Here are the six best Sonic Mania levels put in by modders

There used to be a time when the only way to prolong a game further, would be to use cheats or hope that an expansion pack would soon arrive to bring out new levels.

But we live in a time where modding a game can be very easy, as long as you have the patience. The Sonic community is a great example of this, where full-blown makeovers of existing games, or additional levels have been created to showcase what a game could do further.

Since its release in 2017, Sonic Mania is still regarded to be one of the best Sonic games of its time, but modders have been expanding it with new levels, mods, characters, and conversions to prolong it further.

With this in mind, we've played through countless levels to highlight five of the best, from their time and attention paid, to the complete randomness of how some fit so well for a Sonic game.

Aquatic Ruin Zone

Sonic Mania Aquatic Ruin Zone

(Image credit: Future)

This zone is part of a collection that has four other levels from Sonic 2, released back in 1992.

Sonic 2 Mania is a team effort to remake certain zones into the Sonic Mania engine, but with remixed music and their Act 2 variants twist what you think of what the level entails.

This mod has been the template for other modders to follow since its first release in 2019, as other levels released before this, would be 1:1 copies. Here, they're fresh but look as though they're DLC from SEGA.

Aquatic Ruin Zone has been remade from the ground up, with remixed music and all the enemies intact, alongside the dangerous arrows and the breakable pillars that are across the two acts.

Labyrinth Zone

Sonic Mania mod: Labyrinth Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

This zone is a great example of building on what made the level memorable while expanding its design.

Released as part of the Misfits Pack, you also get three other zones as part of a demo that remixes established and cut levels from past Sonic games.

The music is a big highlight here, where the drums and percussion make the track pop as you run for an oxygen bubble or jumping across platforms.

But what makes this zone a highlight, is how much the level doesn't stay in the underground parts of the Mega Drive version. As you try to jump and run to the top of the level, you see cracks of light in the background, reminiscent of a scrapped idea for the zone that was found in a leaked beta build of Sonic 1.

Once you reach the top of the level, you find an unexpected night sky, but it works so well you end up accepting this.

As there's currently no way to edit or add in new bosses, you're using the same one from Hydrocity Zone Act 1, but it still fits the brief, and it makes you wonder how a new boss could work in this remixed Labyrinth Zone.

Jungle Zone

Jungle Zone in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

This is a level taken from the Master System release of Sonic 1, SEGA's 8-bit system released two years before the Mega Drive.

Some arguably regard the 8-bit port to be superior to the Mega Drive version, mainly due to the different zones such as Jungle Zone and Sky Base Zone, alongside the Chaos Emeralds being hidden in each level, rather than the motion-sickness-inducing Special Stages.

Instead, this mod is the best of both worlds, where you get one of the best levels from an 8-bit Sonic game, with its green and orange pixel art put together with its catchy music tune that's remained unchanged, and rightfully so.

Available as two acts, with the second act offering a sunset theme, it's a level that's asking to be remade in a future game.

Music Plant

Sonic Advance 2 level Music Plant in Sonic Mania as a mod

(Image credit: SEGA)

This isn't just one zone from the GBA sequel released back in 2003, but six, all working as intended in Sonic Mania.

Music Plant is part of a collection of levels from the Game Boy Advance release of Sonic Advance 2, released back in 2003. It was the second time Sonic appeared in a 2D game on a handheld other than SEGA's, with an appearance on the NEO GEO Pocket Color in 1999.

Here, there are six zones recreated in Sonic Mania, all with its original music. But it's Music Plant which is the highlight for this mod.

In one of the most colorful zones in a Sonic game, you're bouncing between piano keys while rolling down rails, all in Sonic Mania's engine. The zone's music is originally from another SEGA game called Ristar, which is also in this mod, which fits well for the design and the atmosphere of Music Plant.

But the mod is still under development, with more zones being worked on to be implemented.

Hill Top Zone

Sonic Mania Hill Top Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

We're slightly cheating here, as this is part of the Sonic 2 Mania mod that has Aquatic Ruin Zone in this list. But when you consider that there's two Acts here, completely remade, with remixed music and a twist in Act 2, it's one of the best mods you could download for Sonic Mania.

You can control other characters here as well, but Knuckles is a good fit for Hill Top, as you can glide and climb up the platforms while avoiding the lava.

The moments of being in a cave and the rising lava is all here as it was in Sonic 2, and again the two acts feel as though they are right at home in Sonic Mania. For a level that was originally conceived to be a past version of Emerald Hill Zone during Sonic 2's development, it's become iconic in 30 years since its debut, and begs to be remade for a future 2D or 3D outing.

The PrideLands

The PrideLands level from Lion King, in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

Do you remember playing The Lion King in the mid-nineties, and wondered if a level could work in a Sonic game?

Wonder no more, as a talented modder has ported over the fifth level from the SEGA Mega Drive game, with monitors and enemies scattered throughout.

It's a short level, as you need to reach the top, and Act 2 requires you to get to the end in under sixty seconds.

But what sells it, is a cover of Toto's Africa that plays throughout both Acts, which is random on one hand, and so right on another.

Its randomness is what makes this level so compelling, and while there's next to no chance of a Sonic and Simba crossover, it does make you wonder if other levels from The Lion King, or Aladdin on the Mega Drive, could also work for Sonic Mania.

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Here are the six best Sonic Mania levels put in by modders

There used to be a time when the only way to prolong a game further, would be to use cheats or hope that an expansion pack would soon arrive to bring out new levels.

But we live in a time where modding a game can be very easy, as long as you have the patience. The Sonic community is a great example of this, where full-blown makeovers of existing games, or additional levels have been created to showcase what a game could do further.

Since its release in 2017, Sonic Mania is still regarded to be one of the best Sonic games of its time, but modders have been expanding it with new levels, mods, characters, and conversions to prolong it further.

With this in mind, we've played through countless levels to highlight five of the best, from their time and attention paid, to the complete randomness of how some fit so well for a Sonic game.

Aquatic Ruin Zone

Sonic Mania Aquatic Ruin Zone

(Image credit: Future)

This zone is part of a collection that has four other levels from Sonic 2, released back in 1992.

Sonic 2 Mania is a team effort to remake certain zones into the Sonic Mania engine, but with remixed music and their Act 2 variants twist what you think of what the level entails.

This mod has been the template for other modders to follow since its first release in 2019, as other levels released before this, would be 1:1 copies. Here, they're fresh but look as though they're DLC from SEGA.

Aquatic Ruin Zone has been remade from the ground up, with remixed music and all the enemies intact, alongside the dangerous arrows and the breakable pillars that are across the two acts.

Labyrinth Zone

Sonic Mania mod: Labyrinth Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

This zone is a great example of building on what made the level memorable while expanding its design.

Released as part of the Misfits Pack, you also get three other zones as part of a demo that remixes established and cut levels from past Sonic games.

The music is a big highlight here, where the drums and percussion make the track pop as you run for an oxygen bubble or jumping across platforms.

But what makes this zone a highlight, is how much the level doesn't stay in the underground parts of the Mega Drive version. As you try to jump and run to the top of the level, you see cracks of light in the background, reminiscent of a scrapped idea for the zone that was found in a leaked beta build of Sonic 1.

Once you reach the top of the level, you find an unexpected night sky, but it works so well you end up accepting this.

As there's currently no way to edit or add in new bosses, you're using the same one from Hydrocity Zone Act 1, but it still fits the brief, and it makes you wonder how a new boss could work in this remixed Labyrinth Zone.

Jungle Zone

Jungle Zone in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

This is a level taken from the Master System release of Sonic 1, SEGA's 8-bit system released two years before the Mega Drive.

Some arguably regard the 8-bit port to be superior to the Mega Drive version, mainly due to the different zones such as Jungle Zone and Sky Base Zone, alongside the Chaos Emeralds being hidden in each level, rather than the motion-sickness-inducing Special Stages.

Instead, this mod is the best of both worlds, where you get one of the best levels from an 8-bit Sonic game, with its green and orange pixel art put together with its catchy music tune that's remained unchanged, and rightfully so.

Available as two acts, with the second act offering a sunset theme, it's a level that's asking to be remade in a future game.

Music Plant

Sonic Advance 2 level Music Plant in Sonic Mania as a mod

(Image credit: SEGA)

This isn't just one zone from the GBA sequel released back in 2003, but six, all working as intended in Sonic Mania.

Music Plant is part of a collection of levels from the Game Boy Advance release of Sonic Advance 2, released back in 2003. It was the second time Sonic appeared in a 2D game on a handheld other than SEGA's, with an appearance on the NEO GEO Pocket Color in 1999.

Here, there are six zones recreated in Sonic Mania, all with its original music. But it's Music Plant which is the highlight for this mod.

In one of the most colorful zones in a Sonic game, you're bouncing between piano keys while rolling down rails, all in Sonic Mania's engine. The zone's music is originally from another SEGA game called Ristar, which is also in this mod, which fits well for the design and the atmosphere of Music Plant.

But the mod is still under development, with more zones being worked on to be implemented.

Hill Top Zone

Sonic Mania Hill Top Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

We're slightly cheating here, as this is part of the Sonic 2 Mania mod that has Aquatic Ruin Zone in this list. But when you consider that there's two Acts here, completely remade, with remixed music and a twist in Act 2, it's one of the best mods you could download for Sonic Mania.

You can control other characters here as well, but Knuckles is a good fit for Hill Top, as you can glide and climb up the platforms while avoiding the lava.

The moments of being in a cave and the rising lava is all here as it was in Sonic 2, and again the two acts feel as though they are right at home in Sonic Mania. For a level that was originally conceived to be a past version of Emerald Hill Zone during Sonic 2's development, it's become iconic in 30 years since its debut, and begs to be remade for a future 2D or 3D outing.

The PrideLands

The PrideLands level from Lion King, in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

Do you remember playing The Lion King in the mid-nineties, and wondered if a level could work in a Sonic game?

Wonder no more, as a talented modder has ported over the fifth level from the SEGA Mega Drive game, with monitors and enemies scattered throughout.

It's a short level, as you need to reach the top, and Act 2 requires you to get to the end in under sixty seconds.

But what sells it, is a cover of Toto's Africa that plays throughout both Acts, which is random on one hand, and so right on another.

Its randomness is what makes this level so compelling, and while there's next to no chance of a Sonic and Simba crossover, it does make you wonder if other levels from The Lion King, or Aladdin on the Mega Drive, could also work for Sonic Mania.

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One of the best Microsoft Teams features is coming to more users

Microsoft Teams is working on an update that will extend one of its most useful features to a wider pool of users.

According to a new entry in the Microsoft 365 product roadmap, guest users will soon gain access to the live captions feature for Microsoft Teams on desktop, a facility currently available to registered users only.

The roadmap suggests the update for the collaboration platform is still under development, but should take effect for all users by the end of April. TechRadar Pro has asked Microsoft whether users can expect the change to be extended to the mobile client in future.

Microsoft Teams live captions

Introduced soon after the widespread shift to remote working as a result of the pandemic, the Microsoft Teams live captions feature is designed to ensure that all video meeting participants can follow the thread of conversation effectively. That includes anyone with hearing impairments or whose command of the language spoken in the meeting is imperfect, but also anyone with a poor connection or working in a noisy environment.

Until now, the live captions feature has been gated behind a registration wall. In other words, if someone was joining a meeting as a guest via a link provided by the host, they would have to make do without the accessibility feature.

Multiple queries from IT administrators in the Microsoft help forum suggest this is a problem a number of businesses have encountered. Strangely, responses from advisors suggest there may be a workaround that involves meddling with settings in the Admin Center, but the reliability of this method is unclear.

With the upcoming update, however, Microsoft will make it far simpler for guests to access the live captions feature in Microsoft Teams meetings, without the administrator of the host domain having to wade through the advanced settings.

The update is the latest in a long line of improvements delivered by Microsoft in an effort to establish Teams as the go-to platform for workplace collaboration, in the face of increasingly fierce competition from the likes of Zoom and Slack.

In recent months, for example, Microsoft has announced new integrations between Teams and Office, chat filters designed to help users focused on the task at hand, and optimizations that reduce the platform’s power consumption.

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The best alternative email apps for iOS 15 in 2022

It’d be fair to say that much of the world runs on email, making it a must to have the best iOS email app for you.

While tools like Slack, WhatsApp and Discord all exist for instant messaging, email remains the way many people communicate. Whether it’s sending projects for approval, connecting with a loved one, or simply sharing notes for the latest office meeting, there’s plenty of life in email yet.

While your iPhone comes with Apple Mail installed, it’s not for everyone. Apple continues to improve it, but it can be a little clunky to use and lacks many of the more nuanced features of other email apps. iI’s also not much to look at. For basic sending and receiving messages, it’s great, but if you deal with a lot of emails, you may be looking for something flashier.

Thankfully, we’ve got you covered with the best alternative email apps for iOS, all of which make smart changes to the basic formula.

Microsoft Outlook

Outlook iOS app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

It’s perhaps strange to trumpet Outlook as one of the best email apps for the iPhone, but it really is an excellent choice.

Microsoft’s long-running email client looks better here than it ever has before, and it’s plenty powerful too. Its Smart Inbox works out which emails are important and snoozes the others for later. You can also swipe emails to perform quick actions (something that many other apps on this list do).

Perhaps our favorite aspect though is that the calendar within Outlook is so good you can use it as your main planner. Its inclusion means that all your meetings and events, whether they’re from Google Calendar, iCloud, or elsewhere, are in one place.

Hey

Hey iOS Mail app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Hey has been the subject of much discussion, both in terms of its pricing, feature set, and the fact that the developer and Apple had a falling out over in-app payments.

Nonetheless, Hey is an excellent email client if you can stomach the $ 99 annual fee. Hey users get all kinds of great features, like the ability to screen emails from new senders, and unique filtering rules like the Paper Trail (for receipts) or The Feed (for newsletters).

To use Hey, you’ll have to direct all your existing email to it, but doing so will let you pick a custom @hey.com address.

Spark

Spark iOS mail app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Of all of the apps on this list, Spark feels the fastest to use, and it’s got a great visual style with plenty of color in icons but mostly plain everywhere else.

Available on the App Store for free, there are plenty of features here that should give Apple something to ponder for an updated version of Mail.

As with others on this list, there’s a Smart inbox, but we’re particularly fond of Spark's array of 'actions' – you can snooze a thread, remind yourself to follow up later, create Smart Notifications, and more. There’s also a nice slide-over calendar, too.

Spark also plays nicely with attachments, letting you download and open files within the app itself rather than dipping into another option. Attachment search is great, too, and you can attach whatever you’re sending to cloud services straight from the app.

Edison

Edison iOS Mail app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Edison is another good-looking Apple Mail alternative, but its real superpower is its built-in assistant.

Edison’s assistant will filter your emails by type or sender, and it’s perfect for those with butterfingers since it’ll let you undo the sending of an email up to fifteen seconds after you hit the Send button. There are also the slide-to-action options seen elsewhere on this list, too.

Edison leans a little on Hey’s business model, now that it works with OnMail. You can use Edison for free, but paying $ 4.99 will get you a custom domain, password-protected large file links, and an increased attachment size up to 250MB.

Twobird

Twobird iOS Mail app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The new kid on the mail-block, Twobird is part email app and part to-do list – and it’s great at both.

The email experience removes as much from around the actual content of your email as it can, cleaning up the experience to let you focus on the who and the what. You’ll also be able to turn the emails in your inbox into a task list of sorts, tying it in with your other daily reminders, while smart notifications work out what you need to know and when.

Twobird is off to a great start, but there’s a big caveat – there’s no option to currently add your iCloud here, sadly. Gmail and Exchange users, however, will find a lot to love.

AirMail

AirMail iOS app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Airmail has a smart-looking design that feels ripped straight from Apple’s own design language. In fact, it feels like Apple Mail, but better.

The real strength of Airmail is in its integrations with other services – be those web services or other apps on your phone. If you use it, chances are, Airmail can too; Google Drive, Todoist, Drafts, Trello, they’re all here. It’s a far cry from Apple’s more siloed experience.

While Airmail is free, you can upgrade to a Pro plan for $ 2.99 per month (or $ 9.99 per year). Doing so gets you a unified inbox, multiple themes, and the option to snooze and delay sending.

Spike

Spike iOS Mail app

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Spike shakes things up by attempting to blur the lines between email and instant messaging. It looks closer to iMessage than it does to Apple Mail, which may put some people off.

In truth, it’s closer to something like Slack, stripping away the need for long emails full of headers and signatures and boiling it down to the message content and any attachments. It’s configurable for teams, too, so you can send an email to a group of colleagues as if it were a Slack message.

There are built-in notes and task management options, too, with both working collaboratively. And just like others on this list, there’s a Priority Inbox so you never miss an important email.

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One of the best Microsoft Teams features is finally available to all users

Microsoft is preparing an update for collaboration platform Teams that will extend one of the most useful features to an additional group of users.

As explained in a new entry in the company’s product roadmap, Microsoft is bringing the ability to blur the video background to customers running Teams on virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

“Users on Teams on VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop/Windows 365 can blur their background in your video meeting and call,” the entry explains.

The feature still appears to be under development, but should be made available to relevant Microsoft Teams users by the end of the month.

Microsoft Teams backgrounds

Since the transition to remote working, a number of video conferencing vendors have rolled out virtual background functionality, which allows users to obscure the room behind them with an overlay of their choice.

A more subtle option is to blur the background, which has the dual effect of obscuring anything incriminating that might be laying around in someone’s bedroom or home office and focusing the attention on the person’s face.

Although Microsoft Teams has offered such a feature for a while now, it has traditionally been available to users of its desktop and mobile clients only.

After bringing background effects to the web client last month, Microsoft is now completing the set by extending the feature to those running Teams on Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365. The broad objective is to ensure the meeting experience is consistent for all Microsoft Teams users, no matter which client or hardware they are using the dial in.

Beyond the virtual backgrounds feature, Microsoft has made a number of recent additions to Teams with this goal in mind, including the ability to control calls using Bluetooth devices, combine work and business accounts and access screen-sharing controls across all clients.

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The best macOS Menu Bar apps to use for your Apple Mac in 2022

For many users, the menu bar on their Mac sits there, a little unloved, as a necessary but barely used part of macOS. But Apple wants to make the menu bar a useful part of your productivity workflow. And that’s why developers offer a range of ways that you can use the menu bar as a versatile tool. We’ve looked at one of these options from Apple – shortcuts – before. 

There’s an enormous variety of apps that you can add to your menu bar. Depending on whether they are for work or personal use, you can usually find a tool to meet your needs.

We’ve highlighted a few to get you started, but there are thousands more for you to explore on the App Store. They are a great way to save time and effort and make the most of the customization afforded to you by macOS.

What is a menu bar app?

The menu bar is much more customizable than some may realize. Found at the top of macOS, it’s the equivalent to parts of the taskbar found in Windows 11. Beyond looking at the time and connecting to your Wi-Fi, menu bar apps offer a wealth of different functions that, by placing them on the menu bar, can cut out additional steps that an app currently does for your needs.

Many of these can help with boosting your workflows and productivity. Instead of trawling through the Applications folder to select a single function from one app, you can just click on the app in the menu bar. While it seems incredibly simple, these can transform your workflow on your Mac, while offering you far more control over how you organize your desktop.

Quick View Calendar

Quick View Calendar on macOS menu bar

(Image credit: QuickView Calendar)

Free to download on the Mac App Store, Quick View does what it says on the tin. Instead of having to open your desired Calendar app from the dock to check a date, you can go to your menu bar and be greeted with a calendar, ready to browse.

Not only does Quick View only give you a monthly view, but it also allows you to display the number of the week if you need that shown. There are no other features here – it displays the date and that’s it, but it's the ease of use here that really shines.

You may be browsing in Safari to check for an upcoming event for instance, and with a quick hover over your menubar with your mouse, you can check Quick View for the relevant information, without leaving the web browser.

As it’s free on the Mac App Store, you can try it for a week and see if it fits your workflow.

AirBuddy 2.5

AirBuddy on macOS

(Image credit: AirBuddy)

So far, Apple hasn’t brought out a feature that allows you to view the battery status of your devices on your Mac. Alongside this, it can be a challenge in connecting your AirPods peripheral to your Mac, as there are moments where they’ll connect to your iPhone without realizing it. This is where AirBuddy 2 comes in.

Created by Gui Rambo, the app allows you to easily check the battery status of your AirPods by clicking the AirPods case on your menu bar, which will display the status of your devices. They do need to be connected to your Mac first, but after this one-time requirement, they’ll show.

There are also other helpful features once these are connected to your Mac. You can change the noise cancellation setting through a keyboard shortcut or connect them to a nearby device without you doing anything else. Update 2.5 also adds a number of new features; the most significant being the fact that AirBuddy will now work with non-Apple or Beats devices when they are connected to the Mac.

For a one-time fee of $ 9.99 / £10.99 / AU$ 11.99, AirBuddy expands how you can connect your wireless Apple devices to your Mac without simply connecting and disconnecting them from the Bluetooth menu.

Hand Mirror

Hand Mirror app on menu bar, on macOS Monterey

(Image credit: Hand Mirror)

We live in a world where video calls are everywhere. Whether it’s Zoom, FaceTime, or Skype, video calling happens regularly in our work and social lives. And we’ve probably all been in that situation where we need to join into a video meeting and your hair isn’t done, or the family dog has knocked over a plant in the background.

Free to download on the Mac App Store, This is where Hand Mirror comes in, without the additional steps that are often required in many video-conferencing apps.

It’s a simple app that doesn’t do much else, but it achieves exactly what it sets out to do. With one click, you can make sure that you and your environment are set up exactly as you want before joining that call.

Flow

Flow on macOS Monterey

(Image credit: Flow)

With the numerous distractions of rolling news, social media and other notifications on your Mac, a simple to use timer app is a great productivity tool to give you control of how you use your time more effectively.

Flow is based on the Pomodoro Technique, which is where you focus on a discrete task for a set amount of time, before taking a short break. Flow helps this by providing a simple timer in your menu bar, so you can see at a glance how long you have left before your next break. 

You can set the duration of both your periods of focus and the length of your breaks, to fully customize the balance of work and rest. It also allows you to block apps on your Mac, to further minimize distractions. 

If you pay for the Pro version at $ 1 / £1 / AU$ 1 a month, or a lifetime license for $ 20 / £20 / AU$ 20, you can also block specific websites. As productivity apps for the menu bar go, this is a great option. Clean, simple to use, and even has a Dark Mode theme. 

Cheat Sheet

CheatSSheet showing Adobe Photoshop shortcuts

(Image credit: CheatSheet)

Most of us have been in that situation where you want to use a particular feature on your Mac, only to find yourself having to navigate through menus and submenus while being fairly sure there is a simple keyboard shortcut. This is where CheatSheet comes in to alleviate that frustration.

Free to download, CheatSheet provides you with a list of keyboard shortcuts for whichever app you are using at that particular time. Being able to quickly access a reference sheet can save you enormous amounts of time, especially for repetitive tasks.

Perhaps ironically, the more you use it, the less you will need to use it, as you will start to remember the most frequently used shortcuts. And pretty soon, you’ll stop having to switch from keyboard to mouse and back again.

iStat Menus

iStat menu on macOS

(Image credit: iStat)

Perhaps you’re a power user, or maybe you just love seeing the inner workings of your Mac. Either way, iStat Menus 6 will throw more information than you could ever need at you.

As a system monitoring app, this tells you exactly how your computer is performing: CPU and GPU monitoring, memory stats, memory usage, temperatures, disk usage, and battery levels can all be viewed from the menu bar with just a few icons.

This level of detail doesn’t come for free, however. But for a one-off cost of £8.99 / $ 8.99 / AU$ 8.99 from the Mac App Store, or $ 14.39 / £13.49 / AU$ 14.99 directly from iStat, which also includes 6 months of weather data, you're getting an awful lot of information. It’s also highly customizable, so you can choose exactly what information you want to see, and how it looks. 

Minesweeper

Minesweeper on macOS, on menu bar

(Image credit: Minesweeper)

Everyone needs a little downtime, and when used in conjunction with the Flow timer, what could be better than five minutes playing Minesweeper as a short break?

Minesweeper is a very simple but highly addictive game that involves clearing a grid of mines as quickly as you can. The simplest premise for a game can fit perfectly on your menu bar. 

Free to download from the Mac App Store, it sits on your menu bar, ready to take your attention away for when you're struggling with ideas.

This sits on your menu bar unobtrusively, and with one click, you can start playing. It’s a perfect game when you have a few minutes free for a quick break. 

ColorSlurp

Color Slurp on macOS through menu bar

(Image credit: Color Slurp)

Free to download from the Mac App Store, this tool is particularly useful for designers and developers. ColorSlurp allows you to choose the exact colors you need with accuracy and precision, thanks to a quick overview in the menu bar of what color it’s identified, and you can copy this into your photo editing app of choice thanks to the magnifier tool.

Being able to have complete control over your color palette is ideal for graphic designers, website developers, and others. Most importantly, it’s an enormous time-saver and a more accurate method for selecting your colors compared to having to use screenshots to pick out colors.

Bartender 4

Bartender 4 settings

(Image credit: Bartender 4)

With the previous apps we’ve mentioned, your menu bar may be starting to look a little cluttered if you've decided to install them all. With this in mind, we suggest Bartender 4, an award-winning app that allows you to decide which items on your menu bar are displayed.

Available to download as a free trial and to buy for £13.91 / $ 15.99 / AU$ 16.49, you can customize the spacing between menu bar items, and make use of the bar to access your hidden items, especially if you have a lot of menu bar apps and shortcuts.

It also offers a quick search function to allow you to find menu bar apps via your keyboard. It’s a great way to keep your menu bar tidy and organized.

Control Center

Control Center in macOS

(Image credit: Apple)

It would be remiss of us to compile a list of menu bar apps without mentioning the one that comes pre-installed on macOS. Control Center is the macOS equivalent of the iOS feature of the same name, which first appeared in macOS Big Sur back in 2020. It sits unobtrusively in your menu bar, available for you to control a host of options. 

This tool gives you control over a number of what might be considered ‘essentials’ such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airdrop. 

Brightness and volume levels can also be adjusted from here, as well as media controls for any content you're playing in the background. Finally, there are options for Focus mode and Screen Mirroring. You can also add Accessibility Shortcuts if you wish. 

This one may be preloaded, but it’s a feature that you’ll find yourself using more often than usual, mainly because it offers many useful functions, all in one location. 

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Best music production apps for Macs in 2022

Being great at guitar or an improvisation king on the piano is only one facet of making good music. In the modern age, being technically great isn’t required if you’re creative enough. How you put together your music is just as important as being able to make it in the first place.

The DAW, or digital audio workstation, is what you need to look at if you’re interested in production. This will allow you to record yourself, and it will actively change the way you make music. Learning to compensate for parameters or workaround systems will shape the way you go about putting everything together.

For this reason, picking the right DAW is important and you're often better off exploring around a little bit before you settle on what works for you. Unfortunately, with the time and money required to do so, this can be a bit of a challenge.

With your MacBook in hand, we will be recommending our picks of the best free music production software suites.

GarageBand screenshot

(Image credit: Future)

1. GarageBand

The best free app

Intuitive
Free
Great selection of tools and instruments
A little simple

If you’ve booted up a Mac before, you will be familiar with this software package from Apple. Coming pre-installed on Apple devices, this is a usable and intuitive application with lots of useful built-in features.

You only need to plug in your midi, guitar, or keyboard to create music instantly. With the quick help function, it explains everything you can see in easy-to-grasp concepts, making it a great app for those just starting out.

It has some great functions like a smart drummer, which means you don’t need to create a drum track to have a nice beat in the background. It also has some nice packs to try for midi, like great piano sounds, some orchestral sounds, and some good effects for the guitar.

If you’ve never bothered with music production before, try this before you try anything else on this list. From here, you can read the list and pick your favorite app based on what you like.

Logic Pro screenshot

(Image credit: Future)

2. Logic Pro

Apple’s flagship application

Great selection of tools and instruments
Very powerful application
Tons of customization options and features
Can have issues with unofficial plug-ins

As the software is still making changes and adapting to the latest M1 chips, there are issues using unofficial software sometimes and it can get a little complicated to start. If you have the time to dedicate, this is one of the very best pieces of software you can find.

If you like GarageBand but just want more out of it, Logic Pro is where you should go from here. This is a great piece of software, offering more sounds to choose from, more robust features to customize your songs, and just general better usability.

It's correct to assume that GarageBand is essentially a 'lite' alternative to Logic – a  solid usable app that has some noticeable drawbacks. Logic gets rid of these and adds even more functions. It has better live looping and more intricate tempo options. 

It also has plenty of extra software and built-in sounds to get full and vibrant music out of your projects. Alongside this, there are much better mixing options that can give you extra options for the bass and equalizers, depending on the types of genre you're focusing on, making it great for those looking to finish a full song, ready to go on an album.

It also has great intuitive methods to export your songs onto iOS or iPadOS if you want to take your projects on the go.

Pro Tools screenshot

(Image credit: Future)

3. Pro Tools

The industry standard

Different price tiers
Great cross-platform use
Few moment-to-moment issues
Regular fees
Steep learning curve

Pro Tools is the industry standard when it comes to DAWs and there’s a reason for that. It’s powerful, can handle pretty much anything you throw at it and it is great when using across platforms.

If you want to work on a project with someone else or want to learn the software most professionals are used to, this is a valuable application to learn.

That said, it can be a little hard to get used to. It isn’t quite as intuitive as our previous choices and is loaded with options. Pro tools can be used for free with a trial but will cost you more in the long run with monthly/yearly plans.

Pro Tools' cloud features and great plug-in options make the app a fantastic choice, albeit with a steep learning curve and high price. If you’re looking for something complex that is used by industry professionals, this is the app for you.

Ableton Live 11 screenshot

(Image credit: Future)

4. Ableton Live 11

For those who like to improv

Unique selling point
Great for live sessions
Some great instruments and loops
Quite expensive for the best version
UI could be better

Ableton Live is an excellent app for those who like to improvise. All of its software is based around live sessions, giving your music a raw feel. It’s much better at allowing you to just sort of jam, then fine-tune every aspect of your music.

Out of all the paid apps here, this one could be bought alongside another (if you have the cash and patience) as its unique selling point makes it worth trying regardless. There are three central price tiers for the app; the top one is rather expensive, but the cheaper options are a good start.

Its focus on live play means there are some pretty solid built-in loops and instruments to use, perfect for setting up a track. Where other apps often get lost in the weeds, figuratively speaking, Ableton Live is great for just letting you in there to mess around.

If you like the idea of composing on the fly, you should try this one out.

FL Studio screenshot

(Image credit: Future)

5. FL Studio

For those who like to loop

Loop-based writing leads to some interesting songs
Has some good effects
Fun to play around with
Live recording is a little limited
Can be a little confusing

Originally known as FruityLoops, FL Studio has come an incredibly long way since its release two decades ago. Its functionality is entirely based around loops, making it great for genres like EDM or trap.

You essentially build loops in a separate track and place them into your main track. This means coming up with ideas that are only used once or ever-changing songs can become a tedious process.

While it has the ability to play and record, fixing that afterward becomes a little bit of a hassle due to its architecture. The loop-focused build of this software often makes you write a little outside what you’re used to, which is great but also gets in the way of your own ideas.

This also makes learning it a little confusing but, if you can get over that learning curve, it’s a solid and versatile DAW that may make you think outside the box.

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One of the best Google Chrome features is getting an upgrade

Juggling multiple tasks, windows and displays at work could soon be a lot easier thanks to a new update coming to Google Chrome.

The browser is set to upgrade its picture-in-picture mode to include non-video content for the first time, giving a boost to those who love having multiple windows open at once.

Google Chrome is reportedly working on the upgrade, codenamed PIP 2.0, now, with a plan to support embedded content such as audio feeds or image galleries while the users continues browsing. 

PIP 2.0 on Chrome

Although more commonly used for entertainment and sports viewing, Google Chrome clearly thinks picture-in-picture can also be an incredibly handy workplace tool, allowing users more options for viewing different kinds of content.

In a Chromium blog post, Google explained that PIP 2.0 is part of a series for “the new picture-in-picture v2 feature that allows always-on-top windows with arbitrary content”.

A separate Google developer document addressing the feature adds that, “Picture-in-Picture V2 will include a new web api that is still under discussion.” This new Chrome code will “hide the window frame and location bar (after a timeout) when the [PiP] window loses focus” but also be able to add it again when the focus is regained.

“The promise will allow a clearer async API and would offer a way to expose that interactive isn’t supported by the platform,” the Google Chrome engineers noted.

“When Picture-in-Picture is requested and the window is displayed we will copy the requested element to the body of the new window.”

There are also concerns around security, with the engineers adding that the tool could possibly be used to impersonate system UI. “Therefore, we will ensure the UX of the Picture-in-Picture window is distinct enough by adding a border (and maybe an indicator of the origin),” they note, adding that trusted UI such as permission prompts and autofill will also be disabled, with regular keyboard events also removed to reduce the attack surface.

Via WindowsLatest

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Windows 11’s best app is getting even better

Microsoft is working on making the best app in Windows 11, Your Phone, even better in an upcoming update to the operating system.

The Your Phone app connects to your smartphone, allowing you to send and receive messages, access photos, drag and drop files and make and receive phone calls, all through Windows 11. Since its arrival in Windows 10, Your Phone has proved to be an incredibly useful app, especially if you have a Samsung smartphone, as Microsoft and Samsung teamed up to bring some exclusive features to the handsets.

When Your Phone came to Windows 11, Microsoft updated the interface to better fit in with its new operating system, while also making it less cluttered and easier to use.

However, as Windows Latest reports, Microsoft has made changes to how phone calls are handled and displayed in the app, with the changes showing up in an early version (Windows 11 Build 22533).

When making a call through the Your Phone app, the window that appears now has new icons and fonts that makes it fit in with Windows 11, while also giving you options that you’re used to seeing on your smartphone when making a call.

You’ll need to connect your smartphone to your PC via Bluetooth, which happens during the initial setup of the Your Phone app, then use your computer’s microphone and speakers for the call. Obviously, your PC will need those as well – the best webcams come with great built-in microphones these days, and we’ve also listed the best computer speakers as well.


Analysis: Work continues

As we had hoped, the launch of Windows 11 wasn’t the end of Microsoft’s work on the new operating system. Instead, the company has been adding new features and fixing bugs since Windows 11 launched last year.

While there is a danger that this makes Windows 11 feel a bit like a work in progress, it also means that if you’re patient, you should end up with an even better operating system. Hopefully the improved Your Phone app comes to all users of Windows 11 soon.

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