Mac users are likely familiar with the process of using display calibration to get the best color and picture quality for a specific monitor or screen used with a computer, and to get the most out of the calibrator tool you’ll want to run the utility in Expert Mode. While Expert Mode used to be immediately visible in the Display Calibrator Assistant, it’s now hidden by default in the newest versions of macOS and OS X. This has led some Mac users to think the Expert Mode advanced color calibration options are missing in Mac OS X now, but in fact it just requires an additional step to access.

Read more »

A jailbreak has been released for all compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models running iOS 9, iOS 9.0.1, and iOS 9.0.2. Arriving out of China, the Pangu jailbreak is the first for iOS 9 and iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Read more »

Advanced Mac users who are either in development or another field which experiences frequent app crashing may find the persistent Crash Reporter windows with the ‘App quit unexpectedly’ message to be a nuisance, interfering with their workflow in Mac OS X. While one longstanding option is to disable the Crash Reporter dialog completely in MacOS X, perhaps a better approach is to send those crash reporting dialog boxes into notification center instead.

To be clear, this does not disable the Crash Reporter dialog windows, and it has no impact on crash logs themselves, it simply transforms the crash alert into a Notification within the Notification Center of Mac OS X. If you click on the crash report notification, the regular Mac crash report screen will open as usual.

Read more »

Apple has released hardware updates to the iMac line, with new models available with retina displays at both 21.5″ and 27″ screen sizes. Additionally, Apple has released a set of new peripherals, including the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, and Magic Trackpad 2, each with built-in rechargeable batteries.

Read more »

Many Mac users have noticed that the Secure Empty Trash feature has been removed in OS X El Capitan (10.11 or later), the reason the feature was removed is basically because it did not work all the time, but more on that in a moment. First, let’s cover how you can perform the equivalent of “Secure Empty Trash” on any Mac running OS X 10.11 or later.

Read more »

Apple has released the fifth beta version of iOS 9.1 to users participating in the pre-release testing programs. The new build arrives as 13B137 and is compatible with any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that runs iOS 9.

Read more »

This weeks featured Mac setup arrives from Don W., a security researcher and developer who has a great workstation with six displays and some interesting additional hardware. Let’s dive in and learn a bit more!

Read more »

For iPhone and iPad users who have already updated to iOS 9, they’ve likely discovered some new fancy wallpapers included in the latest system software version. But for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus owners, there’s an additional set of wallpapers, which are actually animated and activated by using the 3D touch feature on those devices.

These 6s specific wallpapers are absolutely beautiful and shouldn’t be limited to the latest iPhones, so we’re sharing them with you. While you won’t have the animation associated with each wallpaper, you can at least enjoy the gorgeous imagery as your device wallpaper.

Read more »

Most Mac users are happy with OS X El Capitan, but for some situations, the new version of OS X 10.11 is unusable for one reason or another. Perhaps it’s running worse than before, slow, or unstable, or maybe some important piece of software is not compatible with El Capitan, like some versions of Office. Whatever the reason, a solution for these situations can be to downgrade from OS X El Capitan and revert back to the prior version of OS X that was running on that Mac.

Read more »

A handful of iPhone users have discovered their Camera app icon has gone missing after updating iOS to the latest version. Why the Camera mysteriously disappears after updating iOS isn’t always clear, but it’s typically an easy fix using one of the methods outlined below.

Read more »

One of the new feature additions in newer Mac OS releases is the ability to quickly locate a mouse cursor on screen by shaking the mouse or trackpad cursor around, which causes the cursor to enlarge briefly, making it very easy to find on single or multiple display setups.

This is a useful feature particularly if you find yourself losing the cursor from time to time, but some users may not appreciate the cursor growing anytime the mouse or trackpad is shaken around or moved quickly. Thus, some Mac users may wish to disable the shake to find cursor feature in Mac OS X.

Read more »

Some Mac users who have been trying to use Split View in Mac OS X have discovered the feature isn’t working for them, and they are not able to place two full screen apps side-by-side into Split View.

The inability to use Split View is typically because the user has upgraded Mac OS X from a prior release of system software, and a particular setting has carried forward which is preventing Split View from working. But not to worry, this is a very easy fix.

Read more »

Apple has released the third beta version of OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan for Mac users participating in the El Capitan Public Beta and Developer Beta testing programs. The new build arrives as 15B30a and continues to focus on bug fixes and improvements to OS X El Capitan.

Read more »

The Notes app in iOS now allows you to draw, sketch, and color, using your finger or a stylus on the touchscreen. This is a really fun feature that is quite well done, and you’ll find the Notes drawing ability is particularly great on the larger screened iPhone and iPad models, but it works well on the smaller screen iPod touch and iPhones as well.

To have access to the Notes drawing tools, you’ll need iOS 9 or later installed on the device, and beyond that it’s just a matter of knowing where to look and how to use the feature.

Read more »

Some iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus users have noticed their devices touch screen becomes unresponsive. The unresponsive frozen touchscreen seems to happen at random, and also commonly when the device is freshly unlocked from the locked screen, either with a pass code or through Touch ID. The unresponsive touch issue is not subtle, as any onscreen element does not respond to any touch, tap, or other screen interactions, and typically lasts for 5 to 10 seconds until the display becomes responsive again.

While the cause of the unresponsive screen issue is uncertain, there are a few possible remedies if you experience an touch screen problems on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. We’ll walk through the troubleshooting methods from easiest to most involved.

Read more »

Apple has released iOS 9.1 beta 4 to users participating in the developer beta and public beta programs. The new build arrives as 13B5136 and continues to focus on bug fixes, feature enhancements, along with the addition of new emoji icons.

Read more »

iCloud Drive is a wonderfully useful feature that allows files to not only be stored in iCloud, but also be easily accessible to retrieve or edit from any other Mac or iOS device using the same Apple ID. While iOS has long been able to save files to iCloud, the latest versions of iOS now allow for iCloud Drive to appear as an icon on the Home Screen of devices, thereby enabling a user accessible file system of sorts on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Read more »

Apple has enabled a new default security oriented featured called System Integrity Protection, often called rootless or SIP, in Mac OS from versions 10.11 onward. The SIP / rootless feature is aimed at preventing Mac OS X compromise by malicious code, whether intentionally or accidentally, and essentially what SIP does is lock down specific system level locations in the file system while simultaneously preventing certain processes from attaching to system-level processes.

While the System Integrity Protection security feature is effective and the vast majority of Mac users should leave rootless enabled, some advanced Mac users may find rootless to be overly protective. Thus, if you’re in the group of advanced Mac users who do not want SIP rootless enabled on their Mac OS X installation, we’ll show you how to turn this security feature off.

Read more »