Apple has released MacOS Sonoma 14.5 for Mac users running the Sonoma operating system. The MacOS 14.5 update includes bug fixes, security enhancements, and some changes and improvements to add various word games to the paid Apple News+ service.

Mac users running earlier versions of system software will find MacOS Ventura 13.6.7 and MacOS Monterey 12.7.5 available as security updates.

Separately, Apple has also released the final versions of iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, iOS 16.7.8, iPadOS 16.7.8, watchOS 10.5, and tvOS 17.5.

Read more »

The Marathon series of video games are classic first-person shooters set in a sci-fi world, and longtime Mac users may have fond memories of playing Marathon, Marathon 2, or Marathon Infinitiy as single-player or multiplayer over a LAN in the mid 1990s.

But you don’t need a time machine or to run Mac OS Classic 9 in a web browser to go back and enjoy these retro gaming classics, because you can play them on your modern Mac (or Windows or Linux PC) right now, natively!

Read more »

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks in the world, with photo sharing, video sharing, messaging capabilities, and much more. While it seems like many people have Instagram accounts, there are also plenty more people without Instagram accounts, and who don’t ever want to have an Instagram account or profile. So what if you’re one of those people without an Instagram account, but you still want to look at someone’s Instagram profile, or an Instagram of a business, or service?

Read more »

As an Apple Watch owner, you likely have noticed that phone calls from your iPhone will ring on your Apple Watch, where you can answer and reject those calls as you wish. If you reject or mute the call from the Watch, the caller will have the option to leave a voice message on the iPhone voicemail as usual. And if you have iPhone or Apple Watch in Do Not Disturb mode, you may notice voicemails in your notifications when you check them.

Those functions may be reasonably well known by Apple Watch users, but lesser known is that you can also listen to voicemail directly from Apple Watch, that was left on the paired iPhone. Let’s learn how this works, so that you can check your voicemail at any time from Apple Watch, even if your iPhone is not in your hands.

Read more »

The Photos app is a major part of the Apple ecosystem, providing a ton of powerful capabilities for managing and editing photos whether you’re using Photos on iPhone, Mac, or iPad. While you may already be familiar with some great tips like editing photos for color, cropping, applying filters, and creating folders for your photos, there are a variety of lesser known features that are super useful in the Photos app.

We’re covering three of the most useful overlooked features that are available for Photos app for iPhone, Mac, and iPad.

Read more »

Apple Watch users may occasionally see a black screen with a squiggly line that looks like a charging cable and lightning bolt, and when this screen is active you will find Apple Watch is not usable. You may run into this screen after an Apple Watch has not been in use for a while, and you may even run into the squiggly line screen on a brand new Apple Watch that you just opened out of the box. The lightning bolt is sometimes red, and sometimes the lightning bolt is green.

What is the Apple Watch squiggly line screen, sometimes called the snake screen or lightning bolt line screen, what does it mean, and how do you fix it? Those questions are precisely what we are going to answer here, and you’ll be using your Apple Watch again soon enough.

Read more »

Apple has issued release candidate builds for iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, watchOS 10.5, tvOS 17.5, and visionOS 1.2. MacOS Sonoma 14.5 release candidate is not yet available.

The release candidate versions arrived right after the new M4 iPad Pro debuted, and the final version of iPadOS 17.5 will almost certainly ship on that device.

Read more »

Screen sharing on a Mac allows users to remotely control or view another users computer, including their desktop, apps, and whatever else they’re doing on their Mac. This allows for many remote collaboration opportunities, along with easy remote assistance, troubleshooting, and remote management of computers.

Enabling screen sharing is a matter of adjusting a setting in MacOS Sequoia, macOS Sonoma and MacOS Ventura, which has moved in the latest versions of MacOS with System Settings compared to prior MacOS releases. Let’s review how to turn on this very useful feature on a Mac.

Read more »

Apple unveiled updates to their iPad lineup today, featuring newly redesigned iPad Pro models with M4 chips, and updates to the iPad Air which now include the M2 chip and a 13″ display size option.

Additionally, Apple introduced a new Apple Pencil Pro for iPad Pro, and a redesigned Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro.

Read more »

If you recently got a new phone and new phone number, or perhaps you changed phone numbers, or maybe you have a new work phone, you might be left with the question of wondering what your phone number is. Obviously knowing your phone number is important, so if you need to know what your phone number is on iPhone, rather than be wondering “what is my phone number” and not knowing the answer, you’ll discover the iPhone makes it easy to see your phone number, offering several different ways to get your contact digits.

We’ll show you two quick and easy ways to find your phone number from an iPhone. And while

Read more »

The M3 MacBook Air 15″ is available from Amazon at a nice $150 discount in certain configurations, in Midnight, Starlight, Space Grey, and Silver color options, just be sure you clip the on-page coupon to get the full discounted price.

You can get the excellent upgraded model of the 15″ Air with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $1549 (down $150 from $1699) in any color, or you can get the base model 15″ Air with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $1149 (down $150 from $1299) in any color option too.

Read more »

Using Microsoft Edge as the default browser on MacOS has been a mostly positive experience, for speed, utility, access to GPT-4, and other neat features. But it’s also not without some degree of confusion, like wondering what on earth the number badge icon on the Edge icon in the Mac Dock means.

One key component of my experience using many modern software products from Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others, is befuddlement about various user interface (UI) elements, and user experience (UX) design decisions (*cough* System Settings *cough*). Microsoft Edge is no different in this regard, where some UI/UX things make obvious sense right away, some are kind of suggestive but still uncertain (like like wondering what the blue underlines mean – turns out that’s a grammar check feature), while some other things are a complete and total mystery. The confusing numerical badge shown on the Microsoft Edge Dock icon in MacOS falls into the latter category – a mysterious number with no clear relationship to anything in the app.

Read more »

“It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.” – Steve Jobs

Have you ever seen the Apple Pirate Flag, sometimes called the Apple Jolly Roger, and wondered what the story was around that? I did too, so I dug into a bit to uncover a fun little part of Apple history.

Read more »

If you’re making a switch from Google Chrome to the Microsoft Edge browser on your Mac, you’ll almost certainly want to import your Chrome data into Edge. Doing so will allow Edge to have immediate access to your saved logins and passwords, bookmarks, history, extensions, settings, and more, allowing you to seamlessly transition from Chrome to Edge.

Importing in this case works particularly well because both Chrome and Edge use the Chromium underpinnings, which is a project from Google, so you really can just take over in the new Microsoft browser where you left off in Google’s Chrome.

Read more »

One of the more interesting tricks available for the Photos app on iPhone and iPad is an ability to convert a series of selected photos into a video. This can be particularly useful for action photos and Live Photos that are a series of similar images, but you can select any number of Live Photos of any subjects you want and turn them into a video with this trick, even if the photos are not related to each other at all. Maybe you want to use the outputted video as a portable slideshow, for importing into a video editor app, for converting to a gif, or for social media, for example. The possibilities are many, but first you’ll want to learn how to convert Live Photos into a video using just your iPhone or iPad.

Read more »

Some iPhone users may find that the onscreen keyboard occasionally gets stuck on screen and covers buttons or other elements on the the screen, preventing interaction with the iPhone and preventing the dismissal of the iPhone keyboard. This can happen for a variety of reasons, whether in Messages, Whatsapp, Instagram, FaceBook, Mail, and basically any other app where text input is possible, and is likely the result of a bug. Whatever the reason matters less than the fact that it’s annoying when a stuck onscreen keyboard obscures buttons and other elements on the iPhone, making it impossible to interact with the iPhone in a way you intend.

If you find yourself in a situation where the iPhone keyboard is covering screen elements, apps, buttons, and making it impossible to interact with the iPhone in the way you may expect, read on and you’ll quickly fix that issue.

Read more »

The fourth beta versions of iOS 17.5, macOS Sonoma 14.5, and iPadOS 17.5 have been released to users engaging in the beta testing programs for Apple system software. Additionally, new betas for watchOS 10.5, tvOS 17.5, and visionOS 1.2, are also available.

While it’s not clear when the final versions of these system software versions will be made available, it’s widely assumed they will be released at or near the scheduled May 7 Apple Event next week.

Read more »

One of the many handy features and capabilities of AirPods is that they can be used with an Apple TV. This is perfect for situations where you’re in a shared environment or house and want to watch something on TV without disturbing others who are nearby, and there are many other obvious uses of this capability as well.

There are a few different ways to get your AirPods working with Apple TV, and they’re all super simple, so we’re going to cover three particular approaches; two that are quick and easy for any AirPods that are already paired with an iPhone that will be using the same Apple ID as the Apple TV, and a third approach which pairs the AirPods directly to any Apple TV. These tricks will work with any compatible Apple TV or set of AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max.

Read more »