It’s unfortunate that the most recent iteration of the Magic Mouse has its Lightning charging port on the bottom, making it impossible to use while charging, unlike the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, which work fine when plugged in. To check if your Magic Mouse needs charging before it starts to nag (and starts acting a little funky), look in one of these spots. If your menu bar is displaying the Bluetooth icon, click it, and the charge level should show up. Or click the Control Center icon on the menu bar and click Bluetooth. You can also look in System Preferences, in either the Bluetooth preference pane or the Mouse preference pane. In our experience, the Bluetooth menu is the easiest, but Control Center and the Mouse preference pane are the most reliable—sometimes the charge level doesn’t appear in the menu.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Alex Sholom)

As pandemic-related restrictions ebb and flow, many people continue to work from home at least some of the time. A key requirement for successful remote work is a fast, solid Internet connection. Unfortunately, it’s all too common for Internet connections to degrade over time as cables endure a variety of insults ranging from water seeping into connectors to squirrels gnawing through insulation. You might be surprised at how variable such problems can be—we once saw an Internet connection that dropped out infrequently; it turned out that squirrels had damaged just one pair of wires in the cable, and the Internet provider’s system hopped between pairs depending on other neighborhood traffic.

How do you know if something in your Internet connection needs fixing? If the entire connection goes offline periodically, even if it comes back on its own, that’s a hint. Videoconferencing apps and streaming video services can also provide useful warnings—if the picture often pixelates or pauses, or if the audio falls out of sync with the video, that’s another indication that something may be wrong. Finally, if you use a VPN, Internet connectivity issues can cause all sorts of weird problems.

When you notice such problems, you can perform a simple test that may shed some light on the situation. First, make sure to stop any audio or video streaming or large downloads. Then go to speedtest.net and click the Go button. Speedtest will run some tests to come up with three numbers:

• Download: Your download performance, generally measured in megabits per second (Mbps), is the most important and determines how quickly your computer can receive data from the Internet for downloads and streaming video.
• Upload: Conversely, your upload performance, also measured in megabits per second, determines how fast you can send data to the Internet. It’s almost always much lower than download performance, but sufficient upload bandwidth is essential for your audio and video to be clear and smooth in a videoconference.
• Latency: This number, which Speedtest calls “ping,” measures the amount of time in milliseconds to send a single packet to the destination server and receive it back again. The lower the latency, the more responsive communications will be, which is all-important for online gaming. Very long latencies can also cause problems for VPNs.

(You can also use other similar services, such as Netflix’s fast.com or Google’s built-in tester. Apple even built a networkQuality tool into macOS 12 Monterey—run it at the command line in Terminal—though it has an unusual Apple Network Responsiveness test that replaces the latency test.)

What should these numbers be? When you signed up for a plan with your Internet service provider (ISP), you should have been quoted download and upload numbers, such as 200 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. If you don’t know what those numbers should be, ask your ISP. It’s not uncommon for download and upload speeds to vary somewhat from what you were promised, but they should generally be close.

Latency is trickier, and ISPs won’t promise anything specific. The lower the latency number, the better. Speedtest suggests that times under 59 milliseconds are good for gaming, times between 60 and 129 milliseconds are acceptable, a range of 130–199 milliseconds is problematic, and 200-plus milliseconds won’t be usable. There’s no way to know what latency numbers might cause other problems, but we’d pay attention to anything over 100 milliseconds.

Let’s assume your numbers aren’t what they should be—or at least what you’d like them to be. Don’t complain to your ISP right away. Instead, try these steps:

• Run the test a few more times, preferably at different times of the day. (If you create an account with Speedtest, it will track your tests so you can see how they change.) You may discover that performance is slow only during peak usage hours.
• Run more tests using different Speedtest servers or even different testing services. You’re testing the performance between you and a particular server, and it’s possible that server is having problems that others won’t share.
• If you have other devices, run tests from those as well. Don’t assume you’ll get identical results because different devices may have varying capabilities. If you notice differences between devices that use Wi-Fi and those connected via Ethernet, that might point to your Wi-Fi router as a bottleneck. That’s not common with modern Wi-Fi routers, but if you’re still relying on an old AirPort Express, it could be slowing you down.
• Restart your devices, and if that doesn’t make a difference, restart or power cycle your router and modem as well.

If your performance problems persist through all those troubleshooting tests, the problem is likely in the physical connection, and only your ISP can address that. When you call, be sure to share the testing numbers and any commonalities—times of day, for instance—that you observed. With luck, they’ll be able to confirm your issues and dispatch a technician to evaluate the physical connection for problems.

(Featured image by iStock.com/gorodenkoff)

If you’re completely happy with your email provider, move on, there’s nothing to see here. But if you’re unhappy with your provider’s reliability, spam filtering, or stability as a business, or if you’re tired of having a 1990s-style address from aol.com or hotmail.com, you can switch. There are innumerable email providers, and many are undoubtedly good at what they do. But we’ve seen these services performing the best over the years. We’ll start with recommendations for business and then look at options for individuals.

Business Accounts

For a business, email is essential. You cannot put up with downtime, lost email, unpredictable spam filters, or any other nonsense. Plus, you need support for custom domains, multiple users, role accounts, two-factor authentication, and an admin console where you can manage it all (or someone can manage it for you). Although there are other providers in this space, the safe choices are Google and Microsoft. (We realize this falls into the category of “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” It’s basically true in this case—email isn’t an area to experiment with unknown quantities.)

• Google Workspace: Previously known as G Suite, Google Workspace brings together Google’s well-known collaboration tools, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and so on. Pricing starts at $6 per user per month and includes 30 GB of cloud storage per user; $12/user/month increases that to 2 TB. The big win of Google Workspace is that it provides a first-class experience for use within a Web browser. Google also provides iOS apps, and Apple’s Mail apps can access Gmail via IMAP.
• Microsoft 365: Previously known as Office 365 (what is it with all this renaming?) Microsoft 365 offers Web and mobile versions of the Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) along with hosted email with a 50 GB per user mailbox. 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage space is standard, along with online meetings and video calls using Microsoft Teams. The Basic plan costs only $5/user/month, but to get the desktop versions of the Office apps, you need at least the Standard plan, which runs $12.50/user/month.

The main way to decide between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 is to examine how focused your business is on core productivity apps. If you’re already relying heavily on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, it makes sense to go with Microsoft. However, if your company is more Web-based or uses a variety of non-Microsoft productivity apps, Google is probably the better option.

Either way, it’s a big decision, and please check with us before making any major moves. Depending on your situation, there may be less obvious reasons to choose one or the other, or even a third option that’s perfect for your situation. Plus, transitioning between providers may require significant work to ensure that you retain all your email archives.

Individual Accounts

For individual users, you want reliability and good spam filtering, and some people might appreciate being able to use a custom domain name. However, most people don’t need support for multiple users, an admin console, or other big-company features. Plus, you probably don’t want to pay much, if anything. Again, tons of companies offer email—many for free—but the ones we recommend are Apple, Google, and Fastmail:

• iCloud Mail: Nearly every Apple user has an iCloud account associated with their Apple ID, and with it comes iCloud Mail. It’s a fine choice for basic email, making it easy to access your messages on all your Apple devices and even on the Web at iCloud.com. Apple provides 5 GB of storage for free, which might seem like plenty for email, but it’s shared with iCloud Backup, iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, and more, so it’s easy to run out. For more storage, upgrade to iCloud+, which costs $0.99 for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB, and $9.99 for 2 TB. With iCloud+, you also get the option of adding a custom domain name, though it’s a rather involved process. The main thing we don’t like about iCloud Mail is that Apple sometimes goes overboard with spam filtering.
• Gmail: The most popular email service in the world is Google’s Gmail, with well over 1.5 billion users. Although the default way to access Gmail is through a Web browser on a Mac or the Gmail app on an iPhone or iPad, you can enable IMAP support to access it using Apple’s Mail apps. There’s also a highly regarded new Gmail-specific macOS app in development called Mimestream. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage for free, which is enough to hold most people for quite some time, and more storage is available inexpensively. Gmail’s spam filtering is generally very good, and unlike iCloud, it doesn’t delete any filtered messages without allowing you to see them first.
• Fastmail: In contrast with iCloud Mail and Gmail, Fastmail isn’t free—it costs $3/user/month for the Basic plan, but that’s limited to just 2 GB of storage, doesn’t support a custom domain, and requires that you ​​use Fastmail Web and mobile apps. For $5/user/month, the Standard plan increases the storage to 30 GB, lets you set up your own custom domain, and provides full IMAP access so you can use Apple’s Mail or any other standard email app. The big reasons to choose Fastmail are the company’s focus on privacy and to support a firm that does nothing but email.

Although switching your personal email isn’t as difficult as changing email providers is for a business, it’s still not something to be undertaken lightly. Contact us if you need advice on which service provider would be best for you and if you need assistance setting up forwards and bringing your old mail over to your new account.

(Featured image by iStock.com/anyaberkut)

The beauty of the iPhone camera is that it combines the ease of use of a point-and-shoot camera with the image quality of a DSLR. To take a picture, you simply open the Camera app, frame your shot, and tap the shutter button. Simple, but what’s happening behind the scenes is anything but. The iPhone captures multiple images at once, concentrating on variables such as exposure, focus, tone, highlights, shadows, and more. It then merges all that data to produce what it thinks is the best possible image. Impressively, all this computational photography happens in real-time with no perceptible delay. (That said, iOS 15 provides a Prioritize Faster Shooting option in Settings > Camera that adapts—and presumably reduces—the image quality when you rapidly press the shutter multiple times.)

Despite all this automation, Apple still provides numerous manual controls you can employ to take photos the way you want. These controls are hidden, though, so you’re excused if you haven’t noticed them or have been frustrated looking for them. (“Where is that dratted Timer button? It must be here somewhere!”)

First, you have to reveal the controls, which is easy, although you’d never guess how. When you’re in the Camera app, swipe up anywhere on the screen above the shutter button. If you swipe up on the horizontal row of camera mode labels, your swipe can be quite short. However, if you swipe up on the viewfinder image, the Camera app might interpret a short swipe as a tap-and-swipe and display the in-image exposure control instead. On the viewfinder, use a longer, more emphatic swipe ➊. Either way, the camera controls replace the camera modes underneath the viewfinder ➋.

Once you have the controls showing, tap a button to access its options, use a slider or button to adjust the settings ➌, tap the original button to hide the options, and swipe down in the same way you swiped up to hide all the controls. The really confusing bit is that not all the controls may fit on the screen, so if you’re looking for the Timer or Filter buttons on an iPhone 13 Pro, for instance, you may have to swipe left on the controls to bring those buttons into view.

Here’s the full set—note that all except Depth (the rightmost one below) are in Photo mode; some may also appear in other modes. (Not all controls appear on all iPhone models, and the Low Light button, for instance, shows up only in low-light situations.)

Now, let’s look at what the controls make possible:

• Flash: Use the Flash control to allow the camera to use the flash as needed or force it to be on or off. You can also control the flash in Video and Slo-Mo modes.
  
• Low Light: Night mode on some of Apple’s high-end iPhones makes it possible to take better pictures in very low-light situations. With this control, you can set a specific amount of time for Night mode’s exposure. The longer the exposure, the lighter the photo, but the more small movements will cause blur and graininess.
  
• Live Photo: Live Photo records 1.5 seconds of video before and after you take a photo, animating the photo slightly. Use this control to set whether the camera takes Live Photos all the time, none of the time, or automatically when it thinks it’s warranted (which is a lot).
  
• Photographic Styles: These custom settings—Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Warm, and Cool—let you apply that distinct look to all your photos automatically. Or stick with Standard and apply the look you want afterward by editing.
  
• Aspect Ratio: Some iPhones can take photos in multiple aspect ratios. Use this control to choose from the standard 4:3 (below left) ratio, square, and 16:9 (below right). The 16:9 ratio expands the viewfinder to show what it will capture.
  
• Exposure: Although automatic exposure control is usually fine (and you can adjust it afterward as well), you can use this control to increase or decrease the exposure manually. It’s also available in Video, Slo-Mo, and Time-Lapse modes.
  
• Timer: For a hands-free selfie or a group photo that includes the photographer, use this control to set the timer to 3 or 10 seconds, starting from when you tap the shutter button. The iPhone counts down with both flash bursts and an onscreen number.
  
• Filter: The Filter button offers nine options, three each in Vivid, Dramatic, and Mono. You may want to turn one of these on to see its effect while composing the shot. Otherwise, it’s easier to apply them in editing later.
  
• Depth: This control is available only in the Portrait and Cinematic modes, where it lets you increase or decrease the depth of field. If you increase the depth of field, the background becomes sharper; if you decrease it, the background gets blurrier.
  

Apart from Photographic Styles, which automatically remembers your setting from session to session, the Camera app generally resets any changes you make in the next session. That’s usually what you’d want, but if you would prefer to keep a setting until you change it manually, go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings. That screen provides switches that tell the Camera app to preserve specific settings. Pay particular attention to Creative Controls, Exposure Adjustment, Night Mode, and Live Photo—we often make a point of using Preserve Settings with Live Photo so we don’t waste a lot of space unless we actually want to shoot a Live Photo.

In the end, it’s nice that these controls are neither necessary nor cluttering your view most of the time, but they’re extremely useful on occasion. We hope that Apple comes up with a way of hinting at their existence in future versions of iOS.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Darkdiamond67)

Siri has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, and we’ve just discovered a new one. Let’s say you set iPhone alarms to wake up and remind you to take medication throughout the day. However, if you don’t have your iPhone handy when those alarms go off, it can be annoying (for both you and others) to find your phone and stop or snooze the alarm. If you have a HomePod, it turns out that you (or someone else) can say, “Hey Siri, snooze the alarm” or “Hey Siri, stop the alarm.” Siri usually asks for confirmation—just reply with “Yes”—and sometimes tells you to continue on the iPhone, but it can be easier than finding the iPhone and stopping the alarm. (And yes, if you’re wearing an Apple Watch, you can stop the alarm from it as well. It’s also possible to set alarms on a HomePod directly, though they’re useful only if you’re guaranteed to be home when they go off.)

(Featured image by iStock.com/Antonio_Diaz)

Before macOS 12 Monterey, if you wanted to sell, trade in, or give away your Mac, you had to boot into Recovery, erase the internal drive with Disk Utility, and reinstall macOS to ensure that the new owner would get a fresh start and couldn’t see any of your data. In Monterey, Apple has made the process much easier for newer Macs that use Apple silicon or that are Intel-based with a T2 security chip. Open System Preferences, and from the System Preferences menu (yes, it has menus), choose Erase All Content and Settings. You’ll have to enter an administrator username and password to enter the Erase Assistant. It suggests you back up to Time Machine before erasing, and if you’ve already done that or don’t want to, click Continue. Verify everything that will be erased on the next screen and click Continue. Finally, log out of your Apple ID when prompted to complete the erasure.

(Featured image by iStock.com/wildpixel)

In previous versions of iOS, you could change the systemwide text size to make all apps—at least those that support Dynamic Type—display text at larger or smaller sizes. (Most people who use this feature want the text larger so it’s easier to read with aging eyes.) In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, however, Apple lets you adjust the text size on a per-app basis, so you can increase it only for those apps where it really makes a difference for you. First, make sure Text Size is showing in Control Center by going to Settings > Control Center, and if it’s not in Included Controls, tap the green + button for it under More Controls. Then, while in an app where you want bigger text, invoke Control Center, tap the Text Size button, move the vertical slider to the desired setting, and then tap the App Only button so the setting affects only that app, not all apps.

(Featured image by iStock.com/SandraMatic)

It’s no exaggeration to say that videoconferencing went mainstream during the pandemic. However, Apple’s FaceTime didn’t stack up well against Zoom and others due to its emulation of the telephone call experience, questionable interface decisions, and lack of cross-platform compatibility. However, with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey, Apple has nearly brought FaceTime into feature parity with Zoom and others and it has even added a few features that break new ground.

FaceTime Links

One of the smallest new features in FaceTime may be the most important. No longer do you have to call others via FaceTime, an awkward approach left over from the days of landlines. That’s still possible, but it’s easier and more considerate to make and share a FaceTime link instead, which lets others join your call when they’re ready. FaceTime links make it effortless to rejoin a call if you have to drop off or if something goes wrong, and they simplify switching from one device to another. You can share FaceTime links like any other Web link, through Messages, email, discussion systems like Slack, or posting on a Web page.

To create a FaceTime link, launch the FaceTime app and use the Create Link button in the upper left. If you’re creating it in iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, you can add a name before copying or sharing the link in the share sheet. In Monterey, clicking the button presents a sharing menu with similar appropriate options.

To join a call, all a recipient of the link has to do is tap or click the link. If they’re running one of Apple’s latest operating systems, the call will also appear in the FaceTime app, under Upcoming.

Either way, people joining the call get a preview window in which they can adjust their video and mic settings. After they hit the Join button, the organizer is notified that they’re waiting and can add them to the call. (That may seem like an unnecessary extra step, but it ensures random trolls can’t join FaceTime calls whose links have been shared publicly.)

If you’re scheduling a call, you can create a FaceTime link within an event in Calendar. That’s handy to make sure you have the link available at the right time, to make it available on all your devices, and to let others access it via a shared calendar. Use the Location or Video Call field, and select FaceTime when it’s offered. The event then gets a Join button that makes it easy to access the call. (If you’re sharing the calendar with someone who isn’t using one of Apple’s latest operating systems, they’ll just see a link they can click.)

Despite being associated with an event, such FaceTime links aren’t time-specific. You can start the call any time you want, and anyone else can attempt to join it at any time, but they’ll be able to get in only if you as the organizer let them in. So it won’t do them any good to join before or after the scheduled time.

FaceTime Web App

FaceTime links are also essential for allowing FaceTime calls to include those who aren’t running Apple’s latest operating systems. If you’re still on macOS 11 Big Sur or iOS 14, opening a FaceTime link switches to Safari and opens the FaceTime Web app. That also works for those using Android, Windows, or Linux, as long as they have a compatible Web browser, which means Google Chrome or another Chrome-based browser like Brave or Microsoft Edge. Firefox won’t work.

For the most part, the FaceTime Web app works just like the native FaceTime app, with the ability to change basic camera and microphone settings and support for grid view. There are two notable limitations:

• FaceTime Web app users can only join calls, not initiate them.
• Advanced options like the mic modes and video effects aren’t available.

Mic Modes and Video Effects

In an effort to catch up with the likes of Zoom, Apple added several audio and video features to FaceTime. There are now three mic modes that you can enable in Control Center during a call:

• Standard: FaceTime does nothing special to the audio.
• Voice Isolation: FaceTime focuses on your voice, working to eliminate non-vocal sounds and other background noise.
• Wide Spectrum: FaceTime expands its attention to all the sounds in the room, which is essential for things like music lessons.

Although the equivalent Control Center button is labeled Video Effects, there’s only one at the moment: Portrait mode. It works exactly as it does in the Camera app for photos, keeping you in focus and blurring the background. Perhaps Apple will add other video effects in the future, much like Zoom’s virtual backgrounds and immersive sets. You can also toggle Portrait mode by tapping the Video Effects button in your FaceTime tile.

The Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum mic modes, and the Portrait mode video effect, are available only on iPhones and iPads that have an A12 Bionic chip or later, or an M1 chip. Similarly, they work only on M1-based Macs, not older Intel-based Macs.

Grid View

When Apple first introduced FaceTime group calls, participants’ tiles would swim around on the screen, moving and expanding to indicate who was speaking. It was dizzying. Happily, Apple finally listened to annoyed users and has now introduced a simple grid view like every other videoconferencing app on the planet.

Once there are four or more participants in a call on an iPhone or iPad, a Grid button appears when you tap the screen to reveal the FaceTime controls. Tap it to switch into or out of grid view. In Monterey, there’s an always-visible Grid button in the upper-right corner.

Screen Sharing for iPhones and iPads

As helpful as FaceTime links are, our favorite new feature of FaceTime is screen sharing for those using an iPhone or iPad. (Macs can’t currently participate in FaceTime screen sharing but have their own screen sharing capabilities, accessed through the Conversations menu in Messages.) With a couple of taps, you can share your screen with someone else, or they can share their screen with you, all while maintaining the video call. For many remote workers, this feature is essential, whether you are collaborating on a project or showing your work to your boss. Another obvious use is remote tech support. If someone is having trouble accomplishing something on their iPhone or iPad, you can see what’s going wrong live on a FaceTime call. And kids, no doubt, will find many fun things to do together.

To share your screen during a FaceTime call, tap anywhere on the screen to reveal the FaceTime controls, tap the screen sharing button on the right, and tap the Share My Screen confirmation prompt. After a 3-second countdown, others on the call can see your screen, even as you switch away from the FaceTime app and use your iPhone or iPad however you want.

While you’re sharing your screen, a purple status icon reminds you that others can see what you’re doing. To stop sharing your screen, tap someone’s video tile to switch back to the FaceTime app and tap the screen sharing button again.

When someone shares their screen with you, a Picture-in-Picture (PiP) window of their screen appears. Tap it to expand it to the entire screen, moving the FaceTime call video to its own PiP window. Tap that FaceTime PiP window to return to the call. If you switch to another app, as shown below, the shared screen returns to being a PiP window. If any PiP window is in your way, you can drag it to another corner or swipe it off the screen to the left or right to hide it entirely. A tab appears to indicate the hidden PiP window; tap it to bring the window back.

SharePlay

People will either love SharePlay or ignore it entirely. It enables everyone on a FaceTime call to watch the same video or listen to the same audio while continuing the conversation. The big caveat is that everyone must have legal access to the content, which generally means a subscription to whatever service is being used, whether that’s Apple Music, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO MAX, or Paramount+. Currently, SharePlay works only in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 and on the Apple TV running tvOS 15. It’s slated to appear in a future version of Monterey, perhaps 12.1.

Initiating a SharePlay session is easy: simply navigate to Apple’s TV or Music app, or another app that supports SharePlay, and start playing something. You may be asked if you want to play it for everyone or just for yourself, or you may be told the content will play automatically. Assuming everyone on the call has the necessary subscription, the audio or video starts playing instantly.

What’s a little freaky about SharePlay is that, with one minor exception, everyone is an equal participant. If you start playing something, someone else can pause it or rewind it, say, and the video will pause or rewind for everyone. The exception is that only the person who started playing a video can stop it (tap the screen to reveal the controls), although anyone can start playing something else to replace it.

If you have an Apple TV, you can initiate video playback from the Apple TV or move something that’s already playing to the Apple TV. While you’re on a FaceTime call on your iPhone or iPad, press and hold the TV button on the Apple TV’s remote to open Control Center, and then select the SharePlay button that appears there to get started.

With all these new features, it’s time to rethink how you use FaceTime, and that’s especially true if you haven’t been using FaceTime because it lacked the features in some other videoconferencing app.

(Featured image by iStock.com/jacoblund)

Some people find it hard to find the mouse pointer at times, particularly on a large screen or when working in Dark Mode or in apps with dark interfaces. You’ve long been able to increase the size of the pointer generally and also zoom it temporarily by shaking it, but in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple now lets you change the color of the pointer. That could be a boon to those who have trouble seeing it otherwise. Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Pointer, click the Pointer Fill Color box, and choose a different color in the color picker. You can also choose a different Pointer Outline Color if that’s helpful. After customizing it, if you decide you prefer the old black-and-white version, click the Reset button.

(Featured image by iStock.com/tahir_duran)