Tips & Tricks

iPhone owners who have set up Apple Pay on their devices can use an optional shortcut to access the feature from the locked screen.

Many users who are installing iOS updates (whether beta or final versions) encounter an issue where a spinning pop-up indicator message saying “Verifying update…” appears stuck on screen. This is a fairly common issue that is somewhat annoying because while the iOS update is verifying, the entire iPhone or iPad is unusable. Fortunately, fixing a … Read More

The “Hey Siri” voice activated control feature on modern iOS devices is a great feature that many people find tremendous use with, but not everyone enjoys it. Some users may wish to disable “Hey Siri” on iPhone or iPad, which will prevent the voice activated ability from listening for the appropriate commands, but turning off … Read More

Spotlight on the Mac will search through many different file types and folders to help you find what you’re looking for, but if Spotlight finds multiple matches across different categories, you’ll see the search results returned under each respective category listing. While many Mac users will use the cursor to click the result they want, … Read More

Many iPhone users will send and receive picture messages through the Messages app, which arrive as iMessage if the recipient and sender is an iPhone user, or as MMS if the person is an Android or Windows phone user. Typically picture messages send without any issue, but if you are experiencing a problem where iPhone … Read More

Modern Macs with new versions of Mac OS (or Mac OS X) default to automatically reboot themselves upon a system freeze. This is a troubleshooting feature that aims to prevent average users from having to initiate a forced restart, since the Mac would simply restart itself if a system freeze were to occur. While most … Read More

Though it is an unusual occurrence, a Mac may encounter a broken or damaged EFI partition which typically prevents the Mac from booting and the Mac OS system software from loading. This is usually demonstrated as a boot screen that is stuck on the  Apple logo, sometimes with or without a wait cursor that … Read More

For Google Chrome users, sometimes a webpage may crash with an “Aw, Snap!” error message. This error message frequently prevents a web page from loading at all, and it can certainly disrupt a web browsing session by the page crashing. The “Aw Snap” error message in Chrome happens for a variety of reasons, but rather … Read More

Misplacing an iPhone is a fairly regular occurrence for many of us, maybe it slipped between the cushions on a couch, maybe you left it in another room, maybe it fell somewhere under the seats in the car, maybe it’s in the backyard, anything is possible. Fortunately for Apple Watch owners, they can use the … Read More

If you take a lot of selfies with the iPhone you’ll be pleased to know that you can quickly access every selfie ever taken with the front facing iPhone camera by using a simple sorting album in the iPhone Photos app. Likewise, if you just want to see all the selfies taken by someone else, … Read More

Mac users may find that a system update, installer, or package (pkg) can get completely stuck in a verification sequence, with a pop-up alert that says “Verifying ‘name.pkg’…” while showing the Gatekeeper icon and a progress bar that never updates. The effect is the package or installer won’t run as it never completes verification, making … Read More

Many users are password protecting Notes on iPhone and iPad, which offers a secondary security layer for especially personal or private data stored within the Notes app. Because the Notes app uses a different password from the general password used on the iOS Lock Screen, and different from the password used by an Apple ID … Read More

Ever wondered where all the downloaded files go on your Mac? By default, most apps will transfer downloaded files into the user Downloads folder. This applies to all downloads to a Mac made from the web with Safari, Chrome, through AirDrop, or from the many file transfer apps out there. There are many different ways … Read More

Spotlight Search for iOS now has the ability to perform currency calculations and conversions using up to date exchange rates. This is a handy built-in feature for travelers, anyone who needs to exchange money, and those who work across borders, and it’s built right into the latest versions of Spotlight for iOS on iPhone, iPad, … Read More

Beta testers of macOS Sierra can send feedback and bug reports directly to Apple, offering a chance to help shape the future of the Mac operating system. Reporting bugs and offering feature feedback is part of the fun of beta testing (and part of the purpose of the public betas), so if you are running … Read More

Custom email signatures are commonplace, whether they include simple contact details or a complete HTML signature on Mac Mail. A frequent further customization to email signatures is to include an image or logo, which is what we will show you how to create in the Mac Mail app for Mac OS X.

A strange bug that continues to persist in iOS for iPhone mysteriously causes all phone contacts to suddenly disappear from the Phone app on the device. Most users will never experience the missing contacts bug, but it can be disconcerting if encountered. This missing contacts bug is not subtle and seems to happen at random, … Read More

Now that iOS 10 public beta is available to install for anyone, users can run the beta system software on any compatible iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Of course since it’s beta software, users may encounter bugs, or there may be behavior that is generally unexpected or could be improved upon in the iOS 10 … Read More