Tips & Tricks

The ability to quickly find duplicate items in iTunes libraries is back in the latest version of iTunes 11 for both Mac OS X and Windows. First things first, you’ll need to update to iTunes 11.0.1 before attempting to use the feature again. Update to the newest version either through iTunes itself, or through Software … Read More

Siri doubles as a great hands-free helper with some extremely useful voice commands, but sometimes Siri can really mangle pronunciation of names that aren’t outright obvious. If you’re finding that Siri routinely either mispronounces a name or doesn’t understand a request regarding a certain contact, try adding special phonetic spelling fields to the troubled contacts: … Read More

The ability to gift apps has long been around in the App Store, but it briefly disappeared before making a reappearance again with an additional great new feature. As 9to5mac noticed, you can now schedule deliver dates for the gifted apps, allowing them to be automatically delivered at a certain set date in the future. … Read More

We all have received phone calls from numbers we don’t recognize, and even when they show up on the iPhone caller ID and provide an area code or region they’re coming from that call can still be a mystery. Like many others, I’ve gotten in the habit of just ignoring phone calls from numbers I … Read More

The Help Menu in OS X is an underused but great resource when trying to learn about new Mac apps, and it can even function as a keyboard-based action launcherto quickly access app features. If you’re using the Help Viewer to actually read help documentation though, you may have noticed that the windows default behavior … Read More

Nobody likes unwanted text messages, whether it’s one of those mass spammy texts that everyone seems to inexplicably receive at random, or the group text from a friend of a cousins sisters friend that you sort of once kind of knew on Facebook years ago. Really if you think about it, there’s a good chance … Read More

Did you know the photo screen savers in Mac OS X are interactive and can turn into slideshows? There’s really not a lot to this trick, just activate any of the Mac screen savers that rely on images and then use the left and right arrow keys to navigate forward and back between images in … Read More

We’ve all been there, part of an extraordinarily length email thread and there’s really only a small portion of it that’s necessary to respond to, but without the proper context the reply may not seem complete or even inappropriate. Rather than quoting the entire email and explaining the response, use smart quotes to reply only … Read More

Have you ever wished your MacBooks built-in trackpad could have a different acceleration curve than an external mouse? If you’re a gamer or digital artist, you probably have. Sure, Mac OS lets you control the tracking speeds separately, but the acceleration curve is a whole other beast. In you’re unfamiliar with cursor acceleration, we’ve discussed … Read More

One of the better little feature of iTunes 11 is the addition of a new ability that lets you redeem gift cards for the App Store and iTunes Store using nothing but the built-in camera of a computer. This is much better than typing in the random numbers which is fairly easy to mess up, … Read More

Have you noticed how some sites promote their own app to download when you visit their website while browsing through Safari on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? This is done through a little pop-up menu that appears at the top of Safari when browsing some sites with iOS 6 onward, and it’s done through … Read More

Gmail is one of the most popular email services around, and if you use the web-based email client as your primary email app too then you’ll undoubtedly benefit from these three simple tips to boost productivity. No, they won’t end the email onslaught and 100 new email messages a day that we all suffer from, … Read More

If you want to be able to transfer music to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch wirelessly and without syncing everything on the device with iTunes, you’ll need to turn on iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Yes, you read that correctly, in order to add a song to an iPhone (iPod, etc) wirelessly and without syncing the … Read More

Did you know you can add or edit the lyrics of any song in your iTunes library? And of course, once you sync that song to your iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll then be able to view the lyrics directly on the iOS device screen. The whole process is quite simple, though you’ll have to … Read More

The new iTunes interface can be a bit jolting at first, but whether you’re still trying to get the hang of the new iTunes 11 interface of you’ve already made the changes to bring some familiarity back to the app, you’ll find good use out of these keyboard shortcuts. We’ve split them up into three … Read More

Whether the iPhone is flipped into silent mode or not, an incoming text message or iMessage will vibrate. While that’s great for being notified of a new text, in some situations you’d rather have complete silence when texting, you know, when you’re passing time in a boring meeting, sitting a quiet classroom, or maybe you’re … Read More

Photos taken with digital cameras, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, all include some level of EXIF data, which is basically metadata with information about the image. With pictures taken from the iPhone and other smartphones, that data can even include details like precise geographic coordinates where the image was taken, (though that’s easy … Read More

The command line is often considered the realm of advanced users, but that doesn’t mean every usage of Terminal has to involve rocket science. This collection of terminal tips should apply to a wide variety of Mac users, and everyone from beginners to advanced users should find something worthwhile here.