Jim Karpen holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing, and has a love of gizmos. His doctoral dissertation focused on the revolutionary consequences of digital technologies and anticipated some of the developments taking place in the industry today. Jim has been writing about the Internet and technology since 1994 and has been using Apple's visionary products for decades.
If there was a single theme in today's Apple event, it was the company's extraordinary commitment to be constantly envisioning great products, and then continually refining them. No other company seems to have such a dedicated focus, nor the resources to bring it off.
By Jim Karpen
Here's how to optimize iPhone storage with iCloud. All your photos and videos can be stored in iCloud Photo Library rather than being tied to a particular device, making them available to you regardless of which device you're using and preventing their loss if something should happen to your iPhone. Any change you make to a photo or video on one device is carried over to the others. Let's get started learning how to access and back up photos to iCloud, and optimize photo storage on your iPhone.
By Jim Karpen
Predictive text on the iPhone suggests the three words you're most likely to type next. Unfortunately, sometimes our iPhone keyboard "learns" an incorrect spelling or text replacement. Luckily, you can edit, reset, or delete predictive text options using autocorrect, keyboard shortcuts, or by resetting your iPhone keyboard.
By Jim Karpen
There's not much to go on, and not many blogs have picked this up. Yet I pass it along, given that I'd love to think that Apple may be offering a special event soon. According to Tgaap, Apple may be holding a special event on February 24. They aren't clear on the date, though, nor on what will be announced. But their "research" suggests that Tim Cook will revisit the Apple Watch and may introduce yet new features. Plus, at that time he would announce the availability dates and pricing for all the various models. According to Tgaap, Apple itself hasn't yet settled on a specific date when the Apple Watch will be available. Which makes sense, given that it often depends on how smoothly mass production goes. And production has only recently begun. The post also says something unknown will be announced, possibly Apple Watch-related. In addition, Tgaap says Apple will announce a new entry-level MacBook Pro with retina display.
Fortunately I'm not addicted to an iPhone—but only because I don't have one. I do, however, tend to go through withdrawal if I don't have my iPad with me. It turns out, these gadgets have become so much an extension of ourselves that scientists have found that we suffer cognitive and physiological impairment if we're separated from them. A new study by University of Missouri researchers put iPhone users in a situation where they were separated from their phones while taking a cognitive test. Not only did they do worse on the test compared to their performance when they had their phones with them, they also had a significant increase in anxiety, heart rate, and blood pressure.
By Jim Karpen
Spotlight has long been a great feature of iOS, and is especially useful at helping you find apps that are buried away in a folder on your device. Since iOS 7 you invoke this handy search tool by simply swiping down on any home screen. (But keep in mind that if you swipe down from the very top of the display you'll get Notification Center instead.) In iOS 8, introduced last fall, Apple greatly expanded what Spotlight can do. In addition to finding apps and text strings in apps such as Mail and Notes, it also now searches the web, searches Wikipedia, finds related apps in the App Store, finds related movies, and even brings up results in Maps if you search on a location.
By Jim Karpen
If you own stocks or have an interest in how the market is doing, you can use Siri to check current stock prices. In addition, you can compare performance, ask more general questions about how the market is doing, ask about the performance of specific indices such as the Nikkei, and more. Note that this functionality is available on the iPad as well, even though iOS on the iPad doesn't include Apple's Stocks app.
I'm continually amazed at how useful Siri is to control the various functions of my iPad. I often use it to set an alarm or a timer. Doing so is so much faster than interacting with the Clock app itself. You can also use Siri to tell you the time and date, as well as the time at a specific location around the world. And you can ask Siri to tell you the date for a particular day of the week.
By Jim Karpen
I have a lot of apps on both my iPhone and my iPad Air, and I can sometimes forget where I've stored them all. There's a much faster way to launch apps: simply ask Siri. Not only can you use Siri to launch and use apps, but Siri can also help you find and download apps of interest. Here's how to launch and control apps with Siri!
Everyone likes movies. And no one likes wasting time on the lousy ones. So no doubt you check out the reviews to see what people are saying about it. Siri can help. Siri will not only let you find out what's playing at local theaters and play the trailer, but will also tell you how a movie is rated.
