macOS Sonoma arrived with 134 new stunning wallpapers available that you can use to spruce up your Mac desktop background. The giant collection of new wallpapers are themed, with wallpaper options for landscapes, cityscapes, underwater, and Earth from space. Even better, these are not just static, they’re all animated wallpapers, meaning they will briefly move and animate when you unlock your Mac, wake from screen saver, or login on boot.
If you’re new to Sonoma or macOS in general, you may not be familiar with how to access and use the hundred plus wallpapers, so we’re going to show you how this works so that you can beautify your Mac desktop quickly with minimal effort.
Amazon is offering some particularly generous deals on the iPad Air M1 model, taking $150 off the $599 MSRP and bringing the discount price down to just $450. But it gets better, because they’re also offering hefty discounts on the iPad Magic Keyboard, and Apple Pencil, so you can get a full iPad setup for near all-time-low prices. Plus there’s some great deals on AirTags and AirPods, so check those out too. Remember, stock changes quickly at Amazon, so check different colors, or if something sells out, you can always check and refresh again later.
iPad Air M1 5th generation for $450 (Save $150, 25% Off)
Amazon is cutting 25% off the price of the M1 iPad Air, bringing the 5th gen model down to just $450 from the $599 MSRP. iPad Air 5th gen features a speedy and power efficient M1 chip, 10.9″ Liquid Retina Display, 64GB storage, 12MP front and 12MP back cameras, Touch ID, all day battery life, and full compatibility with Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil 2. The discount is available in select colors
You can save 13% on the iPad Magic Keyboard 11″ model, which works great with the iPad Air 5th gen. The iPad Magic Keyboard is arguably the best accessory you can get for an iPad, as it completely transforms the tablet into a laptop-like experience, with a fantastic trackpad and keyboard (with backlighting). Plus with the pass-through charging capacity for USB-C, you free up the port on the M1 iPad Air. You can get the deal price in either Black or White colors.
The Apple Pencil 2 is available at a whopper discount and works great with the iPad Air 5th gen, and any modern iPad Pro too. Apple Pencil allows for interacting with the iPad using a stylus, perfect for taking notes, doodling, drawing, sketching, or just interacting with your material easier. It charges magnetically by snapping to the side of your iPad Air or iPad Pro, and is another great accessory for the device.
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Many networks will block YouTube for any number of reasons; maybe you’re in a region or country where YouTube is not allowed, maybe you’re at a school or institution where YouTube is blocked, maybe censorship is blocking YouTube content, maybe your current network blocks YouTube, or maybe a particular YouTube video is region restricted. Whatever the reason, if YouTube is blocked and you’d like to watch a video that is on YouTube, there are a few tricks you can use to watch the video you’d like to, circumventing that block.
We’re going to cover three simple ways to unblock YouTube and watch blocked YouTube content, and these methods should work from just about any device, whether you’re on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows PC, Android, Linux, Chromebook, etc. Broadly speaking, these tricks should work regardless of where you are located and what your network is doing, though some firewalls and networks are trickier than others at blocking sites like YouTube.
If you’re a fan of Apple history and retro Apple stuff, you’ll probably appreciate this little blast from the past.
Sometime in 1993, a small team of young developers at Apple built the Macintosh Quadra 840AV and Centris 660AV, and upon completion of their project, filmed a little celebration video, where they toast to their accomplishment, and show off the motherboard of the new Macintosh desktop. That QuickTime video was then tucked into the System 7.1 CD that came bundled with those two Macintosh computers, as a little Easter Egg to be found and appreciated by fans.
Fast forward 31 years to 2024, and you don’t need to go hunting on Ebay or digging around in some dusty closet to find ancient MacOS classic CD’s, because the video has been archived for posterity on YouTube, and you can watch it below.
Spotify is a fantastic music streaming platform that is widely used by many people around the world. Collaborating on music playlists with friends, family, coworkers, and loved ones, is a fun feature that is included with Spotify. But, like so many features of apps and operating systems these days that are hidden behind things that you may not even know are menus, if you didn’t know how the feature works or that it exists, you may never stumble into the collaborative playlists feature of Spotify on your own.
We’ll show you how you can start collaborating playlists with friends using Spotify for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even Android or Windows, because it turns out the collaborative playlist option is available on every Spotify app for every platform. Very convenient.
Rarely, Mac users may experience an issue with the Photos app crashing during usage, or crashing in the background when not in use, but a pop-up error message appears on the Mac stating “Photos quit unexpectedly. Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more detailed information and send a report to Apple.”
While the error message gives you three options; reopen Photos again, report to Apple, or ignore, and 2/3 of those very well may resolve the issue (reporting to Apple seems to send a bug report to some corporate /dev/null so don’t count on any resolution associated with this), sometimes you may require additional troubleshooting steps to fix a recurring “Photos quit unexpectedly” error on the Mac.
We’re going to cover six troubleshooting steps for resolving crashing Photos app and the Photos app quitting unexpectedly error messages on the Mac.
The latest versions of Mail for iPhone, Mac, and iPad support a fantastic autofill security code feature. This is similar to the autofilling security code feature for SMS that is available in Messages for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, except of course that it’s utilizing the Mail app for two-factor authentication and security codes that are sent to you via email instead of by text message.
The great thing about this trick, other than the incredible convenience it offers, is that autofilling security codes and authentication codes works basically the same on every major Apple device platform, including iPhone, Mac, and iPad.
The third beta version of macOS Sonoma 14.4, iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, and watchOS 10.4, has been released to users enrolled in the beta testing programs for Apple system software. Additionally, beta 2 of VisionOS 1.1 is available for users beta testing software on the Apple Vision Pro.
Are you tired of seeing the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” notifications on your Mac running Ventura or Monterey? If so, you can hide those notifications and stop the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” nagging on your Mac.
It’s not unusual for Mac users to continue running older versions of system software, well after a new version of MacOS is released, and Sonoma is no different. In fact, there are tons of Mac users who continue to run MacOS Ventura, MacOS Monterey, and earlier MacOS releases, whether for compatibility reasons, personal preference, they’re not yet ready to install Sonoma, or maybe they’re simply following the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Whatever the case, if you do not want to see the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” notifications on your Mac any longer, you can hide them.
A subtle way that you can tweak MacOS to make it feel a little faster is to speed up the auto-hiding and auto-showing time of the Dock. This obviously only applies to Mac users who hide their Dock by default, and the emphasis needs to be on feel faster because while this is removing a small delay before showing the hidden Dock, it’s not actually doing anything to speed up the Mac. Nonetheless, it is a perceptive difference, and using the Dock certainly feels faster with the auto-hide delay removed, so let’s jump into it.
Using custom wallpapers are one of the simpler but more fun ways you can customize the appearance of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and some of my personal favorite wallpapers are space-themed. I recently came across two really beautiful and simple space themed wallpapers from BasicAppleGuy, and I wanted to share them with our audience since others may also appreciate them too.
Super Bowl 58 (or Super Bowl LVIII) is set to begin on February 11 at 3:30PM PT / 6:30PM ET, where the San Francisco 49ers will face the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The game is being aired on CBS live, but if you don’t have a TV with an antenna, you can also tune into the game from various solutions available on the web, iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, and iPad.
Here are some available options to watch Super Bowl 58 live and even for free
Wait how does Super Bowl LVIII translate to Super Bowl 58?
The NFL, being the classy and highbrow organization that it is, likes to use Roman Numerals (and confuse half the country in the process) to label the Super Bowl, thus, Super Bowl LVIII is Super Bowl 58.
If you’re wondering how this makes sense, here’s a quick lesson in Roman Numerals; L is 50, V is 5, and I is 1 which makes III a 3. Thus, adding them all together, you get 58, or LVIII.
Enjoy the game, go 49ers! Or Chiefs? If that’s your preference.
Apple has released Safari 17.3.1 as a software update for macOS Monterey and macOS Ventura.
The small Safari update appears to resolve the same overlapping text bug that was patched with macOS Sonoma 14.3.1, iOS 17.3.1, iPadOS 17.3.1, and watchOS 10.3.1. When users experience this bug, it can look like text is either disappearing (even when typing), or the text can be overlapping other text, and the bug can make the user experience difficult.
If you’re continuing to run MacOS Ventura or MacOS Monterey on a Mac, this is a recommended bug fix update.
Social networking is a huge part of the modern internet experience, and X / Twitter remains one of the more unique and biggest social networks out there, functioning as a sort of digital town square, where anyone can say or reply to just about anything. The X/Twitter experience is really what you make it, and it can be a really great service if you use it well and follow interesting accounts (like ours for osxdaily.com!), but it can also offer distractions, or the typical trappings of other social media services. If you’ve had enough for whatever reason, or you’re trying to minimize your social network use, you can delete your X/Twitter account.
Deleting your X/Twitter account has a two-step process, similar to how deleting Snapchat accounts, deleting Facebook, deleting Threads accounts, and deleting Instagram accounts works; first you deactivate, then the account gets deleted automatically after some time passes. Let’s check out how it works. And no, this is not some proselytization to convince you to remove your account from X because of some reason or another, it’s simply detailing the steps to do so, if you decide that’s the right thing for you and your social networking experiences.
Apple has released macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 for Mac users running the Sonoma operating system.
The bug fix update resolves an issue where text can overlap or disappear in certain situations and certain applications (typically WebKit/Safari).
Separately, Apple has also released iOS 17.3.1 and iPadOS 17.3.1, which fixes the same bug on iPhone and iPad, and watchOS 10.3.1, which resolves the bug on Apple Watch.
The Aerial screen savers on Mac and Apple TV are absolutely stunning, capturing high resolution drone flybys of amazing scenery around the world, from dramatic cityscapes, surreal underwater scenes, a broad range of landscapes, and even satellite imagery of Earth itself. These scenes are so beautiful that it’s natural to wonder where they were filmed, and what geographic location each Aerial screen saver is showing, so how do you figure out the geographic location of the Apple screen savers on Mac and Apple TV? Where are all the beautiful Apple TV and Mac screen savers filmed? It’s actually pretty easy to find out, though it differs for tvOS and MacOS.
Apple has released iOS 17.3.1 as an update for iPhone, along with iPadOS 17.3.1 for iPad. The small software update includes a bug fix for an issue where text may duplicate or overlap while typing. There do not appear to be any other changes or security fixes in this update.
Separately, macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 and watchOS 10.3.1 are also available as bug fix updates for Mac and Apple Watch, respectively, to address the same text overlap issue.
As WebP grows in popularity as a compressed image format for the web, many web workers need to convert batches of images to WebP format from their Mac. Bulk converting images like JPG and PNG to WebP is not currently a native feature, but with a little tinkering on the Mac, you can gain functionality to easily batch convert any images to WebP on the Mac.
This article is expanding on this post about converting images to webp using the Mac command line. We’ll be using the same webp toolkit from Google that is installed through HomeBrew, so you’ll want to install HomeBrew first, then install the webp tools from Google via Homebrew so that you have cwebp available as a command line utility on your Mac. But you won’t need to use the command line beyond the initial installation, because we’ll be using Automator to create a Finder Quick Action that performs the image compression and conversions to webp.
