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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iTunes Library Locations & How To Quickly Find iTunes Songs on a Computer

Feb 16, 2013 - 10 Comments
Show iTunes song in the file system instantly

Assuming you keep iTunes on the default setting and let the app manage your music files and songs, iTunes will store all of your media nicely in the Music directory of your home folder, with each song kept in a folder according to the album and album artist. Though you’ll usually never need to directly … Read More

Know Who is Calling Even if iPhone is Silent with Custom Vibration Alerts

Feb 15, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Custom vibration alerts for iPhone contacts

Have you ever wished there was a way to know who was sending you a text or giving you a phone call when your iPhone is on silent mode, resting in your pocket or purse? You hear the buzz, but by default you’ll have no way to differentiate that from anyone else. It turns out … Read More

Build a Huge High Quality App Library by Taking Advantage of Weekly Free iOS Apps

Feb 14, 2013 - 5 Comments
View in iTunes

Every week Apple picks a high quality iOS app as the “Free App of the Week” choice for everyone to enjoy for free, the catch of course is that it’s only available for a limited time. It’s not just Apple that offers temporarily free downloads though, Starbucks does too with little promo cards, and there’s … Read More

Scan QR Codes on Older iPhone’s with Scan App

Feb 13, 2013 - 7 Comments
Read a QR Code from the iPhone

Update: Apple has introduced QR code reading into camera app on iPhone and iPad, here is how you can use the QR code reader in iOS that is included on modern iOS releases, which require no downloads or third party apps. Nonetheless the app below continues to read QR codes on older iOS versions and … Read More

How to Open a Zip File That Turns Into a CPGZ

Feb 13, 2013 - 68 Comments
Unzip a file from the command line and GUI

Ever had a zip file turn into a cpgz file? This is an infrequent problem, but here’s what happens; When the .zip file is attempted to be unzipped, it extracts into a .cpgz file, which then can also be launched in Archive Utility, only to then turn back into a .zip file, which then turns … Read More

Highlight Text and Take Notes in iBooks

Feb 12, 2013 - 8 Comments
Highlight text in iBooks

iBooks offers a great reading experience in iOS, but it can do double duty and function as a powerful study aid too, allowing you to place contextual notes directly on words and text blocks, and even highlight important phrases just like you would on a real book with a flourescent pen. The next time you’re … Read More

Type Emoji Faster in iOS with Keyboard Text Replacement Shortcuts

Feb 11, 2013 - 4 Comments
Fastest way to type Emoji

Emoji characters are a great way to have more expressive conversations and bring some fun into messaging, but tapping the globe icon on the iOS virtual keyboard to select a character isn’t exactly fast. Accessing the Emoji icons is even harder if you’re using an external keyboard with an iPad or iPhone since your fingers … Read More

How to Renew a DHCP Lease in Mac OS X

Feb 11, 2013 - 3 Comments
Network preferences in Mac OS X

DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and is commonly used to configure network devices so they can communicate with one another. Typically you’ll have a DHCP server (like a wireless router), and client machines on the local network (like a Mac, iPhone, PC, etc) that pull a dynamically assigned local IP address from that … Read More

Add an iOS Inspired Multitasking Bar to Mac OS X with TaskBoard

Feb 10, 2013 - 33 Comments
Taskboard in Mac OS X

The mobile world of iOS and desktop world of OS X continue to converge, but some features remain absent or different in either OS. One such example is how multitasking and running multiple applications is handled, which is managed quite simply in the multitasking bar of iOS. On the OS X side of things, the … Read More

Transfer Photos from Android to Mac OS X

Feb 8, 2013 - 43 Comments
Transfer photos from Android to Mac

The easiest way to copy pictures from an Android device and to a Mac is using one of the image transfer apps that is bundled with Mac OS X. That’s because all Android devices, including the popular Google Pixel, Nexus, Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Samsung Galaxy series, should be treated by the standard camera apps … Read More

Edit Siri Commands to Make Corrections & Fix Misunderstandings

Feb 8, 2013 - 2 Comments
Edit Siri Commands

Siri has impressive comprehension but isn’t always perfect, and sometimes Siri can just misunderstand something or have a hard time with the spelling of certain words and names. If you find that Siri has made a mistake understanding what you’ve said, or if you just want to correct or change the question or command you … Read More

Manage & Switch Between Default Web Browsers Quickly with Objektiv for OS X

Feb 7, 2013 - 2 Comments
Objektiv juggles default web browsers in Mac OS X

Between Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Canary builds, Opera, and the myriad of other apps, juggling between web browsers can be a pain. This is even more exaggerated since every browser wants to set itself as the default, and then, to go about changing the default web browser after the fact, you have to open Safari and … Read More

5 Simple Tricks for a Better Reading Experience with iBooks for iOS

Feb 7, 2013 - 5 Comments
Adjust Brightness in iBooks

The iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch make excellent digital readers, and the iBooks apps is where most people will spend their time reading books on the iOS platform. iBooks is deceptively simple though, and though it works great on it’s own, taking the time to learn a few things and adjust a few simple settings … Read More

Fix Archive Utility When It Stops Working, Crashes, or Freezes in Mac OS X

Feb 6, 2013 - 21 Comments
fix for when Archive Utility is not working

Archive Utility is the little system app that launches anytime an archive needs to be dealt with by OS X, usually it launches itself, extracts a zip, sit, tar, gz, or whatever other archive file, then quits on it’s own. Lately there’s been widespread reports of weird problems with Archive Utility though, where a zip … Read More

How to Run GUI Apps as root in Mac OS X

Feb 6, 2013 - 10 Comments
Launch a GUI application as root in Mac OS X

Those familiar with the command line know that running things with super user privileges is typically just a matter of using the sudo command. That still holds true with launching GUI apps into the OS X with root privileges, but it’s not just a matter of prepending sudo to the otherwise useful open command, because … Read More

Get a List of Siri Commands Directly from Siri

Feb 5, 2013 - 11 Comments
Siri

We’ve shown you many of the great and legitimately useful things you can do with Siri, but there is much more to the intelligent voice assistant than meets the eye. Sure you can wing it to find out what Siri can do, but a better solution is to ask Siri directly… and it’ll tell you … Read More

Simple Tricks to Improve the Terminal Appearance in Mac OS X

Feb 5, 2013 - 56 Comments
Improve the Terminal appearance

The standard terminal appearance is just boring old black text on a white background. Apple included a few nice preset themes too, but to really make your terminals appearance stand out you’ll want to take the time to customize it yourself. While some of these tweaks are admittedly pure eye candy, others genuinely improve the … Read More

Send a File to Multiple Remote Macs or iOS Devices from the Mac OS X Finder

Feb 4, 2013 - 4 Comments
Send a file from a Mac to multiple Macs and iOS Clients

A new contextual menu feature available in the OS X Finder make sending files out from a Mac faster than ever before, and perhaps even better, this trick can be used to send a file or document to multiple client recipients, be they on nearby Macs and iPads, or far away iPhones and iPod touches. … Read More

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