If you’re an extra longtime Mac user, you might remember way back in the 1990s when desktop backgrounds on classic Mac OS versions were tiled images of various textures. This was way back when the idea of setting a single image as wallpaper was a bit extreme because it was excessively resource heavy, and so tiling a small image was the norm instead (if not using just a solid color as a background) – the good old days of computing, right?

Well, why not bring a handful of those classic Mac OS System 7 tiling wallpapers to your modern Mac?

Read more »

All new iPhone models includes Siri access, the ever helpful (and sometimes goofy) virtual assistant that can perform tons of tasks by issuing simple commands by voice. But if you’re accustomed to accessing Siri by holding down a Home button and now you have a newer iPhone without a home button, like iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhon XS, iPhone XR, XS Max, or iPhone X, you’re probably wondering how to access Siri on the iPhone which does not have a Home button at all.

Accessing Siri on iPhone X and 11 series is easy as it ever was, it’s just different because there is no Home button on the device. It turns out there are actually a few ways to access Siri on iPhone, using a button, or by using the Hey Siri voice command.

Read more »

Ever picked up iPhone XS, XR, X and found Apple Pay credit cards on screen? Or have you pulled iPhone X out of a pocket or bag and discovered that Apple Pay is open on the lock screen? This is from a new Apple Pay access feature that iPhone X enables by default, which allows the devices side power button to be pressed twice to bring up the Apple Pay wallet screen.

If you’re an iPhone X user who is frequently bringing up the Apple Pay screen when you don’t want to, you can disable the feature that causes Apple Pay to present itself when the side button is double-pressed. This will prevent Apple Pay from constantly coming up accidentally or unintentionally while handling iPhone X.

Read more »

iCloud Drive allows for easy cloud access and storage of data from Mac and iOS devices, and so having the ability to quickly get to iCloud Drive at any time via the Dock can be very convenient for many Mac users.

Read more »

If you don’t want Siri to ever dictate, speak, or write out explicit language, you can disable bad language in Siri for iPhone and iPad completely.

By disabling explicit language support in Siri, the virtual assistant will use asterisks to cover up curse words and bad language, like “s**t”, and will literally bleep explicit language if it is spoken or repeated by the AI voice for whatever reason.

Read more »

The Notes app in iOS is ever useful and offers a great place to store whatever little tidbits of text, checklists, pictures, doodles and drawings, shared notes with other people, password locked notes, and other data points you wish to preserve in some organized manner on an iPhone or iPad. And as for storing, the Notes app on the iPhone and iPad has two different account locations for Notes data; locally on the device itself, or in iCloud.

By default with modern versions of iOS, the Notes app sets the default account save location of note data to iCloud, but if you wish to adjust the Notes default so that notes are local instead, you can do so via settings. This will impact default notes behavior, and also the default notes account that is interacted with via Siri notes requests and any Notes data visible from the widgets screens in iOS.

Read more »

AirPods are the new wireless earphones from Apple, they allow for completely wireless listening to music, interacting with Siri, answering phone calls, and interacting with music or audio. AirPods are particularly popular with iPhone users, but they work with most other iOS devices and Macs as well.

If you got a new pair of AirPods you might be wondering how to set them up to work with your iPhone or iPad. It turns out to be quite simple to configure AirPods and connect them to an iPhone or iPad, as this tutorial will demonstrate. Most of the AirPod setup process is automated and works a bit like magic. And not to worry, if something doesn’t go exactly as planned when connecting to AirPods we’ll show you how to reset the process and start over again too.

Read more »

Some Mac users running older versions of MacOS system software may notice that after they plug an iPhone or a camera into their Mac, the computer starts running slower and, if it has a battery, the battery drains faster. Upon closer inspection with Activity Monitor on the impacted Mac, you might notice that a process called “PTPCamera” is running and consuming a heavy amount of CPU usage, usually hovering around 85% or so, and it tends to persist until manual intervention has occurred.

Read more »

Your battery might be making your older iPhone slow. This is because, apparently, iOS system software sometimes slows down older iPhones when the internal battery has degraded to the point where it can no longer sufficiently power the device at the expected performance level.

Read more »

You can easily open any link found on the web into a new private browsing window on Safari for Mac, thanks to a helpful albeit little-known trick available in the web browser.

For the unfamiliar, Private Browsing mode aims to protect private information and some degree of privacy by preventing websites from tracking search behavior, setting permanent cookies, and insuring that pages and websites you visit are not stored in typical Safari History. This is helpful for many situations, let’s say you see a link on a webpage that you want to open but you don’t want it to appear in your browsing history for whatever reason (or avoid the cookie situation because of a paywall), then you could open a link into the private browsing window.

Read more »

The Touch Bar equipped MacBook Pro stores additional data for the Touch Bar and Touch ID sensor that is not erased by default if you format a Mac or reinstall MacOS system software. Thus, if you want to completely clear out and erase all Touch Bar data, you will need to manually intervene via a multi-step process to clear out Touch Bar specific data from those MacBook Pro models.

Read more »

If you regularly sleep your Mac, you may have noticed that sometimes the Mac will wake itself up and show a notification on the screen, even if the screen is locked and otherwise password protected with the login screen. These notifications that wake a Mac from sleep are called “Enhanced Notifications” and they can originate from Messages, FaceTime, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Game Center, Back to My Mac, and Find My Mac.

Enhanced Notifications may be great for some Mac users, but others might want their Mac to sleep and stay asleep when they put their Mac to sleep, at least until they decide to wake the computer themselves.

Read more »

Some Mac users may be interested in downloading and using an alternative developer-focused build of Safari called Safari Technology Preview.

Safari Technology Preview is aimed at more advanced Mac users who want to get an early look at upcoming features and technologies in future final Safari builds. For example, Safari Technology Preview allows disabling autoplay easily with a setting option, whereas older traditional Safari builds do not.

Read more »

Apple has released iOS 11.2.5 for iPhone and iPad users engaged in the beta testing programs.

Read more »

Need to reset and clear DNS cache in macOS High Sierra? Some Mac users may need to occasionally reset their local DNS cache, typically because the Mac DNS settings have changed, or a particular name server or domain is cached and they need to flush existing DNS cache.

While it’s most often web developers, systems administrators, and network admins that fiddle with DNS and have to reset and clear their DNS caches, sometimes other Mac users need to clear the DNS caches as well.

Read more »

Apple has released macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 Beta 2 for Mac users involved in beta testing the operating system.

Read more »

Animoji is one of the major new software features available on iPhone XS, XR, XS Max, and X. For the unfamiliar, Animoji are animated cartoon renditions of things like a smiling pile of fecal matter, a unicorn, dog, cat, chicken, panda, pig, fox, alien, and other figures, and the Animoji feature works by using the Face ID front-facing iPhone camera to see how your face is changing and mimic those facial expressions on the animated character. You can then record little snippets of Animoji and send them to people, leading to messages that include something like a talking animated unicorn or talking animated pile of feces.

This thrilling new Animoji feature is easy to use, but it’s also easy to overlook. That’s because Animoji capabilities are built into the Messages app of iPhone and is, currently anyway, not a separate application. Thus, to create and use Animoji, you must start from the iPhone Messages app. The tutorial below walks through how to use Animoji on the iPhone X series.

Read more »

Want another web browsing option on iPhone or iPad? Maybe you need to access a PC-only website from an iOS device? You’re in luck, because Microsoft has released Microsoft Edge for iOS, the web browser primarily known for being bundled in Windows 10.

Microsoft Edge for iOS allows iPhone and iPad users access to the Edge web browser on their mobile devices, without needing a PC. Edge for iOS should be particularly helpful for iPhone and iPad owners who primarily use a Windows 10 PC as their computers and rely on the Edge browser, but it also has notable value to users who need to access websites that are restricted to Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, and will undoubtedly be helpful for web developers and designers who want to test their work across different web browser platforms too.

Read more »