Macworld July 2018

Sometimes it’s fun to think big. Apple as a company usually focuses on products: things that it builds that consumers will end up using. Smartphones, computers, tablets, and so on. While other tech companies sometimes put forth their moonshots—big, costly ideas intended to reshape the world, but which rarely do—Apple generally seems content to operate by pushing the envelope on the here and now. But that doesn’t mean that the company hasn’t got larger ambitions: it just doesn’t talk about them. In many cases, that’s probably because those ideas haven’t yet reached the point of becoming discrete products that the company can create and ship. When you’re taking on a large idea, especially one in an entrenched industry, it can be tough to distill that big idea down to the…

It’s been a long time coming, but having your Mac tell you that some of your apps will stop working brings some immediacy to the issue: If there’s a 32-bit Mac app you rely on to get work done, and it’s no longer being updated, on forthcoming versions of macOS it will only work with compromises, and ultimately it won’t work at all. Don’t fear the death of your old software, my friends. Your current long-in-the-tooth favorites, and old friends you said goodbye to years ago, can live on and still be useful, thanks to the miraculous digital afterlife known as virtualization. A LEGAL HEDGE AGAINST OBSOLESCENCE When you think about emulation (if you think about it at all), it’s probably in the context of downloading software that lets you play…

Inspired by a Bloomberg report that Apple may introduce a way for iOS apps to be converted to run more easily on macOS, I recently came up with a list of iOS apps that I’d like to see on the Mac. After Apple’s Chicago event in March to launch the new iPad, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke to an Australian writer and told him that rumors of merging the Mac and iOS weren’t true. I was maybe ten feet away from them when this happened, and it was a media scrum—not the kind of place where a CEO does anything but restate the existing company line. (In the same conversation Tim Cook literally said “I use everything and I love everything.”) I’m not entirely convinced that Apple’s long-term approach to its…

Mounting cloud storage on the desktop is a great idea with a few inherent limitations built in. Bandwidth is the principal concern, because even the speediest internet connections available to consumers aren’t nearly enough to transfer gigabyte-plus sized files as fast as attaching external hard drives to your Mac. Be that as it may, applications like CloudMounter remain a worthwhile utility if you rely on cloud storage. FIRST ONE’S FREE, PAY FOR MORE Plenty has changed since we reviewed the original release of Eltima Software’s promising CloudMounter in 2016. For starters, this ingenious menu bar utility is now free to download and use - as long as you can get by accessing a single Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive account, that is. If you want to access multiple cloud accounts or…

There’s nothing on the market like the Omni 20 USB-C, a sturdy and well-designed charging pack that has a 73 watt-hour (Wh)/20100 millampere-hour (mAh) capacity. Unfortunately, its particular set of features mean it works best for a specific set of users instead of most laptop owners with USB-C charging ports. Its feature list is quite long. The Omni pack has two USB-C and two USB Type-A ports. It can output 100 watts total from its two USB-C ports simultaneously (max 60W from each one) via Power Delivery (PD) 2.0 support, and recharge its internal batteries at a maximum of 45W total from either port or both ports at once. It also can push up to 15W from both its Type-A ports and at the same time. That high rate of…

NAIM AUDIO UNITI ATOM Naim Audio has built support for almost every music source you can think into its glorious Uniti Atom all-in-one music streamer, which houses a high-end Burr-Brown DAC and a 40-watt Class AB amplifier. It can stream music from a network server, pull music from an attached USB storage device, receive music from Bluetooth sources, connect to internet radio stations, Spotify, and Tidal Hi-Fi, and it supports Apple AirPlay. And the the Atom sounds every bit as wonderful as you’d hope a $3,000 audio streamer would.— MICHAEL BROWN TRIPP LITE TLP1008TEL SURGE PROTECTOR The Tripp Lite TLP1008TEL is the best and affordable 10-outlet option for a surge protector that cuts off power when its internal protection has failed across any of the electrical paths that provide power.…