AirDrop is a great file sharing protocol for iOS and Mac OS that allows users to quickly and easily send files, photos, contacts, and other data back and forth between iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and Mac OS X. But sometimes AirDrop doesn’t show up at all in iOS, which obviously prevents the feature from working to share anything let alone find someone to share it with. The AirDrop feature not showing up in Control Center is one of the most common problematic issues with AirDrop in iOS, but usually it’s an easy fix.

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Have you ever had a video that was recorded vertically or sideways, and you wish it was orientated either horizontally or otherwise rotated? This is often the case with videos recorded on iPhone or Android phones shot with the notorious Vertical Video Syndrome, but the technique we’ll demonstrate works to flip or rotate any movie, even if it’s not from a smartphone.

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Some iPhone users have discovered their devices battery life percentage indicator within the status bar is stuck and not updating, only to then have the percent jump way down, sometimes to the point where the iPhone is about to run out of battery. This seems to primarily impact the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, but a group of users with other devices have seen the issue as well, where the battery gauge doesn’t update.

The cause of the battery charge indicator being stuck and/or the percentage jumping dramatically issue is usually a software bug that Apple has acknowledged, with a fix coming in a future release of iOS software. But in the meantime there are three possible solutions which should remedy the issue if you happen to encounter this.

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A large part of the utility with Apple Watch is receiving notifications and alerts which can be quickly sorted through, addressed, or dismissed right on your wrist. While you can quickly clear out the notifications, sometimes you just want peace and quiet instead, and the best way to stop the Apple Watch from tapping your wrist and chiming temporarily is to toggle on Do Not Disturb mode for the watch.

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The iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch uses a physical Shake to Undo and Shake to Redo feature to serve as the equivalent of “undo” and “redo” keys, since unlike the iPad which has the undo / redo buttons on the keyboard, the iPhone and iPod touch lack screen buttons for those functions. And if you’re unfamiliar, yes literally shaking the device will attempt to undo the prior action or typing.

Anyway, while shaking the iPhone or iPad around to undo and redo can be useful, it can also be annoying and activated when you don’t intend to do so, and for users who would like to they can choose to disable the Shake to Undo function in iOS.

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iOS for iPad has dramatically improved multitasking with Spit View dual-pane apps and its counterpart, Slide Over. The Slide Over feature lets you quickly reference, use, and access secondary apps on the iPad without having to enter into full fledged split screen app mode, and without having to switch apps. This feature is great for quickly replying to an email, message, checking Twitter, making a note, or doing quick tasks in another app where you don’t want to lose the primary app focus on an iPad.

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Some Mac users may see a notification alert pop-up from Mac OS X in the corner of their display with a message stating “Optimizing Your Mac – Performance and battery life may be affected until completed.” While there aren’t any additional details offered in the notification, there is a “Close” button, which will dismiss the alert. Typically this optimizing message appears after a system software update has installed, logging in to a new user account, or if the Mac has been rebooted after a long period of not being restarted. So, if you see this alert message, what’s going on and what should you do?

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Having to constantly enter the Apple ID password to download free apps from the Mac App Store is kind of annoying, but thanks to a new settings option you can stop the authentication requirement for free apps while still maintaining it for paid app downloads and for in-app purchases in Mac OS X.

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The latest versions of iOS Mail app include a “Trash All” function that allows you to quickly delete all emails in an inbox on any iPhone, IPad, or iPod touch. This is the fastest way to delete all emails in an inbox from an iOS device, and can be helpful if you want to clear out all locally stored mail messages from iOS, whether for spring cleaning purposes, because you don’t need the emails anymore, or perhaps to free up space taken up from a hoard of emails on an iOS device.

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Notes app includes a variety of enhanced features for iOS and OS X users, but one that is particularly useful is the ability to make checklists easily in the app. As you probably guessed, the checklists are interactive, so you can check things off your own created lists or notes easily to help you keep track of progress or tallies, essentially turning a regular note into a To Do list.

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Apple has issued the second beta versions of iOS 9.3, OS X 10.11.4, tvOS 9.2 beta 2, and WatchOS 2.2 to users participating in the developer release testing programs for iPhone, IPad, iPod touch, Mac OS X, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. The new builds continue to improve features and enhancements on the respective operating systems, and include multiple bug fixes.

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Apple has released tvOS 9.1.1 for Apple TV 4th generation models, the small point release update arrives as build 13U717 and primarily focuses on bug and security fixes, but also includes a new Podcasts app for Apple TV.

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While iOS is usually a pretty flawless experience without many bugs or glitches, one issue that crops up for some iPhone and iPad users is especially annoying; their iPhone keeps restarting randomly. Seemingly out of nowhere and at random, the iPhone restarts itself, and you’ll see an Apple  logo before the device boots back up and is usable again. This can happen occasionally sometimes, and in the worst situations, it happens often. If you encounter the frequent iPhone restarting issue, there is a consistently reliable solution to resolve this problem once and for all, and fortunately it’s not particularly challenging. Follow the troubleshooting steps below and you’ll fix the random restarting problem in short order.

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Ever received a junk iMessage to an iPhone or iPad from someone you don’t know, or that is clearly spam? With new versions of the Messages app, there is a simple way to report the spammy iMessage sender as such to Apple, which helps them to detect and reduce junk bulk iMessages.

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More services and features rely on location to function properly on Mac OS X, but whereas iOS will default to showing you a little compass arrow icon when location is accessed and used, MacOS doesn’t show comparable location usage by default in the latest versions.

For users who want to know when Mac OS is requesting access and using location data, you can toggle an optional setting that, much like iOS, will display a compass location icon in the menu bar of Mac OS.

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A hidden Lockdown folder is created by iTunes which stores certificate UDID data for iOS devices that are synced to a specific computer. These lockdown certificates are required to be able to successfully sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a computer, but in some specific occasions, a user may need to manually access the lockdown folder contents. Additionally, for security minded users, accessing the lockdown certificates can allow for access to a device on a different computer, simply by copying the necessary plist files to a different machine, a situation which has obvious security implications.

In some rare occasions, a user may need to manually intervene, manage, access, remove, and otherwise modify the lockdown folder contents, deleting or copying files from the directory in order to regain the ability to sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the computer again. We’ll show you where the lockdown folder is located in Mac OS X and Windows, and how to reset it if need be.

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The Activity app on iPhone gathers much of the physical activity, pedometer, and health and fitness data from Apple Watch and presents it in an easy to read format. But the info found in Activity app is not limited to just the iPhone and Apple Watch, because you can share Activity progress easily with others through the app as well.

Whether you’re feeling particularly proud about a fitness level for a day, or shameful from a serious couch potato effort, it’s easy to share through messages, email, or the major social networks, here’s how:
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The newest version of iOS supports Mail Drop, a feature which allows users to upload a large file to iCloud for a recipient to download, rather than attempting to attach the large file to the email itself. This is great because it allows you to send files up to 5GB through email, when it’s not unusual for any file larger than 20MB to get bounced by the recipient email server. You’ll find Mail Drop is particularly well suited for sending large HD video files from an iPhone or iPad to elsewhere, but it obviously has other uses as well.

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