Mac

How to Use Live Text on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

One of the useful new features in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey is Live Text. This feature converts text in images to text that you can copy. You can use this to point your iPhone’s camera at a phone number, then immediately make a call to that number; to zoom in on an address, then find that address in Maps; or even translate text on signs into one of a number of languages.

This also works in macOS; not with a camera, but with photos or screenshots. In the Photos app, or in Preview, you can select and copy text from images.

Here’s how to use Live Text.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

Intego Mac Podcast, Episode #211: Say Hey to macOS Monterey

Apple releases macOS Monterey, the company’s newest desktop operating system, along with a number of security updates. We discuss Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro models, which may be too powerful for most users. And if you’re getting a new Mac, we discuss which is better: migrating your old system, or doing a clean installation.

Follow the The Intego Mac Podcast, which I co-host with Josh Long. We talk about Macs and iOS devices, and how to keep them secure.

The Complete Guide to Taking Screenshots and Screen Recordings on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch

Taking screenshots on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, is a great way to save things. Rather than save a URL of a web page, you can save a picture of it, so you can see it exactly as it was at the time you shot it. You may want to do this when you’ve bought something online, and want to keep a record of the purchase confirmation. You may also take screenshots just to remember items you’ve been shopping for on your iPhone or iPad, or to send to a friend to show them something you’ve seen. Or you may take a screenshot of some text to post on social media. Or, you may need to take screenshots to demonstrate a problem with your device.

On macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, it’s easy to take screenshots, crop them, and annotate them, and they save to the Photos app (on iOS and iPadOS) or to the Finder, so you can access them quickly. You can even take screenshots of your Apple Watch.

Here’s how to take screenshots on Apple devices.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

Are We Heading Towards a Forever Mac?

With the arrival of Apple’s in-house processors in new Macs, starting last fall, we have reached what may be a turning point in computers. The speed of these new Macs is such that they outperform even the fastest previous Macs in the most common use cases. They are faster than any previous Mac in single-core performance, which is what most people use computers for. They’re not yet faster for the most demanding multi-core tasks, such as rendering large videos, but the next version of Apple’s chip, likely the M2, will probably offer that level of performance.

Macs have long outlasted equivalent PCs, with some people keeping them for ten years, or even longer. The only problem arises when these older computers can no longer support the latest operating system, and when updates to apps used require a newer version of macOS than they can run.

But given the speed of these new Macs – currently the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and soon to be released iMac – it looks as though they will be functional for much longer than previous Macs. Until a few years ago, it was necessary to upgrade Macs to be able to keep up with the demands of software, but now, the processors are so fast that these Macs may remain in use for much longer.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

How to Securely Erase Data from Your Mac and External Drives

Your Mac, and any external drives you use, may contain important personal data. Your Mac’s drive is full of sensitive data: all your emails, contacts, private documents, and more. If you use an external drive for, say, your music and video libraries, then this isn’t the case, but if you use an external drive for backups, there there’s lots of sensitive data on it.

Whenever you dispose of a Mac, or an external drive, you should securely erase it to ensure that no one can harvest data from it.

In this article, I’ll explain how to securely erase all sorts of drives: hard drives, flash drives, and SSDs.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

How to Remove Wi-Fi Networks from Your Mac and iOS Device

If you travel regularly with your Mac or iOS device, you likely find yourself connecting to new Wi-Fi networks: at airports, in train stations, in hotels, restaurants, pubs, or at clients’ offices. Whether you connect to these networks with your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, miraculously, your devices will remember these networks and sync them via iCloud — so your other Apple products can access them too, if you use iCloud Keychain.

Your Apple device’s ability to remember previously connected to networks can be both good and bad. While it means you don’t have to search for or remember login credentials when you connect to a known Wi-Fi network on a different device, it can lead to a surfeit of Wi-Fi networks stored in your keychain and potentially allow you to unknowingly connect to a Wi-Fi network that might not be secure. You can cull these Wi-Fi networks, but you can only really clean them out on a Mac.

In this article, I’ll show you how to remove these Wi-Fi networks so your Macs and iOS devices forget them.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

Intego Mac Podcast, Episode #179: Google, iOS Security Updates, and the End of the Original HomePod

Google is sued for its incognito browsing mode. iOS security updates may be delivered more frequently. We look at how easy it is to take over someone’s SMS messages. And we discuss the demise of the original HomePod.

Subscribe to The Intego Mac Podcast, which I co-host with Josh Long. We talk about Macs and iOS devices, and how to keep them secure.

12 Ways to Open Files on a Mac

You open files every time you work on your Mac, most often, probably, by double-clicking them. But did you know that there are lots of different ways to open files? You can use your mouse, your trackpad, or even your keyboard. You can open files in windows, from menus, and from dialogs. Here are a dozen ways you can open files on a Mac.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

Everything You Need to Know About Batteries in Your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

If there’s one thing we need to use our mobile devices and computers it’s power. Without it, these devices are just bricks. Managing power on mobile and portable devices has long been a balancing act between performance and comfort. You don’t want to cripple your devices by turning off too many useful features, but, depending on how you use your mobile devices, you may need to stretch the battery life as long as possible.

In this article, I’m going to tell you how batteries work on Apple devices, how long they last, how to optimize your battery use, when to use low power mode, and when to get a new battery for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

How to choose the right Mac for your use case

Apple’s Mac product line has changed a lot recently, and if you’re looking for a new Mac, you have a number of options to consider. For some, it’s a simple choice, but for others, the choice can be more complex.

You may need a desktop Mac, and you currently have four options for that type of computer. If you want a laptop, then you have three options. But you might want to use a laptop on your desk as well, increasing the number of possibilities. In this article, I’m going to help you choose which Mac you need according to your use case.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.