Junk calls are one of the great annoyances of the modern world. You’re minding your own business when your iPhone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out, curious as to who’s calling, but don’t recognize the number. You may notice that it’s in the same exchange as your phone number, suggesting that it’s a…
It seems like Apple releases updates to iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS nearly every week these days. It has been only a few months since iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra launched, and we’ve already seen ten updates to iOS and seven updates to macOS. Some of these have been to fix bugs, which…
Do you create reminders with Siri on the iPhone? Those reminders are automatically added to your default list, which you set in Settings > Reminders > Default List. That’s great generally—“Hey Siri, remind me to update watchOS tonight at 11 PM”—but less good when you want to maintain different shopping lists. For instance, create a…
With iOS 11, the iPhone and iPad interfaces continue to diverge, which makes sense, since the iPad is not merely an overgrown iPhone. Particularly when you pair an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, you can now get real work done on an iPad more fluidly than ever before. The “hard” part…
You’ve undoubtedly seen those odd-looking square QR codes on product packaging, a business card, or a flyer. In the past, you needed a special app to scan a QR code to see what Web URL, contact card, Wi-Fi network, or other piece of information it held. In iOS 11, though, you can just point your…
An extremely welcome under-the-hood change in iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra is that Photos facial recognition syncs across iCloud Photo Library. Previously, people you identified on one of your devices remained unidentified on others. But what if Photos now identifies the same person twice, such that they have two separate entries in the…
Distracted driving may not make headlines, but it’s a huge problem. In the United States in 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 391,000 people were injured and 3477 killed in accidents caused by distracted driving. Many things can distract drivers, but the most concerning—and the most avoidable—is texting. Given that the iPhone…
Ask Siri to search the Web and you’ll get five results back from Google (not Bing anymore!). Tap one and it opens in Safari. But what if that page doesn’t contain the information you want? How do you get back to Siri’s results? The easy way is to tap the little Siri button that appears in…
Long gone are the days of ghetto blasters and monster speakers—now we pump music directly into our eardrums with EarPods and AirPods. Noise-induced hearing loss is a real problem, though, with millions of people damaging their hearing by playing music too loud, sometimes inadvertently. Happily, iOS can help protect your ears, and those of your…
When you’re in a huge mall or airport, it’s all too easy to take a wrong turn and get lost. Happily, your iPhone will increasingly be able to help prevent that. Maps in iOS 11 now knows about some indoor places, such as the Philadelphia International Airport and the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall. Zoom…
