Multihoming

The order of the network connections listed in the Network pane is important. That’s the sequence the Mac uses as it tries to get online. If one of your programs needs internet access and the first method isn’t hooked up, then the Mac switches to the next available connection automatically.

In fact, macOS can maintain multiple simultaneous network connections—Ethernet, Wi-Fi, dial-up, even FireWire—with a feature known as multihoming.

This feature is especially relevant for laptops. When you open your web browser, your laptop might first check to see if it’s plugged into an Ethernet cable, which is the fastest, most secure type of connection. If there’s no Ethernet, then it looks for a Wi-Fi network.

Here’s how to go about setting up the connection-attempt sequence you want:

1. Open System Preferences → Network.

   The Network status screen (Figure 16-1) brings home the point of multihoming: You can have more than one network connection operating at once.

2. From the pop-up menu, choose Set Service Order.

   Now you see the display shown in Figure 16-2. It lists all the ways your Mac knows how to get online, or onto an office network.

3. Drag the items up and down the list into priority order.

   If you have a wired broadband connection, for example, you might want to drag your Ethernet connection to the top of the list, since that’s almost always the fastest way to get online.

   

   Figure 16-2. The key to multihoming is sliding the network connection methods’ names up or down. Note that you can choose a different connection sequence for each location. (Locations are described later in this chapter.)

4. Click OK.

   You return to the Network pane of System Preferences, where the master list of connections magically re-sorts itself to match your efforts.

Your Mac will now be able to switch connections even in real time, during a single internet session. If lightning takes out your Ethernet hub in the middle of your web surfing, your Mac will seamlessly switch to your Wi-Fi network, for example, to keep your session alive.

All right, then: Your paperwork is complete. The following pages guide you through the process of setting up these various connections.

Automatic Configuration

Most broadband connections require no setup whatsoever. Take a new Mac out of the box, plug in the Ethernet cable to your cable modem—or choose a wireless network from the menulet—and you can begin surfing the web instantly.

That’s because most cable modems, DSL boxes, and wireless base stations use DHCP. It stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, but what it means is “We’ll fill in your Network pane of System Preferences automatically.” (Including techie specs like IP address and DNS server addresses.)

Manual Configuration

If, for some reason, you’re not able to surf the web or check email the first time you try, it’s remotely possible that your broadband modem or your office network doesn’t offer DHCP. In that case, you may have to fiddle with the Network pane of System Preferences, preferably with a customer-support rep from your broadband company on the phone.

On the Network pane, click your internet connection (Wi-Fi, built-in Ethernet, cellular modem, whatever). Click Advanced; click TCP/IP. Now you see something like Figure 16-3. Don’t be alarmed by the morass of numbers and periods—it’s all in good fun. (If you find TCP/IP fun, that is.)

Figure 16-3. Here’s the setup for a cable-modem account with a static IP address, which means you have to type in all these numbers yourself.

Ethernet Connections

The beauty of Ethernet connections is that they’re super-fast and super-secure. No bad guys sitting across the coffee shop, armed with shareware “sniffing” software, can intercept your email and chat messages, as they theoretically can when you’re on wireless.

And 99 percent of the time, connecting to an Ethernet network is as simple as connecting the cable to the Mac. That’s it. You’re online, quickly and securely, and you never have to worry about connecting or disconnecting.

Wi-Fi Connections

Your Mac can communicate with a wireless base station up to 300 feet away. Doing so lets you surf the web from your laptop in a hotel room, for example, or share files with someone across the building from you.

Chapter 13 has much more information about setting up a Wi-Fi network. The real fun begins, however, when it comes time to join one.

Sometimes you just want to join a friend’s Wi-Fi network. Sometimes you’ve got time to kill in an airport, and it’s worth a $7 splurge for half an hour. And sometimes, at some street corners in big cities, Wi-Fi signals bleeding out of apartment buildings might give you a choice of several free hotspots to join.

Your Mac joins Wi-Fi hotspots like this:

• First, it sniffs around for a Wi-Fi network you’ve used before. If it finds one, it connects quietly and automatically. You’re not asked for permission, a password, or anything else; you’re just online. (It’s that way, for example, when you come home with your laptop every day.) For details on this memorization feature, see the box below.

• If the Mac can’t find a known hotspot, but it detects a new hotspot or two, a message appears on the screen, displaying their names. Double-click one to connect.

  Tip

  If you don’t want your Mac to keep interrupting you with its discoveries of new hotspots—it can get pretty annoying when you’re in a taxi driving through a city—you can shut them off. In System Preferences, click Network, click Wi-Fi, and then turn off “Ask to join new networks.”

• If you’re in the presence of a commercial hotspot—one that requires payment or reading some kind of insipid legal agreement—macOS opens a miniature web page, shoving it right into your face, even if your web browser isn’t open; see Figure 16-4.

•   If you missed the opportunity to join a hotspot when the message appeared, or if you joined the wrong one or a nonworking one, you have another chance. You can always choose a hotspot’s name from the menulet, as shown in Figure 16-5. A icon indicates a hotspot that requires a password, so you don’t waste your time trying to join it (unless, of course, you have the password).

Figure 16-4. MacOS auto-opens a page like this whenever it senses that you’re in a commercial Wi-Fi network, one that requires you to sign in. (That’s a big improvement from the old way, where you’d join a network and then have no clue that you wouldn’t be able to get any further until you opened up your web browser to find that login screen.)

Before you get too excited, though, some lowering of expectations is in order. There are a bunch of reasons why your menulet might indicate that you’re in a hotspot, but you can’t actually get online:

• It’s locked. If there’s a next to the hotspot’s name in your menulet, it’s password protected. That’s partly to prevent hackers from “sniffing” the transmissions and intercepting messages and partly to keep random passersby like you off the network.

• The signal isn’t strong enough. Sometimes the Wi-Fi signal is strong enough to make the hotspot’s name show up in your menu but not strong enough for an actual connection.

• You’re not on the list. Sometimes, for security, hotspots are rigged to permit only specific computers to join, and yours isn’t one of them.

• You haven’t logged in yet. Commercial hotspots (the ones you have to pay for) don’t connect you to the internet until you’ve supplied your payment details on a special web page that appears automatically when you open your browser, as described in the next section.

• The router’s on, but the internet’s not connected. Sometimes a wireless router is broadcasting but its internet connection is down. It’d be like a cordless phone that has a good connection back to the base station in the kitchen—but the phone cord isn’t plugged into the base station.

Figure 16-5. Top: Congratulations—your Mac has discovered new Wi-Fi hotspots all around you! You even get to see the signal strength right in the menu. Double-click one to join it. But if you see a icon next to the hotspot’s name, beware: It’s been protected by a password. If you don’t know it, then you won’t be able to connect.
Bottom: Later, you can always switch networks using the Wi-Fi menulet.
Or, if you have an iPhone or cellular iPad with Instant Hotspot turned on (“Instant Hotspot”), you can hop right onto your own private network.

Commercial Hotspots

Choosing the name of the hotspot you want to join is generally all you have to do—if it’s a home Wi-Fi network.

Unfortunately, joining a commercial Wi-Fi hotspot—one that requires a credit card number (in a hotel room or an airport, for example)—requires more than just connecting to it. You also have to sign into it before you can send so much as a single email message.

To do that, open your web browser—if, in fact, macOS doesn’t auto-open the sign-up screen (see Figure 16-4). You’ll see the “Enter your payment information” screen either immediately or as soon as you try to open a web page of your choice. (Even at free hotspots, you might have to click OK on a welcome page to initiate the connection.)

Supply your credit card information or (if you have a membership to this Wi-Fi chain, like Boingo or T-Mobile) your name and password. Click Submit or Proceed, try not to contemplate how this $8 per hour is pure profit for somebody, and enjoy your surfing.

Creating a New Location

To create a location, which is nothing more than a set of memorized settings, open System Preferences, click Network, and then choose Edit Locations from the Location pop-up menu. Continue as shown in Figure 16-6 at bottom.

When you click Done, you return to the Network panel. Take this opportunity to set up the kind of internet connection you use at the corresponding location, just as described on the first pages of this chapter. If you travel regularly, you can build a list of locations, each of which “knows” the way you like to get online in each city you visit.

A key part of making a new location is putting the various internet connection types (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Modem, Bluetooth) into the correct order. Your connections will be slightly quicker if you give the modem connection priority in your Hotel setup, the Wi-Fi connection priority in your Starbucks setup, and so on.

You can even turn off some connections entirely. For example, if you use nothing but a cable modem when you’re at home, you might want to create a location in which only the Ethernet connection is active. Use the Make Service Inactive command in the menu.

Conversely, if your laptop uses nothing but Wi-Fi when you’re on the road, then your location could include nothing but the Wi-Fi connection. You’ll save a few seconds each time you try to go online, because your Mac won’t bother hunting for an internet connection that doesn’t exist.

Making the Switch

Once you’ve set up your various locations, you can switch among them using the → Location submenu, as shown in Figure 16-6. As soon as you do so, your Mac is automatically set to get online the way you like.

Turning On Internet Sharing

To turn on Internet Sharing on the gateway Mac, open the Sharing panel of System Preferences. Click Internet Sharing, as shown in Figure 16-7, but don’t turn on the checkbox yet.

Before you do that, you have to specify (a) how the gateway Mac is connected to the internet, and (b) how it’s connected to the other Macs on your network:

• Share your connection from. Using this pop-up menu, identify how this Mac (the gateway machine) connects to the internet—via built-in Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular modem, or Bluetooth DUN (dial-up networking—that is, tethering to your cellphone or iPad).

  

  Figure 16-7. Ka-ching! You and your buddy are about to save money. In this example, an Ethernet wire is getting this Mac online. But it’s sharing that internet connection with other Macs via Wi-Fi. They can get online, too.

• To computers using. Using these checkboxes, specify how you want your Mac to rebroadcast the internet signal to the others. (It has to be a different network channel. You can’t get your signal via Wi-Fi and then pass it on via Wi-Fi.)

Now visit each of the other Macs on the same network. Open the Network pane of System Preferences. Select the network method you chose in the second step above: Wi-Fi, Built-in Ethernet, or FireWire. Click Apply.

If the gateway Mac is rebroadcasting using Wi-Fi—by far the most common use of this feature—then you have one more step. In your menulet, you’ll see a strange new “hotspot” that wasn’t there before, bearing the name of the gateway Mac. (It might say, for example, “Casey’s MacBook Air.”) Choose its name to begin your borrowed internet connection.

As long as the gateway Mac remains on and online, both it and your other computers, even Windows PCs, can get onto the internet simultaneously, all at high speed. You’ve created a software base station. The Mac itself is now the transmitter for internet signals to and from any other Wi-Fi computers within range.

iCloud Photos

This feature keeps your photos and videos backed up online and synced. All your photos and videos are always backed up, and always accessible from any of your gadgets. That’s all there is to it. Every photo that winds up on your Mac, every picture you take with your iPhone, all wind up on both. You can even see all of this at iCloud.com (click Photos), complete with tabs for Moments, Albums, and the other Photos categories.

There is, of course, a catch. Your entire iCloud account comes with only 5 gigabytes of free storage. If you start backing up your photo library to it, too, you’ll have to pay to expand that storage.

My Photo Stream

Every time a new photo enters your life—when you take a picture with an i-gadget, for example, or import one onto your Mac—it gets added to your Photo Stream. In other words, it appears automatically on all your other iCloud machines.

Unlike iCloud Photos, this feature is free. On the other hand, it maintains only the most recent 1,000 photos you’ve taken (Figure 16-9). There’s another limitation, too: The iCloud servers store your photos for only 30 days. But as long as your gadgets go online at least once a month, they’ll remain current with the Photo Stream.

Figure 16-9. Left: Why, look! It’s photos you imported onto your Mac at home. How’d they get here on the iPhone? iCloud!
To rescue one of these photos from the 1,000-photo rule, open it. Then tap the button.
Right: Finally, tap Save Image (bottom row, right). Now, even after that photo disappears from the Photo Stream, having been displaced by the 1,001st incoming photo, you’ll still have your permanent copy.

And once a photo arrives, you can save it to your Camera Roll, where it’s permanently saved. See Figure 16-9.

To find your Photo Stream, open the Photos app on your phone, tablet, Apple TV, or Mac. There it is, in the Albums list: An “album” called My Photo Stream. (On a Windows PC, you’d get a Photo Stream folder in your Pictures folder.)

This, in its way, is one of the best features in all of iCloudland, because it means you don’t have to sync your iPhone over a USB cable to get your photos onto your computer. It all happens automatically, wirelessly over Wi-Fi.

Shared Albums

Shared Albums lets you send photos or videos to other people’s Apple gadgets (Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs)—and, in a more limited way, even to non-Apple people. After a party or some other get-together, you can send your best shots to everyone who attended; after a trip, you can post your photographic memories for anyone who might care.

Figure 16-10. The life cycle of a shared album, as visible in the Photos app:
Top left: After selecting the photos and videos you want to share, click and then Shared Albums. This box appears; type a comment if you like. Click New Shared Album.
Bottom: Name the album; invite people to view these pictures. They’re invited by email.
Right: Later, you can permit your guests to post their own pictures, make this site visible to the unwashed non-Apple masses, and request notifications when someone interacts with your album.

The lucky recipients can post comments about your pix, click a “like” button to indicate their enthusiasm, or even submit their pictures and videos. It’s like having a tiny Instagram network of your very own, consisting solely of people you invite.

The steps for creating Shared Albums vary by program. Figure 16-10, for example, shows how it works in the Photos app.

Setting Up Family Sharing

You can turn on Family Sharing either on the Mac (in System Preferences → iCloud) or on the phone. Since this book is about the Mac, here are the steps to do it there (Figure 16-12).

In System Preferences → iCloud, click Set Up Family. Read about the juicy features, and then click Continue. The next screen asks you to confirm that you are the sage adult, the Organizer—the one with the power, the wisdom, and the credit card. Click Continue (unless it’s listing the wrong iCloud account, in which case you can fix it now).

On successive screens, you read about the idea of shared Apple Store purchases; you’re shown the credit card that Apple believes you want to use; you’re offered the chance to share your location with the others. Each time, read and click Continue or Confirm.

Finally, you’re ready to introduce the software to your family.

Click the + button at lower left. Then:

• If the kid has an iCloud account and is standing right there with you in person: Type in her name or email address. (Your child’s name must already be in your Contacts; if not, go add her first. By the way, you’re a terrible parent.)

  You’re asked to confirm that you’re actually present with her by entering the security code for your credit card. When you click Continue, she can now enter her iCloud password on your Mac to complete her setup.

  On the next screen, she has a couple of decisions to make.

  

  Figure 16-12. The iCloud pane of System Preferences is the central hub of Family Sharing planning. The setup process involves a bunch of dialog boxes, but at least you have to walk through them only once.

• If the kid has an iCloud account but isn’t with you at the moment: Type in her email address. Click Send an Invitation.

  Your little darling gets an email at that address. She must open it on her Apple gadget—in the Mail app on her iPhone or Mac, for example.

  When she hits View Invitation, she can either enter her iCloud name and password (if she has an iCloud account), or get an Apple ID (if she doesn’t).

  Once she accepts the invitation, she can choose a picture to represent herself; tap Confirm to agree to be in your family; enter her iCloud password to share the stuff she’s bought from Apple; agree to Apple’s lawyers’ demands; and, finally, opt in to sharing her location with the rest of the family.

• If the kid is under 13: Your kid doesn’t have an iCloud account, because until Family Sharing came along, you had to be over 13 to get an iCloud account. No longer!

  Choose “Create an Apple ID for a child who doesn’t have an account.” Click Continue. On the screen that follows, you’ll enter the kid’s name and birth date (Figure 16-13, top).

  Make up a name and password for the new iCloud account, too. Decide whether you want the family to be able to see where the kid is at all times. Click Continue.

  On the Parent Privacy Disclosure screen, enter the security code for your credit card yet again (to prove that you’re you, and not, for example, your naughty kid).

  On the next screen, you choose and answer three security questions for this new iCloud account. Click Continue. Then more legalese on two screens (click “I agree,” and then Agree).

Figure 16-13. Top: You’ll notice that the dialog box requires a birth year that confirms that your kid’s age is under 13. If your kid is over 13, you should set up an iCloud account in the usual way—at iCloud.com, for example, or in System Preferences → iCloud.
Bottom: A newly added family member has some decisions to make. First, the Purchases pop-up menu lets her specify her iCloud address—the one whose purchases she’ll be pooling with the family. (It’s usually the same address you just specified, but not always.)
Second, here she can turn on location sharing. In other words: The rest of the family will be able to see where she is, using Messages, Find My Mac, and the Find My Friends app on the iPhone or iPad.

You can, of course, repeat this cycle to add additional family members, up to a maximum of six. Their names and ages appear on the Family screen.

From here, you can click someone’s name to perform stunts like these:

• Delete a family member. Man, you guys really don’t get along, do you? Anyway, click the — button.

• Turn Ask To Buy on or off. This option appears when you’ve selected a child’s name. If you decide that your kid is responsible enough not to need your permission for each purchase, you can turn this option off.

  Note

  If you turn off Ask To Buy for someone after she turns 18, you can’t turn it on again.

• Turn Parent/Guardian on or off. This option appears when you’ve selected an adult’s name. It gives Ask To Buy approval privileges to someone else besides you—your spouse, for example.

• Turn “Allow [this person] to see your location” on or off. Do you want this person to be able to see where you are (by using Messages, Find My Mac, or Find My Friends)?

Once kids turn 13, by the way, Apple automatically gives them more control over their own lives. They can, for example, turn off Ask To Buy themselves, on their own Macs or phones. They can even express their disgust for you by leaving the Family Sharing group. (On her own phone, for example, your daughter can visit Settings → iCloud → Family, tap her name, and then tap Leave Family. Harsh!)

Life in Family Sharing

Once everything’s set up, here’s how you and your nutty kids will get along:

• Purchases. Whenever one of your kids (for whom you’ve turned on Ask To Buy) tries to buy music, videos, apps, or books from Apple—even free items—he has to ask you (Figure 16-14).

  Furthermore, each of you can see and download everything everyone else has bought. To do that, open the appropriate program: App Store, iTunes, or Books. Click Purchased, and then tap the family member’s name to see what he’s got; tap the to download any of it for yourself.

  

  Figure 16-14. Your kid can’t download anything from one of Apple’s stores without your OK.
  You’re notified about the purchase on your phone or Mac, and you can decline it or click Review to read about it on its Store page. If it seems OK, you can tap Approve. You also have to enter your iCloud password to prevent your kid from sneaking over to your Mac or phone and approving his own request.
  (If you don’t respond within 24 hours, the request expires. Your kid has to ask again.)

  Tip

  Anything you buy, your kids will see. Keep that in mind when you download a book like Tough Love: Sending the Unruly Child to Military School.

  However, you have two lines of defense. First, you can hide your purchases so nobody sees them. On the Mac, in iTunes, click Store and then Purchased (right side). Point to the thing you want to hide, click the , and click Hide. Second, remember that you can set up parental control on each kid’s Mac or phone, shielding their impressionable eyes from R-rated movies and stuff. See “Parental Controls”.

• Where are you? Go to iCloud.com and click Find iPhone (see “Find My Mac, Find My iPhone”) to see where their phones or gadgets are right now, which may or may not be with their owners. Or, on an iPhone or iPad, use the Find My Friends app to see where in town (or in the world) your posse is right now.

  Note

  If one of you needs secrecy for the afternoon (Apple sweetly gives, as an example, shopping for a gift for your spouse), open System Preferences → iCloud. Click Manage Family. Click the person you want to hide from. Turn off “Allow [this person] to see your location.” Now you’re untrackable until you turn the switch on again.

• Photos, appointments, and reminders. In Photos, Calendar, and Reminders, each of you will find a new category, called Family, that’s auto-shared among you all. You’re all free to make and edit appointments in this calendar, to set up reminders in Reminders (“Flu shots after school!”), or to add photos or videos (or comments) to this album; everyone else will see the changes instantly.

The Setup

To set up Apple Pay, you have to teach your Mac about your credit card (if you haven’t already on your phone).

• If your Mac has a fingerprint (Touch ID) sensor. Open System Preferences → Wallet & Apple Pay. Click Add Card.

  If you’ve already set up a credit card with Apple (through the App Store or iTunes, for example), then all you have to do is supply the security code and then tap Next, Accept, and Done.

  If not, on the Add Card screen, you’re asked to hold your Visa, Mastercard, or American Express card up to the Mac’s camera. Hold steady until the digits of your card, your name, and the expiration date blink onto the screen, autorecognized. Cool! You can manually edit any of those four fields before clicking Next, Accept, and Done. (You can also choose Enter Card Details Manually and type in the numbers yourself.)

  Next, your bank has to verify that all systems are go for Apple Pay; it’s generally instantaneous. (Most banks work with Apple Pay, but not all of them.) You’ll see a notification when it’s all ready.

• If your Mac doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor. You can’t set up Apple Pay without an iPhone or iPad. (Open Settings → Wallet & Apple Pay and turn on “Allow Payments on Mac.”)

As a final step, open Safari → Preferences → Privacy. Turn on “Allow websites to check if Apple Pay is set up.”

The Shopping

Next time you’re shopping at an Apple Pay–friendly website, and you’re on the payment screen where the “Buy with Apple Pay” logo appears, click it.

A sheet appears where you can choose a different credit card (if you’ve registered more than one)—and where you must authenticate. If you’re using a Mac with a fingerprint reader, just touch your finger to it, and the whole thing is complete.

If you’re shopping on a Mac that doesn’t have its own fingerprint reader, a “Confirm on iPhone” or “Confirm on Apple Watch” message lets you know you can authenticate with your iPhone’s fingerprint reader or Face ID, or with a double-press of the Watch’s side button. The “OK, all clear” signal gets sent to your Mac automatically.

Figure 16-16. Top: Here’s the iCloud home screen, showing the major online features of this service. All of this stuff, of course, is an online mirror of what’s on your Mac.
Bottom: Once you’re in one of the modules—Mail, Calendar, Notes, or whatever—you can switch among iCloud features using the that always appears in the upper-left corner.

Automatic Backup

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, iCloud can back it up, automatically and wirelessly (over Wi-Fi, not over cellular connections). It’s a quick backup, since iCloud backs up only the changed data.

Continuity

The set of features Apple calls Continuity turn the iPhone into a part of the Mac. They let you make calls from your Mac as though it were a speakerphone. They let you send and receive text messages from your Mac—to any cellphone on earth. They let you AirDrop files between computer and phone, wirelessly. And more.

Continuity gets its own chapter (Chapter 8).

Books, Music, Apps, Movies: The Locker in the Sky

Apple, if you hadn’t noticed, has become a big seller of multimedia files. It has the biggest music store in the world. It has the biggest app store, for both i-gadgets and Macs. It sells an awful lot of TV shows and movies. Its ebook store, Books, is no Amazon.com, but it’s chugging along.

When you buy a song, movie, app, or book, you’ve always been allowed to copy it to all your other Apple equipment—no extra charge. But iCloud automates, or at least formalizes, that process. Once you buy something, it’s added to a tidy list of items that you can download to all your other machines.

Here’s how to grab them:

• iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. Open the App Store icon (for apps), the Books app (for books), or the iTunes Store app (for songs, movies, or TV shows; tap the category you want). Tap More. Tap Purchased. Tap Not on This iPhone.

  There they are: all the items you’ve bought on your other machines using the same Apple ID. To download anything listed here onto this machine, tap the button. Or tap an album name to see the list of songs on it so you can download just some of those songs.

  You can save yourself all that tapping by opening Settings → iTunes & App Store and turning the Automatic Downloads switches to On (for Music, Apps, and Books & Audiobooks). From now on, whenever you’re on Wi-Fi, stuff you’ve bought on other Apple machines gets downloaded to this one automatically, in the background.

• Mac. Open the App Store program (for apps) or the iTunes app (for songs, TV shows, books, and movies). Click Purchased (on the right), and there they are: all the digital goodies you’ve bought using this Apple ID, ready to open or re-download if necessary.