Table of contents for September 2015 in Macworld Australia

Baptist minister and amateur photographer David Enticott enjoys taking photos at sunrise or sunset, when everything turns gold or orange coloured. With a holiday house close to the beach, he has plenty of opportunities to walk to the end of the road and see the world at sunset. His family recently bought a holiday house at Phillip Island, off Victoria’s rugged south coast. On a walk around Cape Woolamai, he noticed that the late afternoon light was perfect for taking pictures. “I always try to shoot with the sun directly behind my back, so that the photos are able to pick up the best possible light. As I started taking shots with the iPhone 6, I also noticed that the clouds looked like they had been taken from an old…

There’s obviously lots of technology that is designed for individuals. But what about the gym and other group exercise environments? We recently visited Versus – an exercise studio in the bayside Melbourne suburb of Hampton East. Versus is a gamified gaming studio. By using sensors such as cameras and pressure-sensitive mats, two people can exercise in competition with each other. It doesn’t matter if one person is taller, faster or stronger than the other, as the system allows for individual differences and adjusts the exercise load on each person so they are evenly matched. The system, developed by Versus founder Brad Bond with RMIT University, uses off the shelf cameras, sensors and screens. The magic is in the software that links all these together. For example, the equipment at a…

iMac with Retina 5K display When Apple released the first 27in iMac with Retina 5K display late last year, all it took was just one look at the gorgeous images on the display and you knew you wanted it. So maybe you forgot about the Retina 5K iMac, until Apple announced a new, lower priced version this year in May. The new Retina 5K iMac is $2799, which isn’t as scary as $3199 for its more expensive sibling. There are three major differences between the new $2799 Retina 5K iMac and the $3199 Retina 5K iMac. These three components are slightly slower in the new model than the ones in the more expensive model. The first component is the processor. It’s still a quad-core Core i5 processor, but it’s a…

I’m not feeling a lot of love for OS X El Capitan out there. That may not be surprising, given that it’s firmly in the tradition of Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard – new-feature-light, speed-and-stability-focused OS X updates. But as someone who reviewed Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, I can tell you that not only did these releases contain a bunch of bug fixes and other internal tweaks, they also managed to add a bunch of new features. Apple can’t help itself. So let me present to you six reasons to be excited about what’s coming in El Capitan. SPOTLIGHT AS SEARCH ENGINE Some people love clicking around looking for things, whether it’s on their computer or on the internet. For those people, we have navigation bars on websites and…

Sure, four (or six, eight or more) gigabytes of mobile data probably sounded like a lot when you first signed up for your iPhone data plan. But thanks to the latest data-hungry iOS apps and features, a gigabyte of mobile data isn’t what it used to be. Indeed, you’d be amazed how quickly your iPhone (or your LTEenabled iPad, for that matter) can gobble up mobile data – particularly if you’re watching HD-quality Netflix videos, streaming iTunes Match songs, using your iPhone’s personal hotspot with your laptop or letting iOS update your apps automatically. Read on for seven ways to put a lid on your iPhone’s mobile data use, starting with... 1. STOP AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS FROM USING MOBILE DATA With the right settings enabled, iOS will automatically download any new…

Apple Music was worth the wait. Amid a marketing frenzy and controversy over royalty payments and Taylor Swift’s feelings, it was easy to forget that few people had actually used Apple’s new streaming service. Apple finally launched Music on 30 June, and it was everything we expected it to be (plus a few surprises thrown in for good measure). Whether you’re giving streaming a try for the first time or just weighing the pros and cons of Apple’s service against rivals like Spotify, Rdio, Tidal and Pandora, there’s nothing to lose by taking Apple Music for a spin. THE SETUP Once you upgrade to iOS 8.4, diving right into Apple Music is simple. The revamped Music app appears in your iOS device’s dock. Open it and you’re greeted with subscription…

Worried about your networked Mac? Protect yourself with OS X’s built-in firewall. Here’s how. After the Working Mac column about scanning your Mac for viruses, I received an email message from Yolanda: “Hope you can help your readers with something that I haven’t found. I’ve just purchased my first Mac after being on Windows for about 15 years, so I’m looking around for reputable recommendations of free and good antivirus/firewall programs.” The article Yolanda linked to recommended ClamXav for scanning your Mac for viruses, but Yolanda was correct, there was no mention made of firewall applications. Most people, whether you’re using a Mac or a PC, are aware that commercial virus scanning applications such as Norton Security not only provide virus and malware protection, they also include firewall protection. What’s…

Until recently, noise-cancelling headphones were quite bulky and relied on covering your entire ear in order to insulate you from ambient noise. Earbuds struggled to properly block sound out – until now. The Bose QC20 buds tick most of the boxes for a set of earbuds for travellers and those looking for a compact yet high quality listening device. The silicone earpieces fit well in our ears. Unlike most buds, the unusual moulding, which Bose calls its StayHear+ tips, look like something from a sci-fi prop room. However, they formed a tight seal with our ear canal and didn’t fall out while we were walking around. Even after wearing the QC20s for a couple of hours, we didn’t feel any discomfort. The active noise-cancelling electronics are housed in a rectangular…

Recent versions of QuarkXPress added features that were requested by Quark’s users. QuarkXPress 2015 continues this strategy. For example, it has changed its version numbering scheme to indicate the year of release and the product is still offered with a traditional perpetual licence rather than requiring an ongoing rental fee. New features include Fixed-Layout eBooks, text variables that automatically populate content such as running headers, a new table feature with Excel integration, automatic footnotes and endnotes, and PDF/X-4 output. EPUB ENHANCEMENTS The ePub format has two variants: Reflowable, commonly used for novels, textbooks and other simple text-and-pictures publications; and the newer Fixed Layout ePub, the preferred format for publications the layout of which is as important as its text and pictures. QuarkXPress 2015 supports both Fixed and Reflowable ePubs. While…

APPLE REVAMPS WEBSITE – NO MORE STORE Apple has redesigned its website, removing the familiar ‘Store’ link from the top menu, as well as making some typeface and subtle colour changes. While things may not look all that different, Apple has chosen to get rid of its separate online shop entirely. However, you can still go to apple.com.au/store if you prefer to make a direct leap. There have been ‘Buy Now’ buttons on Apple’s product pages for some time. As you browse and choose products, however, they’ll be added to your ‘Product Bag’ – apparently Apple doesn’t like the more common term ‘Shopping Cart’ either! So, why has Cupertino decided to merge its virtual storefront and warehouse after all these years? An Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch that it’s “to give…

Many emerging sports are able to increase interest for both spectators and athletes by the use of social media and online platforms for advertising and training. One sport that has grabbed the bull by both horns is roller derby. Lisa ‘Basement Staxx’ Banks competes in a league in Adelaide. The name of the league – the Murder City Roller Girls. “Roller derby is one of the fastest growing sports for women worldwide, and there are mixed gender, men’s and junior leagues popping up, too,” says Banks. Games, or bouts, are played in two halves on a flat track. Each half of the game is made up of several two-minute jams – competitions where five team members from each team line up on the track. One member of each team wears…

A Wall Street Journal piece argues Apple should kill the Macintosh line. It completely ignores Apple’s fundamental thinking about its future. The Wall Street Journal isn’t trolling us, is it? Columnist Christopher Mims penned an essay titled ‘Why Apple Should Kill Off the Mac’, which enumerates various reasons. But it ignores the elephant in the room: Apple will never again let another company decide its destiny. Mims’ thesis is that Apple is stretched so thinly, it cannot design new Macs and produce an operating system for them while maintaining its focus on making the best products in the world. The iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch suffer because Macs still exist. No longer investing in “one-of-a-kind feats of engineering like the Mac Pro” would free the company to go all-in on…

Rather than chaining you to your couch, SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun Connect lets you watch live free-to-air television on practically any device around your home. The HDHomeRun Connect doesn’t feature an HDMI socket for connecting to your television. On the back you’ll only find power, Ethernet and TV aerial sockets. The tiny box’s job is to act as a DLNA server, making the free-to-air channels available to any DLNAcompatible media player around your home. There’s no built-in Wi-Fi, so the challenge in some homes will be finding a spot for the HDHomeRun Connect with easy access to both an Ethernet connection and an aerial socket. A Wi-Fi to Ethernet adapter like Apple’s Airport Express, or perhaps a Powerline AV adapter, could help with this. The box features two HD digital TV tuners,…

When the iPad was first released, one of the criticisms levelled by some experts was that the lack of a dedicated stylus made input difficult and would limit the device’s appeal. Well, millions of units later, after defining a completely new product category, Apple proved those experts wrong – kind of. In response to those criticisms, the developer and accessory ecosystem that developed around the iPad created styli that could be used with the iPad. The trouble is, they were little more than dumb sticks with a piece of rubber on the end. The app development gurus at 53 created Paper. This app was recognised by Apple as the iPad App of the Year. Paper makes it easy to capture ideas, text, diagrams and all sorts of titbits of information…