Tips & Tricks: Top Five Time-Saving iPhone Tips

By Tim Hardwick of MacRumors

If you’re looking to cut down on the amount of time you spend performing certain actions on your iPhone, there’s usually a solution hidden in Apple’s mobile operating system. Here are five quick iOS tips that once you start using will make you a lot more time-efficient in the long run.

This article assumes you’re using an iPhone running iOS 11 or later, but some of these tips will work on iPad and earlier versions of Apple’s mobile OS. Read on for more.

1. Search a Web Page

In Safari on iOS, there are two ways to search a web page for a specific word or phrase. One method is quicker than the other, although neither is necessarily immediately obvious.

The first way involves tapping the Share icon (the square with an arrow pointing out of it), sliding your finger left along the bottom column, and tapping the Find on Page button, indicated by a magnifying glass. Start typing what you’re looking for, and your search results will be returned automatically.

The second, faster method is to type your search term straight into Safari’s address bar and then tap the On This Page option at the bottom of the suggestion list, after which you’ll be able to tap through each occurrence of the term on the current page.

2. Swipe to Delete in the Calculator

It’s a common misconception that if you type the wrong number into the Calculator app, you have to start the whole sum all over again. Happily, that isn’t the case: Simply swipe right or left with a finger across the number display to remove the last number you typed, and repeat the action if necessary to remove several numbers.

3. Access Deeper Control Center Options Sans 3D Touch

In iOS 11, the Control Center is designed to reveal deeper controls when the user hard-presses to activate 3D Touch – just try it on the camera button, for instance.

If you own an iPhone SE or an older iPhone that doesn’t support 3D Touch gestures, it’s still possible to access these more granular controls on any button that supports them by using a simple long press instead.

4. Quick-Switch Back From Numbers/Symbols to Letters

Switching onscreen keyboards when you need to type a number or symbol is an all-too-often occurrence on iPhone, so here’s a tip for making the transition super-swift.

Rather than tap the “123” key to switch to the number/symbol keyboard, hold down on it and slide your finger over to the key you want, then let go. This single action types the number/symbol and automatically switches you back to the alphabetical layout, avoiding the need to perform three separate taps to achieve the same result.

5. Clear All Notifications At Once

If you’ve got a bunch of notifications from earlier in the day or week that are clogging up your Notifications Screen, don’t waste time clearing them one by one. Simply hard press on the first x icon you see on the right of the list. From there, you only need to select the Clear All Notifications 3D Touch option to make them instantly vanish.

Do you have an best practices for navigating your iPhone? Tell us about them in the comments below!

February 3, 2018 0

App of the Week: Out of Milk

Out of Milk, the popular shopping list app, just added support for Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.

By Ryne Hager of Android Police

There are a lot of shopping list apps out there, and that’s an understatement. Back in the early days of app development, shopping lists were one of the most popular simple projects, and even now people learning the ropes typically toss one together. But Out of Milk has stood the test of time for the last seven years. And now managing your shopping list is getting just a bit more convenient via the new Out of Milk voice assistant, which works with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.

There are a couple of steps you’ll have to make to get things working as they should. The full instructions for Google Home are here (and Alexa instructions are here), but remember that the Out of Milk voice assistant requires you to use an account created on the Out of Milk app or website. Once it’s set up you’ll be able to yell at your assistant of choice and make use of the following features:

• Add and remove items to a list (e.g. “Add rice to my list.”)
• Include the quantity of an item on a list (e.g. “Add two gallons of milk to my list.”)
• Add multiple items at once to a list ( “Add bananas, cereal, & butter to my list.”)
• Check which list their editing (e.g. “Which list am I in?”)
• Switch between existing lists (e.g. “Switch to my ‘Walmart’ list.”)
• Read off items on a list (e.g. “What is on my current list?”)
• Read off all lists (e.g. “What lists do I have?”)

If you haven’t used Out of Milk, it’s pretty nifty. It allows you to add items to lists synced with other devices as well as friends or family. And you don’t just have to type or dictate, it can also scan barcodes. So the next time you toss out an empty bottle or box, you can quickly make sure you’ll grab it on your next shopping trip.

Ready to give things a try?

You can download Out of Milk at Google Play and iTunes.

Do you have a favorite App for Grocery Shopping? Tell us about it in the comments below!

January 30, 2018 0

Tips & Tricks: Custom thumbnails make your Apple Notes Easier to Find

By Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac

Apple’s Notes app gets better and better, with the iOS 11/macOS Sierra version bringing all kinds of amazing features. But however good any notes app is, you still have to find your notes, and for most of us that means scanning a list until we find the one we’re looking for. Today we’ll see how to add a custom image thumbnail to any note, so you can quickly identify it in the list. Even if you use search to narrow down the results, an image will still make notes easier to spot.

Adding image thumbnails to Apple Notes

Apple Notes automatically generates thumbnails from any images that are in a note, so the easiest way to add a thumbnail is to add an image. You can do this in many different ways. On the iPad or the Mac, you can drag an image from a Safari page, or from the Photos app, or any other source. On the iPhone, you can add an image from your Photos library by tapping the little plus ⊕ icon, and browsing from there.
Once you’ve added an image, a thumbnail of that image will show up automatically next to the note’s title in the source list. This makes it dead easy to find a note quickly.

Not just photos

But adding photos isn’t the only way to add a thumbnail to a note. The Notes app will pull pictures from some other sources. One way is to add a sketch to your note. On the iPad this is as easy as taking your Apple Pencil and drawing, but you can also tap the plus ⊕ icon and pick Add Sketch from the menu that pops up.

Notes will also grab an image from a URL. If you add a link to a note, you’ll already be familiar with the rich display that results — the link turns into a nice little box with an image, a title, and the URL itself. If no other images are available, then the Notes app will use that image as a thumbnail for the note.

Some rich objects in your Notes do not generate a thumbnail, even though they do create an image in the note body itself. Map bookmarks, for instance, show a preview of the location inside the note, but that map picture isn’t used for the note thumbnail.

Image order

What if you have multiple images in a note? Then Notes will pick the first one. If you have a URL before an image, then, the thumbnail will be taken from the URL. If you’d prefer to use the photo instead, just move it higher up in the note.

And Notes app will grab its images from anywhere inside the note. They don’t have to be at the very top of the note. The app just grabs the first one it finds. So, order matters, but absolute positioning doesn’t.

Thumbnails are a great way to help find notes when you’re searching through a long sidebar list, and there best part is that often they are generated without you having to do anything. But if you want thumbnails in a note that doesn’t already have one, then now you know how to fix it.

What’s your favorite Note taking app or favorite feature? Tell us about it in the comments below!

January 27, 2018 0

How to: Master Microsoft Word

By Thorin Klosowski of Lifehacker

Microsoft Word is easily the biggest, most popular word processing program available, but it does a lot more than just edit text and TPS reports. If you’ve been telling yourself that you’ll finally learn Word’s ins and outs, now’s the time to actually learn how to edit styles, add a table of contents, and more.

Get Up and Running with Word Quickly

Of all of the Microsoft Office programs, Microsoft Word is probably the simplest from a user interface perspective. If you’ve ever used a word processing program in your life, you’ll recognize the menus for opening and creating files in the top left corner. The larger menu that runs across the top of the document Microsoft refers to as the “ribbon.” The ribbon has all the formatting tools you’ll need, as well as a few contextual commands that change depending on which tab you’re on.

For this series, we’ll assume you know the basics, but if you want a refresher, Microsoft’s quick start guide for Word gets you through the basics.

How to Do the Most Common, Essential Tasks in Microsoft Word

Of course, everyone’s needs are a little different, but considering most people use Office in an office setting, we’re willing to bet you’ll need to do things like edit styles, compare two documents, prepare a table of contents, and more.Let’s go ahead and cover some of those common tasks.

How to Apply and Edit Styles

A style in Word is a preset formatting for your document. This is what the document looks like, so it includes the font, font size, paragraph style, and so on. Creating or changing a style makes it possible to alter the look of a document all at once so you don’t need to go through and highlight individual sections and make specific changes. You can do things like set a universal heading style,or change what the default bulleted list looks like.

For example, if you’re working on a book, you might get a list of style guidelines from a publisher. Or if you’re working on weekly interoffice memos, a style is an easy to way to create a format guideline so every one you make looks the same way every time. Plus, you get the flexibility to change styles at any time, so if one department likes their memos one way, but your boss prefers a different style, you don’t have to change a bunch of formatting every time you open a new document.

To apply a style, make sure you’re on the Home tab, select a block of text in a document that you want to alter, and then click the Style menu in the ribbon. For example, if you want to make a heading in the middle of a block of text, you’d select the text you want as a heading, then click Styles > Heading 1. It’s as easy as that.

Making your own specific styles is pretty easy too. This is useful when you’re writing something consistently, like a newsletter or a book, and want a specific set of rules you can easily apply to a document as a whole. For example, you might want to change the font size of the default heading option, or change how creating a list works. Here’s how to do it:
From the Home tab, click on Styles Pane.
Click New Style or select the style you’d like to edit.
You’ll get a pop up window to edit a number of parameters here
including type, basis, and formatting.
Click through the options you want to change.

If you’re confused about what each term means, don’t worry, it’s pretty straightforward. Paragraph styles determine the look of the text on a paragraph level.

When you apply this style, it’ll change the whole paragraph. Character styles determine the look on a character level, so you can make one word stand out. Table styles alter the look of tables, like the header row or how the grid lines work. Finally, list styles alter the look of a list, such as bulleted lists or a number scheme.

How to Add a Table of Contents to the Beginning of a Document

If you’re working with a big document, a table of contents adds quick navigation. Thankfully, creating a table of contents in Word is easy and it’ll update itself automatically as you add more to the document.

Word’s automatic table of contents generator takes each heading you add to a document, and then creates the table of contents based on that. If you plan on creating a table of contents, make sure you style each of your section titles with a heading.
Click an empty paragraph where you want to insert the table of contents.
Click the References tab.
Click Table of Contents and then select the appearance you want to use.

That’s it. Word automatically updates that table of contents any time you add or alter a header.

How to Compare and Merge Two Documents

If you have two versions of a document, whether it’s because someone did edits in their own copy, a cloud backup failed, or if you’re just trying to hash out what exactly changed between two versions of the same thing, you’ll need to use the compare and combine functions.

If you just want to see what changes exist between two documents, you can compare them. Here’s how to compare two documents:

Open one of the two documents you want to compare.
Click Tools > Track Changes > Compare Documents.
Pick your original document and revised document files.

Type in a name under “Label changes with” text field so you can tell the difference between the two documents. This way, Word will add a note telling you where each change comes from.

Combining a document works the same way, but the end result is a single document that merges the contents of both documents together so everything that’s the same is overwritten:

Open one of the two documents you want to combine.
Click Tools > Merge Documents.
Pick your original document and revised document files.

When the documents are merged, the differences between the two are highlighted. From here, you can go in and pick what you want to keep in the final version.

How to Format a Document Properly with Tab Stops and Indents

If you’re the type who formats a document by pressing spacebar or tab a bunch of times, it’s time to learn how to do it the right way: Using indents and tab stops. The video above shows off how tabs and indents work so it’s easy to understand, but let’s just sum up what the two terms actually mean.

Tab stops: A tab stop is the location a cursor stops after the tab key is pressed. In Word, it’s a way to easily align text. When you click the ruler in Word, a tab stop appears as a little curved arrow. When you tap the tab key, the cursor and text will jump to that arrow. If you add in multiple tab stops, you can make it so you can format text by simply tapping the tab key a couple of times to get it in place and perfectly lined up.

Indents: As the name suggests, indents determine the distance of the paragraph from the left or right margin. On the ruler, you’ll see two triangles that adjust the indentation. You can click either triangle and move it to change the indentation. The top triangle adjusts the indentation of the first line of a paragraph. The bottom triangle adjusts the indentation for subsequent lines (aka the hanging indent) in the paragraph. You can also click on the square below them to move both at the same time.
Learning how to use these indents and tab stops can make creating a document like a resume or academic paper a lot easier.

How to Add Citations and References

Academic papers are a beast to write, but Word makes creating bibliographies and citations super easy. Once you’ve created a new document and you’re writing that paper, you can add a citation with just a few clicks.

Click the Reference tab.
Click the Dropdown arrow next to Bibliography style and select the style
you’re using for that paper.
Click the end of a sentence or phrase where you want to add the citation.
Click Insert Citation. In the Create New Source box, enter in all the info you
need.

Once you enter a citation once, you can add additional citations from the same text by selecting a sentence, then clicking the Citations box and selecting the reference you want to insert. When you’re all done, click the Bibliography button and select either Bibliography or Works Cited to automatically generate the reference page for your paper.

The Best Features in Word 2016

Word 2016 is a word processor—that means it doesn’t have to make giant, revolutionary leaps over its previous versions. However, Word 2016 does have a few improvements worth noting:

–You can search the ribbon: In Windows, above the ribbon, you’ll see a “Tell me what you want to do” box. Here, you can type in any question you have and Word will tell you how to do it. For example, you can ask it how to insert a picture, how to format text in a specific way, or how to create lists. It’s basically a boring version of Clippy for the 21st century. For whatever reason, this isn’t included in the Mac version.
–You can see collaborators edits in real time like in Google Docs: You’ve been able to work on Word documents as a team for a while, but Word 2016 adds in live edits, so you’ll see other people’s notes and updates instantly.
– Smart lookup makes research a little easier: Word is now a little more connected to the web than it used to be. In Word 2016, you can right-click a word, then select “Smart Lookup” from the menu to look up a word’s definition, the related Wikipedia article, and top search results from Bing.

Other than those minor improvements, if you’ve used older versions of Word you’ll be right at home in Word 2016 within minutes.

Work Faster in Word with These Keyboard Shortcuts

Microsoft has full lists of every keyboard shortcut in Word for Windows and Word for Mac that are worth bookmarking,, but let’srun through some of the big ones you’re likely to use every day, and a few specific to word that are really useful:

CTRL+N/CTRL+O/CTRL+S: Create, Open, and Save a document.
CTRL+X/CTRL+C/CTRL+V: Cut, Copy, Paste
CTRL+B/CTRL+I: Bold, Italic
CTRL+A: Select All
CTRL+Z: Undo
CTRL+K: Insert a hyperlink
CTRL+P: Print a document
CTRL+H: Open Find and Replace
Shift+F3: Toggle Capitalization options
CTRL+SHIFT+C: Copies the formatting for selected text so you can apply
it to another set of text with CTRL+Shift+V
CTRL+Shift+N: Applies the normal style to the selected text

Beyond that, Word supports universal text editing keyboard shortcuts like Shift+CTRL+Up/Down arrows to select whole paragraphs. These can make navigating and highlighting text a lot easier, and we’ve got a list of all of them here. If you use Word heavily, get to know these shortcuts, they will make your life better.

Additional Reading for Power Users

Word’s a big program and we can’t cover everything here. Here are a few more guides to help you push the boundaries of what Word’s capable of.

Six tips for better formatting: Formatting is a big deal in MS Word, and if you want to get better at skills like showing hidden characters, dealing with sections, and more, this post should help.
Select all text with the same formatting: This hidden little menu in the ribbon lets you select blocks of text based on its formatting.
Everything you need to know about collaboration: Collaboration is a big part of Word. From tracking changes to learning how to use markup, this post covers everything you need to know about working on documents as a group.
Create your own keyboard shortcuts: Word has a ton of keyboard shortcuts as it is, but if you want more, you can make your own.

Word might just look like a boring old text editor at a glance, but as you can see, it’s a lot more complex than most people give it credit for. Mastering it can take a long time, but once you have the basics and understand what’s possible in Word, you’ll be well on your way to being a Microsoft Word ninja.

What are your best practices for Microsoft Word? Tell us about it in the comments below!

January 22, 2018 0

Tips & Tricks: These cool tricks will help you up your drag and drop game on iOS 11

Here are some of the cool things you can do with drag and drop in iOS 11.

By Joseph Keller of iMore.com

Drag and drop is one of the marquee features of iOS 11. You can drag photos, documents, and other items from one location on your iPhone to another, whether that’s between apps or within a single app. While you might have a handle on the basics of drag and drop, there are some cool tricks that you could have escaped your notice.

Here are some of the best tricks that drag and drop has up its sleeves:

Drag within apps
Drag multiple items
Move text between apps
Drag contacts and addresses into Maps
Open links in Safari

Drag within apps

While a lot of Apple’s marketing with drag and drop focused on your ability to drag items between apps, you can also move items within an app. So, copy text from one note to another, or drag photos into a new photo album.
One of the great things about this is feature is not strictly confined to the iPad. While you need an iPad to really take advantage of the full range of drag and drop capabilities, apps like Notes and Files let you drag and drop items on your iPhone as well, as long as you stay within that app.

Drag multiple items

You don’t have to drag things one at a time with drag and drop. If you’re moving something like photos or documents, once you start dragging the first one, just tap others with a different finger and they’ll shoot over to your existing dragging activity. This way, you can quickly move a bunch of related documents into a new folder, or drag photos into a brand new album.

This isn’t just for different file types, either. You can also use this trick when you’re rearranging apps on your Home screen. This way, you can drag multiple apps into a new app folder or a different Home screen at once.

Move text between apps

As a writer that likes to work on his iPad and has to use a lot of quotes, I find this next trick particularly useful. If you’ve got text in one app, whether it’s a note you’ve written down or a section of text from an article or document that you want to quote, you can now just drag it between two apps. Just highlight the text you want to move into your app of choice, then drag it from its origin point into your app.

Drag contacts and addresses into Maps

This is a neat little trick that makes getting directions to a new place easier. If you have a contact with an address that you’re unfamiliar with, you can easily find that address and get directions by dragging that contact’s name from your list and dropping it into Maps. The app will shoot right to that address, letting you then ask for directions that you can then share with your iPhone with AirDrop.
You can also do this with addresses that you find in other apps or anywhere on the web. Simply drag the address to Maps, and you’ll see the exact location and have the option of getting directions.

Open links in Safari

If you’re reading an article or email or something else that has interesting-looking links, you can now drag those links into Safari to check them out. Just drag the link into the Safari app, drop it, and Safari will open that link. Note that if it’s just a new tab with nothing in it, you’ll need to drag your link into the address bar towards the top of the screen.

You can also do this within Safari. Just drag your link, open a new tab, and drop the link in the address bar if you want to have that link and your existing content open at the same time.

What cool things have you discovered about iOS 11? Tell us about it on the comments below!

January 20, 2018 0

App of the Week – Tripit

By Jeff Richardson of iPhone J.D.

Review: TripIt Pro — notification of travel delays and cancellations, and other travel assistance

I’ve been using the free TripIt service for many years. I reviewed TripIt back in 2013, and while the service and the app have improved since then, the basic idea is the same. When you make a travel reservation and receive the email from the airline, hotel, rental car agency, train, etc., you simply forward that email to TripIt. The service recognizes you from your email address, reads and understands the content of those emails, and prepares an online itinerary for your trip. With the free TripIt app on your iPhone (or iPad), all of your travel info is in one place. Thus, if you are in the middle of your trip and need to find the name or address of your hotel, or a reservation number, everything is in one place in the TripIt iPhone app. It is a like a virtual travel agent which provides all of the core basic features. I love the service and recommend it to everyone.

TripIt Pro costs $49 a year, and it adds premium services to look out for you before and during your travel, much like a more sophisticated travel agent might do. The company gave me a free demonstration account earlier this year so that I could try it out, and I’ve used the service in connection with several trips over the Summer, Fall and Winter of 2016. I enjoyed the service, and I think that it is worth it for any frequent traveler. Here are the key features of the service.

Alerts

TripIt Pro constantly monitors your travel reservations, and if anything changes, you are notified immediately. The value of this service to you will of course depend upon whether anything goes wrong during your travel. If something does go wrong, TripIt Pro is incredibly valuable and the service can pay for itself with just one alert.
In June of 2016, this feature was incredibly valuable for me. I was traveling to Miami along with many other attorneys at my law firm, and I was on an early morning flight. When I woke up, I saw an email from TripIt Pro alerting me that my direct flight had been cancelled.

The email gave me a link to get a list of alternative flights, and included phone numbers for the airline to make changes. Even though the airline itself never sent me a notification of the cancellation, TripIt Pro gave me the information that I needed to call and book an alternative flight. The alternative flight was inconvenient — to go from New Orleans to Miami, I had to first fly to Dallas — but at least I was able to (barely) make my meeting in South Florida later on that day. Many of my partners didn’t find out about the cancellation until they got to the airport, at which time many of the alternative flights were already taken, and some of them missed the meeting entirely.

TripIt Pro gives you other flight alerts as well. It tells you when it is time to check in — something that most airlines tell you too, but the TripIt Pro email usually arrived before the airline one did, if that makes a difference to you.

Flight delays and cancellations happen far more often than any of us would like. But with immediate notification of any problems, at least you can be one of the first in line to make alternative arrangements.

Connection Summary

Because I don’t live in a city with a major hub airport, a large number of my flights involve connections through cities like Atlanta. When I land, I want to know information such as the time of my next flight, the gate at which I will be landing, and the gate out of which my next flight will leave. Of course virtually every airline has its own app or website that you can manually access to load all of this information, but sometimes those apps are slow to use. TripIt Pro sends you an email immediately upon landing on your first flight with all of the information that you need to make your connection, including gate information and whether the next flight is on time.

I found it very convenient to have this connection information pushed directly to me so that I didn’t’t have to do any extra work to find the key information that I needed.

Seat Tracker

I’ve been lucky enough for the past few months to get a good seat at the time that I booked my flight. If you are not as lucky, TripIt Pro includes a Seat Tracker service. Tell the service what kind of seat you are looking for (exit row, aisle, window, specific cabin, front of the plane, etc.) and TripIt Pro will notify you when that seat becomes available. You’ll have to contact your airline to make the change, but at least you will know when it is the right time to do so.

Etc.

TripIt Pro offers other features that didn’t appeal to me, but maybe they would appeal to you. A Point Tracker service lets you track your travel points in one spot. (I find it more useful to just manage this through each specific airline, hotel, train, etc. service.) A flight refund service alerts you if a cheaper flight becomes available and you are ever eligible for a refund. (Does this ever really happen for anyone?) A sharing feature let’s you share travel information with others. (Even with the free TripIt service, I just use the TripIt website “print” my travel itinerary to a PDF file and then I share that PDF file with others, without using the Pro sharing features.) And there are some discounts for other travel services if you use TripIt Pro.

Conclusion

It is nice that TripIt Pro offers additional features, but I think for most people the question is whether it is worth $50 a year to you to get immediate notification of delays or cancellation in your travel plans. If you travel often, and mentally divide up that $50 price among each of your different flights, then I suspect many frequent fliers would consider this a bargain. Even just one cancellation can cause a lot of distress for you, and with an immediate alert at least you can start working on a solution to the problem ASAP. The other TripIt Pro features are not in themselves worth $50 to me, but they are nice bonuses that increase the overall value.

Everyone who travels should check out the free TripIt app. If you are a frequent traveler, I encourage you to consider adding the TripIt Pro service.

Click here to get TripIt (free) – iOS
Click here to get Tripit (free) – Android

Do you have a favorite travel app? Tell us about it in the comments about it in the comments below!

January 9, 2018 0

How to: Utilize Do Not Disturb While Driving

Everything you can do with Do Not Disturb While Driving in iOS 11

By Monica Chin of Mashable

With the new iOS update, Do Not Disturb has gotten smarter. It now knows when you’re driving, and can stop you from being irresponsible.

Do Not Disturb mutes phone calls, notifications, and text messages, keeping your phone dark for a set period of time. If enabled, Do Not Disturb While Driving turns on automatically when it detects the acceleration of a vehicle (you can turn it off if you’re a passenger). You can also enable it to turn on whenever it connects to a car via Bluetooth.

But the feature doesn’t totally cut you off. You can set Do Not Disturb While Driving to automatically respond to any texts informing their senders that you are driving.
Your contacts can break through Do Not Disturb by including the word “Urgent” in your texts (this function can be turned off, or limited to certain contacts). You can still make phone calls if the phone is on Speaker or connected to Bluetooth.
Do Not Disturb While Driving and all of its features can be turned on and customized in Settings > Do Not Disturb.

And if you don’t trust your kids, you can turn on Do Not Disturb While Driving on their phones, and prevent it from being disabled. This can be done in Settings > General > Restrictions.

This new feature is optional, but we really recommend you try it. It takes about two seconds to turn on, and it could save your life.

What do think about this new feature in iOS 11? Tell us about it in the comments below!

October 2, 2017 0

How to: record your iPhone screen in iOS 11

BY ABHISHEK KURVE of Cult of Mac

Recording your iPhone screen used to be a hassle. If you wanted to capture iOS gameplay, or make a funny or informative GIF of on-screen action, you needed to download a third-party app or connect your device to a computer.

Those days are over: With iOS 11, Apple baked in sweet functionality that lets you record your iPhone screen effortlessly. Here’s how to do it.

How to record iPhone screen natively

As you might know, iOS 11 lets you add and organize toggles in the Control Center. In iOS 11, which Apple released Tuesday September 19th, you’ll find the capability to record your iPhone screen is present as a Control Center option.
To use it, open Settings > Control Center and add Screen Recording using the + button.

Now whenever you need to start recording your iPhone screen, just swipe up from the bottom to open Control Center and tap on the “record” toggle, which should look something like this:

The toggle should turn red, indicating that the screen is being recorded. There’s also a persistent notification bar that shows the duration of the recording.

To end the screen capture, just bring up the Control Center again and turn off the recording by tapping on the same toggle.

Once you’ve finished, you can access your iOS screen recording from inside the Photos app. You can also trim the video to adjust its length.

What do you think of this new feature? Tell us in the comments below!

September 25, 2017 0

How to: Reset your Brightness in iOS 11

Apple doesn’t want you to set your own brightness in iOS 11

By Napier Lopez of the Next Web

It seems there are still a few small surprises in store for Apple’s iOS 11, and not all of them good: the latest developer beta of the OS makes it a pain to manually set brightness.

Previously, you could toggle automatic brightness on and off right from the Display & Brightness section of Settings – you know, where it should be. Now the option is buried all the way under General>Accessibility>Display Accommodations, where pretty much no-one will find it.

To be clear, Apple’s version of auto-brightness does allow for some flexibility. Similar to adaptive brightness on Android, you still get a brightness slider, but instead of setting a fixed brightness, it roughly establishes a brightness range.

The idea is that even if you set your brightness low, the screen will still brighten when you step outside into the sunlight. But sometimes auto brightness gets it wrong, and the subtle adjustments in brightness can be annoying for some activities like watching a long movie.

Sure, it’s a bit of nitpicking. For most people, auto-brightness is fine. But I frequently alternate between auto and manual brightness depending on what I’m doing, and I’m not the only one. Moreover, there’s just no reason to bury such an inoffensive and commonly used setting under several non-intuitive menus.

Do you have work arounds for automated settings on your device? Tell us about it in the comments below!

August 21, 2017 0

How to: Password Protect a Folder in a Mac

By Henry T. Casey of Laptop Mag.com

Not all of your files are meant to be seen by everyone. Your friends and family may not appreciate this truth, but that’s just the way it is sometimes. Luckily, MacBook owners can protect their sensitive files from prying eyes by password protecting specific folders.

Many paid programs offer similar functionality, but we prefer this free method built into Apple that allows folders to be turned into protected disk images. We tested this on a MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra version 10.12.6 but research shows it works the same way going as far back as Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard.

1. Click Command + Shift + A to open the Applications folder.