In November 2018, Spotify released an official app for Apple Watch that allows Spotify subscribers to access and control their favorite Spotify music and podcasts from their wrist. This article shows you how to get the Spotify app up and running on Apple Watch and explains how the interface works. What the Spotify App for Apple Watch Can't Do As great as it is that Spotify released an Apple Watch app, it does have a couple of major shortcomings that you should be aware of. As of writing, the app offers no option to store music locally on your wrist for offline listening. So if you were hoping to pre-load your watch with tunes from Spotify for your workout, you're out of luck. Unfortunately, it's a similar story for Apple Watch LTE owners with a data contract who were hoping to stream Spotify music directly from their wrist for listening on a pair of connected Bluetooth headphones. Currently the ability to do this doesn't exist in the Spotify app and there's a good chance it never will, since Apple's API for watchOS 5 doesn't permit third-party apps to use direct cellular or Wi-Fi streaming. With those limitations in mind, below are the steps you need to take to get the Spotify app to show up on your Apple Watch, followed by a brief guide on using the wrist-based interface. How to Install Spotify on Apple Watch These steps will work for both free and premium Spotify users. Just make sure you have the latest version of Spotify installed on your iPhone by checking the App Store for updates to the Spotify app. Launch the Watch app on your iPhone. In the My

Find My Mac is a macOS feature that enables you to locate your machine if it's lost or missing. When you sign in to iCloud.com or the Find My iPhone app in iOS, you can see your missing Mac on a map and play a sound to locate it if it's close by. It also has a Lost Mode to lock, track, or remotely erase all of your personal information from your machine. For these reasons, Apple recommends that users keep Find my Mac enabled, but there are circumstances where you might want to turn it off. If you're selling your Mac or passing it on, for example, you should disable Find My Mac beforehand, because the new owner won't be able to disable it unless they have your Apple ID password. Similarly, if you're taking your Mac in to Apple for repairs, you may be asked to turn off Find My Mac. Whatever the reason, here's how it's done. How to Turn Off Find my Mac Launch System Preferences from your Mac's Dock, from the Applications folder, or from the Apple menu bar ( -> System Preferences...). Click iCloud in the preferences panel. Scroll down to Find My Mac and untick the checkbox next to it. Enter your Apple ID password when prompted. Click Continue. Click the red dot at the top left corner of the window to close the preference pane.Note that you can also disable Find My Mac by signing your Mac out of iCloud completely. To do so, just click Sign Out in the iCloud preference pane. If you sign out, any mail, contacts, calendars, photos, notes, reminders, or other documents that are stored in iCloud will be removed from your Mac, but they will remain in the

Find My iPhone (or Find My iPad) is an iOS feature that enables users to locate a lost or missing Apple device. When you sign in to iCloud.com or the Find My iPhone app, you can see your missing device on a map and play a sound to locate it if it's close by. It also has a Lost Mode to lock, track, or remotely erase all of your personal information. For these reasons, Apple recommends that users keep Find my iPhone enabled, but there are circumstances where you might want to turn it off. If you're selling your iPhone or passing it on, for example, you should disable Find My iPhone beforehand, because the new owner won't be able to disable it (unless they have your Apple ID password), which means they won't be able to restore the device to its factory settings. Likewise, if you've acquired a second-hand iPhone or iPad and the previous owner hasn't disabled Find My iPhone, you'll want to unlink the device from their Apple ID, but of course you'll only be able to do this if you know their Apple ID password. Whatever the reason, here's how to turn off Find My iPhone in iOS. How to Turn Off Find my iPhone in iOS Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad. Tap your name in the Apple ID banner at the top. Tap iCloud. Scroll down and tap Find My iPhone (or Find My iPad). Tap the toggle to switch it to the white OFF position. Enter your Apple ID password when prompted. Tap Turn Off.That's all there is to it. To do the same thing on a Mac, check out our separate article on how to turn off Find My Mac. Note that signing out of iCloud on an iPhone or iPad will

Apple News keeps track of all the articles you read within the news app's interface to create a personal reading history. This provides you with a handy way of returning to a story, and avoids you having to trawl through the news to look for it. To access your reading history in the Apple News app on iPhone or iPad, simply tap the Following tab, scroll down, and then tap History. In Apple News on Mac, you can find the same option by scrolling to the bottom of the sidebar. Like the browsing history in a web browser app, you can clear your Apple News reading history. Here's how it's done. How to Clear Apple News Reading History on iOS Launch the Apple News app on your iPhone or iPad. Tap the Following tab in the lower right corner of the screen. Scroll down and tap History. To remove an individual story from your reading history, swipe left across it and then tap Delete. To clear your entire reading history, tap Clear in the upper right corner of the screen and then tap Clear History. How to Clear Apple News Reading History on Mac You can perform a similar action on your Mac by following the steps below. Launch the Apple News app. Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar and click History. Click Clear in the upper right corner of the window. Click Clear History.It's an odd quirk, but currently there's no way to remove individual stories from your reading history in the Apple News Mac app. Apple has a number of inconsistencies across its stock Mac and iOS apps that need addressing, and this is one of

The Apple News app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac automatically recommends stories for you based on your reading habits within the app. You can find these stories in the Today tab under the For You section, divided into topics and channels you've selected. The recommendations feature isn't infallible, and it can become confused if a friend or family member uses the Apple News app on your device or another device linked to the same iCloud account. If the suggested stories in the Apple News app seem increasingly random or unrelated to your interests, you can try resetting the information Apple uses to suggest them to you. Here's how. How to Clear Apple News Recommendations on iOS Launch the Apple News app on your iPhone or iPad. Tap the Following tab in the lower right corner of the screen. Scroll down and tap History. Tap Clear in the upper right corner of the screen and then tap Clear Recommendations. How to Clear Apple News Recommendations on Mac You can perform a similar action on your Mac by following the steps below. Launch the Apple News app. Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar and click History. Click Clear in the upper right corner of the window. Click Clear Recommendations.Note that clearing your recommendations on one device affects all devices linked to the same iCloud account. Once you've done so, Apple News will attempt to re-learn your interests based on what you read going

The latest version of Apple's "Hey Siri" feature works hands-free without being plugged into power, and it can be found in several recently announced Apple mobile products, including the fifth-generation iPad mini, third-generation iPad Air, and second-generation AirPods. What's perhaps less well-known is that many of Apple's new Macs also support "Hey Siri" hands-free, meaning that users no longer have to click the menu bar icon or press a keyboard shortcut before they can start talking to the digital assistant. What follows is a list of Macs that support "Hey Siri" hands-free, and below that you can find instructions on how to enable it on your machine. Note that future Mac models that include Apple's T2 security chip are likely to support the feature, too. MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018) iMac Pro How to Enable "Hey Siri" hands-free on a Mac Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Click the Siri icon in the preference pane. Tick the checkbox next to Listen for "Hey Siri". Click Continue to follow the Siri setup process, repeating verbally the commands shown on the screen. Click Done and then close the preference pane.Now that you've enabled the feature, simply say "Hey Siri" to invoke the digital assistant and ask a question or give a command. If you're familiar with the Siri function on iPhone or iPad, you should find most of the same general commands work on Mac, too. For more information on how the

In April 2019, Google announced the launch of a free, ad-supported version of its YouTube Music streaming service for use with Google Home and other smart speakers that feature its voice-activated assistant. Essentially, the free streaming tier means that you can listen to songs from the YouTube Music catalog, interspersed with occasional ads, on your Google Home or other Google Assistant-powered speaker right out of the box. With YouTube Music and Google Home, you can ask Google Home to play the right music for any moment or mood, and YouTube Music will play a station customized to your tastes based upon your request. So you could say, for example, "Hey Google, play music for working out," and your speaker will fill the room with some upbeat tunes. At the time of writing, free, ad-supported YouTube Music is available on smart speakers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Netherlands, and Austria. Google is also working to make the service available in more countries. To enable free, ad-based YouTube Music on your smart speaker, simply follow these steps. Launch the Google Home app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. Tap the account Settings option on the app's main Home screen. Scroll down and tap Music. Tap YouTube Music to link the streaming service to your smart speaker and make it your default music provider.That's all there is to it. If you have an Echo device instead of a Google Home device, you can listen to Amazon's new free music service

After previously only existing as an "Easter Egg" setting, Facebook in April 2019 added a Dark Mode theme as an official display feature of its standalone Messenger app. Facebook says that Dark Mode is designed to provide less harsh brightness in situations where ambient lighting is lower while maintaining contrast and vibrancy. If you have an OLED iPhone, such as an iPhone X, iPhone XS, or iPhone XS Max, enabling Dark Mode can also conserve battery life, since black pixels in an OLED panel basically switch off and consume far less power. Enabling Dark Mode in Facebook Messenger is easy – simply follow the steps below. Launch the standalone Messenger app on your iPhone. Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen. Toggle the Dark mode switch to the green ON position. And that's all there is to it. If you don't see the Dark Mode switch in the settings menu, try force-quitting the iPhone app and launch it again, then follow the steps above.

Your Apple ID account is used for so many things you can do with Apple devices and services, such as shop on the iTunes Store, sign in to iCloud, buy apps on the App Store, and more. If you forget your Apple ID password, all is not lost. Apple has a website that you can use to manage your Apple ID and reset your password at appleid.apple.com. The rest of this article shows you how you can also perform steps on your Mac and iOS devices to reset your password and regain access to your account. You can use these steps if you just want to change your password to something else for security reasons, too. Before we go on, it's important to note that the following steps for Mac and iOS assume you have two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID. If you don't have 2FA enabled, click these corresponding links to take you to the section explaining how to reset your Apple ID password if you're using SMS-based two-factor verification, or if you have email, password and security questions set up for your account. What if You Forgot Your Apple ID? To reset your password, you need to know the email address for your Apple ID. If you've forgotten it, there are a few ways to find it on your Mac. One way is to click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen, select System Preferences..., then click iCloud. Assuming you're logged in to iCloud, you should see your email address below your name. Another way is to open iTunes, then choose Account -> View My Account. If you're signed in to iTunes with your Apple ID, you'll see your account name

As the admin account holder on a Mac, you have the ability to create and manage other user accounts including whether they have restrictions imposed via parental controls. The following steps show you how to disable parental controls for an existing account. Note that by turning off parental controls you are essentially allowing the person with access to that account to use your Mac without restrictions, so they'll be able to browse any website, use any apps, and change settings for things like scanners and printers, for example. With that in mind, here's how it's done. How to Disable Parental Controls Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Click Users & Groups. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Type in your admin password if prompted. Click Unlock. Select an account in the column on the left. Click the box next to Enable parental controls to uncheck it. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window to secure your changes and finish.If you want to enable parental controls, or turn them back on, make sure to check out our how to that walks you through enabling them.

As the admin account holder on a Mac, you have the ability to create and manage other user accounts including whether they have restrictions imposed via parental controls. When it comes to setting up multiple accounts with parental controls, you can save time by copying restrictions from one user account to another. Follow the steps to learn how it's done. Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Select the Parental Controls icon in the preference pane. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Enter your admin password if prompted and click Unlock. Select the user account that you want to copy restrictions from. Next, click the cog icon at the bottom of the accounts column and then select Copy Settings for "[name of account]". Select the user account to whom you want to apply the copied settings. Now, click the cog icon again and select Paste Settings for "[name of account]". Lastly, click the lock in the lower left corner of the window to secure your changes and finish.For managing parental controls and setting them up initially, make sure to check out our dedicated parental controls how to

macOS features powerful parental controls that, once enabled, allow you to monitor and restrict the time your children spend on your Mac, ensuring they enjoy a safe and secure experience. You can set up custom parental controls for each child who will be using your Mac by adding separate user accounts. Alternatively you can set up a guest account for anyone to use, but with parental controls enabled. The below steps show you how to add a new named account to macOS with parental controls. If you want to turn on parental controls for an existing user account, check out our separate how-to article which guides you through the process. How to Create a User Account With Parental Controls Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Click Users & Groups. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Type in your admin password if prompted. Click Unlock. Click the plus (+) at the bottom left of the account column to add a user account. In the New Account dropdown, select Managed with Parental Controls, then fill in the account fields, including a new verified password. Click Create User.Note that if you select the new user account in the side column, the box next to Enable parental controls is checked. To disable parental controls for this account at any time, simply uncheck the box. For more details on managing the restrictions associated with parental controls, click here

Setting up a guest account on your Mac provides a simple and convenient way for other people to use your computer without handing them access to your private data and digital workspace. Essentially, a guest account allows a friend, family member or co-worker to perform basic computing tasks on your Mac while ensuring that your personal data and account settings remain private and secure. Anyone using a guest account with full privileges has access to your Public and Desktop folders (located in Users/[Username]/), where they can save files, but everything else on the system remains inaccessible. Moreover, a guest account is temporary, meaning once the user logs out, all their information and files are deleted, thereby preserving their privacy and your storage space. With that in mind, here's how to set up a guest account in macOS. How to Create a Guest Account Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Click Users & Groups. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Type in your admin password if prompted. Click Unlock. Click Guest User. Click the checkbox alongside Allow guests to log into the computer.Using Parental Controls for a Guest Account Following the above steps, you may have noticed that you can optionally set up a guest account with parental controls by ticking the associated checkbox. While many of these settings are aimed at restricting what children can do, there are a few options that may come in handy for limiting guest users of any age. For

With an Apple News+ subscription, you can download magazines for offline reading, but Apple doesn't provide an easy way to see what's downloaded and what's not. You can tell on an individual magazine basis by checking to see if a download icon (cloud and arrow) is available, but there's no section in Apple News+ for managing offline content. You can, however, still check to see what's downloaded, though you'll need to turn off your WiFi and LTE to do so. Open up the Control Center on your iPhone or iPad. Tap on the Airplane Mode icon to disable WiFi and your cellular connection if using an LTE iPad. Open up the Apple News app. Tap on the Apple News+ section. Let it load. When the Apple News+ section is done loading whatever content is available, you'll see a list of all of the magazines that have been downloaded for offline reading. You can tap on any one of the magazines that you've downloaded to read it, and to download more, simply turn WiFi and LTE back on. For more on Apple News+, make sure to check out our dedicated Apple News+ guide. Apple News users can follow MacRumors on Apple News using this link.

Apple News+ includes a feature that lets you download your favorite magazines for offline reading so you can check them out even when you don't have a WiFi or cellular connection, such as while on a flight. Here's how to do it: Open up Apple News+ on iPhone or iPad. Choose a magazine, either from your My Magazines list, the search feature in Apple News, or the browse feature in the Apple News+ section. Tap on the download icon underneath the magazine's title. It looks like a little cloud with an arrow through it. Tapping on the download icon will make the magazine available to read offline. You can use the browse feature or the My Magazines feature to add current issues for offline reading, but make sure to use the search feature or tap a magazine's name when reading it to go to the main overview that will let you download past magazine issues. For more on Apple News+, make sure to check out our dedicated Apple News+ guide. Apple News users can follow MacRumors on Apple News using this link.

The Apple News+ service lets you access current and past issues of more than 200 magazines, but the interface for the app is a bit confusing and it can be hard to find past issues. There are a couple methods that will let you see back issues of magazines, which we've outlined below. Accessing Back Issues Through a Magazine's Overview Page Every magazine has an overview page in Apple News+, and though it's not immediately obvious, it's easy to get to. Open up Apple News. Select the Apple News+ section. Tap on any magazine that you want to read. Tap on the title of the magazine at the top of the app. This method will let you see the overview page for the magazine, where all back issues are listed. You can swipe to scroll through them and tap the download icon to download them for offline reading. Accessing Back Issues Through Search You can get to the same magazine overview page through the search function in Apple News, without having to open up a magazine. Open Apple News. Access search. On iPad, it's on the sidebar. On iPhone, it's under the "Following" tab. Search for the magazine you want to find. Tap the magazine's name. All of the back issues for the magazine will be listed under "Recent Issues," and you can swipe through them as mentioned above. While Texture users had issues dating back years, Apple News+ is limited to issues of magazines from March 2018 on, which is the date when Apple acquired the Texture app. Back issues before March 2018 are not available within Apple News+, but going forward, Apple will

macOS features powerful parental controls that, once enabled, allow you to monitor and restrict the time your children spend on your Mac, ensuring they enjoy a safe and secure experience. You can set up custom parental controls for each child who will be using your Mac by adding separate user accounts. Alternatively, you can set up a guest account with parental controls enabled. The below steps show you how to turn on parental controls for an existing user account. To create a new user account on your Mac with parental controls, check out our separate how-to article on the subject. How to Turn on macOS Parental Controls for an Existing User Account Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Click Users & Groups. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Type in your admin password if prompted and click Unlock. Select a user account in the side column and then tick the checkbox next to Enable parental controls. Click the lock again in the lower left corner of the window to secure your changes and finish.Once parental controls are enabled, you can manage them in System Preferences and do things like create a whitelist of allowed apps and websites, set time limits based on a schedule, and even prevent users from changing the settings of peripherals like printers and scanners. For details on setting up parental controls, make sure to check out our how to

If you want to give your children or other people access to your Mac, then it's worth familiarizing yourself with the user account restrictions available to you as administrator when you enable parental controls. In macOS, Apple includes the ability to manage various levels of restrictions for individual user accounts. So if for example your children use your Mac, it's easy to control individual access based on their age. But while many of these settings are aimed at restricting what children can do, there are several options that may come in handy for limiting users of any age. For example, you can create a whitelist of allowed apps and websites, set time limits based on a schedule, and even prevent users from changing the settings of peripherals like printers and scanners. Follow the links to learn how to set up a guest account or set up a user account with parental controls enabled, and then meet us back here to learn how to manage the restrictions available to you. How to Manage Restrictions in Parental Controls Click the Apple () symbol in the top left corner of your Mac's screen and select System Preferences.... Select the Parental Controls preferences pane. Click the lock in the lower left corner of the window. Enter your admin password if prompted and click Unlock. Select the user account that you want to set restrictions for from the column on the left.Following the above steps brings you to a number of restriction options that you can manage by clicking the associated tab. A summary of the various options follows. Apps: This menu

If you plan to give away, sell, or trade in your Mac, the first thing you should do is erase the data on it and perform a factory reset. This article shows you how. First, Back Up Your Data Before you do anything, you should back up the files on your Mac. You could do this manually by copying across files onto an external drive. If you use iCloud, your photos, mail, contacts, documents, and so on should be automatically backed up in cloud storage. However, we highly recommend that you take the time to perform a Time Machine backup of your system using an external drive. That way, the same backup volume can be used by Apple's Migration Assistant during a macOS installation to quickly transfer your applications, files and settings from the old Mac to a new one. Check out our dedicated guide on how to back up your Mac using Time Machine. Unlink your Apps There are certain apps that will need to be manually unlinked from your Mac before you say goodbye to it. Some third-party apps require licenses that only work on a limited number of computers, so think about any licenses you may have purchased. Similarly, you should de-authorize your iTunes account on the Mac, as this removes its access to content that you bought from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or App Store, including things like music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books. To learn how to de-authorize your iTunes account, check out our dedicated guide. Sign Out of iCloud It's also important to disable Find My Mac and sign out of iCloud in macOS. That way you'll know for sure there isn't

Apple News+ includes a full subscription to all content from The Wall Street Journal, but because Apple restricts the WSJ articles that are shown in Apple News+, it can be hard to access certain paywalled content. Luckily, a Reddit user recently shared a useful solution that gives you a straightforward way to read any WSJ article on your iPhone or iPad, though you'll need to use Safari to get to content. Find a paywalled article on The Wall Street Journal that you want to read using your Apple News+ subscription. Tap on the "Share" icon at the top of the browser. Make sure to tap the share icon native to Safari, and not the one in the article itself. Choose the "Open in News" option. That's all you have to do. Once you tap "Open in News," the full article from The Wall Street Journal is accessible and can be read in its entirety through your included Apple News+ subscription. There's also the option of searching for the title of an article that you want to read, though that's a bit more of a hassle than simply tapping on the share sheet. The Apple News+ section of Apple News and the Apple News app will surface some WSJ content independently, but Apple is sharing general interest stories rather than financial or other content, so this browser workaround method will need to be used for those stories as Apple News+ does not include a WSJ web login. Apple News+ subscribers should also be aware that older content from The Wall Street Journal is only accessible for a period of three days before it is no longer available. The steps listed here for Th