Modern Apple devices include important automatic emergency capabilities to get help in case of accident, injury, and more. Read along for 4 emergency iPhone and Apple Watch features you should make sure are set up, customized, and ready to go.
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Phishing scams are abundant and one of the latest we’ve seen is trying to convince Netflix customers their accounts have “expired” with an option to extend their membership for free for 90 days. Here are the details and tips on how to help friends and family stay safe.
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This may be something of an edge case, but as it caused me to waste a considerable amount of time Googling ‘Recovering Mac storage’ before the problem solved itself, I thought I’d share.
Having recently completed a 16-minute micro documentary, one of the things that shocked me was just how much drive space is eaten up! While the final cut was around one minute of interview per person, and a similar amount of dance footage, I of course shot more …
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Back in March, we saw a piece of malware surface for macOS called MacStealer that’s able to compromise iCloud Keychain passwords, credit card information, files, and more. Now a new malware called Atomic macOS Stealer is being sold as a service to malicious parties that may be more threatening.
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As technology advances, scams are becoming quite sophisticated. One of the latest threats is AI voice cloning which a malicious party can use to make it seem like they have a loved one held hostage. Mix that with caller ID spoofing and it’s a very scary and convincing scam that can impact users on iPhone, Android, and really any phone. Read on for more details and how to protect against AI voice clone and caller ID spoofing scams.
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There are times when something drives you nuts, and a long time later you learn that there was a simple solution all along. So in case anyone else has suffered from Apple Calendar timezone confusion, let me share it.
The confusion arises because of what I personally think is a rather odd default by Apple, which probably reflects the life of senior Cupertino execs more than the average iPhone or Mac user …
Update: Check out a feature request at the end
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Apple is close to launching a major new feature in the Photos app that makes it much easier to share photos and videos with loved ones. iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you automatically or manually share your whole library or parts of it. But while the feature is available in the iOS 16.1 public and developer beta, you can’t share with anyone running the public iOS 16.0.2 release or earlier.
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My girlfriend and I make extensive use of shared iCloud calendars. We have one for joint events, and we each share our own calendars so that we both have a complete picture of our schedules. That enables either one of us to arrange things like dinner with friends, knowing that it won’t clash with anything else.
But (semi-) vacationing with friends, we’ve also found a shared group calendar is the perfect way to coordinate activities …
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A misguided tip spreading around social media urged people lost with no phone signal to change their voicemail to reach assistance. While well-meaning, this is not what you should be doing if you find yourself in need of help.
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Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio arrived last week on Apple Music and while many are enjoying the new immersive content, there is a bug that’s making that a hassle for some users. Here are a couple of tips to help fix the 15-second Dolby Atmos bug.
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There’s an app currently circulating around Apple’s App Store pretending to be the official set-up companion for Amazon’s Alexa, and it’s fooled its way to the top of the download charts. At the time of this writing, the fake app sits at #60 overall in the general “Top Free” apps section, while in an even more concerning top 10 place under the Utilities sections at #6.
The huge winter storm named Grayson is hitting Florida, South Carolina, and more and is expected to affect most of the East Coast. Here are some of the best ways to keep an eye on the storm, and we’ll explain the intense sounding “bomb cyclone” phenomenon too.
If you’re not one to use iOS’ automatic updates feature, make sure to grab the latest updates for Experian – Free Credit Report and myFICO Mobile. A security vulnerability discovered by Verify.ly shows that attackers would have been able to intercept user login credentials on older versions of the clients. After having disclosed the vulnerabilities to both companies, it appears that the security holes have been fixed appropriately.
If, like me, you skipped over the recovery key step when switching on two-factor authentication for your Apple ID, thinking that having the password plus a trusted device was sufficient, you’ll want to correct that.
TheNextWeb‘s Owen Williams recently found that if someone tries to hack your account, and you get locked out, there’s no way back in without a recovery key.
While Apple states on its website that a new recovery key can be generated so long as you know your password and have access to one of your trusted devices, this is not true once the account is locked. No recovery key, no access. No amount of pleading by Williams would persuade Apple to help. Apple increased its security measures following the phishing attack on iCloud.
In Owen’s case, he did have a key, he just couldn’t find it. It was only by digging it out of a Time Machine backup that he was able to regain access to his account.
So, if you don’t yet have a recovery key, or can’t lay your hands on one, here’s what you need to do:
Go to My Apple ID
Select Manage your Apple ID and sign in with your password and trusted device
Select Password and Security
Under Recovery Key, select Replace Lost Key
If you use the Kids sections in the App Store for finding appropriate apps for children, you might want to be careful until Apple fixes a bug that’s currently displaying the wrong apps for kids. Specifically, the “Kids” category under the App Store’s Top Charts section is currently displaying apps that should go in the main “All Categories” section. That means that the All Kids, Kids 5 & Under, Kids 6-8, and Kids 9-11 categories are currently displaying many apps that are inappropriate for kids (pictured above).
The bug appears to be iOS 8 only, and is present in App Stores in at least the US, Canada, and Germany. Reader and developers at Happy-Touch informed us of the issue, which we confirmed on an iOS device in the Canadian and US App Stores. Apple is aware of the bug.
Following recent API abuse that lead to phone numbers and usernames being exposed, Snapchat, the social photo sharing app, has updated its iPhone app with the option to opt out of linking your phone number with your username. The feature was intended to increase social discoverability among mutual contacts, but was recently abused leading to the following update and apology:
Find Friends Improvements
This morning we released a Snapchat update for Android and iOS that improves Find Friends functionality and allows Snapchatters to opt-out of linking their phone number with their username. This option is available in Settings > Mobile #.
This update also requires new Snapchatters to verify their phone number before using the Find Friends service.
Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.
Love,
Team Snapchat
The update is available now on for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store.
