MacMost: MacMost Now

Apple's new file system is a big part of the new macOS High Sierra and iOS 11. What is a file system and how is APFS different than the old Apple file system? What advantages will APFS bring to our Apple devices? Which devices will this affect and when? How will we upgrade our Macs, iPhones and iPads to APFS?

You can subscribe to Apple services like Apple Music as well as in-app services from various third-parties. You can see all of your reoccurring subscriptions in either iTunes on your Mac or in Settings on your iPhone or iPad. From there you can change the subscriptions to other plans offered, or cancel them. In many cases you can cancel a subscription but still use it until the next renewal date.

You can customize the toolbar in the Finder and many apps. You can add buttons, spaces and other controls. Some apps have a large selection of buttons you can add. You can also revert to the default set easily. See what is available in the Finder, Mail, Pages and other apps.

One formatting option missing in Mac mail is the ability to highlight text by adding a background color to a text selection. This is useful when you want to point out a passage in a response and is commonly using in Windows email clients. While there is no way to do it with standard text styling in Mail, you can create a custom style by copying and pasting an example from Pages, creating a style, and then applying that style later on in other messages.

Mission Control in macOS Sierra allows you to create multiple desktops with different windows on each. You can easily create these desktops and move between them with keyboard shortcuts. This allows you to go between apps and workspaces easily, saving you time and effort. You can also use full-screen apps as a desktop. This is handy for MacBook users in particular as screen space is limited.

A free way to convert scanned images to text documents on your Mac is to use Google Drive and Google Docs. With any Google/Gmail account you can upload a PDF or image file to Google Drive, then request to open it in Google Docs. The result will be a OCR (optical character recognition) conversion from image to editable text. Then you can export the text back to your Mac.

For writers, a good thesaurus can be more useful than a dictionary. Fortunately, your Mac has both. You can easily access the thesaurus while writing in Pages, Mail or almost any app. You can even have it appear above the dictionary.

The Slow Keys option will cause your Mac to wait for purposeful key presses before accepting input. This can help some users who have difficulty using keyboard. The option applies to modifier keys too, so each key needs to be pressed one at a time and held. You can also use this feature to give you audible feedback when you press a key.

If something is wrong with your Mac, either you or the tech repairing your Mac will need to access the special diagnostics mode. You can do this by restarting your Mac and holding the D key. The results could give you some insight into the problem. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731 for details.

In Safari you have a Favorites list that is part of bookmarks but also has some special features. You can see them at the top of your browser window, on a special home page and in other places. Learn how to add, edit and delete items from Favorites.

At Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference today they announced many new products and future software including macOS High Sierra and iOS 11. In addition to new iMacs and MacBooks, Apple announced the iMac Pro and HomePod which will be available at the end of the year. Learn about the highlights of today's Apple keynote event.

You can use Automator to apply Apple system (Quartz) filters to image files. This simple Automator app will convert an image to ASCII art. There are color and size options you can adjust to get the look you want. You can also try out some of the other Quartz filters for various effects.

If you take a photo of someone with your iPhone and they have an iPhone too, you can immediately share the photo with them using AirDrop. To use AirDrop, you don't need to be on the same Wi-Fi network or have set up anything in advance. The photo sent is the full resolution image. This can be easier than exchanging phones to take pictures of each other or trying to take the same photo twice.

Creating new events in the Mac Calendar app is relatively simple, but there are many options. You can create a new even by clicking in the calendar, or using the Create Quick Event feature. It is easy to modify an event while creating it or later on.

When you make a series of adjustments to a clip in the timeline in iMovie, it can be hard to replicate the exact same changes to another clip. You can use Paste Adjustments to copy one or all adjustments from clip to clip. This makes it easy to implement consistent settings across different parts of your project.

Since OS X 10.2 Apple has included a Chess game by default on your Mac. The current version allows you to play against the computer with varying difficultly levels, play against another person, and even play online. You can change the look of the 3D board, hear moves and even speak to make a move. You can also save and resume games.

There are a variety of ways to add accent marks to letters while typing on your Mac. The original method of using the Option key still works, but doesn't cover all of the possibilities. You can also use the new method by just holding down the key on your keyboard and making a selection. Using the Emoji viewer gives you access to even more variations.

You can buy cheap clip-on lenses for your iPhone and use the Fisheye lens to capture more of a scene than you can do with a normal photo. This can come in handy for better selfies or in situations where you'd rather have more in the photo even if it is distorted.

The Pages interface is full of distractions that you don't need while writing. You can get rid of all interface elements and optimize the look of Pages to create a better environment for writing.

You can use the Terminal to restart either the Dock, Finder or your entire Mac. This comes in handy for developers, those testing software, or those using unstable software when problems arise and you need to restart one of these services but other methods are not working.