Tuesday, 01 February 2022 10:01
The Hidden Controls in the iPhone’s Camera App
Written by Adam Engst
The beauty of the iPhone camera is that it combines the ease of use of a point-and-shoot camera with the image quality of a DSLR. To take a picture, you simply open the Camera app, frame your shot, and tap the shutter button. Simple, but what’s happening behind the scenes is anything but. The iPhone […]
Tagged under
Some people find it hard to find the mouse pointer at times, particularly on a large screen or when working in Dark Mode or in apps with dark interfaces. You’ve long been able to increase the size of the pointer generally and also zoom it temporarily by shaking it, but in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple […]
Tagged under
Monday, 03 January 2022 10:07
Set Custom Text Sizes on a Per-App Basis in iOS 15
Written by Adam Engst
In previous versions of iOS, you could change the systemwide text size to make all apps—at least those that support Dynamic Type—display text at larger or smaller sizes. (Most people who use this feature want the text larger so it’s easier to read with aging eyes.) In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, however, Apple lets […]
Tagged under
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:08
Pay Attention to the iPhone’s Emergency SOS Auto Call Feature
Written by Adam Engst
Did you know that pressing and holding the side button and one of the volume buttons on an iPhone 8 or later brings up a screen that lets you power your iPhone off, show your medical ID, and invoke Emergency SOS? (On earlier iPhones, press the side or top button five times.) Slide Emergency SOS, […]
Tagged under
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:07
Keep the Menu Bar Showing in Full Screen in macOS 12 Monterey
Written by Adam Engst
Do you like using full-screen mode on your new M1-based MacBook Pro but hate having the menu bar disappear unless you move the pointer to the top of the screen? Happily, in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has at long last added a setting to keep the menu bar visible at all times. Open System Preferences […]
Tagged under
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:06
Avoid Inclement Weather by Enabling Notifications in iOS 15’s Weather App
Written by Adam Engst
Thanks to Apple’s 2020 acquisition of weather company Dark Sky, the iPhone’s Weather app has learned some new tricks in iOS 15. (It still isn’t available on the iPad, oddly.) Most obvious is its addition of weather maps that can show precipitation, temperature, and air quality. More subtle are the notifications that can alert you […]
Tagged under
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:05
Shrink Apps to Prevent the MacBook Pro Notch from Obscuring App Controls
Written by Adam Engst
The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models feature a camera housing built into the screen, resulting in a notch like that on the iPhone. Most developers are updating their apps to ensure that no controls or menu bar items appear blocked or hidden by the notch, but if you use an older app that […]
Tagged under
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:04
FaceTime Gains Cool New Features in Apple’s Latest Operating Systems
Written by Adam Engst
It’s no exaggeration to say that videoconferencing went mainstream during the pandemic. However, Apple’s FaceTime didn’t stack up well against Zoom and others due to its emulation of the telephone call experience, questionable interface decisions, and lack of cross-platform compatibility. However, with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has nearly brought FaceTime […]
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:04
Should You Use Apple’s New Password Manager in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey?
Written by Adam Engst
We continually recommend that every Apple user rely on a password manager like 1Password or LastPass for creating, managing, and entering passwords securely. What we haven’t encouraged as heavily is relying on Apple’s built-in password management features. Although they’re free, they’ve been too basic and hard to use over the years, relying largely on an […]
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:02
Apple’s Evolution of Do Not Disturb Helps You Focus
Written by Adam Engst
Between texts, alarms, reminders, calls, and myriad other notifications on our iPhones, iPads, and Macs, it’s a miracle we get anything done at all. To free us from this onslaught, Apple previously provided Do Not Disturb, which let you set times during which you could be free from interruption. In iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and […]
Wednesday, 01 December 2021 10:01
Print Mailing Labels for Your Holiday Cards with Apple’s Contacts App
Written by Adam Engst
If mailing your holiday cards (which you designed in Photos with a plug-in like Motif or Mimeo Photos, right?) is made harder by having to write addresses on envelopes, you can skip the handwriting step this year. Although many people don’t realize this, it’s easy to print mailing labels on standard label stock using the […]
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:08
Use Visual Look Up in Photos in iOS 15 to Identify Plants, Pets, and More
Written by Adam Engst
Have you ever wanted to identify a plant, flower, or pet breed, or find out what that famous painting is called? Us too. In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple added a new AI-driven feature called Visual Look Up that provides more information about photos of plants, flowers, pets, books, artworks, and landmarks. When you’re […]
Tagged under
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:07
With Apple Watch Faces, Too Much Choice Can Be Confusing
Written by Adam Engst
The Apple Watch has a lot to offer older people, including heart rate monitoring, atrial fibrillation detection, fall detection, and electrocardiogram recording. But if you are—or are helping someone who is—of the generation where watches once did nothing beyond telling the time, too many options can be overwhelming. Adding to the confusion is how easy […]
Tagged under
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:06
Apple Provides Temporary iCloud Backup Space for New Device Transfers
Written by Adam Engst
When you move from an old iPhone or iPad to a new one, the easiest approach is often the Quick Start device-to-device transfer. But if that doesn’t work, or if you have to give up one device before receiving the other, iCloud Backup is a fine alternative. Fine, that is, if you have enough iCloud […]
Tagged under
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:05
Safari 15.1 Reverses Course, Reverts to Old Tab Interface
Written by Adam Engst
With the betas of Safari 15 on the Mac and iPad, Apple experimented with a variety of interface tweaks related to tabs. By the time Safari 15 shipped, however, Apple had pulled back on the more radical changes from the betas, offering the new Compact Tab Bar layout and colorized tab bar as options. Even […]
Tagged under
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:04
Avoid Unusual Top-Level Domains in Custom Domain Names
Written by Adam Engst
Remember the heady dotcom days, when businesses were desperate to get a short, memorable, easily typed .com domain? It quickly became difficult to get what you wanted—so much so that deep-pocketed companies paid exorbitant sums for just the right domain. Before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Domain […]
Tagged under
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:03
Live Text Digitizes Text in Photos in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey
Written by Adam Engst
The most magical feature of Apple’s latest crop of operating systems—iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey—may be Live Text. You’re probably familiar with the concept of optical character recognition (OCR), which turns all the text on a scanned page into normal text you can select, copy, and edit. Live Text does exactly that […]
Monday, 01 November 2021 11:02
Need to Resize Images in Various Ways? Give Preview a Try
Written by Adam Engst
Even those of us who don’t work with graphics professionally often find ourselves needing to resize images. Perhaps you have a large square headshot, but the site to which you’re uploading requires it to be exactly 100 by 100 pixels. Or maybe you have an iPhone 13 Pro photo that’s 4032 by 3024, but you […]
It may seem early to start thinking about the holiday shopping season, but with the global supply chain suffering pandemic-related slowdowns, there’s no telling how long it will take to get something you order today. Apple has generally done a good job of managing its supply chain issues, but even still, if you want to […]
Tagged under
Tuesday, 19 October 2021 12:16
New M1 Pro and M1 Max Chips Power the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros
Written by Adam Engst
Last year, Apple started to transition Macs away from Intel processors to its custom M1 system-on-a-chip. The M1’s performance is stellar, but Apple has used it only in low-end models so far: the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and new 24-inch iMac. For professionals looking for more power, Apple unveiled the future of […]
Tagged under
Friday, 01 October 2021 10:08
When It Comes to Wi-Fi Networks, Sometimes It’s Better to Forget
Written by Adam Engst
It’s easy, particularly when traveling, to end up connecting to a Wi-Fi network that doesn’t provide Internet access, requires credentials you don’t have, or lacks access to the network’s printer. Unfortunately, once your iPhone, iPad, or Mac has connected to such a network, it may reconnect to it later, causing consternation when things don’t work. […]
Tagged under
Friday, 01 October 2021 10:07
Messages Not Being Delivered to Blue-Bubble Friends? Check Cellular Data
Written by Adam Engst
Here’s a tricky situation that threw one of our clients for a loop recently. Texts they sent in Messages via iMessage (indicated by blue bubbles) to their son, letting him know they were stopping by weren’t being delivered, making their visits a surprise. But other texts worked fine. The problem, it turned out, was that […]
Tagged under