To fire up the voice assistant on your iPhone, you can say "Hey Siri" or simply "Siri," followed by your command. This has been true for a long time now, but Apple will finally let you change this to a custom trigger phrase of your choice "to launch shortcuts and complete complex tasks." This is not a blanket system-wide change coming with iOS 18, but it will allow you to set up custom phrases for some tasks in your workflow.
This means that although you won't be able to replace the "Hey Siri" command totally in iOS 18, you'll have the choice to make Siri do some things without calling it by its name.
iOS 18's big push for accessibility
We've written about iOS 18's accessibility features that Apple recently announced ahead of WWDC 2024, and one of these features is called Vocal Shortcuts. This will allow you to use custom phrases to trigger Siri. You'll also be able to launch shortcuts using custom phrases with iOS 18. The example Apple shared shows an iPhone using the phrase "Rings" to display your Activity Rings from the Apple Watch.
This is an accessibility feature designed to help people who face challenges with speech. It is a good example of why companies should invest more in improving accessibility—these features make the iPhone experience better for everyone. Vocal Shortcuts sounds like a great addition to the iPhone, but there are a few concerns that remain to be addressed.
Even the "Hey Siri" command gets triggered accidentally or sometimes isn't understood by the iPhone. It remains to be seen, then, how well Vocal Shortcuts work. There's always the chance that it ends up getting triggered by mistake, which could make the feature less useful. The screenshots shared by Apple show that it works just like Siri's setup process, where your iPhone will ask you to say the phrase a few times to learn how you say it. The Vocal Shortcut will be based on your speech, which should reduce the chances of firing up your shortcuts accidentally.
Apple doesn't put a middle-click button on its mice anymore. Instead, the company now makes two types of mice for its Mac devices—the trackpad (available for desktops via the Magic Trackpad) and the trackpad-like Magic Mouse. But even if you're using one of the touch-focused options that Apple ships with your computer, you can still add a middle-click function to speed up your workflow.
Apple Magic Trackpad
To use this trick anywhere but a MacBook, you'll need an Apple Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse.
What you can do with middle-click
Anyone who's ever used a mouse on PC knows that the middle-click button is a part of the scroll wheel, which Apple's current mice don't have. You can click the scroll wheel to execute certain functions, which vary depending on how the mouse is programmed. Macs still have access to these functions, since you can use third-party mice with them, and they include:
Open links in the background in your browser
Close browser tabs
Paste selected text in your Mac's Terminal
These things can save you a lot of time and they're really convenient. If you're switching to Mac from Windows, you're going to find Apple's lack of focus on the middle-click frustrating.
How macOS lets you middle-click by default
Although Macs don't ship with the middle-click button, you can use the Command-left click shortcut to execute a middle-click. This works really well, but it's a little inconvenient compared to pressing one button.
There's a better way to middle-click on your Mac
Credit: Pranay Parab
If your Mac uses a trackpad or Magic Mouse, you can add a simple, free utility called MiddleClick-Sonoma to give it a middle-click feature. The app binds the middle-click to a simple three-finger tap gesture, which is easy to execute on either device. It'll open links in the background on all browsers and close tabs, too. You can select any text in Terminal, and the three-finger tap also pastes it quickly in the app. In my experience, all these features work perfectly every time.
To install MiddleClick-Sonoma, go to its GitHub page and download the zip file. Open it and drag the app to your Mac's Applications folder using Finder, which will complete the installation. You may see a security warning from Apple, but the app is safe. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security on your Mac, and click Open Anyway to run the app.
It'll ask for Accessibility permissions, which are required to allow the app to function. Once this is granted, the last step is to ensure that the app starts when your Mac boots up. To do this, go to System Settings > General > Login Items on your Mac and hit the + button under Open at Login. Use the search bar to find MiddleClick and add it. Now, the app will run as long as your Mac is running.
Apple Magic Mouse
The Magic Mouse is Apple's take on a traditional pointer, but it doesn't middle-click.
Remember to disable the Look Up gesture
Credit: Pranay Parab
By default, the three-finger tap gesture on your Mac is reserved for Look Up. This allows you to select text and look up its meaning, definition, or other information about the term from the internet. I've always found this gesture a little annoying, as I keep accidentally firing it up when I don't need it.
Since MiddleClick uses the same gesture, it's best to disable Look Up to make sure that your middle-clicking isn't interrupted. You can do this on your Mac by going to System Settings > Trackpad > Point & Click. Now, disable Look up & data detectors. That's all you need to do to ensure you can middle-click in peace.
A paid alternative that has more features
Credit: Pranay Parab
Although MiddleClick-Sonoma is great and free, it requires a bit of setup, and the app is usually forked once a year as someone updates it to work with new versions of macOS. This means that you may have to reinstall the app annually and set it up all over again, so long as you keep updating your Mac regularly (you should).
For some people, that's a big hassle. You can avoid this by opting for a paid app, and I think Middle is worth the asking price of $8. Its developer also made Rectangle, which is a window manager app that we've recommendedmultiple times. Middle is easier to install and setup, and has the advantage of automatic updates (for as long as the developer chooses to support it).
It also allows you to configure other gestures to execute the middle-click. If you don't like the three-finger tap, you can choose instead to use a Three Finger Click, Four Finger Tap, or One Finger Force Touch. This app also lets you disable the middle-click action in certain apps, which is nice to have.
Your MacBook has a few features built in to ensure that its battery's health stays intact. It will automatically shut down the laptop if it gets too hot, since higher temperatures reduce the battery's life and capacity to perform. It'll also slow down charging when the battery is at 80% if it determines you won't need a full charge. While these features are good enough for most people, there are some battery management apps that will allow you far greater control over your MacBook's battery health.
Battery Toolkit is the best free app I've found to manage your MacBook's battery. It allows you to keep your MacBook's battery percentage between two predefined values, lets you stop charging your MacBook even when it's connected to power, and even lets you force your MacBook to charge to 100%. Some of these features require you to pay on other battery management apps, such as AlDente.
Battery management apps are best used by people who like to keep their MacBook plugged in all the time. Plenty of people use their MacBooks with the lid shut, where the laptop is connected to a monitor, an external keyboard, and a mouse. In these situations, plugging in and unplugging the Mac repeatedly to prevent overcharging is a little cumbersome. Why put in all that effort when an app can manage your battery for you?
Installing Battery Toolkit on your MacBook
To start, download Battery Toolkit from its GitHub page. Your Mac may prevent you from installing the app because it's not from a well-known developer, but it is safe to use. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway to install it.
Set up the app for optimal battery management
Credit: Pranay Parab
Once the app is running, set it up in a way that works for you. Click Battery Toolkit's icon in the menu bar up top and select Settings. Go to the Power tab and set a minimum and maximum percentage value. That way, your MacBook will start charging when it hits the minimum value and stop charging at the maximum. I've set it up to keep my MacBook between 30 and 80%, but you can choose the values that work best for your use. Click OK when you're done.
Note that the app doesn't allow you to let the minimum percentage drop below 20%, and the lower limit for the maximum charge is 50%. This is to prevent damage to the battery.
With the initial setup done, Battery Toolkit will run in the background and do what you've asked. You can keep the MacBook plugged in all the time and the app will ensure that its battery stays within the predefined threshold. But there are times when you need to change things around, and the app lets you do that too. Click Battery Toolkit's menu bar icon to see these features.
You can toggle on Disable Power Adapter to temporarily stop the MacBook from charging while it's plugged in. There are two more options here that you should know about:
Request Charging to Full
Request Charging to Maximum
These options can be confusing because of the way they're worded, but it's quite easy to understand. Charging to full will force your MacBook to charge to 100%, which you should use when you know you're going to be away from a power adapter for a long time. Charging to maximum will charge the laptop to the upper limit you've specified in the app.
You can also temporarily disable all of Battery Toolkit's settings by clicking its menu bar icon and selecting Quit Battery Toolkit.
Your iPhone has more features than you probably ever use, but with this comes with a problem—an overcrowded Settings app. With each new feature addition, toggles get added to or shuffled around in Settings. Every time I need to access an infrequently used setting, I find myself going through multiple pages, even if I use the nifty search feature in my iPhone's Settings app. If you find this frustrating, try SCSettings. This shortcut makes it easy to access of useful iPhone settings, such as wifi, Bluetooth, shut down and restart options, controls for silencing unknown callers, and more.
Setting up SCSettings
The setup for this shortcut is pretty easy. First, open Apple's Shortcuts app, which is your iPhone's automation hub. Next, download SCSettings from RoutineHub. This a third-party site that acts as a gallery for some of the best shortcuts out there. Tap Get Shortcut and follow the on-screen instructions.
Once the shortcut is installed, open the Shortcuts app and switch to the Shortcuts tab. Tap and hold SCSettings, select Share, and then tap Add to Home Screen. This will make this shortcut act like an app. You can even drag it to the dock at the bottom of the screen for easier access.
Using SCSettings on your iPhone
Tap the SCSettings icon on your iPhone's Home Screen to launch the shortcut, then select any of the on-screen options to toggle various settings. This is everything the shortcut can do:
Toggle wifi: This completely switches off wifi. You can't do this from Control Center, which merely disconnects wifi without switching off the radios.
Toggle Bluetooth: This switches off the Bluetooth radio. Like wifi, you can't do this via Control Center.
Silence Unknown Callers: Automatically silences any calls from unknown numbers.
VPN Settings Menu: Lets you access the following VPN settings: Toggle VPN, Toggle Connect on Demand, and VPN Settings.
Restart Device: Asks for a confirmation and restarts your iPhone.
Shut Down: Asks for a confirmation and shuts down your iPhone.
Search Passwords: Allows you to search your iCloud Keychain for saved passwords.
Settings Shortcuts: Allows you to easily access the following settings:
iPhone Analytics
App Privacy Report
iCloud Private Relay
Hide My Email
Screen Time
Personal hotspot
Clear Safari website data
Switch camera formats
Storage settings
Battery settings
AirDrop settings
Once you get used to this shortcut, you'll find yourself using it all the time. It's become a mainstay on my iPhone, since my job requires me to play around with settings a lot. As long as you place SCSettings in a prominent place on your iPhone's Home Screen, you'll grow to love it.
Sometimes, the shortcut may ask you for permissions to send some values. These are safe to allow, and they let the shortcut figure out which option you've chosen and take you to the corresponding Settings page. The beauty of SCSettings is that it works with options your iPhone already has, and just makes them easier to access.
One of the most annoying aspects of Spotify's free tier is the ads. Every half hour or so, the service injects a bunch of ads that interrupt your listening. There are two ways to get rid of the ads: either pay for Spotify Premium, or use any of the Spotify ad blockers I've listed in this guide.
Consider Spotify Premium
If you can afford Spotify Premium, consider subscribing. You don't always have to pay full price, either: I previously wrote a guide that helps you find the best Spotify Premium discounts. With Premium, not only does Spotify block ads, but it also adds useful features such as the ability to download songs, view time-synced lyrics, use unlimited song skips, and turn on improved audio quality.
But even though the free tier has its limitations and annoyances, Spotify does let you access interesting features such as podcast transcriptions and Spotify Blend without paying a dime. The only problem is that Spotify can take away any free feature and put it behind a paywall at any point, as it recently did with time-synced lyrics, which used to be available for free.
What Spotify ad blockers can and can't do
A Spotify ad blocker will usually either remove ads from Spotify's free tier or automatically mute the app when ads are playing. An ad blocker will not let you access all of Spotify Premium's features without paying. There are certain modded Spotify clients for Android that will allow you to add in premium features for free, but you're using these tools at your risk. Your account might get banned, or worse, your phone and all the sensitive data in it could be compromised by rogue applications.
How to block Spotify ads in web browsers
Spotify’s web player works pretty well across browsers. If that’s how you use the service, a browser extension can block ads for you. Most people will want to use uBlock Origin to block Spotify ads, but note that it blocks ads on all other websites, too. If you’d rather not block ads across the entire internet, Blockify is the Chrome extension you need. It'll block ads on Spotify alone and nowhere else.
How to hide Spotify ads on PC
There are two ways to block all ads in Spotify’s Windows app without paying for Spotify Premium. Just know that these blockers won’t work with the Microsoft Store version of the Spotify app. You’ll have to download the app directly from Spotify’s website to be able to use them.
BlockTheSpot is among the best ad blockers for Spotify on Windows. Its GitHub page goes through all the install instructions, and the blocker will remove audio, video, and banner ads from Spotify’s app. BlockTheSpot now claims it'll continue to work even if Spotify gets updated, and that it also allows you to access audio in higher quality without paying. This app also lets you hide the Upgrade button, which Spotify uses to urge you to get Premium. You still won't be able to download music if you're using BlockTheSpot, though.
If you’re looking for an alternative to BlockTheSpot, try BurntSushi. The key difference between these two apps is that BlockTheSpot is a modified Spotify client that lets you remove various annoying features, while BurntSushi is an ad blocker that works by intercepting network requests to block Spotify ads. In theory, BurntSushi should be more resilient and continue to work for longer, but both of these apps have been around for years.
How to remove Spotify ads on Mac and Linux
On Mac, you can use BlockTheSpot-Mac to block ads on the app. Install the Spotify app, quit it, and follow the instructions on the GitHub page to install the ad blocker. If you’re using Spotify’s app on Linux, you can try Spotify-adblock—just be sure to check if it’s compatible with your Linux distro before installing it.
For those who are comfortable with command line interfaces, Spicetify is a good alternative.
Mute Spotify ads on Android
On your Android phone, you can easily mute Spotify whenever it plays ads. It's not a perfect ad blocking solution, but silence is far more bearable than annoying ads. To set this up, download Mutify. Once the app is installed, go to Spotify's settings and enable Device Broadcast Status. This will allow Mutify to figure out when ads are playing and mute Spotify. With this, you can enjoy listening to music while Mutify runs in the background and takes care of muting ads for you.
Microsoft is updating the Windows 11 Snipping Tool, which is the platform's default option for capturing and annotating screenshots. Soon, you'll be able to use the Snipping Tool to scan QR codes in screenshots, finally giving you an easy way to use them on PC. You'll also be able to use Windows 11's emojis to annotate screenshots. These new features are currently rolling out to Windows Insiders and will be available in Snipping Tool version 11.2404.37.0 and newer.
Scanning QR codes using the Windows 11 Snipping Tool
Credit: Microsoft
Scanning QR codes using the Windows 11 Snipping Tool will be pretty straightforward. Just take a screenshot, open it in the Snipping Tool's markup canvas (the preview where you annotate screenshots), and select the Text Actions button in the top bar. It's located to the right of the Crop button. Snipping Tool will detect the link in the QR code and prompt you to either copy it or open it.
It's worth noting that the ability to scan QR codes has been in ShareX, my favorite tool to capture screenshots on Windows, for quite some time. Even though I love ShareX, which is free and has no ads, it can be a bit cumbersome to set up. Now, you'll be able to use QR codes on Windows right out of the box.
Annotate with emoji
Credit: Microsoft
There's two steps to annotating with emojis in Snipping Tool. First, open any screenshot in Snipping Tool's markup canvas and click the Shapes button (the icon looks like an overlapping square and circle). Then, hit the emoji icon, select the emoji you want, and drop it on the screenshot.
Other new Snipping Tool features
Credit: Microsoft
The upcoming Snipping Tool update adds back the ruler. Just hit Ctrl-R to toggle the ruler in this app. You can now also change the opacity of shape fill and outline colors.
How to access the Snipping Tool in Windows 11
There's two main ways to access the Snipping Tool. The first is to use the search bar in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen to look for the app. Alternatively, you can use the Windows-Shift-S keyboard shortcut to immediately take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool.
When will I get these new Snipping Tool features?
You can expect QR code scanning and other new Snipping Tool features to reach you in the coming months. For the moment, they're only in Windows Insider's Dev and Canary channels, which have far more experimental features than stable builds. They'll eventually make their way to the release preview channel of Windows Insider builds and then finally ship to the general public. If you're itching to try out these new features, you can join the Windows Insider program, but be prepared to face a few bugs and general instability.
Microsoft Paint's AI gets a fresh coat of paint
Credit: Microsoft
A few months ago, Microsoft had brought AI to Paint. The humble app that's been a feature of Windows for decades now lets you use DALL-E to type what you'd like to create, and generates images accordingly. This feature was called Paint Cocreator, bur Microsoft is now rebranding it to Image Creator. The change is effective with Paint version 11.2404.42.0 and newer. This is just a name change: the feature works exactly as it did before.
When you think about streaming music, it's quite likely that Spotify is the first name that comes to mind. Spotify has a massive library, a great music recommendation algorithm, and several useful features worth paying for. Spotify Premium is the paid version of the world’s most popular music streaming service. If you can't afford it, or don't want to pay for Spotify, you can still use its free tier. Free Spotify has some annoying limitations, though, such as a limited number of song skips and plenty of ads, and it doesn't let you see time-synced lyrics, either. You also miss out on the highest quality audio and lose the ability to download music for offline listening. Although you can block Spotify ads on some platforms, the rest are dealbreakers for a lot of people.
How much is Spotify Premium?
Spotify Premium has four paid plans. If you’re buying it for yourself, you’ll want Premium Individual, which costs $10.99 per month. For those who want to share music with one other person in their household, Premium Duo at $14.99 per month is the best plan. For families or larger groups who want Spotify Premium, there’s the Premium Family plan at $16.99 per month. This plan allows up to six people to sign up for one sub, but all of them should be living at the same address.
If you’re a student attending an accredited higher education institution, you can sign up for the Premium Student plan, which costs $5.99/month. This plan also lets you access Hulu (with ads).
How to get discounts on Spotify Premium
The best way to save on Spotify Premium is to sign up for an annual plan using a gift card. You can get these gift cards from Amazon or Best Buy at $99 for an annual plan. If you’re sure you’ll use Spotify all year, then you end up saving $33 when compared to paying month-to-month.
Of course, you can also take advantage of Spotify Premium’s free trials. The duration of these free trials keeps changing over time, but one thing remains the same—it only works if you've never used Spotify Premium before. You're free to create a fresh account and keep signing up for free trials for as long as you can get away with it, but remember that you'll lose your listening history and playlists each time you create a new account. At the time of writing, Spotify was offering a three-month free trial on its website. You may also periodically come across promotions that offer longer free trials. At the time of publication, Spotify and Tinder had a collaboration to let you sign up for four months of Premium for free. PayPal also offers a three-month Spotify Premium free trial.
You can sign up for Spotify Premium from another region that has lower pricing. For example, Spotify Premium in India starts from as little as INR 7 per day ($0.08); the most affordable monthly plan costs INR 119 per month ($1.43). You’ll have to use a VPN to periodically sign in from the region you choose. Know, however, that streaming deals vary by region so some artists available on Spotify USA may be missing when you sign up from other regions.
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