iOS7 flaws I've found

 

I've been playing with iOS7 for about 1 1/2 weeks now. It's been a learning experience (to say the least). Not like switching to Android or Windows Phone. Just different. For the most part, it just works. For the rest, it just don't.

For starters: in the "Messages" app. Click Edit and you get the semi regular look of deleting the threads.

But, if you touch the red delete button. It turns to this.

Then I have to scroll up till 2 threads disappear at the top & then scroll back down and they will have turned back to the original. If I just scroll till one disappears, then it will not change.

2. I went to the park the other day. At this park there is free Wi-Fi, so I connected to it. With the connection, I was required to login. When doing so, it took me to the login page in Safari (for a split second), then straight to the Podcats app. So, regardless of what I did I was unable to login to the Wi-Fi.

3. In the "Music" app. You can swipe right to left to delete a song. It works about a third of the time.

4. In the "Mail" app. You can swipe right to left on an email and you get a More option. In this is an option to "Move to Junk" (FINALLY). Well it does not work. It will disappear and then the next time you go back in it will be back. I'm sure this will be fixed in a later version of the beta. I hope it learns and adapts.

5. "Air Drop" does not work yet.

6. I sort of like the idea of apps updating automatically in the background. But, I like to know when there is an update, so I can read about the changes.

That's all for now. Please check back for more info on iOS7.

Posted with Blogsy

iPad Tips and Tricks

  Think you know your Apple tablet inside and out?
Oh, sure, you're well aware of double-tapping the Home screen to see all open apps, enabling iCloud to wirelessly sync content between devices and how to group apps into folders. And so the following is a handful of lesser-known tips and tricks to getting the most out of your iPad. If you have a few suggestions to share of your own, be sure to submit them in the Comments section below — so you get the credit for them.


  Split keyboard:
If you like to type while holding the iPad, simply press on the virtual keyboard with both thumbs and drag to each side of the tablet. You'll then see the keyboard split into two, grouping the left and right portions of the keyboard together near the corner of the screen. Now, whether you hold the iPad vertically or horizontally, this makes it easier to type using your thumbs while holding the tablet at the same time — instead of trying to stretch your thumbs to reach letters in the middle, like G and H.
 
  Speak to me:
The new iPad doesn't have Siri — the powerful voice-activated "personal assistant" feature built into the iPhone 4S — but it does offer built-in voice dictation. Once you enable it in the Settings menu, you'll see a small microphone icon on the lower left of your keyboard (to the left of the spacebar). Tap it when typing an email, iMessage, note or searching the web and start talking. You'll find it's surprisingly accurate — even in somewhat noisy environments — and even works in third-party apps like Facebook or Twitter. But be aware you need an Internet connection (cellular or Wi-Fi) for this feature to work. iPad 1 and 2 users should download the free Dragon Dictation app from Nuance.

  Snap that screen:
If you see something you like on your iPad screen — a high-score in a video game, funny emoticon during a chat session or cool website — simply press and hold the Home button and quickly tap the Power button on top of the iPad. This will take a screen grab of whatever you're looking at on the iPad; you'll see a brief white flash and hear a camera click noise to confirm the shot has been taken and will be saved to your Camera Roll. Alternatively, if there's an image you like while browsing the web, press and hold on the image and choose "Save."
 
  Roam if you want to:
If you're using a 3G or 4G/LTE iPad, you can turn data roaming on in the Settings menu, allowing you to access the Internet in another country. But be aware fees will apply, and they can be pretty hefty, so be sure to check with your provider (e.g. AT&T) about roaming costs per megabyte. You can check your data usage by going to Settings>General>Usage. Also, keep in mind, you can swap out your local SIM card with one from a carrier in the country you're going to, in order to avoid roaming fees — or disable cellular connectivity at all and only use free Wi-Fi, if cash is tight.

  Copy en masse:
Saying you're writing a lengthy email, note or something in a word processor and you need to select a lot of text. You probably tap on the words in question, line up those blue pushpin thingies and stretch to cover all the text you need to highlight. There is an easier way to highlight an entire paragraph, in fact. Simply quickly tap four times on the text in question and you'll see the entire text will be blue, so you can copy or cut and paste it elsewhere, or delete it. Remember, this only works on editable text and not websites or ebooks, and such. Cool, huh?

  You can touch this:
Just like Macs, you can use multi-fingered gestures to perform tasks quickly on the iPad. For example, close any open app by simply placing your outstretched fingers and thumb on the screen and pinching inwards. Or scroll between all open apps by dragging four fingers left or right on the screen. Or did you know you could create your own gestures? First, go to Settings>General>Accessibility, and then enable AssistiveTouch to record a gesture and the action it should perform. Sweet!

  Those dang kids:
Are your kids buying all kinds of in-game goodies, like Smurfberries and virtual coins, without your consent? You can, in fact, turn off in-app purchases on your iPad. Simply go to Settings>General>Restrictions and tap Enable Restrictions at the top of the screen. Now you can select what restrictions you want to impose for apps, music, movies, TV shows, web browsing, location-based services, video calling, and more. If all you're only concerned with is in-app purchases, you can restrict this, by sliding over the words "In-App Purchases."

  Battery bust:
Those who've upgraded their iPad to the third-generation model know it can take a lot longer to charge up the new iPad — due to the much larger battery used to compensate for the power-sucking features like the Retina display, 1080p camera and 4G/LTE connectivity. So here are a few tips to saving battery life so you don't have to keep it plugged into the wall all day: reduce the brightness of your screen, turn off wireless radios you don't use (such as GPS or Bluetooth), limit the number of push-based notifications and ensure apps aren't running in the background (double-tap the Home button and manually close minimized apps).


  Switch it up:
Ever since iOS 4.3, you've been able to customize what the little switch does on the right side of the iPad. By default, it turns audio on and off. But you can also program that switch to lock your screen orientation so it won't switch between portrait and landscape view whenever you handle the tablet. To do this, go to Settings>General, look for where it says "Use Side Switch to:" and then change it from Mute to Lock Orientation. That's it! Tap your iPad's home button to exit it out of Settings and enter your desktop (Home Screen).

  Get back:
Ever delete an app on your iPad and want it back — especially if you paid for it? There are three ways to do it. If you don't have your PC or Mac handy, open the App Store and go to download it again. Where the price is listed, it should say "Install" instead of "Free" or "$4.99" or whatever. Or, in the App Store app, tap on the Purchased icon at the bottom (between Categories and Updates) and at the top you can select "Not On This iPad" and you'll see a list of all apps associated with your iTunes account that aren't installed on the iPad. The third way is connecting the iPad to your computer and synchronizing it again with the desired app selected in iTunes.
 
  I've been framed:
This is an oldie but a goodie. Well, if you consider something that worked as far back as 2010 as "old." And it's surprising how many people don't know about this one. You can turn your tablet into a digital photo frame. Press the Home button to wake up your iPad (where is says "Slide to Unlock") and tap the small icon with the flower on it. Doing this launches a photo slideshow built into the iPad. To tweak settings, go to Settings>Photos, and under Slideshow you can select during for each photo, and adjust repeat and shuffle options. To change the style of slideshow, go to the Photos app on your iPad and under Photos, tap the Slideshow tab to choose transition type and what song to play (if any).

  Let's connect:
Apple's $29 Camera Connection Kit lets you import photos or videos onto the iPad without requiring a computer. It consists of a USB port to connect your camera via USB cable and a SD card slot to insert the memory card; both attachments snap into the 30-pin connector at the bottom of the iPad. But did you know you could also attach a desktop keyboard, microphone or MIDI instruments, such as a keyboard, to the USB port? In fact, you can connect one of those inexpensive USB hubs to attach multiple devices to the iPad at the same time.

  Read between the lines:
Still hungry for more iPad tips and tricks? You can download a free 145-page ebook from Apple, entitled iPad User Guide for OS 5.1 — it's actually the no. 1 free download at the iBookstore (be sure to download the free iBooks app first). Alternatively, you can download the free PDF version of the iPad User's Guide (OS 4.3) from Apple's website. This ebook contains basic information on how to use the tablet rather than little-known tips and tricks, but should still teach you a few things you weren't aware of.
 
  Credit: http://yhoo.it/M9qBp4

iPhone Tips & Tricks ver. 3.0

• Auto corrections
One of the better features of the iPhone is the auto correction/auto completion feature. Even though it takes only two taps to get an apostrophe, why go to all that trouble when your iPhone will do it for you. If you don’t believe me,give it a shot. Just type words such as ‘dont’ or ‘its’ or ‘youre’ and you will see that as soon as you press the spacebar key these words will turn into ‘don’t’, ‘it’s’ and ‘you’re’ respectively.
Awesome right but, what if you need to type words such as we’re? If you type ‘were’ the iPhone will consider it as a valid word and will not change it to ‘we’re’. So what do you do? Don’t worry, Apple has provided us users with a solution to that as well. If you want to type we’re. In this case you need to type ‘were’ with an extra ‘e’ at the end. As soon as you press the spacebar the word will change to ‘we’re’. Some of the words which make use of this auto correction feature are as follows:
• ‘weree’ = ‘we’re’
• ‘shelll’ = ‘she’ll’
• ‘helll’ = ‘he’ll’
• 'welll’ = ‘we’ll’
• 'itss’ = ‘its’

• Changing exposure when taking photos:
The tap to focus feature on the iPhone is nice. By simply tapping on the object you want to bring in focus, you can get some really nice photos from your iPhone.
But, did you know that using this same feature you can also adjust the exposure of the photo (i.e. make them lighter or darker). When you tap on a particular object on the preview screen, apart from adjusting the focal point of the photo to that of the object, the iPhone’s camera also adjusts the exposure based on the object. Therefore, if you tap on a lighter object the photo you take will be lighter while when you tap on a dark object the photo will be darker.

• The Home button:
I feel sure that if you own an iPhone you know that if you double tap the Home button, you will be shown a tray which contains the icons of your recently opened apps. This allows you to quickly jump between several apps similar to multitasking.

You are also probably aware that if you swipe from left to right you will be shown a few interesting controls. One of the more important of these controls is the orientation lock. No more will you have to worry about your iPhone changing orientation when you don’t want it to (No Photo).
Let’s move on. Now, did you know that if you swiped left to right again, you will be shown the volume slider, it is for the system app volume.
Another interesting feature in the secondary swipe control panel is the AirPlay control. This is very useful if you have AirPlay supported devices in your wireless network. You can also change audio playback settings for these devices using this feature.

That's it for this posting. Check back often, there's more to come.

iPhone Tips & Tricks ver. 2.0

Hello and welcome back. We have now moved on to the second part in this series of Tips & Tricks. If you missed the first entry please refer back, you may have missed something cool.

Extra Keys:

Several extra keys are hidden within the keyboard of the iPhone. For example do you need to type ü even though you are not using the German keyboard? The trick is pretty simple. You need to simply press and hold the letter ‘u’ and additional keys will pop up. You can select the key you want to enter. Other examples of these additional keys are é, î, ç, å, ß etc.
Additional keys are also present for punctuation marks. Simply press and hold these punctuation keys to get additional options.
Also a neat feature is the option for entering additional domains such as .edu, .net etc when you press and hold the .com key, this is useful when you are entering URL’s in Safari or Mail.

Delete Mails:

A neat trick is the swipe to delete feature which is present in Mail and other similar applications. You can quickly delete an item by swiping your finger left to right on the item. Very similar to how you would strike something out with a pen on a to-do list. Once you swipe you will be given an option to confirm your action. Once you confirm the item will be deleted.

Redialling:

I am sure all of us have needed to call someone right back after we have finished talking to them. Redialling is something which is very common. Even though the iPhone Phone app has a nice outgoing and incoming call list, have you ever wondered whether it is possible to redial. There is no button on the keypad which provides you with this common feature so do you know whether you can do it? The answer is yes. If you simply press the call button, the last number you called will be dialed again. Hence, you do not need to input or search for the contact but instead redial easily using the call button.

That's it for this posting. Check back often, there's more to come.

iPhone Tips & Tricks

Even though the iPhone is a mobile powerhouse, using iOS isn’t the most difficult thing in the world. Using the iPhone is extremely simple and intuitive in most cases. However, there are still several small yet useful tips and tricks stored under the hood which makes the iPhone that much more elegant.







Taking Screen Shots:
If you simultaneously press the home button and the sleep/wake button then you will be able to take a screenshot of your current screen. As soon as you press the two buttons you will hear a camera shutter noise and the screen will flash white. You find the screenshot of your iPhone screen in the Saved Photos library in the Photos app.









Saving Images:
If you didn’t know how to save images in Safari or Mail then let us enlighten you. By touching and holding on to an image on Safari or Mail a pop-up menu will appear which will give you the option to save the image. This image will get saved in the Saved Photos library of the Photos app on the iPhone.










Using Caps Lock:
If you are already not aware then get this. You can lock caps lock by double tapping on the Shift key. Remember, for this feature to work you need to first make sure that Caps Lock is enabled. Go into Settings, then General and then Keyboard and make sure it’s enabled.
Another interesting tip for saving a tap is to touch the shift key and slide it over to a letter which youwant to make capital. This trick can also work for inputting numbers. This can definitely help you save some time if you do a lot of emailing or messaging from your iPhone.






Thanks for taking the time to read my Blog & check back soon for more Tips and Tricks.

Blogsy App for iPad

Hello, This is my first post from a new app for the iPad called Blogsy. From what I have seen so far, it is by far the best blogging app for the iPad & better than most websites I have used. It's very easy to add photos, videos, & links. This is a test, only a test.

Apple iPad still has no competition

It’s been almost a year since Apple released the iPad and we’re less than a week away from the unveiling of the iPad 2, and still there’s no competition.

There are a few very good reasons for Apple’s success and why its competitors are finding it difficult to gain any traction against the king of digital devices. There’s the infrastructure, the combination of hardware and software, and the fact that its competitors are content to settle for second best.

Let’s look at these separately.

Apple didn’t invent the tablet, but it did popularize the concept and how it fits into our lifestyle. Clearly the evidence of this is that every tablet announced or released since the iPad looks just like it.

The fact that every company making a tablet is trying to compete with what Apple offers means that they aren’t looking to make something better than the iPad. They are just trying to catch up. Apple has done everything it can to make sure they are No. 1 in the tablet market, but the competition is ensuring they will stay there.

There’s a saying in hockey: Don’t go to where the puck is, go to where the puck is going to be. Nobody is willing to make a bet on where the market is going to be, so they go to where the market is and, right now, Apple controls the puck.

Until someone decides to step outside of Apple’s shadow, they will never be better than No. 2. That’s where the fight is right now.

Since the tablets are all very similar, how do companies set themselves apart? It’s not the operating system. No matter how good Google makes Honeycomb, the fact is, almost every company out there will be using it.

On the other hand, Apple controls the operating system and hardware. If Apple makes advances in iOS, they are Apple’s to share with their customers and nobody else.

There are two companies that stand out in the tablet market that make their own hardware and operating systems: HP and RIM. The problem is that they haven’t done anything.

RIM announced its PlayBook last September; they announced the PlayBook 4G in January; and they announced the PlayBook 4G LTE, HSPA+ and Mobile WiMAX models in February. So far, not one has hit the market. I think RIM needs to settle down and ship something.

HP has an interesting offering with WebOS. From everyone I’ve spoken with, WebOS has the biggest potential to be a hit among consumers. However, HP wasn’t exactly forthcoming with detailed information during its TouchPad event, so it’s hard to know where the product will land once pricing information is available.

Motorola has the Xoom, but so far the reviews haven’t been the best. Honestly, I’m not sure consumers will flock to Motorola anymore, certainly not like they did in the days of the RAZR.

Even if Apple’s competitors were able to get past the hardware and operating system issues, there is still one component that can’t be overcome—the infrastructure.

Apple didn’t create the iPad in a year or two. They have been working on it for almost a decade. Around the same time they started working on the iPad, they released iTunes, which created a music and video foundation that continues to dominate today.

With iTunes and the ability for users to purchase music, movies, TV shows, and educational content, Apple is giving its users a one-stop shop. Buy, download, sync, and take everything with you.

If you add the App Store to that equation, Apple has the bases covered. There doesn’t seem to be a piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

Over the next six months, iPad competitors will be coming, and there will be a lot of them. Unfortunately for them, as they release some worthy competitors to the iPad 1, Apple will be releasing the iPad 2 and then moving on to the iPad 3.

Apple’s R&D is already years ahead. It’s hard to imagine that they will be brought down anytime soon.

http://www.techcrunch.com