I explain what matters in plain English, with practical steps you can use and recommendations based on my experience helping clients.
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In previous versions of iOS, a scroll bar would appear on the right edge of the screen while you were swiping through a long Web page, email message, or document. But the scroller was merely an indicator of where in the page you were and how much content there was (the bigger the scroller, the less
A small but welcome new feature of iOS 13 is Driving ETA, which helps you share your estimated time of arrival with a contact whenever you’re navigating with the Maps app. To use Driving ETA, start navigating to a destination in Maps, tap Share ETA at the bottom of the screen, and pick the person wi
Apple likes to keep product names simple, but that’s not always helpful. For instance, if you want to add RAM to your Mac or find out if a new OS is compatible, it’s not good enough to know that it’s an iMac. You’ll need to know that it’s a 27-inch iMac with Retina display from late 2014. To find th
Do you use 3D Touch on your iPhone? From 2015 through 2018, every iPhone from the iPhone 6s through the iPhone XS supported 3D Touch, other than the iPhone SE and iPhone XR. With 3D Touch, you could (sometimes) press a control, and then press a little harder to make additional options appear. But be
Let’s be honest—text editing in iOS has never been anywhere near as good as it is on the Mac. We may be more accustomed to our mice and keyboards, but the Multi-Touch interface has always been clumsy when it comes to text. Apple keeps trying to improve iOS’s text editing features, and iOS 13 (and iP
Traditionally, extended keyboards with the numeric pad on the side come with a Forward Delete key that, when you press it, deletes characters to the right ⇨ of the text cursor, unlike the main Delete key, which deletes to the left ⇦ of the text cursor (known as "backspace" on PC keyboa
Have you wondered what you can do with the Wallet app on your iPhone? Although it started out life called Passbook, Apple soon realized that the only sensible name was Wallet. That’s because it stores digital versions of roughly the same sort of things you might put in a physical wallet: credit and
It’s extremely uncommon for a Mac to freeze or crash these days, but it can happen. What should you do if your Mac locks up and becomes completely unresponsive to the mouse and keyboard? The trick is to press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off, which can take about 10 seconds. Don't l
“Winter Wonderland” may be a great song to listen to when the snow flies, but if you’re sweltering in the summer heat, having it pop up while iTunes is shuffling through your music feels wrong. Happily, there’s a way to prevent holiday music from playing out of season—this trick is also useful for k
An ever-increasing number of Web sites boost their security via two-factor authentication (2FA), which requires you to type in a short numeric code to complete a login after entering your username and password. It’s a big win because that code is generated on the fly and is good for only a short tim
Most Mac users probably think of searching on the Mac in relation to finding files on their drives. That may be the most common use of Apple’s Spotlight search technology, but over the years, Apple has continually enhanced Spotlight’s capabilities, turning it into a veritable Swiss Army Knife that y
We’ve all had it happen. “Can I use your Mac for a minute to check my email?” The answer can be “Yes,” but to keep people from poking around on your Mac or from inadvertently changing your settings, have your visitor log in as Guest. To enable the Guest account, go to the Apple menu > System Pref
By default, Apple populates your Mac’s Dock with all sorts of apps and arranges them in a particular order. But there’s no rhyme or reason to the defaults, and you shouldn’t be afraid to add, remove, and rearrange apps on your Dock to your liking. The icons are there for you, so if they don't meet y
One of the big no-nos with passwords is sending them to other people as plain text in an email or a text message conversation. You presumably trust your recipient with the password, but what if their email was hacked or phone stolen or someone in between intercepted it? Instead, always use a site
You know how to use the Camera app on your iPhone or iPad to take a video, but did you know that you can also record a video of what happens on the screen of your device? That’s useful if you’re trying to explain the steps of some technical process to a friend or show a tech support rep what’s going
Most iOS apps and many Web sites make phone numbers “hot” so you can tap them to call. But it’s not uncommon to run across a number that’s formatted oddly or broken across a line of text such that it can’t be recognized. Just because iOS can’t recognize it doesn’t mean you have to memorize the numbe
If you’re using a Mid-2015 15-inch MacBook Pro— Apple has started a recall program to replace batteries that could explode and catch on fire. To find out if your MacBook Pro is affected, enter its serial number into Apple’s recall page . If it is included in the recall, Apple recommends you shut i
We've all been there–you've had a credit card number compromised or you accidentally went over your limit. One of the hassles, when this happens, is that your recurring payments such as those to Apple may not go through. This might not be a huge deal if you're just purchasing a song from the iTunes
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