iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have an Action button in place of the Ring/Silent switch. You can choose which function you want the Action button to perform when you press it, making it useful for actions you perform often. In this episode, Thomas Domville discusses and demonstrates how to configure and use the Action button.

We'd love to hear from you in the comments about how you are customizing and using the new Action button on your iPhone 15 Pro. Are you setting it up for quick access to commonly used apps or actions like switching to the camera or recording a voice memo? Or are you taking advantage of its support for shortcuts to improve your iPhone experience and workflow?? Let us and other listeners know what creative ways you've found to utilize this handy new feature.

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to change Safari's default search engine on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

To do this on iOS and iPadOS, go to Settings > Safari and double-tap "Search engine" to specify the search engine for standard browsing windows, or "private search engine" if you want to specify a different search engine to be used in private browsing windows. On macOS, in Safari, choose Safari > Settings (or press Command-Comma) click the Search button in the toolbar, and choose from the "Search engine" or "private browsing search engine" popup menus.

Join Thomas Domville as he explores the new feature in iOS 17.2. that allows you to modify the default notification alert.

Previously, users were restricted to Apple's default notification sound. However, with iOS 17.2, Apple has added a new “Default Alerts” section in the “Sounds & Haptics” settings. This feature enables you to choose the sound for all incoming notifications, except for texts, mail alerts, and calendar alerts, which already had customization options.

You now have the freedom to use any of the text tones as your notification sound. This is a major update for those who have always desired to choose a sound.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to change your default notification sound:

Launch the Settings app.
Select “Sounds & Haptics.”
Select “Default Alerts.”
Choose your preferred text tone from the list.
Enjoy your new personalized notification sound!

You also have the option to alter the default haptic feedback. Apple made some adjustments to the default haptic alert in iOS 17, but now you can revert it or customize it if the update didn’t quite meet your expectations.

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to encrypt an external disk on macOS for improved security of the disk's contents.

To encrypt a disk formatted as Apple File System, (APFS) connect it to your Mac, focus on it on the Desktop or Finder sidebar, and choose "Encrypt [disk name]" from the context menu (accessed by pressing VO-Shift-M). You'll then be prompted to create a password for the disk, which will be required to access its contents. As this password is the only way to access the disk's contents, it should be reasonably difficult for others to guess, but easy enough for you to remember.

The next time you connect the disk to your Mac, you'll be prompted for this password, and given the option to remember it in your Mac's Login keychain. This way, you won't need to enter the password when connecting the disk to your Mac, but others will if connecting the disk to theirs. Saved passwords in your Mac's Login keychain can be viewed and edited in Keychain Access (located in the Utilities folder).

If the disk you want to encrypt uses a different file system, like Mac OS Extended or XFAT, you must erase and reformat it as APFS. Note that this process will erase all data on the disk, so be sure to move anything you want to keep to another location before doing so. To erase and reformat a disk:

1. Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder) and choose View > Show all devices (or press Command-2).
2. Select the top level of the external disk in the table and choose Edit > Erase (or press Command-Shift-E). If you’re unsure of what disk is what, you may wish to disconnect other external disks to avoid inadvertently erasing the wrong one.
3. In the resulting dialog, give the disk a name and choose “APFS (Encrypted),” from the format popup menu.
4. Enter the password you want to encrypt the disk with, click Choose, and then click Erase to begin the process.

Note: APFS-formatted Disks are not natively compatible with non-Apple platforms like Windows or Linux. To use an APFS-formatted disk with a non-Apple platform, use something like APFS for Windows, or APFS for Linux.

In this episode, Thomas Domville guides listeners through the process of sharing AirTags with others on iOS. Thomas explains why one might want to share their AirTags. Thomas then provides a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough of the sharing process.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open the Find My app on your iPhone.
2. Swipe right along the bottom tabs until you hear "Items" and double-tap to select it.
3. Swipe right until you hear the name of the AirTag you want to share and double-tap to open it.
4. Swipe right until you hear "Add person" and double-tap to continue.
5. Swipe right until you hear "To" and double-tap to enter the contact name or email of the person you want to share the AirTag with.
6. Tap the top right part of the screen and you should hear "Share" and double-tap to share the AirTag. The person you shared the AirTag with will receive a notification invitation to accept the sharing request.

To stop sharing the AirTag, swipe right until you hear the name of the person you shared the AirTag with and double-tap to open it. Then swipe right until you hear "Remove" and double-tap to confirm.

Remember, the person you’re sharing with will need to accept the invitation on their device. Once they do, they’ll be able to see the AirTag in their Find My app. Happy sharing!

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to disable predictive text suggestions on macOS.

As you type on your Mac, macOS by default attempts to finish words and phrases it thinks you're trying to type. If you find that hearing these suggestions spoken by VoiceOver is more distracting than helpful, you can turn them off by going to System Settings > Keyboard, clicking the Edit button under the "Text input" heading, and toggling the "show inline predictive text" switch off.

transcription:

Disclaimer: This transcript is generated by AIKO, an automated transcription service. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hey, Apple vissers, Tyler here, with a quick tip for how to disable predictive text suggestions on macOS.

By default, as you type on your Mac, macOS attempts to finish words and phrases that it thinks you're trying to type.

While this may increase the speed of text entry for some, if you're a voiceover user, you may find that hearing these suggestions spoken while you're trying to type is more distracting than helpful, in which case you can turn them off.

To do that, go into system settings, keyboard, hit the edit button under the text input heading, and turn the show inline predictive text switch off.

And I'm going to demonstrate that now, I'm going to system settings on my Mac, k for keyboard, vio command h to get to the text input heading, vio right, edit, and at the leftmost of this dialog, k, that's what we want, vio right, scroll area, interact with vio shift down arrow, and vio right until I find the setting I want, show inline predictive text, if I vio right once more, show inline predictive text off switch, it's off for me because I turned it off.

If it's on for you and you want to turn it off, just press vio space, then stop interacting with the scroll area, with vio shift up arrow, and vio right to done, hit it, and here we are back in keyboard settings.

So now as you type, you will not hear text suggestions predicted by macOS, which could almost ironically increase your speed of text entry because this feature is off and is no longer giving you distracting or potentially distracting feedback.

So that's a tip for how to disable predictive text suggestions on macOS, I hope you found it helpful.

Peace.

Thank you.

In this episode, Thomas Domville demonstrates a handy feature in the Mail app on your iPhone: Block Sender. Block Sender is a feature in the Mail app that allows you to prevent emails from specific senders from reaching your inbox. Once you block a sender, their emails will either be automatically deleted or sent to your Trash folder, depending on your settings.

There are many reasons why you might want to block senders such as:

Spam: This is the most common reason. Block those unwanted marketing emails and get your inbox back under control.
Unsubscribe Nightmare: Tried unsubscribing but the emails keep coming? Blocking is a more forceful solution.
Unwanted Contacts: Maybe you have an ex or someone you no longer want to hear from. Blocking cuts off email communication.

How to Block Senders in Mail (iOS):

Find the Mail app and locate an email from the sender you want to block.
Swipe down to the More option and double tap to bring up a menu.
Locate the Block Sender option and double tap it.

Bonus Tip!

You can also manage your blocked senders list in the Settings app:

Go to Settings > Mail.
Double tap on "Blocked".
Here you can see a list of all your blocked senders and even unblock them if you need to.

transcription:
Disclaimer: This transcript is generated by AIKO, an automated transcription service. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hello and welcome.

My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse.

In this podcast, I'm going to introduce you to a feature called Block Sender that you can find within your mail app for iOS.

Now, I will admit in recent years, some of the mail services that I use have done a great job.

Definitely a huge improvement over many years ago when we used to get tons of spams and unwanted emails, right?

Things have gotten a lot better.

You don't get as nearly as much as you used to, but there's still a few that kind of slides in and you find those in within your spam folder and et cetera.

Sometimes they don't even make it to the spam folder.

Comes right into your inbox.

I'm going to show you how to block a sender.

Now, obviously there are many different scenarios why you would want a blocks of sender.

Perhaps it is a spam or an unwanted mail or perhaps it is unwanted mail, but from somebody that you know that just persistently send you an email and there's you just want those particular emails go directly to the trash can.

All right, let's just do that.

I'm going to go to my mail app here.

I have one particular mail that I would like to place on a block sender and I will show you how to do that and why I'm doing it for this particular mail.

Mail.

No one read emails.

Double tap to open.

So I'm going to do that.

One finger double tap to open up my mail app here.

Mail.

Search.

Search field.

Double tap to edit.

Now let's go to the particular mail that I was talking about in question that I like to block.

I'm going to go to the right here.

Dictate button.

Double tap to start dictation.

Double tap with two fingers when finished.

Sam's club.

See what'…

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to customize the lock screen on iOS, specifically how to remove the flashlight and camera buttons and replace them with other controls.

In addition to viewing the time, date, and notifications, the Lock Screen can be customized to remove or replace the camera and flashlight buttons with other controls, or show certain types of information at a glance, such as upcoming calendar events or current weather conditions. To customize the Lock Screen, perform a one-finger triple-tap on either the time or date, double-tap Customize, and then double-tap “Customize Lock Screen wallpaper.” From here, you can double-tap the Remove buttons for default controls, the “add quick action” button to select alternative controls, or the “Add widget” button to select a widget.

transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is generated by AIKO, an automated transcription service. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hey, Apple Vissers, Tyler here with a quick tip for how to customize the lock screen on iOS.

By default, the iOS lock screen includes the time, date, any notifications received since the device was last used, and at least on devices without a home button, shortcuts to the flashlight and camera functions.

Over the years, the iOS lock screen has gradually become more customizable, with the ability to add widgets introduced with iOS 16 in 2022, and the ability to remove the camera and flashlight functions or replace them with other controls the user might find more useful introduced with iOS 18 in 2024.

If, like me, you don't find the camera or flashlight functions particularly useful, or at least not useful enough to where you would want them to be among the first things you see when you wake your iPhone, you can replace them with other things you might find more useful.

So for me, I replace them with a shortcut to the alarm and also a single action shortcut that I created to set a 20-minute timer.

So when I'm about to work out, I just take out my phone, wake it, unlock it, and double tap the workout timer button on the lock screen.

And when I want to set an alarm, I don't have to go into Control Center or open the clock app or use Siri anymore.

I just double tap the alarm button on the lock screen and I'm taken right there.

So to demonstrate this, I'm going to wake my iPhone now and I'm just going to explain so I don't have to explain while voiceover is talking and compete with that sound.

Once I unlock it, I'm going to triple tap either the time or the date.

Either one works.

You can triple tap or you can double tap and hold either one.

So I'm going to wake my iPhone now.

Do not disturb Friday 1 a.m. Okay, triple tap.

Astronomy wallpaper weather sunrise and sunset widget and clock next alarm widget button and illustration of red, blue and yellow rectangle.

Okay, so if I swipe left astronomy, that's the first element on the screen.

It's the current wallpaper I have.

You can have multiple.

So if you want to have different lock screens, like, for example, if you're working, you might want access to different types of information than if you're just on your own time.

If you want to link focuses, you can do that.

So if you have a work focus, you can have it…

In this podcast, Thomas Domville showcases the Audio Ducking feature on iOS. Audio Ducking automatically reduces the volume of background audio when a foreground sound, such as a notification or VoiceOver, is played. This feature is particularly beneficial for accessibility, ensuring that important sounds or speech are clearly audible without being overshadowed by other audio.

To adjust the Audio Ducking settings on iOS, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings: Launch the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Access Accessibility Options: Scroll down and double tap on "Accessibility."
3. VoiceOver Settings: Scroll down and double tap on "VoiceOver."
4. Audio Settings: Within the VoiceOver settings, double tap on "Audio."
5. Audio Ducking Settings: Within the Audio settings, double tap on "Audio Ducking."
6. Choose Your Preference: In the Audio Ducking settings, you can select from Off, When Speaking, or Always based on your personal preference. Make sure to adjust the VoiceOver Speech Volume to your liking.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hello and welcome.

My name is Thomas Domville, also known as AnonyMouse.

I'm gonna be talking to you today about audio ducking.

Now some of you out there are familiar with audio ducking and some that are not.

So let's talk about what audio ducking for those that are not familiar with this feature.

So really what this audio ducking does, it's very useful when you need it, when you want to lower the media sound.

So for example, are you on a phone call and you're talking to an operator or a customer service or whatever it might be, and they want you to check your email and make sure you got something, read it off something, or they sent you a text for verification, whatever not.

Sometimes it's really, really hard to hear that voiceover voice, right?

So having it at the same time, the voiceover can be difficult to hear.

Sometimes it's lower than what their sound is.

Or in my case, I do a lot of music.

So I love listening to the music in the background.

However, if I'm trying to do something with voiceover on the same time, it's difficult to hear voiceover.

So let me give you an example of what it sounds like when you do not have audio ducking on.

So if I turn on music here, I'm just gonna swipe back and forth so you can hear the various sound of voiceover and you'll see what I mean.

It's about the same or if not a little bit less, it just depends on the situation.

So here's the music.

Make sure that what I tell you makes sense.

Mail, no unread emails.

Messages, one unread message.

So it's hard to hear, right?

So you don't have that ability to be able to hear it very well.

Well, audio ducking, by turning this on, it allows you to duck those media or situation that you're in so you can bring up that voiceover on top and make it clear and concise.

Now, for those that are familiar with audio ducking, well, the old fashioned audio ducking allows us to be able to duck, right?

But it was a hard set, meaning that we have no…

Banishing the winter blues on four legs.

“Maximising your Return on Investment from a Good Idea”

Leaders from some of Europe’s largest companies will be gathering in Birmingham to discuss the role that open innovation and collaboration can play in boosting the economy

Your podcast episodes don't have to "expire" once the next episode is released. With some strategy, you can use your old episodes to continue growing and engaging your audience!

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Enhance the experience for your audience by making unique artwork for each episode. But you need to adapt to how each app might display the image.

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The right category can help your podcast get discovered and featured. But which categories are best for your podcast when there are so many?

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After sharing multiple considerations for refreshing your podcast branding, it's time to wrap it up with the big question: how?

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If your podcast is listed twice in Apple Podcasts or another podcast directory, STOP! Don't do anything about it until you read or listen to this!

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Transcripts have long been promoted as ways to make your podcast more findable and accessible. But it's only recently that podcast transcripts have become actually useful!

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On Tuesday, November 12, Brian Ring, Principal Analyst, Ring Digital, will moderate the panel "Engage and Grow: How to Succeed With Interactive Live Streaming." The growth of highly interactive streaming genres such as gaming, auctions, and sports betting has put pressure on networks while increasing the need to integrate interactivity and heightened engagement into more traditional methods of content delivery. With the challenges organizations face to ensure that their users have the smoothest and most dynamic interactive streaming experiences, and the additional investment in delivery infrastructure required as those experiences scale, how can streamers deliver ROI from interactive streaming every time? Confirmed panelists include industry experts from Bulldog DM, Parks Associates, Play Anywhere, and Fox.

I'm struggling to go through perimenopausal changes with grace, but also struggling with some disordered eating habits as I try to find a balance between accepting what nature wants to do to my body and trying to maintain a healthy weight. I'm not overly restrictive during the day. I eat when hungry. I don't crave junk early in the day. But at night once everyone is in bed I crave junk and binge. I'm not sure if I am using that word correctly in a clinical sense. I am doing HRT and my meds seem to work ok to balance me out.

I'm pretty sure this is mostly mental, like I'm trying to make healthy choices but I have a shadow self that doesn't like the rules and I keep her at bay til the end of the night. Idk. I had this problem when I tried keto a few years back. Many years ago I decided to do a raw food diet temporarily and maintained it perfectly. I didn't feel restricted or rebel against myself. But then after having children and breastfeeding my relationship to carbs changed maybe. So I tried keto and I feel AMAZING in ketosis but I end up eating tons of garbage because the mental aspect of restriction just doesn't work well for me.

So even though I am not intentionally "restricting" early in the day I am prioritizing healthier foods and I guess in some way it's effectively the same thing.

I also have PDA autism which is probably relevant as I wonder if the food choices are a "demand" and how to navigate that. I also suspect part of the current issue is due to having to take a break from my Vyvanse until I get checked by the cardiologist - since Vyvanse is also prescribed for binge eating disorder it isn't surprising if I'm struggling more with this while I can't take it. (As an aside, if you've done research into the safety of stimulants for cardiac patients, specifically those with late discovered congenital issues like a hole in the heart, please share citations for clinical studies about this as I want to advocate for the doctor to let me stay on my meds.)

I don't want to just get fat. But I also don't want to have so much mental energy taken up by this inner battle. What do?

A 6-page guide for research-group leaders in academia, providing concrete suggestions to make labs more welcoming and accessible to autistic students and postdocs. Written by a late-diagnosed autistic academic.

Contents: 1. Dispel your misconceptions. 2. Communicate clearly. 3. Check the sensory environment. 4. Be aware of different cognitive profiles. 5. Model inclusivity to your group.

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The New York Times Building photo by Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA - New York Times Building - Bottom Portion

The NYT Tech Guild is on strike, which means NYT Games (and Cooking) are behind the picket line. But never fear! Mefites needing their puzzle fix can find Wordle alternatives in this Ask Me thread and the secret word game Letroso, plus, for more fun, be sure to check out Catfishing (Wikipedia category guessing game) by Mefi's own Klipspringer, and Gisnep (quote guessing game) by Metafilter's own ironicsans.

Special guest: the one and only Joanna Stern. Topics: new iMacs, Touch ID vs. Face ID, remote controls, surveillance advertising, and people who want to make everything a video call when a good old-fashioned voice call would do.

Ive been making music for couple of years now but still cant figure out why my mix doesnt sound professional. Im I doing something wrong? This is the link to my tracks http://www.ourmedia.org/node/300488 Someone please help me out.

The 100% guaranteed way to get your bedroom mixes to sound more professional (and by far the most expensive) is to spend time in a recording studio. Take the raw tracks to something you want to mix, import it into their ProTools setup (or whatever they use) and have a pro engineer (must be a talkative, friendly one, not a grumpy, cynical one) to mix it. ASK A BILLION questions, be a dork and write stuff down if you have to. The worst case scenario is that after 2/3 hours at least you'll know what questions to ask of Google or at the local tech book store. The best case is that your music impresses the engineer and he/she becomes a pseudo mentor for you. Engineering is by far my weakest area (along with playing in tune and in time) so everything that follows is said that caveat: I have found that going cheap on mastering tools (compression, limiters, eq) hurts bedroom mixes a lot. Money I've spent on the top utilities there (I use Waves) dwarfs all my other plugins put together by an order of magnitude. (Reason's mastering suite is pretty good so you may be covered there; although I've applied Waves L2 to mixes done after the 'final' Reason mixdown and there's no question there was a marked improvement in pro-sheen.) I have found tweakheadz site very useful, especially their mixing 101 page. Finally I have been told (and have experienced it myself) that posting often to ccM and asking for real, brutal reviews and feedback has helped a lot of people. I, for one, am very, very embarrassed by several of my uploads from 2 years ago here, while only very embarrassed by more recent ones; all strictly due to people hearing stuff I didn't.

that sounds good. ill look for a studio near my place. at the end you said that the comments from ccmixer is very useful but what shall i do if i want a brutal review of my own original mix? because on ccmixer i can only upload remixes or samples or separate tracks.

being a remix site and short on resources we can't handle original material. so, er, get remixing... ;)

my buddy des has a great blog he runs that can surely help almost anyone here with improving their production. http://www.hometracked.com/ also, his music is worth checking out, just so you can see that he knows what he's talking about. des is a great guy and a really excellent artist. http://www.deshead.com/

U need to have a good pair of monitors, headphones will not do at all! I agree with Fourstones, Waves is a very good suite. I use it within SoundForge and it really does help in cleaning up the frequencies. My mixes really improved when I had monitor speakers included in the set up. Experiment and let me know, I'll give u some quality feedback, no holds, sometimes the truth hurts! LOL! EZ m8 Morr

The best thing I can say is: learn about sound. Learn about frequencies, which ones sound like what and do what to the overall mix. Whether or not to use a low or high pass filter on something. Fiddle with EQs for hours. And more importantly, get criticism. It's the easiest way to learn what sound to look out for, and such. And most importantly of all: Practice. Mix till your ears bleed. (from the time spent listening to the same song, not due to the terrible mix :P) Mixing is one of my strong suits, but most of it is just being able to hear the song, and make the adjustments that I want, to be able to make the necessary changes and just know what needs to be done.

bravo!

That's a very good point- I started with a Mac LC, EZVision and an M1, with the only audio manipulation being Hypercard. I got good at customizing patches and finding seamless loop points manually just to get what I could out of what I had, with mastering being 1/4"-to-RCA from the headphone jack on the M1 to AUX IN on the cassette player, or the same thing with 1/8" adapter for the 'puter sound files. Then I'd record and bounce these cassette tracks to my 4-track, with final routing from 4-track's headphone-out back to the cassette. Ugly stuff, but that's what I had to work with...

This is a very good point. I think that it's easy to keep adding new gear, and thus miss the richness of existing gear and software. I like to work with more limited software sometimes, so that I can feel as if I am exploiting it to its fullness.

Ive been making music for couple of years now but still cant figure out why my mix doesnt sound professional. Im I doing something wrong? This is the link to my tracks http://www.ourmedia.org/node/300488 Someone please help me out. The first thing I noticed was the lack of higher frequencies in your mix... My mixes always end up being bass heavy (because I suck horribly) so I can see we both have the same problem... There's is (however) an over-abundance of frequency-fighting in your track... A lot of distorted things competing for my attention (at least in my ears). Dunno if any of this has been helpful, but we could all learn things...so hopefully you'll have advice for me in the future ;-) Good luck, and we me luck too! -Joel

This is a useful thread. Im just in the middle of mixing a new ccmixter-based song and its just not coming together for me. The tweakheadz and hometracked sites are great. A couple other useful sites: tips and techniques at gearslutz - http://www.gearslutz.com/board/tips-techniques/168409-tips-techniques.html ; Live tips - http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27120 ; general EQ reference - http://www.idmforums.com/showthread.php?t=11466 Im definitely going to get the mix Im working on up here, I need some blunt advice.

OK, I uploaded Hollywood Picture Book (feat Calendar Girl and Kaer Trouz) and entered a pluggy plug for comments over this weekend.

Dinner on Mars? Two food security experts imagine what it would take to feed a human colony on Mars in the year 2080 if we colonized the red planet. Their research offers lessons on how to improve our battered food systems here on Earth.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use the FREE winLAME audio encoder to quickly and simply encode audio podcasts into MP3 format.

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OFTEN the only girl on the rugby league and union fields, Picton 10-year-old Caitlyn Halse had to put up with her fair share of discrimination in her early playing years.

Whether it’s your first time on a snowmobile or you’re ready to explore the wilderness on your own machine, there are plenty of opportunities to ride across the snow in Colorado.

Grammy-winning guitarist and songwriter Jack White has announced a surprise concert at Denver's Bluebird Theater, and tickets are on sale this afternoon.

A quick and easy way of making the avast! Internet Security Firewall much more effective.