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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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

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Apple has released the first public beta version of OS X El Capitan (10.11). Any Mac user with an Apple ID and compatible Mac can choose to download and install the public beta, though due to the nature of beta system software, this is generally only recommended for advanced users.

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Apple has made the first public beta of iOS 9 available to users who are interested in testing the the new operating system before widespread public release later in the year. iOS 9 runs on all devices able to run iOS 8, but beta software is notoriously buggy, unreliable, and finicky, making the usage of public beta system software best reserved for secondary iPhone and iPad devices or for more advanced users.

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Apple has released the third beta version of iOS 9 to users registered in the Apple Developer program, arriving as build 12A4293f. Separately, WatchOS 2 beta 3 is also available to developers.

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Apple has released the third developer beta version of OS X 10.11 El Capitan to registered developers.

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