Screen shots taken in Mac OS X save to files prefixed with “Screen Shot” in the file name, but the names of screenshots can be changed to anything else. We’ll use a defaults write command to adjust the naming convention of screen shots taken on the Mac. This can be helpful for many purposes, and it’s easy to do and undo back to default if need be.
We have shown you how to uninstall Mac apps before, but some applications can leave residual elements around in the form of preferences, plist files, caches, logs, and even the origin DMG or PKG installer. If you want to thoroughly remove all traces of an application but don’t want to dig around in various directories to find and delete those extra files yourself, you should download AppCleaner for Mac OS X.
Sometimes, Mac OS may not remember wireless networks that have been joined or connected to before. This may be due to an error, or it may be because of a settings option. In this article we’ll discuss what to do if you find that a Mac is not remembering wi-fi networks as expected, including the settings to look for, as well as a troubleshooting technique that may resolve these issues.
Mac OS X has a hidden super quiet volume setting that is somewhere between completely muted and the lowest volume level, here’s how to access it:
The audio output level is now set at the super quiet setting, with sounds just barely audible enough that you can identify them. This is a perfect setting to couple with temporarily muting the boot sound for using a Mac in meetings, libraries, classrooms, or other places where silence is necessary, allowing you to continue to hear audio without distracting others.
Update: The precise keys vary depending on the Mac and Apple keyboard in use. Newer MacBook models may be F10 and F11 rather than F9 and F10, you may want to focus on the keys icons rather than the label instead to be sure.
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You can prevent the installation of new apps onto an iOS device by enabling a restriction setting. There are plenty of reasons to want to disable app installing, but this is a particularly effective kid-proofing feature before letting a youngster use an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to prevent any accidental charges or purchases.
While in the Restrictions settings, disabling in-App purchases is a just a bit further down the list and makes some sense to use as well. Similarly, you can also disable the ability to delete apps in the Settings screen, preventing any accidental deletion of data or apps.
To undo the app install restrictions, you will need to reenter the previously set passcode, then swipe the ON switch next to “Installing Apps” again.
Rarely, you will need to force quit an iOS app. While iOS is generally very stable, every once in a while you’ll encounter a third party app that misbehaves. iOS apps can freeze or become stuck, and you’ll usually know instantly because the iPhone or iPad becomes unresponsive to touch behavior, or something within the app is clearly running amuck. A stuck app is different from a normal crash, which randomly quits an application, and it’s different from a full system crash which usually brings up the spinning wheel logo.
When an iOS app becomes unresponsive, the best thing to do is to forcibly quit the app using the trick we’re going to demonstrate here, the app can then be relaunched and usually is sufficient to remedy the apps situation back to good working order again. If you’ve never done it before you will find the process is actually similar to turning off an iOS device, but you stop one step short of that. The whole thing only takes a few seconds and it’s extremely easy to do.
It’s the rumor that just won’t die, Apple is said to be actively testing an iPad with a smaller 8″ screen, according to a new report from Wall Street Journal.
Officials at some of Apple’s suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has shown them screen designs for a new device with a screen size of around 8-inches, and said it is qualifying suppliers for it.
The smaller screened iPad is said to feature the same display resolution as the existing iPad 2 at 1024×768 pixels. The Wall Street Journal cautions that “Apple, which works with suppliers to test new designs all the time, could opt not to proceed with the device”, but suggests that Apple is continuously looking at the smaller iPads as a way to expand the product line in an increasingly competitive market.
Many competing Android tablets have opted for smaller displays, most to limited success, although the Kindle Fire has become quite popular since it’s launch late last year. Rumors of Apple working on smaller iPads, or “iPad Mini“, have existed for quite some time, with a recent report from DigiTimes stating such a device could ship in the fourth quarter of this year.
For the time being, the only new iPad you should expect is iPad 3, which is expected to be announced on March 7 with a retina display, 4G LTE, and a quad-core CPU.
Boosting the speed of Mission Control animations can make Mac OS X feel a bit faster when switching between windows, spaces, and apps within the feature. It’s easy to do and reversible if you decide you don’t like it, launch the Terminal to get started. These defaults commands work in Lion, Mountain Lion, and beyond.
This will speed up Mission Control quite noticeably but still maintain a decent looking animation:
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.15
Now kill the Dock to restart Mission Control:
killall Dock
Do a three-fingered swipe up or down to see the difference in speed.
Super Fast Mission Control Animations
If you want extremely fast animations, this is your defaults write command:
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1
Again, kill the Dock for changes to take effect:
killall Dock
As you may have guessed, you can adjust the animation speeds by changing the number after the -float flag, the larger the number the slower the animation, and the lower the number the faster the animation. The default setting is probably about 0.2 or 0.25, meaning anything larger than that starts to be slower than default. Whole numbers become increasingly slow, similar to holding down the shift key.
Slowing Down Mission Control Animations
This is marginally slower, but can quickly become a nuisance with usability:
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 1
Followed by:
killall Dock
Disable Mission Control Animations
This removes all animations, making Mission Control just snap in and out:
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0
Killing the Dock is required for the animations to disappear:
killall Dock
The effect of disabling the animation is quite jarring and unless you’re trying to preserve frame rate for some reason it’s not very pleasant.
Want Mission Control to be back to normal? Use the following defaults command to clear any customizations, returning to the default setting:
defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration; killall Dock
Check out more of our Misson Control tips.
The next iPad will feature high speed 4G LTE wireless capabilities and be available on the AT&T and Verizon networks, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Citing several sources, WSJ says the following:
Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. will sell a version of the coming iPad that runs on their newest fourth-generation wireless networks, according to people familiar with the matter, as the battle to cash in on big investments in mobile broadband heats up.
Apple Inc. appears to be planning to announce the latest version of its tablet computer in the first week of March, according to another person briefed on the matter.
Whether other carriers will also sell the device couldn’t be learned. Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA and Apple declined to comment.
The iPad 3 is said to drop down to 3G and possibly even EDGE connectivity if 4G access points are not available. The remainder of the report is behind the WSJ paywall, but the important takeaway is the next generation iPad supporting 4G LTE. This is contrary to what many have believed (including us) given the existing battery issues with 4G connectivity, but this suggests that Apple has found a way to overcome the notorious battery drain issues of current generation 4G LTE cell phones.
While it’s unclear if the 4G iPad will also be offered on Sprint or T-Mobile, we have only a few short weeks until the expected announcement date of March 7 to find out.
Just a few days ago The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported that iPad 3 will be released the first week of March, and now new claims have surfaced suggesting that the next iPad will be announced on Wednesday, March 7. Specifically, iMore says:
According to sources who have been reliable in the past, Apple currently plans to hold their iPad 3 announcement on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. Along with the 2048×1536 Retina display, the iPad 3 will feature a quad-core Apple 6 system-on-a-chip, and possibly 4G LTE networking.
The date wouldn’t be too surprising considering March 7 is the only date vacant during the first week of March that is open on the Yerba Buena Center event calendar, and Apple has traditionally announced prior iPads at the YBCA in San Francisco. The rumored specs seem to add up to past expectations, although the 4G LTE capability is reasonably unlikely given Apple’s reluctance to adopt the battery hungry technology.
Earlier today, pictures claiming to be a partially assembled next-gen iPad showed up online at 9to5mac, and other than a few very minor differences they look practically identical to iPad 2.
Keeping the same enclosure could indicate that the next iPad may be labeled as an iPad 2S or iPad 2HD, similar to the recent iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S update, rather than calling the device “iPad 3”. Ultimately the naming of any Apple device is largely insignificant beyond speculation and Apple’s marketing efforts though, and whatever the next iPad is called it will surely be popular.
Update: The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the next iPad will have 4G LTE connectivity.
Using a portable Mac with the lid closed is frequently called clamshell mode, and using clamshell has been made easier than ever since the introduction of Mac OS X Lion. There are actually two different methods, the first is for using a MacBook closed lid with or without external input devices attached, and the second is for using clamshell mode with a wireless device like a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
To get the most out of clamshell mode, you will want to have an external keyboard and mouse as well, but they are no longer necessary. Here’s how to use a closed lid MacBook Pro/Air in OS X Lion either with or without external input devices attached:
The screen will flicker blue briefly, then the external monitor will refresh and automatically be set as the primary display, moving your desktop, menu bar, and all other windows over to the attached screen.
The requirements for using a MacBook in clamshell with a wireless keyboard and mouse are basically the same, although you must configure an additional option in System Preferences. First you need to be sure the Bluetooth device is paired with the Mac (if you’re already using a wireless input device, it is), then proceed:
If you want to get around the physical hardware connectivity requirements, use the NoSleep tool we mentioned recently which lets you run the Mac closed with no hardware attached at all.
Overall, using clamshell since OS X 10.7 is quite a bit easier than with prior versions of Mac OS X, when you had to either reboot or wake from sleep with an external display and mouse connected.
Thanks to Matt for the tip
Update 2/22/2012: Want your iPhone to look like this? Here’s how to install the iOS 86 theme on an iPhone and iPod touch!
What would iPhone’s iOS look like had it been made in 1986? Maybe this, and it looks awesome in that retro sort of way. This is just concept art from a few designers who posted their ideas to LiveJournal, but I know I’m not the only one secretly hoping that someone will make a jailbreak skin or theme that matches the concept art, and if it happens we’ll certainly let you know.
Check out some more pictures below:
If you’re looking to upgrade a Macs hard drive to an SSD, Amazon is featuring a great deal on an ultrafast OCZ Technology Agility 90GB SSD SATA III drive for just $99.99 with free shipping. The drive is 2.5″ and fits standard laptop drive bays, allowing you to install it in a MacBook Pro, MacBook, and Mac Mini models, and other Macs with the proper drive caddy.
This is a Gold Box “Deal of the Day” so it will expire by the end of today, grab it while you can:
SATA is backwards (and forwards) compatible, but double-check that your Mac supports SATA III before buying to take advantage of the full speeds. Generally this means 2011 model year or newer Mac, although earlier models will still get the huge general speed boost of upgrading from a slow spinning drive to the wonders of an SSD.
iCal has a hidden debug menu with 24 additional options and features that can be accessed with the help of a defaults write command.
defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 1
Many of the options are only useful for developers, hence the Debug label, but there are a fair amount of tweaks that are potentially useful to the average user as well, particularly these three:
You can hide the debug menu again by relaunching Terminal and entering the following command:
defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 0
Quitting and reopening iCal will again cause those changes to take effect.
Overall the iCal menu is probably not quite as useful as the Safari debug menu but it’s still interesting to take a peak at. Great little trick from MacGasm, who used it to alter the amount of days shown in a week.
The Command+Tab application switcher gets a lot use by many Mac OS X power users, and by default it will include the Finder in the apps to be able to switch to and from. If you’d rather limit the App Switcher to only swap between open applications and not include the Finder though, you’ll have to dig out the command line.
sudo nano /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist
You’ll need to authenticate because you are using sudo to edit a system file
<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
That should look like this:
killall Finder
You can undo this at any time by editing the Info.plist file again and removing the two lines you added.
This tip and topmost image come from joshdzielak.com, we modified the process slightly and chose to use the simpler nano editor rather than vi.
Thanks for sending this in Dan
If you’ve ever taken a screen shot in Mac OS X you’ll notice the cursor is nowhere to be found, even if you’re taking a screenshot of something like a menu in use. Instead, if you want to snap the mouse cursor or pointer as well in the screen shot, you’ll use a slightly different screenshot method.
Have you ever wondered how an iOS developer tests for application compatibility with the myriad of devices and versions of iOS out there? This picture from developer David Smith gives us an idea, as you can see it takes a lot of hardware. Four iPads, four iPod Touchs, four iPhones, each with a different version of Apple’s mobile OS running (there are even a few non-iOS devices thrown in there for other mobile testing, with two Android phones, a Windows Phone, a Kindle Fire tablet, and a Kindle 4). If you’re wondering why this is necessary, David explains:
I can test anything from iOS 3.1 through iOS 5. The older OS versions are especially helpful to keep around since it is essentially impossible to replicate an issue on iOS 3.X without having a dedicated device kicking around.
This isn’t a fragmentation thing though, this is more a look at how meticulous some iOS developers are for ensuring compatibility for even the most obscure use cases. How necessary it will be for developers to hold onto so many variations of iOS remains to be seen, but the adoption rate of the latest iOS versions looks to accelerate dramatically thanks to Apple bringing the OTA update feature to iOS 5. Of course this also means that those who are lingering on earlier versions of iOS will inevitably begin to miss out on new application features and full compatibility, as anyone using old iPhone and iOS gear can already attest to, and it’s likely that future iOS compatibility labs will include just two devices: an iPhone and an iPad.
For the Mac side of things, it’s also interesting to note that Apple has a Mac compatibility lab at the 1 Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, California that developers can schedule appointments to use. You can read more about the Mac compatibility lab at Apple.com and explore its vast amount of Macs, but apparently no such lab exists for iOS gear… yet at least.
Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, and also in iPhoto on your Mac. Oddly, there isn’t an option to choose a destination other than iPhoto or Aperture in Mac OS X though, but this cool trick allows you to specify a folder and then download all the images from iCloud to your Mac, without using iPhoto or Aperture.
