Have you ever been somewhere with something written in a foreign language and wondered what the heck it said in your own language? Or, have you ever looked at a sign, book, or printed text somewhere, and wished you could instantly translate that something into the language of your choice? With your iPhone and the free Word Lens app, you can, and it kind of works like magic. Yes I know that sounds like hyperbole, but Word Lens is genuinely impressive, and no amount of screen shots or video does the app justice, you really have to see it in action yourself.

Word Lens is incredibly simple to use and it works on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a camera, here’s what you’ll want to do to see how it works:

Read more »

Adding a new screen saver to Mac OS X that you’ve obtained from a third party source isn’t as easy as it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly complicated. Though Gatekeeper has made things slightly more challenging to improve security, you’ll find that installing any screensaver to the Mac is still pretty simple.

Read more »

Mac users who are dealing with particularly complex or troublesome issues with Mac OS can turn to an advanced diagnostics tool available from the command line in Mac OS X. The tool, called sysdiagnose, offers detailed technical analysis and reports of a huge variety of components of OS X and the Mac hardware, making it a potentially valuable tool for advanced troubleshooting and diagnostics needs.

Read more »

Apple TV users can now use their devices to watch CNBC, FOX NOW, TV 2 Sumo, and Esporte Interativo, though access to the new channels are limited by region and network.

Read more »

Apple has updated the entire Retina MacBook Pro lineup with spec bumps, including faster processors and more RAM as standard options.

8GB of RAM is now standard for all 13″ Retina MacBook Pro models, which come with dual-core i5 CPU’s starting at 2.6 GHz, while 16GB of RAM is now standard for the Retina 15″ models, which include quad-core i7 CPU’s starting at 2.2 GHz. Prices for all MacBook Pros with Retina displays remain the same, with the 13″ model beginning at $1299 and the 15″ starting at $1999.

Read more »

Now that OS X Yosemite is in open public beta and generating considerable interest from Mac users, a fair amount of complaints or frustrations have surfaced both in our comments and around the web on forums. Whether it’s a pestering bug, a beloved feature that has gone missing or that was tweaked in Yosemite, something that changed, the new font, the window restyling, transparencies, the loss of Dashboard, Dark Mode, or whatever else you want to offer feedback about, this is your chance.

The entire point of the public beta of OS X Yosemite is to gather feedback from a variety of end users with regard to features and functionality. Apple is even making it simple to offer your perspective, report bugs, or suggest improvements, with the bundled Feedback Assistant app.

Read more »

Don’t have any iPhone or iPod speakers handy, but really want to boost the volume of the music or audio coming from your iOS device? If you have a paper towel roll and two plastic cups, you’re good to go with this goofy and sort of effective DIY iPhone speaker solution.

Read more »

The system icons of Mac OS X decorate nearly everything found within the Finder and desktop, ranging from default folder icons, to the default icons of hard disks, network machines, even the Finder sidebar items, and some toggles found throughout Mac OS X. If you’ve ever wanted to access the full size original resources for these system icons, you’ll find they are intentionally buried within the operating system, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access them, copy them, or even change them if you want to.

Read more »

It’s time for another featured Mac setup! This week we’re sharing the workstation of James C., a professional music composer who uses a Mac Mini with an iPad to produce tracks and music scores for everything from commercials to video games. Let’s learn a bit more:

Read more »

Now that the OS X Yosemite Beta is available to the public (you can still sign up and download it if you’re interested in running the beta release on your Mac), you might be wanting to make a bootable installer drive out of an external USB flash disk to make installation easier. Sure, you can always just copy the “Install OS X Yosemite Beta” application to other Macs and run it directly from the Applications folders of different machines, but the bootable installer option allows you multiple benefits; you can erase and partition drives directly from the bootable drive, you can perform clean Yosemite Beta installs, and you can make a single USB key to install Yosemite on multiple Macs. These aspects make installer drives preferable for many advanced users in particular, but it can be useful for everyone, even novices.

Quick side note: if you’ve been having problems downloading the Yosemite Beta, try these tips to resolve the download issues.

Read more »

With the OS X Yosemite public beta now available to download, some users are experiencing a handful of issues when trying to actually download and install the release.

Read more »

As expected, Apple has released the first version of OS X Yosemite Public Beta. Individuals who signed up to be a part of the public beta program for OS X 10.10 are now able to download the first Public Beta build, which is essentially the same version as the recently seeded OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 4 release.

Read more »

Touch ID and the iPhone fingerprint reader has been around for a while now, but a great feature that seems to not get much use is the ability to unlock an iPhone with a touch and a fingerprint – that means not having to enter the passcode when you want to unlock the iPhone. Instead, you just rest your finger or a thumb against the Home button, and the screen unlocks automatically. Whether some users have this Touch ID feature turned off, have trouble with the feature working as intended, or simply don’t know it exists, who knows, but it’s easy to set up and it does work quite well if you use a particular trick to improve the fingerprint recognition.
Read more »

Tomorrow, Apple will release the first Public Beta version of OS X Yosemite to Mac users who have registered with the open beta program. The first public beta build of OS X 10.10 will apparently be the same as Yosemite Developer Preview 4, and is aimed at soliciting feedback from non-developer Mac users, according to ReCode.

Read more »

Have you ever seen the Temperature Warning on the iPhone before, saying “iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it”, appearing seemingly out of nowhere? If you’ve ever left your iPhone outdoors on a hot sunny day for too long, you probably have. And if you haven’t seen that warning, let’s try to keep it that way by heeding some simple advice.

Read more »

Apple is expecting the upcoming larger screened iPhone 6 models to be huge sellers, judging by manufacturing orders issued to suppliers and reported by Wall Street Journal.

Read more »

Apple has started to run a new commercial for the MacBook Air, titled “Stickers”. The ad features a look at the customizations which people make to the back enclosure of their MacBooks with a huge variety of stickers, ranging from various abstract designs, to a Snow White decal, a huge assortment of brand stickers, Space Invaders decals, to even an image of the Cookie Monster eating the Apple logo, and many others.

The “Stickers” video is 30 seconds long, and embedded below for easy viewing:
Read more »

iCloud Activation Lock is a feature that allows users to lock down an iPhone (or iPad) and require the entry of an Apple ID before the device becomes usable again. It’s part of the excellent Find My iPhone service and is extremely useful for many reasons, but it can also be a real pain if you or someone else obtained an iPhone that has another Apple ID attached to it and is then ‘locked’ to that account with an activate request, because until that activation lock is removed it will be prevented from general usage or login with another Apple ID.

So what should you if you longer have possession over the iPhone, but you still want to remove the Activation Lock and disconnect it from your Apple ID and iCloud account? Or what should you do if you bought an iPhone from someone else, and it has an activation lock attached to their Apple ID?

Read more »