Want to update Homebrew and your packages? Of course you do! Homebrew is a popular package manager for Mac that easily allows users to install and manage command line tools, apps, and utilities, typically familiar with the Linux and Unix world. Because it’s a package manager, you won’t need to manually build anything from source either. Of course like any other software, Homebrew itself along with the command line tools get updated, so you might be wondering how to update Homebrew, and how to upgrade Homebrew packages to newer versions.

We’ll cover the simple official way to update Homebrew itself, as well as packages, and we’ll also discuss how to freeze packages at a particular version should you wish to not update those. We’ll also discuss a way to reinstall Homebrew if the standard update and upgrade process is not working for whatever reason.

Read more »

Do you use Google Maps as your primary app for navigation on your iPhone or iPad? If so, you might be interested in taking advantage of the Incognito mode it has to offer, which can help to make Google Maps use a bit more private.

Read more »

Booting an Apple Silicon Mac into Recovery Mode is slightly different from booting into recovery on an Intel Mac. If you’re new to Apple Silicon Mac ownership, it can be helpful to understand how recovery mode works on the new Mac architecture.

Read more »

English is the default language for subtitles while watching videos on an iPhone and iPad. However, this can be changed easily to a different language, if English isn’t your first language, or if you’re using subtitles for helping to learn a foreign language.

Read more »

If you’re a proud owner an Apple Silicon Mac with the M1 chip, you may want to learn how you can perform certain troubleshooting tasks like reinstalling macOS, force restarting, and booting into safe mode, since the procedures are slightly different from the outgoing Intel Macs due to the changes in system architecture.

Reinstalling macOS may sometimes be a necessary troubleshooting step if you’re facing any issues with system software on your Mac. It can sometimes help to resolve curious system crashes and app issues, poor overall performance, and other unexpected behavior that otherwise can’t be easily tracked down or fixed. Fortunately, with the Apple Silicon Macs you can reinstall macOS on your system while keeping all your files and settings intact. This is typically done by booting the Mac into recovery mode, or from a USB drive.

Read more »

Modern versions of iPhone and iPad system software offer the user more control over their location data that is shared with apps. This privacy-centric feature allows the user to choose either precise or approximate location data on their iPhone and iPad, whichever the user is more comfortable with or finds most appropriate for that particular app.

Read more »

Unable to find the backslash symbol on your iPhone or iPad? If you’re relatively new to the iOS and iPadOS ecosystem, you’re probably not familiar with all aspects of the keyboard, so finding uncommon symbols like backslash might be an issue. But rest assured, you can type the black slash on the iPhone and iPad keyboards!

Read more »

Apple has released macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 as a small security and bug fix update for Mac users running Big Sur. The macOS 11.2.1 update resolves a security issue with sudo, and also resolves some battery charging issues with select MacBook Pro models.

Separately, Apple also released macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Supplemental Update and macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Security Update 2021-002 for Mac users still running Catalina or Mojave operating systems.

The updates are recommended for all Mac users running compatible system software to install.

Read more »

Having trouble booting up an Apple Silicon M1 Mac normally? Booting into Safe Mode can help troubleshoot issues on a Mac, and help to determine if a particular problem is software related, MacOS related, or even hardware related. If you have an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac mini however, you’ll find the process of booting into Safe Mode on M1 Macs is different from how it worked on Intel Macs.

Read more »

Wondering how to perform some common troubleshooting tasks like force restarting an Apple Silicon M1, M2, or M3 Mac? If you are an early adopter an Apple silicon MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac mini, you might be curious how some some tasks are different, since M1-powered Macs are based on a completely different chip architecture.

Read more »

Did you recently start using Signal messenger to text your friends, family, and colleagues? You’re certainly not the only one in that regard, as many iPhone and Android users have been making the switch due to privacy or security concerns. Considering you’re new to the platform, you may not know how to get started with groups within the Signal app.

Read more »

If you’re an Android user who longs for iMessage on your Android phone, you may already be familiar with Screen Sharing options (that also work with Windows and Linux PC’s), and WeMessage. But another option is available called AirMessage, which brings iMessage sending and receiving to Android as well.

Read more »

If you’re a Homebrew fan and an Apple Silicon Mac user, you’ll be happy to discover the latest versions of Homebrew (3.0.0 and beyond) now natively support Apple Silicon architecture. You’ll still need Rosetta 2 to have some packages and formulae to work, but many are already native supported by the command line package manager.

Read more »

Are you not content with the text size of your subtitles while watching videos on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV? Don’t worry, regardless of your device, you can change your subtitle font size within a matter of seconds.

Read more »

Is the microphone on your iPhone not working as intended? Or, does your voice sound muffled during voice calls and video calls? There are several factors that could hamper the performance of your iPhone’s microphone, so let’s take look at how to resolve what can be a frustrating issue.

Read more »

Have you ever wondered if the passwords to any of your online accounts have been compromised in a data breach? You’re certainly not the only one in that regard, but now you can now check for breached password security easily right from your iPhone and iPad.

Read more »

If you’re a Signal messenger user, you can further improve the security and privacy of your Signal communications and messages by enabling and using the disappearing messages feature. Just as it sounds, disappearing messages causes Signal to automatically disappear and remove messages after a specified time period. Even better is that it’s customizable, so you can set disappearing messages to be enabled for specific contacts, and you can toggle the feature off and on at any time (as can the other person you’re communicating with).

For some quick background for the unfamiliar; Signal is a popular and highly regarded free secure messaging client that not only enhances communication privacy and security with end-to-end encryption, but is also popular because of it being cross-platform compatible, available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. That cross-platform availability makes it more versatile than iMessage, which while also encrypted, is limited to the Apple ecosystem. Signal requires a phone number to setup, but once you have it configured on an iPhone or Android you can then easily setup the client on a Mac, Windows PC, and other desktops too. And this might be obvious, but anyone you want to communicate with using Signal will need to have the Signal app on their device or computer as well.

Let’s walkthrough how to setup disappearing messages in Signal, including Signal messenger for iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux:

Read more »

Downloading complete macOS installers has long been possible via the App Store and from Apple CDN and the command line, but some users encounter difficulties with those approaches, or find them too cumbersome. Another option is to download a full macOS installer by using an app called MDS.

MDS stands for Mac Deploy Stick and is third party software, it’s free to download but if you want support for the app you’ll need to pay for it. For our purposes here, we’re simply aiming to use the MDS app to download complete installers of macOS system software, without going through the usual channels of the Mac App Store, or the Terminal.

Read more »