Indice dei contenuti per Issue 78 in iPad User Magazine

Have you tried Apple’s AirTags yet? They’re the disc shaped tracking devices that help you locate things like your luggage, bike or keys using Apple’s existing Find My network. Interestingly, Apple has been taking a bit of flak for introducing AirTags without more thought to how they might be misused as stalking devices. The devices are small and inexpensive, so its easy to slip them into somebody else’s bag, for example. On more than one occasion now a woman has reported her iPhone alerting her to an unauthorised AirTag that was tracking her location without her permission. Apple has said it will make AirTags more secure, by making it easier to locate unauthorised tags and setting their beeping noise louder, but these changes may not go far enough. I’ve been…

AirPlay is perfect to use on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. That’s because the difference between what your device can do and what an AirPlay device can do is more dramatic; even the smallest smart TV has a screen many sizes bigger than the biggest iPad Pro, let alone the iPhone 13 mini, and while Apple does amazing things with its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad speakers they’re no match for a HomePod for volume. AirPlay enables your device to hand off media to different hardware. For example, you might have been listening to a podcast on the way home and want to pick up where you left off on your HomePod mini, or you may have found an interesting looking YouTube link you want to see on your…

AirPlay uses Wi-Fi to transmit high-quality audio, video, image and other data from device to device. Relevant Apple apps include Bluetooth speakers alongside AirPlay devices, but they are separate streaming technologies. There are tons of AirPlay devices from tiny speakers to massive OLED TVs, and your Mac can talk to them using the AirPlay 2 standard if it’s running macOS Catalina or later (or iTunes 12.8 or later) and connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Using AirPlay on your Mac couldn’t be simpler. When you’re watching a film or show in the TV app or listening to songs in Apple Music, you’ll see a little icon showing a TV on top of a triangle. That’s the AirPlay icon, and if you click it you’ll see a list of all the…

IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to make the most of Quick Notes in iPadOS YOU’LL NEED iPad (excluding iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4), iPadOS 15 or later One of the standout features in macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15 is Quick Notes, a handy tool that enables you to quickly  capture ideas or information and add it to the Notes app. Quick Notes is ideal for capturing fleeting moments of inspiration, or jotting down notes as you research a topic. You can create a Quick Note from within an app like Safari, in which case they can incorporate a link to the page from where you made the note and a thumbnail of its content. Or you can create them from the Home Screen and…

Apple likes to throw around words like ‘magical’ and ‘incredible’ like confetti at a wedding, but AirPlay really is both. With a single tap or voice command you can share photos, videos, music and more with all kinds of devices. You can even use it to mirror your iOS, iPadOS or macOS device’s screen on your TV to watch a movie or home video or present a Keynote on the big screen. AirPlay is incredibly easy to set up and use, and there’s a huge ecosystem of AirPlay-compatible devices you can share to and from. And chances are, if you’re using it at all, you’re only scratching the surface of what it can do. Over the next few pages we’ll discover how AirPlay works, what it works with, and how…

Last year, we’d have put Apple’s original HomePod in here, but sadly the big pods have been discontinued. Not to worry, though; the HomePod minis are great too, and much cheaper. Whether you’re looking for a budget boombox or something more striking, there are also many spectacular speakers from hi-fi’s biggest names. Sonos Beam 2  £449 sonos.com If you’re looking for a really great soundbar for your TV (or Apple TV), you’ll love this. It delivers a big sound for such a compact soundbar, and it has Dolby Atmos support for impressively immersive audio. JBL Link Music £89.99 uk.jbl.com JBL’s Link and its compact, waterproof Link Portable are great little speakers, pumping out an impressive 20W and connecting via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for maximum compatibility with various sources. Naim Mu-So…

There are lots of AirPlayready TVs out there, but with so many different display technologies and a dizzying range of options the market is confusing if you’re not really into TVs. Luckily, we’re friends with the home entertainment experts at T3magazine, and they are really into TVs. These are the best AirPlay-enabled options from T3’s top 2021 TVs. Samsung The Frame From £399 samsung.com This odd but innovative TV is designed to be a digital art gallery when you’re not watching movies or programmes, and it uses Samsung’s QLED tech to deliver picture quality that comes close to OLED. Prices start at £399 for 32in. Sony X95H Series From £1,049 sony.co.uk Sony TVs combine excellent industrial design with spectacular image processing, and the £1,299 55-inch model of this series is…

The easiest way to AirPlay is to use dedicated AirPlay hardware, but what if you want to add AirPlay to things already in your home such as your hi-fi system or your existing TV? Luckily, that’s easy. Fire TV Stick From £29.99 amazon.co.uk Amazon’s little streaming stick doesn’t work with AirPlay out of the box, but if you install the AirReceiver app (currently £1.78) you can use AirPlay (and other protocols) to stream audio, video and photos to your TV. Denon AVR-S760H Receiver £599 denon.com If your TV doesn’t support AirPlay, don’t worry, tons of home cinema receivers do, including this impressive model from Denon. It only works with audio, though; for video you’ll need an Apple TV. Yamaha MusicCast WXAD-10 Wireless Streaming Adapter £135 europe.yamaha.com Turn any hi-fi system…

Once you’ve got the AirPlay bug, you won’t just want a single AirPlay device all on its lonesome, you’ll want AirPlay in every room of your home. Once you start adding multiple AirPlay receivers, some interesting things become possible including multiroom audio. You can use AirPlay to create multiroom audio in two ways. You can share the same audio to multiple speakers in different rooms. For example, you might want to play the same song at the dining table and in the kitchen. To do that, it’s just a matter of selecting multiple speakers in the AirPlay pop-up in the Music app’s Now Playing view. In most cases that works flawlessly, but when you stream the same thing to multiple speakers you may discover that some of your speakers are…

Free (IAPs) FROM Crescent Moon Games, crescentmoongames.com The Ramp. is a pared–back skateboarding game about finding a “flow” — moving from trick to trick smoothly and effortlessly. It’s simple to play, looks gorgeous, and has a pitch–perfect, relaxing soundtrack, but lacks the depth of content to make it a must–have. The game takes great pride in its minimalism. Its App Store page prominently proclaims that it contains no unlockable content, no missions, and “no guns, explosions and helicopters.” If all you want to do is rack up a sweet line of tricks and grinds, that’s great, and you get a distraction–free Zen–like experience that’s a fun little way to unwind. The problem is that there’s not just a lack of distractions — there’s a lack of content, too. The free…

$3.99 FROM Raw Fury, rawfury.com NEEDS iPadOS 11.0 or later City builder games are often high–pressure affairs requiring you to balance resources and population needs for as long as possible. Townscaper takes the opposite approach. There are no objectives, no threats to your settlement, just a few buildings set in a calm ocean. Every time you click, a new building block appears, with initial blocks taking the form of roads and pathways. Click again and a new block appears, raising the building up a level, or right–click to remove a block. Click around in the water and after a while your town begins to take shape. Townscaper adds features as you go, and you’ll start to notice delightful little details such as steeples, shrubbery, benches, and even lookout points with…