Time Machine: A Lifesaver for mac Users
If you're a Mac user,you might be familiar with a handy feature called Time Machine. While the name might suggest it can alter history (wich it can't), it's still an invaluable tool for restoring your system to a previous state. It allows you to revert back to earlier backups, especially useful when you've made a mistake that disrupts everything.
My Unfortunate iOS Upgrade
Recently,I found myself in a similar predicament with my iPhone 14 Pro after upgrading to iOS 26. This wasn’t something I had planned; as someone who has spent years in tech journalism, I know that jumping on new software too soon frequently enough feels like being an unpaid beta tester.
The smarter move is usually to wait until the dust settles and any bugs are ironed out before making the switch—especially if your current setup is running smoothly. Why take needless risks?
this time around, however, my hand was forced by work obligations. I received a pair of Beats Powerbeats Fit headphones for review and discovered that connecting them required me to upgrade my phone’s operating system first.
I thought, “What could possibly go wrong?” Little did I know that some questions should never be asked.
The Unexpected Consequences
The download process went quickly enough; my phone displayed the Apple logo along with a reassuring progress bar filling up steadily over just minutes. Before long,I was greeted by the new interface of iOS 26… which looked surprisingly similar to iOS 18 despite skipping several versions in between. Apple decided not to release versions 19 through 25 and instead aligned their numbering with other products and the current year.
At first glance, things seemed fine. The Liquid Glass transparency effect looked appealing but felt somewhat foreign—as if I were using someone else’s device. My initial excitement faded when I noticed an issue right away: my beloved Reddit widget on the home screen had vanished! Instead of cute cat pictures from r/cats,there was just an error message saying “Sorry,this widget isn’t working.”
This minor setback bothered me more than it should have; others shared similar frustrations on Reddit as well.
A Temporary fix That Didn't Last Long
I found one workaround—enabling Larger Text mode—but after less than a day of dealing with oversized text on my screen (which reminded me too much of aging eyes), I decided it wasn’t worth sacrificing aesthetics for feline content and switched back.
More Annoyances Surface
Next came some annoying quirks rather than serious issues. My main messaging app WhatsApp started acting strangely; there would occasionally be large blank spaces between messages and the keyboard—a frustrating sight!
This seems linked to third-party keyboards like Gboard—which hasn’t seen updates from Google in three years—so I'm left waiting indefinitely for fixes while dealing with these glitches myself.
A Frustrating Layout Change
Add onto this mix another irritation: changes in how sharing options appeared within apps disrupted my muscle memory completely! Sending articles from paywalled sites into Apple News now required different steps than before—and why was Amazon suddenly so prominently featured? If I'm looking for products there specifically, I'll just visit Amazon.com directly!
Potentially Serious Issues Arise
I also faced some potentially notable problems post-update: unexpectedly getting logged out of Slack without warning caught me off guard as I'd always received notifications about account expirations previously—this time nothing came through at all!
