Saturday, July 29, 2017

Quick Tip - Try This Easier Method of Flipping between iPhone Camera Modes


The Camera app on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch can take three kinds of video and three types of photos, and the interface suggests that you switch between them by tapping or swiping on the labels below the viewfinder. 

Unfortunately, those labels are small and can be difficult to swipe accurately. If you’ve found moving between modes frustrating, try swiping left or right on the entire viewfinder, which has the same effect as swiping on the labels but with a much larger swipe area. And, if your Camera app occasionally takes an unexpected type of photo, an errant swipe could explain it.


Swipe-on-viewfinder

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Quick Tip - Navigate System Preferences easier.

Find System Preferences Faster by Sorting Alphabetically

Quick Tip! - By default, System Preferences on the Mac organizes its preference panes by category. However, it doesn’t label those categories, making the organization nearly inscrutable. If you have trouble finding the Accessibility preference pane, for instance, which ends up in the bottom right when sorted by category, there’s a better way.

With System Preferences open, choose Organize Alphabetically from the View menu (yes, System Preferences has menus!) to arrange the icons alphabetically by name, putting Accessibility in the upper left. The preference panes are also listed alphabetically in that View menu.

Monday, July 24, 2017

Go Beyond Texting a Snapshot: Share Photos via iCloud Photo Sharing


It’s easy to take lots of photos on vacation these days, and while a slideshow of all of them is a bit much, friends and relatives might like to see a Best Of collection. Or you might wish to share baby photos with your family or pictures of your new city with friends back home.

With iCloud, it’s easy to create a shared album and to invite other iCloud users to subscribe to it (handy for viewing on an iOS device or Apple TV). It’s also easy to create a public Web page of photos that anyone can see, even if they don’t use any Apple devices.
First, some setup:
  • If you’re using an iOS device, go to Settings > Photos & Camera, scroll down if needed, and turn on the iCloud Photo Sharing (not iCloud Photo Library!) switch.
  • On a Mac, open System Preferences > iCloud, click the Options button next to Photos, select iCloud Photo Sharing, and click the Done button.
Next, follow these steps, which are similar regardless of the device you’re using:
  1. In the Photos app, select some photos or videos. In iOS, that involves tapping Select before tapping the items to select; on the Mac, Command-click the items you want or drag a selection rectangle around them.
  2. Hit the Share  button and pick iCloud Photo Sharing.
  3. Select an existing album, or create a new shared album (in iOS, tap Shared Album to see the New Shared Album command).
  4. For a new album, provide an album name, enter the names or email addresses of any iCloud users with whom you want to share the album, and add an optional comment. In iOS, tap Post; on the Mac, click Create.
To add more photos, you could repeat the steps to select photos and then add them to the shared album. But it may be easier to start with the shared album:
  • In Photos for iOS, if necessary, back out of the view until you see the Shared button at the bottom of the screen. Tap Shared and then the name of shared album. Then tap the + button in the bottom-right corner of the photo grid, select the items to add, tap Done, enter an optional comment, and tap Post.
  • In Photos for the Mac, just drag photos into the shared album in the sidebar, under Shared. Or select the shared album in the Shared category, click “Add photos and videos” (near the upper right), select the items to add, and click the Add button.
It’s easy to tweak the options for your shared album or to create a public Web page for it. The process is similar in both operating systems:
  • In Photos for iOS, tap Shared at the bottom of the screen and select the shared album. Tap People to bring up a screen where you can share the album with more people, control whether subscribers can post their own photos, create a public Web page, enable notifications, and delete the album entirely. To share the URL to the public Web page, tap Share Link and select a sharing method.
  • In Photos for the Mac, select the shared album in the sidebar, and then click the People  button in the toolbar. From the popover that appears, you can do the same things as in iOS, although sharing the link is best done by either clicking it to visit it in a Web browser and copying from there or Control-clicking it in Photos and choosing Copy Link from the contextual menu.
After practicing these steps a few times, you’ll be able to create shared albums in a flash, and share them easily!

Monday, July 17, 2017

Quick Tip - PSA: Hot Cars Can Kill iPhones


Just as you wouldn’t leave your pooch in a car parked in the sun, you should be careful with your iPhone. It’s rated for use at up to 95℉ (35℃) and can be stored at up to 113℉ (45℃), but temperatures inside a parked car on a sunny day can exceed 130℉ (55℃) within 30–60 minutes. That can both temporarily disable your iPhone and damage the battery more permanently. 

If your iPhone gets too hot, it warns you, “iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it.” It also stops charging, dims or turns off the display, puts its radios in a low-power state and disables the camera flash, although audible turn-by-turn directions will continue. Turn it off and let it cool down for a while.

temperature_cool_down

Friday, July 14, 2017

Going into Airplane Mode: Flying with Technology


Since 2013, we’ve been able to use handheld electronic devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and Kindle at pretty much all times during airplane flights, including takeoff and landing. That was a big change from previous policy, which banned the use of personal electronic devices below 10,000 feet, forcing passengers to occupy themselves with books and magazines at the start and end of flights.



But now flight attendants ask us to put our devices into “airplane mode.” You probably know how to do this on your iOS device, but if not, here’s how. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up Control Center and tap the airplane button at the top left. Alternatively, you can open the Settings app and enable the Airplane Mode switch (it’s the first switch in the list). When you land, use the same controls to turn it off again.

What does airplane mode do? It disables certain wireless features of your device. Specifically, it turns off the cellular voice and data features of your iPhone or iPad, and on all iOS devices it turns off both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. However, only the cellular features are important to your airline—you can re-enable both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth at any time. That might be useful if you want to use the airplane’s Wi-Fi network for Internet access (usually for a fee) or Bluetooth to play music over wireless headphones.

To turn these wireless features back on, tap the grayed-out Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons in Control Center, or flip their switches in Settings > Wi-Fi and Settings > Bluetooth. Don’t bother turning them on unless you’re going to use them, though, since you’ll save a little battery life by leaving them off for the duration of a long flight.

Why do the airlines care about cellular? It has little to do with airplane safety; the prohibition originated from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, not the Federal Aviation Administration. The reason is that fast-moving cell phones used high in the air may light up many cell towers at once, which can confuse the mobile phone network.

The technical solution is akin to what the airlines do to provide Internet access now; a device called a “picocell” would be installed on the airplane to provide connectivity with the phone network, and cell phones on the plane would communicate with it instead of individual cell towers on the ground below. Will it happen, though?

In the past, there have been proposals to allow cell phone use on properly equipped planes. However, the thought of fellow passengers having non-stop phone conversations during flight fills many people with dread. Many lawmakers in the United States oppose allowing passengers to make and receive phone calls during flight, citing concerns about cabin safety, a worry echoed by the flight attendants union. Even former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler acknowledged this, saying “I get it. I don’t want the person in the seat next to me yapping at 35,000 feet any more than anyone else.” So don’t expect that rule to change any time soon.

If you’re allowed to use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, why do the airlines make you stow your MacBook Air during takeoff and landing? It has nothing to do with the technology—the airlines ban laptops during times when there could be an emergency landing because they could, like carry-on luggage or lowered tray tables, impede evacuation or cause injury during turbulence.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Get Ready for iOS 11 by Identifying Old Apps that Won’t Work


Now that Apple has released a public beta of iOS 11, we have confirmation that Apple is kicking some old apps off the back of the train. If you’ve been using an iPhone or iPad for more than a few years, it’s possible that some of your apps won’t even launch in iOS 11. Here’s what’s going to happen, and what you can do about it.

Through the iPhone 5, fourth-generation iPad, original iPad mini, and fifth-generation iPod touch, Apple used 32-bit processors. However, in 2013, Apple instead began putting 64-bit chips in all new iOS devices. The company encouraged developers to make their apps run in 64-bit mode but kept iOS 7 compatible with older 32-bit apps. Starting in 2015, Apple required apps to run in 64-bit mode to receive App Store approval. And iOS 10 initially warned that 32-bit apps might slow down your device and later said that 32-bit apps would need to be updated.



First off, don’t worry about what 32-bit and 64-bit mean—all you need to know is that 32-bit apps are old and won’t run in iOS 11, and that 64-bit apps will continue to work as they always have.
How do you know which of your apps are 32-bit? For apps that you use regularly, you’ve probably seen one of those warnings. But other apps you may open only occasionally—how can you figure out which of those are destined for the chopping block?

In iOS 10.3, Apple added a feature to call out these apps. Navigate to Settings > General > About > Applications to see a list of 32-bit apps that don’t have direct updates available (if Applications isn’t tappable, either you still need to upgrade your device to iOS 10.3 or your device doesn’t contain any 32-bit apps). Tap an app in the list to load it in the App Store, where you may be able to find more info or a support link for the developer. Unfortunately, many old apps aren’t in the App Store anymore.



Now that you know which of your apps won’t survive the transition to iOS 11, what should you do? You have a few options:

  • Delete the app. If you haven’t used an app in years, or don’t remember what it does, there’s no reason to keep it around. To get rid of it, back on the Home screen, press and hold on any app icon until all the icons start to wiggle, and then tap the X badge on the icon you want to delete. Press the Home button to stop the wiggling.
  • Look for an update that’s a new app. Because Apple doesn’t let developers charge for updates, many developers have been forced to make their updates into new apps so they can afford future development. To see if this has happened, search in the App Store for the app and see if a new version appears. Or look for information on the company’s Web site.
  • Look for an alternative app. Few iOS apps are truly unique, so you may be able to find an alternative that does basically the same thing.
  • Don’t upgrade to iOS 11. Or, at least, don’t upgrade right away. In general, you should stay up to date with new versions of iOS to ensure that you’re protected from security vulnerabilities that Apple has discovered and patched. But there’s no harm in delaying an upgrade for a little while as you wait for an app to be updated or look for an alternative.
  • Stick with an older device. If you have an extra iOS device that can’t run iOS 11 anyway, keep the app on that device. This approach may not work for an app you need on your primary iPhone, for instance, but it would for an old game that you could play on an elderly iPad 2.
Take a few minutes now so you won’t be surprised if one or more of your favorite apps can’t make the transition to iOS 11 when it ships in a few months!

Monday, July 3, 2017

Quick Tip - How to Find Buried Options in the iOS Settings App

How to Find Buried Options in the iOS Settings App

iOS offers about 40 top-level categories in its Settings app and countless options in those categories. How can you find that little-used setting, particularly since Apple sometimes moves options during major iOS releases? The answer is the Settings app’s hidden Search field. 

To reveal it, pull down on the main settings screen (iPhone) or left sidebar (iPad). Tap the Search field, enter text describing the setting you want to find (try typing Fa to find Facebook, FaceTime, and Safari Favorites, among others), and the results appear immediately. Tap a result to jump to it, but also notice that each result shows a path, so you can learn how to find that setting manually in the future.