The iPad battery is advertised to last 10 hours and that number really isn’t exaggerated, the battery life is phenomenal. No adjustments are needed to get 8-10 hours of use out of the iPad, but if you want to squeeze the absolute longest amount of battery use possible, you can adjust a few settings to prolong the life even further.

1. Lower the Screen Brightness – We discussed this in a recent iPad tips post, but other than being easier on the eyes this will make the single biggest difference in battery life. With how bright the iPad 2 and Pad 3 displays are, you can usually get away with 60% brightness at all times. At night, going down to 30% or 40% brightness or less is easier on the eyes and will conserve even more battery. Access the setting by double-tapping the home button and swiping to the left.
2. Turn Off Notifications – Is it crucial to get a notification every time it’s your turn in Draw Something? Probably not. Disable Notifications for apps you don’t absolutely have to have notifications posted for and you can recoup some battery life. Find this in Settings > Notifications, and disable them.
3. Disable Bluetooth – If you aren’t using Bluetooth for an external wireless keyboard or otherwise, keep it disabled
4. Use Airplane Mode – When doing something that doesn’t require internet access, turning on AirPlane Mode can save some battery life. Perfect for reading books or doing things on the iPad, and it has the added bonus of preventing internet distractions. Find this in Settings > Airplane Mode
5. Disable Location Services – Most important for 3G/4G iPads, but you will save battery life even if you just have a Wi-Fi model. Turn these off in Settings > Location Services
6. Disable Diagnostic & Usage Reports – Sending out usage and diagnostic reports helps Apple to make a better iOS experience, but it also causes some minor activity in the background. Disable it for maximum battery conservation. Find this in Settings > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Don’t Send

You’ll find these tips have value beyond the iPad too, and carefully adjusting settings can help to conserve battery for other iOS devices and even Macs.

You can also check out some more general iOS 5 battery tips, though most of those were aimed at addressing a problem that was fixed with iOS 5.1, and thus wouldn’t be relevant to the new iPad because it ships with iOS 5.1 preinstalled.

Bonus Battery Tips

Here are a few more tips from ArsTechnica that could help too, give them a go if the above solutions aren’t enough for you.

• Turn off iCloud when not in use
• Download and watch movies from the iPad itself rather than streaming with YouTube or Netflix
• Disable LTE (3rd gen 4G models only)

Have any tricks to prolong the iPad battery life even further? Let us know in the comments.

If your new iPad 3 has poor wi-fi reception, you’re not alone. After getting a shiny new iPad 3rd gen, I immediately noticed it wasn’t registering any bars of wireless reception, and wi-fi was strangely slow regardless of the network I joined or the distance to the router. It must be defective and I should storm down to the Apple Store and get a refund, right? Wrong. It’s actually really easy to fix, so before you call AppleCare support, give this fix a try, it worked for me.

• Open Settings and tap on “General”
• Tap “Network” and tap “Wi-Fi”
• Tap the blue arrow next to the wireless router you are connected to
• At the next screen, tap “Forget this Network”
• Go back to Wi-Fi and rejoin the network you just forgot

Like magic, you should now have full reception bars, as visible in the upper left wifi indicator.

If wi-fi is still not working, try this as well:

• From Settings, tap “General” then “Reset”
• Tap “Reset Network Settings”
• Reboot the iPad
• Connect to a wireless network again

Resetting network preferences loses router passwords, be sure to have those handy beforehand.

Often these issues are software related and fairly easy to handle, as I’ve resolved a number of times with OS X Lion too, so don’t assume some of the complaints you’ll read on Gizmodo and Apple Discussions are all hardware related. That said, if you’ve attempted both of the methods outlined above and your 3rd gen iPad wi-fi is still problematic, you might actually have a genuine problem and it would be worth contacting Apple or AppleCare.

If you have an Apple Remote Control and a Mac with an IR receiver port, you can quickly put the Mac to sleep using just the remote control. Obviously you’ll need to be in the same room as the Mac to do this, but it’s pretty handy. Here’s what to do:

• Point the remote control in the direction of the Mac and hold the Play button for about 5-8 seconds

The Mac screen will turn black with a few ZzZz’s appearing on the screen, with sleep immediately following.

Remote control sleep works with the good old white plastic remote controls and the newer aluminum models, the only real requirement is the Mac must have an infrared (IR) port. With the exception of MacBook Air and older Macs, almost all of them do.

For Macs without an IR port, or if you’re not in the same room (let alone the same state), you can always sleep a Mac with email or using SSH after some minimal setup.

Thanks to Brian G for the tip

Do you have an event, announcement, or statement you want to broadcast to a group of people? You can easily send out a mass text message to multiple recipients from the iPhone Messages app. The group text will work regardless of whether the contacts you are sending to have iMessage or SMS text messaging, though iMessage users will have a few more features than those who don’t.

Here’s how to send a mass text message or iMessage from the iPhone or iPad:
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Diablo 3 has a release date set for May 15, and if you’re like us you’ve been wondering if your computer can handle the game well enough to be worth buying. The good news is that Blizzard looks to be supporting a wide array of hardware, and most fairly modern computers will run the game just fine. As usual, the newer and better your computer the better, but here are the minimum and recommended specs for Diablo III running on Mac and Windows PC’s. You’ll probably want to check against this before pre-ordering or buying the game.

Minimum System Requirements for Mac OS X

• Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.7.*, or newer
• Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT or ATI Radeon HD 2600 or better
• 2GB RAM
• 12 GB of available disk space
• DVD drive for retail disc versions (digital download available)
• Broadband internet connection for multiplayer
• 1024×768 or greater screen resolution

Of course the game will run better with better hardware, here are the recommended specs for Mac users.

Recommended System Requirements for Mac OS X

• OS X 10.7.x or newer
• Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz or faster
• 4GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better

If you have a Windows PC, here are the specs for that.

Minimum System Requirements for Windows

• Windows XP, Vista, or 7 with Direct X 9.0c
• Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz or AMD Athlon 64 4400
• NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT or ATI Radeon X1950 Pro or better
• 1GB RAM for Windows XP, 1.5GB RAM for Vista or 7
• 12GB disk space
• DVD drive
• Broadband internet connection
• 1024×768 resolution

For better performance in Diablo III, go with the recommended Windows system requirements instead.

Recommended System Requirements for Windows

• Windows Vista or Windows 7 with latest service packs
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 2.8GHZ or better
• 4GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon HD 4870 or better

A note for Mac users: you will often get better gaming performance by playing in Windows, though this will require Boot Camp and a Windows partition to be able to do. The system requirements will be the same if you choose this route.

Whether you’re new to the iPad or a longtime user, here are some great tips to help you get the most out of the device. A few of these are intended for using on the new iPad, but most of them will be relevant to all iPad models of all ages.

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Many years ago before Mac OS X, the Mac OS Finder was much more simple. There was no toolbar, no sidebar, no drop shadows, and each folder opened in it’s own window showing you only the icons in that Folder. That was basically the default desktop experience from Mac OS 1.0 through Mac OS 9, and you can bring much of that traditional simplified Finder styling to OS X with a few minor adjustments:

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The default passcode for iPad and iPhone uses a fairly simple four digit numerical password, these are certainly better to use than nothing, but they can be somewhat easy to guess because statistically many people use common passwords or some variation of a simple theme, like a repetition, countdown, or birth year. An easy way to add more security to an iOS device is to disable simple passcodes and utilize the full keyboard, allowing you to type out complete passwords of varying complexity, instead of the simple numerical passcodes that are initially used.

Here is how to further secure an iOS device by using the strong passcode option:
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If you have an older Mac that feels slow and sluggish from time to time, follow these simple tips to regain some long lost speed.

We’re going to keep it simple with real tips that will speed up a Mac that are not overly complex or complicated. Nothing here is too technical or time consuming either, these are just simple tricks that should help your old Mac performance a bit. Ranging from a few basic Finder tweaks to some general maintenance and usability tips, your Mac should be feeling quicker in day-to-day tasks in no time. Let’s get to it!

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Need to find or reveal hidden App Store purchases so that you can access and download them again in iOS or ipadOS to your iPhone or iPad?

It’s easy to find and unhide app purchases directly on an iOS / iPadOS device, though the exact technique will depend on what version of iOS or iPadOS you have on the device itself.

To get started, grab the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and then do the following in accordance with the version of iOS / iPadOS you are using:

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In an extreme situation, say a Mac is lost or stolen, you can remotely wipe the Mac of all its data and contents with the help of iCloud. Remotely wiping a Mac goes a step further though and not only removes all data from the computer, but locks it down so that it’s unusable without a set passcode, plus displays a message you provide. This is excellent anti-theft protection, and even if you never end up using it, it’s good to know how to do.

Requirements:

• iCloud configured on the Mac in question
• OS X Lion 10.7.2 or later installed on the Mac
• Access to a web browser and iCloud.com, or the Find My iPhone iOS app (free)

If you meet the requirements, here is how to use the remote wipe feature.

Remote Wipe a Mac with iCloud

1. Go to iCloud.com and click on “Find My iPhone”, or launch the Find My iPhone app in iOS
2. Locate the Mac on the map, and click the “i” next to the computers name
3. At the Info screen, click on “Remote Wipe”



4. Enter a passcode twice for recovery, this will be necessary to know if the Mac is recovered so that it can be unlocked
5. Enter a message to be shown on the Mac after it has been wiped, putting a “Property of Bill Gates, if found please contact 1-888-555-1212” message is a good idea



6. Click on “Wipe” and confirm

The Mac will be wiped clear of personal data and become essentially useless until the passcode has been entered. This rates up there with some of the best anti-theft software available, and considering that iCloud and Find My Mac is completely free to use, there is no reason to not have this setup in case of emergency.

It should be noted this is not a reasonable approach to simply formatting a Mac hard drive, which is best done locally with the Disk Utility application.

For more remote control fun, remember that you can sleep a Mac remotely through email or SSH too. It’s less dramatic, but perhaps more practical on a day to day basis.

If you’re trying to install or download a handful of iOS apps, sometimes an app or even your entire home screen is filled with app icons labeled “Waiting…”. Even worse, sometimes those apps stuck on “Waiting” can be without any of the progress bars moving, with a failure to complete downloading or installing.

Don’t sweat it, if your iPhone or iPad apps are renamed as “Waiting” and they are stuck in that status, you can fix this fairly easily with the two methods detailed below.

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This Mac setup comes to us from Barry L, a high school computer science teacher in South Carolina. The Apple gear is used to teach AP Computer Science, Computer Programming, and Computer Science Research, and the classroom is gradually converting to Macs from a bunch of Dells running Windows XP, which will then be used to teach a class on iOS development this Fall. How awesome is that?

The hardware shown is split between the teachers personal gear and the schools, here’s what is on display:

• Mac Mini (2011) with 8GB RAM connected to two displays
• Dell 21″ LCD
• LG 19″ LCD mirrored to 19 other displays around the room to show code
• MacBook Air 13″ with 256GB SSD
• iPad 2 32GB Wi-Fi
• iPhone 4S 32GB
• iPod touch 4th gen used for development
• Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad

What you can’t see behind the desk is the the remainder of the classrooms gear, which are the aforementioned Dell workstations, a 21″ iMac (2011), two Mac Minis (2011), MacBook Pro (2010), MacBook Pro (2009), and two more iPod touch.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I think it’s pretty great that iOS development, let alone computer science, is being taught in a high school. The only computer class at my high school was a generic “keyboarding” course which focused on how to type (ooh!) and use MS Office (ahh!), talk about boring.

Enjoy reading our Mac setup posts? Want yours featured? Send in pictures of your Apple & Mac setups to osxdailycom@gmail.com and include some brief hardware details and what it’s used for.

Apple has released OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2. The new build is 12A154q, available to registered Mac developers via a redemption code exclusively through the Mac App Store. Presumably, the focus of Developer Preview 2 is bug fixes, and no new features are yet known.

OS X Mountain Lion will be released to the public this summer, and includes a AirPlay Mirroring, iMessages for Mac, Notification Center, Game Center, further iCloud integration, and a variety of other changes and refinements to Mac OS X. If you’re not a developer, you can get a lot of the Mountain Lion features in OS X Lion right now by combing third party tools and apps.

The new iPad 3 is barely getting into peoples hands but has already been jailbroken by renowned hacker @MuscleNerd (BTW, you can follow us on Twitter too). At this point, it’s more a proof of concept and MuscleNerd cautions it’s “Just a first step, still lots of work to do!”

There is no estimate on when the iPad 3 jailbreak will be publicly available, though typically things move quick from discovery to release. Because the iPad 3 shares a similar processor to the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, it’s quite likely those two devices will become jailbroken along the way. Assuming things go well, it’s possible some variation of an iOS 5.1 jailbreak for A5 devices will become available within a week or two.

Currently, iOS 5.1 is jailbreakable as tethered for older hardware only. Stay tuned for more.

You can create ISO images from any source disk or data by using the command line in Mac OS X. This isn’t too different than burning them through Terminal, and you can use either the hdiutil tool or dd command.

While the command line is generally reserved for advanced users, using it to create ISO’s isn’t too complicated and will save you the hassle of having to download any third party apps. If you’re new to the Terminal, remember that dragging & dropping files into the Terminal window will print their full path, making it easy to point to source files and preventing any navigation through the command line.
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Is Personal Hotspot suddenly missing from iPhone after you installed an iOS update? We’ve heard from a few readers in our comments and through emails that after updating iOS their Personal Hotspot disappeared on the iPhone.

The reason for this happening is unclear, but thankfully the fix to bring back Personal Hotspot is usually extremely easy.
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So you just upgraded to a new iPad, and you want to move all of your apps, pictures, settings, and data from an old iPad to the new iPad, right? Doing this is easy, you can go the post-PC route with iCloud (recommended), or the old fashioned way with iTunes, we’ll show you both.

Transfer Data from Old to New iPad with iCloud

Using iCloud is by far the easiest method, but you’ll obviously need to have iCloud set up and configured for this to work. This is the post-PC method, you won’t need to use a computer at all.

From the Old iPad

1. Launch “Settings” and tap on iCloud, then tap on “Storage & Backup”
2. Tap on “Back Up Now” to initiate a manual iCloud back up
3. Let the backup finish and then leave the old iPad alone

Your work on the old iPad is finished, now pick up the brand new iPad and turn it on.

From the New iPad

1. At the “Set Up iPad” screen, choose “Restore from iCloud Backup” and tap “Next”



2. Login to your iCloud account and choose the most recent backup from the old iPad you just made
3. Tap on “Restore” to transfer the data from the old iPad backup to the new iPad

How long the transfer takes depends on how much stuff you keep on the iPad and how fast your internet connection is. Just let the process complete and don’t interrupt it or lose the wifi connection.

Move an Old iPad a New iPad with iTunes

You can also migrate an old iPad to a new iPad with the help of iTunes. This is the old fashioned way since it requires hooking up the iPads to a computer, but it works just fine if you don’t have iCloud or you aren’t on a fast internet connection. These instructions are the same for Mac OS X or Windows.

With the Old iPad

1. Launch iTunes and connect the old iPad to the computer
2. Right-click the iPad in the iTunes sidebar and choose “Back Up”



3. Let the iPad backup finish within iTunes, keep iTunes open but disconnect the old iPad from the computer

With the New iPad

1. Turn the new iPad on and at the “Set Up iPad” screen choose “Restore from iTunes Backup” then tap “Next”
2. Connect the iPad to the computer and within iTunes choose the most recent backup from the restore menu
3. Click “Continue” and let the restore via iTunes take place, do not disconnect the iPad until the transfer is completed and the iPad has rebooted

Restoring from iTunes may actually be quicker than restoring from iCloud, depending on the size of your backups and the speed of the internet connection. Even so, migrating with iCloud is the easiest and thus what is most recommended.

Note: If you already set up the new iPad, you can easily return to the original set up and configuration screen required for the transfer by tapping from Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings, this will reset any iOS device to factory defaults. This erases everything on the iPad, so only do this if you are certain.