Table of contents for Issue 103 in iPad & iPhone User

If you carry around sensitive information on your iPhone, you could soon have one less reason to panic. Apple has filed a patent to activate ‘panic mode’ when unlocking your iPhone using a designated finger. Once your iPhone is unlocked using the secret panic mode method, the device would automatically limit access to personal information, reset the device altogether or activate preset actions. Since Touch ID can register several different fingerprints, the patent suggests that iPhone users could designate a specific fingerprint to unlock the iPhone in ‘panic mode’. This would then make your left thumb your secret ‘panic finger’. According to the patent, using this finger would alert your iPhone you are in distress or in an emergency situation, and your phone would respond accordingly. Panic mode would give…

AGRAV: Inertial orbit In the iPhone’s early days, it was the games that had you directly manipulate on-screen content that most excited. They felt like a slice of the future, rather than awkwardly trying to give you some kind of on-screen joystick. AGRAV takes the former approach, having you direct a tiny spaceship about the place by using your fingers to fashion black holes. It’s a beautifully simple system, but in practice AGRAV can be frustrating, purely because it’s so different. Initial tries will almost certainly find your craft smashed to pieces on hitting the edge of the screen, or zooming past the goal, in a manner that sets teeth gnashing. But once it clicks, AGRAV becomes a compelling game. Soon, you’ll be carving out elegant arcs by touching the…

From £679 inc VAT • apple.com/uk Here we’ll compare the 13.3in MacBook Air to the iPad Pro, as it has a similarly sized 12.9in screen and thus, should have similar dimensions. Even though its called the MacBook ‘Air’ it seems to be the bulkier of the two, though not by much – the iPad Pro measures in at 305.7 x 220.6mm and is only 6.9mm at its thickest point, while the MacBook Air measures in at 325 x 227mm and is 17mm at its thickest point. Although with this being said, the iPad Pro is clearly the lighter option of the two, weighing in at a lightweight 713g compared to the bulkier 1342g MacBook Air. However, dimensions aren’t everything; for an iPad Pro to replace a MacBook Air, it needs…

Apple CEO Tim Cook caused a minor kerfuffle recently while promoting the iPad Pro in an interview when he asked, “Why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?” The question baffled Mac users, and seemed to suggest that Apple might one day phase out the Mac – or combine it with the iPad to make a hybrid device similar to Microsoft’s new Surface Book. Cook clarified the meaning behind his question in an interview with the Irish Independent, telling the newspaper that Macs and PCs are not the same. Dig on PCs aside, Cook said he understands that some people need desktops and notebooks, while for others, a powerful tablet like the iPad Pro will suffice. “We feel strongly that customers are not really…

Wow. What a year it’s been for Apple. The iPad Pro, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Beats 1 and, of course, the Apple Watch, have given us plenty to talk about over the past 12 months – and these releases do more than just hint at what might be coming up in 2016. Apple Watch Apple hasn’t exactly bet the farm on its Watch. It was launched with appropriate fanfare, but the company’s played it slow and sure since then. In store display areas are discreet, and overshadowed by its longer-established lines. Perhaps it realises that a fair few of us are waiting for the first revision. Expect that to come in 2016 – around April, when the original model will be 12 months old. If anything appears between now and…

Christmas is rapidly approaching, which means gift-buying season is upon us. We know how difficult it can be to find the perfect gift for everyone, so here we’ve rounded-up the best new Apple-related tech we’ve seen throughout the year. This year, Apple has launched the iPad Pro, iPad mini 4, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, as well as a new MacBook and a brand new Apple TV. That means there are plenty of new accessories and peripherals to choose from, whether you’re looking for something fun, something practical, something fashionable or something to keep your sparkly new Apple devices safe. We’ve got cases, battery packs, storage devices, speakers, headphones, quirky gadgets and more in our Christmas Gift Guide 2015, so read on to get some gift inspiration. In-ear headphones:…

Some iPad Pro owners have noticed some strange behaviour in their new 12.9in tablets. Normally when you charge a device, unless the battery has completely died, the screen remains responsive. But some iPad Pros are completely freezing, then dying, after a recharge. Apple knows about the problem, but hasn’t said why it’s happening. There doesn’t seem to be a real fix for it, either – at least not yet. The company published a support document on Thursday advising Pro users to force restart their tablets to bring them back to life, but that’s not really a long-term solution, because the issue is ongoing.…

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer To the casual player Ascension seems not dissimilar to Magic: The Gathering – you build and play from a deck of cards, each of which depicts a warrior, magician or relic of some kind, and use these to slay monsters and acquire both points and further cards. What makes it a ‘deck builder’ (like the classic card game Dominion, or the more recent Star Realms – which is also free and also worth a try) rather than a collectible card game like Magic is the fact that all players start with an identical, very simple deck. You build your deck within the game itself. It’s all weirdly addictive, once you play a few times, and you needn’t pay a penny if you don’t want to:…

£79 inc VAT • apple.com/uk Apple’s pressure-sensitive Pencil is a home run, exhibiting remarkable performance on the new iPad Pro, but that should not come as a shock: The two were engineered from the ground up to work together and only with each other. The iPad screen recognises when you are using the Pencil, and in response, dynamically boosts its scan rate to 240 times per second (twice the speed it scans for your finger) to minimize latency, the time between the Pencil’s point touching the glass and a mark appearing on the canvas. Simultaneously, the Pencil’s sensors work with the display to detect its position, force, and tilt via APIs in iOS 9.1 that not only register current location but predict future movement. Press lightly to get a thin…