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What’s That Little Orange Dot by Control Center in macOS 12 Monterey?
Have you noticed a little orange dot next to the icon for Control Center on the menu bar in macOS 12 Monterey? (And if not, you can’t miss it now.) Apple added that dot to alert you that something is using the Mac’s microphone to listen to the room. Click the Control Center icon to see which apps are using the mic. In nearly all situations, it will be entirely innocuous: Siri needs to listen fo... Read more -
Extend Your Battery Life in macOS 12 Monterey with Low Power Mode
We’ve become accustomed to our iPhones and iPads switching into Low Power Mode to preserve battery life, and you can enable it manually if you want to reduce power usage for a day. New in macOS 12 Monterey for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is a similar feature, though you must enable it manually. Open System Preferences > Battery, click Battery in the sidebar, and select Low Power Mode. It... Read more -
You Can Now Upgrade to macOS 12 Monterey When You’re Ready
When it comes to upgrading to a new version of macOS, we err on the side of caution, at least in our recommendations. (We often install even beta releases on secondary machines for testing purposes.) Upgrading is easy, but if you upgrade too soon, the new version of macOS could render favorite apps inoperable, create workflow interruptions, and have other negative consequences. On the other han... Read more -
Change Your Pointer Color in macOS 12 Monterey
Some people find it hard to find the mouse pointer at times, particularly on a large screen or when working in Dark Mode or in apps with dark interfaces. You’ve long been able to increase the size of the pointer generally and also zoom it temporarily by shaking it, but in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple now lets you change the color of the pointer. That could be a boon to those who have trouble seeing... Read more -
Giving Away a Mac Running macOS 12 Monterey? Try Erase All Content and Settings
Before macOS 12 Monterey, if you wanted to sell, trade in, or give away your Mac, you had to boot into Recovery, erase the internal drive with Disk Utility, and reinstall macOS to ensure that the new owner would get a fresh start and couldn’t see any of your data. In Monterey, Apple has made the process much easier for newer Macs that use Apple silicon or that are Intel-based with a T2 security... Read more -
Live Text Digitizes Text in Photos in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey
The most magical feature of Apple’s latest crop of operating systems—iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey—may be Live Text. You’re probably familiar with the concept of optical character recognition (OCR), which turns all the text on a scanned page into normal text you can select, copy, and edit. Live Text does exactly that in Photos, Safari, and the Camera app, plus lets you search ... Read more -
Live Text Digitizes Text in Photos in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey
The most magical feature of Apple’s latest crop of operating systems—iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey—may be Live Text. You’re probably familiar with the concept of optical character recognition (OCR), which turns all the text on a scanned page into normal text you can select, copy, and edit. Live Text does exactly that in Photos, Safari, and the Camera app, plus lets you search ... Read more -
When Should You Upgrade to macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15?
September is here, which means that Apple will soon start releasing major upgrades for all its operating systems. Apple previewed these releases at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and many people have been testing the public betas since. Once Apple judges macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15 to be ready for prime time, the question arises—when should you ins... Read more