HomePod Mini and HomePod are setup to automatically install available software updates for the devices, but if you’re the type of person who likes to expedite system updates when they become available, or if you disabled auto-updates, you may be interested in manually updating the system software on your HomePod Mini.
Did you know you can AirPlay audio output to your Mac speakers and a Sonos or other AirPlay speaker system, concurrently, even if the Mac speakers are not directly AirPlay compatible?
Let’s say your Mac has some good shelf speakers connected to it through the audio port, and you also have a Sonos speaker or few in the house. With this trick, you can AirPlay your audio, whether it’s music, a podcast, radio, or whatever else, to all of those speakers concurrently, even the ones that are not AirPlay speakers but connected to your Mac through the audio jack. This is really great when you want your desktop computer speakers to be part of your home speaker system, since it adds yet another set of speakers to the audio output, as long as they’re connected to the Mac. And again, this works even if the speakers connected to the Mac are not AirPlay compatible, so even those that are hooked up with an AUX or audio out cable will be able to play the AirPlay audio.
Some Mac users have discovered that SSH is not working on their Mac since updating to macOS Ventura 13 or newer, including Sonoma. Typically they’ll see an error message when attempting to ssh into another server along the lines of “no matching host key type found. Their offer: ssh-rsa“.
The apparent reason for this issue is that the version of OpenSSH that ships with MacOS Ventura disables RSA signatures by default, thus you can resolve the problem by either using a more secure hash, or by simply allowing for RSA signatures. We’ll show you how to do the latter.
Some Mac users who are attempting to use Sidecar with iPad may encounter an error that says “Unable to connect to iPad – The device timed out.” This error prevents Sidecar from turning the iPad into a second display on the Mac, and can be quite frustrating.
This article will run through a variety of troubleshooting steps and tricks to get Sidecar working with a Mac and iPad if you’re experiencing connection problems and to resolve the “device timed out” error.
AirDrop offers a fantastic wireless file sharing option for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users, but not everyone may want to have it enabled. If you’re a Mac user you may find yourself in a situation where you’d like to disable AirDrop on the Mac for whatever reason. Using AirDrop is super easy, and you’ll find that turning the feature off is simple too.
Whether you’re wanting to stop receiving inbound AirDrop requests for files, trying to avoid a networking conflict, troubleshooting, or just limit your network footprint, it’s easy to turn off AirDrop on MacOS.
Looking for some last minute Christmas gifts? Amazon has you covered, with many great Apple deals that can still arrive by Christmas!
Leading the way are AirPods Pro at a great discount, Apple Pencil 2 at a great discount, and the M2 MacBook Air at a nice discount, all of which are excellent gifts for Apple users, and they both can be delivered in time for Christmas.
AirPods Pro 2nd generation are discounted 20% on Amazon, knocking $50 off the price from $249 to $199.
AirPods Pro feature active noise cancellation, head tracking, 6 hours of listening time on a single charge, water resistance, a MagSafe charging case, and much more.
If you’re shopping for either the iPad Pro, iPad Air M1, or iPad Mini, why not add an Apple Pencil at a discount too?
Save up to $200 on the 512GB model M2 MacBook Air, depending on the color:
And if you want to explore tons of other options that can be delivered by Christmas, check out this page on Amazon for plenty of shopping ideas with quick delivery times, where you’re sure to find something for everyone.
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If you’re on a Mac and and have used AirPlay to mirror your Mac screen to a TV or to another Mac, you may now be wondering how to disconnect and turn off AirPlay to stop the display extension or screen mirroring.
There are a few ways to turn off AirPlay on the Mac, we’ll show you the simplest methods. They work the same to disconnect AirPlay, whether you are screen mirroring, or extending the display.
Want to make the Dock not visible on screen when in Stage Manager for iPad? You can easily hide it through a settings adjustment.
Stage Manager is the optional multitasking interface available for iPad that allows you to have windowed apps of sorts open on the iPad screen, and juggle between multiple apps at the same time from the same screen.
By default, Stage Manager will also show the Dock while you’re active in the multitasking screen, but if you’d like to have a more minimal interface or less distraction, you can hide the Dock when in Stage Manger on iPad.
Tor, the web browser that allows users to browse the web anonymously without being tracked or surveilled, has updated the Tor client for Mac to have native Apple Silicon support.
Tor works by distributing your web traffic through a series of relays, thereby hiding the origin of the traffic. Its usage is often encouraged by privacy advocates who live or work in states with rampant state snooping or repressive governments, and for users who have a threat environment where their web browsing usage puts them at some sort of risk.
Amazon continues to offer great deals and discounts on various Apple products, so if you’re still doing some holiday shopping for a loved one or even yourself, it’s worth taking a look. Some items can still be delivered before Christmas, so take a look at delivery estimates as well, while others may arrive after the fact. Enjoy the discounts while they last!
You can save $70 with the biggest discount yet for the all new M2 iPad Pro in 11″ and with 128GB of storage, and it delivers before Christmas.
The all new M2 iPad Pro with 12.9″ display is available in Silver at a nice discount:
Save $100 on the latest generation iPad Mini in select colors:
If you’re shopping for either the iPad Pro, iPad Air M1, or iPad Mini, why not add an Apple Pencil at a discount too?
You can get either the white or black Apple Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro 11″ model at a 30% discount. This is a must-have accessory as it transforms the iPad Pro 11″ or M1 iPad Air 10.9″ into a stylish and functional laptop.
AirPods Pro feature active noise cancellation, head tracking, 6 hours of listening time on a single charge, water resistance, a MagSafe charging case, and much more, and they can be delivered before Christmas!
Save $200 on the 256GB model of the M2 Air base model in Space Gray:
Save up to $200 on the 512GB model M2 MacBook Air, depending on the color:
FTC: OSXDaily is an affiliate partner with Amazon, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment which goes towards keeping the site running and available for free.
Longtime Mac users who miss the Network Utility toolkit from nearly all prior versions of macOS may wish to bring it back to MacOS Sonoma, macOS Ventura, macOS Monterey, and macOS Big Sur.
Alas, a working version of Network Utility is no longer found in the system location on modern MacOS versions that it was once, as Apple deprecated the popular networking tool for whatever reason.
You likely know already that the Mac has a built-in dictionary, accessible from the Dictionary app, but also through keyboard shortcut, Spotlight, and three finger tap. But did you know you can also edit the dictionary on the Mac to add or remove your own words to a user dictionary? This is useful if you want to stop spellcheck and autocorrect flagging words.
If you’re a longtime reader, you may recall that you can add words to spellcheck on the Mac, but if you don’t want to use the contextual menu method, or you have multiple words you wish to add or remove from your dictionary, you can also just directly edit the user dictionary file to add them yourself.
Apple has released the first beta versions of iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, and macOS Ventura 13.2.
Betas are typically issued to developers first and soon followed by the same build for public beta testers.
It is unclear what will be added in iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, and macOS Ventura 13.2, but the usual round of bug fixes and enhancements is expected as the beta process continues.
These beta builds arrive just after the public release of final versions of iOS 16.2 for iPhone, iPadOS 16.2 for iPad, and macOS Ventura 13.1 for Mac, which remain the latest stable builds available to the general public.
Apple has released macOS Monterey 12.6.2 and macOS Big Sur 11.7.2 for Mac users continuing to run prior generation Mac operating systems. These software updates are available separately from MacOS Ventura 13.1.
MacOS Monterey 12.6.2 and MacOS Big Sur 11.7.2 both include important security updates and therefore recommended for all Mac users continuing to run the MacOS Big Sur or MacOS Monterey operating systems.
Apple has released iOS 15.7.2 for older model iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, rather than iOS 16.
The update features security fixes and is therefore recommended for all users of those devices to install onto their iPhone or iPad.
Separately, Apple has released iOS 16.2 for iPhone, iPadOS 16.2 for iPad, macOS Ventura 13.1 for Mac, MacOS Big Sur 11.7.2 and MacOS Monterey 12.6.2, watchOS, HomePod, and tvOS.
Apple has released iOS 16.2 update for iPhone users. The update includes a variety of new features, bug fixes, and security enhancements, and is therefore recommended for all iPhone users to install.
iOS 16.2 brings support for the digital collaboration app Freeform, a karaoke feature called Apple Music Sing, support for iCloud backup end-to-end encryption, lock screen widgets for medication and sleep, improvements to the Home app and homekit devices, a limit to AirDrop to be open to everyone for only 10 minutes, improvements that allow search in Messages to find things like dogs and cats in photos, a fix for a bug that caused Notes to sometimes not update through iCloud after changes were made, and more. Full release notes for iOS 16.2 are included below.
Separately, Apple has released iPadOS 16.2 for iPad, macOS Ventura 13.1 for Mac, along with updates for macOS Big Sur and Monterey, watchOS, HomePod, and tvOS. Older iPhone users will find iOS 15.7.2 available to download as well.
iPadOS 16.2 update is now available for iPad users to download for their devices.
iPadOS 16.2 includes support for the Freeform collaborative canvas app, Stage Manager support for external displays for M1 or better iPad models, Apple Music Sing which offers karaoke in Apple Music, E2EE support for iCloud data, along with a handful of other smaller features, bug fixes, and security enhancements. It is recommended for all iPad users to install.
Separately, Apple has released iOS 16.2 for iPhone, macOS Ventura 13.1 for Mac, updates to macOS Monterey and Big Sur, and software updates for watchOS, HomePod, and tvOS. Older iPhone and iPad models will also find iOS 15.7.2 available as an update with security fixes.
Apple has released macOS Ventura 13.1 update, the release comes as the first major point release update for MacOS Ventura.
MacOS Ventura 13.1 includes support for the Freeform collaborative digital canvas app, advanced data protection with end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, improvements to searching in Messages, along with security enhancements and bug fixes for a variety of issues. The full release notes are shown further below.
It is assumed that macOS Ventura 13.1 includes a fix for the wi-fi issues experienced by some M2 and M1 Mac users and perhaps more general wi-fi and internet connectivity issues experienced by some Ventura users, though nothing specific is listed in the release notes about this.
Additionally, Apple has released iOS 16.2 for iPhone, iPadOS 16.2 for iPad, along with updates for HomePod, Apple TV, and watchOS. Mac users running macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey will also find macOS Monterey 12.6.2 or macOS Big Sur 11.7.2 available for those operating system versions.
