How Tos

Spam and cold calls have become such a nuisance that many people simply don't answer their phone unless they recognize the number. In iOS 26, though, you can learn about who's calling before you respond, thanks to a clever feature that intercepts unknown calls and asks the caller to identify themselves before your iPhone even rings. The "Ask Reason for Calling" feature is kind of like having ...

Sometimes when you share a webpage link with someone, you just want to bring their attention to a specific passage or sentence to make your point, rather than have them read through the entire article. In 2020, Google added a function to its Chrome browser called Scroll to Text Fragment (STTF) that helps you achieve this. It allows URLs to link directly to any visible text on a page. You may ...

Lockdown Mode is an optional security feature designed by Apple to provide maximum protection against highly sophisticated digital threats. When enabled on your Apple device, it greatly reduces exposure to complex attacks by restricting certain features and network connections. Keep reading to learn how to use it across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. For most users of Apple devices, the standard...

In an age of digital ubiquity, knowing how to easily keep track of your online transactions is crucial, especially as an Apple user who frequently downloads apps, music, movies, and more from various Apple services. Your Apple Account purchase history is a comprehensive log of all the content you've bought using your account, not just on your iPhone, but across all your Apple devices....

Apple Music is now available as an extension within ChatGPT, meaning you can search for songs, create playlists, and discover new music through OpenAI's chatbot. Here's how to set it up and what makes it worth using. What You Can Do With Apple Music in ChatGPT ChatGPT's integration with Apple Music has the potential to change how you discover new music by letting you describe what you're...

Did you know it's possible to take multiple Live Photos from your iPhone's photo library and turn them into a single continuous video? Keep reading to learn how it's done. On iPhone and iPad, Live Photos bring your pictures to life by adding a few seconds of video before and after the shot, creating a living memory rather than a static image. While Live Photos are great on their own,...

Any iPhone, iPad, or Mac with a ProMotion display is capable of rendering buttery smooth 120Hz animations. However, Apple's Safari browser is locked to 60fps page rendering by default, making scrolling feel noticeably choppier for some users than in Chrome or Firefox. Thankfully, recent versions of Safari include a hidden setting that lets you unlock 120Hz rendering. At 60Hz, your screen...

As an Apple Music subscriber, you're able to download songs, playlists, and albums from the Apple Music catalog to your iPhone or iPad for offline listening, but this can gradually eat up your device's storage space over time. Fortunately the Music app includes a handy feature that can spring into action whenever your device's storage space runs low, and automatically offload songs you...

Apple doesn't currently allow iPhone users to change the Side button's Siri functionality to another assistant, but owners of iPhone 15 Pro and newer models can assign ChatGPT to the Action button instead. Keep reading to learn how. OpenAI's free ChatGPT app for iPhone lets you interact with the chatbot using text or voice. What's more, if you assign voice mode directly to the Action button, ...

Flight tracker apps are a popular way to keep tabs on planes in the sky, because when you're preparing to fly or when someone you know is on board a flight, you can use them to check that things are still on schedule. But if you have an iPhone, you don't need to download and install a third-party app to track a flight – it's a handy built-in feature of the operating system. The ability to ...

Starting with tvOS 26.2, Apple TVs began displaying a user profile selection screen every time you wake the device from sleep. The feature helps households with multiple users maintain separate viewing histories and recommendations, but it can feel like an unnecessary step if you're the sole user. Fortunately, Apple lets you disable this prompt entirely. Here's how to turn off the user...

Unlike some Android phones, iPhones don't have a dedicated notification LED that lights up when you get a call, text, or other alert. What iPhones do include is an optional Accessibility feature for the deaf and hard of hearing that blinks the rear camera flash and provides a visual cue for incoming notifications. And in iOS 26.2, Apple has added the ability to flash the front display, too....

In macOS Tahoe 26, Apple gave Spotlight a major update with a visual overhaul, clipboard access, and Actions for performing tasks within apps directly from the search bar. There's quite a lot of hidden potential in Spotlight's new manifestation. Below, we've put together a cheat sheet of Spotlight functionality to help you make the most of it. Getting Started With Spotlight You can open...

Apple has changed how you dismiss iPhone alarms in iOS 26.1, and your morning muscle memory may have needed tweaking as a result. By default, the Clock app now requires a slide gesture to stop an alarm from the Lock Screen, replacing the previous tap-to-stop button that was redesigned in iOS 26. Snoozing still works with a simple tap, but turning off an alarm entirely demands the extra swipe...

In iOS 26.1, Apple has introcued a welcome change for anyone who's ever accidentally launched the Camera app while pulling their iPhone out of their pocket or bag. For the first time, you can now disable the Lock Screen's swipe-to-open-camera gesture. The Lock Screen camera gesture has been a staple ‌iPhone‌ feature for years, allowing you to quickly swipe left to capture spontaneous moments....

Apple's redesigned Phone app in iOS 26 introduces a unified view that combines recents, favorite contacts, and search on a single screen. But if you prefer the familiar tabbed interface from iOS 18, you can easily switch back to the classic layout. The Classic Phone app layout in iOS 26 What's Different in iOS 26 The new unified design consolidates recent phone activity into one...

With iOS 26, Apple introduced a radically new design material called Liquid Glass which focuses on transparency in order to let the content on your display shine through the controls. Not everyone likes it though – so Apple has responded by adding a new toggle in iOS 26.1 that lets you tone down the effects. Any major design change can create controversy as people get used to the new...

In watchOS 26, Apple made the Control Center more customizable than ever. You can rearrange it and add third-party app controls, and if you don't like your changes, you can revert to the original design. Here's how it works. With watchOS 26, the Apple Watch Control Center got a major upgrade. It still offers instant access to default functions like turning on the flashlight, toggling Low...

In iOS 26, Apple has added new call filtering options to FaceTime. You can still silence unknown callers, but you can now have missed calls and voicemails from unsaved numbers sorted into an Unknown Callers list that's hidden from view unless you select it. Enable FaceTime Call Filtering Call filtering for FaceTime is opt-in, so if you often get calls from unknown numbers, you can turn it...

In iOS 26, Apple has extended its Sensitive Content Warning protection to FaceTime video calls. Previously the feature only worked in Contacts, Messages, AirDrop, and shared photo albums. When the feature's enabled, your iPhone uses on-device machine learning to detect nudity during live FaceTime calls and pauses the video feed before displaying potentially sensitive content. The way it...