Apple Expert
The one-stop column for Genius advice
Both myself and my wife have iphone 7s (although they are with different carriers). Both accounts are in my name but we have separate phone numbers, email addresses and Apple IDS. The problem is that we often receive each other’s messages, emails and sometimes calls. I have checked that each device is using different Apple IDS, and they appear to be. So why is this happening? There may be some accidental crossover in the details tethered to each Apple ID, so check that all of the right numbers and email addresses are applied to each account. Also, go to Settings>facetime and ensure that you haven’t got each other’s phone numbers or email addresses listed under the ‘You can be reached by Facetime at’ option. If the problem still persists, go to appleid.apple.com and you will be able to reset both of the Apple
IDS from there.
I have heard that there is a way to get instant dictionary definitions on web pages. How? Simply highlight the word in a Safari web page and then press Cmd+ctrl+d to get an instant definition. I managed to accidentally call the emergency services using my Apple Watch recently. Is there a way to disable this function to prevent such embarrassment occurring in the future? Marcus Tucker
Ah yes, by default this is done by pressing and holding the side button on your Watch. To disable this function, open the Watch app on your iphone and then tap on the ‘My Watch’ tab. Scroll down and select ‘General’ and then on the next screen tap on the ‘Emergency SOS’ option – by default this will be turned on. To disable it, move the green slider next to ‘Hold to Auto Call’ off. As I do a lot of online research using Safari, I often have to copy and paste text from various web pages. However, when I paste the text into a new document it keeps the formatting of the web page. Can I stop this? Ian Lowe
There certainly is. If you want to strip formatting from text that you have copied from the web, or elsewhere, press Shift+alt+cmd+v and the text that you copied will be pasted in plain format. This will save you from having to reformat the text and should become your default way of copying and pasting content.