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This keyboard shortcut will revolutionize copy and paste on your Mac

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Is the Mac's default pasting behavior driving you nuts?
Is the Mac's default pasting behavior driving you nuts?
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Did you ever copy some text from a Word document, or from the web, and paste it into an email, only to have the pasted text keep its stupid 24-point Comic Sans formatting? Maybe you had to select everything, then start futzing with the Mac’s font panel to get the new text to match.

The way to fix this annoying problem, as you may already know, is the Mac’s Paste and Match Style command. But what you probably never thought of is that you can make this the default option. That way, you can reap its benefits whenever and wherever you paste text.

Dedicated Apple fan creates needlework Mac masterpieces

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Glenda Adams
And you thought your old Macs loaded slowly!
Photo: Glenda Adams

So you’ve got your perfect Apple geek room: Steve Jobs biographies on the bookshelves, iMac Pro on your desk, and maybe a couple of rare vintage Macs locked in a display cabinet.

Looking for something for the wall? Look no further than the work of Glenda Adams. A long-time Apple fan, she’s been busy creating miniature needlework masterpieces modeled after classic Apple interfaces. And, man, are they awesome!

2018 iPhone getting a big RAM boost

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2018 iPhone rumors 3D mockups
Benchmark scores for a prototype 2018 iPhone X Plus reveal the amount of RAM and the processor speed, plus an early look at the performance.
Photo: Mac Otakara

Someone testing a 2018 iPhone prototype inadvertently uploaded benchmark results for this device. Among the other details revealed is an indication that this will be the first iPhone with 4GB of RAM.

Naturally, the Geekbench results also include the performance. However, with the model still months away, scores are a bit underwhelming.

Stay focused on writing with iA Writer [50 Essential iOS Apps #27]

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iA Writer on iPad
iA Writer is perfect for bloggers and others writing on the go
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: iA Writer appThere are dozens of ways to write on iOS. Apple’s own Notes app offers a simple writing platform, while Pages allows for elaborate documents – complete with pictures. While both are good for certain tasks, more serious writers typically want something a little different. iA Writer offers more while doing less, making it the perfect text editor app.

How to get macOS Mojave’s shifting Dynamic Desktop on any Mac

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Mojave-shifting-Dynamic-Desktop
Get a Mojave-like shifting Dynamic Desktop on your own Mac today.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Here’s an easy way to get macOS Mojave’s constantly-changing Dynamic Desktop on any Mac. Dynamic Desktop wallpapers slowly fade through a set of photos throughout the day. The default set of images is of a pile of sand, presumably in the Mojave desert, showing the same view as the light changes throughout the day.

We already showed you where to download those wallpapers. Now we’re going to see that your Mac can already turn these images into a Mojave-style Dynamic Desktop slideshow.

All the iOS 12 features Apple didn’t mention

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iOS 12
iOS 12 rolls out to all this fall.
Photo: Apple

WWDC 2018 bug Cult of Mac iOS 12 is shaping up to be one biggest software updates Apple’s ever released and it’s so stuffed with major and minor new additions there wasn’t time to go over a lot of them at the WWDC 2018 keynote.

We’ve been combing through the first iOS 12 beta looking for all the new goodies and have found some underrated new features that will totally change how you use your iPhone and iPad this fall.

These are the little iOS 12 features you need to know:

How to set up and use Messages in iCloud in iOS 11.4

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clouds
Clouds, unlike those where your iMessages will now be stored.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The iOS 11.4 update finally brings Messages in iCloud, which means you can treat your iMessages like you treat your photos.

Your messages will sync across all iOS devices and should work soon on Mac. (Update: It works on Mac now, once you update to macOS 10.13.5). You can even delete them from an iPhone or iPad that’s short on space. But they will remain accessible from the cloud. Here’s how to switch on iCloud support for Messages.

How to stop websites hijacking Safari

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hijacked StopTheMadness
Take back control of Safari with StopTheMadness.
Photo: Daniel Rehn/Flickr CC

Did you ever visit a website and find that it had blocked the usual behavior of the Safari browser? Maybe it’s a banking site that won’t let you paste in your long password into its password field? Or maybe you discovered that YouTube disables Safari’s contextual (right-click) menus and replaces them with it’s own versions? Or maybe you can’t drag that image to the desktop, or copy text from the page?

The good news is that you can wrest control of your browser back from these malicious, control-freak sites. Let’s see how, using the StopTheMadness browser extension.

How to look up anything with one tap on Mac

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dictionary look up macos
Look up!
Photo: Caleb Roenigk/Flickr CC

On the Mac, you have long been able to tap on any word or phrase to look up a dictionary definition. Just click on the word using a three-finger tap on your trackpad, and the dictionary panel appears. But have you tried this recently? Today, in this simple popover panel, you can get full access to not just dictionary definitions, but news, Siri Knowledge, movie details, App Store listings, and lots more depending on what you’re looking up.

Let’s take a look.

How to automatically troll telemarketers and keep them busy

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Apple's secret AI sauce gets a new ingredient
Apple's secret AI sauce gets a new ingredient
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

There were 3.4 billion robocalls in April this year, and the chances are it feels like you got roughly half of those to your own phone. These calls aren’t just telemarketing anymore, either. Just like email spam, scams pervade these already-annoying automated calls. One way around this is to unplug your landline phone, and to ignore all phone calls to your iPhone (go to Settings > Notifications > Phone and switch off Allow Notifications).

A better way is to troll the robocallers by hooking them up to a service that answers the calls for you, and uses robots to keep the telemarketers on the line, wasting their time an costing them money. And for that, you need the Jolly Roger.

Here’s how to find which apps are about to stop working on your Mac

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drill bits
Imagine 64 of these drill bits all working together.
Photo: Steven Depolo/Flickr CC

Sometime, probably quite soon, your Mac will stop running 32-bit apps. All new Macs have 64-bit processors, and Apple wants to phase out older 32-bit apps in order to “enable faster system performance” for your Mac as a whole. What this means is that, in an as-yet-unspecified future version on macOS, 32-bit apps will stop running altogether.

If you’re running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, then you may already have seen a warning pop up onto the screen when you launch older apps. Today we’ll see how to view a list of all the 32-bit apps on your Mac, so you can either harass the developer to update them, look for a better-supported alternative, or just delete them.

How to record Apple TV on your Mac, wirelessly

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record Apple TV quicktime
QuickTime Player can record all kinds of things.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Today we’re going to learn how to record a movie that’s playing on your Apple TV direct to your Mac, with no wires required, no weird hacks, and not even any third-party software. The tools are all built into every Mac that ships. To record a movie off the “screen” of your Apple TV, you’re going to use Apple’s QuickTime app, and one of its lesser-known but super-powerful features.

How to add extra filter packs to the iPhone’s Photos app

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filter packs iPhone
Captured, edited, and filtered, all inside the Camera and Photos apps.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

One lesser known ability of the Photos app on your iPhone is that is can use third-party filter packs. If you install a photo-editing app that supports them, then you can apply that apps filters without ever leaving the Photos app. This makes it super quick to add sophisticated effects to your pictures, and you can revert to the original photo at any time in the future.

Today we’ll see how to use these filter packs, and look at a couple of great apps that have them.

How to extract text from JPEG screenshots on iPhone

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scanner
Scanning screenshots doesn't have to involve a ruined Christmas.
Photo: Daniel M. Hendricks/Flickr CC

Did you ever snap a photo of a magazine page, or capture a screenshot of text, and wish you could just copy and paste it like any normal text? Maybe it’s a photo of a recipe from a paper book, and you’d like to be able to search for it in future? The good news is that you can easily extract the text from a photo or screenshot, right there on your iPhone.

The even better news is that we’re going to learn how to do it right now.

How to write a killer report with Pages for Mac and iPad

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Now that Master Pages exist, Apple's Pages app for iPad and Mac may be the best
Pages may be the best "desktop" publishing app for most people.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Today we’re going to use the new features in Pages 4.0 to create an amazing report. If you need to write a book report, or create a longer document for school or work, the new Master Pages feature in Apple’s free word processor will prove extremely handy.

With Pages, it’s now easier than ever to throw together an amazing-looking document with almost no effort. Apart from the writing, that is.

Everything Apple revealed at its ‘field trip’ event

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“Education then, beyond all others devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men.” - Horace Mann
Apple is making education a bigger focus.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Apple is ready to make a major push into the education market. During its keynote in Chicago this morning, the company revealed how it plans to make students and teachers fall in love with Apple.

Armed with a bevy of new apps, APIs and other software tools, Tim Cook and company revealed Apple’s cheapest iPad ever. Apple pitched it specifically at students, though we suspect it will prove pretty popular with normal Apple fans, too.

Check out all the new stuff Apple unveiled today:

How to track your kids with your iPhone

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track your kids
What if you could always find your child on a map?
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Using the Find My Friends app to track adults is creepy stalker-type behavior. But using your iPhone to track your kids is like totally cool, right? After all, no child is safe if left to their own devices. Better to let them know as soon as possible that they should let others be responsible for their well-being.

Luckily, iOS has a bunch of neat, easy-to-use and (mostly) non-creepy tracking tools built in. Let’s see how to use them.

Luck o’ the Irish: Save 20 percent on green Apple Watch bands [Watch Store]

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clessant
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today only, take 20 percent any green Apple Watch band in Cult of Mac's Watch Store.
Photo: Clessant

As St. Patrick’s Day imbibing commences, Cult of Mac offers up all things green for your Apple Watch band-buying pleasure.

We’ve scoured the Watch Store to feature eight special bands in green from these great companies: Casetify, Clessant, E3 Supply Co. and Ullu. Today only, save 20 percent on these Irish-inspired Apple Watch bands by using code IRISH2018 at Watch Store checkout!

Pro Tip: Convert an iMessage to an Apple Notes checklist

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checklist shopping cart
Checklists can make your shopping trip a lot easier.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugDoes your husband/wife/boss/presumptuous, spoiled teenage kid send you lists via iMessage or SMS? Do you then spend the whole day flipping to the Messages app and scanning it to see which tasks you’ve done (or groceries you’ve dropped in your cart), and trying to work out what’s still left to do? Then you need to get that list out of the Messages app, and into the Notes app, turning it onto a checklist along the way. And don’t worry. This is so quick and easy, you can do it in a few seconds.

How to create a sleep playlist for your HomePod

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Siri speaker
Look into my eye. You are feeling sleepy…
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

This tip is less of a how-to, and more of a why-to. Did you ever think about creating a sleep playlist for your HomePod? It’s a great idea for a few reasons.

  • You can control the HomePod with your voice, from your bed.
  • The HomePod is silent when it’s not playing back audio, so you don’t have to turn it off or listen to it hiss.

Let’s see how it’s done.

20 HomePod tips you need to know

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The HomePod is a lot smarter than you might think. Just take a look at these tips!
The HomePod is a smarter speaker than you might think.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The HomePod takes a lot of flak for being the dumbest smart speaker around, but it can do more than you might think. In today’s video, I’ll show you 20 HomePod tips you need to know.

(Just a quick heads-up: I’m going to be saying “Hey Siri” a few times in this video.)

Save big on Apple Watch bands this President’s Day weekend [Watch Store]

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sale
We’ve rounded up some amazing brands for this huge sale including: OleksynPrannyk, E3 Supply Co., Rilee & Lo, Strapple, Clessant, Just Mobile and more.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It’s President’s Day weekend — a great reason to offer some huge savings on top-brand Apple Watch bands over the holiday.

In a few clicks, you’ll find incredible savings on Apple Watch bands and accessories during Cult of Mac Watch Store’s biggest sale since Black Friday — three days of massive savings.

We’ve rounded up some amazing brands for this huge sale including: OleksynPrannyk, E3 Supply Co., Rilee & Lo, Strapa, Clessant, Just Mobile and more. These brands are offering up to 20 percent off regular prices!

Rest-assured that bands sold in our Watch Store are high-quality and recommended by Cult of Mac — we’ve touched, worn, reviewed and recommend everything we sell. Sale ends Monday at midnight. Happy shopping!