You can use the built-in microphone on your iPhone as an external microphone on your Mac, thanks to the Continuity Camera feature of MacOS. Yes, the same feature that allows you to use iPhone as a FaceTime camera on a Mac also lets you just tap into the microphone if you’d like to. The iPhone has a good quality microphone and is obviously much more mobile than the internal microphone on a Mac, so this can offer a great solution for improving the audio quality of VOIP and audio calls, podcast recordings, and much more.

Read along and you’ll be using your iPhone as an external microphone for your Mac in no time.

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Apple has used their Halloween-eve “Scary Fast” event to release updates to the MacBook Pro and iMac lineup, both featuring the all-new M3 processor.

And, for the MacBook Pro, there’s an all new Space Black color option, but only for the M3 Pro and M3 Max versions of that computer.

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YouTube is the webs most popular video site by a long shot, practically serving as a television replacement for millions. But as any Youtube viewer knows, the ads can be very aggressive and there are times where you’ll have to watch a 30 second ad before you can watch one minute of content, which is not exactly a great experience. Other times you may be watching a video of music or a movie, or even a workout, and suddenly your watching experience is interrupted by interstitial ads and commercials, that can be distracting and annoying. Wouldn’t it be nice to watch YouTube without the ads?

Is an ad-free YouTube experience possible, for free? And the answer to that question is yes, thanks to FreeTube.

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Amazon is back with more great deals on Apple products and gear. From knocking up to $50 off AirPods Pro, to $80 off iPad 9th gen, to $250 off M2 MacBook Air 15″ models, $150 off Beats Studio Pro headphones, and more, if you’re in the market for some Apple hardware, enjoy these rare discounts from Amazon on coveted Apple products.

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Many Apple Watch users are curious if it’s possible to wear the Apple Watch on their ankle. Whether this is because they can’t wear the Apple Watch on their wrist, or because they’re wearing gloves or hand coverings, or participating in other activities where wearing a watch is not possible or allowed, wearing an Apple Watch on the leg or ankle is a commonly asked question, and a completely reasonable one to ask.

Let’s take a look at what is known about wearing Apple Watch on the ankle or leg.

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If you’re trying to use a Mac to update iOS on iPhone or iPadOS on iPad, you may see an error message that says something along the lines of “Updating to iOS 17.1 requires at least 975.2 MB of free space on your iPad. Please change your media sync options to make more storage available.” and be unable to update an iPhone or iPad to the latest version of iOS or iPadOS system software. This error is most likely to be seen when the iPhone or iPad is low on available storage space, but it can happen when a reasonable amount of storage is available as well.

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If you have installed macOS Sonoma onto your Mac, you may be curious about the new moving wallpapers and Aerial screen savers, and their location on your Mac and within the file system. The new screensavers are really quite beautiful, and as you unlock a Mac you will find they seamlessly transition to your wallpaper (this is optional, but it’s a cool trick when enabled). The end result is a moving wallpaper effect that looks beautiful, and keeps your wallpaper freshly updated, depending on whenever the screensaver was stopped.

If you’re wondering where the location of the Aerial screen saver and moving wallpapers reside in MacOS Sonoma, read along to better understand where these files are located, how you can download them, and how you can access them directly.

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Apple has released MacOS Ventura 13.6.1 and MacOS Monterey 12.7.1 for Mac users who have not yet updated to macOS Sonoma. The macOS software updates include security enhancements, and come alongside Safari 17.1 as well.

Separately, macOS Sonoma 14.1 has also been released, alongside iOS 17.1 update to iPhone, iPadOS 17.1 for iPad, iOS 16.7.2, iPadOS 16.7.2, iOS 15.8, iPadOS 15.8, tvOS 17.1, and watchOS 10.1.

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Apple has released a series of software updates for older model iPhone and iPad devices, that have either not yet updated to iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, or are not able to run those versions of system software. The updates include important security fixes, and are therefore recommended for all users to install, especially if you are not going to install iOS 17.1 or iPadOS 17.1 on the iPhone or iPad, respectively.

Specifically, iOS 16.7.2 and iPadOS 16.7.2 are available for iPhone 8 and later, all models of iPad Pro, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later.

Meanwhile, iOS 15.8 and iPadOS 15.8 are available for all models of iPhone 6s, all models of iPhone 7, iPhone SE 1st generation, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4th generation, and iPod touch 7th generation.

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Apple has released iOS 17.1 for iPhone, and iPadOS 17.1 for iPad, as the first major point release updates to the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 system software versions.

iOS 17.1 and iPadOS 17.1 include bug fixes, security enhancements, as well as some new features, like the ability to continue AirDrop transfers over the internet when someone steps out of AirDrop range. Additionally, a problem where custom ringtones and text tones were not showing up on iPhone has been fixed, and there are more customization options for StandBy mode. Full release notes are included further below in this post.

Additionally, Apple has also released macOS Sonoma 14.1 for Mac, updates to watchOS and tvOS, and updates for earlier iOS, ipadOS, and macOS versions as well.

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Apple has released MacOS Sonoma 14.1 for Mac users running the Sonoma operating system. The software update includes a handful of bug fixes and security enhancements, but no significant new features are included. Full release notes are included below.

Separately, Apple has also released iOS 17.1 for iPhone, iPadOS 17.1 for iPad, updates to watchOS, tvOS, HomePodOS, and updates for earlier versions of iOS, iPadOS, and finally, macOS Ventura 13.6.1 and macOS Monterey 12.7.1

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Maccy is a really good free clipboard manager for the Mac, the type of software that is so good that you’re grateful it is available for free, in the classic spirit of computing and open source software. It’s fast, unobtrusive, allows for text and images, with a great set of features, and a simple to use interface, what’s not to like?

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Apple has announced a special event for the evening of October 30, titled “Scary Fast”. The event is widely assumed to be focused on the Mac, due to the event webpage having an Apple logo that morphs into the Finder icon, perhaps with refreshed updates to the iMac and MacBook line.

Obviously the name “Scary Fast” and the dark Apple logo and Finder iconography are plays on the season, and October 31 being Halloween.

October 30 is a Monday, which is a bit unusual for an Apple event, but the more curious aspect of the “Scary Fast” event scheduling is that it’s being held at 5PM PDT, rather than the typical morning timeline.

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New Mac users who are transitioning to the Apple ecosystem from the world of Windows PC’s may experience a mix of curiosity, excitement, and even confusion, as they get to know their new operating system. Fortunately, the Mac is not only exceptionally powerful, it’s also very easy to use, and quite intuitive.

For new Mac users, here are some essential tips and things to know to make your transition into the world of MacOS as smooth and productive as possible.

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Amazon continues to offer excellent deals on select iPad models, this time offering the M1 iPad Air 5th generation at $100 discount. Combine the M1 iPad Air with an also discounted iPad Magic Keyboard, and a discounted Apple Pencil, and you’ve got yourself a full fledged iPad setup, for far less than the retail price from Apple. What’s not to like about that? And if the iPad Air M1 is too much for your needs, Amazon continues to offer a whopper discount on the 9th gen iPad as well. Let’s check out the deals.

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Safari Technology Preview is an optional web browser for Mac that is separate from the regular Safari browser, with the Tech Preview offering an early look at upcoming web technologies and features before they become included in the primary Safari browser. In this way, Safari Tech Preview is kind of like Google’s Chrome Canary, and it’s worth a look for many users.

Many web developers and designers may benefit from checking out and using Safari Tech Preview on their Mac, but a lot of casual users may enjoy the experience as well. Plus, Safari Tech Preview can run alongside regular Safari, and has full iCloud feature access, so you’ll have access to all your bookmarks and favorites too.

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Steam is a very popular gaming platform, but one frustrating thing about browsing Steam on a Mac can be when you find a game you might like, go to check it out, and then discover it’s for Windows only. Why’d you see a Windows only game in the Steam Store when you’re using Steam on a Mac? Perhaps because Steam is cross-platform, supporting not only Mac, but also Windows and even Linux. Nonetheless, that can be a frustrating experience, but fortunately you can easily make Steam

You can change a setting to only display exclusively Mac games within Steam, and the Steam Store, and it makes using Steam a lot better for Mac gamers.

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A ton of open source software is available on Github, and many Mac applications are often available to download for free through the Github service as well. And if you read websites like this one and many others in the Apple and tech world, you’ll often find links to neat software projects on Github.

One common situation is for a Mac application to be available free on Github, but the Github web interface is not necessarily obvious or friendly to more casual Mac users. Oftentimes you’ll go to a Github project page and the file downloads shown are of things like “Projectname.xcodeproj”, “Blahblah.swift”, README.md, etc, which, if a casual user downloads, is of no use to them as they are certainly not built apps, and the average Mac user does not have Xcode nor want to install Xcode to compile and build those applications manually.

Thus, the obvious question is often asked; “how do I actually download a Mac application from Github?” and that’s what we’re going to answer here.

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