Apple has finally released the new macOS Monterey update after months of developer and public beta testing. If you’ve already went ahead and installed macOS Monterey, then you’ll come across a ton of new changes shortly after you update your Mac.

While macOS Monterey isn’t a UI redesign like last year’s macOS Big Sur update, it still brings a ton of new functional improvements that should grab the attention of long-time Mac users. Apple has made notable changes in key areas such as privacy, browsing, video calls, messaging, and more.

We’re going to run through some of the major macOS Monterey features that you’ll want to try out.

Read more »

Are you the kind of person who reads a lot of written content on the web, like our wonderful articles, general news, long-form content, personal blogs, or whatever else? If so, you may be interested in taking advantage of the Reading List feature that Safari has to offer, which is useful when you want to save webpages for reading later.

Reading List works on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so regardless fo what device you’re using you can access the feature with Safari.

Read more »

One of the most interesting features added to macOS Monterey is the ability to AirPlay to your Mac using an iPhone, iPad, or even another Mac.

If you’re familiar with Apple devices, you probably know what AirPlay is already. In fact, this feature has been a staple in iOS and macOS devices for over a decade. So far, you could AirPlay content from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to AirPlay-compatible devices like the Apple TV, HomePod, speaker systems, and select smart TVs. However, with macOS Monterey, your Mac can be an AirPlay receiver too.

You can now stream content stored on your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or even use it as an AirPlay 2 speaker, so let’s take a look at using AirPlay to your Mac from your iPhone, iPad, or another Mac. We’ll cover AirPlaying videos, as well as screen mirroring.

Read more »

Are you on the larger size iCloud storage plan and want to share it with family? iCloud storage can be shared with family members thanks to Apple’s Family Sharing feature, and this is easy to access on the Mac.

Read more »

You may have noticed that Google now offers a dark mode and light mode theme for web searches on google.com, and while it usually follows the theme settings in the operating system, sometimes it also seems to have a mind of its own.

Perhaps you also just prefer light mode or dark mode on Google too, in which case you’d like to toggle this feature yourself.

Whether you want to disable the dark mode theme on Google.com or enable it, it’s quite easy either way.

Read more »

Want to change the browser color theme on the DuckDuckGo.com search engine to a dark theme or light theme? It’s easy to adjust the appearance to dark or light theme on DuckDuckGo if you’d like to do so.

First, know that DuckDuckGo search typically follows the current system theme on the computer or device in use, so if a Mac is actively running dark mode or light mode, or an iPhone or iPad is in dark mode or light mode, the search engine appearance usually reflects that as well. We’re showing how to set it manually however.

Read more »

If you’re a Mac user who does not use iCloud, nor do you want to use iCloud, you might be bothered by the “Start Using iCloud” notifications and messages in System Preferences to use the iCloud service.

iCloud is undeniably useful with its syncing capabilities, but if you don’t use it for whatever reason, you might want to get rid of the nagging notifications about using iCloud found in System Preferences and Notifications on the Mac.

Read more »

Do you want to hide your phone number for new iMessage conversations started from the Mac? This is something that a lot of users may wish to do for privacy reasons. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you can easily do this on your  Mac.

Read more »

macOS Monterey is here, complete with some nice new features like Live Text which allows you to select text in images, the inclusion of Shortcuts app on Mac, improvements to Safari, Focus modes, the ability to use a Mac as an AirPlay receiver, and a variety of general refinements to the Mac operating system.

If you’re ready to install and upgraded to macOS Monterey, we’ll walk through the steps for installing macOS Monterey onto a Mac. The approach we’ll cover in this article will be upgrading a prior macOS release to macOS Monterey.

Read more »

Do you want to use a different Apple account for App Store purchases and subscriptions? Perhaps, you have some credits left to spend on your other account? Fortunately, this can be done without having to change the Apple ID that you’re primarily logged into on your iPhone or iPad.

Read more »

Apple has released the first beta version of macOS Monterey 12.1 for Mac users participating in the beta system software testing program.

The beta build presumably focuses on bug fixes and enhancements to the macOS Monterey operating system, and also includes some features that were skipped in the initial release, including SharePlay support.

Users who are interested in Universal Control will continue to wait as the beta does not appear to support that feature, yet anyway.

Read more »

Do you use the Live Photo feature while taking pictures using your iPhone or iPad? And do you use Live Photos effects to spruce up the imagery? If you use Live Photos effects, you can change the effect type at any time to make the picture loop, bounce, or even change it into a long exposure shot. Editing Live Photos effects is pretty easy, as you’ll see, though the approach is slightly different depending on what iOS and iPadOS version you’re using.

Read more »

Apple has released Safari 15.1 for macOS Big Sur. The update reverts the controversial Safari 15 changes to the appearance of tabs, and includes security updates and bug fixes as well.

Read more »

The final release of iOS 15.1 and ipadOS 15.1 is barely out of the oven, but Apple is already moving forward with beta testing iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2.

The first betas of iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2 include an App Privacy Report feature, which lets you see what data apps are sharing, as well as determining app access to location, camera, microphone, photos and contacts. There are also some changes to the Emergency SOS feature, and likely other smaller refinements and bug fixes will be included as well.

Read more »

Are you a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air user who likes to keep an eye on their Mac laptop battery life? Want to see the battery percentage in the menubar of MacOS with Monterey or Big Sur? Let’s check how you can show the battery percentage indicator in the menu bar of macOS with the latest operating systems.

Read more »

If you’re an iPad user who updated to iPadOS 15 and did not like the redesigned Safari Tabs experience, where the tabs are hard to tell apart and differentiate from and look like strange buttons instead of, well, tabs, you’ll be happy to know you can rid yourself of this experience quickly.

Reverting the iPadOS Safari Tabs back to what they looked like previously (with iPadOS 14.x and earlier) is as simple as updating to iPadOS 15.1.

Mac users can achieve the same change by updating to Safari 15.1, or macOS Monterey.

Read more »

Do you want to disable FaceTime on your iPhone or iPad completely? Apple gives users the option to turn off the FaceTime functionality on their devices, so whatever the reason you want to turn off FaceTime, you can do that.

Read more »

Wondering how you can install updates to existing macOS installations, like macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina, without jumping ahead and installing MacOS Monterey?

While MacOS Monterey is available to download now for anyone who wants to install it, not everyone may be ready for the update. Fortunately, Apple offers system software updates and security updates to the most recent two prior generation system software versions, in this case macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina, so if you’d like to you can install updates for those versions of system software and avoid Monterey.

Read more »