Posted tagged ‘IOS’

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IPhone 8 plus

October 21, 2017

It’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been neglectful. Time to get going again. 

I upgraded my phone from an iPhone 6 Plus to an iPhone 8 Plus about three weeks ago. I had the 6 plus for about three years, so time to upgrade. I didn’t feel like waiting another month to get the iPhone X. The new phone has 256Gb which means more tunes than I will ever load on to it. Here are the features that I particularly like:

  • Wireless Charging – Apple isn’t selling  a wireless charger yet, but you can get one from Amazon for about $16. Just take the phone out of your pocket and drop it onto the charger. Neat. I’m sure that Apple will come up with one for more money.  Also, it works fine with the phone installed in its case.
  • Camera – Much improved camera. It has two lenses. You can change from wide to tele with the touch of your finger. It also has some interesting controls. It has a “Portrait” mode that allows changing the lighting ambiance. Here is a picture of Paula that I took today shown with the different portrait choices. It can do a black and white portrait. In this case it brightens the face and blurs the background. Kind of cool. 
  • Another feature added was “Do Not Disturb” mode. This actually is a feature of iOS 11. So if you have iOS 6 or 7 all you have to do is upgrade. The phone detects that you are moving and it sends a stock reply to an incoming text message. Message says something like “I’m driving, I will get back to you later”. You can disable it but this is a good thing. Helps prevent distracted driving. You can also customize the message.
  • IPhone 8 and 8 plus is same form factor as the 6 and 6 plus or 7 and 7 plus. That means that you don’t need to buy a new case. I just popped my 6 plus out of the case and put the 8 plus in.  I mean you can buy a new one if you want, but why throw money around.
  • The back of the 8 is made of glass. This is done partially to allow the wireless charging. But it looks cool nevertheless. Too bad one doesn’t see it because of the case. Too much money to run the risk of running around naked (the phone that is, not me.)
  • One of things that I don’t like about it is that Apple removed the headphone jack. (That actually happened in the iPhone 7.) Apple wants you to buy their Bluetooth ear buds. Too pricey and too easy to lose. The headphones that come with it have a lightning plug. You can either listen to head phones or charge but not both at the same time. The phone comes with an adapter so that you can use your old headphones.
  • Of course, the innards are all better and faster (not necessarily cheaper). More memory of course.

Categories: Family, iPhone
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iOS 10 Update

September 13, 2016

2016-09-13-2Well, today is the date that Apple released its latest version of iOS for iPad’s and iPhone’s. So I not being someone who waits on the fun, I got started this morning after I delivered Mary to the Assistance League luncheon.

I started the OTA (Over The Air) install on my iPhone 6 Plus first. I made sure that my home WiFi was working and that I had a recent backup in the iCloud. I was quite surprised to see it done in about 15-20 minutes. Seems pretty good for a major release. I figured that was going to take an hour easy.

Next up was my iPad Air, also completed in about 20 minutes. Then did Paula’s iPad Mini 2. No problems. Only device that I couldn’t do was Paula’s iPhone 4s. The old trusty 4s is not supported for iOS 10.

After I had finished the updates, I read that some people were having major problems with the update. (ie. devices turning into bricks). According to the CNN article, the problem has been resolved by Apple. Which of course everyone should be reminded, do your backup.

So what’s new? Well the first thing that I noticed was changes to the messaging system. Incoming email and text messages are displayed differently on the lock screen.

So I brought the app store app and found that I had something like 40 apps that needed updating. Wow, usually every day had about 5 or 6 apps to update. So there are a load of apps that will be supporting iOS 10. I suppose that makes sense.

There’s a new app called “Home” for interfacing with devices in your home that can be controlled by a computer. Click here for information about “The Internet of Things”. It can be used for smart devices (thermostats, lights, etc.) I don’t have any of those devices (yet), so I don’t know how well this would work.

It’s going to take me some time to digest all of the stuff that has changed. On a related issue that auto manufacturers are going to do OTA updates to autos to upgrade and sometimes fix issues with cars. So someday you will be able to fix your car without having to go the dealer. GM already has some of the infrastructure in place with their OnStar service. Expect more news about this sort of thing in the near future.

 

Categories: iOS, iPad, iPhone
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COIN V2

August 26, 2015

IMG_2281Well COIN pushed an update to their app on iOS today. Part of the update was to add a feature to add a nickname to each credit card stored on the Coin device. Okay, to refresh your memory, Coin is a device that allows one to store up to six credit cards on the device. It has the same form factor as a typical credit or debit card. The deal is that you can reduce the thickness of your wallet from six credit cards to one.

The problem was that one had to remember the last four digits of each credit card so that one could select the one that you wanted to use. So for example, now you could assign a nickname like WF for a Wells Fargo card or BA for Bank of America. A feature that would be welcome and useful.

They also announced that would be a V2 version of the device. Current owners/users could upgrade for free. Well that’s nice. The V1 device seems to have some issues around acceptability at some merchants. ie. not everybody accepts it. That’s a big problem because it means that you have to have a real backup credit card in case the store can’t read the COIN.

The V2 COIN is also supposed to support NFC (Near Field Communication). This allows one just to wave the card on top of the POS terminal. This is the same feature that is used by ApplePay or GooglePay. If stores start supporting NFC, why would I need a card? I could just use my iPhone, Most stores aren’t anywhere close to accepting NFC,

Here’s the main problem. The V2 COIN won’t start shipping until Q1 2016. What they mean by that is the end of Q1 2016. Corporations often have a weird way of telling time. If I told my wife that I would be home by 9 pm and I walked in the door  at 9:55 she might be justifiably be upset. I said I would be home by 9. It’s still 9 o’clock. Time to duck. That’s seven months from now by my math.

Anyways, back to the update. I installed the update. I registered for the update. no problem. I am now aware of their method of keeping time. I managed to set one nickname. But I was unable to set another. At the same time my COIN seems frozen. No sync, Won’t turn on. I can’t prove that the update screwed up my COIN but it seems likely that it’s the culprit.

Time for another email to COIN support. They say to repeatedly push the on button until it unfreezes or let it sit for 24-48 hours. Sigh. My COIN is real close to being thrown in the back of the drawer with all of my other electronic gadgets that promised to change the world but didn’t.

If you’re thinking of buying one of these gadgets. Don’t.

Categories: apps, Internet, iOS, Reviews
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There’s an App for that

December 17, 2012

First, some administrivia. This is my 100th post. How’d that happen?

I thought I would write about some of my favorite iPhone/iPad apps. As many of you know (or may not) I own a 3rd gen iPad and in iPhone 4s. Here in no particular are some of the apps that I use a lot. Note, most of the hyperlinks takes you to the iTunes store.

Shazam

Shazam is in app for identifying music. Push the button and the app will listen for about 30-60 seconds and report to you what you are listening. It is truly amazing. Even works with classical music. BTW, it’s free.

GroceryIQ

An app for managing grocery lists. Sync’s with your grocery list in the cloud. So you can add something on the iPad list and it shows up your iPhone list. There is also a web version. Free. There is also an Android version.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud file storage service. I pay $10 a month for 100Gb of storage. There are Dropbox apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. You selectively sync folders on to your device.

Sheet Music Apps

When the iPad first came out, I decided it would be an excellent platform for storing my collection of sheet music. I had hundreds of pages of sheet music stored in loose leaf binders. This was a killer app for me.

Readdledocs and PDF Expert

At first I used Readledocs together with dropbox to put my sheet music (stored as PDF files on Dropbox) on to my iPad. I also used a similar app called PDF Expert. I believe that both apps support Google drive (another cloud storage service). Both apps support annotation of the files. Readdledocs is $4.99 and PDF Expert is $9.99.

Forscore

Forscore is a sheet music management app. One loads music scores in PDF format into the app. Then one can assign to a genre (eg. Classical, Pop, etc.)

But there’s more. You can create ‘Set Lists’ then organize according to the way you plan to play the music. You can import from Dropbox and other cloud storage services. Then add other meta-data related to each score (author, tags, etc.)

They also sell music scores. Price $4.99. Well worth the money.

Musicnotes

Musicnotes is another sheet music app. The difference here is that it is primarily for viewing scores bought from their service on musicnotes.com. The app is free, but you have to buy music from them.

They have an option for loading PDF files that you have created. But this costs $9.99 and doesn’t work very well. I either scan the music on my flat bed scanner or use an app called DeskPDF to create the PDF file. For my money, Forscore is way better.

PWsafe

PWsafe is an app for managing usernames and passwords. The app is free, but for a couple of dollars you can add the function to sync password files on Dropbox or other cloud file services. In my online world I have many accounts on many different services. (eg. Banking, Shopping, Social media, Subscriptions, etc.). Using the same password on all of one’s accounts is a bad idea. So remembering multiple passwords is (at least to me) impossible. PWsafe encrypts the file that stores your passwords. Now you only need one master password to open the file. IOS devices and Android supported as well as Windows PC.

That’s enough for now. More later…

Categories: Music, Reviews, Technology
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