HCS Blog

This command will convert a signed configuration profile to xml 1 and send the output to a file named test.plist

security cms -D -i  /Users/yourusername/Desktop/mySettings.mobileconfig > test.plist

Apple has long provided a microphone button in the keyboard to invoke dictation on the iPhone and iPad. But, it wasn’t always easy to hit, and you had to switch back to the keyboard to fix the inevitable mistakes. (Apple’s dictation is a huge timesaver but far from perfect, particularly with homonyms and proper nouns.) With iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Apple made the microphone button larger and repositioned it to make it easier to tap. More importantly, the keyboard remains available while dictation is active, enabling you to work with text manually during dictation. You can fix mistakes, reposition the insertion point, select and delete text, and so on. For instance, if dictation inserts the wrong word, double-tap the word to select it and speak the replacement. Or, if you want to add something, tap in the text to move the insertion point and start speaking again. Dictation can even add punctuation for you, but it’s a little haphazard at that, so you might want to disable that option in Settings > General > Keyboard.

(Featured image by iStock.com/fizkes)

If you’ve ever tried to use Face ID to unlock an iPhone while lying on your side in bed, you may have noticed that it didn’t work. That’s because Face ID used to require that the iPhone be upright, in portrait mode. In iOS 16, however, Apple has improved Face ID so it will unlock your iPhone even when you’re lying on your side and the iPhone is in landscape orientation. Alas, this capability requires an iPhone 13 or iPhone 14, but if you have one of those phones, give it a try in bed tonight—you don’t need to adjust any settings.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Kateryna Onyshchuk)

Apple makes it easy to share contact cards on the iPhone or iPad—just scroll down in a contact and tap Share Contact. But what if you don’t want to share every piece of data on that card? To avoid oversharing in iOS 16 or iPadOS 16, tap Filter Fields at the top of the Share sheet and deselect the private items. If the card has a lot of data and you want to share only a few items, tap Deselect All Fields at the bottom of the sheet and select only what you want to share. Unfortunately, your selections aren’t remembered if you share the same card again later, so be sure to reset your selections each time you share.

(Featured image by iStock.com/diane39)

On occasion, we all need to scan a document—an invoice, a recipe, instructions from a book—but far more people have an iPhone or iPad than a hardware scanner. Luckily, Apple has built a scanning capability into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS for some years now. The next time you’re faced with a piece of paper that you need in digital form, follow the instructions below.

Scan Directly with an iPhone or iPad

The little-known key to scanning with an iPhone or iPad is the Files app, which lets you scan one or more pages and save a PDF anywhere you like. Since it’s particularly easy to use iCloud Drive with Files, it’s a good way to create a file you can work with on your Mac later. (You can also scan into a note using the Notes app, but that’s mostly useful for storing information rather than creating files you can upload to the Web, send via email, or share in other ways.)

Happy New Year! For many of us, starting a new year means reflecting on fresh habits we’d like to adopt. Although we certainly support any resolutions you may have made to get enough sleep, eat better, reduce social media usage, and exercise more, could we suggest a few that will improve your digital security and reduce the chances that bad things will happen to you online?

Keep Your Devices Updated

One important thing you can do to protect your security is to install new operating system updates and security updates soon after Apple releases them. Although the details seldom make the news because they’re both highly specific and highly technical, you can get a sense of how important security updates are by the fact that a typical update addresses 20–40 vulnerabilities that Apple or outside researchers have identified. Some are even zero-day vulnerabilities that are already being exploited in the wild.