The relatively simple Apple setup of Adranb is a bit of a contrast from some of the more decked out Mac setups we’ve shown lately, but that doesn’t make it any less functional, plus he’s got a great collection of Apple stuff that goes along with it.
For most iOS users, if you need to access the Drafts folder, they will tap back from their Mail app inbox to Mailboxes, and then tap on Drafts to access any email drafts on an iPhone or iPad. But that’s not necessary, and there’s actually a super fast shortcut to access the Drafts folder of iOS Mail app with a simple tap-and-hold trick.
Designers Teehan+Lax have an excellent habit of releasing free high quality PSD files of user interface elements from iOS, and they’ve done it again for iOS 6 and iPhone 5. Compiled as a very well labeled and layered photoshop document, the latest iOS 6 GUI kit includes virtually all the UI elements from the latest version of iOS, sized to fit the 4″ display of the newest iPhone. These files make it extremely easy to quickly mock up iPhone apps, workflows, ideas, and concepts for apps, and make an invaluable resource for designers, developers, or just dreamers.
Being a PSD file, it’s best used and edited with Photoshop, but it will open with most elements respected in apps like Pixelmator and Gimp, though there are some quirks.
Past versions sized for retina iPad are also available along with a variety of useful PSD packs aimed at creatives.
Apple will unveil the highly anticipated iPad Mini on Tuesday, October 23, according to a new report from the well-connected AllThingsD, in line with their previous report.
Citing sources, AllThingsD says the device will have a 7.85″ display and use the new Lightning connector introduced with iPhone 5. It will also “probably be thinner”, which sounds like reasonably obvious speculation. Little is really known about the iPad Mini and AllThingsD doesn’t provide many more details, but most rumors suggest the following may be true about the device:
The iPad Mini is intended to compete against the range of 7″ Android tablets that are gaining popularity, and also fight the oncoming swath of Windows 8 tablets. Android competitors tend to be feature rich despite selling for low prices, including the Kindle Fire at $159 and Nexus 7 at $199. It’s unclear how Apple plans to price the iPad Mini given the iPod touch fills the $199-$399 range, but market expectations are for a competitively priced device.
Update: Reuters also confirms the October 23 date, saying the “smaller iPad will directly compete with e-commerce giant Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD tablet and Google’s Nexus 7, both of which have 7-inch screens and are priced at $199.”
It’s a fact of modern life: Macs can run slowly for seemingly no reason, but chances are there is a reason the Mac is running so poorly and we’ll cover the most common reasons, how to know if each reason is causing the slow down, and most importantly, how to fix it. If your Mac is running slowly and it feels like a snail could launch a new app or load a web page faster than the computer could, read on.
Amazon is having a whopper sale on tons of super-fast solid state disk (SSD) drives today, with prices up to 40% off, each with free shipping. SSD’s are probably the best bang-for-your-buck upgrade to any computer, and if your Mac doesn’t yet have an SSD and you’ve been holding out for a great deal to upgrade, now just may be the time to jump aboard.
Here’s a few of the deals, but check out the rest directly on Amazon
.
Most of these drives are 2.5″ meaning some older desktop Macs will need a caddy to hold the smaller drive, but the SATA drives should fit in just about any compatible MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, or iMac. Be sure to double-check yourself before buying.
Saving a complete listing of files contained with a folder is easy, and there are two quick ways to save that list as a text file.
The first approach may be easiest for most users and is done through the OS X Finder and TextEdit app, it’s a simple matter of copying and pasting:
The second approach uses the command line, and despite being done through Terminal is not much more complicated than the copy & paste approach outlined above. Launch Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/ to get started.
At it’s most basic, the command is as follows:
ls > contents.txt
Including hidden files in the list requires the -a flag:
ls -a > allcontents.txt
To dump the contents of a specific folder, specify the directory path as follows:
ls /Library/Preferences/ > LibPrefsList.txt
Attaching certain flags to the ls command will allow the list to reveal more than just a file content list, the -l flag will also list permissions, file ownership, and modification dates:
ls -la /Library/Preferences/ > detailedprefsinfo.txt
Because the ls command accepts flags that detail additional attributes of files and folders, it can be much more informative than the Finder & TextEdit approach, which does not display details like file ownership or document permissions.
The command line approach also lets you do things like compare two directory listings by using the diff command, that can either be done by comparing the output files against each other, or even directly comparing the folders and saving difference those results as a text file.
Apple has started to air a new iPod ad that encompasses the entire lineup, ranging from the new iPod touch to the new iPod Nano and even Shuffle. The commercial emphasizes the range of colors offered for each new iPod, with the devices bouncing around on screen to a loud catchy song playing in the background. The song featured in the iPod commercial is “Yeah Yeah” by artist Willy Moon. Apple has a history of including catchy songs in their iPod commercials, which then go on to become widespread hits in music popculture.
The iPod touch “Bounce” commercial can be viewed below:
Read more »
Mac OS X includes a great feature called Screen Sharing which allows for the remote control of a Macs display. This means you can easily access a home or work Mac while on the go, or even do something like remotely troubleshoot a parents computer.
Screen Sharing will work across just about any supported Mac OS X versions too, a Mac running macOS Big Sur, macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, MacOS High Sierra, Mac OS Sierra, OS X El Capitan, Yosemite, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and anything newer, can connect to a work Mac running Snow Leopard, and so on. Screen Sharing is extremely easy to setup, follow along or watch the video below for a quick demonstration.
Apple’s new Maps app includes a really handy feature that lets you rotate the direction of maps on screen by swiveling your fingers, making it easier to follow directions and roads. While the maps are rotating, the compass will keep telling you where North is, as you’ll find when using the turn-by-turn navigation.
If you ever want to reorient Maps back to north/south though all you need to do is tap the compass icon in the upper right corner. This will instantly orient the compass and Map on an iPhone.
Tapping the compass icon causes Maps to immediate situate back to North being at the top of the screen, which was also the consistent setting in Maps prior to modern versions of iOS. This should work in all Maps apps from Google and Apple, so whether you’re using the built-in app or a third party solution try tapping on the Compass indicator to orient the direction again.
If you find ever yourself lost or disorientated somewhere, use this in conjunction with the compass tap to figure out exactly which way you’re facing.
A peculiar bug that’s impacting some iPhone 5 users leaves the iPhone unable to find a signal and rejoin a 3G/4G network after leaving an area with EDGE or no service. Despite being in a location with adequate cell coverage, the iPhone will just report “No Service”. This is most likely a software issue with iOS 6, and for the time being the two possible solutions are fairly lame but do work:
Unfortunately, the AirPlane Mode trick works only sometimes when going from EDGE, and the only guaranteed way to get reception again after losing it completely seems to be turning the iPhone on and off again. Strangely, toggling the “Cellular Data” switch does absolutely nothing to resolve the problem and is still unable to join a network. Some users have also reported success with the age-old trick of resetting Network Settings.
It’s hard to say how widespread this problem is, but it seems limited to iPhone 5 users who are in areas with weaker cell signals or a large amount of obstructions to signals, like mountains, heavy trees, and hills. For example, I live in an area with notoriously bad cell coverage and encounter the problem on a daily basis anytime I leave a 3G/4G coverage area. Hopefully an update to iOS will resolve the issue.
If you don’t use the Newsstand app in iOS there isn’t much reason to keep it around on the home screen, but for whatever reason Apple has made it impossible to move into a folder. A past bug let you move it, but that’s been patched with more recent versions of iOS.
Now for the good news, a new tweak lets you dump the Newsstand icon back into a folder, if you don’t mind a few caveats: first, once Newsstand is in the folder it’s basically unusable because it will crash, and second, you’ll have to connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a computer and launch an app to put it into a folder in the first place. If you’re ok with those limitations, grab StifleStand and connect your iOS device to your Mac or PC, which will dump Newsstand into a folder called “Magic”.
Moving Newsstand out of the folder makes it usable again, but StifleStand will have to be ran again to put it back into a folder. Not exactly convenient, but until Apple gives the native ability to move Newsstand around at will, it’ll do.
This app made the rounds recently, but it was originally limited to Mac users. Now with a Windows version available, anyone can finally hide the Newsstand icon. Thanks to MacStories for the discovery.
Most Mac OS X preferences are managed through easily accessible control panels, but going behind the scenes with defaults write commands can lead to some genuinely useful tweaks that can only be made through the command line. This list represents a compilation of some of the best defaults write commands out there, and even if you’re not an advanced user you’ll find some of these tricks to be well worth your while.
Worried about scratching the back of your beautiful iPhone 5? Don’t want to wait for an official InvisibleShield to be released from ZAGG or the other film protector companies? Maybe you’re just cheap and don’t feel like shelling out the $30 to protect your $200+ iPhone investment?
Well, if you don’t mind having an incredibly ugly jimmy-rigged version, look no further than the plastic film that arrives on the back of new iPhone 5 when it’s fresh out of the box. Just cut off the tabs that cover the glass and make it otherwise easy to remove, and you’re left with a fairly well sealed protective cover over the most vulnerable aluminum. It looks… well, absolutely terrible… but apparently it works, at least until you get a case, find a real scratch shield, or maybe just get over the fact that anything in your pocket 365 days a year will probably end up with some character building scuffs on it.
This post is kind of a joke and kind of not, but if you’re actually worried about scratches it looks like real ZAGG invisibleSHIELDs are available now
and can be had for a slight discount from Amazon. Grabbing one of those is probably a much better solution than leaving the plastic on the couch.
Thanks for sending this in ST
Launchpad’s new search function from OS X 10.8 onward make it an extremely fast app launcher, certainly faster than navigating multiple screenfuls of apps and clicking on app icons with a cursor. For the speediest launches, just do the following:
Is that quick or what?
For optimal speed, don’t bother typing the full name of the application, just type the first few letters, like “ter” for Terminal. If you end up in a situation where more than one app have similar names, either type another character or two or use the arrow keys to navigate between the searched apps within Launchpad.
New Macs have the F4 key mapped as a shortcut to open Launchpad, but older Macs can easily reassign F4 away from Dashboard and to Launchpad with just a click or two within System Preferences.
Whether or not this is faster than using Spotlight is going to come down to personal preferences and keyboard habits, but there’s one obvious advantage to using this Launchpad method over Spotlight; you won’t accidentally open a file or anything else, since Launchpad is apps only.
Siri is much more useful than many realize, and one of the best ways to use Siri while on the go is through your earbuds or earpods, the classic white headphones that come with all iOS devices. All you need is Siri enabled, and then connect the earbuds to your iPhone or iPad as you normally would, then it’s just a matter of summoning the virtual assistant and speaking commands.
Read more »
All My Files is one of those features of Mac OS X that was somewhat controversial at first, but once you start using it often, you can stop sorting files yourself in the Finder and just let All My Files, search, and Spotlight manage documents instead.
Nonetheless, there are still times when you’ll want to know where a file is actually located in the file system of OS X, and there’s a very easy way to jump to a file or items original location right from All My Files on the Mac:
Read more »
The iPhone is quickly becoming the primary camera for many of us, and though it makes a great point-and-shoot for your average pictures, it can also take surprisingly good close-up and macro shots. With that in mind, here are 5 tips to make the most of macro photography with the iPhone.
