Hot Apple Posts
How To: Remove the Audio Recording Button in iOS 8's Messages App
Ever accidentally sent an audio message to someone through the Messages app? It happens to me all the time. My finger slips towards the right side of the keyboard and all of a sudden a one-second audio recording is being made and sent. Personally, I don't even send audio messages to anyone, but the feature is baked into the Messages app with no way to disable it. That is, unless you're jailbroken.
How To: Replace the Boring Apple Boot Screen on Your iPhone with a Custom Animation
With its white Apple logo on a plain black background, iOS 8's animated boot screen isn't very interesting. While there is no built-in way to change this boring animation, you can customize this boot screen animation if you have a jailbroken iPhone, and the process is fairly easy. You can even create your own using your favorite GIF file.
How To: Prank Your Apple Friends with 1,000s of iMessages in Just One Click
Apple scrubbed the floor clean of all existing text-bombing apps in the iOS App Store, and even though there were once a ton of these apps in Cydia, the go-to store for jailbroken devices, there few and far between these days. If they do exist, they either cost money or don't work as advertised.
How To: iOS 8 Glitch Lets You Hide Stock Apps Without Jailbreaking Your iPhone
Apple's newer Tips app may definitely be helpful to some iOS 8 users, but personally, it's not telling me anything I don't already know. Like many other stock Apple apps that I don't use on my iPhone, I immediately hid Tips in a folder, placed that folder to the side, and forgot about it.
How To: Get the Transparent 3D Dock Back in Mac OS X Yosemite
While change is good, it isn't always welcomed. All software updates with radical redesigns and brand-new features bring at least a few complaints from those accustomed to previous versions. iOS 7 got a lot of flak from iOS 6 users, as did iOS 8 from iOS 7 users.
How To: Which Stores Accept Apple Pay? The Always Up-to-Date List
Apple Pay has been available to use in stores, as well as in select apps and websites, ever since its first appearance in iOS 8.1. Now, with iOS 12, there are currently 13 different iPhone models that support Apple Pay functionality without the use of an Apple Watch, and the list of partnered stores that accept Apple Pay has only grown. Here's our always-up-to-date list to keep you in the know.
How To: Download & Play SNES Games on Your iPad or iPhone—No Jailbreak Required
Tired of playing old-school Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Nintendo, and Nintendo DS games on your iPhone? We've got another retro video game system for you to add to your arsenal of emulators—Super Nintendo.
How To: The Trick to Opening Up Directions in Third-Party Map Apps on Your iPhone
After a few unnecessary U-turns, I quickly realized that Apple Maps wasn't for me, which is why I hate that it opens as the default app any time I select a shared location or an address from Yelp. Copying and pasting the address to Google Maps isn't a huge deal, but it's certainly not as fluid of a process as I'd like.
How To: Every Mac Is Vulnerable to the Shellshock Bash Exploit: Here's How to Patch OS X
Heartbleed, move over. There's a new bug in town, and this time it's also affecting Mac and Linux computers. It's called Shellshock (its original official title is CVE-2014-6271), and it's currently got a 10 out of 10 severity rating over at the National Cyber Awareness System. While some updates have been issued to fix this bug, they were incomplete, and your system is probably still vulnerable, as it has been for the last probably 20 years.
How To: Add, Switch, Reorder & Delete Keyboards on Your iPhone
Back in iOS 8, Apple introduced the option to use third-party keyboards on iPhone, and since then, there have been a ton of third-party keyboards available such as Gboard, AudioShot, SwiftKey, Slated, and many more. However, adding and even using these keyboards can be kind of tricky.
How To: Monitor System Usage Stats in Your Mac OS X Menu Bar
Like a car, your Mac needs to be monitored and cared for to keep it running as smoothly as possible. While your vehicle comes with a ton of gauges to keep track of your oil, temperature, and in some cases, even tire pressure, your Mac has no easy way to watch for low memory or high disk usage. Normally you would have to open up Activity Monitor to take a look at your usage stats, but now there is something better.
How To: 14 iOS 8 Privacy Settings Everyone Needs to Understand (And Probably Change Right Now)
Keeping data private is vital in the days of smartphones and the free-floating information they carry. Justin wrote a guide on many of the deeply hidden and sometimes concerning privacy settings in iOS 7. Now we're back to cover some of the new (and old) privacy settings in iOS 8 that you need to address right now.
How To: Turn Any iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch into an AirPlay Receiver—Without Jailbreaking!
Officially, in order to use AirPlay to stream music from your iOS device, you would need either an Apple TV, AirPort Express, or an AirPlay-enabled receiver or set of speakers. Despite what Apple wants you to think, there is another way to stream music without any of those AirPlay-capable devices—you just need to have two iOS devices (or just one iOS device and a Mac).
How To: Jailbreak iOS 7.1 Versions on Your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch
It's been over three months since iOS 7.1 came out, but your wait for jailbreak is now over. If you're still running iOS 7.0 iterations to maintain your jailbreak, you can now finally update to the latest and greatest thanks to a Chinese team of developers, who recently released their untethered jailbreak for Apple devices running iOS 7.1, 7.1.1, and even 7.1.2.
How To: How an External Hard Drive Can Help Make Your Mac Fast Again
I dabble in video editing, and when working on even the shortest of motion graphics clips, the exported files take up quite a bit of space. For all of you heavy Mac users out there, I'm sure you know my pain.
How To: Add a 5th Column of Apps to Your iPhone's Home Screen in iOS 7
When I compare my iPhone 4S to my friend's iPhone 5, I notice that his elongated screen gives him an extra row of applications. Am I jealous? Yes, a little.
How To: Disable the Parallax Effect in iOS to Reduce Motion on Your iPhone
Have you ever noticed how your home screen and lock screen wallpaper moves underneath your notification, app icons, really anything on display? It's a cool effect, but to some, might be a bit jarring. On top of that, it also uses up precious battery life. If you're sick of seeing this parallax effect on your iPhone, here's how to turn it off.
How To: Recover Deleted Photos from Your iPhone
In one of Apple's newer ads, the company claims that "more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera." If this is in fact true, then it might also be appropriate to say that more photos are accidentally deleted on iPhones than any other camera.
How To: Mimic the New iOS 7 Look in iOS 6 on Your Jailbroken iPhone
Apple is set to release its latest operating system for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch this fall, and if you haven't noticed yet from our iOS 7 softModder guides, it's going to be pretty slick.
How To: Adjust Your Mac's Volume in Quarter Increments (And Silence the Sound Effect)
Sometimes, the volume buttons on a MacBook can be pretty annoying. It's too loud, so you turn it down one notch, and now you can't hear your movie at all. It's too low, so you turn it up one notch, and now you can't even hear yourself think.
How To: 8 Tricks for Fixing Your iPhone's Broken Home Button
When a phone has only one main button, it can be pretty frustrating when that one button doesn't really work anymore. If you have an iPhone 4 or 4S, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yep, the Home button, which is prone to unresponsiveness and lag. Most users blame the Home button issues on either dirt, moisture, or misalignment. No matter what the reason, having a busted Home button sucks, especially for those of you no longer under warranty. But that's okay, because there are a few t...
How To: 8 States Support Digital Driver's Licenses in Apple Wallet — Which States Are Next?
Apple announced support for mobile driver's licenses and state identification cards in Apple Wallet back in 2021, and Arizona was the first state to jump on board in 2022. Fast forward to now, and only eight states let you add a driver's license or state ID to Apple Wallet on your iPhone and Apple Watch. It has been a slow rollout, but more states are coming or are at least showing interest.
News: Apple Rereleases iOS 17.6.1 for iPhone with Important Bug Fixes
While Apple is full steam ahead on iOS 18, which is expected to drop sometime next month, it hasn't forgotten about iOS 17, which still dominates most users' iPhones. On Aug. 19, Apple issued a rerelease of its iOS 17.6.1 software for iPhone.
How To: Add More Domain Extensions to Your iPhone's Keyboard Shortcut to Type Email Addresses or Website URLs Faster
When typing an email or website address in a compatible input field on an iPhone, most people will manually type in the domain extension. But there's a much faster way to enter domain suffixes for email addresses and website URLs that you should be using on your keyboard. Even better, there's a way to customize what domain extensions appear in the keyboard shortcut!
How To: 11 Big New Features for Apple News on Your iPhone with iOS 17.5
The app with the most significant update on iOS 17.5 is, by far, Apple News. While there are a few changes in Books and Settings, as well as minor changes in apps like Podcasts, Apple News has at least 11 new features and changes you should know, some of which are worth getting excited about.
How To: 15 iPhone Tips for Busy Users to Maximize Your Productivity
When they first appeared, smartphones came with a promise to make our lives easier and make us more productive so we could have more free time and energy. But now, the average user spends almost 5 ½ hours daily on their smartphone. If that sounds like you, there are ways to use your iPhone more efficiently — without getting sucked into distractions.
How To: Identify Any Song Playing on Instagram, TikTok, and Other Apps on Your iPhone Using Shazam
Since Shazam became available on iPhone, it's been easier than ever to identify a song playing somewhere in the background. You could hear something you like while watching a movie or sitting in a coffee shop, and all you have to do is open the Shazam app and have it listen for you. But what about music playing on your iPhone via Instagram, TikTok, and other social media apps?
How To: Turn a Viral TikTok Sound Bite or Song into Your iPhone's Next Ringtone
There seems to be no end to all the viral TikTok sound bites and trending TikTok songs, and there's a good reason why they are ingrained in the fabric of our pop culture. TikTok's short audio clips can evoke laughter, tears, and a wide range of other emotions, and many of them just happen to be the perfect length to add to your iPhone's or iPad's arsenal of ringtones.
How To: Unlock Your iPhone's Many Hidden Text-to-Speech Features to Make It Read Virtually Any On-Screen Content
Speech-to-text technology can be seen on your iPhone in various places, from the Dictation tool to Apple's new behind-the-scenes, auto-created transcripts for podcast episodes. Your iPhone also has some pretty impressive text-to-speech capabilities. With them, your iPhone can read webpages, documents, or whatever text is on the screen out loud to you — only some of these tools aren't easy to find.
How To: 34 New Features and Changes for Your iPhone on iOS 17.4
The last iOS software update was a modest one, but iOS 17.4 has a lot more for your iPhone, including changes to emoji, Podcasts, security, Safari, widgets, Apple Cash, CarPlay, and more.
How To: Unlock Safari's Secret Dual-Search Engine Experience to Optimize Your Web Browsing
If you prefer to use Google or another search engine for everyday browsing in Safari but would also like a more secure browsing experience for all your secret searches, there's a simple way to switch between them quickly while also adding additional layers of security on top of your already clandestine browsing.
How To: Turn Your iPhone into a Samsung Galaxy S24 or Z Fold 5
Are you thinking of switching from an iPhone to an Android phone? Before you make a permanent change from Apple to the other side, it's good to try out the other ecosystem and see if it makes sense for you. If you can't get your hands on an Android phone to try it out, you can simulate Android right on your iPhone. You can even see what a foldable smartphone feels like!
How To: Hear Conversations During Calls Much Clearer with These Hidden iPhone Features
Whether it's everybody or just a specific contact you can't hear during audio and video calls when wearing headphones, your iPhone has hidden, little-known tools to help you catch every word they say in the conversation. Even if you can normally hear everyone during calls, customizing these headphone preferences can make conversations crystal clear.
How To: Apple's Music App for iPhone Just Got a Helluva Lot Better for Everybody with These 20+ New Features
In case you missed it, Apple has added a lot of new features and enhancements to the Music app on your iPhone, changes that benefit both Apple Music subscribers and non-subscribers. Chances are, you haven't seen all the changes yet, especially since many of them weren't released when iOS 17 first came out, but we'll go over them all with you.
How To: Use Your iPhone's New 'Check In' Feature to Let Contacts Know When You Arrive Safely at Your Destination
Check In is a new safety feature built into the Messages app that can automatically notify a family member, friend, another contact, or a group the moment you arrive safely at a destination, giving them peace of mind in knowing you're all right. If you never reach your stopping place, it will also send them clues to help them figure out what went wrong.
How To: Share Account Passwords or Passkeys with People You Trust Easily from Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac
Previously, you'd have to use a third-party password manager on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to securely share passwords with other people or groups outside of AirDrop range. And while apps like 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane let you store passkeys, only 1Password has added support for passkey sharing so far. Now, Apple itself makes sharing passwords and passkeys much, much simpler.
How To: 9 New Features in Apple Maps That'll Make Navigating on Your iPhone a Breeze
While Apple Maps didn't receive as huge of an update on iOS 17 as other apps such as Safari, Camera, Photos, Notes, Weather, and Messages, there are still some very important new features and changes you need to know about.
How To: Apple Weather's Latest Update Gives You 12 Important New Features for Forecasts on Your iPhone
Last year, your iPhone's Weather app received some great features, but things are even better now with the latest iOS 17 version.
How To: Instantly Crop Photos and Videos on Your iPhone Using iOS 17's Hidden Quick-Cropping Tool
Cropping images and videos on your iPhone has always been kind of clunky in the Photos app, but Apple just made the process better with the iOS 17 update. And it also works for iPad on iPadOS 17.
How To: These Are the iPhone Models iOS 17 Does and Doesn't Support
Apple's big iOS 17 software update for iPhone was released on September 18, and it will continue to test iOS 17 point releases as betas beforehand until iOS 18 comes out next year. But does your iPhone work with iOS 17 or any iOS 17.x releases to come? Apple kicked three iPhone models to the curb, limiting them to the latest iOS 16 updates.