By Sarah Kingsbury
On Tuesday, September 9, Apple concluded its iPhone 6 and Apple Watch event by announcing it would be giving away free copies of U2's new album Songs of Innocence to everyone with an iTunes account. This unexpected generosity garnered a range of different reactions:
By Todd Bernhard
As an App Developer, every new release of iOS means a scramble to make sure my apps are compatible, and usually they are. But once in a while, Apple changes things just enough that old apps need to be tweaked to work with the new operating system. Making a living on the App Store, while difficult, is possible, but you have to keep your apps updated and add new features as Apple adds capabilities. The sad fact is, not every developer does that. Indeed some developers will be probably have apps in the App Store that simply won’t work on iOS 8, and never will. The developers may have shut their doors, and there may be no plans to fix incompatibilities.
By Todd Bernhard
Apple is great about making the latest operating system run on older equipment. But just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should! There are reports from iPhone 4S owners that suggest they might have been better off without upgrading.
By Todd Bernhard
The iPhone 5s gave us Slo Mo video capture, where images are recorded at 120 FPS (Frames Per Second) and then played back at 30 FPS. But now the iPhone 6 offers Super Slo Mo, which captures 240 FPS. This will allow for some incredible action videos. I played with this new feature at my daughter's softball game and was able to analyze her swing and running essentially in real time. This could be a great boon to coaches and athletes, not to mention a lot of fun! Here's how to use it:
By Todd Bernhard
Siri can be quite useful, but if you really want a "Jarvis" kind of experience, like Tony Stark in Iron Man, you need to be able to interact with Siri without touching a button. Fortunately, iOS 8 makes this possible.
Apple's new iOS 8 is great, and one of those great new features is Continuity. With Continuity, users of multiple Apple products can take a phone call on one device and switch to another on the fly. I typically leave my iPhone docked at the entrance to my house and then I work upstairs on my MacBook. When the phone rings, I have to make a mad dash to answer it. Now I can take the call on my iPad. And soon, with Mac OS X Yosemite, I can answer the phone call on my MacBook!
iOS 8 finally brought the ability to customize the iPhone and iPad interface by allowing you to add widgets to the Today screen in Notification Center. In an earlier post, I explained the simple steps for doing this. You simply swipe down from the top of the display to view the Notification Center and tap on the Edit button at the very bottom. This reveals widgets that are associated with apps that you already have installed on your device. You simply tap on the green button to add a widget.
Vidget (free) is different. Instead of being an app such as ESPN Sport Center with an associated widget, its sole function is to let you easily add a bunch of widgets to your Today screen, with about 20 different widgets currently available.
By Jim Karpen
One of the great new features in iOS 8 is the ability to send an audio message. Sometimes it's simply a lot more convenient to make a quick recording than it is to type a message. Why not simply call the person? Because convention requires that we then engage in conversation. An audio message is more efficient. And the party you're sending it to can listen at his or her convenience rather than having to answer the phone.
By Jim Karpen
One of the useful features of email is being able to see exactly when an email was sent. However, unlike Mail, the default view in Messages doesn't show the time when messages in a thread were sent. Messages are time-stamped just as emails are—you simply need to know how to view the time stamp.
By Jim Karpen
Often when you're searching the web for some particular bit of information, your search pulls up a long page of text. But you then have no idea where on that page to find the information you're looking for. The next step is to search within the page. The way to do that on iOS devices is simple, but not obvious.
I like Apple's Maps app, but a number of times it's taken me to a location that simply didn't exist: an Indian restaurant, a zoo, a hotel in a small town, a Chinese restaurant. I diligently follow Siri's directions and when she says I've arrived, the establishment in question is nowhere to be seen. And in several of these cases probably never existed. If you've had similar problems and prefer maps from third parties such as Google, you can now conveniently access these maps from within Apple's Maps app.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Thanks to iOS 8, Apple lovers finally have access to widgets on their iPhones. But users will find some widgets more useful than others. Maximize their utility by deleting widgets you don't need to see in the Today view in Notifications and arranging the rest in the most convenient order.
By Sarah Kingsbury
If you want to quickly call, FaceTime, or text a contact, there's no need to open any of the related apps. Those who have iOS 8 on their iPhone can quickly access Favorite and Recent contacts via the App Switcher.
There are many new features available to you in iOS 8 in the Photos and Camera apps. When you're viewing an individual photo, one nice new feature is the ability to designate it as a favorite. Then those photos that you've identified as favorites are automatically collected into an album titled Favorites.
By Sarah Kingsbury
In iOS 8 you can now quickly access your contacts via the App Switcher by double clicking the Home Button. If you don't want to look at a list of your favorite and most recent contacts every time you use the App Switcher, or if you don't want anyone else to easily see who you call or text most often, you can disable the feature in settings.
By Sarah Kingsbury
You know when you want to show people that cute picture someone texted to you that you didn't bother saving to Photos? You don't have to scroll through endless conversations in Messages until you find it.
By Sarah Kingsbury
In iOS 7, deleting individual emails from your inbox in the Mail app was a multi-step process. You had to swipe left on the email preview and then choose Delete from the options that appeared. It's much faster in iOS 8.
By Jim Karpen
One of the great features of recent versions of iOS is how deeply embedded sharing is. You can quickly share items such as photos and videos with friends, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Flickr, and more. In fact, you have so many options now that the screen that pops up when you tap the button for sharing can start to get cluttered. Fortunately, you can customize it.
By Jim Karpen
Time-lapse videos can be fun, whether of moving clouds, a sunset, a busy street corner, a tennis player — basically any situation where there's movement or change. Time-lapse videos simply take still photos at specific intervals, such that a slow-moving snail can appear to be speeding along. One of the neat features of iOS 8 is the new Time-lapse mode in the Camera app. As usual, Apple has made it simple.
By Kevin McNeish
