Pranay Parab

10 Hacks Every Apple HomePod User Should Know The hacks will help you make the most of Apple's HomePod smart speaker.

I compiled a list of HomePod tips based on my 8+ years of experience with these speakers. I've had a love-hate relationship with this product, but I've learned how to work around its issues and enjoy the HomePod to the max. Pretty sure you'll find something useful here lifehacker.com/tech/homepod...

This New Android Smartphone Is For Everyone Who Misses the Blackberry Clicks Communicator is a BlackBerry-like smartphone with a physical keyboard. There's also the Clicks Power Keyboard, which is a power bank with a sliding keyboard.

My favorite #CES announcements are the ones with a clear launch timeline and pricing details. The Clicks Communicator and Power Keyboard both meet those criteria lifehacker.com/tech/this-ne...

This App Instantly Blocks Out Sensitive Info From Your Mac Screenshots You can redact information from your Mac screenshots using ScreenFloat 2. The app automatically detects numbers, dates, email addresses, phone numbers, and allows you to bulk-redact this information f...

ScreenFloat 2 is a great screenshot app for Mac. One of its nicest features is automatic redaction. It redacts almost all sensitive information from your screenshots in two clicks lifehacker.com/tech/screenf...

You Can Make Your iPhone Clipboard Way More Useful iPhone clipboard managers allow you to keep track of things you've copied. The best of these apps let you enable an always-on clipboard management feature.

If you need any of their apps, go ahead and buy them, while also supporting a great cause. Yoink on iPhone is one of those rare apps that has a built-in clipboard manager lifehacker.com/tech/you-can...

Eternal Storms Software, makers of the useful iPhone and Mac apps like Yoink and ScreenFloat, have a Black Friday sale where 30% of the proceeds are going to the Austrian St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute. blog.eternalstorms.at/2025/11/27/e...

Why I Use 'Albums' Instead of the Official Apple Music Mac App Albums for Mac focuses on playing whole albums from your Apple Music library, instead of single songs.

This is my new favorite Apple Music app for Mac. It's also how I discovered that my library has an album that lasts exactly 666 minutes! :D lifehacker.com/tech/why-i-u...

Downie is the Simplest Way to Download YouTube Videos (and More) to Your Mac Downie for Mac lets you download videos from hundreds of different websites. You can either download in-app using a URL, or via a browser extension.

This is the best video downloader for Mac

Unfortunately that’s the truth. For Indian authors I usually buy physical books from indie bookstores. For me, e-books are mainly for stuff that’s not easily available in India.

I wouldn’t recommend this method for everyone but it’s working for me at the moment.

How to Boost Voices in Apple Podcasts in iOS 26 Apple Podcasts is getting an 'Enhance Dialogue' feature in iOS 26. It suppresses background noise and makes it easier to hear voices in podcasts.

Apple Podcasts has a voice boost feature in iOS 26, but it doesn't work particularly well yet. Hope they fix it in upcoming betas, but otherwise I'm going to continue with Overcast.

Come to think of it, the book had its own adventure on its way to me. It went from Hastings to London to New Delhi to Bhopal to Mumbai. The kindness of strangers brought me a lot of joy and I’m so grateful. My heart is full today.

A hand holding up a hardcover copy of Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde.

Finally got my hands on Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde. My relatives from London handed it to me recently. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I’ve wanted to read for over 10 years! Big props to @biggreenbooks.bsky.social and the generosity of @matt-also-writes.com who bought this copy for me. 🙌🏾

I 'De-Amazoned' My Kindle, and Here's How I Buy DRM-Free EBooks A guide on how to legally buy DRM-free ebooks and send them to your Kindle or other ereader. DRM-free means you own these, and can read them on any device you have.

I'm using my new Kindle without an Amazon account and that sent me down a rabbit hole looking for DRM-free ebook stores. Turns out that there are lots of options and you don't really need the Kindle store to buy books at all. lifehacker.com/tech/how-to-...

Google's Using AI to Help You Find Cheap Flights Google Flights is getting an AI deal search box called Flight Deals, which lets you look for cheap flights using natural language.

Google Flights is getting a cool new AI deal hunter lifehacker.com/tech/googles...

Three Ways to Back Up iCloud Photos to an External Hard Drive iCloud Photos is great for keeping an online copy of your iPhone pictures, but you should also store an offline backup just in case. Here's how.

Found some apps that sync your iCloud photos with an external hard drive, which significantly reduces the chances of losing precious memories

I Have a Pro Max iPhone, and iOS 26 Makes It Way Easier to Use One-Handed iOS 26 has made it easier for your fingers to find important features such as the search bar, call controls, and much more. This is a welcome change for people who use Plus or Pro Max sized iPhones.

Ergonomics is my favorite iOS 26 feature! No more finger yoga to reach the search bar

All the iOS 26 Features Apple Barely Mentioned at WWDC 2025 iOS 26 has plenty of under-the-hood improvements. Here are 36 of the best iOS 26 features that Apple briefly highlighted during WWDC 2025.

FINALLY! You can select partial text from your iPhone's Messages app in iOS 26. There's no need to select the whole message and then delete unwanted things. Can't believe it took them this long to ship this. https://lifehacker.com/tech/all-the-ios-26-features-apple-barely-mentioned-at-wwdc-2025

These Apple Devices Won't Get Software Updates Anymore A lot of Apple devices support iOS 26, macOS 26, and iPadOS 26, but Apple is leaving a few old products behind. Here's a full list of all the iPhones, Macs, and iPads that will not get upgraded to version 26 of their respective operating systems.

RIP iPhone XS! No more iOS updates for the phone I used until January of this year. https://lifehacker.com/tech/these-apple-devices-wont-get-software-updates-anymore

I just realized that I have around 250 games in my Epic Games library but I haven't bought or played a single one of them. I keep claiming the free games whenever I see them, not even sure why lol

How to Get Verified on Bluesky Bluesky now allows you to submit an application for verification. Here's what you need to know to get yourself that blue badge.

Bluesky has way too many verification types. If that's confusing, I'm here to simplify the whole thing https://lifehacker.com/tech/how-to-get-verified-on-bluesky

This App Brings the iPhone’s Dynamic Island to Your Mac The notch in the MacBook Air and Pro is not dead space if you have the right apps. These notch apps bring the Dynamic Island from the iPhone to your Mac. This is most useful if you have a MacBook with a display notch, but it works just as well if your display doesn't have a notch.

Even though my MacBook doesn't have a display notch, I still enjoyed using Alcove because it's really well-designed https://lifehacker.com/tech/alcove-brings-iphones-dynamic-island-to-your-mac

I just finished book 5 of Dungeon Crawler Carl and wow… this series just keeps getting better. It really goes beyond the stats and power progression, and sets up a much bigger endgame. Can't wait to read the rest of this series.

Five Hidden Windows App Switcher Secrets The Alt-Tab shortcut is well-known for switching between apps, but there's much more to the Windows app switcher than you might think. This guide includes tips that let you keep the app switcher on-screen permanently, change the look and feel of the app switcher window, and even open the app switcher in full-screen.

Got back to using my PC after a bit of a break, and enjoyed playing around with the app switcher: https://lifehacker.com/tech/5-hidden-windows-app-switcher-secrets

iOS Is About to Get a Lot More Accessible Apple has revealed all the new accessibility features coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro in 2025. These features will be available with the launch of iOS 19, macOS 16, ...

In a car, I start to feel nauseous if I look at a screen or read a book. Since Apple launched Vehicle Motion Cues last year, I've finally been able to use my iPhone when I'm a passenger in vehicles. So glad it's coming to Mac lifehacker.com/tech/ios-abo...

The Switch 2 Has Two Great New Features for Battery Health and Security Nintendo Switch 2 allows you to lock the console with a PIN, which will prevent unauthorized access of the device. Charging limits will help you use the console for longer without replacing its battery.

The Switch 1 should've shipped with these features, but it's better late than never! Can't wait for Switch 2 https://lifehacker.com/entertainment/the-switch-2-has-two-great-new-features-for-battery-health-and-security

The Best Podcast Apps of 2025 The best podcast apps have incredible features, such as setting podcasts as alarms, tweaking every part of the playback controls interface, and automatically adjusting playback speed. This guide evalu...

Had fun testing a whole bunch of podcast apps for this roundup. If I could justify the price of Castro's subscription, I'd probably make it my default podcast player. Having said that, all of these are really good apps: lifehacker.com/tech/the-bes...

A yellow exclamation mark logo at the top, followed by the text: ”Friday, 09 May 2025 17/26/58.png" Not Opened Apple could not verify "Friday, 09 May 2025 17/26/58.png" is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.

Apple's security prompts are bordering on paranoia now. I took a screenshot on my iPhone and sent it to my Mac, and now Apple won't let me open it. This is ridiculous!

PopClip Is Like a Supercharged Right Click for Text on Mac PopClip adds a popover menu whenever you select text on Mac. This makes it easy to access basic actions such as cut, copy, and paste, and it has many extensions to send text to third-party apps, or ev...

PopClip adds superpowers to the right-click action on your Mac lifehacker.com/tech/popclip...

Firefox is rolling out some cool new features! I like tab groups and profiles quite a lot https://lifehacker.com/tech/firefox-finally-supports-multiple-profiles

Antinote is a really good app https://lifehacker.com/tech/try-this-mac-based-notepad-alternative-to-give-your-stick-notes-superpowers

I love writing about hacks that let you disable AI from apps that force us to use it. Case in point: https://lifehacker.com/tech/use-this-shortcut-to-remove-ai-from-google-photos-search