IOS7 Visual Accessibility
Is there anyone over the age of 45 who thinks iOS 7 hasn’t been a visual disaster? I’ve been using the iOS7 interface for quite a few months now, and having seen my friends and
Continue readingTag: iPhone
Guide to the 4 and 5 finger swipes on iPad
Probably because I never read the manual, or perhaps because they were hidden in an update, I didn’t know about these iPad gestures till recently, but they are very handy, and I occasionally need a reminder as to what they are.
First, make sure Multitasking gestures are enabled in your iPad:
iPhone doesn’t ring while locked
A while back, my iPhone stopped ringing while locked. It didn’t seem to matter what settings I used, it simply would not ring. Calls were being missed, so I finally decided to look into it.
Continue readingTwitterific eats iPhone batteries for lunch
A few days ago, I noticed the iPhone started to lose power astonishingly fast. After checking out Apple’s page on conserving battery power I reset the phone to factory settings, shut off Push, and set
Continue readingTroubleshooting sending mail from the iPhone with AT&T
If you are having problems sending mail from the iPhone, try the following. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars Under Accounts, click the account you are having trouble sending mail with. Scroll down to Outgoing Mail
Continue readingiPhoto stops syncing photos from iPhone
I just noticed that iPhoto was no longer syncing new photos off the iPhone. As you can see in the image above, when the iPhone was plugged in, nothing shows in the import window, although there really are photos there!
From the number of pictures left on the phone this has probably been going on for about a week or so. I tried downloading them using Image Capture and it appeared to see them and looked like it was downloading them, but ever nothing arrived in the download folder.
Continue readingClarke’s law # 3 in action – Shazam, an amazing iPhone app!
I just got my mind blown by “Shazam”, a new FREE application for the iPhone. Shazam uses the iPhones microphone to listen to songs or music happening anywhere in earshot. It will then tell you what song you are listening to.
Just click “Tag it” and point the mic end of the phone in the general direction of the sound. It twirls for a while, then reports back, usually extremely accurately what song you were listening to.
Shazam sending song info to the web for processing.
iPhone gets very hot when on wireless and battery drains
The other day I pulled my iphone out and nearly dropped it! It was burning hot and there was a big red low battery indicator in the middle of the screen! I had charged it only a couple of hours earlier so it was not likely that normal use had caused this condition.
I was in a wireless area, and had been checking my gmail earlier. The little activity indicator at top left was twirling.
A search through Apple support and discussions led me to this article. It seems that the iphone can get stuck in a checking-mail loop, particularly on certain IMAP accounts like gMail.
An Apple support article also says that a flaw in the Mail application in v. 1.1.3 causes it to persistently generate server activity even when it is not checking mail per user settings. Persistent mail checking can quickly drain the battery.
Continue readingInternational calling: the big weak spot in iPhone service
In planning for a trip to Europe a few months ago, I found that one of the biggest weak points in the iPhone package is the cost of international calling and data services on the AT&T network partners.
If you don’t do a little pre-trip planning, as soon as you get off the plane in another country and start using the phone, you will start ringing up enormous charges.
Voice: At the moment, there is no way to get really good per-minute rates for calling with an iPhone, until someone comes up with an iPhone application that really does SKYPE well. Even with AT&T’s “World Traveler” package (not to be confused with “World Connect”), you only save 20-30 cents/minute, and the per minute charge can remain quite high – often a dollar or more per minute. Still, it is worth the $5.99/month.
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Voice recording with the iPhone
UPDATE 2: March 27, 2009 I’ve been using QuickVoice for a couple of months now. It’s good enough that I use it to record piano sessions and meetings. It is pretty sensitive. I did purchase the 15.00 syncing software which you need to pull the files off the iPhone if you haven’t jailbroken it.
UPDATE: Jan 24, 2009 Since this article was written, the app store was launched and there are now many Voice recording apps for the iPhone. Click here to search for the latest list of Voice Recorder applications available in the iTunes Store
Now you can record your voice with the iPhone (or any other phone), and get speech to text functionality as well!
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