If you’ve ever wanted to run Android apps on your Mac, a new virtualization tool called BlueStacks makes it easier than ever before. The extremely simple to install solution includes 17 popular Android apps that can be run independently and without the need for running Android ICS in a virtual machine, removing the often clunky … Read More

A large collection of high resolution Apple hardware icons is bundled right in Mac OS X, including great icons for nearly all vaguely recent Mac models, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Apple TV, iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, and much more, going all the way back to the G4 series. Many of these icons are what … Read More

iOS for iPad includes a nice feature that lets you triple-click the Home button to toggle ‘White on Black’ screen mode. If you haven’t used White on Black before it essentially inverts the screen, which makes reading at night or in low light conditions less harsh on the eyes. Triple-click the Home button to try … Read More

We’ve discussed some pretty flattering attributes of the new MacBook Air lately, but here’s one that’s less than pleasant: a sizable amount of users are reporting the machine will completely freeze up seemingly out of nowhere, requiring a hard reset. Though not every new MacBook Air owner is experiencing the freezing issue, those who have … Read More

For the developers and UI designers out there, Apple’s developer docs show us how to highlight non-retina images in red, making it easy to determine if the 2x image assets are loading properly for retina displays. You can set the image tinting to occur in all apps, or on a per-app basis. Enable Non-Retina Image … Read More

Need to quickly convert a value in one currency to another? You don’t need to hit the web to learn the latest exchange rates, instead you can turn to the trusty old Calculator app. The OS X Calculator is bundled with a variety of built-in conversion tools, currency included. Using it is simple: Launch Calculator … Read More

QuickTime Player automatically rounds the corners of any video window, a nice touch that fits in line with the rest of the OS X desktop and window experience. If you don’t like the rounded movie window appearance though, you can easily disable them: Quick QuickTime Launch Terminal and enter the following command: defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX … Read More

Many of your contacts probably have social profiles they use on services like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr, and these social profiles can be added to their existing contact card information easily in iOS. This makes it so when you look at an iPhone contact on iPhone or iPad, you will see those contacts social … Read More

Duplicate contact entries occur with some regularity, whether it’s because a contact has changed an email address, phone number, name, or just because you accidentally entered someone twice into your iOS contacts list. If you have a Mac, the Contacts / Address Book app makes it very easy to merge these duplicate contacts and then … Read More

Mission Control is a powerful window and app manager built directly into Mac OS X, it combines elements of Virtual Desktops (Spaces), an application switcher, and a window manager, into one easy to use centralized location. If you aren’t using this excellent Mac feature on a regular basis then you should reconsider, learn a few … Read More

If you’re wondering who made the SSD (flash storage) drive on a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro it’s fairly easy to determine: Pull down the  Apple menu and choose “About This Mac”, then click on “More Info” Click “System Report” Look under “Hardware” for the “Serial-ATA” entry and select it Expand the chipset and … Read More

The optional Path bar shows the complete filesystem path to the current working directory in any Finder window of Mac OS X. This optional window-dressing item has more use beyond that though, because not only does it show you the present directory, it’s also interactive. In short, that means you can double-click the individual folders … Read More

If you’ve been interested in learning how to develop apps for the iPhone and iPad, this may be the best chance yet. Based on Stanford’s Fall 2011 iOS development course, the new offering from Stanford gets social and lets you work on assignments with the rest of the enrolled class. No more getting stuck or … Read More

Satellite Eyes is a neat free app that automatically adjusts your desktops background wallpaper to satellite images of your current location. Commute to work and you’ll see a new background than what you do at home, fly across the country or world and it’ll change with you. For a simple app there are a fair … Read More

Anytime you use iCloud or iTunes to back up an iPhone or iOS device, the Contacts will be backed up automatically assuming the default settings are preserved. If you want to store an additional backup outside of iTunes and iCloud however, by far the easiest way to do that is with Address Book. This will … Read More

Apple has begun to air a new iPad commercial, focusing on a variety of tasks being accomplished through various apps on the 3rd generation iPad. The narration says: “Send a note. Stay informed. Catch a show. Make your point. Make a memory. Make a… masterpiece. Read something. Watch something. And learn something. Do it all … Read More

An update to OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4 has been released to developers, barely a week after the last version was released at WWDC. The update comes as build 12A248 and is recommended for all devs running DP4 and can be downloaded through the Mac App Store. The largely unspecified release presumably includes … Read More

If you’ve used FaceTime in an area without the best internet connections you’ve probably experienced the choppy video, breaking audio, and other call difficulties that can arrise as a result of poor internet service. Rather than giving up on the communication completely, you can turn the video call into a voice-only call and dramatically increase … Read More