iOS tips - page 15

My iPhone 5 camera has gotten some grime inside it, and my pictures are all yucky because of it. I’ve procrastinated taking it to the Apple Store to get cleaned out because, hey, I’m busy lazy.

Luckily, there’s a guy on YouTube whose buddy had the same problem, and he put up a video showing how to clean out the iPhone 5 with a tiny screwdriver, suction cup, can of air, and a plastic non-marring tool.

A quick disclaimer: if you choose to try this fairly simple iPhone 5 surgery, you’re responsible for any damage that might occur. Please don’t email us asking for a replacement iPhone.

If you have the time and inclination, and a certain sense of daring, you can share your cellular data as a Wi-Fi signal for free, without connecting through your data carrier. I’m not a huge fan of jailbreaking, per se; even the non-jailbreaking solution seems a bit technical, and some folks might see it as borderline unethical.

If you fall into either camp, and want to set up your qualifying iOS device via your cellular data carrier, here’s how.

UPDATE: As Cult of Mac reader lepht points out below, there are contrasting opinions on whether push actually saves battery life. Check out his post here to see a different point of view. Also note tordofm’s comment below, and the original article I linked below, both of which support the push as battery saver idea.

You have a couple of options when setting up your email accounts on an iPhone or iPad: Fetch and Push. While Push is only available to more modern email accounts like Gmail, most of us have at least one account that can utilize this email service.

But what’s the difference, really? And how do you set it up on your iOS device? That’s why we’re here.

When the Podcasts app showed up a bit after the release of iOS 6, we were all excited that Apple was taking its unintended creation of a new media form seriously. While the app is fairly simple to use, there are subtleties that we might miss.

Let’s take a look at some readers’ questions about this Apple-created app and go a bit deeper into using it on our favorite iOS devices.

It’s fine to listen to one podcast at a time, one episode at a time. Of course it is. You’re more than welcome to just download and tap your way through your podcasts on a one by one basis. I’m not judging.

Sometimes, though, it’s great to queue up a whole bunch of sweet podcasting content, especially when the content is a bit shorter, or you’re on a super long drive and don’t want to have to fiddle with your iPhone or iPad when on the go. That’s where playlists come in.

Here’s how to easily set one up in Apple’s Podcast App, which calls playlists “stations.”

One of my favorite new features of the Podcasts app in iOS, on iPhone or iPad, is the ability to stream episodes directly, rather than have to download them. It’s made me much more independent and willing to try out new podcasts; I simply don’t have to subscribe to ones that don’t catch my fancy, then delete and move all the downloaded files.

To the uninitiated, though, the difference between streaming and downloading is a tricky one. Here’s how it all works, and how to either download or stream podcast episodes as you decide which is best for you.

Cult of Mac reader, Josh K, asks:

If I download a podcast episode when I am out and about, then get home and sync my iPhone, I find when it is finished syncing, whatever episodes were downloaded have been removed. And I have to either download them again or manually sync them.

How can I make this process easier or stop the phone taking the recently downloaded episodes off every time I sync?

Unfortunately, there’s no simple fix for this one, so you’re going to have to choose, Josh: either sync via iTunes or manage podcasts on your iPhone. I’m not able to find a solution which lets you do both. Here’s what I recommend.

Yesterday, I told you how to delete podcast episodes from your iOS device, which lets you manage how much stuff you’re carrying around on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Today, I got an email from Justin P, who said,

Thanks for the tips on deleting individual episodes of a podcast. However how do you remove the entire podcast icon from ‘my podcasts’ ? Tried unsubscribe but that doesn’t work. If you could let me know that would be great.

It’s a good point, Justin, so I did a little poking around in the Podcast app and figured it out.

Deleting individual episodes from the Podcasts app on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch is fairly easy if you’re a longtime iOS user. If not, then it might not be as intuitive.

Here’s how to get to, and then delete, individual podcast episodes from your iOS device of choice.

Not only has Apple updated Siri’s default (in the US, at least) female voice to something a bit more natural, a little less arrogant sounding, but it’s also included a new male voice, as well. While a male-gendered voice has been available for a while in other regions, this is the first time Siri’s voice gender has been a choice we can enable on iOS.

Here’s how to switch Siri from a female to a male voice (and back again).

If you backup your iOS devices to your Mac, you will overwrite the latest backup each time you do so, creating a new, fully up-to-date copy of your iOS device, including settings, apps, and data.

But what if you want to save a certain backup as a snapshot, like before you upgrade to a new operating system, or add a troublesome app to your iPhone or iPad?

The trick here is Archiving your backup, which tells iTunes to stop using the backup as the latest one, and instead backup to a new file. It’s easy to do, and here’s how.

Now here’s a slick little trick fresh off the boat from those wacky folks at Macworld that will have you wondering, “why didn’t I think of that?”

You know how you get tons of calls each week or month that are from solicitors, political pollsters, and that weird uncle who will just not leave you alone? Well, if you get those calls on your iPhone, here’s a neat way to avoid having to answer the phone to figure out who’s calling.

Got a Wi-Fi-only iPad, but want to access a location on Google Maps when you’re out and about in the car? How about looking at your map when the signal on your iPhone isn’t strong enough, or even when it’s non-existent?

Well, the latest iOS version of Google Maps has been updated, and one of the less publicized features is the ability to save locations for access offline. The Android version has had this feature for a while, but this is the first time the iOS one has gotten the ability.

The way you activate this feature is also kind of cute, so check it out.

New accessibility options about in iOS 7 beta, helping folks of all abilities access and use their iOS devices more effectively and efficiently. The Physical & Motor section of the accessibility options now allow folks with motor and other physical disabilities to use a switch for visual and auditory scanning options, emulate various gestures with assistive touch (introduced in iOS 6), adjust the Home click speed, and, as the headline above notes, set where the incoming calls are sent.

Want to have your incoming calls go automatically to a headset or speaker? It’s relatively easy in iOS 7 beta.

While the style of iOS has been described as flatter, that’s typically more true of the icon design and some of the panel and font combinations than the entire operating system.

In fact, there’s a subtle parallax effect that can be seen pretty easily behind the home page icons. I use the space and stars wallpaper, and when I tilt or twist my iPhone 5 running iOS 7, I can definitely see things almost move, or change perspective.

It’s a slick visual feature, but if it drives you nuts, or you feel icky with it in the background there, here’s how to disable it.

iOS 7 beta has a ton of new features, tricks, hidden things, and ways to get stuff done. We’ve been showing it all to you as we delve into the latest and greatest mobile OS for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch for a few weeks now.

But we’re not ready to stop. Here are even more (five of ’em!) secret, hidden, or just plain surprising features we’ve found in iOS 7 beta.

iTunes Radio is here – and it’s looking pretty cool. One of the more Pandora-like options in iTunes Radio is the ability to create a station based on your favorite artist or song, and even mix and match artists for a custom bunch of songs you can play uninterrupted, like, well, radio. You can even tell iTunes Radio what songs or artists not to play in the mix, as well as manage which types of songs (Top Hits, Mix, Discovery) from each artist to play.

Here’s how to add a new artist or song to iTunes Radio in iOS 7 beta.

iOS 7 beta has a great new feature in the Notification Center system called Today. This is an attempt, perhaps, to counter Google Now with more useful current information available to you right on your iPhone or iPad’s lock screen.

You can enable the Summary, Traffic Conditions, Day View, Reminders, Stocks, and Tomorrow’s Summary right in the Notification Center, and make it available right on your lock screen, without having to type in your security passcode.

Here’s how to enable, and then manage, this new feature in iOS 7 beta.

I’ll admit it. I really like buying things. I don’t like searching for them, or shopping per se, but I dig the heck out of wanting something, and then buying it. Go figure I end up a tech writer.

One of the ways I keep myself from overspending is to take pictures of items and store them on my iPhone. I do this a lot in book stores, where the number of new science fiction books I want far outstrips my ability to pay for them.

I use a Wishlist on Amazon, too, to track the stuff I want, perhaps later to actually purchase. Who knows?

In iOS 7 beta, you can add any apps you want to a new Wishlist feature, keeping the spending to a minimum, too. Here’s how.

In previous versions of iOS, the date and time stamps of iMessages you sent and received were printed right in the app, above the iMessages they pertained to.

Not so in iOS 7, with only a date stamp showing up at the top of each segment of messages that come in on a particular day. If you want to know what time those messages came in or were sent, it looked as if you were out of luck.

But wait! There’s more! Turns out that you can, in fact, see a time stamp for every message in the Messages app. Here’s how to access it.

Facetime is Apple’s video conferencing solution, offering high-quality video chat across any iOS or Mac device. It simply blows away any other solution I’ve tried in terms of quality and ease of use, but it’s always been a video-only proposition, leaving me sticking with Skype for audio-only voice chats.

With iOS 7 beta, however, Apple has given us the ability to make audio calls with Facetime as well, which may cause me to ditch Skype altogether (though there’s still a cross platform ability Skype wins).

Here’s how to make audio calls to other Apple users via Facetime.

iOS 7 is chock full of new things to discover and explore. We’ve been spending some time with it on our iPhones and iPads, and have found a bunch of surprises hidden within–features and new ways of doing things that are new, different, and just plain interesting.

Here, then, are six of those surprising tips and tricks, ready for you to try out on your own iOS 7 beta-enabled iOS device.

iOS 6 gave us the Compass, which, honestly, I’ve never really used that much.

The new iOS 7 beta, however, has given me some functionality I’m much more likely to need and use. Heck, I even have a third-party app to make sure my handyman projects around the house aren’t crooked.

I’m talking about a level, and there’s a new one built right into iOS 7 beta, within the Compass app on the iPhone. I haven’t found a comparable app on my iPad running iOS 7 beta, but maybe in the future?

Either way, here’s how to find and use the compass and level app.

File this one under super cool! In previous incarnations of iOS, you’ve always been able to set a photo from your camera roll as the image that shows up on your iPhone or iPad screen. You can place one image on your lock screen, and one as your wallpaper, or the same image on both screens.

Now, however, in iOS 7 beta, you can actually set panoramas as your lock screen image, or as your wallpaper image. Or both! When you do so, the iPhone or iPad will show your panoramic image in full size, which lets you move the device around in a circle and see the whole image dynamically move across your screen.

Here’s how to make this happen.

In Apple’s Maps app, which debuted in iOS 6, you’ve always been able to set the volume of the voiced directions, choose whether you want to use mile or kilometer units, and set your Map Labels to Always English or not.

In iOS 7 beta, however, you’re now able to set your preferred direction type. Here’s how.