Mac

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Poll: Does a Mac version of TaiG even matter at this point?

The TaiG jailbreak for either iOS 8.3 or iOS 8.4 has been out for over two and a half weeks. Many users have jailbroken their iPhone, iPads, and iPod touches as a result.

Even though the TaiG tool has been Windows-only this entire time, plenty of Mac-only jailbreakers have been able to use it by means of a Bootcamp partition, or a virtual machine—which is far and away the most popular way to jailbreak on a Mac.

So the question stands to be asked: do you even care about a Mac version of TaiG at this point? Rumors are swirling that a Mac tool is indeed in the works, but it's been so long, I imagine most who were starving for a jailbreak either used a friend's Windows computer, or took advantage of one of the above options.

Vote in our poll and let us know...

Microsoft releases Office 2016 for Mac to Office 365 subscribers

Microsoft on Thursday announced the release of Office 2016 for Mac. This marks the first major Mac release of the popular software suite since Office 2011, and it's now available for download in 140 countries, for Office 365 subscribers.

"Unmistakably Office, designed for Mac," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate VP of Office Client Applications and Services. It includes new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, as well as a number of improvements.

How to exclude files from Time Machine backups

In our third Time Machine tutorial for macOS, we'll show you how to exclude specific files or folders from being included in your Time Machine backup. You'll find that it's extremely easy to curate your Time Machine backups using its preferences.

The thing that I really like about Time Machine is that you can exclude not only individual files, but entire folders of files as well. Have a look at our easy to use tutorial to find out how you can exclude certain data from becoming a part of your backup.

Apple’s ‘El Capitan’ European trademark filing confusingly includes tablets

Is Apple really readying an iPad that could run both iOS and OS X? The toaster-refrigerator dilemma has been occupying the collective mind of fans who have been keeping their fingers crossed for the convergence of the Mac and iPad ever since the original iPad debuted more than five years ago.

Apple's European trademark filing for ‘El Capitan’ is certainly intriguing, to say the least, as it mentions tablets as one of the devices targeted by the desktop operating system, as revealed yesterday by Patently Apple.

How to force quit a Mac app

Force Quit window on Mac

In this tutorial, we go over four ways to force quit apps on Mac so you can close an app that is misbehaving, is frozen or unresponsive, or has monopolized system resources and is slowing down your computer.

Apple posts OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 with Wi-Fi fixes, Mail and Photos improvements and more

In addition to the new iOS 8.4 software update with a redesigned Music app, Beats 1 radio and Apple Music for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Apple also released the free OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 software update for Macs.

In addition to various other big fixes, enhancements and nice-to-haves, this release of OS X Yosemite gets rid of the dreaded “discoveryd” network process which was responsible for a range of network issues, marking the return of the old but way more reliable “mDNSResponder” process.

How to prepare for a possible iOS 8.3 downgrade

When Apple closes the firmware signing window for iOS 8.3, users wishing to downgrade (or upgrade) to iOS 8.3 won't be allowed to do so. Instead, you'll have to settle for whatever firmware Apple is signing, which is usually the latest and greatest out there.

When that happens, it's quite probable that it could spell the end of jailbreaking for a while—remember we just got out of a significant lull.

With this in mind, the ability to downgrade back to iOS 8.3 is very desirous for would-be jailbreakers. While there is no confirmed downgrade ability just yet, there are some things that you can do to ensure that you have the best chance to downgrade should that ability arrive.

This is accomplished by saving your iOS 8.3 SHSH blobs.

To save your SHSH blobs and prepare for a possible iOS 8.3 downgrade, you'll need to use TinyUmbrella to do so. I'll show you how in this post and video.

How to halve your data usage on Chrome for Mac, iPhone and iPad

Google's Chrome browser includes a handy feature designed to decrease bandwidth usage by up to fifty percent for mobile users on very slow networks. Called Data Saver, it works by passing webpages you visit to Google servers that compress graphics and other web content.

You can even tell Data Saver to replace the originally requested image with a small placeholder graphic, if the original image is likely not a crucial element of the page.

Here's how you can reduce the amount of data that Chrome uses on your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad by enabling Data Saver mode to cut your bandwidth usage up to fifty percent, and even more.

Stuck on 20% in TaiG? How to jailbreak iOS 8.3 with TaiG 2.1.3

As we mentioned earlier, TaiG has released version 2.1.3 of its jailbreak tool, and it's a significant update as far as fixes go. First and foremost, it works with virtual machines, so you no longer need to modify your virtual machine to use the tool. Secondly, it fixes the 20% hangup. With these things in mind, we thought we'd show you how to jailbreak using this latest TaiG update.

This post is primarily aimed at those who have yet to jailbreak, and are looking for guidance with the latest tool. In the video that follows, we'll show you the proper way to go about jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad, and we'll show you how well the tool runs on a virtual machine.

How to encrypt Time Machine backups

In our second Time Machine tutorial, we're going to show you how to encrypt a Time Machine backup. Encrypting your backups is extremely easy and straightforward. All you need to do is select a single check box in order to enable encryption and enter a password. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to do it, and why you should consider encrypting your backups.