Many users who are installing iOS updates (whether beta or final versions) encounter an issue where a spinning pop-up indicator message saying “Verifying update…” appears stuck on screen. This is a fairly common issue that is somewhat annoying because while the iOS update is verifying, the entire iPhone or iPad is unusable.

Fortunately, fixing a stuck verifying update issue on iPhone or iPad is really easy for almost all cases.

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The “Hey Siri” voice activated control feature on modern iOS devices is a great feature that many people find tremendous use with, but not everyone enjoys it. Some users may wish to disable “Hey Siri” on iPhone or iPad, which will prevent the voice activated ability from listening for the appropriate commands, but turning off Hey Siri has no impact on the broader ability to use Siri by accessing it from the Home button.

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Apple has released the fourth developer beta versions of iOS 10, watchOS 3, tvOS 10, and macOS Sierra 10.12. Additionally, the third public beta versions of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra are now available.

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Spotlight on the Mac will search through many different file types and folders to help you find what you’re looking for, but if Spotlight finds multiple matches across different categories, you’ll see the search results returned under each respective category listing.

While many Mac users will use the cursor to click the result they want, some more advanced users use the arrow keys to navigate within the Spotlight search results as well. This tip is an extension of the latter trick, letting you navigate quickly through Spotlight search results by jumping to different category listings in the Spotlight result window.
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Many iPhone users will send and receive picture messages through the Messages app, which arrive as iMessage if the recipient and sender is an iPhone user, or as MMS if the person is an Android or Windows phone user. Typically picture messages send without any issue, but if you are experiencing a problem where iPhone is not sending picture messages, read the steps below to resolve the difficulty in short order.

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Modern Macs with new versions of Mac OS (or Mac OS X) default to automatically reboot themselves upon a system freeze. This is a troubleshooting feature that aims to prevent average users from having to initiate a forced restart, since the Mac would simply restart itself if a system freeze were to occur.

While most users should not adjust this setting away from the default auto-restart option, some advanced Mac users may wish to toggle or disable the automatic reboot on freeze function of Mac OS X for some reason or another.

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Though it is an unusual occurrence, a Mac may encounter a broken or damaged EFI partition which typically prevents the Mac from booting and the Mac OS system software from loading. This is usually demonstrated as a boot screen that is stuck on the  Apple logo, sometimes with or without a wait cursor that spins endlessly. The EFI problem is then confirmed by booting into Recovery mode and running Disk Utility, often from an another drive.

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For Google Chrome users, sometimes a webpage may crash with an “Aw, Snap!” error message. This error message frequently prevents a web page from loading at all, and it can certainly disrupt a web browsing session by the page crashing.

The “Aw Snap” error message in Chrome happens for a variety of reasons, but rather than try to diagnose and troubleshoot a specific issue which is likely related to the webpage itself, we’ll focus on 8 specific troubleshooting tips to fix the “Aw Snap” problem so that you can go about your business and keep browsing the web with Chrome. These troubleshooting steps apply to every version of Chrome browser on any operating system, whether it’s Mac OS, iOS, Android, or Windows.

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Misplacing an iPhone is a fairly regular occurrence for many of us, maybe it slipped between the cushions on a couch, maybe you left it in another room, maybe it fell somewhere under the seats in the car, maybe it’s in the backyard, anything is possible. Fortunately for Apple Watch owners, they can use the handy Ping iPhone feature to make their paired iPhone emit a loud pinging sound, making it easy to locate a lost iPhone within earshot.

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If you take a lot of selfies with the iPhone you’ll be pleased to know that you can quickly access every selfie ever taken with the front facing iPhone camera by using a simple sorting album in the iPhone Photos app. Likewise, if you just want to see all the selfies taken by someone else, you can quickly access every selfie taken with the iPhone camera by using the same selfie album on their phone.

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Mac users may find that a system update, installer, or package (pkg) can get completely stuck in a verification sequence, with a pop-up alert that says “Verifying ‘name.pkg’…” while showing the Gatekeeper icon and a progress bar that never updates. The effect is the package or installer won’t run as it never completes verification, making it impossible to install. This is a strange issue that can cause some alarm, because it can happen with both third party packages and installers, as well as updates and packages that come directly from Apple. If you ever run into the package stuck on verifying issue within Mac OS X, we’ll show you how to fix the problem and get the package update to install on the Mac anyway.

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Many users are password protecting Notes on iPhone and iPad, which offers a secondary security layer for especially personal or private data stored within the Notes app. Because the Notes app uses a different password from the general password used on the iOS Lock Screen, and different from the password used by an Apple ID or iCloud account, it can be easy to see how that Notes password may be forgotten or lost. In such a situation, you may wish to reset the Notes app password in iOS, which allows you to set a new password for notes.

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A jailbreak for iOS 9.3.3 and earlier versions back to iOS 9.2 is now available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The jailbreak arrives from China through a group called Pangu, who has released similar jailbreaking utilities in the past for Mac OS X and Windows.

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Ever wondered where all the downloaded files go on your Mac? By default, most apps will transfer downloaded files into the user Downloads folder. This applies to all downloads to a Mac made from the web with Safari, Chrome, through AirDrop, or from the many file transfer apps out there.

There are many different ways to quickly find and access the Downloads folder on a Mac, we’ll review some of the fastest methods to get to that folder and find your downloaded files. Additionally, we’ll show you two ways to track down downloaded files that for whatever reason didn’t show up in the Downloads folder.

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Spotlight Search for iOS now has the ability to perform currency calculations and conversions using up to date exchange rates.

This is a handy built-in feature for travelers, anyone who needs to exchange money, and those who work across borders, and it’s built right into the latest versions of Spotlight for iOS on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

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Beta testers of macOS Sierra can send feedback and bug reports directly to Apple, offering a chance to help shape the future of the Mac operating system. Reporting bugs and offering feature feedback is part of the fun of beta testing (and part of the purpose of the public betas), so if you are running macOS Sierra on a Mac, be sure you take the time to send feedback and report bugs as you come across them.

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Little is dreaded more in the Mac world than the kernel panic, the Mac OS X equivalent of the Windows Blue Screen of Death of yesteryear. While modern versions of Mac OS X don’t display the kernel panic screen like they used to, that doesn’t mean you still can’t have some mischievous fun with a fake kernel panic screen saver.

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Custom email signatures are commonplace, whether they include simple contact details or a complete HTML signature on Mac Mail. A frequent further customization to email signatures is to include an image or logo, which is what we will show you how to create in the Mac Mail app for Mac OS X.

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