Year: 2016

Apple researching pressure-sensing Touch ID with 3D Touch type functionality

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 4, 2016

Apple has filed for a new patent application, which surfaced this morning in the United States Patent & Trademark Office's (USPTO) database.

It reveals that the Cupertino firm is seeking to add pressure sensing capability to the iPhone's Touch ID button while hinting at the possibility of enabling 3D Touch-like functionality by way of applying various degrees of pressure to the Home button.

Titled “Force-sensitive fingerprint sensing input,” the invention describes adding a resistive element having a mechanically resistive force to the Touch ID button—such as an elastomeric material, spring or similar component—which would then be able to measure the depression.

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Apple boosts Maps with new Flyover cities, Traffic and Nearby data

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 4, 2016

Apple has updated its Maps backend with nearly two-dozen new cities now supporting the Flyover feature. In addition, the company has activated live Traffic data for Taiwan and added Finland to the list of countries that support iOS 9's Nearby feature. Three-dimensional Flyover data has been added to five new cities in the United States, with additional Flyover views now available in various cities across Europe, Africa and Japan.

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How to reset NVRAM on your Mac

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 23, 2018

Macs are nice computers, but they're not without their issues that can spur up at random times. Fortunately, troubleshooting problems on a Mac isn't incredibly difficult and there are tons of simple steps you can take as a Mac user before calling AppleCare for support.

One of the easiest troubleshooting steps is resetting your Mac's NVRAM, a step which can solve an array of problems. In this tutorial, we'll explain what the NVRAM is responsible for and how to reset it to fix common problems.

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Apple ordered to pay $625 million in VirnetX patent suit

Cody Lee ∙ February 3, 2016

Apple has been ordered by a federal jury in east Texas to pay $625 million for patent infringement, Reuters reported late Wednesday. The jury found the iPhone maker guilty of using VirnetX's security technology without its permission.

More specifically, Apple was found guilty of willfully infringing on technology found in VirnetX Holding Corp's patents related to virtual private networking protocols, which Apple uses in its FaceTime and iMessage apps on iPhone and iPad.

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GarageBand: a beginner’s guide to Live Loops [video]

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

In addition to the iPad Pro support brought forth in the GarageBand 2.1 update, the app comes with a new killer feature called Live Loops. Live Loops makes music creation accessible to anyone. Creating songs using Live Loops features a low barrier to entry, but a high ceiling and virtually endless possibilities.

In this video walkthrough, I'm going to share with you 20 basic GarageBand Live Loops tips for getting started with this awesome new feature. I'll even make a song, and rap to it on the fly! If GarageBand has always seemed intimidating to you, then I guarantee that after watching this video, you'll be ready to roll your sleeves up and start creating your own musical masterpieces.

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How to measure Mac frame rates and enable HiDPI display modes on older models with Quartz Debug

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 2, 2019

Have you ever wanted to benchmark the graphics performance of your favorite Mac apps and games, or measure the refresh rates of macOS's user interface?

If so, you'll be delighted to learn that Apple provides a free application, called Quartz Debug, which has a built-in live frame rate monitoring tool that can measure the refresh rate of the graphics subsystem in frames per second (FPS).

Here's how you can download Quartz Debug to your Mac and use it to display the number of screen updates per second, see the FPS and CPU gauges changing as you perform different actions on your Mac, enable HiDPI display modes on non-Retina Macs and adjust other settings related to the computer's GPU.

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How to watch Super Bowl 50 on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and other devices

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

On Sunday evening, millions of people will gather around their TV sets to watch Super Bowl 50. The game features the Denver Broncos taking on the Carolina Panthers, and kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 (ET).

For those of you who aren't going to be around a television Sunday night, but still want to follow along with the action, we've put together a list of ways you'll be able to do so using an iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.

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Let’s Talk Jailbreak 145: iOS 9.3 beta jailbreak, a beautiful theme, and some jailbreak tweaks

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 10, 2016

Episode 145: The guys talk about the latest development in the jailbreak community, including the teasing of a jailbreak for iOS 9.2 and iOS 9.3 beta. They then go on a brief discussion of the latest notable jailbreak tweaks to be released in Cydia. Finally, the show ends with what some might call sad news.

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Support Let’s Talk Jailbreak: Get $50 toward any mattress purchase by going to casper.com/jailbreak and using code JAILBREAK.

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It’s possible to upgrade your iPhone’s storage to 128GB for $60

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 3, 2016

When deciding what iPhone to buy so you end up with the right amount of storage capacity, you can get the bare-bones $16GB model, or you can end up with an upgraded 64GB, or 128GB model, which are probably your best bets with the new video cameras capable of recording at 4K quality.

That's not to say you won't pay a pretty penny though; moving up to 64GB from 16GB is $100 more, and moving up to 128GB from 16GB is a staggering $200 more. But if paying that much more for a storage upgrade is going to be too much for you, then you'll be happy to know there are cheaper alternatives, so long as visiting Shenzhen, China is on your bucket list for the near future.

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How to disable transparency effects on your Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 17, 2019

The release of OS X Yosemite in 2014 gave the Mac's user interface a fresh coat of paint in part through adopting much of the transparency effects that Apple added to iOS 7 in prior year.

Transparency is used throughout macOS and can be observed on the desktop and seen in drop-down menus, title bars, sidebars and toolbars.

This post will teach you how to disable transparency for all user interface elements that have a translucent appearance on your Mac.

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