One of the improvements Apple made to Safari 6.0 was to take the search and address bars and roll them into one — just like a lot of popular web browsers do. The change hasn’t been made to the mobile Safari app,
But there is a good reason for that omission.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Google is currently working on a native Google Maps app for iOS, which is expected to make its debut before the end of the year. But in the meantime, it will be bringing Street View to its web app so that you can enjoy the much-loved feature in mobile Safari.
While Google Maps may no longer be available as either the default iOS map app or as a standalone app of its own, the search giant’s other flagship software has been quietly updated for iPhone 5,iOS 6, and an unspecified number of “Stability and security improvements,” according to the App Store description page for the alternate iOS browser.
iOS 6 comes with a host of new and improved features for us all to play with. We’ll be messing about in there over the next several weeks, helping you find the hidden tips, tricks, and features of iOS 6. Today, however, we’d like to show you the ten killer tricks we’ve found in iOS 6 to date.
Some of these tips may seem simple, while others may not be applicable to your own personal situation. Regardless, we hope that we can show you the coolest tips and tricks for your new iOS device, whether it’s a new iPhone 5, a new iPad, or anything that comae out before; iOS 6 will support the iPhone 3GS and up, the iPad and up, and the iPod touch third generation and up, so have at it!
Today, three months after its first preview at WWDC, iOS 6 has been released to the public and is now available to download via iTunes. We’ve already presented you with a comprehensive guide to everything that’s new — big and small — but which of those features really stands out?
So that you can jump into iOS 6 and quickly start using its killer new features, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten for you to check out. These may not necessarily be the biggest features Apple has introduced, but we’re confident that once you start using them, you’ll agree that they’re the best.
We’ve all been itching to get our hands on iOS 6 since it got its first unveiling at WWDC back in June, and today, three months after that announcement, the software finally gets its public debut. Apple’s packed a ton of new features into this update, including some major new features like Map and Passbook, plus some enhancements to existing apps and features, such as new Siri capabilities and a VIP inbox in Mail.
Apple’s been promoting some of these features on its website, but there are tons you may not have heard about. With that said, here’s your comprehensive guide to everything that’s new in iOS 6.
Using mobile Safari’s private browsing mode on an iOS device is a pain, because you have to activate and deactivate via the Settings app. In fact, I’ve always found that it’s just easier to use a third-party browser. But not anymore. If you’ve got a jailbroken iOS device, installing the Privata tweak allows you to switch back and forth between Safari’s private browsing mode within Safari itself.
Apple has seeded a new OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 build (12C35) to participants in its AppleSeed program, continuing its testing of Facebook integration. Though it states that there are no known issues with this update, the Cupertino company is also asking users to focus on Messages, Game Center, Safari, and Reminders.
Dolphin is one of the best third-party browsers you’ll find on iOS, and it just got even better on the iPhone, thanks to a new design and user interface, new features, and lots of improvements in version 6.0.
Here’s another one of those “so simple it hurts” tips that we find from time to time, leaving us scratching our heads, wondering why we didn’t figure it out sooner.
When you’re browsing the web, whether you’re on a computer or your iPhone, you don’t always want to open links in the window you’re browsing in. Neither do you always want to open them in a new tab in the foreground. Sometimes, especially when you’re doing internet research, you want to open tabs in the background. On the Mac, it’s simply a matter of Command clicking a link in your current browser, or setting a preference or two for your favorite web apps.
You can do this on iOS, too, with a simple tap in Settings. Here’s how.
We love Readdle’s productivity apps here at Cult of Mac, especially when they’re going cheap. The company is currently holding a Back to School campaign that sees a number of iOS apps that “are indispensable for studying” reduced. Those included are ReaddleDocs for iPhone, ReaddleDocs for iPad, and Remarks.
The most noticeable change in the way Safari works in its latest version is in the way it allows you to search. Just like Google’s Chrome web browser, Safari now includes an integrated search in the previously URL-only address bar at the top of the browser.
There are some tricks to narrow down search results, as well as a couple neat ways to save specific searches for later use. Let’s check them out together, shall we?
Today Google updated its Chrome browser in the iOS App Store with the ability to share webpages to Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. By updating now, Google has beaten Apple’s own Safari browser to the punch. Safari in iOS can share directly to Twitter, and Facebook integration is coming in the fall with iOS 6. Google+ integration is not offered, and given Apple and Google’s rocky relationship, don’t expect to see it ever.
The release of iOS 6 just weeks away. The new release includes a range of new features. Some seem tailor-made for business use like the new VIP contacts feature in Mail. Others are clearly designed for a mass-market consumer audience. Even those consumer-oriented additions have a lot of potential for use in the office, however.
When the burglar who robbed Steve Jobs’ house walked out with jewelry, computers, and Steve’s old wallet, I doubt he could have imagined one of his heisted Macs would call in the coppers. But he learned that you don’t mess with a Mountain Lion. We’ll tell you the tale on our all-new CultCast—and don’t worry—all mock turtlenecks have been returned to their proper place.
We talk rumor control, iPhone 5 design, the Olympics, and more. Then, by popular request, it’s a battle of the browsers! We’ll tell you which web-ware we love the most, and why Apple’s own app still has a big issue to fix.
Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s newly updated and freshly debugged Podcasts App.
Show notes ahead!
Reader Chris M asked us yesterday about finding a way to see the source media files in Safari now that the Activity Window has been retired in OS X Mountain Lion. He writes:
A while back you showed a great feature. If you were using Safari watching a video, you could go to WINDOW—-ACTIVITY—and it would show everything on the website and you could Option click on the video file and automatically download it. That feature went away in Mountain Lion. Will you PLEASE write an article and show if there is any way to access this feature any more.
You’re in luck, Chris, as we found just the thing. It’s not quite a full “bringing sexy back” fix, but it should serve the purpose you used the Activity Window for – finding media files in web pages.
Now here’s a slick new way of interacting with tabs in Safari. When you open a bunch of tabs in Safari, it gets a little hard to figure out which tab is which, right? You can, of course, use Command-Shift-Arrow (right or left) to move between tabs, but that’s only reliable if the site you’re tabbing over to doesn’t auto-focus your cursor to a search field, like YouTube or Google does.
Luckily, it urns out that Apple has again made things a bit more iOS like in its flagship Mac operating system, OS X Mountain Lion. To check this tip out on your own, launch Safari on your Mac (be sure you’re running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion) and open a few tabs.
Google has issued an update to Google+ for iOS that makes it the first app to offer an “Open in Chrome” button for URLs. Version 3.1 also brings teen Hangouts, and bug fixes that promise to improve performance.
The Federal Trade Commission released information this morning that because of their misrepresentation to users of Apple’s Safari Internet browser, Google has agreed to pay a record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle charges from the FTC.
The $22.5 million fine is the largest in FTC history. Earlier this year an investigation found that Google had placed advertising cookies on the computers of Safari users who visited sites on Google’s DoubleClick ad network. Users were told by Google that they would automatically be opted out of the tracking, but Google kept tracking them anyway.
Mountain Lion’s version of the Safari browser brough many great things: a unified URL/search bar, iCloud tab syncing and some neat new gestures (try pinching when you have a few tabs open). What it also did was remove the RSS button, replacing it with the Reader button found in iOS. This – apparently – pissed off a lot of people.
So, for those of you who used this button daily, we’ve put together a list of alternatives. None of them will give you the same functionality, but all of them are great RSS readers which work in slightly different ways.
I gave up on Google Chrome for iOS about a day after it was released. Even though my iPhone is jailbroken and I can bypass iOS’s restrictions to set Chrome as my default browser, I missed Safari. Also, Chrome felt considerably slower than the iPhone’s default browser, and that was because Apple handicaps third-party apps by not allowing them to access the lightning-fast Nitro Javascript engine in iOS.
Does the lack of Nitro in your favorite third-party iOS browsers keep you awake at night? Me neither. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be cool to make an app like Google Chrome just as fast as Mobile Safari. For jailbreakers, there’s a new tweak out that makes it all possible.
With the Safari 6.0 update, Apple decided we don’t need no stinkin’ RSS button in our web browser, so they took it out. Whether you agree with Cupertino or not is beside the point, the RSS button is gone and it’s probably not coming back.
Thankfully, one developer spotted the change months ago and already has a quick solution to bring back the RSS button to Safari.
With the launch of Mountain Lion, Apple also pushed out an update to Safari which removed the RSS button so many people loved. We received a lot of email over the past 24 hours asking what the best RSS Reader Apps for Mac are, but we figure you guys read just as much news as us, so why not ask you.
What’s the best RSS Reader App for Mac, and why? What do you look for most in an RSS Reader?
CLICK HERE TO TELL US YOUR FAVORITE RSS READER APP IN OUR FORUMS
It didn’t take long for OS X Mountain Lion to hit the top of the Mac App Store’s paid chart following its release yesterday, which means Apple shifted a heck of a lot of copies on day one. In fact, it sold so many copies that traffic from the Cupertino company’s servers was up to six times higher than normal.
With the release of OS X Mountain Lion today, Apple also released Safari 6.0 for Mac. As noted by some, the Windows version of Safari didn’t see the update, and in fact, disappeared from Apple’s site altogether.
While a direct download is still available, speculation has arisen that perhaps Safari for Windows had been completely discontinued.