Table of contents for December 2012 in Macworld

When Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, many of us wondered how Apple would survive without him. In the year since then, new Apple boss Tim Cook has been constantly compared to his predecessor. Those comparisons have not always been flattering: “Jobs would never have allowed that” is something of a cliche. Worse, that kind of statement betrays a misunderstanding of how Apple operates. Jobs’s most lasting accomplishment is preparing Apple to thrive without him. On People and Philosophy Over the last decade, Jobs spent a lot of time and energy assembling an executive team that could to a large degree function without him. People like Tim Cook, Jonathan Ive, Phil Schiller, and others, each bring elements to the team that Jobs himself could not. But Jobs’s record is hardly…

When Steve Jobs officially returned to Apple 15 years ago, it marked a moment of rebirth. Within eight months, he assumed the mantle of Interim CEO and executed a stark and keen strategy to save Apple from oblivion. One year after his passing, it’s a good time to look back at seven key moves Jobs made during his early days as iCEO. Taking the Reins After the purchase of NeXT in late 1996, Apple CEO Gil Amelio brought Jobs in as a special advisor in January 1997. Jobs could have been content to simply provide advice and stay out of the way. Instead he quickly convinced Apple’s board of directors to oust Amelio. Before long he nominated himself as a potential replacement, and the board agreed. Trimming the Fat Before…

MyScript Notes Mobile PRODUCTIVITY MyScript Notes Mobile from Vision Objects is an iOS note-taking app. It focuses on handwriting as the only form of input and shows its bias toward handwritten input with a spartan set of tools: a pen, an eraser, and a selection tool. You can add images to your notes pages, either from your camera or via your iPad’s photo library. You can also move and resize the images, but there’s no apparent way to crop or group them. Those options would be useful. For those who like to rest their hands on the screen while writing, the app provides a useful wrist shield. If you’re not sure if this app is for you, then download the free MyScript Memo.—BRIAN BEAM iPad | ; $8; Vision Objects…

Although the Mail app didn’t receive as many significant improvements in iOS 6 as it did in iOS 4 and iOS 5, the changes it did get should boost your productivity. New Special Mailboxes The new VIP and Flagged items in the top-level Mailboxes list are similar to Smart Mailboxes in OS X Mail, in that each gathers particular messages across your inboxes and shows them in one list. The Flagged mailbox displays any message you’ve marked with Mail’s flag feature located in any of your inboxes. (It doesn’t show flagged messages you’ve filed into other mailboxes.) It lets you quickly see your most-important messages without having to scroll through all the other messages in your inboxes. The VIP mailbox, which debuted in OS X Mail in Mountain Lion, gathers…

Bluetooth Headphones Most Bluetooth headphones are small, portable models. But Harman/Kardon’s $250 BT (macworld.com/7977) incorporates Bluetooth technology in a full-size, premium headphone model that seals out external noise. The BT charges via USB and offers 12 hours of playback, but unlike with most Bluetooth headphones, if the battery dies while you’re away from power, you can plug in the included headphone cable and use the BT as a set of traditional wired headphones. The earpieces include playback and volume buttons, along with a microphone for phone calls, and the earpieces are covered in detachable—and, thus, replaceable—soft-leather earpads to help you get the perfect fit. The BT folds up and stores in the included carrying case. While in-ear-canal headphones and canalbuds tend to provide a good fit, and good sound quality…

Mountain Lion’s systemwide Dictation feature lets you talk to your Mac and have the OS transcribe your text. But to harness the true power of telling your Mac what to type, you need to learn a few tricks. Let’s start our tour of Dictation tips with a quick look at quotation marks. To put a word or phrase in quotes, use this pattern to frame your cues: “I can’t wait to see Samsung’s next open quote original close quote tablet.” That wording yields “I can’t wait to see Samsung’s next ‘original’ tablet.” You can just say “quote” instead of “open quote,” but you do need to use “close quote” to end a quotation. (You can use the same syntax for parentheses.) You can tell Dictation that it should always capitalize…

Extension Prevents Flash Video From Running One of my guilty pleasures is the NBC series Smash, and I was glad to discover that NBC offers video clips showcasing the musical numbers from the series. But when I first tried to view a Smash clip, I got nowhere. The rotating circle signaling that a video was loading just kept rotating indefinitely. First, I shifted from Safari to Firefox, and the videos played fine, suggesting that the problem was with my Safari installation, and not the NBC website. Returning to Safari, I checked to see what extensions I was running. Since the videos were Flash-based, I focused on ClickToFlash (macworld.com/7960). The ClickToFlash extension prevents a webpage’s Flash videos from loading automatically; instead, to get a video to run, you have to…

MAPPED OUT From the evidence provided so far, by Apple and Macworld’s own articles about iOS 6, it appears that the upcoming system’s new Maps app is Apple’s first example of bimbo software: Software that looks darn pretty and seductive, but does a great deal less than its iOS 5 predecessor. Of particular concern to me is the lack of effective, efficient Maps 6 support for local transit times, routes, and connections, walking routes and Google’s Street View. I use those features of Maps 5 a lot, as well as the car routes. Peter Morgan, via email I live in a major suburb north of Dallas. The Maps app’s directions thought a certain section of freeway was incomplete, even though it has been finished for over 10 years. The next…

Have you ever passed a discarded computer sitting by the curb and thought about what wonders it might hold? The folks at hackerspace NYC Resistor (www.nycresistor.com) saw a Macintosh SE at the side of the road, and took it. The vintage Mac still booted, but held no media—on the surface. Performing some digital archaeology, one member of the team, Adam Mayer, recovered grainy photos—black-and-white, 536-pixel-wide images, dated 1986—by examining the Mac SE ROM and then rigorously testing the noncode, nonaudio data held within. The photos are actually a well-documented Easter egg, showing the Mac Plus crew. On any SE, you can see them by entering a few commands (macworld.com/7999). The real goal for NYC Resistor was to disassemble the ROM to figure out how the images got inside. At this…

Review RATING PRICE $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), $399 (64GB)—prices include two-year contract; unlocked without contract, $649 to $849 COMPANY Apple URL www.apple.com It’s been a little more than five years since Apple released the original iPhone. Meanwhile, the world has changed. People now expect fast, reliable Internet connections and bright touchscreens on devices they can fit in their pockets. The iPhone, however, has remained recognizably the iPhone. Each successive generation has added welcome features, but none have strayed so far from the previous one as to be unrecognizable. Now the iPhone 5 is here, and is it any surprise that this model doesn’t reimagine the iPhone in a completely new way? No, it too is recognizably an iPhone, an evolution of previous models—yet it offers major advances on almost every…

Apple’s two location-based iOS apps have received updates. Find My Friends, which lets you know where your pals are, now offers location geofencing so that you can find out when friends leave or arrive at a certain place. You access the feature by tapping on a contact and tapping the Notify Me button; then, you choose whether the alert should fire when they enter or exit, and at what address. It’s surprisingly useful for timing meetups or carpool rides. It works only on contacts who have upgraded to the latest version of Find My Friends and run iOS 5 or later. You can also flip this feature around and notify others of your location—either currently, or when you leave or arrive somewhere. And you can see when a friend has…

At one time in the history of online music, if you had dominated the Billboard charts during the 1970s and had lost at least one member of the band to one form or another of lifestyle excess, it was fashionable not to have your work gathered in the iTunes Store. And for a variety of reasons. You were too big to be digitized and downloaded. Your timeless artistry demanded protection from the loss of quality that inevitably accompanies audio compression. You rejected having your masterwork sold off piecemeal by track. Or you felt your music was worth more than Apple’s standard license fee. Among the musicians who took this stance were the Beatles (individually and as a group), the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, the Rolling Stones, and (after an early…

Software Pholium for iPad ; free; Pholium; pholium.com Pholium is a free iPad app for creating virtual books of your photos. The app, in turn, is linked to an online service that lets you share your books with friends. Pholium 1.3 brings major improvements. You begin by importing photos into Pholium’s Gallery, using the iOS photo picker to select photos—the thumbnails in the photo picker are tiny. I finally organized everything outside Pholium into a single folder and then imported images one at a time. The Gallery provides a few modest photo editing tools, but I recommend editing before you import. You will use Pholium’s photo picker to place photos from the Gallery into the pages you build. In the Pholium Studio, you can create a blank book, in which…

As the years go by, and as my visual acuity decreases, I am becoming increasingly sensitive about the way letters appear on computer displays. Granted, today’s displays are much better. They have nicer contrast and crisper fonts because of both higher pixel density and better antialiasing. My Apple Thunderbolt Display has a pixel density of 109 pixels per inch; my Retina MacBook Pro has 220 pixels per inch. This is a step up from the 72 pixels per inch that was long a standard for Mac displays. But I’m on the other side of 50, and my eyes are not nearly as good as those of the youngsters who develop software. To them, 9-point monospace sans serif fonts might look fine. But to me, whether I’m reading or writing, I…

Cards New in Cards 2.0 (macworld.com/7588) is native support for the iPad, so you can take advantage of the iPad’s roomier screen to create and send your missives. Other new options include integration with iPhoto, and support for the iPhone 5’s taller screen.—LEX FRIEDMAN iPhoto iPhoto 1.1 (macworld.com/7823) adds support for the iPod touch (fourth generation and newer); the Help system gains some tips; and automated cropping gets smarter. Plus, you can now share photos to Cards, iMovie, and other apps.—LEX FRIEDMAN iMovie iMovie (macworld.com/7649) gains three new trailer options in version 1.4. Photos that you add to trailers are automatically animated with Apple’s beloved Ken Burns effect.—LEX FRIEDMAN GarageBand GarageBand Version 1.3 (macworld.com/7054) lets you create custom ringtones and alerts for your iPhone, iPad, or…

There are now roughly 400 million devices in the world that run the iOS operating system. Compare that with the installed base of 66 million Macs that Apple reported at its 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference, and you can see why the release of a new version of iOS is a big deal. But that’s not the only reason it’s important. With iOS 6, Apple makes the car-truck distinction that Steve Jobs used to draw even more starkly: Sure, some people will still need the full power of a Mac (the truck in this metaphor). But for a very large number of buyers, a tablet or even a phone running iOS 6 could be all they need, since it does a better job with email, Web browsing, social networking, and other…

Your favorite virtual assistant now knows a lot more than it ever did before. Siri in iOS 6 gains new functionality, simplifies some common tasks, and provides more useful results. And, for the first time, Siri in iOS 6 works on the iPad as well (third-generation or newer models). Sports and Movies You can ask Siri natural-language questions about football, basketball, baseball, soccer, or hockey, such as “What was the score of the last Eagles game?” Who’s taller, Kobe Bryant or Michael Vick?” and “Is anyone on the Yankees injured?” Results (powered by Yahoo) display clearly with nice visuals; unfortunately, you can’t tap results to get more details. Siri has picked up some Hollywood knowledge as well. Powered by the movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes, Siri can now offer showtimes, along…

From all appearances, iOS 6’s Music app has lost more than it has gained. The single new element is a grayer interface in the iPhone and iPod touch version. In the “lost” column are any references to the defunct Ping social-networking service, and the capability to download single iCloud Match tracks. And podcasts and iTunes U content appear to be missing. But “appear” is the key word. If you’ve installed the Podcasts and iTunes U apps, they’ll have that content. If you haven’t installed those apps and you sync your podcasts and iTunes U content within iTunes to your device, you can play that content within the Music app; just tap More to see the entries. However, in iOS 6 such items are not downloadable from the iTunes Store app;…

For as long as any of us can remember, Macworld has run a Gear Guide in every December issue. Traditionally, those articles have involved scouring the Web and local stores, looking for the coolest (and sometimes the wackiest) new digital gadgets we could find, all of which could make great presents for you or someone else. This year’s guide is different. A few months ago, working with our colleagues at PCWorld, we launched a new website called TechHive (techhive.com). From now on, that’s where you’ll find all of our online coverage of cameras, home entertainment hardware, and other things that don’t care what kind of computer you use, Mac or PC. To commemorate that new site, we asked TechHive’s resident experts for their top picks among different kinds of headphones,…

Hardware Seagate Technology Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac 1TB ; $130; Seagate Technology; www.seagate.com With the Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac, Seagate has reinvented its line of portable hard drives, incorporating a number of desirable features into the new design. The Backup Plus uses Seagate’s Universal Storage Module, which allows you to purchase and use Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0 adapters. At a pocket-size 4.9 by 3.2 by 0.6 inches, it’s a natural for travel. We tested the drive using Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0. The Backup Plus posted transfer speeds similar to those of comparable drives when connected via USB 2.0 and FireWire 800. Over USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, though, Seagate’s drive lagged behind its competitors. Seagate’s Backup Plus is…

Apple EarPods ; $29; Apple; www.apple.com Apple’s recently redesigned version of its classic earbuds, which it dubs EarPods, have an oblong, roughly teardrop-shaped silhouette. On my ears the EarPods fit worlds better than the old Apple earbuds did, and I think that will be the case for most other users. In my initial tests, I was quickly impressed with the EarPods’ audio performance. Bass sounded much cleaner, with distinct tones, though it was still muddy and lacked detail. Midrange sounds were decent but lacked detail as well. High frequencies were the standout, with a clear, natural sound that avoided the harsh, tinny quality of the previous earbuds’ treble, and possessed enough volume to help them stand out against the EarPods’ abundant but not especially high-quality bass. For earbud-style headphones at…