Basically every Mac user is familiar with the process of updating MacOS system software to install updates for their operating system, which typically arrive as point releases (like 15.6) or major version releases (like 26). But did you know that MacOS will also periodically install security updates and anti-malware updates to Gatekeeper, MRT, and Xprotect? Those little security updates tend to happen routinely in the background when your Mac is online, but if your Mac is offline often like during commuting, storage, or travel, it’s possible to miss an update to those security and protective systems built into MacOS. Plus, every once in a blue moon, one of these automatic update systems may fail for any number of other reasons, and so security aware Mac users could be interested in an easy way to see what’s going on. If you ever want to check on the status of these behind-the-scenes MacOS updates to Xprotect, MRT, and firmware, a great way to run a quick security status check is with a free third party tool called SilentKnight.

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Knowing the percentage remaining of your MacBook battery life is valuable information for many Mac laptop users who work on the go or away from a power source, and a simple way to always know where your battery stands is to adjust the Mac battery menu icon to show the battery percentage remaining.

This article will show you how to always show the battery percent remaining in macOS Tahoe, so that you can immediately know how much battery you have left on a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. This might be particularly useful for Mac laptop users who are experiencing bad battery life in macOS Tahoe 26 (total of 2-4 hours for myself, ouch), where keeping an eye on battery remaining is critical so that the MacBook doesn’t die in the middle of work.

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Kohler, the faucet and toilet brand, is expanding into the tech market in a rather innovative and unusual way; by launching Dekoda, a $600 iPhone-connected toilet camera that monitors your waste for various health metrics.

Dekoda apparently can monitor your hydration levels and provide other information about your gut health, as well as detect signs of blood in the toilet bowl. It works by placing the Dekoda device on the rim of your toilet bowl, which peers down into the toilet to observe what’s going on there with “sensors” (cameras of some sort), and then this information is analyzed and reported back to you – the pooper – as results and insight through an iPhone app. The Dekoda device even has a fingerprint reader on it so that multiple users can monitor their toilet activity, without confusing everyone’s bowel movements.

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Apple has issued the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1, for users enrolled in the beta testing programs for Apple system software. The betas continue to offer refinements, adjustments, improvements, and bug fixes to the various OS 26 operating systems.

The latest 4th beta build includes a new Liquid Glass settings toggle to switch between “Clear” and “Tinted”, with the “Clear” version representing the transparency heavy Liquid Glass default look, while the new “Tinted” choice has less transparency and a bit more contrast. The settings toggle is available in Settings > Display and is available on iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1 in the fourth beta, and presumably onward. This settings toggle is different and separate from the “Reduce Transparency” Accessibility setting that many users have relied on to reduce Liquid Glass on iOS 26 or macOS Tahoe 26. Separately, iPadOS 26.1 beta also includes a Slide Over toggle to re-enable that multitasking feature, and in iOS 26.1 beta the iPhone alarm clock has a Slide to Stop feature for stopping alarms, and a new toggle to disable the lock screen swipe camera access gesture.

With the current pace of weekly releases of beta updates, it’s possible that iOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, and iPadOS 26.1, could debut to all users in the coming weeks.

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The iPhone 17 series is now in the wild, and along with the new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Air, we have new default wallpapers for those devices too. Depending on the device model, you’ll find some star-like designs for the standard model, or futuristic glassy designs that spell out “AIR” or “PRO” for those devices. But of course you can use any of these wallpapers on any device, they’re not just limited to the latest and greatest iPhone series.

Appropriately, there are seventeen different default wallpapers between the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Air, and you don’t need to shell out a bunch of bucks to get your hands on the wallpapers or use them on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, or PC. Instead, just click on the image below to open a full sized version which you can download and save to your device, and set as your wallpaper.

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The United States Mint will feature Steve Jobs on a commemorative $1 coin next year, as apart of the 2026 American Innovation Coin Program, according to a press release from the US Mint.

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When there’s a will, there’s a way. And in this case, some iPhone users are so committed to finding a way back to iOS 18, that they’ve come up with a fairly unconventional yet creative workaround to get away from iOS 26.

As you likely know, there’s no longer any way to downgrade an iPhone from iOS 26 back to iOS 18. This is because Apple stopped signing and verifying iOS 18 IPSW files. That means once you upgrade to iOS 26 and install it onto your iPhone (or iPad), you can’t revert back to iOS 18, and you’re effectively stuck with iOS 26 moving forward.

So, how can iPhone users get iOS 18 onto their iPhone again? How can you get an iPhone with iOS 18 when you can’t downgrade from iOS 26? This is where the wild workaround comes in, and it’s probably not what you think. There are no hacks, jailbreaks, or tweaks involved, the solution is creative yet sillier than that.

The weird workaround: buying an iPhone that is still running iOS 18.

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Apple has updated the iPad Pro lineup, MacBook Pro 14″, and Apple Vision Pro, to feature the all new M5 chip. These are basically spec-bump updates focused on the new M5 chip architecture, with no new hardware redesign or major new features or changes otherwise.

The new M5 chip architecture is apparently notably faster with AI performance, CPU performance, and GPU performance, with battery energy efficiency leading to improved battery life. Apple’s press releases describe the M5 chip as “incredibly powerful” and delivering “huge leaps” in performance. The M5 iPad Pro and M5 MacBook Pro also includes a faster SSD with 2x performance compared to prior models, according to Apple.

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A fair number of Mac users have found that macOS Tahoe has notably reduced the battery life and battery performance of their MacBook hardware. Looking around online, you’ll find a variety of complaints from MacBook Pro and MacBook Air users about quickly draining battery and significant reductions in battery life in general, since installing the macOS Tahoe update.

While it’s fairly common for MacOS to be slow with less-than-great performance after installing a new system software update as MacOS runs indexing and background tasks, that process is usually self-limiting and resolves itself in a day or few. The battery issues that some macOS Tahoe users are complaining about do not resolve after that initial indexing process has finished, however.

Potential battery and performance issues like this are why some users delay updating to macOS Tahoe as they’ll likely be worked out in future bug fix updates, whether that arrives as MacOS 26.1, MacOS 26.2, macOS 26.3, or later, is yet to be determined.

Here we will review some tips to help battery life and to identify what is draining battery quickly with macOS Tahoe, to improve things where they can be.

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Beta testing for iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1 is accelerating pace, with the third beta release now being available for those participating in the beta testing programs for Apple system software. Beta 3 comes just a week after beta 2, and Apple usually goes through several beta versions before issuing a final release to the general public.

The current third .1 betas of the OS 26 suite feature various refinements, improvements, enhancements, bug fixes, and even reintroductions of some features that were previously removed in the initial OS 26 releases.

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Wondering if voicemail no longer works in iOS 26? Convinced that iOS 26 removed the Voicemail feature from iPhone? Can’t determine how to check voicemail on iOS 26? If you can’t find voicemail on iPhone since updating to iOS 26, you’re not alone. The new unified Phone app design in iOS 26 features a complete redesign of the iPhone calling app, where everything is smushed into a single screen and behind some nearly hidden menus. The prior Phone app design made Voicemail always easy to access and find by having Voicemail in a very obvious tab, but now Apple has moved Voicemail into a submenu that many users are overlooking, or wouldn’t think to investigate to find popular features that should be immediately apparent. This has led many iPhone users to become confused, giving them the impression that Voicemail disappeared, was removed from their iPhone, or that voicemail is no longer working on their iPhone since updating to iOS 26.

Rest assured that your iPhone with iOS 26 still has the Voicemail feature, but accessing it now is different than before. This tutorial will show you how to access Voicemail in the iOS 26 Phone app, as well as show you how to get the old easy to use Voicemail tab back again.

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The Liquid Glass interface of macOS Tahoe 26 can provide some accessibility and legibility challenges for some Mac users, and one of the recurring complaints is the heavy usage of transparency and translucency can lead to text overlapping other text throughout the operating system. Whether it’s a sidebar, menu, messages, or window, having text atop text is never a great user experience and is always difficult to read, and since it happens with regularity on the Mac now thanks to the new Liquid Glass appearance, it’s a good thing to address specifically.

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Now that macOS Tahoe 26 is out, you might be interested in making a bootable installer drive for the latest MacOS release. Bootable installers drives are super useful as they can be used to easily perform clean system installs, install or update multiple Macs to Tahoe without having to download the installer/update multiple times, and to have on hand for troubleshooting situations if you need a recovery drive or boot drive for admin and tech purposes.

To make a macOS Tahoe boot installer drive, you will need to have a USB-C flash drive or external drive that you don’t mind erasing, some comfort with the command line and Terminal app, a macOS Tahoe compatible Mac, and an active internet connection.

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Amazon is cutting $200 off the price of all M4 MacBook Air models, starting at $799 for the 13″ Air, and $999 for the 15″ Air.

13″ M4 MacBook Air ($200 off)

• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 256GB for $799 (MSRP: $999)
• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 512GB for $999 (MSRP: $1,199)
• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 24GB / 512GB for $1,199 (MSRP: $1,399)

15″ M4 MacBook Air ($200 off)

• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 256GB for $999 (MSRP: $1,199)
• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 512GB for $1,199 (MSRP: $1,399)
• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 24GB / 512GB for $1,399 (MSRP: $1,599)

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While the most significant visual change in iOS 26 is the Liquid Glass interface, you’ll also find some pretty notable design overhauls of commonly used iPhone apps. The Phone app is one such example, with the new Phone app design in iOS 26 being wildly different from the prior versions, featuring a new cluttered design that tries to stuff everything relating to the Phone app into a single page that requires scrolling just to look at your call log, the voicemail section has been relegated to a submenu that many users don’t see, and missed calls are also stuffed somewhere many iPhone users are having trouble finding, and tapping on a caller or name now opens the contact card instead of just calling the person directly like it used to.

If you’re unhappy with the new Phone app design in iOS 26, you can restore the old classic Phone layout onto iPhone with iOS 26 again. With the classic layout returned, you will no longer have the cluttered unified Phone interface, and you’ll instead have easy access to your familiar tabs for Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad, and Voicemail again.

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The Liquid Glass interface appearance is a fairly significant change in macOS Tahoe, bringing a lot of transparency, translucency, and shininess to the Mac interface appearance. While some users enjoy the new look, other Mac users may find it distracting, cumbersome, or difficult to read and interact with, and perhaps even conducive to causing eye strain. If you’re in the latter camp you might be wanting to disable the Liquid Glass user interface and revert back to the prior look of MacOS. While you can’t change back to the old look entirely, you can mostly disable Liquid Glass on macOS Tahoe with a few simple adjustments that reduce the look considerably.

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Apple has released the second beta versions of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1. The new beta builds are available for all enrolled beta testers, and offer continued refinement of the new operating systems.

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AirTags are super useful personal trackers with many uses from tracking a bag, purse, dog, cat, luggage, backpack, car keys, package, bike, car, or just about anything else you can imagine wanting to keep an eye on through the Find My network. Amazon is currently offering the AirTag 4-pack for just $65 ($16 per AirTag), which is down from the $99 retail price.

• AirTags – 4-pack – $65 (down from $99)

Amazon is again offering the M4 MacBook Air starting at $799 for the 13″ and $999 for the 15″ ($200 off MSRP), and separately, the M3 iPad Air for $449 for the 11″ and $649 for the 13″ (both $150 off MSRP).

13″ M4 MacBook Air ($200 off)

• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 256GB for $799 (MSRP: $999)
• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 512GB for $999 (MSRP: $1,199)
• 13″ M4 MacBook Air 24GB / 512GB for $1,199 (MSRP: $1,399)

15″ M4 MacBook Air ($200 off)

• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 256GB for $999 (MSRP: $1,199)
• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 16GB / 512GB for $1,199 (MSRP: $1,399)
• 15″ M4 MacBook Air 24GB / 512GB for $1,399 (MSRP: $1,599)

M3 iPad Air 11″ for $449, M3 iPad Air 13″ for $649 ($150 Off)

• M3 iPad Air 13″ – $649 (down from $799)
• M3 iPad Air 11″ – $449 (down from $599)

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