What made the web users go long time for multiple timers to make it to the
YOU’LL NEED “ooh!” was when a reviewer put timers iPhone, and until iOS 17 you were limited to
iPhone and/or above multiple pots and pans to keep an just one. Still, better late than never and, as
Apple Watch eye on their cooking. But you don’t need to we’ll discover, the way Apple has implemented
buy a $3,499 headset to get some Apple- the feature is very effective and, as you might
hope, works well with Siri.

False starts
You can set, change and stop timers not
just from your iPhone but from your Apple
Watch, your HomePod and from any other
Siri-enabled devices that happen to be
Genius tip! listening. That’s a good thing mostly, but it
Although there doesn’t can sometimes be a bit weird. From time to
appear to be a limit time, you might ask the HomePod mini in
on how many timers the kitchen to set a timer only to hear the
you can set, only five HomePod in your living room respond.
will appear on your Hopefully the Siri improvements we’re
locked Home Screen’s Apple’s Vision Pro does timers too, although $3.5K is probably expecting in iOS 18 will sort out such
Live Activities. overkill for just making sure you don’t overcook your pasta. little annoyances. Carrie Marshall

52 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc


HOW TO Line up a number of different timers
1 Start the clock
Timers live in your iPhone’s Clock
app, and you access them by tapping
the Timers icon at the lower right corner.
To create a new timer, use the scrolling
numbers in the top half of the screen to
choose hours, minutes and seconds.
4 Get the big picture
If you tap on your active timer you’ll
be taken to this screen, which shows a bit
of extra info; the time remaining, and the
actual time when your current timer will
expire. If you wish you can cancel the
timer here, or pause and resume it.
7 Get Siri to help
Our favourite way to add timers
is via Siri. Here, we’ve said “Hey Siri,
create a timer for 50 minutes label roast
potatoes”. As you can see, Siri has
created the timer, given it the correct
label, and started the timer too.
Image credit: Apple Inc
Multiple timers APPLE SKILLS
2 Add some options
Before you start, give the timer a
name by tapping and typing in the Label
field. If you wish, you can also change the
sound your iPhone will play when time’s
up – useful if setting multiple timers and
want to tell them apart easily.
5 Get dynamic
If your iPhone has a Dynamic Island,
your timer will sit inside it while you use
your iPhone. It’ll show a progress icon on
the left and a numerical countdown on
the right. Tap the Dynamic Island if you
want to return to the Timers screen.
8 See more timers
Your Lock Screen stacks all current
timers together; if you tap on one, the
view will expand to show you more
timers, all of them counting down if they
haven’t been paused. If you want to get
rid of them, tell Siri “cancel all timers”.
3 Start the count
Tap Start and your screen will
change to show the countdown at the top
of the screen. You’ll see the same timer
below, with a green start button instead
of the orange countdown, as the timer
is saved in Recents for easy access.
6 Lock it up
Your timer also appears on the Lock
Screen; if you have iOS 16 or later it uses
Live Activities to provide an ongoing
countdown even when your iPhone is
locked. Just tap the appropriate icon to
cancel or pause from the Lock Screen.
9 Watch the timer
If you prefer, you can use your
Apple Watch for your timers. Although
the interface is slightly different – the
Watch, of course, has less screen space
– it works in exactly the same way. And
you can use Siri in the same way too.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 53
 MEMS technology creates drivers for
heaphones and speakers using silicon,
rather than traditional materials.
HOW IT WORKS
Solid-state sound
A new silicon-based audio tech is aiming to replace old-fashioned headphones
YOU WILL LEARN echnology in the computer industry
How MEMS speaker
technology uses silicon
T tends to change so quickly that it’s
often hard to keep up with all the
chips to create ‘solid-state latest developments. That’s not the case
speakers’ and headphones in other industries, though – it took almost a
century for electric cars to provide an alternative
to the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine.
The somewhat stuffy hi-fi industry also
tends to be quite resistant to change, using the
same basic technology to produce headphones
and speakers for almost 100 years (remember
that a set of headphones is essentially a small
pair of speakers that simply sit right over – or
inside – your ears).
Apple shook up the headphone market
with the AirPods in 2016, creating an entirely
new category of ‘true wireless’ headphones.
But while Bluetooth headphones allow you to
cut the cord and listen to music via a wireless
Key fact connection, the technology that creates the
Creative Technology – sound inside those headphones hasn’t really
formerly Creative Labs changed in a century.
– knows a thing or two Most headphones and speakers use
about digital audio. Its mechanisms known as ‘dynamic drivers’ to
SoundBlaster range of create sound waves. These drivers contain
upgrade cards brought several different components, including a
high-quality digital audio
to PCs back in 1989, and
dominated PC audio
for almost 20 years. All
Macs and PCs now have
multi-channel sound built
in, but the SoundBlaster
name lives on with audio
products such as
the MEMS-based You can mass produce MEMS drivers using silicon wafers
Aurvana earbuds. – just like modern computer chips.
54 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
wire coil – sometimes called the ‘voice coil’ –
that carries an electric current. This coil is
surrounded by a magnet, and is also connected
to a moving diaphragm. The electric current in
the coil interacts with the magnetic field created
by the magnet, which causes the coil to vibrate.
The movement of the coil causes the diaphragm
to vibrate as well, and it’s the movement of
air caused by the vibrating diaphragm that
creates the sound waves that we can hear.
There are variations on this standard type
of driver that are used in some high-end hi-fi
gear, but dynamic drivers are by far the most
common option for consumer products such
as Apple’s AirPods.
So-solid sound
That could be about to change, though, as
there’s a new type of driver technology coming
along that is – or at least claims to be – ideal for
use in compact audio devices such as earbuds.
Known as MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical
systems) this new type of audio driver is smaller,
easier to manufacture and requires less power
than conventional speaker drivers.
Rather than using several different
components and materials, MEMS drivers
are made from silicon, bringing speaker and
headphone tech into the modern silicon era, just
as solid-state drives (SSDs) in today’s computers
provide a faster and more reliable alternative to
older mechanical hard drives. In fact, a MEMS
tech product is sometimes referred to as a
‘solid-state speaker’, or ‘speaker on a chip’
because of its use of silicon.
One of the first MEMS speaker systems was
designed in 2014 by a company called USound
Image credits: xMEMS

Pump up the bass
As we mentioned, Creative is hedging
its bets with this new technology, as its
Aurvana earbuds use both an xMEMS
driver for handling higher frequencies,
and a conventional dynamic driver for
bass. However, xMEMS Labs is already
working on its next driver design, called
Cypress, which was demonstrated at CES
in January. The Cypress drivers promise
much stronger bass performance, so they
won’t need backup from a dynamic driver
in future earbuds designs. The company
also claims that the Cypress will offer
improvements for noise-cancellation
technology too. Most noise-cancelling
headphones work best when blocking
Silicon MEMS drivers are lighter, more compact,
and tougher than conventional headphones.
(usound.com), which has used the technology
in a number of wearable devices, such as
hearing aids and smart glasses. More recently,
a company called xMEMS Labs (xmems.com)
has developed its own version of the
technology, which has just been used by
Creative Technology (uk.creative.com) in its
new Aurvana Ace series of earbuds.
The xMEMS drivers still use an electric
current to make a diaphragm vibrate and
create sound waves, but the design introduced
by xMEMS Labs uses a ‘monolithic’ design that
carves the entire driver unit out of a single
piece of silicon. This means that the xMEMS
drivers can be factory-produced on a mass
scale using silicon wafers – like computer chips.
The simplicity of this design means that MEMS
drivers can be smaller and more compact than
traditional drivers, leaving more room inside
the headphones for a larger battery and more
noise-cancelling microphones. Silicon is also
MEMS drivers are made from
silicon, bringing headphone tech
into the modern silicon era
Image credits: xMEMS
Solid-state sound APPLE SKILLS
Future generations
of MEMS headphones
promise improved
noise cancellation too.
out low-frequency sounds, such as the be able to tackle higher frequency sounds
rumble of an aircraft engine, but can as well – even including the sound of
struggle to block out human voices and crying babies – which will be good news
other high-frequency sounds. However, for frequent fliers who need really good
xMEMS states that the Cypress drivers will noise cancellation from their headphones.
quite rugged, making the drivers water-
resistant and easy to clean.
And, crucially, the silicon diaphragm used
to create sound waves is very stiff, which
means that it’s less prone to distortion that
can affect the sound quality than the softer
materials often used in traditional dynamic
drivers. This is particularly important for higher
frequencies, and Creative claims that its new
Aurvana Ace and Ace 2 earbuds provide a
frequency response as high as 40kHz,
compared to the typical 20kHz of most
consumer earbuds and headphones.
That’s impressive – especially for
compact in-ear headphones such as the
Aurvana range – but this new technology is
still a work in progress. The Aurvana earbuds
actually include both an xMEMS driver and
a conventional dynamic driver as well. The
xMEMS driver handles the higher frequencies, Key fact
providing that high-end frequency response Traditional headphones
of 40kHz, while the dynamic driver delves and speakers have to be
right down to a bass-heavy 5Hz. That gives sealed very tightly in
the Aurvana earbuds a full-range frequency order to protect them
response of 5Hz-40kHz, which certainly from water and dust, but
outdoes the 20Hz-20kHz of most the ‘solid state’ drivers
mainstream earbuds. developed by xMEMS
The compact MEMS technology doesn’t Labs are much sturdier.
work that well for larger speaker systems, but it They’re made out metallic
is very well suited for use in compact wearable silicon and have an IP58
devices such as VR headsets, hearing aids and rating for resistance to
smart glasses. So, if Creative’s Aurvana water and dust, with that
earbuds prove successful then MEMS ‘8’ digit indicating that
technology might soon appear in future
versions of Apple’s AirPods or even the
they can survive complete
immersion in water up
Vision Pro headset. Cliff Joseph to 3m deep.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 55
 EXPERT
ADVICE
Our resident genius
solves your Mac and
iOS problems

Contact us
Email your queries and
your questions to
EDITED BY HOWARD OAKLEY genius@macformat.com

Will Live How to make a snapshot

Text read How can I make a snapshot of a to back up just a single file or a folder on
our PDFs? Q volume before I change it around?
by C H A R L E S U N D E R W O O D
that volume instead. Time Machine will
automatically make a snapshot, and you
here’s more to can set Carbon Copy Cloner to do the same.
T Live Text than
meets the eye.
A
Snapshot features have been
strictly limited to apps that make
As snapshots can only be made of whole
volumes, your tiny backup will be accompanied
Although normally seen and manage backups, because of by the local snapshot you want.
at work in its quick mode the danger that, if left for any length of time, One word of warning… if left running,
interactively recognising they’ll grow in size until they fill the volume. Time Machine will automatically delete its
snippets of text in our For the time being there’s no app that can snapshots after 24 hours; Carbon Copy Cloner
photos, it can also work simply make a snapshot without making a is more flexible with time, but is still required
more slowly and accurately. backup at the same time. to delete them eventually.
That’s been built into a new This is where you can get devious. If For Time Machine, add the volume you
generation of third-party you don’t want to make a full backup of that want to snapshot using the ‘+’ button in Time
apps to perform Optical volume, you can configure Time Machine or Machine settings, then in its exception list,
Character Recognition a third-party backup utility like Carbon Copy from the Options button, add every other
(OCR) on scans and images Cloner ($49.99, about £45, bombich.com) folder bar the one you want to back up.
of printed documents.
For the moment, macOS
doesn’t appear to use this
to automatically extract text.
If you have PDFs containing
many scanned pages that
haven’t been converted
using OCR in an app, those
won’t be quietly turned
into text you can search
with Spotlight.
One challenge that
remains is the multi-column
page that needs to be
analysed into blocks so
that its contents don’t get
muddled. Don’t be surprised
to see Apple add that in the
not too distant future.
Although finicky to exclude most of a volume from a backup, it’s currently the only way to get a snapshot made.

Email your queries and your questions

56 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 to genius@macformat.com
 iOS software GENIUS TIPS

iOS software
Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and
rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices

Quick-fire
questions
Why doesn’t my
iPhone add apps to
its Home Screen?
> Although that shouldn’t
normally be the default,
you can correct that in
Settings. Tap Home
Screen & App Library,
then at the top tick ‘Add
to Home Screen’, rather
than App Library Only.
All new apps added after
that will then appear in
both your Home Screen
and the App Library.

How to clean
website data but
keep their history?
> You can do this for Pages in iPadOS can access document versions, but only those it saves, and only when they’re saved in iCloud Drive.
Safari, although using
Clear > ‘All History and
Website Data’ in its
iCloud Drive or external disk for sharing?
settings does both. As I’m sharing more work in Pages limited value where signal is weak or
Instead, tap Advanced
at the bottom of those
Q and Numbers between my iPad Pro
and Macs, should I increase my iCloud
bandwidth low, and when away from Wi-Fi
you’ll be reliant on mobile connections,
settings, then Website storage, or store documents on an external SSD? which may incur additional cost.
Data, where the size of by P E T E B R O W N One hidden difference is how they handle
all retained data is listed. previous versions of your documents saved
There you can Remove Keeping shared documents in iCloud automatically. Pages in macOS saves and
All Website Data without
losing Safari’s history.
A or on an external drive have their own
merits and drawbacks. iCloud+ offers
gives access to local versions and those it
saves in iCloud Drive through its Revert To
up to 12TB, although that would cost you a command, but in iPadOS, Pages can only
hefty £54.99 per month. A suitable 2TB SSD access its own saved versions in iCloud Drive,
costs well under £200 for USB 3, or up to not those on an external drive.
twice that for Thunderbolt 3, and should The result is that an external drive will
last many years at no additional cost. share all its versions, but only with Macs,
To access your documents on an external while iCloud Drive only gives access to those
SSD you have to carry it around; iCloud Drive versions saved by that specific Mac or iPad.
remains accessible wherever you can make a If you use document versions, those
decent internet connection, although it’s of differences could be important.

Image credit: Apple Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 57

 GENIUS TIPS Peripherals

Peripherals
Thinking inside the box to refresh
the parts other tips can’t reach
Quick-fire
questions
What can replace a Time Capsule?
How to fix a juddery What should I replace my two is invariably quicker, cheaper and simpler to
Magic Mouse?
> The common cause
Q Time Capsules with, to store all
the Time Machine backups for
use and maintain, although it does require
physical connection to be made to each Mac.
of mice with optical our four different Macs? Leading brands offering NAS systems
sensors, such as the by T I M H U B B A R D compatible with Macs include Synology, QNAP
Magic Mouse, becoming and Asustor. While most are conventional in
juddery is dirt on the Apple made its last Time Capsules in offering bays for 3.5- or 2.5-inch hard drives,
sensor lens. This is
readily removed with a
A 2018 and even that late model is now
approaching the end of its support
you may wish for support to be able to move
to SSDs in the future. One of the better
couple of short blasts period. At the very least both yours should models that works well with both is Asustor’s
of canned air, or a have their hard drives replaced before they Nimbustor 2 Gen 2 AS5402T (check out our
gentle wipe using a fail, taking with them all your backups. There’s review in #MF402), with two bays for hard
lint-free cloth. no direct replacement that integrates Wi-Fi disks and four well-cooled M.2 SSD slots.
with networked storage in the same way, so Recent Macs and macOS expect to use
How to check when you’ll need to make separate provision for the SMB file sharing protocol when working
a trackpad needs Wi-Fi if you don’t already. with NAS, rather than AFP, which is now
recharging? There’s a wide range of well-supported deprecated and being removed from Apple
> Monitor charge level Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems silicon Macs. You’ll also want Time Machine
in Apple’s Bluetooth if you really do need your backup storage to backups to use APFS within the sparse
keyboards, mice and remain networked. Locally attached storage bundles used to store backups on your NAS.
trackpads in the
Bluetooth menu,
although it’s easy to
forget. More obvious
are indicators in the
Power widget, which can
be put on your Desktop
in Sonoma. That also
includes charge status
of any Uninterruptible
Power Supply (UPS)
connected via USB.

Recent NAS systems like Asustor’s AS5402T work well with both rotating hard disks and solid-state storage.

58 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Asustor Inc


To make a USB flash drive accessible to Windows users,
format it as ExFAT with a name of 11 characters or less.
Save images for Windows
I’m having trouble saving JPEG
Q images to a USB stick for a Windows
user. Is that not possible on a Mac?
by B O B B A R K E R
Yes, it is, although there are a
A couple of catches that can baffle:
formatting and hidden files.
Before using any USB flash drive, format it
using Disk Utility. Connect the drive, select it in
the left section of Disk Utility’s window, then
click on the Erase tool at the top. Smaller
drives can be formatted using MS-DOS (FAT),
Transfer audio
from a tape deck
What hardware do I require to
Q transfer audio from reel-to-
reel analogue tapes on my
tape deck, with its phono socket
outputs, to my MacBook Air?
by T I M J O N E S
Some older Macs had
A analogue microphone inputs
that allowed you to connect
them with just a cable, and had
hardware to convert their audio
signal. More recent models require
the conversion of signals from
analogue to digital before they enter
your Mac. It’s also better if you have
the option of using line rather than
microphone input, as that’s more likely
to retain the original quality of your
Image credits: Apple Inc, PreSonus Audio Electronics Inc
Does my Apple
silicon Mac support
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2?
> Yes, but only at a Gen 2
speed of 10Gbps, not the
full 20Gbps for Gen 2x2.
That should deliver read
and write speeds of
around 1GB/sec, but
falls far short of a good
Thunderbolt 3 drive.
Can I waterproof my
Mac’s Thunderbolt
3 ports?
> No, although you
can increase their
but it’s simpler to use ExFAT which also works water resistance. Full
with those over 32GB. Give it a name not
exceeding 11 characters.
waterproofing requires
special ports built to IP67
When copying JPEG images to it, use the standard, as exceeded by
file extension .JPG or .jpg to ensure they’re iPhones. Insert rubber
properly recognised by all Windows software. plugs to keep dust, dirt
Because Mac files also contain additional
metadata, macOS will automatically create
and some moisture out,
but don’t expect them to
matching files whose name starts with ‘._’ to provide any protection
hold that information. Those are hidden in the from immersion.
Finder, so warn the Windows user that they
may see them, but shouldn’t try to open
them, just those with regular file names.
audio tapes. As with most hardware,
analogue to digital audio converters
range widely in price, and you tend to
get what you pay for. Cheap models
Better analogue to digital audio converters offer
line inputs, gain control, and a USB-C connection.
at around £20-30 will do the job, The software you go for depends
but don’t offer the same options or on the type of audio content you work
quality as one from an established with and what you want to do with it.
manufacturer such as PreSonus or Apps range from basic recorder-
Arturia at around £80-100. editors right the way up to Logic
Provided that you opt for one with Pro (£199.99, Mac App Store) and
both line and microphone inputs, gain professional sound engineering, and
control and a USB-C connection to many of the better converters come
your Mac, it should do the job. with a decent starter package.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 59
 GENIUS TIPS macOS

macOS
Shine a spotlight on the solutions to
your most irritating Mac problems
Quick-fire When FileVault is enabled, the primary admin
user can authorise other user accounts to
questions access it using their own passwords.

How to copy the

pathname of a file
in the Finder?
> Select the item using
Ctrl-click or two-
finger tap, and hold
for the contextual
menu. Hold Opt to see
the command
“Copy [name] as
Pathname”. In
Terminal you can
add the path by
dragging the file and
dropping it onto the
command line.

How long should

a Mac keep its
log files for?
> Main log files in
macOS aren’t retained
for a set period, but
Using passwords for FileVault
according to the size If I were to turn FileVault on, would is an instant procedure that doesn’t result
of log files, normally
kept to a little over
Q other users on my Mac Studio have
to log in using my password?
in a slow encryption or decryption.
The encryption key used to encrypt the
500MB in the main by M A R T I N M O O R E key protecting the Data volume is dependent
Persist folder. If your on your password and a Secure Token managed
Mac is making copious Fortunately, that’s not how FileVault by macOS. When there are more users than
log entries, that could
amount to just a few
A works, as it’s designed for multiple
users each with their own password,
the primary admin account, that primary user
can determine whether other users are granted
hours’ worth, or might unlike encrypted APFS volumes which rely on a Secure Token to enable them to access the
extend to many days. a single password for everyone. Data volume through entering their own user
Macs with T2 or Apple silicon chips name and password.
automatically encrypt the whole of their Data The end result is that the Data volume on
volume on the internal SSD, but the encryption your Studio is fully encrypted, and only those
key they use for that is generated internally and users to whom you have granted Secure Token
not using a password. When you turn FileVault access can open it using their own password.
on, there’s no change in that encryption, but its Anyone else would require you to grant them
encryption key is encrypted and it’s that which access. There are a few other features, like Erase
is protected by your password. This explains All Content And Settings, which still require your
why, in those Macs, turning FileVault on or off password as the Secure Token ‘owner’.

Email your queries and your questions

60 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 to genius@macformat.com
 How to duplicate
a file or folder
quickly?
> Click or tap and
hold it with the
Opt key held until a
green circle with a ‘+’
sign appears by the
pointer, then release
When you have large PDF documents that take time to index, put them in a folder and exclude them from search. the mouse or
trackpad. The Finder

Why do fans blow long after login? creates a duplicate, a

clone of the original,
unless you move it
Sometimes the fans in my Intel extracting searchable content from PDF to another volume.
Q Mac blow for many minutes
after it starts up, when several
documents, a feature that hasn’t always
worked too well in the past. Their activity How to tell if an
CGPDFService processes use a lot of can become intense and sustained when app supports
CPU. How can I stop that? they’re plodding through thousands of pages document
by W I L L M A C F A R L A N E of PDF finding text, and in some cases this versions?
can continue for an hour or more. > Discover which apps
A minute or two after you log into If it gets excessive, you can disable PDF support this feature
A your Mac when it has started up,
Spotlight normally undertakes routine
Documents from Spotlight Search Results in
System Settings > Siri & Spotlight, but that
by opening one of its
documents in that app
housekeeping, building and maintaining its excludes all PDF documents. A better plan is to and looking for the
hidden indexes that enable you to search files move larger and more troublesome PDFs into Revert To command
by their contents. This is normally seen in separate folders, and add them to indexing in its File menu. If
mdworker processes extracting data for exclusions using the Spotlight Privacy button present, it’ll let you
mds_stores to compile into the index. at the foot of those settings. That gives you browse old versions
This has changed in Sonoma, with the finer control, and retains search coverage of that document.
addition of CGPDFService, responsible for of all your other PDFs.

Find missing words in Spotlight search

Why can’t Spotlight find words
Q in the content of some of my
PDF documents?
by T H O M A S T R O W T O N
PDF documents can contain
A two notional layers, the first
containing images perhaps
from printed pages that were originally
scanned in, and a second containing
laid-out text that might have been
generated by Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) from those scanned
images. Those created directly from
Word, Pages and other apps normally
only have the second layer, together
with any images embedded in their text.
Currently, when Spotlight indexes
PDF documents, it only uses text from
that second layer, where it’s present, and some European and foreign languages,
doesn’t try to perform on-the-fly OCR
on any page images. It also faces the
it can prove almost incomprehensible,
opaque even to search within that
problem that both layers are intended to document, and impossible for Spotlight
appear accurate visual representations to index. You may be able to rectify that
of the document, rather than providing by using an OCR app to create a more
structured access to text contents,
although that’s starting to change with
coherent second layer, but that will
change the PDF file, so should only be
the growing use of newer standards performed on a copy, not the original.
such as PDF/A.
This is further
complicated by
the encoding
sometimes used
for text in any
second layer,
which often isn’t When there’s no usable text
based on Unicode in a PDF document, as shown
on the right, its contents
or even ASCII. In can’t be searched.

Image credit: Apple Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 61

Make your semi smarter, your bungalow
brighter or your flat future-proof with
Siri and the best smart home tech
Written by Carrie Marshall
W
hen we get
home, we just
need to say the
word and the
lights go on, the heating turns on
and Taylor Swift starts playing
on our HomePods. If you didn’t
know about smart home tech and
Apple’s version of it, HomeKit, you
might think our house was running
on magic… But, while it looks like
magic, smart home tech is more
practical than that.
Smart home tech is more
affordable and more user friendly
than ever before. If you want a
thermostat that can turn the
heating on when you’re heading
home, smart lights that do
different things at different times
62 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
of day or a hose that waters your
plants when you’re away, today’s
smart homes can do all that and
more. In this feature we’ll show
you what’s available, and how
you can add stuff to your humble
abode. From high-tech home
entertainment to smart home
security, everything you need
to know is right here.
If the tech here seems a bit
much, or a bit expensive, don’t
worry; there are simpler options.
If you don’t want or need such
home smarts you can get plenty
of app-controlled options, so for
example most wireless security
cameras have an accompanying
iPhone app, as do Bluetooth-
controlled smart bulbs and lights.
 What you’ll
need…

A HomeKit hub
› From £99 › apple.com/uk
› A hub handles the communication
between your HomeKit accessories
and your Home app, and Apple
currently makes three products that
you can use as a hub – the second-
generation HomePod, the HomePod
mini and the Apple TV 4K.

A smart home bridge

› From £51 › philips-hue.com
› Some products, such as Hue smart
bulbs, don’t let you access all their best
features unless you connect them via
a bridge; this is a wireless hub that
connects to your Wi-Fi router and
adds Hue to your network.

A smart home bridge

› From £60 › ikea.com
› Many non-HomeKit smart home
devices use Thread, a common smart
home standard, and you can use them
via a border router. HomePods mini,
second-gen HomePods and the 128GB
Apple TV 4K are also Thread border
routers; the Hue Bridge isn’t.

Image credit: Nanoleaf, Apple Inc, Signify Holding, Inter IKEA Systems BV MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 63
 FEATURE Dream smart home
LIGHTING, BLINDS
& CURTAINS
Manual control? Pah! It’s time to get smart…
O
ne of the first modern
smart home tech products
available was Philips Hue
smart lighting. And the
company’s been adding to its collection of
smart lights ever since with a range that
includes outdoor lighting, battery-
powered lamps, TV light strips and bulbs
of every kind. And there are interesting
The Hue app makes it easy to add your Hue Bridge
to your HomeKit network. It’s compatible with
other smart home platforms too.
How to Set up your first HomeKit device >
1 Add an accessory
Once you’ve created a home in the
Home app, tap on the ‘+’ at the top right
of the screen. This is where you add
devices. To add a new HomeKit device,
ensure your iPhone is connected to your
home Wi-Fi and tap on Add Accessory.
64 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
smart lights from Eve and from Nanoleaf,
whose normal bulbs are supplemented by
really fun shaped lights that can produce
dynamic decorative illumination.
What’s great about smart lights, bulbs
and associated devices – such as smart
plugs, remote dimmers, switches and
increasingly, smart blinds and curtain
openers and closers – isn’t just that you
can control them remotely, via Siri or
even by geolocation so they activate
when you come home. It’s that you
can combine them into scenes.
For example, you can have a scene
that makes different lights different
colours or that uses adaptive lighting
to match the colours of daylight as the
sunlight moves from cool to warm. And
you can even include lighting in your
home entertainment; many smart lights
can sync with your music, movies or video
games (albeit often expensively – a Hue
Play HDMI Sync Box and TV lightstrip will
cost nearly £400). You can even use
smart lights on your Christmas tree.
2 Scan the code
Apple will automatically detect
devices such as HomePods, and you’ll
find them here in ‘More options’. But for
third-party apps you’ll need to either scan
the QR code on the device or, if it has a
wireless icon, hold your iPhone close to it.
What’s the
Matter?
Matter was designed to solve a
very annoying and confusing smart
home problem; different firms’
smart home systems often don’t
talk to one another, and it can be
hard to find out what’s compatible
with your kit. Matter is designed
to solve that by providing a shared
language for smart home devices,
and it’s supported by Apple,
Samsung, IKEA, Amazon,
Google and many more.
Apple’s support for Matter
needs you to have two things;
Matter-compatible devices that use
a networking protocol called Thread
to communicate with your home
network, and a Thread-compatible
Apple device to act as a hub. At the
moment, that means one of three
devices – the 128GB Apple TV 4K (the
64GB version isn’t compatible), the
second-generation HomePod, or
the HomePod mini. That hub then
enables you to use the Home app
and Siri on your various devices to
communicate with and control
Matter smart home kit.
3 Use the app
Many HomeKit-compatible devices
such as bulb bridges and thermostats can
add themselves to your Home network
via their own app. We’re using the Hive
thermostat app here; all we need to do
is approve its request to join our home.
Image credit: Apple Inc
 Dream smart home FEATURE

Nanoleaf Shapes Starter Kit

› £49.99 › nanoleaf.me
1 › Smart bulbs are not just about
clever control, and don’t have to be as
boring as ordinary bulbs. In addition
to plain old white and colour changing
smart bulbs, Nanoleaf offers a wide
range of excellent shape-based kits
– triangles, hexagons, squares and
lines – that enable you to create
your own decorative smart lighting.
You can then sync your lights to your
home entertainment system, get
them to move gently through colour
schemes or show specific colours
at particular times.

Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit

› £129.99 › philips-hue.com
› Although recent Hue bulbs can be
controlled over Bluetooth, you’ll get
the best experience by using them
with a Hue Bridge. The bridge
connects to your Wi-Fi router and
provides a dedicated wireless network
for all your Hue bulbs and devices,
enabling you to control them via
Home or Siri with commands such as
“Hey Siri, it’s book time!”. Hue is one of
the pricier ranges but it’s also one of
the best in terms of customisability.

3 4 5 6

Nanoleaf Essentials Eve Flare Philips Hue Philips Hue

› £19.99 › nanoleaf.me
› Nanoleaf’s Matter-compatible
smart bulbs are typically cheaper
than the equivalent Philips Hue and
come in a choice of B22, E27 and
GU10 to cover most home bases.
Like Hue, you can also control
these bulbs over Bluetooth.
› £89.95 › evehome.com
› Eve’s pretty colour-changing
light is portable, with up to six
hours of colourful illumination
from a single charge. It’s water
resistant to IP65 so you needn’t
fear the odd spot of rain, and it’s
Thread compatible.
Gradient Lightstrip
› £139.99 › philips-hue.com
› This is a great, albeit quite expensive
lightstrip that’s ideal for putting
behind your TV. If you connect it to a
Hue Play HDMI Sync box you can make
the lighting match whatever you’re
watching, making your TV feel bigger.
Smart Plug
› £29.99 › philips-hue.com
› Barely bigger than a standard plug,
this smart plug connects to your Hue
Bridge and enables you to add smart
home control to anything – a table
lamp, a coffee machine, or anything
else you want to control cleverly.

Image credit: Nanoleaf, Signify Holding, Eve Systems MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 65
 FEATURE Dream smart home

HOME
SECURITY
& COMFORT
Get peace of mind from smart kit

T
here’s more to
a smart home
than fancy
bulbs. Your
Apple smart home can
include smart cameras
that can spot movement,
record video and send an
alert to your iPhone; smart
thermostats that turn off the
heating when you’re out and
turn it on so everything’s
toasty when you get back
home; smart air-con to keep
you cool when the mercury
rises, and more. You can even
have smart watering to feed
your plants when you’re on
holiday or you’ve gone to bed.
One of the smartest such
devices is the smart lock. The
best smart locks can be
unlocked with your iPhone
or Apple Watch, but some
also enable you to create
temporary codes for other
people to use. That’s really
handy if you’re getting work
done in the house or want to
let friends or family in and
out, and it’s something we’re
increasingly seeing in holiday
rentals too.
It’s worth noting that
many smart security products
require a subscription to use
their best features or video
storage, and those fees, like
many app subscriptions, have
a tendency to get more
expensive over time. So do You can create automations based on times – such as turning the
consider this before investing. lights on at dusk – or in response to motion and other sensors.

Why not use Bluetooth

or an app instead?
Many smart home devices
have their own dedicated
iPhone/iPad apps, and
many can work without
Many Hue bulbs can be app-controlled
via Bluetooth, but you lose key features
and can only connect 10 bulbs at once.
Wi-Fi because they
connect via Bluetooth.
However, that means they’re
usually limited in what they
can do – and having to use
a separate app for devices
from different firms gets
irritating very quickly.
Hue’s bulbs are a good
example of Bluetooth
limitations; if you connect
via Bluetooth instead of a
Hue Bridge, you lose some
features including Siri, you’re
limited to 10 lights and you
need to stay in Bluetooth
range, typically 10m.
3 4
Eve Thermo Smart
Radiator Valve
› £69.95 (£229 for 4) › evehome.com
› By making individual radiators
smart, you can get even more control
over your home heating – so you can
turn off the heating in specific rooms
when there’s no-one there. Eve’s
valves are particularly elegant, but
there are options from multiple firms.
Aqara Smart Video
Doorbell G4
› £119.95 › aqara.com
› Hide from cold-callers or chat with
couriers with this HomeKit-compatible
doorbell. It includes on-demand video
with AI-powered face recognition,
two-way audio and 1080p resolution. If
you don’t wire it in to your home, the
batteries last around four months.

66 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Eve Systems, Lumi United Technology Co Ltd
 Dream smart home FEATURE

1 2

Nuki Family Set Netatmo Smart Thermostat

› £329 › nuki.io
› This bundle gives you Nuki’s Matter/
Wi-Fi smart door lock – the latest,
smartest Pro version – and three
wireless fobs. That means it’s ideal
for families where you might not
want the kids to have iPhones but
you want them to have house keys,
and the lock itself can automatically
unlock when it detects your iPhone
approaching. You can also create
virtual keys for visitors such as
tradespeople or relatives.
› £159.99 › netatmo.com
› This Smart Thermostat can help you
cut your heating bills by ensuring you
don’t heat your home when you’re not
there and, if you’re out and about, you
can get it to make sure your home is
nice and toasty for when you arrive.
It’s voice-, app- and Siri-controllable
and can even check the weather and
adjust its programs accordingly. It can
also connect to smart radiator valves.
A three-valve bundle including the
thermostat costs £360.

5 6 7 8

Eve Outdoor Cam
› £229.95 › evehome.com
› Designed specifically for Apple’s
HomeKit Secure Video, Eve’s high-
end HD security camera boasts
end-to-end encryption of all audio
and video, two-way audio, a 10-day
recording history and a built-in
floodlight with infra-red motion
detection for great home security.
Netatmo Smart
Smoke Alarm
› £109.95 › netatmo.com
› This optical smoke detector knows
the difference between trouble and
toast, and it can send you real-time
iPhone alerts to warn you of smoke
if you’re away from home. It’s
completely stand-alone so you don’t
need to connect it to a home hub.
Eve Indoor Air
Quality Monitor
› £89.95 › evehome.com
› This award-winning indoor air
sensor tracks air quality, temperature
and humidity in your home, warning
you of potentially harmful emissions
of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
and enabling you to see if you need
to dry or vent the air at home.
Eve Aqua
› £129.95 › evehome.com
› Control your garden water sprinkler
system with this clever gadget. The
Aqua sits between the tap and your
hose connection to make your
plant and lawn watering HomeKit
controllable. It’s compatible with
all popular hose and multi-channel
water distributors.

Image credits: Nuki Home Solutions, Netatmo SA, Eve Systems MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 67
 FEATURE Dream smart home

MULTI-ROOM
AUDIO & VIDEO
Boom! Shake the room with
these home entertainers

O
ne of our very favourite
things about Apple-
compatible smart
home technology is how
entertaining it is – and we mean that
literally. Being able to stream music from
our Mac, iPad or iPhone to your home hi-fi
or to have different music playing in
different rooms is a real boon for music
lovers, and being able to AirPlay video
from your iPhone or mirror your iPad’s
screen when you’re gaming is utterly
effortless on AirPlay-enabled TVs.
As you’d expect, while there are some
great options here from third-party
manufacturers, Apple’s own hardware is
often the easiest to set up and use with the
other Apple hardware you have at home; it’s
really easy to stream to a set of HomePods
or send different songs from Apple Music
to HomePod minis scattered around your
home. And we’re also big fans of the Apple
TV 4K, which has a much nicer interface
than most TV apps and which brings the
If you add HomePods to an Apple TV
power of Siri and iCloud to your home set-up, you’ll be asked if you want to use
entertainment setup. them as your Apple TV’s audio output.

How to Use AirPlay >

1 Select a song
Using AirPlay with speakers is really
easy. Open your music app – we’ll use
Apple Music – on your iPhone or iPad
and find the music you want. Now look
for the icon at the bottom centre that
looks like a triangle with circles above it.
2 See your speakers
Tap that icon and you’ll now see a
list of available speakers you can connect
to. At the moment, our music is playing
on our iPhone. Let’s change that and go
for the paired HomePods in our living
room. All you need to do is tap.
3 Dance, dance, dance
The Now Playing title and indicator
moves to our chosen speaker(s) and the
speakers are shown in the bottom-row
icons. Your iPhone now controls volume
and playback; use this screen and select
iPhone to return audio to your phone.

68 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

 1 2 3 4

HomePod HomePod mini Denon AVR-S660H Sonos Era 300

› £299 › apple.com/uk
› Apple’s second-generation
HomePods are home hubs as well
as very impressive spatial audio
speakers, and in a stereo pair they
make for a stunning music streaming
system. Add Apple TV and you’ve got
a great home cinema setup too.
› £99 › apple.com/uk
› The HomePods’ smaller siblings
are also home hubs, and while they
don’t have the power of the bigger
HomePods, they’re surprisingly
punchy – and their lower price
makes them a more affordable
way to get multi-room audio.
› £399 › denon.com
› Denon’s powerful AV receiver has
AirPlay 2 streaming including multi-
room, as well as Siri compatibility.
It supports all the major audio and
video standards, comes with every
connection imaginable, and is
future-proof with support for 8K TV.
› £399 › sonos.com
› Sonos popularised multi-room audio
and its latest speakers, such as this
360° speaker, are both high quality
and high performance. There’s full
support for AirPlay 2, Dolby Atmos,
voice control and Wi-Fi for the
highest quality streaming.

5 6 7 8

Sony Bravia A80L Samsung Q60C LG C3 Apple TV 4K

› £1,599 to £3,999 › sony.com
› You don’t need one of Sony’s
flagship models to get AirPlay 2
support, but this is a very beautiful
TV that’s packed with features. The
combination of OLED panels and
Sony’s picture processing makes it
a great partner for your Apple TV.
› £479 to £1,699 › samsung.com
› Samsung does amazing things with
affordable TVs, and this Quantum Dot
TV delivers gorgeous colours and
strong contrast that punches way
above its price tag, and is noticeably
better than similarly priced TVs
without quantum dot tech.
› £1,299 to £3,999 › lg.com
› LG’s award-winning AirPlay-enabled
OLED TVs are widely regarded as the
best in the business, and the models
with 55-inch to 83-inch displays boast
cutting-edge design that delivers
even better brightness and contrast
than previous OLEDs.
› £169 › apple.com/uk
› While most TVs have apps, they’re
not usually as good as Apple’s and
they don’t have the benefits of the
Apple TV’s tight integration with
iCloud and your Apple devices. We’d
recommend the 128GB Ethernet
model, which is a Matter home hub.

4 Pick a show
You can AirPlay video too. Let’s
give Constellation on Apple TV+ the big-
5 Choose your screen
screen treatment it deserves. To do that,
we need to open the TV app and find our
show. Play, and then tap the TV-shaped
AirPlay icon at the top of the screen.
As with music, we can now see a
list of available devices. For this one we
6 Enjoy the show
You can control your streaming
video with the Apple TV remote, with the
want the Apple TV in our living room, on-screen controls on your iPhone or via
so it’s just a matter of tapping that. Siri commands. To exit AirPlay it’s just
There’s then a short delay while the a matter of tapping the AirPlay icon on
connection is established. your iPhone and then tapping on iPhone.

Image credits: Apple Inc, Masimo, Sonos Inc, Sony Group Corp, Samsung, LG Electronics MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 69
70 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc
 LOVE YOUR
MAC
KEEP YOUR
OLD MAC
RUNNING
PART TWO
Get that Mac out of the attic and fire it up
or you’ll never know what it’s capable of!
Written by
W
hat can you do to bring
an old Mac back to life?
Can you make it useful
again? The answer is a
definite ‘possibly’. If the hard drive is failing,
or maybe just too small, you can boot your
computer from an external drive. Older Macs
might have user-serviceable storage or
memory, so you can give your ageing
machine a boost this way.
What files and data do you have on your
old Mac? Have a root around. Could it be
hosting photos and videos from a near-
forgotten holiday or event, precious pictures
that really bring back some memories?
There could be documents you put together
for a since-abandoned work project. Could
your efforts be revisited, rekindled and
renewed for something in the future? And
Image credit: Apple Inc
Ian Osborne
what about those MP3s of your old college
band? You never got that record deal, but
you could relive some good times if you
transferred them to your modern Mac.
This feature is all about breathing new
life into – or at least recovering old files from
– your long-abandoned Mac. Whether you
intend to put your ageing machine to new
uses, or simply want to explore your digital
past, we can help. We show you how to build
an external boot drive and boot your Mac
from it, find and transfer files, folders and
media and how to convert obsolete file
formats to newer ones that can be read
by more modern Macs. Whatever Mac you
have, and whatever you plan to do with it,
these tips should help you get some life out
of the old machine. They should bring back
a few memories too.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 71
 FEATURE Keep your old Mac running

Boot from an external drive

How to bring your Mac back to life if the hard drive isn’t working.

T
he hard drive is one of the
most vulnerable parts of
an old computer. Moving
parts are always vulnerable
to wear and tear, and unlike modern
solid-state drives (SSDs), the hard drive
had to be in motion when data was read
from or written to the storage medium.
Another problem with old hard drives
is they’re likely to be small. When the first
Intel-powered Macs were released, they
had as little as 160GB of storage off the
shelf for the iMac, and a minuscule 60GB
for the Mac mini or MacBook. What can
you do with so little storage these days?
If you’re lucky enough to have a Mac
that lets you change the hard drive, you
can buy a replacement of the same size
(almost certainly 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch),
and connect it to your Mac using a caddy
or a docking station, then clone the
current drive to its replacement. You
then simply turn off, swap the drives and
reboot. Alternatively, set up an external
drive as your Mac’s boot drive. If your
A hard drive docking station is useful when cloning
your internal drive to a replacement one.
Mac uses the older PowerPC processor
you can only boot it from a FireWire
drive, but Intel Macs can be booted
from a USB drive.
Booting from an external drive is
likely to make your Mac run a lot slower,
especially if it’s limited to USB 2.0
speeds, but even this is sufficient if you
only want to recover old files and media
from your redundant Mac.
How’s your
memory?
You can greatly speed up an older
Mac by adding more memory. This
isn’t possible with Apple silicon Macs
as the memory chips are integrated
into the processors. Many of the
later Intel Macs featured memory
soldered onto the logic board, so they
too cannot be upgraded after
purchase. But if your Mac’s memory
can be upgraded, you can still buy
third-party memory sticks.
If you go to uk.crucial.com, you
can enter your model of Mac and find
if they have compatible memory and/
or SSDs for sale. Also, take a look at
the service guides at ifixit.com. Find
your model of Mac, and if there’s a
guide to servicing the memory
(RAM), you can upgrade yours.

Top 5 boot drives for your old Mac

XUM HX480G Toshiba Canvio Seagate WD Elements FireWire Drives

SSD SATA3
› £29.99 › xumenterprise.com
If you’re looking for an
internal drive to replace your
old hard drive, this 2.5-inch
model does the trick. It’s
inexpensive, and at 480GB,
it’s likely to dwarf your old
HDD. It’s ideal for older laptop
models that have replaceable
storage drives.
Partner 1TB
Portable 2.5in
External HDD
› £52.99 › toshiba.co.uk
We wouldn’t recommend
using a Mac from a USB boot
drive for long. But to rescue
what you can from a failing
internal drive, this Toshiba
model is impressive. Use it for
storage afterwards.
Momentus 500GB
SATA 2.5 inch
Internal HD
› £13.49 › seagate.com
Seagate’s Momentus hard
drive isn’t the fastest, but it
boasts an 8GB solid-state
cache for the OS. This makes it
quicker to boot than a regular
HDD. It’s very cheap too, costing
less than £15 on Amazon.
Desktop Hard
Drive 4TB
› £112.99 › westerndigital.com
You get more storage for
your money when you buy a
desktop drive, but they need
their own power connection.
If you’re looking for storage,
you could boot your old Mac
from this drive, and wipe it for
your data when done.
› £various
› ebay.co.uk or amazon.co.uk
If you have a PowerPC Mac
you need to boot from an
external drive, it has to be
a FireWire model. They’re out
of date now and no longer
made, but you can get old
models at reasonable prices
from online sites such as
eBay or Amazon.

72 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: RSHTECH, XUM Enterprise Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Seagate Technology LLC, Western Digital Corp, LaCie

HOW TO Clone and boot from an external drive >
1 Check the drive size
If your removable internal hard drive
is failing but not yet dead, the easiest
way to replace it is to clone it. First,
check the size of drive you need. In a
notebook it’s likely a 2.5-inch drive, but
a desktop might take a 3.5-inch model.
4 Make an external one 5 Download the OS
If your old Mac’s hard drive is too
damaged to boot from, you can make
an external boot drive instead. For this
guide, we’re going to use OS X 10.7
(Lion). It’s old, but it still works on
a lot of legacy Macs.
7 Copy file
Ctrl-click on your ‘Install OS X 10.7
Lion’ app and click on Show Package
Contents. Next, navigate to Contents
> SharedSupport and Ctrl-click on
InstallESD.dmg. Then select Copy
‘InstallESD.dmg’.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Western Digital Corp, Bombich Software
Keep your old Mac running FEATURE
2 Download CCC
Connect your new drive to your
Mac using a docking station or a USB
caddy, then go to bombich.com and
follow the steps to download a copy
of Carbon Copy Cloner. It’s available
for macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later.
First of all, go to support.apple.com
and search for the Lion installer. Or you
can download it from the Mac App Store.
For this guide, you might need to use an
older Mac if your main machine is an
Apple silicon model.
8 Make the boot drive 9 Restart your Mac
Ctrl-click on the desktop and select
Paste Item. In Disk Utility, click on your
external drive in the sidebar, and click
the Restore tab. Click the Image button,
and navigate to the InstallESD.dmg file.
Click Choose, then Restore.
3 Swap the drives
Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone
your hard drive to your new drive. The
trial version of the app is sufficient. When
it’s done, swap your internal drive for
the new one. You might want to run
Disk Utility’s First Aid afterwards.
6 Prep the drive
Find an external drive or a USB flash
drive of at least 8GB to use for the boot
drive. If there’s anything else on there
you want to keep, transfer it now.
Then, in Disk Utility, erase it in Mac
OS Extended (Journaled) format.
With your new boot drive plugged
in, restart your Intel Mac. When you hear
the startup chime, press and hold the
Option key until this screen appears.
Choose your boot drive with the arrow
keys and press Return.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 73
 FEATURE Keep your old Mac running

Move, migrate and minimise

How to slim down that old, small hard drive so your Mac runs faster.

A
nother way to make
your old Mac run faster
is to declutter its hard
drive. Getting rid of old,
unwanted apps, backing up and archiving
media and files you’re not likely to need
any time soon and moving currently used
media to external drives. Moving large
media files such as your music, movie
and photos libraries does much to free
up valuable hard drive space.
Moving your media is sensible for
other reasons too. If the hard drive inside
your Mac is as old as the Mac itself (which
it probably is), it could fail at any time.
Therefore moving your media to a new
external drive is a sensible safeguard
against failure. And don’t forget to take

Back up, back a belts-and-braces approach and make

up, back up
You can never have too many
backups. Before migrating your media
libraries from your old Mac’s hard
drive to an external drive, it’s a good
idea to back them up. There are
numerous ways to do this. As
discussed before, you can clone your
hard drive in its entirety. You can
simply drag your media onto another
external drive or even a DVD burner to
protect against loss while migrating.
And don’t forget Time Machine. As
long as your older Mac runs OS X 10.5
Leopard or later, that’s an option.
regular backups too.
When getting rid of unwanted apps,
it’s best to use a clean installer such as
the free AppCleaner (freemacsoft.net/
appcleaner) or AppZapper (appzapper.
com), which allows five uninstalls before
you have to pay. Whatever operating
system you use there’s likely to be a
clean installer that runs on it, so have a
look around. Then delve into your Mac’s
Applications folder, and drag anything
you don’t need onto the clean installer
window (they nearly all work like that).
Uninstall when prompted, and the app
is completely removed, including system
files that might be left behind if you
simply dragged the app into the bin
and emptied it.
AppCleaner not only removes the app, but also
system files it might otherwise leave behind.
Moving your media to an external
drive also frees up space on your boot
drive. As this article is about extending
the life of an old, tired Mac, we’re using
an ancient MacBook Air running macOS
High Sierra to show you how it’s done in
the walkthrough below, but these steps
should work pretty much the same for
most older operating systems.
With your photos, music and videos
on an external drive, not only can you
delete them from your main drive to
save valuable space, but you also have
a backup in case that drive should fail.

HOW TO Move your media >

1 Move from iPhoto

Open iPhoto, click on the File menu
and choose Export. In the window that
pops up, choose File Export and choose
your options. Click Export, and you can
export them to an external drive and
transfer them to your current Mac.
2 Music from iTunes
To rescue music files you have in
iTunes and want to copy to your current
Mac’s Music app, select Home from the
Go item in the menu bar. Go to Music >
iTunes > iTunes Media > Music and copy
the contents to an external drive.
3 Find old documents
This is an easy one. Your Documents
folder should be in the Finder window’s
sidebar, or if it isn’t, use the Go menu bar
item to reach it. From there, simply copy
the documents you need to an external
drive and transfer them.

74 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, FreeMacSoft


Things to consider while migrating files
Migrating files isn’t a difficult process,
but you might find files taken from
your older Mac need to be converted
into a more modern format before they
can be used on your current Mac. If
your new Mac struggles to play a video
file, go to handbrake.fr and download the
correct version of the Handbrake open
source video transcoder. It’s free, and it
can convert pretty much any video file
to a modern encoding.
If you have an archive you can’t open
on your newer Mac, there’s Pacifist
HOW TO Move iMovie files to a new Mac >
1 iMovie 10
If you have old iMovie projects you
want to transfer to your current Mac,
you need to convert them before they
work in the latest release of Apple’s
video editor, iMovie 10. Don’t panic!
Luckily, this isn’t difficult to do.
4 Move external drive 5 Update projects
You’ll find the projects on the
external or USB drive in a folder called
iMovie Projects. Eject the drive from
your old Mac in the usual way, and plug
it into your current Mac, the one you
want to transfer them to.
Image credits: Apple Inc, The Handbrake Team
Keep your old Mac running FEATURE
If you need to convert video files to another format,
Handbrake is your friend.
2 Copy the files
Find an external storage drive that’s
definitely large enough to hold the iMovie
projects you want to transfer, and plug it
into your old Mac. Next, launch iMovie on
your old Mac – the drive should be listed
in the Project Library.
When you plug in the external drive,
iMovie 10 should immediately find the old
files and offer to update the projects for
use with the newer version of iMovie.
Just click Update in the pop-up window
and they’re imported.
(charlessoft.com). There are versions
for Macs running Mac OS X 10.2 and
above, and it can open almost any
compressed archive.
Modern versions of the iWork apps
– Pages, Numbers and Keynote – should
open docs produced on older releases,
but if you have to go the other way and
save out a document for use in an older
release, there’s a solution. In the File
menu, choose Export To. You can then
save it as an older version of its own app,
in Microsoft Office format and more.
3 Copy projects
Click and drag the projects you
want to transfer to your main Mac onto
the external drive or USB flash drive you
plugged in during the previous step.
The projects are then simply copied
over to the drive.
6 Update manually
If iMovie 10 doesn’t invite you
to update the projects, in the app’s
File menu in the menu bar, choose the
Update Projects and Events. This window
pops up, from where you can update
your iMovie projects.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 75
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 BUYING
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Our authoritative reviews
help you make more
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Contact us

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your questions to
EDITED BY ROB MEAD-GREEN letters@macformat.com

Our ratings
Our reviews are totally 78
independent; we’re not
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influenced by advertisers.

A truly exceptional product.

Award given solely at the
discretion of the editor. 81

HARDWARE

78 Synology BeeStation
The best example of its
80 LaCie Rugged Mini SSD
kind when pitted against
comparable products. 81 1More Penta Driver P50
82 TP-Link Archer Air R5/E5
86
A brilliant thing 84 Logitech MX Brio
85 Anker MagGo Power Bank (10K)
Strongly recommended SOFTWARE

86 Group test: Email apps

Worth considering
92 Sonic Dream Team
93 Calm: Sleep & Meditation
Notable flaws
94 Rainbow Weather
92
96 App round-up: Six of the
A waste of your money best apps for text and speech

Image credits: Synology Inc, UK 1MORE, Apple Inc, SEGA MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 77
 APPLE CHOICE Hardware
Synology BeeStation
Affordable network storage with Time Machine support
£208.79 FROM synology.com FEATURES Realtek RTD1619B processor, 1GB DDR memory, 4TB storage, 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port,
1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port, 1x Gb Ethernet port, 148x63x196mm, 820g NEEDS macOS 12.3 or later, iOS 15 or later
It sits happily
on your home
network, so
you can also
access its files
when away
from home
The fixed hard drive space
may be an issue for some, but
the services offered make it a
very user-friendly option.
78 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
ver since Apple
E stopped making its
AirPort Time Capsule
in 2018, Mac users have been
faced with a dilemma. You can
either sync all your devices using
iCloud and team it with Time
Machine backups made locally;
or you can invest in Network
Attached Storage NAS) – a mass
storage device that sits on your
network and acts as a personal
cloud, of sorts, and can be
accessed by all your devices on
that network and/or remotely
via the internet. While traditional
NAS can be complicated to set
up and tricky to use, more user-
friendly alternatives like WD’s My
Cloud exist. And now there’s the
Considering its home-use bias,
Synology BeeStation too. the BeeStation is quite stark
The BeeStation takes and utilitarian in design.
Synology’s networked drive
know-how and puts it in a much more home-
friendly format than its more business-oriented
NAS. It strips away many of the things you’re
unlikely to need as a home user and focuses
on those that you do. The question is, has
Synology taken too much away, or has it
got the balance just right?
The BeeStation itself comprises a textured
black plastic box inside which you’ll find a 4TB
hard drive, powered by a Realtek RTD1619B
processor running Synology’s own BeeStation
OS. Around the back there’s a selection of
ports: 1x USB-A, 1x USB-C and 1x Gigabit
Ethernet. On the front is an LED status light,
which glows, pulses or changes
colour depending on what the
BeeStation’s currently doing.
Simple storage
Setting up the BeeStation is
relatively straightforward. With
the device connected, you simply
scan the QR code included on the
BeeStation’s base or in the Quick
Start menu, or you can head to
portal.bee.synology.com/setup
on your Mac. From there, you
can get the BeeStation set up on
your network and download the
appropriate apps. On Mac, that’s
BeeStation Desktop; and on
iPhone or iPad, it’s BeeFiles and
BeePhotos. BeeFiles is a bit like the
Files app in that it gives you access
to any files you’ve uploaded or
synced to the BeeStation, while
BeePhotos creates a backup of all
the images you’ve stored in Photos, then gives
you easy access to them. BeeStation Desktop
for Mac goes further still, offering two-way
syncing of files and folders on your Mac.
You can also opt to create one-way
backups, which you can then restore from
should you delete a needed file from your Mac
by mistake. For fans of the original AirPort
Time Capsule, the BeeStation offers another
alternative: network backup via Apple’s Time
Machine. Head to System Settings > Advanced
Settings in the BeeStation’s web interface to
grant local access, mount the drive on your
Mac via SMB, then point Time Machine at it
and let it do its thing. You can also use the
USB-A or USB-C ports on the back to connect
an external drive – either to quickly copy files
to the BeeStation when doing so via Wi-Fi
would take too long; or to use the external
drive as a backup for the BeeStation itself.
In use, the BeeStation couldn’t be simpler.
BeeFiles, BeePhotos and BeeStation Desktop
all do a great job of making choosing,
fetching, backing up and deleting files easy,
Image credit: Synology Inc

and it’s great to have a dedicated app for
Mac rather than relying exclusively on a web
interface as WD’s My Cloud Home does. True,
BeeStation Desktop does occasionally kick
you over to your web browser (like in the Time
Machine set-up example mentioned) but it’s
rare enough not to feel too painful. And as the
BeeStation sits happily on your home network,
you can of course also access its files when
away from home using either the relevant app
or by using any web browser pointed to the
correct, secure location.
A few limitations
There are a couple of things that count
against the BeeStation, though. For one, the
BeeStation’s black-clad plastic exterior looks
utilitarian rather than stylish, and unlike other
Synology NAS there are no expansion options
– 4TB of 5,400rpm hard drive storage is what
you’re stuck with, with no option to swap out
the drive for a larger version, or any slots to
add super-fast solid-state drives (SSDs). And
Synology also offers more stylish and flexible
alternatives – its 1-bay DS120J and 2-bay
DS223J NAS, for example, can be bought
without storage onboard for just £120.99 and
£189.99 respectively – and that means you can
choose the right amount of storage that’s
Image credit: Synology Inc
The BeeStation offers
a good selection of ports
and a clear LED status light.
appropriate for your circumstances and swap
it out later if you need more, or if the drive
you added fails at some point in the future.
Synology’s other NAS also use its DiskStation
OS which, while more complicated, also offers
a great deal more in terms of supported file
types and apps. While you can happily run a
Plex media server on a regular Synology NAS,
you can’t do the same on a BeeStation. You
also can’t simply choose to move your Music
or TV media libraries to your BeeStation and
expect them to work – we tried, even going
so far as to download some shows from Apple
TV+, only to see them fail every time.
And while the BeeStation supports cloud VERDICT
syncing with Dropbox, Google Drive and It’s the BeeStation’s
Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud isn’t included – software that makes
the only exception is iCloud Photos when this a great first NAS,
used with the BeePhotos app. we’d have loved to
The BeeStation then is much akin to see some expansion
WD’s My Cloud Home – a personal cloud server options though.
you can use to access files from anywhere.
However, while an equivalent 4TB My Cloud ★★★★★
Home will cost you £174.99 compared to Easy-to-use
the BeeStation’s £208.79, the BeeStation network storage
ultimately wins out – and it’s BeeStation Mac, iPhone
Desktop for Mac, and BeeFiles and BeePhotos and iPad apps
for iOS/iPadOS that you can thank for that. No expansion options
Rob Mead-Green Limited feature set
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 79
 APPLE CHOICE Hardware
LaCie Rugged Mini SSD
Rugged external SSD storage
£232.99 2TB as tested (from £95.99 500GB to £427.99 4TB) FROM lacie.com FEATURES Bus-powered solid-state external drive,
1x USB-C port (USB 3.2 gen 2x2), water and dust-resistant to IP54, 17.3x66.9x105.3mm, 114g
Its rubber aCie first launched its rugged
plug keeps dirt L external drive in an iconic luminous
orange rubber enclosure, designed
out, and the by Neil Poulton, nearly 20 years ago. This
latest model follows in that tradition, replacing
luminous the spinning hard drive with modern solid-state
orange cover is storage. These are inherently more robust, and
LaCie’s new Rugged Mini SSD gains much from
highly visible its clean and distinctive design.
LaCie claims the enclosure is resistant
to dust, dirt and splashing water to IP54,
although that resistance stops well short of
full immersion, that it survives dropping from
a height of three metres, and the pressure of a
one-ton car tyre. In practice, its flush-fit rubber
plug keeps dirt out of its USB-C port, and the
cover makes it easy to handle and above all
visible. You won’t have any trouble finding
VERDICT this drive in the bottom of a crowded rucksack.
Well designed and As the plug covering the port isn’t tethered,
thoroughly proficient you’ll need to be careful to push it fully home
rugged solid-state to ensure it doesn’t go missing. Its short USB-C
storage built to cable is the same luminous orange.
withstand rough use. Inside the rubber and its tough sintered
metal case is the SSD itself, available in four
★★★★★ capacities from 500GB to 4TB. Unfortunately,
Robust and compact for Mac users it’s built to the USB 3.2 gen 2x2
Distinctive design standard that’s capable of delivering 20Gbps,
1GB/sec speed limit except when connected to Macs and Apple
No SMART indicators devices, which can only run it at half that
80 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
A flush-fit rubber plug
in the same iconic
orange keeps dirt
from its USB-C port.
speed. It does, though, deliver as good a
performance as any USB 3 drive, with read
speeds consistently slighter faster than 1GB/
sec, and write speeds of 950-970MB/sec. With
Apple’s current range of hardware, the only
way you’ll better those is by paying a limb or
two more for full-blown Thunderbolt 3 support.
Otherwise Apple friendly
Its USB interface also disqualifies it from giving
access to its SMART health indicators, unless
you’re prepared to install the SAT SMART
extension on your Mac, a choice that currently
requires Apple silicon models to run macOS at
Reduced Security. In all other respects, it’s fully
Mac- and iPad-friendly, formats happily in any
variant of APFS, and readily accepts a full
macOS installation so that it can be used as
a startup disk for Intel or Apple silicon Macs.
Support is as you’d expect from a premium
brand – three years warranty, a data recovery
service, and a month’s free subscription to
Adobe Creative Cloud as a bonus. LaCie also
reassures us that this drive contains at least
30% recycled materials.
If you want an external SSD that performs
well and is built to withstand the knocks and
grime of everyday use, then LaCie may have
just what you want in this stand-out design.
Howard Oakley
Image credit: LaCie
1More Penta Driver P50
Who needs wireless earbuds when you can have these?
£169.99 FROM uk.1more.com FEATURES In-ear wired headphones with five-driver array, detachable 1.25m oxygen-free copper
(OFC) cable, 3.5mm headphone jack, 3.5mm to USB-C adaptor, eight pairs of ear tips (Silicone: XS, S, M, L, XL/Foam: S, M, L),
20Hz-40kHz frequency response, 32 ohms impedance, 21g
inyl’s back, indie record shops are
V booming, and now wired earbuds
are gaining popularity again too –
and for anyone who takes their old-school
listening pleasures even remotely seriously,
that’s a good thing. Trust us.
China’s 1More is leading the charge on the
wired headphone front with its Penta P50
in-ears eschewing the Bluetooth connectivity
and compressed dynamics of wireless earbuds
(we’re looking at you, AirPods). Instead you get
a 1.25m oxygen-free copper cable, dangling on
the end of which are a pair of earbuds, with each
one incorporating not one but five speaker
drivers for superior sound quality. There’s even
VERDICT an inline three-button remote with microphone
Sometimes the old for making and taking calls, switching between
way of doing things is tracks between playback and adjusting volume.
best – and the 1More In the book-like box, you’ll get eight pairs of
Penta’s performance ear tips to ensure you get the perfect fit; five in
proves it. silicone ranging from extra small (XS or 10.6mm)
to extra large (XL or 14.3mm), plus three foam
★★★★★ tips: small (S or 11mm), medium (M or 12mm) and
Fantastic large (L or 12.8mm). Plus there’s a 3.5mm to
sound quality USB-C adaptor so you can plug the headphones
Passive noise into your iPhone 15 (there’s no Lightning adaptor
reduction sadly) as well as a soft carry pouch.
Detachable cable Slightly curiously, the 1More Penta earbuds
No Lightning adaptor are designed to sit at a 45° angle in your ears
Image credit: UK 1MORE
with the cable looping over and behind them
using the integrated hooks. That helps keep
them secure (handy when working out) while
the wired design also means you’re unlikely
to lose them. Plus the cable is detachable, so
you can replace it if necessary should it ever
break. While the cable feels a little thin, it also
feels robust. The lack of a hard case for the
earbuds is a bit of a disappointment, though,
especially at this price.
Powerful sound
But all those niggles fade away when you
pop the Penta in your ears and start listening,
with the earbuds delivering a lossless, tour de
force performance that’ll put most wireless
earbuds to shame. Crank up Dua Lipa’s Houdini
and you’re rewarded with a faithful rendition
of the song’s driving bass line while Dua sings
seductively over the top, and Nick Cave’s
baritone on La Vie En Rose (from the Apple
TV+ show The New Look) sounds suitably
sonorous and life-like – it’s like he’s sitting at
the piano in your room, singing just for you.
While there’s no active noise cancellation
(ANC), the passive noise reduction offered by
the ear tips does a great job of cutting out
background sounds. Lost in music? Oh yes,
you will be. Rob Mead-Green
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 81
 APPLE CHOICE Hardware
TP-Link Archer
Air R5/E5
A modern networking system for today’s home
Archer Air R5 £139.99; Archer Air E5 £119.99 FROM tp-link.com/uk
FEATURES Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 2x Ethernet ports on R5, for cable or fibre connections, smart antennas
The extender he modern home places
connects to T far more demands on
a domestic wireless
your router’s network than before. It’s no
longer the case that you only need
Wi-Fi network your phone and your computer to
then duplicates connect and go online. Today, all
sorts of devices demand internet
its access access, such as tablets, televisions,
points games consoles, connected home
devices and more.
The latest home networking
technologies such as TP-Link’s While connection options are
AX3000 Archer Air R5 router and limited on the router, both
units are sleek and stylish.
AX3000 Archer Air E5 extender
answer these demands. The latest wireless
protocol, 802.11ax which is also known as Wi-Fi 6,
is not only faster than previous standards but is
also designed to cope with a greater number of
simultaneous connections. By handling network
traffic more efficiently, Wi-Fi 6 can give a
reduction in latency of up to 75%.
The Archer Air R5 is fast too. We’re promised
a maximum speed of 3Gbps overall, with the
5GHz channel offering 2,402Mbps and the
2.4GHz channel 574Mbps. It would be faster
still if it used the later Wi-Fi 6E protocol, which
also offers a 6GHz channel, but alas, it doesn’t.
It’s backwards compatible with earlier Wi-Fi
VERDICT standards, though, so you don’t have to
Great performance replace devices that are pre-Wi-Fi 6.
in a usefully slim form When paired with the Archer E5 extender,
factor. It’s a pity there you get a better range for your home network.
are only two Ethernet The extender connects to your router’s Wi-Fi
ports, but switches network then duplicates its access points,
are cheap. extending the distance from the router that
your network reaches. Because it duplicates
★★★★★ the router’s access settings, you don’t have
Easy to set up and use to log out of your router’s Wi-Fi and log in to
Neat and unobtrusive the extender’s. It’s completely seamless; you
Only two Ethernet can walk around your house listening to Apple
ports provided Music on your iPhone without even noticing
Not Wi-Fi 6E when the access point changes.
82 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
The system is easy to set up
and use. It’s just a case of plugging
it into your modem. It doesn’t have
an integrated ADSL modem, but its
WAN port connects to a DSL, cable
or fibre modem easily enough.
Wirelessly connecting the extender
to the router is a simple task too,
using the free iPhone app. The
Archer R5 only has two Ethernet
ports, and one of them is the WAN
port, and the E5 extender has none
at all. This is a significant drawback if
you have a lot of cabled connections.
There’s no USB port for networking
your printer or portable storage drive either.
But if it lacks physical connection options,
it certainly isn’t short of style. Both the router
and the extender are the size and shape of a
10-inch tablet, with dimensions of around
21x15x1.1cm. They really are that thin. Designed
to be wall-mounted (but just as at home on a
shelf or in a cupboard), their soft white finish and
lack of ugly antennas and LEDs make them neat
and unobtrusive wherever you locate them.
Speedy and stylish
In our tests, the devices performed admirably.
While sitting next to the router, which was
connected to the internet on the ground floor,
we got speeds very close to what our ISP said
was the maximum possible. Moving to the attic,
we lost very little in the way of speed and
connection strength, even though we were
then two floors away from the router. Adding
the extender, and positioning it on the first floor,
we once again achieved speeds very close to
our service maximum. Obviously the exact
speeds you get depend as much on your chosen
service as your router, but the advertised speeds
here seem entirely achievable.
Overall, the two devices offer excellent
performance in a neat package. Ian Osborne
 TP-Link Archer Air R5/E5 APPLE CHOICE

When paired together, the Air

R5 and E5 provide excellent
speed and signal strength.

Image credit: TP-Link Corp Ltd MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 83

 APPLE CHOICE Hardware
Logitech MX Brio
A champion of webcams in the darkness
£219.99 FROM logitech.com FEATURES 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps, 8.5MP sensor, autofocus, automatic light correction,
90° field of view, dual beamforming microphones, privacy cover, 1.5m USB-C to USB-C cable
In low light ver since Continuity Camera came
conditions, the E along, it’s been hard to justify
buying a standalone webcam – few
Logitech MX devices can compete with your iPhone’s
lenses, after all. The Logitech MX Brio,
Brio performed however, might change your mind.
outstandingly It’s one of the only webcams that can trade
blows with an iPhone. Logitech has taken its
well standard 4K Brio camera and given it a series
of upgrades that make a real difference.
For one thing, there’s a new Sony Starvis
sensor and a new five-element wide-angle lens.
Logitech says the MX Brio offers more natural
colours compared to the original Brio, as well
as faster autofocus and better performance
in difficult lighting conditions.
So how does it stack up? When put against
VERDICT Continuity Camera running on an iPhone 12
An excellent (if Pro, the MX Brio had an inauspicious start. In
pricey) webcam that ideal conditions with a light source positioned
trades blows with in front of us, Continuity Camera offered a
Continuity Camera. superior picture that was sharper, warmer
and lighter. Score one to Apple.
★★★★★ Yet everything changed once conditions
Brilliant low- took a turn for the worse. In low light, the MX
light performance Brio performed outstandingly well. While
Fine-control software Continuity Camera struggled to keep us well
Built-in privacy cover lit and separated from the background, the
Show Mode MX Brio kept our face bright and distinct, even
is a bit fiddly when the only light source originated from our
84 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
The Logitech MX Brio is a top
performer in various conditions.
Mac’s display. With a bright light behind us, the
MX Brio came out on top again, offering better
brightness, warmth and accuracy compared to
the iPhone. The results were closer here, but
the MX Brio’s quality was undeniable.
Watch out, Apple
The MX Brio comes with a built-in privacy
shutter (which iPhones lack), a solid aluminium
frame and a Show Mode akin to macOS’s Desk
View; start tilting the camera downwards, and
the image flips to show whatever is on your
desk. This works well, although it means you
must physically move your camera to use it,
which is fiddly and could make it hard to get
a consistent image across different sessions.
But it’s useful, nonetheless.
Logitech’s companion app, Logi Options+,
gives plenty of control over the visual output.
You can adjust white balance, contrast, tint,
shutter speed, and more. The MX Brio also
comes with dual beamforming microphones.
In our tests, these were much louder than the
iPhone’s mics, but also produced more echo.
We’ll chalk this up as a draw.
The MX Brio joins a small group of webcams
that can go toe-to-toe with Continuity Camera.
At £220 it’s expensive but is worth considering
for its superb performance in awkward lighting
conditions alone. Alex Blake
Image credit: Logitech
 Hardware APPLE CHOICE

Anker A1564 MagGo

Power Bank (10K)
A pocket-sized portable charger for when you need it most
£89.99 FROM anker.com/uk FEATURES Qi2 power bank with MagSafe, 10,000mAh capacity,
15W ultra-fast wireless charging/27W wired charging, integrated Smart Display, USB-C port
(0.6m USB-C to USB-C cable included), integrated stand, 107.3x68.8x19.8mm, 250g

The A1564’s hile recent iPhones should have

high quality W no problem lasting all day on

a single charge, it’s always
look and feel worthwhile having a power bank to hand.
That’s especially if you tend to take a lot
make this a of photos/videos or are busy gaming or
premium watching the latest TikToks on your daily
commute. And that’s where this pocket-
choice sized charger from Anker comes in.
Available in black or white and
measuring a chunky 107.3x68.8x19.8mm
and weighing 250g, it’ll charge your
iPhone an extra 1.8 times – ensuring
you have more than enough juice
to power through your day.
As well as having a
10,000mAh capacity battery on
board, the Anker A1564 comes
with a Qi2-compatible MagSafe
magnet so you can securely attach it The good-looking A1564 is
a premium and powerful
to your iPhone. Plus, it has an integrated charger that will see your
metal stand that’ll enable you to prop up devices through the day.
your iPhone for movie viewing or gaming,
or when using iOS 17’s StandBy mode. While the Anker A1564 is expensive
relative to cheapies found in petrol stations
Pocketable power and elsewhere, its high quality look and feel,
On the left side of the power bank, you’ll find as well as its features, make this a premium
a two-way USB-C port for charging both the choice. In use, its magnet clamped on to an
power bank or your iPhone (using the 0.6m iPhone 15 Pro reassuringly well and the
USB-C to USB-C cable supplied), while on charger boosted its battery from 87% to
the right there’s a colour Smart Display. This 95% in 22 minutes via 15W wireless charging
shows how much charge remains in the power (the maximum allowed by Apple). The
bank and gives you an estimate (in hours and A1564 will, however, charge faster using the
minutes) for how long it’ll last. The display wired USB-C connection (with up to 27W
VERDICT automatically lights up when you connect the available), for when you’re really in a pinch
A great way to boost power bank to your iPhone, while a recessed and have a cable to hand. You could even use
your iPhone on the go. button on the same side lights it up at other it to top up your USB-C iPad or charge two
times – handy when you just want to check the separate devices at once (one via MagSafe
★★★★★ amount of battery life before heading out, say. and one via USB-C).
Premium power bank Unlike the Anker Prime A1340 we tested in Overall, this is a brilliant little power bank
Built-in display #MF401, the A1564 can’t be monitored via the that you’ll be more than happy to stow in a
MagSafe/Qi2 Anker app, although it’s not really an issue for pocket or bag every time you leave home.
Integrated stand a device as compact as this. Rob Mead-Green

Image credit: Fantasia Trading LLC MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 85

The best
email apps
for Mac
Get to the heart of the
news you want to read

86 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024

 mail doesn’t look
E like it’s going
anywhere. Indeed,
figures suggest that we’re
sending and receiving more
emails each year than ever
before (according to Statistica,
347 million were sent last year
and 2024 looks set to surpass
that number). With that in
mind, it’s crucial we’re using
the correct tools to manage
our overflowing inboxes. One
thing’s for sure, we’re not
short of choices.
As you’ll discover in
this head-to-head of six
email apps for Mac, there
are some exciting approaches
to this age-old method of
communication. As well as
Apple Mail itself, which we
include as a benchmark of
sorts because it’s the default
on macOS, there is a strong
line-up of apps from third-
party developers. These
include familiar names – we’re
looking at you Microsoft and
Mozilla – but there’s younger
blood in there too.
So let’s take a look at
what’s available and see which
of these email apps is going to
get pinned to the top of our
list. Is it worth paying for an
email client or can you do just
as much with a free one?

How we tested
The first test with each app
was to check how easily email
accounts could be imported.

Group
Once up and running, it was
then a simple case of using
the apps as part of our daily

test
Reviewed by
lives, regularly checking for
new emails, performing
searches, writing and replying
to messages, and looking at
DAVID CROOKES each client’s organisational
ON TEST… features. It was important to
> Canary Mail test the apps on an iPhone,
> Mail iPad and Apple Watch and
> Microsoft Outlook to get to grips with an app’s
> Spark +AI novel functions such as AI.
> Spike
> Thunderbird
Image credit: Apple Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 87
 APPLE CHOICE Group test

Things to
consider…
Can it sort messages well?
1 Nobody wants to have to deal
with an overflowing inbox full of
irrelevant emails so look out for
smart mailboxes, AI assistance
and effective methods to block
unwanted correspondence.

Multiple accounts?
2 Most email apps will support
Gmail and Outlook accounts but what if
you use a less common service such as
Hey? Will you be able to set them up?

Will it work across

3 platforms?
Although we’re looking at Mac email
apps here, you’re also likely to check
your messages on an iPhone, iPad,
Apple Watch and, dare we say, an
Android device or PC.

Is it convenient?
4 Scheduling, reminders, improved
search, and artificial intelligence (AI) 1
will make life so much easier.

Canary Mail Mail

Free (IAPs) FROM canarymail.io Free FROM apple.com/uk

Canary Mail looks
1 almost identical to
Apple’s Mail and it primarily
sells itself on using artificial
intelligence (AI) to help you
manage your inbox. The
app’s offer of end-to-end
email encryption is just
as eye-catching, particularly
as it uses Pretty Good Privacy
(PGP) protection (as long as
you subscribe). By providing
cryptographic privacy, you
can be sure only the intended
recipient can access your
emails. And, with a promise
not to mine messages for
marketing purposes, Canary
Mail offers solid privacy.
But what of AI? Canary’s
Copilot sits in a sidebar ready
to assist: you could ask it to
scour your emails to find your
availability for a certain day,
say, or move your messages.
Subscribe to the app and its
AI can auto-write messages
based on your prompts and
summarise a conversation
with a single click. The trouble
is, too many key features are
for Pro subscribers (such as
pinned emails and push
notifications), which stops us
singing this app’s praises.
VERDICT
Copilot is very smart
Interface is Mail-esque
Offers strong encryption
Some basic features need Pro
★★★★★
Most of us are
2 familiar with Apple’s
Mail app and it’s a powerful
performer these days.
Previously criticised for being
functional and unexciting, it
now offers many useful
features such as being able to
schedule emails, undo email
sending, receive notifications
if someone doesn’t respond,
and set reminders if you can’t
get back to someone
immediately.
In catching up, moving to
an alternative app feels less
pressing especially if you just
want something solid that
works across Apple devices.
Smart inboxes filter emails
well and large files can be
sent using Mail Drop.
Subscribe to iCloud+ and
you can generate random,
unique email addresses too.
But it’s not without
annoyances. While searching
is fast and flexible, Mail splits
the results, showing two
items as Top Hits rather
than get straight into
showing everything in date
order. It’s also dropped legacy
plug-ins in favour of more
restricted extensions.
VERDICT
Customisable interface
Can hide email addresses
Apple device integration
Search results
★★★★★

88 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credits: Apple Inc, Canary Mail

 Mail apps APPLE CHOICE

3 4

Microsoft Outlook Spark Mail +AI

Free (IAPs) FROM microsoft.com Free (IAPs) FROM sparkmailapp.com

Outlook pops with upcoming events in a sidebar Email can be These include prioritising
3 colour and it’s used but importing iCloud 4 overwhelming so it’s senders, grouping senders
very well. Aside from making calendars is fiddly. refreshing to see an app and managing emails from
it easier to see the New Email Watch out for ads in the developed with the intention the Home Screen. Gatekeeper
button, the mailboxes use Other section if you don’t of removing unwanted mode lets you review and
coloured icons to represent subscribe to Microsoft 365 distractions. By encouraging block senders before or after
contacts, letting you quickly – they look like regular you to focus on important their email lands in your inbox
spot messages at a glance. messages and, while marked, things, Spark reduces the while AI is used to speed up
You can change the theme you may find yourself clicking time needed to tend to email composition. Give
from the default blue if you by accident. A subscription is emails, meaning inbox zero is Spark Mail some context and
wish and enjoy many other necessary if you want to undo entirely feasible. Go full- it’ll generate a draft. Write
customisation options. send or schedule messages screen to give your inbox an email and Spark can
Smart filters separate (unless you’re using an your undivided attention. You rephrase, expand or shorten
the inbox into Focused for outlook.com email account). can sync between devices, your prose. It works so well.
important messages and collapse the sidebar, snooze,
Other for the rest, but it VERDICT schedule, set reminders and VERDICT
won’t automatically organise Great use of colour have your inbox arranged into Manage from homescreen
invoices, tickets and the like. Effective organisation tools categories, so you decide Many interface options
Hover over a message and Superb customisation what to tackle. Clean yet feature-packed
you’ll be able to flag, pin or Sub for two key features Be prepared to pay for AI & Gatekeeper premium
trash it. You can also view ★★★★★ the more advanced features. ★★★★★

Image credit: Apple Inc, Microsoft, Spark Mail Ltd MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 89
 APPLE CHOICE Group test
5 6
Spike
Free (IAPs) FROM spikenow.com
Spike is mainly aimed
5 at team users and,
unlike Superhuman (which
we haven’t included in this
test), it’s not going to cost
£29.49 per person per
month! In fact, if you have
up to three members, you
won’t need to pay anything,
otherwise you’re generally
looking at £7.99 per member
per month.
It’s a pretty unusual
email client – one that is
more like Messages thanks
to its conversation-based
approach. Emails are grouped
by people and messages
appear in bubbles. You can
keep track of a person’s
threads in a contact window
90 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
where you’ll find files and
buttons to video chat or call.
Smart inboxes separate
priority emails from the rest
and a calendar lets you
quickly add new events
with notifications. As well
as sending voice messages
and using message templates,
you can try Magic AI to write
emails, notes and replies,
setting the right tone, length
and format. The free tier only
gives 10 goes at this, though.
VERDICT
Tries something different
Now includes AI
Decent free feature set
Can be confusing
★★★★★
Thunderbird
Free FROM thunderbird.net
Thunderbird feels
6 less polished than its
rivals. The set-up process is
functional; the interface is
outdated. But looks can
deceive. This open source
app is actually packed with
features although you’ll likely
spend time delving deep to
get it working well for you.
Out of the box, so to
speak, there’s tabbed email
making it easier to juggle
multiple messages (they’re
saved if you quit and appear
when you relaunch). When
writing new emails, you can
spellcheck and format your
text, use end-to-end
encryption, send large files
via Thunderbird Filelink and
Image credit: Apple Inc, Spike Inc, MZLA Technologies Corp
be reminded if you’ve
forgotten an attachment.
Thunderbird’s strong
junk mail filters and phishing
protection work well but the
app comes into its own when
you make use of add-ons.
You’ll find additional tools to
expand the app’s functionality
and the possibilities are
endless (schedule messages,
translate, and so on). It all
makes Thunderbird a bit
of a geek’s dream.
VERDICT
Tabbed email
Has loads of add-ons
Handles large files
Needs a visual overhaul
★★★★★
THE WINNER

Microsoft Outlook
Freed from the need for a subscription, Outlook leads the way
refer to stick
P with Apple’s Mail?
It’s a more than
capable contender in its
field. In recent years, the app,
already hot on privacy, has
grown in stature, adding
many features from its rivals.
It’s now hard to justify looking
elsewhere – certainly if that
means you’re going to have
to start shelling out money.
But that’s not to say you
shouldn’t consider other
options, some of which may
better suit you. AI is fast
becoming a standard feature,
helping to compose messages
and stay on top of your inbox,
and both Spark Mail +AI and
Canary Mail are ahead of the
game. For teamwork, you may
enjoy the message approach
of Spike despite its flaws. And,
for flexibility, Thunderbird can
be built into a powerful unit,
albeit one that’s rough
around the edges.
Microsoft’s Outlook,
though, is an impressive
all-rounder especially if you
use outlook.com or subscribe
to Microsoft 365. Even if you
don’t, you’ll find it packed
with essential features and
since it’s customisable,
optimised for Apple silicon
and boasts powerful search
facilities, it’s definitely our
worthy winner.

How
do they
compare?
> Specs Canary Mail Mail Microsoft Outlook Spark Mail +AI Spike Thunderbird
Price Free (IAPs, Pro £45/year, Free Free (IAPs, Microsoft 365 Free (IAPs, Spark Free (IAPs, £7.99/month Free
£129/lifetime) from £5.99/month, Premium £7.99/month, £59.99 year; Advanced
£59.99/year) £59.99/year) £15.99/month, £119.99/
year)
Website canarymail.io apple.com microsoft.com sparkmailapp.com spikenow.com thunderbird.net
Import email Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
accounts
Smart, Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
filtered inbox
Snooze emails Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
Schedule Yes Yes Yes (with Microsoft 365 or Yes Yes No
send Outlook.com account)
Undo send Yes Yes Yes (with Microsoft 365 or Yes Yes No
outlook.com account)
Smart folders No Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Privacy PGP and SecureSend Blocks tracking pixels, Encrypts data, prevents Blocks tracking pixels, Encrypts data (AES-256) Encrypts data. prevents
features with subscription masks IP addresses, images downloading encrypts data images downloading
prevents images
downloading, allows
email hiding
Templates Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
> Overall ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
Note: The final verdict scores reflect the overall opinion of a product and are not necessarily an average of the criteria listed in the table.

Image credit: Apple Inc, Canary Mail, Microsoft, Spark Mail Ltd, Spike Inc, MZLA Technologies Corp MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 91
 APPLE CHOICE Hardware
Sonic Dream Team
Gotta go fast – well, for a few short dream-like bursts
£6.99/month (Apple Arcade) FROM sonicdreamteam.com NEEDS macOS 11 or later
The dream onic has been around for decades,
theme means S finding his way on to myriad games
platforms, including Apple Arcade.
each level is a Unlike some past Sonic titles that were 2D
side-scrollers or on-rails endless runners,
weird and the latest effort, Sonic Dream Team, is a 3D
wonderful arcade adventure where each level can be
explored for secrets and challenges.
creation, Don’t expect much from the story, though.
bursting While the details may have changed, there’s
precious little innovation. Doctor Eggman has
with colour captured Sonic’s friends for some dastardly
scheme, would you believe it? This time, Eggman
has imprisoned our heroes so that he can filter
his evil dreams through their pure hearts, for
some reason. It’s up to Sonic to release his
friends by collecting gems and ‘dream orbs’
from the worlds that Eggman has dreamed
up. It’s not exactly Spielberg-esque, but then
VERDICT again, who really plays Sonic for the story?
Fast, fun and The story may not be very original, but
fantastic on the eyes, that doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun. There’s
Sonic Dream Team a reason Sonic has been around for so long:
breathes new life zipping and zooming through levels at high
into the franchise. speed is innately enjoyable, and that’s still true
with Sonic Dream Team. The game captures
★★★★★ the essence of Sonic well, with all its high-speed
Beautiful levels silliness and combo moves. There are plenty
Fun arcade gameplay of nooks to explore without things ever getting
Forgettable story overwhelming, and this encourages replayability
Too short and short bursts of gaming fun.
92 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2023
Each world is bright and imaginative,
as befits the dream-like theme.
The levels don’t just feel good – they look
great too. The dream theme means each level
is a weird and wonderful creation, bursting with
colour and creativity. You feel like you want to
take your time and explore every corner – if
the point wasn’t to move as fast as possible,
of course. Play it on a big screen like an iMac
or an Apple TV to get the full effect.
Short and sweet
Each stage has its share of challenges and
enemies, but they’re not particularly difficult
to overcome. Even the bosses that punctuate
each stage are fairly trivial. If you’re after a
real challenge, you probably won’t find it here.
The game is also disappointingly short and
ends just as you start to get going – don’t
expect more than a few hours of gameplay.
There are other problems. The voice acting
quickly grates, while rapidly pressing Shift to
sprint can really make your pinky ache. You
can’t really fix this; like many Apple Arcade
games, Sonic Dream Team is not well optimised
for the Mac, and there are precious few control
scheme settings that could make things more
comfortable. Try a controller instead.
Still, there’s plenty to like. Despite a yawn-
inducing story, its gorgeous levels, enjoyable
music and fast-paced gameplay make it a
pleasing romp. It’s not quite a dream come
true, but it makes a good go of it. Alex Blake
Image credit: SEGA

Calm: Sleep & Meditation
Live a happier, healthier life by focusing on rest and relaxation
Free; Premium subscription £14.99/month; £39.99/year
FROM calm.com NEEDS iOS/iPadOS 16 or later, tvOS 11.2 or later, watchOS 8.3 or later
elf-help apps are very popular on
S the App Store, with hundreds of
offerings to help shape your life and
control your stress. One app, however, stands
out above the rest: Calm: Sleep & Meditation.
Calm is a gorgeous app available for iPhone,
Apple TV and Apple Watch, but it especially
shines on the iPad. With a wide range of
meditation offerings for those looking to try
meditating for the first time or those who have
been practising for years, it’s the quintessential
app for a healthier, happier life.
Calm’s defining feature is its Sleep Stories,
carefully curated bedtime stories to help you
VERDICT get a deep and restful slumber. With over 100
One of the best stories to choose from narrated by iconic
meditation app voices, such as Stephen Fry, Matthew
offerings around McConaughey, Cillian Murphy, and Harry
with incredible Styles, there is a Sleep Story for everyone.
sleep features. This kind of sleep meditation is the easiest
way to get started, as you don’t need to
★★★★★ concentrate on the process, and you can
Wide range allow your mind to relax and switch off. After
of Sleep Stories a couple of restful nights, it’s likely that you’ll
Easy-to-use with want to incorporate meditation sessions
gorgeous design into your morning routine as well.
A meditation program Calm is especially stunning to navigate
for almost anything on the iPad, thanks to the full-screen scene
Need premium to get options that play relaxing background noises
the full experience and animate wallpapers, such as Blue Gold,
Image credit: Calm.com Inc
There’s a huge variety of voices
ready to tell you a story.
which represents the blue lavender fields of
France and oozes serenity.
The built-in programmes are easy to follow
and encourage you to return thanks to daily
notifications. With what feels like an endless
number of options, which include playlists,
courses and soundscapes, you’re bound to find
a mindfulness session to suit — and the quick
five-minute energising sessions make it easy
to incorporate into your daily routine.
Your go-to companion
Calm is your go-to companion from the
moment you open your eyes to the moment
you go to sleep, with resources to support you
every step of the way. If you’ve been looking
to try an application like this, Calm goes above
and beyond similar apps on the market and will
likely become an essential tool on your iPad.
While the premium subscription (costing
£14.99/month or £39.99/year) undoubtedly
gives you more options, the free version
enables you to reap the benefits of starting
good relaxation habits without paying up.
In such a fast-paced and increasingly
frenetic world, it’s easy to forget to take a step
back and breathe; Calm is the antidote. It’ll help
you create contemplative oases throughout
your day, so helping you to rest and recharge.
John-Anthony Disotto
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 93
 APPLE CHOICE Software

Rainbow Weather:
AI Forecast
Need a mac? Check this app
Free; full feature set £4.99/month or £19.99/year FROM rainbow.ai NEEDS iOS 15 or later

Rainbow enerally, there’s alway one

Weather is G particular snippet of information

most people want to know about
said to be 3.5% the weather: is it going to rain? Will your
plans run smoothly because the coming hours
more accurate are set to be dry or will you have to grab your
than Apple coat and perhaps an umbrella?
With Rainbow Weather, such questions are
Weather answered very quickly. Rather than provide a
detailed all-encompassing forecast, this app
primarily concentrates on the likelihood of
precipitation within a two-hour period. It
does so with the aid of advanced
AI modelling that draws on a variety
of data sources that includes
meteorology stations, satellites,
collated user reports and shared
barometer information.
After allowing access to your
location, you’re shown a hyperlocal
forecast using an animated map.
The passing of time displays on
an automatically advancing slider
(which you can stop and manually The premium widgets will provide you with more information.
position, if you wish) and you’re able how much precipitation is expected. Pull up on
to see any moving rain clouds to this and you’ll see a deeper forecast showing
gain an idea of their size. when any rain is due to stop as well as a
The colour of the clouds minute-by-minute temperature forecast.
indicates the severity of the It feels as if you’re getting just the right
potential rain, with yellow being balance of relevant information without the
extreme (more than 30mm per app going overboard. What’s more, you’re
hour) and light blue being drizzle. encouraged to assist by using a feedback
It’s an effective way of getting button to indicate whether the app’s forecast
a speedy, at-a-glance view of matches the conditions you’re seeing outside.
upcoming weather changes The makers say this will help to make the app
but you can drill down for more even more accurate.
information should you need it. As it is, Rainbow Weather is said to be 3.5%
more accurate than Apple Weather in the US
Feed it back and 9.5% more accurate than AccuWeather
Indeed, at the bottom of the screen globally. In our experience, it did appear to
is a description of your location, a get things right the vast majority of the time.
weather graphic, a brief overview To make the experience more bespoke,
You can scroll to other regions but can’t input them of the current conditions, the there’s a wealth of options in the Settings
for easy switching between multiple locations. temperature and an indication of menu. There you can alter the time format,

94 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Weather Forecast Technologies Ltd


You can easily see where and how
intense the rain is set to be.
change the unit of temperature and switch the
measurement of precipitation from millimetres
to inches. You can also change the units for
pressure, wind speed and distance and make
use of one of three themes. And if you don’t
like the precipitation colours, you can change
them to those used by NOAA Radar. Such
tweaks are welcome.
A well-designed widget is a nice addition
too, revealing your location and the current
weather condition. This comes for free, along
with weather notifications and all of the other
features mentioned so far. The downside is that
you’ll have to put up with adverts unless you
decide to go premium. In that case, be prepared
to pay £4.99 each month or £19.99 for the year.
Hold on to your hat
If that sounds rather steep then consider the
other features you’ll gain, notably a minute-
by-minute precipitation forecast, a hurricane
tracker and premium widgets. If you live in or
frequently visit a hurricane region, the tracker
could be worth its weight in gold (the app
Image credit: Weather Forecast Technologies Ltd
Rainbow Weather: AI Forecast APPLE CHOICE
Dropcast is premium, showing Get rain, snow and storms forecasts
minute-by-minute precipitation data. and even track hurricanes.
monitors Australia and the South Pacific, the
Atlantic and East Pacific, North Indian, West
Pacific and South Indian regions). But if you
don’t, then you’re not generally gaining all
that much by going premium.
That’s because premium widgets only
add a precipitation forecast for the next hour,
leaving you effectively paying for ad removal
and a clearer rainfall breakdown. Granted, VERDICT
a minute-by-minute precipitation chart is A well-designed,
certainly very useful and it’s a pain that it’s accurate hyperlocal,
premium only but whether that’s worth the hyper-focused
cash, well, that’s going to be your call. weather app that is
Of course, the other issue is whether the a total breeze to use.
app is actually worth switching to at all. You
may find the hyperlocal focus is too niche ★★★★★
– you can scroll to other areas but can’t input Highly accurate
more locations and switch between them – or rain forecasts
you may feel the accuracy gains are merely Provides two-
marginal. Ultimately, much depends on how hour predictions
particular you are about avoiding getting wet Interface is simple
but if this app has one particular job, there’s to navigate
no doubt it does it very well. Minute-by-minute
David Crookes rainfall is premium
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 95
 APPLE CHOICE iOS
Text and speech Transcribe, translate and turn text into talk
Otter: Transcribe
Voice Notes
Free (IAPs) FROM otter.ai
NEEDS iOS 13 or later
When it comes to transcription,
few apps are as good as Otter.
Send it a recording and it will
rapidly transcribe it with a high degree
of accuracy. Even lengthy audio files only
take it a few minutes to wrestle into shape.
Along the way it adds speakers,
timestamps, summaries and highlights,
and you can edit anything – including
correcting mistakes, adding paragraph
breaks, changing speaker names and more
– to ensure it is all as accurate as can be.
96 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
6 apps for...
Vienna Scribe
Free (IAPs) FROM vienna.earth/meta/
scribe NEEDS iOS 15 or later
We all know how powerful
ChatGPT is, but few people
are aware it’s being put to
good use in transcription software.
That’s what you get with Vienna Scribe
– it embeds OpenAI’s Whisper tech to
generate accurate transcriptions in
almost 100 languages. It’s all brought
together in a slick interface that’s simple
to navigate and packed with extras. Plus,
everything is stored on-device and never
uploaded to cloud servers, protecting the
privacy of your recordings.
Image credits: Apple Inc, Otter.ai, Vienna Hypertext Inc, Open Planet Software Ltd
Just Press Record
£4.99 FROM openplanetsoftware.com
NEEDS iOS 15.6 or later
Given its name, you might
think Just Press Record was
solely about, well, recording –
but there’s much more to it than that.
Aside from its fast, simple audio logging,
it comes with top-notch transcription
abilities that turn your voice into text
in an instant. You can also edit your
recorded audio, correct transcribed
text and organise your clips to find them
later. With unlimited recording time and
integration with Apple’s Shortcuts app,
there are plenty of helpful bonuses too.

he rise of artificial intelligence
T (AI) has opened up a whole
range of new uses for our
Apple devices. One area where things
are rapidly changing is voice recording.
Transcription is getting faster, translation
across languages is easier, and you can
Speechify Text
to Speech Audio
Free (IAPs) FROM speechify.com
NEEDS iOS 16 or later
Sometimes, instead of
transcribing audio, you want
to turn text into speech. For
times like that, use Speechify. It can take
in all sorts of file formats, from PDFs and
emails to Word documents and text
articles, then read them in a variety of
voices (including celebs like Snoop Dogg
and Gwyneth Paltrow). So, whether you
struggle with a visual impairment, need
to sanity check a speech or just want to
have a bit of fun, it’s there to lend a hand.
Image credit: Apple Inc, Speechify Inc, Mighty Fine Apps LLC, iTranslate GmbH
Apps for text and speech APPLE CHOICE
transform your text into audio and vice
versa with ease. There’s no need to
laboriously transliterate lectures or
stumble through foreign-language chats
– we’ve found six apps that make it all a
cinch. Try them to level up your iPhone’s
speech and text talents. Alex Blake
Live Transcribe
Free (IAPs) FROM livetranscribe.app
NEEDS iOS 15 or later
Live Transcribe isn’t just
another transcription app –
it’s a vital tool with a whole
host of uses. It converts speech into text
and displays it in large font, which is
great for elderly users or those who are
hard of hearing. It works with over 70
languages so users can communicate in
their native tongue. And you can save
chats for later, send them to note-taking
apps on your device, or share them with
friends and relatives. It’s well thought-out
and incredibly helpful in all sorts of ways.
iTranslate
Free (IAPs) FROM itranslate.com
NEEDS iOS 14 or later
Need help communicating in
another language or dialect?
Try iTranslate Translator. You
can type text to be translated, snap a
photo of a word you don’t recognise,
or have a one-on-one conversation
with someone else and it will translate
between the two of you. When you want
to focus on certain words, you can save
them to a phrasebook for later learning,
and its flash cards are a great way to
build up your vocabulary. For cross-
language transcription, it’s a lifesaver.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 97
Your guide to the best Apple hardware and third-party accessories

EXPECTED
OCT 2024
UPDATED
OCT 2023

iMac From
£1,399

In October 2023, Apple updated its

only iMac – the 24in model, so that it now
benefits from Apple’s also newly-released M3
chip. You can now choose between an 8-core
CPU/8-core GPU at the entry-level, or an 8-core
CPU/10-core GPU on the mid-range and top-tier
versions. You still get a 4.5K (4480x2520)
Retina display, and all models come with 8GB of
memory as standard, but this is now upgradeable
to 24GB throughout. The solid-state drive (SSD)
storage ranges from 256GB on entry-level and
mid-range versions to 512GB on the top tier,
although you can add up to 1TB on the entry-level
and up to 2TB on mid-range and top-tier models.
The entry level version is available in Blue, Green,
Pink and Silver, but the mid- and top-tier models are also
available in Yellow, Orange, and Purple. Each M3 iMac also
comes with a 1080p FaceTime camera, and a six-speaker
sound system with support for spatial audio. You’ll also find
two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports on each model, with mid-range
and top-tier options offering two additional USB 3 (USB-C)
ports. Rather surprisingly – and pleasingly – the starting price
remains unchanged at £1,399.

iMac 24in £1,399 iMac 24in £1,599 iMac 24in £1,799

(Entry level)
Display: 23.5in 4.5K Retina (4480x2520) with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 256GB (upgradeable to 512GB or 1TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 1x Gb Ethernet (option)
(Mid-range)
Display: 23.5in 4.5K Retina (4480x2520) with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 256GB (upgradeable to 512GB, 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 2x USB 3, 1x Gb Ethernet
(Ultimate)
Display: 23.5in 4.5K Retina (4480x2520) with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 16GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 2x USB 3, 1x Gb Ethernet

Apple Magic Apple Magic

Mouse Trackpad
From £79 From £129
Design quirks aside, This Multi Touch glass
Apple Magic Keyboard with (we’re looking at you, trackpad is a thing of
Touch ID and Numeric Keypad Lightning Port) the Magic beauty, giving you lots
From £179 Mouse is a great pointing of control over macOS
This extended keyboard is a great upgrade device, thanks to its Multi and it’s rechargeable
option for any Mac and comes with Touch ID for Touch support. The black too. The black version
faster Mac logins. The black version costs £199. version costs £99. costs £149.

98 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024


EXPECTED
MAR 2025
UPDATED
MAR 2024
MacBook Air
Apple’s most affordable laptop was
given an upgrade in March 2024, with
both the 13-inch and 15-inch models
now sporting Apple silicon M3 chips,
although an M2-equipped version of
the 13-inch remains available.
The laptop boasts a silent, fanless
design, a six-speaker sound system
(the 13in has four speakers) and spatial
audio. The 13in M3 features an 8-core
CPU, offering 1.6x faster performance
than the M1, along with either an 8- or
a 10-core GPU, giving it a 5.8% boost
in graphics performance. The M3 also
benefits from 100GB/sec memory
bandwidth. Both M3 MacBook Air models
come with 8GB of memory as standard,
configurable to 16 or 24GB, and both can
be configured with up to 2TB of storage.
MacBook Air 13in £1,099
(Entry level)
Display: 13.6in Liquid Retina with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 256GB (upgradeable to 512GB, 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 3.5mm headphone jack
TV 4K
From £149
Apple’s third-gen
little black box with
A15 Bionic chip now
adds HDR10+ to the
mix. Prices now start at just
£149 (Wi-Fi only); the standard version now
comes with 64GB of storage, while paying £20
extra gets you 128GB, Ethernet and Thread.
Image credit: Apple Inc
Apple kit STORE GUIDE
EXPECTED
APR 2024
UPDATED
JAN 2023
From
£1,099
The 15in MacBook Air is the thinnest
15in laptop available – 40% thinner than
comparable PC laptops; it’s just 11.5mm
thin and weighs 1.51kg. The 13in Air is
11.3mm thin and weighs 1.24kg. The
Liquid Retina display in the 15in MacBook
Air has a resolution of 2880x1864 pixels,
while the 13in has 2560x1664. Both
support up to one billion colours.
Both M3 MacBook Air models come
with 1080p FaceTime HD cameras,
MagSafe 3, two Thunderbolt/USB 4
ports and a headphone jack and
Bluetooth 5.3, and they now support
Wi-Fi 6E. You also get up to 18 hours
of battery life when viewing video or
15 when web surfing.
Prices for the 13in model start at
£1,099, while the 15in starts at £1,299.
MacBook Air 15in £1,699
(Ultimate)
Display: 15.3in Liquid Retina with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 16GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 3.5mm headphone jack
Apple HomePod/
HomePod mini
£99/£299
Apple’s Siri-powered
speakers sound great,
you can link two for
stereo sound, and use them
as smart home hubs. The mini comes in five
colours; the 2nd-gen Midnight/White HomePod
(£299), offers higher spec and spatial audio.
Mac mini From
£649
Apple’s most affordable desktop
may not come with a mouse, a
trackpad or keyboard, but it’s also
great value starting at even less
than the last model at £649.
Despite the reduction in price, the
Mac mini now boasts Apple’s M2 chip,
boasting an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU
and 16-core Neural Engine. The 8GB
of memory can now be boosted up
to 24GB, while SSD storage options
range from 256GB all the way up to
2TB. There is now also an M2 Pro
version with a 10-core CPU/16-core
GPU (configurable to 12-core CPU/19-
core GPU), with 16 to 32GB memory
and 512GB to 8TB SSD storage.
Entry-level and mid-range M2 Mac
mini models continue to come with
two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, but
the M2 Pro model has now has four.
Mac mini £649
(Entry level)
Chip: Apple M2, 8-core CPU (4 performance cores, 4
efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 256GB (upgradeable to 512GB, 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 2x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.0,
3.5mm headphone jack, Gb Ethernet (10Gb Ethernet option)
Mac mini £1,399
(Ultimate)
Chip: Apple M2 Pro with 10-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 16-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 16GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB or 2TB)
Ports: 4x Thunderbolt/USB 4, 2x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.0,
3.5mm headphone jack, Gb Ethernet (10Gb Ethernet option)
Watch
Series 9,
Ultra 2, SE
From £219
The SE and
Series 9 are water resistant to
50m, but the titanium Ultra 2 is water resistant to
100m. The Series 9 and the Ultra 2 now run on an
S9 SiP and boast an Always-On Retina display, and
all three offer Emergency SOS and Crash Detection.
MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 99
 STORE GUIDE Apple kit
MacBook Pro
From £1,349
October 2023 saw the introduction
of the M3 chip family to the MacBook
Pro. The new 14-inch M3 model is
available with an 8-core CPU/10-core
GPU. But if you step up to the M3 Pro
option, you can opt for either an 11-core
CPU/14-core GPU or a 12-core CPU/
18-core GPU, or the M3 Max which
has a 14-core CPU/30-core GPU.
The 16in options start with the M3 Pro
chip with a 12-core CPU/18-core GPU and
either 18GB or 36GB of unified memory.
Or you can opt for the M3 Max chip with
MacBook Pro 14in £1,699
(Entry level)
Display: 14.2in Liquid Retina XDR (3024x1964) with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 with 8-core CPU (4 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 8GB (upgradeable to 24GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB, 2TB)
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, HDMI port, SDXC card slot
Mac Studio
£2,099
The Mac Studio finally received a
long-hoped-for update in June 2023
with the latest model sporting Apple
silicon M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips.
The Mac Studio is up to six times faster
than the most powerful Intel-based
27-inch iMac and up to three times faster
than the M1 Ultra Studio that preceded it.
The Studio’s aluminium body is very
compact for a desktop Mac, measuring
197x197x95mm, but it’s what’s inside that
counts. The M2 Max chip has a 12-core
CPU, a 30-core GPU (upgradeable to
38-core), and 32GB of memory
(configurable to 96GB). The M2 Ultra
comes with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU
(upgradeable to 76-core), and 64GB of
Mac Studio £2,099
(Entry level)
Chip: M2 Max with 12-core CPU (8 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 30-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 32GB (upgradeable to 96GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB)
Ports: 4x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-C, 2x USB-A, HDMI 2.0,
3.5mm headphone jack, 10Gb Ethernet, SDXC card slot
100 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024
EXPECTED
OCT 2024
UPDATED
OCT 2023
either a 14-core CPU/30-core GPU or
16-core CPU/40-core GPU. The unified
memory can be upgraded to a max of
128GB on the M3 Max models, while SSD
MacBook Pro 16in £2,599
(Mid-range)
Display: 16.2in Liquid Retina XDR (3456x2234) with True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 Pro with 12-core CPU (6 performance cores,
6 efficiency cores), 18-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 18GB (upgradeable to 36GB)
Storage: 512GB (upgradeable to 1TB, 2TB, 4TB)
Ports: 3x Thunderbolt/USB 4, HDMI port, SDXC card slot
From
EXPECTED
JUNE 2024
UPDATED
JUNE 2023
The Mac Studio is Apple’s most powerful
desktop Mac to date – it’s pricy though.
unified memory (upgradeable to 192GB).
Storage options on both scale up to 8TB.
The Mac Studio M2 Max starts at
£2,099, and the M2 Ultra starts at
£4,199, so these machines are not for
everyone. But both offer an incredible
array of connectivity options and
support for the more pro user.
Mac Studio £4,199
(Ultimate)
Chip: M2 Ultra with 24-core CPU (16 performance cores,
8 efficiency cores), 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine
Memory: 64GB (upgradeable to 192GB)
Storage: 1TB (upgradeable to 2TB, 4TB, 8TB)
Ports: 4x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-C, 2x USB-A, HDMI 2.0,
3.5mm headphone jack, 10Gb Ethernet, SDXC card slot
storage can be upgraded to a max of
8TB on M3 Max models. The 14in M3 and
and 16in M3 Pro and M3 Max models now
offer up to 22 hours of battery life.
MacBook Pro 16in £4,099
(Ultimate)
Display: 16.2in Liquid Retina XDR (3456x2234) and True Tone
Chip: Apple M3 Max with 16-core CPU (12 performance cores,
4 efficiency cores), 40-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory: 48GB (upgradeable to 128GB)
Storage: 1TB (upgradeable to 2TB, 4TB or 8TB)
Ports: 3x Thunderbolt/USB 4, HDMI port, SDXC card slot
Studio Display
From £1,499
Launched alongside the Mac
Studio in March 2022, the Studio
Display is a great addition to any
Mac set-up.
Powered by Apple’s A13 Bionic
and running iOS, it features a
27-inch Retina display with 5K
resolution (5120x2880 pixels)
and True Tone, a 12MP Ultra Wide
camera with Centre Stage, and
a six-speaker sound system with
support for spatial audio. A range
of stand options are available, and
you can choose nano-texture glass
for £250 more.
 Apple kit STORE GUIDE
EXPECTED
APR 2024
UPDATED
OCT 2022

EXPECTED
APR 2024
UPDATED
MAR 2022

EXPECTED
APR 2024
UPDATED
OCT 2022

iPad/mini iPad Air From

iPad (10th gen) From £499
iPad mini From £569
Apple celebrates the iPad’s 10th
incarnation by increasing the
display to 10.9in and boosting its
internals to an A14 Bionic chip. You
now get an Ultra Wide 12MP front and
updated 12MP back camera. The iPad
now also finally adopts the USB-C
port, and comes in Blue, Pink, Yellow
and Silver. Prices start at £499.
The iPad mini is like a shrunk
down iPad Air, with an all-screen
design centred around its 8.3in Liquid
Retina display. The £569 version
comes with 64GB of storage (but can
be upgraded to 256GB), comes with a
12MP Wide camera, second-gen Apple
Pencil support and USB-C charging.
£669
Like the iPad, iPad mini and iPad
Pro, the iPad Air has an all-screen
design that makes the most of its
10.9in Liquid Retina display. Inside its
super-slim chassis, you’ll find the same
Apple silicon M1 chip as the entry-level
MacBook Air and Mac mini. Plus it’s
available in a choice of storage options
(64GB or 256GB), has 802.11ax Wi-Fi
(aka Wi-Fi 6) and Bluetooth 5.0
onboard, and there are Wi-Fi+Cellular
variants with 5G starting at £719.
The iPad Air also supports Apple’s
second-gen Apple Pencil and can be
teamed with Apple’s Magic Keyboard
for powerhouse productivity on the go.
Augmented reality fans will love its
LiDAR-equipped 12MP Wide camera,
plus it also has Centre Stage.
iPad Pro From
£899
Apple’s priciest iPad is also its
most fully featured. Available in 11in
and 12.9in sizes, the iPad Pro models
now boast M2 Apple silicon, which
turbocharges the performance, and
iPadOS 16 enables the Apple Pencil
‘hover experience’.
The 12.9in model’s Liquid
Retina XDR display boasts miniLED
backlighting, but even the 11in model
gets 120Hz ProMotion refresh rates,
plus a Thunderbolt/USB 4 port for
charging and connection to a wide
range of external devices. And both
support the second-gen Apple Pencil,
Magic Keyboard, and Centre Stage.
The 12.9in now makes an even
greater MacBook replacement.

iPad iPad mini iPad Air iPad Pro

Display: 10.9in Display: 8.3in Display: 10.9in Display: 11in or 12.9in
Chip: A14 Bionic Chip: A15 Bionic Chip: Apple M1 Chip: Apple M2
Storage: 64GB, 256GB Storage: 64GB, 256GB Storage: 64GB, 256GB Storage: 128GB-2TB
Ports: USB-C Ports: USB-C Ports: USB-C Ports: Thunderbolt 4
Unlocking: Touch ID Unlocking: Touch ID Unlocking: Touch ID Unlocking: Face ID

Apple Smart Folio Apple Pencil Apple Magic

From £69 From £79 Keyboard
Available in a range of stylish colours, these Apple has recently released a From £279
wrap-around magnetic cases will keep your iPad, more affordable Pencil with USB-C The Magic Keyboard
iPad mini, iPad Air and iPad Pro looking good for charging, although the pricier 1st- (for iPad Air/iPad Pro),
years, and they double as handy stands. and 2nd-gen variants are still comes with backlit
available. The Pencil brings keys and easy-to-use
accuracy to iPad interactions, trackpad. There’s also
making it great for sketching, a Magic Keyboard
painting and handwritten notes. Folio for iPads.

Image credit: Apple Inc MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 101

 EXPECTED
SEPT 2024
STORE GUIDE Apple kit UPDATED
SEPT 2023

EXPECTED
MAR 2025
UPDATED
MAR 2022

EXPECTED
SEPT 2024
UPDATED
SEPT 2023

iPhone SE iPhone 15/ iPhone 15

From £429
Apple’s most affordable iPhone
is now even better value, thanks
to a September price reduction of
£20. As with the iPhone 14 range,
the SE works on an A15 Bionic
chip. The iPhone SE offers plenty of
the things people love about iPhone,
including iOS’s phenomenal ease of
use. There’s only a single 12MP Wide
main camera and no Night mode, but
you do get True Tone, a Photonic
engine, and 4K recording.
Battery life is decent too with the
iPhone SE lasting for up to 15 hours
between recharges (with Qi wireless
charging onboard too). The main
thing the iPhone SE misses out on
is Face ID unlocking, making do with
Touch ID on the Home button instead.
Plus
iPhone 15 From £799
iPhone 15 Plus From £899
In September, Apple launched its
iPhone 15 range. The base model
retains its 6.1in screen, and the Plus
stays at 6.7in, while both handsets
are still of an aluminium build.
Both models now benefit from the
Dynamic Island, while the dual-camera
system has been improved with a
48MP Main camera and a 12MP Ultra
Wide, plus a Photonic Engine for low-
light images and Smart HDR 5. The
iPhone 15 lasts for up to 20 hours
when playing video playback; the Plus
up to 26. And the best news? The 15
and 15 Plus are each £50 cheaper than
the 14 and 14 Plus before them.
Pro/Pro Max
iPhone 15 Pro From £999
iPhone 15 Pro Max From £1,199
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
boast a lightweight titanium shell
with a textured matt glass back.
There’s now a new fast Action button
on the side of the handset that acts
as a handy physical shortcut.
The quad-pixel sensor on the
Main camera provides 48MP, 12MP
Ultra Wide, 12 MP Telephoto with up
to 5x optical zoom on the Pro Max.
The 15 Pro and Pro Max are powered
by a graphics-friendly A17 Pro chip.
Video playback times remain at up to
23 hours for the Pro, while the Pro
Max can keep going for 29.

iPhone SE iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max

Display: 4.7in Display: 6.1in Display: 6.7in Display: 6.1in Display: 6.7in
Chip: A15 Bionic Chip: A16 Bionic Chip: A16 Bionic Chip: A17 Pro Chip: A17 Pro
Storage: 64GB-256GB Storage: 128GB-512GB Storage: 128GB-512GB Storage: 128GB-1TB Storage: 256GB-1TB
Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi
Unlocking: Touch ID Unlocking: Face ID Unlocking: Face ID Unlocking: Face ID Unlocking: Face ID

Apple Vision Pro Apple AirPods Max/

$3,499
Marking the start of what
Apple hopes is a new era of
spatial computing, the Vision
Pro is now available in the US.
Equipped with a custom 23 million
pixel microOLED display, the twin
lenses inside the Vision Pro boasts
better than 4K resolution and it
has spatial audio onboard too.
Driving the whole thing are Apple
silicon M2 and R1 chips, upon which
sits an entirely new OS: visionOS.
AirPods Pro/AirPods
£499/£229/From £169
The AirPods Max are super comfy
and boast Transparency Mode and ANC.
The second-gen AirPods Pro add in
Adaptive Audio. The third-gen AirPods are
available with either a Lightning (£169)
or MagSafe (£179) charging case. All three
come with personalised spatial audio.

102 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

 Third-party kit STORE GUIDE

BEST BUYS… BEST BUYS…

Third-party iPhone,
iPad & Watch apps
VIDEO EDITOR (iOS/iPADOS)
LumaFusion 3
£29.99 luma-touch.com
EXTERNAL DISPLAY BLUETOOTH SPEAKER NAS DRIVE A powerful and reasonably priced
Marshall Middleton Asustor Lockerstor 2 video-editing suite. Existing users
Philips 27B1U7903 can upgrade for free.
£1,099, philips.co.uk £269.99, Gen2 AS6702T ★★★★★ MF372
An excellent monitor that marshallheadphones.com £469, asustor.com
satisfies on every level. It’s Meaty, beaty, big and Excellent and versatile NOTE-TAKING (iOS/iPADOS)
expensive, but you do get a bouncy, the Middleton mid-range network Notability
lot of quality for your money. knows how to rock. storage. £8.99 notability.com
★★★★★ MF392 ★★★★★ MF391 ★★★★★ MF390
Notability is a superb note-taking
app with lots of flexibility. It’s ideal
OUR TOP 3 OUR TOP 3 OUR TOP 3
for a variety of projects.
MESH NETWORK DEVICES PORTABLE SSDS SUPERFAST CHARGERS
★★★★★ MF360
ASUS ZenWiFi XT9 Crucial X8 Satechi 200W
> £459.99 > MF386 > £211.99 > MF388 USB-C 6-Port PD GaN
> asus.com/uk > uk.crucial.com £159.99 > MF392 SCANNING/OCR (iOS/iPADOS)
> satechi.net
GeniusScan+
Linksys Atlas 6 SanDisk Extreme Anker 737 Charger
> £179.99 > MF386 > £99.99, > MF388 GaNPrime 120W £8.99 grizzlylabs.com
> linksys.com/gb > westerndigital.com £84.99 > MF392 Fast, flexible and useful scanning
> anker.com/uk
with good optical character
Devolo Magic 2 OWC Envoy Pro SX Ugreen Nexode recognition (OCR).
WiFi next > £285 > MF388 200W USB-C Desktop
> £174.99 > MF386 > owc.com £199.99 > MF394 ★★★★★ MF368
>devolo.co.uk > uk.ugreen.com
PAGE LAYOUT (iPADOS)
Affinity Publisher 2
BEST BUYS… Third-party Mac apps £17.99 affinity.serif.com
Serif’s page layout app finally arrives on
iPad and it’s great – even if the interface
takes some getting used to.
★★★★★ MF391

PHOTO EDITOR (iPADOS)

Capture One
£4.49/month captureone.com
PHOTO EDITOR PRODUCTIVITY TIMER WRITING APPS
A comprehensive photo editor offering
Luminar AI Vitamin-R 4.14 Scrivener powerful Raw conversion and desktop-
quality editing tools on the iPad.
£9.99/month skylum.com €27.95 (about £30) £49.99 ★★★★★ MF384
If you want to improve publicspace.net literatureandlatte.com
your photos without Break your working day A genuinely outstanding RSS READER (iOS)
spending too much, this up into short bursts of app that has almost Reeder 5
is the app for you. distraction-free activity. everything you could ever £4.99 reederapp.com
★★★★★ MF361 ★★★★★ MF384 need. ★★★★★ MF385
Version 5 brings minor, but welcome
improvements to an already great
OUR TOP 3 OUR TOP 3 OUR TOP 3 RSS news-reader app.
VIDEO EDITORS NOTE TAKING APPS EMAIL ★★★★★ MF361
Wondershare Filmora Agenda. Spark
> £17.49/month > MF387 > Free (IAPs)> MF389 > Free > MF375 GAME (iOS/iPADOS)
> wondershare.com > agenda.com > sparkmailapp.com
Overboard!
HitFilm (Creator) Bear Edison Mail £5.99 inklestudios.com
> £7.99/month> MF387 > Free (IAPs) > MF389 > Free (IAPs) > MF375
> fxhome.com > bear.app > mail.edison.tech A gem. A small, but perfectly formed
and entertaining game about a ship-
Lightworks Create Simplenote Airmail Pro
> £7.99/month> MF387 > Free (IAPs) > MF389 > £5.99/month > MF375 based murder mystery.
> lwks.com > simplenote.com > airmailapp.com ★★★★★ MF372

Image credits: Koninklijke Philips NV, Marshall Amplification PLC, Asustor Inc, ASUSTeK Computer Inc, Linksys
Holdings Inc, devolo AG, Micron Technology, Inc, Western Digital Corporation, Other World Computing Inc,
Satechi, Fantasia Trading LLC, Ugreen Ltd, Skylum, publicspace.net, Literature & Latte Ltd, Wondershare, Artlist MAY 2024 | MACFORMAT | 103
UK Ltd, LWKS.com, Momenta BV, ShinyFrog, Automattic Inc, Spark Mail Ltd, Edison Software, Bloop, Luma Touch
LLC, Ginger Labs, The Grizzly Labs, Serif (Europe) Ltd, Capture One, Silvio Rizzi, inkle Ltd
 NEW ISSUE
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EDITORIAL
Editor ROB MEAD-GREEN
Art Editor PAUL BLACHFORD
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Group Art Director WARREN BROWN
CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORIAL: Alex Blake, Matt Bolton, David Crookes, John-Anthony Disotto,
Charlotte Henry, Cliff Joseph, Carrie Marshall, Howard Oakley, Ian Osborne
ART: Apple Inc, Phil Barker, Olly Curtis (Bath Photography Studio), Shutterstock

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N E X T M O N T H

M3 MACBOOK AIR
>We put Apple’s latest notebook to the ultimate test
PLUS: Troubleshoot your Mac – in-depth guide
ISSUE 404
ALSO INSIDE… ON SALE
>Shoot and edit your own movie masterpiece
>All hands on the best apps for Apple Watch 30 APR
>Which Mac keyboard should you buy?
2024
… and much more!
Contents subject to change

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 GOODBYE Until next issue…

One more thing

Apple AirTag
Graham Barlow finds out what happens
when your AirTag battery runs out
nbeknownst to me, the battery
U in my AirTag (Apple’s £35
Bluetooth tracking device)
attached to the keyring on my keys died
a couple of months ago. I hadn’t noticed this
until I found myself looking for my keys and
wondering why my AirTag wasn’t showing up
in Find My on my iPhone. So, once my keys
were located, I replaced the CR2032 battery in
the AirTag and just assumed all would be well.
Sadly, it wasn’t. Instead a curious thing
happened; whenever I moved my keys, the
AirTag played a chime that sounded a bit like
a ringtone for a good 10 seconds.
I started looking online for reasons why
this might be happening and drew a blank,
so I decided to reset my AirTag completely –
the process for doing this is more akin to
performing a magic ritual than something you’d
expect from a piece of Apple technology – turn it
anti-clockwise, take the battery out, put it back
in, press the battery four times, listening for a
chirp each time, then listen out for a different
sound on the fifth press, then turn it back
clockwise. You might as well throw in an eye
of newt and toe of frog for good measure!

Oh, God. It’s moving

right towards you!
The long and short of it all is that once I
reconnected the AirTag with my iPhone all was
well, and this gave me an excuse to reacquaint
myself with all its features inside Find My again.
You can make the AirTag play a sound, but it’s
the ‘Find’ feature that is particularly impressive.
Once activated, an arrow appears on your
iPhone screen pointing you in the direction
of the physical location of your AirTag, with
vibration feedback also indicating how close you
are, as well as showing how far away it is in feet.
It’s actually pretty accurate and not entirely
unlike the radar used in Ridley Scott’s 1979
While resetting an AirTag after replacing a battery is a little bit on the
weird wizardry side, the Find My feature really is incredibly useful.
blip! But to switch to a less scary implementation; you
could easily create a fun game for your kids by hiding an
AirTag in your house, next to a treat, and getting them to
find it with your iPhone. In fact, it might even be an
improvement on the traditional Easter egg hunt.
I still think that AirTags are a bit expensive
at £35, but I’ve got to say, I’m impressed with the
implementation and even if I never lose my keys NEXT ISSUE ON SALE

Alien film, showing how close to crew members again, at least Easter will be more interesting this 30 APRIL
the aliens were getting, just without that sonar year. Especially if we go for an Alien theme…

106 | MACFORMAT | MAY 2024 Image credit: Apple Inc

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