Apple has issued the third beta versions of iOS 18.6, iPadOS 18.6, and MacOS Sequoia 15.6, to users participating in the beta testing programs of current gen system software. These beta releases are concurrent to iOS 26 beta and MacOS Sequoia 26 beta, and if you’re running one of the 26 betas you will not be able to access or see them without downgrading first. With that said, betas of current gen system software are basically just focused on bug fixes and security improvements, so any new features and major efforts for development are undoubtedly being deployed by Apple to the beta development of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Sequoia 26.

While these betas are comparatively unexciting, they do offer an idea of when the next notable software updates will arrive for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Since Apple goes through several beta releases before issuing a final version, it’s a good bet that iOS 18.6 and MacOS Sequoia 15.6 will be finalized sometime later this month or next month.

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Many modern Mac users have various apps that utilize menu bar items, whether for reminders, sports scores, a clipboard manager, watching system stats, or anything else. While menu bar items are super useful, a problem that can happen (especially with modern Mac laptops with the annoying Notch design) rather quickly is the menu bar being too cluttered, with menu bar icons either disappearing behind the notch, or not having enough room to show at all.

This is where Hidden Bar comes in, a free Mac app that allows you to collapse and hide menu bar icons, and reveal them with just a click. Hidden Bar is the perfect solution to a cluttered menu bar, so if you’re juggling tons of menu bar items, don’t miss this handy tool.

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While Prime Day may have ended, some of the great Apple deals from Amazon continue on, including taking $120 off Apple Watch Series 10, $70 off iPad 11, $120 off iPad Air 13″, and $150 off MacBook Air models. It’s not every day that you get up to 30% discounts on Apple gear, so don’t miss these great prices!

Apple Watch Series 10 – $279 (down from $399)

Apple Watch Series 10 has an always-on 42mm display, fitness and activity tracking capabilities, heart rate monitor, ECG with irregular heart beat detection, crash detection, fall detection, Emergency SOS, ovulation tracking, GPS, pinch gesture support for one handed operation, water resistance, voice control, Siri commands, all-day battery life, and more. Why pay full retail when you can save a bunch from Amazon?

• Get Apple Watch Series 10 for $279 (down from $399 MSRP)

iPad Deals – $120 Off 13″ iPad Air, $70 Off iPad 11″

Amazon is offering some great deals on iPad models, including taking $70 off the base model iPad bringing it down to just $279, and $120 off the iPad Air 13″ model bringing it down to just $679.

• iPad 11″ – A16 – 128GB – $279 (down from $349)
• M3 iPad Air 13″ – $679 (down from $799)

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Some Mac users who are running the latest versions of MacOS Sequoia and/or MacOS Tahoe beta have discovered an annoying issue where wi-fi spontaneously drops and the Macs internet connection is no longer available. The wi-fi dropping problem seems completely random, and there is rarely a cause or specific reason for the wireless internet connection to disconnect, but it seems to do so anyway for Mac users who are impacted by this. Sure you can reconnect to the wi-fi router easily through the menubar, but chances are high that anywhere from minutes to hours to days away, the wi-fi connection will drop again.

After experiencing this problem on my own MacBook Air even after updating to the latest available version of MacOS Seqouia (15.5, and again with the latest Tahoe release), I found an old trusty Mac wireless troubleshooting trick to resolve the random wi-fi disconnection issue, and that’s what we’re going to run through here to fix this problem.

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Today is the last day of Amazon Prime Day, which means Amazon Prime members have access to some pretty crazy deals right now on various products, but most notable are some huge discounts on Apple products. If you don’t have a Prime membership, you can sign up for a free trial of Amazon Prime or if you’re eligible for a Prime for Young Adults (18-24) membership, and gain access to these great prices while they last.

Let’s check out some of the deals remaining, from AirPods to Apple Watch to iPad and MacBook AIr:

AirPods Pro 2 with Hearing Aid Functionality – $149 (down from $249)

AirPods Pro 2 have all the bells and whistles of standard AirPods but with some amazing advanced features too, including FDA approved hearing aid functionality for mild to moderate hearing loss, high fidelity sound, active noise cancellation, water resistance and sweat resistance, Spatial Audio, custom fit, transparency mode, ear detection, Siri support, and a USB-C charging case.

• AirPods Pro 2 – $149 (down from $249)

AirPods 4 – $89 (down from $129)

AirPods 4 are deeply discounted from Apple’s retail price, coming in at just $89. AirPods 4 have the iconic design of the most popular wireless earbuds out there, and have great features like gesture support, spatial audio, voice isolation, water and sweat resistance, Siri support, and USB-C charging.

• Get AirPods 4 for $89 (down from $129)

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Some Mac users have reported that the Contacts app is randomly missing all of their contacts, and the entire address book is suddenly blank on their Mac. This is obviously alarming, but the good news is that if this happens to you, it’s usually a pretty simple fix and your contact list and address book will be returned shortly.

The Contacts app not loading your contacts can be exceptionally stressful, since many of us have relied on Apple’s Contacts app and iCloud syncing to backup and maintain our entire address books, often with many years worth of individuals, businesses, family members, friends, coworkers, colleagues, peers, providers, and everyone else you’d typically save contact information for. Having just went through this myself on my Mac, I felt the panic and worry of losing all my Contacts, but troubleshooting mode kicked in and it was quick to resolve.

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Sports fans might appreciate a neat little free Mac app called MenuScores, which places a game of your choice in the menu bar, which you can use to keep track of scores or game start times with a quick glance. It’s that simple, no frills, nothing overengineered or fancy, just sports scores in your Mac menu bar. If that sounds good to you, grab the free app for your Mac, set the game of your choice to keep track of, and away you go.

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Amazon Prime Day is live, offerring some all-time-low prices on Apple products and generally stellar deals. To take full advantage of these offers, you will need to sign up for Amazon Prime if you have not done that already (and eligible students can get discounted Amazon Prime memberships).

Let’s check out the great Amazon Prime Day Deals for Apple gear:

AirPods 4 – $89 (down from $129)

AirPods 4 are available at 22% off Apple’s retail price, coming in at just $89. AirPods 4 have the iconic design of the most popular wireless earbuds out there, and have great features like gesture support, spatial audio, voice isolation, water and sweat resistance, Siri support, and USB-C charging.

• Get AirPods 4 for $89 (down 25% from $129)

Apple Watch Series 10 – $279 (down from $399)

Apple Watch Series 10 has an always-on 42mm display, fitness and activity tracking capabilities, heart rate monitor, ECG with irregular heart beat detection, crash detection, fall detection, Emergency SOS, ovulation tracking, GPS, pinch gesture support for one handed operation, water resistance, voice control, Siri commands, all-day battery life, and more. Why pay full retail when you can save a bunch from Amazon?

• Get Apple Watch Series 9 for $279 (down from $399 MSRP)

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If you use UTM virtual machines of MacOS on your Mac, let’s say to test out a beta version of system software (like MacOS Tahoe beta), you might be wondering how to copy files from the local host Mac, to the virtualized MacOS installation running in the virtual machine (in this case, with UTM).

While there are multiple ways to copy files and data between virtual machines and the local host Mac, including using a shared folder or clipboard between the VM and host, a much simpler and reliable way exists for these MacOS on MacOS situations, and it works not only with UTM (our focus here), but also Parallels, VMware, and basically any other virtualization software you can think of. The trick? Just use simple file sharing.

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The third beta version of iOS 26 beta for iPhone, and ipadOS 26 beta for iPad, has been made available for registered Apple developers. Any user can install the iOS 26 beta now by registering for the developer beta testing program, but generally speaking this is only appropriate for advanced users.

iOS 26 brings along the all new Liquid Glass interface look, new features for Phone app, Messages app includes new options to customize background wallpapers for threads and share polls in group chats, new ringtone, improvements to CarPlay, improvements to Apple Intelligence, new Shortcuts features, and more, while iPadOS 26 brings a new multitasking approach with windowing, along with the Preview app, and other various changes.

Additionally, macOS Tahoe 26 beta 3 for Mac, watchOS 26 beta 3 for Apple watch, and tvOS 26 beta 3 for Apple TV are available for beta testers.

It’s possible the iOS 26 beta 3 build could match the upcoming public beta, which has yet to be released by Apple.

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The third beta version of MacOS Tahoe 26 is now available for users enrolled in the Apple Developer Beta Testing Program on their Mac or virtual machine.

MacOS Tahoe 26 features the all new Liquid Glass interface look, options to customize icon and folder colors in Finder, many improvements and changs to Spotlight, a clipboard history manager, Live Activities from iPhone, Phone app comes to Mac, Journal app for Mac, and various other changes.

While beta system software is intended for advanced users only, installing macOS Tahoe 26 beta on a compatible Mac is fairly easy if you enroll your Apple ID in the beta testing program. One must expect a buggier less stable experience however, making this really only appropriate for developers and similar Mac users. If you’re a more casual user and you wish to checkout MacOS Tahoe 26 beta 3, you might want to install macOS Tahoe beta into a UTM virtual machine which runs atop your existing MacOS installation.

Separately, iOS 26 beta 3, iPadOS 26 beta 3, tvOS 26 beta 3, watchOS 26 beta 3, and visionOS 26 beta 3, are also available for beta testers.

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Amazon is offering some really great deals on Apple products again, deeply discounting the AirPods and AirPods Pro, and more. Check out the deals if you’re shopping for yourself or anyone else.

AirPods 4 – $99 (down from $129)

AirPods 4 are available at 22% off Apple’s retail price, coming in at just $99. AirPods 4 have the iconic design of the most popular wireless earbuds out there, and have great features like gesture support, spatial audio, voice isolation, water and sweat resistance, Siri support, and USB-C charging.

• Get AirPods 4 for $99 (down 22% from $129)

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If you’re heading out to watch fireworks this July 4th, you might want to capture the moments with some great photos or videos of fireworks. With just a few simple tips, you’ll be snapping great fireworks photos and smooth videos with just your trusty iPhone.

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Apple is opening a new store in Osaka, Japan, and to commemorate that store opening they have created a neat wallpaper of some shapes that are twisted into an Apple logo.

You’ll find the new wallpaper available in three different sizes, for mobile/iPhone, tablet/iPad, and Mac/desktop. Click any of the links below to open the full sized image in a new window, via URLs from Apple:

• Grab full-sized Umeda wallpaper for Mac / Desktop
• Grab Umeda wallpaper for iPhone / Mobile
• Grab Umeda wallpaper for iPad / Tablet
• Check out the Osaka Umeda page on Apple here for the wallpapers

Releasing new wallpapers in concordance with a new store opening is something that Apple has been doing for a while now. Most recently, they issued one for the Perth store, Miami (which may be the coolest, let’s face it), Shanghai, and others too.

There are a variety of different ways to run MacOS Tahoe 26 beta, including installing it as an upgrade to an existing MacOS installation (which is not recommended for most people, by the way), but by far the safest and perhaps simplest way is to use a virtual machine. Virtual Machines (VM) offer isolated virtualized environments, making them perfect for testing out a new beta operating systme, like Tahoe 26. UTM, which is the VM tool we’ll focus on here, is a fantastic free virtual machine app that makes it easy to manage and run various virtualized operating systems on your Mac, including the latest MacOS Tahoe beta. UTM is easy to use, and setting up a virtualized MacOS Tahoe environment within UTM is easy too, as we’ll walk through the steps here.

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Amazon is on it yet again with some really great discounts on Apple products, including discounts on the entire M4 MacBook Air lineup with the upgraded 15″ 24GB model being the most deeply discounted at $175 off retail, the iPad Mini 7 available at a $100 discount for just $399, and slashing $100 off the Apple Watch Series 10 to start at just $299 as well. There’s no reason to pay full retail price from Apple when Amazon is offering such great deals, so enjoy them while they last!

M4 MacBook Air 13″ & 15″- Up to $175 Off

The M4 MacBook Air lineup is availabe at heavy discounts on Amazon again, taking up to $175 off in various configurations. The all new MacBook Air features the M4 chip with Apple Intelligence support, LCD display in 13″ or 15″ size, 12MP camera with Center Stage, Touch ID, backlit keyboard, all-day battery life, dual display support, MagSafe charging, two USB-C ports, and more. You’ll find the best deal, taking $175 off the 15″ MacBook Air 24GB/512GB model, in particular color options, so play around with configurations and colors until you find what suits you.

• M4 MacBook Air 13″ – 16GB / 256GB – $849 (down from $999)
• M4 MacBook Air 13″ – 16GB / 512GB – $1049 (down from $1199)
• M4 MacBook Air 15″ – 16GB / 512GB – $1249 (down from $1399)
• M4 MacBook Air 15″ – 24GB / 512GB – $1425 (down from $1599)

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iPadOS 26 offers a compelling set of features for iPad users that they have long asked for, including Mac-like windowing, improved multitasking capabilities, an improved Files app, the inclusion of Preview app, Phone app, plus all the popular iOS 26 features like the new Liquid Glass interface appearance, a redesigned Lock Screen, wallpapers in Messages, and so much more. If you’re an advanced iPad user and you don’t mind having a buggier than usual experience which is typical of beta operating systems, then it’s no wonder you might be interested in running the iPadOS 26 beta on your iPad right now.

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Amazon is offering some nice deals on iPad models and the M4 MacBook Air again. This time we have the polar opposites of iPad available at $100 off, including the iPad Air with an 8″ display for $399, and the iPad Air with 13″ display for $699. Whether you want a small screen or a jumbo screen iPad, both are fantastic and available at a $100 discount. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to offer great deals on the M4 series MacBook Air, a fantastic laptop that is a great choice for just about anyone.

iPad mini – $399 (down from $499)

The iPad mini 7 features an A17 processor with Apple Intelligence support, 8″ LCD display, a 12mp front and rear camera, 128 GB storage, USB-C charging, and support for optional Apple Pencil Pro. You can get iPad Mini 7 in multiple color options at a great discount:

• iPad mini 7 – $399 (down from $499)

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