Be Careful When Offloading iPhone Apps

Posted on by Tim Hannon in iOS and iPhone/iPad Apps
AI-generated image of a person holding an iPhone in their left hand with a screen full of apps showing. just ahead of the iPhone appear to be a small handful of apps "flying" off the screen.

Automatic offloading of seldom-used apps can be a good strategy for recovering space on an iPhone whose storage is almost full, and iOS can do this for you in Settings > Apps > App Store > Offload Unused Apps. When you open an app that was offloaded, iOS will re-download it from the App Store so you can use it—assuming you have Internet access. But what if you have little or no connectivity when you need an offloaded app? For instance, if you have a New York State Parks Empire Pass, you might find yourself unable to use it if the necessary NY State Parks Explorer app has been offloaded and connectivity is weak at the park. We can also imagine app offloading causing problems if you need to use a local transit app after an international flight but haven’t yet arranged local cellular service. If you’re concerned about this possibility, disable Offload Unused Apps and make sure to download any that have been offloaded already.

(Featured image generated by Adam Engst with ChatGPT)

WhatCable Reports on Your USB-C Cables

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Computer Basics
A bunch of plugs of USB Type-C, to carry audio, video, and other data, e.g., to connect to monitors or external drives

We’ve all ended up with a collection of random USB-C cables that arrived with devices, were purchased while traveling, or were left by visitors. But you can’t look at a cable to determine its data speed, how much power it can carry, or whether it’s hampering display quality. You could buy a hardware tester, but for most people, the free WhatCable is all you need. Just launch it and plug in a cable to learn what the cable can do and whether it might be causing performance or charging problems. If you need even more information, the £9.99 WhatCable Pro lets you name individual cables, troubleshoot flaky cables, and see what each port, cable, dock, adapter, and device supports and what was actually negotiated. Read More from “WhatCable Reports on Your USB-C Cables”

Don’t Delay Mac Purchases to the Last Minute

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Hardware, Macintosh
a white guy in a black shirt sitting at his desk looking forlorn. there's an imaginary Mac laptop open in front of him, but no actual laptop. the whiteboard on the wall has a check list of onboarding procedures and every item except the last one, MacBook Air, is checked.

We’ve become accustomed to being able to get nearly anything we want—including Macs—overnight, or at least within a couple of days. Unfortunately, surging demand from AI data centers has created a global memory shortage that’s squeezing the consumer electronics industry. As a result, we’re seeing both higher Mac prices and significantly longer delivery times as Apple competes for a limited supply of chips. Read More from “Don’t Delay Mac Purchases to the Last Minute”

Why You Should Use a Password Manager

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Passwords, Security/Privacy
Password management

If you want to secure your online accounts, a password manager is the best way to do this. Using a password manager offers the following advantages:

  • It speeds up signing-in to a website by auto-filling your username and password.
  • It offers to save your username and password when you create a new account.
  • It helps you break bad habits such as reusing passwords, using easily guessed passwords, or using variations of a password.
  • It can offer long and random, but memorably unique passwords for each of your accounts.
  • It syncs your passwords between your various devices so the password you need is always at your fingertips.
  • It audits your passwords and notifies you of compromised passwords, weak passwords, and re-used passwords.
  • It gives you a way to securely share passwords with family members or colleagues.
Read More from “Why You Should Use a Password Manager”

Prepare for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS OS 27 by Updating to 26.6

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Macintosh, Security/Privacy
AI technology power search engine button optimization. Digital data command prompt for article automatic generator illustration concept.

Apple released macOS 26.6 Tahoe, iOS 26.6, and iPadOS 26.6 with a huge number of fixes for security vulnerabilities. However, the release notes for each also include an unusual comment along the lines of “optimizes the Spotlight index in preparation for macOS 27.” At WWDC, Apple promised a rearchitected Spotlight search engine that would be faster and more reliable, so this optimization is likely designed to reduce the time that Spotlight spends rebuilding its index (and thus degrading system performance) after the forthcoming major upgrade. We’ll see how well it works, but for now, consider Spotlight optimization another reason to update to the 26.6 versions using Software Update before you make the jump to the 27 versions later this year.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Pakpoom Makpan)

Downloading older versions of macOS

Posted on by Jim Emery in Computer Basics
circles of each macOS version forming a U shape with an open Mac laptop inside the U. text at the top reads: macOS. Multiple versions. One seamless experience."

Apple updates the Mac operating system on a yearly basis.  In years past, it was not always easy to find installers for previous versions of macOS. Today, however, it is quite simple to download older version of the macOS whether through third party applications or from Apple itself.

Apple’s website has a page on how to download and install macOS. This page contains links for operating systems as far back as macOS High Sierra (10.13) using the Mac App Store. For versions of the Mac operating system from macOS Sierra (10.12) back to macOS Lion (10.7), web links are provided. The page also contains instructions on downloading macOS using the Terminal, creating and using bootable installers and checking compatibility of Mac computers with the Mac operating system.

If you want to get more granular and download not only older versions of the macOS but also particular updates, a Mac application called Mist makes this straightforward. OSXDaily has a page with instructions on downloading and using Mist.

If you are searching for versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.7, you are entering the world of vintage computing. Mac OS X Lion (10.7) was the first version of the Mac operating system released for electronic download. Versions prior to 10.7 were released on CD-ROM or floppy disks.  

Apple officially supports the three most recent versions of the Mac operating system. This means that security updates are still released for these versions. Versions of macOS older than this no longer receive updates including security updates. With the proliferation of online threats, one should not use unsupported versions of the macOS for anything where privacy and security is a concern.

The Need To Be Proactive

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Backup, Computer Basics, Hardware, iPhone and iPad, Macintosh, Maintenance, Passwords, Security/Privacy, Time Machine, Virus/Malware
Be Proactive

If you know that a snow storm is approaching your home, do you prepare? Perhaps you stock up on some extra food, test your flashlight or your generator. Do you need to prepare? No, but you’ve likely learned that it’s better to prepare than to pay the price of running low on milk, bread, batteries, or other household staples. We should all adopt a similar stance when it comes to managing our technology.

Read More from “The Need To Be Proactive”

Never Miss a Meeting Again with In Your Face

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Calendar Syncing and Sharing, Macintosh
a person sitting at an open Mac laptop and holding an iPhone. both screens are alarms to remind the person to go to their meeting.

If you are often late to or miss meetings because Apple’s notifications are too easy to ignore, we recommend trying the In Your Face app. Available for the Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, In Your Face displays unmissable full-screen alerts and plays audible alarms for calendar events and timed reminders. Unlike standard notifications that quietly vanish or sit unnoticed in your pocket, these alerts take over your screen and require interaction to dismiss—you can acknowledge, snooze, or join a video call directly from the alert. In Your Face automatically detects meeting links from 30 video conferencing services, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. You can filter which calendars and reminder lists trigger alerts, so you’re interrupted only for events that matter. But be careful with meeting start times since mistakenly setting an early lunch meeting for 11:45 PM could cause your iPhone to wake you up. In Your Face offers a free trial, with subscriptions starting at $3.99 per month or $24.99 per year, and a one-time license for $69. Read More from “Never Miss a Meeting Again with In Your Face”

Drag Documents to Apps in the macOS App Switcher

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Macintosh
across the top, "drag. switch. drop. done." below is an illustration of how to drag a document onto an app to open it in the app switcher

You undoubtedly know about pressing Command-Tab to bring up the macOS App Switcher and mousing to the app you want to switch to. Keyboard jockeys probably even know to keep holding Command down while pressing Tab or right-arrow to cycle to the right (press Shift-Tab, the grave accent/tilde key, or left-arrow to cycle to the left), before releasing the Command key to switch. But did you know you can start dragging something—say a document from the Finder—with your right hand, press Command-Tab with your left hand, and then drop the document on an app in the App Switcher to open it? Go ahead, give it a try! Read More from “Drag Documents to Apps in the macOS App Switcher”

Try Swipe Typing with QuickPath on the iPhone

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Computer Basics
artistic drawing of a finger swiping across a keyboard on the bottom half of an iPhone. there are tiles along the left side that spell out QuickPath and on the right at the top is QuickPath in a handwriting font

If you’ve had trouble moving from hunt-and-peck typing on the iPhone to the double-thumb typing approach many people prefer, consider QuickPath, better known as swipe typing. QuickPath isn’t new, but many people have never tried it seriously. With swipe typing, you put your finger down on the first letter of the desired word—say “giraffe”—and then drag it from the G to each subsequent letter in order. Although QuickPath’s detection code isn’t perfect, it does surprisingly well at recognizing the word you want most of the time. If QuickPath gets the word wrong, immediately tap the Delete key to remove the entire word and either try again (if you missed the right letters) or type it normally (if it’s an unusual word iOS doesn’t know). Learning to swipe type fluidly takes a little while, but if you’re unhappy with how well you type on the iPhone now, it’s worth trying. Read More from “Try Swipe Typing with QuickPath on the iPhone”

Control Center Is Improved—and Highly Customizable—in macOS 26 Tahoe

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Macintosh
an open Mac laptop sitting on a desk with a coffee cup to the right and a pencil cup to the left. there is a bookcase in the background. on the screen is Control Center and the settings for it.

Control Center debuted on the iPhone over a decade ago in iOS 7 and made its way to the Mac in 2020 with macOS 11 Big Sur. However, through macOS 15 Sequoia, Mac users who wanted to tweak Control Center for their needs were limited to turning specific controls on or off. With macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple completely overhauled Control Center, enabling users to remove, rearrange, and add controls, including new ones from independent developers.

If you mostly ignore Control Center on your Mac, it’s worth another look in Tahoe. The big win of Control Center is that it provides quick access to numerous controls without occupying valuable space in the menu bar, a limitation that MacBook users regularly encounter. Now that you can personalize Control Center, it’s much more useful than before.

Before we explain how to customize Control Center, let’s look at the basics. Read More from “Control Center Is Improved—and Highly Customizable—in macOS 26 Tahoe”

Understanding AI Today: No Longer Just a Chatbot

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Security/Privacy
digitally created image with a bunch of bluish icons. in the center an icon with a head and the letters AI inside the head is shown focus with a finger pointing to the icon as if to tap it.

When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, using it was simple: you typed a prompt, and it generated text in response. That text came from a statistical model trained on data available at the time. If you asked ChatGPT about anything that had happened more recently, it either couldn’t help or would confidently make stuff up.

The chat interface that today’s AI systems still rely on has become more of a control panel than the system itself. What happens after you press Return may involve Web searches, file analysis, code execution, connected accounts, and even digital-world actions—all orchestrated behind the scenes. You need to understand what’s happening behind the chat box to evaluate the accuracy, quality, and utility of the answers that appear there. Read More from “Understanding AI Today: No Longer Just a Chatbot”

How to Share Sensitive Information Securely over the Internet

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Security/Privacy
image of three laptops and an iPad laying around a round table. There are disembodied hands on every device representing the devices being used. there is an overlay of digitally created padlocks across the whole image

At some point, most of our communications shifted from analog to digital: letters and phone calls became emails, texts, and video calls. With analog methods, we could generally assume that our private communications would remain private. Few people were going to steam open a letter or wiretap a phone line. The Internet changed that—digital communications, if not properly protected, can be intercepted in bulk far more easily.

Not all everyday communications require strict privacy. Most of us prefer privacy, of course—few people want their dinner plans published for the world to see—but there are typically no consequences of exposure greater than mild embarrassment (McDonald’s again?). But even ordinary people regularly need to share information that could damage their relationships, finances, or careers if it fell into the wrong hands. Read More from “How to Share Sensitive Information Securely over the Internet”

Share Your Location Temporarily While Traveling

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Computer Basics
iPad showing a map of directions from Chicago to Detroit.

The next time you’re flying, driving, or biking to visit an iPhone-using friend or relative, try sharing your location temporarily so they can check in on your progress without constant “where are you now?” texts. In iOS 17 and later, open a Messages conversation with that person, tap the ⊕ button to the left of the message entry field, and tap Location. In the location-sharing control that appears, tap the Share button, then choose Until End of Day or For One Hour. You can also tap the Request button to ask the recipient to share their location with you. If you pick Indefinitely for the sharing duration and later wish to revoke it, open the Find My app, tap the People list, select the person, and tap Stop Sharing My Location. Read More from “Share Your Location Temporarily While Traveling”

Apple Raises Prices on Macs and iPads, but not iPhones or Apple Watches… Yet

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Apple Watch, Macintosh
AI generated image showing Vision Pro, Mac laptop, iPad, and AppleTV with their price increase percentages listed above them.

There’s no way to put a positive spin on this: Apple has raised prices across most of its product lineup, with increases averaging 20% on Macs, iPads, HomePods, the Apple TV, and even the Vision Pro. The iPhone and Apple Watch remain unaffected… for now.

The price hikes took effect on June 25. In a statement to the press, Apple blamed the AI industry’s insatiable appetite for memory chips, which has caused prices for memory and storage to increase up to sixfold: Read More from “Apple Raises Prices on Macs and iPads, but not iPhones or Apple Watches… Yet”

When Should You Upgrade Your Apple Devices?

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Apple Watch, Hardware, Macintosh
AI generated image of 4 Apple devices grayed out on the left and in full color on the right, indicating it's time to replace the old devices.

The simple answer to “When should you upgrade?” is when your device no longer does what you need, or when you want something new. But that’s not helpful if you’re trying to make an informed decision—is there a sweet spot when it makes more sense to upgrade rather than squeeze another year out of your current device?

The answer is yes, and the specifics depend on the type of device, whether it’s used for work or personal tasks, and how central it is to your daily life. Here’s our advice, including recommended timeframes and the warning signs that suggest it’s time to upgrade. Read More from “When Should You Upgrade Your Apple Devices?”

Use Fake Contacts to Improve Dictation Accuracy

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Macintosh
woman standing outdoors speaking into her phone

Apple’s Dictation feature is a great way to avoid slow typing on the iPhone and iPad, and it can be welcome on the Mac as well. But it struggles with proper nouns—it guesses wildly at unfamiliar names and often fails to capitalize common words that are part of a name (so you get “New York Public library”). Apple doesn’t provide a user-editable dictionary, but there’s a backdoor solution: create entries in Contacts. When you create a fake contact for a troublesome word or phrase, Dictation learns to recognize it correctly across all your Apple devices. Put the word or phrase in the First Name field and add an emoji like 🙉 in the Last Name field so these fake contacts sort to the bottom of your Contacts list and don’t clutter the display. For stubborn words, you may need to train Dictation by dictating a few practice sentences in Notes and correcting mistakes when iOS offers alternatives. This trick works for place names, organization names, technical terms, or any word that Dictation consistently gets wrong. Read More from “Use Fake Contacts to Improve Dictation Accuracy”

Not Sure If You’re Presentable for a Video Call? Try Hand Mirror

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Macintosh
woman with her hair up in a bun is reclining in a chair holding her phone in one hand and a mirror in the other. She's looking into the mirror with a surprised look on her face

Since the pandemic, video calls have become a fact of life for many of us, so much so that it’s now possible to sit down for a meeting without thinking about whether you’ve changed out of your pajamas or brushed your hair. (No judgment; we’ve all done it.) To ensure that you’re presentable before you connect, use the Mac app Hand Mirror. It adds an icon to your menu bar that, when clicked, shows you what your webcam sees. Hand Mirror is free, but you can pay $6.99 for Hand Mirror Plus, which adds features like snapshots, a mic check, quick access to reaction icons, different window types, and more. Read More from “Not Sure If You’re Presentable for a Video Call? Try Hand Mirror”