Touch ID lets users register up to five fingers that can unlock an iPhone, which has long been a boon for those who share access to their iPhone with trusted family members. However, users of the iPhone X haven’t been able to give a second person Face ID-based access, forcing those people to wait for Face ID to fail and then tap in a passcode manually. iOS 12 lifts that limitation, allowing a second person to register their face with Face ID on the iPhone X and the new iPhone...

It’s a constant refrain in many homes—a kid clamoring to use an iPad or iPhone to play games, watch videos, or chat with friends. As a parent, you know too much screen time is bad, especially when it affects homework or family dinners. At the same time, an iOS device may be essential for communication and schoolwork. In iOS 12, Apple introduced Screen Time, which shows how much time you spend on your own device, and helps you control your usage—see our recent article for details. But Screen Time also...

Before iOS 12, you’d tap the camera button in a Messages chat in order to share either a brand-new photo or a photo that had already been taken. In iOS 12, Apple changed things so tapping the camera button only lets you take a fresh photo. To find and send a photo that’s already in Photos, use the Photos mini-app in Messages. If necessary, tap the Apps button to the left of the message field to show the Messages apps, and then tap the Photos button to see a list...

You probably fall into one of two camps: people who haven’t the foggiest idea what pressing Command-Shift-3 or Command-Shift-4 do on the Mac, and those who use those keyboard shortcuts regularly to take screenshots. Either way, macOS 10.14 Mojave makes it easier than ever to create a still image of what’s on your Mac’s screen and to record a video of actions you take on the screen. (And don’t worry, the old shortcuts still work just as they always have.) For those who aren’t screenshot takers, why would you want...

For years, you’ve used the App Store app to install operating system and app updates on your Mac. That’s still true for apps, but with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple moved operating system updates to the new Software Update preference pane, which replaces the old App Store preference pane. Open System Preferences > Software Update to check your version of macOS and access available updates—there will be an Update Now button to click. You should also visit this pane to tell your Mac how to best handle system and app updates:...

With macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple has beefed up the Mac’s privacy so it more closely resembles privacy in iOS. You’ve noticed that when you launch a new app on your iPhone or iPad, it often prompts for access to your photos or contacts, the camera or microphone, and more. The idea behind those prompts is that you should always be aware of how a particular app can access your personal data or features of your device. You might not want to let some new game thumb through your photos or...

It can be easy to become overwhelmed by iOS notifications, particularly if you have chatty friends or apps. In iOS 12, Apple corralled notifications by grouping them into stacks so you no longer see an endless screen of alerts. To expand a stack of notifications on either the Lock screen or in Notification Center (swipe down from the top of the screen), tap the stack. Once you’ve expanded a stack, you can tap Show Less to restack it, tap the X button to remove the entire stack, or tap any...

Black Friday and the start of the holiday shopping seasons are nearly upon us. If you’re looking for gift ideas for your Apple-using loved ones, we have a few suggestions that are guaranteed to be popular. Apple Watch The new Apple Watch Series 4 may be the gift hit of the season as adult children buy it for aging parents. That’s happening due to the Apple Watch’s health monitoring capabilities, which include fall detection, atrial fibrillation detection, and (soon) the capability to record electrocardiograms. It may seem expensive at $399...

At a special event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Apple threw back the curtains on significant updates to the long-ignored MacBook Air and even longer-ignored Mac mini. Then Tim Cook and company followed up with revamped 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros, complete with an enhanced Smart Keyboard Folio and redesigned Apple Pencil. You can order all of Apple’s new gear right away, though demand may delay shipping for a week or two on some items. MacBook Air Gains Retina Display and Touch ID When Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook...

Do you end up with so many tabs in Safari that it becomes impossible to read the truncated tab titles? There’s no shame in that, and Safari 12—which comes with macOS 10.14 Mojave and is a free update for 10.12 Sierra and 10.13 High Sierra—now offers an option to add an icon representing the Web site to each open tab. Called a favicon, this tiny image is usually carefully designed to identify its site and makes it easier to pick out the tab. To enable the feature, open Safari >...

Do you frequently reach for your iPhone for a quick check of Facebook or Messages? It’s all too easy to let social media, the latest hot game, or even your work email intrude on your real life. If you’re uncomfortable with how much—and when—you use your iPhone or iPad, iOS 12’s new Screen Time feature can help you limit your usage in two ways, by time of day and by time spent in an app. (Screen Time can help you monitor and limit your children’s iOS usage too. This article...

The Mac’s Dock gives you quick access to frequently used apps, documents, and folders, and makes it easy to switch to a running app. In macOS 10.14 Mojave, the Dock has another feature: a list of apps you’ve used recently that aren’t on your default Dock. Icons for these apps appear between your Dock’s default apps and any documents or folders that you’ve added—look closely and you’ll notice subtle lines in the Dock that delineate this area. It always holds at least three apps, but expands to hold as many...

We love the Do Not Disturb feature in iOS—it’s essential for keeping notifications from waking us up at night or causing embarrassing light and noise in dark movie theater. But it’s long had a problem. When you invoked Do Not Disturb manually for a movie or doctor’s appointment, you had to remember to turn it off manually when you were done, or risk missing important notifications. No more! In iOS 12, Apple enhanced Do Not Disturb in two ways: enabling it to disable itself automatically after a certain amount of...

Before iOS 12, Apple Maps was the only mapping app you could run on the dashboard in a CarPlay-equipped automobile. But Maps doesn’t always work well, and some people prefer directions from Google Maps or the Google-owned Waze. Once you upgrade your iPhone to iOS 12 and update to the latest version of Google Maps or Waze for iOS, you’ll be able to use those apps on your CarPlay screen. Happy navigating!

The feature Apple is promoting most heavily with macOS 10.14 Mojave is Dark mode, which the company advertises as “a dramatic new look that helps you focus on your work… as toolbars and menus recede into the background.” Let’s look at what Apple has done with Dark mode, after which you’ll have a better idea of what to think about while trying it. Enable Dark Mode First, to turn Dark mode on, go to System Preferences > General and click the Dark thumbnail to the right of Appearance. Mojave immediately...

Although most of what’s new in iOS 12 are new features, one change for change’s sake may throw you. In iOS 11 on an iPad, you would bring up Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, just like on all iPhones other than the iPhone X. With iOS 12, however, Apple brought the iPad in line with the iPhone X and the recently released iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen on the iPad now reveals the Dock, and...

Have you found yourself composing an email message on your Mac while staring glumly at the receipt or document you need to scan and attach to the message? Adding that scan to the message isn’t impossible, but until macOS 10.14 Mojave, it hasn’t necessarily been easy. It’s super simple now, thanks to a new Mojave feature called Continuity Camera. It lets you take pictures or scan documents with an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12 and have those images show up immediately on the Mac, either in a document or...

A Simple Technique for Decluttering Your Reminders List Productivity experts recommend offloading things you have to remember to a task-management app like Apple’s Reminders, which syncs your to-dos among your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. That’s particularly helpful for tasks you want to be reminded of in a few months or next year, but then those far-in-the-future tasks—especially repeating ones!—clutter your main Reminders list. The solution? Create a Far Future Reminders list, and move reminders to it that aren’t relevant within the next month or so. Just make sure...

A Hidden Trick that Lets You Navigate Your iPhone with One Hand Unless you can palm a basketball, you may not be able to use an iPhone single-handed. But sometimes one hand is all you can spare. If you find yourself in such a situation, give Reachability a try. On a Touch ID–based iPhone, tap (don’t press) the Home button twice to slide the iPhone’s interface halfway down the physical screen, bringing everything into reach of your thumb. On the Face ID–equipped iPhone X, put your thumb in the bottom...

Some Web sites have separate desktop and mobile versions, each theoretically providing the best browsing experience for its platform. Unfortunately, mobile Web sites sometimes leave out necessary features or hide content. That’s especially annoying if you’re browsing on an iPad, where the desktop site would work fine. If you run across such a site while browsing in Safari on the iPhone or iPad, you can ask for its desktop version. Press and hold the Reload button at the right side of the address bar, and then tap Request Desktop Site....

Look Up All Sorts of Information with a Quick Click or Tap on the Mac Apple makes it easy to look up information about any word you can see on your Mac, in nearly any app. To access this information, Control- or right-click the word and choose Look Up “word”, use the trackpad to tap the word with three fingers, or hover the pointer over it and press Command-Control-D. macOS displays a popover with a dictionary definition. And in 10.12 Sierra and later, you can also swipe right with two...

Make More Space for Documents by Putting Your Dock on the Side of Your Mac’s Screen By default, Apple locates the Dock at the bottom of the Mac’s screen. If that location interferes with you seeing as much of your document windows as you’d like, you can set it to appear only when you move the pointer to the bottom edge of the screen. But there’s a better way: put the Dock on the side of the screen where there’s plenty of horizontal room and it won’t get in the...

Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly Siri is supposed to be a competent voice assistant, but sometimes Siri can’t even pronounce your own name correctly! Luckily, it’s easy to fix Siri’s pronunciation for any name. Just say to Siri, “Learn how to pronounce Jill Kresock.” (Siri defaults to “krehsock” rather than the correct “kreesock” in this case.) Siri first asks you to say the person’s first name and then presents a list of options for the best pronunciation. Tap the play button next to each option to hear it,...

The Secret Keyboard Shortcut for Comparing Before/After Edits in Photos on the Mac Photos on the Mac provides so many editing tools that it’s easy to lose track of how an edited image compares to the original. You can always use the Revert to Original command and then undo it, but that’s fussy. Instead, Photos provides a Show Original button in the upper-left corner, between the window controls and the Revert to Original button. Click and hold it to see your original image; let up to see the edited version...

Tired of PDFs or Other Documents Opening in the Wrong App? When you double-click a document, macOS uses the document’s file extension to figure out which app should open the file. So, by default, a PDF file called laser-squid.pdf opens in Preview because the Finder knows that everything with a .pdf extension should open in Preview. But what if you would prefer to open .pdf files in Adobe Reader, or you want comma-separated value (.csv) text files to open in Numbers? To change any mapping, select a file of the...

Tired of “Sent from my iPhone” as Your Email Signature? When you use Apple’s Mail app on your iPhone to send email, the default signature is “Sent from my iPhone.” If you’d rather not advertise that fact with every email, or would prefer to change it to something more personal, don’t bother poking around in the Mail app itself. Instead, go to Settings > Mail > Signature, where you can change the signature to anything you like or delete it entirely. If you have multiple email accounts configured, such as...

Update AirPort Express Base Stations to Add AirPlay 2 Apple may have discontinued its AirPort Wi-Fi base stations, but in a surprise parting gift, the company has released a firmware update to the AirPort Express that gives it AirPlay 2 capabilities like multi-room audio. If you have an AirPort Express connected to speakers through its audio jack, first use AirPort Utility on the Mac or iPhone to update its firmware to version 7.8. Once you do that, you’ll be able to play audio simultaneously through the AirPort Express and to...

Use Copy as Pathname to Help Someone Find a File on the Mac Have you ever needed to write directions for where to find a file on the Mac? That’s easy if it’s in a well-traveled location, like the Music or Pictures folder, but more difficult if it’s in an obscure hidey-hole. Rather than write out instructions like “Look in the Chrome folder inside Google’s Application Support folder in your user Library folder,” select the item in question, hold down the Option key, and choose Edit > Copy “ItemName” as...

Did You Know This Hidden Trick for Opening System Preferences Panes Directly? The System Preferences app on the Mac contains about 30 icons, each leading to additional settings panes. Rather than opening System Preferences, scanning the collection of icons, and clicking the one you want, you can jump directly to the desired pane. Just click and hold on the System Preferences icon in the Dock, and choose a pane from the pop-up menu.

Tired of Skewed Lines in Your Photos? Use the Camera App’s Hidden Level. If you’ve ever photographed a sheet of paper or some other rectangular object, the image may have come out skewed because you inadvertently tilted the camera. The iOS 11 Camera app has a level feature to help you avoid this problem, but it’s so subtle that you may not have noticed it. To use it, first go to Settings > Camera and turn on the Grid switch so thin white lines divide the viewfinder image into a...

Apple has thrown back the curtain on its latest batch of iPhones and a new model of the Apple Watch. The company also announced plans to release iOS 12, watchOS 5, and tvOS 12 on September 17th. macOS 10.14 Mojave will follow a week later on September 24th. X Appeal: The New iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR Last year’s iPhone X was a massive hit, so Apple has gone further down that road, dropping the Home button and Touch ID and focusing on Face ID in this...

Did You Know You Can Customize the Columns in a Finder Window’s List View? When a Mac folder contains a lot of files, the Finder’s List view often works best, since it lets you focus on a single folder and easily sort the contents by clicking the different columns: Name, Date Modified, Size, and Kind. But did you know that you can resize columns, rearrange them, and even add and remove columns? To resize a column, drag the vertical separator line to the right of its name. To move a...

Did You Know Your EarPods Work as a Remote Shutter Button for Photos? Have you ever composed the perfect photo in the iPhone’s Camera app and then been unable to tap the shutter button without jiggling the iPhone and blurring the image? That can be especially difficult with macro shots that require physical contortions to position the iPhone properly. Sometimes, pressing one of the physical volume buttons on the iPhone to trigger the shutter is the solution. But, even better, connect your iPhone’s wired EarPods and then press one of...

How to Recover Space by Offloading Unused Apps in iOS 11 Running low on space on your iPhone or iPad in iOS 11? This problem may be easier to deal with than you expect because Apple has added a quick way to free up storage space by removing unneeded apps. Go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage, where you’ll see a Recommendations section. This section may include an option to Offload Unused Apps with an estimate of how much space you could save. Tap Enable to allow iOS to...

Remember That You Can Search for Nearly Anything in Your Photos Library Apple’s Photos app on the Mac can identify thousands of different objects in your photos, so it’s easy to find photos based on their content. You can find objects (cars and trains), scenery (beaches and forests), and even some events (weddings and parades). This is both big fun and useful for those times when you can’t remember when you took a photo, but do remember what’s in it, like a cat, camera, or carousel. To carry out a...

Here’s How to Hide All Windows on Your Mac So You Can Work on the Desktop If your Mac is anything like ours, you end up with lots of apps open, each with one or more windows that obscure the Desktop. For those people who like to save in-progress documents to the Desktop and keep current project folders there, all those windows get in the way. macOS has a solution. Open System Preferences > Mission Control, and in the Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts section, from the Show Desktop pop-up menu,...

Fix a Frozen Finder with This Quick Tip Finder freezes. They shouldn’t happen at all, and they don’t happen often, but it’s not unheard of for your Mac’s Finder to freeze, freak out, or otherwise stop responding properly. To bring it back to life, hold down the Option key, click and hold the Finder icon in the Dock, and choose Relaunch. (If the “click and hold” action feels odd, you can instead hold down Control and Option, and then just click.) In theory, you should be able to keep working...

Sad news: Apple is discontinuing its photo printing services, which enabled you to create and order physical prints, cards, calendars, and books from within Photos on the Mac. If you’re building such a project right now, be sure to place your order before September 30th, 2018. After that, Apple is directing users to download a Photos Project Extension from the Mac App Store. You’ll see this dialog whenever you click a project in Photos. When you click the Open App Store button, Photos opens the App Store app and shows...

On the face of it, Apple’s Find My iPhone feature does what it says. If you lose your iPhone, you can identify its last known location by looking in the Find iPhone app or on the iCloud Web site, and you can make it play a sound. It’s great for tracking down a missing iPhone, whether you misplaced it in the house or left it behind at a restaurant. But Find My iPhone does much more! For starters, it works with nearly any Apple device. You can use it to...

A trackpad is not a mouse. In some ways, that’s obvious—you swipe your fingers on it, rather than dragging it around. Less obvious, however, are the many gestures that make using a trackpad on your Mac faster and more fun. These gestures aren’t limited to laptop users, thanks to Apple’s Magic Trackpad 2, which brings gesturing goodness to any desktop Mac. Here’s how to put your fingers to work. Four Fingers on the Trackpad The four-fingers-down gestures are dramatic and an easy way to appreciate the power of trackpad gestures,...

There’s an Internet saying: “If you’re not the customer, you’re the product.” The point is that, if you’re getting a service for free, the company providing it sees you not as a customer, but as a product to sell, generally to advertisers. This is how Google, Facebook, and Twitter operate. They provide services for free, collect data about you, and make money by showing you ads. In theory, the more that advertisers know about you, the better they can target ads to you, and the more likely you’ll be to...

When Apple first announced macOS 10.13 High Sierra and iOS 11, one of the promised features was Messages in iCloud, a way of syncing your conversations in Messages via your iCloud account. Despite the fact that Messages already tries to sync its conversations between your devices, this feature proved difficult for Apple to deliver, and it didn’t appear until the recently released macOS 10.3.5 and iOS 11.4. The idea behind Messages in iCloud is that it, as the name suggests, stores your conversations and their attachments in your iCloud account,...

Most Macs are busy places, with oodles of open windows cluttering the screen. If you want to look at the Desktop or do something different, you may find yourself clicking around or using keyboard shortcuts, but did you know that you can access many of the Mac’s special views with just a flick of your wrist? A little-known feature called Hot Corners makes this possible. The key to unlocking Hot Corners is in System Preferences, in either the Desktop & Screen Saver pane or the Mission Control pane. In either...

For many years now, Apple’s AirPlay feature has made it possible to stream audio from an iOS device or Mac to an AirPlay-enabled speaker, AirPort Express base station, or most recently, a HomePod. Because AirPlay transfers sound over a Wi-Fi network, it eliminates the need for stereo wires and lets you put your speakers where you want them. In June 2017, Apple threw back the curtains on AirPlay 2, saying it would play the same song on multiple speakers (with AirPlay 1, this is possible only in iTunes) or play...

Data breaches have become commonplace, with online thieves constantly breaking into corporate and government servers and making off with millions—or even hundreds of millions!—of email addresses, often along with other personal information like names, physical address, and passwords. It would be nice to think that all companies properly encrypt their password databases, but the sad reality is that many have poor data security practices. As a result, passwords gathered in a breach are often easily cracked, enabling the bad guys to log in to your accounts. That may not seem...

As students prepare to head off to college, Apple has updated the Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro line to provide even more powerful options for students and professionals alike. The changes are primarily under the hood, focusing on faster performance, more RAM, and larger SSD-based storage, but there are a few modest physical changes too, including a quieter keyboard and a True Tone display. Despite these improvements, pricing remains the same as for last year’s models. The 13-inch MacBook Pro that has function keys instead of a Touch Bar remains the...

Nearly all of us have to work together in a group at some point. Whether it’s for your job, a PTA, a club sports team, or a family trying to organize a vacation, it’s helpful to have a spot where everyone in the group can contribute information, comment on what others say, and build a structure around that information. Most project management apps and services provide a canned workflow, but unfortunately, these tools are often overly structured. For a more flexible approach, check out Trello, a free online service you...

As iPhones have become ever more prevalent, one of Apple’s bundled apps—Find My Friends—has become significantly more useful. Although there are legitimate concerns about sharing your location willy-nilly, Find My Friends gives everyone full control over what they share, making it truly helpful for families and close friends. So if you’ve ever thought it would be useful to know when your child left their soccer game or wanted them to receive an automatic alert when you leave to pick them up, Find My Friends is the app for you. It’s...

In Troubleshooting 101, one of the first questions is always, “What version of the operating system are you running?” There’s a big difference between Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and macOS 10.13 High Sierra, and the solution to any particular problem will likely revolve around knowing what operating system is in play. The same is true of Apple’s other operating systems: iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. And, although they aren’t quite in the same category, Apple’s AirPods and HomePod both have system software that can be updated as well. For...

Attend any live theater presentation, and someone will ask the audience to silence their cell phones. But what about your Apple Watch? You don’t want it lighting up or making noise during the show either. To ensure that doesn’t happen, swipe up on the face to display Control Center, and then tap the theater masks icon to enable Theater mode (you may have to scroll down to see it). That automatically turns on Silent mode and prevents the screen from lighting up unless you tap it, press a button, or...

Taking Out the Garbage: Tips for Working with the Trash on the Mac One of the great innovations of the Mac, way back when, was the concept of the Trash. Instead of deleting files immediately, you’d put them in the Trash, where they’d sit until you either took them out or removed them for good by emptying the Trash. You undoubtedly know the basics of working with the Trash: drag files in, drag mistakenly trashed files out, and choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the files and recover the...

Overloaded by Work Email? Give the Slack Messaging Tool a Try. Don’t get us wrong—email is great. But sometimes there’s too much of it at work, as colleagues share information too broadly or chime in unnecessarily, and as marketing offers and other junk fills your inbox. Over the past few years, lots of organizations—including small and large firms, non-profits, academic departments, student project teams, and government agencies—have moved their internal communications to the group messaging service Slack, which is free but includes paid plans with additional features. It’s also possible...

Continuing our run down of the sharing preference pane, Bluetooth Sharing allows you to easily share files via Bluetooth with other Bluetooth enabled devices. The devices do not have to be Apple products they can be Android phones for example. It can be a convenient way of transferring files when two computers are not on the same network, however the transfer speeds are quite slow compared with Ethernet or Wi-Fi networking. Go to: System Preferences > Sharing Check the Bluetooth Sharing checkbox and set the options: Special attention should be...

Moment Helps You Gauge Your iPhone Use and Offers Parental Oversight Option Smartphone addiction is real. Do you check your iPhone before you get out of bed? During family dinners? Right before you go to sleep? Constantly during the day even when you’re on vacation? If you—or your family members—feel that you’re disappearing into your phone too often or at inappropriate times, it may be time to do something about it. To start, you might want to quantify the problem, and for that, you can turn to a free iPhone...

What Is The Best Hard Drive to Use for Your Backups? Backing up your Mac is like flossing your teeth: everyone knows they should do it every night, but too many people never get around to it. Unlike flossing, once you set up backups, they don’t require daily attention. And turning on Apple’s Time Machine backup feature is easy—simply open System Preferences > Time Machine, click Select Backup Disk, and pick a hard drive to hold your backups. Ah, but there’s the rub. If you don’t have an appropriate hard...

Internet Sharing It really does do what it says, you can share the internet connection on your Mac with other computers on the same local network. Or if you don’t have a local network you can share your Mac’s Internet connection via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, USB & Bluetooth. Go to: System Preferences > Sharing In this article, I’m going to share the iPhone USB connection from my Mac to Wi-Fi & Ethernet connections, this is useful if say your broadband is offline or you are changing provider. Before enabling Internet Sharing...

Enabling remote Apple events Continuing our run down of the sharing preference pane we’ll cover remote Apple events, remote Apple events allow apps running on other Macs to send commands directly to the Mac with remote Apple events enabled these commands can include “opening an app”, “printing a document” or even playing music. Basically, remote Apple events allow you to quickly run a task on another Mac without having to use screen sharing. Go to: System Preferences > Sharing Check the Remote Apple events option: Again, you should specify which...

You’ve probably heard of Apple Pay, but have you set it up so you can use it to pay for purchases at checkout? If not, give it a try, since it’s one of those living-in-the future Apple technologies that feels like science fiction every time you use it. Simply put your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch within an inch or so of a compatible payment terminal (look for an Apple Pay or contactless payment logo), put your finger on the Home button to use Touch ID (or double-press the iPhone X’s side...

At the end of March, Apple released updates to all four of its operating systems, but iOS 11.3 was the most notable. It boasts a variety of new features and other changes—you can think of it as the midpoint update between iOS 11’s first release and iOS 12, probably coming next September. All remaining updates to iOS 11 are likely to be minor maintenance updates. Here’s what’s new. iPhone Battery Health The most anticipated change is the Battery Health feature that Apple promised to add in the wake of revelations...

When it comes to calendars, we’re mostly concerned with the future. But sometimes you want to travel back in time too, to see when you had that doctor appointment or last went to the gym. If you scroll back in the Calendar app in iOS, you might discover, to your consternation, that after 2 weeks back, the only items in your calendar are old repeating events. What gives? Weirdly, since calendar events consume almost no storage space, iOS lets you select how far back to sync events from your master...

If you’re working on an iPad with a physical keyboard—either a Bluetooth keyboard or an iPad Pro with Apple’s Smart Keyboard—there are quite a few keyboard shortcuts you can use to work faster. Many are what you’d guess if you have Mac experience; for instance, Command-F generally maps to Find. But to see a list of supported keyboard shortcuts in an app, simply press and hold the Command key on the keyboard until an information panel appears. Some apps, like Calendar (shown below), even have multiple pages of shortcuts; swipe...

Dragging files and folders around is core to the Mac experience—drag a file from one folder to another to move it, drag a folder from one drive to another to copy it. But did you know that if you hold down the Option key while dragging a file in the Finder, you’ll get a green + pointer and it will make a copy in the destination? That’s easier than duplicating, moving, and renaming the file. Similarly, if you want to move a large folder from one drive to another, hold...

A client got in touch recently with a maddening problem. When he received texts on his iPhone, Messages displayed notifications for messages from everyone…except his wife! Needless to say, this was a problem. Since notifications appeared correctly for other people, it wasn’t related to overall settings. It turned out that he—or someone else, or iOS gremlins—had inadvertently enabled the Hide Alerts switch for the Messages conversation with his wife. To fix it, all he had to do was display the conversation in Messages, tap the i button at the upper...

Facebook has dominated the news headlines of late, but not for good reasons. There were the 50 million Facebook profiles gathered for Cambridge Analytica and used in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook has long been scraping call and text message data from Android phones. And within the Facebook iOS app, the company pushes the Onavo Protect VPN, an app made by a subsidiary that literally collects all your mobile data traffic for Facebook. Because of this, many have encouraged Facebook users to delete their accounts. That even includes the billionaire...

As of June 1st 2018, the Mac App Store will require all apps to support 64-bit, in advance of this after you update to macOS 10.13.4 the first time you open a 32-bit app you will see the following alert. If you press the “Learn More” Button it takes you to the apple.com website which explains. “Starting with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, apps that have not been updated to use 64-bit processes produce a one-time alert when opened. This gives users advance notice that they are running 32-bit software, which...

Continuing our run down of the options in the file sharing preference pane, we are going to explain the Remote Management option. Remote management works with the Apple Remote Desktop app which is a paid app from the Mac app store, so you won’t need to use this service unless you want to allow other people to control your Mac using the Apple Remote Desktop app. Go to: System Preferences > Sharing Now check the Remote Management option from the service list: You may be prompted to choose which options...

When you enable remote login, you can access your Mac using Secure Shell (SSH) from another computer. If you don’t know what this is then you most likely do not want to enable it as it will make your Mac less secure, however if you need to use SSH to access your Mac read on! Go to: System Preferences > Sharing Check the Remote Login Service. This will also enable secure FTP (sftp). You now need to set which users can log in: From the Allow access for list: All...

If you’ve got a perfectly usable printer that only supports USB connections that is to say non-network or non-wireless printers it’s possible to share it on your network so other Macs can print to it. To share your printer on a Mac or with a UNIX computer the computers must be on the same network as your Mac, Mac users must be running OS X Tiger or later. Go to: System Preferences > Sharing Check the Printer Sharing checkbox, and the Printer Sharing status will change to On. In the...

Continuing with our run down of the sharing preference pane, we’ll look into File Sharing. File sharing is one of the most useful services available when you have a more than one computer, care should be taken not to open up the files on the networked computers in a way that allows anyone to access your files. To enable File Sharing on your Mac, go to System Preferences > Sharing Next check the box for File Sharing Mac and Windows computers can now see your computer on the local network....

Apple’s iCloud Drive offers you a way to safely and securely store and save your files - from documents to images and videos. iCloud Drive works similar to Dropbox or Box, but has now integrated a lot of new features through iOS 11, allowing you to collabo-rate with others and work using Apple software such as Pages, Keynote and more. Set Up: Mac, iPhone and iPad The first step is to set up your iCloud Drive account if you haven’t already. On the Mac Make sure you are running the...

Today more than ever it is important to keep your computers up to date to safeguard from security vulnerabilities that hackers and cybercriminals might use to attack or gain entry to your computer files and confidential data. Apple has made this process easier through software notifications that you can receive automatically to install updates. You can also make upgrades automatically if you like. If you receive a notification that software updates are available, you can choose when to install the updates, or choose to be reminded the next day. Here’s...

Snazzy shadowed text probably isn’t appropriate for your company’s annual report, but if you’re whipping up a flyer for a birthday party, you might want to jazz up the text. You can do that in most Mac apps that support macOS’s system-level Fonts palette. Select your text, and then bring up the Fonts palette. Generally speaking, such as in Pages and TextEdit, you do that by choosing Format > Font > Show Fonts, though the exact location may vary by app. Then click the shadowed T button toward the right...

Here’s one for those who use Apple’s Notes app for storing bits of information. By default, Notes in macOS gives you a single window, with each note listed in a sidebar. But what if you want to see two notes at once? Or keep one always available no matter what else you’re doing? Select the desired notes in the sidebar by Command-clicking them, and then choose Window > Float Selected Notes to open them in their own windows. Or, just double-click them in the sidebar! Then, to make sure one...

Family life is all about togetherness, but keeping track of who’s doing what when can be tough. Apple’s Family Sharing service makes it easy to share apps, media, and more within a family of up to six members, and it provides a few helpful digital housekeeping capabilities, such as locating your kid’s misplaced iPad. Here’s an overview of how Family Sharing can enhance your family’s everyday life, both online and in the real world. Manage Your Kids’ Purchases Every Family Sharing group has an organizer. That person (probably you) sets...

Have you had an incoming call and seen all your Apple devices light up and had your iPad start ringing with your iPhone? Here’s how to fix it! This scenario has happened to many Apple users who have multiple devices, where they are picking up their iPhones to answer calls but hear ringing in other parts of their home or office where their other Apple devices are also ringing! Quite a commotion really! This is one of those add-on features that Apple offers that you might just not need to...

With Apple’s productivity apps like Calendar, Contacts, Notes, and Reminders, which look and work pretty much the same on the Mac and in iOS, what you see is largely what you get. Particularly in iOS, they tend not to have much in the way of hidden depths. With Reminders, however, Apple’s engineers snuck some surprising little features into the Mac version. We like using Siri on the iPhone, Apple Watch, and HomePod to add items to our iCloud-synced Reminders to-do lists and shopping lists whenever we think of them. And...

File this warning under “unless it’s absolutely necessary.” If you use iCloud Photo Library on your Mac, don’t sign out from iCloud. Also, don’t deselect the iCloud Photo Library checkbox in either the Photos options of the iCloud pane of System Preferences or in the iCloud preferences in Photos itself. Why not? Because, when you re-enable iCloud or iCloud Photo Library, Photos will re-upload all your photos, which could take days. (It’s not really re-uploading all of them, but even just resyncing will take a long time.) Worse, if you...

After months of anticipation, Apple’s new HomePod smart speaker finally shipped in mid-February. Reviews of its audio quality have been positive, and for the most part, it works both as advertised and as you’d expect. However, there were some surprises, most good but some bad. Whether you have a HomePod on your credenza (which may be a bad spot for it!) or you’re still deciding if you want to buy one, here are ten things you should know: Furniture rings. Let’s get this one out of the way. The HomePod...

Junk calls are one of the great annoyances of the modern world. You’re minding your own business when your iPhone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out, curious as to who’s calling, but don’t recognize the number. You may notice that it’s in the same exchange as your phone number, suggesting that it’s a neighbor. But no. When you answer, it’s “Heather,” a pre-recorded voice wanting to sign you up for a resort vacation, give your business a loan, or help with your credit card debt. Angered by the...

In my previous post we spoke about how to share access to a DVD disk over the local network to a Mac that has no DVD drive. The next item in the list for Sharing is Screen Sharing, this can be very useful if you want to control one Mac on the same network from another. It allows you to view and control the Macs desktop and apps as well as access the folders and files. It is a little more complicated than using DVD sharing in that you also...

Have you been alarmed to see your iMac suddenly stopped working after you installed a security update or used new software? Here’s what you can do. When your trusty iMac does not turn on, it is easy to get panicked. Fixing this and getting your computer back up and running may be quick or take a while depending upon the problems that need to be addressed. For some users who installed the MacOS High Sierra update before the security patch was released a week later, this software update could have...

The sharing preference pane in System Preferences allows you to easily share access to your Macs files, Screen, attached devices such as printers and DVDs and much more. Sharing the DVD drive on an iMac across your network can be very useful if you have another Mac without a disk drive such as the MacBook Air. To access the Sharing preference pane, go to System Preferences > Sharing: Once you are in the Sharing preference pane it is worth making a note of the Computer Name and even changing this...

Notification in macOS keep all the potential dialog boxes and pop ups that apps generate under control and in one place. The Notification center can also provide you access to information quickly like your calendar and weather information using widgets, some of the widgets such as the weather widget are built in others are added by apps. To see your notifications click on the 3 bars in the top right hand corner of macOS: To edit the widgets click on the edit button on the today tab. Then use the...

Since macOS 10.11.2 (macOS Sierra) the keychain app has been updated for better security and the keychain repair utility has been removed to stop malware hijacking the repair utility and accessing your passwords. So, what can you do if for example you have a constant nag from macOS to enter your keychain password after logging in. The answer is you have to repair it yourself, it’s not as difficult as you might first imagine although more time consuming than pressing a button to repair the keychain. If your only problem...

Apple also released updates for macOS 10.13.3, tvOS 11.2.6, and watchOS 4.2.3 , these updates are just patches to fix the “Telugu” bug which causes apps like messages to crash when a single character of the Telugu language is sent to them, Telugu is a Dravidian language native to India. These updates also fix other bugs, including a macOS bug which displays messages in the Messages app in the wrong order. The bug surfaced on a bug report site called Open Radar just over a week ago, and is as...

Your Mac relies on developers to provide an uninstaller for each app so often you are left with the only option of dragging an app from the Applications folder and dropping it in the trash. I’m going to run through the options with you here and the pros and cons of each, as always when deleting something from your Mac it is a good idea to make a backup first Time Machine is easy and convenient to use. To safely remove an app and its data: Step 1 see if...

When you have upgraded to a new iPhone, you will still want access to your old iPhone data and settings. You may have already set up your new iPhone, enjoying its new settings but not transferred your data from your older device. Here’s how you can do that. First check that that you have data backed up on your older device. If not, open iTunes, select the device icon and click Back Up Now. You can check for an existing backup by going to Tunes > Preferences > Devices and...

As well as performing a complete backup of your Mac Time Machine also has some really powerful features for restoring individual files, folders, version control and even fragments of a file. We discussed making a full backup with Time Machine here. Restoring a single file or folder simply navigate to the location it was stored in, Enter Time Machine from the Menu Bar Icon, or search in Spotlight for Time Machine. When Time Machine first opens the Timeline will be set to Now, that’s the bar on the right-hand side...

You probably know that you can change Siri’s voice on your Mac, iPhone or iPad. You can also change Siri’s voice on your HomePod. The settings for the voice options are just in a different location in the Home app instead of the Settings app. Here’s what to do if you would like to change Siri’s voice to a male or female or give it a different accent (American, British and Australian are currently available). Open the Home app and find your HomePod in the list of Favorite Accessories. Long...

We have all had that moment where you save and save your files into your Google drive folder only to find out that days prior the Google Drive app had somehow stopped sycing your files. You need to get a file from Google Drive because your computer’s battery is dead and the files are not in the cloud. This is a more common problem then you might think. If its not Google Drive it could be another app that you rely on. Dashlane, LastPass, and Crashplan are other great examples...

Your Mac comes with a fantastic App which allows you to easily create your own mini Apps that can complete all kinds of actions automatically so if you regularly do things such as set the volume to 40% exactly you can create an automator workflow to do it for you. You can also easily link this with the dictation service that is built into osX to create something that really does save time and is really cool to boot. Today I will show you how to create a simple workflow...

Setting up this iPhone feature is a snap, but could save your life or a loved one. Your iPhone has so many features today that you may never use or access. There’s one how-ever that could literally save your life - it is Medical ID. With Medical ID, you can save im-portant medical information on your iPhone that can be shared with a hospital or EMT to give you emergency treatment in case you would need it. Open the Health app. Tap the Medical ID tab on the bottom right....

Apple’s wireless headphones make it easy to enjoy a little private TV time. Apple’s wireless headphones, AirPods, makes watching television privately, more enjoyable. AirPods are terrific for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but often people are unaware that you can also use them with your Apple TV (4th generation or 4K). In fact, you can enjoy TV late at night or early in the morning with audio beaming wirelessly over the living room without causing any disturbances or waking anyone else up! Here’s how you do it. Pair AirPods with Apple...

Macs are pretty safe in personal computer terms with “safety. built right in” as Apple likes to say. However, this is not to say Macs are invulnerable to various Malware the latest being the MaMi malware. The MaMi malware works by hijacking the DNS system on the Mac itself, DNS is used to route domain names so when you visit apple.com you are actually accessing an I.P address, the location of domain names are stored on name servers and routed via DNS often by your ISP. The first step in...

You can easily increase the performance of your iCloud access and the time it takes to perform updates across all your Apple devices using OSX & iOS. That includes your Mac(s) your Apple TV and your iPhone(S) & iPad(s). It’s not difficult to do and won’t cost you a cent! Using High Sierra’s content caching the software updates for iOS (your iPad, iPhone, & Apple TV) & OS X (your Mac) are stored on one of your Macs. Then your other Apple devices can access that content quickly from your...

We have recieved many concerns and questions regarding the nature of the latest two exploits. Here is more information on what they are exactly, what they do and what you need to do about it. Two large security vulnerabilities, named Meltdown and Spectre, were revealed this month, when a research team unexpectedly shared the flaw publicly ahead of planned announcements. The security flaws were discovered a few months ago and privately revealed to chip companies, operating system developers and cloud computing companies who were all working to develop necessary security...

Sometimes whether it is for backup purposes or for hosting, you will want to move your photos stored in your Apple Photos application library on your Mac to an external drive instead of the startup boot drive. Making the change is simpler than you think. First, quit the Photos app. Next, copy the entire Photos Library by dragging it from the startup volume to the external volume that you want to move it to. After you have completed the transfer, hold down the Option key while you launch the Photos...

On Monday the 8th of January 2018 Apple released macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Supplemental Update. You may have heard about “Spectre” & “Meltdown” in the news in the last week of 2017 these are hardware-based exploits that exploit the way CPU’s process data, this could allow a hacker to gain access to your sensitive data. Meltdown was addressed in the macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update in December 2017, for Spectre there is no hardware fix, instead Apple is addressing the vulnerability using Safari. When you update to macOS High Sierra...

With cloud integration, it is easier than ever to share the same file across multiple devices. Once you have enabled your iCloud Photo Library, you can see the photo that you just took on your iPhone, on your Mac computer as well. However, once you delete a photo on an iOS device or Mac computer, the photo is also deleted everywhere. Can you restore photos? If you delete a photo from your iCloud Photo Library, can you restore it? These are two frequently asked questions about photo syncing and storage...

How To Protect Your Files and Computer When A Scam Site Overtakes Your Safari Homepage on your iPhone or Mac Scam sites have been known to overtake Windows computers all time, but with increasing Mac adoption, there have been scammers now attempting to fool users with serious malware. Some scams have tried to convince users that something is wrong with their computer and list a fake phone number to call and demand unreasonable amounts of payment (some fake company that is never Apple). This is an example of a phishing...

Earlier this week we reported that Apple had acknowledged some iPhone’s are being throttled to prevent unexpected shutdown see our previous post. If your like me you want to check the status of your iPhone’s processor speed to see if it is being throttled and/or check if your iPhone battery needs replacing here’s how you can do it for free. In the first instance to check the status of your iPhone battery; go to: Settings > Battery And if your battery needs to be replaced a message saying “Your iPhone...