It might seem like the small Apple Remote that used to come with new Macs is a one-trick pony for controlling iTunes or DVD playback, but there are actually some hidden ways to use it. Here are a few that may surprise you. Read More »
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Josh Sunshine
Bio:A recent addition to the Apple universe, Josh inhabits an extremely small area of Southern England. Writing about Apple keeps him from waffling on, so he is encouraged to keep it up.
The house Josh inhabits contains two Macs, two iPhones, two iPod touches and no iPads. It’s likely to stay that way for a long time.
Watch out mainly for how-to articles and quick tips from Josh, as that is what he does best. He has no problems with receiving any comments on his posts and welcomes any thoughts, arguments, insults etc. you have.
Recent Posts
The Cosmonaut is a new iPad stylus from Studio Neat which started life on Kickstarter. After a few months of manufacturing and testing, the Cosmonaut started shipping in early December to Kickstarter backers, and is now available to purchase for $25. But is it any good? Read More »
Welcome to another installment of Tips and Tricks, the series that aims to teach you something new about your Apple stuff. This time, we’ll be taking a look at Siri and how changing one or two words in your query can produce completely different results. Read More »
IPhone owners who jailbreak their devices have been able to add icons for changing settings to their home screens. Now it’s possible to do the same thing without jailbreaking, using a handy website and mobile Safari’s “Add to Home Screen” feature. Read More »
iMessage, the new free messaging service introduced in iOS 5, is easy to set up, but group messaging can be a bit harder to work out straight away. There are a couple of limitations to know about, but generally, group messages work really well with iMessage. Read More »
Normally, if you ask Siri to tweet for you, it’ll say it can’t help with Twitter. If you ask about Facebook, you’ll get even less of a response. However, using both these social networks’ SMS features, you can get Siri to update Twitter and Facebook indirectly. Read More »
Before iOS 5, getting auto-correct to ignore strange or unfamiliar words was difficult and tedious. Now, however, there’s an easy way to not only add terms to the auto-correct dictionary, but also to create handy shortcuts for quickly typing out commonly-used phrases. Read More »
More Must Reads
iOS 5 is the biggest update yet to Apple’s mobile operating system. Along with over 100 other features, it brings Notification Center, an improved way to manage push notifications on your iPhone or iPad. Read on to learn how to get started using Notification Center. Read More »
As soon as Apple announced the new Siri feature in the iPhone 4S, Twitter went crazy with people making jokes about the new personal assistant feature. A simple search for Siri on Twitter will show up an almost endless list of tweets. We’ve picked out a … Read More »
Since the release of the first developer preview of Windows 8, Mac users have been downloading it to run in virtualization software such as Parallels and VMware Fusion. You can do it using Boot Camp, too, and experience Windows 8 at full speed. Read More »
In this instalment of tips and tricks, we’ll be focusing on Mail 5, the new version that ships with Lion. There are a number of changes to the app that you might not be aware of, and some handy trips from past versions that still apply. Read More »
The menu bar in OS X doesn’t just contain the menus for the application you’re currently using; it can also hold all sorts of helpful extras that can be accessed from any application with just one click, and make using OS X a little easier. Read More »
Launchpad, the new app launcher in Mac OS X Lion, can be useful for hunting down apps you don’t use very often. However, sometimes it can feel bloated and difficult to navigate. Here are a few tips to make Launchpad a bit easier to work with. Read More »
Apple now has a free tool available for Lion that, once downloaded, will allow you to create another recovery drive using a USB drive instead. It’s now very easy to create your own Apple-sanction Lion install and recovery drive. Just follow these steps. Read More »
Google released a relatively small update to its Google+ app for iOS on Monday. It doesn’t introduce any extraordinary new features, but does add compatibility with the iPad and iPod touch, and fixes bugs in iOS 5. There are also some additions to the Huddle feature. Read More »
When Snow Leopard arrived, it came with an updated version of QuickTime, called QuickTime Player X. It lost a lot of features from the previous release, QuickTime 7. With Lion, a new version of QuickTime Player drops the “X” and gains a few more advanced features. Read More »
With all the focus on OS X Lion’s new multitouch gestures, the keyboard is getting a little left out. Here are three tips to help navigate around Lion more quickly using the keyboard instead of the mouse (or trackpad). Read More »
We’re launching a new feature here at TAB. Every month, we’ll ask you, our readers, what we can help you with. We’ll take a few of the hottest topics, assign articles and post them to the site. Have questions? Ask TAB in the comments. Read More »
With the next major release of Mac OS X, 10.7 Lion, on the way, it’s a good idea to start preparing your Mac for the transition soon. Here are some steps to make sure your Mac is ready for Lion. Read More »
Often, you’ll want to transfer some piece of data — a link, contact information or a photo, for example — from one of your iOS devices to another. Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t natively support Bluetooth file transfer like most phones. Luckily, there are other workarounds. Read More »
If you’re going paperless by transferring all your printed documents to digital text or PDF files, using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) makes the job much easier by eliminating manual input. Luckily, you can use your iPhone to do OCR, eliminating the need for any additional equipment. Read More »
At the WWDC Keynote on Monday, Phil Schiller went through a few facts about the success of the App Store. In the six months it has been open, the Mac App Store has become the No. 1 channel for purchasing Mac software, surpassing big retail stores. Read More »
Welcome to another instalment of Tips and Tricks, the series of articles aiming to teach you something you didn’t know about your Apple products. Let’s continue by looking at iPhoto, and some ways of speeding up your workflow and making it easier to manipulate your collection. Read More »
It’s possible to encrypt an iOS backup using iTunes. However, a piece of software has just been released which allows the encryption to be cracked, therefore giving someone full access to the data stored in your backup, so reconsider what you store on your device. Read More »
Rumor has it Apple is in talks with Nuance to strike a deal allowing Apple to use Nuance’s speech recognition software. One of the uses mentioned was the possibility of using the software in the new NC data center, … Read More »
Chances are, there’s a lot of personal information and data stored on your iPhone or iPad. The last thing you want is someone finding your data and using it maliciously. You can encrypt your backup, but what about if someone gets hold of your actual device? Read More »
If you’re security conscious, or you just want your personal data to be safer, you can encrypt the backups iTunes creates of your iOS devices. You may just be hearing about this following Apple’s location troubles last week, so here’s how to do it. Read More »
There are some Unicode characters which are useful (and fun) to be able to type. However, while some of them are readily accessible using the keyboard, most are hidden away in the Character Viewer. Here’s how to use actual Unicode codes to type these special symbols. Read More »
While this week many people are searching for Easter Eggs or the Afikoman, here are 10 hidden settings you can find in your Mac apps and OS X. These are all small changes you can make that make using the applications and the system slightly better. Read More »
A lot of the time when you connect an external display to a Mac notebook, you’ll want to continue working on the large display and close the lid of the laptop. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting that working right every time. Read More »
iChat is a great little chat client, especially considering it’s included in OS X. However, a common complaint is that it doesn’t support IM networks such as MSN or Facebook chat. Here’s a way to chat to friends on networks which aren’t technically supported by iChat. Read More »
The notification system in iOS is useful, but it can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Luckily, there is a way to disable notifications on a per-app basis, so that you can retain notifications for useful things like to-do reminders while cutting down on less-useful ones. Read More »
Firefox 4, released today, includes a lot of new features, including tabs-on-top, App Tab and a new full screen mode. All are features which aren’t present in Safari, and ones that have me eager to stick with Firefox 4 for the long haul. Read More »
All sales of any of Panic software between 10:00 a.m., March 17 and 10:00 a.m., March 18 (PDT) will be split between the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Mercy Corps based in Portland, Ore. for use in relief efforts in Japan, the company announced today. Read More »
When you get a new iOS device, such as a new iPad 2, you’ll probably want to transfer data, settings and content from an old device to the new one. Luckily, even if you’re new to Apple products, it’s not difficult to do. Here’s how. Read More »
At the Apple event today, we heard details about the latest installment of iOS, version 4.3. The developer beta has been available for a while now, but the public release has now been announced, and Apple revealed acouple tricks that even the beta hadn’t yet introduced. Read More »
With the nearly guaranteed iPad 2 announcement drawing near, there are going to be a lot of used first generation iPads soon going up for sale. Here’s how to best prepare your used iPad for sale, for both yourself and its new owner. Read More »
Over the weekend, I bought myself a brand new 15-inch MacBook Pro. Having previously owned a 2008 model, non-Pro MacBook, I knew it was going to be faster, but I didn’t realize just how much of an improvement it would really be. Read More »
If you’re planning on buying a new machine, it’s a great idea to sell your old Mac to cover some of the new computer’s cost. If you choose to go this route, make sure to follow these steps to prepare your used machine for new ownership. Read More »
Since iOS 4.0, the iPhone’s been able to allow multitasking — the ability to run more than one application at a time. Even though the feature’s been there, that doesn’t mean every user knows how to take advantage of it. Here’s a quick primer. Read More »
There are always rumors floating around about Apple’s next move, especially when it involves the iPhone and, more recently, the iPad. But what if we could see Apple’s calendar of what they intend to announce and release for the next six months? Read More »
Welcome to another installment of Tips and Tricks. These articles aim to teach you some handy things you might not know about your Apple stuff. Let’s continue the series by looking at iTunes, with an eye to making things easier and eliminating some clutter. Read More »
Twitter for Mac is one of the great apps introduced alongside the Mac App Store. Since then, it’s been updated twice and the app’s icon changed (some would say for the worse) both times. Here’s how to change the icon back to whichever you like best. Read More »
Apple has posted a downloads countdown page on its site as it approaches 10 billion apps downloaded. This year marks the App Store’s third birthday, so that’s an average of over 3 billion app downloads per year. iTunes took eight years to reach the same milestone. Read More »
So you’ve just installed tons of apps from the Mac App Store, but now you realize you don’t really need that fifth Twitter client. How to uninstall it? Unlike Windows, OS X doesn’t have a “Remove Programs” tool, but the answer is actually simpler than that. Read More »
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