Macworldの September 2016 の目次

When it comes to technology, the word “server” might bring to mind, for some, a warehouse-sized room not unlike the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with fewer crates and more racks of computers. For others it might be the cause of sweaty palms and glazed-over eyes. But servers don’t need to be mysterious or scary—after all, a server is just a computer that serves up information (and/or services) that can be accessed by other computers. Sure, it can get more complex than that, but it can also be a fairly simple and invaluable tool. I run a Mac mini server on my home network for a handful of reasons that are fairly mundane, but all of which help at least provide some peace of mind, especially when…

MAC GEMS ARE APPS THAT OFFER STANDOUT UTILITY OR UNIQUE FEATURES AT A GREAT PRICE. AS YOU START moving beyond the basics of editing images—past general exposure and color adjustments—you’ll discover a semi-secret truth: a lot of your time is spent selecting specific areas for editing. Making a foreground object brighter, for instance, can reveal a telltale halo if the selection doesn’t match well with the object. Selections have traditionally been a strength of Adobe Photoshop, but the granddaddy editor is overkill for many people who don’t need its extensive feature set, or don’t want to pay a Creative Cloud subscription fee (which starts at $10 a month with an annual plan, and can cost up to $80 a month for the full CC suite). Instead, Pixelmator 3.5 Canyon (pixelmator.com/mac)…

MY FAVORITE MOUSE is Logitech’s Performance Mouse MX ($100 MSRP go.macworld.com/mousemx; $59 on Amazon go.macworld.com/mousemxamz). I’ve been using it for years, and it’s still going strong. Logitech has another mouse that’s just as good: the MX Master ($100 MSRP go.macworld.com/mxmaster; $70 on Amazon go.macworld.com/mastermxamz). The MX Master is a lot like the Performance Mouse MX, but it has features that make it stand out. BUTTONS The MX Master is a mouse with five buttons for righties. There are the left and right buttons, as usual. Along the left side of the mouse are back and forward buttons that are set by default to be used as the back and forward functions in your browser. The fifth button is located on the thumb cradle, and by default, it’s set as a…

Two months ago, I promised to give you (go.macworld.com/languageapps) the lowdown on my favorite iOS language learning app. But there was a catch: at the time, I didn’t know which one to pick. So, I spent hours researching iOS language apps, both free and paid, before deciding on three to take for a spin: Duolingo, which is free to use, plus Babbel and Rosetta Stone, both of which come with a brief trial period, but require a monthly subscription thereafter. I dedicated myself to using each app for 20 minutes a day, on my iPhone or iPad, for two months, with the intention of uncovering which one I liked the most…or at the very least, which one ticked me off the least. HONORABLE MENTION: BABBEL Initially, Babbel (babbel.com/mobile) sounded great:…

COVR Covr Photo ($50 MSRP, bitemyapple.co) is an iPhone 6/6s case with a built-in sliding camera lens; hold the phone like you would a TV remote to take photos and video unobtrusively. LIFESHIELD The $30 LifeShield screen protector (spyderstyle.com) doesn’t just protect your iPhone screen from getting cracked—it offers a shield against cooties, too. OK, that’s not the technical term, but the LifeShield includes antimicrobial protection as one of its features: If there are germs or viruses that end up on your screen, the LifeShield will kill most of them. CLUTCHETTE CHARGING CLUTCH The Clutchette Power Charging Clutch ($50 MSRP, fancy.com) is a small, hand-held purse that includes a backup battery for charging your iPhone, which can also be stored inside. THINCHARGE ThinCharge ($130 MSRP, chargetech.com) calls itself “the world’s…

The other day a coworker needed to borrow a Mac, so I grabbed an older MacBook Air from storage. I decided to wipe out the laptop’s flash storage and install a fresh version of OS X. I created a bootable USB flash drive installer (go.macworld.com/bootableusb), plugged it into the laptop, pressed the Option key as the machine booted, and then selected the USB drive as the boot disk. I then ran Disk Utility to reformat the drive and then ran the installer to install OS X. It looked like things were moving along, until an error message appeared on the screen. I created another boot disk using a different storage drive, in case it was a hardware problem, but I got the same error. I figured that the fact that…

With macOS Sierra, iCloud Drive has the ability to automatically save files saved on your Desktop and in your Documents folder to the cloud. Apple says these are the places where most files are saved, so this feature will be very useful for anyone who uses multiple devices. If you want to rely on this feature, make sure you have enough iCloud Drive storage space. All files saved to Desktop and Documents count against your iCloud Drive storage allocation. For example, if you have 1GB worth of files in your Mac’s Documents folder and you want to save it to iCloud Drive, your allocated storage will take a 1GB hit. Apple provides 5GB of free iCloud Drive storage per Apple ID, and it may not be enough. Here are the…

How to use iCloud Photo Library selectively Q: How do I take pictures off iCloud, but not have them deleted from my iMac, iPhone, and iPad? My iCloud is full, and I want to clear it up by taking the photos off. — Brenda Best A: In the past, I’ve said, “Sorry, it’s all or nothing.” Once you opt in to iCloud Photo Library, all of your images are synced across all devices that use the same iCloud login and have iCloud Photo Library enabled, and the full-resolution versions of images and videos have to be stored in your iCloud account. But I was being too restrictive in my thinking. There are ways around this situation, neither of which is ideal, but neither is completely a pain, either. USE A…

The equally vaunted and ridiculed blue checkmarks on Twitter are no longer exclusive to elites or those with connections who have an “in” at Twitter. The company recently opened the verified account designation up to all users and put some rules in place for consideration (go.macworld.com/twitterreqverifyacct). Many of Twitter’s 310 million monthly active users don’t qualify for verification, but the company is opening the secretive and invite-only process up to anyone. Accounts of public interest, particularly those maintained by individuals and organizations in “music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas” are all up for consideration, according to Twitter. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to…

CRITICS ARE QUICK to dismiss Apple’s built-in Mail app on OS X, but I prefer Mail over the new kids on the block, simply because it works and doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some features in those rival apps I’d like to see make their way into Mail; the ability to schedule outgoing emails for a later date or save messages to Evernote, for example. As it turns out, I don’t have to abandon an old favorite for greener pastures to get these cool features. MAILBUTLER AT A GLANCE MailButler enhances Apple Mail with additional features including Direct Inbox, follow-up reminders, tracking, scheduling, cloud upload, and more. PROS • Adds awesome new features to Apple Mail • Delay or schedule outgoing messages…

WATERFIELD DESIGNS ATELIER iPAD GEAR CASE AND iPAD PENCIL CASE WaterField Designs’ $69 Atelier iPad Gear Case and $29 iPad Pencil Case (sfbags.com) are beautiful, bespoke products that fulfill roles that less expensive, or even free alternatives, could sort out nicely. At 7.5 inches by 1.25 inches by three inches, the Atelier iPad Gear Case is just long enough to store an Apple Pencil and wide enough to accommodate the Pro’s power adapter, lightning cables, extra tips for your Apple Pencil and any other wee bits and pieces you might want to stash in it; I found that the Gear Case kept everything well organized and easy to access. The Atelier iPad Pencil Case is made from the same smooth, supple full-grain leather as the Atelier iPad Gear Case is,…

ANGRY BIRDS 2 In celebration of its first birthday, Angry Birds 2 (freemium, iPhone and iPad, go.macworld.com/angrybirds2) has been updated with 80 news levels, a “Ring of Fire” to make “those bad piggies feel the burn,” as well as birthday hats for all your favorite characters. Need more? Here’s the trailer (go.macworld.com/angryb2trailer) for the game’s birthday celebration. Polaroid Swing Polaroid Swing (free, iPhone) (go.macworld.com/polaroidswing) lets you “capture one-second moments that magically come to life when you touch them or swing your iPhone.” You can also reverse the moving photo, or take 3D selfies by rotating your phone around you. Read Read (go.macworld.com/readapp) is a 20-lesson program designed to help young elementary school students learn to read. There are 120 exercises, 150 interactive stories, and more. Tayasui Color Have…

Learning to code isn’t supposed to be this fun. Apple’s new Swift Playgrounds (go.macworld.com/swiftplayg) app for iPads running iOS 10 is aimed at teaching the Swift programming language to middle-school-age children and adults, no coding experience necessary. But it feels like a puzzle game—one that just happens to be solved with commands and functions and For loops, instead of with a slingshot full of birds. And I’m totally hooked. In fact, Swift Playgrounds is my favorite thing to come out of this year’s WWDC by far, and I think it’s going to be one of the highlights of iOS 10 when it’s released this fall. You can try out the free Swift Playgrounds app today by putting the iOS 10 public beta on a compatible iPad (fourth-generation or later). The…

It’s been about a year and a half since I last looked at QuickBooks Self-Employed (go.macworld.com/quickbooksself), Intuit’s business finance app aimed directly at self-employed business owners who don’t have a corporation and who often have their personal finances mingled with their business finances. When last I visited the app, there was a lot to like about it, but, as is the case with most version 1 apps, there was also much that could be improved. I’m happy to say that QuickBooks Self-Employed has evolved into an even more powerful tool. QuickBooks Self-Employed works just like it did before. There’s an app for your iPhone (go.macworld.com/quickbooksselfapp) and web apps that work equally well on every device you own. I still find the best user experience to be on my iPhone, but…

When Apple Music was released just over a year ago, Apple also debuted iCloud Music Library, a way of storing your iTunes library in the cloud. There were two ways to seed the cloud, either with iTunes Match or Apple Music. If you were an iTunes Match subscriber, matching your songs in your local library to your cloud library was done one way, and if you were just an Apple Music subscriber, matching was done differently. This created some confusion about the way tracks were matched and stored in iCloud Music Library. Now, Apple is changing this, and will use the same matching method for both services. The company said in a briefing that Apple Music now uses acoustic fingerprinting and provides matched files without digital rights management (DRM), or…

As great as Apple’s tablets, smartphones, and computers are, nothing’s perfect. All hardware eventually fails. Your iPhone or MacBook can get lost or stolen. Files can be corrupted. If any of these things happen at a time when backing your data up to the cloud isn’t an option, you’re gonna have a bad day. For a guy like me, who travels as he works, one bad day’s worth of lost data can add up to a ton of lost revenue. That’s why I always pack some additional hardware to make sure that I can back up my files, no matter where I roam. And if the external drives I rely on also allow me to bring along a whack of music and movies to keep me occupied while I’m on…

Plenty has been said about how the Apple Watch changes the way we do everything from working out to making purchases. What’s been glossed over is that it’s also ideal for interacting with our homes. Simple interfaces like tapping, pressing, swiping, and glancing make for a fluid way to access and control smart-home products. And it’s always on your wrist, so you don’t have to dig for it in your pockets or between the couch cushions when you need to dim the lights or take a peek at the security cameras. Apps abound for connecting with and controlling the most popular smart-home appliances. Here are 10 of the best. Not sure the Apple Watch is for you? Read our in-depth review (go.macworld.com/applewatchrev). HUEMOTE FOR PHILIPS HUE LIGHTING A must for…

THERE’S NO SHORTAGE of word processing software in the world, but few have the cult following that Scrivener does. Long available for OS X and Windows, it’s finally ready to be downloaded by anyone who owns an iOS device, for $20. Scrivener for iOS (iTunes Store link go.macworld.com/scrivener) does just about everything you could ever need in order to research, plot, and write a short story, doctoral thesis, novel, or a review, like the one you’re reading right now. To get started with Scrivener for iOS (or its desktop counterpart), you’ll be asked to create a new project. Each project can store a wide variety of file types, including audio, video, web archives, PDFs, images, and text files. These individual files can be imported into the project from cloud services…

I’ll begin this story the same way I began the phone call to my wife: “I’m OK, but…” The “but” began on a Tuesday morning, after I started walking from the parking lot to the front door of my office building. I began feeling short of breath. No matter how deeply I inhaled, it felt like my lungs weren’t filling up completely. At first, the feeling just seemed odd—nothing serious, just…weird. By the time I climbed the flight of stairs to my floor, the feeling had grown worse. Along with the shortness of breath, I could feel my heart racing in my chest. Stopping to talk to a colleague on the way to my office, the mere act of speaking left me practically gasping for air. I cut the conversation…

What does the future hold for the Apple Pencil? Perhaps you’ll use it with your Mac. Recently, Apple was granted a new patent (go.macworld.com/pencilpatent) that would make it possible for future versions of the Apple Pencil to work with Magic Trackpads on the Mac. According to Patently Apple (go.macworld.com/pencilontrackpad), Apple originally filed for this patent in 2014; right now, the Apple Pencil can only be used with the iPad Pro, both the 12.9-inch model and the 9.7-inch model. This new cross-functional version of the Apple Pencil will be more powerful than the first generation. In addition to having pressure-sensitive sensors at the tip, this forthcoming Apple Pencil will also be able to detect in-air gestures. So, you’ll be able to use it to change slides in Keynote or swipe pages…