Research suggests that exposure to blue light fools your body into thinking it’s daytime, making it harder to fall asleep if you work late on a Mac with a bright white (which has a lot of blue light) screen. To help, a macOS feature called Night Shift subtly changes the colors of the screen as the sun sets to reduce the amount of blue light hitting your eyes. Read More from “Working Late on Your Mac? Turn on Night Shift to Help Your Sleep”
How to Make Productive Use of Generative AI Chatbots and Artbots
Artificial intelligence dominates the tech news these days, but it’s hard to separate the hype from the reality. Every large company seems to have some major AI initiative in the works. Even Apple, which tends to stick to its own path, has started to tout features previously described as relying on “machine learning” as being “AI.” If you can get past the hype, AI has plenty of good uses now. Read More from “How to Make Productive Use of Generative AI Chatbots and Artbots”
Quickly Catalog Books or Other Named Items on Shelves
If you have trouble finding particular items across multiple shelves of books, labeled boxes, or anything else that’s clearly identified with a text name, take carefully composed photos that capture all the titles without glare. Later, you can search for any text in those photos to find them Read More from “Quickly Catalog Books or Other Named Items on Shelves”
Find Some Ham Amidst Your Email Spam
Spam filters work pretty well—99% of the messages in your spam mailbox are probably spam. But it’s frustrating to miss an important message that was caught by an overeager spam filter. Here’s an easy way to find many good messages, also known as “ham,” amidst all the spam. Read More from “Find Some Ham Amidst Your Email Spam”
Share 2FA Setup for Team Access to a Single Account
When your team or family shares access to a single account (such as for banking or social media, which seldom offer multi-user access), using two-factor authentication via SMS is awkward—whose phone receives the 2FA codes? Read More from “Share 2FA Setup for Team Access to a Single Account”
How to Disable Time Machine
Have you recently migrated to a new Mac while continuing to use your older Mac occasionally? If so, you might continue to backup your new Mac using Time Machine, but you might not need to backup your older Mac any longer. Here are instructions on how to disable Time Machine on a Mac running macOS 12 Monterey or newer. If your Mac is running an older version of the Mac operating system (macOS) see the section below.
Read More from “How to Disable Time Machine”Tame the Tangle! Quick Cable Management Tips
Take a moment and look behind your Mac. Do you see a tangle of cables? The main downside of a mess of cables is that it’s a cluster of chaos that attracts dust bunnies. However, it’s possible for power cables—especially when tightly bundled or looped—to emit electromagnetic interference that can disrupt or degrade the signal carried by nearby data or network cables. They can also heat up, which is generally best avoided. Read More from “Tame the Tangle! Quick Cable Management Tips”
At WWDC, Apple Unveils Apple Intelligence and Previews New OS Features
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote was a lightning-fast (even in the full 1:44-long video—or try the 3-minute recap) look at what Apple is bringing to the software side of the Apple experience in the next year. Although some past keynotes have introduced hardware like new Macs and the Vision Pro, this year’s keynote stuck to new operating system features before previewing a suite of AI features collected under the umbrella term “Apple Intelligence.” Read More from “At WWDC, Apple Unveils Apple Intelligence and Previews New OS Features”
Sorry, Apple Isn’t Going to Update the 27-inch iMac with Apple Silicon
Are you a 27-inch iMac owner wondering when Apple will release a new model with speedy Apple silicon? We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the answer seems to be an unequivocal “Never.” Read More from “Sorry, Apple Isn’t Going to Update the 27-inch iMac with Apple Silicon”
Monitor Recommendations
Would you like some guidance on selecting a new monitor? Clients often ask me to recommend a good monitor or tell them which monitor they should buy. These requests are actually surprisingly difficult for two reasons. First, there are numerous monitor manufacturers and each company makes a range of models so it’s tough to track the entire market. Second, people’s individual needs vary. Consequently, rather than recommend one or two particular monitors, I often start by outlining the range of monitor features to help people select an appropriate monitor for their needs.
Read More from “Monitor Recommendations”Select Non-Contiguous Text in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers 14
The latest versions of the Mac and iPad apps in Apple’s iWork suite—Pages 14, Keynote 14, and Numbers 14—have gained a helpful feature: non-contiguous text selection. By holding down the Command key, you can select chunks of text that aren’t next to each other. For example, imagine you want to make the first part of each item in a bullet list bold. Instead of bolding each one separately, hold down Command as you work to select all of them and then apply bold to the entire selection with a single command. Non-contiguous selection is particularly helpful when applying formatting, but you can also copy non-contiguously selected text or work with it in nearly any way you would interact with a contiguous text selection. (Note that while holding down Command, you can double-click to select words or triple-click to select paragraphs, just as you can normally without holding down Command.)
(Featured image by Adam Engst)
Social Media: A new feature in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers lets you select bits of text that aren’t next to each other so that you can, for example, format them or copy them all at once.
Display an Album of Photos on Your iPhone or iPad Lock Screen
A popular feature of iOS 16 was the Photo Shuffle option for customizing the iPhone Lock Screen. It used machine learning to select photos in four categories—People, Pets, Nature, and Cities—and rotated through them when you tapped, on lock, hourly, or daily. If you didn’t like the automatic selection, you could pick photos manually, but it was clumsy. In iOS 17 (and iPadOS 17, which also added customizable Lock Screens), you can now point the Lock Screen’s Photo Shuffle wallpaper at an album. Touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize, tap the blue ⨁ button to create a new wallpaper, select Photo Shuffle, select Album, choose the desired album from the pop-up menu, set a frequency, tap Use Album, and tap the Add button at the top. Then tap Set as Wallpaper Pair or Customize Home Screen to choose a different image for the Home Screen wallpaper. Read More from “Display an Album of Photos on Your iPhone or iPad Lock Screen”
Where Can You Control Automatic Smart Quotes and Dashes in macOS?
Most people like smart quotes and dashes, at least most of the time. Your Mac is probably set up to turn the single (‘) and double (“) hash marks and double hyphens (–) that you type into the apostrophes (’) and single smart quotes (‘’), double smart quotes (“”), and em dashes (—) used in professional publications. However, in some situations, like programming, smart quotes and dashes are problematic. Read More from “Where Can You Control Automatic Smart Quotes and Dashes in macOS?”
How to Display the Battery Percentage in Your Mac’s Menu Bar
By default, the battery icon in your Mac laptop’s menu bar shows how full your battery is. Clicking it reveals the exact percentage, but you can also set macOS to display the battery percentage next to the icon. The setting isn’t where you might expect in System Settings > Battery. Instead, you’ll find it in System Settings > Control Center, where you need to turn on both “Show in Menu Bar” and “Show Percentage.” Read More from “How to Display the Battery Percentage in Your Mac’s Menu Bar”
Apple’s iCloud Keychain Password Management Is All Many People Need
Apple’s iCloud Keychain Password Management Is All Many People Need
We constantly recommend using a password manager like 1Password, BitWarden, or Dashlane. But many people resist committing to yet another app or paying for yet another service. Isn’t Apple’s built-in iCloud Keychain password management good enough? Read More from “Apple’s iCloud Keychain Password Management Is All Many People Need”
Did You Know Most Mac Apps Keep Versions of Your Documents as You Work?
We all make mistakes, which is why Undo exists. Immediately choose Edit > Undo or press Command-Z to undo your last change. Most Mac apps support multiple levels of Undo, so you can keep pressing Command-Z to revert change after change. However, suppose you delete a table in your Pages document, but 30 minutes and many changes later, you decide you want it back. Undo won’t help because you want to keep all the other interim changes, and Time Machine backups may not help because a backup may not have occurred at the right time. Read More from “Did You Know Most Mac Apps Keep Versions of Your Documents as You Work?”
Apple Introduces New iPad Air, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard
After no new iPads throughout 2023, Apple has unveiled new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air and iPad Pro models, plus a more capable Apple Pencil Pro and a redesigned Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. The company also refined the iPad lineup by dropping the ninth-generation iPad and reducing the price of the tenth-generation iPad to $349. Read More from “Apple Introduces New iPad Air, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard”
Audit Your Trusted Device Lists for Greater Security
One of the ways companies protect critical account information is by remembering the devices you use to log in as “trusted devices” or “authorized devices.” Those logins will usually have been protected by two-factor authentication or another mechanism that guarantees the device is being used by you, its owner. Subsequent logins from those devices may be more convenient for you due to requiring only a username and password, and trusted devices may automatically receive two-factor authentication codes. That’s how Apple ensures you are who you say you are when you log in to your Apple ID on a previously unseen device. Read More from “Audit Your Trusted Device Lists for Greater Security”
Apple Podcasts Adds Transcripts
In iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, and macOS 14.4 Sonoma, Apple enhanced its Podcasts app to include transcripts of all podcasts in the Apple Podcasts catalog as long as they’re in English, French, German, or Spanish. Read More from “Apple Podcasts Adds Transcripts”
Tips for Working with Mac Display Resolutions
You can change the resolution of your Mac’s screen—how many pixels appear—to make text and graphics larger and easier to see or smaller to fit more content onscreen. In System Settings > Displays, Apple shows thumbnails for five likely possibilities. Read More from “Tips for Working with Mac Display Resolutions”