Control Center Is Improved—and Highly Customizable—in macOS 26 Tahoe
Control Center debuted on the iPhone over a decade ago in iOS 7 and made its way to the Mac in 2020 with macOS 11 Big Sur. However, through macOS 15 Sequoia, Mac users who wanted to tweak Control Center for their needs were limited to turning specific controls on or off. With macOS 26 […]
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 […]
When Should You Upgrade Your Apple Devices?
The simple answer to “When should you upgrade?” is when your device no longer does what you need, or when you want something new. But that’s not helpful if you’re trying to make an informed decision—is there a sweet spot when it makes more sense to upgrade rather than squeeze another year out of your […]
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 […]
Speed Up Mac and iOS Typing with Text Expansion
Silicon Valley thinks everyone wants to delegate writing to AI, which is why Apple Intelligence constantly suggests replies for you in Messages and Mail. But there’s an excellent way to supercharge your typing speed without sounding like a chirpy chatbot or resorting to teenage texting abbreviations: text expansion. Text expansion speeds up typing words or […]
Choose Default Apps for File Types in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26
On the Mac, every file type opens in a particular app by default, but it’s easy to open a PDF, image, or text file in a different app. In the Finder’s Get Info window, you can also reset the default app so that, for example, JPEGs open in Photoshop or Affinity instead of Preview. That’s […]
Create AI-Powered Playlists with iOS 26.4’s Playlist Playground
Apple Music subscribers running iOS 26.4 can use the new Playlist Playground feature to create AI-generated playlists tailored to any mood, genre, activity, or era. To try it on your iPhone, open the Music app, tap the Library tab, tap the + button, then tap Create New Playlist. Instead of manually adding songs, tap the […]
Two iPhone Exploit Kits Mean You Should Update iOS Now
The discovery of two sophisticated iPhone exploit kits—DarkSword and Coruna—within weeks of each other signals a troubling shift. Unlike previous spyware attacks that targeted high-profile users, these exploit kits have been deployed via compromised legitimate websites, so anyone who visits an infected site could fall victim, with no additional clicks or downloads required. This suggests […]
Losing Messages or Calls? Look in the Unknown Senders/Callers Filter
In iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 26, Apple added an option in the Messages app to filter messages from unknown people and those marked as spam by the carrier. To enable filtering, open Messages, tap the Filter button in the upper-right corner, tap Manage Filtering, and turn on Screen Unknown Senders and Filter Spam. Once those […]
iOS 26 Can AutoFill Credit Card Details
Sadly, not all websites and apps support Apple Pay, so we’ve become accustomed to manually entering our credit card information into fields, like animals. No longer! In iOS 26, the Wallet app now supports AutoFill. If you need to add a card—those set up with Apple Pay are already available—open Wallet, tap the three-dot menu […]
