D. Griffin Jones, author at Cult of Mac

3 reasons you shouldn’t clear your open apps

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Should You Quit Your Apps?
Betteridge's law of headlines says no.
Image: CollegeDegrees360/Wikimedia Commons/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

It’s good to know how to close apps on iPhone for those times when an app is acting buggy or becomes unresponsive. It’s really easy — just swipe up to see your running apps and swipe up again to close them.

Does this mean you should you quit open apps? No, not at all. Despite what you may have heard, quitting apps on iOS makes things worse, not better. It’s a myth that quitting apps will save battery life, make your iPhone run faster or free up memory. Overall, it makes things worse.

Here are three reasons why.

Never miss a delivery with this free package-tracking app [Awesome Apps]

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AfterShip package tracker
A package tracking app with all the features you expect, and it costs nothing.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Awesome Apps

AfterShip Package Tracker is a free app that does exactly what it says in the name: It tracks your packages. You can see all your orders in one place, when they will arrive, and how close they are geographically to you. Push notifications are fast and alert you when your items are on their way.

Plus, unlike just about every other package-tracking app for iOS, AfterShip Package Tracker is totally free, with no in-app purchases.

Sign in to your Google accounts before December or they’ll be deleted

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iPad showing google.com
Use your Google account before December 1 to make sure it doesn’t get deleted.
Photo: cottonbro studio/Pexels

Google plans to purge old accounts starting in December. However, you can keep your Google account active and prevent it from being deleted. You have until the first day of December to save any inactive Google accounts.

What’s being cleaned out? Any Google account that’s been inactive for two years. If you received an email about a dormant account, you know for sure that you need to take action. However, that’s not foolproof. If your dormant account doesn’t have a recovery email set up, you’d never be notified in the first place.

If you have a bunch of alternate, backup Google accounts — as many do — here’s what you need to do.

5 more secret iPhone gestures you need to know

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Secret Faster Gestures
These secret gestures will speed up your iPhone.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Here are a few secret tricks and gestures that’ll help you get around your iPhone faster. These hidden gestures help you text pictures to your friends faster, scroll through big pages and screens, type special characters and use your phone one-handed.

This is a follow-up to an article from earlier this year with three other secret iPhone gestures you need to know. Learn all of these gestures and you’ll feel like an iPhone power user.

Look up laundry tag and car dashboard symbols with your iPhone camera

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What Do They Mean?
Ever wonder what these symbols mean?
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Those cryptic laundry symbols and car dashboard icons are a mystery, until now: your iPhone camera can tell you what they mean. You don’t have to look up a guide or Google their meaning; just take a picture and your iPhone will tell you.

While in my testing, it didn’t identify every single symbol, the feature will do in a pinch. And if you want to use an app for the best possible results, I have two recommendations found on the App Store that can help you.

3 ways to emulate old video games and computers on your Mac

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Windows XP, Mac OS 9 and Super Mario Bros. running in emulators on a Mac
Run Windows XP, Mac OS 9, Windows 11, Super Mario Bros. and more on your Mac.
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Collecting old video game consoles and vintage computers is a fun hobby, but keeping all that hardware working can quickly become an expensive, never-ending task — not to mention all the space you need just to store the gear. You might instead (wisely) opt to emulate your favorite games and software on the Mac you already own.

In this guide to emulation on the Mac, I’ll walk you through the best apps you can use to accomplish the two most common scenarios: playing old video games, and taking Classic Mac OS for a test drive on a modern Mac. Plus, I’ll wrap up with the easiest way to virtualize modern operating systems like Windows and Linux on your Mac. (This handy virtualization software also works for old and obscure computer operating systems.)

Best of all, each of these Mac emulation methods is free and open source.

Block all YouTube ads with the best Safari extension ever [Awesome Apps]

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Vinegar running on iOS
No ads. Picture-in-picture. Background play. All in one extension. Perfect, no notes.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Awesome Apps

If you love YouTube but hate YouTube ads, Vinegar is the best Safari extension you can download. It blocks all ads on YouTube and restores many iOS-native features like playing videos in the background, picture-in-picture, and more on iPhone, iPad and Mac alike.

YouTube ads are freaking insufferable. But if you don’t want to put down the dough for YouTube Premium (currently $13.99 per month), you can pay a one-time fee of just $1.99 to buy Vinegar for all your Apple devices.

If you ever watch YouTube, Vinegar is life-changing. Get it now on the App Store for iOS, iPadOS and macOS.

Find electric car charging stations in Apple Maps

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Where Can I Plug In?
Find charging stations from Apple Maps.
Image: Ank Kumar/Wikimedia Commons/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Find electric car charging stations from Apple Maps while you’re on the road to figure out where you can top up your EV. Apple Maps added some powerful new features in iOS 17 to make it easy: you can see charger availability, charging speed and connector types for your vehicle.

Here’s how it works.

Use Live Voicemail and Silence Unknown Callers together for call-free bliss

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Talk After The Beep
Don’t want to miss those important calls about my Lightning cable wholesaling business.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

With Live Voicemail, a new feature in iOS 17, you don’t need to pick up your iPhone midcall to see who’s calling or what they want. You can see a transcription of their voicemail message as it’s being recorded — and pick up at any point, if the call turns out to be important. This feature proves transformative for introverts who only want to answer a phone call if strictly necessary.

Even better, Live Voicemail pairs very well with another iOS feature, Silence Unknown Callers. With both of these turned on, unwanted calls will be far less intrusive, but you will still be able to pick up the important calls as they come in.

Here’s how to use Live Voicemail to avoid phone spam and other annoyances without missing crucial calls.

Even more reasons Humane’s Ai Pin is a total bust

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On-screen text says
Why Humane's introductory video for the Ai Pin begins with co-founder Imran Chaudhri shuffling a series of boxes stacked like a snowman I do not understand. And that is just the first five seconds of the dreadful presentation.
Photo: Humane

In a tedious and awkward 10-minute video released Thursday, buzzy startup Humane gave a more thorough introduction of its Ai Pin. The video all but confirms my feelings that we are seeing the next hilarious Silicon Valley failure play out in real time.

Since co-founder Imran Chaudhri’s TED Talk earlier this year, where we got a vague introduction to the supposed iPhone-killer’s features, there remained a slim chance — one in a hundred — that the then-unnamed device wasn’t a total waste.

Any ounce of doubt has been washed away as this new video doubles down on the Ai Pin’s flaws and walks back its only positives. In fact, the introductory video clearly demonstrates why the device will fail: The AI gave completely wrong answers and provided no way to check their accuracy. It’s absolutely untrustworthy.