TechLife May 2021

I just want to say this up front – there is no link between this issue’s SuperGuide and the fact that I’ve just chosen to switch back to an iPhone after years of using an Android handset. Promise! That said, it’s certainly handy to learn what I can do with iCloud, as you can never have too many storage options in this crazy, data-driven world we live in. Speaking of which, I’ve been pondering something rather existential of late, and I’ve been asking myself: what is TechLife all about. What are we for? And I think the answer is right there on the cover – TechLife exists to help you Live Life Smarter. It’s a broad mission statement, but I think one that fits perfectly beside our sister title, APC. That august magazine…

Ashampoo Burning Studio 2021 Reliable burning software for CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays. Ashampoo Burning Studio 2021 is a powerful disc burning software for CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. The software quickly burns files, audio and video to all recordable disc types but also specialised media such as BDXL or M-Disc. The built-in disc ripping auto-detects track names and easily turns audio files into custom audio discs complete with individually designed covers and inlays. Playlists can be auto-generated during ripping for easy playback in the desired song order. The program can also finalise discs to make them playable on older retail players or car radios. Built-in disc spanning automatically spreads data across multiple volumes if it can’t fit on a single disc. This makes it easy to burn entire photo, document or song…

From $899, www.apple.com The iPad Air 4 (2020) doesn’t bring anything revolutionary to Apple’s tablet range, but a lot of the features that were previously exclusive to the iPad Pro have trickled down to this far more affordable, and therefore more attractive, device, While this is a tablet that’s unlikely to tempt power-hungry users away from the iPad Pro, it brings a lot of what makes that series of tablets great to a cheaper device, albeit one that isn’t as cheap as the standard iPad. Finally, the iPad Air 4 (2020) is the middle choice between both extremes of Apple’s tablet lineup. Design The design of the iPad Air has a lot in common with the iPad Pro range. The home button has been dropped in favor of an all-screen design to make it…

The second Android 12 Developer Preview – the Android 12 developer beta, as it were – is here, bringing smoother picture-in-picture transitions, additional privacy settings for notifications on lockscreen, and other perks. While this preview does, as the name suggests, have a ton of things that only concern app developers, some perks should excite every Android user, as laid out in an Android Developers Blog post. When swiping up-to-home while watching media, the transition to picture-in-picture mode happens while you’re making the gesture, for instance. Users also get expanded privacy and security controls for which notifications show up on lockscreen, and should expect better UX experiences on round-edged phones as devs get better tools to adapt their apps. Other perks are strictly behind-the-scenes, like letting developers make sure their apps aren’t interrupted…

The arrival of tabs in web browsers revolutionised the way we surf the web. The ability to open links in a new tab rather than a new window helps to dramatically reduce clutter on the desktop, although it also introduced the problem of managing a large number of tabs. If you ware one of those people who uses a combination of several browser windows and multiple tabs within each, there’s some great news for you. Both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome are gaining new window management options that will help to make it easier to identify and navigate multiple browser windows. The feature works in the same way in both browsers, and it’s something that will be welcomed by power users and the hitherto disorganised alike. The new ‘window naming’ functionality…

Windows 10’s next feature update, due in the first half of 2021, will fix several long-running problems with File Explorer, including one which can negatively impact on system performance. For the uninitiated, File Explorer is simply the fancy name for the windows which you use to browse files and folders on the desktop, and some Windows 10 users have found that it’s mysteriously eating up a large amount of system resources, and slowing their PC down at times. Fortunately, Microsoft has implemented a fix for this issue with the latest preview build of the 21H1 update. In the release notes, the software giant says: “We fixed an issue with a heap leak that might cause explorer. exe [File Explorer] to consume high amounts of memory.” In other words, this is a memory leak…