Apple has released the first beta versions of iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, and macOS Monterey 12.3.

iPadOS 15.4 beta and macOS Monterey 12.3 beta includes support for Universal Control, which provides the ability to use a single mouse and keyboard across multiple Macs and iPads.

iOS 15.4 beta includes a variety of new features, including the official ability to use Face ID with a mask (the old mask trick method still works too), a new Apple Card widget, iCloud Keychain notes, support for EU Digital Covid vaccination passes, and new Emoji icons including a biting lip, pregnant man, melting face, salute, low battery, bubbles, beans, hands forming a heart, troll, and more.

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Want to use a Sonos speaker as your Mac speaker? You can do that, and it’s pretty simple. In fact, if you have a whole Sonos setup with multiple speakers, you can use that entire Sonos sound system as your Mac speaker too.

For example, maybe you want to use the popular Sonos One speaker or set as speakers for your Mac. No sweat! We’ll show you how to do this.

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Apple has released macOS Monterey 12.2 for Mac users running the Monterey operating system. The update includes important security fixes and is therefore recommended for all Mac users to install.

Specifically, macOS Monterey 12.2 patches the Safari security leak that gathered some attention recently, along with patching a handful of other security holes and perhaps other issues or bugs. No new features or changes are otherwise expected in 12.2, and support for Universal Control is not included in the 12.2 release.

Mac users running macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina will find security updates available for their system software versions as well.

Separately, iOS 15.3 and iPadOS 15.3 updates are available to address the same security issues on iPhone and iPad, and updates are also available for watchOS 8.4, HomePod, and tvOS 15.3.

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Apple has released iOS 15.3 for iPhone and iPadOS 15.3 for iPad, both system software updates resolve the Safari 15 browser leak bug that generated some attention over a week ago, which allowed a nefarious site to extract a Google user ID along with website browsing data from a device.

The iOS/iPadOS 15.3 updates also include other security fixes, and perhaps a bug update or two, but the release notes are brief, simply stating that the updates are recommended for all users to install.

Additionally, Apple released macOS Monterey 12.2 update for Mac users to address the same Safari security bug, along with macOS Big Sur 11.6.3 and Security Update 2022-001 Catalina. Other system software updates are available for HomePod, watchOS 8.4, and tvOS 15.3 as well.

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Need an Escape key on an iPad physical keyboard? If you don’t use the iPad keyboards Caps Lock key for CAPS LOCK, perhaps you’d rather it behave as an Escape key on your iPad?

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Have a bunch of HEIC files you want to batch convert to JPG? Whether you transferred a bunch of photos from iPhone or iPad to a Mac or PC only to realize there could be compatibility issues, or if you downloaded photos shared by someone else and they’re in the HEIC format, you may be wondering how you can bulk convert all the HEIC images to a more compatible image format like JPG. There are several ways to do this, but one of the easiest is with the help of a free app.

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Need to run a Terminal command as fast as possible? You can do so right from the Dock with this neat trick for Mac.

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If you’re a regular iMessage user, you’ve probably shared plenty of web links during conversations, perhaps to share an article, video, tweet, song link, or anything else really. Going back to a thread and finding these links can be a tedious process, but luckily, there’s an easier way that lets you to see all links shared through Messages on iPhone or iPad.

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Have you been using Google Meet for making video calls with your colleagues or friends? Want to customize your Google Meet experience a bit by changing your virtual background when you’re in a video chat?

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Did you know that you can share a completely customized Apple Watch face with someone, whether one of your friends or family members? This allows them to use your exact watch face without having to go through all the customization by themselves.

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Do you want to shoot videos at a different frame rate on your iPhone? Perhaps you want to record videos at 24 fps for cinematic visuals rather than smoothness? Or maybe you want to use the smooth 60 fps for a professional video? Changing frame rate of your iPhone or iPad video capture is easy, let’s take a look.

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Apple has made a release candidate build available for iOS 15.3, iPadOS 15.3, and macOS Monterey 12.2, wrapping up an unusually fast beta testing period where each system software version only went through two beta builds before going to RC.

The most likely reason for the short beta period is the recently publicized Safari 15 bug which allows for browser data leaking from Safari on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Presumably the security fix has been rolled into the accelerated iOS 15.3, iPadOS 15.3, and macOS Monterey 12.2 releases, rather than issuing a small point release security update to each operating system.

It’s a fair guess that the final versions of iOS 15.3, iPadOS 15.3, and macOS Monterey 12.2 will be released sometime within the next week.

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Looking for a way to browse the web without having to delete your browsing history every now and then? If so, you may be interested in taking advantage of a privacy-oriented browser feature called Incognito mode that’s available on Google Chrome. It’s accessible on all platforms including iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and it’s easy to use.

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You may already know that iOS and iPadOS will attempt to automatically install iOS and iPadOS system software updates to your devices. But not everyone wants to use this feature all the time.

If you accidentally scheduled an overnight software update on your iPhone or iPad, you may be looking to cancel this automatic update, whether you don’t want your device to be interrupted at night, or whether you just want to wait on the update or install it manually yourself later. Thankfully, you can cancel this iOS or iPadOS update by tweaking your update settings.

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Setting a timer on the Mac is pretty easy, though you’ll be forgiven if you assumed there would be a dedicated timer feature within the clock app of MacOS, as there is in the iOS and iPadOS world. It turns out that a timer functionality is not yet part of the clock app or clock widget on the Mac, but that doesn’t mean you can’t easily set a timer.

Instead, setting a timer on a Mac is accomplished with Siri. We’ll show you how.

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Until somewhat recently the idea of pairing a Bluetooth trackpad, mouse, or keyboard with an iPad is something that would have had people looking very confused indeed. But we live in exciting times, and all modern iPad devices running modern iPadOS versions have proper pointer support for trackpad and mouse, and full support for keyboards, complete with many keyboard shortcuts and handy tricks.

You can even create a budget iPad desk workstation setup if you’re so inclined.

As ever, there are some caveats to consider here. But fear not – we’re going to run through what you need to get up and running, and then the most important part; what you actually need to do to start using a pointing device other than your finger, and to use a physical keyboard instead of the onscreen virtual keyboard, all with your iPad.

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A significant Safari bug has been disclosed publicly by FingerPrintJS, impacting Safari 15 on MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS.

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Do you frequently connect to multiple Wi-Fi networks from your Apple Watch, say at work, school, coffee shops, airports, or other networks that aren’t yours? If so, you may want to safeguard your privacy by using private MAC addresses for the public Wi-Fi networks you connect to. Much like you can do so on iPhone and iPad, you can use a feature to randomize the MAC hardware address of your Apple Watch when connecting to wi-fi networks.

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