Syncing, believe it or not, is a very difficult mechanism to do well. Unfortunately, sometimes syncing doesn't happen as quickly as we would like. For example, when we create a new contact on your computer, we expect that new contact to show up on our phone almost immediately. It can be frustrating when that doesn't happen.
In most apps, there is an intuitive way to force it to re-sync with the server that it's connected to. In Mail, you simply pull down on your Inbox and let go. This will force Mail to check for mail. The other day, I had an issue with some of my events not syncing to my iPhone, so I needed to force a re-sync. It's not obvious how to do this like it is in Mail, but there is a way. This is how.
With each new release of iOS, it's getting smarter and smarter. Siri, for example, can satisfy more commands and requests now than she did in iOS 7, but not as many as she will be able to do in iOS 9. This principle also holds true for iOS utilities.
One utility, in particular, is proving to be more useful now than it ever has been, and allows us to make some good decisions based on the information it gives us. I'm talking about battery usage.
I recently learned that when we sleep, we sleep in cyclical patterns of light sleep and deep sleep, often going back and forth several times in a given night. This is fairly typical. If we set our alarm to wake us up at 6:30a and we happen to be in a light sleep cycle, we often feel refreshed. When the alarm goes off in the middle of a deep sleep cycle, however, we feel groggy and not well rested.
We know about these sleep cycles. Wouldn't it be nice if our alarm clock knew about these sleep cycles, and woke us up at just the right time... in the middle of a light sleep cycle? If that's what you're looking for, I have just the app for you!
Apple held their much-anticipated Spring Forward event this morning from San Francisco where they announced new products. Below is a brief summary of the event:
When I was younger, I used to love playing Minesweeper, a single-player puzzle game, originally introduced in the 1960's, later adopted by Microsoft and pre-installed on every Windows-based computer. It's a great game to play whether you have a minute to play or an hour.
When Windows 7 was introduced, Minesweeper was no longer bundled with the Operating System. Not only that, but it's never been a part of OS X or iOS. For those of you who loved it as much as I did/do, have no fear... there's an app for that
If you're like me, you have a ton of older electronic gadgets around your house that would ordinarily be perfectly suitable for use, if it weren't for a broken screen, dead internal battery or some other simple thing that could be fixed. With today's gadgets, it can certainly be more than a little intimidating to try and make those repairs yourself because it seems like everything is designed and packaged so tightly.
Google is a great resource to use when trying to make these sorts of repairs, but it can be difficult because the quality of the instructions can be poor, or even worse... the instructions could be completely wrong (there is no guarantee of their accuracy). With that in mind, I have the perfect solution for you.
iOS has so many new features, it's nearly impossible to list them all, and can even be difficult to remember which ones are new from iOS 7. It can be a little overwhelming. One of the features that I completely forgot about until just the other day was the "Hey Siri" feature.
For those who have never used an iPhone before, Siri is your beloved personal assistant. She's great at telling you the time or weather, finding a local movie theater, getting directions, pulling yup sports scores, and so much more. Prior to iOS 8, you would get Siri's attention by holding down the Home button. A new feature in iOS makes getting her attention so much easier (and safer when driving).
It's not all that uncommon to spend as much on our monthly telecommunication bill (cell phone, TV, Internet, etc) as we do on our vehicles. As such, you want to make sure your getting what you pay for. In the case of TV, it's easy to make this determination. If you pay for ESPN and CNBC but you're not able to watch those channels, then you know you aren't getting what you're paying for.
Assessing Internet, however, is a little more difficult. Fortunatey, there's an easy way to test this.
iMessage is a wonderful messaging service that Apple launched in 2011 along side iOS 5 and OS X Mountain Lion. Unlike traditional SMS/MMS texting, iMessages are sent to and from other iOS users via a data network. What's so great about that? Well, it works at 36,000 feet, it doesn't rack up expensive fees while traveling Internationally and it has a ton of other features that traditional texting can't offer.
Even though they are few and far between (at least in my circles), there are those who decide to ditch the iPhone for an Android. In making that transition, it can be difficult to remove your phone number from the iMessages network, resulting in lost text messages once you'e settled in to the Android platform. In theory, all you need to do is deregister your number on your iPhone before switching, but even then, it can sometimes not work. This post will explain how to avoid that headache.
A reader asks, "I've been using Apple Pay since day one and I love it! It makes the check-out process so much quicker and easier. My problem is that I have more than one credit card set up. How do I use another card to pay when I check out?"
I love Apple Pay too (and will love it even more when more places accept it as a form of payment). It's so easy to use, and does make the checkout process much faster. Not only that, but I can see recent transactions for each card from within Passbook. Very slick. Like you, I also have multiple cards set up on my iPhone 6 for Apple Pay use, but only one can be set as the default-use card. Here's how to use another card as payment with Apple Pay.
Apple Pay is new to iOS 8.1 (launched last week) and it's incredibly easy (and fun!) to use. There still aren't a lot of vendors who access Apple Pay, but the list is growing (and I expect it to be wildly popular over the next year).
Over the course of the last week, I have had several readers write in and ask me various questions like "How do I know if a store accepts Apple Pay?" and "How do I enroll a credit card?". In light of these questions, I thought I would post Apple's own Apple Pay FAQ page. There's some great information here!
One of the great selling points to using an iPad over many other tablets on the market is battery life. Apple promotes that their iPads will last a full day (10 hours) while operating the device under normal conditions. While the word "normal" differs from person to person, the fact remains... battery life on the iPad is, in general, pretty amazing.
This is especially useful for those who travel. For many travelers (dare I say even business travelers?), it's not unrealistic to think that all you need to take is your iPad (and phone, of course). I know plenty business travelers who leave their "heavy" laptops at the office while they spend days at a time airport- and hotel-hopping. I'm one of them. For most of the traveling that I do, I leave my MacBook Pro at home. In order to do this, however, it's important to maximize battery life on your iPad. Here are some simple tips to help maximize your iPad's battery life.
Several months ago, I had a need to take a group photo with my iPhone. No big deal, except that I was part of the group. As a result, I had to scramble to find and download an app that would allow me to set a timer, and then take the photo after I ran to get in my place in the group, all the while wondering why this simple feature wasn't part of the built-in iOS camera app.
Along with many other great new features in iOS 8, the built-in camera app now has a self-timer mode! It's super-simple to use AND has some really nice features.
Hyperlapse allows you to create amazing time-lapse videos (here's a recent video I made). If you don't have it, you need to get it (it's free)! Even with the built-in time-lapse feature in iOS 8, I still prefer Hyperlapse because of the built-in image stabilization. It really helps to smooth out the video.
It's simplicity is also it's downside. Because it's so simple to use, there aren't many features to adjust or settings to tweak... or are there? As you will see here, there actually are some hidden settings, including the ability to shoot at the full 1080p resolution (the default mode is 720p).
The notes app in iOS 8 is pretty simplistic. It's certainly stripped down when compared to the number of features offered in apps like Evernote, but that's by design. Notes is a no-frills note-taking app that simply allows you to take quick notes and sync with iCloud. Prior to iOS 8, you couldn't even using rich text formatting (italics, bold and underline), but that just changed.
Not only does Notes in iOS 8 allow you to use rich text formatting, but it now also allows you to insert images now as well! This is a feature that has been available in the Notes app for Mac for a while now. It's nice to see it finally make its way to iOS.
