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.
To compare and list the different contents of two directories without the extra output you get through commands like diff, you can use the comm command instead. To get started, launch Terminal and type the following command, adjusting the directory paths as appropriate: comm -3 <(ls -1 folder1) <(ls -1 folder2) The output listed will … Read More
The iPhone’s excellent panorama mode allows for easy vertical panoramic shots as well. Shooting panorama mode in vertical orientation is perfect for taking pictures of tall trees, waterfalls, buildings, or anything else that is taller than the standard range provides. This guide will show you how to switch Panorama mode into vertical mode, to snap … Read More
Fluid is a great Mac app that converts any specified web site into it’s own self-contained application, allowing you to do things like turn Gmail, Facebook, Wikipedia, Soundcloud, and Pandora, into their own dedicated app. Other than being useful for creating apps exclusively for particular websites, Fluid is also great for those of us who … Read More
Photo Streams are a great addition to iOS, but thus far seem to be an underused feature. With Photo Stream, you can easily share a collection of images with a select group of people, without having to go through the usual avenues of social networks. Instead, you create an instant gallery right out of the … Read More
Time Machine backups can be triggered remotely thanks to SSH (Remote Login) and the command line. This is an excellent solution to use if you left the home or office without making an important backup, though the SSH requirement does add a potential layer of complexity that may make it more appropriate for advanced users. … Read More
The next time you’re wondering how many grams of sugar are in that donut and if it’s going to cut into your allotted daily calorie intake of junk food, just pull out your iPhone or iPad and ask Siri. Thanks to Siri’s ability to tap into the wealth of knowledge at Wolfram Alpha, you can … Read More
If you’re a Mac owner you know that every time the Mac reboots or starts up it makes a startup chime sound. Though you can temporarily mute the chime by holding down the Mute key on any Mac keyboard, you can also choose to disable it completely by turning to the command line. To be … Read More
The next time you’re browsing the web and come across a link that points to Twitter, you can immediately jump to the Twitter app if you want to. This is a new ability included in iOS 6 onward. To access the feature, pull down from the top of Safari when a Twitter link is opened, … Read More
The history command is a useful way to find specific commands that have been used in the past, and it can also be used to discover what your personal most used commands are with the following command string: history | awk ‘{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] ” ” i}}’ | sort -rn | head -15 The … Read More
Jailbreakers will be pleased to discover that iOS 6.0.1 can already be jailbroken by using existing versions of Redsn0w. Currently, only the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4th gen, and iPhone 3GS are supported, and you’ll have to point Redsn0w at the older 6.0 IPSW, but otherwise the process is pretty much the same as any … Read More
The simplest way to move everything from an old Mac to a new Mac is to use the built-in Migration Assistant tool. Migration Assistant can be used at any time, but ideally, it will be used on first boot of the new Mac, that way when it’s finished everything on the new machine will be … Read More
If you want to buy a used Mac to save a bit of money, the best place to do so is directly from Apple’s Online Refurbished Store. We’ve bought used Macs from just about everywhere under the sun before, from friends, coworkers, Craigslist, and eBay, but nothing beats the official Certified offerings from Apple. Why? … Read More
Siri works from the Locked Screen in iOS, letting you get things like the weather, make quick phone calls, and a variety of other incredibly useful tasks, but for the privacy and security buffs out there, this may be considered undesirable.
You no longer need to create music playlists in iTunes and then sync them to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, because the entire process can be done easily directly in iOS itself. The next time you leave home without creating a playlist, just make one quickly on the go by doing the following: Launch Music … Read More
The Help menu that’s always visible in Mac OS X and within Mac apps is far more powerful than just serving as a knowledge base for questions about the app in use; it can also function as a full-fledged action launcher for any menu items. This is useful for when you’re either still learning keyboard … Read More
Searching the file system for a specific document or file is easy and very fast. Though most users are best served using Spotlight from the menubar, there are times when either Spotlight isn’t working, you need more paramaters, you’re working in the Terminal, operating with a remote machine, or perhaps just would like to use … Read More
Though we have long been able to add automatically dialed extensions to contacts on the iPhone, the newest versions of iOS handle extensions much more intelligently, allowing you to create a “Dial Extension” button to any specific contact. That extension dialer can be activated manually, making the navigation of telephony menus infinitely easier.
Mac OS X has a myriad of multi-touch gestures that have been expanded upon in modern versions of Mac OS X, and one of the better gestures is the two-fingered swipe left or right to go either back or forward in a wide variety of apps. This gesture is borrowed from the iOS world and … Read More
