Magic Trackpad

MacID’s ‘Tap to Unlock’ makes logging into your Mac even faster

Probably one of my most-used applications on my Mac is MacID, which I use on a daily basis to unlock my Mac without ever using the keyboard to enter a password. The application works in two ways – these include allowing you to use your iPhone or iPad's Touch ID sensor to log into your Mac, or using a secret 'Tap to Unlock' gesture on the multi-touch trackpad (or Magic Trackpad/Magic Trackpad 2) to log into your Mac.

Both ways can save a ton of time, and reduce wear and tear on your keyboard, but in this tutorial, we'll focus on how you can set up 'Tap to Unlock' in MacID on your Mac.

References to Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 discovered in OS X code

References to unreleased Apple-branded mouse, keyboard and trackpad accessories have been discovered in OS X code by French blog Consomac. Code strings discovered in the latest OS X 10.11.1 beta 3 point to the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2, which are likely next-generation versions of Apple-branded mouse and trackpad. In addition, the strings hint at a brand new keyboard, dubbed the Magic Keyboard.

Using BetterTouchTool to cycle through Safari tabs

BetterTouchTool is a free Mac utility that allows you to supercharge your Mac's trackpad gestures. There are literally hundreds of uses for an app like this, but I'd like to share with you one particular use case scenario that I find extremely useful.

I've set up BetterTouchTool to allow my MacBook's trackpad to quickly cycle through all of my open tabs in Safari using a simple two-finger gesture. Have a look at our full demonstration video and tutorial for all of the details.

Touch ID and Apple Pay could be coming to Apple notebooks and the desktop

Magic

Apple's revisions to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks, as well as next-generation versions of the wireless $69 Magic Mouse and the multi-touch enabled $69 Magic Trackpad, could soon gain an embedded Touch ID sensor for fingerprint identification, if a rumor posted Tuesday by Taiwanese blog Apple.club.tw is anything to go by. The site is alleging that Apple wants to bring its payment service from the confines of iOS-powered mobile devices to your desktop.