Posted in Tips with tags Apple on September 15, 2025 by itnerd
At 1PM EST today, Apple will release iOS 26 to the public. As long as you have a supported device, it will bring you new features and improvements to your iDevice experience.
If you want to see a full feature set, click here.
Speaking of supported devices, here’s what iOS 26 will run on:
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13
iPhone 13 mini
iPhone 13 Pro
iPhone 13 Pro Max
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 12 Mini
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone SE Second Generation
If your phone isn’t on this list, then it’s not supported. And the following phones will come with iOS 26 out of the box:
iPhone 17
iPhone Air
iPhone 17 Pro
iPhone 17 Pro Max
If you are wondering why there are no iPads on the list, that’s because Apple has spun off the iPads into a separate OS called iPadOS which is due out at the same time. Having said that, this advice applies to iPads as well.
Now, since this is a major upgrade there is always a chance, no matter how remote that something can go sideways. To make sure that you’re not caught out by something unexpected, here’s what you can do:
1. Update your Apps: Make sure that all your apps are up to date before upgrading by opening the App Store app and seeing if any updates are required. This is important because it is possible that the changes that Apple has made on areas like privacy and performance could break an app that you rely on. Thus I find that it is always a good idea to check for updates and install them before a new version of iOS hits the streets.
2. Dump any uneeded photos, videos or apps: iOS updates tend to need a fair amount of free space to allow for a successful installation. Thus if you have anything less than 8GB of free space, consider deleting unused apps or photos/videos. In terms of the photos and videos you want to keep, you can move them to the cloud or a computer so that they’re safely stored without taking up space on your iPhone. I personally use iCloud myself, but Google Photos is another option.
At this point you should be good to go to upgrade to iOS 26. Key word being SHOULD. Upgrading an operating system isn’t a trivial process. But if you take these steps beforehand, you should reduce the risk of any issues that you might encounter.
One other thing before I go, you may want to consider not upgrading to iOS 26 and instead wait for iOS 26.1 to hit the streets before you upgrade as that’s likely to have additional bug fixes and also fix issues that hit the streets when iOS 26 comes out. Plus that’s the version that is going to bring Apple Intelligence to the table. I’ll be upgrading later today and if anything seriously goes off the rails, you’ll be the first to hear about it.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on November 30, 2024 by itnerd
Something that has generated a lot of email in my inbox is which M4 Mac mini should people buy. It seems that there is a fair amount of confusion around this computer. And this hasn’t been helped by people noticing that depending on the upgrades that you choose, you can easily spend the price of two Mac mini’s without trying too hard. That prompted me to write this post to try and answer these questions as best as I can.
M4 or M4 Pro?: To be honest, most people should go for the M4 model. The only reason why anyone should go for the M4 Pro model is that you need the performance for 4K (or higher) video editing, 3D rendering, or anything that will take advantage of the extra graphics and performance cores that the M4 Pro has. If that’s not you, save your money and go for the M4 model.
Does Thunderbolt 5 matter?: I wrote an article on Thunderbolt 5, which by the way is only available on the M4 Pro model, here, but the short answer is that it doesn’t matter for anyone with the exception of the three people on planet Earth who have Thunderbolt 5 accessories. It will matter in a year or two when more accessories such as drives, docks and monitors appear that leverage Thunderbolt 5. I should also point out that the people who would care about Thunderbolt 5 are the same ones who would be in the target market for the M4 Pro model.
About that power button: To me, the whole discussion about the power button is a total non issue. Modern Macs are incredibly power efficient that leaving it on would not make any noticeable difference in your power bill. Besides, when was the last time you turned off your computer? Rarely if ever I suspect.
Should I Upgrade The RAM and Storage?: Here’s some random thoughts on this before I get to my recommendations. Upgrades from Apple are expensive, largely because you cannot upgrade after the fact. And before anyone mentions it, the fact that the storage in the Mac mini is removable does not mean you can upgrade it for less by going aftermarket. In fact, no aftermarket upgrade options exist as far as I am aware. Apple knows that so they get you for as much as they can get away with. The flip side of that is that Apple’s storage is way faster than it has any right to be. Ditto for their RAM because it’s basically packaged up with the CPU. That makes it very difficult to compare against say a garden variety PC with upgradable RAM and storage where neither is as fast. Now having said that, here’s my recommendations:
16GB of RAM is fine for most people. Unless you are doing something really RAM intensive, there’s no logical reason for most people to upgrade the RAM.
Storage is another matter. The fact is that 256 GB of storage isn’t enough in my opinion. So, besides giving Apple your money to upgrade to 512GB, you might want to consider external storage such as a Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 drive as that’s going to be way cheaper per gigabyte versus what Apple charges.
If you really must upgrade both because you have a use case that demands more RAM and more storage, the M4 Pro variant is what you should be considering.
Hopefully I’ve answered all of your questions regarding the M4 Mac mini. If I missed something, please leave a comment below and I will help you as best as I can. Or if you’re still not sure which Mac mini you should get, leave a comment below with your specific use case and I will help you as best as I can.
Recently I was asked to take on a very sad case. In short, back in August the male half of a couple suddenly died. And all the couple’s photos, documents, and other stuff was effectively locked on their computer which ran Ubuntu Linux. To make matters worse, the computer was in a state where it wouldn’t boot because something was wrong with the file system. And to make matters even worse, the surviving spouse didn’t have any of the passwords to the computer. Now I have been known to make miracles on demand happen, but this one was a bit out of my league. So after trying what she thought were the passwords associated with this computer, I ended up pulling out the hard drive and plugging it into a laptop where I had installed Ubuntu Linux, However, that computer had problems reading the file system of the drive that I had pulled. So I ended up taking the drives to a place called CBL Data Recovery as I knew they would be able to recover the data from the drive. Now recovering the data wasn’t going to be cheap. As in $700 in total. But at least the surviving spouse would have the data. It took about a week, but I was able to give her a hard drive with the data on it formatted for NTFS, which would work on PC or Mac.
Now while this is a bit of an extreme case, it’s not uncommon for this sort of situation to occur. And it really doesn’t have to. Thus I implore each and every person who reads this to plan ahead by doing any or all of the following:
Gather up all the passwords that your family uses and put them in a password protected password manager. My wife and I use eWallet and we have set things up so that copies of the file that contains our passwords are stored in iCloud and our local NAS system. That way there’s multiple ways for either of us to access the file if needed. The reason why I say that you should use a password manager is that unlike a book or a sheet of paper, it’s secure from prying eyes. On top of that, in the case that I described, the late husband had his passwords stored in a document file on the computer that I had to rescue data from. Making it inaccessible to his widow.
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, I strongly suggest that you add a family member or two as a Legacy Contact. In the event of your passing, they can access your devices as well as a lot of the data stored in iCloud. Though you have to contact Apple to assist you with that. This document from Apple speaks to how this works, and how to turn this feature on. The big reason why I strongly suggest that those in the Apple ecosystem turn this on is that if you don’t, nobody, not even Apple themselves can help you in the event of the passing of a loved one.
Now Microsoft doesn’t have anything like Apple’s Legacy Contact. But Google has what’s called the Inactive Account Manager. You can find out more by clicking here and the process to set this up is straightforward. Though I will admit that Apple’s Legacy Contact option is far more expansive than what Google offers.
One other thing, if you’re in the Apple Ecosystem, you might also want to set up a recovery contact. That’s someone who can help you to unlock your iPhone, Mac or iPad if you need to because you forgot your passcode or something. You can find out more about how to set up a recovery contact here.
The passing of a loved one is always a traumatic experience. But if you plan ahead, you can reduce some of that trauma for those left behind so that all they have to do is remember the good times they had with the person who is no longer among us.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on October 12, 2024 by itnerd
If you use a computer for any length of time, it’s going to get dirty. Especially something like a MacBook Pro where the keyboard will touch the screen and leave all sorts of skin oil on it. And given that the MacBook Pro screen is glossy, it is really noticeable. So the question becomes, how do you keep it clean? Well this is what I do to keep my MacBook clean:
I bought a pack of Amazon Basics microfibre cloths which I talked about here. I did that because one pack of 24 costs as much as the Apple Cloth. Then I do this:
I have a battery powered duster that I use to blow out the keyboard and the space around the hinge.
I spray Whoosh on one cloth to make it damp and clean the screen.
I use a dry microfibre cloth to polish the screen.
I use the damp cloth to clean the keyboard, trackpad and top case. To help with that I use a utility called KeyboardCleanTool to stop the keyboard from responding while I clean it.
That seems to work well for me. I do that maybe once every two weeks. Sometimes once a week if my MacBook is really dirty. And you can use this technique with any notebook and not just Macs.
Do you have any additional tips on how to keep your Mac clean? Or perhaps you have alternate advice that works just as well as this. Please leave a comment and share your wisdom.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on September 17, 2024 by itnerd
HomeKit users who have been around for a while have had one major complaint about how HomeKit operated. And I outline that complaint here when I covered my HomeKit setup two years ago:
Another thing to point out about home hubs is that if you have more than one, they are used in an “Active/Standby” configuration. As in if you have two home hubs, one is actively controlling everything. But if something happens to it, the second one will take over.
And:
You can’t choose which HomePod Mini is the one that is the “connected” one. Which seems at first glance to be a #Fail. But what I believe that Apple is doing behind the scenes is picking the home hub with the best reception and performance to the router. I’ve observed that it tends to gravitate towards making the living room Home Pod Mini the connected one. I suspect that’s due to the fact that it is connected to an ASUS mesh WiFi node that is in close proximity (as in two feet away) to the Home Pod Mini in question which has direct access to the Internet. That would make that one the logical choice to be the one that runs the show. The HomePod Mini in the den is physically closer in proximity to the ASUS mesh WiFi node that’s in the den versus the one in the living room. But because the node in the den has to connect to the node in the living room to get out to the Internet, it’s not as good of a choice to be the connected Home Pod Mini as it has to make a extra hop to the Internet that the HomePod in the living room doesn’t have to make. And the one in the bedroom is the worst choice of the three as it is a room away from the ASUS mesh WiFi node in the den which is where it connects to the Internet from. All of that means that its reception isn’t as great as the first two HomePod Mini units on top of the fact that it has to make an extra hop to get to the Internet.
That’s a lot to take in. But let me boil this down for you and tell you why you should care. If you have more than one device that could be a Home Hub, as in a HomePod, HomePod mini, or Apple TV, one of them will get nominated by HomeKit to be the “active” Home Hub. Any others will be on standby in case that one fails. And you can’t define which one is the “active” Home Hub. Here’s a couple of examples of why you might want to do that:
Let’s say you have a HomePod and an AppleTV that is wired into your network. Seeing as the HomePod is always going to wireless, the AppleTV that is wired will provided better performance for HomeKit. So you should be able to choose that as your “active” Home Hub for that reason.
Let’s take my use case of four HomePod mini units, all on WiFi. The one that is closest to the WiFi access point that is connected to my Internet connection should be the “active” home hub as that will get better performance to and from the Internet as it will make less hops to get to and from the Internet.
When iOS 18 rolled out yesterday, Apple finally gave you the means to set your own Home Hub. Which to be frank, is long overdue. Here’s how you do that:
NOTE: Your HomePods and AppleTVs need to be running HomePod Software 18 and tvOS 18 respectively.
Open the Home app on your iPhone that is running iOS 18
Tap the “hamburger menu” which is the three dots with a circle around them.
Choose Home Settings
Choose Home Hubs And Bridges
You’ll be taken to this screen:
Now you’ll note that in my case, the Den HomePod is the active Home Hub. In this case, that HomePod mini needs to connect to the WiFi access point in the den, then use that to get to the WiFi access point in the living room that is connected to my Internet connection. That’s three hops. So I’m going to change it to the one in the Living room by turning off Automatic Selection.
Here’s where Apple could make a minor improvement. The HomePods in the living room are a stereo pair. The one that is the left channel in the stereo pair lives two or three feet above the living room WiFi access point that is connected to my Internet connection. The one that is the right channel in the stereo pair is about seven feet to the right of the first one. That means that the HomePod mini that is the left channel is the “correct” choice to be the “active” Home Hub. Realistically, it likely makes zero difference which one I pick as they both connect to WiFi via the same access point, and they are both on UPS units which will keep them powered in the event of a power outage, and whatever speed difference that the left one has over the right one is likely irrelevant because its so small. Having said that, it would be nice if Apple did identify which was which for those who care about this sort of thing. In any case, I chose the first living room HomePod so that the checkmark was next to it:
You can then hit the back arrow and you’re done. Now I was wondering what would happen if I unplugged both of the HomePods in the living room to simulate them losing power during a power outage, or being disconnected from the Internet. Here’s what I discovered:
First of all I got this notification to let me know that the HomePod that I set as “active” was no longer responding. And to test to see if I could still access my HomeKit devices from outside the home, I turned off WiFi on my iPhone to simulate yours truly being outside the home. I was able to access all my HomeKit devices just fine.
This is further validated by the fact that the “active” HomePod is now the Den HomePod. From here, I plugged in one of the two HomePods, and it turned out that I chose the one that was furthest away from the WiFi access point. So I switched which living room HomePod was active and declared victory.
So, will you be using this functionality? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on September 16, 2024 by itnerd
At 1PM EST on Monday, Apple will release iOS 18 to the public. As long as you have a supported device, it will bring you new features and improvements to your iDevice experience. One thing that will be an exception is Apple Intelligence. Unless you buy an iPhone 16, the only existing iPhones that will get Apple Intelligence are the 15 Pro and the 15 Pro Max.
If you want to see a full feature set, click here.
Speaking of supported devices, here’s what iOS 18 will run on:
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13
iPhone 13 mini
iPhone 13 Pro
iPhone 13 Pro Max
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 12 Mini
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone XS
iPhone XS Max
iPhone XR
iPhone SE (Second Generation Or Later)
If your phone isn’t on this list, then it’s not supported. And the following phones will come with iOS 18 out of the box:
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
If you are wondering why there are no iPads on the list, that’s because Apple has spun off the iPads into a separate OS called iPadOS which is due out at the same time. Having said that, this advice applies to iPads as well.
Now, since this is a major upgrade there is always a chance, no matter how remote that something can go sideways. To make sure that you’re not caught out by something unexpected, here’s what you can do:
1. Update your Apps: Make sure that all your apps are up to date before upgrading by opening the App Store app and seeing if any updates are required. This is important because it is possible that the changes that Apple has made on areas like privacy and performance could break an app that you rely on. Thus I find that it is always a good idea to check for updates and install them before a new version of iOS hits the streets.
2. Dump any uneeded photos, videos or apps: iOS updates tend to need a fair amount of free space to allow for a successful installation. Thus if you have anything less than 8GB of free space, consider deleting unused apps or photos/videos. In terms of the photos and videos you want to keep, you can move them to the cloud or a computer so that they’re safely stored without taking up space on your iPhone. I personally use iCloud myself, but Google Photos is another option.
At this point you should be good to go to upgrade to iOS 18. Key word being SHOULD. Upgrading an operating system isn’t a trivial process. But if you take these steps beforehand, you should reduce the risk of any issues that you might encounter.
One other thing before I go, you may want to consider not upgrading to iOS 18 and instead wait for iOS 18.1 to hit the streets before you upgrade as that’s likely to have additional bug fixes and also fix issues that hit the streets when iOS 18 comes out. Plus that’s the version that is going to bring Apple Intelligence to the table. I’ll be upgrading later today and I will let you know how it goes.
Posted in Tips with tags Presto on July 16, 2024 by itnerd
For a while now, Metrolinx who is the transit agency for the Greater Toronto And Hamilton Area has had the ability to have your PRESTO Card which is the contactless transit card that the agency prefers that you use on your Android phone. Apple users have wanted equal treatment, and today they finally got that equal treatment.
PRESTO card in Apple Wallet is here! Now it’s even easier to take transit with more ways to pay your fare across the region. pic.twitter.com/idZeqhjM00
Now there is a catch that you should be aware of. There is a process to take a physical PRESTO Card and convert it to one that can be used in Apple Wallet. But the problem with that is it will “kill” the physical card. As in the physical card will no longer work after you go through this conversion process. Now for some, that’s no big deal. But it potentially leaves you without an option if you want to say, lend a card to someone who needs to travel on transit. Or perhaps you simply want a backup. And the fact that a new physical card is $10 isn’t exactly cool either. Thus, what I will do is walk you through two options. One being the conversion of a physical card to a card inside your Apple Wallet. And the second where I will show you how to create a brand new card in Apple Wallet.
There’s another thing that I should point out. OC Transpo which is the mass transit provider in Ottawa Ontario does not support paying for transit via this method. So if you use OC Transpo, do not follow these steps.
The prerequisite to doing some of this is that you need to have the latest version of the PRESTO app on your phone.
The version that I have is version 2.10. That came out a few hours ago. The second prerequisite is that you need a PRESTO Account that has your cards in it already. So if you don’t have a PRESTO Account with your cards in it, now is a good time to create one via the app.
Let’s start with creating a new card. And there seem to be two ways to do this. The quickest way to do this is to go Apple Wallet and click on the “+” in the top right. I’ve circled it in red to highlight it.
That will take you to this screen:
Click on Transit Card. Which takes you to this screen.
Choose PRESTO card, which takes you here.
Click on Continue. That takes you to this screen.
Here you can load funds onto the card via Apple Pay. In this example, I will add $10. Then I will click Add in the top right corner.
This is where I get prompted to add funds via Apple Pay. After I pay, I get this screen:
Now this seemed to take about three minutes to actually add the card to my iPhone. So be patient.
And the card is added to my iPhone. I will also note that this method appears not to require the PRESTO App to be installed on your iPhone.
Now I am not sure how I feel about Express Mode being enabled by default as I am big believer that you should authenticate to pay for something 100% of the time. So I may disable that later. Having said that, I am not done yet. I will need to add this to my Apple Watch. I’ll get to that later because I want to explore the other option to add a new card via the PRESTO App. Start with opening the app and clicking Add Card on the right.
Next choose PRESTO in Apple Wallet and click the button below it.
You get a tutorial that you can skip if you so choose.
You then need to Load Funds or Load A New Pass. The latter option is if you want to add a monthly student pass or some other pass for example as those passes can save you money. For this example, I will do the former.
I am going to add $10 to this card and click buy now. You’ll then be prompted to pay with either Apple Pay or via a credit or debit card that is in your account. Again, it took me a few minutes before the card was added to Apple Wallet.
So which option should you use? If you simply need a PRESTO Card, I’d use the first option. If you want to add a transit pass to said PRESTO Card, I would use the second option.
Now, back to adding your PRESTO Card to your Apple Watch. And it’s a bit odd because unlike credit and debit cards on your iPhone which replicate to your Apple Watch, the PRESTO card doesn’t do that. What you’re actually doing is moving it to your Apple Watch from your iPhone. And you can move it back from your Apple Watch to your iPhone if you so choose. It appears that PRESTO can only deal with one unique card and can’t support what I will call “cloned” cards. For example, the debit or credit card that you add to your iPhone gets “cloned” to your Apple Watch. But no such support exists for PRESTO cards. That would explain why PRESTO “kills” the physical card if you convert it to a digital one. It also means that if you want to have a PRESTO card on your Apple Watch, you either have to move it to the watch and forget about using it on your iPhone. Or you need to put a second card on your Apple Watch and manage two cards. Now let me play Devil’s Advocate. This approach makes sense because Apple Watch users are always wearing their Apple Watches. Thus they can tap their watch on a PRESTO card reader and pay for transit without taking out their phone. And seeing that smartphone thefts are on the rise in Toronto, that’s likely going to help to keep your phone safe.
With that out of the way, if you want to move your PRESTO card to your Apple Watch, you start the process with opening the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and clicking on Wallet & Apple Pay.
You can see the PRESTO card that I just added to my iPhone. Click the ADD button.
Here’s where you get warned about the fact that this process only moves the card but doesn’t clone it. Clicking Next gets you to this screen:
Adding the card seemed to take about 90 seconds. After that, I got this screen.
If you see this screen, the process worked. As for Express Mode being enabled by default, I am still not a fan of this. But the use case makes a bit more sense because I can just tap my Apple Watch on a PRESTO reader and hop onto a bus, streetcar or subway train. But if you want to put the card back on your iPhone, here’s how you do it:
Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone
Pick the PRESTO card
Scroll down until you see “Add card to (insert name of your iPhone here)” and follow the prompts which are similar to the ones above.
Finally, let’s cover how to convert a physical PRESTO card over to a digital one. And I will remind you that once you convert the physical PRESTO card to a digital one, it will “kill” the physical card. So if you want a physical card for whatever reason, do not follow these instructions.
Converting a physical card to a digital one only seems possible via the Presto App. Assuming that you also have a PRESTO account with PRESTO cards in it, here’s what you need to do.
Pick the card from the list of PRESTO cards that appear in the app.
Next tap the Convert To Apple Wallet button.
Here you will see the warnings that not only that this process will “kill” your physical card, but using these cards with Apple Wallet isn’t supported by OC Transpo. Click Convert To Apple Wallet. At that point you will have to click through another warning about this. Nobody can say that Metrolinx hasn’t warned you about what’s going to happen next.
Next you need to hold your physical PRESTO card to the back of the iPhone. In my case, near the top of the iPhone worked for me. And taking off the case really helps with this. Then it will prompt you to add the card to Apple Wallet. When you see this prompt, the card is dead, and you are forced to complete the process of converting the physical card over to being a digital one which only takes a couple more clicks.
Now I put this together over a few hours after this functionality was announced by Metrolinx. So if you see ways that this can be improved, or anything that I got wrong, or even feedback on how this was done, please let me know in the comments and I will get back to you as quickly as I can.
Posted in Tips with tags Scams on July 10, 2024 by itnerd
Having worked on exposing scams as well as rescuing people from scams for the last number of years, I’ve noted the tactics that scammers use to get people to part with their hard earned money. One of the more popular tactics that scammers use is the nefarious use of the Netstat command. So, before I get into how scammers use this command, let me explain what this command is.
Netstat is a command that is used to troubleshoot network issues by displaying what is connecting to a computer, and what the computer is connecting to, and how it is making those connections. But the thing is that this only gives you a tiny piece of the picture. You have to run other tools to confirm or deny your suspicions related to whatever problem you have. Wireshark is an example of such a tool. If you really want to get into the weeds on the usage of this command, this Wikipedia article can help you.
If I run this command on my Mac, here’s a partial list of what I get:
Now a lot of this is traffic connected to my web browser with seven tabs open, traffic connected to having Apple Mail open, along with whatever other applications that happened to be open on my Mac when I took this screenshot, and whatever macOS happens to be talking to at that moment. For example iCloud’s back end.
In other words, this is all perfectly normal.
But a scammer will tell you that all of this is due to hackers who are on your computer at that precise moment doing evil things to you. Thus you need the scammer’s help to get rid of these hackers. I’ll cut to the chase and just tell you that they’re lying through their teeth. If it were that easy to find an actual hacker who is on your computer, nobody would get pwned by them.
The thing is, for you to see something like this, it likely means that the scammer has connected to your computer using a remote access tool so that they could execute this command. That’s really bad. Your best course of action is to instantly turn off your computer, hang up on the scammer. Then call an actual computer professional to look at the computer to see what the scammer did to it. Chances are that they’ve installed other software to allow them to access it any time they please. Which is of course really, really bad and that software needs to be removed ASAP.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be exposing other tactics that scammers use to separate you from your money. Because if you know how they work, you’ll be less likely to fall for a scam. And if there’s something that you want me to cover, please drop me a comment and let me know.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on October 31, 2023 by itnerd
TimeMachine which is Apple’s backup utility is a great way to back up your Mac. But there are two things that annoy me about it. The first is the lack of ability to easily troubleshoot backup issues. As I type this, I am not aware of anyway to improve on that. But what I can improve upon is the configuration options for TimeMachine. By default, this is what you get:
That’s pretty limited. If you want to do something specific like back up at 8PM every day, you can’t. That’s where TimeMachineEditor comes in. It allows you to replace the TimeMachine configuration pane in macOS and give you a lot of scheduling options that the native configuration pane doesn’t offer.
This is how I have it set up for myself. Which is that I have it set to backup at 8PM every day. But here’s the option that you have:
You can set up when the Mac is inactive, at an interval like every day or week, at calendar intervals like every day or week. You can also set options to not backup at certain times, backup immediately if a backup is missed, backup if on battery power (I do not suggest that by the way) as well as creating local snap shots every hour which is a handy way to roll back to an earlier state if you’re on the road. If you click on “Show Advanced Settings”, you get two more options:
You get two options regarding not backing up when an app prevents either the Mac as a whole or the display from sleeping. There are use cases like watching a video for example where you don’t want the Mac to back up because of the potential performance hit.
Once you set everything the way you like it, you simply press apply and you’re done. TimeMachineEditor takes over and runs TimeMachine backups for you. A pro tip that I have is that you should to go into the macOS TimeMachine preference pane and set it to manual so that the two don’t conflict.
I’ve been using this for a few months now and I’ve come across no issues. Thus I can recommend it to anyone who wants to have better control over their TimeMachine backups. Because everyone should be backing up their computer. This app is free, but the developer accepts donations, thus I’d throw him a couple of bucks for his hard work.
Now if someone could make TimeMachine easier to troubleshoot.
Posted in Tips with tags Apple on April 19, 2023 by itnerd
Apple yesterday released a new feature for HomePod users which allows the HomePod to listen for C02 and smoke detector alarms and notify you via a push notification if it hears one or the other. This is a great safety feature as it is available to the masses and doesn’t require any extra hardware. It’s also really easy to set up, so let me walk you through that.
Before we get started, there is two pre-requisites. You HomeKit setup must be on the new home architecture. So if you haven’t done that yet, you might want to visit this page to get an overview and instructions on how to set that up. You’ll also need to be on iOS 16.4 or later as well as HomePod Software version 16.4 or later. But assuming that you’ve done that, you simply need to go into the Home app and you will see this:
You should see this prompt that tells you about this new feature. Simply click continue.
You will then get this prompt where all you have to do is click “Turn On”. A few seconds after you do that, you’re done and your home has an extra level of safety. But there’s some under the hood stuff that we need to talk about as it may be applicable to your specific use case.
In the Home Settings section of the Home app, you’ll see a new section called Safety & Security. My guess is that Apple is going to build this section out with more features in the future.
Here’s where you can turn on and off Sound Recognition which is what powers this feature. We’ll have a closer look at that in a moment. You’ll also see Notifications which we’ll also get to in a moment. Below that is the Check In section where you can give members of your home the ability to check in and listen or see what’s going on if they get a push notification that a C02 or smoke alarm has been triggered.
In the Sound Recognition section, you can turn on and off the ability to listen for smoke and C02 alarms. I suspect that Apple will add other functionality in the future here. But we’ll have to wait and see if they do. You can also give or take away this feature from individual HomePods. Though, if it were me I would leave every HomePod active.
In the notification section, this is where you can choose which HomePod sends notifications. Again, I would just leave all of them on.
Now I haven’t tested this feature as this is one of those features that you don’t ever want to actually use. But according to TechCrunch, they note the following:
If your system is connected to a smart camera, it will also present video of your place, so you can see what’s going on in real time. Apple notes that the feature is end-to-end encrypted, and all of the sound recognition is happening locally on the speaker, instead of the cloud.
I couldn’t find any Apple sources for that information, but the fact that the listening is being done on device should alleviate any privacy concerns. Plus the fact that you can also see a video if you have HomeKit cameras is handy as well.
Finally, this feature should be available on all generations of the HomePod and HomePod mini according to The Verge. That’s a bit of a surprise as I would have assumed that Apple wouldn’t have brought this to the original HomePod as a means to force people to buy a new one. But I guess that Apple has decided to do the right thing for its user base for a change rather than simply try to line their pockets with more cash.
So, are you going to enable this feature? What do you think of it? Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
