iOS is the mobile operating system that runs on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and other mobile hardware from Apple. Though it may look differently and run on different hardware, iOS is based upon a highly modified variation of Mac OS, the desktop operating system software that runs on Macs.
Apple has released the fifth beta version of iOS 7 for developers. The new beta includes many bug fixes and several feature enhancements, and arrives as build is 11A4449a.
Calendar is one of the most useful features of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and many of us wind up managing our schedules entirely through the app. But even if you’re just a casual Calendar user, you’ll still get some great use out of these five tips aimed at improving the speed of your … Read More
If you have multiple Gmail accounts that you juggle between, rather than adding them all to the default iOS Mail app, do yourself a favor and grab Google’s official Gmail app for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Not only is Gmail for iOS an excellent full-featured mobile email client, it also makes managing multiple … Read More
The next time you’re heading to a theater or sitting on the couch and you just aren’t sure which movie to watch, turn to Siri. No he/she won’t decide what to watch for you, but the iOS virtual assistant can quickly retrieve movie trailers which can help you decide. Just grab your iPhone or iPad … Read More
The Wi-Fi Personal Hotspot feature available with just about every smartphone is incredibly useful, but most cell providers impose a cap on the number of devices that can connect to the wi-fi hotspot. Typically the connection limit provides for a maximum of 3 to 5 device connections, but if you find yourself in a situation … Read More
If you find yourself in a situation where the power button (the topmost hardware button) on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is unresponsive, stuck, or no longer functioning, you can make due by using the Assistive Touch features of iOS. Intended as an Accessibility feature, Assistive Touch allows you to summon a virtual power … Read More
Voice Memos is that ever-useful app that lets you make a quick recording of a voice note, memo, record a conversation, or just generally replace one of those mini-tape recorders that many people use for recording notes while they’re working or driving. While there’s not much wrong with maintaining tons and tons of voice memos … Read More
The fourth beta of iOS 7 has been released for supported iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models. Beta 4 is versioned as build 11A4435d, and provides many bug fixes and improvements to the development iOS release, and continues the march for a public release by Apple this fall.
Nearly everyone uses their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch to listen to music, but the experience can be made even better by toggling two simple settings specific to the iOS Music app. The two adjustments we’ll focus on are not enabled by default, but by toggling Sound Check and EQ on, you will find that … Read More
A fun little-known feature of Messages for iOS is that it supports animated gifs, meaning you can send and receive those quirky moving web graphics that were so popular in 1996 and are currently enjoying a resurgence on the web. The only requirement for this feature to work is that both you and the recipient … Read More
Most iOS users encounter “Other” for the first time when they connect their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a computer, where they’ll find it listed in the little iTunes usage bar graph. With everything else so well labeled, Other can be a bit of a mystery, particularly when it takes up a ton of … Read More
If you’re looking for the public facing external IP address that the outside world sees of an iPhone, iPad, (or any smartphone for that matter) when using a cellular data connection or ISP, you won’t find the external IP alongside the local IP in iOS Settings. Rather than poking around in the devices confusing field … Read More
If you plan on giving an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a child, take a moment to set up some very basic parental controls on the device by using the Restrictions feature of iOS. It only takes a minute to configure, and this will prevent the access of inappropriate content, avoid mature themed media, … Read More
Older versions of Google Maps for iOS have native support for the iPad, but perhaps the most useful feature of the new Google Maps app is the ability to cache maps for offline use on the iPhone. It’s really easy to use, so the next time you’re expecting to venture off into an area with … Read More
The iPhone autocorrect feature is fairly aggressive with certain words and phrases. Though you can persistently cancel out the corrections to teach autocorrect what you actually meant to type, you still might find particularly colorful words are continuously autocorrected to much friendlier variations, often involving animals, which if you’re trying to sound a certain way … Read More
Though the iPad Picture Frame feature is nice, having it appear on the lock screen can be a problem. For one, it’s very easy to accidentally tap which is just frustrating, but perhaps more important is the potential privacy issues caused by Picture Frame defaulting to show the entire Photo app Camera Roll. This means … Read More
Moving all contacts from an Android to an iPhone may sound complicated, but it’s actually really easy. What you’ll need to do is sync the entire address book from the Android device to Google’s cloud Contacts service, and then use Google Contacts service to transfer them to the iPhone. The result is that you’ll have … Read More
Lavabit is a secure and encrypted email platform that has been getting a lot of attention lately in light of recent news events. Lavabit aims to prevent reductions of privacy, and so not only does Lavabit have excellent antispam and antivirus features along with your standard email niceties like autoresponders, its most relevant feature at … Read More
