iOS

Siri works from the Locked Screen in iOS, letting you get things like the weather, make quick phone calls, and a variety of other incredibly useful tasks, but for the privacy and security buffs out there, this may be considered undesirable.

You no longer need to create music playlists in iTunes and then sync them to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, because the entire process can be done easily directly in iOS itself. The next time you leave home without creating a playlist, just make one quickly on the go by doing the following: Launch Music … Read More

Though we have long been able to add automatically dialed extensions to contacts on the iPhone, the newest versions of iOS handle extensions much more intelligently, allowing you to create a “Dial Extension” button to any specific contact. That extension dialer can be activated manually, making the navigation of telephony menus infinitely easier.

You can easily upload a video directly to YouTube right from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. This feature has actually been around for a long time, but as YouTube gets more and more popular, it’ll certainly get more useful to have direct uploads like this. The process of uploading movies from iOS directly to … Read More

The volume level of Siri can be independently adjusted from the rest of the system volume of an iPhone or iPad, allowing you to directly control how loud Siri is without impacting other system audio. Though the feature is not immediately obvious, it is really easy to use:

For those of us who have a bunch of apps contained within iOS folders, it’s fairly easy to misplace apps that aren’t used often. To quickly find out what folder contains an app, just swipe to the right of the iOS home screen to bring up Spotlight search, then type the name of the app … Read More

The next time you need to quickly find a nearby hotspot with wireless internet access, grab your iPhone (or iPad) and just ask Siri. Try phrasing questions like the following: “Where are the closest Wi-Fi hotspots” – finds locations with wireless internet nearest to current location “Where are wi-fi hotspots in City Name, State” – … Read More

Do Not Disturb is one of the best features that came with modern versions of iOS, particularly for iPhone users. If you haven’t heard of it, basically it lets you put your iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) into Do Not Disturb mode, which effectively mutes the device for all incoming calls, messages, and alerts, … Read More

One fun but easily overlooked feature of iOS are Emoji icons, and iOS 6 has added a ton of new incredibly detailed and often hilarious Emoji into the mix. To access the extra Emoji characters, you’ll need the Emoji keyboard enabled first if you haven’t done so yet. Once it’s on, you’ll be able to … Read More

Want to share a grocery list with someone? Maybe you have an important to-do list that you need to give a co-worker, or to anyone else with an iOS device or Mac? You can now share any such list right from the Reminders app in Mac OS X, or you can even share the lists … Read More

Following up about Screen Sharing in Mac OS X, which lets you remote control a Mac from another Mac, you can also remotely access and control Macs from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using VNC. There is minimal work involved to get this working, and if you already set up Screen Sharing you’re halfway … Read More

iOS now lets you upload images directly from Safari using standard web-based upload forms. Not only can you upload directly from the Photos library and Camera Roll now, but you can also upload an image directly from the camera after taking a picture. There’s nothing fancy that you’ll need to do, just tap any normal … Read More

Podcasts are great for entertainment and learning, but let’s face it, the new iOS Podcasts app is not so great for many users. Unless you’re running the app on an iPhone 5, it’s slow and frustrating to use on just about every other device, making it a major step backwards for iOS 6 users from … Read More

The default voice for speaking text in iOS is the same voice as Siri, but if you want to switch it up and hear something different you can change the text-to-speech voice quite easily. Switching voices is a bit more fun than you’d expect though, at least with English, because you end up with different … Read More

For those with iPhones, iPads, and iPods who don’t want to be served more relevant ads by way of anonymous usage tracking, a new setting in iOS 6 allows users to flip a switch to limit such ad tracking on their device. To be clear, this setting is about serving targeted advertisements based on anonymous … Read More

Siri is getting more and more useful, and one of the better uses for Siri are location based reminders. With location reminders, you can have Siri remind you to do things like make copies when you get to work, feed the cat when you get home, and just about any other task that would be … Read More

A new version of redsn0w has been released that allows jailbreaking iOS 6 for devices with the A4 CPU or prior, including iPhone 4, iPod touch 4th gen, and iPhone 3GS. This is a tethered jailbreak however, which means any time the iPhone is turned off, rebooted, or runs out of battery, it will need … Read More

For most iOS users, if you need to access the Drafts folder, they will tap back from their Mail app inbox to Mailboxes, and then tap on Drafts to access any email drafts on an iPhone or iPad. But that’s not necessary, and there’s actually a super fast shortcut to access the Drafts folder of … Read More