by Terry McAdams | Nov 11, 2021 | How-To, Mac, productivity
Even those of us who don’t work with graphics professionally often find ourselves needing to resize images. Perhaps you have a large square headshot, but the site to which you’re uploading requires it to be exactly 100 by 100 pixels. Or maybe you have an iPhone 13 Pro...
by Terry McAdams | Nov 8, 2021 | Photos, productivity, Tip
Have you ever wanted to identify a plant, flower, or pet breed, or find out what that famous painting is called? Us too. In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple added a new AI-driven feature called Visual Look Up that provides more information about photos of plants, flowers,...
by Terry McAdams | Nov 2, 2021 | AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad
It may seem early to start thinking about the holiday shopping season, but with the global supply chain suffering pandemic-related slowdowns, there’s no telling how long it will take to get something you order today. Apple has generally done a good job of managing its...
by Terry McAdams | Nov 1, 2021 | Internet, productivity
Remember the heady dotcom days, when businesses were desperate to get a short, memorable, easily typed .com domain? It quickly became difficult to get what you wanted—so much so that deep-pocketed companies paid exorbitant sums for just the right domain. Before we go...
by Terry McAdams | Nov 1, 2021 | Mac, Safari, Tip
With the betas of Safari 15 on the Mac and iPad, Apple experimented with a variety of interface tweaks related to tabs. By the time Safari 15 shipped, however, Apple had pulled back on the more radical changes from the betas, offering the new Compact Tab Bar layout...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 28, 2021 | Battery, iPad, iPhone, Mac, troubleshooting
We’ve been seeing a spate of bulging batteries of late, both in Mac laptops and iPhones. A bulging battery is a Very Bad Thing and must be dealt with immediately because it could catch fire or even explode. As lithium-ion batteries age, the chemical reactions that...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 26, 2021 | iPad
Multitasking has long been a mess on the iPad, not so much because it didn’t work but because it was tough to memorize the secret swipes necessary to put multiple apps into Split View, work with multiple windows in apps that supported them, and hide and show what you...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 21, 2021 | Email, iCloud, privacy, Security
As you upgrade to iOS 15, iPadOS 15 (and macOS 12 Monterey by the end of the year), you’re going to see references to iCloud+. You might even already be an iCloud+ subscriber! That’s because iCloud+ is Apple’s new name for what you get if you pay for additional iCloud...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 20, 2021 | AirPods, Apple Music, MacBook Pro
Last year, Apple started to transition Macs away from Intel processors to its custom M1 system-on-a-chip. The M1’s performance is stellar, but Apple has used it only in low-end models so far: the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and new 24-inch iMac. For...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 19, 2021 | iPad, iPhone, Tip, Upgrade
You have a new iPhone or iPad—congratulations! When transferring your data to the new device, you have three options: Quick Start, an iCloud backup, or a Mac backup. All will work, but they don’t quite provide the same end result (particularly if you didn’t encrypt...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 12, 2021 | iOS, Tip, troubleshooting
In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple expanded the concept of Do Not Disturb to what it calls Focus. You can create a Focus for different types of activities, so only specific people and apps can break through your cone of silence at appropriate times. Focus subsumes the old...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 7, 2021 | iPhone, Messages, Tip, troubleshooting
Here’s a tricky situation that threw one of our clients for a loop recently. Texts they sent in Messages via iMessage (indicated by blue bubbles) to their son, letting him know they were stopping by weren’t being delivered, making their visits a surprise. But other...
by Terry McAdams | Oct 5, 2021 | iOS, Mac, Tip, troubleshooting, Wi-Fi
It’s easy, particularly when traveling, to end up connecting to a Wi-Fi network that doesn’t provide Internet access, requires credentials you don’t have, or lacks access to the network’s printer. Unfortunately, once your iPhone, iPad, or Mac has connected to such a...
by Terry McAdams | Sep 24, 2021 | Network, troubleshooting
For most homes and offices, a standard or mesh Wi-Fi network works fine for providing Internet access throughout the building. And when higher throughput is necessary, it’s usually not that difficult to pull Ethernet cable from room to room. But some buildings seem...
by Terry McAdams | Sep 15, 2021 | iPad, iPad Mini
September is traditionally when new iPhones are ripe for the picking, and this year’s crop is no exception. At its California Streaming event on September 14th, Apple unveiled four iPhone 13 models. Apple also announced the expected Apple Watch Series 7, but entirely...
