Tag: iOS
Triple Click iPhone Home Button Trick
Trying to get back into the blogging habit after a long hiatus. Too many distractions with the amazing summer weather we’ve been having this year! I’m working on a recap of what we’ve been up to & should have it up here in a week or so.
BUT, for now I’ll publish a draft I had sitting in the queue and hopefully it’ll come in handy for some of you.
I don’t know about you but in my world manufacturers and restaurants have this silly habit of using smaller and smaller fonts everywhere. Case in point, try looking at the IMEI number on the back of your iPhone. It’s TINY!
BUT, I have a solution to share with you that I’ve used for a while now. It’s call the Triple-Click-Magnifyer and it’s amazing!
1. Touch the “Settings” icon on your iPhone’s home screen.
2. Touch the “General” button followed by the “Accessibility” button.
3. Touch “Triple-click Home” (or “Accessibility Shortcut”) located at the very bottom of the Accessibility screen.
4. Tap any of the accessibility options to assign that option to the Triple-click Home function. A check appears next to the option to indicate you selected it. If you select more than one option, the iPhone will ask you which one you want to activate when you use the Triple-click Home feature.
I only use the Magnifier option at this time and it works amazingly well. It’s not the same as firing up the camera and zooming in. It allows for much closer focus and an almost unbelievable amount of zoom.
Now all you need to do is unlock your phone and quickly press the home button 3-times. That’s it!
If you found this tip helpful let me know in the comments section.
First Impressions – iOS7
It’s been a few days since Apple released their latest mobile operating system and now that the dust has settled I thought I’d post some of my first impressions about iOS7. This is not a complete review, of which you can find all over the web by better writers than myself, it’s just a summary of my initial thoughts after using it for a few days.
iOS 7 was unveiled at last Septembers World Wide Developers Conference and has been eagerly anticipated ever since. With this new OS Apple has introduced a new look and feel which gives new life to some of their older devices (iPhone 4 and above is supported). Visually everything seems somewhat flat and less cartoonish. The typography used throughout (mostly Helvetica Neue Ultra Light) is clean and easily legible, although I did need to bump up the font size a touch to help with my aging eyes.
We all have our likes/dislikes with various products. I’m going to focus more on what I don’t like about iOS7 (it’s a pretty short list).
Dislikes:
- Smaller folder screens
- You can only have 9 icons on a screen vs 12 in iOS6 (but you CAN have more than one page!)
- Takes up more storage
- 3.1GB needed to upgrade and you only get 2.8GB back
- Parallax Effect
- Not very smooth on the iPhone 4S or iPad 4th Gen, I ended up turning it off
- No AirDrop on pre iPhone 5 devices
- I was really looking forward to this feature but DeskConnect provides an alternative
- No weather app for iPad
- Plenty of 3rd party options but it’s odd not to have it on the Notification Screen
- Spotlight
- Only searches local data, no more Web or Wikipedia searches
With the negatives out of the way there are PLENTY of things to like about iOS7.
Likes:
- Fresh new look
- Bug fixes
- Control Center
- iTunes Radio
- Slide anywhere to unlock
- Multi-page folders
- Safari Improvements
- Camera improvements
- Photo Collections
- App Switching
- iMessage Timestamps
- Siri Improvements
Overall iOS7 introduces a lot of new and updated features. I’m not sure where Apple is going to go from here but I think we have a few years before we’re going to see anything truly unique and revolutionary. I have an iPhone 5s on order & I’m looking forward to seeing how some of the restricted features work on it (AirDrop, new camera, etc.). I’ll be sure to post an initial look at the 5s once I get it in my hands & have some time to put it through the paces.
Apple Reminders – GTD App Worth Using
As a big fan of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology I make a lot of lists. Lists are a simple way to get things out of your head and off your mind so you can focus on what needs to be done now.
In the past I’ve always used the Tasks feature in Outlook and synced it with whatever smart phone I was using at the time. Now that I’m 99% Apple (I still run windows on the Mac using Parallels for certain Windows only apps I need for work) I’ve switched to using the Reminders application available on iOS and OSX.
Reminders is a simple to-do application that wirelessly syncs across all of my devices using iCloud. Those of you with an iPhone have probably used the app in one form or another & are saying to yourself “yeah, so what?”…
So… Have you used Location based reminders yet? This single feature got me to dump Outlook tasks and immediately switch to the Reminders App.
Most people have a few different types of reminders (tasks) they’re keeping track of. Some with due dates and some without. Once the due date/time hits you get an alert and you either do it, snooze it or ignore it. How would you like to get an alert any time you arrive or depart a particular location even if the reminder has a date/time alert or not?
This is the one feature that made the switch worth it. Here an example. The trash at my house is picked up every Thursday morning. I like to have a alert on Wednesday evening to remind me to set the bins out. In the past I would set a weekly reminder for 7pm every Wednesday night. That’s great if I’m home but if I’m not I’d probably just dismiss the alert & forget about it by the time I got home. Or I’d get home, park in the garage, go inside, & then remember. Having to back the car out to get the bins out…
With location based reminders I get an alert as soon as I pull into my driveway every Wednesday! It’s not based on a time, it’s based on a day & location (the date is optional). This works well for a lot of things. If I need to talk to someone as soon as I get to the office I’ll get a reminder when I pull into the parking lot, no matter what day of the week or time it is.
While this is a great feature there are a few quirks that keep the application from being perfect. Options for recurring tasks are somewhat limited and it’s not integrated with Outlook (Mac or Windows version). There’s no snooze option on iOS but there is on OSX…
That being said, it’s a lightweight application that syncs almost instantly between my Mac & iPad. Entering multiple items is a easy as pressing Enter to separate each reminder. You can create unlimited contexts (categories) to group your reminders. Finally, you can share your reminders and lists with other iOS users. This is great for team tasks or sharing within a household.
All in all this is great app for those of us that like to make GTD lists and need a place to keep them organized and accessible among several devices.
If you’re interested in learning how to use Siri to create reminders check out the video below from TeachMeiOS.com
