Author

Sarah Guarino

I have been using Apple products for over ten years. My first Mac was a 14″ Late 2004 iBook with a 1.33 GHz Power PC processor, 60 GB hard drive, and 512 MB of RAM. Now, I write and work on a 15″ Mid 2010 MacBook Pro with dual core 2.4 GHz i5 processors, 500 GB hard drive and 8 GB of RAM.

I currently have a 16 GB iPhone 4S, a 32 GB iPad 2 Wifi Model, a third-generation Apple TV, a 8 GB fourth-generation iPod Touch, a fourth-generation iPod shuffle, a seventh-generation iPod Nano, and a (rare!) @mac.com email address.

Review: Perfect Shot for iOS 7 helps with group camera shots

Sarah Guarino Sep 21 2013 - 8:49 am PT

Perfect Shot by TapMedia is a new iOS 7 app that is designed to make it very easy to take the perfect pictures of their friends and family. While holding either an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, to take a picture, Perfect Shot detects how many people are in the image. The app monitors and detects everyone’s sets of eyes and their smiles. Once everyone in the group is not blinking and smiling, the app automatically snaps the photo, without the need for the user to press the shutter button.

Perfect Shot also can detect when you (yourself) are in prime position for a photo. The “selfies” I’ve taken of myself with this app are the best I’ve ever taken on an iPhone. They sometimes even look like professional head shots. My eyes are centered and straight, as opposed to being crooked or unfocused because I’m concentrating on the act of trying to take a good shot of myself.

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iOS 7 How-to: Make text more readable/larger on your iPad and iPhone

Sarah Guarino Sep 21 2013 - 8:36 am PT

For some people, the font sizes on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are too small. Sometimes, these small fonts prevent people from using or purchasing the iOS devices. Thankfully, there are multiple solutions to this potential issue. Below, we’ve rounded up the old fixes and new fixes in iOS 7:

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iOS 7 How-to: Have your iOS device read text for you

Sarah Guarino Sep 21 2013 - 8:27 am PT

Previously, I discussed how to have your iOS device read text for you in iOS 6, and in iOS 7 it works pretty much the same way – but with some little differences.

As in iOS 6, there are two different ways to make text speakable on an iOS device. But before we do that and discuss how to do it, let’s first set up our iOS device so we can do it:

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How-to: Use the new Camera app in iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 20 2013 - 7:15 am PT

Everyone loves taking pictures. And with iOS 7, Apple has attempted to improve the picture and video taking experience with a completely redesigned Camera app. First, let’s discuss the different ways to open up the Camera app, as it is the only app in iOS that has four different methods to launch it.

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iOS 7 How-to: Set up Automatic App Updates

Sarah Guarino Sep 20 2013 - 6:52 am PT

In earlier versions of iOS, the system would notify users of available App Store updates with a badge on the icon (seen above).

You had to open up the App Store, press the Update button, then press Update All. It was rather annoying to keep up with all the apps that needed updating. Sometimes by the time you finished updating, more apps would need updating.

Now with iOS 7, the apps will now automatically update. To make sure that the apps are set to automatically update, go into Settings and scroll until you see iTunes and App Store.

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Apple Configurator updates to version 1.4 with support for iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 19 2013 - 5:44 pm PT

Apple Configurator, allows schools and businesses an easy way to manage multiple iOS devices. Apple Configurator is now updated to include support for iOS 7 and allowing some of the new features or restricting the new features. With Apple Configurator 1.4 you can allow AirDrop, Configure AirPrint Printers, Configure AirPlay mirroring destinations and passwords, Allow Control Center or Notification Center on the lock screen and more. The full release notes are listed here.
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How-to: Shave some GBs off of your iOS device so you can update to iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 19 2013 - 11:03 am PT

Yesterday iOS 7 came out. There was a massive rush to try to install and it download it. The one thing that we were not prepared for or made aware of was the need to have up to 3.3 GB of space available in order to download and install iOS 7. The reason you needed 3.3 GB available is that the 900MB download of iOS 7 also needs to move a lot of stuff around during installation.

If you are like us, you might not have that 3.3GB of 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 7. 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…

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App Store makes it easier for parents to find apps for their children with new Kids Category in iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 19 2013 - 8:17 am PT

In iOS 7, Apple has made it easier for parents to find great age-appropriate, kid-friendly educational apps by gathering them all in one location. It’s currently being featured on the Featured page. Also you can find it by pressing on the blue word Categories in the upper left hand corner of the screen and then scroll down until you see Kids or click here. (ages 5 & under, ages 6-8 and ages 9-11).

By pressing on the Kids category the apps are split up based off the kids age. They have sections for ages 5 & under, ages 6-8 and ages 9-11.

There are even categories that cover key learning concepts like creating, shapes, colors, discovering the world, reading, music, and interactive books. To see them all, just swipe right to left on the boxes to view them all.

So parents, the next time you give your device to your children, you can now have them play with apps that are truly developed with them in mind and that are educational!

iOS 7 How-To: Use Apple’s new (and free) iTunes Radio streaming music service

Sarah Guarino Sep 19 2013 - 6:03 am PT

With iOS 7, Apple has debuted iTunes Radio, its answer to streaming music services like Rdio, Spotify, and Pandora. It is a free service with some occasional ads. So far the ads have been about advertising cars and iTunes Festival. If you do not want any ads, you can pay twenty-five dollars a year for iTunes Match…

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iOS 7 How-to: Blocking FaceTime calls, Phone calls, and iMessages

Sarah Guarino Sep 19 2013 - 5:56 am PT

Before iOS 7 it was rather inconvenient to block a phone number, and there was nothing built into iOS that would allow you do so. If you got phone calls from Telemarketers you can always register your number for free on the National Do Not Call Registry. If you wanted to block specific people, you had to contact your carrier to do so. For example, with AT&T, you can pay $4.99 per month per line to block up to 30 numbers with their Smart Limits. With Verizon Wireless, you are able to block up to five phone numbers per line with no charge. With Sprint you fill out a form on their website and it appears there is no additional fee.

Dealing with your carrier can be a rather tedious, and with the new iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system, you no longer have to…

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iOS 7 How-to: Use Control Center to quickly manage settings

Sarah Guarino Sep 18 2013 - 11:48 am PT

Control Center is one of iOS 7 brand new easy to use features that makes it very efficient to toggle on and off certain settings. To activate and get into Control Center, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

You are now able to quickly access Airplane Mode, Wifi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb Mode and Lock Rotation. You are also able to easily adjust the brightness of your display by adjusting the slider next to the suns. You also have controls for playing your music, with a volume slider below the controls. Below that you do have the option to AirDrop (only available on iPhone 5 or later, iPad fouth generation and newer, and iPod Touch fifth generation and newer) and AirPlay which allows you to wirelessly project the device’s display using an Apple TV or to project music to Bluetooth speakers or AirPlay speakers.

For quick easy access you now do have a flashlight. Even if your phone display goes to sleep, the flashlight still stays on, so make sure you actually do tap the flashlight again, to turn it off. You don’t need to have a Flashlight app anymore as it is built in. You do also have easy access to the Clock app, so you can set alarms, timers, or use the stop watch. You have access to the calculator app. You also have a new way to open up the Camera app.

For example, Control Center is great because now I do not have to unlock my iPhone, type in my password, go into Settings, turn on Bluetooth and have it connect again with my car system. Now I just swipe up to open up Control Center, tap on Bluetooth and it automatically pairs up with my car speakerphone.

However, not everybody might want to access Control Center from their lock screen. You can control where on your phone you want to be able to activate Control Center. For example, you can decide whether or not you want to be able to access control center on your lock screen, and while you are in apps. To set this up, go into settings.

Then press on Control Center.

You can then toggle to access Control Center on the Lock Screen on and off. Same thing with accessing it within apps.

iOS 7 How-to: Use the new multitasking interface

Sarah Guarino Sep 18 2013 - 11:46 am PT

Multitasking came out for the iOS devices with iOS 4. Multitasking is a way to manage all of the apps running on your iOS device.

Previously, when you double tap the home button, you would get a small tray on the bottom of the screen filled with apps running. To close the apps, you would have to tap and hold on one of them until it wiggles and jiggles, and then once it is wiggling and jiggling you would tap on the red minus button in the upper left hand corner of the app.

Now, with iOS 7 that is no longer the case. When you double tap the home button, it takes you out of the app you were in, and it shows you a fullscreen thumbnail preview of the app you were most recently in, as well the rest of your recent applications.

If you want to see the rest of your open apps, you would just swipe left to right or right to left to see them all.

The home screen even appears as a fullscreen thumbnail view. To get into any of your open apps, simply tap on the app in the switcher to bring it up.

If you want to close an app, just swipe up on any application preview. You cannot close all of the apps at one, just like before. However, if you swipe up with two fingers, it will close out two apps at a time.

This new method of multitasking is similar to the popular jailbreaking tweak Auxo. For those of you who used this jailbreak tweak, this is going to be very similar, except for the fact that there will not be a way to close all the apps at once, as well as there will not be a media control, or any setting controls. Instead, you will find these in Control Center.

Barnes & Noble warns of potential Nook app incompatibilities with iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 17 2013 - 8:18 pm PT

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Less than a day until the launch of Apple’s iOS 7, Barnes and Noble has warned users of its Nook for iOS application of some potential incompatibilities with the new operating system. The potential issues can be seen in the copy of the email above. Barnes and Noble will prompt users when there is an update available to fix and address these issues. The company also warns that not all users will have incompatibility problems, and it is unclear which users will be the ones seeing the issues.

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Review: Perfect Weather is a great new weather app designed with iOS 7 in mind

Sarah Guarino Sep 17 2013 - 8:00 am PT

A beautiful new weather app called Perfect Weather for iOS launched this morning. Perfect Weather is designed for iOS 7, as it plays off of the updated color palette and uses the new weather icons introduced in iOS 7 Weather. However, Perfect Weather is a lot more in depth and informative than the default Weather app.

Upon opening Perfect Weather you can easily see the different locations in which you saved and view the weather for each. You can quickly add more locations by pressing the Edit button. To switch between the different locations just tap on the card with the city you want. Perfect Weather is able to retrieve weather data from the United States and parts of Canada. Tapping on the lighting bolts on the left hand side allows you to quickly see if there are any severe weather alerts.

Pulling down on the white tab shows you the week view of the weather and gives you a minute-by-minute guide of the weather in an easy-to-interpret line graph. Hovering your finger on the graph shows you the time, the temperature, and the weather (sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, raining). This feature is useful because in determining how to prepare for the day ahead.

In this view it is very easy to see when the high temperature and and when the low temperature will occur throughout the day.

Swiping right to left on the temperature chart brings you to the current conditions view, where you’ll find information such as what the temperature feels like, humidity, pressure, visibility, wind, sunrise, sunset, and dew point.

You are also able to open a split view which lets you see a live satellite view and the forecast at the same time. By pressing the play button in the lower left hand corner, you can see the the rain and cloud patterns twenty minutes prior to the current time. You are able to switch between rain and cloud patterns by pressing the icon in the lower right hand corner. Adjusting the slider changes the transparency of the satellite view overlay on top of the map.

Perfect Weather looks pretty, but no where in the app is there a guide or tutorial to show you how to interpret the satellite data. I’m not exactly sure how to interpret it, which limits its usefulness to me.

Overall, Perfect Weather does fit in with iOS 7 because it blends in stylistically and feels like a native iOS 7 app. It easily shows you the 7-day forecast and detailed current conditions. The temperature chart gives a unique perspective of the weather. Navigating Perfect Weather is very intuitive and feels natural. If you are looking for a more comprehensive alternative to the stock weather app on iOS 7, Perfect Weather is just the app you need at $2.99.

Getting Ready for iOS 7: How to backup your device and set up iOS 7

Sarah Guarino Sep 17 2013 - 7:18 am PT

Apple has announced that iOS 7 will be available tomorrow, September 18th. 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 6 device and transitioning it over to iOS 7:

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Feedie: an app that shares food pictorially and literally

Sarah Guarino Sep 14 2013 - 7:47 am PT

A lot of people use the iPhone, to take pictures of their food, and share the pictures on Twitter and Facebook. Sharing photos of your meals online has become a phenomenon and you probably have several friends who participate in this trend. But what if you can actually make a difference for a great cause by taking pictures of your food? That’s exactly what a new app Feedie does. The pictures you take with Feedie can be posted and shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Foursquare.

Because you took a picture at a Feedie restaurant, the restaurant donates to The Lunchbox Fund. Chef Mario Batali is one of the spokesmen for Feedie and The Lunchbox Fund. The Lunchbox Fund is a non-profit organization that provides daily meals for orphaned children in South Africa. The organization works with several schools and have annually provided 240,000 meals since its inception in 2005. Feedie has provided 645 meals, since its launch in the end of April. This app is also now iOS 7 ready:

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AAPL Company

Changes are made to making reservations at the Apple Store

Sarah Guarino Sep 12 2013 - 5:08 am PT

Apple offers free services at the Apple Store including free technical support at the Genius Bar and free workshops in the store for you to get an introduction about how to learn the device. Previously, to sign up for one of these sessions you would go to Apple’s Retail page, to find the list of the stores and click on your store. Then you would choose the type of session you were looking for, the time and enter in your first name, last name and email address.

Now, Apple has changed that process and is requiring you to use your Apple ID to sign up for these services. This is critical as Apple is trying to emphasize the importance of knowing your account information. However, this could lead to unhappy customers who struggle with their Apple IDs.

Also, Apple has jumped the gun a bit and in their pictures of their products has placed iOS 7 as being supported at the Genius Bar. iOS 7 is not going to be supported (officially, anyway) in the Apple Store until it comes out on September 18th so keep that in mind GM users.

How-to: Use iOS’s Guided Access feature

Sarah Guarino Sep 8 2013 - 9:01 am PT

iOS devices are built with all users in mind: they come with several accessibility features for low-vision or legally blind users, settings for hard-of-hearing or deaf users, settings for individuals who have physical and motor difficulties, and settings for individuals with learning difficulties.

In this accessibility segment, I will be discussing how to use Guided Access.

Guided Access is an accessibility feature that came out with iOS 6. Guided Access enables you to set up the iOS device so that you cannot leave apps, and you are able to control which features of the app you are allowed to use or not use. There are a lot of great benefits and applications for this (listed in no particular order):

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How-to: Make accessible iBooks with iBooks Author

Sarah Guarino Sep 1 2013 - 9:01 am PT

Apple takes pride making sure its products and software is made for every user, including students and teachers in the classroom. iPads are being used more and more throughout the classroom. To assist with this, Apple, last year, launched iBooks Author. iBooks Author is a free app, available in the Mac App Store that allows users to create interactive iBooks.

In this accessibility segment, I will be discussing how to make create accessible iBooks using iBooks Author…

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How-to: Setup and use Dropbox to manage and share photos, files

Sarah Guarino Aug 24 2013 - 9:00 am PT

Before Dropbox became popular, there was iDisk, which was Apple’s cloud storage system. iDisk allowed you to store documents, pictures, QuickTime files, and PDFs in one cloud-based “drive.” This was accessible on all of your Apple products as well as at me.com on a PC. It was practically like having your most important files in Finder on your computer – but everywhere.

Then iCloud came out. iCloud dropped support of iDisk, which meant there was no longer a way to access all of your files in a Finder-like cloud system. This paved the way for third party apps like Dropbox to become even more popular.

Dropbox is free. Dropbox works on any platform: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage space for free and they offer incentives to increase your allocated amount of free storage space.

There are two different ways to set up Dropbox:

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How-to: Have your iOS device read text for you

Sarah Guarino Aug 17 2013 - 9:00 am PT

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iOS devices are built with all users in mind: they come with several accessibility features for low-vision or legally blind users, settings for hard-of-hearing or deaf users, settings for individuals who have physical and motor difficulties, and settings for individuals with learning difficulties.

In this accessibility segment, I will be discussing how to make text speakable on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch:

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Apple offering discounts on some accessories in store this month

Sarah Guarino Aug 6 2013 - 8:26 pm PT

Apple Stores are offering some notable discounts on certain accessories this month, according to promotional material sent to us in a tip. Two of the deals started this week and a third starts on August 11th.

The first deal is 10% off of select Beats by Dre headphones and speakers. This deal ends on August 10th. The second deal ends on August 31st, and it is for $50 off of the Jawbone Big JamBox.

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How-to: Manage your iCloud account’s storage space

Sarah Guarino Aug 3 2013 - 8:59 am PT

Apple gives iCloud users 5 GB of iCloud storage space. At first, 5 GB does not seem like a lot of storage space, however it is. For a majority of users it is plenty. For others, it isn’t. This storage space is for backups, documents and data, and email only if you are using a @mac.com, @me.com, or @icloud.com address…

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How-to: Make text more readable/larger on your iPad and iPhone

Sarah Guarino Jul 31 2013 - 6:40 pm PT

This is the latest how-to as part of our new series:

For some people, the font sizes on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are too small. Sometimes, these small fonts prevent people from using or purchasing the iOS devices. Thankfully, there are multiple solutions to this potential issue. Below, we’ve rounded up the fixes:

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