Breaking out the Calculator app can be too time consuming, and while there’s no shortage of tip calculator apps for the iPhone, why download another app if you don’t need to? The next time you’re at a restaurant and want to quickly calculate an appropriate tip according to the bill, all you have to do is ask Siri.
Black Friday is approaching and that means Apple will be offering some decent deals with rare discounts across their product lines. There’s a high likelihood that Apple’s sales this year will be exactly the same as they were last year (and the year before, for that matter), with the following discounts on popular items:
* One big question on everyones mind is if Apple will discount the iPad Mini, and by how much. Because it’s priced similarly to the iPod touch, it will likely receive similar discounts, and there’s a chance it will temporarily dip to the $299 price tag we all wish it had to begin with. This is purely speculation, so don’t be surprised if the Mini ends up with a smaller discount.
Because Apple hardware is rarely discounted, Black Friday represents an excellent time to buy a new iPad, iPod, or Mac, whether it’s for yourself or as a very generous gift to someone else. On the other hand, you’ll often find bigger discounts from some other retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and even Target or Walmart, so as usual it pays to shop around for the best deals.
Heads up to MacRumors for first noticing the teaser at Apple AUS.
The MacLegion Holiday 2012 Bundle is a whopper of a deal for anyone looking to add a collection of great apps to their Mac repertoire. The bundle includes the following $540 worth of apps for just $49.99:
Each app is the latest version and comes with full support from the developer.
You can read more about each app and check out the full bundle at MacLegion
iMessage is an undeniably great service for free messaging between iPhones, iOS, and Mac OS X, but it’s not flawless, and sometimes an iMessage will fail to send if you’re on a low cellular signal or have insufficient bandwidth. Additionally, there are times when trying to send a message through iMessage is slower than sending text messages, or they won’t deliver at all due to some unforeseen error. If you’ve ran into the problem where an imessage won’t send, you’re familiar with the infinite “Sending” bar that never moves until you’re back in a better cell reception area. But you don’t have to wait forever to send out your message, because if you have any cellular signal at all on the iPhone you can fall back to sending texts.
That’s right, iPhone users can choose to selectively send an SMS text message instead of the iMessage to the recipient. This can be done on a per-message basis at any time, but it’s particularly handy if you find an iMessage is unable to send for whatever reason with a “Send Failure” message or otherwise.
The iOS Maps app has received a fair amount of flack, some of which is completely overblown and some is completely legitimate. One of my personal peeves with iOS Maps is the apparent lack of location data shown on screen when looking at a region, which can appear remarkably sparse when compared to the equivalent in Google Maps. The interesting thing about that complaint though is the data is usually there, and usually accurate, it’s just not visible until you zoom much further in than we’ve all become accustomed to with Google’s offering. With that in mind, there’s a really simple settings change that can improve iOS Maps significantly by increasing the amount of labels shown in Maps, and it works on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
The ‘small’ Labels aren’t too much smaller at all, but there are typically many more of them. As a result, you should find the Maps to be much better, simply because you can see now more labeled locations on the same Maps screen. Street names, restaurants, parks, and all sorts of location data that wasn’t visible at the same zoom level should pop out, though the impact is going to vary per location.
The obvious downside to changing the label size is things can become slightly harder to read, but until iOS Maps improves or we get the official Google app for our iPads, iPhones, and iPods, this may be the best option for immediate improvement, other than just bookmarking the Google Maps website for the home screen of course.
Heads up to CultOfMac for the great tip
If you want to turn off Javascript support in Safari for iOS, all you have to do is flip a Setting on your device. Disabling Javascript may be desirable for a variety of reasons, whether it’s to reduce crashes with certain error prone webpages or to stop some obnoxious ads, and it’s also a decent trick to speed up web browsing on slower and older iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch models, since it removes some of the more busy and bandwidth heavy aspects of the web. With all of that said, do note that much of the modern web is reliant on Javascript, and so therefore disabling Javascript on an iPhone or iPad may cause some web pages to not work properly, or even not work at all. Accordingly you will only want to turn off Javascript in Safari for iOS if you have a compelling reason to do so. Of course you can also re-enable Javascript if need be.
Recording audio playing out from a Mac isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but that’s exactly what WavTap aims to resolve with a remarkably simple menu bar item. It makes capturing a Macs audio output extremely simple, leaving you with an audio file that you can then. WavTap is also completely free, which makes it unique among similar OS X apps.
Mozilla, the makers of Firefox (yes, the web browser), are working on a mobile operating system called Firefox OS. It’s based entirely on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and is currently at very early stages of development, with an appearance that’s kind of like iOS meets Android with a side of Ubuntu. Whether or not Firefox OS goes mainstream remains to be seen, but if you feel like playing around with a new operating system in it’s earliest stages, it’s now fairly easy to run an emulator on a Mac, Windows PC, or Linux.
To get started, you will need to download two things:
Next, you’ll need to install Firefox OS simulator, which behaves kind of like any other virtual machine, though it’s confined into Firefox and installs the same way a normal Firefox plugin would:
You’ll first be confronted with a lock screen, slide the pulsating arrow thing over to the right and you’ll be at the Firefox OS homescreen. There are multiple pages of icons, a fully working version of Firefox, and a fair amount of other little apps installed, though many of them are buggy. Font rendering in the tiny version of Firefox browser is kind of ugly, but we shouldn’t be too harsh considering that creating an OS and apps for it is a huge undertaking.
Regardless of where Firefox OS ends up, it’s always interesting to toy around with different operating systems, so check it out if you’re curious about this kind of thing. Here are a couple of screenshots:
Read more »
Many Apple fans love Apple history, and most Apple fans love Jonathan Ive. This amusing video from 1997 combines both, features Jony Ive being Jony Ive as he waxes poetic about the 20th Anniversary Mac, product, design, and experience. Despite being 15 years ago, you could replace “20th Anniversary Mac” with “iMac” or “iPad” and it would be right at home in a modern Apple video (minus the random cheesy flame video clips).
For those who don’t know, the 20th Anniversary Mac was a limited edition Mac priced at a whopping $7499. It was one of the first all-in-one computers to have an LCD display, and at the time was about as cool as a computer could be. Looking back, it’s easy to see how the design and thought of the 20th Anniversary Mac influenced the design of future Macs, especially iMacs.
Watch the video embedded below:
Found on Twitter by WammySalrusIV, don’t forget to follow us over there too.
Keeping software up to date is one of the top maintenance tips for Macs, but sometimes those Software Update notifications can be just plain annoying. Whether you’re just trying to focus on work, or the update that’s bugging you is irrelevant to your needs, here is every possible way you can stop software updating from haranguing you, broken into temporary and permanent solutions.
Very much a temporary solution, you can swipe right on the Notification banner to ignore it for a few more hours. If you have an update waiting for you in the App Store, you will have to do this at least once or twice a day. This is the best approach for when you’re trying to work and you don’t have time to install a software update when it bugs you, but you want to be reminded again to install it later the same day.
Option+Clicking on the Notification Icon button will turn it grey, disabling Notifications for the day. You can also temporarily turn off Notifications by swiping down from the Notification Center and flipping the switch to OFF. Notifications will resume again the next day as usual. This is best for when you want to not see the Notification reminder for a full day. The primary downside to this approach is that it temporarily disables all notifications, not just Software Update.
If you’re getting pestered about a Software Update you don’t need, have no use for, or just don’t want to install, you can also choose to selectively hide that update in the App Store. This is a half-permanent solution because that update will never bug you again, but the update will always be available to you should you want it sometime down the road. Doing this is easy:
Should it be needed, you can reveal the hidden updates again by pulling down the “Store” menu and choosing “Show All Software Updates”.
This is not recommended, mostly because keeping software up to date is an important means of maintaining a Mac. Nonetheless, if you’re completely fed up with Software Update pestering you, you can always disable the automatic checking feature. This leaves you to manually check for updates yourself, something which is easy to do, but also easy to forget.
If you choose this approach, remember to manually look for updates once a week or so either by opening the App Store or using the Terminal.
A decent compromise for this is to instead turn off automatic downloads.
Installing updates is really the best way to handle them, if you can spare a few minutes this is always the best approach. Consider the Software Update notifications as a good opportunity to stretch your legs, grab a cup of coffee, make a phone call or two, or just take a break from whatever you’re doing. Keeping everything updated to the latest version insures maximum compatibility, stability, security, and is just good practice.
Most of us geekier folks instantly know if our iPhones are CDMA or GSM models, but not everyone pays as much attention to the largely insignificant technical details of their phones. Not to worry, it’s extremely easy to find out if an iPhone is GSM or CDMA, all you need to do is look at the model number of the device.
To find out if the phone is CDMA or GSM, flip the iPhone over and look at the back. Locate the string number alongside “Model” as highlighted in this image, and then and compare it against the list below:
If you’re new to Emoji, you’ll be forgiven for not knowing just what some of these icons and characters are supposed to mean. Many are common sense, while others are a bit of a mystery, but there’s an easy way to find out what a specific Emoji character means just by looking at the icon in the Special Character selector of Mac OS X.
If you’ve ever had to track down a particular plist file for an app you know how frustrating the process can be. Though preference files are usually named in a logical manner, that’s not always the case, and regardless the prefix of com.(developer).(application) is not always the easiest to navigate through. One method is to just use the Finder search function to look for an apps name, but since not all apps follow the logical protocol, it doesn’t always work. Another very useful method uses the Finder’s “Date Modified” sorting option to track down plist files quickly instead. Here is how it works:
The modified plist files will float to the top fairly quickly, though of you have hidden files shown, you’ll see temporary plist files show up first, ignore those and just focus on the normal .plist documents as they appear. Sometimes it takes a second or two for the change to register in the Preferences folder, that delay is normal, and is demonstrated in the video below with the plist files that are set when modifying Finder Preferences, and the plist file that changes for Recent Items:
Most Mac users will never need to dig around in the preferences file, but keep this tip in mind if you find yourself trying to fix a problematic app, when sometimes resolving problems is as simple as just trashing a plist file. This really handy troubleshooting trick comes from MacOSXHints.
NASA’s Image of the Day is a frequently reliable source of stunning imagery that can double as amazing wallpaper, and this image showing global aerosols is no different. Basically it shows all the stuff floating about in Earths atmosphere, though the coloring may be slightly different than what you’d expect: dust is shown in red, sea salts are in blue, smoke is shown as green, and sulfate particles from volcanoes and fossil fuels are shown in white.
The full sized image is available here at a max size of 3000×1500 pixels, or click the thumbnail below, making it perfect for whatever high-res desktop screens and iOS devices you have.
Not a fan of this one? Check out some more great wallpaper collections we’ve featured around here before, you’re sure to find something you like.
If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you probably know by now that double-clicking and triple-clicking the Home button is required to perform some actions in iOS, like bringing up lock screen music controls, showing the multitasking bar, inverting the screen, enabling zoom, summoning Assistive Touch, or even turning on Guided Access to lock iOS into a single app.
The default speed required for clicking the Home button on iPhone and iPad can be problematic for some individuals though, as it requires a fairly speedy double or triple tap to work.
Thankfully, with iOS we can now easily make changes to the required click speed required to activate the Home button on any iPhone or iPad.
Trash is one of those overlooked aspects of Mac OS X that you probably don’t think much about, most of us just drag a file into it, empty the Trash to delete a document and free up disk space, and that’s about it. That’s fine, but there are also a handful of genuinely useful keyboard shortcuts that pertain to Trash on the Mac, and if you spend any time in the Mac file system they’re worth learning.
These keystrokes must have something in Finder selected in order to work, whether that’s a single file, a folder, or a whole group of documents. We’ll cover 4 handy keyboard shortcuts for the Mac Trash, and also review some other handy Trash tips…
If you use a lot of tabs while browsing the web, you’ll appreciate a subtle change to Safari for iPad that came along with iOS 6.
You can now have up to 24 concurrent browser tabs open, a huge increase from the 8 tab limit in prior versions of iOS.
While that 8 tab limit still remains for Safari on iPod touch and iPhone, the larger screen on the iPad allows for the tremendous improvement for those of us who hoard web browser tabs like there’s no tomorrow.
Safari on iPad will show up to 10 tabs across the top if the device is in landscape mode, and to access the other tabs you just have to tap on the >> arrow button on the furthest right tab. That will pull down a menu to access your other tabs.
Selecting a site from the pulldown list will swap it in place of the currently active tab, it does not close it.
This is separate from iCloud tabs, which are accessed by from the little cloud icon in Safari toolbar. Speaking of iCloud tabs, because they are accessible from the iPhone and iPod touch, you can use them as a way to sort of get around the 8 tab limit, by accessing tabs stored on other iPhones, iPads, Macs, or whatever else has the same iCloud account.
Remember, this applies to iOS 6 only. Earlier versions of iOS had greater limitations, and later iOS versions have much more generous limits on Safari tab use.
We really like Siri and it’s undoubtedly useful, but unfortunately not all devices can run Siri, and sometimes Siri is just plain slow or doesn’t work. If you’re looking for an excellent Siri alternative that will run on everything, yes even iPhone 4 & iPhone 3GS, look no further than the latest versions of Google Search for iOS. Not only is Google Voice Search able to answer many of the same inquiries as Siri, it often does it faster and more accurately, since your voice question is translated immediately on the fly.
Here are some of the type of questions you can ask Google Voice Search, and get excellent answers for:
Try asking other questions, anything Google Voice Search can’t answer directly will be searched for very quickly via the web, much like Siri.
Google Search on iPhone is definitely impressive, the only real downside to Google Search is that it’s not tied into iOS, meaning it can’t launch apps, set reminders, and do anything that’s related to other tasks or apps on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. In that sense, it’s less feature-rich than Siri, but that’s no fault of Google’s and it’s more to do with how iOS sandboxes apps for security reasons. Nonetheless, there is no better Siri alternative out there, and it’s completely free. Even if you like Siri a lot, Google’s voice search is still worth checking out because of it’s speed alone, and it’s a good backup solution to have when Siri sometimes inexplicably becomes unresponsive.
Google Voice Search also has the distinct advantage of supporting a much wider range of hardware, and it runs on any iOS device with 4.3 or later, providing support for older model iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch that didn’t get Siri support. Like Siri, the device will need internet access in order to work, so don’t expect to use it without cell data or wi-fi.
