How-To - page 13

Contact posters let you customize how your Apple contact card looks to other people. If you call someone — and they have your contact info in their address book — your customized contact poster will appear on their screen. If you’re running iOS 17 and don’t know how to create a Contact Poster, let us show you how. (The process might look familiar if you’ve set up a custom Lock Screen.)

Done right, contact posters look great — way better than the old thumbnail images that preceded them. Plus, it’s really easy to turn an ordinary picture into a gorgeous-looking contact poster. And once you set it up, everyone with your matching phone number and/or Apple ID will see your chosen contact picture and personalized contact poster.

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.

If your iPhone is ever having odd technical problems, the first thing you should try is a good old restart — you’ll be surprised how many problems can be fixed by simply restarting.

Restarting your iPhone is just like restarting a computer. All of the apps and software will be reset, and you shouldn’t lose any saved data.

If an app you’re using is acting up, you can always force-quit it and open it again to reset it. But if there’s a deeper underlying problem with your phone’s software, like if Bluetooth accessories aren’t working or phone calls suddenly won’t connect, you should restart it.

Here’s how.

A trick you might have missed with the release of iPadOS 17 is support for external USB-C webcams. As good as the tablet’s front-facing camera is, it’s now possible to use a webcam with an iPad.

Here’s why you might be interested, and how to connect a webcam to your iPad with a USB-C port.

A great way to personalize your Mac is with custom Mac folder icons. In fact, you can change any icon on your Mac to customize it to your taste. That includes any app, folder, disk or file icon.

Personally, I didn’t like the yellow icon of my external hard drive — so I changed it to blue. I’ve also edited a few app icons for better consistency in my Dock.

I’ll show you how to do it yourself.

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.

With Apple’s release of new iPads, an updated Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro and the brand-new Apple Pencil Pro, many people are looking to upgrade all three. (Because of course all your old iPad accessories won’t work with the new tablets.) However, apart from going the DIY route on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, it can be difficult to find a trade-in site where you can sell an old Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard.

Even Apple’s own trade-in program won’t buy back these iPad accessories. However, there are several other options for selling a used Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard — and we’re here to help!

If your group chat or work messages start blowing up in the middle of a meeting, you’ll want to know how to silence your Apple Watch quickly. You have a few options: Silent mode controls whether a notification makes a sound. Do Not Disturb controls whether you receive notifications. Theater mode turns off the display.

You can also use a quick shortcut to turn on silent mode in a pinch.

You can make custom stickers from photos on your iPhone and send them in iMessage, Snapchat and WhatsApp. Stickers made from your own pictures are a lot of fun to send in group chats. They’re great for sending highly personal reactions using photos of people or pets that everyone knows. You can even add fun sticker effects.

Making these custom stickers from photos stems from an iOS 16 featured that brought the ability to copy and paste the subject from a picture. Now, in iOS 17, it’s easy to collect your personalized cutouts int a set of digital stickers you can use anywhere. I’ll show you how it all works.

Gestures are a great way to become an iPad power user. They help you easily navigate through apps, switch between pages, access controls, and reduce multiple taps to a single swipe. iPad gestures prove especially useful for Stage Manager, the iPad’s alternative multitasking environment.

Apple designed these iPad gestures to mimic natural, real-world movements, making them intuitive to use and learn. Swiping, pinching, tapping and other moves feel familiar. You should find them easy to master.

If you use your iPad a lot, these gestures are well worth learning. Your fingers will thank you!

iOS 17 allows Apple Maps users to download maps for offline use and generate turn-by-turn directions with them. This can be a lifesaver when traveling in remote areas without a cellular connection.

It’s not complicated, but there are several steps to go through if you want to download Apple Maps of certain cities or regions. Here’s how to do it.

The iPhone has a one-handed mode for the keyboard and a feature called Reachability for tapping buttons on the top of the screen. Learning how to use both these features can help you shoot out a text or use apps on your phone in one hand while you’re doing something else or walking around with a cup of coffee.

As iPhones continue to get bigger and bigger, these features become ever more important. Here’s how to activate the iPhone’s one-handed keyboard and use Reachability. Keep reading or watch the video.

You can change the name of your Apple devices, whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, AirPods or Apple TV. By default, it’s just “[your name]’s iPhone.” But you can give your iPhone its own unique name, like Kit-Kat or Magic Rectangle.

Also by default, when you set up a new iPhone, the name is transferred. This can get confusing if you keep old phones around because you’ll see “John’s iPhone,” “John’s iPhone (2),” maybe even “John’s iPhone (3)” and more. The same is true for Apple Watch, Mac, iPad and AirPods.

The name of your device shows up among a bunch of Apple features like AirDrop, Find My, Personal Hotspot, AirPlay and more. If you use these features often, giving it a unique name will make it easier to identify.

Here’s how to fix this mess on all your Apple devices. Keep reading or watch our video.

If you don’t have your phone on silent, you may as well have a fun, custom iPhone ringtone. After all, custom Home Screens and Lock Screens are all the rage — you can create a ringtone that matches your aesthetic.

Between wearing an Apple Watch and leaving my phone muted, I almost never hear my ringtone, but needs and preferences vary. If you don’t wear an Apple Watch and you carry your phone in a bag or purse, a ringtone is the only way you’ll hear a call coming in.

It’s not super straightforward, but here’s how you can make a custom iPhone ringtone out of an MP3 using just your phone. Keep reading below or watch our video.

If you want a game emulator on iPhone, the Delta app is now available on the App Store to play games for Nintendo DS, GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, NES, SNES and N64.

That means you can play classic Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Zelda, Castlevania, and many, many more.

Download it for free on the App Store or from AltStore PAL in the EU. Playing classic Nintendo games on iPhone has never been easier. You don’t need to jailbreak, sideload through a computer or compile the emulator from source code anymore. And it’s legal-ish.

Here’s how to use Delta. Keep reading below or watch our latest video.

If your Mac is running slow, there are a few things you can do to speed it up and better understand what’s slowing it down.

It’s not just that your Mac is old — although that is an important factor. It could be that you don’t have enough memory, especially if you like to use Google Chrome. You may have a bunch of apps running in the background. There also might be dust in the vents, keeping your Mac from running nice and cool.

Check out our latest video or keep reading to learn why your Mac is slow and how to speed it up.

Apple wants the process of moving from Android to iPhone to go as smoothly as possible, of course. To make the switch simpler, it created a Move to iOS application.

A recent video from Apple Support explains how to use the Android app.

Setting up a new Mac is an experience in itself. But once you finish your initial setup, you should change these Mac system settings for a better experience. These five easy tweaks to default Mac system preferences will speed up your workflow and save you time.

Irrespective of whether you are a new or long-time Mac user, below are five settings to change on your Mac. Keep reading or watch our latest video.

You can queue songs in Apple Music so that the tracks you want to hear play automatically, one after another. You don’t need to wait for the song to end and manually play the next one. 

I also have a pro tip for clearing the queue if you want to start over, because Apple Music doesn’t have an easy “clear” button on the iPhone. 

Plus, you can let friends add songs to the queue from their own phones — even if they don’t have an Apple Music subscription. Watch our video or keep reading below.

There are lots of questions about how to take solar eclipse photos with your iPhone. Firstly, can a solar eclipse harm your iPhone’s camera or lenses? Won’t the sun’s rays damage the camera?

Not according to Apple. Cupertino says it’s safe to photograph a total solar eclipse with your iPhone; but be sure to protect your eyes.

However, photographing the solar eclipse is hard without the right tools. To get a good picture of the solar eclipse with your iPhone, you’re going to need a 12-18x telephoto lens attachment, a solar filter and a tripod. Make sure you have everything you need before the big event on Monday.

Here’s how you can get prepared. Watch our new video or keep reading below.

You can share passwords on iPhone automatically with your entire family, so you don’t have to reuse the same password everywhere or let everyone in your family know when a shared password is changed.

Setting up this feature is easy and saves the hassle of being texted “hey I can’t get into Amazon, what’s that password again?” and “I need you to send me the code.” When you set up shared passwords, two-factor authentication and passkeys are shared, too.

It’s a huge time-saver, and highly recommended.

Here’s how to set it up.

Your iPhone doesn’t need to look like it came from 2012. You can easily swap out wallpapers and/or customize iPhone Home Screen layouts by adding widgets and folders (and by hiding unwanted apps from your view).

This guide will help set up your iPhone screen so it looks exactly how you want it to.

In iOS 17, the iPhone got a built-in text-to-speech feature called Live Speech. You can even use Live Speech with a digital version of your own voice called Personal Voice.

Apple devised Personal Voice for users “at risk of losing their ability to speak — such as those with a recent diagnosis of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other conditions that can progressively impact speaking ability.” It was the subject of a touching and heartfelt video Apple made called “The Lost Voice.”

Here’s how to set up and use Live Speech.

A firmware update out for AirTag has begun gradually rolling out. You’ll probably want it, but it turns out that updating the software for Apple’s item tracker is both easy and hard. You don’t have to jump through hoops, but neither do you have much control.

Here’s what you need to do.

AirPods can work surprisingly well as hearing aids. Thanks to Transparency mode, AirPods Pro will boost the sound of your environment around you. They can give you freaky Spiderman super-hearing if you boost input volume to the max. And Conversation Boost on the latest AirPods Pro 2 can intelligently raise the volume of people talking to you (while lowering the volume of your music or podcasts).

My prescription hearing aids were out of action recently due to a battery problem, so for a few weeks, I used my AirPods Pro as hearing aids.

For the most part, they’ve been pretty good. They work best when set up properly, which is a bit of a chore, but here’s how to do it.