• September 5, 2024

    Five Quick Tips to Ease iPhone and iPad Text Editing and Amaze Your Friends

    A friend recently expressed astonishment when she saw us using trackpad mode while editing text on an iPhone. (It works on the iPad, too!) So, even if you already know these tips, do your friends a favor and show them:
    • Tap once to position the insertion point at the start or end of a word.
    • Touch and hold to reveal the magnifier and move the insertion point within words ... Read more
  • August 29, 2024

    Make the Most of the Mac’s Videoconferencing Capabilities

    A side effect of the pandemic is that online videoconferencing improved drastically. Video calls happened before 2020, but videoconferencing wasn’t an everyday activity for most people. Now, with many people working remotely or in a hybrid model, it’s a fact of business life. To support videoconferencing tools, Apple has extended macOS’s basic webcam and microphone capabilities to allow Mac-pow... Read more
  • August 29, 2024

    Use High-Quality Cables for Optimal Performance and Safety

    Apple’s prices for Thunderbolt, USB-C, and Lightning cables often seem unnecessarily high. $69 for a Read more
  • August 13, 2024

    Missed an Alert? Check Notification Center

    iOS, iPadOS, and macOS all let you specify whether any given app should show no notifications, temporary banners, or persistent alerts: look in Settings > Notifications and System Settings > Notifications. Temporary banners appear briefly and then automatically disappear, which is appropriate for notifications requiring no acknowledgment. But what if you see a temporary banner only as it’... Read more
  • August 6, 2024

    Be Careful When Scanning Unknown QR Codes

    QR codes, those square, blocky codes you scan with your iPhone’s camera to load a Web page, have become ubiquitous. So much so that we seldom pause before scanning any QR code we see. But if you think about it, that’s the same as clicking random links in emails or texts, which is a terrible idea from a security perspective. “Quishing” (QR code phishing) isn’t commonplace yet, but some sources s... Read more
  • July 27, 2024

    Choosing the Best Mac for a College-Bound Student in 2024

    Is your child heading off to college soon? They’ve undoubtedly been using a computer throughout high school, though now is a good time to look at getting them a new one, especially if theirs is old or unreliable, is shared with other family members, or was a school loaner. If you haven’t been keeping up with Apple’s Mac lineup, you might be unsure which model is the best choice. First, check... Read more
  • July 22, 2024

    Remember the Magnifier App When You Need to Read Tiny Text

    Trying to make out a tiny serial number or some fine print you can barely read can be frustrating. Years ago, Apple added a magnifier mode to its accessibility options and turned the feature into a standalone app in iOS 14. You can find the MagnifierRead more
  • July 13, 2024

    Apple Explains Its Approach to Device Longevity

    We Apple users tend to believe that our devices usually last longer—both physically and functionally—than Windows PCs and Android smartphones. For instance, Apple’s current operating systems work on nearly all Macs, iPhones, and iPads introduced in 2018 and later, albeit with some feature loss on the oldest devices. In a white paper entitled “Read more
  • June 20, 2024

    Sorry, Apple Isn’t Going to Update the 27-inch iMac with Apple Silicon

    Are you a 27-inch iMac owner wondering when Apple will release a new model with speedy Apple silicon? We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the answer seems to be an unequivocal “Never.” Late last year, Apple confirmed to The Verge that it would not be making an Apple... Read more
  • June 11, 2024

    At WWDC, Apple Unveils Apple Intelligence and Previews New OS Features

    Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote was a lightning-fast (even in the full 1:44-long video—or try the 3-minute recap) look at what Apple is bringing to the software side of the Apple experience in the next year. Although some past keynotes have introduced hardware ... Read more