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

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

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

Tales from the Orchad: Apple seems to have forgotten about the whole ‘it just works’ thing.

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet

This is the phrase that Steve Jobs trotted out year after year to describe products or services that he was unveiling. The phrase expressed what Apple was all about — selling technology that solved problems with a minimum of fuss and effort on the part of the owner.

Well, Steve is now long gone, and so it the ethos of “it just works.”

2017 was a petty bad year for Apple software quality. Just over the past few weeks we seen both macOS and iOS hit by several high profile bugs. And what’s worse is that the fixes that Apple pushed out — in a rushed manner — themselves caused problems.

• A serious — and very stupid — root bug was uncovered in macOS
• The patch that Apple pushed out for the root bug broke file sharing for some
• Updating macOS to 10.13.1 after installing the root patch rolled back the root bug patch
• iOS 11 was hit by a date bug that caused devices to crash when an app generated a notification, forcing Apple to prematurely release iOS 11.2
• iOS 11.2 contained a HomeKit bug that broke remote access for shared users

And this is just a selection of the bugs that users have had to contend with over the past few weeks. And it’s not just been limited to the past few weeks. I’ve written at length about how it feels like the quality of software coming out of Apple has deteriorated significantly in recent years.

Now don’t get me wrong, bugs happen. There’s no such thing as perfect code, and sometimes high-profile security vulnerabilities can result in patches being pushed out that are not as well tested as they could be.

I also recognize that Apple has changed almost beyond recognition since Steve was on stage at keynotes telling us how stuff “just works.” Apple’s products are far more complex, the company is selling stuff at a rate that it could have once only dreamt doing, and the security landscape is totally different, and vulnerabilities now put hundreds of millions of users at risk.

But on the other hand, Apple isn’t some budget hardware maker pushing stuff out on a shoestring and scrabbling for a razor-thin profit margin. Apple’s gross profit margin is in the region of 38 percent, a figure that other manufacturers can only dream of.

And Apple is rolling in cash.

All this makes missteps such as the ones that users have had to endure feel like Apple has taken its eye off the ball, and that it’s perhaps putting increased effort into developing and selling new products at the expense of keeping users happy.

Apple owes a lot of its current success to its dedicated fanbase, the people who would respond to Windows or Android issues with “you should buy Apple, because that stuff just works.” Shattering that illusion for those people won’t be good in the long term, which is why I think Apple needs to take a long, hard look at itself in the run up to 2018 and work out what’s been going wrong and come up with ways to prevent problems from happening in the future.

Do you think Apple has dropped the ball when it comes to the finer details of their software? Sound off in the comments below!

January 18, 2018 0

App of the Week: tbh

Download This: tbh App may have cracked anonymous apps’ bullying problem.

By Karissa Bell of Mashable

Another anonymous app is at the top of the App Store and it might be because it’s figured out anonymous apps’ biggest problem: bullying.

Called “tbh,” short for “to be honest,” the app takes an unconventional approach to anonymity. While it allows friends to anonymously communicate, it only allows users to exchange compliments, which are sent via in-app quizzes.

The app, which is aimed at middle schoolers and high schoolers, connects to your address book so you can find people you know. It serves up a series of “polls” about your friends. The questions change but they are all positive, asking you to choose the “world’s best party planner,” or who is “too lit to be legit.”

The app keeps identities a secret, but users can see some details about who’s picked them (e.g. “a girl in the tenth grade”). It’s also borrowed some of the addictive dynamics of free-to-play games, though it doesn’t use in-app purchases at the moment.

If someone “chooses” you in a poll, you earn “gems,” which you can use to unlock more features within the app. You can only complete a set number of polls at a time and when you run out, you need to wait for a timer before you can take on more.

That all may sound gimmicky, but it’s proven to be a winning formula with teens. The app, which is currently only available in a handful of states, has been steadily climbing the App Store charts since it launched in August. On Thursday, it reached the top spot, beating out Facebook, Snapchat, Gmail, and the other apps that typically sit at the top of the App Store.

Addicting Candy Crush-like rules aside, some of that success may also be attributed to tbh’s emphasis on positivity. There are only positive “polls” so users aren’t able to easily bully each other — a problem that’s plagued Sarahah and other teen-centric anonymous apps.

Whether that will be enough to make the app stick with image-obsessed teens is another matter. But it’s definitely off to a strong start.

Download tbh here

How do you feel about these types of Apps gaining popularity? Sound off in the comments below!

October 3, 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

App of the Week: Apple Maps – All the features that’ll make you not hate it

Apple Maps is close to rivaling Google Maps with these features

By Molly Sequin of Mashable

Apple Maps isn’t the first app most people are clamoring for when they’re lost on a road trip. It’s actually one of the first apps I deleted when iOS finally let you get rid of native iPhone apps.

But since the iOS 10 update, there are some features that can make Apple Maps an app you’d want to use. Here’s why you might want to consider keeping it around.

Travel notifications for events

Apple cross checks its native apps to be as helpful as possible. This means that any events you have saved in your calendar will trigger a traffic notification via Apple Maps. It’ll give you the event time and location while telling you when to leave based on current traffic patterns. This feature could help you avoid showing up late for your next important event.

Highlighted locations are color coded

Apple Maps pinpoints landmarks and highlighted locations for users. And these are color-coded so you know exactly what you’re seeing right away.

For example, restaurants show a fork and knife icon in an orange circle and medical facilities appear as a white-on-red cross. This way, even if a location has a wonky name, you know exactly what it is just by using the color coding.

Traffic updates

When you’re in a hurry, there’s nothing worse than hitting unexpected traffic. Apple Maps wants to give you a heads up, and even give you time to change your route. Just go to Settings > Maps and tap the slide for traffic.

3D View

Apple Maps currently has options for a 2D and 3D view. Using 3D view gives you a general idea of the neighborhood you’re going to. Although it’s not a 3D view of the actual street, that’s probably going to be here soon. At least that’s what’s expected after seeing a horde of Apple Maps cars zipping around the world.

Flyover Tour

As if 3D view isn’t enough, Apple Maps also offers a flyover view. Just type in your destination and hit “Flyover Tour.” As the name suggests, it’s a 3D look from up above, as if you’re in a plane flying over the area. It can give you some more insight into a large area that you might not get in 3D mode. But it’s also just super cool to play with.

Make a reservation

Who calls to make a reservation these days? Even for the people who don’t mind picking up the phone, a lot of restaurants only accept online reservations now. Apple Maps includes a link to Open Table so you don’t have to look it up in a separate search. Although you’re still redirected to the Open Table app, it’s still a time saver.

Save a home location

A nifty trick to make things go a little faster is adding your home location to Apple Maps. To do this, you’ll need to update your home address in your iPhone’s contacts card for yourself. After that’s done, “To Home” will always appear when you open up the app before you search for a location. This way, you don’t have to waste your time constantly typing in your home address.

Wikipedia information

If you don’t know a lot about a museum you’re visiting with friends and don’t want to look like a dingus, let Apple Maps lend a hand. After you type in a location, scroll down and you’ll see a Wikipedia summary of what you should know. This can really help out in a pickle. But remember, not everything on Wikipedia is true.

Route Card

Using the Route Card on Apple Maps can save you a ton of hassle. It’s around to help you find nearby places, like gas stations and coffee shops. You can even add these locations to your route as detours.

To do this, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and choose which option you need to see nearby locations. Once you choose one, Apple Maps will account for time added on to your trip. When you’ve reached your detour, just hit “End” and resume on your original route.

Weather

Even though I’m currently in New York City, Apple Maps will tell me weather of any place I look up. In the screenshot above, you’ll see a little box on the right side of the screen that shows it was 83 degrees and cloudy at Camp Randall Stadium when I did this search. And this works for any location.

It’s super neat, but if you’re planning a long trip be sure to actually look up the extended forecast — we all know weather can change in the blink of an eye.

Yelp reviews

If you’ve never been to a place before, there’s always some doubt as to if it’ll live up to your expectations. Apple Maps doesn’t want to see you disappointed upon arrival, so it includes Yelp reviews in the app. Just scroll down after typing in your destination and all the reviews will be there waiting for you. You can even initiate your own review from here.

Apple Pay

A lot more companies are accepting Apple Pay these days. And it’s a huge convenience for those who use it. So you’d probably want to know if the burger joint your heading to accepts Apple Pay before you show up.

Apple Maps does just that. After you’ve searched for the place, scroll down below the general business information. You’ll see a section called “Useful to Know” and if it lists Apple Pay there, you’re good to go. This section will also give you details like if you can put in a reservation or order out for delivery.

Lane guidance

While this is currently on the app, Apple Maps will introduce lane guidance with the upcoming iOS 11 that is set to go live this fall. This could be the final differentiator between Apple Maps and Google Maps. So give it when the new iOS rolls out, and then you can make your final decision.

Now that you know all that Apple Maps has to offer, go re-download and give it a fair shot. It’s finally giving Google Maps a run for its money.

What’s your favorite feature of Apple Maps? Tell us in the comments below!

September 19, 2017 0

WIT: Sexism in tech impacts women everywhere. YouTube’s CEO just made that clear.

“Is it true?” Even Susan Wojcicki’s own daughter is grappling with that Google memo.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has spoken out about her experience with sexism in Silicon Valley in response to the controversial memo circulated by now-former Google employee James Damore and the broad ideological debate that has ensued.

Wojcicki has been with Google since its humble beginnings — the company’s first office was her garage. She became the CEO of YouTube in 2014, eight years into Google’s ownership of the video-sharing platform and after 15 years of overseeing various aspects of the company’s marketing departments and advertising services.

But Wojcicki, the woman who oversaw the development of Google’s now-ubiquitous AdSense product, spearheaded the implementation of Google Doodles, and suggested that Google purchase YouTube to begin with, has experienced seemingly all of the now well-known stereotypes of women in tech. Now Wojcicki has detailed a few of those experiences in a short essay for Fortune.

“Yesterday, after reading the news, my daughter asked me a question,” she wrote. “‘Mom, is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?’”

The topic has been the subject of much debate since Damore’s memo — which argues that women are biologically less capable or willing than men to perform a wide range of engineering and tech industry jobs, and that’s why they are underrepresented in the field — first became public.

“Time and again, I’ve faced the slights that come with that question,” she wrote, explaining:

I’ve had my abilities and commitment to my job questioned. I’ve been left out of key industry events and social gatherings. I’ve had meetings with external leaders where they primarily addressed the more junior male colleagues. I’ve had my comments frequently interrupted and my ideas ignored until they were rephrased by men.

No matter how often this all happened, it still hurt.

Wojcicki then offered a succinct and clear bird’s-eye view of how she suspects many women in tech are feeling right now:

When I saw the memo that circulated last week, I once again felt that pain, and empathized with the pain it must have caused others. I thought about the women at Google who are now facing a very public discussion about their abilities, sparked by one of their own co-workers. I thought about the women throughout the tech field who are already dealing with the implicit biases that haunt our industry (which I’ve written about before), now confronting them explicitly. I thought about how the gender gap persists in tech despite declining in other STEM fields, how hard we’ve been working as an industry to reverse that trend, and how this was yet another discouraging signal to young women who aspire to study computer science. And as my child asked me the question I’d long sought to overcome in my own life, I thought about how tragic it was that thisunfounded bias was now being exposed to a new generation.

Wojcicki ultimately echoed Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s message to all Google employees (in which Pichai stressed that parts of the memo violated Google’s code of conduct), noting that “while people may have a right to express their beliefs in public, that does not mean companies cannot take action when women are subjected to comments that perpetuate negative stereotypes about them based on their gender … the language of discrimination can take many different forms and none are acceptable or productive.”

Significantly, Wojcicki did not attempt to offer solutions, or to praise Google effusively for doing the right thing in firing Damore. Her essay primarily seems to be an attempt to show solidarity with her fellow women in tech. And her underlying message is clear: Silicon Valley’s sexist culture impacts women at all levels of the industry — and even their daughters.

August 16, 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.