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.

64-bit Chrome for Mac in the works, test drive the beta now

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 29, 2014

The search giant Google yesterday posted the first beta of the upcoming Chrome for Mac browser with 64-bit support, following the public release of 64-bit Chrome for Windows earlier this week.

The 64-bit edition of Chrome for Mac was first made available for testing purposes to early adopters earlier this month, via the Mac edition of Chrome Canary.

For those unfamiliar with it, Chrome Canary is an experimental Chrome version for testing upcoming new features in their earliest form, and before they make their way into the beta and then the stable channel.

Mac users on the Chrome beta channel should have been updated to a new 64-bit version of Chrome 38 for Mac. If not, you can download your copy direct from Google and start reaping the benefits of 64-bit browsing.

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Notability finally arrives to the Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 28, 2014

Notability by Ginger Labs, the powerful iPhone and iPad note-taker to annotate documents, record lectures, sketch illustrations and more, has leaped to the Mac.

Now available in the Mac App Store for $9.99, the Mac edition completes the experience by extending functionality found in the iOS app to your desktop.

The app makes it easy to create notes by dragging PDFs, photos or audio files from your desktop to Notability.

Handwriting and sketches can be scaled, transformed, rotated, nudged and restyled to your liking. Most crucially, your notes will look the same on your Mac, iPad and iPhone and of course sync seamlessly between devices through iCloud.

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Latest Wunderlist update enhances mobile editing of your to-dos and tasks

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 12, 2018

Wunderlist, the beautiful cross-platform to-do and task list application by German developer 6Wunderkinder, has received its second update following the release of the major version 3.0 edition which brought out an overhauled appearance and more than sixty new features.

Today's update focuses on mobile editing of your items. Wunderlist 3.0.2, which is free in the App Store and Mac App Store, now finally allows iPhone, iPod touch and iPhone owners to move, complete and delete multiple items on the go.

Jump past the fold for the full reveal.

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OS X Yosemite Public Beta 2 and new iTunes 12 build now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 21, 2014

Apple has just released the second version of the OS X Yosemite Public Beta and a new beta build of the thoroughly overhauled iTunes 12 for Yosemite.

The second public Yosemite beta arrives after the first public beta was made available at the end of last month and is basically the same as OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 6 seeded to Apple's registered developers last week.

Both updates are available to download through the Mac App Store for those who've applied for the OS X Beta Program...

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Clean up your Downloads folder to regain storage space on your Mac

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 17, 2023

Sometimes, the most simple and obvious tips are the best. Everybody knows about them because they're usually based on good old common sense, yet, we usually forget about them. One such tip is to periodically clean up the Downloads folder of your Mac, which, depending on your setup and habits, could quickly go out of control.

The Downloads folder is the default location where any file you download from the internet is saved. Downloading the PDF of your bank statement? It's downloaded to the Downloads folder. Downloading a song from an unofficial source? It's most likely going to the Downloads folder.

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Parallels Desktop 10 is out with OS X Yosemite support, better battery life, and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Parallels this morning announced the launch of Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac, the highly anticipated update for its popular virtual environment software. The new version is available now as an upgrade for existing users, and will launch on August 26th for new customers.

For those unfamiliar with it, Parallels Desktop makes it extremely easy to install and run alternate operating systems on your Mac such as Windows or Linux. And today's update adds in [experimental] support for OS X Yosemite, better battery life, and other improvements...

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You can now take a Flyover tour of Yosemite National Park in Apple Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 19, 2014

Conveniently, Apple's added a 3D Flyover view of the Yosemite National Park in California and Wellington in New Zealand to its Maps service, available across Mac and iOS devices. The latest addition allows you to check out Yosemite's landmarks, or the buildings and other structures in the city of Wellington.

3D Flyover views for the Auckland and Christchurch areas in New Zealand have been added to Apple Maps earlier in the year. The Cupertino company has updated the Flyover availability webpage by adding Wellington and Yosemite to the list...

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How to enable Enhanced Dictation in OS X for streaming speech-to-text with live feedback

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

OS X includes a nifty Dictation feature which allows you to control your Mac and apps with your voice. You can use “speakable items”, basically a set of spoken commands, to open apps, choose menu items, email contacts and convert whole spoken sentences to text, wherever you can type text.

This is much like iOS’s Dictation feature as both iOS and OS X use the same Nuance-powered technology that turns speech to text. iOS devices have limited computing power so the Dictation feature on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad requires network connectivity in iOS 7 (iOS 8 supports streaming voice recognition and 22 new languages).

On the Mac, computing resources like CPU power, battery life and RAM are not of paramount importance as on mobile, Therefore, OS X Mavericks provides a new Enhanced Dictation feature which converts your words to text without utilizing Apple’s servers.

In other words, server-based Dictation lets you dictate without an active Internet connection. Because voice recognition processing runs locally on your Mac, text appears instantly as you speak. That is: continuos, streaming dictation with live feedback is made possible.

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to turn on Enhanced Dictation in OS X and take advantage of speech-to-text, even when you're off the grid...

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Safari 7.0.6/6.1.6 with Mavericks/Mountain Lion security fixes now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 14, 2014

Late yesterday, Apple released Safari 7.0.6 for OS X Mavericks and Safari 6.1.6 for OS X Mountain Lion.

The releases contain improvements to security related to Apple's desktop browser and are both recommended for all OS X Mavericks and OS X Mountain Lion users.

These updates follow the release of a new version of OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 (build 13F14) that Apple released to developers yesterday...

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Good deal: 95% off Mac app bundle featuring djay, Keyboard Maestro and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Folks in the market for some awesome Mac apps may want to check out this new promotion from StackSocial. For a limited time the deal site is offering 8 Mac applications and, for the first 5,000 buyers, a bonus developer eCourse for up to 95% off their original retail prices.

The bundle features popular apps like djay, the award-winning DJ software, Keyboard Maestro, a popular productivity app for creating keyboard shortcuts, and Apple Design Award-winner Cinemagraph Pro. Keep reading for a full breakdown of the software and other details...

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StatusDuck moves your Mac dock to the Menu bar

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated January 19, 2023

The dock in OS X is one of the most used areas of the operating system, so replacing it with another program isn't an easy task. However, StatusDuck does an excellent job of compacting the dock into a much smaller collection of running applications. Whether the dock takes up too much precious screen real estate or right-clicking to exit programs is growing tedious, StatusDuck can help.

With StatusDuck installed, applications can be launched and terminated, Finder windows and folders can be opened, and active programs can be sorted and managed, all from your Mac's menu bar...

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