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 […]
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 […]
10 Reasons to Upgrade to Apple’s Version 27 Operating Systems This Fall
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote—the final public appearance for outgoing CEO Tim Cook—was different this year. Although it was still a tour of the changes we’ll see in version 27 of Apple’s operating systems, the company broke it into three parts. The first focused on interface refinements, performance improvements, and feature tweaks that smooth rough […]
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 […]
