Upgraded to macOS Sonoma? You probably noticed by now that clicking on your Mac’s desktop automatically hides all open windows, with the focus moving to your widgets and desktop shortcuts.
This is the new “Click wallpaper to reveal desktop” feature in the new Mac operating system. If you find this functionality annoying, here’s how to turn it off. That way, you can safely click your Mac’s desktop again.
You can fit two shortcuts into one small widget in iOS 17, a significant change for power users of Apple’s time-saving Shortcuts app. A lot of shortcuts I make are in pairs — and now, you can put two shortcuts of a kind in one small space on your Home Screen.
Shortcuts, if you’re not aware, let you automate the things you do most often on your iPhone, Mac, iPad or Apple Watch. For instance, you can create a shortcut that sets a Focus mode when you get to work, one that suggests easy-to-remember passwords, one for converting units — the possibilities are endless. (Read Apple’s helpful Shortcuts guide if you want to familiarize yourself with the powerful app.)
Home Screen widgets are a great way to launch the shortcuts you use every day. On the iPhone, where space is limited, fitting twice as many shortcuts without losing any icons could be a game changer for your Home Screen. Let me show you how to set it up.
The next major macOS release is here. Dubbed macOS Sonoma, the update packs several usability changes that will help further boost your productivity.
“macOS Sonoma is now available as a free software update, bringing a rich set of new features to the Mac that make work and play even more powerful,” Apple said in a press release Tuesday. “With macOS Sonoma, desktop widgets unlock a new way to personalize the Mac and get more done, while stunning new screen savers, big updates to video conferencing and Safari, along with optimized gaming make the Mac experience better than ever.”
Apple typically drops major new macOS builds in October. But this time, it is releasing macOS Sonoma in September, possibly because it is a relatively minor update.
macOS Sonoma may not have the same buzz as iOS, but there are loads of new features this year to try out on your Mac. You can get beautiful Apple TV-style aerial screensavers, widgets on your desktop, powerful enhancements to Safari and more.
macOS Sonoma will be released at about 10 AM Pacific on Tuesday, September 26. Here are the 36 best features you can look for after you update.
If you have an aging Intel-based iMac or Mac mini that’s slowing down like an old codger, today’s featured iMac setup shows a relatively simple way to revitalize your machine and keep using it.
All you need is an external solid state drive (SSD) and the knowledge, below, to make it your computer’s replacement startup disk.
Adobe wants to help students accustomed to old-fashioned paper textbooks get over the transition to PDF textbooks. The company points out that its free reader for the digital format does a lot more than display text and images, and many of these features are ideal for students.
The software developer highlighted five of the benefits of the free Mac application for those going to class with a PDF textbook.
Private Browsing mode in Apple Safari will soon get even more secure. It’ll be locked against someone else accessing it, and incorporate new tools to prevent websites from tracking users.
The additional privacy features are coming in iOS 17, macOS Sonoma and iPadOS 17, all of which were unveiled at WWDC23 this week.
How can you install the macOS 14 Sonoma Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your Mac a bunch of times to get it working.
You can use a free Mac app called LocationSimulator to hide your real location on your iPhone. It works great as a Pokémon Go spoofer. Just set it up, then plug your phone into a Mac and tell it where you want to “be.” You don’t need to jailbreak your phone or install anything on it.
When using LocationSimulator, every app on your iPhone will use this new GPS location. It’s useful for maintaining privacy — for instance, if you’re posting screenshots online, it’ll mask your real home address. Developers can use it, too, for testing location features in their apps.
Best of all, you just need a Mac. LocationSimulator is free and open-source.
I’m going to show you five ways you can instantly boost your productivity on your Mac. You might not have thought your Mac was capable of these advanced features. But in my opinion, the Mac’s reputation for being un-customizable is misunderstood. Four of these tips depend on third-party productivity apps that will add radical new system features to your Mac.
I’ll show you how to get instant window snapping on the Mac, powerful screenshot and recording tools, a clever clipboard manager that should be built into macOS, a simple tip for opening apps faster, and a smart time-tracking tool that’ll keep you productive.
Years ago I was a regular Mac user who switched to PC for a long time. When I fully re-immersed myself in the Apple ecosystem, an old annoyance came right back — all those unwanted apps launching for no apparent reason on startup, slowing things down.
Like many folks, I don’t restart my Mac very often these days because Sleep mode has its benefits. So having to close a bunch of apps is not a massive annoyance. But for anyone who wants a fix, there are easy ways to disable startup items.
And if those don’t work, you can try a couple of tricks to get rid of hidden launch agents.
A good way to separate your data is to partition your Mac hard drive. A partition splits your storage into two spaces, like putting a trunk divider in your car. The most common use case is to install a second operating system on the same computer. In college, I had a separate partition so I could boot into Ubuntu, and a third partition with Windows. With today’s Macs running Apple silicon, there’s no easy way to natively install Windows or Linux… yet.
But you’re probably here so you can install the beta version of macOS 13. The developer beta is anticipated for release the first week of June at WWDC22, Apple’s annual developer conference. The smart way to install it — especially with the developer betas, which can be notoriously rocky — is to use a separate partition.
The Mac comes with a very handy tool to partition your hard drive for free. Read on to partition your hard drive with Disk Utility.
Death, taxes and running out of storage on your Mac; few things in life are as certain.
But now is the time to do something about it. Apple is about to unveil the next version of macOS at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week, and if you want to install the public beta, you’ll need at least 3GB of free space to install it. You’ll need even more if you follow our recommendation to install it on a separate partition. (Our guide on that will be out soon.)
Whatever the reason you need more storage, read on to learn how to tidy up your Mac.