• August 29, 2023

    Keep Your Apple Devices Cool in the Summer Heat

    June 2023 was the hottest month on record for the planet, at least until July 2023. Among the many ill effects of such heat are what it does to iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and other digital devices. Excessive heat shortens the overall lifespan of lithium-ion batteries and increases the likelihood of both transient errors and hardware failures—iPhones warn you when they’re getting too h... Read more
  • August 22, 2023

    How to Protect Your Child’s Hearing from Too-Loud Headphone Audio

    Loud sounds are harmful to everyone, and many parents worry that their children are at risk for hearing loss due to too-loud headphone audio from iPhones and iPads. To lower the likelihood of this happening, Apple provides a Reduce Loud Sounds option in Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Headphone Safety for both iOS and iPadOS. Select it and set a limit, with 80–85 decibels generally cons... Read more
  • August 17, 2023

    Look Up Apple Device Details in Mactracker

    It’s difficult for even those who work with Apple devices daily to remember all the details. What processors were available with the 2020 iMac? What resolutions did the Apple Thunderbolt Display support? What are the differences between the fifth and sixth generations of the iPad mini? To find the answers to these and many other questions quickly, turn to Ian Page’s free Read more
  • August 15, 2023

    Use the Hidden Album in Photos to Hide Private Images

    We’ve recently heard from people who have been embarrassed when they gave their iPhone to someone to swipe through some innocuous photos of a vacation, only to have the person swipe too far and end up at some NSFW (not safe for work) images. Ouch. Embarrassment might be low on the list of problems such photos could cause. It’s not hard to imagine a male supervisor innocently sharing photos w... Read more
  • August 3, 2023

    Legitimately Worried That You’re Being Targeted Online? Try Lockdown Mode

    Most people fall into one of two extremes when it comes to device security. Many believe they’re not interesting enough to be targeted by online attackers and thus don’t take sensible precautions, like making sure every website account is protected with a strong, unique password. (Most attacks these days are bots, so whether you’re interesting is irrelevant.) Then there are those who see a boge... Read more
  • August 1, 2023

    Web Workers of the World, Give Arc a Try

    Although Web browsers have added productivity features over the years, most have not been overhauled to support modern usage patterns. We have bulging bookmarks bars, tabs by the trillions, and inefficient habits like using searches to load even regularly used websites. Arc, an innovative new Web browser for the Mac from The Browser ... Read more
  • July 27, 2023

    Adjust AirPods Options in the Settings App

    If you sometimes have trouble configuring your AirPods, here’s the trick. The AirPods settings screen is available only when the AirPods are connected to your iPhone, so you must open their case or put them in your ears. Once you do that, a new item with the name of the AirPods appears at the top of the Settings app. Tap it to switch between Noise Cancellation and Transparency, configure... Read more
  • July 25, 2023

    AirNow and Paku: Two Helpful Apps for Monitoring Air Quality

    Smoke from wildfires is causing significant air quality problems for much of Canada and the US. It’s important to check the Air Quality Index (AQI) before spending a long time outside, and that’s especially true for sensitive populations (children, the elderly, anyone with asthma or other breathing issues) and for those exercising outdoors. Although numerous weather apps report air quality, the... Read more
  • July 13, 2023

    The Hardware You’ll Need to Run Apple’s 2023 Operating Systems

    At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June, the company unveiled the upcoming versions of its operating systems: macOS 14 Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17. They won’t be available until September or October of 2023, and even once they ship, we recommend waiting a few weeks before upgrading your smaller Apple devices and holding off on macOS upgrades for a couple of mont... Read more
  • June 20, 2023

    Avoid Confusion by Setting iPhone Password Autofill to Only One App

    Let’s say you use 1Password (or another third-party password manager) on an iPhone or iPad. When that’s the case, it’s easy to end up in a situation where your device will present passwords from both 1Password and iCloud Keychain, possibly along with another app. That won’t break anything, but as you can see in the screenshot below, dueling password managers can be confusing, particularly if on... Read more