The Escape key has been on our keyboards practically since the beginning of time—even the Apple II had one. That’s changing with tomorrow’s MacBook Pro refresh and its Magic Toolbar. The physical Escape key is going virtual, but Apple is including a way to let other keys handle its task.
Tips
iOS 10.1: Turning Off Duplicate Portrait Mode Images
This Quick Tip is about the spankin’-new Portrait Mode available on the iPhone 7 Plus, which’ll let you take shots with a special depth effect applied. However, if you don’t want your iPhone to keep an additional version of each of your Portrait Mode images, come read this article and find out how to turn that off!
How to Fix Apple Watch Contact Syncing Problems
Some people are experiencing problems with Contacts on their Apple Watch, or with initiating phone calls with Siri on your Apple Watch. The problem may be that your Contacts aren’t properly syncing, and Mac Geek Gab listener Bill wrote in (MGG 626) with the skinny on resetting it.
macOS Sierra: Disable Auto-Logout if Sierra Enabled It
Some people have reported weird rebooting/logging out problems on their Macs after upgrading to macOS Sierra. Mac Geek Gab listener Ken was one of those folks, and he traced it to an auto-logout preference Sierra appears to have changed for him. Fortunately, resetting it is an easy fix. Bryan Chaffin shows you how.
macOS Sierra: How to Use Photos Memories
Within macOS Sierra’s Photos program, there’s a new “Memories” feature that’ll automatically group pictures together to remind you of important events in your life. In this Quick Tip, we’ll go over a few great tricks on how to use it!
![iCloud Family Sharing Users Can Remotely Wipe Each Other’s Devices [Updated]](https://www.macobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/iphone-erased.jpg)
iCloud Family Sharing Users Can Remotely Wipe Each Other's Devices [Updated]
iCloud Family Sharing is great for letting your family share apps, videos, music, photos, and more without sharing an Apple ID. If you’re using Find My iPhone along with iCloud Family Sharing, however, there’s a chance someone could accidentally—or intentionally—remotely erase your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
macOS Sierra: Resetting Your System Sound Effects Output
Every macOS/OS X update has its own quirks, and those quirks can be amplified by whatever peculiarities existed on the Mac being upgraded. For instance, when I upgraded to Sierra, that setting got changed so that it was independent from my System Output. Fortunately, putting it back is easy.
How to Recalibrate Apple Watch Fitness Tracking
Let’s say you followed my advice and calibrated your Apple Watch for better step count and distance accuracy, but something went wonky now it’s wrong again. That’s an easy fix, and a great excuse to get outside to walk some more. Read on to learn how to reset your Apple Watch fitness tracking calibration.
iOS: How to Convince Ducking Autocorrect You Don't Mean Duck
Our iPhones are great at making our lives easier, but sometimes autocorrect just gets it wrong. So ducking wrong, in fact, that it’s really ducking annoying. Turns out there’s a workaround that lets you trick your iPhone or iPad into leaving the word you really typed instead of changing it to “duck.”
macOS Sierra: Rearrange Your Menu Bar
If you’ve ever been frustrated by not being able to customize the Mac’s menu bar, then this Quick Tip‘s for you. Under macOS Sierra, that funny little omnipresent bar just got a lot more adjustable, and this article will tell you how!
Lyrics App for iMessages Makes it Easy to Find and Share Lyrics
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the new features in Messages in iOS 10. Apps and stickers increase enjoyment and utility, both, and I have a great example of that for you with an iMessage app called Lyrics. It makes it easy to find, quote from, and share song lyrics. Bryan Chaffin shows you how to work it.
How to Share an iTunes Playlist with Apple Music
Most of us have made our fair share of playlists in iTunes. With Apple Music, you can share those playlists for your friends or the world to enjoy with you. In that playlists are the mix tapes of today, Bryan Chaffin shows you how to share an iTune playlist using iTunes 12.5.x.
Get Detailed CPU Info From Mac's Command Line
It’s easy to get hardware information about your Mac from “About This Mac.” But the command line data can provide some extra tidbits that the GUI leaves out. John shows you how to reveal detail of your CPU from the Terminal app.
How to Control Which Messages Photos Save to Camera Roll
Messages in iOS 10 changes a fundamental way your iPhone (or iPad) camera works: if you take a photo from the preview camera, it doesn’t save to your camera roll. But if you use the full camera app, it does. Here’s how to understand, manage, and control what gets saved where and what doesn’t get saved.
iOS 10: Turning Off "Raise to Wake"
This Quick Tip is about the new “Raise to Wake” feature in iOS 10. It’s cool, it’s handy, but if you get notifications that are private or potentially offensive, it’s less than ideal. Wanna turn it off? We’ll tell you how.
macOS Sierra: Fast Sound Settings from the Menu Bar
Apple gets that we’re always looking for ways to make the routine things we do on our Macs easier and some of the subtle changes in macOS Sierra really show that off. The Sound menu bar item is a perfect example because now switching audio input and output sources is even simpler.
Safari 10: Hide Flash from Every Website Except Some
Safari 10 allows you to have Flash installed, but to control which sites know it (or access it). For many users, this would be the best compromise between having flash and not installing it all. Bryan Chaffin shows you how to do it.
Use 3D Touch in LINE to Read Messages without a Read Receipt
The LINE Corporation has done something very useful with 3D Touch, and I thought I’d tell you about it. When you’re looking at your Chats view, you can view recent chats, as shown below, without sending a read receipt. Bryan Chaffin shows you how.
How to Make macOS Sierra Empty Your Mac's Trash for You
macOS Sierra is loaded with cool new features, but sometimes it’s the little things that make your life easier, like not needing to remember to empty your Mac’s trash. You can set the Trash to auto-delete after 30 days, and it’s easy to do. Read on to learn how.
iOS 10: Managing Siri's Third Party App Voice Control
iOS 10 opens Siri to third party apps so you can say things like, “Hey Siri, get me an Uber.” If you don’t want Siri calling rides for you—or Siri says it can’t—it’s time for a trip to your iPhone’s Settings to manage which apps Siri can control. Read on to learn how.
iOS 10: Save a File as PDF to iBooks
In iOS 10, you can now Print to PDF, just as we’ve been doing with OS X/macOS. But there’s also another nice trick in the Sharing option. “Save PDF to iBooks.” It’s simple and fast. John likes this feature a lot.
How Do You Export Multiple Albums in macOS Sierra Photos?
You can export multiple albums in one fell swoop in Photos in macOS Sierra (this may work in previous versions). Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun explained how in Mac Geek Gab 623, and this is what you do.
iOS 10: Print to PDF With and Without 3D Touch
One of the new features in iOS is the ability to natively print to PDF, similar to what you can do with macOS. It’s relatively simple, but not necessarily obvious. It involves getting the print preview up on the screen, and then switching to share mode in order to generate a PDF. We’ll show you the steps!
How to Set Up Universal Clipboard for Your Mac and iOS Devices
iOS 10 and macOS Sierra support a new feature called Universal Clipboard that lets you copy text or graphics on one device and paste them into documents on another. It really is as simple as copy-and-paste—assuming everything is configured correctly. Read on to learn how to make sure you’re set up to use Universal Clipboard.