iPad users once again gain access to classic Split View multitasking in iPadOS 26.2. It’s back to being the best way to use two applications side-by-side on your iPad.
Apple nerfed Split View in iPadOS 26, but the latest OS update walks that mistake back — it’s as good as it’s ever been. Here’s how to use the revised version.
You can make an animated GIF on your iPhone or Mac out of any Live Photo or video in your photo library or saved on your computer. You don’t need to download any apps — simply add a shortcut, and you can make a GIF directly from the share sheet.
If you need an actual GIF file, there’s still a pretty easy way to make them on your phone or Mac. I’ll show you how.
If you’re trying to listen to podcasts or music on your iPhone, it can be annoying when your AirPods keep switching to other devices, like your Mac or iPad.
Personally, I don’t mind this behavior. If I’m sitting at my Mac, I want to use the Music and the Podcasts apps on the Mac. But a lot of people consider their iPhone their primary device — and always want to play audio from their phone, no matter which other device they’re using.
If you want your iPhone to retain supreme control over your ears, here’s how to disable AirPods auto-switching.
Contact Posters let you customize how your Apple contact card looks to other people when you call them. If they have your contact info in their address book, your customized Contact Poster will appear on their iPhone’s screen.
Done right, Contact Posters look great — way better than the old thumbnail images that preceded them. Plus, it’s really easy to turn an ordinary picture into a gorgeous-looking Contact Poster that makes a real impact.
And once you set one up, everyone with your matching phone number and/or Apple Account will see your chosen contact picture and personalized Contact Poster.
I’ll show you how to set one up; the process might look familiar if you’ve set up a custom Lock Screen.
Apple Music Replay is a great way to find your music stats for the past year: the most played songs, artists and albums in the last 12 months. Similar to Spotify Wrapped and the like, your annual Apple Music Replay is a fun way to see what tracks you listened to most.
Fun fact: Apple usually publicizes Apple Music Replay in December, but it’s actually updated weekly and available throughout the whole year! You can check in whenever you want to see how your year is shaping up.
We’ll show you how to find it and how to share your top music of the year to your friends and social media.
Spam calls and text messages seem absolutely relentless these days — you’ll want to know how to block a number on your iPhone to keep your sanity. Luckily, it’s easy. There are a variety of ways you can stop unwanted calls. You can block an incoming phone call or text message. And you can send unknown callers directly to Live Voicemail.
If you’re blocking a person in your contacts list, it doesn’t matter which app you block them from — Messages, Phone, Contacts, Mail, Settings — they will be blocked everywhere.
Here’s how to block calls from unknown numbers on iPhone and keep spammers at bay.
It’s good to know how to close apps on iPhone for those times when an app is acting buggy or becomes unresponsive. It’s really easy — just swipe up to see your running apps and swipe up again to close them.
But does this mean you should always quit your open apps? No, not at all.
Despite what you may have heard, quitting apps on iOS usually makes things worse, not better. It’s a myth that quitting apps will save battery life, make your iPhone run faster or free up memory. Overall, it negatively impacts your iPhone’s performance.
Here’s how to close iPhone apps — plus three reasons why you shouldn’t rush to do it.
If your iPhone ever experiences odd technical problems, the first thing you should try is a good, old-fashioned restart. You’ll be surprised how many problems you can fix by simply rebooting your phone.
Restarting your iPhone is just like restarting a computer. All of the apps and software will be reset, and you shouldn’t lose any saved data.
If a particular app you’re using is acting up, you can always force-quit it and open it again to reset it. But if there’s a deeper underlying problem with your phone’s software, like if Bluetooth accessories aren’t working or phone calls suddenly won’t connect, you should restart your iPhone.
Here’s how to do it with any model of iPhone.
From wild concept art to polished edits, Google Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro image creation and editing tool can spin up impressive visuals from a single prompt on your iPhone.
The featured image of this article itself serves as an amazing example of Nano Banana Pro’s capabilities. And it also showcases just how far behind Apple is in the AI race. (Sorry, Image Playground.)
If you’re itching to use Google’s Nano Banana Pro on your iPhone, this guide will show you how.
A great way to personalize your computer is to change your Mac icons. New in macOS Tahoe, you can give each folder a custom color or symbol.
In fact, you can change any icon on your Mac to customize it to your taste. That includes any app, folder, disk or file icon. For instance, I didn’t like the yellow icon of my external hard drive — so I changed it to blue. I’ve also edited a few app icons for better consistency in my Dock.
I’ll show you how to do it yourself.
Phone addiction is real. Constant iPhone use can literally change the makeup of your brain. Sure, people waved similar panic flags about the television, the radio and even the novel, but those were easily left at home. You carry the internet with you, and it’s constantly blasting a firehose of content, everywhere you go.
Luckily, you can make your iPhone less addictive.
If you feel the impulse to unlock your iPhone at every empty moment, or scroll through an app when you feel like you should be getting to bed, here are my tips for making your iPhone a bit more boring. And that, in turn, will help you curb your phone addiction.
You can share passwords on iPhone automatically with your entire family, so you don’t have to reuse the same password everywhere or let everyone in your family know when a shared password is changed.
Setting up this feature is easy and saves the hassle of being texted “hey I can’t get into Amazon, what’s that password again?” and “I need you to send me the code.” When you set up shared passwords, two-factor authentication and passkeys are shared, too.
It’s a huge time-saver, and highly recommended. You can keep reading below or watch our quick video.
You can queue songs in Apple Music so the tracks you want to hear play automatically, one after another. You don’t need to wait for the song to end and manually play the next one. And if you want to start over, you can quickly clear the queue as well.
Plus, you can let friends add songs to the queue from their own phones — even if they don’t have an Apple Music subscription. Watch our video or keep reading below.
With Thanksgiving coming in a few weeks, it’s time to watch the beloved Peanuts special that celebrates this holiday, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. While Apple TV subscribers can watch it anytime, Apple will also make the special free for anyone to stream one weekend this month.
You do not need an Apple device to enjoy either. It’s easy on Windows and Android.
Spotlight on the Mac is a universal search bar, available everywhere, ready to quickly launch an app or find a file. And in macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple supercharged Spotlight by adding many advanced features.
Spotlight has a new visual interface for browsing apps on your Mac. It’s also a powerful tool for running Shortcuts and actions inside the apps you use. And, finally, it’s a clipboard manager, too.
Here are the ins and outs of Spotlight on the Mac.
AirPods Pro 3’s redesigned ear tips are an unexpected hit-or-miss change. The new foam-infused tips radically change how the earbuds feel when worn.
Apple knows the ear tips are not one-size-fits-all, so the company includes five sizes of ear tips in the AirPods Pro 3 box. You can easily switch them out to find the best size for your ears.
Using the wrong size can cause problems. The earbuds can slip out if they’re too small or irritate your ears if they’re too big. They might even cause high-pitched feedback if you engage active noise cancellation with the wrong size ear tips (especially when flying).
If you don’t like how your new AirPods Pro 3 feel in the ear, don’t be hasty and return them. You should try out different ear tips first. Here are some tips to make sure you achieve the best results.
Your iPhone can record 3D spatial video and photos, effectively future-proofing the images you capture. And the results are stunning.
The stereoscopic 3D video and photos captured with the iPhone can be viewed on an Apple Vision Pro headset as an immersive way to relive memories.
Here’s how it works.
You’ll want to reset your iPhone if you’re trading it in, selling it or passing it down to another family member. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
If you don’t fully reset the phone, it’ll still be locked to your Apple Account — and the phone will be effectively useless to anyone who tries to use it.
Follow along to make sure you reset your iPhone the right way.
My favorite change in iOS 26.1 has nothing to do with Liquid Glass, though cosmetic tweaks to the glossy user interface have drawn the most attention in the latest OS update. To me, the biggest improvement is the option to disable the Lock Screen swipe to open the iPhone’s Camera app.
I frequently pull out my iPhone to find the Camera app has been running in my pocket, draining the battery. It’s that damn Lock Screen swipe at fault. If this happens to you, too, here’s how to disable it in iOS 26.1.
Slide Over, one of the best iPad multitasking features, got rescued from the rubbish heap with the new iPadOS 26.1. It’s an ideal way to keep an application that you check frequently but not constantly within easy reach — it’s offscreen but accessible with just a flick of a finger.
Here’s how to use Slide Over, and why you shouldn’t ignore the option now that it’s back in iPadOS 26.1, which launched on Monday.
You can use the built-in iPhone Wallet app for some basic order tracking with classic Apple ease of use. No need to fiddle with finding and copying tracking numbers — your orders will appear there automatically.
If you order something from an online store that doesn’t automatically integrate with the Wallet app, there’s a solution for that as well. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, it’ll scan your email inbox and add in all those Amazon orders, too.
Here’s how the iPhone’s order-tracking feature works.
You can hide apps on your iPhone so they’re completely invisible, and you can lock all kinds of apps so they require Face ID to open.
Why would you want to? Maybe you have sensitive content you don’t want anyone to see, or you don’t want anyone to know you’re using dating or hookup apps. Hiding apps is also good for staying off social media or away from addictive games. Plus, it’s a great way to declutter your iPhone’s Home Screen. You can really clean things up without deleting apps you might want to keep.
There are, however, a few essential apps on your phone that can’t be hidden. Here’s how it all works.
Knowing how to edit or unsend iMessages on your iPhone could come in clutch. Like when you text your mom, “Finally got laid today” when you meant to say “paid.”
Thankfully, it’s easy to rewrite history in iMessage. Let me show you how this lifesaving feature works.
If you have trouble hearing, you might miss the sound of a knock on the door, a barking dog, or even worse — a smoke detector. Or, you might miss someone calling your name when they’re trying to get your attention. It’s less serious, but much more annoying. With Sound Recognition, you can get a prominent alarm and a buzz on your Apple Watch or iPhone when your phone hears the sounds you choose.
When Sound Recognition is enabled, your iPhone will continuously listen for dangerous sounds. It could, literally, be a lifesaving feature for you or a loved one. And Name Recognition lets you train your phone on how to recognize your name.
Here’s how to use these important safety and productivity features.
In iOS 26, you can use Apple Cash in a group chat to make it super-easy to split a bill. You won’t need to chase down everyone separately if you use this incredibly convenient feature.
Here’s how to request money and send payments using Apple Cash from a group chat.