Table of contents for November 2012 in Macworld

For one of the world’s largest and most analyzed companies, Apple seems more mysterious than it is. In a form of reverse insanity, Apple keeps doing the same things while almost everyone observing it keeps expecting a different result. Consider the company’s September 12 announcement of the iPhone 5 (see page 24), as well as several new iPod models. After the event, I kept hearing people grousing that Apple hadn’t unveiled a revolutionary new product. Never mind that the company only rarely does so—the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 being the two best examples. In fact, most of Apple’s events focus on how it improves its products in a relentless cycle of upgrades. As John Gruber put it after the unveiling of the original iPad (Spotlight, April…

National Parks by National Geographic TRAVEL How you feel about National Parks will largely hinge on whether you run the app on your iPhone or iPod touch or on your iPad, and whether you download the add-on park guides. On a smaller device, it’s a competently organized but not breathtaking set of facts and figures for 20 national parks, describing weather, location, directions, sites, and facilities. On an iPad, however, the view is outstanding. National Geographic uses the larger screen to full effect, so there’s less tapping around to do. The How To Visit and About The Park sections appear on each park’s main page, and helpful pop-up windows lead you to park info, directions, and camping data. The Map tab could still use more-helpful labeling on the iPad. Each…

Whenever a new Mac operating system comes out, Macworld’s editors madly scramble around, looking for tips and tricks that will make using that OS easier and more efficient. Macworld’s readers do exactly the same thing. To be perfectly honest, those readers often beat us to the punch on finding many of those tips and tricks. So this time around, with OS X Mountain Lion, we decided to go straight to you, the reader, for ideas on making the most of the latest Mac OS. More specifically, we scoured the postings on the Mac OS X Hints website (hints.macworld.com), where all kinds of users post all kinds of tips. Every month, we post the best of those tips in our Mac OS X Hints column; this month, we had so many…

Q& In this installment of Ask the iTunes Guy, I answer questions about video resolution, audio con-version, free iTunes content, and more. Q: I buy high-resolution (88.2kHz/24-bit, say) files. How do I create standard-resolution (44.1kHz/16-bit) copies of these files for my portable devices to use within the same iTunes library? A: First, you need to convert the files to a format that is compatible with iPods and iOS devices. I recommend doing this with tmkk’s free X Lossless Decoder (XLD)—the most versatile tool for converting audio files I’ve seen (macworld.com/7290). You can convert high-resolution files to the format of your choice (Apple Lossless, AAC, or MP3) and sync those files to your iOS device. XLD converts files across many formats, so you can use it for just about all of…

Hardware Audioengine A5+ Premium Powered Speakers | $399, black or white; $469, bamboo; Audioengine; audioengineusa.com At 10.8 inches tall, 7 inches wide, and 7.8 inches deep, Audioengine’s A5+ powered bookshelf speakers are a little beefy for a typical computer desk, though you can use them that way. They come in white, black, or bamboo finish, with the eco-friendly bamboo model priced at $469 and the black or white versions at $399. The speakers’ bottoms are padded and have a screw insert for attaching to stands. The A5+’s audio sounded quite good, with an emphasis on bass and lower-midrange frequencies. For their part, the higher frequencies were clearly present, though not entirely shimmery. Your ears are of course the best judge of what brings you sonic happiness. Fortunately, Audioengine offers a…

MAC APP STORE CONCERNS I’ve been concerned ever since a few notable developers went “App Store only” (Pixelmator, 1Password). I buy Mac App Store apps as “disposable” software, and only on sale. If one goes away, at least I can console myself that it was cheap. I think that’s the wrong message for developers to send about their software. BoxOfSnoo, via the Macworld.com forums I’m a little peeved to find out that OS X 10.7 (Lion), which I purchased fair and square, is no longer available for download. And before you tell me to pony up the $20 for 10.8, keep in mind that all of the iMacs in my house are 2006 or earlier—so I can’t buy the new OS, but I also can’t ever reinstall the old one…

Review RATING PRICE $250 COMPANY GeChic URLwww.gechic.com I prefer having at least two displays on my desk. It’s easier to work when I have all that screen real estate. When I unplug my laptop and work remotely, the single display feels cramped. GeChic’s On-Lap 1302 is a 13.3-inch (diagonal) portable display for laptops. Weighing 23 ounces, the On-Lap 1302 is light enough and small enough to stash in your laptop bag, allowing you to have a two-screen setup wherever you go. The 13.15-by-8.94-by-0.31-inch device has a cable with a display connector on one end and USB and HDMI connectors for your Mac on the other end. (The USB connector provides power to the display.) My Retina MacBook Pro instantly recognized the On-Lap 1302, although I had to do some rearranging…

$8; Peter Kamb; macworld.com/7964 Fitts’s Law is one of the foundations of a good software interface. To oversimplify, Fitts’s Law says that the larger an on-screen object is, and the closer that object is to the pointer, the less time it takes to access the object. Fitts’s Law especially applies to the edges of the computer screen: The edge eliminates an entire dimension of precision. Unfortunately, multiple-display setups conflict with Fitts’s Law. When you add a second display, you remove the boundary along the screens’ shared edge. If you have stuff—application palettes, for example—at that edge, accessing those items requires more-precise pointer movement, because the screen edge no longer keeps you from overshooting. EdgeCase restores that lost boundary. With the app running, whenever the pointer hits the shared edge, it…

Hardware Gogo Stump Portable Tablet Stand $25; Gogo; www.stumpstore.com The Stump Portable Tablet Stand is one of our favorite mobile-device accessories. This cylindrical, hard-rubber stand has a deep slit across the top that can hold your iPad, iPhone, or tablet in portrait or landscape position. It offers three viewing angles and is weighted for stability. It’s available in black, red, green, yellow, and pink. The Stump Stand combines utility with simplicity at a reasonable price. Hand Stylus $30; Hand; handstylus.com The Hand Stylus is the most precise stylus we’ve used, going toe to toe with Adonit’s Jot line. You can legibly write text at around 12 pixels high and pinpoint a line to trace. The Hand Stylus has a great retractable nib and a handy magnetic clip. Despite its precision,…

Scrivener isn’t a word processor; it’s an integrated development environment for writing books (macworld.com/a/1155903). Modestly priced at $45 and packed with features, this app from Literature & Latte helps you manage, tag, edit, and organize collections of information in Rich Text Format (RTF) files. I’ve used it before in writing several novels where the plot got so gnarly and tangled up that I badly needed a tool to manage all my plot strands, an area in which Scrivener excels. But the novel I’ve just finished, Neptune’s Brood, is the first one I’ve written from start to end in Scrivener. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from using Scrivener. It’s Not the Only App You’ll Need Here’s what Scrivener can’ do for an author: It can’t track changes. Many…

Hardware Apparent Doxie Go $199; Apparent; www.getdoxie.com Apparent’s Doxie Go, a slick, battery-powered portable document scanner, offers a solution to perennial paper clutter. Capable of computer-free scanning, this rectangular glossy-white and matte-black plastic box is about 10 by 2 inches and weighs just under a pound. Apparent also bundles a calibration card, cleaning tool, mini-USB cable, and carrying bag. A slot on the long side of the scanner accepts paper ranging in size from business cards to 8.5 by 15 inches. To scan, you feed in one piece of paper at a time. Each scan takes about 8 seconds. The built-in battery lasts for about 100 scans and recharges in an hour or so via USB cable. Doxie saves images to its 500MB internal storage, or to an SD card…

Based on reviews I’ve read (and on my own experience), the consensus view appears to be that OS X Mountain Lion is a generally stable update with a minimum of significant problems, especially for a 10.x.0 release. Still, things can and occasionally do go wrong. Here’s a roundup of some post-install Mountain Lion problems you may encounter. Log-in Trouble According to Apple, “After upgrading to OS X Mountain Lion, your Mac may keep returning to the login window after you have logged in.” This frustrating state of affairs is clearly something you’ll want to fix ASAP. The most likely culprit is an incompatible log-in item. OS X makes an effort to disable incompatible software automatically at startup. But apparently, some apps may still sneak in under the fence. The solution…

An Alternative for AirPlay Mirroring Q: I’ve installed Mountain Lion on my 2010 MacBook Pro, but I don’t see the AirPlay Mirroring option anywhere. Does it work with this MacBook? Michael Anders A: Regrettably, no. AirPlay Mirroring works with these models: iMac (midyear 2011 or newer), Mac mini (midyear 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (midyear 2011 or newer), and MacBook Pro (early 2011 or newer). Fortunately, you have an alternative: Squirrels’ $10 AirParrot (macworld.com/7915). This application, compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher (or Windows XP or higher), allows you to mirror your computer’s video and audio to a second-or third-generation Apple TV. It can mirror your complete desktop at up to 1080p on a 3G Apple TV or mirror just a specific application (without background desktop clutter), and…

It was August 1991, I was 23, and I had a plane ticket that would take me from New Haven, Connecticut, to Seattle, Washington. I was headed to the Pacific Northwest with my degree in graphic design; my mad skills as a typesetter, layout artist, imagesetting expert, computer programmer, and Internet guru (seriously, even in 1991); and a plan to apply for jobs at the top design studios. Then I got a call from Charles Altschul, a former teacher and close acquaintance. He had taken over as education director at the Eastman Kodak Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, Maine, where photography, design, and illustration pros could learn how to make the transition into the digital age—and he wanted my help. Adobe Photoshop 2.0 was a core part of the…

The iPhone 5 could be one of the least surprising products Apple has ever announced. From its name to its new features, much of what Apple announced about the new phone—which should be shipping by the time you read this—was expected. For starters, there was the name. (Thankfully, Apple didn’t follow the same vague naming conventions it used for the most recent iPad.) More substantially, the new iPhone has—as widely rumored before the announcement—a taller screen, a brand-new dock-connector port, and support for the speedy LTE cellular networking standard. On the Outside Perhaps the one surprising detail about the new iPhone is its exterior. Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, calls the device “the most beautiful product we’ve ever made.” It is indeed pretty, made entirely of…

Things Learns to Sync Developer Cultured Code has updated Things, its popular task-management app. The most notable new feature is a new syncing service called Things Cloud (macworld.com/a/1168091). While other to-do apps use Dropbox or iCloud to sync tasks, Things hasn’t had a convenient way to do so until now (iPhone version, $10; iPad version, $20). —DAN FRAKES Google Search App Gets Vocal Google is bringing its Voice Search technology to iOS devices, making the Google Search app (macworld.com/a/1168078) more of a rival to Apple’s Siri. While the app already accepted voice input for entering search terms, Voice Search goes beyond that, intelligently interpreting your request depending on location and context; it can also recite search results. —DAN MILLER Projectbook Melds Notes, To-dos Theory.io’s new $2 app…

With sweeping changes to its Cloud Player service, Amazon has taken aim at Apple’s iTunes Match. Cloud Player now provides free access to all past and future Amazon MP3 purchases (similar to Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud feature). Amazon can also scan your iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and match the songs on your Mac or Windows PC with those in Amazon’s 20-million-song catalog. Matched songs don’t require uploading, which saves time and bandwidth when you move a music collection in the cloud, and the service upgrades matched tracks to 256-kbps MP3 files. All of this follows licensing agreements reached with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators, and music publishers. Apple’s iTunes Match service works the same…