• October 28, 2021

    Beware the Bulging Battery! (And What to Do If Yours Expands)

    We’ve been seeing a spate of bulging batteries of late, both in Mac laptops and iPhones. A bulging battery is a Very Bad Thing™ and must be dealt with immediately because it could catch fire or even expl... Read more
  • October 26, 2021

    Apple Radically Improved Multitasking in iPadOS 15. Here’s How to Use It

    Multitasking has long been a mess on the iPad, not so much because it didn’t work but because it was tough to memorize the secret swipes necessary to put multiple apps into Split View, work with multiple windows in apps that supported them, and hide and show what you wanted in Slide Over. In iPadOS 15, Apple hasn’t changed the underlying multitasking capabilities much, but it has made them far ... Read more
  • October 21, 2021

    What Is iCloud+ and What Can You Do With It?

    As you upgrade to iOS 15, iPadOS 15 (and macOS 12 Monterey by the end of the year), you’re going to see references to iCloud+. You might even already be an iCloud+ subscriber! That’s because iCloud+ is Apple’s new name for what you get if you pay for additional iCloud storage for yourself and up to five family... Read more
  • October 19, 2021

    New M1 Pro and M1 Max Chips Power the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros

    Last year, Apple started to transition Macs away from Intel processors to its custom M1 system-on-a-chip. The M1’s performance is stellar, but Apple has used it only in low-end models so far: the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and new 24-inch iMac. For professionals looking for more power, Apple unveiled the future of high-end Macs at its October 18th Read more
  • October 19, 2021

    New Features to Try (Or Not) in Safari 15

    Along with a new version of Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple has released Safari 15 for macOS 11 Big Sur and macOS 10.15 Catalina. Why do this before macOS 12 Monterey ships? Some of the browser’s new capabilities—notably the Tab Groups feature—integrate it more deeply into your Apple device experience by syncing across devices. So, assuming you have Safari 15 on at least some of your devi... Read more
  • October 14, 2021

    When Migrating to a New iPhone or iPad, Try Quick Start First

    You have a new iPhone or iPad—congratulations! When transferring your data to the new device, you have three options: Quick Start, an iCloud backup, or a Read more
  • October 12, 2021

    After Upgrading to iOS 15, Check Do Not Disturb in Focus Settings

    In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple expanded the concept of Do Not Disturb to what it calls Focus. You can create a Focus for different types of activities, so only specific people and apps can break through your cone of silence at appropriate times. Focus subsumes the old Do Not Disturb functionality, and your settings may not transfer when you upgrade, leaving you o... Read more
  • October 7, 2021

    Messages Not Being Delivered to Blue-Bubble Friends? Check Cellular Data

    Here’s a tricky situation that threw one of our clients for a loop recently. Texts they sent in Messages via iMessage (indicated by blue bubbles) to their son, letting him know they were stopping by weren’t being delivered, making their visits a surprise. But other texts worked fine. The problem, it turned out, was that Cellular Data had somehow gotten turned off in Settings > Cellular. So m... Read more
  • October 5, 2021

    When It Comes to Wi-Fi Networks, Sometimes It’s Better to Forget

    It’s easy, particularly when traveling, to end up connecting to a Wi-Fi network that doesn’t provide Internet access, requires credentials you don’t have, or lacks access to the network’s printer. Unfortunately, once your iPhone, iPad, or Mac has connected to such a network, it may reconnect to it later, causing consternation when things don’t work. The solution? Whenever you realize a Wi-Fi ne... Read more