Instagram, the popular photo sharing app for iOS, recently added video support that allows users to post filtered videos to their picture collections. Browsing through an Instagram feed now results in quite a few videos that auto-play by default, an aspect which can be pretty obnoxious if you want to keep quiet. Perhaps worse than the auto-play audio though is that it also will consume a fair amount of bandwidth over time, especially if you follow a lot of people posting videos and you’re on a 3G or LTE connection. The reason is pretty simple, video, even short ones, are much larger to download than a simple static photo.

Not to worry, you can turn off video auto-play on the Instagram app for iPhone and for Android, we’ll show you exactly how to do this regardless of the version of the Instagram app you are running.

Read more »

The Virtual Keyboard feature of Mac OS X is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a software-based keyboard that can be used as an auxiliary onscreen keyboard to type anything on a Mac. These virtual keys are pressable by clicking on them with a cursor, rather than tapping the physical keys on a hardware keyboard.

Enabling this screen keyboard is a little hidden away in system preferences, but it’s very easy to show, hide, and use, once it has been made accessible:
Read more »

There are tons of video converter apps out there for the Mac, many of which are free, and some are paid but priced all too high. We’re cutting through the chafe and giving you three of the best video converter apps that are completely free. Each app also sits at a different complexity and skill levels, so if you’re just looking to perform a quick conversion without tinkering around you’ll be able to do that, while if you do want to fine-tune a video or hardcode in subtitles, you’ll be able to do that too. We’ll even give you an option that doesn’t require any downloads at all, because it’s built right into Mac OS X.

You’ll never be left with a useless video file or unreadable movie format again, so the next time you download a movie in an unusual format or copy one from that old Windows PC and think it can’t be opened or is unwatchable on that iPad, think again and use one of these free apps to get it converted on your Mac.
Read more »

Unlocking an iPhone through AT&T is now lightning fast, and in some cases you’ll have an unlocked iPhone in under 30 minutes. I recently had the chance to experience this directly while writing this article on checking the unlock status of devices, and was impressively surprised by the result. From filling out the initial unlock request form to the confirmation email completing the unlock, only 23 minutes passed. With how simple and fast it is – and yes it’s free – there is practically no reason to not unlock your iPhone this way.

Read more »

There are a few ways to retrieve a file or folders full path from Mac OS X, and we’ll cover the two easiest methods here, and also a third option that utilizes a Service to instantly copy any path to the clipboard. First, we’ll use the Get Info panel to pull any items complete path, and then we’ll use another trick that utilizes an under appreciated feature of the Terminal to retrieve any directory or files path. The optional Automator Service provides yet another option to copy file and folder paths, which is then quickly accessible through the right-click menu from the OS X Finder.

Read more »

A new update to Apple TV brings streaming access to several popular TV services and networks, including HBO GO, ESPN, Sky News, Qello, and CrunchyRoll. Versioned as 5.3, the update requires a second or third generation Apple TV, and can be downloaded through iTunes or by using the direct firmware links included in this article.

While many will be excited about these new content additions, there is currently no way to pay for direct access to some of the individual streaming providers. Instead, you must have a separate TV or network package through a participating provider in order to watch several of the streams, including HBO and ESPN. Sky News is free, while CrunchyRoll and Qello can have subscriptions managed directly through the Apple TV at a fixed cost. More details on each of these services is provided below.

Read more »

The iPad already has very impressive battery life and regularly lasts all day, but who wouldn’t want to have their iPad last even longer? With a group of simple tips, you can extend an iPads battery life even further and get the absolute most out of your tablets battery for as long as possible. These tricks are the real deal, and we’ll focus on things that actually work. Let’s get started and maximize your iPad battery.

Read more »

Ever wondered what all those status icons and symbols mean that sit in the iPhone status bar, along the top of the screen? You’re certainly not alone, and while some of those little symbols make perfect sense, others can be a bit of a mystery even to longtime iPhone users. Sure, the obvious ones like cell bars signal (or the true numerical signal if you enabled it) and the 4G, LTE, battery, and Wi-Fi indicators are pretty self explanatory, but what about that little circle you see sometimes? Or what about the moon icon, or the two interlinking circles? Or the little arrow that points up and to the right?

Read more »

An unlocked iPhone means it can use any cellular network, so long as you have a compatible carrier SIM card. Due to this, unlocked iPhones are more valuable and highly desired for both local and international users, because it allows you to use any GSM carrier whether at home or abroad just by swapping out SIM cards. But how do you know if an iPhone is unlocked or not? You usually can’t tell just by looking at it, but we’ll show you how to find out if the device is factory unlocked or not using one of three methods. If you plan on doing some international travel, you’ll want to check before you leave. Similarly, if you plan on buying or selling an iPhone, you’ll want to check if its unlocked or not before completing the transaction.

First, here are a few safe assumptions: if an iPhone was bought on contract, it will probably remain locked to that carrier. Exceptions to this are if an iPhone has been manually unlocked by a provider (many CDMA carriers will unlock the SIM card slot on iPhone models even while in contract, you just have to ask), or if an iPhone has ended its contract and the device has been unlocked per request, such as you can do with AT&T. On the other hand, if you know that the iPhone was bought unlocked from Apple by paying full price, then you don’t need to do anything other than swap in whatever carrier SIM card you want to use.

Let’s get on with three easy ways to check the unlock status of any iPhone:
Read more »

Wondering what is in that zip file or archive you downloaded, but you don’t want to extract it to find out? Maybe you are hunting around in a see of archives for a specific file you zipped up a while ago, but you’re not quite sure which archive contains it? You can easily peer into zips and other archive formats to view their contents without actually unzipping or uncompressing them, which is an excellent way to check if a particular archive has a file or folder you are looking for, and to make sure you downloaded the proper file.

There are a few easy ways to view zip contents on a Mac and we’ll cover three of them, two of which are zip-centric command line based and built into all versions of OS X (and many other unix and linux variations for that matter), and another approach which uses a free third party utility and Quick Look to be able to quickly glance at any archives contents.
Read more »

Setting up a dual-boot environment for OS X Mavericks and OS X 10.8 (or even 10.7 and 10.6 if you’re still running an older version of Mac OS X) is easy and allows for a fresh installation of Mavericks to test and develop with. Because the original OS X installation remains untouched, it’s also the safest way to give Mavericks a trial run, which is perfect for running the Developer Previews or if you’re just not sure you’re ready to run OS X 10.9 full time yet.

You don’t need another hard drive to be able to do this, instead you utilize unused space on the existing drive to create a new partition that runs the alternate OS. This process can be completed from a Mavericks boot drive if desired, and using such an USB installer tends to prevent any potential errors with Disk Utility (more on common errors you may encounter at the very bottom of this article), but it is not necessary.
Read more »

For those of us who use several different types of network connections to get online, you may want to take a moment to set the networking service priority in OS X. This insures that a Mac isn’t connecting through the wrong networking interface when multiple network services are available.

For example, if you have a Mac that is connected to an ethernet network, but also finds available wi-fi networks, you can set one of those to be the preferred connection type. This can also be used to prioritize connections through a VPN, and you can go a step further and set the priority on a per-location basis, which is perhaps the most useful way to use this trick.
Read more »

The visual change between iOS 7 and iOS 6 is obviously significant, and this graphic does a great job of showing just how the iOS home screen has evolved over time with the iPhone. Covering versions 1.0 through 7.0 and a time period of 2007 to 2013, it gives an interesting look into how things have changed in the past and how they are changing now:

Click here or on the image above for the full sized image

When set alongside each other like this the newest changes with 7 look less drastic, but certainly much brighter and more colorful than before. In some ways the iOS 7 home screen has more commonality with the original 1.0 through 3.0 releases than the more recent 4, 5, and 6 builds, at least in flatness and the Dock design. If you want to get a preview of what 7.0 will look like on your iPhone or iPod touch, load these iOS 7 preview videos and screen shots on your iOS device, they do a fairly good job of what to expect, at least with what we’re seeing in beta 1 and what is visible through Apple’s initial marketing materials.

Heads up to @applespotlight for retweeting this find

Disk Utility usually works trouble-free, but a frustrating “Couldn’t Unmount Disk” error can halt whatever the attempted task is right in its tracks. This can happen during partitioning, disk verification and repair, and even during formatting, and there’s usually little to no additional information provided as to how to resolve the problem or even what the problem is with regards to the error message or the app in Mac OS.

Read more »

The visually overhauled iOS 7 beta includes a handful of nice new default wallpapers, two of which are static (the left pink blue dots and galaxy image), and two are animated (the right two varieties of blue and purple vector bubbles). Obviously without iOS 7 you won’t be able to get the animated wallpapers, but you can get a static image of them and they still look pretty nice. These are all sized for the iPhone and iPod touch with 4″ displays at a 640×1136 resolution. They’ll look fine on the smaller 3.5″ displays too, but trying to size these up for an iPad or Mac just won’t look that great.

Save the full sized images below, or you can download them all in a convenient zip put together by CultOfMac.

Download all wallpapers in a zip

Read more »

Need to dial a vanity number from iPhone? You know, the phone numbers that are listed as letters rather than numbers? These phone numbers are mnemonic and listed as letters and are often called vanity numbers, typically they will be in a format like 1-800-COMCAST, 1-800-MY-APPLE, 1-800-SOS-APPLE, etc, and they are not always automatically detected by iPhone or iPad. At first glance they don’t appear to be usable on the iPhone, but it turns out they are, with a little trick.

Read more »

The designers at Teehan+Lax have built a complete iOS 7 GUI elements template, and are now offering it for free as a very functional PSD file. Everything is fully layered, well-labeled, and organized logically, making it an excellent tool to use for mocking up apps and concepts as they would appear natively in the completely redesigned iOS 7 interface.

Being a PSD it is obviously aimed at Photoshop, but it works perfectly fine in Pixelmator in our testing, and all layers remain intact (at least in Pixelmator 2.2).

• Get the iOS 7 elements PSD here from Teehan+Lax

Do note that because iOS 7 is currently in beta, some of the elements may change slightly from the beta release to the final release. We can expect Teehan+Lax to update the template file for any significant changes though. Happy designing.
Read more »

Fed up with iOS 7 beta and it’s quirky bugs? You can downgrade fairly easily, which is probably a good idea for most casual users who aren’t accustomed to handling beta OS releases in various stages of development, because it’s really not meant for everyday use on your primary device anyway. Yes, Apple’s developer notes attached to iOS 7 beta releases specifically say that any iPhone or iPod touch that upgrade to iOS 7 can not downgrade back to iOS 6, but that’s not actually true in practice. In fact, just like with prior beta versions of iOS, you can downgrade back to whatever the most recent stable iOS release is with relative simplicity, so ignore the dev portal message and get back to a stable version. It only takes a few moments, and it’s not much different than restoring iOS in general.

Read more »