Apps

When you’re browsing the web on  your iPhone or iPad, it’s important to protect your information from malicious or fraudulent websites. The problem with this is you can’t always tell which websites are legitimate and which could cause your device trouble or steal your information. However, Safari has a built in function that will warn you with a Fraudulent Website Warning before you open a suspicious website. Here’s how to turn this on.

Instead of waiting by the phone for a call or text, what if you’re waiting for an important email? Sure, every few minutes you could unlock your phone, visit the mail app, open your Inbox, and see if it’s arrived. Or, you can ask Siri if you’ve received that email yet. Remember asking your parents from the back of the car, “Are we there yet?” Well, here’s how to ask Siri if that email is here yet.

There’s really no better way to learn something than with a game that makes it easy and fun. As much time as we and our children spend on our iPhone and iPads, incorporating educational games and apps is imperative. However, there are plenty of educational games that are glorified flashcards. The best educational games engage your brain while keeping you entertained. Here’s a list of five educational apps that are actually fun to use.

Many apps provide extra content or enhancements for a fee, but in-app purchases are a good way to accidentally rack up a high App Store bill. Those 99 cent extras add up quickly and before you know it, you (or your kids!) have gone way over your monthly phone bill budget. No worries though; there’s an easy way to prevent this in your Settings app. Here’s how to restrict in-app purchases.

There’s two ways to add events in mail to your calendar app. With iOS 9 or later, there’s a feature in Settings that allows for Events Found in Mail to automatically be added to your Calendar app. You can turn this feature on or off. If you’d prefer to turn it off, you can also add individual Mail events to your Calendar app manually. This tip will show you how to do both.

Setting reminders for yourself on your iPhone has never been easier. With iOS 9, Siri has received a major intelligence boost and is capable of understanding terms such as "it" or "this," which means you can now ask Siri to set a contextual reminder based on what you are looking at on your iPhone screen. 

Notes receives my award for most improved app of the iOS 9 update. One of the big upgrades is the Sketch feature. Now, Notes combines text, sketch, picture, and sharing to give you many note-taking options. With three different "marker" tips, a ruler, eraser, and color easel, it's a pretty basic sketch application, but it's effective and easily combined with text or images. 

Writing and sending Emails from your iPhone or iPad is a quick and simple way to keep up with your correspondence while on the go. But sometimes you need to finish what you've started at another time.

Depending on which apps or devices you have collecting information, the Health app on your iPhone can track your body measurements, fitness, nutrition, reproductive health, sleep, and more. It’s a great way to get an overview of your activity level and health in general. I particularly like the calendar menu which allows me to select any day and see the stats organized below. Should you want to export your data from your Health app, whether it be to share with a personal trainer or your doctor, here’s how to do it.