Tips & Tricks

One of the more helpful features of the Maps apps for iPhone is the ability to get directions to your home or directions to your work, from your current location. This is a great feature for the directionally challenged in particular, but it’s also helpful if you’re exploring a new part of a city or … Read More

Safari Reader is a nice feature of the Safari web browser for iOS and Mac OS X that allows users to simplify the look of a webpage or article to just focus on the text and image content. Now with the latest versions of iOS, you can customize the look of Safari Reader too, and … Read More

Have you ever noticed that once a file is in the Trash, you can’t open it or view it? If you try to open or use an item that is within the Trash in Mac OS X, you’ll get a dialog warning that says “The document ‘name’ can’t be opened because it’s in the Trash. … Read More

iPhone users regularly enjoy the Emoji keyboard with all the fun icons, faces, and little pictures, but before Emoji came around there were Emoticons, which are basically little text drawings of faces and actions using regular characters on a keyboard. Emoticons are a little bit more complex to type out than hitting a simple Emoji … Read More

The latest versions of iTunes have a universally visible sidebar with media library, devices, and playlists available to choose from. Some of the library sorting options visible in the sidebar may not be useful to all users however, so with a little effort you can edit and customize the sidebar in the newest iTunes releases. … Read More

Mac users who have multiple email accounts setup with the Mail app may wish to change or set the default email address that is used throughout Mac OS X. This can help to prevent accidentally sending an email from the wrong email address, which should be particularly helpful for those who juggle work and personal … Read More

This guide will walk through setting up two-factor authentication for an Apple ID. Two-factor authentication requires that whenever a user is logging in to an Apple ID from a new untrusted device, not only must the proper password be entered but a secondary security ID code must be entered as well, which is typically delivered … Read More

The Picture in Picture video mode on iPad is one of the better multitasking features of the device, but some users can find it to be distracting, and some may find themselves entering into the Picture in Picture (PIP) mode accidentally as well. While it’s easy to close a PiP window to make the video … Read More

Navigating around text blocks in iOS is typically done by hunting and pecking with a finger to tap in between precisely the write characters or words. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that approach and that’s what we have all become used to on the iPhone, but the 3D Touch enabled devices offer a much better … Read More

One of the most common questions regarding using iCloud and iCloud Photo Library is how to download photos from iCloud once they have been stored there. This is a deceptively simple question, and we’re going to push aside any of the complexities of downloading pictures from iCloud Photo Library within Photos app on the Mac, … Read More

Removing a symbolic link is achieved through the command line, and as we’ll show you, there actually two different ways to undo a soft link. This is aimed at users who spend a lot of time at the command line, but for the less familiar, symbolic links are used in Linux, Mac OS X, and … Read More

If you created an Apple ID based on your own unique email address and use that for logging in to iCloud and other Apple services, you may have missed the part where you can create a new separate @icloud.com email address. Not to worry though, if you decide you want to create a new and … Read More

iOS has an excellent flight-lookup feature which allows users to instantly get flight information about planes that are coming and going. All you need to use this great ability is a flight number embedded somewhere, like a text message, email, note, or webpage, and the rest is just a matter of knowing how to retrieve … Read More

Mac OS X defaults to a predefined set system font size for all onscreen text and user interface elements, and while many users will find the default text size to be sufficient, some users may wish the system font size was larger, and some may wish the Mac system text size was smaller. It turns … Read More

Have you ever discovered your iPhone to suddenly be black and white display? If this has happened to you, then seemingly out of the blue, the iPhone screen is no longer showing color, and instead everything is stuck in black and white mode. This is fairly unusual circumstance, but it can happen, and I recently … Read More

Now that most Mac users have migrated their pictures from iPhoto to Photos app in Mac OS X, when you’re absolutely certain that all the pictures have come through successfully you may decide to delete the old iPhoto Library file on the Mac. This is usually not necessary due to how Photos importation works with … Read More

While iPhone users of Google Maps have been able to get directions around cities with transit options for quite some time, the feature has recently come to the bundled Apple Maps app as well. This means if you’re in a global city or metro area with a mass transit system, whether trains, subways, street cars, … Read More

Most iPhone users who are communicating in the Messages app will leave the application and then launch Mail or the Phone app if they wish to continue a conversation through a phone call, FaceTime, or email. For modern iPhones with 3D Touch screens, there’s another option that’s even quicker to jump to a different communication … Read More