More services and features rely on location to function properly on Mac OS X, but whereas iOS will default to showing you a little compass arrow icon when location is accessed and used, MacOS doesn’t show comparable location usage by default in the latest versions.

For users who want to know when Mac OS is requesting access and using location data, you can toggle an optional setting that, much like iOS, will display a compass location icon in the menu bar of Mac OS.

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A hidden Lockdown folder is created by iTunes which stores certificate UDID data for iOS devices that are synced to a specific computer. These lockdown certificates are required to be able to successfully sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a computer, but in some specific occasions, a user may need to manually access the lockdown folder contents. Additionally, for security minded users, accessing the lockdown certificates can allow for access to a device on a different computer, simply by copying the necessary plist files to a different machine, a situation which has obvious security implications.

In some rare occasions, a user may need to manually intervene, manage, access, remove, and otherwise modify the lockdown folder contents, deleting or copying files from the directory in order to regain the ability to sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the computer again. We’ll show you where the lockdown folder is located in Mac OS X and Windows, and how to reset it if need be.

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The Activity app on iPhone gathers much of the physical activity, pedometer, and health and fitness data from Apple Watch and presents it in an easy to read format. But the info found in Activity app is not limited to just the iPhone and Apple Watch, because you can share Activity progress easily with others through the app as well.

Whether you’re feeling particularly proud about a fitness level for a day, or shameful from a serious couch potato effort, it’s easy to share through messages, email, or the major social networks, here’s how:
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The newest version of iOS supports Mail Drop, a feature which allows users to upload a large file to iCloud for a recipient to download, rather than attempting to attach the large file to the email itself. This is great because it allows you to send files up to 5GB through email, when it’s not unusual for any file larger than 20MB to get bounced by the recipient email server. You’ll find Mail Drop is particularly well suited for sending large HD video files from an iPhone or iPad to elsewhere, but it obviously has other uses as well.

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Apple has released iOS 9.2.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The small update arrives as build 13D15 and includes bug fixes and security updates, but does not appear to include any new features or changes.

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Apple has released OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 for all Mac users, the final version is said to improve the compatibility, security, and stability of OS X and contains bug fixes and security improvements for the Mac operating system.

Additionally, Apple has also released security updates for Mac users running OS X Yosemite and OS X Mavericks.

Apple recommends that all Mac users install the appropriate updates for their version of OS X.
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Siri Suggestions is a feature of modern versions of iOS that recommends contacts, apps, nearby locations, and news, right from the Spotlight search screen. Siri Suggestions aims to be intelligent and learn from user behavior on the iPhone and iPad, offering contacts and apps depending on usage patterns, location, and the time of day, and while this feature is appreciated by many iOS users, some don’t use it, and others may find it unnecessary, slow, or unhelpful.

If you’d like, you can turn off Siri Suggestions in the Spotlight search screen of iOS easily. Doing so still allows you to use Spotlight just as before in prior versions of iOS, including searching the local device, the web, and Wikipedia, it simply removes the suggested section from offering results before searching in Spotlight.

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In celebration of MLK Jr Day, Apple has honored Dr. Martin Luther King Junior with a prominent tributary homepage takeover. The tribute is complete with a picture of Dr King, featuring one of his most famous and powerfully inspirational quotes overlaid the image; “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”

Truly one of the greatest quotes (and greatest questions), so why not give yourself some inspiration to do good for others by making that moving quote as your wallpaper?

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Modern versions of the Safari web browser for Mac OS X offer a hidden feature that allows users to clear web caches from the browser without having to dump all other browsing history, cookies, searches, or other website data. This is a really useful feature for web workers and developers who routinely need to clear browser cache for pages and websites, which forces the browser to pull new data from the server(s) being accessed, but it can also be helpful for some troubleshooting situations in Safari as well.

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The Mac has long been a great platform for emulating older gaming consoles, and now the best emulator for OS X has gotten even better, as OpenEmu includes support for two other retro gaming greats; the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1.

PS1 and N64 support is in addition to the vast console compatibility already included with OpenEmu, so if you’re a fan of emulators and old school games, you won’t want to miss this.

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Capturing a slow motion video with the iPhone camera is great, and it’s a wonderful effect for many events and scenes you’re recording, unless of course you didn’t mean to record the video in slow motion in the first place. Additionally, sometimes you may have changed your mind after recording a slow motion video and want to change the movie back to regular speed. Whatever the case, converting anything captured in slow motion back to a regular speed video on the iPhone is quite easy.

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iOS Safari keeps track of frequently visited webpages, offering quick links to those pages and sites on the initial startup and new tabs in the browser. For the less familiar, the Frequently Visited section is underneath Safari Favorites in iOS, and it updates itself as you browse the web and access particular pages on an iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

While many users may like the Frequently Visited section and find it helpful, you may discover a web page or link under this list that you’d rather not be there, and in such a case, you’d probably want to delete the frequently visited page from this list in Safari.

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Apple has released the first public beta versions of both OS X 10.11.4 and iOS 9.3, two point release updates that include some notable new features. The beta releases are the same as the recently unveiled developer betas of the same OS versions, and can be downloaded now by users who are enrolled in the iOS and OS X public beta testing programs.

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Mac OS creates various system level folders of temporary items and caches, which typically remain hidden from the average Mac OS X user. Nonetheless, Mac users using various disk management utilities and apps like OmniDiskSweeper will come across these various temporary item folders in Mac OS X, often at locations like /tmp and /private/var/ and /var/folder. Sometimes the items in these directories can be huge and take up dramatic amounts of disk space, which leads many Mac users wondering if they can safely delete the contents of the various /private/ folders.

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Modern versions of iOS and Xcode support something called sideloading, which essentially allows iPhone and iPad users to install apps and software onto their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch directly from Xcode on a Mac, without having to go through the iOS App Store. This ability is quite useful as it allows you to install some iOS apps that are not otherwise approved by Apple, but it’s also helpful for beta testing a development version of software, and for using a private app as well.

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Some iPhone and iPad users have discovered their devices keep asking them repeatedly for their Apple ID to be verified with a password. If you have this issue, this Apple ID password verification pop-up appears at random but frequently, and you’ll see it appear anytime you reboot the device on the lock screen, and often when unlocking the device after a period of going unused.

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Apple has released the first beta version of iOS 9.3 to users participating in the developer program, the build arrives as 13E5181d and can be installed on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch compatible with iOS 9.

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Apple has released the first beta builds of OS X 10.11.4 (and yes, OS X 10.11.3 is still at beta 2), tvOS 9.2, WatchOS 2.2, and iOS 9.3 for users enrolled in the developer beta programs.

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