The Mac command key, sitting alongside the spacebar and containing that funky looking icon logo, is commonly used for initiating keyboard shortcuts throughout OS X. But that command key also has some nice usability tricks up its sleeve that are lesser known and underutilized, many of which can help with your general workflow throughout OS X and the Finder. Here are five particularly handy tips that use the command key.

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The optional Camera grid overlays lines atop the viewing screen when shooting pictures on an iPhone and iPad. Dividing the screen into equal parts, it helps to take better pictures by making it simple to follow the longstanding “rule of thirds”, with the basic idea being to align compositional elements to the grid, lining up things like the horizon or buildings to the lines in the grid.

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Some iOS and iPadOS users have reported problems activating iMessage and FaceTime on their freshly updated iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. Some of the initial activation errors were probably due to immense simultaneous demand being placed on Apple servers, but since some people are still experiencing this problem after the initial iOS update release rush, we think it’s worth addressing with a few solutions to remedy the issue.

Most of iMessage and FaceTime activation errors are one or both of the following; either a device gets stuck on “Waiting for activation…” or you get stuck with a lovingly vague popup alert that says “An error occurred during activation. Try again.”

That is exactly the kind of error message we’re looking to resolve here, so follow the steps in order and you should be able to get your iMessage & FaceTime activation errors resolved and those handy services functioning again in short order.

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Most users are satisfied with iOS 7 performance, but some iPhone and iPad owners have discovered the major update has impacted the speed of their devices. If you feel like iOS 7 has made your hardware slower than it was before the update, there are some changes you can make that will likely speed things up a bit. These tricks will make the biggest difference on older device hardware running iOS 7, so if your device feels a bit sluggish after updating take a moment to make a few settings adjustments. The first few tricks may also boost your battery life too…

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If you’ve been listening to iTunes Radio and noticed there’s a strong preference to clean songs versus the original versions that may contain some stronger language, you’re not going crazy, it’s actually the default settings choice for iTunes Radio. Listeners of certain genres will probably never notice the difference, but a surprisingly large amount of pop, classic rock, alternative, hard rock, hip hop, and rap is impacted by the “explicit” filter, and the result is either entire songs filtered out, or a preference to the clean radio edits. If you’d rather listen to your music nanny-free, you can make a quick settings adjustment in iTunes Radio on either the desktop in OS X or in the mobile world with iOS.
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The Messages app in some iOS versions defaults to shortening contacts names to only display their first name. That is done to make things look nice and tidy, and it also helps to prevent an overlap between the contact name and navigational elements on iPhone screens while avoiding name truncation. An obvious problem with this default setting reveals itself if you have contacts that share first names, which is probably just about everyone.

Because message windows from “Bob Jones” will look the same as “Bob McKowski” and both look like they’re from “Bob”, it becomes impossible to tell them apart from the message window itself (outside of reading the message contents, of course). That could potentially lead to an awkward situation where you inadvertently respond to the wrong text, or send something to the wrong person who just happens to share a name. Fortunately, preventing such a scenario is just an easy settings adjustment away, though it’s a little buried in the preferences.

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Looking for some new great apps for your Mac? MacUpdate packages together some great software bundles for OS X, and the MacUpdate Fall 2013 bundle is no different. Containing 9 Mac apps that would typically retail for a combined total of $460, you can pick them all up as a single pack for just $50. The apps are all compatible with recent versions of OS X (including Mavericks) and cover a wide range of functionality:

• TechTool Pro 7 – Powerful system test, repair, optimization utility
• ScreenFlow 4 – Feature-rich screen recording and editing app
• Civilization 5 Gold Edition – Wildly fun and addictive strategy game
• PDFpen 6 – Edit PDF’s and OCR files with ease
• Snapheal Pro – Easy photo editor and enhancer
• Deltawalke – Compare and merge files and folders
• Vitamin-R – Productivity enhancing task management
• Choco – Easy photo collage tool
• Aurora – Popular alarm clock app for the Mac

The apps deliver as a simple download, and the bundle deal is live for the remainder of September.

You can read more about each app, and buy the package deal over at MacUpdate for $49.99.

One of the biggest complaints we’ve heard regarding iOS is about the font change in iOS 7, iOS 8, iOS 9, iOS 10, iOS 11, and iOS 213 (the other complaint is usually about battery life, which is also extremely easy to fix). The new default system font is fairly narrow in weight, and as a result it can make text difficult to read throughout the various menus, settings, notifications, and even the Home Screen as icon text is quite thin.

If you find the default font and text to be difficult to read in iOS, stop squinting and take a moment to make a simple change that increases the weight of the font, making it bolder. This change is all encompassing and impacts all system fonts, and you will find nearly every text and font element to be much easier to read afterwards.
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Hot off the heals of the iOS 7 and iTunes 11.1 releases, Apple has updated the Apple TV set top box to 6.0 to include some of the same features. Most noticeable is the inclusion of iTunes Radio, the streaming music service, but the Apple TV 6.0 release also includes support for iCloud photo streams, podcasts, and AirPlay from iCloud, which allows users to play content on any other Apple TV through streaming.

Updating Apple TV to 6.0 is easy and can be done on the device itself through OTA (Over-The-Air):
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iTunes 11.1 brought with it support for iOS 7 and the excellent iTunes Radio feature, but another small feature lets you see song changes in the OS X Notification Center. Though it’s a fairly minor feature, there have been a variety of third party tweaks and apps to provide similar services over the years, making it pretty nice to have this natively.

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Some users are finding that updating to iOS 7 seems to have reduced the battery life of their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. Battery issues are often reported with major iOS updates, but this time around the culprits of newfound battery drain are easier to identify, because much of it relates directly to some new features and new control mechanisms built into the new iOS release. Fortunately, this makes for easy identification and easy remedies, so if you’re encountering any issues with battery life not living up to your expectations, you can probably resolve the draining issues quickly with a few settings adjustments.

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iOS 7 is here (you can download it now if you haven’t done so yet). We’ll be covering tons of iOS 7 tips for iPhone, iPad, and iPod users, but first let’s run over four essentials to get everyone started; Control Center and it’s general greatness, quitting apps with the new Multitasking feature, searching your device with the revised version of Spotlight, and a nice change to the lock screen that will speed things up a bit.

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The simplest way to install iOS 7 is with OTA update available in Settings directly on the device, but it doesn’t always work for everyone, particularly right now as Apple’s servers are overloaded. Also, many users trying to use the OTA update are encountering an annoying error that says “This update cannot be installed because it requires at least 3.1GB of storage.” or a “Software Update Failed” error when attempting to download the update. An alternate solution that will definitely work and avoid any failures or errors is to update to iOS 7 manually with the help of firmware files (IPSW). This method requires the usage of iTunes and a computer, and though it may sound complicated it’s really not.

This specific guide will update an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iOS 7. It does not perform a clean install or a restore, it simply updates the existing iOS 6 release to the new release of iOS 7.
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iOS 7 has been released, and while most users should update to iOS 7.0 directly on their devices using Over-the-Air, another option is to manually update compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices to the latest version by using IPSW firmware. Typically, manual updates with firmware files are considered a bit more advanced, but it’s really not too complicated and you can read about it here if going with a manual update or installation interests you.
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Apple has released iOS 7 into the wild. As you likely know by now, it offers a significant visual overhaul to the entire mobile experience, and also includes quite a few new features.

Devices compatible with iOS 7 include: iPad 2, iPad mini, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPod touch 5th gen, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, and iPhone 5C. Despite the official supported hardware list, we still recommend that older model iPad and iPhone users hold off on updating until a point release resolves some of the ongoing performance issues. Of course, you don’t have to take that advice, and you can find the iOS 7 update right now through iTunes or on your iOS device itself with Over-the-Air update.
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iTunes 11.1 has been released with support for iTunes Radio, a streaming music service, and Genius Shuffle, a smarter way to shuffle through similar music. Away from the music side, iTunes 11.1 also includes a podcasts stations feature, and perhaps most importantly for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users, is that the 11.1 release allows syncing with iOS 7 devices.

Yes, iTunes 11.1 is required to sync iOS 7 devices to a computer, making it a very important update to download and install before upgrading any iPhone or iPad to iOS 7.
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Can’t think of a name for an iOS folder? Or maybe you prefer minimalism and would rather have a folder without any name at all? Why not set a blank folder name! You can’t do this normally, and you may have discovered that typing a bunch of spaces doesn’t set a blank name either, but thanks to a peculiar quirk that comes along with the Starbucks app (yes, Starbucks the ubiquitous coffee shop), you can make a folder with an entirely blank name.
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Apple has started to air commercials for the new iPhone 5C. The first TV advertisement is called “Plastic Perfected”, and features liquid plastic pouring into and transforming into various colored iPhone 5C models. The liquid plastic looks oddly refreshing, like some sort of sports drink, and the commercial includes appropriately themed lyrics to a song playing in the background, “pick up the phone then, ring ring, call them up, tell them about the new trends”.

A video of the TV ad has been embedded below:
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