Tips & tricks for Apple users (for myself, mostly)

Published on 2025-01-30

I’ve been using Apple devices since 2009,my first Mac was a polycarbonate MacBook, and my first iPhone was the iPhone 3. Over the years, Apple’s ecosystem has exploded in popularity, but I’ve noticed that many people aren’t taking full advantage of all the great features iOS and macOS have to offer.

This blog is a place where I reflect my learning and also share knowledge. I’ve been using iOS and macOS since 2009 - my first Mac was a polycarbonate MacBook, and my first iPhone was the iPhone 3GS. Over the years, Apple’s ecosystem has exploded in popularity, but I’ve noticed that many people aren’t taking full advantage of all the great features iOS and macOS have to offer. Me included. Hopefully, this will be useful for any apple users who stumble upon to this blog. I don't use Siri though.

Music Recognization: I remember using Shazam back in 2009 and thinking it was so cool! Then in 2018, Apple bought it and built it right into iOS. Now, if we ever want to identify a song, we can just turn on Shazam without even needing to download the app or switch to it. Pretty awesome! How to enable Shazam? From the Control Center, how easy.
Background sounds: Many of us enjoy the subtle hum of background noise - it makes us feel less alone. Plus, it can help drown out unwanted sounds, like the roar of traffic near a busy intersection. And, Apple OS comes with the option to enable the background sounds with the choice of Fire, Stream, Night, etc. My favorite is Rain!
Measure: No measuring tape? No problem! Just use the Measure app, which comes preinstalled on iPhones and iPads, to quickly find the length of a desk.
Document Scanning: Need to scan paper documents but don’t have a scanner? No worries! We can easily scan them using iPhone or iPad by lauching the Notes app. We can even digitally sign it!
Apple Intelligence (Beta): Currently, only available in beta. I tested it but I have disabled Siri since I don't use it.
- Writing Tools: It is a hit or miss, but still useful. I do like the summary feature in Notification. Btw, do you know the Notification center is controlled by the OS?
- Smart Calculator: If you are still doubtful if only 2+2=5? (credit to 1984 by George Orwell), fret no more! We can just type '2+2=' in Apple Intelligence supported applications, for example, notes or text editor, it will suggest 2+2 is, in fact, 4. 😆
- Clean-up in photo: I also think the ability to remove unwanted objects from the photo is amazing. I recalled using Photoshop's lasso tool to outline the object, then using spot healing to touch up, and spending hours to remove the objects from the photo. This is all possible because of computer vision or image processing, it is all about convolution, edge detection with Prewitt, Scharr and Sobel operators. Check out this course from Stanford. Knowledge is meant to be shared.

Tips & tricks for Apple users (for myself, mostly)

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