Stylizing text with bold, underline, or italics in the iOS Mail app is easily done with the same tap-and-hold contextual menu that also allows you to select text, block quote, and insert photos. To access the text styling menu:

• Tap and hold on any text in Mail app, choose “Select” and adjust the sliders to the text you want to select
• Tap the “B I U” button to reveal the text styles (you may need to tap the > arrow button to reveal the option if device is in portrait orientation)
• Choose either “Bold”, “Italics”, or “Underline”
• Repeat to apply additional styling

As you probably guessed, this litte-known trick works the same in Mail on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Technically the stylize feature appears in a few other places in iOS too, but we’re focusing on the Mail app because this feature is universally supported there, whereas apps like Notes do not yet support it. This could be new from iOS 6 onward, I don’t have an older iOS device handy at the moment to give it a try and find out for sure.

We covered a handful of helpful typing tips for iOS and somehow missed this one, thanks for sending in another great tip Mithilesh!

The ability to quickly find duplicate items in iTunes libraries is back in the latest version of iTunes 11 for both Mac OS X and Windows.

First things first, you’ll need to update to iTunes 11.0.1 before attempting to use the feature again. Update to the newest version either through iTunes itself, or through Software Update, or the Mac App Store. Then you can find duplicates again.

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Walmart is having a large sale on select portable Apple gear just in time for the holidays, discounting iPhone 5 to $127 with a two year contract, and selling the iPad 3 for just $399. The Phone 4S is also available for $47 with a two year contract, but considering the large discount on the new iPhone 5, the 5 is clearly the better deal. Either iPhone can be purchased for any of the major networks in the USA, including AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

Purchases must be made at Walmart retail stores. As noticed by MacRumors, Walmart made the announcement on their Facebook page, shown below, with a message stating “Nothing is merrier than iPhones on Rollback, just in time for the holidays.” It’s unclear how long the sale will go on for, but the wording suggests it will continue to be discounted through the holiday season.

The iPhone 5 is the best iPhone ever, and the base 16GB model is what we have recommended to buy because it delivers the best bang for the buck. Discounted, this is even more true. Typically retailing at $199 with a contract, Walmart’s discount is the thus far the largest seen, and is now the cheapest place to get a brand new iPhone 5. Electronics retailer Radioshack is the next cheapest, offering the same device at $150 with a contract.

The iPad 3 at $399 is also a great deal, coming a full $100 off the standard retail price. From Monday onward, Walmart will also offer a $30 iTunes Gift Card with the purchase of a new iPad, according to MacRumors.

Update: Walmart PR contacted us to note the iPad on sale is the 3rd generation at $399, not the iPad 4 as originally stated. The iPhone 5 discount remains the same.

Siri doubles as a great hands-free helper with some extremely useful voice commands, but sometimes Siri can really mangle pronunciation of names that aren’t outright obvious. If you’re finding that Siri routinely either mispronounces a name or doesn’t understand a request regarding a certain contact, try adding special phonetic spelling fields to the troubled contacts:

• Open Contacts and tap “Edit” on the contact you wish to add phonetic spelling to
• Tap “Add Field” and choose “Phonetic First Name” and/or “Phonetic Last Name”
• Fill in the fields for how the name should sound then tap “Done”

The more obvious you can make the pronunciation by spelling out syllables or sounds, the better the results. The screenshot uses a fabricated name, but Siri pronounces it correctly.

This also has the side effect of improving the accuracy of when Siri is asked to call or text someone in your Contacts list, as it will take the phonetic spelling into account. This is particularly helpful with names that have unique spellings or pronunciations.

The ability to gift apps has long been around in the App Store, but it briefly disappeared before making a reappearance again with an additional great new feature. As 9to5mac noticed, you can now schedule deliver dates for the gifted apps, allowing them to be automatically delivered at a certain set date in the future. This should make holiday and birthday shopping super easy for some of us, here’s how to use it if you haven’t before:

• Open the App Store and locate the app to send as a gift
• Tap the Sharing arrow icon in the upper right corner [>]
• Enter the recipients email and your name, provide a message if desired, and then choose either to send the gift “Today” or choose “Other Date” to schedule the delivery
• Choose “Done” to set the app gift in motion

Your iTunes Account will be billed for the gifted apps. The billing seems to take place immediately, just as if you bought the app for yourself, so if you’re planning on shopping for someones birthday next year you might want to keep that in mind.

Like the original method, you can still scroll down in the app description and gift from there, but the Share Sheet method is quicker. If you try out the feature now you may find it not to be working all apps yet as the feature is propogating throughout the App Store, you’ll know that’s the case because the Share button is unresponsive. If so, wait a few minutes (or hours) and it should be working as expected.

We all have received phone calls from numbers we don’t recognize, and even when they show up on the iPhone caller ID and provide an area code or region they’re coming from that call can still be a mystery. Like many others, I’ve gotten in the habit of just ignoring phone calls from numbers I don’t recognize, letting Voice Mail sort out if the caller is actually something important or just a telemarketer. But what if they don’t leave a message?

Use this little trick to quickly find out who called you, or at least who the number belonged to, and perhaps find some other additional details about the number as well:
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The Help Menu in OS X is an underused but great resource when trying to learn about new Mac apps, and it can even function as a keyboard-based action launcherto quickly access app features. If you’re using the Help Viewer to actually read help documentation though, you may have noticed that the windows default behavior is to hover over everything else, even if it no longer has the focus. While that makes a certain level of sense, it can be frustrating if you’re on a smaller screen or you just want to be able to treat a documentation window as anything else, letting it go behind other app windows. A quick defaults write command will allow you to do exactly that.

To enable Help and documentation windows to float and behave like normal windows, launch Terminal in /Applications/Utilities and enter the following defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.helpviewer DevMode -bool true

Hit return, changes should take effect immediately without having to quit any apps.

To reverse the change and have the Help viewer window behave as it did before, always on top of everything else, use the following defaults write command instead:

defaults write com.apple.helpviewer DevMode -bool false

This works in OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, and even earlier versions of Mac OS X.

Google Maps for iPhone has arrived and it’s available to download right now from the App Store. The easy to use app is free and includes an intuitive interface, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, Street View, public transportation directions, and perhaps most important for many users, the routinely accurate Google Mapping data engine.

• Download Google Maps for iPhone free from the App Store

If you’ve been frustrated with any of the issues with Apple Maps, then you might be particularly thrilled to have Google Maps around on your iPhone home screen again. Even if you have no complaints about Apple’s solution, it’s still a worthwhile download for the Street View feature and public transit options alone.

Many of the features that we have become accustomed to from Apple Maps work very well, including the aforementioned voice navigation, which is a really nice addition. Even little things like tapping the compass to reorient north and south work the same in Google Maps as they do in Apple’s offering, giving an idea of how well made the app is. Perhaps the only valid complaint would be that the app is not yet sized for iPad, so if you wish to run it on a larger screen iPad or iPad Mini it will have to run the iPhone version in 2x mode, though apparently an appropriately sized iPad version is currently in the works.

Google Maps for iOS supports iOS 5.1 and later, including the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. Some option safe limited to newer devices though, like turn-by-turn voice navigation, which requires a 4S or newer. Installing Google Maps on the iPhone will have no impact on Apple Maps, both apps will reside alongside one another in iOS.

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Nobody likes unwanted text messages, whether it’s one of those mass spammy texts that everyone seems to inexplicably receive at random, or the group text from a friend of a cousins sisters friend that you sort of once kind of knew on Facebook years ago. Really if you think about it, there’s a good chance the only people you want to actually receive a text message alert from is someone already in your Contacts list, right? With iOS 6 onward, you can choose exactly that:

• Launch “Settings” and tap on “Notifications”
• Choose “Messages” and scroll down to find the section titled “Show iMessage Alerts From:” and choose “My Contacts Only”

As you probably guessed, now only text messages and iMessages coming from people in your Contacts list will alert you in Notification Center and show up on the lock screen. Everyone else won’t get through to bother you.

To be clear, this isn’t going to prevent you from receiving unwanted text messages, it just lets you easily ignore them by removing the Message notification both on your lock screen and on the home screen badge. The text message (or iMessage) will still show up in the Messages app however, so if in the odd event that someone you know is texting you from an unknown number, it’s not completely lost.

Another approach for temporary relief from all text alerts is to flip the iPhone onto Do Not Disturb mode or turning off the vibration alert at night so you can get some peace and quiet.

There isn’t yet an option to automatically ignore calls from people not on your Contact list, but the silent ringtone may be the next best thing if you’re getting hammered with random calls.

Take a trip down memory lane with this short video featuring every Apple startup chime ever used.

Yes, Apple startup chimes, because if you thought it was just Macs that had that familiar startup sound, then watch the video to be reminded of a certain little mobile Apple device that was simply just ahead of it’s time.

Most longtime Apple fans have fond memories of boot chimes and the dorkiest amongst us can even identify a Mac by that startup sound alone.

Interestingly, a lot of newer Mac users are annoyed with the sound, which can be stopped temporarily by holding the Mute button during boot.

Am I the only one who kind of wishes there was a startup chime on iPhones and iPads? Yes that could be very annoying, but if it was optional it’d sure be fun to hear, and personally I would enjoy it as a longtime Apple fan.

This is an amusing little find by Gizmodo, who notes that Apple has apparently been awarded a patent for such boot sounds.

Did you know the photo screen savers in Mac OS X are interactive and can turn into slideshows? There’s really not a lot to this trick, just activate any of the Mac screen savers that rely on images and then use the left and right arrow keys to navigate forward and back between images in the screen saver, with a nice transition between them.

It’s hard to visualize this with a picture and best tried yourself, but the picture below shows the transition between two images as induced by the arrow keys.

This works in all of Apple’s provided image-based screen savers in OS X, and perhaps much more usefully, in screen savers you make yourself out of photo collections stored in Finder folders or iPhoto albums. For use as a slideshow, this is best done with the full screened screensavers like Ken Burns and Classic, but it does work in all of the new default image screen savers, even Photo Mobile, Photo Wall, and Shifting Tiles, though for the latter it flips through individual tiles rather than switching the entire display.

Try it out yourself, or use the navigation arrows the next time your screen saver passes a picture you want to get a second look at.

We’ve all been there, part of an extraordinarily length email thread and there’s really only a small portion of it that’s necessary to respond to, but without the proper context the reply may not seem complete or even inappropriate. Rather than quoting the entire email and explaining the response, use smart quotes to reply only to a specifically selected portion of the email.

Smart quotes are a great feature of iOS Mail that work on the iPhone and iPad with just about every version of iOS, here’s how it works:

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Have you ever wished your MacBooks built-in trackpad could have a different acceleration curve than an external mouse? If you’re a gamer or digital artist, you probably have. Sure, Mac OS lets you control the tracking speeds separately, but the acceleration curve is a whole other beast.

In you’re unfamiliar with cursor acceleration, we’ve discussed mouse acceleration in the past, explaining it as follows:

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Wallpaper time! But first, some backstory: NASA and NOAA joined up last year to launch the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, and other than delivering tons of interesting scientific details of the Earth’s atmosphere and surface, that satellite has provided some incredible imagery of our little blue dot at night. That aforementioned imagery makes for some stunning wallpapers, and the resolutions provided are gigantic sizes at up to 8192 x 8192 pixels for squared images, and a whopping 12150 x 6075 pixels for the rectangular images, meaning you won’t have any trouble finding wallpaper with freakishly high resolution goodness. That means whether you have an iPad or MacBook Pro with a retina display, a 27″ iMac, or just an iPhone or normal PC, you’ll be able to spruce up the desktop and home screens with these amazing images.

There are flat views available of the planet and USA (the eastern half of the USA looks like some crazy incarnation of The Grid from TRON), and globe views available for everywhere on the planet, including the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, and Africa. Click on any of the links below to jump to NASA’s Flickr page so you can grab the high-resolution versions.

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One of the better little feature of iTunes 11 is the addition of a new ability that lets you redeem gift cards for the App Store and iTunes Store using nothing but the built-in camera of a computer. This is much better than typing in the random numbers which is fairly easy to mess up, and using this great new feature is super simple:
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Have you noticed how some sites promote their own app to download when you visit their website while browsing through Safari on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? This is done through a little pop-up menu that appears at the top of Safari when browsing some sites with iOS 6 onward, and it’s done through something called “Smart App Banners”. If you haven’t seen this on the web yet, here is what it looks like at the top of a site:

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Gmail is one of the most popular email services around, and if you use the web-based email client as your primary email app too then you’ll undoubtedly benefit from these three simple tips to boost productivity. No, they won’t end the email onslaught and 100 new email messages a day that we all suffer from, but they will help you get in and out of your inbox quicker in several completely different ways, and that’s a big help.
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If you want to be able to transfer music to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch wirelessly and without syncing everything on the device with iTunes, you’ll need to turn on iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Yes, you read that correctly, in order to add a song to an iPhone (iPod, etc) wirelessly and without syncing the entire device, you have to enable a feature that suggests kind of the opposite. This is very easy to do, but surprisingly, wi-fi syncing is disabled by default. We’ll walk you through turning the feature on and then showing you how to copy a song over to an iOS device wirelessly, without syncing everything else which as we all know can take forever.

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