Apple has introduced a feature called Voice Isolation to iPhone cellular calls that should make it easier to have phone conversations while using iPhone, even when there is loud or distracting background noise.

As the name implies, Voice Isolation prioritizes the sound of your voice, rather than other sounds that may be picked up by the iPhone microphone elsewhere in the surrounding environment.

If you’ve ever been on a phone call with someone walking by a leaf blower, vacuuming, revving an engine, washing dishes, or performing other common tasks, you can likely already imagine how prioritizing voice and using voice isolation is going to be helpful at improving the clarity and focus of your phone calls, so read along to learn how to turn on this somewhat hidden feature.

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Remember the old days of BBS? Using a modem, you’d dial in to a BBS (bulletin board system) to connect and get online, where you could then play games, communicate with others through message boards and chat, and exchange information and files, all long before the days of the modern internet. While BBS’s are mostly obsoleted by more modern internet protocols and apps, it turns out they actually still exist out there, and you can connect to any active BBS through telnet and with fun retro apps like MuffinTerm.

MuffinTerm is a free app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, which offers a very authentic classic BBS experience, complete with emulated nostalgia like scan lines, CRT screen curvature, simulated modem speeds, modem lights, virtual sticky notes, support for ANSI, PETSCII, and ATASCII terminal emulation, and more.

Sound like some retro fun? Well what are you waiting for, here’s how you can get MuffinTerm and connect to a BBS from your iPad, Mac, or iPhone.

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If you have a HomePod or HomePod Mini and you attempt to connect audio streams to it through AirPlay, you’ve undoubtedly ran into the error message “AirPlay – Unable to connect to (HomePod)” with an OK button.

This is a very frustrating error message that makes the HomePod Mini and HomePod not particularly useful or reliable with AirPlay connections, ironic given the entire implementation is through Apple devices.

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If you do not wish Recent Apps to be shown on the left side of Stage Manager on iPad, you can choose to hide the display of Recent Apps in the multitasking screen.

Hiding Recent Apps in Stage Manager offers more visible screen real estate which may be helpful on smaller screen iPad models, or if you wish to simply have fewer distractions visible on the display as you work on iPad. The Recent Apps are what are shown on the left side when in Stage Manager.

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You can now change file extensions of any files, documents, or items contained within the Files app on iPhone or iPad.

In order to change file extensions on your iOS or iPadOS device you will first need to make sure you show file extensions in Files app on iPad or iPhone if you haven’t done that already.

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Apple has announced that its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) will take place on June 5, and run through June 9.

WWDC 2023 will primarily be an online event, but also have an in-person component held on the Apple campus for developers who wish to attend that.

The keynote presentations for WWDC are where Apple typically unveils upcoming major system software versions, revealing expected new features and changes that are coming in those system software releases. This year, it’s expected that iOS 17, iPadOS 17, MacOS 14, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17 will be unveiled.

Usually after the keynote speech, the first beta versions of upcoming system software versions are released to developers, and then usually about a month later the public beta program begins.

There are various rumors that Apple may unveil a rumored Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality headset at WWDC this year, and possibly updates to the Mac Pro to bring that machine onto the Apple Silicon architecture, and a highly anticipated 15″ MacBook Air. Rumors are best to take with a grain of salt, however.

In the Apple press release announcing WWDC 2023, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations said “WWDC23 is going to be our biggest and most exciting yet”, but it’s impossible to ascertain if that’s typical Apple marketing hyperbole (everything is always the best yet, right?), or if that alludes to some unknown features or products that may be coming.

If you are an Apple developer and you wish to attend the WWDC 2023 special event held at the Apple campus, you can request an invitation here at the Apple website.

Whether for troubleshooting or other purposes, you may arrive at a situation where you must reinstall MacOS Monterey onto a Mac that is presently running MacOS Monterey.

The most convenient way to reinstall macOS is to simply reinstall the macOS system software, without erasing other data on the Mac, and that is the method we are going to focus on here with a Mac that is running MacOS Monterey 12.x.

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Apple has issued the first beta versions of iOS 16.5 for iPhone, iPadOS 16.5 for iPad, and macOS Ventura 13.4 for Mac.

The betas arrive just a day after MacOS Ventura 13.3 update, iOS 16.4 update, and iPadOS 16.4 update arrived for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, respectively.

It’s not clear what the focus of iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, or macoS Ventura 13.4 will be, but presumably the updates will offer minor enhancements, bug fixes, and security fixes for Apple devices.

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Apple has released macOS Monterey 12.6.4 and macOS Big Sur 11.7.5 for Mac users who are continuing to run the two prior generation Macintosh system software versions. The updates are available separately from the macOS Ventura 13.3.

Additionally, Safari 16.4 is available as a software update for Monterey and Big Sur users.

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Apple has released iOS 15.7.4 for iPhone and iPadOS 15.7.4 for iPad for older iPhone and iPad models with important security updates.

Specifically, iOS 15.7.4 for iPhone and iPadOS 15.7.4 for iPad are available for iPhone 6s (all models), iPhone 7 (all models), iPhone SE (1st generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini (4th generation), and iPod touch (7th generation), when these devices are not running iOS/iPadOS 16.x.

Separately, Apple has released iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4 for iPhone and iPad, macOS Ventura 13.3 for Mac, and other updates for older Macs, along with Apple TV, Apple Watch, and HomePod.

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iOS 16.4 for iPhone and iPadOS 16.4 for iPad have been released by Apple. The software updates include new Emoji icons, security enhancements, bug fixes, and a few very minor features, like the inclusion of voice isolation support for cellular calls.

For users of older iPhone and iPad models, iOS 15.7.4 and iPadOS 15.7.4 is also available as a software update.

Separately, Apple also released macOS Ventura 13.3 update for Mac, along with software updates for MacOS Monterey, MacOS Big Sur, watchOS, tvOS, and HomePod.

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The final version of MacOS Ventura 13.3 is available as a software update for all Mac users running the MacOS Ventura operating system.

MacOS Ventura 13.3 includes bug fixes, security enhancements, and new Emoji icons for use on the Mac.

Separately, Apple has released iOS 16.4 for iPhone and iPadOS 16.4 for iPad, along with software updates for watchOS, tvOS, and HomePod. Mac users running earlier versions of MacOS Big Sur and MacOS Monterey will also find security updates available to download.

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If you have used the “Export Unmodified Original” option in the Photos app on Mac to export images or videos from the Photos app or iCloud Photos, you likely have noticed an optional toggle to enable that says “Export IPTC as XMP”. And if you’re like many Mac users, you are likely wondering what the heck IPTC as XMP means in the first place, and whether or not you should use it. Let’s dive in and see what this feature does, and you can decide if you want to use it or not.

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AI generated artwork offers an incredibly easy way for anyone to create wildly impressive visual creations of almost any variety, even without any artistic ability. If you can describe what you want to generate, it will be created for you, and quickly.

Bing Image Creator offers one of the most strikingly impressive, fast, and free AI image generators out there, and you can use it to create AI generated artwork of virtually any variety you can dream of.

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The “Hidden” photos album on iPhone and iPad offers a place to put photos on your device that you don’t want hanging around in your general Photos camera roll. But since the Hidden album is still visible to anyone who knows where to find it, even if you hide the Hidden album, if you want some more privacy for your sensitive or private photos, you can make sure to enable authentication to access your Hidden photos album.

Essentially what you’ll be doing is protecting access to your private photos in the Hidden album with whatever method you use to protect your device and authenticate with it, whether that is Face ID, passcode, or Touch ID, and you can do this on both iPhone and iPad.

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The “Recent Apps” section of the Dock on Mac shows the three most recently used apps that are not otherwise in the Mac Dock. This is a handy feature for returning to recently used apps, but if you wish to remove one of the apps from the Recent Apps section, you can do that too.

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Gmail is a very popular email service from Google, and if you have a Gmail account (or few) you may wish to add that Gmail account to the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad. Setting up Gmail to work with Mail on iOS and iPadOS is quite easy, and we’ll walk you through the steps.

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The Release Candidate (RC) builds of iOS 16.4, MacOS Ventura 13.3, and iPadOS 16.4 have been released to users participating in the beta testing programs for Apple system software.

Release Candidate builds are typically the finalized version of a beta cycle before the software is released to the general public, suggesting that the final versions of macOS Ventura 13.3, iOS 16.4, and iPadOS 16.4 are set to be made available soon, perhaps between now and sometime next week, though Apple often releases software updates on Tuesdays making March 28 a reasonable guess.

iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Ventura 13.3 include bug fixes and enhancements, and some minor new features along with new Emoji icons. iOS 16.4 will include voice isolation for cell phone calls, and both iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4 will add support for Safari push notifications (a feature the Mac has had in Safari for a long time).
iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Ventura 13.3 all include 21 new Emoji icons, which include a donkey, ginger root, hair pick, goose, maracas, hand gestures, jellyfish, moose, pea pod, flute, amongst others.

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