Many of us rely on external USB drives and storage devices, whether hard drives or flash drives, to transfer large files and to serve as backups for things like Time Machine. Typically when you buy a new hard drive or USB drive, even if for a Mac, it comes pre-formatted in a Windows friendly format like exFAT or FAT32, rather than Mac file system like HFS+. This isn’t a problem however, as you can easily format a USB drive to be fully Mac compatible.

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Amazon is offering a rare significant discount on the Apple Studio Display, priced at $1299, down from the regular retail price of $1599.

The 27″ 5K display comes with an adjustable tilt stand, six built-in speakers, studio-quality microphones, 3 USB-C ports, 1 Thunderbolt port, and has a whopping 5120 x 2880 pixel resolution.

• Get the Apple Studio Display for $1299 from Amazon.com

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One of the more fun ways to customize an iPhone is to set the lock screen wallpaper to shuffle between a collection of photos. Maybe you’d like to rotate through a variety of your favorite wallpapers on your lock screen, or perhaps you’ve got a collection of vacation photos, favorite pictures, or fancy wallpapers that you’d like to cycle through. That’s exactly what this feature is designed for.

You can now easily set your iPhone to rotate through a series of photos as your wallpaper, so let’s check out how this works.

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Apple has released macOS Monterey 12.6.3 and macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, along with Safari 16.3, for Mac users who are not yet running the MacOS Ventura 13 operating system.

These updates are available separately from the MacOS Ventura 13.2 update that was released concurrently.

The software updates are focused on security fixes, and contain no new features for macOS Monterey or Big Sur.

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Apple has released iOS 15.7.3 for iPhone, iPadOS 15.7.3 for iPad, and iOS 12.5.7 for older iPhone and iPad models. These updates are available for devices that are not running iOS 16.3 or iPadOS 16.3, either because they have not updated, or because they are unable to run the latest iOS/iPadOS versions.

Each of these system software updates contain important security fixes and are recommended for all users of older devices to install.

Separately, Apple also released iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, macOS Ventura 13.2, macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, and updates to watchOS and tvOS

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Apple has released iOS 16.3 for iPhone. The iOS 16.3 update includes support for physical security keys, a Black History Month celebratory wallpaper, support for the second generation HomePod, and a variety of other smaller changes, along with bug fixes and security enhancements. The update is recommended for all eligible iPhone users to install.

Separately, Apple released iPadOS 16.3 for iPad, macOS Ventura 13.2 for Mac, macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, tvOS 16.3 for Apple TV, watchOS 9.3 for Apple Watch, and a series of software updates for older iPhone and iPad models including iOS 15.7.3, iPadOS 15.7.3, and iOS 12.5.7.

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Apple has released MacOS Ventura 13.2 as a software update for Mac users running the Ventura operating system. MacOS Ventura 13.2 includes bug fixes and security enhancements, and is therefore recommended for all Mac users running the latest OS release.

Separately, other updates including macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, iOS 16.3 for iPhone, iPadOS 16.3 for iPad, iOS 15.7.3, iPadOS 15.7.3, and iOS 12.5.7, and updates to tvOS and watchOS are also available.

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Apple has released iPadOS 16.3 update for iPad users with compatible devices.

iPadOS 16.3 includes support for Security Keys, and otherwise focuses on bug fixes and security enhancements, and is therefore recommended for all iPad users to install on their devices.

Separately, Apple also released iOS 16.3 for iPhone, macOS Ventura 13.2, macOS Monterey 12.6.3, macOS Big Sur 11.7.3, updates to watchOS and tvOS, and iOS 15.7.3, iPadOS 15.7.3, and iOS 12.5.7 for older iPhone and iPad models.

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If you’re new to the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro series, you may be unfamiliar with how to turn the new phone off, and how to turn it back on again too.

Fortunately all new model iPhones follow the same procedure for powering off and powering on, so once you master the concepts on an iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14, you’ll be able to apply the same techniques to other newer model iPhone and iPad devices as well.

We’re going to show you how you can turn off an iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14, including the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Plus, as well as how to turn them back on again.

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Apple’s newest M2 MacBook Pro lineup feature some shiny new wallpapers of some sort of abstract colorful rectangular shapes.

You don’t need to spend thousands on a brand new Mac just to appreciate the new wallpapers however, since you can download the full resolution images and use them on any device, whether it’s a Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, or Android.

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If you use the Google Chrome web browser, and you use lots of tabs, you might find yourself lost in a sea of tons of tabs and windows.

Fortunately, the newer versions of Chrome offer an excellent tab search feature, allowing you to search for URLs and keyword matches in your open tabs. This makes finding open tabs so much easier than navigating an ocean of tabs and windows, as you’ll see for yourself once you try this feature out.

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The latest versions of Finder in MacOS offer a handy new Quick Action that allows you to remove the background from any image or photo, lifting the primary subject(s) out of the picture and turning that into a transparent PNG file. This is super useful for designers and developers, but it’s also useful for more casual users who would like to remove the background from a picture.

For background removal to work well, you’ll want to use it on a photo or picture with an obvious subject in the foreground – a person, animal, object. And for best results, try to avoid very busy backgrounds, for example a photo of someone with messy hair laying over grass of a similar color, will likely not work too well.

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Apple has issued release candidate builds for iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, and macOS Ventura 13.2, after announcing today that the final versions of those system software releases will be available next week.

Release Candidates typically mark the end of development of a software release, and, absent any bugs or issues, often match the final version issued to the general public.

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Some MacOS Ventura users have found that file sharing between a Mac running macOS Ventura does not work reliably between Ventura and another Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows PC, and even some NAS drives like Synology. For many users, file sharing setups that worked fine for years prior to updating to macOS Ventura are now no longer working at all or behaving in an inconsistent manner.

If you’re experiencing problems with file sharing not working in macOS Ventura, there is a fix to resolve the issue. This solution applies to SMB file sharing with MacOS Ventura and devices connecting to or from the Mac, whether you’re experiencing connectivity failures, time outs, server unavailable, server may not exist, or other similar error messages.

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Live Activities on the iPhone are interactive notifications that stay updated with real-time data, like sports scores, weather reports, orders, or updates from a delivery app, and they can appear right on your lock screen.

If you like the Live Activities feature but want the data to be even more frequently updated, you can adjust the setting individually for apps that support the Live Activities feature.

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Apple has updated the MacBook Pro lineup to feature M2 Pro and M2 Max processors. The design, screen, and colors are the same as prior models, making the updates focused entirely on internal hardware capabilities.

Additionally, Apple has updated the Mac Mini to feature M2 processors as well.

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The latest model iPhones include optional power on and power off sound effects, similar to how the Mac makes startup sounds. This offers a nice auditory cue for the device being turned on or off, and while it’s an Accessibility feature, many users may just like to enable the boot sound feature for customization purpose too.

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The HomePod Mini functions as an AirPlay receiver, allowing you to wirelessly stream audio, music, podcasts, songs, etc to the smart speaker. But randomly, the HomePod Mini does not show up in the list of available AirPlay devices.

If you’re trying to AirPlay some audio to HomePod or otherwise trying to use the HomePod or HomePod Mini as an audio output source, and it’s not showing up in your AirPlay device lists, follow along to resolve the issue quickly and to get AirPlay working with HomePod Mini again.

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