Joe Hutsko

When you first turn on your Mac (or install an upgrade to the operating system), a series of questions and prompts appear, including a prompt to sign in to your Apple ID account or create a new Apple ID.An Apple ID identifies you and your devices in all things Apple that you do: registering new products, purchasing media and apps from the iTunes Store, the Book Store, and the App Store, as well as signing in to your iCloud account.

iCloud remotely stores and syncs data that you access from various devices — your Mac and other Apple devices, such as iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and PCs running Windows. Sign in to the same iCloud account on different devices, and the data for activated apps syncs; that is, you find the same data on all your devices, and when you make a change on one device, it shows up on the others.

Safari and iCloud have terrific built-in features that help you remember user names and passwords and credit card information. And Safari has security and privacy features to keep that personal information to yourself — or to your Mac. Here, we tell you how to use AutoFill so Safari remembers passwords for you, and then we explain how to keep your information safe.

Many people consider passwords to be less than ideal for security. To begin with, you have to remember them. The only sure way to make sure you don’t forget or lose your password is to write it down and keep that piece of paper (or whatever you wrote on) safe.There’s a better way if you have a current MacBook Pro or MacBook Air that supports Touch ID.

If you have a lot on your plate — and who doesn’t? — alerts can be a big help. Your iPhone beeps (or vibrates if the Ring/Silent switch is set to Silent) and sends a notification message at the interval you select, from five minutes to two days before your event. Even if your iPhone is sleeping and/or locked, Calendar wakes your iPhone if you turn on Show on Lock Screen in Settings→Notification Center→Calendar.

iPhone has several ways of letting you know you've received a message. If Badge App Icon is turned on in Settings→Notifications→Mail, the Mail icon on the Home screen wears a badge showing the number of unread messages you have. If the Notification Center and Alert Styles are selected in Settings→Notifications→Mail, you are alerted that way.

After you’ve produced a movie on your iPhone, you may want to create a trailer to tease and entice viewers before they see the final cut. Here’s a quick run-through of how to make a trailer: Tap the New Project (+) button, and then tap Trailer. Scroll through the styles, and tap the Play button to preview the trailer style.

The iPhone's Contacts allows you to include all sorts of details about any person in your phone book, from their relationship to you, job title, or social media addresses. Here are some details of the fields you can use in Contacts. Add Related Name This is one of our favorite features of Contacts. For example, before this feature was added, Barbara would create a custom field for the phone number of a colleague's secretary and add him to the contact info of the colleague.