Mac

Stay up-to-date on the latest Mac news, and tutorials. Get expert tips and tricks to optimize your Mac’s performance and learn about the latest Apple products and software updates. Discover the best Mac apps and accessories to enhance your user experience.

macOS Sierra Public Beta 3 just dropped

If you're signed on the Apple Beta Software Program, you can now install the latest beta of macOS Sierra on your Mac even if you're not a developer as macOS Sierra Public Beta 3 just went live minutes after the Cupertino firm posted the third public beta of iOS 10.

macOS Sierra Public Beta 3 contains the same features as the developer-only macOS Sierra beta 4. Developer-only fourth betas of iOS 10, macOS Sierra, watchOS 3 and tvOS 10 were pushed yesterday.

Apple seeds fourth beta of iOS 10, watchOS 3, tvOS 10 and macOS Sierra to developers

Two weeks following the release of the third beta of iOS 10, watchOS 3, tvOS 10 and macOS Sierra, Apple on Monday issued iOS 10 beta 4, macOS Sierra beta 4, watchOS 3 beta 4 and tvOS 10 beta 4 to members of the Apple Developer Program. The public beta of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra matching the latest developer-only releases should be released tomorrow to public beta testers enrolled with the Apple Beta Software Program.

This website chronicles a comprehensive list of things you can do with Siri

As Apple continues perfecting Siri and adding new operations to her arsenal of supported actions, chronicling everything the digital personal assistant can do on your behalf is becoming increasingly difficult, even for Apple itself which highlights only the most popular Siri queries on its website.

That's where a new website, aptly named Hey Siri, jumps in. As first discovered by The Loop, it's a comprehensive list of things you can do with Siri which uses crowdsourced data to share some of the most successful queries made to the digital assistant.

Apple Maps Transit directions launch in Prague

Apple customers in Prague, Czech Republic, can now use the firm's stock Maps app on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac to take into account local transit directions when planning their routes. Apple Maps transit data just launched in Prague with support for the city's busses and trams and the Prague Metro and Esko Prague commuter rail.

macOS Sierra Preview: Picture in Picture video multitasking comes to the Mac

Picture in Picture, a self-explanatory feature which debuted on compatible iPads with last September's release of iOS 9, is coming to the desktop near you. That's right, now desktop users can watch video while they're multitasking on their Mac, thanks to Picture in Picture support on macOS Sierra.

With a click, you can float a clip from Safari or iTunes in a window over your desktop, and continue watching it as you're multitasking. The video can be resized, dragged and pinned to any corner of the screen and it even stays put when you switch Spaces.

Here’s why PC notebook makers, aside from Apple, have been slow to adopt USB-C

When it debuted in March 2015, Apple's twelve-inch MacBook has ushered in an era of USB-C, then new high-speed connectivity option from the USB Implementers' Forum with a reversible, ultra-thin plug resembling Apple's proprietary Lightning port. In fact, the MacBook was the first notebook to incorporate a USB-C connection as its power port, completely replacing Apple's own MagSafe charging.

PC notebook vendors around the world were supposed to follow in Apple's footsteps and readily adopt USB-C across their products—and some have—but too many of them were, and still are, less keen to adopt USB Type C connections on their products. The reason for this is two-fold: design and cost considerations.

Is Xiaomi’s first-ever Windows PC notebook a shameless MacBook Air ripoff?

Xiaomi (pronounced “sh-YEOW-mee”), a booming Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics maker, today took the wraps off its first-ever Windows PC notebook and it looks awfully familiar to the MacBook Air. The familiarity starts with the device's silly 'Mi Notebook Air' moniker and extends to its unibody industrial design that's thinner and lighter than Apple's notebook.

Offered in 12.5 and 13.3-inch varieties, the product matches and—in terms of graphics, lightness and thinness—one-ups the MacBook Air while costing half as much. Xiaomi's new notebooks run Windows 10 and will hit store shelves in China on August 2.

Video walkthrough: changes & fixes in macOS Sierra beta 3

Monday, Apple seeded a third developer-only beta of macOS Sierra (build number “16A254g”) to members of the Apple Developer Program, followed by a version suited for public beta testers 24 hours later.

After spending some quality time with Sierra's third beta, our own Andrew O'Hara summed up for you guys all the changes and fixes he's discovered in Sierra's beta 3 in a hands-on video.

How to split PDF files with the Preview app on Mac

PDF files are among one of the most widely-used forms of sharing documents with others across the internet; especially considering that the idea behind this file type is to have something that is universally readable on any platform.

If you do a lot of PDF handling on your Mac, then it might not be a bad idea to become familiar with how to split a PDF file, so we'll show you how you can do that in this tutorial.

macOS Sierra Public Beta 2 released to testers

In addition to releasing a second public beta of iOS 10, macOS Sierra Public Beta 2 is now also available to those signed on the Apple Beta Software Program.

The third beta of Sierra was seeded to Apple's registered developers two days ago, and now public beta testers can take it for a spin (public beta 2 and developer beta 3 offer the same features).

The update should appear as an over-the-air download via the Software Update mechanism through the Mac App Store's Updates tab on Macs that run the first public beta and are enrolled in Apple's program.