You already know how to take a selfie. It’s probably the first thing you did when you got your iPhone up and running. But did you know you can take a selfie and add stickers? Right there in the Messages app?
Your friends are already hungry for another one of your awesome selfies. Imagine how fired up they’re going to be when they see those stickers.
Last week we saw how to use Google’s search operators to narrow a search and get exactly what you want, just by adding a few words to your search string. Today we’ll check out the Google’s Advanced Image Search, which is just as handy, only for pictures
Wait, what? Why would you want to back up your iCloud Photo Library? Apple takes care of that, right? After all, the clue is in the name — the library is stored in iCloud.
Not so fast. That’s true, but what if something screws up at Apple’s end? What if you lose access to your iCloud account? What if, what if, what if? In most cases, you’ll be fine, but being a good computer nerd, you probably understand the value of redundant backups. So today we’ll see how to make sure all your images are safely stored. Just in case.
For many folks, Google is the front page of the internet. You don’t type Facebook.com into your browser. You just type “Facebook,” and then click the first Google result. Or you do a basic search by tapping in what you’re looking for.
But Google is way more powerful than that. You just have to learn a few of its secret code words, and then you can slice and dice your searches like a pro. No more wading through pages of results to find what you want. Use these tricks, and you’ll almost always get what you want on the first page. You can even ask Google to show you the weather.
Did you ever look at the five-minute intervals on the Calendar app’s time picker and think, “I really wish I could set that appointment at 09:03 and not 09:05”?
No, neither did I (nor did anyone else that isn’t some kind of control-freak psychopath). But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Today we’ll see how to tweak the Calendar’s time wheel to show one-minute increments instead of the usual five-minute segments.
Ever looked at your iPad and thought, “I’d love to hold that huge thing up to my ear and make a phone call. I’d look to-ta-lee badass. Now, where’s my cellphone holster?”? Bonus points if you had this thought while looking at a huge 13-inch iPad Pro.
Of course, it might actually be handy to make calls on your iPad, especially as you probably would use AirPods or EarPods to do so. Your iPhone may be charging, or in another room, or maybe you’re there with a number ready to call on your Mac or iPad. Now, the iPad still can’t use its cellular connection to send or receive SMS messages, or make phone calls, but if you have an iPhone nearby you can use it as a bridge to do both. Bonus: This even works with the Wi-Fi-only iPad.
The iPad infamously still lacks a built-in weather app. There are plenty of ways around this — you can ask Siri, you can use the Maps app to see the weather anywhere, or you can wait for your iPhone to give you a lock-screen forecast every morning.
Today we add a new method. We’ll make a quick shortcut that gets the weather at your current location, and displays it as a notification.
I can’t tell you how much I love GarageBand on the iPad. But even though it’s a fantastic app, and totally self-contained, sometimes you need to use a Mac. That’s because the iOS version lacks several features of the desktop version. But that’s OK, because the Mac can open iOS GarageBand projects easily. And today we’re going to see how to do it.
Whenever you click a link in a Google search, it replaces the URL of the site with a tracking URL. If you hover over a link with your mouse before you click it, Safari will show you the full URL of that link. It’s a great way to check where you’re about to get sent. Google plays along with this, showing you the proper URL for the link in question.
Only when you actually click on it, it swaps out that link, replacing it with its own tracking link.
Fortunately, there’s a way to block this sneaky, underhanded and totally unsurprising behavior.
The Dynamic Desktop is a great macOS Mojave feature. It changes the desktop image throughout the day, so your wallpaper always matches the time of day — nighttime images at night, shadowless glare at noon, and so on. Today we’ll see how to switch it on, and where to find new Dynamic Desktop images to add to the defaults.
What happens if you’re working on a document and you realize you screwed it up? Maybe you deleted a few paragraphs without realizing. Or you’ve just been writing a bunch of nonsense for the past half-hour and wish you could go back to where you were before? On the Mac, you can easily do just that. It’s called versions, and it’s automatic.
Using versions, you can easily browse and restore previous versions of any document. Some apps have this built in, so you can do it right there inside the app itself. But the Finder also supports versions, so you can revert to a previous state of almost anything.
How many times have you stared at the same list of stale tasks on your to-do list? I have whole sections that have been there so long they’ve become invisible to me —- just like the sign in by bathroom telling guests to sit down to pee has become invisible to certain of my antisocial visitors.
Now, today’s tip isn’t going to help you to finish off those lingering tasks. You may as well just delete them, because you’re never, ever going to complete them. But it might help you rescue newly added tasks from the same stagnant fate. It’s called the “question mark to-do list trick”, and so far it’s working for me.
There are a bunch of reasons to remove the background from a photo. You might just hate the background — a perfect portrait ruined by crowds, or ugly construction work, or both. You may want to remove the background in order to extract the subject — maybe you’re doing some kind of Photoshop trick, or making a greetings card.
Whatever your reasons, it’s easy to do. Removing the background from an image used to be a nightmare. Now, you just need the right app. And if you’re a regular with our Cult of Mac photo how-tos, you probably have that app already.
By Chris Brantner
We’re down to the four best teams in the NFL playoffs, and this weekend’s championship games are sure to be memorable. Whoever you’re rooting for, you can expect two phenomenal games — and you can watch all the action on your Apple devices.
The Touch Bar is one of Apple’s most controversial innovations of recent years. Located inconspicuously at the top of the MacBook Pro keyboard, where the function keys used to sit, some users ignore it altogether. Others actively hate it.
For pro users, like software developers, the lack of a physical escape key and function keys can be a real pain. And the Touch Bar’s touch-sensitivity makes it all too easy to trigger Siri by accident when you aim for the delete key.
But love it or loathe it, we’re stuck with the Touch Bar. Apple includes it on all its high-end laptops, without even offering function keys as a built-to-order option. So we might as well learn how to get the most out of it.
The good news is that once you get in touch with your Touch Bar, it turns out to have some genuinely useful time-saving features. Especially if you use apps that support it, like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office. Here are my top 40 Touch Bar tips.
Slack is everybody’s favorite way to waste time when they’re supposed to be working. And today, the biggest conversation in Slack chats everywhere is Slack’s hideous new logo.
It’s dull. It’s ugly. It has none of the personality of the original logo, and it doesn’t look like the Slack hashtag even if you squint at it hard.
If you’re on iOS, tough. You’re stuck with this awful new corporate abomination. But if you’re on the Mac, there’s good news: You can keep the old Slack app icon.
Step one is DON’T UPDATE THE SLACK APP YET!
You know how iOS’ accessibility features often prove handy for all users? Like Live Listen, which lets you turn your AirPods into remote listening devices? Or a combo of settings that resurrects an iPhone with a broken screen?
The same is true for Screen Time. This feature tracks how long you spend using apps every day, and can help you limit that time. But you can also use Screen Time to password-protect any app on your iPhone or iPad.
Did you know that you can watch any video in a floating window on your iPad? Of course you did. But did you also know that you can change the size of the window, and even dock it to the side of your screen? Maybe not! Today we’re going to check out how to use picture-in-picture on the iPad.
The iPhone and iPad are usually great at making web pages easy to read, even when they have lots of small text. Double-tap on a column of text, and it automatically zooms to fill the screen. Double-tap it again and you’re back where you began.
But sometimes a page behaves badly. You see it often on Internet forums, or the mobile-friendly (!) version of Reddit, for example. The text is tiny, and runs from edge to edge. There’s no way to zoom in. Even if you turn your device on its side to make the screen wider, the text just reflows — the same tiny letters, but in even longer lines.
This weekend I got sick of this, and set out to find a way to increase the font size in Mobile Safari with a bookmarklet. It didn’t take long.
The iPhone comes with some cool dynamic wallpapers — they’re the ones where blobs of color float around the screen like wax in a lava lamp. But did you know you can create your own Dynamic Wallpaper using your own Live Photos?
You can — and it’s super-easy.
Apple’s revenue is hurting this quarter. Part of that is down to China, but part of it is Apple’s own stupid fault. The iPhone is just too damn good.
Unlike most crappy Android junk, which slows down and falls apart almost as soon as you’ve opened the box, the iPhone lasts for years. Even if you, the original owner, replace it after just a couple of years, then it’s likely that you’ll hand it down to a friend of a family member who will enjoy it for a few more.
The iPhone is a great investment, then (for you, if not for share traders) but you can make it last a lot longer. Try these tips to make your iPhone last you for years.
Do you have a snippet of a song in your head, and it’s driving you crazy? Did you forget to Shazam it when you heard it playing in that hipster boutique vegan-boots-and-artisanal-ramen store? Then you need Apple Music’s search by lyrics feature, which lets you find a song based on a few vaguely remembered snatches of verse.
It’s happening again! You cheaped out and bought that 32GB iPhone or iPad a few years back, and it’s full up, again. But wait — before you go deleting your photos, or uninstalling apps at random until you recover enough space, take a look at this how-to. You might be able to recover tens of gigabytes from apps you’d totally forgotten about.
Did you know that every photo you send via iMessage, or other messaging services like WhatsApp, contains all that photo’s location data? If you snap a picture in your home, anyone who’s receives that photo will be able to see where you took it on a map.
The same goes for uploading images to online auction sites, or internet forums. The good news is that it’s easy to sanitize your images with Shortcuts.
Turned the screen brightness on your iPad (or iPhone) all the way down? Still too much light for you? Reading in bed next to someone whose eyelids seem to amplify light the same way a magnifying glass turns the sun into a death ray for ants?
Then this tip is for you. With a simple triple-tap of the top button or Home button on your iPad, you can dim the screen way beyond its usual limit.
Although your whining, over-sensitive bed partner will likely just start complaining about the noise of those button taps instead.