Essential Apple User Magazine

Published by: Papercut Limited Managing Editor: James Gale Editor: Ian Osborne Art Director & Production: Mark Ayshford Production Manager: Karl Linstead Design: Martin Smith Editorial: Ian Osborne, Russ Ware, David Hayward. Contributors: James Gale,

Ever wished you were better read but simply can’t find the time? Blinks Labs think they have the answer. Blinkist lets you choose from over 2,500 non-fiction titles on a huge range of subjects, all condensed and served up in handy 15 minute sections.

Sleep, nap, focus. Pzizz helps you do all three. If you have trouble sleeping, you can set it to play a relaxing dreamscape, a sound pattern designed to help you nod off. You can add a narration too if you wish, in male or female voice, and set the l

We’ve all done it. With no film or developing costs, it’s easy to take a series of very similar pics to make sure you get the photograph you want leaving your iOS device bloated with near identical snaps. Already a popular Mac utility, Gemini Photos

Wallets are getting fatter. Not because we’re getting richer, but because they’re bulked out with store-issued loyalty cards. Most people carry about half a dozen, and have you ever declined a card because you don’t want another piece of plastic in y

Described as ‘the definitive companion to the world’s most watched league’, the Premiership’s official iOS app is a comprehensive guide to this season in English football’s top tier. It’s a great way of following your team, or the League in general.

Descriptive comparisons, yeah I like them. They make explaining functionality or content easy. And Serif's Affinity Designer for iPad can be summed up easily with this one, “It's like Adobe Illustrator but for your iPad”. This comparison is near perf

Ever wanted to be a home designer? With Live Home 3D Pro, you can. Already respected on the Mac and Windows platforms, you can now also use it on your iOS devices and it’s surprisingly feature-rich. It’s amazing just how comprehensive Live Home 3D Pr

During my regular adventures in the App Store, I often run across an application that isn’t going to join the ranks of the classics, but will be judged as a must-try for a specific audience. Driving Theory Test 2018 Kit is one such app. If you are le

Blinkist is a great way to become better read without investing hours in actually reading. With a Blinkist subscription you can choose from over 2,500 non-fiction titles on a huge range of subjects, all condensed and served up in handy 15 minute sect

Parlez-vous Français? Sprechen sie Deutsch? Nor can I, but all that could change if you install iTranslate Lingo on your iPad or iPhone. iTranslate claims to have ‘put the fun at the heart of language learning’, which is no small boast. There are 14

The British railway system is a curious creature. A seemingly random collection of private companies, it charges the highest ticket prices in Europe, but still offers a terrible service. In fact, its fare pricing is such a mess it’s sometimes cheaper

Toast made its name as the Mac’s best application for burning data, video and audio disks. If you needed to make a DVD out of your home movie, a CD from your band’s last jam session or simply copy a heap of files onto a disk and post it, Toast was yo

Out of the box, your Mac can read from drives formatted using Microsoft’s NTFS format, but not write to them. If you’ve ever borrowed a portable hard drive or thumb stick from a friend and found you could read and copy files to your Mac, but couldn’t

Last summer, Apple was rumoured to be working on a web widget that would let Apple Music subscribers stream their sounds without launching iTunes. Nothing came of it, so an independent team built an unofficial web client. The result? Musish! When you

There’s plenty you can do to optimise your Mac. You can clean-uninstall apps, making sure you remove all the junk files they might leave behind, you can get rid of foreign language options you’re never going to use, you can delete large and old files

For years, Xbox One owners have been able to stream their games to their Windows PCs and play anywhere in the house. Microsoft, however, never saw fit to bring this feature to the Mac. Sure, you could install Windows on an Apple computer and run it t

Let’s face it, not everyone needs Adobe Photoshop. It’s been the premiere image editor for so long the very word has become synonymous with photo manipulation (‘is this real, or has it been Photoshopped?’), but it’s also very high-end with a price ta

Happy birthday, CorelDRAW! The app is 30 years old and to celebrate, Corel is bringing it back to the Mac after an 18-year absence. All the apps and features associated with the Windows version are there; look out for CorelDRAW 2019, Corel PHOTO-PAIN

Apple Music doesn’t really cut it for classical music. Sure, there’s classical works on there, but in reality, the service is set up for popular music, in terms of artists, genres, albums and the like. Crucially, a classical work might have literally

It’s a simple concept. Yoink is a shelf on which to drag and drop folders, documents, and other data, using it as a temporary parking spot. Maybe you want to move a folder to a new location, or gather images before attaching them to an email. With Yo

The team that gave us Pixelmator Pro, one of the most respected Photoshop alternatives on the Mac, has brought their undoubted image manipulation talents to the iPad. Pixelmator Photo is a very capable picture editor, boasting features more commonly

If you read last issue’s bumper photography special, you know how much we love Skylum’s Luminar 3 Mac photo editor. However, if you’re too emotionally attached to your existing graphics tool to consider a swap, you can give it a boost with Luminar Fl

When giving a presentation on your Mac, it’s easy for the pointer to get lost on the screen; a minor inconvenience for you, with your notebook right in front of you, but frustrating for your audience in the boardroom, or auditorium, watching a mirror

Now here’s a desktop with a difference. Earth 3D gives you an animated view of the globe, replete with city locations and exciting graphical details. From the pull-down menu in the top bar, you can switch to Screen Saver Mode, which covers up everyth

Graphics tools are getting cheaper. Sure, if you want, or need, the premium products such as Adobe’s Photoshop or Illustrator, you pay top whack, but there are scores of thirdparty alternatives that pack a surprising amount of power for a fraction of

Agenda takes a new look at the note-taking app. Instead of individual notes stored in folders, like Apple’s Notes app, Agenda takes a date-based approach. You start projects (which can be arranged into categories) and then add notes to them, arranged

Developed by a pilot, it is claimed Atmosphere Weather represents a ‘new way of checking the weather forecast’. Featuring a 24-hour clock, localised radar and calendar synchronisation (if you pay for the full version), it gives you the temperature, a

This is what we were promised and this is what we’ve got. The new app from furniture store IKEA lets you browse their catalogue, pick out a piece of furniture and place it in your house using augmented reality. The camera on your iPhone or iPad shows

Now here’s a useful app for when you take a stroll. Pedometer++ uses your iPhone to record how many steps you’ve taken and how many floors you’ve climbed. You can set daily and weekly goals, earn challenge badges, and keep track on how you’re doing u

CERN, the foremost European scientific research organisation, takes us on an epic interactive journey through the birth and evolution of the universe. It’s completely free, with no in-app purchases, and takes advantage of recent iOS devices’ augmente

Odd one this, originally developed by Nik Software as seven individual plug-ins, the suite was bought by Google, and sold as a single package, before being bought by DxO, which added them to its own PhotoLab Essential app. And that brings us to this

With its Affinity range of graphics software, Serif’s on-going attempt to eat Adobe’s lunch continues with Publisher, a desktop-publishing application that’s perfect for those that neither want, nor need, Adobe’s InDesign. Refreshingly eschewing the

Alfred is your Mac’s handy butler. He’s there to serve, speeding your workflow, increasing your productivity, and generally making your Mac’s features and functions more accessible. After summoning a Spotlight-like window with a user-defined key comb

Keeping tabs (literally) on all your oft-used browser pages can be a pain. Do you really want your Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Gmail, Spotify, Uber, LinkedIn and so-on stuck in your Safari browser as pinned tabs, taking up room and getting in the way

It’s a great convenience to have your cloud services available as virtual drives, and the app is pleasingly unobtrusive too. After the 15-day trial, it’s available as a monthly subscription, but the £24.38/$29.99/27,20 € lifetime subscription for fiv

This app could literally save your life. In fact, it’s already saved several, and police have advised everyone – especially hikers and travellers – to download it. The concept behind what3words is deceptively simple. The app divides the world into 57

If you own a Mac but want to use other operating systems too, virtualisation is the easiest way. Using a virtualisation app such as Parallels Desktop, you can install Windows, Linux distros and more on your Mac, and run them from inside macOS. You do

The 18th release of Toast Titanium, Roxio’s long-established app for burning optical discs including data, DVD and more, brings few surprises. While its predecessor introduced a range of new features such as 64-bit compatibility, Dark Mode, multicam

How many times have you spent good money on an app you only used once or twice? How often do you wish you had an app for a specific job, but couldn’t find one? For these times, Setapp really shows the advantage of subscription services. Setapp is lik

The ultimate Mac maintenance package. Optimise performance by cleaning out junk, safely uninstall applications, and seek out large and unused files. Mount your cloud services such as Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive, along with WebDAV, Amazon S3, a

What a way to get the best seats in the house! LIVR (pronounced lie-ver) is a virtual reality theatre experience. Subscribe for £5.99 a month (or whatever that is in your local currency) and pop your iPhone in the free headset and you can enjoy a ful

If you’re lucky enough to have an Apple Pencil to go with your iPad, you know how handy it is for taking handwritten notes. The longestablished Noteshelf app is built to help you do just that, by offering a handy note-taking environment and the means

The problem with annual updates is there might not be enough new material to justify the upgrade. The application itself might be great, but if you already have last year’s version, do the new features warrant another purchase? That’s what has happen

Like its stable mate Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements is a version of a pro-level Adobe app designed for home users with less professional needs. The Elements version of Premiere is easier to use than its professional counterpart, but still very

DxO PhotoLab is a photo-editing suite for serious photographers with serious expectations. Its main selling point is it understands your camera setup, with profiles for over 50,000 camera and lens combinations included. This lets you get results more

Since Apple stopped selling printed materials through the Photos app, third party companies have stepped up to offer similar services. Motif Photos is one such service. Available on the Mac, iPhone and iPad, the Motif app lets you design and purchase

The long-awaited Photoshop for iPad finally arrived in early November, but not to universal applause. Many felt the app we finally got is not the one we were promised, and although billed as ‘the real Photoshop’, the final release is missing signific

If you have something you no longer want, but is too good to simply throw away, you can advertise it on a service such as Freecycle or Freegle. If someone nearby wants it, they arrange to collect it. You can browse items other people are getting rid

Slidepad is basically a web browser that sits off the desktop until you drag your mouse pointer to a userdefined edge of the screen. It can be as large or as small as you like, and when you’re done with it, you click an icon to hide it again. You can

If you have lots of videos you’d like to watch on your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV without transferring them to the device itself, Infuse 6 is just what you need. It can play a large range of formats, including MP4, M4V, MOV, MKV, AVI, WMV, MTS, ISO, VI

What a radical overhaul. If you already have Luminar 3, you’ll find the fourth iteration of this popular photo-editor a very different beast, but thanks to a user-friendly interface and useful video tutorials it won’t take you long to get up to speed

There’s more to this child safety app than you might think. At first glance, it’s an electronic diary that lets your offspring record their moods and emotions; functional, but unremarkable, you could say. But Own It’s real strength is its keyboard, w

A whole new concept in digital messaging. WiWhen it comes to communication, the faster your merry missives are delivered, the better, right? Not according to this highly original social media app. The idea behind Slowly is to encourage more extended

Backing up isn't all about Time Machine. To be adequately backed up, it's best to back up twice. That's where Carbon Copy Cloner comes in. It's excellent for making bootable backups of your main drive, so if there's a problem, you can boot from your

Ever come across a video on YouTube and wished you could download it for offline viewing, or cut it to DVD and watch it on your living-room TV? Of course you have. Everybody has. With Airy, you can do just that. It's easy to use. Simply navigate to t

JustStream is an excellent alternative to AirPlay. It can stream video from your Mac to any AirPlay or Chromecast compatible device, as well as smart TVs from Samsung and LG, Roku boxes, Apple TV and Sony devices. It's great for viewing slideshows of

Fotomagico 5 is the Mac's premiere slideshow maker, combining ease of use with in-depth features for those who need more than iMovie can offer. It's now arrived on the iPad and retains its versatility and flexibility, but at a high price. FotoMagico

Now here's a useful app to have on your phone. It can translate typed text into and out of 103 languages, as long as you've got an Internet connection. If you're offline, it can still translate 59 languages. If your typing finger is getting tired, yo

Spam emails are the bane of everyone’s life. You know the sort of thing. Get rich quick schemes, we-know-your-password blackmail threats and some we won’t even describe. If you use email, you get spam. It’s as simple as that. Cleanfox is a free tool

If you spend a lot of time travelling, you know how tricky it can be to organise your trips. With flights, trains, accommodation and other such bookings, you soon end up with a lot of emails and attachments, all of which you need. TripIt is designed

Reddit is huge. It’s the fifth most visited site in the USA, and the 13th in the world. In a nutshell, it’s a socially run news aggregator; users post news items, links, and pictures on subjects that interest them, and other users then vote them up o

With BBC Sounds, you can listen to your favourite BBC radio shows, catch up on episodes you’ve missed, subscribe to, download and enjoy BBC podcasts and stream local radio shows from anywhere in the world, all from a single app. Launch the App and th

Ever wished you could use a website app as a self-contained application? If so, Flotato is what you need. It’s simple to use and works well. You can make your own apps, or choose from a range of preconfigured site/apps. Flotato isn’t as configurable

The rise of the app brought hope to gamers that the days of invention that had been long stifled by the dominance of the huge names in gaming could be about to return. And for a while it really seemed this was the case, with the first generation of i

If you already use Microsoft’s To-Do app on the web, iOS, or Android, you’ll be pleased to know it’s been released as a Mac app. It doesn’t yet offer Planner integration, and we could do with a Dark Mode, but overall it’s a good combined GTD (Getting

The augmented reality adventure, Scriptum, begins with the quote "You have just entered the forbidden room … you have a maximum time of 15 minutes to escape.” and suddenly you're locked in a virtual escape room to explore on your iOS device. Apparent

The Total War series of games is among the most respected strategy franchises ever and when first released on the PC, ROME: Total War was regarded as one of the best. That was in 2004, so could it make the transition to today’s mobile devices? The 20

From inception, SEGA Heroes seemed destined for equal parts failure and, as a keen retro gamer, disappointment. The choice of genre initially set alarm bells ringing, LOUDLY. The RPG puzzle subgenre, yes there are enough games out there to categorise

As Benjamin Franklin once observed, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Thankfully, Next Up Hero doesn’t offer simulated tax returns, but it’s certainly heavy on death. A 2D twin-stick dungeon crawler, the game

Having grown up in a small coastal town, I developed, early on, an enduring passion for classic coin-ops. Twenty pence brought you bright, loud, colour-drenched escape from the cold wet winters, an escape that was impossible to discover on the eight-

Nintendo’s latest foray into the mobile market is a change of pace from the world’s greatest game developer. The company’s mobile gaming strategy has certainly seen some changes since it first announced it was moving into this particular marketplace.

At first glance, it would be easy to lump Cuphead in with every other run-and-gun/boss-rush platformer, but spend just a few minutes with the titular Cuphead and his buddy, Mugman and you soon see this is anything but. That isn’t to say that the game

Phantasy Star Classics is SEGA’s latest lowcost revisit of its own back catalogue. It’s a compilation of three classic Mega Drive/Genesis titles: Phantasy Star II (1989), Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom (1990) and the series’ finale, Phantasy

One massive, pet peeve of mine is how few mobile games genuinely take advantage of both the hardware and the user interface touchscreen, technology can offer. For every Limbo and Monument Valley, there’s an endless list of virtual joypad (two words t

The First Person Shooter (FPS) hasn't faired too well on the Mac. At the genre's inception, PC gamers could immersive themselves in the depths of hell with Doom while we Mac owners tried to convince ourselves that Marathon was just as good. The Mac h

Codemasters has long been the king of the rally sim, a position it maintains with DiRT 4. An in-depth simulation game with a pedigree dating back to the legendary Colin McRae Rally, it comes to the Mac courtesy of Feral Interactive. The game centres

As the Sega Forever catalogue continues to expand, each new release – while always welcomed – is a coin-toss between excitement and disappointment. With such an expansive and influential pedigree it feels almost inevitable that one gamer’s ‘classic’

This game-streaming app has a rather colourful history. First promised in May of 2018, Steam Link was delayed by Apple rejecting it over and again due to ‘business conflicts’. A year later, those conflicts appear to have been resolved and it’s now av

Story-driven puzzle games have always felt an uneasy pairing. By definition, the puzzle genre was devised as a quick-stop gaming fix rather than a sprawling narrative-driven adventure. This is why Nintendo sold a trillion GameBoys/Tetris packs back i

This independent, real-time strategy opus is set in an alternate Middle Ages where three mighty powers vie for supremacy. Playing as Europe, China, or the Middle East, you must build cities, recruit new troops, and fight large-scale wars with your ne

This rather odd title started out as a joke about billionaire Apple investor Warren Buffett’s childhood job as a newspaper boy, but then Apple released it, making it the first Apple iPhone game since 2008. You must work your way through Omaha, Nebras

What’s in a name? Well, in the case of Almost Impossible 2, a lot of truth. This retro platformer really is almost impossible! You control a bouncing ball, incorporating a rather fetching pair of eyes, which bounces up and down automatically. By drag

Originally designed for the iPod and then brought to the iPhone, Apple’s interpretation of Texas Hold’em poker was the first game to feature on the App Store. Released in 2008 but removed from sale in 2011, Apple celebrated the Store’s tenth birthday

Have you ever killed a dragon? Have you donned your shining armour and hunted down your fire-breathing foe before hauling off his treasure horde? Fans of adventure games have probably done so a dozen times; killing the dragon has been an RPG trope si

Retro gaming on modern hardware comes in various forms, ranging from emulation to the HD remake. There are flaws with both. For those seeking to recreate a vintage gaming experience, often the best option are games that wear their retro credentials o

The Call of Duty franchise has made somewhere in the region of $15 billion. $15 BILLION! That’s simply an unbelievable amount, and it’s testament to just how popular, whether you like it or not, the games have been for the PC and consoles. Now, thoug

With the launch of each new generation of iOS hardware, the promise of a homeconsole experience at your fingertips draws ever closer. Over the last few years, as the experience blurred, I’ve spent more time playing games on my iPhone and iPad than on

As the old cliché states, you can’t get cheaper than free, and that’s certainly true on the App Store. There’s 100,000s of free games to be downloaded that ask nothing more from you than your time. But this creates a dilemma for developers. Games tha

Franchise fatigue is a very real issue, not for the producers so much but massively for the gamer. It’s mostly a self-inflicted injury, caused by recycling old ideas until they’re forced into the realm of trope and cliché. It’s something those of you

There’s something very pleasant in the way Untitled Goose Game starts. There’s a gentle piano tune playing in the background, and the graphical menus are large and well presented, it’s all very quaint. However, there’s nothing nice about the characte

While SNK's The King of Fighters series never achieved the levels of popularity of beat-‘em-up legends like Capcom's Street Fighter or Midway's Mortal Kombat, the franchise continues to endure. It even has its own rubbish direct-to-DVD movie. Now thi

Back in Issue 2, we covered Scriptum, a free AR escape room for your iPhone or iPad that saw you locked in a famous writer’s study. Could you get out? This free game has now been joined by a couple of paid-for escape rooms accessed from within the sa

From the pages of 2000AD, to the mobile screens of today, comes the legendary lawman Judge Dredd, in a zarjaz original tale from current Dredd writers. A card-collecting RPG, you get to build a deck of Dredd’s iconic weapons, including the Lawgiver,

If you've played the original Life is Strange, you'll be instantly at home with this sequel. The game mechanic hasn't changed; it's still a narrative-driven graphic adventure with the story interrupted – and guided – by regular multiplechoice options

Being an armchair pundit, manager, player, well; anything really, just as long as you can work on your sofa's butt groove at the same time, is the best job in the world. You answer to no one, you are paid well in self-worth and, most importantly, you