HCS Blog

Is your Mac’s menu bar overwhelmed with icons? They’re helpful little critters, but finding one can be difficult when you have too many and they’re in no particular order. The hidden trick to cleaning up your menu bar relies on the Command key.

Rearrange the menu bar icons in an order that makes sense to you by Command-dragging them around. You can’t move the Control Center icon or put anything to its right, but every other icon is movable. Delete unnecessary Apple-provided status icons by holding down Command and dragging them off the menu bar. (To put one back, select the “Show icon-name status in menu bar” checkbox in its System Settings screen.) You can’t remove the clock, Control Center, or the Siri icon this way, though you can turn off Siri in System Settings > Siri & Spotlight. Command-dragging to delete doesn’t work for non-Apple apps; instead, look for a preference in the app itself.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Valentyna Yeltsova)

On the iPhone and iPad, to send a photo to a Messages chat, tap the ⊕ button and then tap Photos in the list that appears to reveal the photo picker. That’s not difficult, but it requires an extra step you can avoid with this tip. If you’re running iOS 17 or iPadOS 17, instead of tapping the ⊕ button, touch and hold it for a second to bring up the photo picker immediately.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/oatawa)

Does it feel like your Apple devices are always asking you to install operating system updates? You’re not wrong—from September 2022 to January 2024, we saw the following releases in Apple’s previous set of operating systems:

macOS 13 Ventura: 20 releases iOS 16: 25 releases iPadOS 16: 20 releases watchOS 9: 15 releases tvOS 16: 12 releases

Apple issued many of those at the same time, but since you might not use all your devices every day, it can seem as though you spend all your time installing updates. As annoying as updating can be, we encourage you to do so soon after you’re notified for three reasons.

The near-ubiquity of videoconferencing is a lasting effect of the pandemic. The ease of gathering a group virtually usually more than makes up for the downsides. Despite that, many people still appear in video calls with low-resolution, poorly lit video that makes the call less effective.

A better webcam is an easy way to improve your video, and the best readily available webcam may already be in your pocket. That’s because you can use your iPhone and its high-quality cameras as a wired or wireless Mac webcam, thanks to Apple’s Continuity Camera technology.

In a slight nod to the hype surrounding generative AI, Apple added inline text prediction capabilities to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. They can be helpful, particularly on the iPhone and iPad, where it’s often much easier to tap the Space bar than to finish typing a word or sentence. But that’s less true on the Mac, where a fast typist can be slowed down or derailed by the suggestions, and some people dislike having an AI finish their thoughts. The feature is easily turned off. On the iPhone and iPad running at least iOS/iPadOS 17.2, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and switch off Show Predictions Inline. (Leave Predictive Text on to continue to get suggestions above the keyboard.) On the Mac running macOS 14.2 Sonoma or later, open System Settings > Keyboard, click Edit under the Text Input header, turn off “Show inline predictive text,” and click Done.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Armastas)

When Apple introduced tvOS 17 last September, an eagerly awaited feature was its support for FaceTime calls, using Continuity Camera on an iPhone or iPad to equip an Apple TV with the necessary camera and microphone. FaceTime on the Apple TV requires a second-generation Apple TV 4K or later and an iPhone running iOS 17 or an iPad running iPadOS 17.

The feature works pretty well. Setting up Continuity Camera is simple—you launch the FaceTime app on the Apple TV, select your user profile, confirm on the iPhone or iPad, and then position the iPhone or iPad in landscape orientation so the rear camera faces you. You can start FaceTime calls from the Apple TV or move a call in progress from an iPhone or iPad to the Apple TV. The video quality is excellent, the audio is surprisingly good even across the room, and Center Stage zooms and pans to keep you in the picture. You can also add reactions like hearts and fireworks with hand gestures. Or not.