Previously, I discussed how to have your iOS device read text for you in iOS 7, and in iOS 8 it works pretty much the same way – but with some little differences. It is now easier to set up and make text speakable on an iOS device. Before we discuss how to do it, let’s first set up our iOS device so we can do it:
Multitasking dramatically got redesigned with iOS 7. With iOS 8, Multitasking added a shortcut to the people who are most important to you. In this how to, I will discuss customizing the people that appear at the top, using multitasking to contact your important people, as well as disabling it.
Have you ever wondered how much of your battery is being used? Or have you ever wondered why sometimes when you use certain apps your battery dramatically drains? New in the iOS 8 Settings application is the ability to track battery usage per each app you have installed on your device. This method is very similar to tracking your cellular data usage.
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If you are curious to see how the iPhones compare to each other in terms of speed, this video tests…
New in iOS 8 you are able to create a Medical ID in the Health App. Even though the rest of the Health app is down, the Medical ID is fully functioning. The Medical ID is important because in case of an emergency, medical responders can look at your phone and know any allergies or medical conditions you have and know who to contact for you without unlocking your phone. To continue to make a Medical ID, press the word Create Medical ID in red.
New in iOS 8 you have the ability to record time-lapse photography right from the Camera app. Time-lapse photography is a type of photography that happens when the frame rate is lower than what is used to view the sequence. When the photo is played at normal speed, time looks to be faster. However, not everything would make a great time-lapse subject. Good time-lapse subjects include cloudscapes, celestial motion, plants growing, cars driving on a busy intersection and of crowds. In this how-to I will discuss how to make a time-lapse photographs.
Before Family Sharing, there was Home Sharing, which allowed you to share apps and media with your family by having an Apple ID that contained the purchases to be used on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iOS devices. For your family to make purchases with that Apple ID, they either know the password to that Apple ID (which also means they can access your passwords, credit card information, documents), or they have to go to the account holder every time they want to purchase an app or music.
Now with iOS 8 there is Family Sharing and it does not require sharing an Apple ID. Instead your family of five (six including yourself) each have their own Apple ID with the same credit card and can download apps and iTunes. Your family does have to have their Apple ID based in the same country. Also, parents can approve their kids’ purchases right from their device. Besides managing the App Store and iTunes purchases, Family Sharing can help you track where your children are using Find My Friends and can help find their lost devices using Find my iPhone.
Family Sharing also allows you to easily create a shared family calendar and shared family reminder list that anyone in the family can view and edit. It also creates a shared family photo album. In this how to, I will discuss how to set up Family Sharing and how to use it.
We should note 1st of all that you can update your iOS device through a Mac with iTunes without having much extra space. That might be the quickest/easiest way to go
Today iOS 8 came out. There was a massive rush to try to install and download it. The one thing that we were not prepared for or made aware of was the need to have up to 4.7-6.9 GB of space available in order to download and install iOS 8. The reason you needed 4.7-6.9 available is that the 1.1-1.3 GB download of iOS 8 also needs to move a lot of files around during installation.
If you are like us, you might not have that much space needed on your iOS device. We’ve spent the last year downloading music, videos and apps to the point where our iPads tell us to stop. So now we need to delete some of our stuff.
Once you free up your space on your device, and back up your device, then you will be officially ready to download iOS 8. In this how-to I will discuss the two different methods to free up storage space off the device, either from the device itself, or managing the device while being connected to the computer through iTunes…
With iOS 8 launching later today, it’s worth taking a look at how you should prepare your device for the new operating system. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 7 device and transitioning it over to iOS 8:
Apple gives all iCloud users 5 GB of iCloud storage. For most users, this is more than plenty of space, but for some, it isn’t nearly enough. This space is used for iOS device backups, iWork and other documents, and email if you are using a @mac.com, @me.com or @icloud.com address.
In this article, we’ll give you some tips for managing your iCloud storage so you can get the most of the space you have available.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5c06ayfTYs] A couple of months ago, we covered the launch of Ringly, a high-tech smart ring that can notify users…
Starbucks has been continuously updating how its customers can redeem its iconic Pick of the Week promotion. Last year, the chain started offering digital Pick of the Week through the Starbucks app. Starbucks then updated its app to support redeeming Pick of the Week cards with the device’s camera. Now for the first time, the Starbucks App is offering an in-app purchase as its Pick of the Week: a month of Lumosity‘s service.
The Lumosity app contains several different brain teasers that are based on neuropsychological and cognitive tasks designed to challenge users. The premium subscription is worth $15 and includes more than 40 games online, performance tracking, a personalized brain training experience with daily exercises, and comparison to others in the same age group.
This promotion will expire on November 18th and has to be activated on an iPhone or an iPod Touch via the Starbucks app. Once it is activated, the premium features will be available on all platforms.
New startup Q Designs seeks to help solve a problem that many people have: we sometimes need to power our mobile electronic devices, but we don’t want to carry external battery packs or bulky charging cases. Q Designs’ solution, the QBracelet, looks like an ordinary bracelet, but it is actually a high-tech charger that can juice up your electronic device discreetly.
The QBracelet will work with iOS and Android devices at launch. No cord is needed, since inside the bracelet’s clasp there is a lightning adapter for Apple products and a micro-USB port for Android devices.
First off, before we begin and actually discuss how to safely delete or change an iCloud account, we should discuss the different scenarios as to why you might need to delete or change your iCloud account off of your device.
To get started making the necessary changes to your account on an iOS device, go into the Settings app and scroll down until you see iCloud. To delete the iCloud account from the device, just press “Delete Account.” To do this on a Mac, go into System Preferences and choose iCloud, then press the “Sign Out” button.
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New startup Ringly seeks to help solve a problem that many busy women have: missing important phone calls, texts or notifications because they cannot hear their phone go off in their purse, or find the phone quickly enough to get to it. Personally, I’ve run into this problem several times.
Ringly’s solution looks like an ordinary fashionable ring, but is actually a high-tech smart ring that can notify users of incoming messages, notifications, phone calls, and more.
BUKcase creates handmade cases for Apple products. Each of their products is made-to-order by local master bookbinders in Manchester, England, who use local materials and traditional machinery. Each product comes with a unique personal ID number and a birthday.
To make its products more unique, BUKcase even offer custom engraving options. Since appearing on the television show Dragons’ Den, (the British version of Shark Tank), the company has had tremendous sales growth despite the lack of funding. We had the opportunity to review several of their products below…
Fresco News is a news reader app that delivers news in a whole new way by displaying informative, captivating, emotional photographs. It features content from political, sports, business, technology and entertainment news providers such as Aljazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, Boston Globe, CNN, The Guardian, Huffington Post, maskable.com, NY Post, NY Times, Reuters, Time Magazine and VICE News. Users get to scroll and flick through the images that convey the news.
Fresco presents the news in the form of a photo feed that illustrates each headline visually. Tapping a photo offers a brief description of the photo and the associated story. Tapping on it again allows you to view it in a fullscreen parallax-enabled view. You can also read the full accompanying article from a variety of news sources.
Compared to “traditional” news apps, Fresco is a helpful app that provides a practical, enjoyable news experience. For anyone who wants to stay informed of current events, the app provides a significantly less cumbersome method for getting the latest news.
Currently the photos in the feed come from professional journalism photographers, such as AP, Getty, or Reuters. In the app’s next update, the images will be a mix of professional and crowdsourced. The photo does have to be approved by the developers in order to show up in the app, but users will have the opportunity to be paid for their photos.
According to John Meyer, founder and CEO of Fresco News, when a newsworthy event takes place close to a Fresco user, they will receive a push notification informing them that they can be paid for photos of that event. The process of submitting a photo takes less than thirty seconds. Meyer is also working with news organizations to license their photos.
The next update will also contain more options for navigating within the app, allowing users to choose which feed to follow based on topic, interests, location or user.
As an avid news consumer, I will definitely be taking advantage of this free app, and highly recommend it to other like-minded news junkies looking to get the latest headlines. You can get Fresco News from the App Store for free.
LG today announced a new system to help bridge the gap between a range of televisions and mobile software. The Connect SDK is an open-source, multi-platform tool that developers can use to make their mobile apps compatible with different TV set-top boxes and smart TVs. In a press release, Samuel Chang, LG Electronics USA vice president and head of the LG Silicon Valley Lab said:
Connect SDK is breaking down barriers to enable apps and devices to work together harmoniously. The screen size, capabilities and social nature of Smart TVs enable experiences that consumers will absolutely love.
Connect SDK is designed to address the problem of connecting apps with a second screen, the TV, which still serves as a main point of content consumption for many households. The company has released versions of the SDK compatible with devices on both iOS and Android.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gyO7onbn8?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360] In the latest Captain America movie, Captain America: The Winter Solider, Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow…
Last year we reported how Apple’s former accessory hardware division leader Jesse Dorogusker redesigned the Square reader to make it 45% thinner than the original version. The updated card reader will be replacing the previous model soon, with the older version no longer being supported by the company.
The company has started notifying existing customers that they can get the new Square reader for free by signing into their web dashboard.
Square, which was co-founded in 2010 by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, allows iOS and Android users to accept credit card payments directly from their mobile devices.
As we have previously noted, Just Mobile sells a variety of premium accessories primarily for Apple products that are made out of aluminum. These designs and materials are similar to what Apple makes for its own products, so Just Mobile’s accessories are popular items for fans of Apple’s product design. For the past few weeks, we have been testing out some of Just Mobile’s latest iPhone accessories: the AluFrame and the AluCup Grande. You can find our full reviews below:
With the highly anticipated update to Mavericks 10.9.2, users gained the ability to block contacts in FaceTime and iMessage. This has been a long-awaited addition, since iOS 7 received this feature five months ago. If you previously blocked people in iOS 7, the block list syncs over from your iOS devices to your Mac through iCloud. Make sure Documents and Data is turned on in order for that to occur.
Now with Mavericks, you are able to block certain phone numbers from iMessaging or FaceTiming you without needing to get up and grab your iOS device…
Today RealNetworks, Inc. announces RealPlayer Cloud is now available for international users. The app allows users to easily move, watch, and share videos with any user on any device, including iOS, Android, Windows 8 Modern UI, Kindle Fire, Roku and Chromecast.
iOS devices are built with all users in mind: they come with several accessibility features for low-vision or legally blind users, hard-of-hearing or deaf users, individuals who have physical and motor difficulties, and individuals with learning
difficulties.
In this accessibility segment, we will be discussing how to use and customize subtitles and captioning.
