Apple released the third developer beta for iOS 14.5 today, Tuesday, Mar. 2. The company promptly pulled the update from the developer portal, before finally making it available for all shortly after. The update was surprising to begin with, since Apple released it at an unusual time, and was only available as a download from the dev portal, without any OTA option.
The rapid advance of Lens Studio as a platform for easily developing augmented reality experiences is just one indicator that immersive computing is becoming the norm.
Apple's password manager, iCloud Keychain, lets you securely save important login credentials for apps, websites, and services that sync up across all of your Apple devices — iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. One of its biggest highlights is that it can create strong passwords for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work, and in those cases, there are other ways to generate random, strong passwords.
Bash scripting is a convenient way to automate things on any Linux system, and we're going to use it here to automate certain tasks we use all the time.
Apple wants to support the advertising economy, but its primary focus of late has been user privacy and security. In Safari, cross-site tracking, which lets content providers track you across websites and apps to show you more targeted ads, is disabled by default. However, content providers can get around that using less privacy-invasive ad measurements, but you can stop that too in iOS 14.5.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. At Magic Leap, the lemons are the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lemonade is a new solution for virtual meetings born out of social distancing.
Strange or uncomfortable encounters can be difficult to get away from sometimes if you're overly polite and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Thankfully, your iPhone can help save the day, providing you with a plausible excuse to exit the scene without having to conjure up some last-minute reason on the spot.
You know that you have the Gmail app on your iPhone. After all, you get Gmail notifications, you see it in the app switcher, it's in the Settings app, and there's an "Open" button in the App Store instead of "Get" or a download icon. But you cannot find the app on your Home Screen. If this situation sounds like something you're dealing with on iOS 14 or iOS 15, there's an easy answer.
If you just got an iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, or 12 mini, and you've never owned an iPhone before, some of the most basic tasks can be baffling. Shutting it down, force-restarting it, quitting apps, and even viewing the percentage of battery remaining sound simple but aren't very intuitive for new iPhone owners. Another big question mark is screenshots, and there are several ways to take them.
At the end of every year, Spotify analyzes your listening habits for the last 12 months and creates a colorful graphic showcasing your favorite artists, albums, artists, and more. Apple Music does have its own version called Replay, but it's just not very good.
The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video.
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Apple has an excellent reputation for its privacy and security policies. That said, it isn't a perfect reputation. Take Siri, for example. The helpful iOS assistant isn't just communicating with you — Apple saves and listens to a history of your Siri interactions. If you don't want Apple storing your Siri history forever, there's something you can do about it.
Apple does not provide a native way to lock apps on your iPhone behind Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode. For a long time, we've wanted that option for improved privacy and security, but Apple does allow developers to use its authentication protocols. Apps like Messenger, Outlook, and WhatsApp give the option to lock them down, but for the apps that don't, you can force it with a little time and effort.
Whether you have or are getting an iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max, the default way to check the current battery life is via the tiny battery icon in the top right of the status bar. But that does not accurately depict how much juice is left, not as a specific percentage indicator would. If you want the exact number, there are some not-so-obvious ways to find it.
One of Apple's key features for iOS was always its "what you see is what you get" philosophy. Sure, there were small tweaks and complicated workarounds to customize an iPhone, but, for the most part, all iPhones felt similar. These days, however, changing up your iPhone's look is much easier. In just a few steps, you can change one of the most visual parts about iOS — home screen app icons.
When compared to last year's model, the Pixel 4a has upgrades that go beyond the spec sheet. But since it's one generation old, 2019's Pixel 3a can be had for one hell of a discount right now, and it's still got two full years of software updates coming its way. So which one really is the better buy?
Identifying security software installed on a MacBook or other Apple computer is important to hackers and penetration testers needing to compromise a device on the network. With man-in-the-middle attacks, packets leaving the Mac will tell us a lot about what kind of antivirus and firewall software is installed.
Third-party apps on your iPhone must ask for your permission to access your library in the Music app. Some will even want to get access to your Apple Music account. If you no longer use the apps, you shouldn't be letting them have access anymore. It's easy to hunt them down, and doing so might even show some apps you can't even remember giving any permissions to.
Wearing masks and social distancing doesn't sound like a fun movie night with friends, but you can still be comfortable and watch films together remotely. Services like Discord and Netflix Party make it possible to watch movies simultaneously from different parts of the U.S., and now you can do it with Movies Anywhere too.
Home screen widgets might not be a new concept in the Android world, but for iPhones, they're downright revolutionary. A new iOS 14 feature allows you to place small, medium, and large-sized widgets of your favorite apps on the home screen, to see important information without needing to long-press an app's icon, swipe to the Today View, or launch an app directly. Even better — you can stack them!
The Pi-hole project is a popular DNS-level ad blocker, but it can be much more than that. Its DNS-level filtering can also be used as a firewall of sorts to prevent malicious websites from resolving, as well as to keep privacy-killing trackers such as Google Analytics from ever loading in the browser. Let's take a look at setting a Pi-hole up and customizing a blacklist to suit your needs.
The Home button on an iPhone does a lot. That's not necessarily news for anyone who's ever owned an iPhone with a Home button, but what you might not know is that it's capable of so much beyond the standard everyday functions. So if you have an iPhone 7, 8, or the new SE model running iOS 13 or later, keep reading to learn about 17 secret Home button tricks you're missing out on.
We might not be able to hang out with friends in-person during a mandatory lockdown or self-quarantine, but we sure can in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons." Snapping pictures with the new NookPhone feels almost as personal as taking selfies in real life, so, naturally, we want those memories to live on our real phones as well. In pure Nintendo form, however, it's not easy.
Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet.
When it comes to cybersecurity, one layer isn't enough. A complex password (or one created with a password manager) does a good job of protecting your data, but it can still be cracked. Two-factor authentication strengthens this by adding a second layer of security, giving you even more protection against online threats.
Cases and stickers are always great, but they aren't the only way to customize an iPhone. The software on your device is full of customization options, from a better-looking home screen and cooler lock screen wallpapers to app icon changes and a system-wide dark mode. There's literally over 100 ways to make iOS on your iPhone genuinely unique, some of which are hiding in plain sight.
You're a busy, on-the-go professional, so you deserve an email client that keeps up with you. "Mail" on iPhone wasn't always the best option, but thanks to iOS 13, it feels like a completely different app. That said, there are plenty of alternatives that offer a different experience. Better yet, these apps are free. You won't need to spend a dime to try them out for yourself.
Social media accounts are a favorite target for hackers, and the most effective tactics for attacking accounts on websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are often based on phishing. These password-stealing attacks rely on tricking users into entering their passwords into a convincing fake webpage, and they have become increasingly easy to make thanks to tools like BlackEye.
With a cheap computer, smaller than the Raspberry Pi, an attacker can create a remote hacking device. The device can be attached to a target router without anyone's knowledge and enable the hacker to perform a variety of network-based attacks from anywhere in the world.
The $35 Raspberry Pi is an amazingly useful single-board computer (SBC) with a good balance of price, performance, and connectivity options. But for some projects, it just isn't enough. Whether you need more computing power, a smaller size, or better machine-learning capabilities, there are other options available.
Apple's scheduled to show off the first look of iOS 13 at WWDC 2019 on June 3, but what will the new operating system hold for iPhone? Rumors suggest that many features initially planned for iOS 12 will show up in iOS 13, codenamed "Yukon," and dark mode will be the big ticket item this year.
While hackers know and love the Raspberry Pi, many don't know of its cheaper cousin, the microcontroller. Unlike a Pi, which can be used more or less like a regular computer, microcontrollers like the Wi-Fi connected ESP8266 require some necessary programming skill to master. In this guide, we'll build an Arduino program from scratch and explain the code structure in a way anyone can understand.
If there is a major blind spot in the AR space in 2019, it's the impact that blockchain technology will eventually have on the software distributed in AR clouds.
A lot of people still trust their web browsers to remember every online account password for them. If you're one of those users, you need to adopt a more secure way of managing passwords, because browser-stored passwords are hacker gold mines. With a USB Rubber Ducky and physical access to your computer, they can have a screenshot of all your credentials in their inbox in less than 60 seconds.
It feels strange to be walking through an open field in a small village in the English countryside. There's no one else around — just the four of us: me, my husband, my 12-year-old son, and my adult niece. The day is spectacular, particularly for England. The sun is shining, and the temperature is in the low '70s.
Apple Watch owners know there's a built-in way to remove water from the device's speaker. However, even though modern iPhones are IP67 and IP68 water resistant, there's no official way to deal with water-clogged speakers that can muffle audio and cause prolonged damage if not ejected. Older iPhone models have it even worse, but there are some easy things you can do to get that water out.
It's easier than you might think to hack into Wi-Fi routers using just one unrooted Android phone. This method doesn't require brute-forcing the password, a Windows OS for converting PowerShell scripts into EXE format, a reliable VPS for intercepting hacked Wi-Fi passwords, or Metasploit for post-exploitation tricks.
Although the Clock app in iOS has undergone some design changes over the years, you still can't set more than one timer on your iPhone. Oddly enough, Apple's own HomePod speaker added this feature, mimicking the timer on Amazon's popular Echo smart speakers. Fortunately, through Apple's Shortcuts app, there's a clever hack to set multiple timers — without using a third-party timer app.
Whether it's for health reasons or just to look better, many of us want to get in shape. It's a long process that starts with nutrition, and dieting is never easy. Fortunately, there are some great food-tracking apps that will make it a lot easier to become a healthier version of yourself.
