iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear
The 5 Best Apple Watch Ultra Bands for Every Lifestyle
By Olena Kagui
The Apple Watch Ultra is not your average Apple Watch. While buying one of these rugged Apple Watches may be an easy decision, picking the right band for it is a whole different story. As a self-proclaimed Apple Watch fanatic, it has been my mission to find the perfect Apple Watch Ultra band. Here are my top 10 picks, with something for every lifestyle, aesthetic, and budget.
Review: Upgrade Your Home with the Smart Level Lock+
By Olena Kagui
Have you ever misplaced or forgotten your keys? Gotten all comfy in bed just to wonder, anxiously, if you locked the door? Wished you could let your friend or neighbor into your home while you’re at work? The Level Lock+ makes all these concerns a thing of the past! This smart lock is Apple HomeKit compatible and comes with Apple Home Keys, giving you dozens of quick and easy ways to lock and unlock your door, even if you’re continents away.
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Unleash Your Inner App Developer Part 41: Logging In With Facebook
By Kevin McNeish
Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, I will take you, the beginner app developer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure and you will experience how much fun turning your app ideas into reality can be! This is part 41 of the series. If you are just getting started, check out the beginning of the series at this link.
These days, more and more iOS apps offer users the option of logging in with Facebook. If you want your app to go viral, this is a great first step. In fact, 80 percent of the top-grossing iOS apps use social media logins. As stated in the Facebook documentation:
Hot Right Now on Kickstarter: Lifelogger POV Video Camera
By Adam Harvey
I love cruising around on Kickstarter for the latest and greatest in innovation. It makes me feel good to help a company with a great product get a leg up! Today, I came across the Lifelogger POV video camera and I want one. Badly.
Check it out.
When it came to the iPod, I was an early adopter. And boy was it emancipating to no longer tote around CDs in my car or carry a Discman with me on the run. In fact, it was incredible.
At the time that the iPod emerged, smartphone apps were science fiction, like flux capacitors and hoverboards. But now, smartphones are not only ubiquitous, they are boasting more flexibility and nearly as much storage capacity as iPods. Could it mean the death of the iPod in the coming months and years? Maybe…
Honestly, I Want to See Microsoft be Brave
By Todd Bernhard
As much as I love Apple, I like what Microsoft is trying to do. But, heaven help me, I can't stand their commercials. "Honestly" starts each actor's fake testimonial. As if it wasn't obvious that these are primarily actors (except Seattle Seahawks player Russell Wilson) reading someone else's lines, by using the same words and format, Microsoft is being phony from the beginning in commercials that start and end with the word "Honestly." It insults the intelligence of the audience. Not to mention the valid charges of sexism. Interestingly, when searching using Yahoo (powered by Microsoft's Bing) none of the negative articles about the commercials show up, but under Google, they do. Whose search engine is being honest, now?
How to Find Out What Those Emojis Are Called
By Sarah Kingsbury
Emoji symbols add a touch of whimsy to text messages, notes, and emails. But did you know that they have names besides "the pink flower," "the other pink flower," "dead dudes one and two," and "the not-quite-full moon—is it waxing or waning? I can never remember"? The easiest and most hilarious way to find out what the Emojis' official names are is to have your iPhone read them out loud to you.
If you're a music lover or an iOS gamer, you already get this, but it's hard to appreciate the full scope and flavor of our media when relying solely on our iOS device's speakers. Even if the extent of your media consumption on your iPhone or iPad (or laptop or desktop) doesn't stray beyond watching movies and videos, you'll have to admit, the in-built speakers these gadgets come with don't necessarily broadcast the most stellar audio. For crystal clear, pristine sound reproduction we have to look to the world of headphones and external speakers. With that in mind I'm always on the lookout for great headphones and speakers to share with iPhone Lifers. This week we'll be taking a look at Skullcandy’s Crusher over-ear headphones ($99.99).
To help you prepare for your warm weather adventures with all of your devices in tow, I recently compiled and reviewed some of the best, rugged, Bluetooth speakers currently on the market. All of the speakers featured in that particular roundup were of outstanding quality and durability, but one thing they all had in common was the fact that they were all too large to comfortably tuck in your pant’s pocket or clip on your belt loop or backpack. Many adventurers these days would appreciate having a more portable Bluetooth speaker solution, and with that in mind, the following roundup features some of the best portable bluetooth speakers available.
Scroll through Your Books on iPhone & iPad
By Sarah Kingsbury
Apple's Books app allows iPhone and iPad users to purchase, save, and read books and PDFs. The Books app offers a page-turning animation to mimic the experience of reading a hardcopy book, but you can also switch to a scrolling mode so you don't have to worry about constantly turning pages. Here's how to scroll in the Books app on iPhone.
Tip of the Day: Introduce Yourself & Others to Siri
By Sarah Kingsbury
If you haven't already, you should take a moment to introduce Siri to your family. Once you have done so, you can quickly ask Siri to message or call your wife or your brother without having to say their full name. If your spouse's full name is a multi-syllabic mouthful like my husband's, this can be pretty handy.
But first you're going to have to introduce yourself to Siri.
Unleash Your Inner App Developer Part 40: iBeacons Step By Step
By Kevin McNeish
Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, I will take you, the beginner app developer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure and you will experience how much fun turning your app ideas into reality can be! This is part 40 of the series. If you are just getting started, check out the beginning of the series here.
One of the hottest technologies to come out of iOS 7 is iBeacon. In case you haven't heard, iBeacon is Apple's trademark for what it calls "a new class of low-powered, low-cost transmitters that can notify nearby iOS 7 devices of their presence." This new technology solves one of the biggest problems with Location Services on iOS devices—pinpointing the location of a device when it's indoors. Unlike GPS technology that determines a device's absolute location in terms of latitude and longitude, the iBeacon technology measures a device's relative distance to an iBeacon in an established location. Since iBeacons work without the need for a WiFi or cellular connection, it makes them ideal for indoor use.
Why I Switched From Google Docs to Apple iWork
By Mark Struczewski
I have been a fan of Google Drive for a while now. I mean, how can you go wrong with 100 GB of storage for $2 a month? I don't think you can.
And if you don't know, part of Google Drive is their software suite that includes Docs (documents like MS Word) and Sheets (spreadsheets like MS Excel) to name two. At first glance, I loved this set up. Everything was in the cloud for me, accessible wherever I had an Internet connection.
Houston, we have a problem
But then I purchased a Wi-Fi iPad Air. That's when I discovered that there is a huge flaw in Google Drive: no Internet, no access!
8 Smartphone Etiquette Rules Everyone Should Follow!
By Oskar Andermo
Picture yourself having dinner with a friend. It’s a great evening and you are really enjoying yourself. You are in the middle of explaining this amazing thing that happened to you the other day. Then your friend's iPhone rings, he picks it up, and starts chatting about something completely different with someone else. In the middle of your story!
Tip of the Day: How to Focus iPhone Photos without Tapping the Screen
By Sarah Kingsbury
Tapping your iPhone's screen to take pictures can be awkward and cause you to take shaky photos if you tap too enthusiastically. That's why it's so handy to take photos by pushing your iPhone's volume button. But what if you want to focus the photo before snapping the picture?
Sound Blaster ROAR SR20 Review
By Mike Riley
Creative, a company well known for their Sound Blaster PC audio cards, is making a bigger splash these days in the wireless speaker market. I favorably reviewed their Sound Blaster Axx 200 a few months ago, and Creative has also released a speaker with an emphasis on the discerning mobile audiophile. Read on to learn how the Sound Blaster ROAR SR20 compares in the very crowded market of Bluetooth stereo wireless speakers.
How to Create Text Shortcuts on iPhone
By Sarah Kingsbury
Do you find yourself using the same phrases over and over again? Or do you often mistype the same words in the same way? There are so many reasons you might find text shortcuts on iPhone to be extremely convenient. We're going over how to add text shortcuts on iPhone (called Text Replacements) and how to use them!
Macworld / iWorld 2014 Wrap-Up
By Kevin McNeish
I'm finally back at the helm after attending last week's Macworld / iWorld 2014 conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco! My company had a booth at Macworld again this year, selling books in my iOS App Development for Non-Programmers series, and it was the best conference for us to date! There was a lot of positive energy at the conference and we met lots of great people who are interested in getting into iOS app development.
Here are some of the highlights of Macworld / iWorld 2014.