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It's been a while since our last visit with the Ingalls family, though perhaps not as long as you might think: while the Melissa Gilbert/Michael Landon series ended in 1984 after a series of TV movies, there have been a couple of live-action adaptations, a stage musical, and an anime series in the years since. Still, none have been as high profile as Netflix's new take on the classic Laura Ingalls Wilder books. It has quickly become one of the biggest shows on streaming despite some controversy over certain plot elements.

Uncharacteristically for Netflix, Little House's second season is already in production, but if you've already binged the entire thing and are eager for more downhome historical drama, consider these 10 streamalikes.

Anne With an E (2017 – 2019)

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic historical novel Anne of Green Gables kicked off a long series of similarly family-friendly works, eventually leading to a beloved 1970s television series. Sound familiar? This particular story is entirely fictional, but hits similar notes in its exploration of the childhood of a precocious girl growing up in a rural 19th-century setting. As the series begins in 1896, a couple of elderly and unmarried siblings on Prince Edward Island, Canada, have sent away for an orphan boy to help on the farm, but instead find themselves with a girl: chatty Anne Shirley (Amybeth McNulty), who has to fight to prove herself to her prospective parents, as well as to others in the town who judge her alternately for being a useless girl or for being a poor orphan. The reboot revisits the novel and mines its text (and subtext) for new ideas without betraying the spirit of the work. Stream Anne With an E on Netflix.

Little Women (2017)

At approximately the same time that Laura Ingalls Wilder and family were leaving Wisconsin for the broader Midwest of the author's recollections, Louisa May Alcott was writing and publishing her groundbreaking first novel, set in a Civil War-era New England in which women have largely been left behind by the men in their lives. Though overshadowed by the (excellent) Greta Gerwig film version's arrival two years later, this BBC adaptation is a bit more faithful to the text without ever feeling stuffy. The book takes place over a period of years, and the miniseries format does a better job of capturing the passage of time, which is so critical to the story. Emily Watson plays the stolid Marmee with an appropriate twinkle, and Angela Lansbury (in her final TV role) is perfect as the snide, snippy Aunt March. Stream Little Women on Peacock, Tubi, and Netflix.

The Other Bennet Sister (2026)

A bit of a ratings blockbuster on the BBC, this miniseries revisits the events of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Lizzy Bennet's bookish, altogether dorkier sister. Her ruddy complexion, penchant for grammatical correctness, and (dear lord) spectacles make Mary entirely unsuitable for marriage and unfit for much other than genteel spinsterhood. That all begins to change when Mary sets off on her own to become a governess for the Gardiner family in London, and manages to forge a life and a future for herself away from the parents and siblings who see her as not much more than a piece of furniture. Pemberley and its environs are a world (an ocean, at least) away from the rural world of Little House, but both shows offer clever and forthright young women doing their best to find their place. Stream The Other Bennet Sister on Britbox.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020 – )

An update of a venerable British franchise based on a series of autobiographical novels from writer James Alfred Wight (aka James Herriot), All Creatures takes us back to the rural Yorkshire Dales of the 1930s, with a Scottish vet moving to the small farming town of Darrowby to take up a job as a veterinary assistant. First among the local eccentrics is Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton), a practical and hard-working farmer faced with some big choices in life. Though you need to be willing to witness animals in jeopardy, the big-hearted show only rarely goes for a gut punch. Mostly, it's charming domestic drama amid a bucolic landscape, with frequent guest appearances by baby cows. Stream All Creatures Great and Small on PBS or buy it from Prime Video.

Anne Shirley (2025 – )

Returning for a moment to the world of Anne of Green Gables—though Little House is about an American family and Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels are about a Canadian orphan (who finds a family), they're both about smart, adventurous young women growing up in a challenging, rural frontier. This beautifully animated anime adaptation (not the first Japanese take on the Anne stories) is faithful to the source material while adding some stylistic flourishes (a schoolhouse fight over a chalkboard is drawn, briefly, as a battle sequence). Stream Anne Shirley on Crunchyroll.

Heartland (2007 – )

Based on a popular book series from Linda Chapman and Beth Chambers (who write under the pseudonym Lauren Brooke), this series follows the lives of a family of horse ranchers in western Canada led by sisters Amy and Lou (Amber Marshall and Michelle Morgan). Though it's set in modern-day western Alberta, the frontier feel and family drama don't feel far removed from the lives of the Ingalls. If you're new to the show, there's a lot to catch up on: It's coming up on its 20th season. Stream Heartland on Netflix.

1883 (2021 – 2022)

The first of the Yellowstone spin-offs, 1883 gives us a bit of Dutton family prehistory. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill play the first generation of the family to make the trip from Texas to Montana on a dangerous wagon train led by Sam Elliott. This is a grittier take on westward expansion that doesn't have nearly the same family-friendly Little House vibes—but it does place Isabel May's 17-year-old Elsa Dutton at the heart of the story; she starts as an adventurous young woman before becoming hardened by her experiences. Stream 1883 on Paramount+.

Lark Rise to Candleford (2008 – 2011)

Once again we're a world away from the American frontier of the Ingalls family, but nevertheless following a young woman's coming of age in the 19th century in a story drawn from a series of semi-autobiographical novels (by Flora Thompson). Country girl Laura Timmins (Olivia Hallinan) sets out looking for work in the wealthier, modestly more metropolitan neighboring town of Candleford. She manages to find a job at the post office, befriended and mentored by her mother's cousin, Dorcas (Julia Sawalha). Not everyone in Candleford is so welcoming of the rube from the countryside, especially when Laura is forced to choose between the demands of her job and the needs of the family she left behind. Stream Lark Rise to Candleford on Peacock.

When Calls the Heart (2014 – )

This (very) Hallmark-y series, based on a Janette Oke novels, begins in 1910 and follows young teacher Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Krakow) as she leaves her relatively wealthy family to take a job in a rural Canadian mining town. Luckily, there's hot mountie Constable Jack Thornton (Daniel Lissing) to help her make the adjustment. There's romance, drama, and triumph among the woman-led cast, with the gentle tone and big heart that you might expect, given the title. The show has lasted 13 seasons and counting, and, Yellowstone-like, has already generated two spin-offs, When Hope Calls and Hope Valley: 1874. Stream When Calls the Heart on Hallmark+ via Prime Video.

Little House on the Prairie (1974 – 1984)

This almost certainly goes without saying, but there are nine seasons of classic Little House and three follow-up movies to plow through (pun intended). The show quickly outgrew its early reputation as a Waltons clone to become a fan and critical favorite with an expansive cast of characters and a strong social conscience, in large part due to the influence of executive producer and star Michael Landon. Melissa Gilbert plays Laura, while Alison Arngrim (who has a cameo in the new series) frequently steals the show as nasty neighbor Nellie Oleson. It's weirder, more dramatic, and a bit less interested in staying true to the books than is the current series, but arguably it's the reason Little House remains in the zeitgeist—even more so than the novels. Stream Little House on the Prairie on Peacock and Prime Video.


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When I first started covering tech, OnePlus was the brand to beat. It was never an Apple or a Samsung, but that's what it had going for it: The company made high-quality smartphones with enthusiast features at reasonable price points. I wouldn't even have called it an underdog, necessarily. It didn't have much "market share," but it was winning in the eyes of the tech community.

Fast-forward a decade, and the situation couldn't be more different. OnePlus is officially dead in much of the world, as the company announced it will no longer produce new phones for the U.S. or Europe. This change didn't happen overnight: In recent years, OnePlus slowly stopped making phones for enthusiasts and started chasing mainstream flagships at flagship prices. And while it may have had some success, the U.S. smartphone market still looks roughly the same as it did when OnePlus first started—it's all about Apple and Samsung. Now, the company isn't just lagging behind in the U.S.: It no longer exists.

If you don't own a OnePlus device, you might not think this impacts you much, but it does. One fewer company in an already limited market means even less competition for Apple and Samsung than before. Google and Motorola are really the only two other companies making Android devices for the States, and who knows where they go from here. But the biggest impact, of course, is to current OnePlus users. Whenever you own the product of a company that decides to exit the market, there's uncertainty, confusion, and concern. If you're a OnePlus user in the U.S., here's what you need to know:

Where do OnePlus users go from here?

The good news is that OnePlus isn't leaving U.S. users in the lurch. In the company's "Notice of Business Adjustment," it confirmed it will continue to support existing devices with software updates, security patches, and "after-sales" support, per your device's warranty. For the immediate future, it shouldn't feel like OnePlus is gone at all. Your phone will still get updates; you'll be protected from security vulnerabilities; and OnePlus will service your phone if something happens to it under warranty.

Perhaps the biggest change will come once Android 17 arrives on OnePlus devices. OnePlus announced that, rather than continuing to support its OxygenOS software, the company will enroll users with eligible devices into ColorOS, the operating system its parent company Oppo uses. OnePlus users won't transition to ColorOS until ColorOS 17, its take on Android 17. "Legacy models" that don't support ColorOS 17 will instead stay on OxygenOS and receive software maintenance, but no new feature updates.

While it is a separate OS, ColorOS is quite similar to OxygenOS, especially these days. It comes with a familiar UI and many of the same features, though different regions get different app distros—with some going so far as to call it bloatware. ColorOS has never launched on a U.S.-based device, so I can't say what it'll look like for U.S. OnePlus users, but it is possible ColorOS will add apps and services to your device that aren't currently there. As such, some users may find they miss the old OS after updating, or that they don't want to transition at all. Luckily, OnePlus says that users will be able to both decline the update, and roll back to OxygenOS if they don't care for ColorOS.

It's still early days, so there are plenty of questions left for OnePlus to answer. I'll update this post with any news we get, so OnePlus users can continue to plan accordingly.


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I try to avoid opening news websites as much as possible these days. One can only read so many articles about crime, war, and all of the many other injustices in this world, and I've often wished I could filter out the news I don't want to know about. I've done this, to a large extent, on social media platforms, some of which allow you to block posts containing certain keywords, while doing so on others requires a browser extension.

However, the problem persists on the broader web: I can't open any big-name news website without seeing repeated mentions of the poor decisions of billionaires and politicians or the tragic effects of climate change, and I've been looking for a way to give myself a bit of a buffer against the onslaught of despair. I finally found an effective method when I started using Filtre, a recently launched Safari extension that allows you to hide pages containing keywords you'd rather avoid. The concept is simple—create your list of keywords, and the extension will handle the rest. It works quite well for the most part, and I recommend trying it out—your mental health will thank you.

How to set up Filtre on all your Apple devices

Adding filter sets in the Filtre extension for Safari
Credit: Pranay Parab

Filtre works on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and a single purchase unlocks the extension's features across all three platforms. You can get started with the week-long free trial, after which the app costs $1.50/month, $9/year, or a one-time purchase fee of $28. Once you've made that decision, it's easy to set up. You fire up the app, give Filtre permission to access websites, and start adding keywords you want to block. Extensions like these aren't very useful if they don't sync filters across devices, and I'm glad to see that Filtre ships with iCloud sync compatibility. In my testing, it was able to instantly sync filters between my Mac and iPhone.

Use this extension to filter out noise or avoid spoilers

There are many ways to use an extension like Filtre, but I've mostly been using it to limit political news. It's easy to set up a few keywords that block out names of politicians, and the extension lets you choose how you wish to obscure those headlines. The default option will hide all mentions of your chosen keywords, but you can also choose "Fade" or "Greyscale." Fade keeps headlines intact but blocks your keywords in place, and reduces the headlines' opacity to make them easier to skim past. Grayscale converts any part of the webpage that includes your keywords into black-and-white. You can adjust these options under the Default Settings tab in the Filtre app (which will appear in the app drawer on your iPhone/iPad or be searchable via Finder on a Mac).

How Filtre's fade filter works in Safari for Mac.
Credit: Pranay Parab

Set different customizations

While universal filters are the default, you can also create different sets of filters for different websites. For instance, if you visit a website that covers movies or video games, you could create a filter set to hide spoilers from Christopher Nolan's Odyssey or Grand Theft Auto 6 on those sites only.

In Filtre's Website Settings tab, you'll be able to set up different filters for each site you frequent, or choose to disable some filter sets on certain sites. The extension allows you to export filter sets easily, which is convenient when you want to share your blocklists with others, and also for those who want to avoid using iCloud sync. You can send a filter list via AirDrop and load it on another of your devices.

I did notice a few minor limitations while using the extension. For example, I've deleted Instagram's app from my devices, so when I need to access the site, I open it in Safari. Filtre didn't seem to have any impact on my Instagram feed at all. Since most social media sites allow you to mute keywords already, this limitation didn't bother me much. (On the plus side, Filtre does work with Reddit, though it started hiding my entire feed when I switched to Old Reddit.)

Filtre passes the privacy check

My biggest concern with browser extensions is how much data they can access. For Filtre to be effective across the web, you'll need to give it permission to access every website you visit, which might sound quite invasive. However, the developer Jeffrey Kuiken has explicitly stated that the app doesn't collect any of your data, and it even stores all your filters only locally and in the linked iCloud account. The same developer also made Noir, an extension that enables dark mode for every website you visit in Safari, and has earned the community's trust via a transparent business model and regular updates.


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You can do all the right research and pick out the highest-reviewed, best-sounding, most durable headphones for exercise—the thing is, once you’re working up a sweat, you’ll inevitably find something about your headphones that just isn’t perfect.

Maybe you share my love of the bone-conducting Shokz OpenRun Pro 2, or perhaps you want noise-cancelling earbuds, and you go with my colleague Beth’s favorites, the Powerbeats Pro 2. But once you get them on, you might notice they don’t stay in place during heavy cardio, or the sound isn’t as deep as you need for an intense lift. Before you throw in the towel on your earbuds of choice, consider these small, nerdy adjustments to enhance your audio experience before your next workout. 

Get your ear tip size right—then go one step further

Stock silicone tips are designed to fit the average ear, which means there's a decent chance they're not the right option for you. If your earbuds ever feel like they're working their way out mid-workout, this is very likely a fit problem.

Memory foam tips like these solve two problems at once: they mold to your ear canal for a passive noise seal, and that same seal creates enough friction to keep earbuds locked in during movement. I recommend looking at the brand of your earbuds and buying straight from the source. For instance, Apple lets you buy new ear tips for your AirPods for around $10. 

There are plenty of DIY fixes online, but unless you’re particularly crafty, they might be more trouble than they’re worth. The adhesive might give out the moment you actually sweat, which can leave residue on the earbud housing. A $15-dollar pair of silicone ear hooks (like these) does the same job properly: they clip onto the earbud body and hook around the outer ear, and they're designed to survive a sweaty run without peeling off.

Of course, you can save time and simply opt for earbuds with built-in ear hook designs. I’m currently writing an in-depth review of the Suunto Spark open-ear headphones, but I’ll go ahead and give an early recommendation for their ear hook design right here.

Dial in an EQ specifically for your workout

Most people leave their EQ on whatever setting they use for podcasts or the office, which might be poorly suited for a workout. A track that sounds perfectly balanced at rest can sound thin and tinny halfway through a hard interval.

The general move for a workout is a mild bass boost and a slight treble lift to punch through ambient noise (traffic, gym equipment, your own breathing). Everyone's preferences are different, so mess around with it before your next workout. From there, most companion apps—like Shokz, Bose, Beats, Jabra, and more—let you save this as a custom profile so you're not re-adjusting it every session. If your headphones support saved EQ profiles, it's worth setting one up specifically labeled "workout" so you're always one tap away from it.

Bonus hack, since we're already talking audio: if you use podcasts to pace easy workouts, try speeding them up slightly, to around 1.25x. It's a small enough change that the content still sounds natural, but the very slightly faster speech cadence has a way of nudging your stride turnover up without you consciously trying to run faster. For me, it's a cheap, free alternative to a metronome app.

Program your headphones to trigger your workout routine

If you have a pair of headphones you use exclusively for workouts, you can set up your phone to automatically do things the moment those headphones connect. On iPhone, this lives in the Shortcuts app under Automation. Create a new automation, choose Bluetooth as the trigger, select your workout headphones specifically (not "any device"), and set it to run when they're connected. From there you can chain in an action—like opening Strava—the second your running headphones pair.

How to automate your workout headphones.
How to create a shortcut for your workout headphones. Credit: Meredith Dietz

The same trick works for call management. If you don't want to be interrupted by a phone call mid-run, build a second automation that turns on Do Not Disturb (or a custom Focus) when your workout headphones connect, and switches it back off when they disconnect. It's a nice way to really disconnect and focus on your breath. If you're worried about missing something urgent, you can still allow calls from favorites to break through DnD.

Keep them clean, protected, and sweat-resistant longer

IPX ratings tell you your earbuds can survive sweat; they don't tell you sweat won't slowly degrade them over time. If your earbuds ever get properly wet (not just sweaty), most manufacturers recommend wiping them down with a soft, dry, lint-free cloth. Then, make sure you actually let them air dry for a couple of hours before using them or putting them back in the case.

Where you can actually extend their lifespan further is the case itself. Any soft case is basically decorative—it does nothing against a water bottle or dumbbell landing on top of your gym bag. A rugged hard-shell case, like this one for AirPods, is one of the cheapest upgrades you can make.

Reroute your cables to control where sweat actually goes

If you're still running with wired headphones—and I know plenty of dedicated runners who are—cable routing matters. Most people let the cord hang straight down the front of the chest, which means the sweat rolling off your collarbone might run straight down the wire toward the connector at the earbud. That connection point is where corrosion starts, which could eventually kill your wired headphones.

The fix: loop the cable up and behind your ears first, then let it drop down the back of your neck. Gravity pulls sweat down your back instead of pooling at the jack. It also stops the cable from bouncing against your chest with every stride, which is a nice bonus.


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Google Images is turning 25. Google first launched its image search tool back in 2001, reportedly in response to users looking for Jennifer Lopez's green Versace dress. The internet has changed dramatically in the two-and-a-half decades since, but Google Images has remained ever-present. While it might not be as essential to Google's product lineup as it once was, it's still a useful means of finding specific images (including memes) across the internet.

To mark Google Images' 25th anniversary, the company is rolling out two new features on the service: one for Images, and one for Search. In my view, the latter actually seems useful, assuming you're not locked in to Pinterest for all your inspo-needs.

Google Images wants to be Pinterest

google images pinterest dupe
Credit: Google

You are probably familiar with the Google Images home page: It basically looks just like the Google Search page, but with a small "Images" identifier to let you know you're searching specifically for pictures. This has been the core design of Google Images since its inception, but after 25 years, Google is making a big change here.

Starting today, Google is launching a "browseable" home page for Google Images. When you visit the new site, you'll see a "dynamic, immersive gallery" pulled from pictures across the internet. These images shouldn't be random: Google says the pictures that appear in the gallery are based on your interests.

Any time you see an image you like, you can add it to a "collection." Google has some ideas in its press release, including "Travel," "Reading nook," "Supper party inspo," and "Outfits for vacation." While the feature isn't rolling out for a few weeks (on desktop and in English, to start), it does appear that Google is trying to make Images into a Pinterest alternative. We'll have to see how the feature compares once it officially rolls out.

Google Search is now an AI image generator

While other companies might have beaten Google to the market with AI image generators, the company is having the last laugh. Google's Nano Banana model has exploded, and is perhaps now the most accessible way to generate hyperrealistic images with AI—especially if you already use Google products.

As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, the company is turning Search into an AI image generator. While you can still search for images on the web, you can also enter text-based prompts into Google Images, and the site will use Nano Banana to generate your request for you. To be clear, it doesn't seem like Google Images itself is getting these capabilities; rather, you can type your query into Search, which activates AI Overviews to generate your image. The company seems to be using Google Images' anniversary to launch this new integration.


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Jamf Threat Labs has uncovered a new macOS infostealer named CrashStealer that disguises itself as Apple’s crash-reporting tool to steal passwords, Keychain data, and cryptocurrency wallets.

The malware was first spotted in May while it was still under development. By early July, Jamf was seeing in-the-wild detections, indicating it had moved into active use.

“Unlike much of the commodity stealer activity on macOS, which is built on AppleScript droppers or thin Objective-C wrappers, CrashStealer is implemented in native C++ around an internal class the authors named MacOSData,” the researchers wrote.

“It validates the victim’s login password locally before harvesting, collects broadly across browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, password managers and the Keychain, encrypts what it collects with AES-GCM before exfiltrating over libcurl, and persists by copying and re-signing itself.”

Signed installer starts the attack

The attack starts with a disk image named “Werkbit Setup.” When opened, it mounts a volume containing a single application, Werkbit.app. Its executable, named veltod, launches the next stage of the infection.

CrashStealer macOS infostealer

Werkbit Setup (Source: Jamf)

The dropper is a universal binary signed with the Developer ID “Emil Grigorov (WWB7JA7AQV)” and carries a stapled notarization ticket. This lets it pass Gatekeeper, macOS’s built-in protection against untrusted software, on first launch.

“Notably, the disk image itself is signed as well, not just the application inside it, which is uncommon in malicious DMG delivery where the container is typically left unsigned,” they added.

Jamf reported the Developer Team ID behind the signature to Apple after confirming its use in the campaign.

The installer was hosted on werkbit[.]io, a domain registered in late June, close to the build date of the dropper analyzed. Downloading it requires a meeting PIN, limiting access to people who already have the code. The report links the activity to other domains and shared infrastructure, indicating CrashStealer is one piece of a broader operation.

GitHub delivers the next stage

After launch, the veltod executable contacts a GitHub repository and downloads a file that supplies a command to fetch a script from a separate server. The script decodes its commands at runtime before downloading the next stage.

The script downloads CrashReporter.dmg, mounts it, and copies the application bundle into a hidden folder before deleting the disk image. The payload uses the icon, display name, and bundle identifier of Apple’s crash-reporting component to resemble a system utility.

Malware steals passwords, wallets, and browser data

CrashStealer displays a password prompt designed to look like a macOS system dialog. It checks the password locally with the dscl command, a built-in macOS tool used to verify user credentials, and asks again if the password is wrong.

After receiving the correct password, the infostealer unlocks the login Keychain and copies it into a hidden staging folder. It also collects data from Documents, Downloads, and other user folders, skipping executables, installers, disk images, and bulky archive or media files to limit the amount of data collected.

It also targets Chromium browser profiles, Firefox login data, about 80 cryptocurrency wallet extensions such as MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, Trust Wallet, and Exodus, as well as 14 password managers, among them 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, Dashlane, and Keeper.

Collected files are encrypted one by one with AES-256-GCM before being stored, then packed into hidden ZIP archives and uploaded to a command-and-control server with libcurl, a networking library commonly used to transfer data over HTTP and HTTPS.

Although CrashStealer targets the same types of data as other macOS infostealers, its native C++ implementation and client-side encryption set it apart, leading the researchers to classify it as a separate malware family.

Persistence and anti-analysis

CrashStealer copies itself to another location and applies a new ad hoc signature to the copied binary. It installs the copy as a LaunchAgent named “com.apple.crashreporter.helper,” allowing it to run each time the user logs in.

The malware also includes code designed to slow analysis, with flattened control flow, strings decrypted only at runtime, and debugger checks placed at more than one point during startup.

Jamf’s report provides indicators of compromise, file names and hashes, delivery infrastructure details, and filesystem artifacts left behind after an infection.


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I regularly use my iPhone to scan physical documents like medical reports, identity cards, forms from my bank, etc. Since 2015 or so, I've used an app called Scanner Pro to get the job done. It works well enough, but the best features require a subscription and it is no longer as fast as I'd like it to be. I've long known about Apple's built-in scanner in the Notes app, but it isn't as convenient as the app I've been using, so I never made the switch.

That changed when I recently discovered another built-in scanner on the iPhone, hidden away in the Preview app, of all places. This one is fast, free, and well integrated with the Files app, which is a big plus. Here's why you should consider using it

Your iPhone's Preview app has a hidden document scanner

Your iPhone ships with an app called Preview, which was added with the release of iOS 26 in 2025. Now, when you open a document in the Files app, your iPhone will automatically switch to Preview and load the it. However, if you open the Preview app directly, you'll see a "Scan Documents" button front and center. I've been using iOS 26 since the developer betas released, but I only noticed this feature after the recent release of the iOS 27 betas.

When you tap Scan Documents in Preview, your iPhone will fire up the viewfinder, and you can point the device at the documents you want to scan. Like Scanner Pro, the Preview app's scanner automatically identifies document borders, takes a picture to scan, and reopens the viewfinder so you can point the camera at the next page; it'll scan that quickly too. Continue this process till you're done scanning, after which you can hit the checkmark button in the top-right corner. The scanned PDF will automatically be saved to your iCloud Drive folder, without the need to export it. I found this process to be really fast and intuitive enough to recommend to my family members, who resist any technology that requires them to install a new app or press more than two buttons.

When the scanner is open, you'll see four buttons near the bottom of the screen. The big shutter button lets you manually click pictures for the scan, and the other three let you toggle flash, set color filters, and toggle on the auto-shutter feature, respectively. Auto shutter is the best feature of this app, as it automatically scans a page the moment it detects borders, but it's not perfect. If you want more precise control over your scans, you can disable it, and control the shutter manually.

Why Preview's scanner is much better than the one in Apple Notes

I don't enjoy dealing with PDFs in Apple Notes, and that's the best argument for using the scanner in Preview, which immediately saves those documents to the Files app. First, Notes makes it much harder to find and use the scanner: You need to open a note, tap the paperclip icon, and select the document scanner from the menu. The output is saved in the same note, and I find it unwieldy to deal with PDFs from within in the Notes app, which is best suited to viewing text-only notes.

I now only use the Notes app to scan documents when I specifically want to store the file in the Notes app. But other than the odd recipe I might scan to keep there, I don't foresee myself using the Notes scanner again. In most cases, Preview's scanner does a much better job.

Another third-party scanning app to consider

If you want more features than Apple's document scanner, there are third-party apps that may suit you better. In addition to Scanner Pro, which I mentioned above, Adobe Scan does a great job with scanning, OCR (optical character recognition) and has a generous free tier. In the free tier, Adobe Scan lets you capture unlimited scans, provides 2GB of space in Adobe Document cloud, and offers OCR for documents up to 25 pages long.

The premium tier costs $10/month, and adds a bunch of PDF editing features such as combining PDFs, extracting specific pages from a scan, and editing text in PDFs. You also get to use OCR on scans up to 100 pages per document, up to 20 GB of cloud storage, and a tool called Magic Eraser, which can automatically remove your thumb or fingers from scanned pages. I think the free tier is good enough for most people, but the most annoying thing about Adobe Scan is that even the free tier requires you to sign up for an account. You can sign in with your Apple, Google, or Facebook accounts to make it quick, but it's still an unnecessary step for those who just want an app that'll let them start scanning the moment it's installed.


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