HCS Blog

Do you like using full-screen mode on your new M1-based MacBook Pro but hate having the menu bar disappear unless you move the pointer to the top of the screen? Happily, in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has at long last added a setting to keep the menu bar visible at all times. Open System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and uncheck “Automatically hide and show the menu bar in full screen.” The change won’t affect apps currently in full-screen mode until you toggle their window state again or quit and relaunch. Unfortunately, some apps, including Apple’s Photos, need to be updated to show toolbars or other controls at the top of the window without forcing you to mouse up there to reveal them.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

When you move from an old iPhone or iPad to a new one, the easiest approach is often the Quick Start device-to-device transfer. But if that doesn’t work, or if you have to give up one device before receiving the other, iCloud Backup is a fine alternative. Fine, that is, if you have enough iCloud storage space, which many people with the free 5 GB plan do not. For devices running iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, Apple just introduced the option to create a temporary iCloud backup that’s larger than the available space. Tap Settings > General > Transfer or Reset Device > Get Started to create the backup. You have 21 days (plus another 21 if necessary) to restore that backup, and it sticks around for another 7 days after you restore.

(Featured image by iStock.com/honley)

The most magical feature of Apple’s latest crop of operating systems—iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey—may be Live Text. You’re probably familiar with the concept of optical character recognition (OCR), which turns all the text on a scanned page into normal text you can select, copy, and edit. Live Text does exactly that in Photos, Safari, and the Camera app, plus lets you search for text in photos. And it does it in not just in English, but also Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Thanks to the incredible processing power of Apple’s recent devices, this digitization of graphics to text takes place instantly—hence “live” text. Apple says it works on any Mac that can run Monterey, but on the iPhone and iPad, it requires a model with an A12 Bionic processor or later, which means anything in this list (check your device in Settings > General > About > Model Name):

It may seem early to start thinking about the holiday shopping season, but with the global supply chain suffering pandemic-related slowdowns, there’s no telling how long it will take to get something you order today. Apple has generally done a good job of managing its supply chain issues, but even still, if you want to make sure you have an Apple something for that special someone, we recommend buying it soon. Here are our recommendations.

AirTag

Do you know someone who’s always misplacing their keys, purse, or backpack? Apple’s new AirTag tracker is the perfect gift for such a person. Attach one to a keyring (with a separate $29 AirTag Loop or $39 AirTag Leather Loop) or drop it in a bag, and from then on, the person can use the Find My app to see where they left their stuff. Support for ultra-wideband enables precision finding with an iPhone 11 or later—with earlier iPhones, the detected location won’t be quite so precise. AirTag uses the Find My network, so even if the item is far away, passing Apple devices that detect it can securely share its location with you. One AirTag costs $29, or you can get a pack of four for $99. You can even have Apple personalize each AirTag with custom text and emoji.

Along with a new version of Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple has released Safari 15 for macOS 11 Big Sur and macOS 10.15 Catalina. Why do this before macOS 12 Monterey ships? Some of the browser’s new capabilities—notably the Tab Groups feature—integrate it more deeply into your Apple device experience by syncing across devices. So, assuming you have Safari 15 on at least some of your devices, what’s new, and is it any good?

New Tab Bar Interface

For Safari 15, Apple tried to minimize the tab bar interface to occupy less screen real estate and stand out less from the content of Web pages by co-opting the color of each page. Early betas were met with a litany of complaints from testers, and Apple pulled back in the eventual releases, offering settings that let you retain the old interface. How that plays out varies between the iPhone, iPad, and Mac:

In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple expanded the concept of Do Not Disturb to what it calls Focus. You can create a Focus for different types of activities, so only specific people and apps can break through your cone of silence at appropriate times. Focus subsumes the old Do Not Disturb functionality, and your settings may not transfer when you upgrade, leaving you open to being woken at night by a previously silenced notification. To check and reset things to your liking, visit Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb. If necessary, tap Add Schedule or Automation to set a schedule or try the new Smart Activation option. Then decide who, potentially beyond those in your Favorites, should be able to get through, along with any apps that might be essential. Note that you shouldn’t enable the Do Not Disturb switch at the top—that turns on the Do Not Disturb Focus immediately.

(Featured image by iStock.com/klebercordeiro)