• 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 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
  • June 6, 2023

    Which Should You Use—a Mac, iPhone or iPad, or Web App?

    Apps are everywhere these days, but it can be hard to remember that many exist in multiple versions. You can often run the same app on a Mac, an iPhone or iPad, and in a Web browser, each of which has benefits. Generally speaking, Mac apps:
    • Have better-designed, more obvious interfaces that improve the user experience
    • Are easily switched to and managed among many oth... Read more
  • June 2, 2023

    Apple Is Shutting Down My Photo Stream—Switch to iCloud Photos

    Apple has quietly announced that it is shutting down the My Photo Stream service, the company’s first iCloud-based effort at helping users sync photos between devices. My Photo Stream had numerous limitations but was free and... Read more
  • May 25, 2023

    “Juice Jacking” Returns to the News but Still Hasn’t Happened

    Much has been made in the media about a recent FBI warning about “juice jacking,” the theoretical act of installing malware on or stealing data from an iPhone connected to a public charging station. Researc... Read more
  • March 2, 2023

    What’s the Difference between Removing and Deleting an App?

    There are many reasons you might want to get rid of apps from your iPhone or iPad. To begin, touch and hold on a blank spot on a Home Screen to enter “jiggle mode.” Then tap the ⊝ icon for any app to see the question about whether to delete the app entirely or merely remove it from the Home Screen. Delete the app if you don’t want to use it anymore or need to reclaim the space it occupies. (You... Read more
  • February 28, 2023

    Six Ways of Making It Easier to Browse Your Favorite Websites

    Everyone—or at least everyone reading this article—knows how to use a Web browser. But just because you can click links, search for websites, and type URLs doesn’t mean that you’re surfing the Web as smoothly and effectively as you could. We all have sites that we visit regularly—a local newspaper, perhaps, or a social media service that’s the only place to connect with far-flung family members... Read more
  • February 23, 2023

    The Amazingly Convenient Way to Scan Documents Using Your iPhone or iPad

    On occasion, we all need to scan a document—an invoice, a recipe, instructions from a book—but far more people have an iPhone or iPad than a hardware scanner. Luckily, Apple has built a scanning capability into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS for some years now. The next time you’re faced with a piece of paper that you need in digital form, follow the instructions below.

    Scan Directly with an iPhon... Read more

  • February 14, 2023

    It’s Time to Try Dictation in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16

    Apple has long provided a microphone button in the keyboard to invoke dictation on the iPhone and iPad. But, it wasn’t always easy to hit, and you had to switch back to the keyboard to fix the inevitable mistakes. (Apple’s dictation is a huge timesaver but far from perfect, particularly with homonyms and proper nouns.) With iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Apple made the microphone button larger and repos... Read more