iOS

I was never a fan of Shakespeare when I was in school. Trying to make heads or tails out of Elizabethan English hurt my brain, and at the time, the ideas The Bard was trying to get across meant very little to me. I had my young hands full dealing with my own life. Why…

Security measures are evolving in an effort to both protect your data, and dissuade the thieves from absconding with your iDevice in the first place. Apple has announced new security enhancements starting with iOS 7. Additionally, it's rumored that iOS 7 will support hardware-based biometric analysis – specifically, fingerprint scanning via some sort of on-board…

There are those among us who are blessed with an uncanny talent, an ability that few possess. Many have tried to acquire this skill through years of practice only to become merely adequate, but those naturally talented few demonstrate this ability with such finesse that it puts all others to shame. This talent, this revered…

If you keep lots of info in the Notes app on your iPhone or iPad, you're probably aware that you can use Siri to create new notes. To do so, invoke Siri (by holding down your device's Home button until you hear the beeps), and then just say “Note [whatever information you need to save].”…

The computer was originally invented to relieve all of us from the drudgery of repetitious and mindless actions, clearing the way for the realization of our more lofty goals. Clearly, this remains true to this day. Our iOS devices, being quite powerful portable computers, are able to make things easier for us through the automation…

Hey there sport fans. It's been exciting year so far regardless of what type of ball you like to see moved around a field. Watchers of The Sport of Kings saw the comeback of one of that sport's all time legends who fell from grace a while back. Tiger Woods may not be as exciting…

Did you know you can use iOS's Siri to send and reply to emails? You can, and in this column I'm going to show you just how easy it is. Siri can fill in the recipient, the subject line, and take dictation for what you want to say.  If you have more than one email…

If there's a place I don't want to forget, I use the often-overlooked Bookmarks feature in Apple Maps on my iOS devices. It's a quick way to note favorite businesses, camping sites, and so on for future reference. To add a bookmark, you'll first find an address on your map that you'd like to remember.…

Without a doubt, as we wait for iOS 7 to be released, we can all anticipate enhancements and changes to the Spotlight search technology. Most of how we already interact with Spotlight will be applicable in the new iOS, so I thought it appropriate to cover a basic how-to at this point in time. As…

A good friend of mine is downsizing, cleaning house, and tossing stuff she hasn't touched or even seen in years. One item destined for the recycle bin is a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica reference encyclopedias. When I was a kid I actually wanted a set because I believed that the summation of human knowledge,…

With iOS 7 beta 4 available to developers, word is out that the newest test version of the iPhone and iPad operating system includes code for a biometric sensor. That helps back up the idea that the next iPhone will include some type of fingerprint scanner, but it's most likely for phone security, and not…

Griffin’s PowerDock 5 is a flat, desktop charging station, and it will charge everything from the smallest iPod nano to the latest version of the iPad. PowerDock 5 The base measures 8.25 x 5.25-in (21 x 13.33 cm). It is about the same size as a standard size iPad. It includes six Plexiglas backrests that…

Apple's Calendar apps on the Mac, iPhone and iPad can share events so your schedule isn't ever any farther away than your fingertips. Turns out you can sync more than your appointments through Calendar; you can sync files that are attached to your events, too. Read on to learn how. Attaching documents to Calendar events…

Pablo Picasso once said, “The purpose of art is to wash away the daily dust from our souls.” No truer statement can be said. Art shakes us, wakes us, and lets us see what may have been hidden from us. If our souls could breathe art would be a deep breath of that clean, fresh,…

A FaceTime conversation with Apple devices is a terrific experience, once you get it set up. However, configuring properly across multiple devices, Macs, iPads and iPhones, with different addresses, can be tricky. Here are some of the basic FaceTime addressing dos and don'ts, plus what you need to know to set up the feature so…

If you have to call a lot of people who have extension numbers, you know how frustrating that can be. Do you write down their extension numbers in your Contacts app? If so, where? Do you just have to remember every single one? Ugh. Yeah, this way doesn't work. Fortunately, the iPhone has a built-in,…

RadarScope obtains the raw NEXRAD radar data from the 159 National Weather Service Doppler radars, some in super resolution, in the U.S., Guam and Puerto Rico and displays tweather patterns, such as thunderstorms and other weather effects, on your iOS device. In addition, it displays predicted storm tracks plus severe weather and flash flood text…

When you share your contact data, you're giving others an easy and fast way to get in touch with you. In most cases, if you send someone what's called your vCard, a simple double-click will add you to his contacts list without the need for him to type anything in. It's really cool! To send…

If you have trouble reading the small text on your iOS device, you can enlarge it, at least in some helpful locations. To configure the size, go to Settings> General> Accessibility. What you'll want to change is (unsurprisingly) labeled Large Text. Once you select that, you'll be given a bunch of different font sizes to…

When you're setting up a document's layout in Pages, you may run across the problem of overset text in floating text boxes. Having overset text just means that the text box isn't large enough to display everything you've put in it. Obviously, I didn't end my sentence that way, but you can always tell if…

Allow me to introduce you to your friend and mine – the Histogram. You may have seen the little feller lurking around not only within iPhoto, but in Aperture, Photoshop, and just about every other image editing apps on the Mac. He's also been spotted hanging out in several photo editing apps on iOS devices.…

“Alright, time for everyone to use the bathroom,” my father used to say on road trips. “But I don't have to,” was the inevitable whine from (at least) one of us kids. Dad's reply was always the same: “It wasn't a question.” My dad was focused on being as efficient as possible, of course. Instead…

Many people really love what they consider their ultimate iPhone case. For those folks, a bulky battery pack inside a case just won't do. If that describes you, but you still need additional power for your iPhone, the best choice is a small, handy, external battery pack that can be used with any iOS device—just…

The best browser is the one you have with you. In the days of yore, I would find myself browsing the web on my iOS device and think to myself, “I should really be looking at this on my Mac,” and so I'd email myself a link to the site that I was viewing, jump…