Did you know you can set your iPhone alarm to wake you gently with a song instead of with the jolt or startle of a ringtone? Also, when you upgraded to iOS 26, were you alarmed to discover it was suddenly more difficult to stop the alarm? The new default alarm behavior involves a [...]
In a recent episode of Mac Geek Gab (1134 at 00:23:40), Adam shared a tip about a way to eliminate in-game ads. Some game apps feed ads to users overwhelmingly and make gameplay tedious and unexciting. There may be an opportunity to pay a little to eliminate the ads, but that can also be [...]
Based on a couple recent client discussions, I’m realizing that Apple may support recent Macs significantly longer and that they may reach a more advanced age than their predecessors. Truly, I’ve wondered about the longevity of any Mac with Apple Silicon. These machines are still relatively young, the eldest not even 6 years old. [...]
QR codes have been around for over 30 years but only entered general usage with the advent of smartphones over the last two decades. A QR code often leads to a website. However, it can have other uses, like to initiate payment, represent an event registration or ticket, track products through a pipeline, or [...]
While Apple celebrates its 50th birthday this season, half that time has passed since it introduced iTunes. Initially, iTunes was just a music player that could import music users already had and sync music with the then brand new iPod. The iTunes Store opened a couple years later and Apple firmly planted its feet [...]
Send Later is a current feature of Mail and Messages that enables delaying an email or text message, respectively, to be sent at a specific future time. Mail added this capability in macOS 13 and iOS 16 while Messages gained it in macOS 15 and iOS 18. In Messages, Send Later only works with [...]
Are your messages overflowing with spam, political solicitations, and other texts from people you don’t know? Starting in OS 26, when you filter unknown senders, these messages stay out of your primary list. Plus, it’s now really easy to mark messages as spam, unsubscribe from legitimate promotions and ads, and delete both of these, [...]
One thing you might notice upon upgrading to macOS 26 is Apple’s more thorough use of glyphs. There were already little pictorial icons next to sidebar listings and on toolbar buttons in various Mac applications. They also appear next to text elements on iPhone and iPad. Now, throughout macOS, glyphs precede menu items, too. [...]
Apple first introduced passcode autofill way back in 2018 with iOS 12. The clever feature discovers a security code received in a text message, offers it on the iPhone keyboard, and fills it into a form field when the user selects it. One need not ever switch to Messages nor even view the text [...]
When you go to search Messages on your Apple device, do you tend to come up empty? The search function has grown greatly in OS 26 but it can still be finicky. Plus, it’s important to know where to start. It never occurred to me that users may have different approaches to search. However, [...]
