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AirNow and Paku: Two Helpful Apps for Monitoring Air Quality
Smoke from wildfires is causing significant air quality problems for much of Canada and the US. It’s important to check the Air Quality Index (AQI) before spending a long time outside, and that’s especially true for sensitive populations (children, the elderly, anyone with asthma or other breathing issues) and for those exercising outdoors. Although numerous weather apps report air quality, the... Read more -
The Hardware You’ll Need to Run Apple’s 2023 Operating Systems
At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June, the company unveiled the upcoming versions of its operating systems: macOS 14 Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17. They won’t be available until September or October of 2023, and even once they ship, we recommend waiting a few weeks before upgrading your smaller Apple devices and holding off on macOS upgrades for a couple of mont... Read more -
Choosing the Best Mac for a College-Bound Student in 2023
Do you have a child starting college soon? It’s likely that your kid has been relying heavily on a computer throughout high school, but if it was a school-provided laptop or shared family computer, now’s the time to get them something of their own. Even if they had their own laptop throughout high school, if it’s old or unreliable, college is a good excuse to bring them up to date. If you haven... Read more -
Avoid Confusion by Setting iPhone Password Autofill to Only One App
Let’s say you use 1Password (or another third-party password manager) on an iPhone or iPad. When that’s the case, it’s easy to end up in a situation where your device will present passwords from both 1Password and iCloud Keychain, possibly along with another app. That won’t break anything, but as you can see in the screenshot below, dueling password managers can be confusing, particularly if on... Read more -
At WWDC23, Apple Releases New Macs, Previews New OS Features, and Unveils Vision Pro
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote (full video or 2-minute recap) is primarily an opportunity for Apple to give developers a first look at new features coming i... Read more -
Which Should You Use—a Mac, iPhone or iPad, or Web App?
Apps are everywhere these days, but it can be hard to remember that many exist in multiple versions. You can often run the same app on a Mac, an iPhone or iPad, and in a Web browser, each of which has benefits. Generally speaking, Mac apps:- Have better-designed, more obvious interfaces that improve the user experience
- Are easily switched to and managed among many oth... Read more
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Apple Is Shutting Down My Photo Stream—Switch to iCloud Photos
Apple has quietly announced that it is shutting down the My Photo Stream service, the company’s first iCloud-based effort at helping users sync photos between devices. My Photo Stream had numerous limitations but was free and... Read more -
“Juice Jacking” Returns to the News but Still Hasn’t Happened
Much has been made in the media about a recent FBI warning about “juice jacking,” the theoretical act of installing malware on or stealing data from an iPhone connected to a public charging station. Researc... Read more -
Make Sure to Back Up iPhone Photos on Your Mac
If your iPhone were to be stolen or suffer an unfortunate accident, would you lose all your precious photos? Those using iCloud Photos are probably shaking their heads smugly, thinking that all those baby and vacation photos are backed up securely in iCloud. iCloud Photos does indeed store a copy of all your photos, but you shouldn’t assume that everything in it is completely protected. Althoug... Read more -
Make Apple Watch Apps Easier to Find with List View
With the original version of the Apple Watch, Apple introduced “grid” view, which shows tiny icons for each app in a random circular pattern, making them difficult to find for most people. Happily, at some point, Apple relented and gave us the more sensible list view, which shows all the apps—with their names—sorted alphabetically. If your Apple Watch shows apps in grid view when you press the ... Read more