The Single-click Trick to Declutter Your Mac’s Screen

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Is your Mac’s screen cluttered with windows from different apps? Sometimes it’s handy to be able to see a couple simultaneously, but having too many apps visible is often distracting. There are a variety of ways to focus on a single app at a time, but here’s one of the easiest. Whenever you click on an app’s window or Dock icon to bring it to the foreground, also hold down the Option key to hide all the windows from the app you’re switching away from. Get in the habit of Option-clicking to switch apps regularly, and before long you’ll find that you can more easily focus on what you’re doing without distractions from other apps.

How to Stop Annoying Screen Flipping on Your iPad or iPhone

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Normally, it’s helpful when an app on your iPad or iPhone switches from vertical (portrait) to horizontal (landscape) as you rotate the device. But it can be annoying to have the screen orientation flip back and forth, such as when you’re reading while lying on your side and holding the iPhone at an angle. Luckily, you can prevent the flipping by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to reveal Control Center and then tapping the Orientation Lock button. On the iPad, that sticks the screen into whatever orientation it’s in at that time—either portrait or landscape. But on the iPhone, the Orientation Lock button forces the screen into portrait orientation. Tap the button again to disable orientation lock, and remember this setting if you can’t get your device to rotate when you think it should.

Peer Deep into Your Mac’s Soul with About This Mac

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It’s easy to forget details about your Mac—what precise model it is, how much memory is installed, and so on. The quick way to remind yourself of the specifics is to choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. Obvious, we know, but it’s essential to remember when talking to tech support or trying to determine if you need more storage or can add more memory. Click each button at the top to learn more about your Mac’s configuration or, in the case of Support and Service, to get links to information from Apple.

Can’t Find an App on Your iPhone? Ask Spotlight or Siri!

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It’s easy to find the apps you use regularly on your iPhone or iPad, but there’s little more frustrating than needing an app you seldom launch and not being able to find it. You could scroll through all the home screens on your device and hope you recognize the icon, but here’s a faster approach. Search in Spotlight by swiping down on the home screen and entering the first few letters of the app’s name. That’s especially handy if you can’t remember exactly what the app is called. If you can remember the app’s name, another quick approach is to hold down the Home button, wait for Siri to activate, and then ask Siri to “open” the app’s name, as in “Open Runkeeper.”

3 Shortcuts for Sharing Web Links between Your Apple Devices

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The iPhone is great for quickly viewing a Web page on the go, but what if you later want to work with it on a bigger screen? Or, what if you come across an interesting article on your Mac over breakfast, but want to finish reading it on your iPad later in the day? There are several simple methods of transporting a Web page among your Apple devices, but it can be difficult to pick the best one. Here are your best options.

Hand It Off

Apple’s Handoff feature is ideal when you want to move a Web page to another device immediately. Make the switch as follows:

  • If that other device is a Mac, click the Handoff/Safari icon that appears at the left (or top) of your Dock.

  • If that other device is an iPhone or iPad, look on the Lock screen for a Safari icon and then swipe up on that icon. Or, double-press the Home button to access the App Switcher and tap the Safari bar at the bottom of that screen.

Open a Tab

When you open a page in Safari, it appears in a tab. You can see this easily on your Mac in the Tab Bar (if you don’t see it, choose View > Tab Bar). It gets more interesting, however, when you view all the open tabs on all your Apple devices. To do this, click (or tap) theTabs  button, which appears at the top of Safari on the Mac and iPad, and at the bottom of the screen on the iPhone.

In the Tab view, you first see tabs from the device you are using. Beneath them (and you may need to scroll down) are the tabs from your other Apple devices. To open a tabbed page, click (or tap) its listing. Presto!

Assign It as Reading

Safari can store a list of pages that you want to read later in its Reading List, which is ideal for magazine-style articles that you want to return to when you have time to focus.

To add the current page to your Reading List on the Mac, choose Bookmarks > Add to Reading List. On your iPhone or iPad, tap the Share button and then tap Add to Reading List.

To access your Reading List in Safari on the Mac, choose View > Show Reading List Sidebar. In Safari on your iOS device, tap the Book icon and then tap the Eyeglass icon. Then, select the article you want to read to load it.

For most people, these techniques should just work, as is the Apple way, but they do rely on a lot of wizardry behind the scenes. If you have trouble, make sure that:

  • All your devices are signed in to the same iCloud account
  • Safari is enabled in System Preferences > iCloud on the Mac and in Settings > iCloud in iOS

Handoff has a few additional requirements, so ensure that:

  • Every device has Bluetooth turned on and is connected to the same Wi-Fi network
  • Handoff is on in System Preferences > General on the Mac and in Settings > General in iOS. If you don’t see a Handoff option, your device is too old to support Handoff.

Once you’re up and running, you’ll be zapping Web links back and forth between your devices with ease!