Do you have trouble concentrating at work because of a loud office environment? Or do you work at home and want to block out the sounds of kids or appliances? In macOS 13 Ventura, Apple added background sounds you can play to mask what’s going on around you. Go to System Settings > Accessibility >…

Have you ever run into a situation where the battery icon in your menu bar is stuck at 80% even though your Mac has been plugged in for hours? Luckily, there are several easy workarounds, but first, let us explain what’s going on. In the past few years, Apple has added optimized battery charging features…

Much has been made in the media about a recent FBI warning about “juice jacking,” the theoretical act of installing malware on or stealing data from an iPhone connected to a public charging station. Researchers first demonstrated juice jacking in 2011 at the Defcon security conference. There’s no harm in following the FBI’s advice, but…

If your iPhone were to be stolen or suffer an unfortunate accident, would you lose all your precious photos? Those using iCloud Photos are probably shaking their heads smugly, thinking that all those baby and vacation photos are backed up securely in iCloud. iCloud Photos does indeed store a copy of all your photos, but…

In iOS 15, Apple added the Voice Isolation feature to FaceTime calls to filter out noise around you while you’re talking, which is a boon if you’re making a call in a loud space or outside environment. With the recently released iOS 16.4, Apple has now brought that feature to cellular calls as well, but…

With the original version of the Apple Watch, Apple introduced “grid” view, which shows tiny icons for each app in a random circular pattern, making them difficult to find for most people. Happily, at some point, Apple relented and gave us the more sensible list view, which shows all the apps—with their names—sorted alphabetically. If…

Have you heard of ChatGPT? It’s likely—the service was launched in November 2022 and gathered 1 million users in the first week. It now has over 100 million users. However, many people are still unaware of it. If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT—or have heard of it but are unclear on what it is or…

No one intends to drop their iPhone in a pool or fall off a boat with their iPhone in a pocket. But accidents happen. Happily, Apple has designed the iPhone with significant levels of splash and water resistance, so brief exposure to rain or even a quick dunk might not cause any problems. If your…

It’s a question as old as the personal computer. When should you replace your current Mac with a new model that’s faster and more capable? If money were no object, the answer would be easy—whenever you feel like it. For the rest of us, and particularly for organizations with multiple Macs and limited budgets, the…

The Mac’s Desktop is a remarkably useful place. It’s a good spot for in-progress documents, screenshots, images dragged out of Web pages, and more. However, app windows tend to obscure the Desktop, making it harder to use. There are two quick ways you can temporarily hide windows, making it easy to access icons on the…