Quick Tips

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to start your Mac in safe mode and explains in what situations this may be useful.

Safe mode is a feature of macOS that disables login items, third-party drivers, and legacy system extensions at startup, useful if an incompatible item in one of these groups is causing a problem with your Mac. In addition, system caches are cleared, and a light check of your startup disk is performed when starting up in safe mode, which can identify possible issues that could be causing slower than expected performance.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to quickly and easily move back through menu levels by performing a long-press on the Back button.

Essentially, this functionality is similar to back button history menus that you are probably familiar with from your desktop web browser.

Did you know that you can easily check your iPhone to see if has a carrier lock on it? Follow along in this podcast as Thomas Domville shows us how to access iPhone carrier lock information on iOS.

If you receive or initiate a phone call or text message, from a number that isn't in your iPhone Contacts, you may want to add that information to an existing contact or create a new contact.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville demonstrates how to create, view, and edit captions to add context to your photos and videos, and easily find captions you’ve added in the Search tab.

Note that with iCloud Photos enabled, captions sync seamlessly across all your devices.

In this podcast Thomas Domville shows us how to add nicknames to Contacts on iOS.

Did you know that an account recovery contact can help make sure that you always have access to your account, even if you forgot your Apple ID password or device passcode? Learn how to set up a recovery contact on this podcast as Thomas Domville shows us how to add Recovery Contact for Recovery Assistance on iOS.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville explores some of the new features and options for widgets in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. These include:

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to menu bar commands that lack default shortcuts in macOS.

An example of where this may be useful is in System Settings, where many settings can be quickly accessed from the View menu, however none of these commands have default keyboard shortcuts mapped to them. To create your own shortcut for a command:

In this episode, Tyler shows us how to automatically delete messages on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to automatically deny App Tracking requests in iOS and iPadOS.

App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is a feature in iOS and iPadOS that aims to give users more control over which apps can track their activity across apps owned by other companies for targeted advertising purposes by requiring user permission to access the device's identifier for advertisers (IDFA). To automatically deny all tracking requests, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, and toggle the "Allow apps to request to track" switch off.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to allow your Medical ID information to be sent automatically to emergency services, via a secure third-party service, when you call or text 911 or use Emergency SOS from your iPhone or Apple Watch (U.S. only; iOS 13.5 or later required; watchOS 6.2.5 or later required if Apple Watch is connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network without your iPhone nearby).

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to change Safari's default search engine on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

Did you know that you can change to other voices for Siri? In this podcast Thomas Domville shows us how to change Siri voice on iOS.

In this episode, Thomas Domville shows us how to change the speaking rate for Siri on iOS and iPadOS. This feature allows you to adjust the speed at which Siri speaks, which can be helpful if you find Siri's default speaking rate too fast or too slow.

To change the speaking rate for Siri, Go to Settings > Accessibility > Siri, and adjust the slider under the "Speaking rate" heading to your desired speed.

In this episode, Alex Hall shows us how to change the default app for opening a certain type of file on macOS.

This may be useful if, for example, you'd rather RTF documents opened with Pages instead of TextEdit by default. To make this change:

Join Thomas Domville as he explores the new feature in iOS 17.2. that allows you to modify the default notification alert.

Previously, users were restricted to Apple's default notification sound. However, with iOS 17.2, Apple has added a new “Default Alerts” section in the “Sounds & Haptics” settings. This feature enables you to choose the sound for all incoming notifications, except for texts, mail alerts, and calendar alerts, which already had customization options.

In this quick tip, Jamie Pauls takes us through the various options for how VoiceOver reports rows added in a table on macOS. These options, found in VoiceOver Utility > Verbosity > Announcements, allow you to choose whether VoiceOver speaks the number of rows added to a table in focus, plays a tone when a row is added, or provides no feedback at all.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to change your AppleID email address.