This is a trick I use almost daily, and until I showed it to a friend yesterday, I didn’t realize that it might not be generally known. Most people know about iOS’ amazing Do Not Disturb mode, which stops users from being pinged by incoming messages and app notifications all the time. But did you know about the great do not disturb shortcuts built into the Control Center?
In a civilized society, there would be no such thing as a “read receipt” for messages or emails. You’d send your message, and that would be it. But read receipts are here, and if you’re one of the folks that doesn’t turn them off, then you’re going to love this WhatsApp tip.
You already know the meanings of the checkboxes that indicate successfully sent, delivered and read messages in WhatsApp. Today we’ll see how to check the exact time a recipient read your WhatsApp message.
If you’re a musician, or if you ever tried to record yourself singing, playing or just trying to bang out “Happy Birthday” to add to that cool video you made, you’ll be familiar with the First Law of Recording Music: Your best ever performance will be the practice run right before you press record.
No matter how many takes you do, the best one will always be the one that you didn’t record. Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a way to go back in time, and record the one that got away? If you’re using Apple’s Logic Pro X software, you can do just that — with both audio and built-in software instruments (MIDI).
This week we check our grammar with Antidote, turn tweets into email newsletters with Mailbrew and much more.
Thanks to abject terror of the COVID-19 virus, I’ve started washing my iPhone along with my hands with ordinary soap and water.
It may prove to be a big mistake, but so far it’s fine. My iPhone 11 Pro Max is highly water-resistant and seems quite happy being soaped down a couple of times a day.
iPad multitasking, Split Screen and all that stuff, has been getting a bad rap recently, and rightly so. It’s a mess. But amidst this storm of iPad hatred, there’s one great feature that stays great: Slide Over. On the iPad, Slide Over lets you dock a mini, iPhone-size version of an app over on the right side of the screen. You can swipe this away to hide it, and swipe again to bring it back out.
That’s cool, and very handy (as we shall see in a moment). But even better is that you can dock a whole bunch of apps over there, ready to use, and then fan out the stack to help pick the one you want. Let’s take a look. You’re going to love this.
Apple has a long support page of links and tips, dedicated to keeping your devices clean and shiny. But what about keeping them germ-free? Even if you only ever use your iMac’s keyboard at home, you probably transferred plenty of unwanted organisms onto it before you started washing your hands properly.
As for your iPhone, it’s probably dirtier than a music-festival toilet. And your AirPods, which you keep touching with your dirty hands all day long? I feel nauseated just thinking about it.
So, how do you keep all this stuff sanitary? It’s easy, even if your local store has run out of disinfectant wipes due to panic buying induced by fears about the COVID-19 virus.
By default, Safari on iOS downloads all files to a folder in your iCloud. This means you can access those files from all your devices. But it also means those files fill up your iCloud Drive. Worse, every megabyte you download also gets uploaded back to iCloud, doubling your bandwidth usage.
Today we’ll see how to change the location of your Safari downloads folder in iOS 13.
Bodybuilders have given us more than their fair share of memes. Who can forget “sun’s out guns out” or “do you even lift, bro?” and one of the all-time weightlifting classics, “Don’t skip leg day.” But unless you’re a dedicated gym rat, you might be wondering what exactly “leg day” is and why you shouldn’t skip it.
Let’s take a closer look at leg day — and how Apple Watch and various apps can help you build great “wheels” (bodybuilder talk for “legs”).
Your iPhone’s Mail app is pretty good. It does most of what you need, and you can be sure that it doesn’t steal your email password, or send details from your incoming mail to Apple. There are even a bunch of very powerful smart folders and features hidden in its sidebar. But getting basic stuff done is sometimes awkward, thanks to Apple’s insistence on hiding everything in the name of minimalism.
That includes marking an email as spam. It’s actually easy, but you might not know how to do it. Today we’ll look at three ways to mark email as junk mail.
Have you ever ruined an essay by over-editing it? Did you ever mistakenly delete a huge chunk of a report, and not realize it until days later? Maybe you thought you’d saved another copy of that important document, but your Mac seems to have swallowed it. No problem, because your Mac saves versions of your documents as you go, and lets you browse and restore them. And it’s all built in to — yes — Time Machine.
Did you know you can control your iPad using just a keyboard? You can use the arrow keys to move between icons on the Home screen. You can use the arrow keys (again) to scroll lists. And you can even tap and toggle buttons using the space bar. Apple added this capability via iOS 13.4’s new Full Keyboard Access feature, and it’s wild.
How wild? How about offering system-wide, custom keyboard shortcuts for running actual Shortcuts? And that’s just the beginning.
Ever since its launch, people have mostly been dismissive about Apple News on iPhone, iPad and Mac. One big reason is the way it interacts with links on the web, boxing users into the News app instead of letting them visit the open web.
For me, that’s actually a pretty desirable thing, because I really like the News app. It’s much cleaner-looking than many ad-bloated websites, and far less emotional and combative than getting your news on social media.
But making the News app show you the things you care about, with less clutter and noise, requires one simple trick.
Bullet journaling is a big deal. It’s a way to put your notes, lists, to-dos and calendars into any old notebook, and be able to find all of those things instantly. It’s truly the paper equivalent of an iPhone’s notes, reminders and calendar apps, only it’s all on paper. That means you can doodle and go totally free-form, instead of being constrained by an app-maker’s design.
The only thing a paper Bullet Journal can’t do is send you an alert or a notification. Today, we’ll see how to fix that, combining the paper journal with your iPhone’s calendar app.
Your iPhone is amazing. And that’s part of its problem. Every time you’re at a loose end, waiting in line, or just think that you’re bored, you pull it out and graze those Home screen icons to find something that might interest you.
This, you may not be surprised to know, is unhealthy behavior.
The latest generation of iPhones (the 11 and 11 Pro) contain the new U1 chip, which lets your iPhone locate other iPhones with pinpoint accuracy. Currently it is only used to show you the direction of other iPhones when you AirDrop a file. However, it will almost certainly soon be used to keep track of the rumored Apple Tags (or AirTags) tracking devices.
But what if you want to turn off UWB (ultra-wideband) tracking altogether? No problem.
Every morning when I sit at my Mac to start writing, I open the same apps and start the same iTunes playlist. This repetitive, tedious task is what computers are supposed to do for us, so I figured I’d make my Mac open up those apps, and start that music playing, all without me having to do anything.
That dream was quickly quashed — the Mac isn’t quite able to read my mind yet. So I settled for the next best thing: An AppleScript that I can leave in the Dock, and then click once to open everything. The best part is, it’s absurdly easy to make your own.
One of the best Twitter features is the mute. You can pick any keyword, hashtag or person, and shut them up for as long as you like. This works in various Twitter apps, but if you’re using the official Twitter app, you can mute these keywords just by long-pressing them.
This fantastic shortcut makes searching the web with your iPhone faster than ever. It places an icon on your Home screen, and you just tap it, type a search into the box that pops up, and hit enter. Your search will then open in Safari.
This customizable search shortcut proves speedier than pretty much any other method, including iOS’ built-in Spotlight search.
When you start up a Mac, it goes “bong,” and that’s the way the world should be. Unless, that is, you bought a Mac in 2016 or later, when Apple removed the Mac startup chime. These days, a Mac starts up silently, with only a whisper of fan noise (or the din of a whirring, clicking hard drive on an iMac) to let you know something is happening.
But what if you miss the good old Mac startup chime? Or — if you’re new to Macs — you just fancy a bit of retro charm? Today we’ll see how to bring back the bong.
This week we keep old folks safe, brew perfectly measured coffee, celebrate Photoshop’s 30th anniversary, and complain about SoundCloud.
Apple Maps offers surprisingly great public transport features. It recently expanded transit directions across Europe, so you can get “turn-by-turn” directions for metro, tram and other modes of public transit.
Even if your city isn’t yet covered by these directions, there’s still a whole lot of really useful information available. For instance, just tap a station on the map, and it will show all upcoming departures.
Let’s take a look at Apple Maps public transit features.
Like almost all of Apple’s built-in iOS apps, the Music app is capable but hard to use. Apple’s habit of hiding key functions behind multiple button-taps is in full force here, and it’s getting worse. Want to “heart” a track? You used to be able to do it from the lock screen player. Now you have to access the Music app’s share menu, and find it there.
And what if you want to view your recently added items as a list, or your list of songs as a grid? Tough. On the other hand, if you use features like the For You… playlists, and Apple Music’s excellent More by… recommendations, many alternative music apps don’t support them.
The answer to this digital music conundrum is Marvis Pro, a 1-year-old music app that offers everything you need — and nothing you don’t.
With the COVID-19 coronavirus spreading around the world, it’s worth taking a moment to learn how to wash your hands. Official government advice says that touch is not the most likely way for transmission of the deadly virus. But in general, touch is more likely to spread disease than kissing, according to Bill Bryson in his latest book, The Body. Which means that washing your hands is one of the best ways to guard against catching a cold or something worse.
You probably wash your hands plenty of times throughout the day. But unless you’re a surgeon, you probably don’t do it properly.
While most workout gadgets estimate all the calories you burn during the day, Apple Watch does something different. It uses a metric called Active Calories, which is always lower than Total Calories. And that’s actually a good thing. Here’s why.