How often have you been in conversations that you didn’t want to be a part of, on a bad date, or in some other undesirable situation? Sometimes you want to avoid a conversation or experience, but there isn’t an easy escape. In these uncomfortable moments, perhaps the easiest way to to this without making things awkward is by using your iPhone to stage a fake incoming call.

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Do you use the Chrome web browser for iPhone or iPad, but want to change the default search engine? Sure, Google is without a doubt the most popular search engine, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other search engines, and even though Chrome pairs well with Google search, you can change the default search engine in Chrome for iOS and iPadOS if you’d like to. Maybe you prefer the user interface of Chrome, but the search results of DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, or Bing, for example.

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If you’re looking for a great no-nonsense RSS reader for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, then you’ll find NetNewsWire is an excellent choice. You can add as many RSS feeds as you’d like, and scanning through them is easy no matter what device you’re using. And if you’re on an iPhone or iPad, you can even add a handy RSS feed Home Screen widget. NetNewsWire is also free, making it the best free RSS reader for iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

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Do you use Apple’s Keynote app to create presentations on your devices, but the colleague that you’re working with uses a Windows PC instead? These situations are common, and you may run into compatibility issues when you switch between platforms. Fortunately this can be avoided if you can allocate an extra few seconds of your time, by converting the Keynote presentation file to PowerPoint, and you can do that directly on an iPhone or iPad.

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Photos taken with iPhone and iPad cameras make use of the HEIC file format, which is a high-efficiency image format for storing images. The key advantage of this format is largely reduced file size, which means you end up saving a lot of storage space. However, this comes at the cost of compatibility. Thus, some users may want to convert HEIC files to JPG, and this may be extra valid in the Windows world.

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If you’re some who makes use of the built-in Voice Memos app, you may have noticed how the audio recordings are sometimes named after your location. So, looking to stop Voice Memos from using your street name or building name for your next recording? That’s what we’ll cover here.

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Signal messenger has an interesting privacy feature that allows messages to disappear after a set amount of time. It’s a handy feature that is compelling to some privacy advocates, so if you’re interested in checking it out read along.

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iPhone and iPad users can further safeguard their privacy by using a private MAC address feature in iOS and iPadOS. This should be particularly useful if you’re frequently connecting to different public wi-fi networks, and you don’t want the devices MAC address tracking to be used.

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If you recently installed Oh My Zsh or updated a Mac running Oh My Zsh, you may encounter a large error message screen upon launching new terminal windows. The error usually states “Insecure completion-dependent directories detected”, and showing a series of /usr/local/share/zsh/ directories whose permissions zsh considers insecure.

There are two choices to deal with this issue; one being adjusting user permissions for the directories in question, and the other being to disable the verification check for the insecure directories.

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Want to add some extra on-device security to Signal? You can protect your conversations in Signal with a passcode lock feature, allowing you to require face ID or Touch ID to access Signal conversations.
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Have you ever wondered what modern apps like Zoom, Spotify, Google Chrome, Figma, or Slack would look like in the Mac OS 9 UI?

Designer Michael Feeney did, so he took it upon himself to apply the 90’s Mac OS styling to some common apps used in todays workflow. In his own words:

Check out the video below to see what it looks like in action.

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Do you want to allow other people in your home to have control over your HomePod and other Apple HomeKit accessories? This is something that needs to be configured first by inviting the users to your Home group. Luckily, it’s not too hard since you can do this right from your iPhone or iPad.

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If you’ve created a ton of Memojis using your Apple Watch or other Apple devices, you may certainly have a few that you don’t really use. If you’re planning to cut down the list of Memojis you have, you may be interested in deleting those unwanted Memojis right from your wrist with an Apple Watch, provided you have one.

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If you’re new to VI or VIM, the command line text editors, you may be wondering some of the basics, like how to save files, or how to both save and quit in vim in one fell swoop.

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Are you planning to sell, get rid of, or replace one of your HomeKit accessories? If so, you’ll have to first remove it from your Home app to make sure it’s no longer paired to your network. If you’re fairly new to HomeKit, you may have trouble figuring this out, but it’s actually pretty easy.

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Are you trying to set up a smart home or a room with Apple HomeKit accessories? If this is your first accessory, you may have trouble setting everything up. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy and Apple makes the process pretty straightforward with the Home app.

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We all know the feeling; it’s Christmas Eve (or Christmas morning… if you’re the biggest slacker on the planet) and you still need to do some gift shopping. If you’re in need of a last minute gift, either because you like to procrastinate until the literal last moments before shopping or perhaps an unexpected visitor has arrived for the holidays, then gift cards bought from Amazon are an excellent solution.

Whether it’s a gift card to Amazon.com, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Whole Foods, iTunes, Hotels.com, Southwest Airlines, Olive Garden, Nordstroms, if you can think of it, Amazon probably has a gift card available to buy right away with e-delivery.

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Are you trying to find the exact model number or serial number of the HomePod or HomePod Mini you own? Typically, you’d find this information on the box, but fortunately that’s not the only place where you can find them. As long as you have access to the iPhone or iPad you used to set up your HomePod, you can find model and serial number details pretty easily.

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