Wait iOS 10 does What?

Apple recently released iOS 10 to the masses.  For those whom change is, well challenging, the numerous changes in iOS 10 I'm sure have you longing for iOS 9.  As you all should have come accustomed to by now, change is one of the many constants that you should expect from Apple.  Here are some of the biggest complaints I've heard (to this point).  "I hate that there is a new way to unlock my iPhone!"  Next, "All the sudden my family is getting overage charges on our data, why?"  Finally, "Why did Apple change the way my email comes in??

I hear your pain, all valid arguments.  One of the reasons we love our devices is that we know how to use them.  When Apple, or some other developer decides to shake things up and tell us how to use our devices better, WTF?  Right?  Well, we can sit around and complain about the new features and functionality, or, we can adjust and learn the new ways of our devices.  I recommend the later!

Thankfully I have fixes for a few of these changes.

First there is no way to bring back the "Swipe to Open" feature.  You can however make the opening of your iPhone a little easier.  Here's what to do:  1.  Make sure you have enabled Touch ID (setting up 1 or more fingerprints to use as a Passcode).  2.  In Settings, go to General > Accessibility> Home Button > enable the Rest Finger to Open setting.  This will make opening your iPhone a bit less "painful."

Next, has anyone in your family been hit with crazy data overages since iOS 10 came out?  Here's why!  Somehow Apple sneaked a new setting into the "Agreement" we all have to agree to when we update.  That unknown agreement is in the Cellular setting of your iPhone and is called Wi-Fi Assist.  Here's what it does (and it doesn't assist your Wi-Fi!).  The setting is defaulted to On.  What it does is this.  When you are in a Wi-Fi environment, and the Wi-Fi is "weak", it flips you off of Wi-Fi and onto Cellular!  That is the assist!  It's a sneaky horrible feature needs to be turned off!  It should be called Carrier assist, as it does nothing but put money into the Carrier's pockets by taking you off of Wi-Fi.

Finally, Apple decided that when you have a chain of emails, your newest email should now end up on the bottom, instead of the top!  Frustrating, but at least there is a way to remedy this unnecessary situation.  Go to the Mail setting, slide down to Threading, and enable the Most Recent Message on Top setting.

This should help you "deal" with these frustrating new "features".  Hopefully you've found some of the great new features in Messages, Maps and Photos, useful.  As well as the new Widgets, which present data from your apps in a quick and useful way.

As always, thanks for reading, and please share with others people who will find this helpful.  Until next time, best to you and your devices!

Coming soon in iOS 10

With every June, comes the Apple WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference), which brings us news of the great things to come for all our Apple devices.  This past Monday, the WWDC kicked off with a 2 hour Keynote presentation about all the cool new features coming for our iPhones, Macs, Apple Watches and iPads.  Today I'm going to focus on some great new features coming this fall in iOS 10.

For starters, theres some great new functionality coming to SIRI.  You'll be able to use SIRI to book a ride with your favorite ride service, like Uber or Lyft.  You'll be able to use SIRI to search through your photos, make payments through apps like Cash, PayPal and Square.  You'll be able to have SIRI check your calendar availability and it will even support multi-lingual questions!  And that's just a small list of new Siri features coming later this fall.

One of our favorite things to do with our iPhone is take amazing pictures and videos.   For iOS 10, Apple is making the Photos App better and easier to use!  Some of the great new features include facial recognition, object and scene recognition.  Photos will be able to sort your pictures by trips, date and even the people who took trips with you, a super cool new feature!

Also updated for iOS 10 is Maps.  Maps has been totally rewritten and now provides better navigation, with the ability to zoom in and zoom out for traffic.  Maps will be able to proactively provide you with better and alternative routes if the one you are taking has say an accident, or tons of traffic.  How about being able to book a ride with Uber directly from Maps?  Well that feature has been added as well, to allow you to do so much more without ever leaving the Maps app.

Apple Music has also been redesigned with some subtle changes, starting with a fresh new design to show your Library and the items in it; Playlists, Artists, Albums, etc.  I will focus more on these design changes in a blog later this summer, but you'll love the new look and feel of the Music App.

The Phone app has a handful of great new features, the biggest being you can get your voicemails translated to text, so you don't have to press the play button to listen, a great addition to the Phone app.

The biggest update from an App perspective comes to Messages.  I'm going to point out some of the highlights, but will also create a blog later this summer dedicated solely to Messages.  To start, for those of us that can't see so well, you'll get emojis that are 3X larger!  You'll also be able to easily add emojis to your text, once you've typed, tap the emoji button, and words in your text that can be replaced by emojis will be highlighted.  Next you tap those words and they'll get replaced by an emoji!  It's super cool and will make more sense when you see it.  You'll be able to add cool new effects to emojis, created invisible ink text that the receiver can swipe to show what you've sent them, that's an awesome new feature.  You'll be able to hand write texts, create full screen texts and more.  Those are just some of the great new features coming.

I hope you are excited, look for more blogs to come on the new macOS features, watchOS features and tvOS features.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch is just a few short months away.  If you're like most of the Apple Heads out there, you probably are anxiously awaiting the latest and greatest product creation to come from the mothership in Cupertino.  Im not going to waste time with any premature accolades, as I have yet to get my hands on the Apple Watch.  So I'll get right down to what I can tell you at this point in time.   I'm sure to no ones surprise, Apple Watch apps are going to be far more limited in layout than a full-fledged iOS app, in part due to screen size. The larger Apple Watch will be merely 42mm, and sports a tiny 312-by-390 pixel display, which is not a whole lot of real estate for developers to build upon.

According to Apple's initial video, it appears as if the apps will either be limited to what's called a hierarchical tap-to-go-forward-or-back view or a horizontal swipe-per-page-based interface. 

There will still be plenty to tap, pan, and zoom around on, as the Apple Watch supports buttons, switches, labels, sliders, and images. In addition, developers will be able to add a dynamic-updating date and time widget that either displays the current date and/or time, or shows a timer that counts up or down from a specific point in time.

What will apps be able to do?

Apple Watch developers using a bit of creativity should be able to  push miniature versions of their apps to the Apple Watch. Currently the main emphasis will be on tapping, notifications, and easily-available information.

The Maps app, as well as Maps data is one area that Apple highlighted in the Apple Watch's introductory video: Developers will be able to insert snapshots of a map interface based on coordinates, however that interface will be non-interactive — you will not be able to pan or zoom unless you tap on it and enter the Maps app on Apple Watch. Could this mean no Google Maps app on the watch? Not sure — Google could push snapshots as you travel, for instance — but it does mean that developers will need to be more creative about how they will display certain mapping information.

In the initial iteration, there will be no GPS on the Apple Watch, so updating location is one of the things it will have to call back to the iPhone for. It's highly likely, that Apple's going to want to carefully manage that activity so they can prevent excessive battery drain.

How will you interact with a Watch app?

Your interaction with the Apple Watch will occur via tapping and swiping similar  to how you interact with all iOS apps. There are a few new swipe gestures available on the watch, including a left edge swipe (to return to the previous screen) and a swipe up from the bottom (which activates Glances).  The pinch-to-zoom and a few other multi-finger gestures don't exist on the Apple Watch; instead, you're expected to use the device's Digital Crown to zoom in and out. There's also Force Touch, a long-press action that activates the menu or important contextual buttons within an app.

In an app, you'll be able to tap, swipe, and scroll as usual, along with using Force Touch to pull up menus. Glances and notifications can only be tapped.

What are Glances?

Glances are a new addition to iOS, exclusive to the Apple Watch, though they resemble Notification Center's Today view widgets. Glances let you see a single page of specific app information; you'll be able to swipe left or right to see Glances from other apps connected to your Apple Watch.

Unlike existing widgets, however, Glances are static, which means you can't interact with them. 

When you tap on a Glance, you'll launch that specific app; developers can even specify where in the app you land using Handoff. (Example, if you're viewing a to-do Glance that states you have items left to do on a Grocery list, tapping that Glance could send you directly to that list.)

Not every app needs or will have a Glance, and you'll be able to turn them off if you'd rather not see use them.

What will notifications look like?

Notifications are divided into two categories: Short Look Notifications and Long Look Notifications. Short Look notifications contain minimal information, in part to preserve your privacy: All that displays will be the app icon, a quick title such as "New Message" or "New Photo", and the title of the app in the program's primary color.

If the user raises their wrist or taps on the Short Look notification, a Long Look notification appears. Long Looks are more detailed: You'll see the app icon and title at the top (in what Apple is calling the "sash"), followed by custom-designed content that displays the notification itself, along with up to four actions you can take (like replying or commenting) and a button for dismissing the notification.

Will the Apple Watch and accessibility features?

Although Apple doesn't have much publicly available yet on how WatchKit and accessibility work together, given it uses iOS code as a backbone, it's more than likely that developers can use the same frameworks to provide hearing and vision-impaired users access to the Apple Watch.

Any other tid-bits about the Apple Watch?

Unfortunately not much aside from how apps themselves will work.  Apple's public documentation says simply that the Apple Watch's official screen sizes: the 42mm watch is 312-by-390 pixels, while the 38mm watch is 272-by-340 pixels. In addition, it looks as though the Apple Watch is using the font San Francisco as its default.

I'm excited about the Watch.  Pretty cool stuff, right? After this blog, I hope you are even more excited for the Apple Watch's debut next year.

Until next time...Best to you and your current devices!