How to Control Everything on Your Phone With Your Voice (iOS and Android)
With the arrival of digital assistant apps like Gemini and Siri, most of us have grown used to talking to our phones. But conversing with your Android or iOS device can go way beyond interacting with AI. You can also use your voice to launch apps, fill out text fields, and do just about everything […]
Your Phone Notifications Reveal More Than You Realize. Here’s How to Lock Them Down
You may have spotted the recent case of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation pulling Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even though the messages were set to disappear automatically, and the Signal app itself had been deleted from the phone. The trick used by law enforcement? Previews of each incoming Signal message were logged […]
How to Use Apple’s Live Translation on Your AirPods
At the same time Apple announced the AirPods Pro 3 last year, the company also introduced a new feature called Live Translation. It makes the idea of the Babel fish, so evocatively described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a reality: Something sitting in your ear that can instantly translate between languages, on demand. […]
How to view edits in Notes – Six Colors
The Notes app is a handy way to share material with other people. My family—particularly my spouse and I—has about 15 to 20 shared notes that let us collaboratively update various household, financial, college-related, and other details. We even use it with meal planning. However, once you start adding a shared note, you get alerts […]
Can you chart a murder? How to build an interactive novel – Six Colors
[Editor’s Note: I asked Antony to detail the process by which he created his interactive crime novel, Can You Solve The Murder?, which required some specific tools and a lot of intricate planning. And of course this article contains no spoilers for the book or any of Antony’s work.—J.S.] I’m an author, primarily writing crime […]
How to Manage Files on iOS and Android
One of the changes that we’ve seen in phones over recent years has been more control over the file systems. Having previously hidden away a lot of the local storage structure, Android and iOS now both give you easy access to it so you can manage your files similar to how you would on Windows […]
How to stretch the clock on your lock screen in iOS 26
Apple has continued its trend of giving users more creative freedom over how their iPhones look and feel, and one of the most striking new customization options in iOS 26 is the ability to stretch the clock on your lock screen. The feature, part of Apple’s refreshed design language for iPhone software, allows the time […]
How to tell what’s playing audio on your Mac – Six Colors
My friend and editor Joe and I were trying to talk. But something on his end continued to produce sound, and he couldn’t tell what it was. After some exploration, he realized that we had started using Slack’s “huddle” feature for a one-to-one audio chat and switched to FaceTime. He hadn’t hung up in Slack, […]
How to (Mostly) Get Rid of Liquid Glass
On an iPhone or iPad, the process is only slightly different. Open System Settings, go to the Accessibility section, then the Display & Text Size section. From here you can tap the Reduce Transparency toggle. Do so and all the various glassy bits of the user interface will become solid. I recommend changing this setting […]
How to Use Voice Typing on Your Phone
Tap the small “i” icon on the left of the toolbar if you need more prompts about the voice commands you can use. If you want to keep on using voice typing in other input boxes and across other apps until you turn it off, double-tap the mic icon. If voice typing doesn’t work, check […]