Is there an Ask Woody/Patch Lady equivalent for Mac/iOS?

[WoollyMammothAskWoody Lounger]

Does anyne know if there’s a Woody equivalent for Mac / Apple / iOS?  Her indoors is having increasing problems with hew iPad, mostly due to the last update.  I’ve always found this site useful, shurely someone has recognised Apple is not immune to much the same and keeps watch?  TIA

WM
--
Win7Pro SP1
new Dec 2011
rebuilt Jun 2016
& still going nicely

[Anonymous]

Under Forums there is “MacOS for windows wonks” where us Mac folks share.  You can open a new thread there with your concerns.  HTH.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, satrow, Kirsty

[OscarCPAskWoody Plus]

There also a number of Apple/Mac user forums on the Internet you can find doing a search with Google, or some other such engine.

What is there may be mostly complaints, which could give someone a distorted view of what the overall situation is really like at the time, but worth looking into,  anyway.

Also “how-to-do-it” advice can be found in the same way, and Apple has many pages about how to deal with a large number of practical issues on the Web that I have found very helpful in the year and a quarter I have had my new Mac. If you have paid for Apple support, while it lasts you can also contact them and their chat service works OK and is helpful.

It is better to set a Web search for the period of interest, such as “last year” if you have the more recent Sierra, High Sierra or Mojave version of macOS, as older entries might be about things that are no longer available or done that way in newer operating systems and therefore no longer relevant to one’s system. As long as that system is not an old one; but if the system is an old one, the search should be made over a wider time window, and including among the key words for it the name of the older system (“Snow Leopard”, “Mountain Lion”, etc., preferably between quotation marks, as I’ve written them here.)

After clarifying some issue in the way just described, I make an entry with the explanation I’ve found in a text file I use as their log and keep in the Mac, for future reference, in a place in the Mac where I can find it find in a hurry.

There are, of course, some pretty comprehensive books on the way to use and take care of Macs, same as there are for Windows. One good way to find about those is to look up the subject in a place such as Amazon, where there are also reader reviews to get some idea of what the books are like. And then search also for book reviews of specific titles on the Web.

The key to much of what I am recommending here is to have the skills to do effective searches, which, if not possessed initially, does develop with practice.

Good luck hunting for answers to your Mac questions.

 

 

2 users thanked author for this post.

willygirl

[WoollyMammothAskWoody Lounger]

darn it, didn’t log in so have an anonymous reply awaiting moderation…  A “Friday afternoon” post.

WM
--
Win7Pro SP1
new Dec 2011
rebuilt Jun 2016
& still going nicely

[anonymous]

Thanks all. Oscar: The problem with searches (and I can assure you I am perfectly capable in that department) is it took me years to find Woody’s site, (and somewhat by accident in the end) but there’s nothing quite like it, amongst the many, that is reliable and tells me whether I’m safe to install Windoze updates/patches.  As observed, there are zillions of sites with information of varying quality, Windows and Mac.  I simply want to know iOS 11 is safe, 11.2, 11.2, 12 is safe, or not, a la Patch Lady.    Specifically, I have heard on the grapevine that the latest iOS for iPhone speeds up devices which got slow at the last update.  There are quite a few sites that say what to do about problems (such as the typical iPad slowness induced by an “upgrade” – after all this is a typical Apple modus operandum), but the suggestions are largely ineffective, and not what I want.  Simply: do I upgrade her iPad to the latest, or will that make it worse?   I thought I would ask here, but clearly no-one knows of a specific site.  Maybe there is none.  I will check the other forum board suggested.

[OscarCPAskWoody Plus]

This question just occurred to me: when it comes, not  to “how to” information (Apple, for example, takes care of much of that very nicely in various places on the Web), but to: Mac security, software update problems, OS bugs, etc., are there any “go to” websites where one can find good, reliable information about all that, and are not fans’ clubs or places where people go to, alternatively, rant venting their sometimes obscure frustrations, or attempt to show off by making snarky remarks via Twitter? Thanks.

[Nathan ParkerAskWoody_MVP]

I plan to offer some of that advice here. As one who has used Mac, Windows, and Linux over the years and who uses a Mac as my day-to-day work machine, I can offer some insight on what you’re asking. I’m also a tough critic of Apple as well, and while I enjoy Apple products, I’m not a mere fanboy who only sing Apple’s praises. When Apple makes goofs, I’m usually the first to speak up on them without going off on a major rant either. Consider me your “fair and honest” Apple contributor.

Nathan Parker

2 users thanked author for this post.

willygirl, WoollyMammoth

[Nathan ParkerAskWoody_MVP]

I discussed this in detail here:

Mojave Update Questions

To comply with the cross-post Lounge Rules, I removed my original reply here and am linking to the original thread I posted to (plus the cross-post added some wacky HTML as well I wanted removed). Please see that post for my insights on this.

Nathan Parker

[Author]

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