★★★★☆
The Willow Wombat Pro is a great keyboard without much compromise. It’s mechanical, with comfortable key switches to type on all day, but it’s not loud. It’s narrow, but it still has all 102 keys, with an unusual key layout. It’s thin, but it’s not flimsy: It’s sturdy and well-made.
The whimsical yellow color scheme will also add a flash of color and flair to your Mac setup. Buy it now on Amazon or keep reading below.
With the recently-released PC emulator UTM SE, you can now emulate Windows on iPad directly. You can revisit old PC games, just like how you can use Delta to play old Nintendo games. You can also install Mac OS 9 or Linux. With Ubuntu, Debian or other versions of Linux, you can run all kinds of open-source software for getting real work or programming projects done.
But bad news: You can’t use it to run macOS Sonoma on your iPad. There’s some confusion about this, but unfortunately the long-held dream of turning your iPad into a Mac will have to wait for another day.
Setting it up is a little finicky — but the reward of seeing that classic Windows XP desktop on your iPad can make it all worth it. Keep reading to see how it works.
Here are a few secret tricks and gestures that will 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 earlier article with three other secret iPhone gestures you need to know. Learn all of these gestures and you’ll feel like an iPhone power user.
With the major Photos app redesign coming in iOS 18, Apple aims for simplicity. However, the version of the Photos app in iOS 18 developer beta 3 is a hodge-podge of design that will confuse users. I think that if Apple doesn’t revise its approach, the company will face significant backlash when it releases the updated app to the public this fall.
Yes, iOS 18 is still in beta. And Apple very well could change the Photos app before its anticipated release in September. I certainly hope Apple tweaks things — I’m writing this as more of a wish list than a design critique. In fact, I already filed my suggestions through the official channel of Apple’s Feedback system (submitted as FB14289280).
As of iOS 18 developer beta 3, Apple has already made a few little tweaks to the Photos app redesign. But unfortunately, there’s been no movement on any of my major criticisms from beta 1. For that reason, I feel obligated to outline the goals of the new Photos app, applaud what it gets right, point out where the design fails, and explain what aspects prove confusing.
I don’t think Photos needs to be reverted entirely to the way it worked before. But these key features need changing ASAP. Keep reading or watch my video.
Final Cut Camera is a new Apple app that offers incredible manual control over your iPhone’s camera system. If you use your phone for professional videography — or even for a hobby project — you should use this free app to take videos rather than sticking with the stock Camera app.
Final Cut Camera comes absolutely packed with professional features the Camera app can’t match. The new app gives you finer control over exposure, white balance, color temperature and more. You can enable image overlays to see which parts of the frame are in focus or overexposed. In short, it’s a highly versatile camera. You can even pair it with Final Cut Pro for iPad to capture footage from multiple iPhones simultaneously.
Final Cut Camera is totally free on the App Store. Keep reading to learn how to use it.
If you’ve never tried making your own Siri Shortcuts, I’ve compiled a short list of the best shortcuts for iPhone to introduce you. Shortcuts can quickly run automated actions on your phone (and on your iPad or Mac). They’re made using Apple’s Shortcuts app, where you can visually piece together actions offered by the apps installed on your device.
You can run a shortcut by asking Siri or by putting a widget on your iPhone’s Home Screen. Not a lot of people know this powerful feature exists — or what it can do for them. For eight examples of what you can do with shortcuts, keep reading or watch our video.
Customizing the widgets Smart Stack on your Apple Watch is a great way provide easy access to the apps you use most. If you have a Tim Cook-esque Apple Watch face full of complications, you can rely on widgets instead. You just need to edit the widgets in your Apple Watch’s Smart Stack to provide the same quick access to your most-used apps and activities.
Today, I’ll show you how to make the most of your Smart Stack of widgets on Apple Watch.
Using the powerful online Voice Cleaner tool with Lalal.ai, you can remove background audio from any voice memo or video to get clear, crisp vocals free of other noise. It’s a great way to recover professional sounding audio out of a botched recording. The vocal and instrumental features can also help you isolate or separate a variety of instruments from a song to use in resampling or editing.
Here’s how it works.
Apple only shows off its finished products, which makes the company’s secret prototypes and early concepts all the more fascinating. Details of these first-draft designs usually don’t come out until years after Apple dreams them up and discards them. Even if you’re well-versed in Apple history, these alternate-history unreleased Apple products will intrigue and confuse.
The wild and crazy ideas go back more than 40 years. If anything, it proves that Apple continuously skates toward the next hit. The quest for innovation continues, no matter whether the company is in dire straits or cruising on success. Keep reading or watch our video to see the wildest Apple products that might have been.
UPDATE: The new versions of Final Cut Pro for iPad and Mac — and the new Final Cut Camera app — launched Thursday on the App Store.
Apple updated its video editing application Final Cut Pro with live multi-camera recording on iPad and powerful new AI color correction on Mac. Plus, Final Cut Camera, a free new app for iPad and iPhone, allows for professional video capture in multicam mode or on its own. These updates “take creativity to the next level,” said Will Hui, project manager for creative applications at Apple when they were announced in May.
The wait for them is now over.
The easiest way to convert a YouTube video to an MP4 for free is with an app called 4K Video Downloader for Mac and PC. This tool gives you all kinds of options for converting video and audio from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitch and more.
If you want to save videos or podcasts to your computer to include in a video of your own, this app is the easiest way to download the highest-quality original.
It has other uses, too. If you’re going on a flight, or if you simply have a slow internet connection, you can use it to download what you want to watch in advance. If you’re privacy-conscious but you still want to watch a TikTok sent to you by a friend, you can download the clip without visiting the website.
Here’s how it works.
I loved getting my hands on visionOS 2, the first major software update for Vision Pro that brings a few delightful new features. It’s available in Developer Beta today.
The best thing is Spatial Photos, which uses AI to turn older 2D photos into immersive 3D ones. It’s incredibly good. Guest mode has been improved and new hand gestures make the headset easier to use.
But if you were looking for more than a few new features, well, sorry. But a smaller update makes sense. The headset first launched in February, so a bunch of worthy updates in just six months is pretty good. But does that mean I have to wait another 12 months from now to get the basic improvements I was hoping for? Maybe Apple will have more to announce in September.
Nonetheless, here are my first impressions of Spatial Photos, the new hand gestures, the editable Apps View and more.
After spending a few days trying out all the new features in iOS 18, I think it really is one of the biggest updates in a long time. However, hands-on testing shows there’s a lot that needs cleaned up before September, when it’s expected to ship.
The new customizable iPhone Home Screen opens a wide world of possibilities — but you’ll have to wait for third-party apps to update their icons to really make it sing. I’m impressed with the level of customization in Control Center, too, though it’s understandably pretty buggy in this first developer beta. The new Photos app is proving controversial, and I think there are some obvious areas it could be improved, but I like where it’s going overall.
I think there’s a lot to look forward to in iOS 18.
In iOS 17, you can use Apple’s Reminders app as a grocery list app on your iPhone. It automatically sorts items you add into common sections, which proves incredibly helpful when you go shopping. Just open the Reminders app, and you can easily see if you’ve got everything you need as you’re making your way through the store.
I’ll show you how to use it, including how to share your Reminders app grocery list with someone else so you can both add items and check them off the same list.
During its WWDC24 keynote Monday, Apple laid out dramatic new software updates coming to iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro — and the awesome Apple Intelligence features that will power them all.
But if you don’t have time to watch the full hour and 45-minute long affair, here it is in just 90 seconds.
After this morning’s WWDC24 keynote, the Platforms State of the Union explained the nitty gritty details on Apple Intelligence, code completion in Xcode, Swift 6 and the latest software updates.
Susan Prescott, Apple vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, opened the event by thanking the hard work of all Apple developers. “Thank you for making this such an incredible and exciting ecosystem.”
While the morning keynote has become more of a general interest event for the public to see what’s coming later this year, the State of the Union is a show for developers to see how they can adapt their apps to take advantage of the new APIs and software tools. There was a lot to talk about this year.
In iOS 18, you’ll be able to use the power of Apple Intelligence to generate fun, relevant images in your Messages conversations. You can create brand new emoji and personalized artwork.
Apple calls the features Genmoji and Image Playground. “The Image Playground is going to make everyday conversations a whole lot more fun,” said Cyrus Irani, Apple’s Director of Human Interface.
With the Photos app, you can more easily search through the content of your photos and videos, and build custom memory videos without pilfering through your library by hand.
At WWDC24 today, Apple announced that its spatial computing headset will launch in many countries across Europe, Asia and North America.
“The enthusiasm for Apple Vision Pro has been extraordinary, and we are thrilled to introduce the magic of spatial computing to more customers around the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in today’s press release.
After the fervor surrounding its launch in the United States, sales have slowed down — a combination of the high price and a lack of specially-made content.
Launching the device internationally will not only broaden the customer base but the number of developers who can create new experiences for the headset.
visionOS 2, the first major update to the Vision platform, will bring Spatial Photos, a rearrangeable Home View, a bigger Mac Virtual Display, new gestures and other nice quality-of-life improvements.
Apple Vision Pro can “unlock completely new possibilities for entertainment, productivity, collaboration, and more” says Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of the Vision Products Group.
Announced right at the top of WWDC24 on Monday, visionOS 2 will be available in developer beta and will release publicly for everyone this fall. This came alongside news that the headset will soon be available in other countries.
Apple reportedly will focus heavily on AI when it announces the next major versions of all its operating systems Monday at WWDC24. Everyone expects an upgraded Siri, summaries that’ll catch you up on a flurry of notifications, image editing that can cut out parts of a picture and the like. But none of that is on my WWDC wish list.
Personally, I’m not convinced that Apple needs to go all-in on AI (or “Apple Intelligence,” as it reportedly will be called). I’d rather see fundamental fixes and long-missing features finally added. Plus, I find Apple’s rumored partnership with OpenAI, of all companies, pretty troubling.
Here’s my WWDC24 wish list of everything I hope Cupertino has been cooking up. Read the full list below or sit back and watch the video.
Knowing how to unsend an iMessage can help you out of a pickle if you accidentally shoot off a text to the wrong person. You also can edit a message after it’s sent to fix a grave typo you didn’t catch. Like if you accidentally text your mom “Finally got laid today!” when you meant to type “paid.”
Keep reading to see how to unsend or edit an iMessage on your iPhone, or watch our quick video tutorial.
Whether it’s wedged between the cushions or kicked far under the couch, a handy-dandy feature in iOS 17 and tvOS 17 lets you find your lost Apple TV remote using your iPhone.
Sure, you can take the L and simply use your iPhone or Apple Watch to control your Apple TV. But I like having the physical remote on hand, too.
The mind races when one imagines how many hours of human life might have been saved if everyone had this feature 30 years ago. Let me show you how to find your AWOL Apple TV remote with your iPhone.
★★★★☆
Marvel Studios’ new What If…? An Immersive Story is a free app for Apple’s Vision Pro headset that combines interactivity with storytelling in a brand-new way. Is it a game? Is it an episode of the What If…? animated TV series? It’s not entirely either. It’s an hour-long story where you’re the main character, casting spells with your hands and collecting the Infinity Stones.
If you aren’t a Marvel fan, you’ll find the story a bit drab. But if you want to see the bleeding edge of what’s possible in gaming when you can seamlessly switch between VR and AR with natural hand controls, you need to check it out.
It’s like no other game I’ve ever played.
There are a few hidden gestures on your iPhone that you absolutely need to know. You’re typing out a long text on your iPhone and you need to go back to fix a typo. Tapping on the screen to move the cursor feels like a shot in the dark — but there’s a secret gesture to move around and select text.
Here are three top iPhone tips. Also in this article: how to select and delete a bunch of emails, text messages, anything in a list at once; and the secret gestures that undo and redo. Like, for example, if you accidentally delete a bunch of emails.
How do you turn off the webcam video reactions on your Mac in macOS Sonoma? This feature, which puts full-screen animated effects on your video calls, made a good demo when it was introduced. But after it launched, it confused many people who trigger it accidentally in serious situations.
It works in FaceTime video calls and various other videoconferencing software. However, the Off button isn’t where you might expect. It’s not hiding in Zoom, Skype or Google Meet at all — it’s in the Mac’s menu bar.
Let me show you what’s going on and how you can turn off video reactions on Mac.