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.

Chrome 60 rolling out, brings handy navigation shortcut to your Touch Bar

Google yesterday announced that its freshly updated Chrome desktop browser has at long last brought out official support for handy navigation shortcuts on the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar.

Supported shortcuts include Chrome's unified search/URL box, bookmarks and a new tab shortcut. Like with other Touch Bar shortcuts, they're easily customizable by choosing Customize Touch Bar from the View menu, where you can also turn off typing suggestions.

In addition, Chrome 60 for macOS includes an updated Credential Management API (allowing websites to interact with Chrome's password manager) while packing in support for the Payment Request API for auto-filling checkout forms and other developer enhancements.

On a related note, Google said yesterday it would remove Flash completely from Chrome toward the end of 2020 following Adobe's announcement to end-of-life its Flash plug-in.

If you regularly visit a site that uses Flash today and it migrates to open web standards, you shouldn’t notice much difference except that you'll no longer see prompts in Chrome to run Flash on that site. “If the site continues to use Flash, and you give the site permission to run Flash, it will work through the end of 2020,” said Google.

Chrome's silent updating mechanism ensures you're always running the most recent version of the app. To check for updates manually, choose About Google Chrome from the menu.

You can download Chrome from Google's website.

Mac unlock with Apple Watch not working? Try these simple steps

The macOS feature that allows you to unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch offers security and convenience. The problem may arise when that feature doesn't work as expected.

If you have set up your Mac to be unlocked with your Apple Watch and are having issues with the feature not working properly, there are a few things you can try.

How to remove the Macintosh HD icon from the desktop on Mac

Remove the Macintosh HD and other hard disk icons from Mac desktop

Neat freaks like me like to keep the desktop of their computers free of any clutter. That includes files, folders, and of course, the Macintosh HD icon. As a matter of fact, removing the Macintosh HD icon from the desktop is one of the first few things I do when setting up a new Mac.

Although pretty simple to do, hiding that icon is not very obvious to less tech-savvy people. So in this post, I will describe how to remove the Macintosh HD or the hard disk/SSD icon from the desktop on your Mac.

AirBar accessory that brings touch to your MacBook Air is now available

AirBar, a cool Mac touchscreen accessory that was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2017, is now available to purchase for $99 at Fry's Electronics, Evine.com and other retailers in the United States, its maker Neonode announced Tuesday.

The product will also launch through Amazon, Best Buy, Staples and other online outlets.

AirBar is basically a touchscreen sensor in the form of a USB laptop dongle that brings familiar touch gestures to your thirteen-inch MacBook Air. It uses an invisible light field projected on the surface of the MacBook Air's display to detect objects like a finger or stylus.

When an object breaks the light, the accessory is able to detect its precise position and distinguish between gestures like tapping, swiping, scrolling and pinch-zooming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-4fFaWLnlQ

Remo Behdasht, Senior Vice President of AirBar Devices at Neonode, said:

We’ve seen an overwhelmingly positive response from the Apple community since our big debut of AirBar for MacBook Air at CES this year. Other Apple devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, have helped consumers become accustomed to a range of touchscreen products for several years now.

It’s a natural progression for MacBook Air to have touchscreen capabilities, and we are thrilled to provide Apple enthusiasts with this completely new way to interact with their MacBook Air notebook.

Neonode’s patented zForce AIR technology lets you use anything from a gloved finger to a paintbrush to interact with the MacBook Air's screen, ideal for scrolling through emails, reading e-books, zooming in on images and more.

The product is plug-and-play though support for additional gestures requires the installation of the AirBar multitouch software. AirBar does not support other Mac notebook models because it needs 17mm of free space below the display.

For more information, visit www.air.bar.

Here are some of new emoji coming to iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch later this year

Celebrating World Emoji Day on July 17, Apple on Monday previewed some of the new emoji coming to iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and Apple Watch later this year.

They include a woman with a headscarf, a bearded person and breastfeeding, as well as various new food items such as sandwich and coconut.

“More animals and mythical creatures like T-Rex, zebra, zombie and Elf are a fun way to describe situations and new star-struck and exploding head smiley faces make any message more fun,” said Apple.

The aforementioned emoji are coming to iOS, macOS and watchOS later this year as part of the 56 new emoji recently unveiled by the Unicode Consortium.

Emojipedia provides the complete list of new Unicode 10 emoji.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIJLOgdSZo

Emoji on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV are part of the Apple Color Emoji font.

Also in celebration of World Emoji Day, App Store will be highlighting apps to create or do fun things with emoji. iTunes Movies is already featuring emoji in place of select movie titles. The new emoji should be delivered via point updates to iOS 11, macOS High Sierra and watchOS 4.

macOS High Sierra public beta 2 drops

Aside from releasing iOS 11 public beta 2, Apple this morning posted a second public beta for macOS High Sierra. It has the same features (and bugs) like developer-only beta 3 seeded to registered developers and members of the paid Apple Developer Program two days ago.

To install the public beta of High Sierra on your computer, sign up for Apple's Beta Software Program by signing in with your Apple ID in Safari on your Mac at beta.apple.com

Next, click the “Enroll Your Devices” link on the webpage to download the macOS Public Beta Access Utility, which will enable your computer to receive public beta software through the Software Update mechanism via the Mac App Store's Updates tab.

To check if your computer is enrolled in the beta program, open System Preferences and click the App Store icon. A message will appear saying "your computer is set to receive beta software update" if your Mac is enrolled in the program.

macOS High Sierra includes new features like the Apple File System, support for the new High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC), also known as H.265, an updated version of Metal with support for VR applications and external GPU enclosures, Safari 11 with new anti-tracking features, support for flight status information in Spotlight, more natural voices for Siri and more.

FaceTime, Messages, Notes and other stock apps have been updated with various enhancements, including the Photos app which now has a new sidebar, curve-based editing and support for editing in third-party apps like Pixelmator and Photoshop.

High Sierra will release for public consumption this fall for supported Mac models.