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Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 33 years
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Category: Problem Solving

Glenn Fleishman 43 comments

Cloudy with a Chance of Insanity: Unsticking iCloud Drive

As with all its services, Apple offers no real troubleshooting when iCloud Drive synchronization stalls in macOS. Glenn Fleishman encountered a problem that took months to diagnose and fix. In the process, he went through the wringer of trying nearly everything suggested online, via Apple support, and from colleagues. In the end, the magic that fixed it was undisclosed engineers.

Adam Engst 29 comments

Carbon Copy Cloner Backs Up Cloud-Only Content

Worried about backing up your cloud-only files? The latest version of Carbon Copy Cloner can temporarily download, back up, and evict these files, ensuring your data’s safety. Learn about this ingenious feature that bridges the gap between local and cloud storage in your backup strategy.

Adam Engst 19 comments

Update a New iPhone 15 to iOS 17.0.2 Before Transferring from Your Old iPhone

A bug in iOS 17 can cause a hang while transferring data from an old iPhone to a new iPhone 15. Update to iOS 17.0.2 first!

Adam Engst 3 comments

How to Restore the Slack Workspace Sidebar

Has your Slack interface changed recently, dropping the workspace sidebar in favor of another one that replicates capabilities available in the channel sidebar? Read on for the trick necessary to bring back a permanent sidebar of your workspaces.

Adam Engst 18 comments

Copytables Simplifies Extracting Tabular Data from Web Pages

If you’ve ever been frustrated by trying to copy a column of data—or even just a handful of cells—from within a table on a Web page, get the Copytables browser extension for Chrome-based browsers, Firefox, or Safari.

Adam Engst 29 comments

SanDisk Portable SSD Failures Proliferate

If you rely on a SanDisk portable SSD, be sure to back up its contents, given the prevalence of failures resulting in data loss.

Adam Engst 5 comments

Recent macOS Update Fixes Multi-Display Screen Saver Bug

Annoyed by the bug in macOS 13.3 Ventura that prevented screen savers from working on multiple displays? Apple quietly fixed it at some point, so as of macOS 13.4.1, you can again enjoy your eye candy on all attached displays.

Adam Engst 17 comments

Apple Pulls Rapid Security Responses Due to Website Loading Issues

If you're experiencing website loading issues—notably with Facebook and Instagram—after installing the recent Rapid Security Responses, you may want to remove them until Apple fixes the problem and releases new ones.

Adam Engst 31 comments

Tracking Air Quality in a Wildfire-Filled World

Stressed out by unhealthy air quality levels caused by smoke drifting south from wildfires in Canada, Adam Engst explores resources that report outdoor and indoor air quality to inform decisions about how to react.

Adam Engst 7 comments

Apple Expands Self Service Repair Program; Have You Used It?

Apple has expanded its Self Service Repair program to include the iPhone 14 lineup, M1-based Mac desktops, and the M2 models of the 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. But is anyone actually using Self Service Repair?

Adam Engst 12 comments

Solve Myopia in a Pinch with an iPhone

Faced with the need to find his glasses in a dark house, the nearsighted Adam Engst discovers that holding the iPhone in front of his face with the flash-enabled Camera app running lets him see perfectly. 

Adam Engst 17 comments

Beware of Siri Creating Alarms Instead of Timers

If you’ve had trouble setting timers on the Apple Watch with Siri recently, it’s because Siri misses the final word in the command and sets an alarm rather than a timer.

Adam Engst 7 comments

Apple to Expand Accessibility Options in 2023

Apple has announced a slew of new and improved accessibility features that it plans to bring to the next versions of its operating systems in 2023.

Adam Engst 37 comments

A Call to Alarms: Why We Need Persistent Calendar and Reminder Notifications

Frustrated by how easy he finds it to ignore notifications for important events and timed reminders, Adam Engst proposes alarms that continue to go off until stopped manually, creating a third notification type alongside banners and alerts.

Adam Engst 4 comments

Howard Oakley Lists Apple System Updates

Trying to remember when macOS 13.2 came out? Turn to Howard Oakley's new System Updates page, which lists all macOS updates by version, sorted chronologically and with links to his coverage.