El Capitan

How to create shopping lists, to-dos and other checklists in Notes app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 17, 2019

A much-improved Notes application is one of my favorite features of iOS and macOS. With it, you can now draw sketches with your finger, enrich your thoughts with photos, maps and web links—and even create a checklist of to-dos.

Checklists work perfectly for stuff like grocery lists, wish lists, quick to-dos and what not, and they're interactive so you can tick off individual items to mark them as completed. And with iCloud, changes to your notes are automatically pushed to all your devices.

In this post, we're going to demonstrate how easy it is to create interactive checklists in Notes on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac and iCloud.com.

Apple releases OS X 10.11.1 beta 4 to developers and public testers

Cody Lee ∙ October 14, 2015

Apple on Wednesday seeded the fourth beta of OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 to developers and public testers. The new build is available to registered developers via the Updates section of the Mac App Store or through Apple’s Developer Center. Public testers can also find it in the Updates section of the MAS, or via the public beta portal.

Apple seeds OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan beta 3 to developers and public beta testers

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 7, 2015

A third beta of what would become El Capitan's first major software update following the recent release of the operating system is now available to members of the Apple Developer Program and public beta testers signed for the Apple Beta Software Program.

How to send video wirelessly from your Mac to TV

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 30, 2017

Since OS X 10.9 Mavericks owners of the Apple TV have been able to wirelessly mirror their Mac screen to the big screen TV with an AirPlay feature called AirDisplay. There was just one slight problem: you couldn't stream individual videos without mirroring the whole screen.

Apple has solved this annoyance with OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which introduced richer AirPlay support permitting you to send video from Safari and other apps to the Apple TV.

Skype’s iPad and Mac apps now support new multitasking features in iOS 9 and El Capitan

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 1, 2015

Microsoft-owned Skype for iPad was refreshed in the App Store earlier this morning with support for new multitasking features provided by iOS 9. It's now easier to chat with friends on Skype while surfing the web, reading your email or running other apps in side-by-side Split View multitasking mode (requires iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 4).

In addition to Split View, Skype for iPad also supports Slide Over mode. Both instant messaging and voice calling are supported in Split View and Slide Over.

El Capitan’s Boot Camp has USB drive-less Windows setup, but not all Macs are supported

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 1, 2015

Boot Camp, the Mac's built-in software for dual-booting between OS X and Windows has been given some love in the new El Capitan software update and now features a slicker Windows setup that no longer requires a USB thumb drive, as discovered by Twocanoes.

Previously, Boot Camp required that the Windows installer be provided in the form of a USB drive or CD/DVD installation media. Now you can just point to an .ISO file, which significantly shortens the entire procedure for those who have purchased Windows as a digital download.

How to disable the mouse pointer shake gesture on Mac

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated May 30, 2017

Have you ever woken your Mac up from sleep, and couldn't find the mouse pointer among the mess of windows and desktop icons. We've all been there before.

Starting with El Capitan, macOS is hoping to help out with that, courtesy of a brand new addition to the operating system. It's certainly not a headline feature, but macOS can help you quickly locate your mouse or trackpad pointer by simply shaking your mouse or swiping your finger back and forth on the trackpad in quick succession.

Watch our video inside to see how it works. We'll also show you where to go to disable the feature in System Preferences.

Quick roundup of major El Capitan features

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 30, 2015

El Capitan is here and with it arrive tons of under-the-hood improvements that will make your Mac run faster and your daily computing smoother than before. Even though El Capitan is a Snow Leopard-style release focused on speed and core OS improvements, it nonetheless packs a pretty punch when it comes to user-facing features.

From a more streamlined Mission Control and a smarter Spotlight Search to more efficient multitasking in Split View mode and an all-new Notes to perfected stock apps and iOS-style gestures in Mail, El Capitan is about refinements to the already great Mac user experience and little things that are worth getting excited about.

Here's a short overview of major new features in El Capitan.

How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

Now that OS X El Capitan is officially out, it's time to update. First, though, make sure you read our post on how to prepare for OS X El Capitan. It covers basic information, such as using Time Machine to backup your data.

Once you do that, it's time to download OS X El Capitan. You can do that from the Mac App Store, and like past OS X updates, it's totally free. Fire up the Mac App Store, and get to downloading!

OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update is now available for your Mac, get downloading

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2024

Keeping true to its promise, Apple today launched the OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update for the Mac. El Capitan has the same system requirements as Yosemite, meaning it should run on any Mac introduced in 2009 and later, and some models introduced in 2007 and 2008.

The software update offers several new headline features while packing in a bunch of under-the-hood refinements designed to make your Mac run faster and more efficiently than before.

If you don't see the update in the Mac App Store's Updates tab yet, give it a while as these things take time to propagate through the Interwebs. By the way, you can manually run a search for 'El Capitan' in the Mac App Store and install it from there.

Apple seeds OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 beta 2 to developers

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 29, 2015

Apple just seeded OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 beta 2 to developers. It follows up its release of OS X 10.11.1 beta 1 back on September 17. The timing for the new beta release is of interest, as Apple is planning on dropping the public version of the free OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update tomorrow.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update launching tomorrow on Mac App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 29, 2024

OS X 10.11 El Capitan is launching tomorrow and Apple just issued a reminder in the form of a media release alerting customers of the impending update.

“Apple today announced that OS X El Capitan, the latest major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, will be available on Wednesday, September 30 as a free update for Mac users,” reads the press release.

Will you be taking the plunge?