Tips & Tricks

Tips and tricks for all things Apple! Whether you want to learn tips for a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or much more, you will find many tricks, tips, tutorials, and excellent walkthroughs for Apple devices and software here.

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Set Network Connection Priority in Mac OS X

Jun 15, 2013 - 2 Comments
Change network locations quickly in Mac OS X

For those of us who use several different types of network connections to get online, you may want to take a moment to set the networking service priority in OS X. This insures that a Mac isn’t connecting through the wrong networking interface when multiple network services are available. For example, if you have a … Read More

Resolve a “Couldn’t Unmount Disk” Error in Disk Utility for Mac

Jun 14, 2013 - 40 Comments
Disk Utility in Mac OS X

Disk Utility usually works trouble-free, but a frustrating “Couldn’t Unmount Disk” error can halt whatever the attempted task is right in its tracks. This can happen during partitioning, disk verification and repair, and even during formatting, and there’s usually little to no additional information provided as to how to resolve the problem or even what … Read More

How to Dial & Convert Vanity Phone Numbers on iPhone Easily

Jun 13, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Dial a number quickly with a tap and hold

Need to dial a vanity number from iPhone? You know, the phone numbers that are listed as letters rather than numbers? These phone numbers are mnemonic and listed as letters and are often called vanity numbers, typically they will be in a format like 1-800-COMCAST, 1-800-MY-APPLE, 1-800-SOS-APPLE, etc, and they are not always automatically detected … Read More

Easily Mock Up iOS 7 Apps & Interfaces with a Free iOS 7 GUI Template PSD

Jun 13, 2013 - Leave a Comment
iOS 7 GUI Template

The designers at Teehan+Lax have built a complete iOS 7 GUI elements template, and are now offering it for free as a very functional PSD file. Everything is fully layered, well-labeled, and organized logically, making it an excellent tool to use for mocking up apps and concepts as they would appear natively in the completely … Read More

How to Downgrade iOS 7 Beta to iOS 6

Jun 12, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Downgrade iOS 7 to iOS 6

Fed up with iOS 7 beta and it’s quirky bugs? You can downgrade fairly easily, which is probably a good idea for most casual users who aren’t accustomed to handling beta OS releases in various stages of development, because it’s really not meant for everyday use on your primary device anyway. Yes, Apple’s developer notes … Read More

How to Make a Bootable OS X Mavericks USB Install Drive

Jun 12, 2013 - 43 Comments
OS X Mavericks bootable install drive

Just like other recent major Mac updates, OS X Mavericks arrives as an app that wants to update the current OS X installation, and with a little work you can make a bootable USB installation drive. This allows you to easily perform partitioning for dual boot situations, clean installs, upgrades on multiple Macs, and more, … Read More

Secure Remove Files & Directories from Mac OS X with the Command Line

Jun 9, 2013 - 5 Comments
Terminal logo

Need to securely delete a file, group of files, or an entire directory, insuring that it’s quite literally never recoverable by any known possible means? You can do this easily from the command line with the help of an incredibly powerful tool called srm. srm, as you may have guessed, stands for ‘secure removal’, and … Read More

How to Change the Keyboard Layout in iOS: AZERTY, QWERTZ, QWERTY, Dvorak

Jun 9, 2013 - Leave a Comment
AZERTY in iOS

Though most of us are accustomed to the default QWERTY keyboard layout, iOS does provide options to toggle between QWERTY, AZERTY, and QWERTZ. The latter two options are generally used in Europe, but you can enable them on any iPad or iPhone regardless of which region you’re in, the only requirement is that a Latin … Read More

Get Detailed Weather Information with Siri: Temperature, Forecasts, Humidity, Dew Point, Barometer, & Wind Speed

Jun 8, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Get Weather and forecast from Siri

Just about everyone knows that you can get basic weather details, temperature, and forecasts through Siri just by summoning the virtual assistant and then asking one of a few basic questions:

Watch Network Traffic in Mac OS X via Command Line with nettop

Jun 7, 2013 - 8 Comments
Nettop network activity

Mac OS X includes an excellent command line network utility called “nettop” that allows users to monitor all network activity, traffic, and routes from a Mac to the outside world, both through local (LAN) and wide area (WAN) connections. If you’re unfamiliar with networking tools like this, you can think of nettop as a network … Read More

Use the Mac Finder Sidebar for Quick File Drag & Drop App Launches

Jun 6, 2013 - 1 Comment
Drag and drop files into sidebar apps

The Finder window sidebar can hold apps and function as an application launcher, making it an excellent place to keep apps that are almost exclusively used alongside the file system, or for apps that are reliant on general filesystem access, but that aren’t necessarily used enough to warrant a place in the Mac Dock when … Read More

What To Do When an iPhone Won’t Turn On

Jun 6, 2013 - 262 Comments
What to do when an iPhone won't turn on

Many of us have found a situation where an iPhone just won’t turn on. Pressing the power button causes literally nothing to happen, the iPhone just displays a black screen. Fortunately, this is usually just a simple problem to resolve, because either iOS has suffered an unusually severe crash and needs the device to be … Read More

Control What Apps Have Access to Contacts Information in iOS

Jun 5, 2013 - 1 Comment
Control what apps have access to Contacts in iOS

Have you ever noticed how some apps will have information pulled from your iOS Contacts list, like peoples names, numbers, and contact information? Or, contrarily, how some apps should have access to your address book, but don’t, and are then feature limited? Though this happens by choice, it’s fairly easy to overlook these settings during … Read More

How to Change an Icon in Mac OS X

Jun 4, 2013 - 14 Comments
Change an Icon on the Mac

You can change the icon of just about any file, folder, volume, or application in Mac OS X. This is an easy way to customize the appearance of items in the file system, and it can be a fun way to add a customized look to the desktop and home folder on a Mac. It … Read More

8 of the Best Tricks for Mail App in Mac OS X

Jun 3, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Change how often Mail checks for new messages

Use Mail app in Mac OS X to handle your email? Then this collection of some of the best tips you’ll find for Mail app in OS X is for you. We’ll cover some of the greatest tricks out there, including how to get new mail faster, see more messages at once, send attachments faster, … Read More

Add & Type Symbols, Glyphs, and Special Characters to the iOS Keyboard

Jun 3, 2013 - 10 Comments
Glyphs, symbols, and characters typed in iOS

There are many extra symbols, characters, and glyphs available on iOS that are not immediately accessible, but by adding a new keyboard you can gain access to the glyphs and symbols. This includes fun ones like the   Apple logo and smiley face ☺, and though there is some similarity to emoji, these symbols and … Read More

Quit All Open Applications Instantly from Mac OS X Dock with a Simple Mac App

Jun 2, 2013 - 16 Comments
Quit all apps icon

If you’ve ever needed to quickly quit out of all open applications in Mac OS X, you’ve probably just resorted to flipping through every open application in the Dock, then hitting Command+Q, then repeating until everything is closed. But there’s a better way, and with an extraordinarily simple Automator app you can create a function … Read More

Flip a Coin & Roll the Dice with Siri

Jun 1, 2013 - 5 Comments
Roll dice with Siri

Can’t decide whether to have pizza or thai for dinner, but you’re all out of coins to flip and make the decision for you? Or maybe you can’t play Yahtzee or Bunco because you lost your dice? No big deal if you have an iPhone or iPad laying around, because Siri can both roll dice … Read More

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