A second beta version of iOS 15.5, iPadOS 15.5, macOS Monterey 12.4, tvOS 15.5, and watchOS 8.6 have been rolled out to developers participating in the beta testing programs.
No major new features are expected in the beta versions, suggesting the upcoming versions of system software are primarily containing bug fixes and security updates.
Voice Isolation mode allows FaceTime on the Mac to emphasize your voice while on FaceTime calls, thereby reducing background noises and sounds. This is a nice feature if you have some background noise going on that may drown out your voice when talking or make you otherwise difficult to hear, whether that’s a loud fan running in the background, a cat meowing, dog barking, a neighbors bad music blasting, or any such situation. You can use this on any FaceTime call, whether it’s video, audio, or group chat.
You’d be forgiven for failing to find any setting for voice isolation or background noise reduction while digging around in the FaceTime preferences, because that’s not where the capability resides. Instead, you use the Control Center, as we’ll demonstrate.
You can choose to have manual macro camera controls, or use the automatic macro mode setting, on the latest top-end model iPhones including iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. This can help you to take macro photos easier, and more suitable to how you use your iPhone camera.
With manual macro camera controls enabled, when the macro camera is available you can tap a flower macro mode option to enable the iPhone macro camera.
With automatic macro camera mode enabled, the macro camera will activate itself when it is available by moving the iPhone camera lens close to an object or subject.
Ever wanted to use a Google Chromebook running the Chrome OS? If you have an older Mac laying around that isn’t getting much use, you may be interested in trying out Google Chrome OS Flex on the old Mac, which basically turns the older Mac into a Chromebook.
If you regularly use WhatsApp to communicate and chat, you may be familiar with archiving messages on WhatsApp to hide them. But what if you want to unarchive a chat in WhatsApp?
That’s no problem, so if you’re looking to unarchive in WhatsApp read along.
You can add secure notes to your iCloud Keychain account and login entries if you’d like to. The notes can serve any purpose, but they can be particularly handy if you want to reference something specific to that login, whether a log of prior passwords, or the purpose of the account, or whatever else.
For example, lets say you have a specific login to a credit card saved in iCloud Keychain, and you want to attach a note to that keychain entry stating it is a business account only, that’s easy to do. Or maybe you have a Netflix login saved, and you want to add a note reminding you it’s your favorite aunts account and not yours, that’s easy too.
If you want to run Windows 11 on your M1, M2, or M3 Mac, you can now do that, and perhaps best of all, you can run Windows 11 in a virtual machine on the M-series Mac entirely for free.
We’ll be covering how to install, setup, and run Windows 11 ARM on any Apple Silicon Mac, whether it has an M1, M2, M3, M3 Pro, M2 Pro, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, or any other M chip does not matter, it will work just fine thanks to the UTM app.
Need to remove a password from an iWork document? Do you find it inconvenient to open password-protected Pages, Keynote, and Numbers documents? Do you no longer need password protection on a particular iWork file? You’re certainly not alone in that regard, and fortunately it’s quite simple to remove a password from any Pages, Numbers, or Keynote file, making them easy to open and removing the encryption from the files.
The Mac Live Text feature offers the ability to select text directly within an image or photo, which you can then copy, define, lookup, search the web, or do with as you please. Using Live Text on the Mac is pretty simple, and like using Live Text on iPhone and iPad, you can use the feature directly in the built-in image viewing and image editing apps.
Mac users who want to get the most out of the Quick Notes feature may appreciate knowing that they can set a Hot Corner to make a new Quick Note instantly. When this is active, simply moving your cursor into the designated corner of the screen will open Quick Note.
The iPhone 13 Pro includes a really great macro photo capability, allowing you to take super close-up macro photos of objects, items, textures, or whatever else you want to snap a macro image of.
Using the macro mode on iPhone camera is pretty easy but you’d be forgiven for not noticing how to activate the feature, since macro is not in the list of swipe accessible camera mode options. Let’s dive in and see how macro camera works on the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
WhatsApp defaults to showing everyone your online status, displaying if you are currently online, and the date and time of when you were last online using the WhatsApp app. But what if you’d rather be a bit more private, and hide your WhatsApp online status? You can do that, and it’s easy to configure on WhatsApp for iPhone, Android, Mac, or Windows.
Instagram now offers an option to view your feed in chronological order, meaning that you will see posts from people you follow that are the most recent, rather than based on the Instagram algorithm.
To use the chronological feed on Instagram, you will want to update the Instagram app to the latest version. The rest is super easy.
Want an added privacy boost for all of your WhatsApp messages, texts, conversation threads, and chats? You can set WhatsApp so that all messages will disappearing automatically, by default. Whether you want all messages to disappear after 24 hours, 7 days, 90 days, or not at all, you have that option. It doesn’t matter if you’re using WhatsApp on iPhone or Android either, the setting is available in every WhatsApp app.
Did you know that you can take screenshots on the iPhone without having to press any physical buttons on the device? If you’re one of those users who take screenshots on their iPhones regularly, you may find it useful to know there’s an alternative way to capture screenshots on the device. Whether you take screenshots of memes, conversations, or videos, or anything else, this trick may be useful to you.
Are you noticing blurry text on your Mac’s display while navigating through the menu and across apps? More specifically, has this been an issue ever since you updated to macOS Monterey or Big Sur, and on a non-retina display? If so, chances are, font smoothing is enabled by default, and for some users they feel like this can result in slightly blurry text in menus and across apps. If you don’t like this, you’ll need to disable the feature in MacOS.
Apple has released the first beta versions of iOS 15.5, iPadOS 15.5, and macOS Monterey 12.4. The beta versions are available first to developers and typically roll out to public beta testers soon after.
Additionally, watchOS 8.6 beta 1 and tvOS 15.5 beta 1 are available to users beta testing on an Apple Watch or Apple TV.
Do you use Gmail as your preferred email service? If so, do you want to save a copy of all the emails you have received and sent over Gmail up until this date, locally to your computer, device, or hard drive? Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to save a backup of all your emails from Gmail, and you can do this from any device, whether it’s a Mac, Windows PC, iPhone, iPad, or Android.
