You may have noticed that some iOS apps will turn dark as if they’re being launched and simultaneously rename themselves as “Cleaning…”, seemingly out of the blue and at random. This is demonstrated happening with the attached iPhone screenshot, showing the Instagram app going through the process. So the big question for many users is, … Read More
If you need to find out just how fast your wi-fi link speed is, or rather, the speed of which your Mac is connected to a particular wireless router, you can find this data through the Network Utility app that is bundled in every version of Mac OS X. This is really the fastest way … Read More
Time Machine is by far the simplest way to keep regular and reliable backups of a Mac, and usually the automatic backups start and finish without any incident. On some rare occasions though, Time Machine may get stuck* on the “Preparing Backup” stage for an inordinately long amount of time, causing a backup to never … Read More
Typically when an external display is connected to a Mac, it will automatically be detected and start working instantly, with the Mac either extending the desktop or mirroring the screen over to the newly attached display output. Sometimes that doesn’t happen however, and when a secondary screen is not detected automatically by the Mac, you’ll … Read More
While Safari usually works just fine for browsing the web, there are times you may encounter a persistent error message about verifying the identity of a particular website. The precise error message may read something like this, and appear on almost any site, where “URL” is a variety of domains: “Safari can’t verify the identity … Read More
Every time you connect an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a new computer, you’ll get a “Trust This Computer?” alert dialog popping up. If you’ve updated iTunes or reset an iOS device to factory settings, sometimes you’ll even see this Trust dialog box on a computer you’ve already chosen to trust from that device. … Read More
If you’re attempting to upgrade or restore an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV by way of iTunes and you encounter an Error 17 alert, you’re probably experiencing an issue with the computer connecting to Apple’s servers. This can be caused by a variety of things and users may see it either when trying … Read More
Though the All My Files folder is undoubtedly useful, Mac users with limited system resources along with tons of files may notice some sluggishness when using the feature. That can translate into CPU spikes and the perception of a generally slow Finder and Mac, because new windows in the file system default to opening into … Read More
Now that more users have updated to iOS 7.1, a continuing (yet fairly small) stream of complaints have surfaced about battery life for some iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users that have moved to the latest version of iOS. Battery issues are reported with some degree of regularity with a subset of users with just … Read More
OS X provides a great way to quickly find what app is using battery power from a drop-down menu on portable Macs, but you’re usually left with a single option to address the battery hog, and that is quitting the app. But it’s not always necessary to quit out of the entire app in question, … Read More
Some iPad Air owners have been impacted by a persistent crashing issue, where either the entire device crashes and reboots, or, more commonly, where the Safari browser crashes and randomly quits. The Safari crashing issue is often repeatable by pointing Safari at several Javascript heavy web pages with numerous tabs open, or by opening a … Read More
Once a wi-fi network has been joined in Mac OS, the Mac will default to joining that network if it’s within range and available again. This is undeniably convenient for joining our home, work, and regular wireless networks, but it can be a nuisance when the Mac rejoins a network that you no longer want … Read More
Ever launched the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad to discover an “Unsent Message” indicator at the bottom of the screen? An email usually goes unsent if you lose internet access while trying to send the message, a fairly common occurrence for those who live in areas with poor cellular reception or that have … Read More
Considering that so much of the functionality of iOS is dependent on the internet, it’s pretty frustrating if you can’t join a wireless network because of a mystery “Unable to join the network [name]” error popping up on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. You may encounter this alert trying to join a wifi network … Read More
The systemstats process is used to retrieve information about system statistics and power usage, and though it usually runs unnoticed in the background, the systemstatsd and systemstats processes have been known to randomly go haywire in OS X, eating up 100%-300% or more CPU while slowing down a Mac.
Some iPhone and iPad users, myself included, have experienced an unusual level of battery drain after updating devices to iOS 7.0.6. This is typically accompanied by an iPhone (or other device) feeling abnormally warm to the touch.
Though it is generally recommended for users to keep their Macs up to date with the latest system software, not everyone wants to run OS X Mavericks on all of their Macs, and in some situations older Macs may not support the latest version of OS X anyway. Additionally, there are circumstances where users looking … Read More
Batteries on the MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air are made to offer many hours of work on a single charge. Unfortunately, sometimes apps get in the way of our wonderful Mac battery life, often without a user even noticing until suddenly their battery life has been drained dramatically. The good news is it doesn’t … Read More
