How-To - page 2

In iOS 26, the awesome new Spatial Scenes feature lets you convert an ordinary 2D photo to a 3D scene that moves in your hand. It doesn’t have to be a recent picture or one taken with a special camera, either. You can try out Apple’s new 3D effect on any decent photo, even if it’s from 20 years ago.

You can play with Spatial Scenes in the Photos app, converting images and seeing how the effect works. But the best part is that you can set one as your iPhone’s Lock Screen wallpaper, and see it every time you unlock your phone. It even works with the excellent Photo Shuffle feature, so you’ll keep getting new ones to gawk at.

Check out the GIFs below that show how Spatial Scenes work, or watch our hands-on demo video.

iPadOS 26 is the biggest iPad revamp since 2010, bringing new features that make the tablet far more Mac-like. And there are other enhancements too, especially the user interface overhaul dubbed Liquid Glass that Apple’s latest software brings to all of he company’s devices.

Here are the best changes to iPadOS 26 … the ones you’ll use every day. (Many of the new iPadOS 26 features can also be found in the latest iPhone software, so be sure to also read our guide to everything new in iOS 26.)

visionOS 26 is a modest update, but you’ll want to check out the game-changing features it includes. Widgets come to the Vision Pro in a clever way; you can freely arrange them in space or pin them to a wall. Personas are much improved, making your virtual FaceTime calls less creepy. And there are about a dozen other excellent quality-of-life features that’ll draw you back in, like app folders, a Jupiter environment, automatic iPhone unlocking and more.

You may have forgotten about the Vision Pro, but Apple hasn’t. Despite middling sales numbers, Apple is in this for the long haul — with regular software updates, a spec bump update due this year and a whole family of products in the works.

The update is out now; here’s what to expect.

watchOS 26 is a more modest update with one headlining new feature, Workout Buddy — on top of 15 other new tweaks. You might overlook the Apple Watch after the excitement of Liquid Glass on your iPhone and Mac, but your tiniest screen still has some stuff worth checking out. 

There are loads of smart new features for those with the latest and greatest. A new wrist flick gesture silences timers and calls. Your volume automatically lowers in quiet rooms. And everyone can appreciate that the Notes app finally makes its way to the watch. 

The update is out now; here’s what to expect. 

macOS 26 Tahoe is a milestone update with a dramatic new look, new power tools for pro users — and over 45 new features. It’s still recognizably Mac, but with a fresh coat of paint (or, should I say, glass). And there’s plenty to dive into once you get settled.

Spotlight has picked up lots of new features, replacing Launchpad and adding a native clipboard manager. There are loads of great enhancements to group chats in Messages. Other great enhancements are in Safari, Passwords, Maps, Photos, Journal and more. And a few new apps come over from iOS: Phone, Journal, Magnifier and the all-new Games app.

The update is out now; here’s what to expect.

iOS 26 is a major new update that brings the biggest visual redesign in 12 years — on top of more than 70 new features. It’s easy to overlook the new goodies that Apple sprinkled throughout the operating system because the shiny Liquid Glass user interface takes center stage.

But iOS 26 brings loads of great enhancements to Apple’s major apps. Group chats in Messages become much more useful. The Phone app gets a fresh design and plenty of smart new features. Other great enhancements level up Safari, Passwords, Maps, Photos, Journal and other Apple apps. And just like previous years, Apple added an expansive list of useful accessibility features you should check out.

iOS 26 is out now. Here’s where to find the good stuff — keep reading or watch our video.

How can you watch Apple’s iPhone event? You can stream the keynote on YouTube, on the apple.com website or on your smart TV. It starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, September 9.

At the September event, Apple unveils new iPhones, Apple Watches and other accessories. The iPhone 17 series will be the highlight — with the iPhone 17 Air being a standout new model. Rumors point to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 getting a faster processor, satellite messaging and (possibly) blood pressure monitoring. Some of these features might make it to the Apple Watch Series 11. A couple of other new devices might put in an appearance at Apple’s September event, too. We’ve heard rumors of AirPods Pro 3, an updated Apple TV 4K and AirTag 2.

Here’s how you can watch it all live, whether you’re watching at home or secretly at work.

For the first time in 18 years, Apple redesigned the oft-overlooked Phone app. The overhaul coming soon in iOS 26 simplifies the Phone app’s layout, putting your favorites, call history and voicemails in one tab, and providing easier access to search.

Its fancy Liquid Glass-inspired layout goes hand-in-hand with the Phone app’s excellent call filtering features.

Here’s how you can learn to love the new design — and how to nope out of it if you don’t like it.

In a pinch, you can charge your AirPods with your iPhone. This feature is very convenient if you know how to use it.  You can also use your iPhone to charge your Apple Watch, or even another iPhone.

Here’s how to take advantage of this capability.

If you stumble across a webpage or a link in a different language, you can instantly translate the website to English directly from Safari. Unlike Google Chrome, Safari even translates the text inside images using Live Text.

And, if you accidentally change the language of a website to one you don’t speak, you can turn this feature on to help you change it back. At Cult of Mac, we use the feature to translate rumors or blog posts often written in Chinese, Korean or Japanese, like this.

You don’t need to select the words paragraph by paragraph and copy them into Google Translate (or even Apple’s own Translate app). Get the entire page in English at the tap of a button. Here’s how to make the most out of this handy Safari feature.

Spotlight on the Mac is a universal search bar, available everywhere, ready to quickly launch an app or find a file. And in macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple supercharged Spotlight by adding many advanced features.

Spotlight has a new visual interface for browsing apps on your Mac. It’s also a powerful tool for running Shortcuts and actions inside the apps you use. And, finally, it’s a clipboard manager, too.

Here are the ins and outs of Spotlight on the Mac.

Say you’re in the kitchen and you hear an alarm going off on the iPad in your living room. Rather than walking across the house to deactivate it, you can use Siri on your iPhone or HomePod to shut off the alarm. This method also works with timers (and a variety of devices, too).

Here’s how to do a handy trick that everyone should know.

You can combine two or more emoji into your own custom creation in iOS 26 using Apple’s upgraded Genmoji tool. In my testing, it’s great at adding sunglasses and cowboy hats to other emoji. It’s also pretty good at converting ordinary yellow-face emoji into cats, frogs, skulls, etc.

You can easily make a pumpkin cowboy, keyboard cat, pregnant Santa, banana phone or Easter Island statue snowman … the possibilities are endless. Well, not entirely endless — as fun as it would be to play geopolitics by combining national flags, all the flag emoji are restricted.

The best Apple Intelligence feature gets even more fun in iOS 26. Here’s how to use Genmoji‘s fun new feature.

One version of the invitation to Apple’s September 9 “Awe dropping” product launch event includes an Easter egg. Run your finger around on the Apple logo displayed on a touchscreen, and it’ll react.

It’s the latest in a series of Easter eggs hidden in Apple invitations.

The Games app is a new all-in-one destination for gaming on your Apple devices. You can create a custom profile, track your achievements, and add friends (and set challenges for them). It’s also a quick way to launch games you’re playing and discover new ones.

It doesn’t entirely replace Game Center, a few vestiges of which reamin in the Settings app. But if you care at all about iPhone gaming, you should check out the new Games app. It’ll help you find new games to play and let you know about exciting events in your old favorites.

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s new Games app.

Installed iOS 26 public beta on your iPhone to try out Liquid Glass and other new features but regretting the decision due to crashes and bugs? Thankfully, you can easily remove the iOS beta and downgrade your iPhone to iOS 18.

The only catch? You will need to restore an older backup or start from scratch with your setup. If that doesn’t convince you to ride out the bugginess, follow the steps below to revert your iPhone to iOS 18 from the iOS 26 beta.

Apple Maps makes it easy to find EV charging stations while you’re on the road to figure out where you can top up your electric car. Apple added some powerful new features in iOS 17 to simplify this sometimes-daunting process for EV owners.

Now you can see electric car charger availability, charging speeds and connector types in Apple Maps so you can find a way to juice up your vehicle when on a road trip. Here’s how it works.

If you have a family, odds are you share a house, furniture, car and more. But you might not give as much attention to what you share in your digital lives, even if your digital pictures and purchases are equally valuable. Luckily, Apple Family Sharing makes it easy to share photos, movies, apps and more.

It just takes a little bit of setup to share iCloud’s fantastic Family Sharing feature. Here are the top six benefits of using it.

Quartiles is a daily word-building game for Apple News+ subscribers. It’s fun, with a clean interface and no ads. If you want to score maximum points each day, you’ll need to know how to play Quartiles and all the tips and tricks you need to succeed.

Here’s how to play Quartiles — keep reading below or watch our instructional video.

You might only use the Mac’s built-in Preview app when you need to read a PDF or zoom in on a picture, but there’s much more to the software than meets the eye. It’s a pretty handy image editor for Mac, too.

In this how-to, I’ll go over six features that will let you make the most of Preview, a handy tool that’s an overlooked benefit to using a Mac. I have three tips for working with documents and three for editing pictures.

If your iPhone won’t install a software update, it’s more than just annoying. You need to install the latest updates to get security patches and take advantage of all the latest iOS features.

You install software updates by opening Settings > General > Software Update. It should be a pretty smooth process, but occasionally, things go wrong. The error messages can be inscrutable and infuriatingly vague.

But there are a few things you can try when your iPhone won’t update. Here’s a step-by-step guide that will show you what to do.

A lot of Mac owners use Google Chrome as their web browser, and personally, I don’t get it. For Apple fans, it seems like a total disconnect not to use Safari vs. Chrome.

For starters, Apple markets its products as privacy-forward and seamlessly integrated with each other. And the web browser is an essential component of your computer, whether we’re talking Mac, iPhone or iPad. You have a lot to gain by using Safari on all your devices.

But look at the numbers: Apple’s web browser Safari only captures 18% of the market, a distant second to Google’s Chrome. Here’s my attempt to sway it the other way — the top five reasons I use Safari instead of Chrome.

There are lots of things you can do with an old Mac. No one will fault you for upgrading to Apple’s latest and greatest, but your old Mac can still find a job to do, too.

It used to be that when your old iMac kicked the can, you hollowed it out and made an aquarium or a desk lamp. These days, Macs have a much longer shelf life. The right model can give you years upon years of loyal service. (Not to mention, modern Macs are too thin to house a fish.)

Here are the six best things you can do with an old Mac. Watch our latest video or keep reading below.

Apple now makes it easy to install prerelease AirPods firmware on your wireless earbuds. The company once reserved this option for only a select few developers. But now, anyone willing to put potentially buggy software on their AirPods can try upcoming features early.

The temptation is understandable. The upcoming iOS 26 brings a range of enhancements to Apple earbuds, but you need unreleased AirPods firmware to take advantage of them. Install the beta AirPods software, and you can try out improved audio recording, auto-pause when sleeping, and many other new features.

Feeling brave? Let’s go.

P.S. Not looking for the prerelease version? We also have a guide on how to install the regular non-beta AirPods software.

Apple’s Safari web browser packs loads of privacy features that will keep your online activity hidden from ad networks, user tracking and data farms. But are you sure you have everything turned on? Some of Apple’s most important privacy-protecting features don’t come enabled by default.

In light of Google baking ever-more invasive user tracking into Chrome, there are even more reasons to use Safari instead. If you want to make the most out of the best and most secure mainstream browser, here’s how.