How-To - page 28

Apple Fitness+ makes it easier than ever to get in shape. So you should have no problem smashing your New Year’s resolution. Right?

Wrong. The sad fact is, despite the best of intentions, most New Year’s resolutions fail. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I know from personal experience as someone who went from a middle-aged slob to the proud owner of six-pack abs for the first time in my life. Now I’m a qualified personal trainer and I write about fitness for Cult of Mac.

So what’s the secret? Why do some resolutions succeed where others fail? Here are my top five tips for how you can use Apple Fitness+ to get in shape in 2021 and stay that way.

By this point, the honeycomb app grid that debuted with the original Apple Watch must have fueled millions of frustrated app hunts.

That swirling sea of apps certainly looked innovative and magical during Apple’s demo in 2014. Apple called the unique interface “fluid and vital,” but in practice, the honeycomb grid often makes it difficult to find the particular app you want.

Luckily, Apple gave you another option. These days, there’s no need to suffer through the search for the app you want. You can easily switch to an alphabetical list view that makes it much easier to find Apple Watch apps.

Serious gaming on your iPad or iPhone gets better with an external Xbox or PlayStation controller instead of a touchscreen. And Apple recently improved the experience even more by allowing you to reconfigure the buttons on your game controller.

Here’s how to customize what those all-important buttons do.

Nintendo’s latest Switch update (version 11.0.0) makes it easier than ever to share all those screenshots you capture during your finest gaming moments. It’s now possible to quickly transfer them to your iPhone.

We’ll show you how.

AirPods, like most wireless headphones, use Bluetooth to connect to your iPhone and other devices. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to enjoy them with older gadgets that don’t have Bluetooth connectivity baked-in.

With a simple and affordable Bluetooth dongle, you can use your AirPods with an old iPod, home stereo system, gym equipment, Nintendo Switch and other consoles, and more. If you’re looking for a guide on airpod max bluetooth pairing, check out this article for step-by-step instructions.

Apple has launched a new repair program to fix iPhone 11 units that have faulty touchscreens. The company says only a “small percentage” of handsets is affected — but is yours one of them? Here’s how to find out.

Apple’s VO₂ max metric measures the performance of your heart and lungs when you push yourself to the limit. Up until now, though, it’s only been useful to serious fitness fanatics. No wonder Apple buried it in the Health app, where most users never found it.

But watchOS 7.2 and iOS 14.3, which Apple released Monday, change all that. In those updates, the VO₂ max metric has been renamed Cardio Fitness. Now it can detect lower ranges and send alerts when the reading gets too low. That makes it the latest in a series of potentially life-saving health notifications from Apple Watch.

Here’s everything you need to know to get the benefit of this essential new feature.

Did you know that you can transfer your music from iPhone to HomePod — and vice-versa — in just a tap? It’s quick and simple and works amazingly well, and we’ll show you how to set it up.

It’s almost the end of 2020 (hallelujah!) which means it’s time to start looking back at all the things you’ve enjoyed this year. All the vacations, parties, social events … okay, maybe not those things. But what about the music?

If you have Apple Music, it’s easy to check out all the artists, tracks, and albums you’ve enjoyed this year with your 2020 Replay mix. You can even see how long you’ve listened to your favorite artists and played your favorite albums. We’ll show you how!

If you share a Mac with others and are frequently switching between user accounts, you’ll be pleased to know you can do that quicker than ever in macOS Big Sur, thanks to a new feature called fast user switching.

You’ll need to set it up yourself because Apple doesn’t enable it by default, but it’s super-simple to do. We’ll show you how.

You just got a shiny new iPhone 12 and of course you want your Apple Watch to play nicely with it. You could reset the Watch to start out fresh, but there’s an easier way switch your Apple Watch to your new iPhone.

Here’s what you do.

Many of the glitches and frustrations you might encounter with HomePod and HomePod mini can usually be fixed with a simple factory reset. It’s easy to do and doesn’t take long, but Apple doesn’t make it immediately obvious how a reset is performed. So we’ll show you what you need to do.

Apple did away with the Clock app’s scroll wheel for setting alarms in iOS 14, swapping it for a numeric keypad instead. But the scroll wheel isn’t dead yet … if you know where to find it.

We’ll show you where it’s hidden.

Apple has confirmed that some M1 Mac owners may run into an error message when attempting to reinstall macOS on their new machine. If you’re one of them, there are some things you can do to avoid it.

These include using a bootable installer, rather than macOS Recovery, or initiating a reinstall from Terminal. We’ll show you how.

Apple this week published a support guide for those running into installation errors when updating to macOS Big Sur on a 2013 or 2014 MacBook Pro. Its tips may help bring bricked machines back to life.

Here are the steps you need to follow.

For many people, iPhone 12 will be radically different from previous iPhone models. Despite this, the iPhone setup process hasn’t changed much. However, while you might find yourself on familiar ground, there are still plenty of little things you really ought to do before you fire up your new phone for the first time (or pretty soon thereafter).

Let’s take a look at all the things you can do to get your iPhone set up exactly how you want it.

Apple Watch is a great swimming companion, offering highly accurate length counts, pace measurements and stroke recognition. But the benefits to swimmers don’t stop there.

You’ll find plenty more useful swim stats in the Fitness app on your iPhone. Strokes Per 25/50/100 is especially valuable because it tracks your swim efficiency, which is key if you want to go faster, further or just look more cool in the pool.

But the way Apple Watch counts your strokes is not as simple as it seems. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert swimmer, it’s worth taking time out to understand exactly how it works.

Apple’s next big keynote of 2020 is less than a couple of hours away. We expect the “One more thing” event to bring the first Macs powered by Apple Silicon, new AirPods Studio headphones, and more.

When the keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. Pacific, you’ll be able to watch it live online from almost anywhere. We’ll tell you how.

Apple’s new Intercom feature lets you use HomePods to send short audio messages to almost anyone with an Apple device. While Apple showcased Intercom when unveiling the upcoming HomePod mini smart speaker, the feature also works with the regular HomePod as well as iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and more.

If you a HomePod, and you’ve updated it (and your other Apple devices) with the latest software, you can use Intercom to communicate with your family or housemates in new ways.

Facebook this week quietly rolled out a brand-new dark mode for its iPhone app. It’s not yet available to every user, but it seems a large number of people are already able to activate it. We’ll show you how.

If you plan to preorder iPhone 12 mini or Pro Max on Friday, November 6, through the iPhone Upgrade Program, then do yourself a massive favor and get preapproved early. It will make the whole process quicker and easier.

We’ll show you how.

If you’re lucky enough to have already picked up an iPhone 12 or 12 Pro, and you live in an area where 5G is available, you may have noticed that you sometimes see different 5G icons in your status bar.

There are three altogether, and they change depending on what kind of 5G network you’re connected to. Here’s how to understand them.

Everyone in Apple’s beta program is running a pre-release version of the next iOS version. Which is great, until you get a new iPhone or iPad. Then you can’t restore the new device from the backup made on your previous one because the old device is running a newer OS.

If you find yourself in this situation, don’t panic — there are a couple of possible solutions. We’ll walk you through both.

Apple now has its very own music channel, dubbed Apple Music TV, that streams music videos and more 24 hours a day. You can watch it on any Apple device (as long as you live in the U.S.) absolutely free.

Here’s how — and what you need to know.

Most people’s drawing skills peaked in first grade. Which means the diagrams we include in handwritten notes often look like they were drawn by a moderately skilled raccoon. Fortunately, iPadOS 14 offers shape recognition, turning our scrawls into the neat geometric shapes we envisioned.

Using this feature in Apple Notes or Email is easy. But there’s a trick to it. Here’s how to use shape recognition with an iPad and any stylus.