The National Parks Foundation is putting up money to help indigenous youth restore a sacred tribal spot in California’s Yosemite National Park, Apple said Thursday. The iPhone-maker helps fund the foundation through Apple Pay sales.
macOS wallpaper quest sends photo crew on epic road trip
Every day, Mac users face their screens and see a breath-taking photo of a natural California landmark.
One YouTuber set out with friends to re-create the photographs in Apple’s macOS wallpapers during a week-long road trip.
Apple Pay promo gives America’s National Parks a boost
America’s National Parks are getting a big boost from Apple during the month of July in the form of a new campaign aimed at raising awareness to preserve the classic landscapes.
Apple revealed today that it is starting a new Apple Pay promotion aimed at making it easier for anyone to help preserve the country’s national parks. Now whenever you use Apple Pay at any of Apple’s online or physical retail locations the iPhone-maker will donate $1 to the National Park Foundation.
Safari 10 puts another nail in Flash’s coffin
Apple’s next Safari update will arrive with new ways to handle legacy plugins like Adobe Flash to provide users with a better browsing experience, improved performance, and greater battery life.
Safari 10 will also use the speedier and more stable HTML5 over Flash whenever possible.
Microsoft can’t even give away Windows 10
I like Windows 10. There, I said it. But unfortunately for Microsoft, millions of others have no interest in it.
Despite being free for almost a year, the company’s latest upgrade hasn’t been able to put any significant dent in Windows 7’s user base. It has only just overtaken the universally despised Windows 8.1 release.
OS X 10.10.5 beta is now available to public testers
Two days after seeding the latest OS X Yosemite beta to developers, Apple has now made OS X 10.10.5 beta 1 available to all public beta testers.
Apple’s OS X naming strategy turned around business for Yosemite National Park
If you ever want to find some evidence of just how significant Apple is these days, take a look at how it can impact upon seemingly unrelated areas — like, say, tourism.
According to a new report, following Apple’s decision to name last year’s OS X version after Yosemite national park, interest in the beloved American landmark skyrocketed.
OS X 10.10.4 beta 5 is now available to developers and public testers
Apple just unveiled the future of OS X with the developer preview of El Capitan, but it’s still trying to squash some bugs in El Yosemite with the fifth beta of OS X 10.10.4.
Take a peek at the new version of OS X, El Capitan
Named after a giant granite cliff in Yosemite National Park, Apple’s latest version of OS X looks pretty good, with new ways to manage windows and better performance. Most importantly, it’s now easy to mute annoying audio in open browser windows!
Unveiled during the Monday morning keynote at Apple’s big WWDC programmers’ conference, Apple’s OS X version 10.11 is called “El Capitan.” It will be available to the public as a beta in July and a final release in the fall.
OS X El Capitan looks pretty nifty. It has several new window management features — including a split-screen mode — that make it productivity nirvana!
Here’s a recap of everything that was shown off Monday.
iMac graphics update fixes frustrating JPEG crashes
Apple has rolled out a new update for the iMac that promises to fix a Yosemite bug that can cause the all-in-one to freeze up when opening large JPEG files.
How to avoid going full screen in OS X Yosemite
As of OS X Yosemite, the little green button in the upper left-hand corner of all your apps and windows has recently undergone a change in function. Instead of maximizing or re-sizing the windows, as in all previous versions of OS X, now the green button will take your window or app full screen.
If you’re tired of going full screen every time you click the green button, here’s how to avoid the screen take over.
Messages master class: How to set up Continuity in iOS 8 and Yosemite
The new messaging capabilities built into OS X Yosemite make your Mac even more useful for day-to-day communication. With this new set of features (part of Continuity), you can send SMS text messages and make phone calls from your Mac. Than can be super-helpful if you’re forgetful and leave your iPhone in another room.
It doesn’t take too long to set it all up; in fact, we’re going to show you how to set up Continuity in less than two and a half minutes! Check it all out in our video below.
Apple seeds fourth OS X 10.10.3 beta to developers and public
Apple has released the fourth beta of OS X 10.10.3 to both developers and the public this morning, less than a week after the company seeded the third beta.
The new beta is pretty much identical to the third beta released last week, but adds a fix for the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air that prevented it from working with those machines previously.
Apple seeds first public beta of Photos app with OS X 10.10.3
If you’re anxious to try, Photos, the successor to both iPhoto and Aperture, is now available as a public beta for the first time ever.
Apple released a beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 that includes the first early access to the new Photos app on OS X. The public beta is available now to all registered public beta testers.
Other new additions included in OS X 10.10.3 include a new single-pane emoji scroller, racially diverse emoji, and two-factor authentication for Google. You can download it through the Mac App Store.
Hands on with OS X’s new Photos app
Apple’s upcoming Photos app will give Mac users powerful new tools to manage, tweak and share their favorite images. While it won’t be released until later this year, we got a chance to play around with the beta version now available to developers, and we found it to be an easy-to-use and streamlined piece of software.
For a detailed and visual look at this new iOS-influenced app, check out the video below for a quick run through some of Photos’ hottest new features.
Apple paves way for racially diverse emoji in OS X 10.10.3 beta
Apple’s promise to bring more racially diverse emojis to iOS and OS X has been nearly a year in the making, but in yesterday’s OS X 10.10.3 beta the company snuck in some code that finally paves the way for the emojis of the future.
While everyone else was playing with the new Photos beta, Sachin Patel noticed Apple made some big changes to the “Emoji & Symbols” palette that can be accessed from the Edit menu in most apps or by pressing Control + Command + Space. Along with renaming the Special Characters menu option Apple also added a new drop down arrow on all the human emojis that lets you select between five different skin tones.
On this week’s CultCast: Apple’s best quarter ever and Indiana Jones … rebooted?
This week: Apple has its best quarter ever, Apple Watch is coming in April and the best parts of the iOS 8.1.3 and Yosemite 10.10.2 updates. Plus, Disney considers a reboot of the beloved Indiana Jones movies, and then things really go off the rails in Facts of Life, a new game where we mix real facts with fake ones, then guess which is which!
Our thanks to Varidesk for supporting this episode. With models starting at just $275, Varidesk is a high-quality, inexpensive way to get started with a standing desk. And you should absolutely check them out, because moving to a standing desk will change your life.
Read on for full show notes.
Photos for Mac might be delayed for a while
Let’s face it: iPhoto sucks. It’s slow. It’s buggy. It’s hopelessly burdened by skeuomorphic elements. It’s just behind the times.
That’s why we were excited when Apple said last year it would phase out iPhoto for a brand new app with a feature set somewhere between iPhoto and Aperture. The successor app was supposed to be available in early 2015, but it appears that Photos for Mac has been delayed.
Maximize your Mac’s file system with Smart Folders
A longtime Cult of Mac reader wrote in with a question about some odd-looking folders she sees on her Mac.
“The ‘All Pictures’ folder has a sprocket looking icon,” she writes. “Same with All PDF documents and Recently Changed documents.
Are these files located elsewhere and if I deleted a file from one of the above folders does it remove it from all my files? Don’t understand the purpose of these.”
Excellent question, for sure. Let’s take a look at what these folders are, and how to use them to their full potential.
Google Chrome for iOS gets a Material Design makeover with Handoff support
Google’s Material Design makeover isn’t just for those running the latest version of Android; the search giant is also bringing it to its slew of popular iOS apps as well. Chrome is the latest to get the fancy redesign, and it comes with Handoff support and further improvements for iOS 8.
How to build a gaming Hackintosh on the cheap: software
My mission to build a powerful gaming Hackintosh for $650 — $50 less than Apple’s midrange Mac mini — is almost complete.
In Part 1 of this guide, I covered the components I purchased for my build and recommended extras and alternatives for those with different budgets.
In Part 2, I walked you through assembly of the screaming machine.
Now it’s time to install the software.
Believe it or not, building your Hackintosh is the easy bit; getting OS X to run on a machine it was never designed for is the real challenge.
But with time, patience and a little bit (OK, plenty) of frustration, you can make it happen.
Here’s how.
How to create an HTML signature for Apple Mail
We all like our email signatures to look fantastic. Apple Mail began letting you make your special mark with an HTML-style email signature with OS X Lion back in 2011.
The process of setting up an HTML signature in Apple Mail has only gotten more complex over the years, unfortunately. Now it takes a bit of patience and a sturdy sense of adventure, but it’s not too difficult.
If you want to create your own HTML signature for Apple’s Mail app on OS X Yosemite, keep reading.
How to fix OS X Yosemite’s annoying, overflowing save sheet bug
Since installing OS X Yosemite, I’ve had a problem: Every time I try to save anything in Chrome, the Save Sheet interface is so long it runs off the screen, making it impossible for me to click “OK” or “Cancel.” I assumed it was something I had done, but nope, it’s a particularly annoying Yosemite bug. Here’s how to fix it.
How to fix Wi-Fi problems in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite
iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite users have been plagued by a host of Wi-Fi problems since Apple’s two latest operating systems were released. Apple has released updates for both, but to no avail: People keep suffering through Wi-Fi drops, seemingly at random.
What the heck’s going on? According to one developer, the issue is caused by the custom technology that Apple uses for AirDrop and AirPlay on both iOS 8 and OS X. And there’s a way to fix it!
How to make Apple Watch’s custom font the default on your Mac
Apple took the wraps of WatchKit yesterday and revealed an entirely new font created just for Apple Watch called San Francisco. Designers are heaping praise on the sexy new typeface that condenses at larger sizes to take up less space, and becomes easier to read at smaller sizes, but we can’t help but wish it was coming to OS X soon.
For those that can’t wait to interact with San Francisco on the Apple Watch there’s good news though: A developer named Wells Riley has released a bundle on GitHub that swaps Yosemite Helvetica Neue system font for Apple’s new Sans Serif creation.
To make San Francisco your Mac’s system font, follow these steps: