Monday, 02 May 2022 10:05
Don’t Miss the List Views in the iPhone’s Calendar App
Written by Adam Engst
The iPhone’s Calendar app defaults to graphical views for Day, Week (rotate to landscape), Month, and Year, but only the Day view shows information about your actual events, and even then, it’s easy to miss events that are outside the times that fit onscreen. If you find those views frustrating, you may have missed the […]
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Monday, 02 May 2022 10:04
Understanding What “Vintage” and “Obsolete” Mean for Apple Products
Written by Adam Engst
Macs—and Apple products in general—tend to last a long time. It’s not unusual to see someone happily using an 8-year-old MacBook Pro. As much as it’s environmentally responsible to use electronics as long as possible, doing so may reduce your productivity or leave your business in a precarious situation if a hardware failure forces an […]
For our money, perhaps the most unheralded innovation of the computer age is Copy and Paste. No one thinks about the clipboard—that virtual shelf where copied text and images sit—because it just works. We all use Command-C to copy something and Command-V to paste it without having to retype the text, reimport the graphic, or […]
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Monday, 02 May 2022 10:02
Did You Know That You Can Run iPhone and iPad Apps on an M1-based Mac?
Written by Adam Engst
Much has been written about the performance benefits of Apple’s M1 family of chips, but you may not have realized that M1-based Macs can also run many iPhone and iPad apps. It makes sense, given that the M1 chip grew out of the work Apple did for the A-series processors in the iPhone and iPad, […]
Monday, 02 May 2022 10:01
Block Malicious and Adult Web Sites with DNS Filtering
Written by Adam Engst
One of the best ways to keep malware from infecting your computers is to avoid visiting websites designed to do just that. No one intentionally visits loadmetogetinfected.com, but malware authors employ all sorts of tricks to lure unsuspecting users into viewing malicious sites. Various tools can help, but the easiest free technique is called DNS […]
Shortly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple made it so your Apple Watch could unlock your Face ID-enabled iPhone when you were wearing a mask. Starting in iOS 15.4, the company has taken the next step and enabled Face ID on the iPhone 12 and later to work even when you’re wearing a […]
Friday, 01 April 2022 08:07
Reduce iPhone and iPad Data Usage with Low Data Mode
Written by Adam Engst
Do you need to be careful about how much data you use with your iPhone or iPad, either via cellular or Wi-Fi? That could be true for those with Internet data caps, people using an international plan while traveling, and anyone in an area with slow data speeds. To reduce your data usage, turn on […]
Friday, 01 April 2022 08:06
Export Passwords from Safari to Ease the Move to a Password Manager
Written by Adam Engst
Although Apple has improved the built-in password management features in macOS and iOS (you can now add notes to password entries!), third-party password managers like 1Password and LastPass are still more capable. For those still getting started using a password manager, another new capability will ease the transition: Safari password export. To export a CSV […]
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Friday, 01 April 2022 08:05
Hidden Tricks for Navigating the Mac’s App Switcher More Quickly
Written by Adam Engst
Although the Mac’s Dock shows all your running apps, it’s often not the most efficient way to switch among them. Instead, turn to the App Switcher. You may know that pressing Command-Tab switches to the last-used app, making it easy to flip back and forth between two apps. However, if you press Command-Tab and continue […]
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Friday, 01 April 2022 08:04
Universal Control Arrives in macOS 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4
Written by Adam Engst
With the recent release of macOS 12.3 Monterey and iPadOS 15.4, Apple shipped Universal Control, the last major technology promised in its 2021 operating system upgrades. Universal Control enables you to use the keyboard and mouse or trackpad attached to one Mac to control up to three other Macs or iPads—you can even copy and […]
If you’re thinking about buying a new Mac, you’re almost certainly planning to get one that uses a chip from Apple’s M1 family—the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra. Only the Mac Pro and one Mac mini configuration still rely on Intel CPUs, and they will likely be discontinued before the end of […]
In today’s world, there’s no reason to remember our contacts’ phone numbers or email addresses—that’s a job for our Macs, iPhones, and iPads. This sort of data is so core to using digital devices that Apple has long provided an ecosystem-wide solution in the form of Contacts and syncing through iCloud. Unfortunately, it’s all too […]
Friday, 01 April 2022 08:01
Increase Business Cybersecurity Awareness in Light of Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Written by Adam Engst
For several decades, Russia has targeted a wide variety of cyberattacks at countries with which it has had disputes. That includes the United States and other Western nations, which have recently levied unprecedented sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine. President Biden has warned that “Russia could conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States” […]
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Wednesday, 09 March 2022 09:15
Apple Wows with Mac Studio and Studio Display, Updates iPhone SE and iPad Air
Written by Adam Engst
At its March 8th Peek Performance event, Apple freshened its iPhone and iPad product lines with a new third-generation iPhone SE and fifth-generation iPad Air, along with new green hues for the iPhone 13 line. Then Apple focused on the big announcements of the day: the entirely new Mac Studio, powered by the insanely fast […]
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Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:08
Can’t Rotate the Screen on an iPad or iPhone? Fix the Problem in Control Center
Written by Adam Engst
Normally, when you rotate an iPad, the screen happily flips from portrait (vertical) to landscape (horizontal) orientation as appropriate. Rotating an iPhone has the same effect in some apps, though many are written to work only in one orientation. If you ever end up in a situation where your device’s screen doesn’t rotate when you […]
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Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:07
Extend Your Battery Life in macOS 12 Monterey with Low Power Mode
Written by Adam Engst
We’ve become accustomed to our iPhones and iPads switching into Low Power Mode to preserve battery life, and you can enable it manually if you want to reduce power usage for a day. New in macOS 12 Monterey for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is a similar feature, though you must enable it manually. […]
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In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple added a feature that would have been even more welcome before the advent of the App Library: the capability to manage apps from Search. But it’s still handy as a way to delete or position an app you can’t find on a Home screen page. Swipe down from […]
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Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:05
Use Reduce Transparency for a Consistently Colored macOS Interface
Written by Adam Engst
For years now, Apple has made transparency a part of the macOS interface, which has the effect of blending the menu bar into the background and making menus and some windows take on the background hue, as you can see on the left side of the illustration below. For many people, transparency blurs the interface, […]
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Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:04
Apple Works to Improve Safety in the Wake of AirTag Stalking Reports
Written by Adam Engst
Over the past few months, there has been a spate of media reports about how people may have been tracked without their knowledge using AirTags, Apple’s elegant location trackers. Like many mainstream media forays into the tech world, the reports are often short on detail and sometimes unclear on the reality of how the AirTags […]
Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:03
Please Dispose of Old Electronics Responsibly—Not in the Trash or Standard Recycling!
Written by Adam Engst
We all have old electronics squirreled away in our drawers and closets. It’s hard to admit that a computer, phone, or peripheral that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars years ago has little or no value. That’s doubly true if it doesn’t work anymore. Once you’ve decided to get rid of that PowerBook 520 […]
Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:02
How to Use Change Tracking Effectively When Collaborating on Documents
Written by Adam Engst
Long gone are the days of printing a document, marking it up with a red pencil, and sending it back to the author to input the changes. In the modern world, we use comments and change tracking to collaborate in word processors like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Apple’s Pages, and Nisus Writer Pro. The specifics […]
Tuesday, 01 March 2022 07:01
Make Joining Your Wi-Fi Network as Easy as Scanning a QR Code
Written by Adam Engst
Whether you have guests who want to get on your home Wi-Fi network, customers who need to join your business network, or attendees who want to use your conference network, it’s always fussy to share the network name and password. If an iPhone user has your Apple ID email address in Contacts, their device should […]
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