Forget relying on the convoluted TV guide from your cable or satellite provider.Google Nowis a much better TV companion, telling you about what’s on, finding related information, and suggesting similar shows.
Just as with Google’s other predictive services, you need to train it in your preferences so it learns what you like. Over time it will reward you with this knowledge by finding you new shows you didn’t know were out there. It’s not always perfect (sometimes Google predictions can be way off) but it’s a pretty clever feature that makes for great content discovery.
Finding your TV
Google Now will uses Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) to find your TV automatically, if you have a smart TV connected to your wireless network. It delivers a small card with a “Listen for a TV show” button. I have found this feature to be a little hit and miss, as you sometimes have to swipe down below the search bar to trigger this card.
You can browse through Google Now’s cards for suggestions for what to watch.
Once it appears, your digital TV assistant is ready to serve you. However, if your TV isn’t web savvy, don’t despair. There are other methods for getting Google’s help.
Okay Google, Listen to TV
Just like it can with music, Google Now can fire up its microphone to listen for what’s on the TV. Just touch the microphone or say “Okay, Google, listen to TV.”
Tell Google to listen to your TV to find out what’s playing.
After listening for a few seconds, it will launch a card with the program’s name, air time, and network information. It also shows you cards about related topics. For example, during a sports game it may bring up the star players or the stadium venue. For TV shows and movies it’ll boost your trivia knowledge by tipping you on the key actors or historical tidbits about where the action took place.
The match is not always ideal. For example, while watching Most Terrifying Places in America, much of the episode focused on alleged hauntings in St. Augustine, Florida. Instead, Google Now offered a card about theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo.
So Google Now still has some work to do, but at least you may get some interesting reading. Plus, if you’re being forced to watch a boring show by your significant other, you may get stimulating content to check out instead of browsing your Twitter stream for the 38th time that day.
Fine-tuning the suggestions
For better or worse Google Now uses your other Google searches on topics related to TV shows and movies to find suggestions.
Tell Google if you like or don’t care for what’s on right now for recommendations tailored to your tastes.
The downside is that every show you search for, no matter how terrible, can influence its suggestions. For example, a group of friends and I were recently discussing which was the worst sequel ever, agreeing on Staying Alive, the 1983 follow-up to Saturday Night Fever. So I Googled the film, as I’m not a huge movie watcher and hadn’t heard of it.
A day later, Google Now began pestering me if I wanted to watch this classic cinematic failure. No, I did not. Fortunately you can tell Google Now this by turning down similar suggestions. Despite doing this, Saturday Night Fever arrived as a recommendation a couple days later. Something in that part of the algorithm needs tweaking.
Also, if you subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, or other streaming services, tell Google Now and it will offer direct links to available programming based on what it thinks you’ll like (hopefully not Staying Alive). It does the same for satellite/cable, with most major companies like Comcast and DirecTV on the list.
Tell Google Now what video-on-demand services you use for better content suggestions.
This could be a pretty great feature over time, as you could jump right into Google Now, pick a show, then fire up the Chromecast or Nexus Player. A cozy evening on the couch, all courtesy of Google.
Head to the Google Now settings by touching the magic wand icon at the bottom and then selecting TV & Video to choose your on-demand and TV providers.
If you don’t like the TV suggestions, you can hit the menu icon on the top right of a TV card (the three dots) and select No. I do recommend trying it out, as even though it’s not super-accurate all the time it’s fun to explore the entertainment universe.
It may seem like mixing oil and water, but as it turns out, installing Windows on your Mac isn’ta violation of natural law—your Retina display won’t melt or anything!
In fact, doing so is actually a relatively pain-free process. To give the Windows 10 Technical Preview—a very early pre-release version of Windows 10—a whirl, you don’t even have to pay for a Windows license or already have Windows on your Mac. The Technical Preview is free to test.
Intrigued? Let’s dig in.
Decisions, decisions
There are two ways to get the Windows 10 Preview on your Mac.
The first is to install Windows on a separate partition of your hard drive using Apple’s built-in Boot Camp software. When finished you can boot directly into Windows, essentially transforming your Mac into a full-blown Windows PC.
Get Chrome or your other favorite apps on Windows 10.
Another option lets you run Windows as a virtual machine inside an OS X program. We’ll be using the open-source VirtualBox from Oracle, though Parallels Desktop is a popular alternative (it costs about $80). A virtual is the route we recommend, given that the Windows 10 Technical Preview is still in very early form, with the occasional rough edge or bugginess popping up. If something goes wrong on a virtual machine, it won’t affect your hardware or OS X installation—you can just wipe it and start over.
The Windows 10 Start menu is back, and you can have it on your Mac.
As with any pre-release software, one person’s experience may vary with another’s. Mine was pretty issue-free: I installed Windows 10 on a late 2014 MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. Any Mac released in recent memory should be able to run Windows 10 just fine.
Whatever you do, back up your Mac’s data first. Didn’t you hear the part about the Windows 10 Technical Preview being very early experimental software? You don’t want to lose all your valuable documents and family videos if Microsoft’s OS hiccups.
Download the ISO
Done backing up? Good. First we’ll head to the Windows 10 download site to download the Technical Preview. You’ll have to sign up for the Windows Insider Program by giving Microsoft your email address.
After registering—note all the warnings about this being pre-release software, and Microsoft’s stern warnings about backing up your data—select the version of Windows 10 that’s right for your particular system. If you’re running a relatively recent Mac with an Intel processor, opt for the 64-bit version. It’s nearly 4GB, so get comfy—the download may take a while. Jot down the product key, too; we didn’t need it in our testing but it’s a good thing to keep in your back pocket just in case.
Install Windows 10 in VirtualBox
Let’s explain how to get Windows 10 running in a virtual machine first, since that’s our recommended method. Head to the Oracle VM downloads page, and select the VirtualBox version built for for OS X hosts.
Launch the download, dragging the icon into the Applications folder. Included is a 300-page PDF if you want a thorough set of instructions—though you can skip those and keep reading this if you don’t have time or desire to brush up on VirtualBox’s most arcane secrets.
At the VirtualBox launch screen, you’ll be asked to choose which operating system to install. I chose “Windows 8.1” from the menu, as it’s the most recent version of Windows. Windows 8 should probably work out as well—just be sure to select the appropriate 64-bit or 32-bit option based on the version of Windows 10 you downloaded.
Choose Windows 8.1 from the long list and get ready for some virtual computing.
VirtualBox will then ask you how much RAM to allocate to running the virtual machine. You can go with the default of 2048MB if you’re concerned about system resources, but Windows 10’s performance will increase if you can dedicate more—you are running another operating system simultaneously, after all. If you can bump it up to 4GB without starving OS X’s own resources, that’d be perfect.
Next you’ll be asked to create a virtual hard drive for Windows 10. Unless you’re planning on doing extensive work or installing more software, you can safely choose the default of 25GB. Select the VirtualBox Disk Image option on the next screen and continue.
Locate the ISO file for VirtualBox and get ready to install Windows.
The next choice is to select a dynamically allocated hard drive or fixed one. As you can probably figure out from the context, the former grows as you add space, and it’s a better choice if you’re short on space and don’t plan on adding that much to your Windows mock computer. The fixed drive, on the other hand, will give you faster performance as long as you can spare the room.
Locate the ISO file for VirtualBox and get ready to install Windows.
When all that’s done, highlight the Windows 10 VM in the VirtualBox dashboard and select the green “Start” arrow. You’ll be prompted to point the VM towards the Windows 10 ISO file. After doing so, you’ll see the Windows logo with a black background. You’re on your way!
The Windows signup screen will appear next. Pick a language and hit Install now. Then you’ll have two choices: a custom or upgrade installation. Select custom, then choose a specific location on the hard drive for installing Windows. Just leave this as it is—it’s installing to the virtual hard drive created by VirtualBox.
This is the first screen you’ll see when installing Windows 10.
Now it’s time to install Windows and plug in your Microsoft account credentials. If you don’t have an existing account, you’ll need to put in an email address to satisfy the Windows gatekeepers. This enables you to save and sync settings across multiple Windows devices.
Voila! You’re running Windows 10 on your Mac. You’ll probably want to check out PCWorld’s guide to exploring Windows 10.
Running a virtual machine is a slightly different experience than running an operating system on a hard drive. Things may move a little slower and appear janky. But it works fine for getting basic work done, or just plain playing around with Windows 10.
When you’re done, just close the VM’s window as you would anything else. You’ll be prompted either to save the machine’s state as-is or power it off.
Using Boot Camp with Windows 10
If you want the full Windows Technical Preview experience, you can use Apple’s Boot Camp tool to install Windows 10 straight to your hard drive and boot directly into Windows. (You did remember to back up your data first, right?)
For this you’ll need a USB drive with at least 4GB of free space. Boot Camp will take the Windows ISO file and create a boot disk that can be used to install Windows on your Mac.
Boot Camp Assistant is your friend for installing Windows.
Assuming you already have the Windows 10 ISO downloaded, launch Boot Camp. Tick all the boxes and proceed.
Insert your flash drive and then select the ISO file’s location. Boot Camp will then download all the necessary drivers to run Windows and transform your USB drive into a boot disk. This step takes a while, so be patient.
You’ll then be asked to partition your hard drive. This is a critical step, as you can’t expand or shrink the storage later on. Instead, you’ll have to wipe that part of the drive and start from scratch.
Decide how much hard drive space to devote to Windows.
It’s recommended you select at least 20GB, but 30GB or more is best, as Windows 10 itself will take up a sizable chunk. Consider how much you will be using it: Is it just for casually tinkering or do you want to install Office and do some serious work? If you want to play PC games, definitely bump up the free space you devote to Windows.
When you’re done, click Install to start (you guessed it) installing Windows 10.
Windows will next restart a couple of times. The longest wait will be when it hits the “We’re getting our apps ready” screen, which sat on my machine for 10 minutes. It does, however, cycle through some pretty colors for your viewing pleasure.
If for some reason your computer boots back to OS X, reboot and hold the Option key. This brings up a menu where you can select which operating system to launch.
A few impressions
Use the Boot Camp Assistant help menu for troubleshooting issues.
Overall, Windows 10’s performance on the Mac seems good. Scrolling with the trackpad works great with native Windows apps, such as File Explorer or Start menu, but it’s a little janky with browsers (I tried it with Chrome and Internet Explorer). I found myself reverting to clicking and holding the toolbar to scroll through a page. Windows doesn’t have as many trackpad gestures as OS X, either, so using a mouse may be a good idea.
The brightness was a little inconsistent, fluctuating between too bright or too dark. The backlit keyboard was also confused: Trying to reduce its brightness didn’t work at all until the next-to-lowest setting, which then plunged the keyboard into near-darkness.
Such inconsistencies are to be expected with a pre-release operating system, however. If you run into trouble or want to check system requirements further, both Microsoft andApple offer support pages. And if you want to return to Apple’s warm embrace, just hold down the Option key during a reboot and select OS X as your chosen OS.
