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Siri, the woman of your dreams

Ian Osborne — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:31:14 +0000

Raj has a problem. The India-born astrophysicist from hit American TV comedy The Big Bang Theory suffers from selective mutism, which severely inhibits his interaction with the fairer sex. In a nutshell, he can't talk to women unless he's drunk.

But in the recent Season Five episode 'The Beta Test Initiation', he finally finds a woman he can talk to. Siri. He's fascinated by the iPhone 4S's voice-activated assistant, and how he can hold a conversation with her while stone cold sober. Of course, a relationship with Siri is impossible, so Raj can only dream. And he does, with hilarious consequences.

'The Beta Test Initiation' has yet to air in the UK, but you can watch a potted, five-minute digest of Raj's rather odd relationship on YouTube.

MacFormat 244 – 50 ways to improve your Mac and iPad

Timothy Hardwick — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:54:05 +0000

Your Mac is an incredibly versatile beast, and it’s likely you’ve not even begun to scratch the surface of what it’s capable of. That’s where we come in. This issue you’ll find 30 new and exciting ways to make more of your Mac. And that’s not all. An iPad extends and augments your Mac life, which is why you’ll find 20 top tablet tips to take your iOS use to the next level too. It’s all here!

Also this month: Apple’s secrecy is legendary in the technology industry, but to what extent does the company’s continuing success depend on clandestine innovation, and how much is too much? We lift the veil on Apple Inc.

Elsewhere, we’ve an iPad SOS guide for when your tablet has an off day; we look at the best video converter app out there; and put LaCie’s latest external SSD Thunderbolt drive offering through its paces.

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Mariner Software MacJournal 6 review

Ian Osborne — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:07:03 +0000

Key Info
Developer: Mariner Software
www.marinersoftware.com

Requirements
OS: OS X 10.6.8 or later

MacJournal 6 is the latest incarnation of the very popular blogging and journal software from Mariner. No matter what you want to keep track of with words, MacJournal can help, be it a private and personal diary or a public and published blog. Blogging is the natural fit for software like MacJournal and it’s no surprise to see you can automatically link MacJournal to several services. Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr, to name but a few, can all be updated with a copy of MacJournal. As you might expect, you can add pictures, music, PDF documents and YouTube documents to all your entries.

This version of MacJournal has been fully updated for Lion and it now supports fullscreen operation. In addition to the fullscreen mode there’s a focused editing option. Essentially, focused editing removes all the interface items and leaves you with just the text, perfect if you are easily distracted.

The timeline view shows you how regularly you’ve been updating so that you can quickly see when you are most busy with your blogging. In addition there’s a calendar view so you can see month by month the days you blog too. If you manage multiple blogs or journals you can see each individually or all of them in the timeline of Calendar view, to make sure you’re keeping up evenly with all your entries.

One thing that we found MacJournal excelled at was managing multiple blogs. The sidebar contains all your journals and you simply click on one to start writing for that journal. You can have nested journals under one umbrella too. So, if you write 10 technology blogs and ten blogs about cheese then it’s easy to keep them separated and organised. The Smart Journals are also fantastic if you manage multiple blogs. Much like a smart folder, you can create a journal by tags, topics, date, labels and much more. Simply set up a Smart Journal, decide upon the criteria and MacJournal creates a new journal from your existing blog entries.

One of the great things about MacJournal is how it manages the more complex tools like templates and HTML – should that be something you want to tinker with. If you want to just get on with writing and not bother yourself with any of the finer details then MacJournal let’s you do that, but if you need closer control of things, then that’s possible too.

There are just too many features to go into fully here and sometimes this means that software is bloated or overly complex, but MacJournal just doesn’t feel that way. It’s not often that software manages to tread the fine line between being great for those who want simplicity and also worthy of those looking for something a little more in-depth. MacJournal walks this line with real aplomb. If you have a blog to update or several – hundreds or more in fact – then MacJournal can help you with both.

MacJournal is simple to use and yet still has some depth for those who need to get past the very basics. It’s an excellent tool and one that we can thoroughly recommend. Linking it to your blog or keeping things private is equally easy, and for those managing multiple blogs it’s also very useful.

• Christopher Brennan

PROS & CONS
+ Simple interface
+ Lots of options
+ Multiple blog support
+ Smart Journals
+ Calendar views
+ Easy to add images etc

VERDICT: 5/5
“No matter if you manage multiple blogs or just the one, this software will make the job very easy indeed.”

Great gaming bargains!

Ian Osborne — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:24:24 +0000

Here's one for the gamers. Top Mac games publisher Aspyr has dropped the price of four of its top titles to just £2.99, but hurry – they go back up again at the close of business on 31st January. The games included in the sale are:

• Duke Nukem Forever
Hail to the king, baby! This politically incorrect first-person shooter wasn't well received, but as Andy Dyer argued in MacFormat's review, the journalistic backlash against its legendary development delays went too far. It's a fun blast, and a bargain at a penny under three quid.

• Prey
Another first-person shooter, this one takes its inspiration from modern-day native American culture. Abducted by aliens, Cherokee garage mechanic Tommy must rediscover his ancient birthright if he's to save his people. It's a few years old now, but still looks gorgeous.

• Tomb Raider II
Here's a game that needs no introduction. Lara Croft's second third-person action adventure is one of the best-selling games of all time. Graphically the game is showing its age, but it's still Lara at her best. Three quid is an excellent price for a gaming classic.

• NeverWinter Nights 2
Rise from a peasant to a full-fledged hero as you defend the Realms against one of the greatest threats of the age! This isometric RPG lets you build a character that suits your style of play – good or evil, chaotic or lawful, with any number of skills, feats and professions available at the click of a button.

New iCade on the Way

Ian Osborne — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:16:59 +0000

ION's popular iCade game controller is getting a revamp. The iCade Core, which is due for release later this year, retains the arcade-style joystick and buttons but moves away from the overall coin-op metaphor. This makes it far more practical in operation. The original iCade worked great when your iPad was in portrait mode, but when playing a landscape-orientated game, it didn't look right at all. The iPad sat in front of the cabinet, without ever appearing to be part of it. The iCade Core's iPad slot is long enough to take the tablet either way, as you can see in the video here. It takes up a lot less room on your shelf too. The controller still connects to your iPad through Bluetooth.

The iCade was inspired by an April Fool's joke on a technical website. The concept proved so popular it was developed and released commercially. When we reviewed it in Issue 237, our main concern was a lack of compatible games. Thankfully its roster has now expanded; check out the full list here. We'll bring you a full review of the forthcoming iCade Core in a future issue of MacFormat.

MacFormat 243 – Get more from iCloud

Timothy Hardwick — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:58:01 +0000

Housed in a vast data centre in North Carolina, iCloud is Apple’s next-generation online service. It syncs your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and iPod touch. It can track a lost device, copy your iPhone snaps over the web so they’re safely backed up on your Mac, and synchronise your iWork files. This issue, we’ll show you how to set up your Mac and iOS devices to use iCloud, how to sync your apps and data, and how to back up your documents to the web.

But as ever, we’ve packed in so much more. What's in store for Apple in 2012? We’ve drawn up the possible plans for the New Year, and it makes for some exciting reading. We’ve also put our heads together and found 10 ways to make your Mac pay for itself (you’ll be surprised)! Then there’s our compact system camera group test, along with all our regular tutorials and reviews.

Click here to subscribe to MacFormat and save!

Another money-saving apps bundle

Ian Osborne — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:40:30 +0000

BundlesForMac has announced another money-saving collection of applications. The New Year 2012 Bundle features eight apps sold for more than 90% off their total cost when bought separately. The offer ends on 13th January, 2012. The applications included in the New Year 2012 bundle are:

• iOrgsoft DVD Maker for Mac: Create and burn DVD movies from video files, and personalise your work with menus.

• SWF Converter for Mac: Convert SWF files to other video formats.

• Aquafadas Pulp Motion: The easy way to create sound and video presentations.

• Belight Concealer: A utility that hides and secures files, folders, various account information, and much more.

• Yummy FTP: An FTP and SFTP client.

• Wondershare Fantashow for Mac: A digital slideshow builder with Facebook and YouTube integration.

• PDF Converter for Mac: Convert native PDF to most popular document formats.

• iCash: Control your personal finance, keeping track of incomes, expenses, credits, debts and bank transactions.

The New Year Bundle costs just $39.99 (around £26). Bought separately, the apps would cost over $400 (approximately £260). Be quick - the offer expires on 13th January, 2012.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Ian Osborne — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:09:29 +0000

The MacFormat team would like to wish all our readers a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. And just to get us all in the festive mood, here's a digital Christmas card from Future Publishing.

Grab a Bundle of Indie Games

Ian Osborne — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:23 +0000

How much would you pay for an indie game? A fiver? A tenner? More? How much would you pay for a bundle of five or more new, cross-platform, DRM-free titles? With the fourth Humble Indie Bundle the answer is anything you like.

The Humble Indie Bundle contains at least five games, namely Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner and NightSky. All are available for Mac OS, Windows and Linux. Bought separately, they would cost around $100 (about £65), but here you really do pay whatever you want, with the proceeds being split between two charities and the games' developers. You can even set how you'd like your fee to be divided among these benefactors. Again at the time of writing, Humble Indie Bundle #4 has already raised over a million dollars, and the offer still has almost two weeks to run.

If you pay more than the current average purchase price, you get two bonus games, Cave Story + and Gratuitous Space Battles. This average stands at $5.34 (around £3.50) at the time of writing, but be quick. With prices this low, most people will want to pay an above-average fee, so over time it will go up.

You can read all about the offer, and check out the current average fee, at the Humble Indie Bundle website.

OnLive goes Mobile

Ian Osborne — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:46:29 +0000

The long-awaited OnLive clients for iPad and other tablet devices are imminent. The iPad app is currently going through the approval process, and will appear any day soon. It's looking good too. An OnLive viewer was released around six months ago, allowing you to watch other people play games using the cloud service, but soon you'll be able to play your OnLive games on your mobile device. The new OnLive mobile client is free to download, and it comes bundled with a free game, LEGO Batman, which usually costs £15. When you download the client and use it to log onto your OnLive account (which is also free), LEGO Batman is been added to your OnLive games collection. You can play it on any OnLive platform, so it's worth downloading the iPad app even if you never intend to use it.

^{You can play LEGO Batman on an iPad, using the OnLive Wireless Controller}

OnLive is a new way of playing your games. Instead of installing them on your computer or putting a disc in your console, the software runs on a cloud server. You both buy and play your games through an OnLive application for your computer or mobile device, or on an internet-enabled micro console that connects to your HDTV. All the processing takes place on the server, with the action converted to video format and streamed to your Onlive browser. Obviously you need a decent internet connection, but the host machine's system requirements are very low. You can play an OnLive game on a Mac that couldn't hope to support it natively. For example, Batman: Arkham Asylum, reviewed in MacFormat 242, needs a 1.8GHz Intel processor and 2GB of RAM, with a 2.8GHz CPU and 4GB RAM recommended. Yet the OnLive version - which uses the Windows game's code - can be played on any Intel Mac, or even on an iPad.

^{Play Defense Grid with your fingers instead of a mouse}

Several games in OnLive's impressive and growing library have been reworked for the iPad client. For example, tower defence game Defense Grid uses a keyboard-and-mouse approach on a computer, but when you play on a mobile device, it automatically switches to touchscreen controls. You can place your towers with your fingers, and pinch/zoom gestures have been added, along with on-screen buttons. Popular cops-and-robbers adventure LA Noire is being revamped too, allowing you to play the entire game with gestures and touchscreen controls.

OnLive has also produced a controls overlay which developers can incorporate into their OnLive titles. This maps the joypad's button configuration to the touchscreen. It can be turned off if you wish. The user experience on the iPad is identical to playing on a computer or the OnLive micro console, and because your saves are stored on the cloud server, you can switch from one platform to another, picking up where you left off. It's early days yet, but to date, three or four games have been revamped with native touchscreen controls and around 25 make use of the overlay.

^{OnLive's overlay for mobile devices maps the controller's button configuration to a touchscreen}

As well as the mobile client, OnLive has also released the OnLive Wireless Controller. This is essentially a Bluetooth version of the joypad bundled with the micro console, and works on any device with both Bluetooth and an OnLive client, including mobile platforms. This is great news for iPad gamers. As well as touch controls, you can also play your OnLive games using the joypad, with the iPad acting as a display.

The UK OnLive launch back in the Autumn was such a huge success they had to airlift in new servers, doubling the capacity of the UK service in just two weeks. Now there's also a free playable OnLive client for the iPad, which comes bundled with a £15 game, there's never been a better time to give it a blast.

Read more about OnLive in our previous blog, and also our exclusive interviews with CEO Steve Perlman and Vice President of Games and Media, John Spinale. You can also check out the OnLive mobile platforms video demo on YouTube here:

MacFormat 242 - Buy the perfect Mac today!

Timothy Hardwick — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:33:36 +0000

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, and if you haven’t already started your shopping, time is running out. That’s why we’re here to help, with a complete guide to buying a Mac for your loved ones. It’s not too late to place an order online or pop down to your local Apple Reseller to pick up the perfect present. And right now, Apple’s Mac line-up is more attractive than ever before.

As for the iPhone, we’ve been playing with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated assistant on the new 4S – get the full verdict this issue. Then join us on a trip down memory lane to check out the Apple kit time forgot. Elsewhere, natural painting apps get a grilling in our group test, while the Inkling – Wacom’s latest sketching tool – gets a fully drawn-out review. There’s plenty more besides, so pick up a copy now!

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Hog Bay Software WriteRoom 3.0 review

Ian Osborne — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:18:13 +0000

Key Info
Developer: Hog Bay Software
http://hogbaysoftware.com  

Requirements
OS: OS X 10.7

WriteRoom bills itself as the “original distraction-free writing environment”, and it was certainly a breath of fresh air in 2006. Instead of myriad palettes and formatting options, you got a basic text document and a full-screen mode that brought to mind halcyon days of working with basic word processors. The app forced you to concentrate on writing.

Recent years have seen a rash of competitors, not least the impressive iA Writer, and they have starkly highlighted WriteRoom’s few shortcomings: a retro-chic but ugly default theme; a comparatively expensive price-point; and needlessly complex preferences for what’s ultimately a simple app.

WriteRoom 3 obliterates every one of these criticisms. The price has been slashed, the default theme is now very smart, echoing iA Writer, and the preferences are gone entirely. In their place: themes. You can now set up your own theme (fonts, options, text colour, page and background colour/images), and save it as a writeroomtheme file that can also be shared. Usefully, you can also create theme variants for WriteRoom’s full-screen mode, which, naturally, works nicely in OS X Lion.

WriteRoom now supports Auto Save and auto-resume in Lion, and sessions are optionally tracked and logged to spreadsheets. But for us it’s the combination of elegance and simplicity, with some highly useful customisation options, that sees WriteRoom move from being a straggler to again leading the pack.

• Craig Grannell

PROS & CONS
+ An essential app for writers
+ Default theme now very smart
+ Themes can be saved and shared
- No direct markdown support  

VERDICT: 5/5
“A perfectly balanced, indispensable part of any Mac writer’s toolkit.”

Default Folder X 4.4.6 review

Ian Osborne — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:58:30 +0000

Key Info
Developer: St Clair Software
http://stclairsoft.com

Requirements
OS: OS X 10.5 or later
Processor: PowerPC or Intel Mac

We’ve called Default Folder X a Finder add-on, but this incredibly unsexy umbrella term does it a disservice: it’s the Finder add-on to beat all Finder add-ons and saves you huge amounts of time. Recent updates have seen a raft of improvements, so it’s now Lion-ready and works in most apps.

Default Folder X adds a swathe of useful options to the dialogs that appear when you open or save any document. If, for example, you save all the work you do in Pages into a specific folder and all the photos you edit in Preview in another, you can set app-specific defaults for which folder appears in the Save dialog.

There’s much more to it besides, including the ability to add a selection of favourite folders to its drop-down menus, click any open Finder window to save to it, or set up keyboard shortcuts to jump to specific folders in dialog windows. When you’re saving files, there’s an extra pane to add Spotlight comments or metadata.

In the Open dialog, the comments pane is replaced by one giving added information about the file you’ve selected: simply preview it in a QuickLook-esque window, see its vital information or alter the permissions.

The only annoyance is that if you bring up an Open or Save dialog in a window that extends below the screen, there’s not enough space to accommodate all of Default Folder X. Despite this, it’s a hugely powerful package, which is worth the money even if you don’t use all its features.

• Laurence Cable

PROS & CONS
+ Now Lion-compatible
+ Saves time opening/saving files
+ Customisable shortcuts
+ Good file previews in Open dialog

VERDICT: 4.5/5
“Even if you only use a few of its features, it can be a huge time-saver.”

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac Switch To Mac Edition review

Ian Osborne — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:06:40 +0000

Key Info
Developer: Parallels
www.parallels.com/uk

Requirements
OS: OS X Leopard 10.5.8 or later, OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard or later, OS X 10.7 Lion Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or Xeon RAM: 2GB (4GB for Windows 7) Disk space: 700MB for Parallels Desktop 7; 15GB for Windows Other: Window installation disc or other media for operating systems you want to run

There are three main reasons why you’d want to run Windows or Linux on your Mac. Maybe you’ve recently switched from one or the other to the Mac and still need to use some of your old OS’s applications. Or maybe you sometimes need to bring work home and the applications you need aren’t available for Mac. Or maybe you want it just because you can have it. £65 says you should at least give it a go.

Of you course you can do all of the above for free using Boot Camp in OS X, but it’s simply not as convenient or as flexible as the Parallels alternative. For a start, Boot Camp forces you to create a separate bootable partition for your PC install, while under Lion you’re limited to using Windows 7 - which may be a pain if you want to use Linux or an existing copy of Windows Vista or XP instead.

Systems as apps
Parallels Desktop 7 does away with all this by treating guest operating systems – or virtual machines – as apps. The key benefits are that you don’t have to keep rebooting your Mac into Windows to use it. It’s far easier to share files, folders and disks between different operating systems. And you have the flexibility to install multiple flavours of Windows, Linux and even another copy of OS X Lion inside a separate virtual machine, which developers will find useful.

Also new to Parallels 7 is explicit support for key Lion features such as Mission Control, Launchpad and full-screen applications for Windows apps. You can even apply some of Lion’s multi-touch gestures to Windows. To help you get the best from other virtual machines on your Mac, Parallels 7 offers four different viewing modes: Windows mode and Full Screen mode are pretty self-explanatory; Modality mode displays the virtual machine inside a transparent window (handy for monitoring purposes), while Coherence seamlessly blends Windows and Mac OS. In the latter, Windows windows magically appear on the desktop, the Windows Start menu appears as a drop-down from the top-right of the menu bar, and Windows apps run alongside their OS X counterparts. It’s a bit disconcerting, at first, but you quickly get used to it.

In use, Parallels 7 feels surprisingly snappy and crash-free. There’s virtually no lag switching between Mac and PC apps – especially in Coherence mode – and depending on the sharing settings you’ve chosen, opening and editing files and folders in OS X or in a guest OS is almost seamless. The only problems we came across had to do with which OS had ownership of particular hardware features of our Mac. We found we couldn’t use our optical drive in OS X, for example, because Windows 7 was using it. Luckily you can easily tweak these settings in the Configure menu.

3D graphics performance has been improved in this new release, but we’d still avoid playing games in Coherence mode. There’s also some support for remote controlling your Mac from your iPad or iPhone using a paid-for app, including access to all your virtual machines. Of course, the big test is if it outperforms VMWare’s new Fusion 4, which we’ll be reviewing next issue, but so far so good.

• Rob Mead-Green

PROS & CONS
+ Run Windows or Linux
+ More flexible than Boot Camp
+ Coherence mode is a hoot
+ Easy to install and use
+ A range of Lion features
- Convenience Store lacks wares

VERDICT: 5/5
“If you need to run Windows or Linux on your Mac, Parallels Desktop 7 is a great way to set about it.”

Anime Studio Debut 8 review

Ian Osborne — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:51:39 +0000

Key Info
Developer: SmithMicro
www.smithmicro.com

Specifications
OS: OS X 10.5 or higher
RAM: 256MB Disk space: 540MB

Anime Studio Debut 8 is an interesting new version of an application offering a decent animation toolset for very little cost. In fact, before we get into the nuts and bolts, we’d go as far to say that this application is outstanding value. Its toolset is comprehensive, it’s easy to use and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play around with. Sure, its interface still isn’t all that pretty, but it’s forgivable when there’s such a huge amount of functionality and power for under £30. You can draw your characters or objects from scratch using the app’s drawing tools, import your own graphics or use the excellent stock libraries. What more could you want?

Rapid animation
The premise of Anime Studio Debut 8 is simple: get animating quickly. And characters obviously play a huge part in this. The addition of the Character Wizard in version 8 helps you rapidly design cool characters to get animating with. On opening the wizard, you’re presented with a series of sliders and presets. Pick a preset, such as ‘Boy’, and then use the sliders to change the character’s height, leg length, arm length, foot length, facial features, movement, clothing and so on. If you’re feeling lazy you can randomise a character (which often results in some bizarre yet humorous mutant creations). When you’re done, you can animate your character, as the application’s fully rigged with walk cycles and expressions (which you set up in the Movement tab of the Character Wizard). You can also export all views – meaning you have an animated character from all views (front, 3/4 right, back and so on). It’s a really useful tool that can help get you started with animating characters in almost no time at all.

The other character-orientated facility (well, kind of) is the Trace Image tool. We’ve seen tools before that enable you to quickly vectorise sketches you’ve scanned in – and this works well on black and white images, with familiar options for Threshold adjustment and the ability to reduce detail and fatten lines. Once your character is in the app, you can edit it using the vector handles and then quickly add bones and animate it. It’s great for animating those characters you’ve doodled in your sketchbook – and like the rest of the app, it’s a lot of fun. You can even import native Illustrator and Photoshop documents to animate. Other new features include a cut-out effect and a Vector Shape Selector, which makes it easier to find and edit your vectors if you have a complex character or object.

Cultivating cartoons
Overall, Anime Studio Debut is a fantastic tool for animating characters and exporting short cartoons to SWF, AVI, MOV and directly to Facebook and YouTube. It’s incredibly simple and entertaining to use – animating soon becomes a cinch and really is just a matter of editing your object or character as you move along the timeline. Even professional animation concepts such as rigging bones (through some nicely implemented binding tools) can quickly be mastered.

Back to basics
Developer Smith Micro’s well-rounded application doesn’t set out to offer the control or export options of, say, After Effects. But as a tool for beginners wanting to get to grips with the basics of character animation, Anime Studio Debut 8 just can’t be beaten.

• Rob Carney

PROS & CONS
+ Excellent animation toolset
+ Neat new Character Wizard
+ Turn traced sketches into vectors
+ Excellent bone tools
+ Exports to a variety of formats
- Interface still odd-looking

VERDICT: 4.5/5
“The perfect app for those wanting to get into character animation but don’t know where to start.”

Get 30% Off Live Interior 3D

Ian Osborne — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:34:44 +0000

BeLight Software is offering MacFormat readers an exclusive 30% discount for its popular Live Interior 3D room designer. As it only cost £33 anyway, it's now even more of a bargain.

Live Interior 3D is a powerful and intuitive home and interior design application that lets you use your Mac to build the house or office of your dreams. If you're after a new sofa, for example, it can show you how it would look up against a certain wall, without the hassle of having to move it around.

Here at MacFormat, we're very fond of BeLight Software apps, and Live Interior 3D is no exception. According to Rob Buckley, who gave it five stars and a MacFormat Choice award, “You'd be very hard pushed to find a better interior design tool even at twice the price.” Check out the full review on BeLight Software's website here.

And to take advantage of BeLight's kind offer, point your browser at the special deal page here, but be quick. It's only good for two months.

Get Fortix 2 in the Steam pre-holiday sale

Ian Osborne — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:15:59 +0000

I love Fortix 2. An excellent fusion of the old arcade game Qix and turret defence turned on its head, you play bold knight Sir Fortix, who must battle his way through 30 levels in three unique worlds as he takes on the dark wizard Xitrof.

Retro gamers will remember Qix, where you were invulnerable on the perimeter of the screen, but to complete a stage you had to leave your safety zone and box off sections of enemy territory that then became your own. A big fractal killed you if it made contact with the trail you left in your wake. Fortix 2 is very much like that, but the fractal has been replaced with dragons, and Xitrof's castles scattered throughout the lands have towers that fire missiles at you. To complete a level, you must capture all the shield symbols found in the castles, and destroy every tower by trapping it in an area you've boxed off or capturing a catapult, which then fires at and smashes a nearby tower.

Why am I telling you this? Because Fortix 2 is now on Steam, and from the 23rd to 28th November, they're having a sale. Instead of costing an already-bargain £5.99, you can get it for only £1.50.

I've been playing Fortix 2 ever since it was first released for the Mac earlier in the year, and it's grown into one of my favourite casual games. If you're even remotely interested in gaming, check out its page, with screenshots and a gameplay video, on the Steam website.

iTunes Match goes Live in States

Ian Osborne — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:01:23 +0000

iTunes Match has finally arrived in the States, missing its end-of-October deadline by around three weeks, but it has still to launch in the UK. With the recent release of iTunes 10.5.1 the software support for Apple's iCloud music matching service is there, but if the delays suffered by its American release are mirrored over here, we could be waiting until 2012.

iTunes Match lets you store your entire music library on iCloud. The service costs $24.99 a year in the US and so should be about £15 here. It scans the songs in your iTunes library, and makes them available for streaming or free download as high-quality, DRM-free 256 kbps AAC encodings on any compatible device, regardless of whether you originally bought them from the iTunes Store. Any music you hold that can't be matched with the 20 million songs available through iTunes is uploaded to your own iCloud storage space, making it available to download to your other devices. It sounds great; we just hope we get our hands on it soon.

If you haven't already done so, open Software update and upgrade to iTunes 10.5.1. It brings the following benefits:

Introducing iTunes Match
Store your entire music library in iCloud, including music you've imported from CDs, and enjoy your collection anywhere, anytime, on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, computer, or Apple TV.

iTunes in the Cloud
iTunes now stores your music and TV purchases in iCloud and makes them available on your devices anywhere, any time, at no additional cost.

Automatic Downloads
Purchase music from any device or computer and automatically download a copy to your Mac and iOS devices.

Download Previous Purchases
Download your past music, TV, app, and book purchases again, at no additional cost. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store.

Syncing
With your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 5.

Wi-Fi Syncing
Automatically sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes any time they're both on the same Wi-Fi network.

Incremental upgrades for MacBook Pros

Ian Osborne — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:03:39 +0000

To very little fanfare, Apple upgraded its entire MacBook Pro range this month. It's only an incremental refresh, but welcome nonetheless. In a nutshell:

13-inch MacBook Pros

• A processor increase, from 2.3GHz and 2.7GHz to 2.4GHz and 2.8GHz respectively. They're both still dual cores, with the cheaper model retaining a Core i5 and the more expensive version a Core i7.

• Bigger hard drives, moving from 320GB and 500GB to 500GB and 750GB.

15-inch MacBook Pros

• Their quad core Intel Core i7 processors are boosted from 2.0GHz and 2.2GHz to 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz.

• The low-end configuration's discrete graphics moves from an AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB of memory to a 6750M with 512MB. The high-end model upgrades from a Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB to a 6770M with 1GB.

17-inch MacBook Pro

• As before, this boasts the same specs as the more expensive of the two 15-inch models, so enjoys the same upgrades.

Some of the buy-to-order options have been upgraded too. Look out for full reviews of the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros in MacFormat Issue 242, on sale 6th December.

MacFormat issue 241 – Steve Jobs: A Celebration

Timothy Hardwick — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:14:48 +0000

On 5 October, surrounded by family and friends, Apple Chairman and long-standing CEO, Steve Jobs, passed away at his home in Palo Alto, California. This month, with a special issue, we invite MacFormat readers to look back with us at an extraordinary legacy, to pay tribute to a leading light in the tech industry, and to celebrate the life that started it all.

Life goes on in the world of Apple, and with that in mind we've packed in the quality content you've come to expect, including: 50 magical OS X tricks designed to speed up, simplify and generally improve your Mac experience; a full review of Apple's newest handset, the iPhone 4S; and a comprehensive multifunction printer group test.

We've also got some great tutorials lined up for you – how to track your exercise routine in rubiTrack, for example, and how to incorporate hyperlinks into your Keynote slideshows. And don't miss the latest software, hardware and games reviews, also all present and correct in this month's special edition of MacFormat magazine – in the shops now!

Click here to subscribe to MacFormat and save!