Apple’s Messages app for iOS and macOS generally works well, but when it doesn’t, figuring out what’s wrong and how to fix it can take some doing. Here are a few of the most common solutions we’ve come across for problems with sending and receiving messages. Help Android-switcher friends turn off iMessage Do you have…
Collaboration is what all the cool kids—well, all the competitive businesses—are doing these days because it’s efficient and effective. See “Stop Mailing Files Around and Use Collaborative Apps” and for users of Apple’s iWork, “Collaborate with Colleagues in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.” Today we’re going to look at collaborating using Google’s Web-based productivity suite, Google…
In theory, it should be easy to move the cursor in text on an iPad or iPhone—just tap where you want the cursor to go, or press and hold until the magnifying circle appears over the cursor and then slide it around. In reality, it’s often fussy and annoying because our fingers are a lot…
It’s helpful to unplug occasionally and ignore email while on vacation or otherwise away from your work routine. And it’s a good idea to set up a vacation auto-responder to tell correspondents what to do in your absence. It might be tempting to create such an auto-reply with a rule in Mail on the Mac,…
Have you ever gotten an emergency alert on your iPhone, telling you about an abducted child or public safety emergency? That’s the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, at least in the United States, although some other countries have similar systems. The WEA system enables authorized national, state, and local government authorities to send alerts about…
Macs haven’t had removable storage for years, so when you want to move files between computers, you can use USB flash drives, email, Messages, AirDrop, or local file sharing. Those techniques are fine, but for a more efficient, effective, and elegant solution, try a cloud-based file sharing service. These services use special software to integrate…
You know the drill—a friend comes to visit and wants to get on your Wi-Fi network. You’ve written the password down somewhere, but where? Even if you have it handy, it’s a pain for your friend to type in. Since macOS 10.13 High Sierra and iOS 11, Apple’s operating systems can make connecting a lot…
Need to check something in another email message while composing a message in Mail on an iPhone? Many people don’t realize that you can swipe down on the top of the draft to dock it at the bottom of the screen, look something up in another message, and then expand the draft again by tapping…
It’s maddening to want to read a serial number or other bit of fine print that you can barely see. But fret no longer—your iPhone or iPad makes a fabulous magnifying glass! Assuming Magnifier is enabled in Settings > General > Accessibility > Magnifier, you can bring it up by pressing the Home button (for…
Is your Apple Watch failing to turn on its screen when you raise it, display notifications from your iPhone, or even update the time zone? watchOS has four modes accessible from Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of the screen) that are useful but can cause confusion if you forget to turn them off:…
