Next time you drop your iPhone in the toilet, inadvertently take it swimming, expose it to a downpour, or otherwise trigger the liquid detection sensor, don’t reach for the nearest bag of rice. First, power it off. Then, find a local repair shop (if you’re in the Berkeley area, I recommend Apple & Mac [...]
Apple device operating systems are chock full of features that can increase user productivity and flexibility. Each new release adds yet more capabilities and rarely takes any away. Unless you intently follow release announcements, though, your acquisition of new skills may depend on your own discovery — or spending time learning from your technology [...]
The macOS Finder has always offered a way to get information about selected files, folders, and applications. However, Get Info is an oft overlooked or unknown command in the File menu. As a result, users miss out on opportunities to learn about important item details, like size and default application, and to compare single [...]
Remember the wave of iPhone thefts over the last year where thieves observed owners entering their passcode, then stole the device, quickly changed the person’s Apple ID password, and disabled Find My? In response to this, Apple recently introduced Stolen Device Protection, included as part of iOS 17.3. Part of the problem has been [...]
I find audible feedback helpful in my digital workflows and I love using sound effects to signal various actions and notifications on my devices. Sadly, over the years, Apple has become more restrictive about what actions welcome custom alert sounds. For over a decade until around 2011, I was able to use Xounds, an [...]
What are your screen habits when you wake up? Do you pick up your iPhone before you get out of bed? How close to your eyes do you hold it? How bright is the screen and how bright is your room? There are a number of reasons to consider not sleeping next to your [...]
In Take Control of Windows, I wrote about Mission Control and how to use it to organize and switch among windows on the screen. In that post, I briefly mentioned the ability to also segregate windows in separate spaces, but provided no instruction to do so. macOS offers Spaces as a way to declutter [...]
In Share Anything With Siri, I wrote about how to use Siri to share webpages and screenshots. Siri is also useful for reading those webpages to you, or really any text on the screen, selected or not, depending on your preference. Exploring these features last week, I discovered that you can toggle on or [...]
Once upon a time, computers couldn’t remember what documents/windows were open the last time you used a given application. Browser tabs were easily lost unless you had bookmarked them. And it was generally difficult to pick up where you left off after restarting your Mac. In 2011, OS X Lion introduced the ability to [...]
macOS Sonoma brings some welcome features and also some unexpected settings that may confuse on first use. Overall, I’ve been happily using the new OS for the last two weeks and so far it’s working well for me. However, I’m aware of a couple of bugs related using Gallery View in the Finder and [...]
