It’s easy to set alarms or timers on a HomePod smart speaker with Siri voice commands, but HomePod Software Version 14.7 adds the ability to make manual changes to of these with an iPhone or iPad. No Siri required.
Here’s how.
macOS Monterey makes it easier than ever to remove all your precious data from your Mac when it’s time to sell it or make a fresh start. Its new Erase All Content & Settings feature wipes your machine without forcing to you to reinstall its operating system, just like on iPhone and iPad.
Here’s how to use it.
Google rolled out a couple of new search-related security tools Thursday for its main iOS app. With them, you can add security to saved search histories and quickly delete recent searches. We’ll show you how to use them, below.
Emoji just got a sonic boost in Facebook Messenger. The social network’s chat app added Soundmojis on Thursday, giving users the option of sending audio snippets with some key emoji.
At launch, you can send catchphrases from TV shows, bits of hit songs, and garden-variety stock sounds. If your conversation demands the world’s tiniest violin emoji, your chat partner can actually hear it!
It’s time to stop using that useless six-digit passcode on your iPhone. Now that cops around the United States are going crazy for the GrayKey, a little box that can crack your iPhone’s passcode in hours, it has become clear that the iPhone’s regular six-digit numerical code is no longer secure.
Plus, now that GrayKey is available, it won’t be long before they’re in the hands of the bad guys, too, if they’re not already. In fact, instructions on how GrayKey works surfaced online last month.
The good news is, it’s super-easy to change your iPhone passcode to something a lot better. The bad news? There actually isn’t any, unless you already have the cops trying to break into your iPhone — in which case you’ve got plenty of bad news already.
So, you’ve already installed the iPadOS 15 beta beta on your iPad and now some of your favorite apps and features are broken. Don’t worry — it’s really easy (if a little time-consuming) to revert back to iPadOS 14.
We’ll show you how.
If you’ve already installed the iOS 15 beta on your iPhone and run into issues, you might want to downgrade to iOS 14 until more stable releases are available. Luckily, it’s really easy to do that if you have a Mac handy.
We’ll show you how.
Intrepid explorers online on Reddit and YouTube have come across an especially fun Easter egg in Google’s iOS app — a secret pinball game that takes a little doing to find.
Anyone can put the macOS Monterey beta on their Mac — it’s no longer reserved for developers. Apple added the pre-release version to its public beta program on Thursday.
Installing it is free, and not too difficult. Here’s how begin playing with macOS Monterey yourself.
iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are now available to public beta testers ahead of a wider release. Each of these brings a whole bunch of notable changes and improvements. iPhone gets FaceTime enhancements, new controls over notifications, upgrades for Apple Maps, and many more changes. And iPad gets a revamped version of Safari, improvements to Home screen widgets, easier side-by-side multitasking, and more.
Want to try them out for yourself? We’ll show you how.
Apple introduced new International Collection bands for Apple Watch on Tuesday, priced at $49 each. There are 22 available and each comes with an accompanying Stripes face you can download from Apple’s website.
But you don’t need to buy a band to get your hands on the new faces. We’ll show you how to download them right now to show support for your country at this year’s Summer Olympics.
Twitter rolled out an update to its iOS app earlier this week that lets users quickly and easily share tweets to their Instagram Stories. It’s now nearly a one-click operation, but not quite.
Naturally, users have always been able to take a screenshot of a tweets and manually upload it to an Instagram Story. But the new interface takes some of the manual labor out of the process, making it simple and fast. And the results look good!
Apple TV users can get a free month of Paramount+, the streaming service formerly known as CBS All Access, Apple said Monday in a tweet.
The trial offer, running now through June 30, is available to new Paramount+ subscribers in the United States when they sign up through the Apple TV app. As not all free trial offers on Apple TV last a full month, this is a good one. Here’s how to jump on it and watch Paramount+ originals like Star Trek: Picard and Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone. The streaming service also offers movies from the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises.
The one-year free trial of Apple TV+ comes to an end later this month, which means you will be charged soon to keep your subscription going. If you don’t want to use Apple TV+ going forward, you need to cancel it.
We’ll show you how.
watchOS 8 isn’t the most significant update Apple Watch has seen over the years, but it’s certainly no snoozefest. Improvements to a number of key apps and a new face will be welcomed by Watch wearers this fall.
And you don’t have to wait until this fall to get yours hands on it. If you have a spare Apple Watch and an Apple Developer account, you can download and install watchOS 8 today. We’ll show you how.
Ready to start testing macOS Monterey? You can already get your hands on the developer beta — so long as you have a compatible Mac. We’ll show you how to download and install it today.
You’ll need some special equipment to enjoy high-resolution lossless audio tracks inside Apple Music. But spatial audio with Dolby Atmos is available to everyone who has a set of decent headphones.
Here’s how to enable it on your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.
Itching to get your hands on iOS and iPadOS 15 as soon as possible? The first developer betas are out now, and although we definitely don’t recommend installing them just yet, we’ll still tell you how to do it.
All you need is an Apple Developer account and an iPhone or iPad.
Amazon plans to combine every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the United States into a shared “mesh network” to ensure devices stay online even when disconnected from their owners’ home Wi-Fi connection.
The system, called Amazon Sidewalk, faced scrutiny over the lack of transparency with regard to its rollout. Many people also express concerns about the potential privacy issues it could raise.
Not interested in taking part? Here’s how to opt out of Amazon Sidewalk before it goes live on June 8.
Facebook and Instagram have added the ability to hide likes and view counts — a feature that’s been in the works for a while. You can block counts on your own posts and well as on those from others.
We’ll show you how to enable the setting inside Facebook and Instagram for iPhone and iPad.
If you’re going away this summer and leaving your home in the hands of someone else, you might want to give them control of your HomeKit devices. And it’s really easy to do that inside the Home app.
Here’s how to invite anyone with an iPhone, iPad or Mac to control your smart home gadgets as a guest.
Want to capture a low-light photo without using the Night mode feature on newer iPhone models? It’s real easy to turn off right inside the built-in Camera app. We’ll show you how.
Make replying to messages on iPad even quicker by activating its hidden floating keyboard with Slide-to-Type support. It’s baked right into iPadOS, so no third-party apps or hacks are required.
We’ll show you how to access it.
Many Apple Watch Series 3 owners are unable to update to the latest watchOS release because their device doesn’t have enough storage space. But Apple says there is a way to get around this issue.
The solution is to reset your Apple Watch, wiping all data and settings, before updating. We’ll show you how.
You can now enjoy classic GameCube and Wii games on an M1 Mac. The excellent Dolphin emulator now runs on Apple’s latest machines, and its creators say it is “powerful and excels” under Apple Silicon.
Here’s how to install Dolphin and play GameCube and Wii games on your own M1 iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.