For iCloud users with automatic backups configured, the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will backup to iCloud every evening when connected to wi-fi. This usually goes without a hitch, but sometimes you may check the iCloud Backup settings to discover a vague message stating “The last backup could not be completed.” You may also see this backup failed error when trying to complete a manual iCloud backup from an iOS device too.

Given how important regular backups are, this error message can be annoying and distressing, but fortunately it’s usually quickly resolved with a few simple troubleshooting tricks.

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The new iPhone 3D Touch display detects the level of pressure placed on the screen and, depending on the app, action, or home screen icon, offers different responses and interactions. These “peak” and “pop” features are throughout iOS and offer shortcuts of sorts to perform various functions, and they’re really a great feature of the newest model iPhone lineup. Using 3D Touch takes a little bit of practice, particularly in regard to applying the correct amount of screen pressure to get the intended action, but one way to greatly improve the 3D Touch experience is to manually adjust the touch screen pressure sensitivity required to activate the various features.

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Want a customized Apple Watch face that features a photo of your own choosing? This way every time you activate the Apple Watch to glance at the time, you’ll see the picture of your choice with a date and clock atop the image.

This is a nice way to personalize the Apple Watch a bit, and you can easily create a custom photo watch face in just a few moments.
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If you juggle multiple email addresses for various purposes on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you may find it useful to add additional email addresses for FaceTime. This allows you to both call out from another email address, and perhaps more importantly, you can also receive inbound FaceTime calls for the newly added email address too.

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Some Mac users have discovered they are unable to open some applications downloaded from the Mac App Store. When attempting to open an impacted app in Mac OS, a message stating “Name.app is damaged and can’t be opened. Delete Name.app and download it again from the App Store.” Another variation is a pop-up window appearing asking a user to “Sign in to use this application on this computer” requesting an Apple ID and password.

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Taking screen shots of the login screen on a Mac is possible, and you can do so at either the OS X system boot, any login window, or at a locked user authentication screen. How a screenshot of the Mac login screen is accomplished will depend on what version of OS X the Mac is running however.

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Quitting and force quitting apps in iOS 10 and iOS 9 is easy, whether you’re on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Though the multitasking screen may look different in modern iOS versions than it did before, the basic mechanism of forcibly quitting apps remains the same as prior versions of iOS.

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Apple Pay is undeniably convenient, allowing you to make quick and secure purchases right from your iOS devices. So, you setup Apple Pay on your iPhone and on the Apple Watch and now you want to put it to use, right?

While many popular stores are known to support Apple Pay, there is no reason to be stuck wondering if a particular location, store, or shop supports Apple Pay purchases, because you can actually check for Apple Pay compatibility at most retail locations by using the Maps application.

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Apple has released the third beta version of iOS 9.2 to users participating in the Public Beta and Developer Beta testing programs, alongside tvOS 9.1 beta 2. The new iOS 9.2 release arrives as 13C71 and continues to support iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, while tvOS 9.1 beta 2 shows as build 13U5069b.

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Apple has released OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 Beta 3 for Mac users enrolled in the developer beta and public beta testing programs.

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Apple has started running the first TV advertisement for the new iPad Pro, featuring a user of the large screen iPad manipulate a space scene in Sky Guide, then using ProCreate to sketch on other galactic imagery via the Split View feature and an Apple Pencil.

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If you use Google Chrome as your default web browser and find yourself with a ton of tabs and windows open on a regular basis, you likely know the RAM, swap, and resource burden that leaving a gazillion tabs open does to your computer. Rather than forcibly quitting Chrome or abandoning your browser tabs, the latest versions of the Chrome browser support an optional “discarding” feature that will automatically discard background tabs as the application begins to run low on available memory.

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Apple has released the first update to the new Apple TV, versioned as tvOS 9.0.1. The update likely focuses on bug fixes, though specific changes aren’t yet known as release notes have not accompanied the download.

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If you have ever wanted to play a movie, video, or multiple videos as a screen saver on a Mac, then SaveHollywood is the screensaver for you. The free download allows for playing just about any locally stored video file format as the Mac OS X screen saver, with many options for customization.

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Adding pictures and photos to your iPhone contacts is a nice way to improve the iOS experience for phone calls and messaging, as it helps to quickly identify people in conversations and when reaching out.

Assigning pictures to contacts is quick and easy, and the trick is the same whether on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and regardless of iOS version. Assuming you use iCloud to sync the contacts, the custom contact pictures will automatically transfer over to any shared device or Mac as well.

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Another Mac setup is here! This time we’re featuring the beautifully minimalistic setup of Jimmy S., a CTO and system developer. Let’s jump in to learn a bit more:

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Apple Watch supports Apple Pay, which basically lets you use your watch as a super-fast payment mechanism in a variety of stores, ranging from Whole Foods to Starbucks, with many more coming onboard. Just like Apple Pay on the iPhone, the payments are processed and handled by a credit card or debit card, and thus you’ll need to set up the Apple Watch to use Apple Pay before you’ll be able to make quick payments with the device.

Once you have Apple Pay setup on the Apple Watch, you’ll be able to make payments and purchases remarkably quickly with basically just a quick swipe of your wrist.

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The latest versions of Photos app for Mac allow users to add geographic location data to any pictures stored within the image browser. This can be helpful for organizing photos, sharing with others where a picture was taken, and for later recollection purposes too. Additionally, you can edit the location of pictures as well, so if a photo was incorrectly assigned a location, you can change that in the OS X Photos app.

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