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.
iOS has an optional system wide zoom ability accessible by a gesture, much like OS X’s zoom feature. This allows any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch user to zoom into elements or text on screen, making them much larger and easier to read, interpret, or access. To use the extra zoom gestures on an iPad, … Read More
Want to see more of an email than the default two lines of body text? Don’t want to see any preview of email contents, other than the subject of a message? If you’re not happy with the default setting, you can change the line count of mail previews within iOS easily: Tap on “Settings” Tap … Read More
A little-known feature of iMessage lets any Mac send files to another iMessage user (or yourself) using an iOS device, and vice versa. Yes, this means iMessages can function as a full-fledged file transfer app for both Mac OS and iOS users, providing for simple transferring of files, pdf’s, text and rtf documents, movies, pictures, … Read More
If you want to delete all music from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can handle the entire music removal process directly on the iOS device itself, you don’t need to sync to iTunes or do anything fancy. Do be warned however, this deletes every single song and album from the Music app and … Read More
Growth of iOS, the mobile operating system that powers iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and Apple TV, is exploding. To put iOS’s success into some context, Asymco crafted the above chart to demonstrate the growth curve relative to years of Apple products on the market. The most staggering observation? Apple sold 156 million iOS devices last … Read More
You can prevent the installation of new apps onto an iOS device by enabling a restriction setting. There are plenty of reasons to want to disable app installing, but this is a particularly effective kid-proofing feature before letting a youngster use an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to prevent any accidental charges or purchases. Disable … Read More
Rarely, you will need to force quit an iOS app. While iOS is generally very stable, every once in a while you’ll encounter a third party app that misbehaves. iOS apps can freeze or become stuck, and you’ll usually know instantly because the iPhone or iPad becomes unresponsive to touch behavior, or something within the … Read More
Update 2/22/2012: Want your iPhone to look like this? Here’s how to install the iOS 86 theme on an iPhone and iPod touch! What would iPhone’s iOS look like had it been made in 1986? Maybe this, and it looks awesome in that retro sort of way. This is just concept art from a few … Read More
Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, … Read More
A new free app will soon be available on the Cydia store that puts an active Console log as the background wallpaper of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, giving you an overview of all low level events going on with iOS on the device. WallpaperLog will be a free download on Cydia. Of course, … Read More
Restoring an iPhone or iPad to it’s default factory settings is easy whether you are restoring as a troubleshooting step or just preparing to transfer ownership of the hardware. You can reset the iPhone on the the device itself, but if the device is unresponsive, stuck on a boot loop, or otherwise needs to be … Read More
Did you know the split iPad keyboard in iOS includes six hidden ‘phantom’ keys that make typing even easier?
Sending contacts from an iPhone is very easy, and all data about the contact, from name, phone number, picture, email, URL, etc, can be exported as an inclusive vCard bundle and sent to someone else by email or text message. While we’ll focus on sending contacts between iPhones, these vCards are also usable by other … Read More
We’ve been made aware of some ongoing issues with apps crashing constantly on iPads running iOS, and all iPads are potentially impacted with Safari being particularly sensitive and seemingly crashing anytime javascript or a video loads and sometimes with just general web browsing. At worst, Safari won’t even launch and crashes immediately, and often the … Read More
If you have a new computer, you’re going to want to authorize it with iTunes and an Apple ID. Authorizing iTunes does quite a bit, it lets you sync apps, books, music, movies, and other content from the iTunes Store, re-download past apps from the App Store, it enables Home Sharing with iTunes, and also … Read More
Action Movie FX is a really fun free iOS app that adds high quality special effects to videos, and it’s all done on the iPhone in a surprisingly easy package. Created by Hollywood studio Bad Robot Productions (makers of movies like Cloverfield, Star Trek, Super 8, and the latest Mission Impossible), the app came out … Read More
Do you want to view the recent picture(s) you just took with your iPhone camera? Rather than closing out of the Camera app and then launching into the Photos app and then Camera Roll, you can go another route directly from the Camera app!
Can’t remember what folder you stuffed that iOS app into? If you have a ton of apps on your iPhone or iPad, try rearranging them all by their actions (or by verbs), rather than by the apps category. Although you’ll have to do this manually by moving apps around and renaming or creating folders yourself, … Read More
