Great news! There's a special one day shopping event this Friday, 30th November with special offers throughout the day in all UK Apple Retail Stores and on the Apple Online Store.

Conveniently in time for Christmas, you'll be able to find dozens of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas and can start your research now by visiting Apple's Holiday Gift Guide to find iPod, iPhone, and Mac gift ideas.

Apple say that there will be some excellent specials on the day which will be a surprise until Friday 30th.

How to install Leopard

Read our complete Mac OS X 10.5 start-up guide before you install the latest version of Apple's operating system. We'll show you how to get organised before you start, choose the right installation options, and make sure your first steps with the new OS are enjoyable.

Also in this issue, if you're stuck for ideas when out Christmas shopping, then check out our Christmas Gift Guide. It features all the best products from the past year, and some new ones, for all budgets.

We also investigate the European .Mac service to see whether we're getting a second-rate service compared to its US subscribers.

Also this issue

Tutorials

Give your images a watercolour effect
Get more from your iPhone
Create an iPhoto calendar
Customise iMovie transitions
Remote control your Mac
And more…

Reviews
Apple's Wireless Keyboard
Apple's Logic Studio
Griffin Amplifi
Canon PIXMA iP4500
BlackBerry Pearl 8100
And more…

Mac questions answered
Deal with kernel panics, fix poor quality printing, share internet connections between Macs and PCs and more…

On the DVD
Three full programs: ConceptDraw MINDMAP 4.5, Dream REcorder 1.3d, Invoice 1.2, plus shareware, games trials, hot demos and more…

It’s all in MacFormat issue 189, on sale now!

Visit the MacFormat forum by clicking here
Subscribe to MacFormat and never miss an issue again!

Our sister magazine Mac|Life in the US has produced a great feature on four possible concepts from Apple. It's well worth a look.

Ahhh, that's better. Using the easily-reversible Terminal command in 20 Terminal commands for hidden settings in Leopard, I've disabled the hideous cacophony of colours and blurriness that is the pseudo-3D Dock in Leopard. There are a couple of other crackers in that list, too, including how to enable a handy 'recent items' Stack in your Dock.

Atlas
Battles

Click here to download this week's free song from the iTunes store*.

To subscribe to our Single of the week RSS feed, click here.

About this entry
Every week, Apple gives away a song from one of the artists on its roster at iTunes, but while we like this generous bit of marketing, there are two problems. First, Apple doesn't provide an RSS feed alerting you to the free single of the week, but more importantly, there's no way or knowing if the track is any good. MacFormat is here to solve both problems with our new Single of the week category here on macformat.co.uk.

* Even though these songs are free, you'll need to have a valid iTunes Store account. You'll also need to have iTunes installed; though the link above should prompt you to install iTunes if it's not already there on your Mac or PC, you can click here to download iTunes manually.

Get your hands on the best bags and cases in the business, courtesy of MacFormat

This month, Knomo and MacFormat have teamed up to offer two sets of prizes: a laptop bag, sleeve and iPod case in black for men, and another set in tan for ladies.

Knomo bags have been the most luxurious on the market for as long as we care to remember. They are consistently desirable, and always finished in quality materials like their trademark plush leather, together with softlined interiors, protective padding and simple, classic lines. These are the telltale signs of a Knomo creation.

The men’s suite includes a black leather messenger bag, one of the new slim laptop pouches, a travel wallet and an iPod classic wallet. The ladies’ set includes a leather shoulder bag, a slim laptop pouch, travel wallet and an iPod classic wallet. Please specify which set you are hoping for with your competition entry – there will be two prize winners this issue, each winning either the men’s or ladies’ set.

The Slim bags are part of Knomo’s latest collection for the Winter season. These are available as 13-, 15- and 17-inch quilted sleeves and tuck away inside bigger shoulder bags, or can be used by themselves as chic accessories. There is a range of colours available, so check out Knomo’s website for more information. Good luck!

How to enter
For your chance to win a fantastic Knomo suite, click here . Entries must be received by 11 December 2007.

The new edition of MacFormat This Week for 26 November 2007 is now available for download! Sorry for the slight one day delay in posting this podcast - we had a small technical issue that is now resolved.

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

Are you ready to install Mac OS X Leopard? Trevor Middleton helps you figure out what you need for a successful upgrade. We've also got our December shareware picks and nine great Christmas gift ideas with Chris Phin.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

Apple seems to be getting around those strange mainland European laws that prevent it from locking iPhone customers into just one provider by making the unlocked version of its iPhone so prohibitively expensive that it doesn't make sense to buy one.

T-Mobile in Germany has announced that an unlocked version of the iPhone will be available for €999 - that's US$1,477.97 or £716 of your finest English pounds. Gee thanks Apple - that means it's not worth it. With your own call plan on top you'd easily end up spending way more on an unlocked iPhone than on a locked one.

But really, what did we expect? The missing revenue share from iPhone customers' call plans needs to be covered by Apple somehow.

Looks like the 'Get a Mac' ads are spreading their wings into banner advertising. I have to say this is one of the cleverest banner ads I've seen.

Whenever a new bit of Apple kit gets released we do what every other tech mag on the planet does - get on the phone to Apple and put our request in for a review unit, which duly arrives by courier. With the iPhone it's different. Apple aren't going to send this out to just anyone. Oh no. This one is special. For the iPhone review unit you have to go, in person, to the Regent Street Apple Store for a 30 minute briefing on how it works before you get your hands on one.

We've already reviewed it in MacFormat a few issues ago, of course. One of our American colleagues reviewed a US unit, but there's plenty of reason to test it in the UK - we need to check coverage of the Edge network and The Cloud. But most of all, we just want one

So, train ticket in hand, I travelled up from Bath yesterday to the Big Smoke to pick up MacFormat's review unit. One day later I'm addicted. My whole life (my music, my photos, my videos, my contacts, my favourite website bookmarks, my phone numbers) is now contained in this one simple, sleek, device that does just about everything I could ever want and that I carry round with me in my pocket.

My life feels simpler and somehow.... better than before. Because I don't have to carry a phone and an iPod with me anymore I feel physically lighter too. It's a strange feeling.

I wonder how the iPhone is going to fare in Britain though. We're all used to either paying for a phone and having a Pay As You Go contract, or getting the phone for free and subscribing to a monthly plan. Apple has thrown away that business model with the iPhone - now you pay (heavily) for the phone and you pay for a monthly subscription. How that's going to go down in a country where the Nokia N95 (which is 3G and 8GB) is available for free on a contract I don't know.

If you took the plunge for an iPhone tell us here how you're getting on with it.

I've just thought of great use of the Web Clips feature in Leopard: this handy .Mac status widget. It's particularly useful now as Apple overhauls the sync engine back end. This one is clipped from the .Mac section of the main support site but you could also grab one from the .Mac homepage.

What other great uses for Web Clips have you discovered? Facebook? Comic strips? BBC weather reports?

Share your discoveries with us all in the comments!

The new edition of MacFormat This Week for 12 November 2007 is now available for download!

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

As the iPhone arrives in the UK, author Bob LeVitus gives advice on how to get the most out of it. Also: we dive into the debate over the right of iPhone owners to hack their phones, plus news of a MacBook update and Q&A with Trevor Middleton.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

With so many distractions and fun things to play with on the Web and in OS X it's easy to get sidetracked when you should be working on a Mac. Leo Babauta from Zen Habits wrote an excellent article for us a few issues ago on Mac productivity, and getting things done.

In conjunction with MacFormat he's now published the article as a PDF download on his website. See here.

If you missed his excellent article last time around then pop over there now and read it for free!

As our friends on Tech.co.uk report, the queue outside the Regent Street Apple Store for an iPhone has started already!

The iPhone goes on sale at 6.02pm on Friday.

In other iPhone-related news the expected barrage of iPhone accessories has started - iWorld.co.uk are now selling their first iPhone compatible speaker system for your home. The iStuff PhoneDock will set you back £129 pounds and its 4” Woofer, 2x mid-range and 2x tweeters deliver and impressive 40W of audio from your iPhone.

Sure, the Arabesque screensaver in Leopard is breathtakingly beautiful, but what if you want something a bit more grunge? Well, you could opt for SurveillanceSaver, an OS X screensaver that pipes in the video feeds from over 600 open security camera feeds. Be warned: it can make for worryingly addictive viewing.

Click here for more information and to download SurveillanceSaver