If you’re looking to upgrade your tablet experience, our comeback to Prime, Deal Days, has the perfect deal on a refurbished iPad Air with renewed Beats Flex headphones. But you’ll need to act fast because quantities are limited and once it sells out, it’s gone.

In addition to a grade-A rated refurbished iPad, meaning this 2013 model year Air is in excellent condition, and renewed Beats Flex that have been inspected, cleaned, and repackaged in the original box, you also get a case, stylus, screen protector, charging cable and charger. Between the iPad Air’s A7 chip and the Beats W1 chip synced to iCloud, you’ll have a workhorse device for playing, streaming, and working right out of the box.

This iPad Air bundle has everything you need for $99.97, but there are only so many units, so get this top Deal Days bargain before it’s gone!

 

Apple iPad Air – Black (Wi-Fi Only) Bundle with Beats Flex Headphones (Refurbished) – $99.97

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Prices subject to change.

iPad

When Apple unveiled its first-ever smartwatch back in 2014, it’s fair to say that the world wasn’t exactly sure what it was for… and neither was Apple. In those early days, along with the fitness elements which would remain an enduring part of the product’s appeal, the company talked enthusiastically about sharing taps, sketches, and heartbeats with friends, which would not. It took time for users and third-party developers to teach Apple what they wanted from a smartwatch, and for the company to take that on board.

Today, the Apple Watch is a mature and versatile product. It’s so versatile, indeed, that you may not be aware of some of its most useful capabilities. In this article, we’re going to catch you up.

Take better iPhone photos

This was a superb piece of lateral thinking. There have always been situations where it’s difficult or impossible to trigger a camera because it needs to be out of reach, or out of sight, of the person taking the picture: when you’re trying to photograph the ports around the back of your Mac, for example, or when setting up a formal group photo that everyone wants to be in. Timers used to be the main solution, but often resulted in a mad scramble to place the camera correctly and get back in time before the time ran out. But the Apple Watch offers something better.

Open the Camera Remote app on your watch, and it will simultaneously open the Camera app on the paired iPhone. Whatever the iPhone’s camera can see, you can now see on your watch; you can switch between the front and rear cameras (and toggle some other settings) using the options button at the bottom right. Once you’re happy, hit the three-second timer button, look up and smile, and enjoy your perfect photo.

Unlock other Apple devices

An Apple Watch, once you’ve unlocked it with a single passcode input, remains unlocked as long as it stays on your wrist. It can thus act as a handy digital key that’s on you at all times, unlocking your Mac and iPhone by proximity alone.

On iPhone, open the Settings app and go to Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode on older devices), then scroll down and tap the toggle under Unlock With Apple Watch. On Mac, open System Settings and go to Touch ID & Password and click the toggle next to your Apple Watch.

Play games

As small as the Apple Watch’s screen may be, it can still support some fun games; they just need to be designed with that limitation in mind. You need to be selective. We’d recommend Deep Golf and Lifeline, both of which make perfect sense in this format, but there are some more excellent suggestions here.

Talk to ChatGPT

You probably have your own thoughts on the ethics of AI, but it’s hard to deny that ChatGPT is fun to play with. Thanks to the Petey app, you can now have those conversations on Apple Watch. Tap the ‘Ask me Anything’ button then type in a query (or better still, use the dictation button and save your tapping finger) and you’ll soon hear what our future AI overlord thinks of the matter. There’s even a complication, which means Petey is never more than a tap away.

Control navigation with air gestures

The standard control method for Apple Watch involves having the device on one wrist, and then tapping the screen and pressing and rotating the buttons and dials with the other hand. But there are situations where you need to control the watch with the same hand it’s on. And this is possible, thanks to AssistiveTouch, one of Apple’s handy accessibility features.

Open the Watch app on the paired iPhone. (Alternatively, you can set the feature up in the Apple Watch’s own Settings app, but I found this fiddly.) In the My Watch tab, select Accessibility, then scroll down until you see AssistiveTouch. Tap this, then tap the toggle at the top of the next screen to turn it on.

By default, doing a pinch gesture with the watch-bearing hand will take you forwards in menus, while double-pinching (pinching twice, rather than pinching once with two fingers) will take you back; clenching your fist will act as a tap, while double-clenching will open a menu of actions, which takes a little getting used to. In fact, the whole thing has a learning curve, but practice makes perfect, and you can change the actions tied to each gesture.

Tell the time without looking

If for whatever reason you are unable to look at your Apple Watch but you’d still like to know the time, Speak Time is the lesser-known feature for you. To set it up, open the Settings app on the watch and go to Clock, scroll down until you see Speak Time, then tap to turn it on. (Again, this can also be done in the Watch app on a paired iPhone; again, go to Clock then hit Speak Time.) Now you need only hold two fingers on the watch face for a second or so and it will tell you the time out loud.

Conversely, if you’d like to know the time silently without looking at the screen, consider Taptic Time. (You can turn this on in the Watch app by going to Clock > Taptic Time, or following a similar route in the Apple Watch’s Settings app.) There are various options but I find the Digits format easiest: this would for example give one long tap, followed by four short taps, followed by three long taps, followed by six short taps, to give you the time 14:36.

Quickly reply to messages

The Apple Watch probably doesn’t seem like the optimal device for writing out messages, but watchOS has been cleverly designed to help. Tap a notification of an incoming message (or open the Messages app on your Apple Watch and tap a message there) and you’ll see the option to reply. This is easier than it sounds.

The easiest method is to select one of the pre-written replies, such as yes, no, and “Can I call you later?” One tap and the canned reply is winging its way to the recipient: easy. And if these replies seem too limited, write some of your own by opening the Watch app on your paired iPhone and going to Messages > Default Replies.

If you’d rather be spontaneous, you can type out a reply on your wrist in the onscreen keyboard, but we’d recommend that you instead swipe up and select the Scribble keyboard instead: this has you scrawl a letter at a time using the entire screen, which is much easier than hitting tiny keys. Or best of all, tap the dictation button and speak your thoughts out loud.

Make your battery last much longer

Hardly anyone seems to know that the Apple Watch now has a Low Power mode–perhaps because it already had a Power Reserve mode, which was far more drastic and made the watch basically unusable. But Low Power, finally added in watchOS 9 in 2022, is much closer to the equivalent iPhone feature, simply cutting back on features and settings to eke out a little more battery life.

To turn on Low Power mode, open Control Center by swiping up from the clock face, then tap the battery percentage. Just below the Battery Remaining figure, you’ll see a toggle labeled Low Power Mode. (Note that in watchOS 10, Control Center is instead accessed by pressing the side button.)

Preserve your privacy

The always-on screen offered on the Series 5 onwards has many good qualities, but you might be worried that it means personal data may be visible to other people. Fortunately, you can adjust the settings so that sensitive complications and notifications only appear when your wrist is raised.

Let’s start with complications, which could display personal data such as calendar appointments or health information. Open the Watch app on your paired iPhone. From the My Watch tab, go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Complications Data. From here you can pick and choose which complications are allowed to display their data when the always-on screen is in dimmed mode.

Similarly, if you go to Display & Brightness > Always On > Show Notifications you can fine-tune the notifications which appear in dimmed mode, and which are only allowed to reveal their information when you’ve raised your wrist.

Get discreet directions

When you’re lost in a new city, the last thing you want to do is advertise the fact that you’re a tourist (or indeed the fact that you’ve got an expensive smartwatch on your wrist and an expensive smartphone in your pocket). For this reason, it’s desirable to have Maps advise you of turnings in a way that’s discreet and doesn’t require that you look at the screen of your Apple Watch or iPhone.

While you’re still somewhere safe, open Maps on your iPhone and select a destination and the type of directions you want. Start the journey, and make sure you turn off the sound alerts by tapping the mute/unmute button on the right-hand side. Tuck the iPhone away in a pocket.

Now, as you walk along, the Apple Watch will alert you to left turns by giving you three sets of two short buzzes and signal right turns with a rapid and even series of 10 to 12 haptic taps. (You don’t need to count them, it’s the rhythm that gives it away.) When you reach your destination you get a long vibration.

Apple Watch

The first iOS 17 Developer Beta was released on the first day of WWDC, as is tradition. While it is meant for developers to begin building apps using new frameworks and APIs, and to test and send bug reports if their apps don’t work with the new software, it is technically available to anyone with a developer account.

In fact, the Developer Beta used to require a paid membership to the developer program, which costs $99 a year. With iOS 17, Apple changed its policy to allow even those with free developer accounts (which otherwise only provide access to the developer forums and Xcode) to download the iOS 17 Developer Beta.

Still, we recommend waiting for the Public Beta to begin, likely in June; the fourth or fifth Developer Beta will probably be the first Public Beta.

Update 07/05/23: Apple has released the third beta of iOS 17 to registered developers. We still expect the first public beta in July, probably in a week or two coinciding with beta 4.

iOS 17: New Features

As iOS 17 is a major release, it is full of new features. Some of our favorite iOS 17 features include live voicemail transcription, vastly improved autocorrect, better Siri (including the ability to trigger it with “Siri” rather than “Hey Siri”), contact posters, and StandBy.

Our iOS 17 guide has more on all the features coming this fall to your iPhone. Here, we’ll highlight any of the particularly interesting changes and updates in the latest beta release.

Beta 3 has just landed and we don’t yet know what significant changes it brings, but here’s what was new in beta 2:

AirDrop: The ability to hold phones near each other for AirDrop is finally implemented in beta 2.

Haptic Touch: The accessibility setting for Haptic Touch speed has been expanded from “Fast / Slow” to “Fast / Default / Slow.”. The new Default is equivalent to the old Fast, and Fast is now faster than before.

Apple Music: There are new widgets and a slider to adjust crossfade time.

StandBy: You now have the option to prevent notifications from displaying when in StandBy. Critical notifications will show regardless.

iOS 17: How to install the public beta

If you want to be among the first to test iOS 17, you can sign up for the public beta test. The process for installing a beta has changed in iOS 16.4. Here’s how the new process works now:

1. Click Sign Up on the Apple Beta page and register with your Apple ID.
2. Log in to the Beta Software Program.
3. Click Enroll your iOS device.
4. Open the Settings app, tap General, then Software Update.
5. In the Beta Updates section, select the iOS Public Beta.

It may take a few moments after registering for the beta option to appear in Software Update.

The public beta test for iOS 17 is expected to begin in July, and we suggest most users wait for it–as buggy as public betas can be, the early developer betas of major new OS releases are often even more error-prone and incomplete.

iOS 17: How to install the developer beta

You’ll need to be registered as an Apple developer. Beginning with iOS 17, you don’t need to be in the $99 per year developer program to access the developer beta. A free developer account will do. You can get one via Xcode or the Apple Developer app in iOS. Here’s how to do it via the Apple Developer app:

1. Download the Apple Developer App from the App Store.
2. Open the app.
3. Tap on Account.
4. Sign in using your usual Apple ID. 

If you want to sell applications to the App Store you’ll need to pay $99/£79 per year for a paid account. Sign up to the Apple Developer Program (here) or through Apple’s Developer App. You can compare the free and paid accounts here.

Registered developers can choose to get the Public Beta instead by selecting iOS Public Beta in the Software Update screen. It may take a little time after registering as a developer for the option to appear in Software Updates.

Some developers have an Apple ID registered for developer access that is different from the Apple ID associated with their personal Apple account and data. To use a different Apple ID for beta access than is used throughout the rest of iOS, open Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates and select the Apple ID at the bottom of the screen.

iOS 17 beta: Risks and precautions

Betas are test versions of upcoming software. They are by definition unfinished, and while they should include most or all of the features in the finished product, there will be cosmetic differences and, inevitably, some glitches and problems that will need to be fixed. The glitches and problems are why Apple bothers to beta-test iOS in the first place.

In other words, don’t expect a perfect user experience. In particular, don’t expect existing apps (including ones that you may rely on) to work properly. In extreme cases, you may even find that your device is bricked by the beta, and cannot be used until the next beta comes along and hopefully fixes the problem. It’s not uncommon for early beta software to exhibit problems like excessive battery drain, too.

The closer we get to the final launch and iOS version, the more polished and feature-complete we can expect the available betas to become. The counter to that, of course, is there will be less time left to wait for the official launch anyway.

We can’t stress enough how important it is to back up your iPhone before you install an iOS beta, or better still, use a secondary device rather than your main iPhone. You won’t lose everything if something goes wrong while the beta is installing, and you’ll be able to go back to the last version should you want to.

iOS

If you’re looking for a deal on a new MacBook Air or Pro, you can usually find one, but it’s rare to see every model on sale at once. But that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Ahead of Prime Day, being held July 11-12, Amazon has slashed prices on every MacBook Air and Pro model but at least $100 and as much as $200, including the newest 15-inch MacBook Air:

• 13-inch MacBook Air (M1, 7-core GPU, 256GB): $799 ($200 off)
• 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 8-core GPU, 256GB): $999 ($100 off)
• 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 10-core GPU, 512GB): $1,299 ($100 off, MSRP $1,399)
• 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 10-core GPU, 256GB): $1,199 ($100 off, MSRP $1,299)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 10-core GPU 256GB): $1,099 ($200 off, MSRP $1,299)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 10-core GPU, 512GB): $1,299 ($200 off, MSRP $1,499)
• 14-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 10-core CPU/19‑core GPU, 512GB): $1,799 ($200 off, MSRP $1,999)
• 16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 12-core CPU/19‑core GPU, 512GB): $2,299 ($200 off, MSRP $2,499)

Many of these prices are at or near all-time lows, and they’re all excellent options. Even the M1 MacBook Air, which is more than two years old and still sporting an M1 chip, is a great laptop for high school and college students, and the new 15-inch Air is basically the perfect laptop. We don’t know how long these sales will last or if Amazon is planning any deeper discounts once Prime Day officially arrives, but if you need a MacBook, there’s never been a better time to buy one.

MacBook

If you’re looking for a deal on a new MacBook Air or Pro, you can usually find one, but it’s rare to see every model on sale at once. But that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Ahead of Prime Day, being held July 11-12, Amazon has slashed prices on every MacBook Air and Pro model but at least $100 and as much as $200, including the newest 15-inch MacBook Air:

• 13-inch MacBook Air (M1, 7-core GPU, 256GB): $799 ($200 off)
• 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 8-core GPU, 256GB): $999 ($100 off)
• 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 10-core GPU, 512GB): $1,299 ($100 off, MSRP $1,399)
• 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 10-core GPU, 256GB): $1,199 ($100 off, MSRP $1,299)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 10-core GPU 256GB): $1,099 ($200 off, MSRP $1,299)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 10-core GPU, 512GB): $1,299 ($200 off, MSRP $1,499)
• 14-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 10-core CPU/19‑core GPU, 512GB): $1,799 ($200 off, MSRP $1,999)
• 16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 12-core CPU/19‑core GPU, 512GB): $2,299 ($200 off, MSRP $2,499)

Many of these prices are at or near all-time lows, and they’re all excellent options. Even the M1 MacBook Air, which is more than two years old and still sporting an M1 chip, is a great laptop for high school and college students, and the new 15-inch Air is basically the perfect laptop. We don’t know how long these sales will last or if Amazon is planning any deeper discounts once Prime Day officially arrives, but if you need a MacBook, there’s never been a better time to buy one.

MacBook

When Apple launched iOS 15 back in 2021, the updated software included a new feature in Photos called Visual Look Up. This neat AI-powered tool can recognize animals, plants, and landmarks in your photos, and provide information about them when tapped.

Here’s how it works: When you open a picture of some greenery in Photos, for example, you’ll notice a couple of small stars next to the information icon in the bottom bar, which means iOS has spotted something it recognizes. Tap the icon and you’ll quickly be told that the nearest tree is probably a European ash. Very handy, albeit within a relatively small number of spheres.

But two years on, Apple is expanding the usefulness of this previously niche feature. iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, which were demoed at WWDC this month and will become widely available in the fall of this year, upgrade the Visual Look Up feature to add the ability to recognize various kinds of food and, perhaps most useful of all, symbols.

These upgrades were revealed during WWDC (they’re mentioned in our write-up of iPadOS 17 written on the same day) but beta testers are only now getting to grips with them. And it’s fair to say that they’re impressed.

Writing on Mastodon Wednesday, Federico Viticci from MacStories praised iOS 17’s performance interpreting laundry tags: “iOS 17’s Photos app can now identify and explain laundry symbols in pictures and this is amazing,” he wrote. “We need to take back whatever we all said about Apple not doing machine learning right.” (For what it’s worth, not all of us have been criticizing Apple’s machine-learning efforts.)

Laundry tags are difficult for humans, being small, often faded, and cryptic or even counterintuitive in design. But they’re the perfect use case for computer AI, being largely consistent within tight visual parameters and essentially dependent on simply remembering what each one means; there’s very little room for subjective interpretation. And accordingly, Visual Look Up happily tells Viticci that the proffered garment should not be tumble-dried (too late, apparently) or dry-cleaned.

MacRumors has done some more testing of its own and further notes that you can click on the provided information to find out where it comes from. The laundry instructions come ultimately, the site reports, from the International Organization for Standardization.

The feature, according to MacRumors, is already reliable at this stage of beta testing, appearing to successfully identify every laundry symbol the site tried–although it does note that images had to be zoomed in quite far for Visual Look Up to work. And the feature can recognize symbols on car dashboards too, MacRumors has discovered. That’s an upgrade that wasn’t mentioned during the keynote.

While laundry tags may be a small upgrade, it speaks to the kind of work Apple is putting into Visual Look Up to make it a feature we’ll all use more often. And of course, it’s a feature that could be a key component of the Vision Pro headset once it becomes a device that’s meant to be worn outside.

For more information about the new features coming to an iPhone near you, check out our complete guide to iOS 17.

iOS, iPad, iPhone