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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Change Launchpad’s Background Image Effect in Mac OS X Lion

Oct 30, 2011 - 12 Comments
Unblur Launchpad background Mac OS X Lion

Bored with Launchpads background? You can make some changes to it in Mac OS X Lion by changing the background images default blur effect to three other options: unblurred (shown above), black and white blur, or black and white unblurred (both shown below): Open Launchpad Hit Command+B to cycle through the background image effects Update: … Read More

Enable Multi-Tasking Gestures & Display Mirroring in iOS 5 for iPad 1

Oct 28, 2011 - 8 Comments
Multitasking Gesture for iPad 1 in iOS 5

The first generation iPad got iOS 5, but it didn’t officially get multitasking gestures or display mirroring. Not a huge deal, because a user on ModMyi figured out how to enable these two features and has released a modified version of redsn0w so that it unlocks these abilities, without a jailbreak. It’s pretty easy to … Read More

Re-Open Closed Browser Windows in Safari for iPad

Oct 28, 2011 - 4 Comments
re open closed browser windows in Safari for iPad

You can easily re-open closed web browser windows in Safari for iOS on the iPad. This works in all iPad models with iOS, and it’s really easy to do at any time in Safari browser on the device:

Monitor Network Connections in Mac OS X with Private Eye

Oct 28, 2011 - 7 Comments
Private Eye open connections

Private Eye is a free real-time network monitor app for Mac OS X that is extremely easy to use. Upon launching the app, you’ll start to see all open network connections by application and process, and you can then filter connections by app, monitor all open connections, or watch only incoming or outgoing transfer. Connections … Read More

How to Manually Update or Restore iOS 5

Oct 27, 2011 - 45 Comments
Manual iOS 5 update or restore

Despite the relative ease of updating to iOS 5 through iTunes either directly or by IPSW, some users are still reporting problems. In some cases this is user caused (error 3194 is easy to fix as is error 3200 & 3002), but if you’re continuing to have issues it could be related to a firewall … Read More

Close Desktop Spaces in Mission Control for Mac OS X Quickly

Oct 27, 2011 - 15 Comments
Close Desktop Spaces in Mission Control

Spaces are the the Virtual Desktop feature in OS X, and it’s part of the Mission Control window management system on the Mac. If you’ve opened a few desktop spaces that you no longer need access to, you can close them. Perhaps the fastest way and most efficient means of closing a desktop space in … Read More

Want to Sleep In? Tell Siri To Turn Off All iPhone Alarms

Oct 27, 2011 - 3 Comments
Turn Off or On all Alarms with Siri

Want to sleep in? You can quickly turn off all your alarms on the iPhone by telling Siri simply to “turn off all alarms“, Siri will then confirm the alarm change plus show you the alarm settings. Oversleeping due to Siri likely won’t be a valid excuse to get out of school or work for … Read More

How to Tile Desktop Background Wallpaper in Mac OS X

Oct 26, 2011 - 9 Comments
set a background image to tile in Mac OS X Lion

Want to tile a wallpaper on the Mac? A tiling wallpaper will repeat all over the desktop background, just like a tile is repeated in flooring or a wall. Well, you’re in luck because modern Mac OS X versions can do tile a wallpaper image, just like you could do way back in ancient Mac … Read More

Use Different Desktop Background Pictures for Spaces in Mac OS X

Oct 26, 2011 - 5 Comments
Set Different Wallpapers for Desktop Spaces in OS X Lion

The Mission Control “Spaces” feature in OS X is essentially a virtual desktop environment. A nice way to differentiate each individual desktop Space is to go about assigning different wallpapers to different desktop spaces. Setting unique wallpaper backgrounds per desktop is easy in Mac OS X now, here’s the quickest way to do this:

How to Remove the Stock Ticker Widget from Notification Center in iOS

Oct 25, 2011 - 11 Comments
iOS 5 Stock Ticker

Don’t want to see the Stock Ticker and market details on the iOS Notification Center every time you swipe down to view it on your iPhone or iPad? Many users don’t, and this was one of the first questions a friend asked me after updating to iOS and discovering market details as a prominent feature … Read More

Show Recent Items Per App with a Two-Fingered Double Tap in Mac OS X

Oct 25, 2011 - 8 Comments
Show Recent Items per application in OS X Lion

Want to see recent items on a per app basis? The Mac makes this easy with a variety of ways, but perhaps one of the most convenient involves a simple tap gesture. This is particularly fast and simple, and here’s how it works.

Check What Software Updates Have Been Installed in Mac OS X

Oct 25, 2011 - 4 Comments
Check installed software updates

Forget what Software Updates you’ve installed on a Mac? Maybe you need to check if a particular Mac workstation has installed a particular software update? With a little work, you can easily check which particular software updates have been installed before in Mac OS X. We’ll show you several different ways to get a list … Read More

Increase the Contrast of a PDF to Sharpen & Darken Text

Oct 24, 2011 - 21 Comments
Increase text contrast of a PDF to make it easier to read

With Preview you can adjust the contrast of a PDF, this makes the text sharper and darker, and for scanned files or dubious quality PDF’s this makes them significantly easier to read. The process of increasing contrast and sharpening text in a PDF is made quite simple with Preview app on the Mac, we’ll walk … Read More

Hide Mail from the Lock Screen in iOS

Oct 24, 2011 - 4 Comments
Hide Mail from the iOS 5 Lock Screen

Notification Center in iOS makes it easier than ever to see when new messages and mail comes in to your device, but if you receive sensitive or private emails on your iPhone or iPad, you may not want them showing up on the lock screen at all. If you’d rather not see any alert or … Read More

Delete Pictures from Photo Stream & iCloud

Oct 23, 2011 - 16 Comments
Delete Photos from Photo Stream in iCloud

If you’re set up to use iCloud with an iOS 5 device, you may have noticed that Photo Stream hosts your pictures online on iCloud.com and also syncs the pictures to the Photo Stream of your other devices. Apple will remove these pictures automatically after 30 days or after 1000 photos are uploaded, but if … Read More

Enable Private Browsing on iPad & iPhone with Safari in iOS 6

Oct 21, 2011 - 27 Comments
Private Browsing in Safari with iOS 5

iOS allows you to enable private browsing in Safari for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This feature is sometimes called “Incognito Mode” with other browsers, and essentially this lets you browse the web and visit web sites without saving a record of any browser history, cache, logins, or searches, and it prevents cookies from … Read More

Set iPhone Camera LED to Flash on Incoming Calls and Alerts

Oct 21, 2011 - 60 Comments
Flash the iPhones camera LED light on incoming calls or messages

The iPhone camera LED flash can be used to alert you to incoming calls, messages, and other alerts to your device. With this feature enabled, anytime a call or messages comes in the devices LED will flash repeatedly, even when the iPhone is on silent mode. This great feature offers an obvious visual cue with … Read More

Transfer Mac Apps from One Mac to Another

Oct 20, 2011 - 6 Comments
Transfer Mac Apps to Another Mac

With the addition of the Mac App Store, transferring applications from one Mac to another is made extraordinarily simple and can be done entirely through the App Store itself. This is due to the Mac App Stores licensing agreement, which allows you to download and install Mac OS X apps on all of your personal … Read More

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