Tabla de contenidos para No. 211 en iCreate

Apple responds to the COVID-19 challenge Apple stores around the world have closed in response to COVID-19. Staff are working from home and orders have switched to online-only. “There is no mistaking the challenge of this moment. The entire Apple family is indebted to the heroic first responders, doctors, nurses, researchers, public health experts and public servants globally who have given every ounce of their spirit to help the world meet this moment,” says Tim Cook, Apple CEO. With the Genius Bar closed customers are encouraged to visit support.apple. com for service. So far no date has been given for Apple retail stores reopening. Spotify now works with Siri on Apple Watch Apple Watch Hey Siri, have you heard that Spotify now works with you on the Apple Watch? Thanks…

OLLOCLIP WIDE-ANGLE + MACRO LENSES £20.81 If you own an older iPhone without multiple lenses you can expand its photo composition options with third-party clip-on lenses. Choose the right clip for your particular iPhone model. You’ll need an olloclip iPhone case too. ANKER SELFIE STICK £8.99 When shooting a selfie you’re likely to obscure the shot with a finger. The Anker selfie stick lets you trigger the shot remotely. It also gives you a wider frame of view rather than limiting you to an arm’s length composition. IXPAND FLASH DRIVE GO £91.99 This handy gadget’s lightning connector enables you to transfer shots from your iPhone to a flash drive to free up valuable storage space. You can then plug the drive into your Mac to transfer the images.…

Settings Tap here to change photo properties such as format and aspect ratio. FirstLight has more image shape choices than the default Camera app (including 5:4, and 3:2). Shoot in Raw Shooting in the uncompressed .DNG (Digital Negative) format creates larger files that are packed full of extra information about colour and tone. This helps you produce better looking results when editing. Loupe Tap and hold on part of the screen to summon a magnifying loupe view. This helps you check the shot is in focus in a particular area. Helpful histogram This undulating histogram graph helps you see the spread of tones in the scene, with shadows on the left, midtones in the middle and highlights on the right. Change lens Tap here to select other lenses such as…

In high-contrast lighting your iPhone may struggle to set an exposure that features detail in the shadows, midtones and highlights. It may prioritise highlights which will under-expose shadows. If it prioritises shadow detail the sky will be blown out. Fortunately, iOS Photos lets you make selective tonal adjustments to restore detail to problem areas. 1 Brilliance In Photos, browse to a problem picture and tap the Edit icon. In our example the shadows are under-exposed. Tap the Adjust icon. Swipe to the Brilliance icon. This tool can lighten shadows and darken highlights. 2 Brighten the shadows Swipe to the Shadows icon. Drag the Shadows slider downwards to selectively lighten the under-exposed shadows and reveal more detail without over-exposing the brighter sunlit building.…

Once you’ve snapped, edited and organised your shots you’ll want to share them with friends, family and followers on social media sites such as Twitter. Fortunately your iPhone has plenty of sharing tools for you to exploit. However, before sharing your shots with others it’s a good idea to make sure that your iOS and Mac Photos libraries are identical. Fortunately you can use the iCloud to automatically sync shots on your iPhone, iPad and Mac as we’ll demonstrate… Knowledge base Buy more storage To get your iPhone to automatically share to the iCloud you’ll need an iCloud account. You get 2GB storage for free, but it’s worth paying £0.79 ($0.99) per month for the 50GB storage plan if you shoot a lot of stills (and you can upgrade to…

Photos recognises faces in your photos. You can use this AI feature to gather multiple photos of your favourite people into an easy to find collection. Tap on ‘Albums’ to see a People album in the automatically curated People & Places category. You can give Photos a helping hand to identify important people and remove photo-bombing strangers. 1 Favourite faces Tap on the People album. A collection of faces will appear. Tap on an unnamed face to add a name. Tap the heart icon to favourite a face. Favourites will appear at the top of the People album. 2 Slideshow Tap on a face to view multiple shots of that person. Tap the Play icon to view their shots in a slideshow. After the slideshow plays you can customise its…

When shooting video an iPhone captures 30 frames (or images) per second and then plays them back at the same rate. This reproduces movement at a normal speed. Your iPhone’s Time-lapse mode causes the camera to capture a series of frames at wider intervals. As there’s a pause between each captured shot the action plays back at a faster speed in the time-lapse video clip. Tap the Time-lapse button to start recording your subject. When shooting time-lapse footage a tripod is essential – here the Veho X-Lapse tripod head is adding a pan to the footage.…

Knowledge base Chroma key The chroma key compositing technique involves keying out a colour (such as blue or green) and replacing it with footage from another layer. If the green screen is unevenly lit (or if you cast a shadow on it) then traces of green can remain. Green is often the preferred colour as it stops a subject’s blue eyes from becoming transparent. Fine-tune key When working with green screen clips tap here to use a slider that changes the tolerance of the composited colour to create a cleaner key. Don’t push it too far or you’ll poke holes in your subject. Garbage matte You may not have enough green backdrop to fill the frame. Tap here then drag the matte’s corner handle closer to your subject. Areas outside…

Knowledge base Spot an unhappy Mac Hopefully you won’t ever need to call upon your new emergency Catalina drive, but here are a few warning signs that your Mac may need some TLC: your Mac is slow to turn on and load your desktop; hangs at the spinning gear when turning on; frequent rainbow beachballs when trying to open an app or file; general lag and slowness. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) This is the most common format for hard drives used with Macs. It has a built-in feature called ‘journaling’ that helps to avoid corruption of your files if your Mac happens to turn off unexpectedly. Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) This Mac format is case-sensitive to folder names. For example, folders named ‘Homework’ and ‘HOMEWORK’ are two completely different…

Safer extensions The safest Safari extensions can be downloaded from the Mac App Store and are the ones we would recommend you use if possible. You need to keep your system safe at all times. Extending apps Some of the most useful Safari extensions are linked to official Mac apps because they enable you to undertake potentially complex operations with one automated click. In some cases they are the main focal point of an app. Extensions settings The extensions settings in Safari let you uninstall extensions instantly without any effort at all. You can also view more details and the permissions each extension needs within this panel. On and off In the Safari Preferences you can turn extensions on and off at any time. This is useful if you want…

Find the Shortcuts Launch the YouTube app and tap your profile icon. Select ‘Settings’ and scroll down to ‘Siri Shortcuts’. Tapping that will bring you to this screen. Add a Shortcut If you like the sound of a shortcut displayed here, just tap the ‘+’ next to it. You can then view the associated command and alter it if you wish. “Hey Siri, search YouTube” will launch the app and let you type a search term. Using your voice Given you’re asking Siri to search YouTube, you may as well go one further and allow the app to access your microphone and instantly listen out for the videos you’d like to watch. Launch your subs Why not have Siri launch YouTube on the subscriptions page? Select this shortcut and you…

Access your subscriptions To view your current subscriptions, go to Settings> Apple ID>Subscriptions and all of your current subscriptions, including free trials, will be listed in the ‘Active’ section. Renewal receipts Turning this option on means that receipts are sent to you every time a subscription renews, although for the purposes of your free trials, this is shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted! Check the date The date for when your free trials end will be displayed here as your next billing date. Create a calendar event to ensure you cancel your subscriptions before this date comes around. Cancel subscription To cancel a subscription, tap on it in the Active list to see the various payment options and then simply tap on the ‘Cancel Subscription’ option to…

Key features Four sensors & two foot straps • Bluetooth • Dual USB cable • Free app Learn more senstroke.com Available from amazon.co.uk HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO PLAY drums but, like so many others, are hamstrung by a lack of space and unsympathetic neighbours? Then get ready to rock because Senstroke is the ideal solution – a virtual drum kit comprising of Bluetooth sensors that you attach to your sticks and your feet to allow you to play anywhere, on anything. Keith Moon Senstroke is available in three different sets: the Essential Box (comprising of two sensors, one pair of sticks, one foot strap and one practice pad), the Standard Box (comprising of four sensors, two foot straps and one bass pedal adaptor) and the Ultimate Box (comprising of…

Because you carry your iPhone with you wherever you go you’ll use its Camera app to document daily events, snap a selfie or capture photo opportunities such as a striking sunset. Newer iPhone models such as the XR and the 11 series enable you to take even better looking shots thanks to their range of extra lenses and expanded Camera app tools. For example the iPhone 11’s Portrait mode can add a D-SLR camera style background blur to any subject, while older models such as the 7 Plus can only blur the background in people pictures. This feature is designed to help you shoot better quality iPhone photos, fix common problems with exposure and colour and organise your photos. We’ll show you how to share your edited shots directly from…

The iPhone 11 Pro’s three lenses let you vary your composition without moving. It also gives you the option of preserving extra image data around the edge of the frame so you can fine-tune the composition in the Photos app. 1 Change lens The iPhone 11 Pro’s ultra-wide lens enables you to include more of a location in the frame, making it perfect for capturing architectural subjects. It also causes vertical lines to converge dramatically towards the top of the frame. 2 Preserve edges Tap on Settings and go to Camera. Scroll down to Composition. Toggle on ‘Photos Capture Outside the Frame’. This preserves more data around the edge of the frame which gives you more cropping options in the Photos app. 3 Panorama Older iPhones can capture a wider…

When compositing a shot within the Camera app it can be a challenge to know if a particular subject is sharply focused. In the glare of a sunny day it’s also hard to see onscreen if a particular area is over- or under-exposed. FirstLight offers extra tools that help you understand which areas are in focus and which are correctly exposed. 1 Focus peaking Tap on a subject to auto focus on it. Fine-tune the focal point by swiping right to focus on a closer subject. Swipe left to focus on a distant one. Green lines will cling to the sharpest subjects. 2 Clipping warnings Tap to set auto exposure. Fine-tune the exposure by swiping up to make it brighter. Swipe down to darken it. Over-exposed areas will be indicated…

Most photographs will benefit from a bit of post-production processing before they look their best and are suitable for sharing. Fortunately, your iPhone’s Photos app has all the tools you need to correct problems with colour, composition and tone in a few taps and swipes. 1 Become a cropper The Crop tool helps you remove objects at the edge of the frame and zoom in on your subject. You can also rotate the image to straighten tilted horizons and crop to different aspect ratios such as Square. 2 Fix distortion When you shoot a tall building from a low angle its walls converge inwards towards the top of the frame. The Crop tool has a Vertical correction icon. Swipe its slider up/ right to straighten the walls. 3 Colour correction…

1 Turn on Sharing In your iPhone go to Settings>iCloud. Tap ‘Photos’. Scroll down to ‘Shared Albums’ and toggle it on. This setting enables you to share albums that others can add to and comment on. 2 Create an album Tap on ‘Albums’ then tap the ‘+’ icon. Tap ‘New Shared Album’. Label the Shared Album with a suitable description. Tap ‘Next’, then tap the ‘+’ icon to choose recipients from your Contact list. Tap ‘Create’. 3 Add images Tap on the empty album in the Shared Albums collection. Tap the ‘+’ icon and browse your library. Tap to select photos to add to the Shared Album. Tap ‘Done’. Type in a message and tap ‘Post’.…

Knowledge base File formats Your iPhone can use the lightweight high efficiency HEIF format to cram more photos onto your device. It can also shoot compressed JPEG files. JPEGs are easier to share via social media and email. Apps such as Firstlight capture Raw images as Digital Negative (.DNG) files. This is a universal format created by Adobe to make it easier to share and edit Raw format files. Histogram The histogram graph helps us diagnose exposure problems. If the graph is clumped too far right then the shot is over-exposed. This processed shot displays a healthy spread of shadows, midtones and highlights. Selective adjustments If you adjust Exposure to lighten under-exposed shadows then you’ll overexpose the highlights. The Shadows and Highlights sliders enable you to target and tweak specific…

Knowledge base Bus benefits So you may ask, what’s the point of having two buses in our pedalboard? Well, by splitting the path and achieving two effects chains we can output a mono blend or a panned stereo mix of two differently processed signals. On one side you might have a clean signal, while the other is distorted before both go into a delay, for example. Router area This thin panel sits above the main pedal area within the Pedalboard plugin window. Hover over it and it opens to reveal the two effect buses that can control signal flow as needed. Splitter unit These divide the signal between the buses. If set to ‘Split’ then the signal is equally split 50/50, while ‘Freq’ routes signals over the Frequency value to…

Knowledge base Inside track Smart Controls are specific to each track’s channel strip, rather than a specific plugin or instrument. That means that you can set up controls for parameters from more than one plugin in each layout. So, with an eight-control layout, you could map four controls to four synth parameters, and set another four to control a reverb plugin that follows it in the channel strip. Change layout The block of text above the currently selected parameter name is actually a popup menu of predefined alternative control layouts, designed around particular instruments or setups. Just click and select to choose a new layout from the list. Home in on the range Use the Min and Max Range fields to alter how much of an effect a Smart Control…

Knowledge base Watching embedded videos If you are watching embedded videos in sites such as Vimeo then the process of initiating Picture in Picture mode is slightly different. Look to the right of the playback controls and you will see the PiP icon just to the side of the AirPlay icon. Click on this and the video will be transferred to a separate window. It doesn’t have to be playing to do this. Picture in Picture window When you initiate PiP mode it will be displayed in a window in the top-right corner of your desktop. You can adjust the size of the window by clicking, holding and dragging in the corner. Controlling ads If the videos that you are watching in the Picture in Picture video window are interrupted…

Select slides An animated GIF can be made from one or many slides. Choose which slide to export as a GIF here. The file size grows as slides are added, so keep the number to a minimum. Select the resolution Animated GIFs viewed on the computer can be any size and they will be fine. However, for sharing on the web, they should be as small as possible. Choose a low or medium resolution. Pick a frame rate Choose a frame rate here. Low frame rates have jerky animation, but small files. High frame rates are super smooth, but result in large files. Keep frame rates low to minimise size. Animate slide objects This is an animated GIF so use the animation features of Keynote to make things move, blink,…

To make the most of extensions you will want to set them up in a way that makes sense for you and which makes them easily accessible. Apple does a very good job of ensuring that the Safari interface is as minimal as possible and with just enough options to allow customisation for each user. Extensions can, however, clutter the interface up a little if you are not careful so be considered with your changes. 1 Just one click Right-click in an empty part of the toolbar at the top and click ‘Customise Toolbar’. You will now be presented with a panel that lets you move everything around as you want it to be. 2 Drag and drop You can now drag icons from the top to the toolbar at…

Access this screen Reach this screen by going to Settings>Accessibility in iOS 13 and scrolling right to the bottom of the list of options before tapping ‘Accessibility Shortcut’. Select a shortcut Go down the list and select the options that you want to map to the triple-click action. For example, select ‘Reduce White Point’ to make the screen more eye-friendly when clicking the side button three times. Choose more than one If you want to make use of more than one accessibility option then simply tick all of the shortcuts that you want to add. When triple-clicking the side button, you’ll be able to choose the one you need from a menu. Order the shortcuts When selecting more than one shortcut, you may want to have some higher up the…

Tap to view Each individual item can be tapped which will not only show you the image, but also enable you to tap it to access the original web page. The active content helps. Media-centric presentation The way the images are displayed ensures that you know what you are looking at all of the time. It takes very little effort to navigate through your collections. Collection data Each collection is displayed with the number of items listed alongside the title, the privacy status and a thumbnail for super-quick recognition. It is simple and very effective. Places as well Don’t limit your collections to just images and links. You can also create collections of places to visit and all kinds of other topics. It is almost limitless. Knowledge base Share your…

Deliver quietly Select this option and you can ensure that any notifications which appear from that app to your Watch will go straight to the Notification Centre. Swipe left As of watchOS 5, you can manage notifications on your Watch for specific apps. When a notification arrives, swipe left to reach this screen. Turn Off on Apple Watch If you simply don’t want that app to send you notifications, then choose ‘Turn Off on Apple Watch’ and you won’t be alerted to them. Across devices If it’s a non-stock app, turning off notifications means you won’t be buzzed on both your Watch and iPhone. For a stock app, choose what happens individually on each device. Knowledge base Stop haptic taps If you silence notifications on your Watch (and you can…

Price £27.99/$28.99 Requirements macOS 10.12 or later • 64-bit processor • 10.8MB Learn more rogueamoeba.com Available from Mac App Store IF YOU FIND AUDIO EDITING A CUMBERSOME CHORE then Fission eradicates the monotony by making everything a finger-snapping cinch. Through the simple interface you can merge audio files, trim, split, and edit metadata quickly and easily. You can also batch convert audio files between formats, including MP3, AAC, FLAC, AIFF, WAV and Apple Lossless – just drag your files into the window and the app does the rest. “Merge audio files, trim, split and edit metadata quickly and easily…” Also, if you like to convert your old vinyl to digital then Fission is the perfect accompaniment to apps such as VinylStudio as it is able to split files based on…

THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK HASN’T STOPPED APPLE RELEASING TWO BRAND NEW iPAD PROS WITH TRACKPAD SUPPORT. The new iPad Pro range comes in two different screen sizes – 11-inch and 12.9-inch and has storage options from 128GB to 1TB. To complement the new iPads, Apple has also released a new Magic Keyboard, which features a superb new floating design and houses a trackpad for the first time. The exciting new iPad Pros also come with a new LiDAR scanner for sensing the depth of objects in front of it, but the big news is really the trackpad support. Trackpad support for iPads has been completely reimagined by Apple, so rather than copy the traditional experience of using a trackpad on a Mac, Apple started from the ground up and tried to…

When shooting into direct sunlight your subject will be backlit, making it a challenge to capture detail in both the shadows and the highlights at the same time. Your iPhone’s HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode enables you to capture more detail in contrasting areas by snapping a burst of three shots that have different exposure settings. It then automatically merges them together as a single shot. In low light the iPhone 11 series can produce amazing results using its Night mode. 1 Set HDR mode The XR and 11 automatically use Smart HDR. If you prefer to activate the HDR mode manually go to Settings>Camera and toggle off Smart HDR. An HDR icon appears in the Camera app. 2 Take a shot Hold the camera steady as you snap the…

DSLR camera users can manually open the aperture wider to create a shallower depth of field. This causes the background to blur. This blur (bokeh) helps draw attention to the focused subject. The iPhone can mimic this bokeh effect and even adjust it before (and even after) the shot has been snapped! 1 Set to Portrait mode The iPhone 7 Plus to the XR feature a Portrait mode in their Camera app that can add background blur to pictures of people. However if you try and shoot anything else you’ll get a ‘No person detected’ message. 2 Pet portrait The iPhone 11 can add background blur to any subject. Make sure your subject is within eight feet of the lens. Tap ‘Portrait’. Tap to focus on the subject. Tap the…

Want some more? Click here to access alternative photo editors that you may have installed (such as Camera+ 2 ). You can also summon Apple’s Markup tools and add text to your photo. Closer look To see how sharp a shot is (or spot image noise), pinch to zoom in for a closer look. The Adjust panel has tools to sharpen detail and smooth out nasty noise. Auto fix The Magic Wand icon boosts contrast and creates more vibrant colours instantly by adjusting a host of other settings. You can fine-tune the auto fix by sliding the adjacent dial. Improve composition Click here to access the Photos app’s crop and straighten tools. Drag corner handles to crop the shot to remove unwanted edge objects. Drag the angle dial to counteract…

Photos enables you to change an image’s mood quickly using creative filter effects. You can add effects as you snap a shot or apply them in the editing process. You can also apply filter effects to video clips. 1 Apply filters in-camera Before taking a photo with your iPhone’s camera, tap the Filter icon. Nine thumbnail filter previews will appear offering a range of different looks. Tap the look that you prefer and snap the shot. 2 Apply filters in Photos To apply a filter in Photos, tap the Edit icon and then tap the Filters icon. Swipe through the filter previews to see how the shot might look. Tap a preset to apply the look. Adjust using the slider. 3 Third-party filters The versatile FirstLight camera app boasts a…

Preview content In the Years view you can watch the animated thumbnail change to display a single shot from each month in that year. Swipe left or right to scroll through the months. Zoom through time Tap on a particular month’s thumbnail in the Year view to zoom into the Month view. Each monthly thumbnail contains images captured during a narrower range of time. Share it Tap on this icon to share photos contained in that time-based collection with contacts or via apps such as WhatsApp. You can also present them as an animated sideshow or display them on a map. View by time Tap the Photos icon to view shots according to when they were shot. You can displays images by Year, Month or Date. Day by day Tap…

The easiest way to transfer multiple photos from iPhone to Mac is via the Apple’s iCloud. When you come in range of a Wi-Fi connection your latest iPhone snaps will automatically be uploaded to iCloud Photos and synced to your Mac. 1 Turn on iCloud Photos On your iPhone tap on the Settings app, then scroll down and tap on ‘Photos’. Set iCloud Photos to On. Your pics won’t automatically upload via Wi-Fi if your iPhone is set to Low Power mode. 2 Save space Tick ‘Optimise iPhone Storage’ to store low-res shots on your iPhone. A circular progress icon indicates that a full-size version is downloading from the iCloud when you need to edit or share a shot. 3 Synced edits Edits made on your iPhone will be applied…

1 Find selfies Go to Albums in the Photos app and scroll to Media Types to see a range of automated collections. Shots and clips captured using the iPhone’s front-facing camera lens are collected in a Selfies album. 2 Find places When you snap a shot on your iPhone the image file is geo-tagged with GPS coordinates. The Places album uses this information to display photos according to where they were shot on a map. 3 Wonderful widgets Swipe to your iPhone’s Widgets screen. Tap ‘Edit’ to add a Photos widget. This displays collections based on location and time. Tap on a thumbnail to access its collection in the Photos app.…

Knowledge base Frame rate If you shoot in Pal format your camcorder may capture footage at a frame rate of 25 frames per second. The iPhone Camera records video in other frame rates like 30 or 60 fps, causing your iPhone footage to look perky when added to a 25 fps timeline. In DoubleTake you can toggle to a frame rate of 25 fps. Library After tapping the Record icon to start and stop a sequence, tap here to view your clips. You can export clips from the Library to the iPhone’s camera Roll, or AirDrop them to your Mac to edit them in Final Cut Pro X. Camera Picker Click here to choose a combination of two iPhone lenses. This enables you to capture A roll and B roll…

Both the Mixer and Splitter utility units can be repositioned within the Router area as required. Most simply, dragging them left or right horizontally moves the ‘downmix’ or split point to earlier or later in the pedal chain. Pedals themselves are therefore moved either side accordingly while still residing along Bus A. There are some general caveats to observe, with the main one being that the two units cannot sit immediately before or after each other as we explain here. 1 Splitter shifting Dictating where a split to Bus B occurs, you need at least one pedal already. Its draggable position is only variable if you have multiple pedals in the chain and it can’t immediately follow a Mixer. 2 Mixer movement The Mixer blends both buses and can’t move…

Knowledge base View Medical ID You can also set up emergency contact details in the Health app and make them accessible from your Lock Screen by tapping on your avatar and then going to Medical ID>Edit>Show When Locked. To access it, the person would need to try and unlock your iPhone, then tap Emergency>Medical ID. But would they know this if they weren’t an iPhone user? Vital information Pick the information on your emergency wallpaper carefully. Try to keep things simple so that the person responding isn’t overwhelmed by nonessential details. Keep it blank? If you wanted to underline that your Lock Screen is reserved for emergency info then you could keep the background white (perhaps with a red cross) so that it’s easier to read. Ideal for all Non…

If you are running an older version of macOS that doesn’t display a mini-menu when right/Ctrl+clicking on the speaker icon then there is an alternative method of accessing the Picture in Picture mode that entails right/Ctrl+clicking on the video window itself within your Mac’s Safari app. This method also works in the most modern versions of macOS too, so those with Mojave/Catalina effectively have two sure-fire ways of accessing the mode. 1 Click on window In Safari, right/Ctrl+click on the video window itself within the webpage and a menu of options will be displayed. However, this isn’t the menu that we want. 2 Repeat to play Right/Ctrl+click on the video window again (not over the previous menu) and a new menu of options will be displayed. From there, select the…

As we use our Macs for so much – work, entertainment, creative projects and managing our household budgets, etc – they soon get filled up with files and documents. And however robust and impervious to common viruses and malware our Macs appear, a computer can never be completely infallible, so it makes sense to regularly back up your files in case of a catastrophe. Luckily, any Mac running macOS 10.5 or above comes with a very reliable backup tool called Time Machine. Time Machine can be set up to automatically run in the background so that it continuously saves copies of your important files – all you need is an external hard drive with sufficient storage to hold the contents of your Mac hard drive. Once set up, Time Machine…

Always new notes To prevent anyone from picking up your iPhone and accessing your instant notes, select this option. It is the most secure and the most private, but it may not be the most convenient for you. Resume which note? If you choose to resume a previous note, choose ‘Created on Lock Screen’ for the best privacy or ‘View in Notes App’ to continue with the last note you opened up in the Notes app. Passcode settings This is not an issue with an iPhone with Face ID. As you pick up the iPhone, it recognises you and logs you in, so select ‘Always’. Choose another option if you don’t have Face ID. Continue a note Choose ‘Resume Last Note’ to avoid creating dozens of new notes each day…

Create a shortcut When you launch the Shortcuts app, select the ‘+’ icon in the top-right of the screen, tap the three-dot icon next to New Shortcut and give it a name. Decide if you want to add the shortcut to your Home Screen and tap ‘Done’. You’ll then reach this screen. Get a file In the top-left search bar, type ‘Get File’ and add the action to your Shortcut. This will allow you to select a file when the Shortcut is run. Just make sure the two sliders are toggled green. Make a PDF Search for ‘Make PDF’ and add this as the second action. You can decide whether to include the margin and also the page range. Save the PDF Want to be able to save the resulting,…

How do I send files from my Mac to my Android phone using Bluetooth… I can’t figure it out? Jeff Ames 1 Open the app Your Mac will have a handy built-in app called Bluetooth File Exchange, which usually resides in the Utilities folder in Applications. Perform a Spotlight search to find it quickly. 2 Find file to send In the app, navigate to a particular file, click to highlight it and then click on the ‘Send’ button. Make sure that your mobile device has Bluetooth turned on and is discoverable. 3 Send the file A list of Bluetooth devices will now appear. Choose your phone and click ‘Send’. Your phone may need to be unlocked in order for it to be viewable from the list of devices. Is there…

Key features AirPlay 2 • Bluetooth • Wi-Fi 5 & 24GHz • HEOS built-in • 20W Learn more denon.co.uk Available from richersounds.com MANY COMPACT WIRELESS SPEAKERS boast a good sound, but not necessarily a big sound, producing a decent range that doesn’t necessarily project to fill the area you’re listening in. No such accusations could be levelled at Denon’s new Home 150 speaker, the smallest component in a three-part multi-room setup – although you wouldn’t bet on it being the smallest when you crank it up for the first time. Full-on ear assault With its advanced acoustic hardware, expertly-tuned digital signal processing and premium drivers, the Denon Home 150 delivers the full tapestry of sound from its relatively titchy 120x187x120mm dimensions. Choosing to mark its maiden outing with Metallica’s subliminal…