By Krisoy Desouza
Views on Top (free) is an app where you can locate the best scenic experiences from around the world. People who love travel also adore the opportunity to take a good photograph or two. Some of the world’s best scenic locations are on here.
By Daniel Rasmus
For people who spend time a lot time on the phone at work or in traditional audio calls delivered through Voice over IP (VoIP), Facetime, or on any of the dozens of audio and video conferencing services, Plantronics has recently shipped the ultimate accessory: the Voyager Focus UC ($299.95).
By Conner Carey
I’m a music sharing fiend. Yet, if I want my Facebook friends to listen to a track, I always share Youtube videos, even if I’m listening to the song on Spotify or Apple Music. This is because you can listen to a Youtube video from your News Feed but Spotify and Apply Music links take you to the respective app. However, that's officially changed.
By Todd Bernhard
It's a reality today that all wearables will be compared to the Apple Watch, but the Activité Pop ($149.95) from Withings compares favorably. For starters, it's a lot more affordable, at about $150. It's also waterproof, which Apple doesn't claim. The first thing you'll notice is that it's analog. That means the battery life can be measured in months (up to eight), not hours. It's still smart, just don't expect to read your text messages on it. What you can do, though, is track your activity, steps, and sleep, and receive vibration alarms.
By Jim Karpen
Sometimes particular conversations or individuals can become a bit of a nuisance in Messages — so much so that you'd like to stop receiving notifications for that conversation. Maybe you are part of a group conversation run amok or a family member likes to text you during work hours? Fortunately, you can turn on Do Not Disturb for any particular conversation.
By Conner Carey
Apple Music is kind of tricky. Sometimes My Music wouldn't play when I was away from Wi-Fi and out of Cellular reach and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out, not all of My Music in Apple Music is available offline. Which means I’ve been using Cellular data without knowing it. To prevent this, Apple Music has the option to view Only Offline Music.
By Conner Carey
On by default, Safari Quick Search uses search shortcuts to look within websites. Therefore, if you type a website name as a part of your search, Safari will look within that website for what you need. For example, type “Youtube cat video” to show YouTube search results for cat videos. If you’d rather this feature be turned off, here’s how.
By Conner Carey
When you type in popular app names into the Safari search url bar, Apple will try to match that with apps you either have or may want from the App store. It’s a suggestion feature turned on by default. Here’s how to turn it off.
By Conner Carey
You don’t need 3D Touch to take a gif-like video, and it seems Instagram saw an open market after Apple's Live Photos release: meet the app Boomerang (free) for capturing short loop videos. Boomerang shoots a burst of 10 images and strings them together to create a mini video. From there, you can share the burst to your phone, Facebook, or Instagram.
One of the interesting new features of iOS 9 is its "proactive" smarts. Apple wants your device to anticipate what you want to do depending on the context. A good example of that is how your iPhone or iPad now responds when you plug in earbuds or headphones. Your device figures that you want to listen to something, and a small icon appears in the lower left corner of your lock screen that shows the most recent audio app you've been using, whether that's Apple Music, Spotify, Podcasts, or any other app.
By Conner Carey
With iOS 9, your iPhone looks through the Mail app to let you know who might be calling when an unknown number comes in. This is true for outgoing calls as well; iOS 9 will try to match the number you’re calling with a contact from emails. If this is a function you’d like to turn off, here’s how.
By Conner Carey
If Facebook is draining your battery, gobbling up your storage by caching huge amounts of data, or otherwise causing problems on your iPhone, you can delete the app and create a Home screen icon for the website instead.
By Todd Bernhard
"Nailed it!" That's what I imagine it sounds like to work at Twelve South. The folks there seem to repeatedly and reliably come up with accessory after accessory that makes the Apple experience better. I use a MacBook stand from the company, and used to have an iPad BookBook case for my original iPad and a BookBook case for my new iPhone 6s. In fact, the BookBook is probably Twelve South's most notable product. It is an iPad or iPhone case disguised as a leather-bound book, and the iPhone versions have slots for credit cards and ID. You get the best of both worlds: handmade, old-world-book style and modern e-books and apps! It's very charming and functional, and could protect your iOS devices from unwitting thieves.
Apple Pay is slowly being adopted by different retail businesses and banks. To easily find out if Apple Pay is available at a location you plan to visit, you can check in Maps before visiting a store.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Whether you encounter a link in an email, a text, or while browsing the web, as long as you have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, you can use 3D Touch to preview the web page in Safari without actually opening it.
By Conner Carey
Tinder Co-Founder Whitney Wolfe recently introduced Bumble (free), the dating app where women make the first move. Similarly to Tinder, mutual matches are made via swiping; but with Bumble, the woman has to start the conversation within twenty-four hours or the match is gone.
By Conner Carey
Facebook is rolling out five new features for profile customization to its users: seven-second profile videos, temporary profile pics, more visibility controls with new 100 character field for About Me, mobile design with sections for photos and friends, and the ability to pin Featured Photos to the top of a profile page.
By Conner Carey
With iOS 9, not only can you select multiple photos, but you can drag your finger over multiple photos to select them for sharing or deletion.
By Conner Carey
An interesting new feature of iOS 9 is auto email event suggestions for your Calendar. The software scans your emails to see if there are any events you haven't added to your schedule. This can be very helpful, especially if a lot of your emails contain pertinent events. However, if you find yourself with a cluttered calendar, you can easily turn off the automatic addition.
By Conner Carey
The Shake to Undo feature on your iPhone can be extremely useful if you accidentally delete an email or want to undo something you’ve typed. However, it can also be irritating and unnecessary if you find yourself constantly prompted to erase things you don't want to. No problem; disable the feature in your Settings.
