How-To

The iPhone’s Live Captions feature generates subtitles of any media playing on your device or heard by its microphone. Powered by the Neural Engine in Apple’s custom silicon, the ability to convert words from music, videos and real-time conversations into text on the fly is a boon to many users in many situations.

If you’re hard of hearing, for instance, the ability to see instant captions on the screen is a game-changer. Or, if you don’t have headphones when you’re sitting in bed late at night and your partner is asleep — or you’re in any situation where you don’t want to make noise, like on the bus or in an office — you can turn on Live Captions to get subtitles.

The applications are endless and exciting. Here’s how to use Live Captions on your iPhone.

If you come across a live concert recording, a demo track or an indie song that’s not already in Apple Music, you can add it to your Apple Music library really easily. It’s simple to upload music to Apple Music and, in fact, you don’t even need an Apple Music subscription — just a computer and your iPhone.

Adding music to your library manually used to be the only way to listen to music on your computer, way back before the iTunes Music Store made paid downloads popular and Apple Music entered the streaming area. Even after 25-plus years, Apple still supports the feature — and thankfully so, because I use it all the time.

It’s the top reason why I don’t use Spotify. While Spotify technically supports custom music as well, it’s a convoluted and clunky process. On Apple Music, it’s dead simple to add your own tracks and only takes minutes. All you need is a Mac or a Windows 10 PC with iTunes.

Here’s how it works. 

The Apple Watch doesn’t just count your steps — its three Activity rings track different levels of energy you burn throughout the day. And the perpetual challenge to “close your rings” provides a motivational push that gamifies fitness.

Apple’s smartwatch gives you a bunch of options for customizing your Activity rings (and for taking a break when you need it). You can set different goals for each ring for different days of the week to fit your workout schedule. When you want a rest day or if you fall ill, you can take up to a month-long break without losing your streak.

If you’re all-in on the fitness tracking, you can add widgets that show your rings on your Apple Watch face and widgets on your iPhone. Or, on the other hand, if you find it all a bit annoying, you can turn off all the notifications so they won’t bother you anymore.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Apple Watch’s Activity rings.

I finally figured out the perfect set of controls to assign to the iPhone’s Action button. I created a shortcut that cleverly combines the two controls I want to use it for.

The Action button can toggle the flashlight, mute audio, toggle an accessibility feature, open the camera, start translation, run any shortcut of your choosing and more. It’s so open-ended that figuring out what to use it for can trigger decision fatigue. 

Don’t panic — I discovered what you should use the iPhone’s action button for. And I’m sharing the shortcut, which combines two actions into one elegant system, so you can use it, too. 

If you want to install a beta version of macOS, either for software development or for simply poking around, the smartest way to do it is to partition your Mac’s hard drive. That will create a new storage area just for the different installation, with entirely separate data, so none of your precious documents are at risk.

You also might want to have different versions of macOS on hand for testing old versions of the operating system, too. It’s easier than keeping a pile of aging Macs around (my go-to strategy).

Luckily, the Mac comes with a very handy tool to partition your hard drive for free. Read on to find out how to partition your Mac’s hard drive with Disk Utility.

If you want to make your iPhone easier to use, you can customize its Control Center to gain faster access to the buttons and toggles you rely upon to perform frequent tasks.

Plus, you can remove all the junk you never touch from the iPhone Contol Center, putting the vital controls you actually use front and center.

Keep reading to find out how and why you should customize the iPhone Control Center to make the device your own.

Nothing illustrates the power of Apple’s ecosystem like the Continuity features that help your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch work seamlessly together.

Thanks to Continuity, your iPhone can serve as your Mac’s webcam — and you can remotely control your iPhone from your Mac. You can start an email on one device and instantly pick it up on another. You can use the same keyboard and mouse with a Mac and iPad, copy and paste across devices and more. 

These features flex the power of Apple’s hardware and software — and they would never be possible on a PC.

In this post (and the accompanying video), I will show you some of the time-saving, annoyance-busting Continuity features you can enjoy when you go all-in on the Apple ecosystem.

You can get the time without even looking at your Apple Watch using a little-known feature called Taptic Time. Simply hold two fingers on the device’s screen, and the watch will tap out the time on your wrist.

This is handy if you’re in a meeting and need to know the time, but you don’t want to look rude checking your watch. Or maybe you’re in the middle of a presidential debate.

Whatever the situation, turning on this little-known Apple Watch feature — and familiarizing yourself with how it works –can come in handy.

On Tuesday, Apple released firmware updates for the Magic Keyboard designed for the iPad Pro and iPad Air. This is something the company does periodically.

Making sure the accessory is on the latest version ensures it works reliably and remains fully compatible with the latest versions of iPadOS.

Updating is really very easy. Here’s what to do.

Death, taxes and running out of storage on your Mac — few things in life are as certain. If you’re experiencing the latter, before you go around deleting files, you should take stock of what’s filling up your computer. There are three easy ways to clear disk space on your Mac.

The Mac’s System Settings offers a built-in storage manager that lets you see which categories of files are filling up your drive. It makes clearing out useless junk fast and easy.

A pair of third-party apps can help out, too. Hyperspace removes duplicate data across your Mac’s hard drive, cleaning up your file system without deleting anything. And CleanMyMac can find the system files, junk and other cruft that can build up over time in places you don’t even think to check. 

Whatever the reason you need more storage, read on to learn how to tidy up your Mac.

iOS 26’s Liquid Glass user interface brings dramatic change to the iPhone, so it’s no surprise that some people hate it. If the new translucent look is just not for you, you can tweak or turn off Liquid Glass in iOS 26.2. And it’s easy.

Plus, you will find the same settings in macOS Tahoe 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2, so you can turn off Liquid Glass on all your Apple devices if you like. Here’s how.

What do the buttons on the Apple Watch do? The Apple Watch borrows a lot from the iPhone, but the biggest difference between the two devices comes down to the way their buttons work. Each individual button does different things, depending on whether you click, double-click or hold them down.

Apple changed a lot of these features a few years ago with watchOS 10. The software update added a new Widgets view, reassigned Control Center to the side button, and changed what double-clicking the Digital Crown does. (For older devices, see our article about what Apple Watch buttons do in watchOS 9.)

Here’s a guide to the buttons on the Apple Watch.

Some people achieve and maintain zero unread emails; some let that red badge climb into the thousands. It’s never too late to change your ways — you can become one of those clean inbox people like me. These six tips will help you get to Inbox Zero using features in Apple’s Mail app that you might not have known about.

The obvious Tip No. 0 is this: You should always hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of every unsolicited promotional email as soon as you get the first one.

After you kill all those unwanted subscriptions, these six lesser-known features of the Apple Mail app on iPhone, Mac and iPad will make you a true pro at managing your email.

You’ve probably seen some beautiful custom iPhone Home Screens on social media. Some people go to great lengths to creatively customize their Home Screen. You can go for a specific theme and aesthetic using custom icon colors and widgets.

Why spend so much time and effort? For one thing, you likely look at your Home Screen dozens (or even hundreds) of times every single day. A custom Home Screen that matches your style can bring a little spark of joy to your daily life every time you whip out your iPhone. And iOS makes Home Screen customization easier than ever.

Keep reading (or watch our video) for a quick introduction into the world of custom iPhone Home Screens. You’ll find out about new features in iOS 26, how to go above and beyond using Shortcuts, and how you can top off your iPhone aesthetic with widgets. I’ve scoured the internet (Reddit, mostly) to find the finest examples.

Apple released new firmware for AirPods Pro 3 on Tuesday that offers bug fixes, and there’s optimism that the new 8B34 version removes a bug that sometimes causes whistling noises when active noise cancellation is used.

Last year, Apple finally explained exactly how to update your AirPods firmware. The process can happen automatically, in the background, but there is a way to speed things up. It’s a good idea to manually check that you’re running the latest version, which brings bug fixes and sometimes great new features.

Read on for more details, and find all current AirPods firmware versions, along with instructions for getting the AirPods update as quickly as possible.

You can set up persistent notifications from specific apps so they stick to the top of your iPhone screen. With persistent notifications in iOS, when your phone is unlocked and an important alert comes in, the notification will stay visible at the top of the screen until you act upon it.

It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t miss (or forget about) critical notifications on your iPhone.

This proves super-handy for things like medication reminders. It also works wonders if you’re the sort of person who ignores notifications once they disappear from your iPhone screen. I’ll show you how to make your notifications sticky.

Mac Hot Corners are shortcuts for your mouse. Enable the Hot Corners feature, and you can throw your mouse cursor to the corner of the screen (the easiest place to hit) to perform quick actions. You can instantly lock the screen, start a screensaver, show the desktop, show all windows and more.

If you use your Mac with a standard two-button PC mouse instead of Apple’s Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse, Hot Corners can replace the multitouch gestures that you miss out on. The Mac’s built-in Hot Corners feature provides a quick and easy way to navigate your computer, and I recommend that you turn them on and use them.

You can adjust the background blur of a Portrait mode photo on iPhone and Mac — even after you’ve taken the picture.

Because the iPhone stores the depth data that it uses to create the blur effect along with the image itself, you can adjust how blurry or clear the background looks. It’s super-easy to get just the right amount of aesthetically pleasing background blur, aka bokeh, to make your images look perfect.

Why would you want to tweak the background blur on your iPhone photo? A blurrier background, under the right conditions, can make for a very dramatic picture. It can effectively emphasize the subject of your shot. Or, you might want to turn up the blur to intentionally hide details behind you. On the other hand, if you’re in a photogenic location, you might want to decrease the blur so you can see more of the gorgeous background scenery.

Either way, I’ll show you how to edit Portrait mode’s background blur in photos on iPhone and Mac.

If you work on a Mac, these six useful apps can help you get that work done faster. And you don’t need to take time to download them or figure out if they’re worth the price — you already have these apps on your computer.

Stickies can help you stay organized with digital Post-It notes. Digital Color Meter is an essential tool for graphic design. Dictionary is the fastest way to look up words and synonyms. Screen Sharing can remotely control other computers on your network. Grapher is a highly advanced plotting tool. And finally, Screenshot is an easy-to-use interface for taking screenshots and screen recordings.

I’ll walk you through how to use these useful Mac apps that you probably haven’t heard of.

Logging how you feel throughout the day with your iPhone can help you identify what’s causing you trouble or what works for you, whether it’s work, family, exercise, sleep or other things. You don’t need to hand your data over to a third-party app; the built-in and totally free Apple Health app comes with a built-in mood tracker that helps you keep tabs on your mental well-being.

In order to make any kind of meaningful change, you need to understand fully what helps, what doesn’t, and what you can do. And that means effectively tracking your mental health. Luckily, starting your log is easy. Set it up once, and your phone will ask you every day so you don’t forget.

Let me show you how to set up a mood tracker on your iPhone.

You can turn your iPhone into a smart display on your nightstand, at your desk or in the kitchen using StandBy mode. It’s an attractive way to put your iPhone to work as a small information board or digital clock when you’re not actively using it.

Of course, it works best if you own a phone with an always-on display. However, it works with any iPhone with MagSafe running iOS 17 or later. Best of all, StandBy remembers different preferences for different rooms, so you can set it up as a bedside clock in the bedroom, a digital photo frame in the living room, or a music controller in the kitchen.

Here’s everything you can do with StandBy on your iPhone.

Set your Apple Watch time a few minutes ahead of the actual time and you might trick yourself out of running late every day. This is an officially supported feature, not a hack that will produce cascading, annoying side effects. And it doesn’t require you to set your smartwatch out of sync with internet time.

What will you gain? By running your Apple Watch a few minutes fast, you might nudge yourself to rush out the door a little earlier. And that might be enough to get you somewhere on time rather than late. If tardiness is a frequent problem for you, this little change could save your skin.

A hidden setting will speed up Haptic Touch, the fantastic feature that lets you preview links and bring up menus on your iPhone. If you use Haptic Touch all the time, like I do, changing this setting will make your iPhone feel turbocharged. With the settings tweak, your iPhone will bring up handy shortcuts — hidden actions, content previews and contextual menus — in a flash. And that saves you precious time as you tap around your screen. Alternatively, if you find Haptic Touch annoying and trigger it accidentally all the time, you can slow down the time needed to activate the gesture. That way, a tap won’t be mistaken for a tap-and-hold.

There are three Apple TV settings I always tell people to change as soon as they set theirs up. While I heartily recommend the Apple TV over the clunky and ad-infested experience of Roku and other smart TVs, it’s not perfect. You’ll want to change a few things to make it right. 

First of all, you can put one of the Siri Remote buttons to better use. The TV button, by default, opens the Apple TV app — but you can have it take you to the Home Screen instead. Also, you’ll want to change the Home Screen to show your Continue Watching list, not its recommendations. And finally, you can turn off those annoying Apple TV sports notifications to stop the interruptions while you’re watching your shows. 

Change these three annoying default settings, and you’ll be in for a far better viewing experience. Keep reading or watch our video to find out how.

It’s not too late to give your Christmas tree a holiday makeover that any Apple fan would be proud of. Grab some string, download Cult of Mac’s awesome decorations inspired by iconic Apple devices, and get hanging!