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Make sure you know exactly what you’re doing and understand the risk as well. If you really love the Mac OS X system, then you should buy a real Mac by Apple. However, if you still have a problem please don’t hesitate to hit me in the comment section below. Or share your experience on the Forum website and let’s help each other. Apple menu - About This Mac will tell you the Mac OS version or System version you are running. The X in the version is important, and so is the preceding 10 in the version if it exists. Questions saying X.1 could refer to Mac OS X 10.13.1, 10.1. Don't truncate the version you see. Sep 14, 2020 Open System Preferences. You can find this by clicking on the Apple icon on top left corner of your screen. Make sure that you are currently connected to a network using the connection that you want to find the MAC address for.

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Sharing all of your music, movies, and more across the range of Apple devices owned by your family sounds like a no-brainer. Why wouldn't everyone want this option? Maybe because it's not quite as beautifully simple as it sounds. Jeff Carlson, co-author of The Connected Apple Home: Discover the Rich Apple Ecosystem of the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV, explains 10 important points you need to consider before you decide to enroll your gang in Family Sharing.

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Connected Apple Home, The: Discover the Rich Apple Ecosystem of the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV

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Connected Apple Home, The: Discover the Rich Apple Ecosystem of the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV

Is this a familiar situation? You and other members of your family each own libraries of music, videos, and apps purchased from the iTunes Store, but there’s no easy way to share that material among your collected iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple devices. Or perhaps you’re ready to give a device to a child, but you’re wary of the potential for racking up out-of-control charges for media or in-app purchases.

Apple’s Family Sharing feature finally attempts to catch up to reality: Not all of our devices exist in their own little worlds. We want to be able to copy a favorite album to another family member’s iPhone without jumping through a lot of hoops. We want to maintain some control over a kid’s device, but also give her the freedom to explore. Family Sharing provides all that capability and more.

Alas, the service isn’t perfect. This article lists 10 facts you need to know to help you decide whether enabling the Family Sharing service is right for your situation.

1: You need iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

Family Sharing is a feature introduced with Apple’s latest operating systems. Although those operating systems cover a wide spectrum of hardware, you might have some old machines or devices handed down to kids or other family members—equipment that’s not capable of running a modern Apple OS.

iOS 8 runs on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and OS X 10.10 Yosemite runs on Macs. That list includes plenty of devices: the iPhone 4S and later, iPad 2 and later (including the iPad mini), the fifth-generation iPod touch.

Yosemite can be installed on Macs that are up to eight years old:

iMac (mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook (late 2008 Aluminum, early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (mid/late 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer)
Mac mini (early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (early 2009)

The more practical consideration is that everyone needs to be on iOS 8 or Yosemite to take advantage of Family Sharing; someone holding out with an earlier version can’t join the digital family.

2: All iTunes and App Store purchases are paid with one credit card shared by everyone.

For some people, this is a significant sticking point: The entire family’s purchases come from one account. The benefit to this approach is centralized control over purchases (as I’ll discuss shortly).

Switching to Family Sharing doesn’t wipe out all of the purchases that family members made previously. Purchases from iTunes actually become available to everyone in the family. However, content you’ve added to iTunes from other sources (ripping your own CDs, or buying DRM-free tracks from other sellers) aren’t included, even if you subscribe to Apple’s iTunes Match service.

3: One person is designated as the Family Organizer, who sets up everything.

Although it sounds like a throwback to a 1950s patriarchal attitude, Family Sharing requires one person to be the Family Organizer, providing a single point of contact associated with the credit card on file. That person also manages parental restrictions and sets everyone else up with the service.

4: You can create an Apple ID for a child.

Family Sharing requires each member to have an individual Apple ID, which in the past has been tricky when it came to children. Now, you can create a specific ID for a child under age 13. This option unlocks one of the best Family Sharing features: Ask to Buy. When a child wants to buy something from the iTunes Store or the App Store, the Family Organizer (or other members of the family that the Organizer allows) must approve the sale first. The confirmation arrives almost instantly to your Mac and iOS devices, letting you decide right away if the purchase should be processed (see Figure 1).

Figure 1A child can request to buy an app (left), which must be approved by the Family Organizer (right, OS X notification shown).

It’s not obvious how to create an Apple ID for a child, however. For example, when you create a new family member in the iCloud settings on an iOS device, look for the small text at the bottom of the Family screen that reads, “Want to add a child who doesn’t have an account? Create an Apple ID for a child.”

5: With some trickery, you can change a regular Apple ID to a child ID.

What if you’ve previously created a regular Apple ID for a child? You would have had to alter the child’s birthdate to make the ID, and the account wouldn’t be eligible for the Ask to Buy feature because the account holder (the child) would be too old. Well, there’s a workaround.

In a web browser, go to appleid.apple.com and sign in using the child’s Apple ID. Click the Password and Security option and change the birthdate to January 1, 2001. Apple’s system now thinks you have a teenager! You can then view the account in your iCloud settings as the Family Organizer and turn on the Ask to Buy feature.

6: Media bought by another family member isn’t streamed.

I’ll admit this fact stumped me at first. I assumed that Family Sharing would work like iTunes Match, in that I could simply stream anything from a shared library whenever I wanted. Instead, the media sharing mechanism requires that you download tracks, videos, or apps that you want to use. In truth, this requirement is only slightly inconvenient, but the interface for getting other media isn’t obvious. I’ll demonstrate by sharing a song:

On an iOS device, open the iTunes Store and navigate to the Purchased screen. It’s separated into My Purchases and Family Purchases.
Tap the name of the person whose device has the music you want to download, and then tap Music to view that person’s library.
Navigate to the song or album you want to download and tap the iCloud Download button to start transferring it (see Figure 2).
Figure 2Downloading music purchased by another family member.

7. Media can be hidden from other family members.

Not everything needs to be shared. Perhaps you’ve bought music or eBooks you don’t want to share with other people. Follow these steps to hide something from Family Sharing:

In iTunes on a Mac or PC, or iBooks on a Mac if you’re working with eBooks, view your purchased items.
Position the mouse pointer over the item you want to hide, and click the X that appears in the upper-left corner.
When asked to confirm that you want to hide the item, click OK (see Figure 3). The hidden item won’t appear in the lists of purchased items on other devices.
Figure 3Hide an item that you don’t want others to download via Family Sharing.

You can unhide items by going to your account settings in iTunes or iBooks and clicking the Manage button that appears next to Hidden Purchases.

8. You can play media via Family Sharing on the Apple TV.

The Apple TV is still a satellite device amid the Apple galaxy, but it’s tied into Family Sharing. With the Apple TV signed into the Apple ID of one of the family members, you can watch or listen to anything purchased by that person.

Note: This arrangement doesn’t extend to rentals, which are restricted in many ways. For example, a rented movie on the Apple TV can be watched only on the Apple TV. Renting a movie through iTunes on a computer can be streamed to an Apple TV on the same network by using AirPlay. But if you want to watch that same rental on an iPad or iPhone, you must connect the device to iTunes and transfer the file, after which it exists only on the device (and you need an Internet connection so iTunes can verify the transfer with the Apple mothership). If you rent a movie on an iOS device, you can watch it on the Apple TV via AirPlay, or on the device itself.

9. You can share a group of photos among all family members.

How To Downgrade A Mac Running Later Macos VersionsIf Your Mac Runs MacOS Sierra 10.12 Or MacOS High Sierra 10.13, It Is Possible To Revert It To The Previous System If You Are Not Satisfied With Th...

One thing most people definitely want to share with family members is digital photos. Family Sharing lets the Family Organizer create a single shared photo album that’s accessible by every family member. It’s just a group pool, but easy to access (found in the Photos app under Shared). Tapping the plus (+) button lets any family member add images from their photo library (see Figure 4).

Figure 4The shared Family album includes photos from several family members.

10. You can keep track of group schedules and reminders.

I’ve mostly focused on sharing media, but another key aspect of Family Sharing is the ability to share important information with everyone. When you set up Family Sharing, a new Family calendar is created and added to everyone’s accounts. Any event you put into the Family calendar appears on everyone else’s devices (see Figure 5). The same is true for reminders you add to the Family category in the Reminders app. (Now you can’t claim ignorance about important appointments you miss.)

Figure 5The yellow events are part of the shared Family calendar.

Family Circle

The Family Sharing feature requires you to commit to its infrastructure, with its single source of payment and limitations on what can be shared, but for many people this structure makes working with multiple devices easier in the long run.

In an upcoming article I’ll touch on other key features: locating family members, or finding family devices that are lost or possibly stolen.

If you are not a computer expert, you may not know some of the terms used to describe your Mac. Learn about your processor, graphics processor, memory, hard drive and other aspects of a computer.

Check out MacMost Now 483: Getting To Know Your Mac at YouTube for closed captioning and more options.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode, let's get to know your Mac.Not everyone is a computer expert, so let's take a look at your Mac and all it's different parts, and look at the terminology used to describe it.So let's start by looking at the processor. Now, the processor--or, CPU--is the main part of your computer. It performs all the instructions. It's basically like the engine that drives your computer. Everything you do on your computer runs through the Central Processing Unit. That's why it's important to have one that's fast and powerful. Now, this is what a CPU looks like. This is the Intel i5 which is found in a lot of the current iMacs. It's basically a very large chip.Another important part of your computer is the graphics processor. Now, this is like a CPU, in that it handles instructions, but it specifically handles ones involved with displaying things on your screen. That's everything, not just 3D graphics. It's the windows in the Finder, it's the windows and documents of different applications. It's also called the GPU, for Graphics Processing Unit, sometimes VPU for Visual Processing Unit. I like to call it the Graphics Chipset, because on most Macs, like the iMacs and MacBooks and MacBook Pros, it's not actually a separate part. It's on the motherboard, so it's a bunch of chips on the motherboard. Now, here's what one looks like if it's separate, if it's a separate card, like you might find it in the Mac Pro.Macs also have memory, sometimes called RAM for Random Access Memory. They look like this. They're a set of chips usually on a small card that fits into your Mac. So, for instance, if your Mac has four gigs of memory, you may have two cards like this, each with two gigs of memory on them. Now, what memory does, is it handles data that you're using right now, like the document you have open right now in the application you're running right now.Now a lot of people confuse memory with storage, which is your hard drive. Your hard drive stores files, also called just basically storage by Apple, and it looks kind of like this, in some Macs. Some Macs have smaller drives, like the MacBooks, for instance. And in here, is--this is where all your files are stored, but files also include the entire operating system, and it includes also the files that define an application.Now, most Macs also have an optical drive, which is the real name for it, but you might also know it as the CD drive, DVD drive, or Super Drive. Now, Super Drive is capable of reading and writing CDs and DVDs. So, the difference between CDs and DVDs, by the way, is that a CD holds, uh, just somewhere around 800 megs of data, whereas a DVD drive holds just shy of five gigs of data.Now, of course, your Mac also has a display. You may call it your monitor or your screen, or just the LCD. Now, you may have heard a screen referred to as an LED screen. It's still an LCD screen, it's just using LED lights as the backlighting.Your Mac also has a variety of network hardware. For instance, you probably have a set of chips and an antenna inside your Mac that gives you WiFi access to your local router, which allows you to surf the Internet and communicate with other computers in your home. In addition, you may be able to hook up a wired connection to an Ethernet port. Gives you the same functionality, but you have a cable stretching from your Mac to the base station or router. Now, Apple calls wireless communication, a lot of times, AirPort. It's got an AirPort base station, you have an AirPort card or AirPort chips inside your computer. So the terms AirPort and WiFi are used interchangeably at Apple. In addition, you probably have Bluetooth capability in your Mac. This allows short range communication, uh, with some devices. For instance, uh, cameras may be able to send pictures, uh, you may have wireless headsets, you have, of course, wireless keyboards and mice, things like that.Your Mac also has a variety of other ways to connect to the outside world. For instance, you probably have a number of USB ports. This allows you to connect to devices like cameras, scanners, printers, wired keyboards, wired mice, all sorts of different things. It's the primary way to hook something up to your Mac. But also, there is FireWire, which is a different type of connection that is primarily used for video cameras. In addition, you've got a selection of audio ports. Some Macs have a single audio port that's both optical and analog audio in and out, so you can hook up a headset too it, like the earbuds that come with the iPhone to get both a microphone and headphones. Or, you may have separate jacks for audio in and audio out. In addition, you probably have a mini DisplayPort. Now, if you have an iMac or a MacBook with a screen, then this allows you to hook up a second screen. If you have a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro, this allows you to hook up your primary screen. Sometimes, you've got several on a Mac Pro that allows you to hook up several screens. In addition, some MacBooks have SD card slots. This allows you to take the SD card out of a camera and put it into your Mac to transfer the pictures from the card into your Mac.So that's the basic terminology used to describe the main parts of your Mac. If your interested in finding out any more of this, there a ton of information out there on the web. For instance, you can go to Wikipedia and look up any of these terms, and get detailed information about the different parts of the computer and history of those parts as well. Until then, this is Gary with MacMost Now.

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