Apple has released the first update to Apple Watch software, versioned as Watch OS 1.0.1. The update is a fairly small download weighing about 51MB, and includes performance improvements and bug fixes for the device, making it recommended for all Apple Watch users to install. Release notes accompanying Watch OS 1.0.1 are included below.
Apple has released updated versions of the Retina iMac 27″ and Retina MacBook Pro 15″. Both models received fairly minor updates to specifications, but offer some notable improvements which make them worthwhile for users considering new Mac hardware. Separately, Apple also released a Lightning Dock charger for iPhone.
If you’ve ever printed anything from a computer, you’ve inevitably wound up trying to print something that you soon discovered wasn’t needed. Regardless, rather than letting the print job continue and waste ink and paper, the best thing to do is cancel the printers print job or jobs. There are a few ways to cancel printing in Mac OS X, we’ll show you the easiest using a simple printer tool that’s bundled onto all Macs.
By default, the iPhone records video at 30 FPS, but newer model iPhones support video recording at a silky smooth 60 FPS (frames per second) at a full 1080p resolution. This optional high frame rate video capture mode must be enabled in the iPhone Camera settings before you’ll find it available when recording video with the Camera app however.
Some users who have updated to new versions of OS X with Photos app have discovered that Photos app does not meet their needs, and thus would like to continue using iPhoto on the Mac. This is possible, at least for the time being, but there can be some hiccups in getting iPhoto running again in OS X Yosemite with Photos app installed. Visit the Macs /Applications/ folder and open iPhoto app to discover if you need to take further action or not, some users will have the app open just fine and need no further steps – you’re good to go at that point. But, not all OS X users are in that boat, and sometimes you’ll see the iPhoto icon has a cross through it signifying it won’t open.
Most commonly, Mac users will encounter the following error message when trying to launch iPhoto on a Mac with Photos app: “In order to open “iPhoto.app”, you must update to the latest version. The version of iPhoto installed on this Mac is not compatible with OS X Yosemite. Download the latest version for free from the Mac App Store.” but when you click on “Search App Store”, you’ll get an error saying “Item Not Available”.
Users managing a Photos app library on the Mac have almost certainly deleted a picture, video, if not dozens of them. Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it’s accidental, and sometimes it’s regretful, and perhaps later, a user wishes they could recover those deleted pictures. If you find yourself in that situation, then you may be able to recover the deleted images with the help of a Photos app recovery feature, without even having to turn to backups from Time Machine in OS X.
Mac Mail users may find that even if they have
disabled auto-correct in OS X, an automatic Spell Check function continues to persist in the Mail app of Mac OS X. For users who are confident in their spelling abilities, bothered by the spell-check function, or who are just tired of correcting the auto-corrections in their outbound emails, you may find it helpful to completely disable the spell check feature in Mail app on the Mac.
Wondering what time a movie starts? Or maybe you want to see a movie tonight and you aren’t sure which one? Maybe you just want to see any movie at a specific time? As long as you have your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch handy, you can get all sorts of movie showtime details by simply asking Siri.
For a broad query into what movies are playing nearby and when the showtimes start, summon Siri as usual (with the Home button or “Hey Siri”, and then just ask the following type of questions:
The first time you login to a new user account, boot a fresh Mac, or a clean Mac OS X install, you’ll be presented with a default Dock selection without any customizations, which includes a variety of apps depending on the Mac hardware and what software is installed.
A common default Mac OS X Dock icon set would include apps like Launchpad, Safari, iTunes, Calendar, Contacts, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Photos, iMovie, Mail, Messages, and the other pre-bundled apps the Mac comes with.
Users usually are quick to customize their Docks with their own app choices, but if you ever want to reset the Dock to the default state and start anew, you can do that at any time by using a defaults command.
Apple has released the third beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 for Mac users who are part of the Mac developer program or participating in the OS X Public Beta. The new build arrives as 14E17e and is compatible with all Macs that can run OS X Yosemite.
The release notes accompanying the beta of OS X 10.10.4 suggest a focus on Photos app and Migration. There are no obvious new features, suggesting the release will primarily be aimed at bug fixes and improvements to the Mac operating system.
Apple has released the third beta version of iOS 8.4 for testing, arriving as build 12H4098c. The new release is available for both public beta testers and registered iOS developers, and runs on all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models which support iOS 8.
If you’ve ever hit “Send” on an iMessage or text message that you wish you could take back, or perhaps you’d just like to cancel a sent picture because it’s stuck on ‘Sending’ and taking forever to send the message due to a congested network connection, then you may find this iPhone “cancel send” trick to be handy.
To be clear, this is very much a trick, because there’s no direct method to cancel sending a message from the iPhone, and it requires some quick action on the users part. Nonetheless, it absolutely does actually stop a message from being sent if you are fast enough.
Many Mac apps support a two-finger swipe to go back / forward gesture, but not all users wish to use the scrolling gesture. For those who use Google Chrome, you may find that if you have disabled the system-wide “Swipe between pages” feature, you’ll still have the swipe navigation available in the Chrome app. This is because the swipe navigation feature is built into Chrome which lets the feature be separate from the scrolling gesture at the Mac OS X level.
The digital cameras included with iPhone, Android, and many others, have an option to geotag pictures using the devices GPS hardware, effectively pinpointing the exact location a photo was taken and bundling that geographic location data into the metadata of a picture. While you can turn off photo geotagging on iPhone and iPad, many users don’t and opt to keep the feature on their GPS equipped digital cameras. This means that you can easily view the location a picture was taken, and retrieve the GPS coordinates.
iPhone and iPad users can opt to use a new “Filter Unknown Senders” feature in the iOS messaging app which will automatically hush and separate inbound messages that are coming from unrecognized contacts. This is extremely useful if your phone number is publicly listed on a web site like Craigslist, if you’re a public figure, or if you just happen to get a notable amount of inbound messages from numbers you don’t recognize.
By turning this message filtering feature on, your iOS Messages app will basically have two inboxes: people in your Contacts list, and everyone else who is not part of your contacts list on the iPhone or iPad.
Apple has released a series of security updates for the Safari web browser, versioned as 8.0.6 for OS X Yosemite, Safari 7.16 for OS X Mavericks, and Safari 6.2.6 for OS X Mountain Lion.
Release notes accompanying the small update mention that it “contains improvements to security”, making it recommended for all Mac Safari users to download
Using Mail Drop allows you to send larger files over email than typically allowed by uploading the sent file to iCloud from Mail app in OS X, and then passing the link to download that file onto the recipient. The default MailDrop threshold for mail attachments is 20MB before kicking in and offering the service, but some email providers don’t allow files over even 10MB to be sent through their mail servers. Fortunately, with a little command line magic, you can change the file size limit before MailDrop is requested for transmitting a file.
Launchpad serves as a quick way to open applications on the Mac from a familiar iOS-like icon grid interface.
If you’ve customized the way these app icons and arranged in Launchpad, you may decide you’d like to start from scratch and reset their order to how things appear when you first get a Mac.
Resetting Launchpad layout can also be helpful if you want to rearrange the way Launchpad icons show up, but it can also be helpful to resolve some display bugs with Launchpad, particularly if an icon doesn’t show up or is displaying incorrectly.
