Though we’d all rather everything works as intended with our Macs, occasionally something goes really haywire and OS X becomes either royally messed up or unusable. In these circumstances, sometimes the only solution to get things working again is to reinstall OS X system software (or, if you have a recent safe backup made, restoring from Time Machine is often valid as well).

We’ll cover how to reinstall Mac OS X system software only with Recovery Mode, this reinstalls the most recently available version of OS X that is (or was) actively running on the Mac. If performed correctly as described, applications and user data will be preserved and not be modified at all, since this approach only reinstalls the operating system and system files.

Read more »

The News app is bundled in modern versions of iOS, accessible from the home screen as a standard app icon and from the Siri Suggestions screen in Spotlight under the News section on an iPhone or iPad. While News app includes a handful of curated Apple-approved sites, users can customize the app on their own by adding websites they like, and also use the News app as an RSS reader. This allows you to add just about any site or feed to News app yourself, including great sites like this one.

Read more »

Apple has released an array of new beta operating system builds, including the third beta versions of OS X 10.11.4 beta, iOS 9.3 beta, WatchOS 2.2 beta, and tvOS 9.2 beta 3. Each release includes bug fixes and feature enhancements for their respective hardware, along with a few new features.

Read more »

The Apple Watch user interface uses transparency in the Glances screens and elsewhere to add a subtle layering effect to the appearance of things on display. This is mostly an eye-candy effect, and while it’s quite subtle some users may wish to turn transparency effects off in WatchOS.

By disabling transparency on Apple Watch, it will improve the contrast of certain on screen elements, and may offer some other mild improvements to performance and battery life as well, simply because less processing power is used for drawing display elements.

Read more »

Many Mac users will inevitably see the “Your startup disk almost full” error message show up in OS X, with a vague note to delete some files in order to make more space available on the Mac. While you can disregard the message for a little while, it will usually come back again shortly, and often soon after the startup disk will actually fill up and start causing problems in Mac OS X. Thus, if you see the “Your startup disk is almost full” error message in Mac OS X, you should address the issue before it becomes a problem.

We’ll cover some easy tips on how to quickly figure out what’s taking up the disk space on the Mac, as well as how to clear out storage capacity in order to resolve an almost full Mac.

Read more »

The iOS Messages app defaults to sending what is called a “read receipt” when an iMessage is opened and read within the application. That Read Receipt feature can be helpful for some conversations but it’s not always desired for every message, and though disabling Read Receipts for Messages in iOS is certainly one option that many iPhone users choose, another trick is available to those with 3D Touch equipped iPhone screens, thanks to the ‘peek’ and ‘pop’ features of such devices.

Read more »

Many Instagram users have multiple IG accounts, perhaps a public facing Instagram profile (often referred to as ‘finstagram’, short for “fake instagram”), a more private Instagram profile (the “rinsta” for ‘real instagram’), a profile for their cat, dog, or turtle, and maybe even a business or work account they use and manage (why yes of course, osxdaily is on Instagram, give us a follow there). For a long time, Instagram users had to log out and back in to a different account profile to switch between multiple Instagram accounts, but now the Instagram app on iPhone (and Android) supports adding multiple accounts, offering a super simple method of switching different accounts directly in the Instagram app without any add-ons or hassles.

Read more »

Modern versions of Mail app for Mac OS X and iOS default to scanning through email content to suggest contacts and fill in additional information about existing contacts. While this can offer a convenient way of easily filling in and uncovering contact information exchanged through emails, it can also frequently be inaccurate, leading to erroneous contact information added to people and entries within the address book. And, because the Mac address book is synced to the iPhone contacts through iCloud, any peculiarities or inaccurate contact information found in email on a Mac will end up on your iOS devices too. Fortunately, it’s easy to disable the contact suggestions when contacts are “found in Mail” in the Mac OS X Mail app client.

Read more »

Many users like to set a signature to be automatically included in their outbound emails, and for those who like to have a stylized and somewhat interactive email signature, they’ll want to create what’s called an HTML signature. An HTML signature allows for different text styling like bolds, italics, font sizes, and, perhaps most relevant to many, the inclusion of things like a phone number or links to websites and social addresses.

For Mac users who would like to create and set an HTML signature, the process is really quite simple in the Mail app of Mac OS. You can actually create however many signatures you want, and even set different signatures for different email accounts. We’ll walk through how to make and set a simple HTML signature in Mail on the Mac.

Read more »

The latest versions of iOS support a feature which scans a users mailboxes for contacts and contact information. While this feature can be really helpful in potentially identifying callers and contacts, it can also lead to erroneous information being filled in to your address book contact cards, erroneous assumptions about callers, and even improper suggestions in the Mail app. For example, perhaps you’ve opened someones contact card and discovered an incorrect and random entry for email or phone with a “(found in Mail)” text appended next to it – that’s this iOS feature in action.

For users of iPhone and iPad who have discovered this feature and find it to be annoying or inaccurate, or perhaps for those who just don’t like the privacy ideas behind suggesting and autofilling in contact information based on scanning email on the same device, you can disable this feature in iOS completely.

Read more »

AirDrop is a great file sharing protocol for iOS and Mac OS that allows users to quickly and easily send files, photos, contacts, and other data back and forth between iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and Mac OS X. But sometimes AirDrop doesn’t show up at all in iOS, which obviously prevents the feature from working to share anything let alone find someone to share it with. The AirDrop feature not showing up in Control Center is one of the most common problematic issues with AirDrop in iOS, but usually it’s an easy fix.

Read more »

Have you ever had a video that was recorded vertically or sideways, and you wish it was orientated either horizontally or otherwise rotated? This is often the case with videos recorded on iPhone or Android phones shot with the notorious Vertical Video Syndrome, but the technique we’ll demonstrate works to flip or rotate any movie, even if it’s not from a smartphone.

Read more »

Some iPhone users have discovered their devices battery life percentage indicator within the status bar is stuck and not updating, only to then have the percent jump way down, sometimes to the point where the iPhone is about to run out of battery. This seems to primarily impact the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, but a group of users with other devices have seen the issue as well, where the battery gauge doesn’t update.

The cause of the battery charge indicator being stuck and/or the percentage jumping dramatically issue is usually a software bug that Apple has acknowledged, with a fix coming in a future release of iOS software. But in the meantime there are three possible solutions which should remedy the issue if you happen to encounter this.

Read more »

A large part of the utility with Apple Watch is receiving notifications and alerts which can be quickly sorted through, addressed, or dismissed right on your wrist. While you can quickly clear out the notifications, sometimes you just want peace and quiet instead, and the best way to stop the Apple Watch from tapping your wrist and chiming temporarily is to toggle on Do Not Disturb mode for the watch.

Read more »

The iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch uses a physical Shake to Undo and Shake to Redo feature to serve as the equivalent of “undo” and “redo” keys, since unlike the iPad which has the undo / redo buttons on the keyboard, the iPhone and iPod touch lack screen buttons for those functions. And if you’re unfamiliar, yes literally shaking the device will attempt to undo the prior action or typing.

Anyway, while shaking the iPhone or iPad around to undo and redo can be useful, it can also be annoying and activated when you don’t intend to do so, and for users who would like to they can choose to disable the Shake to Undo function in iOS.

Read more »

iOS for iPad has dramatically improved multitasking with Spit View dual-pane apps and its counterpart, Slide Over. The Slide Over feature lets you quickly reference, use, and access secondary apps on the iPad without having to enter into full fledged split screen app mode, and without having to switch apps. This feature is great for quickly replying to an email, message, checking Twitter, making a note, or doing quick tasks in another app where you don’t want to lose the primary app focus on an iPad.

Read more »

Some Mac users may see a notification alert pop-up from Mac OS X in the corner of their display with a message stating “Optimizing Your Mac – Performance and battery life may be affected until completed.” While there aren’t any additional details offered in the notification, there is a “Close” button, which will dismiss the alert. Typically this optimizing message appears after a system software update has installed, logging in to a new user account, or if the Mac has been rebooted after a long period of not being restarted. So, if you see this alert message, what’s going on and what should you do?

Read more »

Having to constantly enter the Apple ID password to download free apps from the Mac App Store is kind of annoying, but thanks to a new settings option you can stop the authentication requirement for free apps while still maintaining it for paid app downloads and for in-app purchases in Mac OS X.

Read more »