Instagram has finally added proper secure authentication to its iPhone app. Previously, you could have Instagram send you a one-time login code via SMS every time you signed in. But SMS isn’t secure, making it relatively easy for people to hijack.
Now, you can use your favorite authenticator app — Google Authenticator, for instance — to generate a one-time code any time you need to sign in to Instagram.
The iPhone XS and XS Max both have an updated water-resistance rating compared to previous iPhones. The iPhone X has an IP67 rating, whereas the new models have IP68. But what does that mean? In practical terms, it means you never have to worry about dropping your iPhone in the toilet. But the code actually means a lot more than that.
Your shiny new Apple Watch is great for logging workouts. But it comes up short when you want to review your training progress and share your workout history with friends. Everything gets bundled in the Activity and Health apps on your iPhone, which are pretty basic.
That’s where third-party apps like Strava come in. Strava offers all the essential fitness analytics that Apple overlooks. The trouble is, Strava’s watch app sucks for logging workouts.
If only you could have the best of both worlds: logging your workouts with Apple’s excellent built-in Workout app, then syncing the data automatically to Strava. Well, thanks to a brilliant indie app called HealthFit, you can.
Black-and-white photos aren’t just regular photos with the color taken out. Or rather, they are exactly that, but they are also more than that. A B&W portrait can seem to say more about the subject than a colorful version, for instance. B&W is also ideal for showing more graphic images. Take a color photo of scaffolding and it looks super-dull. Take the same photo in B&W, jack up the contrast, and it becomes a stark grid — way more interesting to look at.
There’s much more to taking a B&W photo than just removing the color. For instance, did you know that a color filter will have a startling effect on a B&W photo? Let’s take a look at some of the tricks to capturing and editing stunning black-and-white images.
Instagram just added Nametags to its app, to make it easier to share your account with other people. Instead of forcing them to try to remember your Instagram username, you can just show them your Instagram Nametag, and they scan it from their own Instagram app.
It’s a neat feature, already in use on Snapchat. And — of course — you can customize your Nametag. Lets check it out.
Today we’re going to make an iPhone frame shortcut that takes your most-recent iPhone screenshot, and wraps it in a device beautiful frame. The frame will be the body of the iPhone, so it’ll look just like the iPhone pictures Apple uses on its site. This shortcut requires a little bit of setup (you have to copy some images into a folder in iCloud Drive), but after that it runs with a single tap.
You almost certainly know the shortcuts for snapping quick screenshots on your Mac. It’s ⇧⌘3 to capture the entire screen, and ⇧⌘4 to get a crosshairs cursor to select a section of the screen.
Now, there’s a new screenshot shortcut in town: ⇧⌘5. And boy is this fella fancy. If this were a western movie, ⇧⌘5 would be the young upstart blowing into town with a couple of Uzis and a pair of Kevlar chaps1. Let’s check out Mojave screenshots.
If you use Apple’s magnificent GarageBand for iOS, you will come up against one frustration over and over again — exporting stems. Or rather, not exporting stems. “Stems” is a cool music-producer term for the individual tracks in a song, and it is common practice to export them separately to either edit them in another app or send them to other people.
GarageBand on iOS doesn’t do this. It’s inexplicable. But there’s a fast and easy way to grab the stems right from your GarageBand project. You just need a copy of the magnificent AudioShare app, which costs just $3.99. Here’s how to export GarageBand stems.
For many people, the new “For You” tab in Apple’s Photos app could become the default front page for their pictures. The new feature in iOS 12 gathers everything you care about — recent pictures, sharing activity, memories and something called “Featured Photos” — into one convenient spot.
Let’s check out the Photos For You tab and see what you can do with it.
Despite its many flaws, Siri is still useful for lots of tasks: Setting a coffee timer, adding a reminder, looking up a fact. But what I almost never want is Siri’s voice feedback.
Usually I’m looking at my iPhone when I use Siri, and I don’t use Hey Siri ever. What I want is to ask Siri a question, and have it answer, without all the usual smart-mouthed nonsense. Thankfully, there’s one setting that does just that: Mute Siri.
By Chris Brantner
With the Major League Baseball playoffs starting Tuesday, fans will be anxiously watching to see if their team advances and, eventually, who will bring home the World Series title.
Whether you have cable or not, you can still watch the entire MLB playoffs season from the Apple device of your choice. Here’s how to catch all the action on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, etc.
Shortcuts is the hot new feature of iOS 12. The Shortcuts app lets you automate some crazy stuff, for instance this shortcut that activates the iPhone’s camera and sends an SMS if the cops pull you over. Thanks to Apple’s terminology, Shortcuts is a little confusing. Is it an automation tool? Does it have something to do with Siri? Why would you use it?
We’ll answer these questions, and then build an awesome shortcut so you can see how the app works.
One of watchOS 5’s greatest features is the Walkie-Talkie app. If you know other Apple Watch owners, you can just talk into your wrist, like in a 1950s secret agent TV show, and chat to them. It’s way better than having to make a phone call, because the chat is pushed.
Imagine that you’re on vacation camping, or on a bike trip across country, or working in a large (but fairly quiet) job site. You can talk to people as if they are there next to you. And in one way, this is better than a real walkie-talkie: Because it doesn’t use radio, there’s no limit to distance. You can chat to people on the other end of town, or the other side of the world.
Let’s see how to use the Apple Watch Walkie-Talkie app.
The latest version of macOS is finally here. MacOS Mojave adds Dark Mode, Dynamic Desktop, Finder Stacks, and a fantastic redesigned Finder. While your Mac is updating to the latest version, you may enjoy reading the rest of our Mojave coverage. Check it out.
macOS Mojave just launched, bringing all kinds of neat new features to Apple’s desktop OS. Dark Mode, Dynamic Desktop, Stacks and a fantastically redesigned Finder are some of the highlights.
If you are planning on upgrading, you should do a little prep work first. Here’s how to get ready for your sweet, free macOS Mojave upgrade.
If you take a photo inside the Messages app in iOS 11 and earlier, that photo stays trapped in the message thread forever, unless you explicitly long-press and save it to your camera roll. In iOS 12, that’s changed. Now, when you take a photo using the messages app, any pictures you snap are saved to your Photos library. But that’s not quite the whole story.
One fantastic new feature of iOS 12 is that password manager apps can integrate into the built-in password autofill. You know how when you tap a password field in Safari, and it offers to fill the password in from your iCloud Keychain? It’s pretty handy right?
Now it can also serve up passwords form third-party apps like Dashlane and 1Password. And that’s not all.
If you’re still using your iPhone’s alarm clock to wake you up in the mornings, you’re about to be amazed at how awesome waking up can become. Right there inside the Clock app is a Bedtime tab, which will make using olde-timey iPhone alarms seem like carrying a wind-up travel alarm clock with you on a business trip.
Not only does Bedtime wake you up with soothing sounds, it also tracks your sleep. It even reminds you when it’s time for bed! Let’s check out what it does and how to use it.
In iOS 12, iPhone X owners gain the option of adding an alternate appearance in Face ID. If you’re a drag queen, if you regularly wear protective head and face gear for your job, or if you’re Bono and you’d like to be able to use your iPhone for that one hour a day that your doctor recommends you remove your sunglasses, an alternate appearance will help your iPhone recognize you.
Can you use it to let a second person access your iPhone? Perhaps. Here’s how to set it all up.
Back in 1979, the original Sony Walkman had an odd feature. If you pressed an orange button on the end, a built-in mic would connect to the user’s headphones, letting the person hear what was going on in the outside world. This may be the first case of technology being used to mitigate the bad manners surrounding personal audio.
Now, in iOS 12, this type of feature is back — and way more useful than it was in music’s greatest-ever decade. Live Listen is a new iOS 12 feature that pipes live audio from the iPhone’s mic directly to your AirPods. Why? Well, it’s an accessibility feature, but it can be used for much more.
Users of 3-D Touch-capable iPhones, and of iPads in general, have long been able to use the devices’ fantastic trackpad mode. It’s a great way to quickly move the keyboard’s insert point (aka cursor) precisely where you want it — and it just got even better.
In iOS 12, this neat trick comes to all iPhones, even those without 3-D Touch. Bonus tip: The update also makes it even easier to use trackpad mode on your iPad.
iOS 12 adds the ability to share passwords via AirDrop, which is super-duper useful. Maybe you want to send your Netflix password to your spouse so you can watch a movie on his iPad, or maybe you need to share the password you just created for the local grocery delivery service.
In short, any situation in which you previously used a service like 1Password or Dashlane to show your password in large type so somebody else could copy it, you can now use AirDrop instead. Here’s how.
Ever since iOS 11, your iPhone and iPad have been able to detect a QR code in the camera frame, and pop up a banner at the top of the screen to open the link embedded within it. This is a great way to quickly extract a URL from a billboard, or from a particular nerdy lost-cat poster stapled to a utility pole.
Now, iOS 12 brings a dedicated QR-scanning shortcut that you can invoke right from your iPhone’s lock screen. Let’s see how to scan QR codes in iOS 12.
iOS 12 doesn’t really have any huge new standout features. It’s more a collection of really solid improvements to iOS 11. It sounds odd to say that my favorite new feature is Do Not Disturb during Bedtime, but it’s made a big difference in how I use my iPhone.
Likewise with today’s Pro Tip. iOS markup for screenshots, PDFs and Photos was already good, but new options for the pen tools make it great.
Even if you never make a voice memo, you might be interested in Apple’s updated Voice Memos app. Powerful new features in iOS 12 make it much more than just a way to record voice snippets.
In fact, in iOS 12, Voice Memos morphs into a full-fledged audio recorder and audio editing app. As such, it’s useful for people recording interviews, and for musicians working on ideas. Let’s take a look around.