Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

Siri, It's Time For an Intercontinental Misunderstanding

Dec 15, 2025

Dive into a treasure trove of Quick Tips for optimizing your Apple devices! Discover how iOS 26 showcases charging time, build stunning collages for free, and extract your iMessage history like a pro. Learn to enhance haptics on your Apple Watch and navigate the intricacies of 5G tech. Enjoy a hilarious mix-up with Siri and explore live troubleshooting gems, from AirTag hacks to clipboard shortcuts. It's all about elevating efficiency while keeping control - a delightful blend of tech wizardry and creativity!

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ADVICE

See Charging Time On iOS 26 Lock Screen

Tap your iOS 26 lock screen while charging to see estimated time to target charge and percentage above the clock.
Use that ephemeral display to decide whether to wait or swap chargers without unlocking the phone.

ANECDOTE

Dave's 43‑Year Well Pump Died

Dave's well pump died after 43 years and he replaced it the next day, illustrating unexpected home tech failures.
The repair process and troubleshooting became a live example for later troubleshooting discussion on the show.

ADVICE

Make Photo Collages For Free

Use Apple's Pages to build free photo collages by placing and arranging images, then export as an image.
Canva is a good freemium alternative with ready templates for quick collage work.

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Siri, It's Time For an Intercontinental Misunderstanding — Mac Geek Gab 1120 episode image

You jump straight into a rapid-fire run of Quick Tips that quietly level up how you use your devices every day. You learn how iOS 26 now shows charging time right on the lock screen, how to build polished collages in Pages or Canva without paying a dime, and how to finally extract and archive your full iMessage history using proper database tools instead of hacks. Along the way, you tweak haptics for better feedback, realize the iOS Stocks app works just fine on a Mac, and discover how a simple Command-Shift-2 move inside ChatGPT can instantly pull screenshots into your workflow. The throughline is efficiency without sloppiness, because convenience is great until it compromises control. Don’t Get Caught.

Then things get deeper, and more fun. You wrestle with real-world troubleshooting, from intermittent freezing in Tahoe to why subjective sleep scores still matter if you want to manage what you monitor. Siri’s growing confusion about dates and times turns into a full-blown intercontinental misunderstanding, and the team breaks down the alphabet soup of 5G variants so you know what your phone is actually using. The final stretch becomes a live, unscripted tech support jam session, digging into creative AirTag placement, pasting clipboards as keystrokes, and reorganizing applications with surgical precision. It’s messy, methodical, and exactly how real problem-solving happens when the mics are on and the answers are not obvious.

00:00:00 Mac Geek Gab 1120 for Monday, December 15th, 2025
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Quick Tips
- 00:00:01 QT-iOS 26 lock screen has charging time
- 00:04:38 Jim-QT-Use Pages to Make a Collage! Don’t Pay!
  - Canva, too.
- 00:07:37 Chris-QT-Get a useable complete iMessage History
  - DB Browser for SQLite
  - Base for SQLite on Setapp
- 00:09:33 Robert-CSF-1118–iMessage-Exporter to archive your iMessages
- 00:12:46 Todd-QT-1119-Increase Haptic Prominence
- 00:14:15 Bill-QT-Stocks App iOS QT Works on a Mac too!
- 00:15:52 QT-Command-Shift-2 in ChatGPT immediately adds a screenshot of your most-recent window
  - Shottr
- A discussion about using ChatGPT, et al, and finding your place on the continuum between privacy and convenience.
- 00:26:16 QT-ChatGPT, use these screenshots to help me build a formula for Google Sheets
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Your Questions Answered and Tips Shared!
- 00:29:59 Kirit-Tahoe, freezing from time to time
- 00:34:19 Bob, MD-1119-If sleep score is so subjective, why use it?
  - That which is monitored is managed
- 00:41:17 Antony-Does Siri Know What Day It Is?
- 00:48:19 What’s the difference between 5G, 5G+, 5G UC, and 5G UW?
- 00:51:48 Time For an Intercontinental Misunderstanding
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MOAR Quick Tips
- 00:55:30 Scott-QT-Creative Air Tag Locations
- 00:57:42 Pilot Pete-QT-Paste Clipboard as Keystrokes – Native to Mac OS
- 01:09:20 Chris-QT-Add folders to label Applications
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