Apple has released the first Apple Silicon Macs, beginning a likely multi-year process of divorcing the Mac line from Intel CPU architecture. The new Macs include a base-model MacBook Pro 13″, MacBook Air 13″, and Mac mini, each with the new M1 Apple chip.

The new Apple silicon Macs maintain their existing chassis and hardware design, meaning the differences are entirely in the internal components and performance.

Let’s check out a quick overview of the new hardware.

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Scrolling through days or weeks of Messages conversations on iPhone or iPad to find that one photo you’re looking for is such a tedious process. However, if you use iMessage for texting your friends, family, and colleagues, there’s a neat trick to quickly access all your media and browse through all photos that have been exchanged.

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Do you use Facebook as your primary social media platform to stay connected with your friends, family and colleagues? If so, you might be interested in the Dark Mode feature that Facebook has to offer.

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Do you want to combine a few different videos into a single video on your iPhone or iPad? Perhaps you’ve recorded and captured a handful of video clips and you’d like to make a montage? With the iMovie app that’s available for iOS and iPadOS devices, combining movie clips into a single video is a fairly simple and straightforward procedure.

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Ever wished you could see the transfer progress and speed of copying files at the command line? If you’re familiar with the command line of Mac OS, Linux, or any other Unix operating system, you likely use the ‘cp’ or ditto commands to copy files, directories, and other data. The ditto and cp command is great, but one downside is that cp does not include a progress indicator, and that’s what we’re going to resolve here by creating an alias to use an rsync command with a progress indicator to copy data at the command line.

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Wi-Fi Calling is great iPhone feature that allows you to make regular phone calls over your Wi-Fi network. It comes in handy when you’re indoors but your cellular signal strength is poor, or even nonexistent. Assuming wi-fi calling is enabled on your iPhone, your carrier will automatically switch to the active Wi-Fi connection to improve the call quality and ensure uninterrupted phone calls.

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Most iPhone users know that you can enable or disable Live Photos directly from within the Camera app on iPhone every time you take a photo. But you also may notice that if you turn off Live Photos in the camera app by toggling the button, the next time you use the Camera app the Live Photos feature is back on again. This is because the default behavior of the Camera app is to automatically reset the have Live Photo turned on, even if you turned it off the last time you used the camera on the iPhone (or iPad for that matter).

Fortunately there’s a solution to this, and a somewhat hidden feature allows you to take a photo on iPhone without having to turn off Live Photo every time you use the Camera app. Instead, the Live Photos setting will be maintained as what you last left it, each time you open the app. Basically this lets you to completely turn off the feature if you want to.

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The Messages app on iPhone and iPad allows you to play games directly within the app itself, in addition to what you’d typically expect with sending and receiving regular text messages and iMessages. Does playing games like chess, checkers, cup pong, battleship, darts, mini-golf, amongst many others over iMessage sound fun to you? Then read on to learn how it works!

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Apple has released macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 Release Candidate to users involved in the MacOS beta testing programs.

A release candidate potentially indicates that macOS Big Sur will be finalized and made available to the general public in the near future.

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Apple has released iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2, the latest updates to the iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 operating systems.

iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 include bug fixes and improvements, along with a few smaller features like an addition of the Shazam music identification widget. Additionally, the new software updates include over a hundred new emoji icons, including pinched fingers, a plunger, beaver, Dodo bird, ninja, anatomical heart and lungs, coin, transgender symbol, transgender flag, more gender neutral emojis of humans, multiple insects, plants, a variety of animals including bison and mammoth, and much more. There are also new wallpapers available in the release. The update is recommended for all users running a prior iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 release.

Separately, Apple released MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 Supplemental Update for Macs running Catalina, tvOS 14.2 for Apple TV, and watchOS 7.1 for Apple Watch, and iOS 12.4.9 for older iPhone and iPad models.
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Apple has released a Supplemental Update for MacOS Catalina 10.15.7.

The Supplemental Update is said to improve the security of macOS, and is therefore recommended for all users to install on their Macs running Catalina.

Additionally, Apple has also released iOS 14.2 for iPhone, iPadOS 14.2 for iPad, iOS 12.4.9 for older iPhone and iPad models, watchOS 7.1 for Apple Watch, and tvOS 14.2 for Apple TV.

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Apple has released iOS 12.4.9 for older iPhone and iPad models that are not capable of running the freshly released iOS 14.2 and ipadOS 14.2 updates.

The iOS 12.4.9 update includes security fixes and is therefore recommended to install on eligible devices.

Specifically, iOS 12.4.9 is available for iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, and iPod touch (6th generation). All newer iPhone and iPad models can instead install iOS 14.2 or iPadOS 14.2.

Related, Apple also released watchOS 6.2.9 and watchOS 5.3.8 for older Apple Watch models paired with older devices, also containing security fixes.

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An easy way to make important notes stand out is to pin them to the top of the Notes app list. If you regularly use the Notes app to take down notes, make to-do lists, and store other valuable information, you may have trouble finding some important notes, and the pinned note feature offers a simple solution to this, beyond just using Notes search to find stuff.

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Do you want to check how much free storage space you have on your Apple Watch? Perhaps, you want to transfer music and photos to your watch and you want to make sure you have enough space? Fortunately, you can see this info within a matter of seconds.

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Want to declutter your Messages app on iPhone and iPad? One way to do that is to delete iMessages, either the entire conversations, or even a specific message. And let’s face it, most of us have sent a message or two that we regretted, or perhaps we don’t want to see reminders of any more. Although you can’t unsend those messages, you can still delete them from your iPhone or iPad.

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Are you subscribed to multiple Apple services like iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and more? In that case, you’ll certainly want to check out the new Apple One subscription bundle, as it will likely save you some cash. Plus by rolling all of the Apple subscriptions into one, you may find it easier to manage.

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Significant Locations is a feature that allows your iPhone or iPad to keep a record of all the locations you’ve frequently visited, and that the device considers to be significant – typically this is directly relational to the frequency of going to that destination. This information is then used to provide you tailored suggestions and alerts in Apple Maps, Calendar and Photos app.

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Did you know that apps running in the background on your Apple Watch can affect its performance and impact battery life? If you’re worried about this, you may want to disable background app refresh on your wearable.

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