Want to enable a word counter in Pages on iPad or iPhone? The Pages app for iOS includes an optional word count service that will constantly update as you type and edit any document within the Pages app for iOS. Curiously, enabling the word counter on Pages for iOS is different on iPad and iPhone, but this article will show you how to enable the feature in either version.

While this may not be useful to all Pages users, many writers, authors, editors, and students rely on word counters for various reasons, and a word counter can help to easily determine the length of a document, manuscript, newsletter, or any other file that may be worked on in the word processor app.

Read more »

The Mac App Store defaults to auto-playing videos, but if you’re not a fan of autoplaying video let alone in the Mac App Store, you can disable that capability.

When you turn off video autoplay in the Mac App Store, the videos accompanying apps will still exist, but they must be played manually.

Read more »

You can add a second person to Face ID for authentication on an iPhone or iPad. Alternatively, you can use this same feature to add your own face again but with a vastly different appearance. For example, maybe you want to add your spouses face to Face ID so they can unlock your iPhone or iPad too, or maybe you alternate between your regular appearance as a perfectly coiffed supermodel woman and dressing up as a disheveled Santa Claus. Whatever the case, you can add a second face or alternate appearance to Face ID authentication in iOS.

Read more »

Want to cut back on social networking use? Or perhaps you want to reduce time spent with social media on a family iOS device? The iPhone and iPad new Screen Time feature can make that easier than ever before, by allowing you to put a time limit on social networking usage to a chosen time limit per day.

For example, perhaps you want to set a 15 minute daily time limit for social networking usage so that you or someone else don’t waste an hour a day mindlessly browsing through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or anything similar. That’s exactly the kind of limitation you can put into place on social media use with the Screen Time feature in iOS.

Read more »

Do you feel like battery life has worsened since updating a Mac laptop to MacOS Mojave? Some Mac users have discovered their battery life has reduced after updating a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air to MacOS Mojave 10.14.x, or just that battery life seems to drain faster than expected.

Here we will discuss a few possible reasons for reductions in battery life, as well as offer some helpful tips to improve battery life on Mac laptops running MacOS Mojave.

Read more »

Have you ever wished you had a Linux command line on an iPad or iPhone? With iSH you can get pretty close to accomplishing that goal. iSH Shell is a Linux shell for iOS that uses an x86 emulator to run a simplified version of Alpine Linux on an iPad or iPhone. You can even install packages and additional software directly into iSH with the Alpine package manager, offering access to the world of command line tools like wget, curl, python, git, and much more.

Read more »

If you’re a Safari web browser user, and you also use the popular Dark Mode appearance theme on Mac OS, then you may have noticed that it’s a bit more challenging to determine if a Safari browser window is in private browsing mode or not.

It turns out there is still a visual cue to indicate that Safari is in Private Browsing mode, it’s just a much more subtle visual cue when Dark Mode is enabled on the Mac.

Read more »

Apple has released the first beta versions of iOS 12.1.2 and macOS 10.14.3 for users participating in the system software beta testing programs. The initial beta builds are currently available to those in the registered developer beta testing programs, but typically the public beta rolls out soon after.

Additionally, Apple has rolled out the first beta builds of watchOS 5.1.3 beta 1 and tvOS 12.1.2 beta 1.

Read more »

TextEdit, the default text editor bundled with MacOS, now supports a dark mode theme, which basically inverts the color display of the text editor so that white text appears on a dark background, rather than the default black text on white background. This makes working in TextEdit at night or in low light conditions a bit easier on the eyes, just like the system-wide Dark Mode MacOS feature in general does.

Read more »

Looking for some great gift ideas for this holiday season? We’ve got a collection of tech gadgets and accessories that are sure to be of interest to the geekier folks on your shopping list, perhaps yourself included.

Browse through the list below and see if something catches your fancy. Sure you could always splurge on a snazzy MacBook Pro or anything else at the Apple store at Amazon too…

Read more »

A Mac can easily be connected to a Bluetooth speaker system, offering a convenient and wireless method of enjoying audio from the computer.

Using a Bluetooth speaker system on a Mac is quite simple, and the only real requirement is that the Mac has Bluetooth actively enabled, and the Speaker system is within range. Beyond that, MacOS is able to connect to virtually any Bluetooth speaker, whether it’s a fancier stereo or a simple portable speaker.

Read more »

Apple has released an update to Apple Watch that adds significant new health features to the Apple Watch Series 4, including an ECG app and irregular heart rhythm notifications.

The WatchOS 5.1.2 update arrives along with iOS 12.1.1 for iPhone and iPad and MacOS Mojave 10.14.2 for Mac.

Read more »

Apple has released iOS 12.1.1 for iPhone and iPad users. The freshly updated version of iOS includes a handful of small changes and improvements, along with the usual bug fixes.

Additionally, Apple also released MacOS Mojave 10.14.2 Update, Security Updates for macOS Sierra and High Sierra, updates to Safari, and an update for Apple TV as tvOS 12.1.1, along with watchOS 5.1.2 for Apple Watch with ECG and other new health features.

One of the more notable changes in iOS 12.1.1 is that it moves the FaceTime camera switching button back to a more obvious location during a FaceTime conversation, rather than staying hidden behind various other layers of interface abstraction, as was the case with FaceTiming in prior iOS 12 builds.

Read more »

Apple has released MacOS 10.14.2 update for MacOS Mojave. The latest software update for the Mac is said to improve the stability, compatibility, and security of Macs, and is therefore recommended for all Mojave users to install.

Mac users not running Mojave will instead find “Security Update 2018-003 High Sierra” and “Security Update 2018-006 Sierra” available for prior MacOS versions, along with updates to the Safari web browser.

Separately, Apple also released iOS 12.1.1 update for iPhone and iPad, along with an update to tvOS for Apple TV, an update for Homepod, and a small update to iTunes for Windows, along with watchOS 5.1.2 for Apple Watch with ECG and health features.

Read more »

The Mail app for Mac maintains a list of contacts and email addresses with which you have communicated before, and that email address list will be used for the Mail app suggestions and email address completion suggestion lists. This is separate from the regular Contacts address book that is maintained on the Mac, as the email recipients list is limited to the Mail app. Often contacts email addresses change, or perhaps you just no longer need or want a particular contact available in the recipients email list of Mail app, in which case you can delete and remove any unwanted or invalid email addresses from this list in Mail for Mac. And that is what we’re going to focus on here in this tutorial; deleting email addresses from the previous recipients contacts list in Mail for Mac OS.

Read more »

Group FaceTime video chat allows for up to 32 participants to be engaged in the same active video conference, as long as those people are on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, running the latest versions of macOS or iOS system software. We’ve discussed making Group FaceTime video calls from the iPhone and iPad before, and so this tutorial is going to cover making the Group FaceTime video calls from a Mac.

Read more »

Some absolutely stunning space screen savers exist on the latest Apple TV system software versions, presumably captured from the International Space Station, or perhaps some other satellite. Thanks to a third party effort, you can get those gorgeous space screensavers from the Apple TV on a Mac too, in up to 4k video resolution.

Read more »

If you’d like the keyboard backlighting on a MacBook Pro or Air to turn itself off after the Mac laptop has been inactive for a determined amount of time, you can toggle a system setting to allow for that.

This setting is aimed at specifically the keyboard backlighting, independent of what’s going on with the screen or the Mac itself, which is what makes this different from the general Energy Saver settings that turn off the Mac display or cause a MacBook to sleep after inactivity.

Read more »