The Mac has a myriad of features available to make our computing lives easier and we cover them regularly, but here we will highlight five particularly simple yet incredibly useful tricks that Mac users can access and use. Some of these tips may be well known by power users, and others less known by everyone else.

From instant information lookups, quickly reviewing every open window in Mac OS, speedy Emoji access, focusing attention by ignoring notifications, and using Spotlight as a quick launch tool, read on to learn some great tricks.

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The Mac Dashboard is an under appreciated feature in Mac OS that offers a screen of little widgets for displaying things like the weather, dictionary, stocks, currency conversion, ski conditions, world clocks, and more. The Dashboard feature is kind of like what the latest iOS widget lock screen offers, but on the Mac. For whatever reason, Dashboard has been deemphasized in more recent versions of mac OS though, and if you find yourself not using Dashboard or accidentally entering into Dashboard, you can close the feature and turn it off.

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Apple has released iOS 10.3.1 for iPhone and iPad users. The small point release update is said to include bug fixes and security enhancements.

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Sometimes, Mac users may encounter a black screen when they wake their Mac from a sleep state. The issue is quite obvious if you experience it; when you attempt to wake a Mac from sleep or open your MacBook lid, the screen stays black, although the computer is obviously awake as often indicated by the keyboard being lit up or even alert sounds triggering from the computer. This black screen upon sleep wake issue can happen at random, I encountered the black screen on wake issue after updating my MacBook Pro to the latest version of MacOS, so although it’s not particularly common it’s also not exceedingly rare.

Don’t panic! If you experience an unresponsive black screen when waking your Mac from sleep, you’ll likely be able to resolve the problem with the following troubleshooting steps.

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The internet is generally pretty useless on April Fools day, which makes April 1st a great day to basically ignore anything you see online because it’s probably a prank, a joke, or outright fake. We’ve shared plenty of April Fools pranks before here too, one of my personal favorites is the “iPhone is Disabled” wallpaper prank but there are many other funny iPhone pranks and Mac pranks too.

Of course everyones favorite virtual assistant Siri has to get in on the fun too then, right? And Siri does, with a handful of witty comments and goofy statements if you inquire about the day.

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Did you know the Messages app has a Search function for iPhone and iPad? Many people don’t realize that you can easily search through iMessages and text messages on the iPhone, you’ll be able to quickly find messages by name, word, phrase, or other search terms.

iOS Message search is fast and easy to use, but like many other iOS features it’s a little hidden so don’t be surprised if you have never seen it before. This guide will show you who to use the Messages search feature for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

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Have you ever wondered how long your MacBook Pro or MacBook battery really lasts? Apple usually advertises their laptops as having “all-day battery life”, but has that been your experience in practice?

Wonder no more! We’ll show you how to check how long your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air battery is actually lasting so that you can see exactly how much time you’re getting out of your Mac laptops battery. Whether you have all-day battery life, something more, or something less, you’ll be able to tell.

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Are you tired of iPhone and iPad apps nagging you to rate and review their apps with pop-ups? The most annoying in-app rating and review pop-ups usually arrive in third party apps and say something along the lines of “review our app” and offer a few options of reviewing the app now, reviewing the app later, or attempting to stop reviewing the app completely which seems to just postpone the review pop-up slightly longer but never entirely. The pop-ups take over the entire iOS experience and must be acted on to dismiss, fun! Be annoyed no more, fortunately you can now disable these review and rating pop-ups in iOS completely.

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MacOS now includes Night Shift, a feature which adjusts the screens hue color as daylight shifts to night. When the Night Shift feature is in use on a Mac, the display will shift to a warmer color in the evening hours and shift back to the regular color hue again in the daylight hours, this happens automatically on a schedule.

Night Shift is a great feature that is recommended for all Mac users to enable if you use your computer at night, the warmer hues can help to reduce eye strain and might offer other benefits as well, including improvements to sleep quality. We’ll show you how to setup and use this great feature on your Mac.

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Apple has released the first beta versions of macOS 10.12.5, iOS 10.3.2, tvOS 10.2.1, and watchOS 3.2.2.

The new beta builds arrive just a day after releasing the final stable versions of macOS 10.12.4, iOS 10.3, tvOS 10.2, and watch OS 3.2, so if you are already tired of those stable releases then you can now test new beta versions.

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Apple has released the final version of iOS 10.3 to users of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Any device capable of running a prior iOS 10 release can install the iOS 10.3 update.

iOS 10.3 brings with it a variety of bug fixes, feature enhancements, and improvements, as well as the introduction of the new APFS new file system. Separately, tvOS 10.2 and watchOS 3.2 are also available as updates.

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Apple has released the final version of macOS Sierra 10.12.4 to the public. The latest version of Mac OS can run on any computer which is compatible with Sierra.

MacOS 10.12.4 includes a variety of bug fixes, security enhancements, and a few minor features as well.

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The iPhone Favorites list in the Phone app offers a fast way to dial “favorite” contacts. The Favorites contact list is undeniably convenient, and you may decide you want to change what numbers are shown here or who are in that favorites list. A friend recently asked how to remove an iPhone favorite from their contacts list without removing it from their phone completely, and that’s exactly what we’ll show you how to do here.

It’s very easy to remove a favorite from the Favorite contacts list on iPhone, here is all you need to do:

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Don’t like paying toll roads and toll bridges when you’re driving around? Now you can choose a setting in the Apple Maps app for iOS to avoid tolls when you get directions on Maps for iPhone or iPad.

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The new iPhone includes many improvements to the camera, including a great selfie flash feature that lights up the screen to provide some light fill into your selfies taken with the iPhone front facing camera. This basically uses a little software trick to add a flash to the front facing camera of iPhone, preventing you from having to turn the device around and take a picture of yourself without seeing your own mug in the process (oh the humanity!).

If you’re a big fan of taking great selfies and you take a lot of of pictures of yourself, then Selfie Flash is going to be a feature you’ll really appreciate because it genuinely improves the appearance of portraits taken with the iPhones front camera.

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Many languages use accents and diacritic marks to change how a letter or vowel sounds. Accordingly, you may find it useful to know how to type accents and diacritical marks on a Mac using the keyboard. This should be particularly useful for users who also type or write in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Greek, but obviously this applies to many other latin language scripts as well.

Modern versions of Mac OS offer an exceptionally fast way to type letter accents, and it’s quite easy to use.

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If you want to add some flair and customization to emails sent from your Mac, you can use the Stationery feature to personalize the appearance of emails sent from the Mail app in Mac OS. The Stationery customizations make emails look a lot more exciting than just simple text on a white background, and you can stylize an email message with various themes for birthdays, announcements, sentiments, to emphasize photos, gifts, parties, and various other stationery styles from a series of templates built into the Mac Mail app.

This offers a fun way to personalize and theme emails for events or well-wishing, and they are extremely easy to use.

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Apple has quietly released some hardware updates to their iPhone and iPad lineup, including a red color iPhone 7 and a lower-end iPad model.

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