Apple tips
From Stormfront, your
local Apple expertsStephen Simmonds
Stormfront.co.uk>If you’re not happy with the way
Photos organises your photo library,
try using archival albums.
Open Photos on your Mac. Select
My Albums from the sidebar. Choose
File > New Folder. Type in a name for
that folder. Say, ‘2019’. Now ≈-click
the new 2019 folder and create
another New Folder. This time title
it ‘January’. Repeat until you have
folders for each month of the year.
Now within each of these folders
you can create specific albums, for
instance ‘Trip to Italy’ or ‘A day out
in Cornwall’.
Structuring your photo library
this way means that you can quickly
navigate around your photos
without having to search just by
date or location. What’s more, the
folder names then become search
tags in the search window.
This is a great alternative for
those of us who prefer to keep pics
grouped together by event rather
than just by date or location. It also
allows you to quickly share a album.Ta ki ng coontrol of
your phooto librarymacformat.com @macformat SEPTEMBER 2019 | MACFORMAT | 99The MacBook Air is one of Apple’s most
popular Macs, and it’s just had an update
and a price drop, making it more affordable.
The changes are rather minimal, though:
the 2019 MacBook Air retains the Retina
display of last year’s model, but gains Apple’s
True Tone technology, which automatically
adjusts the display depending on the amount
of ambient light. It also hangs on to the third-
generation butterfly keyboard and larger
Force Touch trackpad of its predecessor. Its
eighth-generation dual-core Intel Core i5
processor is also unchanged from last year.
Another holdover is the Touch ID sensor
that, coupled with the T2 chip, makes logging
in and paying for items more secure than
ever on a MacBook Air.
The most significant change, though, is
the price. While the 12in MacBook has been
scrapped, the new entry-level MacBook Air is
£100 cheaper than its 2018 equivalent. Ditto
for the only other model, which is now £1,299.
MacBook Airs feature eighth-gen Intel
Core i5 processors. All the improvements
have been done while making the chassis
10% thinner and cutting the volume by 17%.Apple updated its MacBook Pro range
in July 2019, replacing the entry-level
13in non-Touch Bar model, with a Touch
Bar-equipped replacement, while also
slashing £150 off the asking price. Other
changes to the 13in include the addition
of an eight-generation quad-core Intel
Core i5 processor, making the new
MacBook Pro twice as powerful as the
model it replaces. The new 13in also
benefits from Touch ID, a True Tone
display and Apple’s T2 security chip.
However, Apple has halved the amount
of SSD storage from 256GB to 128GB,
which feels like a retrograde step.
The rest of the MacBook Pro line-up
remains unchanged from last year, when
Apple updated them to include ninth-
generation Intel Core processors. The
top 15in model can be kitted out with a
Radeon Pro Vega graphics chip, adding
serious graphical power to the machine.MacBook Air MacBook Pro
Choose a MacBook Air
Choose a MacBook Pro
MODEL KEY SPECIFICATIONS PRICE
13-inch
1.4GHz
quad-core
Intel Core i5MEMORY 8GB of
2,133MHz LPDDR3
GPU Intel Iris Plus 645
STORAGE 128GB SSD
TOUCH BAR Yes£1,29913-inch
2.4GHz
quad-core
Intel Core i5MEMORY 8GB of
2,133MHz LPDDR3
GPU Intel Iris Plus 655
STORAGE 256GB SSD
TOUCH BAR Yes£1,79915-inch
2.3GHz
8-core
Intel Core i9MEMORY 16GB of
2,400MHz DDR4
GPU Radeon Pro 560X
STORAGE 512GB SSD
TOUCH BAR Yes£2,799ENTRY^ LEVELUPGRADERHI
GHENDUPDATED
JUL 2019
EXPECTED
LATE 2020UPDATED
JUL 2019
EXPECTED
LATE 2020MODEL KEY SPECIFICATIONS PRICE
13-inch
1.6GHz
dual-core
Intel Core i5MEMORY 8GB of 2,133MHz LPDDR3
GRAPHICS Intel UHD Graphics 617
STORAGE 128GB SSD
DISPLAY Retina
TOUCH ID Yes£1,09913-inch
1.6GHz
dual-core
Intel Core i5MEMORY 8GB of 2,133MHz LPDDR3
GRAPHICS Intel UHD Graphics 617
STORAGE 256GB SSD
DISPLAY Retina
TOUCH ID Yes£1,299ENTRY^
LEVELUPGRADER