iOS tips - page 4

How to zip and unzip files on iOS

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Zip mail zipping files ios
Zipping is so last century, but you can still do it easily enough on iOS.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Zipping files is easy on the Mac. You just right-click on one or more selected files in the Finder, then click Create Archive. The files get turned into an easy-to-handle .zip file.

On iOS, it’s a bit trickier. Even in iOS 11’s new Files app, you’ll find no built-in support for zipping files into a single package (or for unzipping them). To zip files in iOS, I use Readdle’s excellent Documents app. Lots of one-shot iOS apps will also do the job, but I like Documents because it’s also where all my documents live.

Everything you need to know about tagging files in iOS 11

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Tagging files in ios 11
Tagging files is a powerful and easy way to tidy up your files, but it’s currently limited to the new iOS 11 Files app.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

One of the most useful features in iOS 11’s Files app may turn out to ta tagging files. Tagging lets you gather pictures, folders, documents and any other files from all across your iPad and iCloud storage by giving them the same tag.

This means you can organize files without moving them — you could create a Vacation tag, for example, to collect maps, a PDF with your Airbnb info, your boarding passes, and even related emails. Then, when the vacation ends, you can delete the tag. The grouping disappears but the files never get moved.

Tags are also synced between the Mac and iOS, so your collections can group files from both platforms. You can also apply many tags to the same file, including it in as many “projects” or lists as you like. The tagging functionality is built into the Files app at a deep level, making it easy to use wherever you are. Here are all the ways you can use tags in iOS 11.

How to send audio from one iOS app to another with Audiobus

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Audiobus mixer on a piano
Audiobus is like a set of virtual patch cables for musical apps.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you want to make music on iPhone or iPad, you can choose from an embarrassment of fantastic iOS apps. You’ll also find plenty of music effects and recording apps on the platform.

The problem is using two types of apps together, because iOS isn’t nearly as flexible as macOS when it comes to digging into the system. But with a $10 app called Audiobus 3, you can route audio between apps. That means you can send music from, say, a drum machine to an audio recorder, or from your guitar to a sampler.

Further, you can route audio from many apps at a time, letting you create as complex or simple a setup as you like. If you think of Audiobus as a set of virtual patch cables for your iPhone or iPad, you’re on the right track.

How to use AirDrop for instant file sharing

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Airdrop ios iPad iPhone
AirDrop works across the room to make sharing files between Apple devices easy as can be.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

AirDrop, Apple’s built-in sharing feature, lets you beam pretty much anything between any Apple devices. You can use it to share photos, videos, URLS, documents, snippets of text — in short, anything that can be shared using the standard “sharing arrow” icon is fair game for AirDrop.

AirDrop really should be your first choice for sharing, because it doesn’t use the internet to send the files. It connects you and the recipient directly to each other using Wi-Fi, and makes the transfer that way. This makes AirDrop secure and lightning-fast. It also mean it works as well on the top of a mountain as it does in a busy office.

How to use the new keyboard shortcuts in iOS 11’s Files app

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Files app keyboard shortcuts
Files app keyboard shortcuts
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Files app is iOS 11’s Finder. You can use it to browse the files in your iCloud Drive, along with files and folders in your Dropbox, and inside other apps that open up their file systems to iOS. Apple has also added some keyboard shortcuts to the Files app. This lets you carry out many common tasks without touching the screen when you have a hardware keyboard attached.

Most of the new keyboard shortcuts are great, and show how serious Apple is about the new user-accessible iOS file system. But some serious limitations mean you’ll still need to reach up and tap the screen to do the most basic things.

5 tips to fix an unresponsive iPhone screen

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5 tips to fix an unresponsive iPhone screen
Is your iPhone screen acting up? Here's how to fix it.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

If you’ve been having problems with your iPhone or iPad screen not acting quite as responsive as usual, don’t panic: You can try out plenty of quick and easy tricks before heading to your closest Genius Bar.

Get five tips for fixing an unresponsive iPhone screen in our how-to video:

Everything you need to know about location sharing in iOS

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Location sharing
Where’s my iPhone? I know I left it around here somewhere
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Your iPhone knows where you are, pretty much all the time, and you probably know that it can share your location with other people, too, if you let it. Many apps ask to know where you are so that they can do their job (a weather app, a mapping app), but the iPhone has a few built-in ways to let other folks know where you are, and also to help you find a lost iPhone. There are so many ways to use location sharing that it can get a little confusing, but really, all those options are connected to the same service.

Let’s see how they all tie together.

How to use one-handed Maps mode in iOS 11

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one-handed-maps
This is all happening with one finger.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Using one-handed maps is currently suboptimal, because you need two fingers to zoom the map. But in iOS 11, the familiar pinch-to-zoom gesture is joined by a new tap-to-zoom, which lets you navigate the entire interface with a single thumb. This means that you can easily check the map while walking, or even — if you are an irresponsible psychopath — while riding a bike.

Wizibel makes videos for your music, so you don’t have to

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wizibel
It won't make Thriller, but it's better than nothing.
Photo: Klevgränd

The rumors say that SoundCloud is on its way out. The company is laying off staff, while burning through streaming bandwidth with no real way to make any money. If you’re a musician, this is a big deal, because SoundCloud is where you share music, and where you go to hear other musicians’ music. It’s a mixtape and an audition reel combined.

The smart move is to take your music to YouTube, because a) it’s not going away, b) it’s free, and c) it’s where everyone goes for free music anyway. The problem? You need to make a video. You could always just put a still image up there, but then the kids will get bored and move onto something else. But as a musician, you’d probably rather spend your time making music instead of making movie.

Luckily — surprise surprise — there’s an app for that. It’s called Wizibel, ands it comes from master iOS music-app-maker Klevgränd.

How to use iOS Mail’s auto unsubscribe feature

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unsubscribe iPhone
Unsubscribe from mailing lists with just two taps.
Photo: Cult of Mac

If you find yourself on a mailing list that you either never signed up for, or just got sick of, then iOS Mail has you covered. The app has a built-in feature that detects emails from mailing lists, and offers to unsubscribe from them right there, without you having to visit the sender’s site and hunt for the unsubscribe option yourself, like some kind of spam-lackey.

Quick tip: Using the awesome new iOS 11 Timer widget

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timer iOS 11
The old timer is lame compared to the new one in iOS 11.
Photo: Cult of Mac

betaIf you’re using iOS 10 in an iPhone with 3D Touch, you can press on the timer widget in Control Center and pick from one of the preset timer shortcuts. In iOS 11, on the other hand, you get a full-featured, interactive timer widget that you can adjust, pause, and resume, all without ever launching the actual clock app. Let’s see it in action.

How to add new Faces to Photos in iOS 11

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iOS 11 faces
Adding Faces is even easier in iOS 11.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you’re using the iOS 11 beta, you may be enjoying the new Faces and Memories features in the Photos app. But, even while the facial recognition has improved, Photos has lost the ability to recognize new people. If you look in the People album, you’ll see that Add People button has gone. How, then, do you add new faces to your library? Fear not — it’s still easy, although a little less obvious.

How to bulk select and delete photos the easy way on iPhone

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bulk select iOS photos
Swipe your way to quick selections in iOS Photos.
Photo: Cult of Mac

You know how to share, and how to delete photos from your iPhone and iPad, and you have no trouble selecting a bunch of photos at once in the Photos app. But what if you want to select a ton of images at a time? Tapping on each, one at a time, to enable the check mark, gets old pretty fast.

What if I told you that you could just swipe across the photos you wanted to bulk select instead? That would be be pretty great, you say? Yes it would. Let’s see how to do that.

How to switch off app review requests forever in iOS 11

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review request settings
Here's how to switch of ratings prompts, but you might want to leave them on.
Photo: Cult of Mac

In iOS 11, app developers will no longer be able to beg you to rate their apps. Or rather, they will be forced to use the official new Apple rating system, which promises to be a whole lot less annoying. And one of the benefits of Apple’s built-in rating/feedback system is that you can switch off all review requests in one place, so you never have to see another pleading pop-up again.

How to customize Favorites in Safari on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

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safari favorites
Look closely, and you'll see that the bookmarks bar and the Favorites have different sites.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Whenever you open a new window or tab in Safari, you’ll see a view showing a grid of your favorite sites. But what if those Favorites aren’t actually your favorites? What if the default Favorites are useless to you, and you want to have a different set of sites appear in a new tab instead?

That’s why were here today. We’ll see how to customize the Safari Favorites in both iOS and macOS, while leaving everything else, like the bookmarks bar, intact.

How to save Apple Music’s auto-updating playlists forever

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music launcher playlists
Grab Apple Music's ever-changing playlists and keep them forever, like a butterfly pinned to a board and kept in a locked drawer.
Photo: Cult of Mac

One of the neatest features in Apple Music is the For You tab. Specifically, the New Music Mix and My Favorites Mix playlists, which update every week with a whole new set of songs. But what if you dig one of these playlists so much that you want to save it? You can’t. Or at least you can’t unless you use an app like Music Launcher, which has a great kinda-hidden feature that saves Apple’s transient playlists in a permanent form.

How to use Siri Translate in iOS 11

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siri translate hero
Siri will answer you, no matter how stupid your question.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Siri translation seems like the most obvious thing in the world. You probably already asked him/her the meaning of a foreign word, or how to say an English phrase in another language. Under iOS 11, though, this will actually work.

All you have to do is to ask Siri how to say something, and s/he will respond with an answer. Even better, you can use Type to Siri to make the query, which may come in handy when you’re in a line at the market and you don’t want to start talking into your iPhone.

How to make animated GIFs of your iPhone screen in iOS 11

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workflow gif
Making screen-capture videos in iOS 11 is easy, and turning them into GIFs is even easier.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Thanks to the new screen-recording feature in iOS 11, you can now make a video of whatever you’re doing on your iDevice, and share it. I use this for how-tos (although ironically, not this one), developers can use it to make videos of their apps for the App Atore (the new iOS 11 App Store features videos quite prominently), and regular folks can use it to record a snippet of a YouTube video or suchlike. But what if you prefer to share your optimized video as a huge, bandwidth-hogging GIF instead?

Well, iOS has you covered there, too, but you’ll need to download Apple’s free Workflow app.

How to type faster with Key Flicks in iOS 11

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key flicks iOS 11
iOS 11's Key Flicks make typing on the iPad a whole lot easier.
Photo: Cult of Mac

The nice thing about an on-screen keyboard is that you can change how it works with a software update. That’s exactly what has happened in iOS 11. Now, the iPad keyboard uses something called Key Flicks to give fast access to double the number of keys, without changing the layout or making anything smaller. It does this by introducing a new gesture to access all those extra characters, and you’ll never have to press the 123 key.

iOS 11 Dock makes Handoff worth using again

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iOS 11 handoff
Handoff apps appear in the Dock's rightmost spot.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Handoff is one of those iOS/Mac features that seems great, but is limited in use. However, a simple tweak has made Handoff waaaay better in iOS 11. Now, instead of having a tiny app icon appear in the corner of your lock screen, Handoff apps show up right there in the new iOS 11 Dock.

This simple change has gotten me using Handoff again, instead of ignoring it like I have for the past however many years.

How to automatically save iMessage pictures to the iPhone Photos app

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save iMessage pictures
Easily save lots of iMessage pictures and movies all at once.
Photo: Cult of Mac

You can’t yet automatically save incoming photos and videos from the Messages app in iOS, but there is a way to quickly select a whole bunch of iMessage pictures and movies, and save them all to your Camera Roll.

Why would you want to do this? The main reason is search. Once your media gets inside the Photos app, it can be searched and included in Memories. Plus, all the pictures of people will get scanned and recognized. In short, right now some of your most valued pictures don’t show up in the place you keep all your pictures. Let’s change that.

How to use iOS 11’s new Automatic Setup

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automatic setup
In iOS 11, you won't need to remember anything when you get a new iPhone.
Screenshot: Cult of Mac

Setting up a new iOS device is pretty easy, but it’s about to get even easier thanks to iOS 11’s new Automatic Setup feature, which lets you hold your old device near your new one to transfer across essential info.

All you need to set up a new iOS device are your iCloud login details, and the password for your WiFi network. But even that can be a bit of a pain, especially if you use a super-secure passwords that you store in something like 1Password. In order to get to your passwords, you need to install 1Password. But in order to install 1Password, you need to input your iCloud ID and your WiFi login. Automatic Setup will put an end to that.

Enable the hidden dark mode in iOS 11 and save your eyes

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iOS 11's Smart Invert feature brings a stunning dark mode
iOS 11's Smart Invert feature brings a stunning dark mode
Photo: Cult of Mac

Some users have been longing for an iOS “dark mode” for quite a while. With iOS 11, Apple is introducing a new Smart Invert feature that replicates the dark mode functionality, though it’s not quite there yet. It builds upon iOS’ classic Invert Colors mode but excludes some images, media and apps that use dark color styles.

Here’s how you can try out the hidden dark mode in iOS 11 right now.

Siri tweak lets you type your queries in iOS 11

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Type to Siri on iOS 11
Tired of talking to Siri? In iOS 11, you can tap out your requests silently.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Using Siri in public places can be a drag. Either it’s too noisy for Apple’s AI assistant to understand your query, or it’s too quiet and it’s embarrassing (or even risky) to ask Siri for help.

Luckily, iOS 11 brings a Siri upgrade that changes all that: The new Type to Siri feature lets you silently send all your questions and commands. This feature comes disabled by default, but enabling it shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.