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How to Train Yourself to Use the iPhone 16’s New Camera Control Button

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If you are accustomed to opening the Camera app on your iPhone by tapping its Home Screen app icon or Lock Screen widget icon, you may find it challenging to remember to use the new Camera Control button on the side of an iPhone 16. That button is a big win for easy access to the camera and its settings. To help retrain your camera habits, hide the Camera app icon on a secondary Home Screen or in a folder and remove it from the Lock Screen. To conceal it from your Home Screen, touch and hold it to enter jiggle mode, then drag it to another screen or into a folder. To remove it from the Lock Screen, touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize, tap the Lock Screen, and then tap the minus button on the Camera widget. Replace it with another widget you’ll find useful.

(Featured image by iStock.com/valiantsin suprunovich)

Social Media: The iPhone 16’s new Camera Control button is a welcome shortcut, but you may need to retrain your brain so you remember to use it.

In iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, Quickly Turn Home Screen App Icons into Widgets

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Widgets on the iPhone or iPad Home Screen are enhanced versions of app icons that display extra information. You can now bypass the complicated widget creation process and experiment with widgets more easily. No longer do you have to edit the Home Screen, tap the Edit button, tap Add Widget, choose a widget from the full set of choices, and position it as desired. Instead, touch and hold an app’s icon and tap the desired widget size from the bottom of the menu. The first icon represents a standard icon; the remaining three display the app as a 2×2 widget, a 4×2 widget, or a 4×4 widget. The menu appears only for apps with widgets, and unavailable options indicate that the app lacks a widget of that size. Repeat the process to change a widget’s size or revert a widget to an icon.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Marvin Samuel Tolentino Pineda)

Social Media: A new shortcut in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 makes it easy to convert an app’s icon on the Home Screen into a widget of any size supported by that app.

Control Window Tiling in macOS 15 Sequoia

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One of macOS 15 Sequoia’s most noticeable additions is a new form of window tiling. Drag a window to the menu bar to expand it to fill the screen, to the left or right edge to resize it to half the screen, or to a corner to resize it to that quarter of the screen. As you drag, a white outline shows what will happen when you drop the window. Unfortunately, accidentally invoking window tiling can be surprising and disruptive. The easiest way to ensure that dragging windows tiles them only when you want is to open System Settings > Desktop & Dock, scroll down to the Windows section, and turn off “Drag windows to screen edges to tile” and “Drag windows to menu bar to fill screen.” The important setting to leave turned on is “Hold Option key while dragging windows to tile” because from now on, your windows will tile only when you Option-drag them.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Jakob Berg)

Social Media: Those who are disconcerted by dragged windows suddenly resizing accidentally in macOS 15 Sequoia, take note: you can tweak settings to make Sequoia’s new window tiling feature activate only when you want.

Apple’s Tips App Provides Extensive User Guides and Helpful How-Tos

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Apple has included the Tips app with the iPhone and iPad since iOS 8 in 2014 and on the Mac since macOS 10.14 Mojave in 2018. Initially, it didn’t contain much useful content, and many longtime users ignored it. However, Apple has significantly increased the amount of information in Tips over time, adding device-specific tips, full device and app user guides, highlights of new features, and more. Many tips even include short demonstration videos. Tips is worth exploring or referring to the next time you have a question. Be sure to encourage anyone you know who’s new to the iPhone, iPad, or Mac to take a look—it even helps them practice key gestures!

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: If you haven’t explored Apple’s Tips app on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac recently, check it out. Apple has added a lot more content, including device and app user guides, highlights of new features, and interactive practice guides.

What You Need to Know Before Switching to a New iPhone

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Are you planning to upgrade to a new iPhone 16? It’s exciting, we know, but it’s best to proceed deliberately when setting up your new iPhone to avoid causing yourself headaches. Follow these instructions when you’re ready to transfer your data—and, for many people, much of your digital life—to the new iPhone. Apple also has a series of videos you can watch.

  1. Update your old iPhone to the latest version of iOS. If you have an Apple Watch, update it to the latest version of watchOS. This process can take some time, so it may be best done overnight before you move data to your new iPhone.
  2. Make sure you know your Apple ID and password, and if you have an Apple Watch, its passcode. You will likely have to enter them at least once during this process.
  3. Back up your old iPhone to iCloud or your Mac. (If you back up to a Mac, be sure to encrypt the backup, or else it won’t include saved passwords, Wi-Fi settings, browsing history, Health data, and call history.) Or back up to both, for safety’s sake. We prefer iCloud backups because they’re easier and don’t introduce additional variables, like flaky USB cables. If you don’t usually back up to iCloud, Apple will give you temporary iCloud storage to make a backup when moving to a new iPhone. To initiate an iCloud backup, go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud > iCloud Backup and tap Back Up Now.
  4. If you have an Apple Watch, you don’t need to unpair it from your old iPhone at this point in the process. (Later, if the automatic transfer has not worked, you can unpair it manually and pair it again later. If you end up taking the manual route and have a cellular Apple Watch, you’ll be asked if you want to keep or remove your plan. If you’re keeping your Apple Watch to re-pair with your new iPhone, keep the plan.)
  5. You shouldn’t need to worry about transferring a SIM card. If you ordered your new iPhone through Apple and connected to your cellular carrier account during purchase, activating the new iPhone should cause it to take over your phone number. The same should be true if you’ve purchased directly through your carrier. Besides, it’s likely that iPhone 16 models sold in the US will rely on eSIM and lack SIM trays like the iPhone 15, so only non-US users might need to transfer the SIM card from the old iPhone to the new one. Even then, it’s better to contact your carrier and get them to activate the new SIM in the new iPhone because old SIMs don’t always support all current cellular features, such as full 5G support.
  6. Transfer your data, settings, apps, and purchased content in one of these three ways. None of them will be quick, despite the first one’s name, so initiate the transfer only when you have plenty of time:
    • Quick Start: With the Quick Start feature, content from your old iPhone copies directly from your old iPhone to your new one. We recommend this technique because it’s more likely to preserve app logins, something that’s less true when restoring from an iCloud backup. Put your iPhones next to each other (plugged into power), use the old iPhone to scan the animation on the new one, and then follow the rest of the steps.
    • iCloud: With this technique, the new iPhone will download your content from your old iPhone’s iCloud backup. Once you’ve joined a Wi-Fi network on the new iPhone and tapped the Restore from iCloud Backup button, you’ll have to select the correct backup—likely the most recent one you just made. Keep your new iPhone plugged into power the entire time to ensure that all your content syncs during this step.
    • Finder or iTunes: With this approach, you’ll restore your old iPhone’s content from a backup made to your Mac. Connect your new iPhone to your Mac using an appropriate cable, open a Finder window (or iTunes on an old Mac), select your device in the left-hand sidebar, click Restore Backup, and choose the appropriate backup—likely the most recent one.
  7. Perform post-transfer tasks. Ensure that you can make and receive a phone call. If necessary, pair your Apple Watch with the new iPhone. You’ll also need to pair your Bluetooth accessories—including AirPods—with your new iPhone. Plus, some app data needs to sync to your new iPhone, so open the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps and check if they have your data. It could take a few minutes for them to fill up. Apps may request notification permissions again, and you may need to download content and in-app purchases.
  8. If you use two-factor authentication with an app like 1Password, Authy, or Google Authenticator, ensure you can get your 2FA codes using your new iPhone. 1Password and Authy are good about providing access to 2FA codes from multiple devices—just log in to your account from each device—but Google Authenticator may require some additional setup since it didn’t initially offer any way to transfer codes to a new phone.
  9. Finally, if necessary, set up single sign-on for work or school. If your workplace or school uses a security system like Duo, you’ll likely want to activate your new iPhone and deactivate the old one. Using any device, navigate to a standard single sign-in login screen from your organization, look for a link for managing your logins, click that link, and follow the prompts.

Although Apple works hard to make the process of transferring from an old iPhone to a new one as painless as possible, some things may fail to transfer seamlessly. For that reason, we strongly recommend holding onto your old iPhone for a week or so to ensure the new one can do everything the old one could. During that time, put the new iPhone through its paces with an eye toward checking every app you need.

(Featured image by iStock.com/valiantsin suprunovich)

Social Media: It’s exciting to get a new iPhone, but take a few minutes to read our advice on what you need to do before—and after—transferring your data from your old iPhone.

Working Late on Your Mac? Turn on Night Shift to Help Your Sleep

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Research suggests that exposure to blue light fools your body into thinking it’s daytime, making it harder to fall asleep if you work late on a Mac with a bright white (which has a lot of blue light) screen. To help, a macOS feature called Night Shift subtly changes the colors of the screen as the sun sets to reduce the amount of blue light hitting your eyes. In essence, everything gets slightly warmer. To configure your Night Shift schedule—so it turns on and off automatically—go to System Settings > Displays > Night Shift. You can set any times, but Sunset to Sunrise adjusts for the sun’s movement in your location throughout the year. One warning: if you edit photos or videos, or work on graphics where specific colors matter, Night Shift’s color changes may be problematic.

(Featured image by iStock.com/PeopleImages)

Social Media: If you regularly work at your Mac late at night and have trouble falling asleep, consider turning on Night Shift to reduce your blue light exposure. By default, it makes the colors of your Mac warmer from sunset to sunrise.

Display an Album of Photos on Your iPhone or iPad Lock Screen

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A popular feature of iOS 16 was the Photo Shuffle option for customizing the iPhone Lock Screen. It used machine learning to select photos in four categories—People, Pets, Nature, and Cities—and rotated through them when you tapped, on lock, hourly, or daily. If you didn’t like the automatic selection, you could pick photos manually, but it was clumsy. In iOS 17 (and iPadOS 17, which also added customizable Lock Screens), you can now point the Lock Screen’s Photo Shuffle wallpaper at an album. Touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize, tap the blue ⨁ button to create a new wallpaper, select Photo Shuffle, select Album, choose the desired album from the pop-up menu, set a frequency, tap Use Album, and tap the Add button at the top. Then tap Set as Wallpaper Pair or Customize Home Screen to choose a different image for the Home Screen wallpaper.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: If you like how the Lock Screen’s Photo Shuffle wallpaper rotates through photos but would prefer that it worked from an album you specified, you’re in luck! That’s now possible in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17.

Where Can You Control Automatic Smart Quotes and Dashes in macOS?

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Most people like smart quotes and dashes, at least most of the time. Your Mac is probably set up to turn the single (‘) and double (“) hash marks and double hyphens (–) that you type into the apostrophes (’) and single smart quotes (‘’), double smart quotes (“”), and em dashes (—) used in professional publications. However, in some situations, like programming, smart quotes and dashes are problematic. To prevent macOS from automatically inserting them, open System Settings > Keyboard and click the Edit button next to Input Sources. In the dialog that appears, turn off “Use smart quotes and dashes.” As a bonus tip, if you occasionally want single or double hash marks, such as to indicate feet and inches, instead of turning the entire feature off, immediately press Command-Z after typing a single or double hash mark to undo the change from straight to curly.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Wirestock)

Social Media: Smart quotes and dashes usually make your text look more professional. But if they’re problematic, you can turn off the feature that inserts them automatically or revert them on a one-off basis.

How to Display the Battery Percentage in Your Mac’s Menu Bar

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By default, the battery icon in your Mac laptop’s menu bar shows how full your battery is. Clicking it reveals the exact percentage, but you can also set macOS to display the battery percentage next to the icon. The setting isn’t where you might expect in System Settings > Battery. Instead, you’ll find it in System Settings > Control Center, where you need to turn on both “Show in Menu Bar” and “Show Percentage.”

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: If you’re tired of trying to interpret how full your MacBook’s battery is from its menu bar icon, here’s how to get it to display a percentage as well.

Tips for Working with Mac Display Resolutions

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You can change the resolution of your Mac’s screen—how many pixels appear—to make text and graphics larger and easier to see or smaller to fit more content onscreen. In System Settings > Displays, Apple shows thumbnails for five likely possibilities. Hover the pointer over a thumbnail to see its numeric resolution underneath. If you prefer the traditional list of numeric resolutions, Option-click a thumbnail—another Option-click in the list brings back the thumbnails. Although the Show All Resolutions switch reveals more options, most will be fuzzy. If you always want to see resolutions as a list, click Advanced at the bottom and turn on Show Resolutions as a List. Finally, look closely for a tiny Easter egg: the text in the thumbnails is the script from Apple’s classic Think Different ad spot.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: You can adjust your Mac’s screen resolution to make text and graphics larger so they’re easier to see, or if you have good vision, you can make them smaller so more content fits on the screen. Our tips will help.