Inhoudsopgave van February 2014 - Macworld

The I’s Have It: Apple and Innovation Innovation is more than a few iterative changes; it’s what changes the way we do things. You’ve undoubtedly seen the headlines: “Apple no longer innovates!” And while I know that these headlines and the accompanying stories are generated largely to raise dander and attract clicks, I must agree with their main thrust. Currently, Apple isn’t innovating. Whoa, whoa, hang on there, Guy With Angry Fingers Poised Over Keyboard. Before you dash off the kind of note that you’ll later regret, let me finish. Yes, Apple’s latest work is not innovative. But here’s the important postscript: Whose is? This boils down to semantics. The word “innovate” in its native sense refers to something that is new or original. At one time you could reasonably…

Maybe you love its aluminum tower design, and you consider “cheese grater” a term of endearment; maybe you want a Mac that holds all your storage devices and expansion cards internally, regardless of its processing power. Whatever your reason for wanting an aluminum tower Mac Pro, time is running out. Apple has removed the old Mac Pro from its online Apple Store, creating a void that the new cylindrical Mac Pro (shipping by the time you read this) will fill. You might still be able to find an old Mac Pro at your local retail Apple Store. Recent phone calls to randomly selected Apple Retail Stores found the 12-core tower Mac Pro in stock at the San Francisco Stonestown Mall store and the Sherway Gardens store in Toronto, and the…

If there’s one certainty about digging around inside computers, it’s that you’re going to make mistakes. And at times, the mistakes may be epic. One mistake that can happen during an otherwise routine repair is stripping a screw and thereby rendering it practically useless. Fortunately, you can overcome this difficulty by using a Dremel tool (go.macworld.com/dremel). It may seem like an extreme tool to keep on hand when you’re fixing a computer, but you’ll be glad you have it if disaster strikes. I learned my lesson the hard way. In the midst of opening my 2006 Mac Pro to replace its power supply, I came across two screws holding the computer’s RAM cage to the logic board. The instruction manual and YouTube videos I consulted advised using a Torx driver…

Comic Life 3 for Mac (4.0/5.0); $30; Plasq; plasq.com For more than eight years, Plasq’s Comic Life has provided an easy way to present photos and other images in comic book form. Version 3 offers additional features for people who have a serious interest in storytelling via the comic book medium. The app’s Script Editor uses keywords to automatically format the text properly. When the Script Editor recognizes a keyword, it creates an icon specific to that keyword in an icon column on the left side of your script. You can then drag and drop the icons into your comic and adjust the formatting to your liking. The new Instant Alpha tool is designed to erase the background of an image. It works well with monochrome or solidcolor backgrounds; but…

Now that we’ve been living with iOS 7 for a while, we’ve had a chance to uncover some little things we might not have noticed at first—some good, others not so much. Here’s our list. What We Like Wayfinding and leveling with Compass: In iOS 7, Compass gained a couple of cool new features. One favorite: If you’re trying to find your way in a specific direction, just orient yourself in that direction and tap the compass; now, when you start to stray from the direction you specified, a red bar shows just how far off course you are. My other favorite: If you swipe to the left on the compass, you bring up the new level, which works when you place the phone flat on a surface or set…

For the first time since J.D. Power started rating customer satisfaction for tablets, Apple has slipped from the top spot. In the market research firm’s 2013 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study, it was Samsung that barely edged out Apple, scoring 835 to Apple’s 833. Apple can console itself with the knowledge that it still handily beat the average satisfaction rating of 821. The iPad also topped Amazon’s Kindle, which scored 826; Asus, which came in at the average of 821; and Acer, which was also in the study. So how did Samsung squeak into the top spot? In a word, price. Samsung nailed a “better than most” rating in the cost category, whereas Apple was relegated to “the rest.” That single ding alone was apparently enough to drop Apple to second…

PRODUCTIVITY Calca (go.macworld.com/calca) is a text editor that lets you combine plain text, Markdown syntax, and calculations in the same file. You can build functions that you can reuse within a document, solve algebraic equations, sum ranges of numbers, and so on. The iOS app’s keyboard provides two extra rows of keys to help you input numbers and mathematical symbols. This enhanced keyboard works nicely in portrait mode, but in landscape mode it eats up too much screen space. Since Calca is available for both the Mac and iOS, you can share your documents on all your devices via iCloud or Dropbox. As impressed as I am with Calca, however, I’ve found that, for my needs, it can’t completely replace a traditional spreadsheet app. iPhone/iPad | (4.0/5.0); $3; Krueger Systems…

GAMES If you’re looking for a solid brain-teaser to play on your commute, look at Kami (go.macworld.com/kami). It’s an origami-themed puzzle that requires you to transform a patterned paper grid into one uniform color. To change the colors, you pick a color and tap a square; a cascading animation fills the entire region with the new color. Kami isn’t fast-paced or lengthy, but its beautiful aesthetics, soothing sounds, and deceptively challenging puzzles make for an enjoyable experience. iPhone/iPad | (4.0/5.0); $2; State of Play Games…

There’s now an iPad for everyone who might want one, it seems. You have the new full-size (but slimmed-down) iPad Air. You have the new petite (but slightly larger) iPad mini with Retina display. And Apple continues to sell the previous-generation iPad mini as well as the venerable iPad 2. But with all those different tablets to choose from, which one should you buy? We can help you answer that question. In the pages that follow, you’ll find our in-depth review of the iPad mini with Retina display. You’ll also find a buying guide for the current iPad lineup, in which we explain what each model does well and who each one is best for. That coverage, along with last month’s review of the iPad Air (go dig out the…

Hundreds of products pass through the hands of the Macworld editors every year. Some are muchanticipated devices riding a wave of hype; others are quietly released and seemingly come from nowhere. We see offerings from Fortune 500 companies, one-person outfits, and everything in between. Out of all those candidates, a few stand out above the rest. We recognize these products with an Editors’ Choice Award, or Eddy. For the 2013 Eddys, we started with a list of over 150 nominees (only products released between November 1, 2012, and November 1, 2013, including iOS apps, were considered). The Macworld editors then have a series of meetings where we discuss the merits of each nominee and whether a given product meets our standards for quality, utility, innovation, value, and excellence. Eventually we…

When Apple ships an update and leaves the old version of the app on your Mac, it’s a strong hint that the update is going to be a strikingly different experience. Such is the case with Numbers 3.0. If you’re accustomed to Numbers ’09, the new app’s interface and functionality will require an adjustment. Changes, Good and Bad For starters, the left-side panel, which showed sheets, tables, and styles, is gone; sheets are now listed across the top of the window, and styles appear in a right-hand column called the Inspector. The customizable toolbar, which was once home to as many as 40 of your most-used features, is now a noncustomizable list of 13 icons. The floating inspector windows of old are replaced by the right-hand Inspector column, which changes…

TiVo’s out-of-home streaming feature is now available for users who have a Roamio Pro or Plus DVR and an iOS device. The DVR maker has offered the ability to watch live TV, stream recorded programs, and download complete shows to an iOS device for a while—but only when your DVR and your device are on the same network. Now, you can watch or download a show from anywhere on the Internet. The live-TV feature is reminiscent of Slingbox’s offerings. In my tests it worked pretty well, with video quality varying with the speed of the Internet connection. To stream live at good levels of quality, your home Net connection must have solid upload bandwidth, and you also need solid download bandwidth wherever you are. Out-of-home streaming requires Wi-Fi, too; it…

Review RATING mmh PRICING Free COMPANY Amazon URL amazon.com As an Amazon Cloud Player Premium subscriber, I’ve been, shall we say, less than thrilled with its Weband Adobe AIR–based tools on the Mac. I love that it offers similar functionality to iTunes Match for the same price, with ten times the storage. But what good is the ability to store, stream, and download up to 250,000 tracks when the experience of using the service is so bad? Now, potential help has arrived in the form of an Amazon Cloud Player desktop client for Mac. In the Cloud Player app, you can create and listen to playlists, play entire albums, or double-click a song to start it playing—most of the time. After the first launch of the app, during which it…

These days, you don’t just shoot video, you tell a story. And you don’t just tell a story, you collaborate with other people to create a blockbuster from various perspectives. With help from Cameo (cameo.tv), a video app and platform for the iPhone, you and your friends can expand your range of perspectives by making cameo appearances in one another’s cinematic productions. In keeping with the less-is-more aesthetic, Cameo clips are brief. The app allots just 2 minutes for each film, regardless of whether you use only your own clips or mix in other narratives. Each clip can be no more than 6 seconds long, but you can shorten individual clips to their most relevant parts and then interweave them. The emphasis is less on length than on the emotion…

Enthusiast photographers might not think of Samsung as a maker of fine cameras, but the NX300 may change that view. At its heart is a 20.3-megapixel CMOS APS-C sensor. The hybrid autofocusing system uses contrast and phase detection systems to ensure snappy performance. And the burst mode can record a respectable 8.6 frames per second. Still, there are a couple of hitches. First, you have to compose your images only on the admittedly beautiful 3.31-inch AMOLED tilting display—since you have no way to add an electronic or optical viewfinder—and doing so can be tough in direct sunlight. Second, if you go on long shooting sessions, you may not be crazy about the in-camera battery charging. The NX300 comes in white, silver and black, or brown and silver. Controls are well…

A Roundup of Mavericks Troubleshooting Tips Apple’s latest operating system update, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, is out. If you own a Mac that supports the OS update, you should get it. Now. You certainly can’t beat the price: free! But while Mavericks is a stable release, it’s not bug-free. Here are a few tips for dealing with some Mavericks issues. Text Expander: If you use Text Expander and find that it no longer works after upgrading to Mavericks, there’s an easy fix. Go to System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Accessibility. Then in the list of applications that allow you to “control your computer,” enable the Text Expander items Mail forgets your iCloud password: If you find that Mail no longer retains a memory of your iCloud…

The Best of the Best WE LOVE THE MAC, EVEN AS SALES DECLINE You can’t expect to sell 800 million iOS devices and not see a decline in the percentage of people who opt for a PC. My laptop is a 2006 MacBook Pro, and it has been superb for me. I swapped in an SSD, and it keeps plugging along. Sure, I would like a new one. But my budget thinks otherwise this year. Many of my video-pro brethren are juiced about the new Mac Pro. But almost all of them are really quite content editing on their Retina MacBooks. —quakerotis, via Macworld.com The iPad is wonderful, but I need a Mac. I need to transfer files easily, manage what file goes in what folder, write a file in…

With its latest Mac Pro, Apple is signaling that it hasn’t abandoned the professional computing market. But the workstation faces competition from its own sibling iMac as computer buyers weigh their options. Mac Pro loyalists have been clamoring for an upgrade to the high-end desktop, which last received a face-lift in 2010. Starting at $2999, the new workstation has the latest Intel Xeon E5 processors, a solid-state drive, Thunderbolt 2, and dual graphics cards tightly packed in a cylindrical chassis. The Mac Pro primarily targets creative professionals and engineers, and it has drawn interest for its unusual design and its use of the latest technologies. The new Mac Pro supports external 4K displays and uses customized Apple motherboards with SSD storage provided via PCI-Express 3.0 slots. The $2999 model has…

Shortcut Keyboard The $90 Shortcut Keyboard is “the world’s first keyboard to offer combined shortcuts for Microsoft Office,” with the shortcut instructions pasted right onto the keys themselves. (And yes, this keyboard works with Macs.) Your keyboard purchase also comes with 30 days of free online videoassisted training in using the keyboard (bella-usa.com). —JOEL MATHIS K1 The K1 is billed as “the world’s smallest USB 3.0 key,” and it’s almost impossible that a USB drive could be much smaller: Once plugged in, the K1 adds only 5mm to the profile of your MacBook. The drive comes in two versions: 32GB for €35, which is roughly $47; and 64GB for €65, or about $87 (pkparis.com/en). —JOEL MATHIS Smart Travel Router Satechi’s $45 device is made for international travelers, fitting “into four…

(3.0/5.0)1/2; $30; Bare Bones Software; barebones.com When Bare Bones Software’s Yojimbo information manager arrived in 2006, many people snapped it up and never looked back. Yojimbo 4 is the most capable version yet. Little has changed about the program’s clean interface, despite major improvements and enhancements such as sidekick, tags, and (in version 4) Mac-to-Mac sync. Version 4 also adds goodies such as a full-screen view and support for Retina displays. The app is smart about where to place specific information, especially when you use the program’s Drop Dock or Quick Input panel. Alternatively, you can dump everything in the main library and use the search function to find it later. The heart of this Yojimbo upgrade is a secure, over-the-Internet sync service called Wasabi Sync that you can try…

In early October, CNN revealed that veteran voice actor Susan Bennett was the voice behind Siri until Apple changed it in iOS 7. But even more interesting than Siri’s identity is the question of how a person’s voice is transformed into software that can synthesize any text thrown at it. My Voice Is My Passport In the movie Sneakers, Robert Redford’s ragtag team of hackers bypasses a company’s voice-based security system by splicing together individual words taped from an unsuspecting employee. The process of giving voice to iOS’s digital assistant may not be all that different. “For a large and dynamic synthesis application, the voice talent (one or more actors) will be needed in the recording studio for anywhere from several weeks to a number of months,” says veteran voice…

Curator The free Curator (go.macworld.com/curator) app is a cross between Pinterest and Evernote—a place where iPad users can collect ideas and images from the Web and cloud sources like Dropbox, Instagram, and Flickr. Users can drag and drop content to organize and make presentations of their best “visual ideas.” —JOEL MATHIS Google Search Do you love your iPhone or iPad, but really wish those devices ran Android? The latest edition of Google Search (go.macworld.com/gsearch) brings that, er, fantasy closer to reality, with a long list of new features: notifications, reminders, and the ability to say “Okay, Google” to begin your vocal query. It also has new “cards” to help you organize reservations, plane tickets, and a schedule of local events. —JOEL MATHIS Tiny Death Star Remember when a new Star…

PRODUCTIVITY Drafts (go.macworld.com/drafts35) is a text editor whose main focus is short notes rather than long text files. Yet it’s not really a note-taking app, either. Think of it as a tool that helps you automate text-oriented actions and integrate them with other iOS apps. Actions are little scripts that manipulate the text in a note and send it to other apps for more processing. Drafts can talk with almost any app on your device, as long as the action provides a URL scheme to enable that communication. Drafts provides several actions you can use straight out of the box: You can post to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and more; create Reminders; and save to Evernote. Even better, you can create your own actions. iPhone/iPad | (5.0/5.0); $3 (iPhone), $4 (iPad);…

GAMES In The Cave (go.macworld.com/cave), your task is to lead three characters through a mysterious cave that encompasses all of history, from prehistoric times to the distant future. You pick your alter egos from a pool of seven candidates, including knights, scientists, time travelers, and a particularly creepy set of twins. Each character has a unique ability that you will need to solve the game’s many puzzles. The time traveler, for example, can phase-shift through walls and gates, while the twins, who normally count as one character, can be temporarily split and controlled separately. The script is clever and witty, and the graphics are well executed. Unfortunately, grasping the game’s dynamics is a challenge; and the controls are very hard to use, particularly on an iPhone. —MARCO TABINI iPhone/iPad |…

Sometimes it’s the little things. Debuting in late 2012, the original iPad mini (go.macworld.com/ipadminirev) was as slow as the larger iPad 2 (go.macworld.com/ipad2)—which was then almost two years old—and it lacked the gorgeous Retina display that Apple had added to the iPad earlier in the year. But those drawbacks didn’t (and don’t) matter to some people because, for them, smallness rules. Though the first-generation iPad mini might not have been on the cutting edge, it was half the size and half the weight of the full-size iPad, and those two facts mattered more to users than a state-of-the-art processor or a pretty screen. Review RATING 4.5/5.0 PRICE $399–$699 (Wi-Fi only, with 16GB–128GB of storage), $529–$829 (Wi-Fi + cellular) COMPANY Apple URL apple.com But why compromise when you can have it…

Believe it or not, there was a time not long ago when surfing the Internet from your back porch required a very, very long ethernet cable. These days Wi-Fi seems to be everywhere, with inkjet printers, digital cameras, TVs, and even refrigerators connecting to home and office networks without the need for cables. But for all of the gains made in Wi-fitechnology, much confusion remains about wireless networks and the problems that can plague them. To help clear up some of the confusion, we assembled a list of common beliefs about Wi-Fi speed and set about proving or disproving them using the tools available to us here in the Macworld Lab. The farther away from the router you are, the worse your signal strength will be. And the lower your…

Hardware and Software for All Your Business Needs Hardware Epson Expression Premium XP-810 Small-in-One (4.0/5.0); $230; Epson; www.epson.com The Epson Expression Premium XP-810 Small-in-One has impressive features for a home printer and is a great all-around performer in its price range. The catch? Ink costs are a little higher than average: 4.6 or 5.2 cents per page for black and white, and 13.4 or 18.2 cpp for a four-color page, using high-capacity or standard cartridges, respectively. But in return you get great print quality. The pigment-based black ink produces crisp-looking text even on plain paper, while the dye-based black gives photos a nice depth. On plain paper, photos can seem a little pinkish, but they look spectacular on Epson’s own photo paper. Output is quick, too, as the Expression Premium…

Hands-On In July 2012, Next Issue Media brought its magazine subscription service to the iPad. For $10 a month, you get access to 109 magazines. Paying $15 monthly gives you 121 magazines to choose from. (View the full list at nextissue.com/pricing.) Now, Next Issue has released an app for the iPhone and the iPod touch. I got a chance to try several magazines in it. The New Yorker, for example, works as in the iPhone version of the publication’s Newsstand app—with the same text-size options—but unlike the Newsstand app it also functions in landscape mode. The magazine takes advantage of the whole screen and lets you jump around via links. With a publication such as Rolling Stone—for which there is no Newsstand version for the iPhone—the experience is less enjoyable.…

For some mobile-photography nuts, big social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and even Flickr are passé. Today, if you share photos with family and friends online, new apps let you dodge the routine of posting to the mega social sites. Specialty photo-sharing networks appeal to users who seek distinct features. Here are some cool ones we found. 23snaps Family Journal The biggest liability of Facebook and other popular social networks is the conflict they have between protecting users’ privacy and making money—the latter usually seems to preclude the former. Intended for folks who don’t want their personal lives splattered across the Internet, 23snaps (free; go.macworld.com/23snaps) lets you share private photos with a close circle of associates. Although 23snaps will work for anyone, it was designed for parents who want to…

Layer styles, layer effects, liquify tools, and a brand-new imageediting engine highlight the new features in Pixelmator 3.0 FX (www.pixelmator.com), a major upgrade to the OS X image-editing package long seen as a lean, mean—not to mention low-priced—competitor to Photoshop. Pixelmator 3.0 FX is an upgrade from version 2.2 Blueberry, equipped with an enhanced editing engine that supports new features in OS X Mavericks and promises faster performance. Pixelmator 3.0 FX is an upgrade from version 2.2 Blueberry, equipped with an enhanced editing engine that supports new features in OS X Mavericks and promises faster performance. The program’s collection of nondestructive layer styles includes shadows, inner shadows, gradients, outlines, and reflections, which you can create freehand or from built-in presets. A compact Styles palette makes it easy to apply and…

Snooze Notifications for Different Lengths of Time New in OS 10.9 Mavericks, Notification Center banners for reminders include a Snooze button. But that button—which removes the reminder and brings it up again 10 minutes later—offers more customization than is apparent. Click and hold the notification’s Snooze button to bring up a drop-down menu with snooze times ranging from minutes to hours to days to weeks. Dictate Without an Internet Connection Starting with Mountain Lion, your Mac could take dictation. But it required an Internet connection, couldn’t show its progress while you spoke, and could listen for only about 30 seconds at a time. That all changes with a single checkbox in Mavericks. Fire up System Preferences and click the Dictation & Speech pane. There, you’ll find a checkbox for Use…

Julie Ann Horvath What do you do? I like to think of myself as an open-source advocate with a love for making mockups in markup. I speak at conferences and volunteer to teach (more) women to code. I’m also the creator and organizer of Passion Projects (passion-projects.github.com/), a monthly talk series. What hardware do you use? I have a MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM. It’s important for me to run the Adobe Creative Suite and still have Ruby and other local servers in the background, as well as multiple browsers. I often work from home, and around the world. But when I’m in the office, I use a Cinema Thunderbolt display for more visual real estate. And what software? I mostly design in-browser, but I use the CS6 Photoshop…

News and Analysis About Macs, OS X, and Apple Review Apple 15-inch MacBook Pro/2.0GHz (Late 2013) RATING mmmh PRICE $1999 COMPANY Apple URL apple.com Recently Apple released its second update to the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. These late-2013 MacBook Pros have the same 2880-by-1800-pixelresolution Retina display that their predecessors—the early-2013 Retina MacBook Pros (go.macworld.com/rmbpearly2013)—did; but they also incorporate such features as the latest quad-core Haswell processors, Iris Pro graphics, and PCIe-connected flash. Externally identical to the 4.46-pound, 15-inch models released in February 2013 and June 2012, this edition of the Mac-Book Pro introduces a number of changes beneath its aluminum surface. You’ll find a quad-core 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 (Haswell) processor in the $1999 laptop and a quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i7 processor in the $2599 model. These…

To fill its need for an executive to oversee its stores, Apple has hired Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to the newly created position of senior vice president of retail and online stores. It’s the latest move in the wake of former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson’s 2011 departure. Johnson had helped build Apple’s strong retail presence but then left to become CEO at retailer JCPenney. Apple hired John Browett as a replacement in 2012, but fired him later that year. Burberry is a British luxury fashion brand, and being a successful leader of a style-conscious retail brand has long been considered an ideal trait for a new Apple retail head. Last year Ahrendts earned total pay of roughly $27 million from Burberry, including salary and stock options. Ahrendts won’t join…

(4.0/5.0); $8; Bright Vertex; easyresapp.com OS X 10.9 Mavericks doesn’t provide a quick way to change screen resolutions—but various third-party developers do. EasyRes, 1.0.4, from Bright Vertex, stands out from other resolution switchers with its animated previews of available settings. Click the systemwide menu and move the pointer over a screen resolution, and EasyRes shows how that setting would affect open windows. The animation shows your screen, so you see how your actual on-screen items will appear at the new resolution. The animation loops as long as you keep the pointer over the setting; as you move the pointer over each possible resolution, the preview dynamically changes to reflect that resolution. Sadly, EasyRes has fewer customization options than some rival resolutionswitching apps. For example, though EasyRes lets you assign custom…

(4.0/5.0); $5; Doug Adams; dougscripts.com In iTunes 11 you can no longer open and display multiple iTunes windows—a very useful capability for building playlists. In older versions of iTunes, you could create a new playlist, open it as a separate window, and drag and drop tracks from your iTunes library into that window. iTunes 11 instead offers a new Playlists view, accessible only if you hide iTunes’s sidebar. To add items to a playlist, you find or create the playlist, click Add To, and get something akin to the old playlist-building functionality, with the playlist appearing in its own sidebar. If you want the old way back, your best bet is to pony up for Doug Adams’s $5 Playlist Assist. (A free demo version can build playlists of 15 or…

Sapphire—it’s not just for making jewelry anymore. In the past few years, Apple has increased its use of the material in its products, and that trend seems to be on the upswing. Apple will open a manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, that will be operated by GT Advanced Technologies. Currently, Apple uses sapphire to cover the rear-facing lens on the iPhone 5c and 5s, and to serve as the top layer in the 5s’s Touch ID sensor. Sapphire is harder and much more scratch resistant than glass. The new 700-worker facility suggests that Apple expects to need the material for more than just lens covers. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber speculates that Apple may actually plan to use the factory to produce sapphire glass displays for its devices; in June 2013,…

Fantastical 2 PRODUCTIVITY With its intuitive interface and outstanding natural-language eventcreation capabilities, Fantastical for the iPhone (go.macworld.com/fantastical2) is a much better calendar than Apple’s Calendar app. Version 2 updates Fantastical with a complete iOS 7–style redesign and numerous tweaks. As before, to create a new event you simply type a description of it in everyday language—or you can use iOS’s dictation. Fantastical 2, an Editors’ Choice winner (see page 54), interprets your text on the fly and shows you the resulting event in a calendar preview. Tap Save, and the event appears in your calendar and DayTicker. Version 2 adds the ability to use this natural-language entry system to create reminders. While you’re entering the task details, tap the Calendar/Reminder toggle—or simply start your description with “reminder,” “task,” “to do,”…

PRODUCTIVITY Readdle’s Calendars 5 (go.macworld.com/calendars5) has an excellent task manager, an easy-touse event-entry system, and an attractive, iOS 7–friendly interface. It also plays well with both Google Calendar and Apple’s built-in Calendar and Reminders apps. When you add a task or event, easy-to-use options allow you to add notes and multiple reminders, and to designate even complex recurring events. Calendars 5 also features “natural-language input” capabilities, but I found the app to be inconsistent in this area. Fantastical is much better at handling this feature. If you’re already using Readdle’s Calendars+, you will probably find the new version to be well worth paying for. iPhone/iPad | (4.0/5.0)1/2; $7; Readdle…

Hardware Adonit Jot Script (4.0/5.0); $75; Adonit; adonit.net Adonit’s new stylus is the first one to boast an actual pen tip rather than a rubber-nibbed bubble. It uses special technology that maps the pen to an iOS device via a low-energy Bluetooth connection. The Jot Script, an Editors’ Choice winner (see page 50), needs supported apps to unleash its Pixelpoint technology. It works with most other writing and drawing programs. It can be a little slippery against a glass screen, but it’s the fastest way to write on the iPad. The Jot Script is, handsdown, the pen for detail work. —SERENITY CALDWELL Lumoback (3.0/5.0)1/2; $150; Lumo Body Tech; www.lumoback.com Slouchers of the world, take note: The Lumoback is a sensor that fits around your waist and tracks your steps, sleep,…

It used to be easy: Did you want an iPad? Which capacity? Need cellular networking? Done. Now, though, Apple offers four iPad models, each available in several permutations. Then you have to think about the capacity you’re willing to pay for, whether to get the version with cellular networking, and even the color you want. Phew. It’s a lot of choices. Fortunately, we’re here to help walk you through the process of figuring out exactly which iPad you’ll be happiest with. (Note: Owing to complex and unpredictable variations in human joy threshold [HJT], we are unable to guarantee that actual happiness will be achieved in every instance.) iPad Air Referring to the new iPad Air (go.macworld.com/ipadair) as the Cadillac of iPads may be a slight exaggeration, but it is the…

Mavericks’s Finder tags feature gives you the ability to assign labels and keywords to files and folders. All you need is a measure of will and a handful of tools and techniques. Tagging Your Existing Files If you have thousands of files on your Mac and the idea of tagging them all makes you queasy, focus only on the files you’ll want to retrieve most often. Use smart folders: Smart folders help you zero in on the content you’re after. In the Finder, choose File → New Smart Folder. In the resulting window, click the plus (+) button next to the Save button to create a condition. You can then configure the condition to find a file type, documents containing certain words, files created on a specific day, and so…

Q&A This month, I address a difficult question about album art and AIFF files. I also tackle assorted problems with tagging and with playlists. Q: Can I sort music on an iPod classic by date adde? A: No, but you can make an iTunes smart playlist that will let you view it by date added, and sync the playlist to the iPod. In iTunes, choose File → New → Smart Playlist, or press command-<Option>-N. Set the conditions Date Added in the last 1000 months and Limit to 50000 items selected by most recently added, and click OK. (I’ve set those numbers to extremes to include everything you might own; adjust accordingly.) Sync this playlist to your iPod, and you’ll find the most recent tracks you’ve added to your library at…

The latest Apple app to go under the digital knife for an iOS 7 makeover is Remote, the app that turns your iOS device into a remote control for your iTunes libraries and Apple TV. Version 4.0 brings access to at least one new feature: the Genius Shuffle option introduced in iTunes 11.1. It’s in the Up Next menu (or if nothing is playing currently, on the Playlists screen). But there is another prominent new iTunes feature that I couldn’t find in Remote: iTunes Radio. If you start an iTunes Radio station on your computer, you can control it in Remote. But the app seems to offer no way to start a new station from the currently playing track. If you were hoping that this update might address the lack…

The soul of a digital camera is its sensor, which plays a critical role in determining image size, resolution, low-light performance, depth of field, dynamic range, lenses, and the camera’s physical size. An image sensor is a solid-state component that captures light and converts what you see through a viewfinder or an LCD into an image. The sensor determines how good photos look and how large you can scale or print them. Image quality depends not only on the size of the sensor, but on how many millions of pixels (light-sensitive photosites) fit on it, and on the size of those pixels. The sensor size also affects the relationship between what you’re shooting and what gets recorded in the frame and then passed through to the memory card. Smaller sensors…

Fractals are a force of nature—mystifying and bewitching—and Iter9’s Frax for iOS (an Editors’ Choice pick; see page 56) is an immersive and creative app that lets nontechnical aficionados enjoy the beauty of fractals anywhere. Frax employs your device’s gyroscope and accelerometer to create and control fractal designs. It’s the first 2D fractal app to use tilt-to-steer movement and touchbased gestures: You alter the lighting with a swipe, augment textures with a twist, and zoom with a series of taps. Available in standard and pro versions for the iPhone ($2) and iPad ($4), Frax buries its mathematical underpinnings. The app is dynamic and constantly animated in rendering and refining the view, letting you choose where and when to get involved. A library of fractals provides a starting point for creating…

How to Restore Your Old iWork Documents Q:I’ve heard that once you open and edit a Pages ’09 file (or another kind of iWork ’09 document) that file becomes irrevocably linked to the app’s newest version. Is that true? A: No. Fortunately there’s a way back. When you open a document created with any iWork ’09 application in its iWork ’13 counterpart and then make a change, its file format is altered to a form incompatible with the previous version of the application. In this format, you can’t open the file in the old Pages, Numbers, or Keynote application. However, you can restore the original version by choosing File → Revert To → Browse All Versions. In the Time Machine-like interface that appears, browse back to the first version of…