| Cult of Mac

How Apple could fix the iPad home screen in iOS 13 [Opinion]

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Ipad home screen
It this really an appropriate home screen for the powerful 2018 iPad Pro?
Photo: Apple

According to rumors, iOS 13 will bring a redesigned home screen to the iPad. It’s about time. The grid of apps might have worked fine on the iPhone before the App Store, but after nine years of using the expanded version on the iPad, the joke is starting to get old.

So, if Apple is finally ready to make a home screen worthy of the iPad, we have a few suggestions.

How to make the Mac’s Launchpad useful again

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mac Launchpad
Launchpad is totally worth a second look.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Try this: If you’re reading on a Mac, go ahead and pinch in on your trackpad with all five fingers. If it’s enabled, then you’ll see a grid of apps. lots of apps. That’s Launchpad, which is kind of like an iOS home screen for your Mac.

The problem is, it shows all your apps, in seemingly random order. There’s a search bar to narrow things down, but by the time you’ve got that far, you may as well have used Spotlight to launch your app. Happily, the Launchpad is quite customizable. You can make iOS-style folders, and organize the apps into any order you like. Here’s how.

Clean Text, Ashworld, and other awesome apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

An incredibly useful app that cleans your text of formatting issues is just one of our picks for this week’s “Awesome Apps of the Week” roundup.

In addition, we’ve got a brilliant music making app, an app for editing your 360 camera videos, and a superb post-apocalyptic survival adventure game. In the same week that Apple highlighted its top apps of 2017, these are our choices for the greatest apps of the past seven days. Check them out below.

Groovebox turns your iPhone into a toe-tapping music machine

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groovebox
You won’t be able to stop grooving.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you’re looking for a way to lose a few hours later today, you could do a lot worse than Groovebox, a free music-making app for iPhone and iPad. It’s simple enough to start making music as soon as you launch it, but offers enough depth (and enough in-app purchases) to keep you going for quite a while.

Get It Done – Fix Stalled Mavericks Downloads In Launchpad [OS X Tips]

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Image Credit: Roberto Baldwin/WIRED
Image Credit: Roberto Baldwin/WIRED

If you’re trying to download the free OS X Mavericks upgrade via the Mac App Store and it’s getting stuck, you’re not alone. As you can see int he image above, some folks are seeing a paused download when trying to upgrade to Apple’s latest and greatest Mac operating system.

Roberto Baldwin over at the Wired GadgetLab has a fairly easy solution, and I figured I’d share it with you.

Safely Uninstall Apps You’ve Purchased Via The Mac App Store [OS X Tips]

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Mac App Store Uninstall

Using the Mac App Store is helpful in many ways, what with the ability to re-download apps, pause them during download, and the like.

There’s even an easy way to delete apps you’ve purchased from the Mac App Store these days, aside from the tried and true “drag app icon to trash” method we’ve all grown to know and love since OS X debuted oh so many years ago.

Use This AirDrop Alternative To Easily Share Files Between Macs Via WiFi [OS X Tips]

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Seriously, it's that simple.
Seriously, it's that simple.

AirDrop is a pretty slick app that was first available in OS X Lion. It basically allows any Mac see any other Mac with the protocol enabled on the network, with no configuration or knowledge of file sharing needed. You just drop a file onto any available AirDrop icon, and your file heads over to that user’s Mac. No muss, no fuss, just simple.

At least, that’s the concept. In reality, I’ve not seen AirDrop ever work that easily. Luckily, there’s an alternative that’s even simpler: Any Send, a free Mac app that lets you send files to any other Mac using WiFi.