Help

How to chat live with Apple Support on the web or your device

Chat live with Apple Support from iPhone or computer

Apple offers a support site to help answer your questions. Whether it's for a problem with your device, subscription, or service plan, most times, you can find answers without the need for a real person. But if your question cannot be answered or falls outside of those you see on the support site, it might be time for a chat.

You can chat live with Apple Support by navigating to a particular spot on the website or using the Apple Support app. Here's how.

How to use the VoiceOver Help and Commands menus on Mac

VoiceOver and Help Menu on Mac

When you first start using VoiceOver on Mac, it can take some time to get used to it. Remembering the commands available and how to initiate them definitely takes some time. Apple knows this and provides helpful menus to make it a bit easier.

While using VoiceOver, you can access the Help and Commands menus for some assistance. And if there’s any keyboard shortcuts to remember when using VoiceOver, it’s the ones to display these menus. So, here’s how to access and use the VoiceOver Help and Command menus on your Mac.

How to call your destination when using the Maps app on Apple Watch

It’s the little shortcuts Apple Watch can provide in life that make wearing the device oh so rewarding at times. The most prominent ones have certainly saturated Apple’s marketing and most corners of the internet by now, still many smaller tricks are hardly covered simply because they can be so darn hard to find.

The following one certainly falls into that category, as I had never heard or read about it before, and I frankly came across it by pure chance. If you have to hit the roads regularly and rely on Apple Maps and your watch to get to your destination, it’s a deft shortcut that makes sure you can keep your eyes on the road at all times - even if you need to make a phone call to the place you are currently headed!

How to have the Music app only show songs stored on your device

Thanks to the introduction of goodies like the iCloud Music Library and more recently Apple Music, your Music app on iPhone and iPad has not only turned from a luscious red color into a plain icon, but has also become decidedly more convoluted.

The main change since the coming of the cloud-based additions to the Music app? Songs no longer have to be stored locally on your device in order to be visible and playable. In case you haven’t yet found the trick hiding in plain sight to only play the songs downloaded to your device (and prevent exorbitant data charges), let’s fill you in now!

How to automatically create an Apple Music playlist with songs you identified with Shazam

My Shazam Tracks playlist in the Music app on iPhone

Once you identify a song with Shazam, you can easily find it later using any of these five ways. You can also make things easier and have Shazam automatically create a new playlist in Apple Music with all your discovered tracks. When you Shazam tracks in the future; they will automatically appear in that playlist inside your Music app.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create an Apple Music playlist with all your Shazamed songs on iPhone or iPad.

How to turn off notifications for specific podcasts on iPhone

Apple Podcasts app on iPhone showing iDownloadBlog's Downtime show on the screen

Getting too many podcast notifications on your iPhone or iPad? Learn how to turn off alerts for specific podcast shows without unfollowing or unsubscribing from them. We will also explain how to turn off all notifications for the entire Podcasts app and share what to do if you rely on third-party apps.

Apple wants to zero in on ‘Pro’ segment, but what about the large majority?

In a statement warmly welcomed by us internet folk, Tim Cook recently proclaimed "you will see us do more in the pro area." In our circles, this is unquestionably good news, as we all foster an insatiable appetite for new innovations, be that on a hardware or software level. More pro is great, however I invariably had to spare a thought for the average, not-so techy Apple customer.

I’m talking about the type of customer that after owning their iPhone 6S for more than a year, still has little concept of what 3D Touch does. Or how about the one that loves their new MacBook, but will gaze at you with a stunned expression when you introduce them to Force Touch on their trackpad. This is by no means meant to sound snarky or patronizing, because as a matter of fact, I don’t blame them for not knowing - I blame Apple for failing to take everyone along for the ride due to poor communication.

Shifting up the ‘Pro’ a notch in the future sounds great, that said how do you straddle the line between pleasing us tech-warriors and not entirely overwhelming a large majority of users, a majority already only privity to roughly half of the juicy features on their devices? Apple needs to find some cogent answers to this issue, and rather than creating a two-tier system in their hardware sold (labelling only some products 'Pro'), I contend that software could be the key.

Why making a support account on Twitter was a great move by Apple

Within just a single day of launching a support account on Twitter, Apple has well over 130,000 followers and is answering over 100 people with questions about Apple products and services per hour.

Although it's taken Apple quite a while to finally use Twitter as a support medium for its main products, depsite having Twitter accounts for Apple Music, Beats 1, and iTunes for quite some time, it's still great to see Apple is using another method of communication to reach its users.

In this piece, we'll talk about why we think creating the support account on Twitter was a great move for Apple.