Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

This week on Mac Geek Gab, you’re stacking up power moves from the jump. You’ll learn how to clean up messy lists in your favorite text editor, discover that any USB-C port on your MacBook can charge it, and find out why you should be charging your power bank from random ports instead of your iPhone or Mac. iPhones can now serve as Tailscale exit nodes — and that leads down a tangent where the guys dig deep into s...

Your iPhone might be running hot and draining fast — and it’s not just you. Dave and Pilot Pete break down the battery chaos introduced by iOS 26.5, which brought overheating, accelerated drain, and even blocked wired charging on iPhone 17 and Air models. The fix that’s working for most people: disable iCloud Keychain first, run Reset All Settings, then carefully re-enable iCloud sync — otherwise you’l...

This week you’ll learn to lean on Apple Intelligence to translate almost any text on the fly, lock down and hide sensitive apps on iOS, and finally tame your Desktop by remembering it’s just part of the Finder: flip on Stacks and/or let Hazel do the sorting for you. You’ll dig into why a 4K monitor looks different on your Mac than it does on Windows or Linux, hear how a BenQ display stacks up against a beloved LG,...

Geek Pride Day kicks off an episode packed with the kind of tips you’ll actually use. You’ll learn why Shift+Tab is your fastest escape from a runaway numbered list, how holding the lower-left CarPlay button summons Siri, and why copy/paste (and drag-and-drop) between apps still beats exporting and re-importing every time. You’ll also get the real story on Comcast’s email migration (spoiler: it’s not m...

You’ll sharpen your daily tech game this week: add names directly to Mail recipient fields, kill those sneaky iOS nickname pop-ups before they embarrass you, and stay alert to Low Power Mode. Long-press your steering wheel button to summon Siri faster, welcome ChatGPT and Perplexity to CarPlay, untangle Apple’s App Entitlements, and stream HLS video right inside the updated MGG iOS app. Don’t Get Caught treating y...

Buckle up, geeks! This week’s Quick Tips have you refreshing the App Store like a pro, turning Finder’s Quick Actions into a PDF-combining powerhouse, swiping that iOS cut/copy/paste bar like a power user, and finally taming horizontal scrolling on your non-Apple mouse.

Then it’s tales from the road: Adam wrestles eSIMs into submission with a Starlink cameo, Linda accidentally invents her own ISP, Mint Mobile&rsqu...

Pilot Pete and Dave open Episode 1140 with a rapid-fire round of quick tips you’ll wish you’d known sooner: long-press the App Store icon to jump straight to Updates, long-press a folder to break down its notifications, push iOS updates to your iPhone through your Mac, and delete apps before they auto-update. You’ll also discover that iPad status bar elements respond to mouse clicks, that not every airline demands...

This week’s episode is a Cool Stuff Found marathon, packed with gems you need to bookmark. You’ll get a launcher upgrade with TinyStart, a slick dual-pane file manager in VoidCommander, T-Mobile router control via HINTControl, and a borescope camera Pilot Pete can’t stop talking about. Dave hauls in a clamp-on desk power strip, the Levoit EverestAir-P purifier, and the Airversa AP2, while Adam fires up his Pit Bos...

This week on Mac Geek Gab 1138, Pilot Pete, Adam, and Dave tackle your burning questions and deliver the tips that keep your tech humming. You’ll learn how to properly delete images from your iPhone, sort out mesh networking headaches with T-Mobile, and decide whether Updatest and HomeBrew belong in your app-updating toolkit (spoiler: brew install topgrade is a game-changer). Struggling with limited bandwidth? Tr...

You’ve got quick tips galore this week: if your iPad battery’s draining mysteriously, your Apple Pencil might be the culprit, so pop it off when you’re not using it. Want custom emoji? Now you can create your own. LaunchBar fans, there’s a slick way to jump straight into System Settings, and if you’re self-hosting Bitwarden, the guys walk you through adding a local server with Cloudflare Tunnels. Pilot...

You get a rapid-fire run of Mac tips that actually make your daily workflow smoother instead of noisier. From finally being able to change your Gmail address and using Markdown to escape Apple Notes, to smarter ways to attach glass screen protectors, auto-mount network shares, prune that graveyard of old Bluetooth devices, and squeeze better battery life from your iPad Pro, this episode keeps you moving instead of doomscrolling. If...

You’re about to spend an hour geeking out about the moments when your tech life goes sideways and how to keep it all under control. You’ll hit World Backup Day prep, tame your email with smart rules and categories, turn your AirPods into stealth earplugs, and learn Mac power tricks like killing stubborn processes and using Reminders so your birthday rewards never slip by. Along the way, you’ll hear from listeners ...

You’ll come away from this episode with a faster, smarter iPhone and Mac workflow dialed in. You learn how to boss Siri around for brightness, Dark Mode, CarPlay directions, and per‑source audio levels, so your phone actually behaves in the car and on the couch. You tap into power‑user gestures like two‑finger‑tap to open links in a new Safari tab, Quick Actions to spin anything into a PDF, and Option‑click display rotation o...

You get dropped right into geek therapy this week as you bounce from cult-favorite movies to Pixar shorts, then straight into practical Mac and iOS wins. You learn how to use the twenty-minute rule to bail on bad movies guilt-free, long-press your iPhone’s brightness to reveal Dark Mode and other hidden controls, and turn Live Listen into your stealth superpower for staying connected in noisy rooms. You also tighten up your i...

You start this episode by supercharging your daily Apple workflow with rapid-fire Quick Tips: speaking the time from your wrist, taming screenshot previews, unzooming a stuck iPhone screen, batch‑moving iOS apps, and sharpening Live Text and document photos so you can capture, control, and share exactly what you want without friction. You also learn how to keep Chrome from quietly hijacking your mic levels before Zoom calls, plus c...

You drop into an iMessage quick tip and quickly branch into a whole toolkit for running your Apple life smarter. You learn faster ways to edit messages, how Slack’s up-arrow muscle memory carries over, and why platforms limit your edit window. From there, the show rolls into clever NFC and QR workflows for appliance manuals, Time Machine fixes over SMB on Synology, and a deep dive on spam and email hygiene: Fastmail’s u...

You start this episode leveling up your daily workflows with fast, memorable tweaks: styling text in Notes with a long press, dropping today’s date into Google Sheets with a quick shortcut, testing your real-world network speed from the Mac, and turning any clipboard grab into a Preview window so you can annotate or export in a flash. You also learn that canceling an in‑app subscription doesn’t instantly nuke Family Sha...