Posts

Switch Between Apps Fluidly on Face ID iPhones

The ongoing threat of tariffs raising the price of iPhones has recently prompted some people to upgrade from an old Touch ID iPhone to a new iPhone 16. Although most have adjusted well to Face ID, few are aware of the app-switching shortcut exclusive to Face ID iPhones. To access the App Switcher on a Face ID iPhone, you must swipe up slightly from the bottom of the screen and then continue the swipe to the right. However, Face ID experts rarely do that. Instead, they just swipe right and left on the bar at the bottom of the screen to switch between apps—it’s much faster and easier, albeit hard to discover.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)


Social Media: The threat of tariffs raising iPhone prices has prompted many upgrades to the iPhone 16 lineup. For those new to Face ID—or anyone who isn’t familiar with it—we have an app-switching tip that everyone should know and use.

Ten Tips for Making the Best Use of AI Chatbots

Since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, people have been using AI chatbots to brainstorm, speed up research, draft content, summarize lengthy documents, analyze data, assist with writing and debugging code, and translate text into other languages. Recently, the major chatbots have gained Web search capabilities, allowing them to access live information beyond their training model data.

Using a chatbot effectively requires new approaches to thinking and working, especially when it comes to searching for information. Just as with a human assistant, you need to play to their strengths when figuring out the best ways to get the results you want. Incorporate these tips into your chatbot conversations, and you’ll see significantly better outcomes.

  1. Be specific and complete: Decades of search engine use push us toward short, focused search phrases with keywords that will appear in the results. In contrast, chatbots thrive on specificity and detail. For instance, prompting a chatbot with “iCloud photos syncing” won’t generate nearly as useful a response as “Tell me what might prevent iCloud from syncing photos between my Mac and iPhone.” Also, don’t shy away from negative prompting—tell the chatbot what not to include or consider in its response. You can even be specific about formatting the output as a bullet list, table, or graph.
  2. Every prompt is a conversation: We are accustomed to standalone searches, where, if the search fails, you must start over. You’ll achieve much better results with chatbots if you consider everything a conversation. Even responses to specific, detailed prompts may not fully address your question or could lead you to think of additional ones. Ask follow-up questions, clarify what you want to find out or accomplish, provide feedback, or redirect the conversation as needed. (For the ultimate chatbot conversational experience, try voice mode in the ChatGPT or Claude apps, where they talk back to you. It’s excellent for capturing ideas, refining your thinking, or just doing a brain dump.)
  3. Edit your last prompt: If the most recent response from a chatbot is entirely unsatisfactory, you may have better luck editing and resubmitting it rather than informing the chatbot that it has made a mistake. There’s usually an edit link or pencil button that appears when you hover over it.
  4. Context can help: Most chatbots maintain libraries of previous conversations, allowing you to search through them to find old ones easily. Because chatbot responses improve with more context, it can be helpful to return to one of those conversations when you want to explore that topic further. Similarly, if you’re asking a chatbot to create something similar to something you’ve already done, provide the previous work as an example.
  5. Ask it to role-play: Another way to increase context is to ask the chatbot to “act as” a particular type of professional, such as an editor, coach, marketer, or software developer. In essence, you’re asking the chatbot to respond in the context of a certain role. Conversely, it can be helpful to ask it to tailor its response as if you were a high school student, someone with a basic understanding of the topic, or an expert in the field.
  6. Know when to start over: Although context is key, chatbots have a limited memory, so long conversations can overwhelm what’s called the “context window.” If you notice the chatbot hallucinating, starting to repeat itself, or going off into the weeds, try saying, “Please summarize what we’ve discussed in a prompt I can use to continue working on this topic.” Then, copy that prompt into a new chat before continuing the conversation.
  7. Force Web searches as necessary: Most chatbots make it explicit when they are searching the Web, which means you can also tell when they aren’t searching and are thus relying on potentially outdated training data. If you want to ensure that you’re getting the latest information, tweak your prompt to start with something like “Search for…”
  8. Test its limits: Since every chatbot response is based on just what you say in the prompt, it won’t necessarily go as deep as you would like. Try asking it to critique its own output, generate multiple options, or present the best argument for different perspectives. You can even request it to be more cautious or more creative. It’s fine to challenge a chatbot in ways that would be socially inappropriate with another person.
  9. Save and reuse effective prompts: When you identify prompts that work particularly well for recurring tasks—such as generating meeting summaries, analyzing data, or drafting specific types of content—save them for reuse so you don’t have to start over each time.
  10. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. While chatbots are incredibly confident and often truly astonishing in what they can produce, it’s your responsibility to verify important facts and details (just as with human-created information, which isn’t necessarily any more trustworthy). The statistical models they use can lead to completely fabricated information. Although this is less true with Web searches, even there, they can combine information in ways that simply aren’t accurate.
  11. Try deep research: Bonus tip! Many chatbots offer a so-called deep research mode, which allows the chatbot to go off for 5 or 10 minutes to gather information, analyze it over multiple steps, and produce a much more comprehensive response. Deep research is too slow for a conversation, but it can provide a good foundation when you’re exploring a new topic that requires a lot of detail.

While AI chatbots are powerful tools, they work best when you think of them as collaborative partners rather than magical solutions. The key is experimentation—try different approaches, refine your prompting style, and don’t hesitate to push the limits of what they can do. Start with these fundamentals, but remember that becoming proficient is an ongoing process.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Memorystockphoto)


Social Media: Getting the most out of ChatGPT and Claude requires a different approach than using a traditional search engine. Learn ten essential tips for better prompting, from being conversational to leveraging context and even role-playing.

Try Blip for Fast Transfers of Any Size Between Platforms

For file transfers, Apple users routinely rely on tools like AirDrop, Messages, email, cloud services, and public sharing websites, but these solutions can fall short when dealing with very large files, sharing across platforms, or confidential data. For such scenarios, Blip offers a reliable solution that works across Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android devices, Windows, and Linux machines. It transfers files of any size directly between devices, with no intermediate servers, encrypting its traffic for security. It handles uncompressed folders, offers high transfer speeds, and automatically resumes interrupted transfers—particularly valuable features when working with large media files or project folders. Blip is free for personal use or $25 per month for commercial use, making it easy to determine if it will be helpful for your business.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Makhbubakhon Ismatova)


Social Media: Looking for a better way to transfer large files across devices and platforms? Blip offers secure, direct file transfers between Apple devices and other platforms, with no size limits and automatic resumption of interrupted transfers.

Create Links to Selected Text in Long Web Pages

If you have Control- or right-clicked on text in a Web browser in the last year or two, you may have seen an oddly named command: Copy Link to Highlight. When you choose it, it puts a URL on your clipboard, not just to that page, as Copy Link Address would, but also to the selected text. You can use this URL to make a link or share it directly, and when someone follows it, their browser scrolls to the selected text, simplifying navigation on a long page. For example, compare this link to Apple’s long Apple Watch faces page with this one that points directly to the Unity watch face most of the way down. All Web browsers can follow these links, but Google Chrome was the first to let you make them, and you’ll also find the feature in Arc, Microsoft Edge, and Vivaldi. Apple recently got on board with Safari 18’s Copy Link with Highlight command. The Link to Text Fragment extension adds the feature to other Chromium browsers and Firefox.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Arkadiusz Warguła)


Social Media: You can now create a link directly to text anywhere on a Web page with the handy Copy Link to Highlight command in many Web browsers. Here’s how to invoke the command and an example of why it’s so useful.

Apple Invites Simplifies Social Event Planning

Apple has launched the new Apple Invites iPhone app for planning social events with friends and family. Apple Invites requires iOS 18 on the iPhone, and you can also use it at iCloud.com/invites on the Mac and iPad. Event creation is limited to iCloud+ subscribers (those who pay for extra iCloud storage), but anyone can RSVP for an event, even if they don’t have the app, an Apple Account, or an Apple device. Creating an event is straightforward: simply name the event, set a date and optional time, specify a location, add a description, and pick a background. You can then invite people directly or by sharing a public link. Guests can RSVP whether they’re attending, not attending, or are unsure, and they can change their name and provide a custom response. Apple Invites may not change the world, but it’s a nice alternative to ad-infested invitation services.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Jacob Wackerhausen)


Social Media: The new Apple Invites app for iPhone simplifies inviting friends and family to social events for iCloud+ subscribers. Anyone can RSVP, even if they don’t use Apple devices.

Apple Brings Back the Calculator App’s Repeat Feature

In iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple removed a standard feature of the Calculator app that allowed users to press the = button multiple times to repeat the last mathematical operation. Following user complaints, the company reinstated this feature in iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS 15.3. Now, to calculate the compound interest from investing $1,000 at 5%, you can multiply 1000 by 1.05 and press = repeatedly to see how your investment would grow. (To open the history sidebar on the Mac, choose View > Show History; on the iPhone, tap the hamburger button in the upper-left corner.)

(Featured image by iStock.com/drasko)


Social Media: Did you know that Apple’s Calculator app can repeat the last operation when you press = multiple times, which is helpful for tasks like calculating compound interest? Although this feature had briefly disappeared, it’s back now.

iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 Offer Better PDF Handling in Mail

You can now work directly with PDFs received in the Mail app using a little-known feature in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Tap a PDF attachment in a message and use the Markup and Form Fill buttons at the bottom to access the PDF markup and filling tools. After modifying your PDF, tapping the Done button gives you options for what to do with the PDF: include it in a reply, create a new message with it, save it to Files, or discard the changes.

(Featured image by iStock.com/chanakon laorob)


Social Media: Have you ever needed to sign or annotate a PDF you received in the Mail app on your iPhone? With iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, you can manage PDFs directly in Mail. Once you’re finished, you can attach the modified PDF to a reply or a new message.

Text Replacements Not Working on the Mac? Check This Setting

Apple provides a handy ecosystem-wide feature that replaces a typed abbreviation—say “eml”—with text you specify, like your email address. (Seriously, copy that one so you don’t have to type your email address repeatedly.) These automatic text replacements sync via iCloud so you can use them on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Find them on the Mac in System Settings > Keyboard > Text Replacements and on the iPhone and iPad in Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement. They’re great, but it can be mysterious when they stop working on the Mac. The culprit? A menu item being turned off. So, if text replacements aren’t working in a particular app, choose Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement to turn them back on.

(Featured image by iStock.com/tookitook)


Social Media: Apple’s built-in text replacement feature expands a short abbreviation you type into something longer, but a simple menu option can prevent it from working in a Mac app. Here’s how to fix it.

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

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

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.