News, Tips, and Tricks
For Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and Apple Watch.
Did You Know that Apple Pay Updates Your Credit Card Details Automatically?
File this as reason number 17 why Apple Pay is better than plastic. Let’s say your credit card expires and your bank sends you a new card with a revised expiration date. Or perhaps your bank replaces your card with one that has a new number. Either way, most credit...
Make Your Holiday Cards with Apple’s Photos App This Year
It’s that time of year again, when we realize that if we’re going to do holiday cards, we should get started. You can take the easy way out and buy a few packs of generic reindeer cards at the drugstore, but with a little work in Apple’s Photos app on the Mac, you can...
The Swipes You Need to Know to Multitask in iOS 11 on an iPad
With iOS 11, the iPhone and iPad interfaces continue to diverge, which makes sense, since the iPad is not merely an overgrown iPhone. Particularly when you pair an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, you can now get real work done on an iPad more fluidly...
What Is a Fusion Drive, and Why Should You Care?
There are two basic types of storage devices available today: hard disk drives and solid-state drives. For the lowest cost per gigabyte, you can’t go wrong with a hard drive, and they come in truly massive sizes—up to a whopping 8 terabytes. However, they’re...
The Best Apple-Related Gifts for 2017
It’s that time of year again, when many of us start wracking our brains for gift ideas for our loved ones—or for our own wish lists. If your special someone is an Apple user, we have a few suggestions. Chargers, Cables, and Adapters, Oh My! We know that giving someone...
Stop Paying Too Much for a Family’s iCloud Drive Storage
Apple gives iCloud users 5 GB of free storage, but that fills up fast with iCloud Photo Library, iOS backups, iBooks, and more. Until iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra, each person in a family had to buy extra iCloud space separately. Happily, Apple has now made it...
You Can Now Scan QR Codes with the Camera in iOS 11
You’ve undoubtedly seen those odd-looking square QR codes on product packaging, a business card, or a flyer. In the past, you needed a special app to scan a QR code to see what Web URL, contact card, Wi-Fi network, or other piece of information it held. In iOS 11,...
Merge Recognized Faces in Photos in Both iOS and macOS
An extremely welcome under-the-hood change in iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra is that Photos facial recognition syncs across iCloud Photo Library. Previously, people you identified on one of your devices remained unidentified on others. But what if Photos now...
How to Get Back to Siri’s Web Results Quickly
Ask Siri to search the Web and you’ll get five results back from Google (not Bing anymore!). Tap one and it opens in Safari. But what if that page doesn’t contain the information you want? How do you get back to Siri’s results? The easy way is to tap the little Siri...
Please, Please, Use iOS 11’s Do Not Disturb While Driving Feature
Distracted driving may not make headlines, but it’s a huge problem. In the United States in 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 391,000 people were injured and 3477 killed in accidents caused by distracted driving. Many things can...
7 Great New Features in watchOS 4
With watchOS 4 now arriving on Apple Watch users’ wrists, it’s time to make sure you aren’t missing out on any of the important features—and to share a few tips for how to use them. watchOS 4 works on all Apple Watch models, even the original Apple Watch. It does...
How to Avoid Downer Stories in Apple’s “For You” News Suggestions
If the For You section of Apple’s iOS News app overwhelms you with stories that are boring, depressing, or offensive, you can clamp down on it with a new setting in iOS 11. Go to Settings > News and enable Restrict Stories in For You. From then on, most stories in...