worldmags

REVIEWED: EXpERT TIps

FOR iLIFE ’11 AND
GET LION’s
fEATuREs IN
THE NEW MACBOOK AIR p56 OFFICE 2011 p86 sNOW LEOpARD—
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TODAy! p45

Mac Life
C R E AT E SHARE

E N J OY

JA N UA RY 20 1 1 N O. 48 w w w. M Ac L i F e .cO M

APPLe’S NeXT
>>>>BiG THiNG?
>>Our stunning prototypes predict Apple’s
next game-changing gadgets!<<

Flexible displays already exist!

Discover the science behind the
near-future devices that Apple
could be prototyping now. p22

Mac App Store: Love it or fear it? Developers speak out! p12
 worldmags

worldmags
 worldmags

worldmags
 worldmags

worldmags
 worldmags

Snap Battery Case

for iPhone 4

goincase.com/power

worldmags
 worldmags

Mac |Life C R E AT E

E N J OY

JA N UA RY 20 1 1 VO L . 5 N O.1
SHARE

FEATURES
COVER STORY

22 Today’s Magic,
Tomorrow’s Reality
We gaze into Apple’s crystal ball and suss out what
new technology Apple will employ in its next game-
changers. From kinetic energy to a 3D iPad, our
vision for Apple runs the gamut!
By Paul Curthoys, Jon Phillips,
Ray Aguilera & Susie Ochs

35 It’s a Snap!
Take control of your messy folders packed with
photos and improve image quality with the best
Mac apps for the job.
By Rod Lawton

45 How to Stuff
Snow Leopard with
Lion Features
With the proper applications and
settings, you can mimic almost
every great part of Lion—months
before it releases!
By Cory Bohon

COVER ILLUSTRATION: ADAM BENTON

4
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags

Departments
6 digital|life
Want Mac|Life on the web, iPad, iPhone,
Twitter, and Facebook? We’re there for you.
8 Consider
New website, new iPad app!
10 share
Downgrading an iPhone 3G can
sometimes really pay off!
12 start
We take a look at the good, bad, and
ugly of the Mac App Store, help you
get charitable with a few apps, and find
alternate uses for FaceTime.
18 Win
Take a shot at winning our Mysterious
Box of Mystery in this month’s Win!
20 Crave
All the gear that’s fit to covet—from
leafy zip ties to chrome styluses.
96 the lifer
This month, Rik examines the Mac App
Store—and explains why it worries him.
70
56
20
worldmags
worldmags
86
Create
82 ask Find your Genius sidebar in iTunes again, make the switch to a better RSS
reader, alleviate some of your Magic trackpad woes, and more!
By Susie Ochs & Scott Rose
86 the six Best tips for ilife ’11 Six tips to help you start taking your creations
to the next level with iLife ’11. By Roberto Baldwin, J.R. Bookwalter & Jason Amor
89 Work smarter with office 2011’s Cloud features We show you how to
collaborate in the cloud with the new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. By Susie Ochs
  apps   51   reviews  (COntinUeD) 
51 Notes Plus handwriting app 64 Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA102
52 Instagram social photography app waterproof camera
66 QuickBooks for Mac 2011 finance
52 Editors’ Picks software
53 GV Mobile + Google Voice app 68 Verbatim MediaShare media
53 FlightTrack Pro travel app server
53 Lick of the Day guitar tab app 69 Scosche IDR665m earbuds
54 “ResoYoutions” help your friends 70 GorillaPod Video flexible tripod
stick to your New Years’ resolutions 71 Yum recipe organization software
72 ZumoCast media streaming
service
  reviews   56 73 Saddleback messenger bag
74 iBank 4 budget balancer
56 MacBook Air laptops
75 iDatabase personal database
60 iLife ’11: iPhoto photography
software
61 iLife ’11: iMovie video-editing
software
  pLaY   77
62 iLife ’11: GarageBand music- 77 Left 4 Dead 2 first-person shooter
creation software
77
maclife.com JAN•11 5

>>>Digital| Life
If you haven’t checked out Mac|Life on the web, on your iPad or
iPhone, or on social media lately, this is what you’re missing:
MacLife.com
Six Mac Web Browsers:
How Do They Stack Up?
RockMelt blasted into our collective
consciousness this month to
compete for web-browsing
dominance against Safari, Firefox,
Opera, Chrome, and Flock. So which
one is right for you?
http://bit.ly/ML_brow
How To Sync All The
iTunes Libraries In
Your House
Learn how to set up MediaRover
on multiple Macs, configure a
NAS device using an AirPort
router, and then sync and
manage your libraries.
http://bit.ly/ML_itu
How To Record Audio
From Just About
Any Source
If you need to record audio from
a site, a guitar, or just your own
voice, this how-to will keep the
audio flowing.
http://bit.ly/ML_aud
Get Social!
Facebook
facebook.com/maclife
COMMENT OF THE MONTH:
Kevin O. Cobb: Having a case for the Shuffle is
the only way to actually find it again!
Twitter
@maclife
RETWEET OF THE MONTH:
Jrsydevils: Microsoft just LOL’d RT @MacLife:
Trojan named Boonana is found on the Mac.
SecureMac has a fix. Here’s what you can do:
http://bit.ly/9hIsxQ
6
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
MORE MAC|LIFE, LESS PAPER
The Mac|Life iPad App
We know many of you are dying for more news
on our next iPad app, so check out p8 for the
latest. We’re actually hoping that it’s out now
as you read this, but as with all apps, there are
too many variables to predict that for sure.
Still, an iTunes search might turn up gold (well,
Mac|Life app gold, anyway) or just check this
space again next issue for a link to download
our newest app.
If you haven’t checked out our first app, we
wanted to merge the strengths of the magazine
with those of the web and social media. So our
app doesn’t just give you cutting edge iPad
reviews and how-to’s—it lets you rate apps
yourself, email us your suggestions, get chatty
on Twitter, Facebook, and email, or just sit back
and watch the page views climb up, live and in
real time. Oh, and it’s free! Interested?
Download it here >>> http://tinyurl.com/2cqzycf
The Mac|Life iPhone App
For fast, easy access to the latest stories on
MacLife.com, download our free iPhone app. Its
spiffy RSS feed keeps the latest Apple rumors
and how-to’s right at your fingertips.
Download it here >>> http://bit.ly/9gGOSt
worldmags
Mac |Life
EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Paul Curthoys
SENIOR EDITOR Susie Ochs
ONLINE EDITOR Roberto Baldwin
REVIEWS EDITOR Ray Aguilera
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Florence Ion, Nic Vargus
COPY EDITOR Kristin Luce
ARCHDUKE OF THE INTERNET Jason Amor
CONTRIBUTORS Chris Barylick, Adam Berenstain, David Biedny,
Cory Bohon, Michelle Delio, Stuart Gripman, Andrew Hayward,
Rod Lawton, Rik Myslewski, Steve Paris, Scott Rose,
Michael Simon, Zack Stern
ART
ART DIRECTOR Robin Dick
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Mark Rosenthal
PHOTOGRAPHERS Samantha Berg, Mark Madeo
PHOTO ASSISTANT Patrick Kawahara
ILLUSTRATOR Adam Benton
BUSINESS
VICE PRESIDENT/GENERAL MANAGER Kate Byrne, 650-238-2049
NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Jane Evans, 650-238-2529
REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Anthony Losanno, 646-723-5493
WEST COAST SALES MANAGER Greg Ryder, 650-745-9243
EAST COAST ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE John Ortenzio, 646-723-5492
SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER Andrea Recio-Ang
MARKETING ASSOCIATE Robbie Montinola
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia, 650-238-2498
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Michael Hollister
PRODUCTION MANAGER Larry Briseno
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Lewis Lee
PRINT ORDER COORDINATOR Jennifer Lim
CONSUMER MARKETING
VICE PRESIDENT Rich McCarthy
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Crystal Hudson
NEWSSTAND DIRECTOR Bill Shewey
CONSUMER MARKETING OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Lisa Radler
RENEWAL & BILLING MANAGER Mike Hill
SR. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING MANAGER Jennifer Trinkner
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Mike Frassica
Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc. Future
produces carefully targeted magazines, websites
and events for people with a passion. We publish
more than 180 magazines, websites, and events,
and we export or license our publications to 90
countries across the world. Future plc is a public
company quoted on the London Stock Exchange
(symbol: FUTR).
FUTURE US, INC.
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
Tel: 650-872-1642 • Fax: 650-872-2207 • www.futureus.com
PRESIDENT John Marcom
VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER John Sutton
VICE PRESIDENT/TECHNOLOGY Kate Byrne
VICE PRESIDENT/GAMES Kelley Corten
VICE PRESIDENT/MUSIC Anthony Danzi
VICE PRESIDENT/SALES & MARKETING Rachelle Considine
VICE PRESIDENT/CONSUMER MARKETING Rich McCarthy
VICE PRESIDENT/FUTURE PLUS John Gower
VICE PRESIDENT/INTERNET & MOBILE PRODUCTS Mark Kramer
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/TECHNOLOGY Jon Phillips
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSIC Brad Tolinski
CREATIVE DIRECTOR/GAMES Chris Imlay
DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES Nancy Durlester DuBois
FUTURE PLC
30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, England
Tel: +44 (0)1225 442244 (Bath) • Tel: +44 (0)2070 424000 (London)
www.futureplc.com
CHIEF EXECUTIVE Stevie Spring
NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN Roger Parry
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR John Bowman
Volume 5, Issue 1
Mac|Life (ISSN 1935-4010) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline
Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Periodicals Postage Paid at South
San Francisco, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand distribution is handled
by Time Warner Retail. Basic subscription rates: one year (12 issues) U.S. $24.95,
Canada $29.95, U.S. prepaid funds only. Canadian price includes postage and GST
#R128220688. Outside the U.S. and Canada, price is $39.95, U.S. prepaid funds only.
Subscriptions do not include newsstand-only specials. POSTMASTER: Send address
changes to Mac|Life, P.O. Box 5126, Harlan, IA 51593-0626. Ride-Along Enclosure in
the following editions: None. Standard Mail Enclosure in the following editions: None.
Canadian returns should be sent to Bleuchip International, PO Box 25542, London
ON N6C 6B2. PMA #40043631. Future US, Inc. also publishes Maximum PC, Nintendo
Power, PC Gamer, Official Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, World
of Warcraft Official Magazine, NVISION, Guitar World, Revolver, Guitar Aficionado,
Windows: The Official Magazine, and Crochet Today!.
PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Mac|Life Customer Care, PO Box 5126, Harlan, IA
51593-0626. Phone: 1-888-771-6222. Web: www.maclife.com/customerservice.
Email: MCDcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com. Back issues can be purchased by calling
1-800-865-7240.
REPRINTS: Reprint Management Service. Phone: 717-399-1900 ext. 100.
AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR LAWYERS: Entire contents copyright 2011, Future
US, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. Future US, Inc. is not
affiliated with the companies or products covered in Mac|Life. All information provided is, as far as
Future is aware, based on information correct at the time of press. Readers are advised to contact
manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to products/services referred to in this magazine.
We welcome reader submissions, but cannot promise that they will be published or returned
to you. By submitting materials to us, you agree to give Future the royalty-free, perpetual, non-
exclusive right to publish and reuse your submission in any form in any and all media and to use
your name and other information in connection with the submission.
 worldmags

PDFpen: Feature #5 – Sign Documents

!
Neiown 5
Vers
The affordable
PDF toolkit

Stop treating your PDFs like it’s 1999.

What good is a 21st-century office if you It’s great for forms and contracts. When you’re
have to print on paper to sign a document? finished, you can just email them back.
Using PDFpen, you can add signatures or Say hello to the modern, paperless office...
handwritten notations to any PDF. and goodbye to your fax machine!

To see all the top 10 features of PDFpen, visit us at: www.smilesoftware.com/pdf

Software that’s just right

Copyright © 2010 SmileOnMyMac, LLC. SmileOnMyMac, DiscLabel, PDFpen, PageSender and TextExpander are trademarks of SmileOnMyMac, LLC.

worldmags
 worldmags

>>>Consider STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ON TWITTER: @MACLIFE

NEW APP. NEW WEBSITE.

NEW iPAD TOGGLE SWITCH?

S
ometimes Apple completely baffles me. No, this isn’t
a column about the Beatles coming to iTunes. Instead,
I’m stuck on Apple’s curious decision to force its iPad
customers to accept a change that, judging from the widespread
outcry, no one seems to want. This change comes with iOS 4.2,
which modernizes the iPad with many snazzy features, but also
turns the hardware switch that activates orientation lock into a
mute switch. At press time, 4.2 hadn’t yet been released to the
public, but we’ve tried out this feature in beta.
Yes, the orientation lock is still available via software—it’s on
the far left of the multi-tasking bar, just like it is on an iPhone
running iOS4. While phones need the power to insta-mute, the iPad
doesn’t. The tablet’s spastic tendency to rapidly cycle between
portrait and landscape should be a bigger priority, especially when
you can already mute your iPad almost instantly by holding down
the volume toggle. So why would Apple force this change?
Yes, I understand that businesses sometimes have to make
unpopular decisions. For instance, we’ve recently decided to
close our website’s forums and convert our audio podcast into a
video show. But unlike the iPad’s new toggle switch, the changes
we’ve made are necessary moves that allow us to focus our
resources on much bigger, more important things: our freshly
redesigned website and our second iPad app.
If you haven’t been by MacLife.com in a while, I’d love for
you to check it out. It’s just a beauty, and it offers way more
functionality—better browsability, more interactivity and
community, and a keener focus on the kinds of stories (how-to’s,
features) that you guys tell us you enjoy most.
And by the time you read this, we hope that our next iPad app
is available on the App Store (no promises; app release dates are
always iffy). The app is called Mac|Life’s iPad Essentials Guide,
and with it, we’ve focused on building an expert guide to both
iPads and iPhones that’ll help users of all stripes get the most
from their iDevices. In making this app, we listened long and hard
to all the tremendously helpful feedback we got from you on
our first app, and you’ll find a much-improved experience with
loads of great stories, videos, and social interactivity. I know a lot
of you are also very interested in subscribing to this magazine
on a monthly basis in iPad form, but we’re not quite there yet.
We’re looking
Why would Apple dig in their at options,
heels when their customers but our first
clearly want something else? priority with app
development is
doing something different than what our mag already does. So
tell us what you think of it—as we begin work on our next app,
our biggest priority is hearing from you and making sure we’re
giving you what you want.
Which leads me back to the iPad’s orientation lock. Why
would Apple dig in their heels when their customers clearly want
something else? They could simply make mute vs. orientation
lock into a preference, and everyone would be happy. I’d love
to hear your thoughts on orientation lock, as well as our new
website and app at paul@maclife.com. And rest assured: if you
dislike anything we do as much as Apple’s customers appear to
hate the new orientation lock, we’ll bend over backward to fix it.

Paul Curthoys, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

>>>OVERHEARD AT MAC|LIFE THIS MONTH....

“Don’t you have “I’m allergic “Look who’s “Please don’t “It’s like I want “I swear I saw
any billy goats to to having a makin’ it rain put the MacBook it to take me out Bruce Jenner on
hassle?” good time.” cheese now!” Air down your on a date and The Walking Dead
—Robbie, suggesting —Nic’s comment —Ray, getting a pants.” then never call last night…”
retorts for Flo to use after sneezing, little too excited —Susie, to a me back.” —Robin to Robbie,
when fending off while finishing up while trying to beat colleague from —Flo, remarking discussing zombies
internet trolls. a Mac|Life special Nic’s high score in another magazine on how the HP Envy and plastic surgery.
issue.. Rat on a Scooter XL. who jokingly tried to 100 printer looks
jam the 11-inch Air in like it belongs in a
his jeans pocket. bachelor pad.

8
JAN• 11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

I got game.
Anytime, anywhere.
I can race, role-play, or destroy while I’m waiting in
line for a triple espresso. But hey, this ain’t no sim,
it’s the real world. White-knuckled action can get
slippery. One drop and it’s game over. I protect my
new iPod® touch using a Speck CandyShell® Grip.
It’s super-protective: hard on the outside, soft
on the inside, with finger grips on the back and
thumb-placement indents on the rim to help
make my game wicked good.

Plus, Speck makes awesome cases for MacBook,® iPhone,® iPad ®

and more. And full-featured, stylish bags customized to carry it all in!

©2010 Speck Products. All rights reserved. All Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

worldmags

>>>Share Your opinions, r ants & r aVEs
iFIxeD MY iPHONe 3G!
I want to say thank you. I recently
converted from Windoze to Mac, and I love
my tech gear. However, I knew from the
moment that I upgraded to iOS 4.0 that
I had made a mistake. I
searched the internet for
a way to return to the old
OS and I found a few sites
saying it was possible, but
I wasn’t sure if they were
reliable. So, I just dealt
with the phone as it was:
slow, buggy, and laggy.
Then I returned from an
overseas trip and my wife
handed me the Oct/10
Mac|Life, featuring a how-
to called “Downgrade
Your iPhone 3G to OS
3.1.3.” I followed the steps
10
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
exactly, and when I was finished....all back
to normal. Great article. Thanks.
—Brent Humphries
You’re so welcome! Apple addressed
some of the performance
issues with iOS 4.1, so I’m
using that now myself. Nic
actually jailbroke his so
he could get features like
home screen wallpapers
that aren’t supported on an
iPhone 3G running iOS 4.
And Susie’s 3G is staying
on iOS 3.1.3 forever.
Anyway, glad your phone
is awesome again.
—Ray
Nic’s also rocking a sweet
lock screen on his jailbroken
iPhone 3G.
worldmags
iMac Correction
I’m an avid reader, and appreciate all the
information I get from your magazine. However,
I wanted to point out an error in your recent
article reviewing the new iMacs (Nov/10, p58).
I paid close attention to these reviews as I am
currently shopping for an iMac. The article,
although very helpful to me for deciding which
iMac is a better choice, has one small error. It
says that both the 21.5-inch iMacs’ ATI Radeon
graphics cards have 512MB of GDDR3 dedicated
memory, standard. This is not the case: The
3.06GHz Intel Core i3 iMac only comes with
256MB GDDR3 memory for its graphics, while
the 3.2GHz comes with 512MB.—Andrew Camm
You’re absolutely right. I messed that up. The
entry-level $1,199 3.06GHz iMac has an ATI
Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with
256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, not 512MB like
I said, and I regret the error. The graphics
card in that machine isn’t even a build-to-
order option—to get 512MB of graphics
memory you need to step up to the $1,499
 worldmags

ALL NEW
ACCESSORIES
3.2GHz iMac. I just purchased that 3.2GHz machine from Apple’s
Refurbished store, actually, and I love it. Happy shopping!—Susie

Pages Can Count

I’m a big fan, but noticed a mistake in the
Nov/10 issue. In “Ditching Your Laptop:
Can It Be Done?” (p26), you said that a
for iPad
downside to Pages on the iPad was its
www.macally.com
y.cc m
lack of a word count. However, a few days
before I read the article, I was checking
out all of the settings in Pages and came
across a word count setting. You can find
it by clicking the wrench icon, and clicking
You should probably
the On button by Word Count. I hope that update more often than
helps!—Cheyenne Cenk Susie does—115 updates
available?! Wow.
Thanks, Cheyenne, good eye. That was
added in version 1.2, which went live in late September—right after
our article was sent to the printer. We run into this from time to time
when discussing iOS software since updates are pretty frequent
(it’s why we include the version number on reviews in the Apps
section, for example). It’s also a great reminder to update your apps
frequently—you might be missing some cool features!—Nic

Outlook 2011 Issues

I purchased Office 2011 (“Moving Into a New Office,” Dec/10, p43) and
so far, I really like the changes made to PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.
Outlook is a different story—I am very disappointed in it. Many of the
features I used routinely in Entourage are missing: resend, selecting
the category in outgoing mail, and selecting and repositioning icons
on the ribbon, to name a few. I couldn’t set up one of my email clients,
a military account. Although I didn’t purchase the software based on
your review, I don’t think Outlook is nearly as flexible as Entourage,
and I plan to stick with Entourage until major changes in Outlook are
made. Your article doesn’t reflect my experience.—David Loomis
Thanks for the feedback. I’m sorry that the Outlook review (4 stars,
p50) didn’t mention the problems you’re experiencing. I’ve run into
a few problems of my own. Entourage 2008 could sync both my
contacts and calendars with Address Book and iCal, which let me
keep that data synced on my iPhone and iPad. But as of now, Outlook
2011 (version 14.0.1) can sync contacts, but not calendars! I have to
manually drag-and-drop appointments made in Outlook—all meeting
requests from my colleagues, in other words—over to iCal to add
them to that calendar. Dragging and dropping, like a cavewoman!
Microsoft promises to fix this in an update, but at press time they
couldn’t give an ETA. I apologize again that our review didn’t include
this sync oversight or the missing features you mentioned. Luckily,
installing Outlook 2011 doesn’t overwrite Entourage 2008, and
hopefully Outlook will be updated soon.—Susie

WRITE TO US: letters@maclife.com or Mac|Life, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite

OTHER ESSENTIALS
400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
FOR SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Call toll-free 1-888-771-6222
By submitting unsolicited material to us, you grant Future a license to publish the material in whole or
in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions, in any and all media throughout the
world. Future is not responsible for loss, damage to, or return of any unsolicited materials.

CASES CAR ACCESSORIES EARPHONE USB CHARGING

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 11
 worldmags

>>>Start FEED YOUR MIND. FEAST YOUR EYES.

what the
Mac app Store
MeanS for you
With its iOS App Store a runaway success, Apple
looks to copy the formula with Mac applications.
We turned to three leading Mac developers for
insight on this new option. BY MICHELLE DELIO

A
pple’s October event saw the release of a brand-new beaut of
a MacBook Air (p56) and iLife ’11 (reviews on p60 and how-tos
on p86), as well as a preview of Mac OS 10.7 Lion (p45), which
is due out this summer. But one announced Lion feature is actually
coming out early—Apple plans to throw open the doors of its Mac App
Store within 90 days of the October 20 event, launching the store on
Snow Leopard Macs before Lion ever puts its paws on the ground.
As with the App Store already available on iOS devices, Apple will
host the store and fulfill the transactions for a 30 percent cut of sales.
Developers keep the other 70 percent and rest assured that their
applications can be seen and purchased from every Mac in the land.
And users like us get one-click purchasing using our iTunes Store
accounts, automatic downloads, easy updates, and the ability to re-
download apps on all our Macs.
So on its face, the Mac App Store sounds like win-win-win. But
nothing’s ever that simple. With the App Store for iOS, Apple’s been
accused of sitting on submitted updates for too long, being wishy-
washy about what they’ll accept and what they’ll reject, and not always
explaining their decisions in a satisfactory manner. (Columnist Rik
Myslewski delves into those concerns on p96.)
Since Apple doesn’t talk about unreleased products and users haven’t
seen the Mac App Store yet, we turned to the developers to get their
(admittedly early) take. Is the Mac App Store a level playing field or the
end of free-range development as we know it? Did its announcement
provoke shivers of anticipation or fear? To find out, we exchanged emails
with Nick Davies from Corel (corel.com), Justin Cepelak from SplashData
(splashdata.com), and Nicholas Reville from the Participatory Culture
Foundation (pculture.org), makers of Miro and other free applications.

12
Jan•11 maclife.com
worldmags

MAc|LIFE: What was your first reaction to the Mac App Store?
NIck DAvIES, corel’s senior vice president, corporate marketing:
For developers, the store is a ready-made vehicle to reach customers.
If you’re a new developer without established channels, it provides a
direct route to users. For established developers like Corel, it provides an
additional, direct way to connect with Mac users. And we’re intrigued by
the impact it could have on our future software development.
JUSTIN cEpELAk, vice president of SplashData: We were really
surprised and excited. We had been hoping they would build a desktop
equivalent of the App Store for a while since it has been a strong
channel for us in the mobile space.
NIchOLAS REvILLE, executive director of the participatory
culture Foundation: I think the new store solves an important
usability challenge. Just finding a downloaded file and opening a
DMG or installer can be difficult for lots of users. However, I also think
it’s extremely dangerous for developers and Mac users; the mobile
App Store has become Exhibit A of everything bad about centralized
corporate control over users. There are lots of ways to make application
distribution and sales better for both developers and users without
restricting everyone’s freedom to create or install software. Because
their competitors’ products are such a mess, Apple can intentionally
conflate ease-of-use with centralized control, and it starts to seem like
it’s true. Just the fact that I’m wondering whether criticizing Apple
could lead Miro to be rejected from the Mac App Store suggests that
there’s a structural problem here.
MAc|LIFE: how might the Mac App Store change the way
your company provides applications to Mac users?
DAvIES: It’s still too early to make a definitive statement on the
impact this will have on us. Like other developers, we’d have to
change our apps to have them meet the guidelines. We envision
some interesting opportunities for our consumer apps. They’re
lighter and easy to use, making them ideal for this channel.
Offering Mac users a one-stop shop for the majority of their
software needs is a great thing, and we definitely want to be part
of it. Of course, Corel’s known for Painter, which is more robust,
professional, and established. I think developers like us have
questions about how this type of product will fit into the Mac App
Store and its guidelines. We know our Painter customers well.
Their buying process is very different from someone who’s buying
a mobile app off iTunes. They often want to try out the program
before purchasing and many still prefer to own the DVD and the
accompanying documentation. In many cases, they have an increased
desire to have a more direct relationship with us. We need to see how the
App Store guidelines support what we know our Painter customer wants.
cEpELAk: We’ll have to build special releases of our desktop
applications (SplashID, SplashMoney, SplashShopper, and SplashNotes)
to be distributed in the Mac App Store without copy protections since
Apple will handle that on their end. As far as distribution, we feel that
we will reach a broader audience through this channel because the App
Store approach to shopping is a more fun and immersive experience
than searching for software on the entire web.
REvILLE: We will certainly submit our app to the store, and we’ll also
continue to maintain our website as a way to download. Since our
software is free, I don’t think it will affect us as much as the creators of
paid software—I expect many Mac software companies will stop doing
their own payment processing and registration and will move all sales
to the Mac App Store.
worldmags
worldmags
MAc|LIFE: how about the Mac application-development market
as a whole?
DAvIES: Overall, I think the Mac App Store is a great opportunity for
developers. The fact that the store exists will spur the development and
sales of new apps simply because it’ll be easier for customers to find
and connect with more software options. If the Mac App Store delivers
the same great experience as the iTunes App Store, people will have the
chance to discover more apps and in turn will be inclined to buy more.
cEpELAk: If the mobile App Store teaches us anything, it’s that a
simple and well-designed one-stop shop encourages users to buy more
software than they would otherwise.
MAc|LIFE: What would you ask Steve Jobs about the Mac App Store
if you were having lunch with him? What advice would you give him?
DAvIES: First, I’d let him know it’s great they’re doing this. Apple offers
an exceptional buying experience to consumers, and we support the
move to bring this to Mac software. I’d also ask him how he thinks the
established apps—the long-time mega-brands of the Mac software
world—fit into this new environment. Many of these brands, like Painter,
have been tied to the Mac platform since the start, so how can we work
together to ensure the store provides an equally efficient channel for
them? Could physical product be an option for those who want it? Also,
many customers want to try out software before making an investment
in it, particularly when it’s a tool they need for their livelihood. Their
expectations are high, and we owe them a different experience.
The Mac App Store looks a lot like the iOS App Store, but that’s not iTunes.
cEpELAk: We’re curious to see how copy protection will be handled
since desktop software piracy is a serious issue facing developers. We’re
also wondering how the review process will be compared to the mobile
store. Developers have free rein over what they can do with desktop
software when they distribute it themselves, so it’ll be interesting to see
what gets caught in the fine mesh of the Apple filters.
REvILLE: I think Apple could be an incredible example of how to
do everything right: not just design and user experience, but also
freedom and openness. Apple would never have invented something
as open or messy as the internet, but they are benefiting immensely
from its success and the open standards behind it—remember when
you couldn’t switch to a Mac because it wasn’t compatible with other
software? The web is compatible everywhere because it’s open. So why
not have Apple turn its brilliance to making openness more elegant,
rather than insisting on central control?
maclife.com JAN• 11 13

FIVE REASONS THE MAC APP STORE WILL ROCK…
AND FIVE REASONS IT’LL SUCK
If hearing the phrase “Mac App Store” fills you with equal parts glee and dread, you are not alone. It’s not that we don’t welcome a healthy
serving of innovation, but we’re always a little skeptical when someone—even Steve Jobs—tries to fix something that isn’t broken. Of
course, the Mac App Store might very well be the greatest thing to happen to the platform since the two-button mouse. But if it’s not, don’t
say we didn’t warn you.—Michael Simon
1. Synergy Nobody wants to see iOS take over our beloved Mac OS,
but people who own iOS devices know what a big role they play in our
daily lives. If enough iPad and iPhone developers bring their talents to
the Mac, their iOS-styled OS X apps (and OS X–styled iOS apps) could
blur the line between mobile and desktop even more. Some of
our favorite iOS apps already work with Mac counterparts
(Stanza, for example), and the Mac App Store could
THE GOOD
accelerate that trend.
2. PrIcIng If the Mac App Store is anything like the
iOS App Store, competition will be fierce and developers will
be looking for any way to stand out among the field. That’s
a good thing for consumers because apps will need to be
slick, polished, and powerful (with lots of updates, please!).
They’ll also need to be competitively priced. Obviously we
don’t expect to see Photoshop suddenly drop to $9.99, but
we think there’ll be plenty of bargains to be had once the store opens
its doors.
3. exPOSure It’s not easy being a Mac developer. The Mac’s install
base is a (growing!) fraction of Windows’, and that means simply
building a killer app isn’t enough—developers also need to market
it aggressively via websites, magazines (ahem), and word of mouth.
Retail shelf space for software is shrinking at outlets nationwide, even
Apple Stores. The Mac App Store will give developers a chance to shine
on a big stage with help from Apple’s lists, ratings, and spotlights.
And consumers benefit too because developers can spend more time
developing, instead of marketing.
4. SIMPlIcIty Ease of use has always been the calling card of OS X,
and the Mac App Store looks to drive that point home: no serial
numbers, instruction manuals, clumsy packaging, or discs. By bringing
the convenience of the iOS App Store to the Mac, Apple is removing
an entire level of complication for switchers, which is almost certain to
translate into a bigger market share.
5. DelIvery Let’s face it, there’s no better delivery system than the
App Store’s nearly instant, one-click purchase and installation process.
The Mac App Store will work the same way, charging your account and
immediately downloading and installing the application for you. No
more unzipping downloads, loading and ejecting disk images, trashing
DMG files, or agreeing to licenses. Just start enjoying the app. This will
be a boon for switchers as well.
14
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
1. reStrIctIOnS We Mac users have always cherished our OS over
that of our Cocoa-less counterparts, but by no means is it perfect. We
doubt that’s going to change with Lion, but Apple has already made it
clear that it won’t be allowing apps that install kernel extensions or “do
not use the appropriate Mac OS X APIs for modifying user data stored
by other apps” in the Mac App Store. Of course, Steve assures us that
we’ll still be able to download and install apps like FruitMenu or Cocktail
the old-fashioned way, but the tin-hatted paranoid inside us fears that
total lockdown might be just a few more cats away.
2. clutter For every must-have iPhone app, there are about
800 useless ones. On our iPhone’s App Store, it’s little more than a
nuisance, but if that glut of nonsense fartware starts getting ported to
the Mac, we might have to draw the line. One of the Mac App Store’s
best features will be the discovery of hidden gems, but if its virtual
shelves start filling up with pointlessness, the actually good developers
might turn their backs on it altogether. Apple will have to walk a
tightrope between being too exclusive and being too inclusive, but
after all, this was their idea.
3. ADS We might be jumping to conclusions here, but we couldn’t help
but notice there isn’t a restriction against ads in the Mac App Store
Review Guidelines. And if developers take cues from the iOS App Store,
we could see lots of single-function free and “lite” apps. And how
exactly are all these entrepreneurs supposed to make money by giving
away their products? Say goodbye to freeware and hello to iAd banners
while you work.
4. HOMOgenIzAtIOn We can’t imagine apps like Outlook, AutoCAD,
or InDesign being sold in the Mac App Store, and we know they’ll be
fine on their own…but what about the little guys? We love coming
across innovative little apps that do something none of us ever
imagined. And sure, those talented “garage” developers might be able
to wedge their creations into the Mac App Store, but if they
can’t…will fiscal responsibility force them to abandon their
THE BAD
more innovative creations in favor of more vanilla work
that can actually be sold in the store? We sure hope not.
5. IMPulSe BuyS We’ve all bought iOS apps that we
instantly regret (iBeer anyone?), but app purchases for
our Macs usually require at least a little research before
we commit. Plus, typing out that credit card number or
logging into PayPal gives you more chances to reconsider and
back out. But once we have thousands of apps at our fingertips,
it’s going to take quite a bit of restraint (or credit card limits) to stop
the spending spree. We just hope Mac apps—all Mac apps—stay as easy
to uninstall as they are now.
 worldmags

InsIde FaceTIme For mac

Comb your hair and check your teeth for spinach—these tips and tricks will help
you start video-chatting up a storm from your Mac! BY CORY BOHON AND SUSIE OCHS

FaceTime for Mac, introduced at October’s exciting Back to the Mac event, finally lets Mac users video-chat with people using an
iPhone 4 or fourth-gen iPod touch. FaceTime for Mac is still in beta, but it’s free and easy to use. How easy? So easy we can explain it
all in one page…

StAtE YOUR PREfERENCES

FaceTime on the Mac works just as it does on the iPod touch. You sign in with your
Apple ID (the account you use for the iTunes Store), and people who have that email
address in their Contacts list can click your name to call you.
But everyone we know has multiple email addresses, and maybe the address you
use for your Apple ID isn’t the one your friends and family use to correspond with
you. No worries—in FaceTime > Preferences, you can add more email addresses to
your account by clicking Add Another Email. You can also specify which address
shows up when you call someone with the Caller ID menu.
FaceTime for Mac doesn’t quit when you close the application. It’s always on
standby. If someone calls you and you don’t have FaceTime open, it’ll automatically
launch and show you a preview window where you can accept or deny the call.
If you want to turn FaceTime all the way off, use the On/Off switch in FaceTime >
Preferences.

IN-CAll CONtROlS
When you’re chatting, FaceTime only shows your chat, hiding
the controls (à la QuickTime X) until you mouse over the
window. When you do, you’ll see buttons for Mute, End, and
Full Screen along the bottom of the window, shown in the
screenshot on the far right.
But you get a few more controls in the menu bar’s Video
menu, shown in the screenshot on the near right. You can
mute the call here too or switch from portrait orientation
to landscape. (If your chat buddy is using an iPhone or iPod
touch, the orientation will automatically adjust based on
how they’re holding their device.) You can also switch which
microphone you’re using for your call—although why audio is
under the Video menu is anyone’s guess.

KEYBOARD SHORtCUtS
If you don’t want to use the menus, let your fingers do the talking
with keyboard shortcuts. Press Command-R to switch orientations,
portrait to landscape and vice versa. To jump right into full-screen
view, press Command-Shift-F. Sign out of FaceTime completely
with Command-K, although you have to confirm that in a dialog.
So to turn FaceTime off and quit the app, it’s three keystrokes:
Command-K, Return (to confirm the signoff), Command-Q.

worldmags
maclife.com Jan • 11 15
 worldmags

>>>Start

iGIVE
Charity is a obviously good thing, and when iOS apps let you give to worthy causes
by playing games or checking in, it’s a no-brainer…right? BY MICHELLE DELIO

T
he last few years haven’t been the happiest time for charities. “The more you play, the more we give,” says Kellie Hartwell, senior
The still-sullen economy forced foundations to cut back on their vice president of marketing. She adds that Mobile Deluxe didn’t set out
big donations, so micro donors—individuals who give small to make the world’s most innovative game, focusing instead on creating
sums as the spirit moves them—are becoming an important source a fun and relaxing experience with a real-life reward for players’ time
of funding. But barring tragedies like earthquakes, hurricanes, and investment. “It’s not a game for a hardcore gamer, but it’s perfect
tsunamis, how can a charity connect with the charitable? Overloaded for folks looking to share the experience and turn their game reviews
by requests for our attention, many of us into potential stories about the game
no longer respond to mail or telephone and breast cancer experiences,”
solicitations, and we’re all justifiably says Hartwell.
suspicious of emailed requests for help. Pleased with the results of its first
Enter the do-good app. You choose what mobile campaign, Earthjustice is planning
causes matter to you, and the app acts as its next project now, and Mobile Deluxe
the go-between. Sometimes you simply has just released Sudoku Deluxe Green
buy the app, and some of the profits go to Edition. The proceeds are donated to
the cause. Other apps provide a pipeline Trees for the Future, a nonprofit founded
for direct donations. Some will educate in 1989 that helps communities around
you—the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s the world plant trees through seed
Seafood Guide, for example, helps you distribution.
make sustainable seafood choices. Many But Hartwell hopes that app
apps are happy to entertain you, and you programmers will get involved in
Portal 2
may also be asked to perform actions making games for the smaller, super-
Earthjustice posted these ads in rapid transit stations, where
that trigger donations from sponsors. iPhone-toting citizens can check in and help while they wait for effective nonprofits as well as the bigger
Earthjustice (earthjustice.org), a the train. charitable organizations. “You can
nonprofit public-interest law firm, recently papered San Francisco make a difference not only for the charity’s cause, but for a budding
subway stations with posters asking people to fire up Foursquare nonprofit as well,” Hartwell says. Just don’t expect that doing the right
and “check in at this Earthjustice ad.” The posters addressed timely thing will always be easy. “There will be cynical people out there that
question your
“Our campaign was a perfect mixture of motivation,”
the right cause with the right medium Hartwell
and the right timing.” continues.
“Respond
environmental issues, and corporate donors pledged to give specific to them
amounts for each check-in. respectfully
Portal 2 Lego Universe
Ray Wan, marketing manager at Earthjustice, says that the goal was and then forget
to reach 5,000 check-ins, and by the end of October they had exceeded about it. You
5,300. Their major donor was willing to match up to $50,000 in know you’re
donations at $10 per check-in, so Earthjustice got the maximum amount doing good, your
in donations. recipients know
“Our campaign was a perfect mixture of the right cause with the it, and that’s all
right medium and the right timing,” says Wan. “We made sure to that matters in
highlight issues that our audiences could connect with. We picked an the end.”
app that was growing immensely popular here in the Bay Area and was
easy to use. And our ads went up at the height of the BP oil crisis, when
the public’s attention was focused on protecting our environment.”
Then there’s entertainment app company Mobile Deluxe
(mobiledeluxe.com), which recently entered the charitable space with Bliss HD+ is a
$1.99 universal
Bliss HD+, a game. Up to 50 percent of its $1.99 price is donated to game that lets
Beautiful Day Foundation, which works to educate young women about you earn money
for breast cancer
breast cancer. Players earn points to win up to five pink ribbon codes, education while
and Mobile Deluxe donates $0.20 for every ribbon code. playing.

16
JAN•10 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

From user to listener

MM-1  Transform your computer into a superb
stereo sound system. The MM-1 is a true hi-fi
speaker, shrunk to fit on your desktop. And it
sounds amazing. But then you’d expect nothing
less from the makers of the award-winning
Zeppelin iPod® speaker, not to mention some of
the most advanced studio speakers in the world.
Listen and you’ll see. 

Available at Apple stores and apple.com

www.bowers-wilkins.com/mm-1
worldmags
 worldmags

>>>Start
SHAREWARE PICKS: GREAT GRAPHICS
Two freebies that photographers and video editors shouldn’t leave home without

Sofortbild gfxCardStatus
Stefan Hafeneger, sofortbildapp.com Cody Krieger, codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/
Price: Free, donations accepted Price: Free, donations accepted
Connect a Nikon DSLR to your Mac for tethered shooting and Once upon a time, MacBook Pros with two graphics cards had a
automatic transfers to your hard drive (or Aperture, Lightroom, or setting that let you switch between them. Now that switching is
iPhoto). But that’s not all, not even close—Sofortbild can do HDR, done automatically by the OS—unless you get gfxCardStatus,
timed shots, change your camera’s settings, rename photos, and which lets you override
much, much more. It’s so full-featured we can hardly believe it’s free. the auto-switch when
you want to. Using Intel
HD graphics instead of
the Nvidia GeForce GT
330M can save battery
life, and now you’re the
one driving that bus.

The menu bar shows an

“N” if you’re using Nvidia
graphics, or an “I” for Intel.
If you have a Nikon DSLR, you should definitely get this. Click it for the menu.

YOU
Y RISE TO THE CHALLENGE. WE REWARD YOU WITH COOL PRIZES.

Gum
G with
i OUR
Long-Lasting CONTESTS
(iPhone) Flavor James’s prize is a Just
Mobile Gum Plus mobile ARE ONLINE!
We deal with apps every day, but battery pack for iPhone
($70, xtand.net). This little For more details on this
when we asked our readers about battery is stylish, portable, month’s contest, visit
and Apple-certified. Score!
their favorite apps, their responses maclife.com/Jan_11_Win.
>>>>

surprised us. Your favorites includes This month, we’re giving

away a Mysterious Box of
hordes of zombie apps, flocks of
Mystery! Nobody knows
Twitter clients, and uncomfortably what’s in it until we send
high levels of flatulence apps. it out, but trust us—you’ll
But when the random-number want whatever’s inside.
generator picked a winner, it
proved that destiny sometimes
favors those who comment first
on Win articles. Our winner was
James Poulson from San Diego,
whose favorite apps range from
Scrabble to Cydia (whatever that is).
Congratulations, James!

18
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

MT

TAME YOUR
PAPER MONSTER
TM

Paper Monsters start so innocently. A pile of receipts

here, a cluster of bills there... but soon, you’ve got a real
Monster on your hands. That’s where Neat® can help. Our
O
T
K
E
N
A
C
S
P
R S DE +
powerful, yet easy-to-use scanner and software solutions
DIGITAL FILING SYSTEM
D extract key information from your paper, then organizes
This high-speed, duplex scanner lets you it all in a digital filing cabinet. Great for peace of mind.
scan multiple paper types all at once, or
Bad for Paper Monsters.
even insert up to 50 pages for lightning-
fast batch scanning.
 Scan and organize receipts, business cards and
documents in a digital filing cabinet
 Create PDF files, expense reports, tax reports,
digital contacts and more
 Export data to Excel,® Mac Address Book, and Quicken®

MOBILE SCANNER +
FREE USE
PROMO CODE:
DIGITAL FILING SYSTEM SHIPPING MLFREE
WITH PURCHASE
At less than one pound, the USB-powered
scanner fits easily in your laptop bag and
is perfect for the road, home, or office. TO ORDER VISIT
neatco.com/MLFREE
OR CALL 866-395-7075

worldmags
 worldmags

>>>Start

Crave The gear we’re LusTing afTer…This monTh

Leaf Tie
FLORENCE

lufdesign.blogspot.com
$7 for a pack of 12

>>>Even with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, my desk

is still a mess of cables and connectors. And
unfortunately, we don’t get outside much to
enjoy the bay views near Mac|Life HQ. These
Leaf Ties from Lufdesign make my cable
clutter more manageable. And in cool natural
(and a few unnatural) colors, they bring a
little bit of an organic vibe to the techno
landscape of my desk.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA BERG

20
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

CN
NIC
VIBRATO
v-moda.com
$129.99

>>>The Vibrato headset is made

from a zinc alloy, so it feels
sturdy and durable. And the
in-line remote lets me change
tracks and take calls without
having to pick up my iPhone.
The two-year warranty is nice,
too…considering the beating my
earbuds take with daily use.
ROBIN

CANDY STYLUS & PEN

hardcandycases.com
$34.95

>>>For drawing or writing on the iPad, a

stylus beats my finger every time. And
since I’m more of an analog paper-and-pen
person, I love that the Stylus includes a
ballpoint pen on the other end. The trick is
remembering not to use the pen on one of
our precious iPads.

ROBERTO

MAJOR
marshallheadphones.com
$99

>>>At press time, details about the Marshall

Headphones were pretty slim, but given the
reputation Marshall has earned for its hard-
rocking amps, I’m already excited. By the time
you read this, I’ll be putting them to the test
with the help of my awesome new Mötorhead
playlist.
RAY

Bluetooth Headset
bose.com
$149.95

>>>For its new Bluetooth headset, Bose

used all of its expertise in making small
audio gear that sounds a lot bigger. And
instead of complicated button presses to
access different features, Bose introduced a
new control scheme that lets you use your
headset intuitively without it popping out
of your ear like so many headsets before it.
It almost makes me willing to walk around
looking like a cyborg again.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 21
 worldmags

By the Mac|Life staff

3D IllustratIons by aDam benton

22
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

TODAY’S

M
MAGIC T
TOMORROW’S

R
REALITY
EVERYONE WANTS TO The age of wonder crap gadget. Just as transform our lives and
is just beginning. surely, Jobs & Co. will make us look back on the
KNOW WHAT APPLE’S Each morning, we shove keep it nailed down under heyday of the iPhone with
devices into our pockets bulletproof wraps right a nostalgic twinge?
NEXT BIG THING WILL that, as kids, we could up until they’re good and For answers, Mac|Life’s
only goggle at on Star ready to tell the world editors delved into the
BE. SO WE GAZED INTO Trek. Now we can Google about it. most cutting-edge trends
OUR CRYSTAL BALL TO on them, and that’s not It’s that culture of and developments in
even vaguely impressive. secrecy, combined with technology, then applied
GLIMPSE THESE FOUR We live in an era when Apple’s gotta-have-it them to the product
every day sees past track record, that makes categories that Apple
RIPPED-FROM-THE- science fiction become it such a blast to dream, dominates. While all of the
contemporary mundane speculate, and even hope resulting prototypes that
FUTURE PROTOTYPES reality, and like you, for what might be next. we’re unveiling here are
OF DEVICES THAT that only whets our thirst New iPads and iPhones our creations, we’ve made
for more. are sure things in the sure that the tech behind
APPLE COULD MAKE IN With Apple’s talent coming year, but we set them actually exists, and
for staggering us with our sights much higher. we show you how Apple
THE YEARS AHEAD. innovative design, What will we be lining up could really be putting
Cupertino will likely be for in 2012 and 2013? it to use. And we didn’t
at the forefront of our How about 2017? And even nick anything from a
culture’s next big holy- how will these devices Redwood City bar to do it.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 23
2012
Applevision
You won’t be able to tear your eyes away from Apple’s
superpowered television. By rAy AguilerA
Whether it’s a lovely
3.5-inch Retina display
on an iPhone 4 or the
absolutely stunning
27-inch Cinema Display,
Apple’s rightly famous
for putting gorgeous visuals first. But they’d
never bother with a device as mundane as
a regular television set. No, when Apple
moves into the living room to capitalize
on the snowballing convergence of the
internet, gaming, apps, computing, and plain
old movie-watching, the least significant
thing the AppleVision will do is deliver a
pretty picture.
But let’s start with that. The AppleVision’s
65-inch P-IPS display will offer 30-bit color
depth capable of displaying more than a
billion colors. That alone will make it prettier
than any picture currently on the market.
On to “the magic.” The gateway to the
AppleVision’s coolest feature will lurk in
a pinhole at the top of the display, where
a wide-angle camera and a mic will be
concealed. Of course they’ll be good for
FaceTime chats right from your couch
(just like the Jetsons!), but like Microsoft’s
recently released Kinect (an add-on to
the Xbox 360), the camera’s continuously
projected infrared pattern will be constantly
reading and analyzing the scene in front of
the AppleVision. That means it’ll recognize
Rejected PRototyPe Idea 36b: An Apple throwing stAr. the tsA fAmously seized the only known
prototypes of Apple’s cutting-edge technology, proving cupertino wAs too shArp for its own good.
24
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
tHe FUtURe oF aPPLe deSIGN
you when you walk into the room, turning
on your default home screen—or reacting
to your kids’ arrival by activating whatever
parental controls you’ve set. You’ll simply
speak a command like, “Play The Hobbit” to
cue up Peter Jackson’s latest masterpiece,
or you’ll gesture with your hand, making a
swiping motion in the air to flip through the
menus and find something else to watch,
an app to load up, a game to play, or simply By gesturing in
just emails and tweets to answer. There’s no the air, you’ll be
able to shrink
remote to master—just a “touchscreen in
down your video
the air” interface that will make AppleVision and pop up a
a pleasure to use. safari window to
look up the actor
Behind the screen, AppleVision will pack
whose name
in 4TB of RAID-enabled storage—HD is on the tip of
movies are big!—as well as dual Core i11 your tongue.
Intel processors and 256GB of RAM. Since
AppleVision runs iOS 6, you’ll be able to just
sync a Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo,
and you’ve got the biggest iPad ever built.
Yes, the AppleVision is an entertainment
powerhouse. You’ll be able to access content
stored locally, on your network, and in the
cloud. And if you still need more media, the
AppleVision will connect (over Wi-Max, of Built-in Bluetooth
course) to streaming video from Netflix, and wi-max
networking will
Amazon, Hulu, and of course the iTunes keep your
Store. It will, quite simply, be the beautiful, Applevision and
Jonny Ive–designed display packed with the your iphone in sync
without all those
turbo-charged Apple TV functions that we’ve annoying cables.
always dreamed of.
 worldmags

this camera/mic combo

will enable facetime
video calls….as well as
a Minority Report–style
“swipe the air” control
interface.

Rejected PRototyPe Idea 324c: Apple NANomites, A logicAl progressioN of the ipod NANo thAt tAttoos ipods oNto
customers’ skiN duriNg speciAl AppoiNtmeNts At geNius BArs. But yeAh…ouch!

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 25
2013
iPAD 3D
Apple will refresh its tablet to be flatter than
ever—except when it’s not flat at all. By Jon PhilliPS
The world has caught
3D fever. It’s in our TVs,
game consoles, Blu-
ray players, and movie
theaters. In due time, 3D
features will probably
even appear in our shampoo and breakfast
cereal (”No, Mommy—I want Cap’n Crunch
3D!”). Yet Apple seems conspicuously
ambivalent about all the 3D hype. Are Steve’s
engineers really treating 3D as a passing
fad? Of course not. They’re just going to wait
until 2013 in order to do it right.
The iPad 3D’s dimensions will approximate
those of the current iPad we know and love.
Height and width will be 9.5 inches and 7.5
inches respectively, but the thickness of
the tablet will slim down from a half-inch to
a shockingly thin one-fifth of an inch. It’s
difficult to reach these svelte dimensions
under any circumstances, yet Apple will also
finagle a 3D display on top of the device’s
dainty circuit-board sandwich. And you
won’t need cumbersome glasses to enjoy
the 3D magic.
Don’t scoff. In early 2011, Nintendo will
release its 3DS, a handheld gaming system
that uses “parallax barrier” technology to
render surprisingly effective 3D imaging
effects—all without the nerd glasses. We
believe that Apple will be implementing
an even more mature iteration of this
REjEcTED PROTOTyPE IDEA 4-132c: iBike WiTh ioS inTegrATion. liABiliTy concernS hAlTeD furTher
concePTuAlizATion When We reAlizeD riDerS Were more likely To PlAy Angry BirDS ThAn Survive eAch TriP.
26
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
THE FUTURE OF APPLE DESIGN
technology, which, like all 3D display
systems, uses stereoscopic imaging to create
the illusion of depth.
In a typical 3D viewing scenario (say,
watching Avatar in the theater), the screen
projects two different images—each of the
same object or scene but from a slightly
different perspective. In the theater, your
3D glasses filter these projections in a way
that guarantees one image hits your left
eye and the other image hits your right eye.
Your brain then synthesizes the two images
into a 3D spatial representation. In a parallax
barrier scheme—like what you’ll find in the
Nintendo 3DS and the iPad 3D—the screen
actually aims different sets of pixels to hit
one eye or the other. In essence, one pixel
set is angled toward your left eye, the other
is angled toward your right eye, and a virtual
barrier ensures each eye sees the correct
set. When the system works, the technology
is remarkably effective and no glasses
are necessary.
Now, granted, in a parallax barrier system
you have to hold the screen at just the right
viewing angle and distance from your eyes.
But we trust that by 2013, Apple will have
a workaround for this dilemma (because, We’ve found that parallax barrier
hey, it’s Apple). From gaming apps to HD displays tend to excel at showing
video content, Apple’s most novel tablet objects receding into the background,
rather than objects jumping out of the
will deliver 3D to your entire mobile screen. So the iPad 3D will come with
entertainment experience. desktop themes that “embed” unique
spatial effects and animations beneath
the screen’s surface. The theme you
see here mimics a swimming pool. Tap
the icon of an app you want to load,
and animated 3D waves ripple forth.
 worldmags

Say farewell to “Slide to unlock”—the iPad 3D’s entire

screen will serve as a biometric security reader. Just touch anywhere
on the screen, and it’ll scan your fingerprint and wake the device from
sleep. Depending on what level of security you define in Settings, the
system can grant access to your hands and your hands only. Want
your kids to have an open door to some apps but not others—or
need a guest account for easier sharing? Simple. The tablet supports
multiple user accounts for registered fingerprints with full parental
controls, and you can turn on a guest mode that lets anyone access
what you define as “safe territory.”

Note the edge-to-edge display—

the black border around the
screen’s perimeter is gone! If you
want the border back, just push in
the same toggle switch that locks
screen orientation in the current
iPad. You’ll lose some screen real
estate (and pixels), but you’ll gain
a place to put your grubby mitts.
The iPad 3D will increase 2D screen resolution from a current spec of 1024x768 to roughly
1280x1024—and, yes, that 2D resolution will engage dynamically when non-3D content is
displayed. Because it’ll have to split its horizontal pixel grid in half for 3D viewing, the 3D
resolution will be an effective grid of roughly 640x768. We write “roughly” because the
rounded edges decrease the display’s total pixel count. Never heard of an LCD grid that
follows a gentle curve? Toshiba Matsushita announced this technology in October 2007.

rejected PrototyPe idea 17-78c: iFIT FITNess TraINer. IF NINTeNDO CaN geT us IN shaPe WITh The WII,
aPPLe CaN geT us TO ruN MaraThONs! BuT ON seCOND ThOughT…26.2 MILes Is Far.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 27
2015
macbook eco
Apple’s laptops will lose the power cord and go even greener.
by susIe ochs
Think of the MacBook
Eco as a hybrid car
you can toss in your
backpack. Just as a
Prius is powered by a
combination of gasoline
and electricity, the MacBook Eco will stay
running with a mashup of technologies that
includes solar energy, piezoelectric power,
and wireless electricity.
First off, its black coating isn’t just for
aesthetics. That’s solar paint, a multilayered
mixture of nano-sized dye-sensitive cells and
titanium dioxide that can coat any material,
going on like paint and drying as tiny—think
microscopic—solar cells. Even in 2010, it can
harness more of the sun’s energy (up to 40
percent) than traditional photovoltaic cells
(closer to 18 percent). That performance also
comes at a lower cost, according to NextGen
Solar, the startup bringing this technology
to market. You can’t just waltz down to
Lowe’s and pick up a gallon today, but
imagine what could happen if a huge buyer
like Apple got on board. Plus, since this
paint works on so many surfaces—even
Rejected PRototyPe Idea 783d: aPPle sewIng kIt. came to an abRuPt halt when we RemembeRed
one of steve jobs’ most common comPlaInts—”too many buttons!”
28
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
THE FUTURE OF APPLE DESIGN
windows—Apple won’t have to restrict its
creative industrial design.
Of course, computer use usually happens
indoors, so solar probably won’t be enough
for anyone except maybe Tarzan. But the
highly portable MacBook Eco will also use
kinetic energy harvested by your footsteps,
courtesy of piezoelectric pads on the bottom
of a pair of Nike Piezo cross-trainers.
Piezoelectric technology exists today too.
Piezoelectric floor tiles in Tokyo Station and
Shibuya Station in Japan collect energy from
the footfalls of nearly 3 million people daily,
where it’s stored in capacitors and used
to power the lights and ticket gates. And
researchers at MIT, Princeton, and Louisiana
Tech have been experimenting with adding
flexible piezoelectric materials into shoes.
If “footpower” makes you think “hamster
wheel,” rest assured this is far more
science-y than that. Basically—and this is
highly simplified—the piezoelectric element
is made up of an asymmetrical array of
cells of crystalline substances. In our case,
this takes the form of a foil layer in the sole
of the shoe, as well as a thicker pad in the
worldmags
heel. When hit by an external force—your
heel striking the ground or the sole bending
during a footstep—those cells realign
themselves in a regular pattern, which
develops electrostatic potential. So far, the
output is roughly on par with a lithium coin-
cell battery, but by the Eco’s debut, it’ll have
taken great strides—pun totally intended.
To keep the electrons flowing, the Eco
also has a piezoelectric layer underneath
the keyboard to capture the energy of every
keystroke you make. So go ahead and type
hard, angry emails—you’re saving the Earth
with every Caps Lock rant.
And don’t worry about an ugly 20th-
century wire tethering your shoes to your
Mac. The Eco will use wireless charging,
which will beam the power harvested in your
shoes up to your MacBook by converting the
electricity to radio waves and transmitting
them by RF. A handy graph on the screen
shows you at a glance how much of your
juice is coming from each source, letting
you combine technologies to keep your
hybrid MacBook Eco cruising down the
information superhighway.
 worldmags

Hit a function key for an at-a-glance “Solar paint” sounds No wires? Of course Since Apple’s already
look at where your power is coming made up, we know, not—this is the partnered with Nike
from—the solar-paint coating, the but it actually future, after all. for the Nike + iPod
Nike Piezo shoes, or the piezoelectrics exists and is even Electricity generated fitness products,
embedded under the keyboard. more efficient than by the shoes is sent they’re natural
traditional solar via radio frequency to partners for the
panels. the laptop. Wirelessly. energy-harvesting
Nike Piezo shoes.

TYPE HARD
BECAUSE YOUR
KEYSTROKES
ALSO PRODUCE
ELECTRICITY.
PIEZOELECTRICS
ARE AWESOME!!!1!

Rejected PRototyPe Idea 22-321c: APPLE BOARD gAME. BUT If SPECULATION MOUNTED THAT APPLE WAS WORKINg
ON NEW BOARD gAMES, JOBS WOULD JUST EMAIL A fAN TO SAY “fRANKLY, WE’RE ALREADY CREATINg A MONOPOLY.”

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 29
2017
iscroll
The love child of the iPhone and the MacBook will revolutionize
mobile computing and entertainment. By paul curthoys
Today, it takes
commitment to be wired
everywhere you go.
Lugging around a bag
crammed with—at a
minimum—an iPhone,
MacBook, and headphones sometimes makes
us feel like we’re schlepping more than a
sherpa. Come 2017, the iScroll will not only
free us all from those burdens, but it’ll also
wire us up like never before.
When you first pick one up, you might
mistake it for a tall, skinny iPhone from five
or six years before—but that impression
will change when you pull on the right side.
A bendable FOLED (flexible organic light
emitting diode) touchscreen will unspool and
flicker to life in glorious 1440p. This is not
just wishful thinking—Sony and Samsung
have been tinkering with FOLEDs for years
now, and while they’re awfully expensive
today, those prices are expected to plummet
fast. Touchscreen versions don’t exist yet to
our knowledge, but we trust that Apple can
crack that nut.
Back to this awesome bendable display.
What better way to browse the web, watch
a flick, or scan a map on its enjoyably large,
8x11-inch surface? Wireless earbuds will pipe
the audio right into your skull, and the non-
bendable Multi-Touch display will house a 24-
hour battery, 5G/Wi-Max radio, 1TB of RAM,
and a 10MP camera for videos, photos, and
Rejected PRototyPe Idea 66m: iFilter. this soFtware would prioritize your content consumption—
like Genius For all your media. But then we realized…who’d want a soup nazi For your down time?
30 JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
tHe FUtURe oF aPPLe deSIGN
FaceTime calls. Knitting it all together will be
Hyena, Apple’s sleek new operating system
that, in a long-expected move, will merge the
old Mac OS and iOS. To ensure privacy, the
back side of the display will be blank silver,
save for the softly glowing Apple logo in
the center.
But for some tasks like writing or video
editing, you can’t beat the laptop’s form
factor. In those moments, you’ll tap a
hardware button along the side to trigger
a memory-plastic effect that’ll stiffen the
bendable display, kinking it about a
third of the way along its length
into a familiar, MacBook-
esque shape. The
non-bendable
display will
become
a trackpad,
a keyboard will
come up on the not-
bendable-anymore display,
and you can get cracking.
In what might seem like a downside
today, the iScroll will have no permanent
onboard storage—everything will sync
constantly to and from the cloud, deploying
the rock-solid MobileMe3 service to keep
your latest data instantly available no
matter which device you use.
Yes, even if you’re still stuck in an AT&T
contract...
 worldmags

This roll-out, When in laptop mode,

bendable the iScroll’s main
FOLED touchscreen will
touchscreen will become a huge Magic
be perfect for Trackpad—and yes,
reading maps, it’ll know the difference
perusing the between intentional
e-newspaper, gestures and just
or just tucking resting your wrists to
into a movie, use the keyboard.
app, or game.

America is big. So
even in 2017, we’ll
Advances in still encounter
memory plastics places with no
will allow signal. But when
the iScroll’s we return to
bendable display “civilization,”
to stiffen on the iScroll will
command, automatically sync
converting it its 1TB of RAM with
into the airiest your permanent
MacBook yet. cloud storage.

Rejected PRototyPe Idea 135-78: A TOuch-cApAciTivE kEyBOARD WiTh SWiTchABLE FuncTiOnS.

BuT OuR MOTTO “ALL OF ThE ABiLiTy, nOnE OF ThE TAcTiLE inpuT” kiLLED iT in iTS inFAncy.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 31
 worldmags

DIY APPLE LEAKS

How to fuel the rumor mill with your own fake Apple tech!

No visit to Apple’s future would be complete without fuzzy “spy shots” of upcoming Apple gear. And of course, there’s a long
history of Photoshopped fakes getting the Twitternet chattering. While occasional product leaks happen—remember the iPhone 4
brouhaha last spring?—Apple is a master of controlling what gets out and what doesn’t. But Apple fans are so hungry for details,
it’s no wonder that fakes can quickly gain traction. And rolling out your own Apple fake is surprisingly easy. Just follow our step-by-
step guide to grabbing your 15 seconds of internet fame. BY ROBERTO BALDWIN & FLORENCE ION

1 Snap some pics of

existing Apple gear
on a desk under bad
fluorescent lighting; this
lends authenticity by
suggesting a secret test
lab. Conspicuously yet
casually include other
Apple products, like a
keyboard or trackpad.
Remember, it’s a “spy
shot,” so the fewer
megapixels, the better.
iPhone cameras are a
natural choice.
2 The Marquee tool
and layers in your
favorite image editor
are your friend. Select
defining features like
buttons or screens,
then paste them into
new layers. Next go
back to your original
layer and select the
body of the product,
stretching it and
contorting it into a
new and interesting
form factor.
3 Take a photo of
your manipulated
image onscreen. This
4 Post your fake on
an internet forum.
Claim you got it from a
5 Enjoy your internet
celebrity while it
lasts—which won’t be
throws off the colors friend in California—or long. We hear Apple
a bit more and injects your cousin, who works just filed a patent for a
the low-fi image quality for a chip maker you thing that does some
you’re looking for. Save can’t name. In a matter stuff, and it’s magical.
the image as a JPEG of hours, every high- That will surely be the
at the lowest possible traffic Apple blog will be new blog hotness in
setting for even more reporting your fake as three…two…one…
authentic spy-shot blur news. Get your friends,
and distortion. For extra grandparents, second
points, use HoudahGeo cousins, and LARP
or a similar tool to brethren to retweet it.
change geotag data on
your photo to Apple HQ
in Cupertino.

Look! It’s the long- Use layers in your

fabled 7-inch iPad! photo editor to
manipulate part of
your image.

32
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

worldmags
 worldmags

Have it when
you need it,
dock it when
you don’t.

T first Bluetooth headset designed to fit your

The
iPhone 4 without compromising your style
iP

www.mogostore.com
worldmags
 worldmags

IT’S A

HOW TO MASTER P
H PHOTO ORGANIZING
& EDITING ON YOUR MAC
Now that digital cameras are cheap and
ubiquitous, we can snap, snap, snap
away—which comes back to haunt us
when we end up shooting hundreds of
frames over the course of an afternoon.
Storage space is cheap, but managing
an ever-expanding collection of
thousands of images can make you long
for the days when you took pictures on
film, 24 at a time.
No matter whether
you’re rocking a
professional-grade
DSLR or you shoot your
snaps with an iPhone,
having a capable
method of organizing your collection
and editing your photos is essential.
iPhoto comes with every new Mac and
it does a lot, but it isn’t the be-all-end-
all for every user. So we looked at five
other applications that can help you
corral and edit your photos; then we
collected 10 solid tips for making those
photos look their best, no matter which
app you’re using. You’ll never regret
filling up a memory card again.
BY ROB LAWTON

worldmags
maclife.com JAN • 11 35
 worldmags

IT’S A SNAP! MASTER PHOTO ORGANIZING & EDITING ON YOUR MAC

PART ONE:

CHOOSING YOUR APP

Many use iPhoto just “because it’s there.” Alternatives exist, but some are pretty expensive. Before you take the plunge, peruse these pros and cons.

iPHOTO ’11
iPhoto ’11 just arrived (see p60), bringing better Facebook integration, enhancements; upload them to your MobileMe, Flickr, and Facebook
along with an enhanced full-screen mode, better photo books, and new accounts; email them to your friends; and create some spectacular-
letterpress cards. (Books and cards must be ordered; you can’t print looking slideshows.
them yourself.) Beyond these enhancements, iPhoto is still the simple Like many Apple apps, iPhoto combines simplicity with hidden depths.
but effective organizer we know and love. It’s never going to replace the likes of Aperture and Lightroom, but it gets
Your photos are imported into a central tamper-proof library, which you farther than you expect. The editing tools might not be advanced, but
lives as a single file on your hard disk. Once your photos are in the they do a good job, and the Auto Enhance button can transform average-
library, you can organize them into albums; carry out basic image looking snaps in an instant.
The Faces and Places features PROS
work pretty well too, though each n Simple, fast, and
requires you to put in a little time effective image
enhancements
and effort to get the best results. n Intuitive and efficient
The face recognition is good but not photo-organizing tools
n Superb slideshow
infallible, and if you don’t have a GPS-
wtemplates
enabled camera, it can be tedious to n Facebook and Flickr
enter location data for your photos integration; Faces and
Places
manually. n Received 4.5 stars from
The bottom line. iPhoto (part Mac|Life (see p60)
of iLife ’11, $49, apple.com) is best CONS
for anyone who uses photography n Basic editing tools for
quick fixes and nice
socially rather than professionally. effects—but little else
n iPhoto uses its own
iPhoto ’11’s redesigned Edit storage system, which
screen is on the basic side but can be hard to fathom
still gets the job done.

PHOTOSHOP CS5
Photoshop is the granddaddy of all photo-editing applications. The to extract difficult outlines (like human hair) from a background.
name itself has become a byword for photo trickery, and it’s a standard Photoshop’s high dynamic range tool has been redesigned to be both
tool for professional photographers, artists, and designers everywhere. easier to use and more powerful, and a new HDR Toner feature lets
And yet Adobe still finds new ways to improve it. CS5 is now a 64-bit you create the HDR “look” from a single image, where true HDR uses
application, though you do need Snow Leopard and lots of RAM to at least three. The Adobe Camera Raw plug-in uses a new processing
exploit the extra processing power. The new Content-Aware Fill feature system to offer improved definition, and you’ll find more sophisticated
can effectively cover up unwanted objects by drawing in detail from noise-reduction tools too.
their surroundings, and new selection-refinement tools make it easier There isn’t much that Photoshop can’t do, but you will need to
know quite a lot about image editing to get the most from it. And
photographers will probably have to invest in a separate photo-
cataloguing tool (like Lightroom or
Aperture)—although Photoshop comes with PROS
n Still the most powerful
the Adobe Bridge file browser, it’s soon out image editor of all
of its depth with big photo collections. n Industry-standard tool
for professionals
The bottom line. Photoshop CS5 ($699,
n Great new Content-
free trial, adobe.com) is best for pro Aware Fill and HDR
photographers and enthusiasts who have features
n New RAW conversion
advanced far beyond the basics. tools
n Received 4.5 stars from
Mac|Life (Jul/10, p60)
CONS
Photoshop stays on top because n Very expensive
it’s always improving. n Steep learning curve

36
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9
Elements is the amateur version of Photoshop, and it’s designed to The Organizer is like an application in itself, storing all your photos
offer a lot of Photoshop’s features in a much friendlier format for in one centralized library. You can tag your photos with keywords,
novices. Version 9 is a dramatic step forward for Mac owners, not only organize them into albums, and even “stack” related images so that, for
because it has some very useful improvements in its own right, but also example, modified versions are always kept alongside the originals.
because it now comes with a Mac version of the Organizer app, which Elements is designed with beginners and nonprofessionals in mind,
was previously only available in the Windows version (Mac users got so you can enhance your photos with the easy-to-use Quick Fix tools
Adobe Bridge instead). or the more advanced Guided Edits. In the Full Edit mode, though,
it’s a much more powerful program
than you might imagine, and many PROS
n Great for starting out and
of the things that you may think you learning as you go
need Photoshop for can be done n Comes with Adobe’s
perfectly well in Elements, including excellent Organizer app
n Clever “Photomerge”
layer masks. Best of all, at under $80, technology for
it’s a mere fraction of the price of panoramas and other
image-blending tasks
Photoshop CS5.
n Now supports layer masks
The bottom line. Photoshop n Received 4.5 stars from
Elements 9 ($79.99, free trial, Mac|Life (Dec/10, p64)
adobe.com) is for beginners and CONS
n Choice of editing modes
enthusiasts who want quick results
and tools can become
without complex tools. confusing
n Lacks a few high-end
Elements’ Guided Edits mode Photoshop tools that you
actually teaches you editing may eventually need
tricks as you use it.

APERTURE 3
Aperture is one of a new generation of “nondestructive” image editor- of image adjustments you’ve made. As of version 3, Aperture is now
slash-organizers. This means the enhancements you make to your a very powerful image-editor as well as a cataloguing tool. You can
picture are stored in the Aperture library and not applied directly to the apply both global and localized image adjustments, and while you’ll still
image files, which are kept safe and untouched as “master” images. The need Photoshop for layers and montages, Aperture can do pretty much
advantage of this is that you can always go back and change or undo everything else. It’s easy to set Aperture up to use Photoshop as an
the edits you’ve made to your photos, but the downside is that you’re external editor, too, and it handles “round-tripping” perfectly, storing
relying on a single database for all the hundreds (or even thousands) Photoshop-edited files alongside the originals in your library.
Aperture’s real strength, though, is its cataloguing. It’s quicker
and slicker than its main rival Lightroom at both handling and
displaying large numbers of images,
and its system of projects, folders, and PROS
albums gives you great flexibility in the n New and improved
photo-enhancement
way you organize your photos without
tools
forcing you into a particular filing n Flexible and powerful
system on your computer. photo organization
n Fast thumbnail display
The bottom line. Aperture ($199, and searching tools
free trial, apple.com) hits the sweet spot n Excellent full-screen
for professional photographers and browsing and editing
modes
keen enthusiasts looking to upgrade n Received 4.5 stars from
from iPhoto. Mac|Life (May/10 p58)
CONS
n Lightroom still has the
Aperture’s interface reminds us
edge for photo editing
of iPhoto on steroids.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN • 11 37
 worldmags

IT’S A SNAP! MASTER PHOTO ORGANIZING & EDITING ON YOUR MAC

PART ONE: CHOOSING YOUR APP (continued)

ADOBE LIGHTROOM 3
Lightroom is Adobe’s answer to Aperture: a photo organizer and editor such as graduated filter effects and localized “painted” adjustments.
that stores all your photo data (including image adjustments) in a single Because it’s a nondestructive editor, the original image files remain
database—your photos are stored separately in regular folders on your unaltered, and you can go back and experiment with different
hard drive. Adobe’s Camera Raw software is built in, so you can browse adjustments at any time.
and edit RAW files just as effectively as JPEGs. In fact, Lightroom’s Lightroom’s photo-organizing tools aren’t quite as impressive,
editing tools are its main strength, allowing you to carry out a whole though. Running on the same hardware, it’s noticeably slower than
host of basic adjustments, as well as more sophisticated alterations Aperture at displaying and scrolling through thumbnails, and the dark-
toned interface feels more cluttered, too. Frustratingly, the
system for organizing Collections (albums, in other words) is
entirely separate to that for displaying the folders where the
photos are stored on your hard drive. Lightroom’s organizing
tools are in some ways more obvious
and direct than Aperture’s, but PROS
they’re also more limiting. n Excellent image-
enhancement tools
The bottom line. Lightroom 3 n Very well-integrated
($299, free trial, adobe.com) with Photoshop (as you’d
expect from Adobe)
will appeal to professional
n Support for the widest
photographers and keen range of RAW formats of
enthusiasts with fast Macs any photo app
n Received 4 stars from
and huge photo collections. Mac|Life (Sep/10, p58)
CONS
n Thumbnail display can be
sluggish
Lightroom’s dark interface lets n Folders and Collections
your photos pop but also feels don’t integrate at all
cluttered at times.

PICASA 3.6
Picasa is to iPhoto what Android smartphones are to the iPhone. of Adobe Bridge, and Picasa is extremely fast at searching, even when
It’s Google’s version of an all-in-one photo-cataloguing and -editing you have tens of thousands of pictures.
program, and while it’s been around on the Windows side for a while, The photo-enhancement tools are good, too. They’re not particularly
it’s only recently arrived on the Mac. sophisticated, and they certainly don’t rival a proper image-editing
Where iPhoto imports pictures into its own library, Picasa works like program like Photoshop or even Elements, but you can do some clever
a file browser, showing you the contents of your picture folders, and and useful things such as geotagging, face detection, and graduated
updating them automatically if you change or add to your pictures. filter effects, as well as regular, everyday tone and color enhancements.
Photos are displayed in a single catalog, though, so it’s one step ahead Picasa also integrates with Google’s free web albums, automatically
synchronizing any changes you make online or in the
Picasa app. Compared to other Mac applications, though,
Picasa is pretty odd, both in the way it displays folders
and in the design and operation of its image-fixing tools.
But hey, it’s free!
The bottom line. Picasa 3 (free, picasa.google.com)
will appeal to cheapskates,
Google fanatics, and any PROS
iPhoto defectors looking for a n Displays photos in their
original folder locations
fast, simple, and free photo- n Effective image-
cataloguing tool. enhancement tools
n Extremely fast keyword
searches
n Integration with Google’s
web albums

If you can get used to its CONS

quirks, Picasa packs a n Quirky layout and
lot of functionality into a controls
free application.

38
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

ON SALE! ALL WEB HOSTING

PACKAGES JUST:
$ .99
3
Whether you’re a beginner or a
professional, 1&1 offers a full range
per month*
For the first 3 months!

of website solutions to suit your needs.

For a limited time, we’re offering all
web hosting packages at one incredible
low price. Website building tools,
unlimited traffic, and search engine
marketing dollars are included with
all packages.

Go to www.1and1.com to choose your

package!

DOMAIN OFFERS:
.info only $0.99 first year .com only $4.99 first year * *

®
Free Web 90-Day Money 2
24/7 Toll-Free
Marketing Tools Back Guarantee Sup
p
Support

Call 1-877-GO-1AND1 or visit us now www.1and1.com

Offers begin November 1, 2010. 12 month minimum contract term applies for web hosting offers. Setup fee and other terms and conditions may apply. Domain offers valid first year only. After first year, standard ppricing applies.
**O
Visit www.1and1.com for full promotional offer details. Program and pricing specifications and availability subject to change without notice. 1&1 and the 1&1 logo are trademarks of 1&1 Internet AG, all other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. © 2010 1&1 Internet, Inc. All rights reserved.

worldmags
 worldmags

IT’S A SNAP! MASTER PHOTO ORGANIZING & EDITING ON YOUR MAC

PART TWO:

EDITING YOUR PHOTOS

Sometimes the difference between an image that’ll never leave your hard drive and a gorgeous, frame-worthy photo is a few simple tweaks.

1. KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS SAFE 2. FOLDERS AND FILENAMES

When you edit your photos, always work on a copy, not the original.
You never know when you might need that original, either because
you’ve messed up or you want to apply a completely new effect. In
ordinary image editors, you should get into the habit of doing a “Save
As” as soon as you’ve done any work on the photo. In nondestructive
programs like Aperture, Lightroom, and iPhoto, the original image will
always be available, but it needs a bit of digging out, so even here it
can be useful to make a duplicate just so that the original is there right
alongside it as a before-and-after reference. You should also keep
backups, and with the advent of Time Machine, there’s just no excuse
not to. If you’re using a pre-Leopard version of the Mac OS, you could
use the older Backup utility instead. Alternatively, check out your
editor’s help file—many programs have a built-in backup option.
The filenames used by digital cameras don’t mean much to humans, but
you can rename them once they’re on your Mac. Most organizing apps
have simple batch-renaming tools (if not, grab the free Rename utility
from pathossoftware.com), so just choose a system that makes sense.
This could be as simple as a batch number followed by a photo number,
which keeps them in chronological order.
Plus, digital cameras usually reset their file numbering system when
you erase or format the memory card. So when you transfer another
batch of pictures to your Mac, they may have the same filenames
as photos you’ve already got. Not a problem if they’re in separate
folders, but if you try to move them into the same location, you could
inadvertently overwrite an earlier set.
Once you dump your photos into a cataloguing tool like iPhoto or
Aperture, you don’t have to worry about folder and filenames—just use
the software to create album names and photo titles.

Built-in
batch
renaming is
handy, but
if you use
iPhoto you
don’t have
Back up your Mac, including your photos. Losing them is a heart- to bother.
crushing experience we hope you never have.

3. HISTOGRAMS AND LEVELS

Histograms look technical, but they’re actually easy to understand, and portion of the photo that an image editor can’t save the day. But at
can tell you very quickly what’s wrong with a photo, whether you can fix least you’ll know what’s happened and be more careful with the camera
it, and how to do so. Just about all image editors offer a Levels dialog, exposure next time. And although a clipped histogram is bad news, it
and this should always be your first stop when trying to fix a problem. tells you not to waste any more time trying to fix the unfixable.
Diagnosing histogram/levels problems is pretty straightforward. The
histogram is a chart showing how many pixels there are at different
brightness levels, from solid black (at the left edge) to brilliant white
(at the right). If the histogram doesn’t quite reach the left-hand end, it
means the photo doesn’t have any true black tones, so it’s going to look
pale and washed-out. If the histogram doesn’t quite reach the right end,
it means the picture doesn’t have any true white tones, so it’s going to
look dingy. You just drag the levels sliders to line up with the ends of
the histogram, which expands the histogram to fill the full tonal range.
This boosts the contrast, saturation, and overall vividness, and can
often fix problem photos at a stroke.
On the other hand, if either end of the histogram is a solid black
line—which means it’s “clipped”—there’s nothing you can do. You
often get this if the photo has been overexposed or underexposed,
and it means that the shadows or highlights are so blown out in some Nudging the levels sliders in from the edges of the histogram can do
wonders to fix your photos.

40
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags

4. SHARE YOUR PHOTOS!
The problem with digital photography is that your pictures never have
a physical form—unless you do something about it, all they’re ever
going to be is files on your hard drive. Printing can be expensive, but
if you send your best shots to an online lab, it’s much cheaper than
doing it yourself, and less work. All you do is upload them and then wait
for them to arrive in the mail. You can also get enlargements of your
favorite pictures, and the sizes available go way beyond anything you
could print at home.
To share photos without spending a dime, create an online album
using free services like Google’s Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, or Facebook.
And don’t forget slideshows using Lightroom, Picasa, Aperture, and even
iPhoto, which has amazing built-in slideshow themes. Even better,
you can export your slideshows as movies, then upload to YouTube.
Taking pictures is only
half the process—sharing
them afterwards is the
real point!
MobileMe’s galleries are gorgeous and an
easy upload from iPhoto or Aperture.
6. NONDESTRUCTIVE EDITING
Nondestructive editing means that the changes you make to a photo
can be undone at any time. Some programs do this as a matter of
course, including iPhoto, Picasa, Lightroom, and Aperture. The changes
you make are stored in a database, not applied permanently to the file.
Photoshop and Elements, though, lie somewhere in the middle. For
example, you can apply a levels or saturation adjustment directly to the
image layer (destructive), or use an adjustment layer (nondestructive)
which sits on top of the image layer and changes the way it looks, but
doesn’t touch the pixels themselves.
Direct image adjustments are permanent. But with adjustment layers,
you can re-open them and find the settings exactly as you left them,
ready to be changed. The trick with Photoshop is to make all of your
adjustments as
nondestructive
as possible, using
adjustment layers
rather than regular
adjustments, and
layer masks rather
than selections.
Whatever you do,
try to leave your
Make your Photoshop edits on adjustment layers
options open. and leave your pixels alone.
worldmags
worldmags
5. CREATIVE CROPPING
We’re quick to experiment with crazy effects, but how often do we crop
our photos? And yet it’s really important to think about your picture’s
composition right at the start. Do you need all that extra detail at the
edges? Is it straight? Would it look more exciting on a slant? This is one
time you get to use your creative skills when editing, instead of getting
hung up on sliders and percentages. Remember a few guidelines, like
the rule of thirds, wherein you mentally divide your photo into a 3x3
grid and position the subjects on those lines and where they intersect.
The other reason for cropping is to achieve certain aspect ratios, or
the width of the picture compared to the height. The aspect ratios of
common print sizes are often different from the aspect ratio of your
camera’s sensor. Most compact digicams have a 4:3 aspect ratio, but
4x6 prints have a wider 3:2 aspect ratio, which means the top and
bottom edges of your
shots will be cut off.
So if you’re producing
fixed-size prints,
cropping your photos
first means you get
to choose what’s
cropped off, not the
photo lab.
Spice up a standard snapshot with an interesting crop.
7. LENS CORRECTIONS
Sometimes your camera’s lens causes problems, like distortion (where
straight lines near the edge of the picture appear to bow outwards),
chromatic aberration (color fringing around the edges of objects), and
vignetting (where pictures are darker in the corners).
But these can be fixed. Adobe introduced automatic lens corrections
in Photoshop CS5, which means the software identifies the camera
and lens used to take the picture and matches it up with a specially
prepared lens-correction profile. Not all camera models are supported
yet, and it’s designed for digital SLRs rather than compacts, but even
if your camera isn’t on the list, you can still apply these corrections
manually. It’s surprising how much difference this makes.
Other programs have similar tools, but may not fix all three problems.
Photoshop can
do it all within the
Lens Correction
dialog, plus fix
converging
verticals and
other perspective
issues.
Your photo should reflect what your eyes see,
not necessarily what your lens saw.
maclife.com JAN • 11 41
 worldmags

IT’S A SNAP! MASTER PHOTO ORGANIZING & EDITING ON YOUR MAC

PART TWO:

EDITING YOUR PHOTOS (continued)

8. WORKING WITH RAW FILES “picture styles,” including Landscape, Portrait, and so on. But Adobe
All digital SLRs and many high-end compact cameras can shoot RAW Camera Raw and Aperture ignore all these and produce a generic color
files as an alternative to regular JPEGs, and it’s well worth doing. RAW conversion. To reproduce these picture styles from the RAW files, you
files are unprocessed images, saved before the camera has carried out need to use Canon’s Digital Photo Pro software.
any white balance, contrast, photo styles, and other adjustments. That
means you can choose what settings you want to apply later on.
It’s not just about preserving your options, though. RAW files contain
a wider brightness range, so it’s often possible to recover detail from
highlights or shadowed areas that would otherwise have been lost.
And depending on the RAW-conversion software you use, you may get
sharper, less noisy images too.
Most image-editing and cataloguing apps can now open and edit
RAW files directly, but the results will be slightly different. Adobe
Camera Raw, used in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Elements, doesn’t give
quite the same results as Aperture and iPhoto, for instance. There are
subtle differences in things like tonal rendition, noise, and saturation.
That’s not all. If you want your photos to exactly mimic the photo
styles of the camera you’re using, you need to use the camera maker’s Adobe Camera Raw is built into Lightroom, Photoshop, and Elements, and it
own RAW software. Canon cameras, for example, offer a range of handles RAW files.

9. DODGING AND BURNING 10. SOFTWARE WITH STACKING

In the old days, photographers used dodging and burning to enhance
their prints in the darkroom. Dodging meant shading certain parts
of the print under the enlarger to make them come out lighter, while
burning was exposing some areas for longer to make them come out
darker. You might “burn in” the sky in a landscape shot, for example, or
“dodge” your subject’s face in a portrait to make it come out lighter.
Nowadays, dodging and burning seems to get overlooked as a
basic image-enhancement technique, but it’s every bit as effective
as it always was and so much easier to do using software. Photoshop
and Elements both have powerful Dodge and Burn tools, and you can
achieve a similar effect with Aperture’s Adjustment Brushes.
It’s sometimes difficult to know where to start, but certain basic
techniques always work well. For a start, some deliberate darkening
around the edges of the picture effectively draws attention to the main
subject. Or if you’ve got ugly areas of dense shadow, a little lightening
(dodging) can bring out the detail. You can use dodging and burning to
direct viewers’ attention to what you want them to look at or as an aid
to composition, balancing the light and dark areas to produce a more
pleasing arrangement of shapes and tones.
A number of photo-cataloguing programs can “stack” (or group)
similar photos so that normally all you see is the top photo, but you
can expand the stack to see all the others. This means your screen
isn’t cluttered up with multiple versions of the same image—and as
your photo collection grows, keeping the clutter down becomes a very
pressing problem. These stacking tools are equally useful when you
produce edited versions of your pictures since the new image can then
be stacked alongside the original.
The simpler photo-cataloguing programs like iPhoto and Picasa don’t
support stacking, and this is one of the main reasons for upgrading
to something more powerful. The new Organizer application with
Photoshop Elements 9 does support stacking, as do Lightroom and
Aperture. Stacking is one of those features that doesn’t seem like a big
deal at first, but becomes essential once you’ve used it for a while.

This stack of two images means we have one less thumbnail to

Experimenting with Dodge and Burn can open up new
look at or scroll past.
creative possibilities.

42
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

tIPs fRoM ouR PRos

You’ve seen their photos—now benefit from their expertise!
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
(Another apt axiom is “garbage in, garbage out.”) In other words, all the
editing tricks in the world won’t help as much as learning how to take
better shots in the first place. To get you started, we asked Mark Madeo
and Samantha Berg— Mac|Life’s awesome staff photographers and the
maestros who create the luscious photography you see in this magazine
every month—for their best tips for getting the most out of your photo
shoots. And we’ll use Susie’s snaps to illustrate what not to do.

samantha Berg, hard at work... ...while Mark Madeo, uh, “supervises.”

>> aVoId shootInG at MIddaY when the sun is at its peak. The high
angle creates harsh shadows, and the bright light washes out colors.
Instead, opt for outdoor shots closer to dawn or dusk for richer colors
and better overall lighting.
>> When you’re shooting indoors, don’t use the flash. The bright
white light washes out everything in the foreground. Plus, it makes
everyone blink. Instead, increase your ISO and open your aperture
to the lowest f-stop possible. If you still can’t get a proper exposure
(most “nice” cameras have a built-in light meter that checks your
exposure; it’s the little
meter-like portion
of your viewfinder
display), it’s time to
use a tripod.

susie never
should have
taken this
photo from
that angle
with the using the indoor flash
sun right ruined this otherwise
there. lovely picture.

>> Change your angle or switch
locations to keeP dIstRactInG
oBjects out of the fRaMe .
It’s easier than cropping later,
which ultimately lowers the
resolution you have to work
with. Move your feet and your
camera—both can pay off in
big ways!
>> shoot lots of fRaMes.
Unlike film, shooting extra digital
images costs nothing. So take
more shots than you need and
cull the best ones later.
>> If your camera supports it,
alwaYs shoot Raw. More data
means cleaner digital images
and more to work with later in
Photoshop.
>> For group shots, snaP
at least one fRaMe
foR each PeRson In the
Photo. That way, you’re
bound to get a few where
everyone looks good at
the same time.
Group shots
are even harder
with dogs.

>> follow the Rule of thIRds. Imagine your frame split BReak all
into thirds horizontally the Rules!
and vertically, and try Often, the best
If you use
to place subjects along an iPhone, shots are complete
those lines or at their the free accidents. So don’t
Gorillacam
intersections. Your app can be afraid to try
photos will be much overlay a something new, and
rule-of-thirds
more dynamic than grid—and most of all, have fun
if you simply center a level to out there!
help keep
susie couldn’t have cropped out that
everything in the the horizon
trash can? frame. straight.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN • 11 43
 worldmags

worldmags
 worldmags

hoW To STUFF
SnoW Leopard
WiTh Lion FeaTUreS
Mac OS 10.7, codenamed Lion, comes out in summer 2011, but why
wait? Software and add-ons can put its four “sneak peek” features
into Snow Leopard today.

W
hen Apple demoed Lion, the next major version of Mac OS X, at a press event in October, we all oohed and
ahhed over the first four features Steve Jobs and Co. told us about. The Mac App Store, Mission Control,
Launch Pad, and full-screen application views all look very cool—so cool that we got a little bummed that
we’d have to wait until Lion’s launch in summer 2011 to get them on our Macs. But with just a few application add-ons,
you can give your current install of Snow Leopard some of the same teeth as Lion. By Cory Bohon

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 45
 worldmags
HOW TO STUFF SNOW LEOPARD WITH LION FEATURES

MAC APP STORE

A pple previewed the Mac App Store as a Lion feature, but later said
they would bring it to Snow Leopard within 90 days—as we went
to press, Apple was already taking submissions. The Mac App Store will
give developers a place to sell applications for OS X, and it’ll give users
one-click purchasing, plus automatic installing and updating, similar to
buying apps for your iOS devices. You’ll even be able to re-download
your applications onto multiple Macs. Sounds pretty good, but again, you
don’t have to wait for Apple’s official option to find a one-stop shop for
discovering, purchasing, and updating software for your Mac. Instead,
try Bodega.
Look familiar? Apple’s Mac App
Store has a lot of finesse, but it’s
not the first at this party.

Bodega mimics the look and feel of the
iTunes App Store, presenting you with a
very visual interface of app icons. Just
like the Mac App Store, Bodega lets you
browse and download many categories of
apps. The sidebar’s category list has 20
application types, ranging from Audio to
Desktop Enhancements to Finance to
Home & Personal.
When browsing applications, you can
click on an icon to see a detailed page with
a description, new features in the current
version, and a screenshot you can click
to enlarge. You can also read reviews by
clicking the Reviews tab and see press
information under the Press tab. If you still
haven’t decided whether or not you want to
buy the app, click the Download button to get
a trial copy.
If you decide you want to purchase
it, click the Buy Now button to be taken
through the checkout process.
Bodega actually sends you to
the developer’s website to go
through the checkout process.
This way you will be dealing
right with the software company,
instead of a third party, although
it’s a little less convenient than
Apple’s method of storing your
credit card with your account.
The Apple Mac App Store will
be able to keep your Mac apps
up-to-date, but so can Bodega.
Every application on your Mac is
Bodega features a unique storefront-style UI design.
listed in the Applications section,
found in the sidebar. If an update
is available, you’ll see “Update available” in
the Status column with a small Get button.
Click that to download, then you’ll see an
Install button that completes the process.
Unfortunately, Bodega’s downfall is
what it’s missing: popular
developers like Ambrosia,
Panic, Freeverse, and
Rogue Amoeba, just to
name a few. That being
said, Bodega is great when
you just want to find an
Clicking on any application will bring you to a
application quickly and detailed information page about that application,
effortlessly. Plus, it has including screenshots and price.
a great selection of free
applications.

Bodega
Freshcode
appbodega.com
Free

Updates for your applications are displayed in the Status column.

46
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

LAUNCHPAD

L aunchpad is a new way to launch and organize your apps in Lion,

similar to the way home screens work on the iPad and other iOS
devices. It displays your Mac apps’ icons in a full-screen view, and you
swipe through the different home screens and click an icon to launch
the app. You’ll be able to create folders to organize your applications
by dragging one app icon on top of another, just as you would on iOS
devices. While this feature will be nice to have in Lion, quite a few
applications can already do this now—and provide more functionality
than Apple has demoed in the Launchpad feature.

Apple borrowed a page from the

iOS playbook for Launchpad’s home
screen UI.

Of the many visual application named to your specifications and

Overflow works just like the Dock does, and provides
one-click access to applications, documents, and even
Finder folders.
launchers for the Mac, perhaps the
most Launchpad-like is Overflow. It
lets you sort your Mac applications
into various folders and use a shortcut
key to quickly bring up the application
launcher.
Overflow looks and works similar
to the Dock, allowing you to drag and
drop applications into the 15 holding
spots per category. You organize
your apps into different categories by
right-clicking the window, which pops
up options for creating or removing
a category. These categories can be
the contents can be applications,
documents, or folders.
By default, you can access Overflow
by pressing Control-Space bar or by
clicking the icon in the Dock. When
you do, the Overflow window pops up,
letting you single-click any application,
folder, or document you have stored
in the launcher. You can tweak
settings—like the keyboard shortcut
and whether or not to show or hide
the application in the Dock—in the
Overflow preferences.

Overflow
To add an item, simply drag it Stunt Software
to a free space in a category; stuntsoftware.com/overflow
to remove it, drag it out of the $14.95
Overflow window.

LAUNCH DIFFERENT
Overflow has company: We found tons of great visual application launchers, including these three that are definitely worth a look.

Todos Jump JBerokyo

(free, dbachrach.com)
Todos provides you with
one-click access to all the
applications on your Mac. Click its icon in
the menu bar or type a shortcut key to see
a popup of all your Mac apps’ icons, then
just click one to launch it. Its simple, clean
interface is easy to use, but there’s no way to
organize your apps into groups.
(19 euros, or about $26.50,
app4mac.com)
Jump allows you to create unlimited groups
and place an unlimited number of apps,
documents, or folders in each group. Plus, a
Find feature lets you easily search a group
for a particular item. But you can’t drill down
into folders from inside Jump, and it’s a bit
pricey.
($18.95, berokyo.com)
JBerokyo lets you organize
frequently used apps, documents, files,
folders, and even webpages. This launcher’s
interface is reminiscent of the bookshelf in
iBooks, and provides customization options
and multiple shelves.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 47
 worldmags
HOW TO STUFF SNOW LEOPARD WITH LION FEATURES

FULL-SCREEN APPLICATIONS

W ith Lion, Apple is touting the ability for applications to implement

better full-screen features than were possible in the past. Lion’s
full-screen capability is similar to how applications run on iOS devices—
all you see is the app, nothing else. This can help you get more work
done in a distraction-free environment, although on the Mac you still
have the option of running in a windowed mode. Application windows
in Snow Leopard have a green Maximize button, but it doesn’t work
the same way for every application—luckily a preference pane called
HyperDock can help.

Full-screen apps in Lion are

reminiscent of iOS apps.

Currently in beta, HyperDock lets you

control and manage your windows, and it
easily makes any window fill the screen.
Once you’ve installed it in your System Drag a window to the top
of your display and a gray
Preferences, drag the desired window toward box appears, letting you
the top of the screen and hold it there; a know it’s about to go full-
screen.
gray outline of the window will fill the screen.
When you release the mouse button, the
window will enlarge to fill the entire screen.
In addition to this full-screen trick,
HyperDock also lets you drag a window to
the left or right to fill one half of the screen,
stretching from the top to the bottom of
your display. It’s perfect for comparing two
windows side by side.

HyperDock’s side-by-
HyperDock side view is as easy
Christian Baumgart as it is handy.
hyperdock.bahoom.de
Free

FULL-SCREEN OS X APPS
Lion will make full-screen view standard across all apps, but many applications already have true full-screen abilities, and very good abilities
at that. iLife ’11 ($49, apple.com) includes a stunning full-screen mode in iPhoto, putting your photos front and center and giving you more
room to edit. Pages, the word processor in iWork ’09 ($79, apple.com), has a full-screen mode to provide distraction-free writing, and so does
Word in Microsoft Office 2011 ($149 and up, microsoft.com/mac). In fact, full-screen is popular in writing apps—OmmWriter Dana (name
your price, ommwriter.com) takes that up a notch with unique full-screen editing features such as peaceful background music and moving
background images. And when you want to browse the web in full-screen mode, Google Chrome (free, google.com/chrome) can remove all of
the window clutter and leave you with just the web content.

These all have great full-screen modes.

These apps all have

great full-screen
modes. (Okay, except
the Trash.)

48
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

MISSION CONTROL

M ission Control is a combination of Dashboard, Exposé, Spaces,

and full-screen applications into a single area in Mac OS X Lion. It
gives you an overview of all the running applications on your Mac and all
of the open windows in those applications, including full-screen views.
Mission Control is more of a combination of multiple, already existing
Mac functions into a single area, and less of a brand-new feature.

Mission Control gives you a

one-click overview of everything
running on your Mac, including
access to Dashboard widgets.

Because Mission Control is mainly just an
accumulation of multiple Mac features into
a single area of the OS, you can accomplish
most of its functionality already, by using a
combination of Snow Leopard’s Dock Exposé
feature and HyperDock (see p48).
Dock Exposé was added to the Mac OS in
Snow Leopard, giving you Exposé functions
right in the Dock. To use this feature, click
and hold on any open application’s icon in
the Dock. When you do this, your screen
dims and all of the windows associated with valuable information like upcoming iCal
that application are presented in a handy meetings or the currently playing song title
grid, including windows that are minimized. in iTunes, complete with playback controls.
Then you just click one of those windows to
jump to it, and you get a tiny button near the
application’s Dock icon to quit the app.
HyperDock can also help you juggle app
windows. It lets you mouse over any open
application icon in your Dock to view the
currently opened windows in a popup. You
can also mouse over applications to get Windows that are minimized will be shown with a
gray minus sign.

WHAT NERDS WANT FROM LION

Apple previewed a few of Lion’s features, but like good Americans,
we want more. Here’s the Mac|Life staff’s official wish list.

>>Susie: “Apple should >>Ray: “Lion needs >>Roberto: “Smarter >>Flo: “I like the >>Nic: “How great >>Robin: “I hate >>Paul: “Make
use its cash reserves Bonjour for iOS MobileMe options way Preview handles would it be to use iOS juggling multiple the Multi-Touch
to buy some killer devices. Put an icon would be nice, like photo-importing, devices as gaming Finder windows to gestures way more
third-party apps and in the menu bar a troubleshooting but that should be controllers for a drag files around, customizable. I should
build them into the OS. that I can click to wizard for sync built into the larger Mac-based game? but I dislike the be able to record my
For starters, Dropbox, sync—over the air, issues, and separate OS. I’d like to be able Say, tossing cards column view too. own gesture-based
Hazel, TextExpander, of course. And let iDisks: one that keeps to define separate from your hand to Tabbed Finder shortcuts, like we
and Things, which me define my own a local copy synced photo-importing the poker table, or windows, please!” can now with the
should all integrate sync steps, routine, to the hard drive, and routines for different buzzing in when keyboard.”
with MobileMe.” and schedule, one that’s strictly a cameras, too.” playing a game show.”
queuing up items cloud-based archive.”
to sync when the
device is present.”
ILLUSTRATIONS: NIC VARGUS

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 49
 worldmags

There really is a Santa Claus!

Announcing Circus Ponies NoteBook for iPad

The most-powerful note-
taking software for the Mac,
now on your iPad. Take
notes in a full-featured
outliner, and format them
your way with multiple
fonts, colors, even
attachments. When words
won’t suffice, construct
diagrams or sketch your tables. Locate anything
ideas. Use voice annotation instantly using NoteBook’s
to record the audio of patented Multidex™. All
meetings and lectures so within a natural and
you never forget a detail. familiar notebook interface.
Organize and mark up class Move your Notebooks
notes and other PDFs. between your Mac and
Track figures and perform iPad, for full desktop and
calculations using live mobile access.

“Add a copy to your stocking — circusponies.com/iPad”

CIRCUS
PONIES
TM

© 2010 Circus Ponies Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Circus Ponies, NoteBook, the NoteBook logo, and Multidex are trademarks
of Circus Ponies Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
worldmags
>>>Apps
Notes Plus
The noTe-Taking app you’ve been waiTing for By Nic Vargus
N
otes Plus’s official tagline is
“Handwriting, typing, shape
drawing, and sound recording.”
Sure, that’s unwieldy, but it only makes sense
that an application with 11 billion features
would list a few of them in the headline,
right? And for what it’s worth, the team at
Viet Ran keeps their list mercifully short—a
full catalog of this app’s features could easily
Hopefully landscape mode will ditch the menu bar in a future update.
be encyclopedic in length.
That’s because notes plus is that elusive
handwriting app with every feature we’ve
been wanting. It has palm protection that
can be adjusted to prevent accidental
scribbles, it recognizes shapes and letters
and automatically sharpens them after
they’ve been drawn, it has voice recording,
two-finger tap to type, line smoothing,
Google Doc syncing, and so on, ad infinitum.
There’s even a precaution to ensure that a
pointy letter A isn’t recognized as a triangle
or vice versa—a slider in the settings allows
users to define the minimum size for shape
worldmags
worldmags
discover this mont h’s
most interesting iOS Apps!
detection. If it reads it wrong, you can the bottom line. Writing on the iPad has
always tap the Don’t Detect Shape button. been the proverbial thorn in our side, and
But perhaps Notes Plus’s greatest feature while you won’t find a more feature-friendly
is its long finger-press, which brings up a handwriting app on the market, Notes Plus
large, Palm-style box for “close-up” writing. will either make a believer out of you or
It’s a feature we’d previously seen only in prove it wasn’t worth your time all along.
Note Taker HD, but when combined with
Note Plus’s line smoothing and shifting
close-up box, this app is the clear winner
when it comes to
legibility.
Even with these
excellent writing
safeguards in place,
handwriting on the iPad
is still no cakewalk.
You’ll definitely still
need a stylus to get
any work done, unless
you opt to abandon
handwriting completely
in favor of the virtual
keyboard. In those
moments, if you want
to delete a typed line
quickly, you can just
cross it out or circle it.
There’s a long list of fonts, colors, and styles line-smoothing can’t fix your penmanship,
but it’ll try.
to choose from, and the ability to anchor
recorded voice memos to the page you’re on
makes Notes Plus a boon for stealthy note-
taking in meetings.
And although a vast majority of the Note Notes Plus 2.0
Plus features are worthwhile, sometimes it Viet Tran
notesplusapp.com
feels like quantity comes before quality. Just Price: $4.99
try to find an exported file, delete a note,
Line smoothing makes handwriting legible. Shape
or get rid of the annoying menu bar that detection is surprisingly useful. The “close-up” writing box
works like a charm.
eats up too much screen space in landscape
A Notebook grouping option would be beneficial.
mode. Notes Plus also suffers from the Deleting notes out of the trash is impossible. The menu bar
occasional glitch, but nothing too serious— in landscape mode needs to get gone.
GREAT iPAD
just a floating box here or there.
maclife.com JAN• 11 51
 worldmags

INSTAGRAM
The next iPhone-led social-networking sensation?

Instagram seamlessly combines two of our Locating friends is as simple as searching photos, though we’d like the ability to also
absolute favorite iPhone activities—social your contact list or your Twitter and see a series of random or most recently
networking and snapping photos—into Facebook friends, and once connected, you’ll posted public photos on the service. Also,
a simple and satisfying new app that lets be able to view, “like,” and comment on presumably due to the app’s initial surge
you connect with friends through mobile their photos in your feed. Instagram offers in popularity, we’ve run into a few errors
photography. a compelling visual perspective refreshing the feed and profiles, which
Once you’ve created a on your friends’ lives, but even can trigger momentary frustration. But
free account, Instagram better, it also lets you check these likely temporary concerns are minor
allows you to take 612x612 into your Foursquare account compared to the ease of Instagram, which
photos (or modify existing simply by tagging a photo with almost perfectly nails its approach with the
ones on your iPhone) and your location. That means first release and has already earned a spot
adorn them with one of you can treat it like a virtual on our home screen.
several unique filters based scrapbook of your day-to-day The bottom line. Snapping, modifying,
on popular cameras and film travels and activities. and sharing photos is fun and easy in
types. Since it’s free (unlike Instagram’s exceedingly Instagram, which makes near-perfect use of
similar photo-manipulation user-friendly interface makes the iPhone’s capabilities.—Andrew Hayward
app Hipstamatic, which is it a breeze for you to take and
$1.99), Instagram is already share photos or post them to
a worthwhile download, but your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram 1.0.0
Burbn, Inc.
its real appeal comes from and Flickr accounts. You can instagr.am
the easy social-networking also view an ever-changing Free
Instagram’s feed lets you scope
features. out photos from your friends. selection of heavily “liked” EXCELLENT iPHONE

Each month, the Mac|Life staff gives you a peek inside our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches
OUR FAVORITE APPS to show you the latest gems, oddities, and WTFs that we’ve uncovered in the App Store.

PAUL FLO SUSIE NIC ROBBIE

Galaxy on Fire 2
As a longtime
science fiction
nerd, my life is
never complete without
a little space opera, and
this game makes sure
my iPhone 4 fits that
bill. It’s got fantastically
cheesy dialogue, oodles
of space pirates to shoot
to pieces, reasonably
deep gameplay, and some
pretty lovely graphics.
At $6.99, it’s a bit more
expensive than other iOS
games, but only those
space pirates regret my
purchase!
The Daily Puppy
I’m counting
the days until
I move into
a place that accepts
pups, but until then,
I’ve got to get my daily
doggy fix some other
way. The Daily Puppy’s
free aggregation app
for iPhone will have to
do. The site posts the
most adorable photos of
puppies and adult dogs
and always manages to
get an “Aww!” out of
me. Maybe if I showed
my landlord, he’d finally
come around...
Poetry from
the Poetry
Foundation
My iPhone is a
great e-reader,
letting me
sneak in moments of
literary bliss anytime and
anywhere. Poetry from
the Poetry Foundation
packs hundreds of
poems into a fun-to-use
interface, letting me
spin the categories to
discover new poems,
build a favorites list, and
browse the entire archive
by mood, subject, or poet.
Plus, it’s free!
Restaurant Story Catan
Restaurant
Story is one of
those games
that, as soon as you
download it, you wish
you’d never found it. It’s
fun, sure (and free!),
but it’ll suck you into
its little world of cutesy
restaurants and have you
compulsively checking
your silly business every
few minutes. Soon you’ll
be planning your life—
your real life—around
what time your casserole
finishes. You’ve been
warned.
It’s been out for
almost a year.
It’s hard to read
on the iPhone. It doesn’t
have multiplayer, and
the pace is disrupted by
constant menu updates.
Still, I can’t stop playing
this game ($4.99 for
iPhone or iPad), which
is based on the award-
winning board game.
Build settlements, lay
down roads, and trade
resources to become
the master of the Island
of Catan. Board-game
nerdtastic!

52
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

GV MOBILE +
What’s better than one phone number? Two phone numbers.

Most iPhone users hear a thing like, “Google
Voice was rejected from the App Store,”
and no matter how much they want the
functionality, that’s where their search ends.
But with a little persistence, something
always pays off—a little workaround or app
to accomplish the goal.
That’s the role of GV Mobile + in the
Google Voice debacle. It has nearly all the
functionality you’d expect from a first-party
Google app, except it was approved for sale
in the App Store. GV Mobile + establishes a
secure connection with Google and sends
a command to do various tasks like calling
out, sending texts, leaving voicemails, and
more—all from a Google Voice number via
your iPhone. Which means, of course, you’ll
need a Google Voice account, which is easy
and free at google.com/voice.
However, all the functionality of a second
phone number on an iPhone comes with
some serious setbacks. GV Mobile + still
has no support for push notifications,
so you’ll have to manually open the app
each time you want to check for new text
messages or voicemails, and there’s no way
to differentiate an incoming GV call from one
coming in on your primary number.
The interface can be a little on the glitchy
side, especially when held in landscape
mode. GV Mobile + also requires an internet
connection to work, and you can’t make calls
from an iPod touch, so iPod users are limited
to texting and listening to voicemails while
connected to the internet. Lastly, a recent
update seems to have completely removed
spellcheck, and while the glitch will likely be
sorted, for now texting is especially difficult.
The bottom line. It’s glitchy, not
Calling out using GV Mobile + is nearly
particularly attractive, and definitely not
the same as using the iPhone’s phone.
user-friendly, but it offers some excellent
features for Google Voicers that you just
GV Mobile + 1.0.3
can’t find elsewhere in the App Store. Sean Kovacs
—Nic Vargus seankovacs.com
$2.99

SOLID iPHONE

FLIGHTTRACK PRO GUITAR WORLD PRESENTS:

Whether you’re a frequent flier
or just driving to and from the
airport, flying can be a pain.
FlightTrack Pro tracks flights
like a pro. But unlike some of the
cheaper or free flight trackers
out there, FlightTrack Pro takes
full advantage of your iOS device
by letting you quickly set up
and follow multiple flights. From
there, you can check an airport’s
weather and how that’s affecting
flights, and the app even sends
push notifications advising you of
Up, up, and away! flight delays—we were impressed
by how quickly these arrived. In one case, it pinged just moments
after the airline announced it; then we sat in the airport and
tracked the inbound flight from the app. Impressive.
The bottom line. An indispensable tool for frequent fliers,
FlightTrack Pro has loads of thoughtful features that make
it great for both vacations or just
picking up friends from the FlightTrack Pro 3.6.4
airport.—Roberto Baldwin Mobiata LLC
mobiata.com
$9.99
AWESOME iPHONE+iPAD
LICK OF THE DAY
Our
O good
g friends (and sister mag!) Guitar World put
out their first app, and we think Apple-touting
guitarists
g are going to want it. Developed by
Agile
A Partners, the maker of the excellent
TabToolkit,
T it’s the perfect app for aspiring
guitarists
g who want to add impressive licks to
e their
th repertoire or just show off at their local
ic s music
mu shops.
s
Lick of the Day is a universal app that supplies users with a new
riff each day, coming in a variety of styles and difficulties. If the riff
is too challenging (and with guest tutors like Zakk Wylde, some of
them will be), users can slow down the lick (shown in a video with
scrolling tabs underneath) to a crawl, until they’ve mastered it. It’s not
tone-distorted slow-motion either—each of the licks is recorded at a
number of different speeds,
assuring quality sound.
The app is free to
download and comes
with five licks to get you
started on your quest to
guitar fame. After that,
subscriptions can be
purchased from within the
app to receive a new riff The combination of tabs and video makes
it easy to learn difficult riffs.
each day.—Nic Vargus

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 53

Take The ‘I’ ouT of ResoluTIon
The iPhone is the perfect tool for fixing your friends’ faults in the new year.
Resolutions have never been kind to me.
Something about making pacts with myself
on the day I’m most likely to be overweight,
depressed, broke, and hung over doesn’t
seem especially encouraging—so for my
2011 batch of changes, I’ve opted for another
track. This year my resolutions aren’t about
me; they’re about helping my friends fix
everything that’s wrong with them.
I’ve made a checklist with 2010
Resolutions List ($0.99) to keep track of
them all. I call them reso-you-tions.
Juggle all of the resolutions you make for your
friends using 2010 Resolutions list.
The e-sMokeR
I’m perfectly fine with my style-impaired
friends lighting up to impress the ladies, but
there’s a difference between trying to look
cool and holding a ceramic stick that emits
wisps of diethylene glycol “smoke” every
few seconds (which exists, and is called
e-smoke).
For about the price of a pack of Marlboros,
Quit Smoking Now with Max Kirsten ($7.99)
will transport you to a state of “deep,
profound mind and body relaxation” by
using trippy audio recordings. The desire to
“light up” will supposedly dissipate, and so
will your friends’ annoying e-smoking habit.
hopefully, listening to Max kirsten speak in an
echo chamber will work as well for diethylene
glycol as it does for nicotine.
54
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
The fReeloaDeR
We all know someone who is constantly
forgetting their wallet or coming up a little
short when the bill arrives. I’m not convinced
any iPhone app will magically turn my
spongy friends into good tippers, but there
are a few that will eliminate some of their
built-in excuses.
The easiest way to free up their cash flow
is to help them land jobs, and for that I’m
turning to Indeed.com’s Job Search (free).
With a simple search field, Job Search
narrows available positions by field and
location, so my friends won’t waste their
time applying for positions outside their
rather limited skill sets. Next, they’ll need
a good personal finance app to keep track
of all that money coming in. Ace Budget’s
($1.99) charts, reports, and tracking tools
are some of the best around. And if that
doesn’t work, I can resolve to cut them off
after I calculate exactly how much they’re
costing me.
The BoRe
Few things are worse than a good friend
who has no energy or initiative. I doubt a
frank assessment of my friend’s personality
(Personality Test, $3.99) will do the trick—
and I’m pretty sure there’s no Taser app that
finding your friend a job is the first step to
financial freedom.
worldmags
actually works—so I’m going to have to get
a little creative here.
Finding something that’ll get him off the
couch won’t be easy, but one of the localized
daily deals from Groupon (free) might hit the
mark. Or maybe a movie (Movies by Flixster,
free) and a nice meal (Yelp, free). And when
all else fails, I’ve got one more trick up my
This year my resolutions
aren’t about me; they’re
about helping my friends
fix everything that’s wrong
with them.
sleeve: Vegas.
I can book a cheap flight to Sin City with
Wanderlust (free), use Hotels.com (free) to
find a hip room in the center of the action,
and hook him up with the Vegas Mate app
($1.99) so he can find just the right hot spot
to let his hair down.
If any of my friends are still boring,
ceramic-smoking mooches next year, then
there’s only one thing left to do: let them
press the Loser button (Loser, free).
—Michael Simon
for the sake of our friendship, what happens in
Vegas had better not stay in Vegas.
 worldmags

Interested in advertising
in Mac|Life magazine?

Call Greg Ryder at

650-745-9243
or
The MacCase of iPad Cases
Anthony Losanno at
646-723-5493
Available at

mac-case.com 866. 526. 2247

uriPhone/adI*tF2Sps o Y
ingyouraplctdeZ r 1 B 2

pedbythiszl?Tanwro
um t S

P.dowinst20+
yearfulghpcN,Jv&H e W
t.B
m
S&
O
h
sP
w
o
d
in
ry,W
e
ackb
l
A
u
g *
j.
,u
w
vp
id
b
sm
larg
fth
e
n
o s A

tn
a
rp
C
o c Z o c cs
F
a
b
lo
G
d
rtife e C

ultySvc
ighQ
+YearsofH 0 2
abeQ420 A * .zcom
w w 3.81920 w 0 6

worldmags 55
 worldmags

VISIT MACLIFE.COM FOR ONLINE-EXCLUSIVE REVIEWS, UPDATED DAILY

>>>Reviews TOUGH TESTING, TRUSTED RATINGS

11-iNch & 13-iNch

MAcBook AiR
Apple’s redesigned beauties will turn heads and drop jaws

For detailed
definitions of every
score on Mac|Life’s
ratings scale, go to
maclife.com/ratings.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO

56
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

W
hen Apple revealed the newly redesigned
MacBook Air at a press event in Cupertino,
Steve skipped the theatrics of pulling one out
of a manila envelope or any other “gee whiz, that’s thin!”
gimmicks. But once the new machines arrived at the office
(one of each size, hooray!), their improvements—both in
design and performance—made a bigger impression than
any Steve stunts could’ve.
The Air is a thing of beauty, thinner than ever before—
both models taper from 0.68 inches to just 0.11 inches at
the front when closed. Apple fixed a design flaw and major
limitation of the first MacBook Air by adding a second USB
2.0 port and ditching that awful trapdoor. The new ports
are flush with the unibody casing, so any connector should
fit—all ours did. And while the 13-inch Air’s SD card slot is
absent from the 11-inch model, we didn’t really miss it.
The incredibly thin, LED-backlit screen is surrounded
by an aluminum bezel. It’s glossy, but not as reflective as
the fully glass-covered MacBook Pro displays, and it’s still
usable outside with the brightness turned up. The Air’s full-
size keyboard feels the same as typing on any Mac laptop
or Apple keyboard, and the large glass trackpads support
inertial scrolling and all the one- through four-finger
Multi-Touch gestures. We do miss the backlit keyboard on
the last MacBook Air and all the MacBook Pro models, but
that’s only because we’re spoiled.
But the Air spoils us in other ways. For example, the
all-flash memory is incredibly fast. Sleep and wake are
near-instant since you don’t have to wait for the hard drive
to spin down or up. The 11-inch Air (1.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB
of RAM) booted in just 31.4 seconds, 32 percent faster than >>

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 57

11-iNch & 13-iNch MAcBook Air (continued)
on a 2.66GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM. And
our applications launch faster on the Air too. Opening files
and copying files feels incredibly fast, and we endured
fewer beach-ball moments than we’re used to.
But that general zippiness doesn’t always translate to
faster progress bars. The 11-inch Air’s 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo
and the 13-inch Air’s 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo do slow down
some processor-intensive tasks, like converting one file
type to another. Between the relatively small storage
space (64GB or 128GB in the 11-inch model, and 128GB or
256GB in the 13-inch), smallish screens, and slow clock
speeds, this isn’t a machine for heavy video editing.
Amd since the RAM is soldered to the board, you can’t
upgrade it (or the storage) after the fact. Our review units
came with the standard 2GB of DDR3 memory, but we
recommend upgrading to 4GB for $100 since that’s your
only chance to do so. The Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics
processor (same as in the 13-inch MacBook Pro) shares
256MB of memory with the main RAM, and the Mini
DisplayPort can drive a 2560x1600 display, including the
new 27-inch LED Cinema Display.
Apple rates the 11-inch Air’s battery for 5 hours of
wireless productivity, the 13-inch’s for 7 hours, and both
for 30 days of standby time. (But who could leave their
MacBook Air closed and untouched for 30 whole days?)
We played a two-hour MPEG-4 video on half-brightness
until the Air died, which took 4 hours, 18 minutes on the
11-inch and 5 hours, 12 minutes on the 13-inch. If your main
concern is keeping entertained on long-haul flights, the
iPad’s 10 hours of video playback still wins.
The Air’s thin, light design does require some tradeoffs.
First, no optical drive. Apple’s USB external SuperDrive is
$79 (down from $99), or you can buy a cheaper third-
party option. The Remote Disc feature lets you “borrow”
the optical drive of a Mac or PC on the same network if
you need to install software from a DVD, but you can’t
play a game that requires a disc or watch a DVD movie.
Apple included a tiny bootable USB stick if you need to
reinstall the OS or your included software, so you’re not
without options if trouble strikes. But the Air doesn’t have
an Ethernet port, and Apple’s $29 USB Ethernet adapter
is 10/100 instead of Gigabit. Not all Wi-Fi networks are
created equal, so large file transfers can take a while.
So that’s a downside, but we can say that we didn’t miss
FireWire or the infrared sensor.
I started using the 11-incher as my main machine right
away to see if its screen size or 128GB storage limit would
become deal-breakers. And they really weren’t. I had no
58
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
problems running several iLife ’11, Office 2011, and Adobe
Creative Suite 4 apps at once. Everything felt snappy,
and I ran into less beach-balling than on a brand-new
2010 MacBook Pro. So it’s possible to get real work done,
especially with an external monitor. Without a separate
display, the screen size lends itself better to working with
maximized app windows, and keeping the Dock hidden.
(Lion’s full-screen modes, coming in summer 2011, should 11-inch 1.4Ghz
core 2 Duo
help.) Because the 11-inch Air’s 1366x768 pixels are in MacBook air
a 16:10 aspect ratio, the screen is slightly shorter from Apple
top to bottom than the 9.7-inch, 4:3 screen on an iPad. It apple.com
Price: $1,199 (as reviewed)
packs in more pixels than the 13-inch MacBook Pro, just in Specs: 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo
processor, 800MHz frontside bus,
less real estate. I found myself nudging up the text size in 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 3MB
a few application windows to compensate. I edited plenty shared L2 cache, 128GB flash
storage, Nvidia GeForce 320M
of magazine pages with InDesign CS4, but wouldn’t want graphics processor with 256MB
to confine that task to a small screen on a full-time basis. of DDR3 SDRAM shared with
main memory, 1366x768 glossy
For typical “netbook” uses, the Air excels. It replaced 11.6-inch LED-backlit widescreen
display, 2 USB 2.0 ports, Mini
my iPad for couch-bound web surfing since it can run DisplayPort, iSight, 802.11n AirPort
Flash, multitask for real, upload and download files, let Extreme, headphone minijack with
support for Apple Earphones with
me type without looking at the keys, and the screen stays Remote and Mic, stereo speakers,
where I put it. It’s as quiet and cool as the iPad since they omnidirectional microphone,
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Incredibly thin. Incredibly
light. Flash storage for fast on/
off, sleep/wake, and application
loading. High-resolution display.
Ports are on the case instead
of under a flip-down door. Good
battery life. Lower price.
No optical drive, Ethernet, or
both lack moving parts, and the weight difference (2.3 FireWire. No SD card slot. Core 2
Duo instead of the newer Core i3.
pounds for the 11-inch Air, compared to 1.6 pounds for my
Mac | Life E XCE L L E NT
3G iPad) is negligible. I instantly appreciated the lighter R A T E D
load, compared to my 5.6-pound MacBook Pro, and it’s
better than the iPad for note-taking at meetings. One 13-inch 1.86Ghz
core 2 Duo
place it lost out, though, is gaming—it’s not suited to MacBook air
be a true gaming laptop, but it’s possible (the 11-inch Air Apple
achieved 37.1 frames per second in Call of Duty 4, and the apple.com
Price: $1,299 (as reviewed)
13-inch squeezed out 42.7). Specs: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo
processor, 1066MHz frontside
We recommend the Air more as a secondary computer. bus, 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM,
If you already have a desktop Mac with a large hard drive 6MB shared L2 cache, 128GB flash
storage, Nvidia GeForce 320M
and you want a second, light Mac for traveling, the Air is graphics processor with 256MB
a perfect choice. Its lower price is a huge plus. No Mac of DDR3 SDRAM shared with
main memory, 1440x900 glossy
laptop is “cheap,” but the 11-inch Air starts at $999 (just 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen
display, 2 USB 2.0 ports, SD
like the MacBook), and you can get a fully maxed-out card slot, Mini DisplayPort,
13-inch Air (with 2.13GB processor upgrade, 256GB of iSight, 802.11n AirPort Extreme,
headphone minijack with support
storage, and 4GB RAM upgrade) for $1,799, which is the for Apple Earphones with Remote
same price as the entry-level Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo, and Mic, stereo speakers,
omnidirectional microphone,
80GB hard drive, 2GB RAM) when it was introduced in Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
2008. Obviously this new Air is a far better machine. Just as thin as the 11-inch Air
and only 0.6 pounds heavier.
Just make sure you plunk down $100 extra for the RAM Longer battery life. SD card slot.
upgrade. Flash storage. Larger trackpad.
High-resolution display. Ports are
The bottom line. Both machines are a good bet, but on the case instead of under a
a slight edge goes to the 128GB 11-inch model for its tiny flip-down door.
size but decent storage. If these Macs used a newer Intel No optical drive, Ethernet, or
FireWire. Core 2 Duo instead of the
chip (Core i3, say?) and came with 3G radios, they’d get newer Core i3.
perfect scores.—Susie Ochs Mac | Life E XCE L L E NT
R A T E D
 worldmags

WHY SHOULD
MUSICIANS
HAVE ALL
THE FUN?
SHURE SOUND ISOLATING EARPHONES TM

Get the most out of your music while on the go

with the new Sound IsolatingTM Earphones from
Shure. Each model is designed to deliver every
note of every song with crystal clear accuracy, so
you hear it the same way your favorite artists hear
themselves on stage.

Learn more at www.shure.com/americas.

SE115 SE315 SE425 SE535

www.shure.com/americas
© 2010 Shure Incorporated

worldmags

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings
The full-screen mode brings iPad/iPhone simplicity to the iPhoto interface. The
editing tools have been reorganized into three panes on the right, too, which cuts
clutter. Note the quick photo adjustment buttons at the top of the Effects panel.
iPhoto ’11
Apple
apple.com
Price: $49 for iLife ’11; $79 for five-
license Family Pack
Requirements: Intel Core Duo
processor, Mac OS 10.6.3 or later
Enhanced full-screen mode.
Great Mail and Facebook
integration. New slideshow themes.
Improved options for pro-printed
books and cards.
Now there are two interfaces
rather than one. Core editing and
organizing tools largely unchanged.
Mac | Life EXCELLEN T
R A T E D
60
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
iPhoto ’11
Apple’s photo manager goes big
The new iPhoto ’11 looks amazing—and that’s a great
thing for software that helps you get the most out of
your photos. But it’s more than just a pretty face, letting
you actually do some pretty amazing things with all
those pixels. Apple built in major enhancements to
the full-screen mode, slideshow templates, and online
sharing tools. But iPhoto isn’t just about zeroes and
ones—’11 boasts improved book-design tools and a
new letterpress-card feature for those extra-special
anniversaries and events, making it that much easier
and more satisfying to bridge the gap between the
digital and physical worlds.
On the digital side, while the full-screen mode in the
prior version was pretty basic, iPhoto ’11 lets you browse
Events, Albums, Faces, Places, and Projects in this mode.
It looks great, sure, but it also gives you that much more
room to work with every pixel of your Mac’s display.
There’s more than a hint of the iPad’s secret sauce in
this new display mode, too. Albums now get full-size
icons, just like events, so they’re no longer a nondescript
set of titles in the source list. And you can skim albums
just like you can events and choose your own key photo,
which shows up as the album thumbnail.
While full-screen mode looks terrific, the navigation
system is different from what you’re used to—and not
always in a good way. The bottom of the screen holds
five buttons for Events, Faces, Places, Albums, and
Projects. Double-clicking an album name shows you its
contents, and another double-click on a photo blows
it up to full size. Backing out again requires clicking
buttons at the top left of the screen. As a navigation
system, it would be fine on a device based around a
touchscreen interface, but on a Mac, it feels limited. It’s
like iPhoto now has two separate, parallel navigation
worldmags
systems. For all its full-screen flash, some users will
prefer using the standard view after all, especially for
large-scale photo organization tasks.
There’s no doubt about the effectiveness of the new
photo-emailing feature, however. With email baked into
iPhoto ’11, there’s no need to export photos to your
email client. And eight great-looking mail templates
can accommodate up to 10 images. The photos you
select are laid out automatically, so there’s nothing
you need to do except type in a title and message and
choose a recipient. iPhoto uses your existing Address
Book contacts and the email accounts you’ve set up in
Apple Mail, so there’s no tedious setup process to go
through, and everything just works. What’s particularly
clever is that you can attach your photos at their original
resolution or have iPhoto automatically optimize the
message size to a maximum of 5MB to make sure it’s not
rejected by mail servers with size limits.
iPhoto ’09 already supported Facebook uploads
for online sharing, but iPhoto ’11 brings much better
integration and synchronization. Once you’ve created
your Facebook account in the preferences, iPhoto
automatically downloads any existing Facebook albums,
and from then on, any new ones you create are merged
seamlessly with those you’ve already got. iPhoto ’11
uploads profile pics too and zaps single pictures straight
to your Facebook Wall. iPhoto will synchronize your
Faces data with tags in Facebook, and now any photo
comments made by your Facebook friends show up in
iPhoto’s Info panel.
If you’re more physical-book than Facebook, Photo
Books make great gifts and keepsakes, and you’ll
discover big improvements here. The new theme
browser uses your own photos to preview your book,
provides the ability to design double-page spreads, and
adds a book layout mode that shows all your pages at
once. The Autofill option has been enhanced so that
it gives priority to the highest-rated pictures and uses
face detection when cropping photos to make sure that
people aren’t cropped out or chopped in half at the
edges. The letterpress cards are a new addition, using
special printing techniques to deboss the surface design
and then digitally print your card. The books and cards
look fantastic, and while most of us might balk at paying
money to share our pictures when we’ve gotten used
to sharing them for nothing online, the physical quality
and feel of a professionally printed photo book is hard
to beat.
The bottom line. iPhoto ’11 looks great, but the core
organizing and editing tools have scarcely changed at
all. It’s all about the souped-up user interface and the
new, exciting, and easier ways to share your photos.
—Rod Lawton
 worldmags

iMovie ’11
The best version yet?
Ever since Apple completely redesigned iMovie back in Single Row View re-introduces the timeline to iMovie so
2007 to make it more approachable for novice home- you can see all your project’s clips in an unending line
movie editors, it’s received a lot of flak from all those from left to right, instead of the default top-to-bottom
who were using the previous version for more pro-level configuration. This more traditional setup will delight
work. But iMovie was never meant for professionals, experienced editors. You can also export your movies in
and that version (iMovie ’08) was ideal for anyone who 1080p (although they won’t be compatible with Apple’s
didn’t know a thing about
video editing. As iMovie
’09 came and went,
the howling continued,
but with the return of
audio editing and more
to iMovie ’11, the outcry
should subside at last.
For starters, iMovie
’11’s new audio editing is
incredibly elegant: click
on the waveform button
to display audio directly
beneath the video
thumbnails. You can alter
audio levels for either an
entire clip or merely a
section of it. When part
of the waveform turns
yellow or red, your audio
is peaking, meaning you
need to lower it to avoid
distortion in your final
video. Altering part of a It’s now incredibly easy to edit your project’s audio. You can even add effects to your tracks.
clip’s sound makes the
volume gradually change
to the new level, something you can also control. iOS devices) and upload them to Facebook and Vimeo
In addition, iMovie ’11 offers 19 audio filters. Like the from within the app.
video filters, only one audio filter can be applied to a Finally, you can work with 15 new themes, designed
clip at a time—selecting another merely replaces the to mimic the look and feel of big-budget movie trailers.
original. Despite this limitation, filters are a lot of fun to Each has its own orchestral backing track, and you even
use. You can make a voice sound more robotic, give the have a choice of five beautiful studio logos. The Movie
illusion that a shot was recorded in a different location, Trailer feature works hand in hand with the new People
like a cathedral for instance, or even try to enhance your finder—by analyzing your footage, iMovie not only
own singing voice with Multi-Tune (just don’t expect determines which parts of your clips contain people,
miracles). You also have access to an equalizer, which is it also differentiates between close ups, medium, and
iMovie ’11
fully customizable to suit your exact needs. wide shots. These enhancements make finding the
If you’re looking for new video effects, you may be appropriate shot for your trailer child’s play: Apple’s Apple
apple.com
disappointed. Sure, you’ll find four new transitions…but themes tell you exactly what type of shot is needed at Price: $49 for iLife ’11; $79 for five-
license Family Pack
no extra titles or even video filters. At least a series of any given time, and will even limit what you can see in Requirements: Intel Core Duo
new One-Step Effects lets you instantly apply a certain the Event window to only match what is required. processor, Mac OS 10.6.3 or later
effect. That’s a great time-saver if all you want is to slow The bottom line. iMovie ’11’s advanced audio-editing Improved audio editing. One-step
effects. Movie Trailers feature
down a clip, turn it gradually to black and white, and so capabilities and numerous other improvements have makes easy, dynamic home videos.
on. You can even customize the effects further once finally left the ghost of iMovie ’08 behind. This is an Can’t edit AVCHD footage
natively. No new titles or video
they’ve been applied. excellent update, and anyone serious about iMovie filters.
Many other improvements throughout iMovie ’11 shouldn’t hesitate to upgrade.—Steve Paris Mac | Life E XCE L L E NT
R A T E D
make this upgrade even more impressive. For example,

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 61
 worldmags

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings

iLife ’11:
GaraGeBand
Apple
apple.com
Price: $49 for iLife ’11; $79 for five-
license Family Pack
Requirements: Intel Core Duo
processor, Mac OS 10.6.3 or later
Flex Time and Groove Matching
are perfect for aspiring musicians.
Sweet new guitar amps and effects.
MIDI remote control only works
with Apogee Gio control hardware.
Real-time feedback hits a few sour
notes.
Mac | Life G REAT
R A T E D
GARAGeBAnd ’11
Timing is everything
When Apple rolled out iLife ’11, it touted the fact that
more than 5 million folks are using GarageBand to create
music, podcasts, and other types of audio, making it one
of the most successful DAW (digital audio workstation)
programs of all time. With this newly updated revision,
there are even more reasons to really dig this maestro of
a music-making app.
Perhaps the single most important new editing
addition, Flex Time, has been brought over from
GarageBand’s older sibling, Logic. Simply grab a part of
a sampled audio track—a guitar lick or a vocal—and
instantly drag it to a new position in time, with extremely
smooth—and musically useful—results. It’s a study in
effortless, clear interface design, and once you drag a
Among the new lessons, you can learn licks from some of rock’s greatest heros.
guitar lick into place with it, you’ll instantly be hooked.
GarageBand is incredibly smart about automatically
grabbing the desired audio segment, and adjusting
either the head or tail of the waveform based on where
you click the mouse.
Accompanying this marvel is Groove Matching, which
takes a selected master track—a drumbeat is a natural
example—and instantly snaps other accompanying
tracks into rhythmic compliance, perfect for musicians
who are still honing their timing skills. Groove Matching
does a great job of cleaning up uneven playing, and
while it can’t fix things like being out of tune or off-
pitch, it’s a perfect tool for tightening up timing with a
minimum of fuss.
Guitar slingers are gonna love the seven new amp
models and five fresh stompboxes, delivering a new
palette of tonal options for six-string warriors. While
we’ve been less than impressed with this aspect of
GarageBand in past versions, these latest additions
really raise the ante. In particular, the High Octane
stack will instantly put you into shredder territory with
tasty harmonics and a driving midrange that packs
a solid punch, while on the other end, a really sweet
Large Tweed Combo delivers a uniquely Fender-esque
goodness for cleaner strumming. There are new flavors
of fuzz, chorus, and overdrive, and combined with the
distortion abilities of the overdriven amp models, you’ll
be grinding away discovering new sounds until, well,
the next update. Unfortunately, Apple only supports the
rather pricey Apogee Gio interface for controlling the
amps and stompboxes without having to grab onscreen
controls,
which seems
a bit elitist—
we’d really
like to see
support for
less expensive
control
hardware.
For those
learning
how to
make music,
GarageBand
’11 builds on
the excellent
guitar and
piano tutorials
included
with the
last version,
adding 22 new
lessons (which can be downloaded—for free—directly
within the GarageBand application), all designed with the
novice in mind. The quality of the instructional material
is excellent, but we really wish that Apple would follow
this up with more regular and substantial updates. Along
these same lines, GarageBand will also now evaluate
your playing by tracking as you play along with lessons
and showing you how you’re doing in real time. It’s like
Guitar Hero with an actual instrument, and while it’s
nifty, we found it a little less than stellar in tracking some
of our guitar playing (and no, we’re not beginners).
The bottom line. Overall, there’s a lot to like about
GarageBand ’11—it easily represents the best value in
the musical-software world, and the moment you hit its
creative ceiling, it’s easy to take your projects directly
into Logic Express, the next step up in power.
—David Biedny

62
JAn•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

cse
in
thUl
ra
fro
G
c4
u
d
o
iP
e
th

worldmags

>>> reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings
XActi VPc-cA102
WAterProof Video cAmerA
This little camcorder makes a splash
I
f you’ve ever purposely left your camera
behind knowing that your outdoor
adventure is going to include water, then
you’re familiar with that cold, empty feeling
you get when you return home and realize
that you’ve failed to document your trip.
Sanyo’s new Xacti VPC-CA102 handily solves
that problem—it’s a waterproof video cam fit
to weather the storm.
The VPC-CA102 comes in three colors
(black, yellow, and pink) and sports the upright
“gun” style grip, which allows for great control
while shooting video in extreme situations.
Its 2.7-inch LCD screen can rotate 285
degrees—but if audio is a priority, rotate with
caution because the microphone is located on
the back of the display panel. Twist it too far,
and you’re recording the ground rather than
your subject.
Of course, if you’re underwater there’s not
much audio to capture anyway. The VPC-
CA102’s most appealing aspect is its ability
to function at depths of up to 10 feet. After
years of babying our precious electronics,
it took us a few tries before we could
comfortably dunk a $350 camera underwater.
But once we got used to it, we happily
dove into the water to catch some waves in
Huntington Beach. Check out the resulting
video for yourself at vimeo.com/16131024.
We were pleased with the VPC-CA102’s
64
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
ability to shoot full 1080 HD video, but it’s not
the greatest quality we’ve seen from cameras
in the point-and-shoot arena. In bright
sunlight, colors appeared a bit washed out,
and shots in low light were fairly grainy.
Videos are encoded as MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
and stored on an SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory
card, which you insert behind the lithium-ion
battery inside a lockable side panel. Both USB
and mini-HDMI ports are also found behind an
adjacent spring-loaded panel.
The 14-megapixel photos were smoother
than we expected. There’s still a little bit
of noise, especially in darker areas, but the
resulting images are fine for casual snaps.
And of course, photos and videos can be
taken under conditions not accessible to
the common camera: rainstorms, water
parks, swimming pools, and the like. But the
waterproof design comes with tradeoffs. The
watertight menu buttons, zoom controls, and
photo/video mode buttons on this camera
don’t provide much tactile feedback and are a
bit of a pain to operate.
The bottom line. The VPC-CA102 is a solid
camera that allows you to capture high-quality
images in situations that you otherwise
wouldn’t be able to. It might not replace your
everyday HD video camera, but it deserves
a spot in your lineup if you do any extreme,
water-intensive shooting.—Jason Amor
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA BERG
 worldmags

Xacti Waterproof
Dual camera
Sanyo
sanyo.com
Price: $349.99
Requirements: USB 2.0
Waterproof. Solid construction.
Digital image stabilization. Great
still photos and zoom functionality.
Removable battery.
Frustrating buttons. Mic
placement isn’t ideal. Not the
greatest HD video quality we’ve
ever seen.
Mac | Life GOOD
R A T E D

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 65
 worldmags

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings

QuickBooks 2011
Intuit’s bookkeeping-software stepchild gets a little love
For years now, autumn brings more than the new school an epithet toward diminutive nerds, but it actually refers
year and Halloween. It also signals Intuit’s annual to a town square–style gathering place. The included
update of its QuickBooks for Mac bookkeeping software. articles and videos cover a nice mix of nuts-and-bolts >>>
This year’s version sports a few
new features and—for the first
time—upgrade pricing, but the
stand-out addition is multiple-user
support. Windows users have long
collaborated on a single company
file with up to five simultaneous
users, and Mac owners are finally
able to do the same. But we’re not
all invited to the same party. Your
QuickBooks sharing can be all-Mac
or all-PC (using the PC version), but
never the twain shall meet. Sigh.
For customer support, Intuit
takes a page from Microsoft’s old
Mactopia site with Little Square—
a magazine-style site
conceived and curated The much-improved
by Intuit’s Mac team. We custom report settings
employs palettes with
were initially put off by the real-time updating on
name, which sounds like the report.

So many toys for Mac girls and boys

BookArc ™ BackPack ™ BookBook ™

Modern Display Stand for iPad Shelf for iMac and Cinema Display Hardback Case for MacBook Pro
Stylish sculpted steel that holds iPad in four Clever shelf that hangs on the back of the desk This one-of-a-kind, vintage-style leather case
different, hands-free viewing positions. Its stand. Use it to hold hard drives, USB peripherals provides solid protection, while disguising your
the perfect home base for iPad. or as a way to unclutter your workspace. MacBook Pro in a totally unique way.

Shop now and get free shipping at twelvesouth.com

*

worldmags
* in the continental US
 worldmags

NEW
VERSION.
MORE Introducing . Our Proven Solution. Enriched.
Learn a new language naturally, using our award-winning, proven software. You’ll
be surrounded with language, all introduced at the right time, so that you’ll begin to

IMMERSION. think in your new language, without translation or memorization. Our latest innovation
takes everything that’s made us the language leader worldwide and adds an initial,
free online access period that includes all these exciting new features:

NEW Live Online Sessions

SAVE 10% when you order today. 50-minute practice sessions tutored by native speakers.
Level 1 Reg. $249 NOW $224
NEW Games & Community
Level 1, 2, & 3 Reg. $579 NOW $521 An exclusive online community filled with language games
Level 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 Reg. $749 NOW $674 and other activities.
SIX-MONTH, NO-RISK, MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE* NEW Mobile Companion™
A practice application for iPhone® or iPod Touch® device.

Buy Rosetta Stone today:

(877) 396-3058 | RosettaStone.com/mas011
Use promo code mas011 when ordering.

©2010 Rosetta Stone Ltd. All rights reserved. iPhone and iPod Touch are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Offer limited to Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe™ products purchased directly from Rosetta Stone, and cannot be combined with any other offer. Prices subject to change without notice. Offer expires April 30, 2011.
*Guarantee is limited to Version 4 product purchases made directly from Rosetta Stone and does not include return shipping. Guarantee does not apply to any online subscriptions purchased separately from the CD-ROM product or subscription renewals. All materials included with the product at time of purchase must be returned
together and undamaged to be eligible for any exchange or refund.

usage instructions, fundamental bookkeeping principles, total miles doesn’t change the odometer to match—
and small business advice. Psychologically, it’s more you must manually correct them before saving trip
gratifying to use a platform-specific site, instead of information.
trolling the general discussion board’s Mac topics. The Creating business forms and invoices is much easier
young site’s offerings don’t run deep, but if Intuit stays with QuickBooks 2011’s substantially improved layout
with it, Little Square has the potential to be a destination designer. Stability issues in prior versions are under
site for more than just QuickBooks for Mac users. control, and some fundamental layout tools have been
As for software itself, QuickBooks’ reporting tools got added or enhanced. Grid units are now customizable,
a major facelift for 2011. The old report-filter interface and objects can be snapped to that grid for quick, clean
was probably designed when neon sweatshirts and designs. Dynamic guides appear as you drag an object,
acid-wash jeans were still fashionable. Filter options now making it simple to align the components of your form.
appear as a list: check off the ones you want to use, and But our enthusiasm upon learning that upgrade
they float to the top of the list while unused options pricing has finally been introduced wilted upon closer
remain dimmed below. Report formatting is now handled examination. Intuit simply raised the price 15 percent
primarily with floating palettes that change the report for 2011 and offers upgrades for—you guessed it—15
in real time. The whole experience is a significant percent off. Another thing that hasn’t changed is the
improvement over previous versions. feature gap between the Mac and Windows versions QuickBooks
Intuit also added a module for tracking vehicles of the product. For the same $230, Windows users get for Mac 2011
and mileage this time around. After entering vehicle more sharing options, more reports, access to a whole Intuit
quickbooks.intuit.com
information, a quick trip to the mileage-entry window range of third-party software integration tools, and at Price: $229.95; $199.95 upgrade
keeps track of your business trips. Users can tag entries least eight other features absent from the Mac version Requirements: Mac OS 10.6 or later

with specific customers and designate them as billable, of QuickBooks. Multiuser capable. Mac-specific
support site. Better report
if necessary. We were a trifle disappointed to see that The bottom line. QuickBooks for Mac 2011 is the first interface.
the starting odometer reading for a given trip doesn’t compelling update to the product in several years. Still, Major feature gap with Windows
version. Not cross-platform. Terrible
automatically load the ending odometer value from the we’re disappointed by the continued lack of true cross- upgrade pricing.
last trip. And while QuickBooks calculates total miles platform integration, the Windows feature gap, and the Mac | Life GOOD
R A T E D
based on the odometer entries, manually changing the upgrade pricing shell game.—Stuart Gripman

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 67

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings
MediaShaRe Media SeRVeR
Jack of all trades, master of none
Someday we’ll magically enjoy all our media whenever
we want, wherever we want—and without compromises.
That day will probably also involve puppies riding
rainbows. But until that dream comes true, we’ll play
our music and movies over cloud-based services or
hardware like Verbatim’s MediaShare network drive. It
streams files to local computers and game consoles,
exports photo albums to social media sites, backs
up your Macs with Time Machine, shares connected
printers, and—wait, there’s more!—lets you access
your files over the internet from computers and iOS
devices. Despite this Swiss Army streamer’s strengths,
we were disappointed by its cumbersome setup and the
need to maintain a subscription to use MediaShare’s
most powerful features.
With its 7-inch square and 2-inch tall aluminum case,
the MediaShare looks like the Mac mini’s chunkier,
shinier cousin. If only it was as simple to set up. Sure,
MediaShare offers many ways for devices to talk to
the 1TB hard drive inside: three USB ports (including
a convenient front port that automatically imports
another drive’s contents), an eSATA connection, and
gigabit Ethernet to connect to your wireless router and
MediaShare networked gear.
But the MediaShare desktop software installer and
Verbatim
verbatim.com a quick-start guide don’t do nearly enough to make
Price: $350
Requirements: Broadband internet using the drive easy right off the bat. We had to hunt for
connection, router with Ethernet information in the sometimes cryptic (and PC-centric)
port
user manual that doesn’t even explain some features,
Shares files quickly and reliably.
Allows Time Machine backups and like printer sharing. One thing made clear during setup
printer sharing. Streams media
to computers and videogame was that users can subscribe to MediaShare’s premium
consoles. features for $19.99 annually (a free 30-day trial is
Annual subscription required to included with the drive). Key premium features include
use all features. Poor instructions.
Clunky web-based media controls. accessing your files over the internet, secure FTP file
Mac | Life O KAY sharing, and the ability to add “unlimited” user accounts.
R A T E D
A call to Verbatim confirmed that subscriptions actually
68
JaN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
It looks simple, but
MediaShare does a little bit
of everything.
allow 25 user accounts; without a subscription, only five
accounts can be created.
Once we had our MediaShare running, it backed
up and served files quickly and reliably, albeit a little
more noisily than we’d like. Volumes can be opened
in the Finder through Verbatim’s desktop software,
or—by logging in at myverbatim.com—in a browser-
based Flash dashboard. It doesn’t look like much, but
it’s relatively user-friendly, allowing you to log in from
any computer to upload and download files, manage
flexible file sharing permissions, create photo albums
for Facebook or Flickr, and play DRM-free media. But
don’t ditch your Apple TV just yet. Movies must load
completely before playback begins, and the Cover Flow–
inspired music player is sluggish. Nice as MediaShare’s
web interface is, it’s more of a utility than a destination
where you’ll want to spend much of your time.
That’s where home streaming comes in. MediaShare
streams files not only to your computers, but also
to your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and other devices
that support the UPnP-AV, DLNA, or Windows Media
Connect protocols. Naturally, it also streams to iTunes,
so music stored on a MediaShare appears automatically
in the iTunes sidebar as a shared library. It works,
but it isn’t nearly as flexible as iTunes’ Home Sharing
feature. Only audio files can be shared, and you’ll have
to open your MediaShare in the Finder or a browser
to download and transfer files among multiple Macs. If
you’re on the go, you can access files on an iOS device
with Mobile Safari, but the MediaShare mobile interface
is limited. Files can’t be remotely emailed to other
people, and media files—even songs—must be played
one at a time.
The bottom line. MediaShare may fit the bill for
limited file-sharing needs, but it comes up short as a do-
it-all solution for Mac users.—Adam Berenstain
 worldmags

IDR655M INCREASED
DYNAMIC RANGE EARPHONES
iDevice control at your fingertips
These are Scosche’s most expensive headphones at $99.99, but don’t
let that list price scare you away—we found them at Amazon for
closer to $50. The sound quality is excellent, and the 11mm drivers
pump out full, accurate sound with strong enough bass to keep us
from scrambling for our EQ settings.
The IDR655m feature a tiny microphone on the right earbud’s
cable, plus a three-button control called the tapLINE II with buttons
for Play/Pause, Volume Up, and Volume Down. It works for using

Chef.
Voice Control, answering the phone, and controlling iPod playback
and volume with our iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. Fully VoiceOver-
compatible, these earbuds also work with the iPad, second- through
fourth-gen iPod touch, fourth- through sixth-gen iPod nano, third- and

Cook .
fourth-gen iPod shuffle, and the 120GB and 160GB iPod classic, as well
as Macs bought after October 2008. But they aren’t compatible with
the iPhone 3G or the original iPhone.
The tapLINE II controller’s three rubberized buttons are even easy

Foodie.
to tell apart just by feeling them with your fingers. Volume Up, on
the top, has a raised bump, Volume Down has a depression, and the
center button has a rubber Scosche logo. Click and hold the center
button for Voice Control (iPhone/iPod touch) or VoiceOver (nano and
shuffle). Single clicks of the center button play and pause your music,
and you can double-click to go forward and triple-click to go back.
We loved controlling the iPhone without having to dig it out of a
pocket or bag, and the Voice Control features are especially handy. WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
Our conversation partners couldn’t tell we were talking to them on
a headset, either, even in moderate wind, and they support audio-in
apps like Skype and Voice Memos like a champ.
It doesn’t matter
The IDR655m earbuds come with six pairs of silicone tips so you
whether you’ve
can get a tight seal. We found they block outside noise well—as with
graduated from
all in-ear buds, be very, very careful when wearing these outdoors so
Le Cordon Bleu®,
you don’t get hit by a car. We’d never cycle in them, for example.
grill up the
The bottom line. Scosche stepped up its line to audiophile quality best ribs in the
with the IDR655m. The braided headphone cable does transfer some neighborhood or
noise up to your ears when it rubs against your clothing, but that just love to eat
IDR655m
happens with all the earbuds we test. The sturdy tapLINE II control IncReaseD and entertain.
DynamIc Range All your recipes,
and sparkling sound make these ’buds worth your money. eaRphones
—Susie Ochs Scosche
wine notes and all the details
scosche.com pertaining to them can be right
Price: $99.99
Requirements: Audio device with at your fingertips.
headphone jack. tapLINE II control
requires iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad,
iPod touch (second- through fourth-
gen), iPod nano (fourth- through
So, what will be on your
sixth-gen), iPod shuffle (third- and dinner table tonight?
fourth-gen), 120GB and 160GB iPod
classic, and Macs bought after
October 2008
Pricey but can be found cheaper
online. Good sound quality. Easy-
to-use controls on the headphone Visit us at
cable. Carrying case included. marinersoftware.com/maclife0111
Comfy, convenient, Cable transfers some sound
and bumpin’. when it comes into contact with
clothing or objects.

Mac | Life GR E AT
R A T E D

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 69 401 N 3rd St, Minneapolis, MN 55401
 worldmags

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings

GoRiLLapod
Video TRipod
Smooth operator
These days, everyone is an amateur Francis Ford
Coppola—or maybe that’s an amateur Kevin Smith.
Anyway, if you go to any sporting event, birthday
party, soccer game, or random Tuesday happy hour,
someone’s bound to break out a portable video
camera to capture the moment. They’re practically
weightless, easy to use, and can shoot in full HD—so
why not? But if you’ve ever been subjected to some-
one’s shaky video of the time they hit a perfect 450
playing Skee-Ball, you know how nauseating 1080p
video can be when it’s shot handheld.
The Gorillapod Video, the latest in Joby’s series of
portable tripods, aims to banish that shaky MTV-in-
the-early-’90s look in favor of more polished pans
and tilts in your clips. At a svelte 2.8 ounces, it’s
easy to tuck in a bag alongside your Flip camera. It
features the signature bendable legs, which you can
wrap around poles or tree branches or bend to fit
uneven surfaces.The bottom feet also sport powerful
neodymium magnets, allowing you to stick the tripod
to metal objects. As part of our testing, our online
editor, Robbie Baldwin, even stuck the Gorillapod
to the front of his Vespa and shot video as he rode
around outside the Mac|Life office. Despite some
uneven pavement and even a couple of speed bumps,
the Gorillapod stayed put.
The aluminum handle allows the head of the tripod
to pan a full 360 degrees and offers 135 degrees of
tilt, and the universal 1/4-20 screw mount can support
any camera up to 11.5 ounces. The action was smooth
across the full range of motion, which gave us great
footage. In fact, our only complaint is that, because
the tripod is so light, we actually had to hold the
Gorillapod Video
tripod down with our other hand while we panned to
Joby avoid either tipping it over or simply sliding the whole
joby.com
Price: $29.95 thing around.
Requirements: Small video cam The bottom line. With its magnetic, bendy, grippy
with tripod mount
legs, the Gorillapod Video can banish shaky handheld
Light and portable. Smooth
panning and tilting. footage, whether you’re hanging it from a tree or
Not enough bulk to stay put. sticking it on the front of your scooter.—Ray Aguilera

Mac | Life GOOD

R A T E D

70
JaN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

YuM RecIPe ORganIzeR

Needs more salt
We treat cooking like a religion and recipes like or smaller quantities, and you can also sync your recipe
scripture. But we can’t turn to any hotel nightstand to library to an iPhone or share your recipes with other
pull out our bible, so what happens to those recipes Yum users. Unfortunately, Yum lacks crucial tricks like
when we’re traveling around the world or just moseying suggesting recipes based on available ingredients. And
to the kitchen? Yum 4 stores and organizes recipes on though Yum builds shopping lists, it creates new lists for
your Mac, even copying them to a free, companion iOS every recipe instead of a single master shopping list.
app. That means you can easily reference a MacBook Yum lacks the creativity and features serious cooks
or iPhone to make impromptu wasabi-and-edamame need. You can include a single, tiny thumbnail photo,
mashed potatoes while at a cousin’s for the holidays. but no additional images. The spellcheck only works
While it includes a few extra morsels, Yum focuses on on the highlighted field. There’s no undo option. Sigh.
storing your recipes. You’ll In the end, beginners might
Yum 4
manually enter details, such enjoy browsing recipes
as the dish’s name, keywords, from other Yum users—or Incredible Bee
yumapp.com
and an ingredients list. Then uploading their own—but Price: $29
Requirements: Mac OS 10.5 or later
you’ll give step-by-step there’s no reason to choose
Scales ingredients list quantities
directions and have room it over a cooking website, for bigger or smaller batches.
for notes at the end. Most of which has tons more recipes. Connects to other Yum users to see
their shared dishes or upload your
the fields work as expected, The bottom line. It’s okay own. Copies to a free iPhone app.
but we found problems right for storing recipes, but Yum Occasional bugs and finicky
fields. Shopping list can’t combine
away, including wonky time isn’t versatile enough for ingredients from different recipes.
fields and text bugs (which the cooks obsessive enough Can’t browse recipes by on-hand
ingredients. Can’t edit recipes on
devs claim they are working to seek a dedicated recipe the iPhone.
on). Cooks can quickly scale The simple, clean layout echoes our cooking, but Yum application.—Zack Stern Mac | Life OKAY
lacks any deeper flavors.
R A T E D
ingredients lists for bigger

maclife.com Jan•11 71
worldmags

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings
ZumoCast
Zecter, Inc.
zumocast.com
Price: Free; future premium
features to be available for $29.99
Requirements: Intel Mac,
broadband Internet connection,
Flash, and Safari, Chrome, or Firefox
2 or later for web playback; iOS 3.0
or later for iOS app
Streams media in almost any
format for playback on computers
and iDevices. Handy file server
features.
Occasionally frustrating iOS
interface. Some bugs and streaming
hiccups. Installs Growl secretly.
Mac | Life SO LID
R A T E D
72
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
ZUMOCAST MEDIA STREAMER
Your tunes and movies—everywhere you want them
We have a serious media problem in this country. No, not
the state of cable TV news—the fact that today’s mobile
devices lack the storage to take all our media with us on
the go. Even a mighty 64GB iPod touch can only hold
so many movies. Enter ZumoCast, a free service that
lets you stream videos, music, and more in almost any
format from your Mac to other computers and iDevices.
While its price for these features is certainly right,
ZumoCast lets you download your streaming files to any computer.
ZumoCast left us wanting more polish and stability.
ZumoCast has three components: an OS X server
application, an iOS app that plays your content, and
a web interface that lets you play and manage files
inside a browser window. Setup is easy; just sign up
for a ZumoCast account, then install and configure
the server on each Mac you want to access remotely.
Default settings stream the Desktop, Documents, Movies,
and Music folders, but you can easily remove them or
add others. However, we weren’t happy that installing
ZumoCast also put Growl, the notification window
system for OS X, on our Macs without asking permission
or indicating the installation would take place. We don’t
mind Growl—we just don’t like that kind of surprise.
With the iOS client you can stream DRM-free media
to your iPhone or iPad and even download multiple
files simultaneously, like entire albums or iTunes
playlists, for local playback inside the app. Better still, simplified personal file servers.
you don’t have to worry about compatibility. ZumoCast
will play nearly any media file, from the beefiest high-
def QuickTime trailer to less common formats like OGV,
on your iDevice. It’s not magic—ZumoCast transcodes
your Mac’s media on the fly to suit your device and
bandwidth—and it’s not perfect. Video quality over
worldmags
3G is significantly diminished compared to higher-
quality Wi-Fi streaming, and we ran into occasional
crashes, skips, pauses, and unresponsive buttons during
playback on either network. But it’s good enough for
casual viewing, and ZumoCast’s power to play almost
anything anywhere is convenient. We just wish it let us
play movies out to a TV to make our iPhone 4 an ersatz
Apple TV.
Content in
the iOS app
is organized
into three
menus: Files,
Videos,
and Music
(strangely,
there’s no
menu for
photos).
Files lets you
drill through
shared Finder
folders
and view
streamed
PDFs,
Office files,
and other
documents.
It’s a nice bonus, but it would be more useful if you could
remotely share them with others. Videos and Music
collect their corresponding media from all your Macs
in two menus for easier access, although Videos still
tasks you with tapping through multiple folders to find
movies. The Music menu offers a much simpler, iPod-like
interface that lets you quickly scroll through albums,
artists, songs, and playlists. Music playback is definitely
where the ZumoCast experience shines brightest.
ZumoCast’s web interface isn’t spectacular, but it
offers some handy tricks of its own. Sign in, and you
can play your music in a simple iTunes-like player, watch
your movies (unfortunately transcoded into mediocre-
quality Flash videos), and manage the streaming files on
multiple Macs. Here’s the cool part: ZumoCast lets you
download streamed files directly from your Macs and
upload new files remotely, turning your computers into
The bottom line. ZumoCast offers many useful
features that need further refinement. But there’s
enough flexibility here to warrant a look from users who
want to take their media everywhere and don’t mind
dealing with some rough edges to do it.
—Adam Berenstain

SaddLeback LeatheR bRiefcaSe
Beautiful and imperfect
Do you remember that person you dated in high
school—the one your mom hated because she knew
they were no good for you? They were a bit too much
for you to handle, they didn’t treat you so great…and you
couldn’t care less because they were just that hot? This
bag is like that.
Just so we’re clear, Saddleback bags aren’t for
everyone. For starters, they’re heavy. Saddleback uses
full-grain leather, which means they’re made from the
thickest, heaviest, most ass-kicking part of the cowhide.
And the hardware is all heavy-duty metal. Completely
empty, our large Briefcase (medium and extra large
also available) weighs 7.5 pounds, which is more than
the backpack I usually use—with my laptop in it. If
you’re using a 13-inch or smaller MacBook, you can get
away with the medium size (it’s smaller and about a
pound lighter), but anything bigger and you’ll need to go
large. The bags are also imperfect. The leather scratches
and scuffs with daily use. Frankly, I think the lived-in,
Indiana Jones look is cool, but if you’re looking for
pristine soft leather, this ain’t it.
The Briefcase itself is a fairly simple affair. The main
compartment is divided in two by a couple of small
internal pockets, and a key strap is riveted inside the
worldmags
worldmags
bag. Small external pockets also lurk
on the ends of the bag, perfect for
quickly stashing smaller items. On the
flap, three heavy buckles close the
bag, although we only used the center
strap for the sake of speed. This bag
is designed to be carried over one shoulder, but the
adjustable 59-inch strap can also be routed through a
Saddleback’s bags are pure,
ring on the top to create backpack-style straps. 100 percent leather power.
In daily use, we got more compliments and curious
questions about the Saddleback Briefcase than any
other product we’ve ever reviewed. Rest assured—it’s
a drop-dead gorgeous bag. But from a practicality
standpoint, it’s 15 pounds when loaded with a MacBook Briefcase
and a few extras…so we always felt as if our spine was Saddleback Leather
on the verge of snapping in two. And the stiff, hard saddlebackleather.com
Price: $519, medium; $555, large;
leather maintains its shape, so the bag is almost the $607, extra-large
Requirements: Stuff to carry,
same size empty as it is stuffed with gear. So yeah, it’s strong back, fat wallet
heavy and bulky. Beautiful and durable. Lifetime
The bottom line. Saddleback’s Briefcase isn’t always warranty. This bag will outlive you.
practical. But if you’re looking for durability and rugged Incredibly heavy. Not much
in the way of pockets or other
style more than convenience—and have the ample organizational frills. Expensive!
finances and sturdy backbone to be able to swing it— Mac | Life SOL I D
R A T E D
this will be the last bag you ever buy.—Ray Aguilera
maclife.com JaN•11 73

>>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings
iBank FInance ManaGeR
Beautiful budget balancer
No matter what the economy holds in store, there’s never
a bad time to start managing your money. It’s a daunting
task, but with the right software, your Mac can help. iBank
is loaded with tools to help you track transactions, analyze
your spending history, create budgets, and generally keep
a sharp eye on your finances. But you’ll have to do the
hard work yourself, and sometimes that means working
around an occasionally frustrating interface.
We learned everything we know about banking from
Monopoly, so we were glad to find that iBank walks new
users through adding accounts and importing financial
statements. All the account types you expect are here—
checking, savings, credit cards—as well as investment,
iBank’s good looks are bristling with ways to view and customize your financial data.
401(k), money market options, and more. You can import
current transactions from another application—or
from your financial institution’s website—by dragging
a QIF, OFX, or QFX file into iBank’s account wizard.
Better yet, if an institution transfers data with the
iBank Open Financial Exchange protocol, you can enter your
account information in iBank, then download up-to-date
IGG Software
iggsoftware.com transactions with just a click. If you’re stuck adding
Price: $59.99 transactions manually, the optional iBank Mobile iOS app
Requirements: Mac OS 10.5.7 or
later ($4.99) lets you view and enter new transactions on the
Imports account information go, then sync them back to your Mac. Thanks to iBank’s
automatically from supported
institutions. Easily generates built-in database of banks and credit card companies
financial reports. Extensive (and the tutorial videos on its website), we had three
transaction customization options.
accounts imported and synced in about 15 minutes.
Interface makes some key tasks
a chore. Not bad for someone who forgets to collect $200 after
Mac | Life GO O D passing Go.
R A T E D
Once your data is imported, it’s vital to categorize
74
Jan•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
every transaction—for instance, marking this deposit as
your salary and that withdrawal as a utility payment—to
get the most from iBank. Editable preset categories like
Entertainment and Dining autofill as you type them,
and you can add your own. But iBank lets you do more
than just apply labels. You can split single transactions
into multiple categories to fine-tune record keeping,
mark taxable income with a searchable list of tax codes,
schedule transactions, and even add files like receipts
and images to items in a register.
What you can’t do is edit multiple transactions
simultaneously, so customizing each item from scratch
in several accounts can be needlessly time-consuming.
Thankfully, you only
have to categorize
imported transactions
once. Future instances of
categorized transactions
(like your next paycheck
or utility bill) can be
imported with your
custom information
intact, so your initial
work pays off as
accounts are updated.
With fully detailed
transactions, iBank
can generate great-
looking dynamic
financial reports with
live links to your data,
budgets, and smart
accounts (think Smart
Playlists for money)
that isolate specific
slices of your financial
pie for closer scrutiny. Budgets let you create category-
specific envelope icons filled with set amounts of virtual
cash that deplete automatically as you spend in each
category. It’s a great feature, but building budgets
requires too much scrolling though cramped lists of
categories, and options for editing them are limited,
forcing you to create a new budget to make significant
changes. Budgets ought to match the flexibility of
reports, which are easy to customize on the fly. We also
wish iBank Mobile recognized budgets so we could refer
to them out in the world where spending happens or get
an alert when we’ve overspent.
The bottom line. While iBank lets you flexibly
organize and view your financial data, its best features
could be easier to use. Together they add up to a money
manager that’s worth a serious look, but not quite worth
its weight in gold.—Adam Berenstain

iDatabase 1.0
This simple database is too simple for its own good
In my household, we have years-old receipts stored in
grocery bags, and no memory of who borrowed our
favorite, not-made-anymore PlayStation games, both
of which could be remedied by a database. Instead of
just storing information, a true database acts on it,
reminding you about deadlines, dynamically sorting
contacts based on upcoming birthdays, and otherwise
remixing your data. But iDatabase 1.0 does none of this.
You’re better off with the grocery bag.
After installing iDatabase, you’ll get to its purpose:
The minimal layout works on databases with a few fields, but since
you can’t change the design, long databases get complicated as you
scroll for details.
worldmags
storing data. This software imports comma-separated-
value files (CSV) that come from Excel or any
spreadsheet application. But it slurps in everything
as text fields, eliminating most of the organizational
usefulness that a database could offer.
iDatabase relies on a handful of possible data
fields, including a date, text entry, and multiple-choice
menu. But each field brings bugs or shortcomings; for
example, the date field doesn’t show a pop-up calendar,
and certain decimal numbers can’t be entered at all,
producing an error.
Beyond bugs, the software lacks crucial
basics. You can only view records sorted by
a few fields, and you can’t configure more
complicated searches, such as finding all
business dinner expenses from last month.
Meanwhile, basic calculations require trips
through repetitive pop-up settings.
The bottom line. Just because software
is designed and priced for simple data entry
doesn’t make it a database. iDatabase lacks
crucial organizational features. “Glorified
notepad” would be more accurate.
—Zack Stern
worldmags
ApimAc
iDatabase 1.0
apimac.com
Price: $39
Requirements: Mac OS 10.5.8 or
later
Stores data. Compatible iOS app
(sold separately).
Records only present data as
long, vertical lists. Weak sorting,
searching, and filtering. Can’t
retain date and number context on
CSV-file import. Information from
two databases can’t relate. Can’t
total values across records from a
single database. Occasional minor
and major bugs, including problems
accepting certain decimals. iPhone
sync actually merges entries.
Mac | Life AWFUL
R A T E D
 worldmags

worldmags
>>> Play
worldmags

>>> Play Have Mac, will game

HAVE MAC, WILL GAME

Blood spatters
everywhere, zombies
climbing the fences…
just another day at
the office.

LEFT 4 DEAD 2
Kill undead zombies dead
If there’s one rule for surviving the zombie apocalypse, it’s this: no man it. The Director (the game’s AI) keeps you on your toes with varied waves
is an island, and you’re going to need some help. With this in mind, Valve that come from almost any direction. For example, special Infected
has offered Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel to its groundbreaking Left 4 Dead units can attack you from a distance, pull you across the map, maul you,
cooperative first-person shooter, for the Mac. Like the original, Left 4 scatter the group, and vomit substances that either burn you or signal
Dead 2 places you in the role of one of four survivors large groups of undead to attack you. If you think you can defend a
who must fight legions of zombies across multiple certain area or structure, the Director will do his best to disrupt it.
levels in order to reach a safe haven. It’s the groups that work together that actually survive in Left 4 Dead
Along the way, you’ll make use of almost anything 2’s multiplayer mode. Variations include Scavenge (where you must stay
you can get your hands on, including rifles, shotguns, alive while gathering gasoline for a generator), Mutation (where every
handguns, axes, katana swords, pipe bombs, incendiary special Infected will be a colossal Tank unit that can only be brought
and explosive ammunition, machine guns, cricket bats, down by multiple players), and Realism (where the undead are harder to
and the occasional chainsaw. It’s more messy kill, and accidental friendly fire hurts that much more). Groups will have
LEFT 4 DEAD 2 than subtle, but if it gets you to the next safe to quickly shift strategies together if a current one isn’t working. Lone-
room before the game sends another mob to wolfing it proves more dangerous than working as a unit, and you’ll
Valve
valvesoftware.com rush your group, anything’s welcome. have to think of the group’s needs before your own to make it.
Price: $19.99 Complete with beautifully detailed Left 4 Dead 2 performed well during testing, with just a few bugs. While
Requirements: 2GHz or faster Intel
processor, Mac OS 10.6.4 or later, graphics, interesting characters, and the frame rates in both single-player and multiplayer were generally
1GB RAM, ATI Radeon 2400 or Nvidia
8600M or better video card, 7.5GB
amazing ambient sounds and vocal work, great, occasional brief pauses surfaced. A single crash under Mac OS
free disk space the game casts a worried, suspenseful 10.6.4 was a little strange, but not bad given dozens of hours of testing.
Great graphics and sound, mood before unleashing the next wave of And the game stopped responding to my USB headset during multiplayer
engaging characters, incredibly fun
and challenging gameplay modes, attackers. A near-perfect physics engine gameplay. None of these are deal-breakers, but could stand to be fixed.
terrific use of strategy keeps things creates a realistic feel, and whether you’re The bottom line. Left 4 Dead 2 is as great as any FPS fan could ask
interesting. ESRB rating: Mature.
being mobbed by the undead or constricted for. The characters are engaging, and both single-player and multiplayer
Occasional stilted frames,
occasional crashes; multiplayer by a special unit, there’s a genuine sense of modes are wickedly fun. The $20 price tag is spot on, and the game’s
voice function could stand to be
more consistent.
panic as you try to fight your way out. graphics and multiple difficulty levels keep you coming back for more. If
This is a survival title through and you’re looking for a marquee strategic shooter on the Mac, gory bits and
Mac | Life EXCELLEN T
R A T E D through, and the game never lets you forget all, you’ve come to the right, zombie-packed place.—Chris Barylick

worldmags
maclife.com JAN•11 77
 worldmags
ADVER TISEMENT

HyperMac | Sanho MoGo Talk XD | ID8-Mobile

www.hypershop.com
iPhone/iPad’s batteries are flat and no power outlet in sight.
Sound familiar? Don’t be caught in this situation again.
HyperMac high power USB battery packs charge the iPad,
iPhone and any USB device. Available in 10 colors and 7
different capacities to recharge the iPhone up to 52 times
and power the iPad up to 99 hours!
www.mogostore.com
Are you always on the go? The MoGo Talk XD™ for the iPhone
4 is the only integrated Bluetooth headset and case system
that securely docks and charges on the back of an iPhone 4.
Your headset is always with you, always charged.
MSRP | $99.99

MSRP | $299.95

Mac|Life — 2010 Holiday Gift Guide

worldmags

ADVER TISEMENT
Version 4 TOTALe™ | Rosetta Stone
www.rosettastone.com
This holiday season, give everybody on your list something
they’ll never forget. Rosetta Stone ® Version 4 TOTALe™.
It’s everything you’ve always loved about Rosetta Stone®
language learning plus an entirely new experience online.
Call 877-402-4740 or visit www.RosettaStone.com/mas011a
to learn more and receive a special offer.
MSRP | $749.99
Xporter XT Rage | Patriot Memory
www.patriotmemory.com
Got a new Macbook? Get it acquainted with your HDTV.
Kanex iAdapt HDMI V2 is the perfect companion bringing
sights and sounds from your Mac to the big screen. With full
HD1080p and surround sound audio support, this stocking
stuffer makes it easy to share movies, music, and more with
friends and family.
MSRP | $129.99
worldmags
worldmags
Give. Share. Joy.
NeatDesk | Neat
www.neatco.com
Turn Paper Piles into Digital Files with Neat® Neat’s inte-
grated scanner and software solutions capture key data from
your receipts, business cards and documents, and organize
it into a digital filing cabinet of your important information.
Order now and receive free shipping on any Neat scanning
solution! Visit neatco.com/MLFREE or call 866 395 7075.
MSRP | $399.95
juice pack air™ | Mophie
www.mophie.com
Mophie. Do more.™ Mophie juice pack air™ made for iPhone
4. The juice pack air™ offers you the convenience of a fully
protective hard-shell case with virtually twice the battery
life of the iPhone alone; all in an ultra-thin, light-weight, low-
profile design.
MSRP | $79.95
Mac|Life — 2010 Holiday Gift Guide

P5 | Bowers & Wilkins
www.bowers-wilkins.com
Get closer to your favorite music with the Bowers & Wilkins
P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones. The closed-back design with
rigid metal faceplates and sealed-leather ear pads ensures
that all the detail and dynamic range of your music is kept
intact. High-performance, noise isolating headphones with
remarkable natural sound and luxuriously comfortable fit for
longer listening pleasure.
MSRP | $299.95
The Station™ | Smith Micro
www.station.smithmicro.com
The Station™ docking system from Smith Micro Software
is a simple to use docking solution for your MacBook®
laptop. Your laptop will drop into position and easily
connect to all your wired ports. Setup the Station docking
system anywhere you use your Mac® for quick, hassle free
connection.
MSRP | $59.99
Mac|Life — 2010 Holiday Gift Guide
worldmags
worldmags
ADVER TISEMENT
Livescribe Smartpens | Livescribe
www.livescribe.com
A great gift for note takers, Livescribe smartpens help you
get more out of your meetings and classes. The smartpen
records what you hear and write, then lets you play back
recordings with a simple tap. Priced for the holiday.
MSRP | $129.95
NoteBook | Circus Ponies
www.circusponies.com
Circus Ponies NoteBook helps organize a cluttered desktop.
Manage notes, research, clippings and to-dos using a familiar
notebook interface. Take voice-annotated notes. Brainstorm
with sketches and diagrams. Find anything instantly with
NoteBook’s patented Multidex™. Publish your notebooks as
PDFs or websites. The perfect gift for every Mac user.
MSRP | $49.95
 worldmags
Adver tiSement Give. Share. Joy.

UV Cell Phone Sanitizer | Violight UpStand™ | Just Mobile

www.violight.com
Let’s talk about the nasty germs and bacteria that accu-
mulate on cell phones, earbuds, and Bluetooth headsets.
Believe it or not, your communication devices are a breeding
ground for nastiness like strep, e coli, H1N1 and lots of other
unsavory characters. Fortunately, the first ever UV Cell Phone
Sanitizer from Violight will zap 99% of germs from all of
your devices with germicidal UV light. Exclusive offer! Visit
cellphone.violight.com and use code MAC1210 at checkout
for 15% off!
www.xtand.net
Just Mobile UpStand™ is the high-style desktop stand for
iPad. Precision engineered from aluminum, the UpStand’s
supporting grips are finished in rubber to hold your iPad
firmly in place and keep it pristine. It’s compatible with most
iPad cases, too.
MSRP | $49.95

MSRP | $49.99

Soundscience™ Rockus™ | Antec iAdapt HDMI V2 | Kanex

www.antec.com
The soundscience™ rockus™ 3D | 2.1 speaker system creates
a personal theater experience that brings the power and
realism of 3D sound together with the clarity and accuracy
of high-fidelity audio. The rockus features a dedicated music
mode optimized for superb stereo sound reproduction,
letting you hearyour music with deep, visceral sub-bass, spa-
cious mids and crisp highs.
MSRP | $249.99
www.kanexlive.com
Got a new Macbook? Get it acquainted with your HDTV.
Kanex iAdapt HDMI V2 is the perfect companion bringing
sights and sounds from your Mac to the big screen. With full
HD1080p and surround sound audio support, this stocking
stuffer makes it easy to share movies, music, and more with
friends and family.
MSRP | $29.95

mac|Life — 2010 Holiday Gift Guide

worldmags
>>>Ask
worldmags

Te ch Supp orT & TechSpl anaTionS

>>>iTunes Called, and IT’s MIssIng a genIus

Since Apple has added Ping to iTunes, I can’t seem to find the genius sidebar or a way
to get recommendations for new songs I would like based on a song in my library. Did
the feature get moved or removed?

Sort of moved, sort of merged—moverged? First make sure

Genius is turned on—go to Store > Turn On Genius. Then the
sidebar will show you some Genius information for the currently
playing song—but it still has a Ping section up top. It’s just kind
of a hybrid now. For example, you can show or hide the sidebar
with View > Show Ping Sidebar, or Shift-Command-G. The menu
bar menu calls it Ping, but the key combo is G for Genius. Sigh.
Anyway, to get it back to just Genius (or as close as we can
see), you have to turn off Ping. Log in to your iTunes Store
account, head to your account settings page, and click the
button to turn off Ping. If you change your mind and turn it
back on within 7 days, they’ll still have all your info saved. After
that, it’s like you never Pinged at all.
Then go back to iTunes proper and turn the sidebar back
on. If it comes up with just a Ping logo, check once again that
Genius is on (Store > Turn On Genius), leave the sidebar open,
and click the little Genius button impatiently until you see the
familiar Genius information. And don’t commit the same head-
slapping mistake I just did of wondering why I didn’t see Genius
info right away—because I wasn’t playing a song. (Of course.)
iTunes still insists on showing you those Ping drop-downs
If you boot
next to your songs even when you have Ping off, but hopefully Ping from
your iTunes
they’ll make Ping completely stoppable in a future update.
but keep
—Susie Ochs genius
When you have on, it gets
Ping and genius the whole
on, the sidebar sidebar
shows both. again.

Rss Feeds Can sync Too
On my Mac, I use safari’s built-in Rss reader to keep on top of my news
feeds; I like seeing the unread count in safari’s toolbar. But I can’t figure
out how to see the unread count on my iPhone and iPad, and keep my
read stories in sync between devices.
Safari’s built-in RSS reader is a one-trick pony; it can only show you the
unread count of your news stories on one Mac. Even if you synchronize
your bookmarks to other Macs via MobileMe, it still won’t synchronize
your unread count, so you’d have to mark your stories as read all over
again. Even worse, Mobile Safari doesn’t support the unread count at
all, so your iPad and iPhone won’t show this information.
The best solution for you is to switch to Google Reader (free,
reader.google.com). Because Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader,
you can access your news feeds from any device you want, and all of
your stories and unread counts will stay in sync. Plus, a large ecosystem
of Mac and iOS apps have been created to support it.

82
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags

The GReader-Checker extension shows you the number of unread RSS
articles in your Safari toolbar.
On your Mac, you can show your unread count in Safari’s toolbar by
installing the GReader-Checker extension (donations requested, rafeed
.me/safari-extensions). And you can get Dock notifications, along with
other features, by installing NetNewsWire (free, netnewswireapp.com)
or Socialite ($29, realmacsoftware.com).
On your iOS devices, simply bookmark the Google Reader site, save
a shortcut to your home screen, or explore
the dozens of iOS apps that synchronize
with it, showing the unread count as an icon
badge. Our favorites include Reeder ($2.99,
or $4.99 for iPad, reederapp.com), Feeddler
RSS Reader (free, universal, chebinliu.com),
MobileRSS Free (free, with free HD version
for iPad, nibirutech.com), and Early Edition
($4.99, iPad only, glasshouseapps.com).
—Scott Rose Feeddler keeps your iPad
and iPhone effortlessly
in sync with Google Reader.
Windows Features on the Mac
I’ve been a Windows user my entire life and I just purchased my first
Mac. A few little things have been bothering me. In the Open and Save
menus, I can’t rename existing files or folders. In the Finder, I can’t cut
and paste files. And it’s taking me forever to convert all of my WMV
movies to QuickTime format.
Welcome to the Mac family, and we’re glad you asked us these
questions instead of banging your head against the wall in frustration.
It’s true some things on the Mac are just a little different, but if they
bug you enough that you’ll spend a little dough to make them go away,
you’re in luck. (And the WMV fix is free.)
You can completely transform your Mac’s Open and Save dialogs
with Default Folder X ($35, stclairsoft.com). This tool brings the power
of the Finder right to your dialogs, allowing you to rename, delete, and
get info on files. It also saves you time by letting you control the focus
of a dialog by clicking an open window in the Finder. And like its name
implies, you can specify a default folder for each application’s dialogs.
You can copy and paste files in the Finder already, but if you want to
cut and paste them instead, simply install MoveAddict ($8, kapeli.com).
Default Folder will bring every feature that you’ve ever dreamed of to your
Open and Save dialogs.
worldmags
worldmags
It works exactly as you’d expect: Command-X to cut a file, Command-V
to paste it. You can even cut and paste folders, and if you try to replace
an existing folder, you’re given the familiar Windows option to merge the
folders.
And finally, install Flip4Mac WMV Player (free, telestream.net) to
play all of your WMV files using QuickTime—you don’t need to convert
them. Telestream offers a variety of paid upgrades that lets you
perform more advanced tricks with WMV files as well.—Scott Rose
Magic Trackpad Not Working
I just bought my Magic Trackpad and I’m excited to use it, but I can’t
get my computer to recognize it. The Trackpad system preference keeps
saying, “The pairing attempt was unsuccessful”, even though it says
that it found the trackpad. See the attached screenshot.
First, check to see if you have USB Overdrive installed. It’s a utility that
controls USB devices that don’t have Mac drivers, and it’s got a conflict
with the Magic Trackpad. If you’ve got it, you’ll need to choose between
continuing to use it and using your Magic Trackpad. You can uninstall
USB Overdrive by using the Uninstall USB Overdrive application in your
Utilities folder.
Next, you need to install the Magic Trackpad Update, which shows up
in Software Update if you haven’t installed it yet. Then try pairing your
Magic Trackpad again by holding down the Power button on your Magic
Trackpad for five seconds to reset it. Then, go into System Preferences >
Trackpad and click Set Up Bluetooth Trackpad.
If it still doesn’t work after that, try trashing the Bluetooth preference
file, located at Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.bluetooth,
then go back to System Preferences > Trackpad and try setting it
up again. If all else fails, you may have either a system problem or a
hardware problem. You can often fix a system problem by reinstalling
Snow Leopard from the original installation DVD. If you suspect a
hardware problem, you’ll need to bring your Mac into a local Apple
authorized service provider.—Scott Rose
Don’t panic!
These sorts
of problems
with the Magic
Trackpad are
usually easily
solved.
Just the One, Please
I’ve been spending a lot of time and effort cleaning up my iTunes library,
correcting errors in metadata and filling in missing info, and I’ve run the
Store > Get Album Artwork command a few times to get album covers
from the iTunes Store, but doing so takes a while because it scans
my whole library each time. Can I limit how much of the library it’s
scanning? Any other tips for finding missing album artwork?
You can search à la carte. Get started viewing your album artwork next
to your track list, which is the second view button, or View > As Album
List. By default, it only displays artwork for albums you have five or
more songs from, but just select View > Always Show Artwork and you’ll
see the artwork for everything.
Now instead of using the Store > Get Album Artwork feature to scan
your entire iTunes library at once, just right-click the “missing artwork”
box and select Get Album Artwork from the contextual menu. That
maclife.com JAN• 11 83

Right-click an album’s Amazon Album Art widget can
missing artwork to confine search Amazon’s database for
the search to just that album. your album covers and add
them to iTunes for you.
searches for just the one album, so it’s a big time-saver when you’ve
just fixed an album’s metadata to make it findable, but you don’t want
to run the Get Album Artwork routine on your whole library.
But iTunes’ built-in artwork search isn’t the best, anyhow. If you
really want your library to be complete, consider trying some other
art-fetching utilities, like the Amazon Album Art widget (free,
widget-foundry.com) or CoverScout ($39.95, equinux.com), which
is pricey but thorough, offering you multiple options for even the
most obscure cover-less albums and letting you tweak the colors and
borders just the way you like.—Susie Ochs
Matte: Where It’s At
I’m considering getting a MacBook Air, but I’m really concerned about
the screen being too glossy to use outdoors. Why doesn’t Apple offer a
matte screen option? I like using my iPad, but the reflectiveness of the
glass gets a little out of control at times.
84 JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
You’re in luck. Well, sort of, anyway. It’s true that Apple doesn’t offer
a matte option on the MacBook Air, and we don’t really know why. We
can reassure you a little bit that it’s less reflective than the iPad. It’s
not covered with a layer of glass like the current iMacs and MacBook
Pros. The bezel around the screen is aluminum, and although the
screen itself does have a glossy finish, Apple kept the screen as thin and
light as possible by forgoing the glass layer. We didn’t have too much
trouble using it outdoors, but of course we got the best results with the
brightness really cranked up. (See the full review on p56).
But here’s where your sort-of luck comes in: TechRestore is offering a
matte screen replacement option for MacBook Airs. Instead of applying
an antiglare coating to your Air’s screen, they’re replacing it outright
with a matte screen with the same resolution, LED backlighting, and
other specs, and they promise to do this overnight for a flat rate of $249.
You can even drop your baby off at one of 4,000 locations if you can’t
bear to put it in the mail. Check out TechRestore.com for more details.
—Susie Ochs
Apple only sells
’em in glossy, but
TechRestore has
your back.
GOT A TECH QUESTION OR A HELPFUL TIP TO SHARE?
Email ask@maclife.com or write to Mac|Life,
4000 Shoreline Ct, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
 worldmags

loyn
$ 66r/. y
l
u
b
no
gr
e
t
n
a u
- o
m
y
e
n ba
k
c

.Cr
o
C
F
h
sity
b
e
w
a
g
n
Fa
b
lia
R
r&
cu
e
st,S Fr
N
in
a
m
o
D
e
sth
u
b
ro
Ou
e
lafm
p
g
in trv
asyo
e
m
p
iu
n
g
Si
sin
b
yu
m
o
cth
rfe pe yu
th
Ew
frFR
aie
m
o
d
n
ow
it.pe
b
e
alw
n
rso l
ve
!I’m
u
aco
g
stin
ho

Bu
n
te
S
a
ild M
0
s1
Ju rIt
G
g
in
e
B
y
a
’sE
sC
b
atw
e fclk, r
ju
ih W ly e
xrm
e
g
stin
o
h
b
sus
ch
m
fd
tyo
avre
g
in ru
,p
w
o
FaC
siv.A
n
te
in
s.
late
p
m
te y.
g
d
n
%
0
1
ith
w
fam
rve
se

rtisn
v
d
A
e
Fr C
g tFr
p
u
S
rw
C
o
M
ly
d
n
ie
d
sih
w
an
rg
u
tyo
ke Ma We yM
d
fin
u
.O
lp
to
h
're
itsfro
d
e
cr l
g
G
m ,Y
TM
!
o
ah ,an
TM
d ,m
n
o
h
p
x7
4
2
isavlb
w
e
Cr
kFa
o
b
ce TM
. at.
ch
lie
n
o
d
an

3
9
4tc86
-5
6 a
suf
V
/life
.m
w
o
worldmags
 worldmags

>>>Create HOW TO DO ANYTHING ON YOUR MAC, iPHONE & iPAD

The Six Best Tips and

Tricks for iLife ’11
iLife ’11 brought all-new features to iMovie,
GarageBand, and iPhoto. But as with any new
software, a little expert advice will go a long way,
and with the help of our tips and tricks, you’ll be
creating masterpieces in no time.
BY ROBERTO BALDWIN, J.R. BOOKWALTER & JASON AMOR

LEVEL:
>>>WHAT YOU NEED medium
>> iLife ’11
($49, or $79 for a five-license
Family Pack, apple.com)

>>>iMovie
iMovie ’11 is as easy as any Apple video software, but in order to take full advantage of it,
you’ll want to utilize its built-in touch gestures and repurpose its look to function more like
traditional video-editing software. (Find more Oscar-worthy iMovie tips at bit.ly/cLJLn5.)

1Get Your Touch On

Apple isn’t shy about adding Multi-Touch gestures
to its desktop apps for anyone with a trackpad, but
with iMovie ’11, you’ll definitely want an overview of the
gestures before you’re knee-deep in a project.
You can add new media to your project by selecting a
clip (or portion of a clip) in the Event browser and then
using three fingers to swipe up on the trackpad. Like
magic, your selection is now added to the end of your
project. If you want to expand or contract filmstrips,
move the pointer over the Event or Project browser
and pinch to contract or reverse-pinch to expand—a
gesture iOS users should be accustomed to.
Finally, if you want to move a clip within your project to
either the left or right of the clip next to it, simply select
the clip and then swipe left or right with three fingers.
Let’s see iMovie’s big brother, Final Cut Pro, do that!
Fidgeting with your clips has never been easier with iMovie’s touch-based controls.

86
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

2View Your Timeline in

a More Traditional Way
When iMovie ’08 was first released in mid-2007, many users were
baffled by Apple’s decision to display projects in a stacked ribbon.
Since the dawn of nonlinear editing, timelines have mostly been viewed
as one seemingly endless horizontal strip, and the one in iMovie ’08
wasn’t. Three years later, we still haven’t adjusted to some of iMovie’s
intricacies, but this time around we at least get customization options.
Navigate to iMovie > Preferences and turn on Show Advanced
Tools under the General tab. In the upper-right corner of the Project
window, you’ll now find a Horizontal Display button to the left of
the chapter mark tool. With a stacked view in your project, click
the Horizontal Display button, and you’ll now see a nice, clean, all-
horizontal view of your project as you edit. Click it again to go back to
Despite being slightly more complicated-looking, horizontal timelines will
the classic stacked view, but only if you must! make iMovie more familiar and practical to most users
To make iMovie resemble Final Cut Pro even more, move the
timeline to the bottom of the screen and your unedited media to the Viewer On Other Display and move the preview of your edited project
top by selecting Window > Swap Events And Projects. (This tip and to its own screen, giving you the entire top (or bottom) of the iMovie
the one above work best if you also happen to have a second display display to see your newly emancipated project timeline—and have a
attached to your computer.) In iMovie ’11, you can select Window > swanky editing setup just like the pros use.

>>>GarageBand
The new GarageBand has impressive features, with options ranging from fixing your guitarist’s inability
to keep a beat to extending a note of your song or even tracking your progress as you learn the guitar
or keyboards. But before you break out your B.C. Rich Warbeast, it’s helpful to get acquainted with a
couple of the new features. (For eight more rockin’ GarageBand tips, visit bit.ly/b8Ha2f.)

3 Record with Multiple Devices

Apple says that you can now record multiple tracks at once, but if you plug
your guitars in and nothing happens, it’s because you need to create an Aggregate
Device. This will allow you to have multiple devices plugged into your Mac and have
GarageBand recognize them individually, instead of as one input. To do this, go to
Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup. Navigate to Window > Audio Devices. Plug in all your
musical instruments. Click the plus sign in the Audio Devices window and then
Aggregate Devices. We highly recommend naming them.
Your instruments and their connections will show up on the right side of the Audio
Devices window. Check the Use box next to the connections of your instruments.
We utilized the Built-in Input for the guitar and an XLR-to-USB converter called the
CEntrance MicPort Pro for our bass.
Launch GarageBand and open GarageBand > Preferences. Click the Audio/MIDI tab
and select your new audio input device. Back in the menu bar, select Track > Enable
Multitrack Recording. At this point, create a Real Instrument track for each of your
instruments. Don’t bother with Electric Guitar track—it won’t work.
Select each track and click the “i” in the lower-right corner. From there you can
select the input source for each track, connecting up to eight instruments this way.
4 Use Your iPad and iPhone
as MIDI Controllers
You can set up your iPad, iPod touch, or iPhone as a
MIDI device via Wi-Fi if you have an app installed that
utilizes OSC, also known as Open Sound Control. This is
especially helpful if you want to play the piano but hate
the keyboard in GarageBand and you don’t have the
money to go out and buy a MIDI keyboard.
The apps will need to create an OSC server on your
Mac. Some apps work with Pure Data, while others work
best with OSCulator. Either way, you’ll be controlling
GarageBand with your iPad or iPhone from across the
room. If your Wi-Fi just doesn’t cut it, Line 6 has a MIDI
Mobilizer dock accessory for direct plug-in control.

You can connect up to

eight instruments to
the new GarageBand.
That’s half of Arcade Fire Playing keyboard on your iPad and feeding it into
connected to one Mac! GarageBand—from Wi-Fi?! Welcome to the future, kid.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN• 11 87
 worldmags

>>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad

The Six Best Tips and Tricks for iLife ’11 (continued)

>>>iPhoto With the release of iLife ’11 comes a freshly polished version of iPhoto, the digital photo manager that’s been keeping
our photos tip-top since 2001. The updated software introduces a handful of new and improved features that will make
it easier for you to organize, edit, and share those precious digital memories. (Snap up more tips at bit.ly/aPja61.)

5 Go Full Screen
If you were feeling a bit
claustrophobic in the previous versions of
iPhoto, the new full-screen option in iPhoto
’11 will certainly please you. One click turns
your entire screen into a distraction-free
photo organizer by hiding the Desktop,
menu bar, and all other unwanted noise.

To enter iPhoto’s full-screen mode,

click the button in the lower-left
corner.

6 Back Up Before You Update

It’s always a good idea to back up your media before an upgrade,
and iPhoto is no different. There’s a reason people always say they’d
grab their photos first if their house was on fire.
To back up your memories, head to ~/Pictures, grab the iPhoto
Library folder, and copy it somewhere safe. An external drive is your
best bet, and we recommend unplugging it from your Mac when you
update. If something goes horribly wrong during the update, quit
iPhoto. Copy the backup you made to the ~/Pictures folder on your Mac
and replace the corrupt iPhoto Library file. Restart iPhoto ’11. iPhoto will
update the library and everything should be golden.
If you’re still having problems, right-click the iPhoto Library file. Select
Show Package Contents, and then navigate to Masters. This folder
contains all the photo and video originals you’ve imported into iPhoto
over the years. If nothing else is working, drag these photos back into
iPhoto and start all over. But seriously, folks, keep one important thing in
mind: always back up before you update!
If your iPhoto Library becomes corrupted, right-click it and select Show
Package Contents, where you can find your pictures in the Masters folder and
add them back to iPhoto manually.

For more iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand tips and tricks, plus all
of our iLife ’11 coverage, check out maclife.com/tags/ilife_11

88
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

>>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad

Work Smarter with Office 2011’s

Cloud Features
Save to SkyDrive, work anywhere with Web Apps, and collaborate in real time
Office 2011 has plenty of new features in the desktop
versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (see “Moving Into
a New Office,” Dec/10, p43). But the really exciting stuff
is the brand-new cloud services, which let you save your
documents to your SkyDrive, a free 25GB storage space.
Store your Office documents there, and you can edit them
from any computer with a browser, thanks to all-new web app
versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and the information-
organizer OneNote. You can also share editing permissions
with other users, and if they have Office 2011—or Office 2010
for Windows—the whole group of you can collaborate on
one document in real time and never worry about versioning
issues or waiting your turn.
In this how-to, we’ll show you how to collaborate on a LEVEL:
Office Web Apps and free >>>WHAT YOU NEED medium
Word document, and we also touch on Excel and PowerPoint cloud storage let you edit
collaboration since they work the same way. PowerPoint anywhere you go.
>> Office 2011 for Mac: Note that
has an extra ace up its sleeve in the form of its Broadcast
collaboration is only available with the
feature, which lets you show your presentation to remote
Home & Business, Academic, and Standard
users easily—they don’t even need to have PowerPoint on
editions, but you can also collaborate with PC
their computers. BY SUSIE OCHS
users if they have Office 2010 for Windows.

1 Create a New Document

Start in Word 2011 and create a new document. If you want
to be the sole arbiter of what changes stay or go, enable Track
Changes (on the Review tab of the ribbon) before saving. But
instead of saving it to your hard drive as normal, go to File >
Share > Save to SkyDrive.
2Save to SkyDrive
SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud service for non-enterprise users—
anyone can sign up for a free account and get a generous 25GB of
storage. All you need is a free Windows Live ID, but if you use Hotmail,
Microsoft Messenger, or Xbox Live, you already have one.
A dialog will prompt you to log in (you can create your Windows Live
ID account here if you don’t have one), then select a save location on
your SkyDrive. The default is a folder called My Documents.

If you don’t already have a Windows Live ID, click the button to get
one.

We’ve turned on Track Changes and are ready to save to the

cloud.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN • 11 89

>>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad
Work Smarter with Office 2011’s Cloud Features (continued)
3 Back to the Sky
Your friends must have permission to share your
documents, and for some reason you have to do this in your
browser, not through Word. So head to skydrive.live.com and
log in with your Windows Live ID. You’ll see your My Documents
folder, and you can click on New above it to create other folders.
But for now click My Documents to open it. The file you just
saved in Step 1 should be there.
You can only edit your documents permissions online, so
start here.
5 Email the Link
Now that you’ve got your sharing permissions set up,
go back to Word and select File > Open Recent and reopen the
file you saved to your SkyDrive. (SkyDrive documents will have
a URL after the filename.) Then go to File > Share > E-mail (As
Link) and email a link to the file to your co-authors. Word will
launch your default email application, and you just fill out the
email and send.
To let co-authors know a file is ready for them, just email
the link.
90JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
worldmags
4 Share with Friends
In the toolbar above the file list, click the word Share to
expand a small menu, where you’ll select “Edit permissions.” The
best thing to do here is keep the slider to Me and use the text
box below it to add email addresses of your trusted co-authors.
But get them to sign up for Windows Live first, and then use
the same email address they use to sign up. When we tried to
invite Nic at his maclife.com email, which isn’t his Windows Live
ID, he wasn’t able to view the shared documents until we added
his Windows Live ID to the list of people.
When you’re done
adding co-authors,
click the Save button.
The next screen will
offer to send sharing
notifications to your
co-authors, but that’s
optional for now.
Add co-authors by email,
or import your contacts
from another service and
add people that way.
6 Open in Word
When your co-authors get your email and click the
link to your file, it’ll open in Word Web App, a stripped-down,
browser-based version of Word with a reduced toolset. This is a
handy way to perform quick edits on files you’ve saved to your
SkyDrive (and there are web-app versions of Excel, PowerPoint,
and OneNote too), but for the real co-authoring action, click
Open In Word to, well, do just that.
From the document list, click Edit In Browser for an online
version of Word, or Open In Word (which also appears in the
document view, circled above) for true collaboration.
 worldmags

Work Smarter with Office 2011’s Cloud Features (continued)

7 Print Layout View

Select View > Print to enter Print Layout view. (The six
buttons along the lower-left also control the view; Print Layout is
the fourth button.) That way when someone else is editing your
document, you’ll see a little pop-up window with their name, and
a blue line to indicate the paragraph they’re working in is frozen.
This prevents you from undoing each other’s work.
8 Group Roster
When two people are working in the same document
stored on the SkyDrive server, you’ll see a little group icon along
the bottom of the window, indicating you’re in a real-time group
session. Click that icon to see the names of everyone editing the
document.

The Print Layout view

gives you space to
see your co-authors’
names pop up.

Oh, hi, collaborator!

9 Call MeWhen you see a co-author’s name pop

up by a paragraph they’re editing, you can click
it to see a pop-up window with more info about
them. Its buttons let you email that person, set
up a meeting, view his contact info, and initiate
a text, video, or voice chat as you edit. (Chatting
options all require you to be signed into Microsoft
Messenger for Mac, which is free.)
10 Updating When you’re working with a SkyDrive document, the Save
button in Word’s toolbar becomes Save/Refresh. Click that to save your
changes to the document. In a group session, the other co-authors will
all see an Updates Available tag in the bottom of the document window,
as well as a refresh icon next to the co-author’s name. When they click
Save/Refresh, they’ll see your changes made. As with any document,
save early and often.

We put red circles

around all the things
you can click to
refresh.
You can get in touch with your co-authors with
these handy tools.

11Box ’Em Out

To keep parts of your document off-limits to your co-authors, select that text
and click the Block Authors button on the Review tab of the ribbon. To remove the
block, put the cursor anywhere in the text and then click the same button.

You can block off any parts of your

document you don’t want anyone to
change.

worldmags
maclife.com JAN • 11 91
 worldmags

>>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad

12Conflict Resolution
If two people working at once try to overwrite each other’s changes, the
document owner will see a warning and be asked to resolve the conflict. You’ll see your
changes along with your co-author’s changes, with large friendly buttons asking you to
keep your own changes or reject them.
Don’t worry too much about
conflicts. Word makes them easy to
resolve.

13Undoing Edits
Plus, if you turned on Track Changes in Step 1, you can reject
any co-author’s edit (whether it conflicted with one of yours or not) by
finding its flag to the right of your document’s edge and clicking the X to Track Changes flags
appear on the right.
reject. (Or, alternatively, the checkmark to confirm.)

14 Excel at Collaboration
If you’re more of a spreadsheet ninja, you can collaborate
on Excel documents in pretty much the same way—saving the file Click Open In Excel
to SkyDrive, extending permission to co-authors, and emailing them from your SkyDrive,
and sign in for
a link. The file will open in Excel Web App, and you can click Open equally awesome
In Excel for real-time collaboration in Excel 2011 (or Excel 2010 for collaboration on
spreadsheets.
Windows).

15PowerPoint Collaboration
PowerPoint has some neat collaboration features,
too. They work just like they do in Word and Excel, but
PowerPoint also lets you split your presentation into sections so
you can informally assign different team members to different
sections. To do this, select the first slide in the new section, and
click Section on the Home
tab of the ribbon.
Select Add Section from
the dropdown and give
it a name. This also lets
you quickly reorder your
presentation by shuffling
entire sections around
instead of having to drag
individual slides.
16PowerPoint Broadcasting
The Broadcasting feature lets you walk others through your
presentation remotely, even if they don’t have PowerPoint on their
computers. All they need is an internet connection and a browser. Go
to Slide Show > Broadcast Slide Show, and sign in with your Windows
Live ID. Then you’ll get a link to share with your remote viewers;
buttons let you email it or copy it to your Clipboard with one click.
You need a
Windows Live ID,
but your remote
viewers don’t,
just the link you
get after clicking
Connect.

Splitting up your slides into

sections makes it easy to assign
them to team members.

17On with the Show

Broadcasting only shows the slides, so you’ll also want
to use Microsoft Messenger, iChat, Skype, or a good old-fashioned
conference call to talk to your audience. When you’re ready to
get started, click Play Slide Show (in that same Slide Show > Control your
Broadcast Slide Show popup) to begin, or use the controls on the presentation with these
handy buttons.
Home (Broadcast) tab. Broadcast mode also prevents editing until
you click the End button.

92
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 Mac|Life Shop
worldmags

Mac | Life A W E S O M E
R A T E D

worldmags maclife.com JAN

FEB • 07 M 12<<<
93
| L •11
 Mac|Life Shop worldmags

Mac |Life
C R E AT E SHARE

E N J OY

MacLife.com is your go-to source for everything Apple.

Live from the Mac|Life experts.

>>Exclusive features >>Reviews & how-tos >>Modern design

>>Breaking news >>First looks at hot products >>Podcasts & videos >>Contests

Create. Share. Enjoy. That’s www.maclife.com

Interested in advertising
in Mac|Life magazine?

Call Greg Ryder at

650-745-9243
or
Anthony Losanno at
646-723-5493

>>>12
94 JAN M•11| L maclife.com
worldmags FEB•07
 Mac|Life Shop
worldmags

KINEKT GEAR RING Your

Guitar Tone
On Your
iPhone
AmpliTube® iRig™
Take your Amps
& Pedals with you on
your iPhone/iPod/iPad
AmpliTube iRig is the unique
combination of an ultra-
compact plug-in adapter and
a mobile app that turns your
iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad™ into
the ultimate mobile guitar and
bass tone and effects processor.
only
$39
www.amplitube.com/irig
Download the FREE version now! .99
+ AmpliTube
Free for iPhone

AmpliTube® and iRig™ are trademarks property of IK Multimedia

Production. All other product names and trademarks are the property
of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated
with IK Multimedia. iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad™, are trademarks of
Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

worldmags maclife.com JAN

FEB • 07 M 12<<<
| L •1195
 worldmags

THE LIFER After Apple’s October press conference, one thing was clear—big changes
are on the way for OS X. That prompts Rik Myslewski to wonder…

How Dangerous Is the Mac App Store?

A
pple’s new online Mac market. But it’s not. Apple and Apple alone decides which apps it
App Store worries me. allows into its sacred store and which are left cold and lonely in
Scheduled to open as the vast wasteland of the web. Which also might be reasonable
2010 becomes 2011, the Mac if Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines for developers were
App Store will supply the same more evenhanded and less tilted in Cupertino’s favor.
one-stop shopping, convenience, The guidelines are a list of 93 restrictions designed to guide
and software reliability that developers through the app-submission process. Most are
the current iOS App Store reasonable, but many others raise fundamental questions of
provides to users of the iPhone, fairness, market manipulation, and the possible quashing of
iPad, and iPod touch. It’ll also innovation.
give developers a simple, no- Take section 6.4, for example: “If your user interface is
overhead way to market and distribute their apps and pocket complex or less than very good, it may be rejected.” Apple will
70 percent of the take, with Apple keeping the remainder. decide whether an interface is acceptable, not the market.
That’s the good news—but as is customarily the case, when By doing so, it reserves the right to define innovation and to
Steve Jobs giveth, Steve Jobs also taketh away. The Mac App be its gatekeeper.
Store will shackle developers Or section 2.7: “Apps that
with the same high level of duplicate apps already in the App
restrictions that the current Store may be rejected, particularly
iOS store does and will flip if there are many of them.” One of
the concept of a free software the glories of a truly free market is
market on its head. that a potentially better mousetrap
You, the software purchaser, can compete with all existing rodent-
will no longer solely decide assassination devices. This will no
which apps will succeed and longer be true when the Mac App
which will fail. Apple will. Store comes online—Apple will
To be sure, when Jobs decide when enough is enough and
announced the Mac App Store shut the door.
in October, he said, “It won’t I’ll end with section 5.3: “Apps
be the only place [to buy Mac which appear confusingly similar
apps], but we think it’ll be the to an existing Apple product or
best place.” Realistically, however, it’s a safe bet that the vast advertising theme will be rejected.” Apple, needless to say, will
majority of consumer-level Mac users will prefer to shop at a define “confusingly similar”—which isn’t merely competition-
centralized, Apple-approved online app repository rather than quashing, but also a wee bit paternalistic to us poor, easily
take their chances in the wild and woolly web. confused consumers.
But more important is this stricture’s anti-competitive nature.
When Steve Jobs giveth, Is Yahoo Messenger, for example, too similar to iChat? If Apple

Steve Jobs also taketh away.
And that’s when things get worrisome. If a small- to
middling-size developer can’t get an app into the Mac App
Store, that app’s chances of survival are at the crystalline-
H2O-sphere-in-Hades level.
“So what?” you might ask. “Competition makes markets
deems that it is, it can ban it, no matter whether you, Mr. and Ms.
User, might prefer it.
And that’s what worries me about the Mac App Store: Apple
decides who wins and who loses, not the marketplace. For more
worrying, check out bit.ly/byPbtl.
>>Rik Myslewski was editor-in-chief of MacAddict from 2001 until it

work by separating the winners from the losers.” transformed into Mac|Life in 2007, and now writes for The Register,
And you’d be correct—if the Mac App Store were an open which is “biting the hand that feeds IT” daily at www.theregister.co.uk.

96
JAN•11 maclife.com
worldmags
 worldmags

WE
IS
TH
N
O
W
Y
B
D
R
A
AW
A
IR
1
0
2
F
W
E
H
G
H
IN
C
U
D
O
R
T
IN
V
O
IN
S
CE
D
R
W
T
A

D
N
S
LE
B
A
T
R
O
P
iQ
AV

)
:L
D
O
C
IP
H
R
F
E
S
(U
cm
Q
V
.A
s@
itrk
w
o
h
e
Se

worldmags
 worldmags

worldmags