How-To Guides about Apple

A Shortcuts setup can get close to sending photos in iMessage with one tap.

iOS 27 gives Find My something it has never had: a way to pause your location for one specific person without sending them any alert. That closes the long-standing gap between sharing everything and stopping sharing and hoping nobody notices.

iOS 27 splits Apple's Clean Up tool into three processing modes: Auto, Fast, and High Quality, and picking the right one is the difference between an edit that holds up and one that looks obviously doctored. This guide covers how to use Clean Up in iOS 27 Photos to remove unwanted objects from iPhone photos, including which mode to trust and when to override it. Hands-on tests from Macworld and TechRadar show High Quality producing noticeably more convincing results than Fast in complex...

Most CarPlay customization doesn't happen on the car's screen at all. The app layout can be rearranged from an iPhone before the driver even starts the engine, as long as that iPhone has connected to the car's CarPlay system before, according to a 9to5Mac walkthrough from about six months ago.

For years, Apple Notes was a one-way street. Text went in and mostly stayed there, with no built-in way to hand a note back out in a format other writing tools could actually read. iOS 26 changes that by building native, two-way Markdown support into Notes, and this guide walks through how to import and export Markdown in Apple Notes on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Most Mac users assume the system language is all-or-nothing: change it, and everything from Finder to your third-party apps follows along. That's not quite right. macOS has a dedicated setting for how to change language for individual apps on Mac, letting you override one app's display language while leaving the rest of the system exactly as it was.

For years, every iMessage conversation looked the same: the standard plain Messages backdrop, no matter who you were talking to. That changed when Apple shipped iOS 26, which lets you swap that plain canvas for a photo, a solid color, an animated preset, or an AI-generated image. Learning how to change the background on iPhone Messages takes about thirty seconds once you know where to look, but the feature works differently than most people expect. It isn't a personal theme sitting quietly on...

NameDrop lets two iPhones, or an iPhone and Apple Watch, swap contact cards by holding the top edges close together and confirming a prompt that appears on both screens. It works by sharing contact information using AirDrop, and it's available now on any compatible iPhone running iOS 17.1 or later (Apple Support). This guide covers how to use NameDrop on iPhone step by step: which devices qualify, how to control exactly what gets shared, and what to check when the screen refuses to show up.

Some App Store apps now let you pay for an annual subscription in monthly installments instead of one upfront charge. Apple calls it "monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment," and it's easy to mistake for a flexible, cancel-anytime monthly plan.

Apple TV boxes don't ship with automatic content recognition, and the Apple TV 4K can't inspect video coming through a television's other inputs, giving it a privacy edge over most other streaming devices and smart TVs, according to Ars Technica's reporting from last year. That's a real advantage, but it doesn't touch app tracking, diagnostics, Siri's data handling, or how the Apple TV app personalizes recommendations. That's where the Apple TV privacy settings below come in.

iOS 27 began rolling out yesterday, September 14, and it arrived with a screen most people will tap through without reading: a prompt titled "Improve Siri & Apple Intelligence" offering two choices, "Share Audio and Text" or "Not Now." That single screen is the answer to how to stop Apple using Siri data to train AI. It's the specific control that decides whether Apple can collect and use your Siri, Dictation, and Translate interactions to help train its Foundation Models (9to5Mac reports).

Apple Music subscribers don't have to wait until December to see their year in music laid out. The 2026 Replay playlist has been quietly taking shape since late winter, breaking down top songs and artists as the year goes rather than dropping all at once (9to5Mac). This guide covers how to get your 2026 Apple Music Replay playlist in the Music app, how to pull up the same stats on the web, and what to check if Replay still isn't showing on your account seven months in.

Backing out of an app, opening Settings, and scrolling through the full app list just to flip one permission toggle is a small tax most iPhone owners pay eventually. This guide walks through how to add an Open App Settings shortcut to Control Center, a one-step Shortcuts action that, according to reporting, jumps you from whatever app you're using straight to that app's own settings page, skipping the manual hunt through the list (Digital Today reported earlier this year).

The word "reset" gets stretched to cover three unrelated jobs when an Apple TV remote acts up, and that stretching is where most of the confusion starts. Learning how to reset an Apple TV remote really means figuring out which of three things applies: restarting a frozen remote, re-pairing one that's lost its Bluetooth connection, or wiping the entire Apple TV back to factory settings. Only the last of those erases the Apple TV's data.

iOS 27 gives Apple Wallet two new jobs that have nothing to do with each other: reading a restaurant receipt and settling it through Apple Cash, and turning a barcoded loyalty or membership card into a pass you build yourself. This guide covers how to split bills with Apple Cash in iOS 27, how to create a custom pass in Apple Wallet, and the availability gaps worth checking before you hand either one a real tab or a card you actually need at checkout.

In late January 2026, Banjo: Recompiled launched for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a standalone native app. Not an emulated N64 game running inside a simulated console, but its own application, built with remappable controls, a second-stick camera option, and mod support. It's one entry in a growing scene that lets players play classic console games natively on Mac without touching an emulator.

This guide walks through how to fix Apple CarPlay problems by matching your specific symptom to its most likely cause. By the end, you'll know which of six failure modes you're dealing with and have a clear fix to try, rather than cycling through generic tips that don't apply to your situation.

Every Mac includes Preview, Apple's app for opening PDFs and images. Double-click a supported file, and it will usually open without another download, subscription, or setup process.

Apple Car Key stores a credential in your Wallet app and uses it to lock, unlock, and start a compatible vehicle no separate app, no cellular connection required. Setting up a car key on iPhone takes about five minutes once you know you're eligible. The part that trips people up is figuring out whether they actually are.

iOS 27 adds something Wallet has never had in fourteen years: the ability to build your own pass. Tap the "+" button you use to add credit cards or pass emails, and a new "Create a Pass" option appears alongside the existing options. It lets you digitize a paper ticket, membership card, or loyalty pass directly from your iPhone, with no developer account, no Pass Type ID, and no certificate signing required (Michael Tsai, May 2026). This guide walks you through how to use Create a Pass in Apple...

By the end of this guide, your Mac will be running macOS Tahoe. What you recover beyond the operating system depends on one thing: whether you have a Time Machine backup made before the Golden Gate beta was installed. This guide covers all three realistic scenarios for getting back to stable ground.

Your work Google Calendar and your personal iCloud Calendar don't talk to each other. Accept a dentist appointment on the personal side, and your work calendar still shows that hour as free. Accept a last-minute team meeting at work, and anything checking your personal availability has no idea.

If you need to know how to see which Mac apps will stop working after macOS Golden Gate, the check is now built directly into macOS itself. This guide walks through every method available, explains what the results mean, and gives you a concrete path forward for each app you find. On Golden Gate, the whole thing takes a few minutes. On Tahoe, two built-in tools cover the same ground.

This guide gets you to three decisions: which robot vacuum fits your specific home, whether Matter integration is worth paying for in your situation, and how to wire everything into a maintenance system using Apple Home, the vendor app, and a few targeted utilities. The best robot vacuum for Apple Home is not necessarily the one with the best Apple integration and that distinction shapes every recommendation below.

iOS 27 adds two genuinely different ways to create custom iPhone wallpapers: one that generates a brand-new image from a text description, and one that expands an existing photo to fit the Lock Screen naturally. This is a pre-release guide to both. The step sequences are reconstructed from WWDC materials, Apple developer documentation, and pre-release reporting; exact UI labels may shift before the final build ships this fall.

If you want to keep using an Apple Time Capsule after upgrading to macOS 27, you have three options: stay on macOS 26, install a community tool called TimeCapsuleSMB, or replace the hardware. This guide covers all three, including step-by-step setup for TimeCapsuleSMB, so you can make the right call before the upgrade window closes.

Many apps trigger the same pop-up the moment you open them: "Allow [App] to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?" You tap "Ask App Not to Track." Next app, same prompt. It's friction without end, and most iPhone users don't know there's a single toggle that makes it stop.

iOS 26 lets compatible AirPods control the iPhone Camera app directly from the stem or Digital Crown. No Apple Watch, no tripod remote, no extra hardware. This guide covers enabling Camera Remote, picking the right gesture for your shooting style, taking photos and recording video hands-free, and routing mic input through your AirPods while you shoot.

Build a real task system in Apple Reminders: step-by-step

If menu bar icons are vanishing on your notch-equipped Mac, two Terminal commands can recover the hidden space by reducing the gap between icons from the default 16 points to 8. No third-party software required. This guide walks through that fix, the revert path, why the problem exists, and what to try if tighter spacing still isn't enough.

Camera Control, the oval capacitive button on the iPhone 16 lineup, ships with two problems. It fires when you didn't mean it to, because swipe detection is sensitive enough to read a grip shift as a deliberate gesture. And the defaults assume a shooting style many people don't have. Fix those two things and the button becomes useful. Leave them alone and it keeps interrupting you.

Apple released the first developer beta of macOS Tahoe 26.5 on March 30, less than a week after macOS 26.4 shipped to the public. Build 25F5042g arrived alongside iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 betas, making it a simultaneous push across Apple's core platforms. Developer beta access opened that day. Public beta availability through beta.apple.com has not been confirmed in sourced reporting at the time of writing, so this guide is written for the developer beta path. If you're on the free public beta...

Ever wondered what it's like to have the exclusive accent colors from Apple's newest devices on your own Mac?

iPhone users experiencing Outlook calendar sync issues often find themselves missing important meetings or double-booking appointments. These problems typically stem from authentication conflicts, background app refresh settings, or account configuration errors that can create frustrating gaps in your productivity workflow. Whether you're dealing with events that won't sync, duplicate entries, or calendars that simply refuse to update, most Outlook calendar problems on iPhone can be resolved...

When your iPad's screen suddenly goes black, that sinking feeling hits fast. One moment you're scrolling through apps or watching a video, and the next—nothing. Just a dark, unresponsive screen staring back at you. While this scenario can feel alarming (especially if you haven't backed up your data recently), iPad black screen issues are more common than you might think and often have straightforward solutions.

While Apple has made significant improvements to battery technology over the years, the reality is that our phones work harder than ever, juggling everything from always-on displays to background app refreshes and location tracking.