Tags

iBooks is now Books and has had a complete revamp.

The changes are more pronounced on iOS 12 with new "Reading Now" and "Want to Read" sections.

This week I take you on a tour of Books on both macOS and iOS.

Following on from our recent iOS 12 release show, I go over the revamped Stocks app, now available on iPad as well as iPhone.

Following on from our recent iOS 12 release show, I cover some of the improvements and additions to Security & Privacy in iOS 12.

iOS 12 is Apple`s newest OS for the iPad and iPhone. Scheduled for release on September 17 2018 - iOS 12 brings increased performance across the board, along with some updates to existing features and some brand new ones.

In this tutorial, Don takes you through some of the obvious and not so obvious changes in iOS.

Taking screenshots on iOS devices is a snap in iOS 11. There are also some handy annotation features to mark up your screenshots and share them with people. You can also discard screenshots easily if you don't want to keep them indefinitely.

If you do wish to save them, the Photos app stores them in a special Screenshots album for easy retrieval. You can even take screenshots from Apple Watch and they sync automatically to your iPhone and iPad via the iCloud Photo Library, and can also be marked up or shared via the Photos app.

I cover all this and more in this week's tip.

Live Photos are a great addition to the iPhone and you can further transform them using one of three effects: Loop, Bounce and Long Exposure.

I love using the Long Exposure effect on any running water or fountains. It makes a huge difference on your photos, without the need for specialist photo equipment or in-depth technical knowledge.

However, when out and about recently, I had a brain freeze and couldn't remember how to access the Live Photo effects - not everything in iOS is as discoverable as it should be. So I thought it would be a great topic for a refresher tip video!

AirDrop is a safe and secure way to transfer files between Apple devices. It requires virtually zero configuration and only needs Bluetooth and WiFi to create an encrypted connection between devices. However, there are some precautions you need to take to ensure you remain in control of AirDrop.

In this tip video, I take a look at setting-up and using AirDrop on both the Mac and iOS.

Two quick updates in this week's tip show:

Text Expansion

Back in episode 0738, we covered using the built-in features of Text Auto-correction in both macOS and iOS. This is an easy way to use abbreviations to expand to simple words and phrases. However, text expansion is not just limited to simple words and phrases. It can also be used for multiple paragraphs, making Text Auto-correction so much more useful! In this tip, Don shows you how to create a multiline text snippet that will sync across your devices.

Subtitles or Captions in Safari

One of the main support issues we come across are people being unable to switch off subtitles when viewing tutorials on the ScreenCastsOnline website or, even worse, seeing two sets of subtitles displayed at once. This is easily fixed and is due to Safari itself displaying subtitles. In this segment, Don shows you how to easily switch both sets of subtitles off, giving you an uninterrupted view of your tutorials.

With the introduction of iOS 11.4 & macOS 10.13.5, Apple have delivered on Messages for iCloud. No longer are messages hit and miss on your various devices, now you can store an encrypted archive in iCloud for use by all devices.

In this week's tip video, Don takes you through some of the limitations of the old Messages architecture, demonstrates switching on the new Messages in iCloud and takes a look at how it works in operation.

This tip video was recorded prior to the release of macOS 10.13.5, so to setup Messages in iCloud on your Mac, open Messages - Preferences - Accounts - Select your iCloud Account and switch on "Enable Messages in iCloud"

There are plenty of very capable and very sophisticated text auto-correction apps on the market. However, if your needs are simple, why not use the text auto-correction features built into macOS and iOS?

In this week's tip video, Don walks you through setting up and using auto-correction and auto-completion on the Mac and iPhone, and shows you how those text snippets sync in real time between devices.

Some oldies but goodies: One of the benefits of using a soft keyboard is that it can do so much more than a conventional hardware keyboard.

In this week's tip I remind you of some of the not-so-obvious features hidden in the standard iOS soft keyboard.

This weekly tip video covers a workaround to allow people without Macs (or any computer) to access iCloud.com on an iPad or iPhone.

This is necessary in order to create iCloud-based Mail rules and to access some additional preferences not available on iOS devices.

Two tips this week...

Siri News on iOS

No need to feel left out if you don't have a HomePod. You can get the news spoken to you from your iOS devices and as long as they support hands-free "Hey Siri" commands.

Hidden Files & Folders in macOS

Display your hidden files and folders with a simple keyboard shortcut. No longer do you need to conjure up some obscure Terminal command to make this happen.

Your Apple ID is a crucial part of how you access your devices, apps and all Apple services.

It goes without saying that you really need to look after your Apple ID and make sure that you can regain access in the event of some mishap.

In this week's tip video, we take a look at the website that's designed to help you maintain your Apple ID: appleid.apple.com

Continuing on from last week's tip video, we transition from setting up Apple Mail rules on the Mac to server-based rules on iCloud.com.

Although not as granular as the local Mail rules, server-based rules can run 24/7 and work across all of your macOS and iOS devices.

iPads and iPhones are extremely popular with children, but as adults, we have a responsibility to protect them from accessing harmful or inappropriate material.

Apple acknowledges this fact, and provides a wide range of ways to tailor the iOS experience for children of all ages.

iOS 11 contains "Restrictions" that allow you as a parent or caregiver to enable or disable access to apps, services and content on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, as well as access to certain physical parts of the device such as the Camera.

In this weekly tip video, we explore the wide range of restrictions available to you.

We may have covered the major points of iOS 11 in the full shows, but there are still further hints and tips to share.

This tip show covers three really useful tips when using iOS 11.

One of the problems of moving to a new iPhone is that the restore process brings everything across. As well as the important information, you also end up with a tonne of applications that you never use and just can't be bothered to weed out.

Wouldn't it be nice to start off with a fresh build of iOS and just the stock apps? You can do this of course (instead of restoring your iPhone) but you'll loose all your Activity, Health and Watch data.

In this tip video, I demonstrate how you can do a partial restore to a new or existing iPhone to remove all the detritus, yet keep all your Activity, Health and Watch data. A third-party utility is used to achieve this (do so at your own risk) and there is no guarantee that it will work with future releases of iOS. However, I used it on my iPhone X and it worked amazingly well! The developers have stated that it is supported on iOS 11.2 beta so it looks promising!

Decipher Activity Transfer is free, but there is a paid version that allows you to transfer additional components in addition to your Activity and Watch data.

The new iPhone X is out and in this video, I take you through the unboxing and initial setup of the iPhone X.

After a just a few days of use, it feels like Apple have reinvented the iPhone. Face ID and the new gestures are a delight to use.

Face ID works flawlessly, although there are some areas where it can't replace Touch ID -- such as when leaving your iPhone on a desktop -- but in most instances, it's comparable or even better than Touch ID.

Using Face ID to authenticate within apps is fantastic, and even quicker than Touch ID in most cases. Add in the beautiful design and the gorgeous OLED screen, and I think Apple have a winner.

I've even learnt to embrace the notch as it's really a non-issue if case you're wondering!

iOS 11 brings with it native screen recording to your iPad or iPhone. You can record video only or both video and audio using your iOS device's microphone.

It's a great tool for creating short instructional videos for friends or family.

Once recorded, you can trim your video directly in the iOS Photos app, or use a special iMovie extension for more advanced tasks such as adding titles and music.