Monday, 02 December 2019 09:01
Apple Releases Redesigned Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR
Written by Adam Engst
We’re not going to beat around the bush. Apple’s new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR redefine what “pro” means. If you aren’t certain that the fastest and most powerful Mac and an expertly calibrated 6K Retina display will enable you to make more money immediately, they’re probably not for you. You should also be […]
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Thursday, 14 November 2019 03:38
New 16-inch MacBook Pro Sports a Redesigned Scissor-Switch Keyboard
Written by Adam Engst
Responding to customer complaints and media mocking, Apple has introduced a new 16-inch MacBook Pro that features improves on its predecessor in several ways, most notably with a scissor-switch keyboard in place of the flaky butterfly-key keyboard. The 16-inch MacBook Pro replaces the previous 15-inch MacBook Pro at the top of Apple’s notebook line and […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:09
Be Careful in iOS 13’s Mail App—the Trash Button Is Where Reply Used to Be!
Written by Adam Engst
For unknown reasons, Apple redesigned the toolbar in the iOS 13 version of Mail. Such things happen, but this time, Apple made a big mistake and moved Mail’s Trash button to where its Reply button used to be. Lots of people who have become accustomed to tapping Reply are now finding themselves deleting messages inadvertently, […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:08
Consider USB Peripherals When Troubleshooting Mac Problems
Written by Adam Engst
If you’re experiencing a sporadic problem with your Mac, the sort of thing that happens often enough to be annoying but not so frequently as to be reproducible, allow us to suggest one little-known troubleshooting tip. Malfunctioning USB devices—keyboards, mice, hubs, printers, etc.—can sometimes cause truly inscrutable problems ranging from startup issues to kernel panics. […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:07
Use the Driving ETA Feature in iOS 13’s Maps App to Share Your Arrival Time
Written by Adam Engst
A small but welcome new feature of iOS 13 is Driving ETA, which helps you share your estimated time of arrival with a contact whenever you’re navigating with the Maps app. To use Driving ETA, start navigating to a destination in Maps, tap Share ETA at the bottom of the screen, and pick the person […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:06
Need to Charge Your iPhone or iPad More Quickly? Get a Higher Wattage Power Adapter
Written by Adam Engst
By default, most iPhones and iPads ship with Apple’s tiny 5-watt power adapters. They work, but not quickly. However, the iPhone 8 and later, all models of the iPad Pro, and the most recent iPad Air and iPad mini models support fast charging when connected to higher wattage power adapters. You may have an older […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:05
Apple’s New AirPods Pro Offer Active Noise Cancellation and Better Fit
Written by Adam Engst
Are you a fan of Apple’s AirPods, or have you had trouble with them staying in your ears? Either way, you might like the just-released AirPods Pro, which offer a new design with three sizes of soft, flexible, silicone ear tips and welcome new capabilities. The ear tips should make the AirPods Pro fit better […]
Friday, 01 November 2019 09:04
You Can Now Access Flash Drives on an iPhone or iPad—Here’s How
Written by Adam Engst
An unexpected and useful feature of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 is also nearly invisible, and for most uses, requires a special adapter. With this feature, the Files app now can “see” external storage devices. That’s huge—now you can move data to and from an iPhone or iPad using standard flash drives, SD card readers, […]
Friday, 01 November 2019 09:03
Data Backup Strategies Go Only So Far—What’s Your Plan If Your Mac Dies?
Written by Adam Engst
We assume you have a backup strategy. Hopefully, it includes a bootable duplicate to minimize downtime in the event of a drive failure, a Time Machine or other versioned backup to address the problem of a deleted or corrupted file, and offsite backup to ensure that you don’t lose everything in the event of theft, […]
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Friday, 01 November 2019 09:02
New Organization and Editing in Photos in iOS 13 and iPadOS 13
Written by Adam Engst
Taking photos is a popular use of the iPhone, and Apple has said that the improved cameras gave this year’s iPhone 11 Pro models their “Pro” designation. But Apple continually works to improve the Photos app as well. Taking great photos is only half the job—you also have to be able to find, edit, and […]
Friday, 01 November 2019 09:01
Why Apple Business Manager Is a Win for Apple-Using Firms
Written by Adam Engst
If you run a company, you know how much work onboarding a new employee can be. Beyond teaching them the ropes of your business, they’ll need a Mac and potentially an iPhone or iPad as well. Setting those devices up with all the right apps, settings, and logins can take days or even weeks. And […]
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Do you use 3D Touch on your iPhone? From 2015 through 2018, every iPhone from the iPhone 6s through the iPhone XS supported 3D Touch, other than the iPhone SE and iPhone XR. With 3D Touch, you could (sometimes) press a control, and then press a little harder to make additional options appear. But because […]
Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:07
Do You Put Dates in Filenames? Use This Format for Best Sorting
Written by Adam Engst
There are plenty of situations where it makes sense to put a date in a filename, but if you don’t use the right date format, the files may sort in unhelpful ways. For instance, using the names of months is a bad idea, since they’ll sort alphabetically, putting April before January. And although the Mac’s […]
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Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:06
Beware Scammers when Selling Your Old Tech Hardware Online
Written by Adam Engst
Whenever Apple releases hot new hardware, it’s tempting to order the latest and greatest and then put your old Mac or iPhone up for sale on a classifieds site like Craigslist. If you do that, be cautious about potential buyers—it’s increasingly common for a scammer to request that you ship them the device and then […]
Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:05
Which Precise Mac Model Do You Have? Here’s How to Find Out
Written by Adam Engst
Apple likes to keep Mac names simple, but that’s not always helpful. For instance, if you want to add RAM to your Mac, it’s not good enough to know that it’s an iMac. You’ll need to know that it’s a 27-inch iMac with Retina display from late 2014. To find that out, choose About This […]
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Let’s be honest—text editing in iOS has never been anywhere near as good as it is on the Mac. We may be more accustomed to our mice and keyboards, but the Multi-Touch interface has always been clumsy when it comes to text. Apple keeps trying to improve iOS’s text editing features, and iOS 13 (and […]
Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:03
What Does Having a T2 Chip in Your Mac Mean to You?
Written by Adam Engst
If you own an iMac Pro, or a Mac mini, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro model introduced in 2018 or later, your Mac has one of Apple’s T2 security chips inside. On the whole, having a T2 chip in your Mac is a good thing, thanks to significantly increased security and other benefits, but there […]
Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:02
Everything You Need to Know about Multitasking in iPadOS 13
Written by Adam Engst
With this year’s operating system updates, Apple has formally acknowledged that the iPhone and iPad have different uses and different needs. To that end, Apple has given the iPad version of iOS 13 its own name—iPadOS 13. The big changes include a desktop-class version of Safari that works better with complex Web apps, a redesigned […]
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Tuesday, 01 October 2019 09:01
We Recommend You Delay Upgrading to macOS 10.15 Catalina
Written by Adam Engst
Dear clients, Apple plans to release macOS 10.15 Catalina sometime in October, and like all major operating system releases, Apple has been talking it up since it was introduced at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June. It will feature new Music, TV, and Podcasts apps to replace iTunes. A new Mac Catalyst technology will […]
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Wednesday, 11 September 2019 12:06
The Scoop on the New iPhone 11, Apple Watch Series 5, 7th-gen iPad, and Apple Services
Written by Adam Engst
At its September 10th special event, Apple unveiled a slew of new products and services, including the iPhone 11, the Apple Watch Series 5, the seventh-generation iPad, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+. The company also said that iOS 13 and watchOS 6 would ship on September 19th, with iPadOS 13 appearing on September 30th and […]
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Tuesday, 03 September 2019 12:08
Want to Use Your Friends’ Nicknames in iOS? Here’s How
Written by Adam Engst
If you have a friend whom you refer to only by his nickname, it can be annoying to feel like you should use his proper first name when adding him to Contacts. Worse, then he shows up in Messages with a name you don’t recognize as easily. Here’s how to convince iOS to use his […]
Tuesday, 03 September 2019 12:07
Personalize Your Mac with Custom Document Icons
Written by Adam Engst
Do you have a document that you open regularly, perhaps from your Desktop? If you’d like to make it stand out from other documents, why not give it a custom icon? This was common practice on the Mac back in the day, and it’s still possible in modern versions of macOS. Go to Google Images […]
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