by Marilyn | Jan 15, 2019 | Activity Monitor, Explainer, Mac, performance, RAM
No matter how fast your Mac was when it was new, the time will come when apps launch slowly, the spinning beachball appears more often, and everything responds sluggishly. Such problems won’t happen all the time, and you can often fix them by quitting a piggy app or... 
by Marilyn | Sep 13, 2018 | battery, customization, Do Not Disturb, Downtime, iBooks, iOS 12, Measure, News, notifications, performance, productivity, Screen Time, Siri Shortcuts, Stocks, Voice Memos
Feeling left behind because you don’t have the latest iPhone or iPad? Don’t, because Apple has a present for you in the form of iOS 12. The new operating system promises to increase performance, particularly for older devices as far back as the iPhone 5s and iPad Air.... 
by Marilyn | Nov 14, 2017 | APFS, Apple Pros, APros Archive, Article, Explainer, Fusion Drive, iMac, Mac, Mac mini, performance, Restricted Content, storage
There are two basic types of storage devices available today: hard disk drives and solid-state drives. For the lowest cost per gigabyte, you can’t go wrong with a hard drive, and they come in truly massive sizes—up to a whopping 8 terabytes. However, they’re... 
by Marilyn | Sep 24, 2017 | APFS, Article, Explainer, iOS, iOS 10, Mac, maintenance, performance, Security
A major change in macOS 10.13 High Sierra is the switch to Apple’s new Apple File System, or APFS. With any luck, you’ll barely notice the change, just as almost no one did earlier this year when Apple updated millions of iOS devices to APFS with iOS 10.3. But let’s... 
by Marilyn | Sep 20, 2017 | battery, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, performance, power, Restricted Content, Tip
If your MacBook’s battery charge is dropping faster than you think is reasonable, it’s time to look for the culprit. Click the Battery icon in the menu bar and wait a few seconds for the Battery menu to display power information, including which apps are using... 
by Marilyn | May 13, 2017 | Activity Monitor, How-To, Mac, performance
Does it seem like your Mac is running slowly? It’s always possible that you need more RAM, a speedy SSD to replace a slow hard drive, or even a new Mac. But you might just have a rogue app that’s hogging your Mac’s CPU. Here’s how to figure out if that’s the problem....