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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How (& Why) to Reset the Advertising Identifier in iOS

Feb 1, 2013 - 18 Comments
Reset the ad tracking ID in iOS

From iOS 6.1 onward, users can now reset the Advertising Identifier on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This means you can basically throw all the anonymously gathered data about a device that is used to serve relevant ads out the window and start fresh, thereby removing any of the targeted data that has been … Read More

How to Change the Language of Apple Maps Labels in iOS

Jan 31, 2013 - 1 Comment
Change Maps language settings

Bilinguals, polyglots, world citizens, foreign language students, and even travelers will be pleased to find that Apple Maps in iOS can be adjusted to show labels in local languages rather than always showing those locations labeled in English. This is a simple settings adjustment within Maps on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and it … Read More

Take a Photo with FaceTime Camera After a Task Finishes in Mac Command Line

Jan 31, 2013 - 3 Comments

If you’ve ever wanted to document your reaction to an event, task, or specific command execution, now is your chance to get started. With the help of a fun little app called ImageSnap, you can snap pictures with the FaceTime or iSight cameras from the command line. That can be good enough on it’s own … Read More

Stop iPhoto from Launching When iPhone is Connected

Jan 30, 2013 - 11 Comments
Stop iPhoto from opening automatically

Surely you have noticed the default behavior for connecting any iOS device to a Mac is that either iTunes or iPhoto launches itself automatically. This happens when any iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is connected to a computer, and which app opens depends on if the other one is already opened, or if one has … Read More

Preview All Text Files in Quick Look with the QLStephen Plugin for Mac OS X

Jan 30, 2013 - 4 Comments
Quick Look before

By now you’re probably familiar with Quick Look, used in the Mac Finder and Open/Save Dialogs to view an instant preview of any file simply by selecting it and hitting the spacebar or a tap gesture in OS X. It works amazingly well to see what something is before you open it, but if you’ve … Read More

How to List All Files and Subdirectory Contents in a Folder on Mac

Jan 29, 2013 - 8 Comments
Expand subfolders in OS X Finder

Ever wanted to see not only every file in a given directory, but all files within that directories buried subdirectories? If you’re looking for what is basically a recursive listing of files in a given folder, we’ll show a great trick for the Mac OS Finder that allows you to do just that, and also … Read More

Sync a Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard with Apple TV

Jan 29, 2013 - 6 Comments
Use a Wireless keyboard with Apple TV

You can now sync a Bluetooth keyboard with the Apple TV and use it to navigate and search on the device. This nice little bonus feature arrived along with the iOS 6.1 update, though it’s technically labeled for the Apple TV as 5.2 update, but regardless of the versioning and naming convention it’s an appreciated … Read More

Buy Movie Tickets with Siri

Jan 28, 2013 - 3 Comments
Buy a movie ticket with Siri

You can now buy movie tickets with the help of Siri, and use nothing but your iPhone (or iPad if you want to bring it with you) when you get to the theater to stroll in and enjoy the show. This is thanks to a new Siri feature that arrived in iOS 6.1, and it’s … Read More

Make a Transparent Image (PNG or GIF) Easily with Preview for Mac OS X

Jan 27, 2013 - 28 Comments
Alpha tool

It’s extremely easy to make an image transparent with the help of Preview app, the built-in image editing app that comes along with all Macs with Mac OS X. Do note creating transparent PNG or GIF images this way works best on images with uniform colors in the area you want to become transparent. The … Read More

Take a Photo While Recording Video on the iPhone

Jan 26, 2013 - 11 Comments
Take a photo while recording video on the iPhone

The latest versions of the iPhone can record high definition video, and as a result they’re getting a lot more widespread use as ways to capture memories in motion. But sometimes when you’re recording a movie, you also want to take a picture of what’s in focus too, and you can do exactly that on … Read More

Dial International Phone Numbers from iPhone the Easy Way Using the +Plus Prefix

Jan 25, 2013 - 9 Comments
Dial International phone numbers from the iPhone

Dialing international phone numbers can be done by prefixing a phone number with the current countries exit code (011 for USA), the country code of the number you are calling, and then the phone number you are dialing. This ends up being a fairly long string of numbers that is infinitely confusing to those who … Read More

Get the Classic iTunes Search List Style Back in iTunes 11

Jan 25, 2013 - 21 Comments
Fix iTunes Search to show classic results style

A lot of things changed when the latest version of iTunes was released, much of which represented user interface and behavior changes that weren’t always popular. For many of us, the best solution of handling the new UI was to basically revert the changes to make iTunes look normal and familiar again, and we’re about … Read More

How to Re-Enable the Invert Display Keyboard Shortcut in Mac OS X

Jan 24, 2013 - 1 Comment
Invert the screen colors in Mac OS X

Many Mac users have noticed that the good old Invert Display keyboard shortcut disappeared from Mac OS some time ago. Well, it didn’t disappear completely, but Invert Display is now tucked into a submenu of Accessibility options via a keystroke on the Mac. The change to the Invert Display keyboard shortcut first happened with Mac … Read More

Dictation Commands for Mac OS X & iOS

Jan 24, 2013 - 57 Comments
Dictation

Dictation is a feature of iOS and Mac OS X that lets you speak as you normally would, transforming your speech magically into text. It’s impressively accurate, letting you easily crank out notes, emails, diary entries, or just about anything else with it just by talking. To really get the most out of Dictation though … Read More

Set an Ultra-Strong iOS Password by Using Accent Characters

Jan 23, 2013 - 7 Comments
Strong passcode with accent characters

If you want maximum security with your iOS device, having a strong password is essential. Though you can extend password strength by using a phrase with mixed characters, another excellent option is to use special accent characters, making a password virtually impossible to guess. The idea is fairly straight forward: take a word, sequence, or … Read More

Master the Multitouch Gestures for iPad

Jan 22, 2013 - 9 Comments
Close app gesture on iPad

Multitouch gestures are one of the best hidden features of iOS on the iPad, but a surprising amount of iPad users don’t seem to use them. Perhaps it’s because you just don’t know about them, or maybe you haven’t spent the time to learn what they are and why they’re useful. Take a few minutes … Read More

Remove Duplicates from the “Open With” Right-Click Menu in Mac OS X

Jan 22, 2013 - 32 Comments
Fix the Open WIth menu and remove duplicate app entries

The “Open With” menu appears when any file in the Mac Finder is right-clicked (or control-clicked), and it is intended to provide a list of alternate apps that selected file can be opened with other than what is currently set as the default application. This Open With is great, but sometimes it can become freakishly … Read More

Get Easy Desktop Access to All iCloud Files with Plain Cloud for OS X

Jan 21, 2013 - 6 Comments
Plain Cloud provides easy iCloud file access

Assuming you have iCloud configured with OS X, you’ve always been able to access iCloud files from the Mac desktop by looking for a little-known directory in the user Library folder. Having access to that folder can make it behave like Dropbox, with file syncing between Macs being built right into the Finder, but the … Read More

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