iOS 26 Hidden Gems, Gift Guide Favorites, and the Return of Your Old Nest Thermostat

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Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

Dave Hamilton, Pilot Pete & Adam Christianson

1116 episodes

3 days ago

Get answers to your Apple tech questions every week! Dave Hamilton, Adam Christianson, and Pilot Pete share tips, tricks, and troubleshooting advice for your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and more — all delivered in a fun, friendly way that helps geeks and everyday users alike. Don’t Get Caught without your tech working right!

All content for Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting is the property of Dave Hamilton, Pilot Pete & Adam Christianson and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

iOS 26 Hidden Gems, Gift Guide Favorites, and the Return of Your Old Nest Thermostat

Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

1 hour 21 minutes 33 seconds

3 days ago

iOS 26 Hidden Gems, Gift Guide Favorites, and the Return of Your Old Nest Thermostat

You kick off with a blast of rapid-fire tips: instantly saving PDFs from Google Docs, digging photos out of Messages, moving your playlists into Apple Music with iOS 26, tightening up your Digital ID setup, wrangling mail right inside a message, and even retraining Siri when she goes off the rails. Then you dig into listener questions: how to avoid phishing traps, whether segmenting IoT gear actually improves security, and how to bypass that annoying shutdown confirmation. Sleep-tracking follow-ups, auto-opening Safari’s sidebar, and a perfectly absurd detour into fattening up backyard squirrels keep things moving. Through it all, you avoid the pitfalls and, of course, Don’t Get Caught.
From there, the next iteration of the Gift Guide rolls out, finding those products that are so embedded into our lives we forget about them: Hue bulbs for whole-home color, the Snap Grip for better shooting on the go, the Olight for serious flashlight needs, AirPods Pro with live translation tricks, single-ear noise canceling, and Comply tips for comfort. You wrap with Cool Stuff Found, including What Three Words for location smarts and the clever NoLongerEvil workaround to resurrect aging Nest thermostats. Punchy, practical, and full of the good bits you can use right now.

00:00:00 Mac Geek Gab 1116 for Wednesday, November 17th, 2025

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Quick Tips

00:00:01 QT-Command+P in Google Docs immediately saves a PDF
00:04:57 P2-QT-Find a Photo in Messages
00:08:45 n-JKDawson-QT-iOS 26 lets you transfer music from other services to Apple Music
00:10:53 QT-Set up your Apple Digital ID
00:16:30 QT-iOS Mail management from within the message
00:18:10 Ben-QT-Retrain Siri if She’s Not working on your Watch

Sponsors

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Your Questions Answered and Tips Shared!

00:19:23 Paul-How best to avoid phishing scams?
00:28:27 Dan DXZDB-What are the impacts of putting IOT devices on a separate Wi-Fi network?
00:36:37 Steven-Q-Getting Around the ‘Are You Sure’ prompt when shutting down
Shutdown and Restart Keystrokes

sudo shutdown -h now

00:41:52 OurStanley-Sleep Cycle Follow-up
00:44:46 Fattening Up The Squirrels
00:45:26 Dick-How to auto-open Safari with the Bookmarks Sidebar visible?

Sponsors

00:49:06 SPONSOR: CleanMyMac. Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use my code MACGEEK for 20% off at ...