Secret Mail shortcuts: Ten gestures to speed up your iPhone email!

Apple's Mail app for iPhone and iPad has a ton of features you can invoke at the tap of a virtual button. It's what makes it simple and accessible even to first time iOS users. If you play around with it for a while, however, you'll discover a bunch of gesture shortcuts as well. Once you get used to them, they can really speed up and expand your workflow. 

1. Pull to search

Just like on the Home screen where you can touch and pull down to access Spotlight search, you can touch and pull down from any mailbox to bring up search for mail. Start typing and Mail will show you any messages that match.

2. Pull to refresh

Pull-to-refresh, originally created by Loren Brichter for Tweetie, is now ubiquitous in iOS. Any time you want to check for new messages, just touch the mailbox screen and pull down — further than you would for search — until you see the refresh spinner.

3. Swipe to go back

Another system-wide gesture, any time you're in a message or mailbox, you can swipe to go back to the mailbox the message is in, or the account the mailbox in in. It's especially handy for those with bigger phones.

4. Mark as unread

To quickly mark a message as read, touch it and swipe from left to right. To mark it as unread again, just repeat the gesture. You can swipe just far enough to see the big blue button, but if you keep swiping all the way across, you can skip the tap and really speed things up!

5. Flag and trash

To quickly trash or flag a message, touch it and swipe from right to left. You can tap the big orange flag button to flag it, or the big red trash button to delete it. You can also just swipe all the way across to save yourself a tap and send it straight to the trash.

6. More options

When you touch and swipe a message from right to left, in addition to flag and trash, you can also tap the big gray more button for additional options, including: reply all, forward, flag, mark as unread/read, move to junk, move message, and notify me...

7. Swipe Settings

If you don't like the default behavior of the mark, flag, and trash swipe gestures, you can change them via Settings > Mail > Swipe Options. For example, if you prefer "archive" to "trash" simply choose that instead.

8. Hide the keyboard

Sometimes, where you're responding to a message, you want to see more of it. Maybe you forgot the exact question you're trying to answer, or you want to refer to something specific. No matter the reason, all you have to do is touch the message above the keyboard and swipe down to hide it.

9. Stack drafts

When composing a mail message, touch the title bar — where it says New Message — and swipe it down to temporarily store it as a draft while doing or checking something else. You can keep multiple draft cards open at a time, and tap them to get a rolodex interface just like tabs in Safari.

10. Jump to drafts

You can tap the compose button any time to start a new mail message, but if you tap-and-hold on it, you'll be shown a list of your recent drafts so you can pick up right from where you left off.

11. Move an address

If you have a contact in the To: field but you want to move it to CC: or BCC:, you don't have to delete and re-add it. Instead, just touch it and drag it right to where you want it.

Source: http://www.imore.com/secret-mail-shortcuts-ten-gestures-speed-your-iphone-email

Secret headphone shortcuts: Twelve clicks to control your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

The Apple EarPods that come with your iPhone or iPod touch can be used to control a wide range of features, including music, phone calls, and even Siri.

So can any other set of headphones, from Beats to Bose — as long as they integrate the remote and mic hardware. The remote controls are great for accessibility, but they're also great for convenience. What's more, they also work with the Mac!

If you're not familiar with all the options, here's a complete list!

1. Play/pause

Single click the headset button to play audio — music, podcasts, or audio books — or to pause audio that's already playing.

2. Skip forward

Double click the headset button to skip forward to the next track or chapter.

3. Skip back

Triple click the headset button to skip back to the previous track or chapter.

4. Fast forward

Double click and hold down the headset button to fast forward through the audio.

5. Rewind

Triple click and hold down the headset button to rewind through the audio.

6. Answer or hang up

Single click the headset button to answer and incoming call or hang up an ongoing call.

7. Switch calls

Single click the headset button to switch between multiple calls.

8. Reject a call

Single click and hold down the headset button to send an incoming call to voice mail. (Two low beeps will confirm the rejection.)

9. Hang up on current call

Double click and hold down the headset button to hang up on the current of multiple calls. (Two low beeps will confirm the hang up.)

10. Activate Siri

Single click and hold down on the headset button to active Siri.

11. Talk to Siri

Single click the headset button to ask Siri additional questions or issue additional commands after it's activated.

12. Take a picture

Single click the volume up button while the Camera app is open to take a picture. Works great for selfies!

Source : http://www.imore.com/secret-headphone-shortcuts-twelve-clicks-better-control-your-iphone-ipad-and-mac#comment-form

Secret power-saving shortcuts: Six tricks to extend your iPhone battery life

The iPhone gets great battery life and the iPhone 6 Plus gets really great battery life. Apple has done a lot to make everything from their chipsets to their software management extremely power efficient. Yet every feature you use, you ultimately pay for with battery life. Most times it's not a problem.

If you start running low on power, you can simply plug into USB or an adapter and recharge really quickly. If you're going to be away from energy for a long period of time, however, there are a few tricks you can use to extend your battery life just a little bit longer. They'll cost you some fun and convenience, but they'll get you as far as you can possibly go.

1. Lower light

The iPhone is LCD, not OLED, so it doesn't matter much what color is being displayed, it matters if the LED backlight is on, how intensely, and for how long. To keep energy output to a minimum, go to Settings > Display & Brightness, turn Auto-Brightness off, and drag Brightness as low as you can tolerate.

Bonus: How to dim your screen brightness further than Control Center allows

2. Pause the push

Push Notifications not only light up the Lock screen, they light up the Wi-Fi or cellular radios as well. For anything that doesn't urgently require your attention, go to Settings > Notification Center > and turn Show on Lock Screen, or even Allow Notifications, to off. (I only allow Phone, Messages, and VIP Mail).

3. Boot the background

Apple does a lot to coalesce background updates so the radios don't light up any more than they have to. But if you don't need an app updating in the background, got to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and make sure it doesn't. You'll have to wait for messages or media to refresh when you open the app, but if you don't open it often, the power savings can be worth it.

Bonus: Facebook is historically a good candidate for background refresh removal.

4. Lockout location

GPS takes a lot of power. Apple uses a bunch of tricks to keep location access to an absolute minimum, but like notifications and background, if you don't need an app to know where you are, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and select Never.

5. Toss tasks

Apps that provide VoIP and turn-by-turn navigation can be much harder on multitasking cycles and GPS. If you're not using them, you can double click the Home button and close the app completely by tossing its card away. That'll shut down VoIP and navigation and start saving power on the spot.

Bonus: Skype is historically a good candidate for the kill switch.

6. Minimize the Motion

Animating transitions and blurring backgrounds has become more efficient, and is certainly visually fun. If you don't want or need all the effects, however, you can turn them off and save a tiny amount of processing. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion, and turn it on.

Bonus: take the built-in Clock app, and it's GPU-activating second hand, and hide it in a folder.

7. Nuclear options

If your iPhone is hot or your battery is almost drained and you absolutely need to get more time, you have a couple of options:

• Kill any apps you think might have gone rogue. Even good apps can experience bad processes.
• Turn off any radio that are having problems connecting. A lower signal means a higher power output. 
• Reboot. It's a terrible cliche but it's a terrible cliche for a reason.
• Go into Airplane mode. Save your power for when you need it.

Source http://www.imore.com/secret-power-saving-shortcuts-six-tricks-extend-your-iphone-battery-life

Access Your Mac On The Go With LogMeIn On Your iOS Device [iOS Tip]

Have you ever arrived at the office and realized that report you need for the meeting today is still on your Mac at home? I’m sure that at some point we have all needed access to our home computer while we’re away from home, and it’s actually a lot easier than you might think thanks to the free LogMeIn app for iOS.

With LogMeIn installed on your Mac and your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, all you need is a data connection to access your home computer and all its files. Here’s how to get started with LogMeIn.

First, prepare your Mac by signing up for a LogMeIn account (if you don’t already have one) and installing the LogMeIn client. You can do this by visiting secure.logmein.com, and then clicking “Create an account.”

Once you’re signed up and you’ve added your Mac to LogMeIn, you’ll be given the option to install the client on your Mac. You’ll need to do this before you can connect to it. During installation, you’ll be asked to give your Mac a name, and you’ll need to login to your LogMeIn account that you just set up.

Once installation is complete on your Mac, download the free LogMeIn iOS app from the App Store. Open it up and login to your LogMeIn account, you’ll then be presented with a list of computers you have signed up to the service.

To access one of these computers, simply tap on its name, and then the little icon featuring a cursor beneath it. At this point you’ll need to login using the username and password you use on your Mac — not the details you use for LogMeIn.

You should now be able to see your desktop, which you have complete control of with your device.

How To Make Your iPhone’s Home Button More Responsive [iOS Tips]

One of the unfortunate byproducts of owning an iOS device is that your Home button can become a little sluggish over time. When you get your new iPhone or iPad and use it initially, the Home button works smoothly, but it can eventually become less responsive.

Fortunately, there’s a subtle trick in iOS for recalibrating your Home button. After performing this tip on your personal iOS device, you should notice that your Home button is considerably more responsive when you’re navigating throughout iOS.

iDownloadBlog passes on an incredibly helpful tip that many probably don’t know about. It’s actually a very simple process to recalibrate your Home button; simply open a stock iOS app (Weather, Stocks, Clock, etc.). Once the app is open, press your iPhone’s power button until the ‘slide to power off’ screen appears. From that screen, press and hold your Home button until iOS force quits the stock app you have open. You’re done! No rocket science required.

Your iPhone’s Home button (this also works wonderfully on the iPad and iPod touch) should now be just as responsive as ever. Let us know if this tip worked for you in the comments below!

iOS 5.1 beta seeded to developers

The latest update to iOS 5 is drawing near, folks, as the beta of version 5.1 was just released on Apple's developer site. You can grab the build if you're in possession of an iPhone 3GS or later, either iPad or the third and fourth generations of the iPod Touch. We're hoping to see some fixes to the battery life issues on the iPhone 4S, as the company has acknowledged the concern and promised a fix in the near future. Stay tuned as we learn more about the new refresh.

Update: A little digging has already revealed a new product ID contained in the update, referencing an "iPad 2,4". There's some speculation that this could be a reference to a tablet with a modem from Sprint built in, but even if that's the case, who knows if it would actually be released prior to the next generation iPad.

BGR Apple

Introduction

iOS SDK 5.1 provides support for developing iOS applications and includes the complete set of Xcode tools, compilers, and frameworks for creating applications for iOS and Mac OS X. These tools include the Xcode IDE and the Instruments analysis tool among many others.

With this software you can develop applications that run on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5.1. You can also test your applications using the included iOS Simulator, which supports iOS 5.1. There are two Xcode iOS SDK 5.1 images, one for installing on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.6.7 (Snow Leopard) or later, the other for installing on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).

This version of iOS is intended only for installation on devices registered with Apple's developer program. Attempting to install this version of iOS in an unauthorized manner could put your device in an unusable state.

For more information and additional support resources, visit:

http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/

Bug Reporting

Please report any bugs not mentioned in the “Introduction” section using the Apple Bug Reporter on the Apple Developer website (http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/). Additionally, you may discuss these issues and iOS SDK 5 in the Apple Developer Forums: http://devforums.apple.com. You can also access more information about iCloud for Developers at:http://developer.apple.com/icloud

Notes and Known Issues

The following issues relate to using the 5.1 SDK to develop code.

Accounts

When creating an iCloud account, you can use any Apple ID as long as it is a full email address and not a MobileMe account. If you have a MobileMe account, you can move that account to iCloud. You can find more information at: http://me.com/move

APIs

• The NSNetService class and CFNetService APIs do not include P2P interfaces by default. To browse, register, or resolve services over P2P interfaces, an application needs to use the BonjourDNSService*() APIs noted below.
• Setting the interfaceIndex parameter to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny in the following API's will not include P2P interfaces by default. To include P2P interfaces, you must now set thekDNSServiceFlagsIncludeP2P flag when using kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny or set the interfaceIndex to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexP2P. The affected APIs are:
  • DNSServiceBrowse
  • DNSServiceRegister
  • DNSServiceResolve
  • DNSServiceRegisterRecord
  • DNSServiceQueryRecord

GameKit

App Icons and Profile Photos are not loading in apps using Game Center.

iCloud Storage

• Provisioning profiles must be enabled for iCloud in the iOS Provisioning Portal. You can enable a provisioning profile for iCloud by navigating to the App ID section of the iOS Provisioning Portal and configuring your App ID for iCloud. After enabling the App ID for iCloud, regenerate your provisioning profiles to enable them for iCloud.
• The setSortDescriptors: method of NSMetadataQuery is not supported.
• In iOS 5, files that are protected via Data Protection cannot be used with iCloud Storage APIs.
• File names are case-insensitive in Mac OS X but case-sensitive in iOS. This can lead to problems when sharing files between the two using iCloud. You should take steps on iOS to avoid creating files whose names differ only by case.

Movie Player

Starting in iOS 5.0, in order to facilitate finer-grained playback control, a movie player is not automatically prepared to play upon creation. Call the prepareToPlay method to prepare the movie player. For more information, see MPMoviePlayerController Class Reference

Music Player

Using shake-to-shuffle causes Music app to freeze and playback to stop.

Newsstand

FIXED: Deleting an issue that was marked as the currently reading issue could cause a crash.

Security

In iOS 5, the signing of certificates with MD5 signatures is not supported. Please ensure that certificates use signature algorithms based on SHA1 or SHA2.

Xcode/Developer Tools

• A bug in the documentation organizer causes an exception when you type in any field in the content area. To prevent the need to log in to the developer website from Xcode, download documentation sets locally using Xcode's documentation preference pane and enable the 'Check for and install updates automatically' checkbox as a workaround.
• "uninstall-devtools" script mistakenly removes files and packages even if Xcode is still running. Be sure to quit any running copy of Xcode before starting the "uninstall-devtools" script.
• The Network Link Conditioner daemon cannot be launched after installing the Networking Link Conditioner without a reboot. You can manually workaround the issue with a restart or by the following command: sudo launchctl load /system/library/launchdaemons/com.apple.networklinkconditioner.plist.]
• In the iOS 5 development tools, it is possible to extract APIs used by an application and have them checked for use of private APIs. This option is offered when you validate your application for app submission.

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