Be Careful When Offloading iPhone Apps
Automatic offloading of seldom-used apps can be a good strategy for recovering space on an iPhone whose storage is almost full, and iOS can do this for you in Settings > Apps > App Store > Offload Unused Apps. When you open an app that was offloaded, iOS will re-download it from the App Store […]
WhatCable Reports on Your USB-C Cables
We’ve all ended up with a collection of random USB-C cables that arrived with devices, were purchased while traveling, or were left by visitors. But you can’t look at a cable to determine its data speed, how much power it can carry, or whether it’s hampering display quality. You could buy a hardware tester, but […]
Prepare for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS OS 27 by Updating to 26.6
Apple released macOS 26.6 Tahoe, iOS 26.6, and iPadOS 26.6 with a huge number of fixes for security vulnerabilities. However, the release notes for each also include an unusual comment along the lines of “optimizes the Spotlight index in preparation for macOS 27.” At WWDC, Apple promised a rearchitected Spotlight search engine that would be […]
Turn Off Unused Sharing Services on Your Mac
Apple just released macOS 26.6.1 Tahoe, macOS 15.7.9 Sequoia, and macOS 14.8.9 Sonoma solely to patch a vulnerability in Screen Sharing that could allow unauthenticated connections from attackers on the network. Yes, you should update, but also take a moment to visit System Settings > General > Sharing and turn off any sharing services you […]
Share Your Location Temporarily While Traveling
The next time you’re flying, driving, or biking to visit an iPhone-using friend or relative, try sharing your location temporarily so they can check in on your progress without constant “where are you now?” texts. In iOS 17 and later, open a Messages conversation with that person, tap the ⊕ button to the left of […]
Try Swipe Typing with QuickPath on the iPhone
If you’ve had trouble moving from hunt-and-peck typing on the iPhone to the double-thumb typing approach many people prefer, consider QuickPath, better known as swipe typing. QuickPath isn’t new, but many people have never tried it seriously. With swipe typing, you put your finger down on the first letter of the desired word—say “giraffe”—and then […]
Drag Documents to Apps in the macOS App Switcher
You undoubtedly know about pressing Command-Tab to bring up the macOS App Switcher and mousing to the app you want to switch to. Keyboard jockeys probably even know to keep holding Command down while pressing Tab or right-arrow to cycle to the right (press Shift-Tab, the grave accent/tilde key, or left-arrow to cycle to the […]
Never Miss a Meeting Again with In Your Face
If you are often late to or miss meetings because Apple’s notifications are too easy to ignore, we recommend trying the In Your Face app. Available for the Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, In Your Face displays unmissable full-screen alerts and plays audible alarms for calendar events and timed reminders. Unlike standard notifications […]
Use Fake Contacts to Improve Dictation Accuracy
Apple’s Dictation feature is a great way to avoid slow typing on the iPhone and iPad, and it can be welcome on the Mac as well. But it struggles with proper nouns—it guesses wildly at unfamiliar names and often fails to capitalize common words that are part of a name (so you get “New York […]
Use Your AirPods as a Camera Remote
Have you ever wanted to activate the shutter button for your iPhone’s camera—for either a still photo or a video—when you’re not holding it? Selfie sticks often come with Bluetooth buttons that can do that, and starting in iOS 26, you also can use your AirPods 4 or AirPods Pro as a camera remote. While […]
