Inhoudsopgave van June 2015 - Macworld

When Apple announced the MacBook in March, the new USB Type C port caused head shaking and chin scratching. Though the standard had been released in September and shown off at the CES trade show in January, no ecosystem existed. It was hard to know how a single-port USB-C laptop would function in the real world. In the days following the announcement, cables and adapters started to be announced and even ship. The MacBook landed in people’s hands—including ours at Macworld—in mid-April, and I’ve been purchasing and receiving review versions of adapters for several days. Here’s a rundown of what’s currently available and what it can do for you. But first, let’s define some basics. How fast is USB-C? USB-C is a cabling standard that incorporates various versions of numbered…

THE MATIAS ERGO PRO (matias.ca/ergopro) is the latest keyboard that tries to help computer users with a well-known problem: keyboards aren’t designed for hands. Instead, typists since the late 1800s through the present have had to adapt themselves to the demands of, first, mechanical layouts and, later, the constraints of one-size-fits-all arrays of electric or electronic switches. So-called ergonomic keyboards are designed to break and reshape a keyboard to better fit varied constraints, so that we can exercise some choice in matching the keyboard to our particular fingers. MATIAS ERGO PRO AT A GLANCE: Matias makes excellent keyboards, and this one is no exception. But any ergonomic keyboard can be tough to adjust to, so don’t be afraid to return it if it doesn’t work for you. PROS: • Made…

PAD & QUILL TIMBER CATCHALL The $99 Timber Catchall (padandquill.com) is one of our favorite Apple Watch accessories so far, because it acts as a stand for both your Watch and your iPhone—and would look awesome on either a nightstand or desk. This handcrafted wooden stand features a pull-up dock for your Watch, a spot for your iPhone, and a smaller spot for your keys. It also provides routing channels that keep the Watch and iPhone’s charging cables neatly hidden in the back.—MARCO TABINI MOPHIE SPACE PACK FOR iPHONE 6 AND 6 PLUS The $150 Space Pack for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (mophie.com) is a double-duty device: It serves as a backup battery, of course, doubling your iPhone’s life. It also serves as an external hard drive, giving your…

THE IPHONE MAKES for a pretty good camera on its own, but adding an additional lens can really help your photos shine. Moment’s (momentlens.co) $100 Wide Lens (go.macworld.com/wide) and $100 Tele Lens (go.macworld.com/tele) offer something a little different—unlike other iPhone camera lenses that sit on top of your phone, Moment’s lenses attach to your iPhone’s lens using a special plate. It’s a thin, strong piece of metal that adheres to the back of your phone like a sticker and allows you to screw on different lenses similar to how you might with a DSLR. Perhaps that’s why Moment had no trouble reaching its Kickstarter funding goal for this pair of lenses in 2014. While the lenses really do help you take better photos, its innovative mounting solution leaves something to…

MAYBE THE LAST THING you want to fuss with when you’re trying to put together a to-do list is the list itself. That’s why Apple’s Reminders app works for so many; you can easily create lists, set notifications, and check off items. That’s about it. The free version of Any.do 3 (any.do) has similar features plus a few more, and it offers a different UI treatment that you might find more pleasing, if such things matter to you. When you first launch Any.do, there are four default lists set up for you, but you can easily change the names of these. Adding another list just takes a simple click of the + box. ANY.DO 3 AT A GLANCE: If you want a few more organizational features than what Reminders offers,…

The QuickTime Player app lives a lonely, quiet life in the Applications folder of many Macs. It’s often ignored because folks assume it’s just a video playback app. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are a few useful things you can do to your videos in QuickTime Player that you can’t do in iPhoto or the new Photos app. RECORD VIDEO AND AUDIO Using the built-in camera on your Mac (or even a USB webcam), you can record your own video. You can also record audio using your Mac’s built-in microphone, an external mic, or a musical instrument connected with a USB cable. Or perhaps you want to record what’s happening on your screen—say, for a video tutorial. QuickTime Player can do that, too. To do it, choose…

The other day my daughter was frustrated by her math homework. She was plotting x and y coordinates onto a grid, but a few of her answers just didn’t line up. I suggested that we check her work, and in the back of my mind I recalled that there might be a quick way to do that right on my Mac. The app in question is Grapher, a utility you probably never realized has been installed on your Mac since 2005. It is one of the unsung heroes of the Utilities folder. Placed inside the Applications folder, Utilities is the subfolder where Apple banishes apps that it wants to keep as a standard part of OS X without giving them the exposure that the main Applications folder supplies. Grapher is,…

PC MAKERS REALLY TRIED to make touchscreen computers a thing in recent years, but it’s little surprise why those efforts have largely failed. Hunching over a keyboard pawing greasy mitts all over the display doesn’t exactly inspire a great user experience. The folks at eyeSight Technologies believe there’s a better way with ControlAir (eyesight-tech.com/controlair), a free Mac application capable of controlling media player software using nothing but an index finger held away from the screen. CONTROLAIR AT A GLANCE: ControlAir uses the FaceTime HD camera to allow touch-free, gesture-based control over a handful of media player software using only your index finger. PROS: • Touch-free control over many popular Mac media players • Audio can be muted by holding finger to your lips CONS: • Requires bright, well-lit environment •…

The Phorm (getphorm.com) case, from Tactus (tactustechnology.com), adds a tactile layer to the software keyboard when you’re holding your iPad mini in portrait mode and engage the switch on the back—supposedly being able to “feel” the keys will make it easier to type. Yeah, right, I thought. I admit it, I was skeptical. I pictured bulging bubbles right on top of each letter, having to mash those bubbles with my thumbs, and seeing my iPad mini’s battery life suffer, because of course a case with an on/off switch requires power, right? Wrong. I was wrong about all of it. First of all, Phorm uses no power. The switch on the back is purely mechanical. The case, which completely encloses your iPad mini without adding too much bulk or weight, has…

EXOLENS IS A lens system built for the iPhone 6, intended to give you more shooting flexibility than the standard iPhone lens. The kit comes with an aluminum bracket that slides over your phone, and a pair of lenses that screw into the bracket. The bracket itself is well made, and the inside is lined with a rubber material to keep from scratching the finish on your phone. Tolerances are tight, however, and ExoLens (exolens.com) will only work on your naked, un-cased iPhone. Slide the bracket onto your phone, and the lens mount aligns perfectly with your iPhone camera. All the buttons are accessible, and the bracket features a standard 1/4-20 tripod mount. Unfortunately, the mounting bracket covers the iPhone’s flash, but does anyone really use that anyway? OPTRIX EXOLENS…

WWE IMMORTALS WWE Immortals (go.macworld.com/wweimmortals) takes heroes whose physiques and abilities have tested the bounds of science and placed them in a supernatural setting. What if The Rock really was made of stone? Now you can find out. Automatic Automatic (automatic.com) improves your driving experience by taking data transmitted from a sensor installed in your vehicle and displaying it on your iPhone. Its latest update lets you use and collect the car’s data even if you don’t bring the phone with you. Next time you do bring the phone, you’ll be able to download the distance, fuel efficiency, duration and more data. Fit in Minutes Fit in Minutes (go.macworld.com/fitinminutes) lets you choose from 10,000 workout possibilities to create five-minute workouts that developers promise will “help you lose fat, look…

Part of the beauty of buying a Mac is that it will mostly live up to Apple’s classic mantra: “It just works.” (At least when compared to systems running Windows, that is. Or when you’re trying to set up the new MacBook.) But what happens when it no longer does? That’s generally when the tech support emails or phone calls from family and friends begin pouring in. After all, as loyal Apple users, we practically insist our loved ones also buy Macs, effectively turning us into unpaid Geniuses at the first sign of trouble. This may not be a problem if the afflicted Mac was in the next room, down the street, or even across town, but what happens when it’s located too far away to drive over and offer…

MAC GEMS ARE APPS THAT OFFER STANDOUT UTILITY OR UNIQUE FEATURES AT A GREAT PRICE. LAST JUNE, Apple announced the impending retirement of iPhoto and Aperture in favor of Photos for OS X (apple.com/osx/photos), a new application it demonstrated briefly at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). For most of the intervening 10 months—a long lead time for a company that prefers to ship software soon after announcing it—we didn’t know the new application’s capabilities. Would it be friendly enough for casual users but also include the depth to satisfy Aperture’s professional photographers? Would it be like a few other notable Apple software rewrites, like iMovie and Final Cut Pro X, that took bold steps forward at the expense of stripping away features and alienating users? PHOTOS FOR OS X 1.0…

SOMETIMES WINNING CAN BE the worst outcome. With Aperture now effectively retired by Apple, and its successor Photos for OS X not up to the task of replacing it, the market for pro and enthusiast photo software is now led by Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. For the latest version, it would be easy for Adobe to add a few marketing-friendly features and coast into the future on its growing train of subscription revenue. Fortunately for existing and incoming Lightroom customers, that doesn’t seem to be the plan. The new Lightroom CC (go.macworld.com/lrcc) does add some new features, such as built-in HDR and panorama merge tools, facial recognition, a filter brush, and an improved slideshow builder. But more interesting is its performance: Lightroom CC takes advantage of your computer’s graphics hardware to…

My junior year of high school was the last year I would play competitive baseball. As the season came to a close, I sat in the last row of the team bus on a return trip from a game that was played three hours away. I had the scorebook on one knee and a piece of paper and pen on another. I went through the book and tallied my batting average, runs batted in, errors, and a slew of other baseball stats. The tedious process took the entire ride back, yet it felt like time well spent. I knew where I did and didn’t contribute to the team throughout the season, and was able to confirm I was in the midst of the best season I’d ever had. But I…

SINCE ADONIT LAUNCHED its first styluses in 2011, the company has expanded its lineup. In January, it refreshed the two styluses that started it all: The Jot Pro (adonit.net/jot/pro) and Jot Mini (adonit.net/jot/mini). Priced at just $30 and $20, respectively, the styluses are the most affordable in the company’s lineup. FAMILIAR TOUCH The Pro and Mini will be very familiar to you if you’ve used Jot’s precision-disc styluses before. Both maintain a similar design as their predecessors while adding a new, improved carrying clip (previously only available on the Mini) that allows you to easily slip the stylus in a shirt or bag pocket. The Pro version also has an etched grip to help you hold on to it, as well as an improved cushion tip for a quieter, more…

Trapped inside due to weather? Itching to make photos but you’ve been too busy? Or do you just have a few hours to kill? It’s easy to think we can’t capture photos unless we wake up before dawn to welcome the sunrise or travel to picturesque locales, but fun photos can be made anywhere and at any time. They also don’t require expensive, dedicated photo gear. Here are three photo ideas for boring days that you can create with an iPhone or iPad. FUN WITH LONG EXPOSURES The iPhone and iPad cameras are designed to capture the best possible image in a fraction of a second, without your worrying about the individual capture settings. But it’s within those particulars, namely the shutter speed, that you can have fun. Using an…

Where did you go? Photos’ different approach to displaying location information embedded in a photo or video’s metadata have caused the most consternation, because Apple has chosen an entirely different approach. Jason Snell addressed how to geotag photos without using Photos (go.macworld.com/geotag). But readers are still trying to find out how to see locations on a map. Here’s some more information on that. Wayne Koabel’s question was typical: “After [the] change to Photos from iPhoto, I can not find any places in my Source list. How do I access the Places map in the new program?” Media retain geotagging, but that information isn’t presented in a single map view. However, if you select View → Metadata → Location, a pushpin-in-a-square icon overlays the lower left of an image or video.…