For those MacBook Pro owners with higher end models that include dual video cards (integrated and discrete GPU), you’re likely aware that Mac OS and certain apps will switch between the two graphics cards as is determined necessary. The idea behind this is for apps to use the integrated GPU when attempting to conserve power and battery life, and to use the discrete GPU when attempting to maximize graphics performance at the expense of battery and increased power consumption.

Generally speaking GPU switching is a great feature that should not be modified or adjusted in any way, but some advanced Mac users may wish to disable the automatic graphics card switching feature on MacBook Pro models.

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Apple is running a new iPhone 7 Plus commercial called “Take Mine”, the advertisement emphasizes the devices Portrait Mode camera feature.

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The Health app on iPhone is primarily used to track fitness and activity, and likely much more once the Apple Watch and other sensors connect to the device, but another handy and lesser known feature is called Medical ID. Medical ID can be filled out on your iPhone to show important information about the iPhones owner, and it can be checked on another users iPhone too – assuming they placed appropriate details.

Medical ID can show an iPhone owners name, birthdate, medical conditions, medical notes, relatives and partners, emergency contact information, blood type, whether you’re an organ donor or not, weight, height, and other details you want to add as well.

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Emojifying words and messages is one of the many new fun features of Messages in iOS. With a simple trick, you can choose words to replace them with Emoji icons, converting a generic text message into a colorful message intermixed with Emojis.

The Emoji text replacement tool works on iPhone and iPad as long as you have a modern version of iOS. Let’s review how to use this playful new component of Messages in iOS.

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The built-in trackpad on MacBook Pro and MacBook functions as the primary input method of the Apple laptops, but if you primarily use an external mouse or external trackpad you may occasionally find the built-in trackpad receives input you’d rather the Mac ignore. With a simple settings adjustment you can do exactly that, ignoring any input from the internal built-in trackpad when an external mouse or trackpad is connected to the Mac.

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Did you use Vine? If so you’ll likely want to download all of your Vine videos before they disappear for good. We’ll show you how to download any and all video archive from the Vine service, it’s pretty simple and can be done with any web browser, there’s no need to break out curl or derive a DIY solution like what was once necesssary. And yes, if you never used Vine from your iPhone or Android, this will be totally irrelevant to you.

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Many Mac users have apps installed on their Mac which take up considerable storage space but generally go unused. Accordingly, Mac users can free up storage space on their computer by tracking down large Mac apps and deleting them.

The latest versions of MacOS offer a very easy way to track down large applications, see when they were last used, and offers a simple way to delete the apps from the Mac, all from a unified Storage Management tool.

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Need to place an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus into DFU mode? Now that the iPhone no longer includes a clickable Home button, you might be wondering how to place the iPhone 7 models into DFU mode, and that’s exactly what we’ll show you how to do.

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Want to mute audio blasting from a browser tab in Google Chrome? Of course you do! Few things are more annoying when browsing the web than autoplaying video and autoplaying audio that starts when you load a web page.

Rather than frantically trying to locate the offending media source of blasting, a better approach is to mute the tab, which will silence any and all audio coming from the webpage, whether it’s in a video or embedded movie, or an audio track, or otherwise. This is a great tip whether you use Google Chrome sporadically or if you set it as your Macs default browser (and yes a similar feature is available for Safari too).

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Have you ever received a picture message on your iPhone and you wanted to share that photo with someone else? There are a few different ways to forward photo messages from an iPhone, we’ll show you the easiest and quickest method to pass along a picture message from your iPhone Messages app to send along to another contact.

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Mac users can respond to Messages faster than ever by replying directly from a message notification, without ever having to open the Messages app. This effectively means that you can have an entire conversation through the message pop-ups in Mac OS without using the Messages app, though keep in mind the experience will be limited for multimedia messages of pictures and video, leaving this tip best for replying to normal text based communications.

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Pages for Mac has gained the ability to use Tabs, allowing for tidy document management within the Pages app when having multiple documents open simultaneously.

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If you have some picture(s) you’d rather not shown alongside your regular photo album in Photos for Mac, you can hide those photos and then use a special Hidden Photos album to contain the hidden images and browse them separately. These hidden pictures will be self contained and separate from the regular album views, though they can still be easily accessed from the Photos app on Mac. We’ll show you how to hide photos, and then how to access the Hidden album, and how to unhide pictures as well.

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Restrictions on iPhone or iPad prevent a user from making many changes to the devices settings and allow the disabling of various iOS features, including some apps, functionalities, to disallow certain content types, and the ability to prevent making in-app purchases or buying from the App Store. Restrictions are very commonly used by parents to make a kid friendly iPhone or iPad, and iOS restrictions are also frequently used in academic and public environments to limit a device in various ways.

Restrictions are an excellent feature of iOS, but what happens if you forget the Restrictions password in iOS? Can you reset a forgotten Restrictions passcode on iPhone or iPad? How do you remove a Restrictions passcode if you don’t know the password? These are all valid questions, be sure to read thoroughly below to learn how to work with the scenario of a lost restrictions password.

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Wondering how to use the 2x zoom telephoto lens on iPhone camera? Many new iPhone models include dual or triple camera lens systems, with the secondary lens allowing for 2x optical zoom with a 10x digital zoom modifier. Using the 2x optical zoom feature on iPhone Plus is excellent and easy, but it works slightly different from zooming on a regular iPhone camera, which is accomplished with a pinch gesture. This article will show you how to use and access the 2x telephoto zoom lens feature, assuming your iPhone supports it.

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iTunes error 9006 may appear when attempting to download, restore, or update an iPhone or iPad. Typically you’ll see an iTunes error message that states something like “There was a problem downloading software for the iPhone. An unknown error occurred (9006).” or you’ll notice an “err = 9006” message alongside a stopped or failed download of an iPhone software update.

Usually iTunes error 9006 can be resolved with some simple troubleshooting steps, allowing the user to update iOS on their iPhone or iPad without incident rather quickly.

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It’s officially the last minute, and you still need to get a gift for someone. Welcome to the present shopping procrastinators club! But seriously, this happens, maybe someone makes an unexpected appearance at a holiday gathering or maybe you just forgot that cousin Billy exists, or maybe you quite literally waited until the last minute to get any presents, whatever the reason there’s no need to panic, there ARE last minute gift options that don’t involve frantically running to whatever store is open and buying whatever is available off the shelf.

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The new iPhone models offer subtle system haptic feedback when performing various actions in iOS. This physical haptic feedback is performed through the Taptic Engine built into iPhone, and you’ll notice it throughout iOS when activating different features, toggles, buttons, and functions.

You’ll find system haptic feedback when opening Notification Center, Contrl Center, toggling UI switches, opening Spotlight, using onscreen zoom, when scrolling through date and number pickers, refreshing Mail, activating the arrange app icon or delete apps feature, and more.

Some users may not like the system haptics on iPhone however, and may prefer to turn this feature off.

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