Table of contents for August 1, 2015 in Macworld UK

Ever since Steve Jobs gave us a sneak peak at Apple’s internal iTV project at 2006’s ‘Showtime’ event, we’ve been waiting for Apple’s pioneering set-top box to mature. Officially released just moments before the iPhone, Apple TV was designed to be the magical gadget that bridged the gap between the small screens on our mobile devices and the giant ones in our living rooms, wirelessly delivering our music, movies and photos to a place where they could look and sound their best. At the time, Jobs declared that the square box “completes the story” that started with the iPod. But we know the story didn’t end there. With the dawn of the iPhone, iPad and now Apple Watch, our digital lives have become greater than the things that entertain us.…

Developers got their hands on the betas of OS X El Capitan, iOS 9 and watchOS 2 at the beginning of June at WWDC, but on 23 June Apple released second versions of all three betas. Those who have signed up to Apple’s Developer Program can upgrade the iOS 9 beta over the air or download it from Apple’s Developer Resources. The El Capitan beta is available in the Mac App Store, on machines already running the first beta, or from the Mac Developer Center. The second beta of watchOS 2 is available to developers through the Apple Watch app found in the updated iOS 9 beta. Developers will also need to install a watchOS 2 configuration profile found on Apple’s website. These betas bring us one step closer to…

Photos for Mac is finally out, and that’s a real ‘finally’ given how long we’ve all been wrestling with the limitations of iPhoto in OS X and Apple’s early announcement of its replacement. Photos for OS X has a lot going for it, especially in speed. But it’s also a ground-up rewrite of our Mac photo experience, and some pieces are missing, some moved, and some broken. Here we’ll answer some of your questions about Photos. Merging libraries Several people have asked Macworld how to cope with multiple existing iPhoto libraries. One wrote, “Do I import them one after another into the new Photos for Mac? And which one will be the default System Photo Library?” Like iPhoto, Photos can load just one library at a time and only convert…

When I first started writing about the Mac, networking involved multiple protocols, cables, hubs, routers, switches and crossed fingers as you attempted to configure the whole thing in the operating system. Wi-Fi has done away with the cables and while there are still several protocols, if you want to connect Macs and Windows machines on a network, the only two you need to worry about are AFP and SMB. Now, when you connect your Mac to a Wi-Fi network on which there are other Macs and PCs, by default you’ll see them pop up in the Finder’s sidebar. There’s still a great deal you can do, however, to configure settings and make sure everything runs as you want it to and, importantly, you only share files and folders you want…

Many years ago, I was in an office full of people who used desktop-publishing software, and the running joke was how they needed a ‘Make Better’ button. Very amusing, until software such as Apple’s iOS Photos app added an Enhance button that often just made things better. Using a reasonably sophisticated analysis of an image, a single click could reshape an image’s tones to make it an objectively more fuller-toned version of itself. But ‘better’ is often not good enough, and if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, the Photos for OS X app includes more refined, granular and easier-to-use tools than iPhoto. They’re also speedy to preview and apply in comparison. (If you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, any edits you make are synced to your other Photos…

Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications 1.3GB drive space i OS 9, the next version of Apple’s software operating system for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, was unveiled at WWDC 2015. Here, we look at what you can expect. The flagship feature is a contextually intelligent, predictive personal assistant that Apple has referred to as ‘Proactive’. It tries to work out what you want to do before you ask, and then offers a shortcut to that function. Proactive constantly observes what you do on your device: the apps you use, the people you contact, and when and (we understand) where you do these things. It learns your habits. So, for example, if you always open the Weather app first thing in the morning, Proactive will notice the pattern and start to…

£TBC Contact microsoft.com/en-gb Specifications OS X 10.10 or later Microsoft is very proud of the fact that Excel for Mac (like Word) is now compatible with Windows keyboard shortcuts. In other words, among other things Ctrl+C will now copy, as will the same-old 1+C that’s been used on Macs since 1984. This will certainly appeal to number crunchers who’ve bought a MacBook Pro to replace their Lenovo or Dell. Another seemingly trivial new feature is an animated effect when you select a different cell. The highlight now slides over, as if on an icy surface, an effect also seen when selecting a range of cells via dragging. To be honest, this can take a little getting used to and feels less certain than the click-and-drag that’s again been pretty…

Apple is removing the training wheels for Apple Watch app makers, letting them take full advantage of the device’s hardware. Currently, apps can’t function without a paired iPhone, which handles not just internet connectivity but core functions such as the app’s logic. These apps also can’t tap into key hardware features such as the microphone, motion sensors, the heart-rate monitor and the Digital Crown. All that’s going to change now that Apple is allowing native app development on the Watch. The new apps should start to arrive this autumn, alongside the release of watchOS 2 and iOS 9. Why this matters: The Apple Watch is an exquisite piece of hardware, but one that can be extremely frustrating to use. Users are frequently confronted with loading screens, as third-party apps struggle…

Are excessive Apple Watch alerts bugging you? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many find the relentless taps from the Watch’s notification system annoying. The challenge is finding the right balance: the best amount and type of alerts to receive. You don’t want to miss anything, but at the same time you probably don’t want be tapped every time an email arrives or you get a mention on Twitter. Mirror vs Custom notifications There are two approaches to Apple Watch notifications: Mirror: An app using this type of notification simply mirrors the notifications on your iPhone, so when you receive a notification on your handset, you’ll also get one on your Apple Watch. This is the default for all the apps on your Watch. Custom: Only the apps preinstalled by Apple…

Third-party running apps are at a disadvantage on the Apple Watch. For example, they don’t currently have access to its sensors, which means they can’t accurately measure the intensity of your workout and calculate how many calories you managed to burn. They also require some initial setup on your iPhone to make sure that they are tracking the information you want on your wrist, whereas the watch’s native Workout app just, well, works. The nail in the coffin is that you can’t use them when you leave your phone behind. For those reasons alone, Workout wins on its home turf. But there’s nothing stopping you from running with Workout and a third-party app simultaneously, if you want the benefits of both (or just want to compare numbers). And if you’re…

Apple took to the stage at WWDC 2015 to show off iOS 9, and with the unveiling of the new mobile operating system came the announcement about which iPhones, iPads and iPods will be able to get it when it’s released in autumn. Although iPhones and iPads are top of the range (or near the top) when released, as the years go by and new iterations of iOS are released, devices become slow and sluggish; and sometimes they get dropped from compatibility with new iOS updates. But not this year. Here’s a list of every Apple device that supports iOS 9: • iPad 2, 3, 4, Air and Air 2 • iPad mini, mini 2 and mini 3 • iPhone 4s, 5, 5c, 5s, 6 and 6 Plus • iPod…

There’s a lot of fuss these days about high-end audio. In the US, for example, Neil Young is still trying to convince people to part with $400 for his triangular music player Pono, which he argues will make your ears squeal with glee on experiencing it. The Pono store and others are selling so-called high-resolution audio files, which they claim better more typical downloads in closely resembling what studio recordings intended. And even streaming services are getting in on the act, taking advantage of high-speed internet to deliver less compressed music. But what if you’re perfectly happy with your iOS device, and don’t really fancy buying a separate player for audio, and then pretending it’s October 2001? What can you do to improve your experience playing music on your iPhone…

Welcome to Macworld’s in-depth guide to every Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod that Apple makes, as well as other hardware and software that comes out of Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, California. The first two pages offer a quick summary, with detailed looks on the following pages. Apple makes six different kinds of Mac, and each has subcategories and variations in specs and features. Some Macs are faster and more powerful, while other Macs have slower processors but are cheaper. This guide should help you identify which Mac best suits your needs. There are now four different iPhones and five iPads to choose from, along with a collection of iPods and the Apple TV. Plus, we should soon see the launch of the Apple Watch. Read on to understand every product…

There are four standard MacBook Air models available, in two sizes. In March 2015, each MacBook Air was updated and now offers a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 6000 as standard. There are also build-to-order options that let you add a faster Intel processor (the 2.2GHz dual-core i7, for £130), more storage (512GB SSD for £240) and 8GB of RAM (for £80). The only real differences between the different models are the size of the screen, the amount of storage and battery life. Both the 11in and 13in MacBook Air offer either 128GB or 256GB SSD options. The 11in MacBook Air offers nine hours of battery life, compared with the 12 hours of the 13in MacBook Air. The 11in MacBook Air weighs…

You may think the iMac was only recently updated, with a new 5K Retina iMac joining the one introduced in October 2014. However, the rest of the iMac range, with the exception of the £899 model introduced in June 2014, has not been updated since September 2013. The iMac line-up includes three 21.5in versions, one 27in model and two Retina 27in systems. The £899 entry-level 21.5in iMac has a 1.4GHz dual-core i5 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Next up is an iMac that for another £150 gives you a faster 2.7GHz i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. For another £150, the top-of-the-range 21.5in iMac offers a 2.9GHz i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. All the 27in iMacs also offer quad-core…

When the iPhone 5c launched in 2013 it disappointed some who were hoping for a low-cost smartphone from Apple. At launch the iPhone 5c cost £469 – only £80 less than the equivalent iPhone 5s. Months later the company introduced a 8GB version of the 5c for £429. Now that same 8GB version of the iPhone 5c costs £319, a saving of £110. The big question, though, is whether £319 now represents a good price for the iPhone 5c. If you are determined to buy an iPhone but don’t want to spend a lot, then the iPhone 5c might be worth considering. If price is your main concern, it’s also worth looking around for a second-hand iPhone, or you may find you can get a good deal on a new…

Apple sells three types of iPod: the iPod shuffle, the iPod nano and the iPod touch. The iPod touch is far more than just a simple music player. It comes equipped with essentially all the features of a fully fledged iPhone bar the call capabilities. The iPod nano is also a capable device, and small enough to carry anywhere, while the iPod shuffle is simple, inexpensive and tough. Apple quietly retired the original iPod classic in October 2014, after seven years of faithful service. With the iPod classic now a distant memory, those wanting a large amount of storage on their iPod will find the options rather limiting. Currently, the iPod shuffle offers a humble 2GB of storage, while the iPod nano boasts a rather more spacious 16GB. It’s worth…

Apple unveiled the Apple Watch back in September 2014, band finally went on sale on24 April 2015. The best news here is that Apple’s not just launching a smartwatch but a whole raft of smartwatches. By combining the three different Apple Watch categories, the two different face sizes, and the accompaniment of straps, there is the potential for 38 different Apple Watches, so there will be a style to suit anybody. And crucially, since Apple is offering two watch face sizes, the Apple Watch will be as comfortable on a female wrist as it is a man’s. Where other companies have failed to come up with a smartwatch design that suits anyone, Apple has solved the issue by coming up with multiple designs to suit everybody. Rather than try and…

If there was ever any doubt about how powerful Taylor Swift is, let this be a lesson. Hours after Swift admonished Apple for not paying royalties to artists during Apple Music’s free three-month trial, the company abruptly switched gears. “We don’t ask you for free iPhones,” Swift wrote in a blog post. “Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.” Apple media head Eddy Cue took to Twitter after Swift’s open letter to the company went viral and announced that the company will pay artists for songs streamed during the free trial. Swift then tweeted: “I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us.” Apple pays music rights-holders (typically record labels and song publishers) per stream during…

If you’re waiting for Apple to release the second-generation Apple Watch before you finally buy one, well, we don’t blame you. New details indicate that it will be packed with improvements, including a front-facing video camera for FaceTime chats and a wireless chipset that will make the watch capable of standing on its own. It’s the latter that will become a huge selling point for the Apple Watch 2. Right now, your watch requires your iPhone to be nearby for just about everything except activity-tracking and listening to music you’ve stored locally on the device. But according to a report from 9To5Mac, the tech giant is working to free the Apple Watch from the iPhone for all but the most taxing data transfers and file syncing by putting a Wi-Fi…

At WWDC 2015, Apple announced that it was letting the public test the upcoming new version of the Mac operating system – El Capitan – as part of its new, free beta programme. It will let you download and run beta versions of OS X 10.11 – there will be multiple versions as Apple irons out the bugs and glitches. Those who register can download the software and give feedback to Apple to help it perfect the operating system before it’s released to the public in the autumn. To sign up, go to tinyurl.com/pkmbuxz and follow the onscreen instructions. Apple will send you an email informing you when the El Capitan Beta is available to download. Last year, those who had signed up for the beta programme received an email…

This is the third part of our complete guide to System Preferences – you can find the other parts in our previous two issues. Over the following pages, we’ll be looking at your different iCloud options, Network settings, and much more. iCloud options Using the iCloud pane, you can manage your details for Apple’s iCloud service as well as the components that are activated on your Mac. If you haven’t signed in, the pane will be two fields – Apple ID and password – and a Sign In button. Once signed in, you’ll see your avatar, username and iCloud email address to the left of the pane, along with Account Details and Set Up Family/Manage Family buttons. Click Account Details and type in your password to gain access to a…

One of the reasons many of us use a Mac is that most of the time it just works. We don’t have to spend hours dealing with driver updates or fixing problems caused by bloatware. Occasionally, however, even on a Mac, things do go wrong. Fortunately, OS X comes bundled with several tools to help you diagnose and fix problems very easily. The two most useful are Disk Utility and Activity Monitor. Here are a few ways you can use those two utilities to identify why your Mac is not working as well as it should and then resolve the issues. 1. How to fix your startup disk A Mac that won’t start up is one of the most frustrating and frightening problems most of us encounter, but it’s usually…

Sometimes you want to wipe out all the data that’s on a hard drive or solid-state drive – erase it and start over. The best way to do this is to format the drive, which both erases the drive and prepares it for storing data by mapping out bad sectors, creating address tables for locating the data on the disk, and more. Similarly, you may have purchased a new drive that was formatted for Windows out of the box. You’ll want to reformat it for your Mac. But formatting a drive so that it can be used as your Mac’s startup drive requires a slightly different procedure than formatting it for use as a secondary drive for storing data. Over the following pages, we show you the steps using OS…

From £1,599 inc VAT Contact apple.com/uk Specifications 15.4in (2880x1800) Retina display with IPS technology; 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz); 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory; 256GB PCIebased flash storage (configurable to 512GB or 1TB flash storage); Intel Iris Pro Graphics; 720p FaceTime HD camera; MagSafe 2; 2x Thunderbolt 2; 2x USB 3; HDMI; headphone socket; SDXC card slot; 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible; Bluetooth 4; 358.9x247.1x18mm; 2.04kg Two models of 15in MacBook Pro with Retina display have been in production since the Apple’s best notebook launched in late 2012. Both these models were again refreshed in June 2015, with important updates made to the trackpad and the flash-storage specification. With Intel’s Haswell series of processors now almost two years old, there…

From £8.57 per month Contact adobe.com/uk Specifications Creative cloud account Last year, as I was sprinting down the street trying to stay ahead of six angry bulls in Pamplona, Spain, I held my phone behind me to capture some video of the experience, all the while thinking, how am I going to colour-correct this video? And then I looked up at the beautiful old buildings facing the street and thought, hey, that palette would work well with the talking-head videos I had been editing in my hotel room the night before. But how to capture those colours and reuse them? Thankfully, Adobe has solutions for these vexing problems in the latest version of its video-editing application, Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015. Okay, so I didn’t run with the bulls,…

Two months after Apple Watches began arriving on doorsteps around the world, Apple already has a major update in the works. While watchOS 2 won’t debut until this autumn, the Cupertino company used its annual Worldwide Developers Conference keynote in June to show off what you can expect from your upgraded watch. Get ready: these 10 features will turn the Apple Watch from a nice-to-have into a must-have. 1. Apps gone native Watches shipped with watchOS 1, which supports third-party apps but requires them to push all of the heavy lifting to your iPhone. Apps that don’t run natively (so anything other than Apple’s built-in watch apps) currently aren’t allowed to tap into all of the watch’s hardware features, such as the accelerometer, Taptic Engine, microphone and heart-rate sensor. That…

On 24 April, as many of my fellow geeks were up obscenely late (or obscenely early, depending on your time zone) to order their Apple Watches, I was sound asleep, my credit card tucked snugly in my wallet. That’s because from the beginning, I’ve been on the fence about the Apple Watch. It’s not that I have an aversion to buying Apple’s big new products out of the gate. After all, I bought the first versions of both the iPhone and iPad. But none of the reviews I’d read made me see the watch as a must-have device. To the relief of my bank account, I decided to wait and see what kind of reaction it got in the real world. Don’t get me wrong: I was curious, just not…

Jabra Sport Coach £199 jabra.co.uk The Jabra Sport Coach wireless cross-training earbuds, together with the Jabra Sport Life app, enable users to create personalised workouts from over 40 different exercises, with real-time in-ear coaching. The earbuds feature Jabra’s trademarked TrackFit motion sensor, which the company claims “provides advanced tracking of pace, distance, step count, cadence and calories”. The Sport Coach has a sweat, shock and dust resistance rating of IP55, so you shouldn’t worry about damaging it. It also uses A2DP technology that should allow for high quality stereo audio steaming over a Bluetooth connection. Olixar Charging Apple Watch Bamboo Stand with iPhone Dock £29 mobilefun.co.uk The Olixar Bamboo Stand is a combined Apple Watch and iPhone dock, crafted from real bamboo that gives the stand a unique look and…

Apple’s iOS 9 has plenty of major features to look forward to. Just as important, however, are the little things – the minor headaches of previous iOS versions that Apple is now getting around to alleviating. Here are six annoyances that will disappear in iOS 9: 1. A less-confusing Shift key Pop quiz. On the default iOS keyboard, are the letters uppercase when the Shift key is grey or white? Unless you bother to memorise it, this issue has been a constant source of confusion since iOS 7. (The answer, by the way, is white.) Hitting Shift in iOS 9 will toggle the letters on the keyboard between uppercase and lowercase, so there’s no ambiguity about what you’re about to type. 2. A much smaller OS update With iOS 8,…

If you’re willing to allow it, Proactive will learn your habits throughout the day and offer relevant shortcuts to apps and functions based on your previous actions, as well as habits based on your current location. These shortcuts will be presented to you in the bottom left-hand corner of your iPhone/iPad’s lock screen, a space usually reserved for Apple’s ‘Handoff’ feature (which lets you use an app on your Mac and continue where you left off on your iPhone). Proactive also embeds itself in the Search menu, which has reverted to its position to the left of the home screen, as it was prior to the iOS 7 update. For those of you that have got used to the pull-down Search menu, don’t worry – this is still available too,…

If more than one Mac- or iOS device-using person lives under your roof – or if you share your Mac with one or more people – using Photos in a family situation can be a complicated affair. Because you can’t share Photos libraries across a network, you quickly end up with multiple libraries (one for each Mac user account) and nobody remembers which pictures live where. It’s a nightmare; but fortunately, Apple has a solution. Meet Family Sharing Family Sharing enables you to create a special group that you invite family members to join. The end result is a shared album named Family that everyone in the group can access (and it can’t be shared with anyone outside the group). Family members can easily add or remove their own pictures…

It’s easy to buy a brand-new Mac, iPad or iPhone from Apple. The simplest way is to got to store.apple.com/uk to purchase from theonline store. Here you will find every currentMac, iPad and iPhone, and lots of accessories. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to try the product out, you could walk into the Apple Store on your high street or in your closest shopping mall. Not sure where your closest Apple Store is located? Apple has stores all overthe country, 39 in total, and you can look for your local store at apple.com/uk/retail. Unfortunately, as a rule Macs are not cheapbut if you are looking for a bargain you can also pick up a Mac, iPad or iPhone second-hand from Apple. It’s possible to buy refurbished Apple Macs, iPads, and other…

There are five standard Retina MacBook Pro models available, in two sizes, as well as a non-Retina MacBook Pro, which we will cover at the bottom of this page. In March 2015, Apple updated the 13in models, and in May 2015 it updated the 15in models. The key selling point is the Retina display, so called because it delivers maximum optical quality – the human eye is unable to distinguish any more pixels. That make a Retina display about as precise as you can get, ideal for creative work. The 13in model offers 2560x1600 Retina resolution at 227 pixels perinch, while the 15in model offers 2880x1800 resolution at 220 pixels perinch. Unlike the MacBook Air range, the five Retina MacBook Pro models are substantially different in terms of spec, with…

Having neglected the Mac Pro for a few years, Apple eventually updated the line-up at the end of 2013. That leaves us with two standard Mac Pro models – a quad-core 3.7GHz Intel Xeon E5 (£2,499) and a six-core 3.5GHz Intel Xeon E5 (£3,299). As well as sporting more cores and a different processor, the top-of-the range Mac Pro also features 16GB of RAM (rather than 12GB) and faster graphics cards – the Dual AMD FirePro D500 with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each (rather than the Dual AMD FirePro D300 with 2GB GDDR5 of VRAM). These are dual graphics cards, one of the selling points of the Mac Pro. Apple claims that with the additional power, users will be able to “seamlessly edit full-resolution 4Kvideo while simultaneously rendering effects in…

The iPhone 6 Plus wasn’t the only larger iPhone to launch in 2014. The iPhone 6 wasalso introduced, with a screen that measures 4.7in (diagonally) and offers 1334x750 resolution at 326ppi. This suggests that the iPhone 6 has the samepixel density as the iPhone 5s, but Apple has still dubbed its new screen ‘Retina HD’, presumably because it is counting the total number of pixels on display, rather than how close together they are. The iPhone 6 Plus offers a higher pixel density of 401ppi and is also described as Retina HD. Despite the similar sounding pixel count between the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s, Apple has also made modifications to the newer screens’ design, adding dual-domain pixels that allow for improved viewing angles, and other features that enhance the…

With four iPhones and four iPads to choose from, each with very different specs, it can be tricky to decide which iOS device to buy. Those who want a ‘phablet’ experience – midway between a phone and a small tablet – might be interested in the iPhone 6 Plus. Fans of gaming and movies will also like the 6 Plus’s big screen. Some business users may find the big screen good for productivity apps. The 6 Plus is likely to be the phone of choice for early adopters and others who like to have the latest thing, and for those ona big budget. If the iPhone 6 Plus is a bit too big (and more than a few buyers have found this), then you might go for the smaller iPhone…

Just after its WWDC 2015 keynote on 8 June, Apple released iOS 9 as a beta, and developers have been exploring the code in the hunt for clues to future products ever since. One developer, Steve Troughton-Smtih, has discovered that the iOS 9 beta code appears to offer a larger iPad keyboard, with several productivity tweaks that would lend itself perfectly to a 12in iPad, dubbed ‘iPad Pro’ and expected to be a rival to the Microsoft Surface Pro when it launches later this year (or so the rumours say). The bigger keyboard has a shortcut bar, Tap and Caps Lock keys, as well as an entire row dedicated to other characters and punctuation. In addition, iOS 9’s code also appears to support a bigger screen, which is the exact…

Apple on 19 June quietly stopped selling the original iPad mini, the 7.9in tablet that debuted in 2012. The smaller sibling to the 9.7in iPad no longer appears on Apple’s online store. The iPad mini had been superseded by a pair of follow-ups, including the mini 2 in 2013 and the mini 3 last year. Both of those tablets, while sporting the same-sized screen as the original, boasted higher resolution Retina displays. Apple initially priced the iPad mini at £319, but as its successors appeared, dropped the price first to £239 in 2013, then £199. Apple has confirmed the discontinuation of the mini: “The non-Retina iPad mini model is no longer available. Now all models of the iPad mini and Air have 64-bit Apple-designed CPUs and high-resolution Retina displays.” The…

During its WWDC keynote, Apple previewed OS X 10.11, the latest version of its desktop operating system. Over the following pages, we look at what we can expect from El Capitan. Release date and how to get the OS X update now If you are already convinced that you want to run El Capitan and are wondering just how quickly you can get you hands on it, you’ll be glad to hear that you won’t be waiting for long. The operating system will be released in the autumn and you’ll be able to download it for free from the Mac App Store. There are, however, a couple of ways to get hold of it before then. The beta was made available to developers shortly after Apple’s keynote finished, and if…

We’ve already looked at how to join the El Capitan Beta Seed Program (see page 20). In this article, we’ll be looking at how best to prepare your Mac before you download the beta, as well as how to install it. How to install the beta on a Mac The public beta program will let you download and run beta versions of OS X 10.11. Be aware that you will be testing pre-release versions of OS X El Capitan. Running a pre-release version of the software means that you should expect to experience bugs and performance issues. When you receive the email from Apple there will be a download link and a redeem code. You will be able to download the Mac OS X 10.11 Installation from the App Store.…

Playing with the new MacBook recently, I kept having flashbacks to 2008. Remember the first-generation MacBook Air? It captured everyone’s imagination the instant Steve Jobs pulled it from a plain manilla envelope on stage. Just like this new MacBook, the original Air’s form-factor was pretty insane for its time, and Apple had to make some pretty big sacrifices to get the Air that small. No ethernet, no FireWire, and a weird little trap-door you had to flip open to get to the one USB 2.0 port it did have. The keyboard didn’t light up, and it didn’t have anywhere near enough storage. But guess what? That was all rectified in the second generation. The 2010 MacBook Air refresh didn’t bring back everything we’d lost, but Apple did ditch the trap…

Accessing a computer on the same network as your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch is usually just a matter of entering the local network IP address or computer name when prompted in the apps discussed below. However, accessing your computer from outside the home or office is more complicated. You’ll need to configure your router so that the relevant ports are passed through to the computer you want to connect to. It’s also a good idea to configure a dynamic DNS service, so that you can connect via a hostname rather than an IP address, which is prone to changing. Examples of dynamic DNS services include NoIP and DuckDNS, which are free of charge, but how they’re configured is again outside the scope of this article. There are many guides…

Free Contact apple.com/uk Specifications 64-bit CPU; 8GB drive space Apple’s primary focus with OS X El Capitan is performance and stability, and the tech giant is claiming that older Macs will see significant improvements. If that sounds boring, you’ll be glad to hear there are still a few new features as well as some much-needed updates to the accompanying software and the user interface. For example, you’ll be able to choose to hide not only the Dock but also the Menu bar at the top of the screen. Also, when you enter Mission Control (usually by pressing F3) you’ll be able to see all the documents you have open. If this sounds familiar that’s because Apple previously offered this feature in earlier versions of OS X – it was…

£TBC Contact microsoft.com/en-gb Specifications OS X 10.10 or later One of the big boasts of the new Office for Mac is cloud collaboration and Word perhaps benefits most. Provided you’re working from OneDrive or a SharePoint server (the option to connect to these appears in the File Open dialog box of all the new Office apps), somebody else can open the same file and edit/work alongside you. They might do so using the iOS version of Word, for example, or online at the Office website. This isn’t as seamless as Google Docs, where you can actually see the other person’s cursor and what they’re typing, because their changes appear only when they save the document (which is one reason why Word on iOS automatically saves by default). However, it…

Product reviews will never be perfect, but they’re still better than ever Brian X. Chen spent some of his first years in the journalism business testing and reviewing products for Macworld. These days he writes for the New York Times, and recently he wrote an article about the failings of product reviews. As someone who has himself written hundreds of product reviews, I was fascinated to read Brian’s piece. It’s an accurate discussion of the limitations of product reviews, though I’m not sure the problems can ever truly be fixed. First, a recap. Brian bought a well-reviewed Samsung oven, and it broke. At this point, he fell into a bottomless pit of bad customer service – and realised that despite all his diligent research, including reading numerous product reviews, he…

Pebble couldn’t have been pleased with the smartwatch portion of Apple’s WWDC keynote. The tech giant seemed to have taken a page straight out of Pebble’s playbook with an Apple Watch feature called Time Travel. Coming this autumn in watchOS 2, it will let users turn the Watch’s Digital Crown to view events – past, present or future – straight from their main watch face. A forward scroll, for instance, could show tomorrow’s weather forecast, while a backwards turn could reveal the score of last night’s game. Months earlier, Pebble had revealed a similar feature called Timeline as part of its new Pebble Time smartwatch. By pressing up or down on its buttons, users can jump into the past or future to see relevant bits of information. Pebble clearly saw…

No-one knows for sure how Apple Watch will fit into their lives until they buy one, but one thing is certain: it’s going to be a lot easier for your job to slide to the forefront of your thoughts with Watch notifications from collaboration apps such as Slack, HipChat and Trello. But those notifications might just be more useful on your Watch than your phone. When a colleague mentions you in a Slack room or pings you on HipChat, you can glance at the message and quickly respond without diving into other ‘work’ tasks on your iPhone. Here are four Watch apps that will help you manage your work life. Slack More than 750,000 people use the popular productivity app Slack to chat and share documents with their work teams…

When you call “Hey Siri,” you want to know that your phone is actually listening to you. But with the new proactive intelligence in iOS 9, Apple’s personal assistant will start to anticipate your desires before you even have a chance to ask. That’s just one of the improvements announced at the latest Worldwide Developers Conference. Rather than adding a ton of new features, Apple has instead focused on refining the user experience. This time around, Siri can use your location, time, app usage and connected device data to forecast your needs. Several built-in apps have also either been given substantial updates (Maps, Notes) or replaced entirely with more exciting alternatives (Wallet, News). Plus, iOS 9 allows you to interact with two app at once on your iPad. The basics…

Apple single-handedly turned the digital music marketplace on its head when it launched the iTunes Store back in 2003, and now it’s going after the current hottest trend: streaming media. What is it? Apple Music combines subscription-based music streaming with global radio-like programming and a social feature that connects artists to fans. It will come preinstalled on all iOS and OS X devices – just like iTunes – but users will be able to stream music instead of purchase music. Pay a flat fee, and you unlock all of Apple Music’s extensive 30 million-song library. Isn’t that the same as iTunes? Not at all. iTunes is all about media ownership, functioning as both a virtual record store and an efficient digital library for music and other media (movies, TV shows,…

If you’re a fan of iTunes this article probably isn’t for you. Instead, we’re asking whether you can eradicate iTunes from your life and if you really should. If you’re dead set on ditching iTunes, you’ll probably need to invest in some other apps and services to take over the tasks iTunes performs. However, we also think there’s one thing that should stop you binning Apple’s app entirely (which will require a ‘skip to the end’ if you hate being kept in suspense). Alternatives to iTunes for music on Mac or PC Although iTunes has come a long way from its ‘digital jukebox’ origins, music playback remains the main reason many people have it installed. And with iTunes being free, competing apps find the going tough. This is probably why…

Apple’s My Photo Stream is an excellent way to manage and view your photos on all your devices. The automatic service syncs all your Apple devices using iCloud, meaning that your photos appear on your iPad, iPhone and Mac without the need to plug in a cable or send anything via email. You can view the past 30 days of photos on any device. In this tutorial, we show you how to set up My Photo Stream. My Photo Stream can be used without turning on iCloud Photo Library, which would allow you to share more photos but has an associated cost. 1. Create an iCloud account on your Mac or iOS device For Photo Stream to work you’ll need to have an active iCloud account. Usually you’ll create this…

There are actually two standard MacBook models available, both with a 12in screen (measured diagonally). Dimensions for both unit are identical: 28.05cm by 19.65cm, and 3.5mm at the edge tapering to 131mm thick (theMacBook Air tapers from 17mm to just 3mm). The new MacBook weighs less than a kilogram at 920g. The key difference between the two modelsis the amount of storage available, andthe speed of the processor, although the most obvious difference is that there are threecolour choices: gold, silver and space grey, just like the iPhone. The entry-level MacBook unit offers a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.4GHz), and 256GB PCIe-based flash storage. The other MacBook unit offers a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz), and 512GB PCIe-based…

With so many Macs to choose from, each with very different features and specs, it can get a little tricky when it comes to deciding which Mac to buy. How do you know which Mac is best for you? Should you buy a Mac mini, an iMac or a Mac Pro? Or would you be better off with a MacBook, MacBook Air or a Retina MacBook Pro? Which Mac is best for you really depends on your needs and how much you are prepared to spend to meet them. As a rule Macs are more expensive than PCs, but that’s really because there are more low-cost PCs available. If you want a laptop that costs less than £300, then you will have to settle on a PC (or find yourself…

The Apple TV is a connected set-top box, measuring 23mm by 98mm by 98mm and weighing 27g, that offers access to iTunes TV shows and movies, as well as content from Netflix, YouTube and Vimeo. You can also stream content to your TV from your Mac, iPhone and iPad. It costs £59. The Apple TV isn’t a TV in the normal sense of the word, because it doesn’t have free-to-air channels or a digital video recorder to store shows to watch at a more convenient time. However, it does offer what could be described as channels, and this content keeps on growing, leaving us hopeful for a future where the Apple TV will include links to on-demand services just like our iPhones and iPads do – think the iPlayer and…