The beauty of the iPhone camera is that it combines the ease of use of a point-and-shoot camera with the image quality of a DSLR. To take a picture, you simply open the Camera app, frame your shot, and tap the shutter button. Simple, but what’s happening behind the scenes is anything but. The iPhone captures multiple images at once, concentrating on variables such as exposure, focus, tone, highlights, shadows, and more. It then merges all that data to produce what it thinks is the best possible image. Impressively, all this computational photography happens in real-time with no perceptible delay. (That said, iOS 15 provides a Prioritize Faster Shooting option in Settings > Camera that adapts—and presumably reduces—the image quality when you rapidly press the shutter multiple times.)

Despite all this automation, Apple still provides numerous manual controls you can employ to take photos the way you want. These controls are hidden, though, so you’re excused if you haven’t noticed them or have been frustrated looking for them. (“Where is that dratted Timer button? It must be here somewhere!”)

First, you have to reveal the controls, which is easy, although you’d never guess how. When you’re in the Camera app, swipe up anywhere on the screen above the shutter button. If you swipe up on the horizontal row of camera mode labels, your swipe can be quite short. However, if you swipe up on the viewfinder image, the Camera app might interpret a short swipe as a tap-and-swipe and display the in-image exposure control instead. On the viewfinder, use a longer, more emphatic swipe ➊. Either way, the camera controls replace the camera modes underneath the viewfinder ➋.

Once you have the controls showing, tap a button to access its options, use a slider or button to adjust the settings ➌, tap the original button to hide the options, and swipe down in the same way you swiped up to hide all the controls. The really confusing bit is that not all the controls may fit on the screen, so if you’re looking for the Timer or Filter buttons on an iPhone 13 Pro, for instance, you may have to swipe left on the controls to bring those buttons into view.

Here’s the full set—note that all except Depth (the rightmost one below) are in Photo mode; some may also appear in other modes. (Not all controls appear on all iPhone models, and the Low Light button, for instance, shows up only in low-light situations.)

Now, let’s look at what the controls make possible:

• Flash: Use the Flash control to allow the camera to use the flash as needed or force it to be on or off. You can also control the flash in Video and Slo-Mo modes.
  
• Low Light: Night mode on some of Apple’s high-end iPhones makes it possible to take better pictures in very low-light situations. With this control, you can set a specific amount of time for Night mode’s exposure. The longer the exposure, the lighter the photo, but the more small movements will cause blur and graininess.
  
• Live Photo: Live Photo records 1.5 seconds of video before and after you take a photo, animating the photo slightly. Use this control to set whether the camera takes Live Photos all the time, none of the time, or automatically when it thinks it’s warranted (which is a lot).
  
• Photographic Styles: These custom settings—Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Warm, and Cool—let you apply that distinct look to all your photos automatically. Or stick with Standard and apply the look you want afterward by editing.
  
• Aspect Ratio: Some iPhones can take photos in multiple aspect ratios. Use this control to choose from the standard 4:3 (below left) ratio, square, and 16:9 (below right). The 16:9 ratio expands the viewfinder to show what it will capture.
  
• Exposure: Although automatic exposure control is usually fine (and you can adjust it afterward as well), you can use this control to increase or decrease the exposure manually. It’s also available in Video, Slo-Mo, and Time-Lapse modes.
  
• Timer: For a hands-free selfie or a group photo that includes the photographer, use this control to set the timer to 3 or 10 seconds, starting from when you tap the shutter button. The iPhone counts down with both flash bursts and an onscreen number.
  
• Filter: The Filter button offers nine options, three each in Vivid, Dramatic, and Mono. You may want to turn one of these on to see its effect while composing the shot. Otherwise, it’s easier to apply them in editing later.
  
• Depth: This control is available only in the Portrait and Cinematic modes, where it lets you increase or decrease the depth of field. If you increase the depth of field, the background becomes sharper; if you decrease it, the background gets blurrier.
  

Apart from Photographic Styles, which automatically remembers your setting from session to session, the Camera app generally resets any changes you make in the next session. That’s usually what you’d want, but if you would prefer to keep a setting until you change it manually, go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings. That screen provides switches that tell the Camera app to preserve specific settings. Pay particular attention to Creative Controls, Exposure Adjustment, Night Mode, and Live Photo—we often make a point of using Preserve Settings with Live Photo so we don’t waste a lot of space unless we actually want to shoot a Live Photo.

In the end, it’s nice that these controls are neither necessary nor cluttering your view most of the time, but they’re extremely useful on occasion. We hope that Apple comes up with a way of hinting at their existence in future versions of iOS.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Darkdiamond67)

Siri has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, and we’ve just discovered a new one. Let’s say you set iPhone alarms to wake up and remind you to take medication throughout the day. However, if you don’t have your iPhone handy when those alarms go off, it can be annoying (for both you and others) to find your phone and stop or snooze the alarm. If you have a HomePod, it turns out that you (or someone else) can say, “Hey Siri, snooze the alarm” or “Hey Siri, stop the alarm.” Siri usually asks for confirmation—just reply with “Yes”—and sometimes tells you to continue on the iPhone, but it can be easier than finding the iPhone and stopping the alarm. (And yes, if you’re wearing an Apple Watch, you can stop the alarm from it as well. It’s also possible to set alarms on a HomePod directly, though they’re useful only if you’re guaranteed to be home when they go off.)

(Featured image by iStock.com/Antonio_Diaz)

Before macOS 12 Monterey, if you wanted to sell, trade in, or give away your Mac, you had to boot into Recovery, erase the internal drive with Disk Utility, and reinstall macOS to ensure that the new owner would get a fresh start and couldn’t see any of your data. In Monterey, Apple has made the process much easier for newer Macs that use Apple silicon or that are Intel-based with a T2 security chip. Open System Preferences, and from the System Preferences menu (yes, it has menus), choose Erase All Content and Settings. You’ll have to enter an administrator username and password to enter the Erase Assistant. It suggests you back up to Time Machine before erasing, and if you’ve already done that or don’t want to, click Continue. Verify everything that will be erased on the next screen and click Continue. Finally, log out of your Apple ID when prompted to complete the erasure.

(Featured image by iStock.com/wildpixel)

In previous versions of iOS, you could change the systemwide text size to make all apps—at least those that support Dynamic Type—display text at larger or smaller sizes. (Most people who use this feature want the text larger so it’s easier to read with aging eyes.) In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, however, Apple lets you adjust the text size on a per-app basis, so you can increase it only for those apps where it really makes a difference for you. First, make sure Text Size is showing in Control Center by going to Settings > Control Center, and if it’s not in Included Controls, tap the green + button for it under More Controls. Then, while in an app where you want bigger text, invoke Control Center, tap the Text Size button, move the vertical slider to the desired setting, and then tap the App Only button so the setting affects only that app, not all apps.

(Featured image by iStock.com/SandraMatic)

It’s no exaggeration to say that videoconferencing went mainstream during the pandemic. However, Apple’s FaceTime didn’t stack up well against Zoom and others due to its emulation of the telephone call experience, questionable interface decisions, and lack of cross-platform compatibility. However, with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has nearly brought FaceTime into feature parity with Zoom and others and it has even added a few features that break new ground.

FaceTime Links

One of the smallest new features in FaceTime may be the most important. No longer do you have to call others via FaceTime, an awkward approach left over from the days of landlines. That’s still possible, but it’s easier and more considerate to make and share a FaceTime link instead, which lets others join your call when they’re ready. FaceTime links make it effortless to rejoin a call if you have to drop off or if something goes wrong, and they simplify switching from one device to another. You can share FaceTime links like any other Web link, through Messages, email, discussion systems like Slack, or posting on a Web page.

To create a FaceTime link, launch the FaceTime app and use the Create Link button in the upper left. If you’re creating it in iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, you can add a name before copying or sharing the link in the share sheet. In Monterey, clicking the button presents a sharing menu with similar appropriate options.

To join a call, all a recipient of the link has to do is tap or click the link. If they’re running one of Apple’s latest operating systems, the call will also appear in the FaceTime app, under Upcoming.

Either way, people joining the call get a preview window in which they can adjust their video and mic settings. After they hit the Join button, the organizer is notified that they’re waiting and can add them to the call. (That may seem like an unnecessary extra step, but it ensures random trolls can’t join FaceTime calls whose links have been shared publicly.)

If you’re scheduling a call, you can create a FaceTime link within an event in Calendar. That’s handy to make sure you have the link available at the right time, to make it available on all your devices, and to let others access it via a shared calendar. Use the Location or Video Call field, and select FaceTime when it’s offered. The event then gets a Join button that makes it easy to access the call. (If you’re sharing the calendar with someone who isn’t using one of Apple’s latest operating systems, they’ll just see a link they can click.)

Despite being associated with an event, such FaceTime links aren’t time-specific. You can start the call any time you want, and anyone else can attempt to join it at any time, but they’ll be able to get in only if you as the organizer let them in. So it won’t do them any good to join before or after the scheduled time.

FaceTime Web App

FaceTime links are also essential for allowing FaceTime calls to include those who aren’t running Apple’s latest operating systems. If you’re still on macOS 11 Big Sur or iOS 14, opening a FaceTime link switches to Safari and opens the FaceTime Web app. That also works for those using Android, Windows, or Linux, as long as they have a compatible Web browser, which means Google Chrome or another Chrome-based browser like Brave or Microsoft Edge. Firefox won’t work.

For the most part, the FaceTime Web app works just like the native FaceTime app, with the ability to change basic camera and microphone settings and support for grid view. There are two notable limitations:

• FaceTime Web app users can only join calls, not initiate them.
• Advanced options like the mic modes and video effects aren’t available.

Mic Modes and Video Effects

In an effort to catch up with the likes of Zoom, Apple added several audio and video features to FaceTime. There are now three mic modes that you can enable in Control Center during a call:

• Standard: FaceTime does nothing special to the audio.
• Voice Isolation: FaceTime focuses on your voice, working to eliminate non-vocal sounds and other background noise.
• Wide Spectrum: FaceTime expands its attention to all the sounds in the room, which is essential for things like music lessons.

Although the equivalent Control Center button is labeled Video Effects, there’s only one at the moment: Portrait mode. It works exactly as it does in the Camera app for photos, keeping you in focus and blurring the background. Perhaps Apple will add other video effects in the future, much like Zoom’s virtual backgrounds and immersive sets. You can also toggle Portrait mode by tapping the Video Effects button in your FaceTime tile.

The Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum mic modes, and the Portrait mode video effect, are available only on iPhones and iPads that have an A12 Bionic chip or later, or an M1 chip. Similarly, they work only on M1-based Macs, not older Intel-based Macs.

Grid View

When Apple first introduced FaceTime group calls, participants’ tiles would swim around on the screen, moving and expanding to indicate who was speaking. It was dizzying. Happily, Apple finally listened to annoyed users and has now introduced a simple grid view like every other videoconferencing app on the planet.

Once there are four or more participants in a call on an iPhone or iPad, a Grid button appears when you tap the screen to reveal the FaceTime controls. Tap it to switch into or out of grid view. In Monterey, there’s an always-visible Grid button in the upper-right corner.

Screen Sharing for iPhones and iPads

As helpful as FaceTime links are, our favorite new feature of FaceTime is screen sharing for those using an iPhone or iPad. (Macs can’t currently participate in FaceTime screen sharing but have their own screen sharing capabilities, accessed through the Conversations menu in Messages.) With a couple of taps, you can share your screen with someone else, or they can share their screen with you, all while maintaining the video call. For many remote workers, this feature is essential, whether you are collaborating on a project or showing your work to your boss. Another obvious use is remote tech support. If someone is having trouble accomplishing something on their iPhone or iPad, you can see what’s going wrong live on a FaceTime call. And kids, no doubt, will find many fun things to do together.

To share your screen during a FaceTime call, tap anywhere on the screen to reveal the FaceTime controls, tap the screen sharing button on the right, and tap the Share My Screen confirmation prompt. After a 3-second countdown, others on the call can see your screen, even as you switch away from the FaceTime app and use your iPhone or iPad however you want.

While you’re sharing your screen, a purple status icon reminds you that others can see what you’re doing. To stop sharing your screen, tap someone’s video tile to switch back to the FaceTime app and tap the screen sharing button again.

When someone shares their screen with you, a Picture-in-Picture (PiP) window of their screen appears. Tap it to expand it to the entire screen, moving the FaceTime call video to its own PiP window. Tap that FaceTime PiP window to return to the call. If you switch to another app, as shown below, the shared screen returns to being a PiP window. If any PiP window is in your way, you can drag it to another corner or swipe it off the screen to the left or right to hide it entirely. A tab appears to indicate the hidden PiP window; tap it to bring the window back.

SharePlay

People will either love SharePlay or ignore it entirely. It enables everyone on a FaceTime call to watch the same video or listen to the same audio while continuing the conversation. The big caveat is that everyone must have legal access to the content, which generally means a subscription to whatever service is being used, whether that’s Apple Music, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO MAX, or Paramount+. Currently, SharePlay works only in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 and on the Apple TV running tvOS 15. It’s slated to appear in a future version of Monterey, perhaps 12.1.

Initiating a SharePlay session is easy: simply navigate to Apple’s TV or Music app, or another app that supports SharePlay, and start playing something. You may be asked if you want to play it for everyone or just for yourself, or you may be told the content will play automatically. Assuming everyone on the call has the necessary subscription, the audio or video starts playing instantly.

What’s a little freaky about SharePlay is that, with one minor exception, everyone is an equal participant. If you start playing something, someone else can pause it or rewind it, say, and the video will pause or rewind for everyone. The exception is that only the person who started playing a video can stop it (tap the screen to reveal the controls), although anyone can start playing something else to replace it.

If you have an Apple TV, you can initiate video playback from the Apple TV or move something that’s already playing to the Apple TV. While you’re on a FaceTime call on your iPhone or iPad, press and hold the TV button on the Apple TV’s remote to open Control Center, and then select the SharePlay button that appears there to get started.

With all these new features, it’s time to rethink how you use FaceTime, and that’s especially true if you haven’t been using FaceTime because it lacked the features in some other videoconferencing app.

(Featured image by iStock.com/jacoblund)

Some people find it hard to find the mouse pointer at times, particularly on a large screen or when working in Dark Mode or in apps with dark interfaces. You’ve long been able to increase the size of the pointer generally and also zoom it temporarily by shaking it, but in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple now lets you change the color of the pointer. That could be a boon to those who have trouble seeing it otherwise. Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Pointer, click the Pointer Fill Color box, and choose a different color in the color picker. You can also choose a different Pointer Outline Color if that’s helpful. After customizing it, if you decide you prefer the old black-and-white version, click the Reset button.

(Featured image by iStock.com/tahir_duran)

Quick quiz: what does a red number badge on the Phone icon on your iPhone mean? You’d be right if you said that it indicates the number of missed calls or voicemail messages. The Mail and Messages apps also use a red badge to display the number of unread messages; Settings uses one to indicate that software updates are available; and Reminders shows a badge for the number of tasks due today. Third-party apps also use red badges to indicate that some number of somethings await you inside. You’ll also see a red badge on any folder that contains apps that are themselves showing badges—the folder’s badge sums the total of the badges inside.

We’re willing to bet that some of you stay on top of your badges at all times, checking the missed calls, reading the messages, and completing the to-dos. Others don’t find the badges helpful and either ignore them or find them somewhat annoying. Who needs to know they have 315 unread email messages?

Here then is our advice on how to ensure that the red badges either provide useful information or get out of your way.

Clear Badges Organically

Being told that you have 17 voicemail messages that you haven’t listened to or 32 unread texts in Messages isn’t helpful—at best, you have to remember that you had only 16 voicemail messages yesterday. There’s no option for dealing with them all at once, but it’s worth taking a few minutes while standing in line or otherwise killing time to clear the badges manually.

Precisely how you do this depends on the app. In the Phone app, all you have to do to clear the missed calls in the badge is tap Recents at the bottom—that’s enough to mark them as viewed. For voicemails, however, you’ll either have to listen to at least some of the message or delete it by swiping all the way to the left. (Remember that you can drag the playback slider to fast-forward if you want to mark it as listened without actually doing so.)

In Messages and Mail, the trick is to read or delete each message. That mostly means just loading it quickly and then moving on, although you can also swipe left to delete unread conversations or email threads. In Messages, you’ll have to scroll through all your conversations, looking for those that have a blue unread dot next to them. In Mail, you can tap the Filter button at the bottom to show only unread messages (tap Filtered By and select Unread if it’s set some other way).

Regardless, the goal is to mark everything as dealt with so the badge goes away, not for the sake of making it go away, but so when it returns with the next unread message or new voicemail, it’s giving you actionable information.

Disable Unnecessary Badges

However, some badge numbers are never useful. Unless you receive very little email, being told you have more than a handful of unread emails will likely just cause stress, not encourage you to deal with those messages. That’s especially true if a session in Mail merely knocks the number down to a still-high value. (“Oh good, now I only have 289 unread messages.”) Or you may just dislike the badges in general—that’s fine too.

Luckily, you can turn the badges off entirely. Go to Settings > Notifications > AppName and disable Badges. You’ll never see that red badge of nagging again.

Clear Stuck Badges

Sometimes an app will end up with a red badge even when you’re certain that you’ve done whatever is necessary to clear it. Here are a few things to try:

• Update the app: Go to the App Store app, tap your avatar in the upper-right corner, and tap Update All if it appears (pull down to make the App Store check for new updates). It’s generally worth going to Settings > App Store and enabling App Updates so they come in automatically.
• Force-quit the app: There’s no reason to force-quit apps unless they’re misbehaving, but a stuck badge counts as bad behavior. Swipe up from the very bottom of the screen and pause to enter the app switcher—or on Touch ID-equipped devices, double-press the Home button—and then swipe up on the card for the app in question to force-quit it.
• Restart the iPhone: If all else fails, restart the iPhone. First, press and hold the side button and either volume button (iPhone X, 11, 12, and 13), the side button (iPhone 6, 7, 8, and second-generation iPhone SE ), or the top button (first-generation iPhone SE, iPhone 5, and earlier). Wait until the power off slider appears, drag it, wait 30 seconds, and then press either the side button or the top button to turn the iPhone back on.
• Disable that app’s badges: If nothing else works to clear a stuck badge, you can always resort to the steps above to disable badges for that app.

Making sure that app badges are either useful or hidden won’t change your life, but given how often we look at our iPhones, even little tweaks like this can lift your mood.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Apple’s Find My technology is a lifesaver when it works, enabling you to locate and potentially retrieve lost or stolen devices. It’s not perfect, even with the addition of the Find My Network, which drafts other nearby Apple devices to relay the location of a lost device, but it’s a heck of a lot better than nothing. Part of the problem is that you have to notice that a device is missing before you can bring Find My into play to see where it might be.

No longer, thanks to the brilliant new Notify When Left Behind feature of iOS 15. Why wait until you notice that your AirPods aren’t in your bag when the Find My app can notify you shortly after you leave their immediate vicinity? Even if that means talking your way back onto an airplane to retrieve your AirPods from the seatback pocket, that’s better than discovering your loss an hour or two later.

Notify When Left Behind doesn’t support all Apple devices—you know that you’re leaving your 27-inch iMac behind whenever you leave home, and HomePods tend to stay put. But it does work with the iPhone, iPad, AirPods, AirTag, and Mac laptops. Somewhat surprisingly left out is the Apple Watch, perhaps because Apple assumes it would always be either charging or on your wrist.

To set up Notify When Left Behind for your devices, follow these steps:

1. In the Find My app, tap Devices at the bottom of the screen to show all your devices.
2. Tap the name of the device for which you want to enable Notify When Left Behind.
3. Scroll up to reveal the Notifications section, and tap Notify When Left Behind.
4. Enable the Notify When Left Behind switch, then tap Done.
5. Repeat for each desired device, switching to the Items screen to include AirTags.

“Wait a second,” you’re thinking. “How can your iPhone tell you that you’ve left it behind if it’s not with you?” Apple is one step ahead of you. The key is your Apple Watch—if you leave your iPhone on your desk at work when going home for the day, your Apple Watch will alert you 5 or 10 minutes later. It may be annoying to go back for it, but it’s better than not realizing until you get home.

Your next thought is probably, “Won’t it be annoying if my iPhone tells me that I’ve left various devices behind even when I meant to leave them there?” Apple has an answer to that as well. As you can see in the Notify When Left Behind screen above, there’s a Notify Me, Except At section to which you can add places that it’s acceptable to leave your devices. Find My even suggests your Home location; just tap the + button to add it. If you tap New Location, you can scroll the map to any location, press and hold to drop a pin, and then choose a small (300 feet), medium (800 feet), or large (1400 feet) radius to ignore. When you add a custom location, Find My asks if it should apply to just the current device or to all your devices and items.

When you actually leave a device behind, you’ll get a notification on your iPhone. Tap it to see where you left the item, which may be all the reminder you need. If you tap Continue to open the Find My app, you can tap Directions to be directed to where the device is or tap Don’t Notify Me Here if the location is a place where you don’t mind leaving your devices.

That’s all there is to Notify When Left Behind. It’s the perfect example of a feature that works quietly in the background to help you avoid problems.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Farknot_Architect)

We continually recommend that every Apple user rely on a password manager like 1Password or LastPass for creating, managing, and entering passwords securely. What we haven’t encouraged as heavily is relying on Apple’s built-in password management features. Although they’re free, they’ve been too basic and hard to use over the years, relying largely on an ancient utility called Keychain Access.

However, with the release of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has at long last created a coherent platform-wide interface—the bluntly named Passwords—for viewing, editing, and deleting passwords on each of its platforms. You might wonder if you need a separate password manager anymore. First, let’s dispense with two common scenarios:

• Start if you’re new to password management: If you have so far resisted adopting a password manager, you should start using Passwords on your Apple devices immediately. In all likelihood, you already have some login credentials stored there.
• Don’t switch if you like your password manager: If you’re already using another password manager that you like, there’s no reason to switch to Apple’s password manager. It’s fine, but it doesn’t offer any capabilities beyond most independent password managers.

Those who are already using a password manager but aren’t entirely happy with it or would prefer not to pay for it face a tougher decision. How much your password manager is worth to you is a question only you can answer, but would Apple’s Passwords provide the features you need? Here’s what it can do:

• Create strong passwords: Safari suggests strong passwords when it detects that you’re creating a new login. In iOS and iPadOS, make sure Settings > Passwords > AutoFill Passwords > AutoFill Passwords is enabled. On the Mac, make sure Safari > Preferences > Autofill > User Names and Passwords is selected.
  
• Manage passwords: To see all your passwords, look in Settings > Passwords in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, and in System Preferences > Passwords in Monterey. Tap or click one to view its details; once inside, use Edit to make changes. You can delete an unused login while editing or from the list. In iOS and iPadOS, swipe left on a login and tap Delete; on the Mac, Control-click the login and choose Delete.
  
• Sync passwords: Passwords are most useful when they’re accessible on all your devices. That will be true as long as Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Keychain > iCloud Keychain is enabled in iOS and iPadOS, and System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud > Keychain is selected on the Mac. And, of course, all your devices must be signed in to the same iCloud account.
• Autofill passwords: As long as the autofill settings mentioned earlier are active, Safari will offer to autofill passwords when you log in to a site whose credentials you’ve stored. iOS and iPadOS apps also support autofill through the keyboard.
  
• Support two-factor authentication (2FA): This new feature allows you to add the setup secret (usually a scanned QR code or manually entered key) that enables the creation and automatic entry of 2FA codes.
  
• Import and export passwords: In the Passwords preference pane on the Mac, you can now import and export passwords, simplifying migration.
• Report questionable passwords: We all have passwords that are easily guessed or reused on multiple sites—the Passwords interface calls out such passwords so you can change them.
  
• Share passwords: If you need to share a password with a family member or colleague, the Share button lets you do that via AirDrop. Passwords are saved into the recipient’s keychain directly.
• Detect compromised passwords: Both Settings > Passwords > Security Recommendations and System Preferences > Passwords have a Detect Compromised Passwords option. Select it to be alerted if any of your login credentials are compromised in a site’s security breach.

That’s a solid set of features, and for many people, it will be sufficient. However, independent password managers like 1Password and LastPass have evolved over many years and boast very real advantages:

• Multiple platforms and Web browsers: Apple’s password management features focus on Apple operating systems and Safari. There is an iCloud Passwords Chrome extension for Windows, and Web browsers in iOS and iPadOS can tie into the system-wide password features. But for broad support across platforms and use within browsers other than Safari, stick with an independent password manager.
• Data beyond Web logins: Want to store your bank account numbers, driver’s license, credit cards, vaccination card, and the like in your password manager? Many independent password managers support secure storage of types of data beyond logins. They also often let you leave notes on items and include file attachments—a screenshot of a screen summarizing login requirements, for instance.
• Families and teams: Although Apple is inching in this direction with the forthcoming Digital Legacy program, in which you can specify someone as a Legacy Contact so they can access to your iCloud account in the event of your death, the group sharing features of independent password managers are much more useful here and now. Share key passwords with your spouse or your college-bound child to ensure that everyone will have the access they need to shared accounts.
• One-time password sharing: 1Password added this feature recently, and there are independent sites like 1ty.me and onetimesecret.com that provide it as well. In essence, it lets you securely share a single password with anyone else, embedding it in a link that can be viewed only once. That prevents passwords from being sent around in email or text messages where they could be stolen.

In the end, Apple’s new password management features are like so many other built-in features. They offer the basic capabilities that most users need while leaving plenty of room for enterprising developers to offer compelling additional features. Use Apple’s Passwords or another password manager, whichever you prefer. Just don’t rely on a simple text file or physical notebook to manage passwords. It’s more work, easily lost, and far less secure.

(Featured image by iStock.com/peshkov)

Few would disagree that the most popular image editing software in the world is Adobe Photoshop, the top illustration app is Adobe Illustrator, and the preeminent page layout package is Adobe InDesign. Many design and publishing professionals spend their lives in one or more of these apps.

There’s one problem: cost. Adobe provides access to them only via Creative Cloud subscriptions, where each app costs $21 per month, making it hard to pass up the $53-per-month All Apps bundle that includes all three plus Premiere Pro, Acrobat Pro, and more. That All Apps bundle works out to an eye-watering $636 per year.

For many people, that $636 annual expense is just the cost of doing business. They need the full power of Adobe’s tools, and they need to collaborate with others using native Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign files. If you fall into that camp, no worries, and you can stop reading right now.

However, if you’re subscribing to Adobe Creative Cloud merely because you need a capable image editor, illustration app, or page layout package, and you aren’t otherwise deep in the Adobe ecosystem, consider the Affinity suite from Serif: Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher, each of which costs $55. Once. That’s right, you can buy all three for $165, or just about the same as 3 months of Creative Cloud. Updates are free. Versions for Microsoft Windows are available for $55 too, and Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer also come as $10 iPad apps.

The obvious question is if you could replace Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign with Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher. We can’t answer that for sure—the Adobe apps have so many features that it’s impossible to know which are most important to you and if the Affinity apps’ features are comparable. Some may not match up—we’ve been told that master pages in Affinity Publisher are a bit funkier than master pages in InDesign, for instance. Others may even be better—some people we know find exporting Web graphics from Affinity Designer easier than exporting from Illustrator. And some may not exist at all—it doesn’t seem that Affinity Publisher (the newest addition to the suite) has a Track Changes feature like InDesign.

For instance, just as you can embed Photoshop and Illustrator files in an InDesign layout and then use the Edit Original command to edit them in the other app, you can embed Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer files in Affinity Publisher. Serif’s StudioLink technology provides direct access to the primary tools from Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer right within an Affinity Publisher document. It’s neat.

Overall, the feature sets are similar. Those who would consider switching from Creative Cloud can probably figure out how to accomplish their necessary tasks using the Affinity apps. That’s not to say that they’re clones of Adobe’s apps. In many cases, you might need to learn a new technique for accomplishing some task. Along with full documentation, Serif provides hundreds of tutorial videos and runs an active user forum where people ask questions, make suggestions, and share tutorials. Simple Web searches also often turn up blog posts with useful techniques from Affinity users.

What about moving files back and forth? Affinity Photo can open Photoshop’s proprietary PSD files, although it’s not guaranteed to import everything perfectly. Affinity Designer can open Illustrator documents as long as they were saved with the Create Compatible PDF File option selected. Similarly, it can open Illustrator-created PDF files that many designers send to clients as proofs. And Affinity Designer can open InDesign files that have been saved in IDML (InDesign Markup Language) format. Plus, you can often just copy and paste text and objects between the apps. If you decide to switch, you might want to continue your Creative Cloud subscription while ensuring that your key Adobe files are saved such that the Affinity apps can open them.

On the export side, the Affinity apps can export in many formats, but they’re more for final exports when it’s time to print or publish. You probably wouldn’t want to use the Affinity apps to collaborate on files with those using the Adobe apps. That said, Affinity Photo can export PSD files for use in Photoshop, and Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher are probably best served by exporting PDF files that Illustrator and InDesign can open. Just don’t expect everything to move between the apps flawlessly.

In the end, the decision is yours—we’re merely suggesting the Affinity suite as a cost-saving option if you don’t need everything Creative Cloud provides. Visit the Affinity site, watch Serif’s marketing and tutorial videos, and poke around in the extensive online help. Free trial versions of all the apps are available, and there’s a 14-day money-back guarantee. In the best of all worlds, you’ll save hundreds of dollars per year and find that you like the Affinity apps more than Adobe’s.

(Featured image by Serif)