The new Force Touch trackpads available for some Macs are really quite impressive. By using a haptic feedback mechanism and a tiny little speaker, the pressure-sensitive trackpad mimics a click with multiple layers of depth by pushing feedback into your finger – the trackpad itself does not move or click down like the prior generation trackpad surfaces. It’s one of those features that’s very hard to describe and much better experienced, and as Force Touch becomes the new norm for Apple touch surfaces on future Macs, Magic Trackpad, Apple Watch, and iPhone, the feature will surely further evolve and improve to do some pretty neat things.

Read more »

OS X El Capitan (10.11) is part of an open Public Beta, which means that any user can opt-in to install and run the beta version of the future OS X system software on their Mac. This is a chance for Mac users to help shape the future of OS X, and a great way to do that is by sending feedback directly to Apple through the built-in reporting mechanisms.

Of course, this is a beta, so not everything is smooth sailing, and if you’re running OS X El Capitan and you discover something you either don’t like, a persistent crash, a bug, or some other problem, you should let Apple know by using the built-in reporting tools too.

Read more »

This weeks featured Mac setup comes to us from Pat B., a professional DJ and music producer in Belgium who has a workstation that not only looks great, but it’s full of great hardware as well. Let’s jump to it and learn a bit more about this Mac setup:

Read more »

When the San Francisco type face first debuted it was made for the Apple Watch, but some enterprising Mac users modified the San Francisco font to run in OS X Yosemite anyway. Fast forward to now, and the San Francisco font has been revised by Apple to be a bit more readable for the Mac desktop and iOS devices, as it will soon replace Helvetica Neue as the default system font in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. That font has been released for specific use by Apple (available here), but if you’re currently running OS X Yosemite, you can use a copy of the modified version of the El Capitan system font right now.

To be perfectly clear, the OS X El Capitan San Francisco system font is different from the Apple Watch variant of San Francisco, which has since been renamed to San Francisco Compact, intended for watchOS. In other words, if you installed the Apple Watch font onto your Mac, it’s not quite the same as the one mentioned here.

Read more »

Obviously nobody wants to be in an emergency situation, but if the need ever arises, Siri can come to your aid with a quick ability to dial the local emergency service line, and it works practically wherever you are in the world with the iPhone so long as it has a cellular connection.

There’s not much to this trick, it’s just knowing one of the proper phrases to say to initiate the emergency call. And yes, it works with the hands-free ‘Hey Siri’ command, so this could even work if you weren’t able to reach the iPhone but it was plugged in with that hands-free feature enabled.

Read more »

Backing up a device to iCloud is highly recommended, but sometimes users get a new iPhone or iPad and they have old backups laying around in their iCloud account, which may not do much and just end up taking space. Assuming you have no use for the old backups anymore, you can easily delete them from iCloud and free up some iCloud space this way.

Read more »

Apple has released four new TV commercials for Apple Watch, two of which have an international travel focus, and the other two emphasize various fitness and communication features. Each ad demonstrates how the device is used in realistic scenarios, ranging from achieving activity and fitness goals, to helping translate foreign languages, to sending messages and using the mapping function of the wrist-worn device.

Read more »

Typically if you want to have an application launch approved by the GateKeeper feature on a Mac, you right-click on the unidentified developers application and choose “Open”, or go through System Preferences to bypass Gatekeeper that way. Another option is to manually add application approvals and exceptions to Gatekeeper by turning to the command line in Mac OS X.

Read more »

Apple has released hardware updates to the iPod line, with iPod Touch receiving improved hardware specifications and new colors, and iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle receiving new color options.

Read more »

Contact information can be some of the most useful data to export and share with others, and a comprehensive address book can be amongst some of the most important data a user gathers over time. The Mac makes exporting contact information from Mac OS X Contacts app very easy, so whether you want to share and export the entire address book or just a single contact card, that can be done quickly.

Read more »

Apple has released the first beta build of OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 to Mac developers and Public Beta users. The beta build arrives as 14F6a and is compatible with any Mac that is able to run OS X Yosemite.

Read more »

The first beta version of iOS 8.4.1 has been released to users participating in the iOS Developer program. iOS 8.4.1 arrives as build 12H304 and is compatible with the same iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices that can run any other version of iOS 8 or iOS 9.

Read more »

Apple has released a small bug fix update for iTunes, versioned as iTunes 12.2.1. The release aims to address issues with Apple Music, iTunes Match, and Beats 1 radio, and is recommended for all iTunes 12.2 users who have experienced issues with any of the aforementioned features or services.

Read more »

Time Machine is an easy Mac backup solution built into Mac OS X that allows for automated continual backups of files, apps, and the operating system itself. Not only does Time Machine make it incredibly easy to maintain frequent automatic backups of a Mac, it also makes it equally simple to restore from a backup in the event something goes wrong, whether you need to restore files, or even if you need to restore the entire Mac OS X installation.

Read more »

Apple has updated the “Shot on iPhone” advertising campaign to feature five new videos captured on iPhone 6. The new collection features some rather gorgeous movie clips from around the globe, using time lapse recording and slow-motion video capture, both of which are built-in and easy to use features on the iPhone Camera.

Read more »

This weeks featured Mac setup is the home desk of Matthew M., an IT Systems Administrator who has a great personal workstation. Let’s jump right to it and learn more about this setup, the hardware, and how it’s put to use:

Read more »

Apple has released a small supplemental update to OS X El Capitan Public Beta. The small update is available now from the Mac App Store Update mechanism and it fixes an issue that may cause some 32-bit applications to quit unexpectedly.

Read more »

Apple has started to run two three new commercials for iPhone, one titled “Hardware & Software”, “Amazing Apps”, and the other titled “Loved”.

Read more »