Messages Not Being Delivered to Blue-Bubble Friends? Check Cellular Data
Here’s a tricky situation that threw one of our clients for a loop recently. Texts they sent in Messages via iMessage (indicated by blue bubbles) to their son, letting him know they were stopping by weren’t being delivered, making their visits a surprise. But other...
After Upgrading to iOS 15, Check Do Not Disturb in Focus Settings
In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple expanded the concept of Do Not Disturb to what it calls Focus. You can create a Focus for different types of activities, so only specific people and apps can break through your cone of silence at appropriate times. Focus subsumes the old...
When Migrating to a New iPhone or iPad, Try Quick Start First
You have a new iPhone or iPad—congratulations! When transferring your data to the new device, you have three options: Quick Start, an iCloud backup, or a Mac backup. All will work, but they don’t quite provide the same end result (particularly if you didn’t encrypt...
New Features to Try (Or Not) in Safari 15
Along with a new version of Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple has released Safari 15 for macOS 11 Big Sur and macOS 10.15 Catalina. Why do this before macOS 12 Monterey ships? Some of the browser’s new capabilities—notably the Tab Groups feature—integrate it more...
What Is iCloud+ and What Can You Do With It?
As you upgrade to iOS 15, iPadOS 15 (and macOS 12 Monterey by the end of the year), you’re going to see references to iCloud+. You might even already be an iCloud+ subscriber! That’s because iCloud+ is Apple’s new name for what you get if you pay for additional iCloud...
Apple Radically Improved Multitasking in iPadOS 15. Here’s How to Use It
Multitasking has long been a mess on the iPad, not so much because it didn’t work but because it was tough to memorize the secret swipes necessary to put multiple apps into Split View, work with multiple windows in apps that supported them, and hide and show what you...
Beware the Bulging Battery! (And What to Do If Yours Expands)
We’ve been seeing a spate of bulging batteries of late, both in Mac laptops and iPhones. A bulging battery is a Very Bad Thing and must be dealt with immediately because it could catch fire or even explode. As lithium-ion batteries age, the chemical reactions that...
Apple’s 2021 Crop: Four iPhones, Two iPads, and an Apple Watch
September is traditionally when new iPhones are ripe for the picking, and this year’s crop is no exception. At its California Streaming event on September 14th, Apple unveiled four iPhone 13 models. Apple also announced the expected Apple Watch Series 7, but entirely...
Sort Your Lists Differently in Reminders in iOS 14 and Big Sur
For many years, Apple’s Reminders app let you sort your lists, but in just one way that applied to all lists equally. That was a problem if you had a to-do list that you wanted to sort by Due Date and a list of foods in your freezer that you wanted to sort by Creation...
Losing the Occasional Important Message? Set up a Ham Filter
Although spam remains as much of a scourge as ever, spam filters have improved enough that most people see relatively little spam and lose relatively few legitimate messages (known as “ham”) to spam filters. However, good email messages are still sometimes caught by...