Macworld -julkaisun February 2021 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

If there’s a single disappointment in the release of Apple’s first wave of M1 Macs, it’s the lackluster launch of iOS apps running inside of macOS. What should be an amazing unification of Apple’s platforms and a massive expansion of the Mac software base is, instead…kind of a non-event. Running iOS apps on the Mac can be a little weird, it’s true. But it can sometimes be good. Unfortunately, a lot of interesting iOS apps just aren’t available at all, because their developers have removed them from the Mac side of the iOS App Store. It’s not a great situation. It needs to get better. Here are some ways that might happen. WHAT DEVELOPERS CAN DO Though iOS app developers with the Apple silicon Developer Transition Kit could build their…

Services: they’re so hot right now. Apple beat its self-stated goal of doubling Services revenue in 2020 with time to spare, and the company has not only recently announced that it has launched a new service, Apple Fitness+, but also finally elected to offer a competitively priced bundle of its many services to consumers. With all of that said, there are some elements of Apple’s services that are still a bit lackluster, and more than a few of them are parts of the very systems on which the company and its users rely. In the same way that you might want to look to patching a foundation before worrying about painting the walls, there are a few places where Apple might want to shore up its fundamentals before launching into something…

Apple added Activation Lock several years ago to its iPhones as a theft deterrent, partly at the request of users and partly because law enforcement insisted it would reduce the incentive for grab-and-run theft. The idea was that even if an iPhone were stolen and wiped, the device would refuse to allow a new installation without the Apple ID and password for the account that originally registered it being available to unlock it. Activation Lock is turned on by enabling Find My in Settings → account name → iCloud. Disabling Find My requires the same Apple ID login that turned it on. It’s now also available on an iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and any Mac with the T2 security chip that enables Touch ID and other features. On a Mac, use…

The iPhone 12 mini will probably be Apple’s worst-selling iPhone in years. But that’s kind of the point. With a screen that measures just 5.4 inches, it’s one of the smallest smartphones ever made and only about a half-inch taller than the original iPhone. It’s so small that it’s actually easier to use with one hand than two. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, here’s what you need to know. > The iPhone 12 mini isn’t quite as small as the original iPhone SE, but it’s a little smaller than the current iPhone SE. With an all-screen design, however, it feels much larger than either of those phones. There will definitely be an adjustment for anyone who hasn’t used an iPhone without a home button, but the screen-to-body improvements will…

Last spring, Apple revived the iPad Air branding after letting it lie dormant for several years. The 2019 iPad Air was a great compromise between the affordability of the standard iPad and the performance and features of the far more expensive iPad Pro. The new 2020 model continues in that tradition. It’s more expensive than the 2019 version, but incorporates more of the Pro’s features and design and offers a substantial leap in performance. With a starting price of $599, it’s not quite the bargain the 2019 Air was at $499, especially when you start tacking on accessories like the Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard. Still, it’s a better buy than the iPad Pro for most people and a big step up from the standard iPad. TAKING CUES FROM iPAD…

Almost everything about Keynote is good to great. Apple created a version of the software originally for Steve Jobs’s presentations, and effectively rolled that out to all Mac users. It reflects his aesthetics and Apple’s. But there’s one setting that I’ve seen bedevil people—and if you search for an answer, you’re unlikely to find it, because of the way you have to formulate the question! Three years ago, I was at a wood printing type aficionados gathering on the shores of Lake Michigan, when my friend and mentor Jenny had a crisis with her presentation. Despite the help of an expert A/V manager, in Keynote’s presentation mode, they could only get the slideshow part to appear on her laptop, while the presenter’s notes showed up on screen. A single click solves…

The great joy of technology is in what it can do for us—especially those tasks that we don’t want to spend our own precious time on. Over the last few years, Apple has taken strides to bring automation capabilities to iOS in a variety of forms, including HomeKit and, more recently, Shortcuts. But, as good as those options are, there are still places where they fall short of what we could have. Certainly, there are third-party offerings that can help bridge the divide, but given what Apple has already built into its operating system, it seems like a few improvements could go a long way to making its innate automation more capable right out of the box. Recently, I’ve been spending more time exploring the powers of Apple’s automation features,…

The Apple TV remote is so bad that a Swiss streaming TV company named Salt actually made headlines when it started to ship an alternative. That remote may be a little hard to get your hands on, but now Function101 is selling what appears to be the identical remote for $30, so it should be a lot easier to get. I’ve been using the Function101 remote for the last week with my Apple TV 4K, and while I find its design to be vastly superior to the Siri Remote that came with my Apple TV (a low bar to clear, to be sure), I also found enough minor annoyances to temper my recommendation. THE SIRI REMOTE SUCKS It’s not exactly going out on a limb to say the Siri Remote…

COPING WITH INCONSISTENT FACIAL RECOGNITION IN APPLE PHOTOS It is extremely handy to tag people you know in photos you take. You can then easily find images of those people across time and at specific events. This feature appears in Photos in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but may not work correctly across devices without iCloud Photos enabled—and sometimes even with it turned on. Many companies have tried to make this easier by adding facial recognition, so that software algorithms try to guess who is the same person across many faces in your photos, which may include your dearest loved ones and legions of strangers. Apple’s most recent approach, implemented several years ago in Photos, kept all facial ID local to your computer or mobile device. (As opposed to, ahem, Google.)…

As a rule, Apple is a company that is judicious about what opportunities it takes, and which ones it leaves to others. The company is famous for saying “no” to way more ideas than it says “yes” to, with the understanding that this process makes the products it does choose to build that much better. But that doesn’t mean that the company never misses a trick. On the contrary, there are more than a few markets where an Apple presence would be a welcome one, especially in places where the company can lend its considerable heft to providing either a strong example, or meaningful competition. And, as Tim Cook pointed out during a recent financial results call, the current world situation has opened the door to new challenges and new opportunities,…

Sabrent’s pocket-sized Rocket XTRM-Q external SSD offers the kick-in-the-pants transfer speed (up to 10Gbps) provided by the Mac’s Thunderbolt 3, while adding the ability to operate via USB on computers that lack it. It is also available in a hitherto unheard of capacity of 8TB. Nice. Very nice. DESIGN AND SPECS The Rocket XTRM-Q (extreme/QLC) is a small, handsome, dark-slate colored monolith measuring approximately 4 x 1.75 x 0.5 inches. It weighs around 5 ounces and there is a Type-C port on the business end. Note that many companies (including Sabrent) advertise drives as USB-C and leave it at that. USB-C indicates USB connectivity and a Type-C port, but tells you nothing about performance. It might be SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps, it might be SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps or SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps. As…

As 2021 peeks its head over the horizon (and with it, hopefully, an upward swing at last), it’s time to cast our glances to the year ahead. While Apple has no shortage of priorities for the next 12 months, one area that seems as though it might get more attention than usual is the company’s main digital storefront, the App Store. Services continue to be good business for Apple, and the App Store is a major component of that market, but it’s also not without its challenges. Apple has already instituted some changes to its long-running App Store practices, and recent developments have also made it clear that further changes are likely on the way. So what do we have to look forward to in 2021? CUT IT OUT Apple’s…

At the core of making an inclusive, easy-to-use software experience is recognizing that accessibility is not just code for “people with disabilities.” It’s just a set of tools to match people’s capabilities with the use of a product. We are all situationally disabled, and everyone needs different forms of help to interact with digital products. Apple has made great strides in its accessibility features, and clearly recognizes the importance of making the iPhone or iPad easy for everyone to use, regardless of physical capabilities. But some of the coolest stuff, stuff everyone can and would want to use, is still frustratingly buried in the Accessibility section of the Settings app. BACK TAP Open Settings → Accessibility → Touch and scroll all the way down to find the Back Tap menu.…

The best thing I can say about the MagSafe Duo charger is that it does what it’s supported to do: charge your iPhone 12 and Apple Watch at the same time. But if you’re looking for a revolutionary MagSafe charging experience—or quite frankly, even a good one—you should probably wait for something better and cheaper to come along. At $129, you should expect the MagSafe Duo to bring a level of charging akin to the fabled AirPower charger, which promised a new charging solution that, according to Phil Schiller, would “actually help the entire industry move forward.” The MagSafe Duo doesn’t do that. If anything, it’s a step backwards. The MagSafe Duo charger is very pocketable and clearly made with travel in mind, but it doesn’t feel like it’ll hold…

With each yearly major update of iOS, Apple tightens the screws on apps and services that seek to violate your privacy in order to turn a buck. This year is no different, with several very visible new features to help you better understand and control how your data is accessed. With iOS 13, Apple introduced major changes to location tracking, Safari tracking protections, and the Sign In With Apple feature, among others. You might think your iPhone and iPad already do a great job of protecting your personal data, but there’s apparently plenty more Apple can do, because the privacy features of iOS 14 are numerous and substantial (they’re duplicated in iPadOS 14, too). Here are the highlights. 1. MIC AND CAMERA ACCESS LIGHTS Any time an app accesses your…

Even if the HomePod mini didn’t have a pedigree that includes such beloved Apple products as the iPod mini and Mac mini, it still would be in a difficult spot. For one, its namesake is one of the rare misses in the Tim Cook era. For another, its size and lower price point puts it in direct competition with the ubiquitous Amazon Echo and Google Nest Audio. While the HomePod mini is a much-needed, overdue entry to Apple’s product matrix, it’s unlikely to tempt anyone who isn’t already invested in Apple’s ecosystem. Where Apple’s other mini products were geared toward switchers put off by the high prices of those products’ respective siblings, the HomePod mini is merely the speaker Apple should have released first. As it stands, the HomePod mini feels like…

If you think you need to dig deep into your bank account to get good bass from a pair of truly wireless earbuds, the Anker Soundcore Spirit Dot 2 will rock your world—while also rocking your favorite tunes. These fitness-leaning buds also fit well and can handle as much sweat and raindrops as you can throw at them, all while costing considerably less than a hundred bucks. Such a pleasant price doesn’t come without sacrifices, but they’re relatively minor. The Spirit Dot 2 usually deliver when it counts. The case is a compact thing that easily slips in a pocket (although Anker could have made it smaller), and there is an admirable novelty to how its lid slides back rather than flipping open. This design may be a little too nifty…

After a year that delivered a host of improvements to Apple’s silicon offerings, including the A14 Bionic and M1 processors, it appears that Apple is looking to bring even more components in-house. A recent report from Bloomberg claims that Apple has begun working on its first cellular modem to bring 5G to its growing system-on-chip components. The development of a 5G modem isn’t a surprise, as Apple paid a cool billion bucks on the remains of Intel’s smartphone modem chip business back in 2019. According to the report by Mark Gurman, Apple senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji told attendees at a recent town hall that Apple “kicked off the development of our first internal cellular modem which will enable another key strategic transition.” Development will likely take years to land…

The Tripp Lite SmartPro SMC1000T packs all the best features needed for high-performance and gaming PCs into one heavy, well-designed uninterruptible power supply (UPS). With the ability to support up to 650 watts of attached gear, that should suffice for nearly the most tricked-out system. If your system adds up to a more modest 325W, the battery-backup and power-conditioning system can run for nearly 15 minutes; even at full load, it can keep devices energized for a whopping five minutes. Tripp Lite offers management software only for Windows (and it requires Java), but the hardware supports macOS’s built-in UPS tools. Plug in the SMC1000T via USB, and with either the Windows software or using macOS’s Energy Saver preference pane, you can configure under what terms you want your device to…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since Apple introduced AirDrop as a part of Mac OS X Lion and iOS 7. I consider AirDrop to be one of Apple’s best moves of the past decade. It’s a feature I have used hundreds of times and have come to rely on to quickly exchange files and other information with my own devices and with the devices used by my friends and family. But just because AirDrop is useful doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. In fact, I would argue that it’s been largely ignored the last few years, and could stand some major upgrades that would benefit users of iPhones, iPads, and Macs alike. IMPROVING THE INTERFACE The more I use AirDrop, the more I see how many ways…

Apple first implemented picture-in-picture on the iPad way back in iOS 9, and users have been clamoring for it to come to the iPhone ever since. With iOS 14, Apple has finally given us our wish. PIP is now on iPhone, and it works almost exactly like it does on iPad. Apps need to incorporate support for the feature, though. During the early beta days, the PIP feature worked in the TV app or any video that streamed in Safari, but popular apps like Netflix and YouTube had not yet implemented PIP support. But as of now, Netflix supports PIP but YouTube has yet to add support. HOW TO USE PICTURE-IN-PICTURE To start watching a video in PIP mode, just tap the PIP icon in the upper left. You’ll have…

Along with the rest of 2020, it’s been a wild and unpredictable year for smartphones. Samsung started the year by shipping its most expensive phone ever in the S20 Ultra and finished with one of its best bargains in the Galaxy S20 FE. Google dropped its flagship Pixel 5 to the midrange and delivered its best design ever, while a OnePlus phone topped a grand for the first time. Plus Apple shipped its smallest iPhone since the iPhone 5. And everything came with 5G on board. But amid all that, which phone emerged from the chaos as the champion of 2020? THE PHONES Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra: The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is Samsung’s best phone to date even if it has a slightly inferior camera and a smaller…

At this year’s WWDC, the Mac took a giant step closer to iOS in terms of hardware. The announcement of a transition to ARM-based Apple silicon over the next two years sent a chill down the spine of everyone running Windows via Boot Camp, since there’s no indication at this writing such a feature will remain feasible without Intel inside. This potential roadblock applies equally to virtual machines, and despite the virtualization experts at Parallels successfully demonstrating Linux running on ARM, the company remains tight-lipped about the fate of Windows. In the meantime, they’ve released the latest annual upgrade to its flagship Mac software, which once again arrives with plenty of welcome improvements and—for the moment at least—one unfortunate limitation. MOVING FORWARD According to the developer, Parallels Desktop 16 for…

If you have a Mac laptop or iMac with a display that’s been damaged or which no longer turns on, but you’re sure the computer is still functioning, a repair may not be required to extract all its data or continue using it. (In fact, without a paid AppleCare+ for Mac plan, repair costs for a display often far exceed a Mac’s value unless a repair shop can find a refurbished or salvaged display. It may be cheaper or not much more expensive to simply buy a used Mac of the same vintage with a working monitor.) USE AN EXTERNAL MONITOR TO KEEP IT ALIVE OR EXTRACT DATA All Mac laptops and iMacs of the last many years support an external monitor, though the particular adapter and type varies based…

Ted Lasso is a college football coach from Kansas who is hired to coach an English Premiere League team. He knows next to nothing about soccer, and has never been to the U.K. But he sure loves being a coach! That setup fuels a formulaic fish-out-of-water comedy filled to the brim with sports tropes. But Jason Sudeikis’ performance as Lasso, and the small witty subversions of some usual routines, are more than enough to keep you watching. The show is low-stakes, quick-witted, and almost impossibly positive. It’s unlikely to win any major awards and presents no big ideas to get you talking about the latest episode with your friends and coworkers. But it’s also by far the easiest Apple TV+ show to get into, and the one any random viewer…

Lifestyle audio maker SOL Republic has released a new headphone model as part of its Soundtrack series. The $200 Soundtrack Pro ANC is an over-the-ear wireless headphone with active noise-cancelling technology and Bluetooth 5.0 on board. The Soundtrack Pro ANC (a similar model without ANC is also available at Amazon for $170) comes in three colors: black, gray, and champagne. The acoustically transparent colored fabric covering the drivers changes depending on which headphone color you choose. My review pair happened to be black. GENEROUS BATTERY LIFE Like its recent competition, the Soundtrack Pro ANC delivers enough battery to last more than a full day. Its 500mAh battery is rated to deliver 32 hours of wireless playback. Thanks to rapid charging technology, you’ll get a full charge in about 3.5 hours. You…