We’re taking a brief break from helping you become more productive to recommend a feature that could spark moments of joy for Apple Watch users. In watchOS 11, the new Photos watch face can display a photo from a shuffled set of images each time you raise your wrist (or tap the screen). Like the Lock Screen customization feature on …
The devastating losses caused by the Los Angeles wildfires have underscored the need to protect data from catastrophic events. A traditional offsite backup—periodically moving a hard drive to another location—might not have sufficed in areas affected by wildfires, where many structures were destroyed. An online backup using a service like Backblaze or CrashPlan is often a better solution, although it …
One of the flashiest features of macOS 15 Sequoia and iOS 18 is iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to use your iPhone in a window on your Mac. You might think, “But I can just pull my iPhone out of my pocket if I need to use it!” While that may be true, not everyone has their iPhone so readily …
Cloud-based email services such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 dominate the market for organizational email for good reason. Dealing with the constant onslaught of spam and online attacks is hard, as those traumatized by running mail servers in the “good old days” can attest. While email service providers excel at their primary functions of sending, receiving, and storing emails, …
Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence in October 2024 and expanded its extensive collection of AI-powered features with its December updates. The company’s January 2025 releases of macOS 15.3 Sequoia, iOS 18.3, and iPadOS 18.3 enhanced the feature set in several notable ways. Remember, Apple Intelligence features operate only on a Mac with Apple silicon, an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone …
Apple provides a handy ecosystem-wide feature that replaces a typed abbreviation—say “eml”—with text you specify, like your email address. (Seriously, copy that one so you don’t have to type your email address repeatedly.) These automatic text replacements sync via iCloud so you can use them on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Find them on the Mac in System Settings > …
In macOS 15.2 Sequoia, Apple added the option to display the current weather conditions in the menu bar but hid the switch deep in the bowels of System Settings. To turn this option on, open System Settings > Control Center, scroll to the bottom, and in the Menu Bar Only section, for Weather, choose Show in Menu Bar. A new …
By default, Microsoft Office apps—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—try to save files on Microsoft OneDrive as a way of promoting the company’s cloud storage. If that’s undesirable, you can easily keep your files locally on your Mac or in a different cloud storage location. In the Save dialog, click the On My Mac button to switch to a standard Save dialog …
An unheralded feature in iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 helps you manage the default apps on your iPhone and iPad. A default app is one that opens automatically for a particular function, like opening a Web link or inserting a saved password. Previously, the only way to change a default app was within the settings for that app, but now …
The first set of Apple Intelligence features appeared in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS in October. Apple has now debuted the second set in the December releases of macOS 15.2 Sequoia, iOS 18.2, and iPadOS 18.2. Apple still considers them to be in beta, which is a nice way of saying that they may not work perfectly. However, they usually do …
