Tutorials

How to receive a notification when your friends are leaving or arriving at a set location

Apple’s Find My Friends app has been much maligned over the years and for many served as a great example that Apple does bloatware just as well as the competition. With the arrival of iOS 10 and the ability to delete the stock apps some users might find pesky, Find My Friends certainly must be a contender for the title of most frequently trashed app on the Home screen.

This comes in spite of the fact that, over time, Find My Friends has actually inherited some redeemable qualities: next to a useful widget, one feature in particular has enjoyed little to no exposure, even though there are compelling real life use cases for it.

GPS not working on your iPhone? Try this

Your iPhone’s GPS capabilities can be really useful, whether you’re using them to navigate to a special event, play Pokémon GO, or even to just grant your favorite apps your current location so they can do what they were made to do.

Of course, like all things, GPS can sometimes be flaky and it doesn’t always want to work right, causing headaches for you. Fortunately, there is something you can do about it. There are a number of troubleshooting steps you can take that might help your GPS work properly.

How to hide Skype calls from the Phone app on your iPhone

Apple has recently introduced CallKit, a new framework available to developers that allows them to integrate their VoIP apps with the native Phone app user interface. In essence, this is a great addition that puts VoIP apps at virtually the same level as normal phone calls. Incoming Skype or WhatsApp calls, for example, are now displayed fully on the Lock screen, which is an improvement compared to how these calls were handled prior to iOS 10. Likewise, any call placed or received with a supported VoIP app will be logged into the Phone app like a normal call.

This tight integration of VoIP apps and the native Phone app UI can have a downside for some users who might prefer not to see their recent Skype calls history show up in their Phone app. If you're one of these people, we'll show you exactly how to stop Skype from showing recent calls in your Phone app.

How to clear all app notifications at once on iPhone and iPad

iPhone Notification Center with no notifications

It’s easy to lose track of the notifications you’re receiving on your iPhone and end up having dozens of them filling up your Notification Center. Thankfully, you can dismiss all your Notification Center notifications in one fell swoop with a single gesture, making it much quicker than swiping left on each alert and dismissing them individually.

How to enable and use Secret Conversations in Facebook Messenger

iPhone screen showing Facebook Messenger app with an encrypted secret conversation

With secret conversations in Messenger, Facebook offers support for end-to-end encryption, giving you peace of mind knowing that a third party cannot decipher any sensitive messages with friends and family. These encrypted chats rely on a device key that ensures only you and the recipient can see the message.

You can verify the device key to confirm that the messages are end-to-end encrypted, set a timer to have secret messages disappear from the conversation, and so forth.

In this article, we show you how to set up and use end-to-end encrypted secret conversations in Facebook Messenger.

How to disable the fake clicking sound for MacBook trackpads

Pressing MacBook trackpad

MacBook equipped with a Force Touch trackpad produces an audible ‘click’ sound in order to simulate the sound you would hear on a Mac without a Force Touch trackpad. It has no down travel and all you’re hearing is an audible sound when you click it. In this tutorial, we’ll talk about how to disable that fake clicking sound.