A long-requested feature is finally coming to iOS 17: interactive widgets. With these, you can control apps on the device directly from the convenience of the home screen.
iOS 17 is still in beta so not everyone has access to the new feature yet. I do, so here is what it’s like to use it on an iPhone (and iPad, too.)
iOS 17 has a lot of great headlining features — and many more features Apple didn’t have time to mention during the WWDC23 keynote. Today, I’m going one level deeper: Here are 10 more tweaks and smaller changes that could have a big impact on daily life with your iPhone after you update to iOS 17.
Despite dumping massive engineering resources into its brand-new visionOS platform for the Vision Pro headset, Apple is bringing loads of new features to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and even tvOS this year. Headlining features include NameDrop, StandBy, Journal, Live Stickers, pet tagging in Photos and blurring unsolicited nude pictures.
However, Apple didn’t have time during its jam-packed WWDC23 keynote this week to cover all the new features. Now that iOS 17 is out, here are some of the hidden gems people have discovered in Apple’s latest operating systems.
Private Browsing mode in Apple Safari will soon get even more secure. It’ll be locked against someone else accessing it, and incorporate new tools to prevent websites from tracking users.
The additional privacy features are coming in iOS 17, macOS Sonoma and iPadOS 17, all of which were unveiled at WWDC23 this week.
How can you install the watchOS 10 Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your watch a bunch of times to get it working.
How can you install the macOS 14 Sonoma Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your Mac a bunch of times to get it working.
How can you install the iPadOS 17 Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your tablet a bunch of times to get it working.
How can you install the iOS 17 Developer Beta? While the release is months away, you might want to take it for a test drive or see how your apps work in the new release. Right now, you need to make sure you’re signed into your developer Apple ID and that you have developer betas turned on in the Settings app.
These days, the process is far easier. You no longer need to install a beta profile and reboot your phone a bunch of times to get it working.
Apple’s WWDC keynote is the biggest event of the year, kicking off the annual cycle of software updates and changes to every single platform — iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Only a few people buy a new Apple product every year, but everyone has something to look forward to after WWDC. How can you watch it all unfold this Monday?
You can watch the live stream on the web on Apple’s website or on YouTube, inside the free Apple Developer app, on your smart TV, and for a select lucky few, in person — my tips on how to make the most of that and more are all below.
Apple’s Game Center service lets you compete with friends and unlock achievements in the games you play. You can see where you rank among your friends — and globally. Achievements will give you a list of missions to accomplish to prove your mastery of the game. You can even play live multiplayer games on all your separate devices using SharePlay.
Up until iOS 10, Game Center existed as a separate app on iPhone and iPad, which made this all easier to manage. How do you manage your Game Center account now? What options do you have? How do you add friends?
How can you run Windows on a Mac these days? Fifteen years ago, the answer was simple: install Windows using Boot Camp. Today, you have loads of other options — even though Boot Camp itself no longer works.
You can use a virtual machine, pay to access Windows in the cloud from a web browser, use special software to get access to a couple essential apps or simply Remote Desktop in to a PC. Which path forward is right for you? I’ll run through them all.
How can you make your iPhone less addictive? Constant iPhone use can literally change the makeup of your brain. Sure, people waved similar panic flags about the television, the radio and even the novel, but those were easily left at home. You carry the internet with you, and it’s constantly blasting a firehose of content, everywhere you go.
If you feel the impulse to unlock your iPhone at every empty moment, or scroll through an app when you feel like you should be getting to bed, here are my tips for making your phone a bit more boring.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT for iOS makes the much-hyped chatbot easy to use on an iPhone. It’s powered by the same artificial intelligence as the web version, so it’s useful in many ways for people on the go. Plus, the app has its own voice-recognition system. And the basic version is free.
The ChatGPT AI already stirred up enormous controversy. But here are some suggestions for how to use the new iPhone application in positive ways.
What’s the best VPN to use on a Mac, and how do you use a VPN for data privacy? With Intego Privacy Protection, you can instantly connect to servers all around the world, including ones specially optimized for streaming. This advanced VPN comes with plenty of options for keeping your data secure and private.
You can set it to automatically open when you start your Mac, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to launch it. Intego’s international servers, which are optimized for streaming services, worked perfectly in my testing. I’ll show you how to get started with one of the best VPNs for Mac.
Selling your old Mac or passing it to a friend or family member? It is always a good idea to reset your Mac to factory settings before doing so.
This ensures the machine wipes clean all your data, so you won’t have to worry about any privacy problems. The best part is that Apple makes it very easy to reset a MacBook, iMac or Mac mini to its factory state.
If you’re traveling this summer, there’s a neat editing trick to get spectacular shots of landmarks or murals.
With advanced editing tools in the Photos app, you can make adjustments you might not have thought were possible. Fix the perspective or angle a picture was taken, correct the fisheye distortion on an ultra-wide photo and more.
You can also precisely rotate and skew perspective on photos from your iPhone, for those times when you don’t realize until it’s too late that your shot is slightly to the side or slightly askew. You can fix it all directly in the Photos app.
In the United States, iMessage is one of the first features iPhone users mention as a benefit over Android. In the rest of the world, nobody cares, because everyone uses WhatsApp and other cross-platform services.
But there are a lot of cool features inside the Messages app these days — we’ve previously covered how to edit and unsend messages and share your screen. Here are five more hidden features inside Apple’s messaging app. Keep reading or watch the video below.
Stage Manager puts iPad applications into floating, resizable, overlapping windows. It’s the most significant change to iPadOS in many years, and Apple Support created a video that walks through the possibilities.
Watch it if you’d like to get started with this multitasking system.
With AirPlay, you can wirelessly stream video from your Apple devices to a large-screen TV. It’ll let you enjoy Ted Lasso or share a TikTok video with a group of friends on a big screen, not your iPhone’s relatively small one.
If this handy option is new to you, Apple made an explainer video. Watch it now.
Managing passwords is and always has been a giant pain. It isn’t the best system, but it’s the system we’ve got. Well, not if Apple can do anything about it. Passkeys are a new system that automatically signs you in to online services using your phone’s Face ID (or Touch ID) or your computer’s password. It’s one less thing to remember; it works without fiddling around with a password manager.
Passkeys aren’t an Apple-exclusive feature. You can bet the technology will be supported no matter what devices you have because all of these companies are part of the FIDO Alliance that created the system … eventually.
Apple fully supports it in iOS 16 and Safari 16 for Mac, as does Google’s Chrome browser on multiple platforms. Android 9 and above supports passkeys via Credential Manager, and Google just this week added passkey support to user accounts on “all major platforms.” (Microsoft won’t add it to Windows until later this year. Until every platform supports passkeys, you can still use your passwords to sign in.)
Follow along as I show you how passkeys work.
You can use a free Mac app called LocationSimulator to hide your real location on your iPhone. It works great as a Pokémon Go spoofer. Just set it up, then plug your phone into a Mac and tell it where you want to “be.” You don’t need to jailbreak your phone or install anything on it.
When using LocationSimulator, every app on your iPhone will use this new GPS location. It’s useful for maintaining privacy — for instance, if you’re posting screenshots online, it’ll mask your real home address. Developers can use it, too, for testing location features in their apps.
Best of all, you just need a Mac. LocationSimulator is free and open-source.
Taking a moment to add an extra passcode to your iCloud account might save your skin if your iPhone is ever stolen by a shady character who’s eyeing you like a hawk. By default, your iPhone passcode is all someone needs to lock you out of your devices and wreak financial havoc on your life. And it’s not that difficult to capture your passcode if you tap into your phone in a public place.
In fact, a recent spate of coordinated scams have played out like this: A spy watches for anyone entering their iPhone passcode in a bar or other public place. Then, the device is yoinked out of the victim’s hands. And before they can do anything, they find themselves locked out of their own iCloud account. Soon, the criminals who stole the iPhone proceed to make unauthorized purchases, empty bank accounts and generally wreak havoc on the victim’s finances and personal life.
Luckily, setting up a second passcode just for iCloud can protect you from this type of criminal operation. I’ll show you how to keep these thieves at bay — and offer some additional advice for keeping your account secure.
It might not be apparent at first, but Apple’s Photos app gives you plenty of ways to manage your photo library and tweak the images in it.
If you have tens of thousands of photos like I do, your photo library is probably a big mess. You could spend hundreds of hours meticulously sorting images into albums, and tweaking settings to get everything just right. Or you can use some of the features Apple offers to make things easy.
I’ve already covered my top tips for taking photos. Here are my top five tips for managing and manipulating the great photos you took, using tools in Apple’s Photos app.
If you lived in the United States in the last 15 years and you used Facebook, you can fill out a brief form and claim your part of a $725 million privacy settlement. This marks the end of a class-action lawsuit wherein the company admitted that U.K. data mining company Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook users’ data without their consent.
You have until Friday, August 25, to file a claim. It only takes a few minutes. How much you get depends on how many people take the payment — it could be as low as $1.50 if every person in the United States fills it out.
Making a claim also stops you from pursuing a separate claim against Meta, Facebook’s parent company. However, if you take no action, you won’t get anything as a result of the Facebook data scandal.
Apple Card Savings allows you to earn a high rate of interest on money you might have been storing in Apple Cash. As the name indicates, it’s a savings account especially for Apple Card users.
Daily Cash earned from using the credit card flows automatically into the account where it (currently) earns 4.15% annually — that’s far more than the national average. And you can bring in cash from your other banks that offer lower interest rates.
I’ll walk you through the process of setting up an Apple Card Savings account.