Book Review: iPhone Only Photography

How many pictures do you take with your iPhone?

The answer is probably a lot.

How many of those pictures turn out the way you wanted?

The answer is probably not so many. 

I guess if we are going to spend a lot of time and effort taking pictures with our iPhones, it would behoove us to learn how to actually do it well. For this reason I read David Molnar's iPhone Only Photography book.

Name: iPhone Only Photography

Genre: Mobile Photography

Price: $29

Stars: 5/5

Now you all know by this time that stars are not something I hand out like candy, I am pretty conservative in my use of stars in order to maintain their value. So why would I give 5 stars to this book? Because I think what it teaches is so important that everyone should know it.

This book will teach you how to capture memories using your iPhone. It does this primarily two ways by:

1. Teaching you to take better photos
2. Teaching you how to edit to recreate feeling

If you use any iPhone from the 4s up then you have a great camera in your pocket all the time and you aught to take a little bit of time to learn how to use it a lot better. Here is a quick example of what editing can do:

Before

After

It is still not a perfect picture, but the second one describes much better visually what I felt on that fall day. And I did it all from an iPhone 4s.

Honestly I have always felt that photography was something that I was not very good at but that I wanted to be. iPhone Only Photography has opened up the complicated world of cameras and photo editing to me in a way that I can understand and work with. 

It is a really freeing experience to learn how to do something new that you know you can use for the rest of your life. Especially something that will help you remember your life better. I hope you will go check out iPhone Only Photography and see if it is something that can help you. You can try three videos for free that teach the skills from the first few chapters of the book.

One more for the road:

Before

After

And remember, live better.

Control Center in iOS

Control center is one of the most useful features in iOS. Its purpose is to give  you easy access to system settings that you may need to access quickly or easily from anywhere on your iPhone or iPad.

You access control center by swiping up with one finger on the bottom of the screen. You can do this in almost any app and even the lock screen, so long as your settings (settings > control center) has both "access within apps" and access on lock screen" set to on.

The top row in control center are all settings that can either be turned off, or on by tapping on them. When an icon is black on white that setting is turned on, when it is black on gray it is turned off. You have access here to Air Plane mode, Wifi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, and Lock Screen Rotation.

Down from there you have a brightness slider control. This allows you to quickly adjust the level of the backlight on you device. Just slide right to make it more bright and left to make it less.

The next section contains the standard audio controls: Play/Pause, volume and fifteen second skips backwards and forwards.

Then we get the airplay and air drop controls. However these controls only appear if they are turned on and can be used. For example if you had wifi off they would not show up because they require wifi to function. Similarly if there is no device around to connect to they will not show up.

The final section of control center contains a row of quick access apps. You cannot control which apps appear here unfortunately so hopefully you like the selection that Apple has chosen. You can use the flashlight, the timer, the calculator, and the camera. Personally I think this is a useful collection, and I use control center to access all of them regularly, except for the timer.

Using control center can help you save a lot of time leaving apps or unlocking the phone to go to the settings app when something just needs to be done quickly. I hope you find these tips helpful, and remember, live better.

Using Dvorak keyboard layout in iOS 8

As most of you know I have been waiting for many a moon for a Dvorak keyboard on iOS. I think that layout is far better then QWERTY. As a side note I had to type on a QWERTY a couple days ago and my wrists quickly started hurting. If you have hand trouble you may want to consider switching over to Dvorak too.

Well, the long awaited day has finally arrived and a system wide Dvorak keyboard is here! In fact it has been possible ever since iOS 8 came out in September. So why the long wait in getting the good news to you? Two reasons. First, nobody immediately came out with a Dvorak keyboard, much to my chagrin. Second, by the team keyboards started coming out school had heated up considerably and I had to put the blog on the back burner for a month or so.

But now it is time. In the past couple months quite a few 3rd party keyboards with Dvorak layouts have slipped into the App Store. I will tell you about two of them here: Fleksy and Dvorak + Colemak Keyboards.


Fleksy
Price: 99¢
Stars: 2

Fleksy came out with the launch of iOS 8, but they did not support Dvorak as a layout right away, even though they already did on Android. Many people really like the Fleksy keyboard and say they can type quickly on it, I cannot. I find the way they do predictive typing to be odd and unwieldy. When they finally did ad the Dvorak layout I found that the keys did not line up as you would expect them to if you were use to typing on a regular Dvorak keyboard.

You can see this in the image below. The entire top row is not aligned where it should be, I soon found out that for some odd reason this is the case in many Dvorak layouts on iOS currently. This makes it hard to type because the keys are not where you would expect them to be.

Fleksy has lots of language layouts besides Dvorak, and it has a lot of customizability in terms of color and size. It also has special swipe gestures for certain functions. My main purpose here though is to review it as a Dvorak keyboard and so I won't go into everything that it does.

Fleksy requires you to give it "full access" under keyboard preferences in order to change to any layout other than English QWERTY. Usually keyboards need full access so that they can do predictive typing, the only problem is that in order to do that they have to collect your keystroke data. This has caused a lot of controversy around the internet because it could potentially be logging things like passwords and credit card numbers. Almost all 3rd party keyboards will ask for full access, it is not just Fleksy.


Dvorak + Colemak Keyboards
Price: 99¢
Stars: 4

Right off the bat this keyboard is looking better because the keys are in the correct locations for anyone use to a standard Dvorak layout. This allows there to be punctuation on the main keyboard, just where it should be. It shouldn't take long for those people to become familiar typing on this keyboard.

This keyboard does lack a lot of the bells and whistles that Fleksy and many other keyboards have, but that doesn't bother me. I don't need fancy color themes or size options I just need something functional.

One thing it is lacking though that is a problem though is an Emoji keyboard. I use emoji a lot when tweeting or texting, so this is a bit of deal breaker for me as far as everyday use goes.

Dvorak + Colemak Keyboards does no require full access to use, so your keystrokes are not logged. You will have to enable full access if you want keyboard clicks however because this is the only way that Apple will allow them to get access to the speakers.


Where I am now
Still using the standard Apple QWERTY onscreen keyboard. Why? Because, and this is nothing the app producers have control over, but 3rd party keyboards have been spotty across the board on iOS 8. Perhaps Apple was not really ready for them, but no matter which one you use it is likely to be buggy. They are sluggish and sometimes (often) will disappear completely. This makes it really unviable to use a 3rd party option as your default keyboard.

So for now, even though I was waiting for this day for so long, I am still primarily using the default keyboard. I hope that Apple will make significant improvements to 3rd party integration in the future, or better yet just make Dvorak part of the standard language package.

Well I hope you have found this post helpful, even if a little discouraging :( If you have found a keyboard (Dvorak or otherwise) that you like to use on iOS please let us know about it in the comments.


Disclosure: Archagon provided me with a free copy of Dvorak + Colemak keyboards to review. I never recommend anything on my blog though that I have not tried myself and that I approve of.

How to Screencast from an iPad Using QuickTime

With the introduction of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite has come a little heralded, but incredibly important, new ability to make an iPad or iPhone screencast on a Mac with no third party software. In the video below I explain how to do this:



Requirements:
iOS Device using lightning connector running 8.0 or later
Macintosh computer running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or later
Lightning cable to connect them

Why is this so important? Well it means it will be much easier for me to make tutorials for you guys. To do this before you needed a third party app, most of which were expensive. Now just with QuickTime I can make high quality examples for you.

This will also make it possible for people to essentially share their iPad screen if they use QuickTime and a conferencing service like Google Hangout. Think how helpful that will be in helping people who are having a problem (once I explain to them how to hook it up).

I am really excited about the possibilities here and I hope you are to. Have a great week and remember, live better.

How to delete apps on an iPad or iPhone

So you downloaded an app that looked cool, but it turned out to be pretty dumb or it crashed all the time, so you want to get rid of it. How do you do it?

The process is actually very simple:

1. Go to the home screen
2. Hold down on an app until they all start to wiggle and an "x" button appears in each corner
3. Tap the "x" button on the app you don't want
4. It will ask if you are sure? Choose yes. 
5. Taadaa! The app is now deleted :)

Be aware that when you delete an app all of its data stored on the device will be deleted as well, so make sure there isn't anything important inside of it before you do. Apps like gmail, Facebook, and Twitter all store their data on cloud servers far away so when you delete the apps you data is actually still there, that is why you can visit those sites in web browsers and see everything you could see from the app. 

Exceptions: the only exceptions are apps that come preinstalled on your iPhone or iPad from Apple (Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Messages, iTunes, Weather, Tips, Safari, etc, etc). We call these the stock apps and you cannot delete them because Apple does not make that an option, mostly because many of them have functions necessary to your phone running correctly.

An alternative and more complicated way to do this is to go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage. Then click on the app you want to delete, you will then be taken to a summary screen of that app where you will have an "Delete App" option.

The reason you may sometimes want to use this approach is because you might want to see which apps are hogging the most space on your iPhone or iPad. For example when I go I find that there are several graphic intensive games that hog my space I hardly if ever play them. If I were tight up for space I would know I could delete these and quickly get some back.

And there you have it, you can now delete apps from you iPad or iPhone. Hope you have a great weekend, and remember, live better. 

How to create keyboard shortcuts on an iPhone or iPad

Do you have to type the same thing over and over again? Maybe it's your username, maybe it's a question you get asked all the time, maybe it's your birth date, maybe it's a hashtag. Whatever it is, it can be super annoying to have to type out all the letters and words you need every time you need them. It is like having a typewriter all over again! (by the way there is an app for that if you really feel nostalgic about typewriters).

Fortunately there is a way to solve this problem and it is built directly into iOS, no app required. It is called keyboard shortcuts. Now this can be a little confusing because we normally think of keyboard shortcuts on the computer as being things like "cntrl-f" or "cmmd-z" to cause certain actions to occur. On iOS it is different. A keyboard short cut here means that you can type in a few code letters and iOS will ask if you want to replace them with some predetermined text.

Let's say that I have to type my consulting website's url all the time, and I don't want to do that anymore, so I make the shortcut bcom expand to the text bendnielsen.com. I show how to do this in the gif below:

Then every time I am typing and I need to put in my url I can save time by just typing out bcom, my iOS device will then suggest bendnielsen.com in the same way that it does with autocorrect. Isn't that awesome? Notice in the gif below how it follows the capitalization of what you actually type, so you want to watch out for that.

And that is really all their is to it. You can add as many of these as you want, and they can even be quite long, so you could put a whole email template in here if you chose and get it all typed with just a few letters. Be sure to make you shortcuts something that you wouldn't normally type naturally so you don't accidentally trigger them.

There you have it. Go create some keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier, and remember, live better.

How to use iCloud Keychain and find your saved passwords

And now we are going to talk once again about a very useful, but often not understood, function of the iPhone and iPad: iCloud Keychain.

What is it?
iCloud Keychain is Apple's built in password generator and manager. If you create a new account on a website you will often see when you get the password step the option for a long and complex auto generated secure password.

This is iCloud Keychain trying to help you out. Instead of using the same password that you have used for everything since 1998, it wants you to use a secure password that nobody could guess because it is randomly generated. The only problem with a password that nobody can guess is that you cannot remember it either, but that is ok because when ever you get the website Safari will just autofill the password for you.

This way you can have a different password for every website without having to try and remember them.

How to Setup an iPhone or iPad (iOS 8)

So you have a fancy new iPhone or iPad with iOS 8 and you are all ready to set it up? Good that is what I am here to help you with.

Setting up any iOS device has become a fairly simple process, if you are able to follow Apple's steps completely when you first turn on your device. However if your wifi is not working, or you forget your Apple ID, or you don't have an Apple ID, the process can be a little trickier. And if you don't restore from an existing backup that can also make it a little more work, unless of course it is your first time using an iPhone or iPad.

First off the easiest way is to follow Apple's instructions when you first start up your iOS device, they will walk you through several grey screens. These screens will help you connect to your wifi network, set your iPad up with your Apple account, or get one if you don't have one, set up iCloud, and restore from an old back up if you have one, ask if you want to use Siri, etc.

It is important that you are able to connect to a wifi network at the beginning of set up otherwise most of the steps cannot happen as they require internet. If you do not have internet connection or are not sure what you want to do at a particular step in the process don't worry you can always go back and change things or get them set up in the settings later, that's what this post is for :)

Now at this point in the process I strongly suggest setting up an iCloud account if you don't already have one. This is especially useful if you use other apple products (i.e. iPhone, MacBook, iMac, or iPod touch) because it allows a lot of communication between them.

Not everything that needs to be setup on your iOS device is set up during the initial phases. To get those taken care of you will need to go to the settings app. Also if you had skip any steps at the beginning this is where you will go to change them.

It does not actually move
but this GIF was too cool to pass up

Take a good look at that icon, its your new best friend. The setting menu's will allow you to change almost anything on your iPhone that can be changed.

Now we will go through settings, if you missed a step during the initial start up you can take care of it here.

How to use iCloud Tabs in Safari

Many people are not utilizing one of the best productivity features on their iPhones and iPads simply because they either do not know it exists, or they don't know how to do it.

It is iCloud tabs, which lets you automatically open up tabs that had open on another device. And it is actually very simple to do. Lets say you have productivity pad open on your Mac, but you want to read it on you iPad, here is what that would look like.

You have this webpage open on your Mac...

...and now you do on your iPad too

Here is how you do it on an iPhone:

And a Mac:

As long as you are signed into the same iCloud account on all your devices you shouldn't have an problems.

To check on a Mac just go to: Apple menu> System Preferences > iCloud > account details. Also make sure that the Safari box is checked. As in the video below.

This makes it very easy to switch from one device to another without having to remember and type in complicated URLs. The only problem you will run into is with password protected sites, you will have to put in your login info again on the new device.

Well I hope that helps. It is a simple tip that can save you a lot of time. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, First Thoughts

Alright, now that there has been a couple days for the news to settle and the hands-on reports are out, I wanted to give my non-hands-on impressions of the new iPhones.

I like them

No surprises there, right? I normally like what Apple puts out and once again I think they have made some fantastic new products this year.

iPhone 6 and 6 plus
I am admittedly a phablet hater. I think they look dumb when people use them and that the reside in a space that does not need to be filled. So I don't foresee myself ever owning a 6 plus. Even the 6 might be a little big for me, that remains to be seen until I hold one in my own hands in a few weeks.

One thing I would like to note is that Apple took their sweet time making a bigger phone because they were unwilling to just jump on a bandwagon without thinking through the user experience first. They thought through things like screen resolution on a bigger screen, and one handed operation, and how the operating system would look different on it.

The screens look really good on both phones, but when you are watching on a screen that is lower resolution than the screen you are looking at it is hard to tell...

They both look like gorgeous pieces of design, they are amazingly thin and incredibly elegant from the pictures and videos. Of course if I were spinning in slow motion on a white background I might look elegant too... never mind I wouldn't.

The Letdown
The main thing that disappoints me about these phones is the camera. The fact that there hasn't been any major improvement since the 4s is hard to understand. Each year brings us an incremental improvement, and slow and steady wins the race I guess... But the iPhone is the most popular camera in the world so I would have thought they would want to do more. I was really hoping that with a protruding camera we would get an optical zoom finally, but alas it was not to be.

My feeling on this is that Apple probably has a better camera in the wings, but they are holding it as one of the major improvements for the 4s. They couldn't give everything to us at one time (then who would buy next year?). Regardless the optical zoom probably needs more development before it is ready.

The upshot of the camera staying the same is that I feel less reason to buy any new phone soon, the 4s still has essentially the same camera as the latest model, and it can update to the new operating system, so it should hold fine for now.

Apple Pay
The big benefit of the iPhone 6 and plus in my mind right now is Apple Pay. Why? Because as Tim Cook said, credit cards are old technology that is insecure and needs to be replaced. Is that a reason to run out and buy one? No, not yet. But we know that millions of people will buy these phones, and that means the can begin to take place. This is something that really nobody but Apple could do, and I am excited about it.

Will there be security problems with Apple Pay? Absolutely, and people will make a big deal out of them. That is why Apple is so brave to enter the space. The deal is that there will not be as many security problems as there are with credit and debit cards. Apple waited to do this until they had technology like touch ID in place to help make it more secure. This is in stark contrast to other companies who have ran helterskelter into the mobile payment space producing fractured products with low security and no vision.

Alright, that pretty much sums up my thoughts on these new phones (ok let's be honest, I could talk for hours about them, but those are the important things). I don't want to make this post to long so I am saving talking about Apple Watch for my next post. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.

Apple's September 9th event rumor roundup

Here we go again. Apple will be holding another event tomorrow. And everything currently points to it being a big one. From the fact that Apple is returning to the Flint Center where Steve Jobs first announced the iMac, to pictures of a huge "structure" they are constructing outside it, it seems September 9th will be a day Apple fans will remember.

Here is an image of the invitation that was sent out for the event:

Apple's invitations usually contain a hidden message, but it is almost impossible to pick it out until after the event. However it is worth noting that this invitation is significantly less colorful than last years when the iPhone 5C was announced.

Anyway, here are my predictions on some of the more popular rumors.

iPhone 6: yes we will see the iPhone 6, and I think that will likely be the name of it as well. All the models (if there is more than one) will ship with iOS 8 of course. I am hoping that the 16 GB option will disappear and that 32 GB will become the new starter. I also think the new phones will also come with a 64-bit A8 processor and a new M8 processor for movement tracking.

4 inch: I am doubting there will be a new 4 inch iPhone, but I do think the 5S will move down into the second tier spot and the 5C will move into the free spot, so there will still be options for those wanting a smaller screen.

4.7 inch: This model seems all but confirmed by rumors and photo leaks at this point. I would be very surprised not to see it. It also seems likely that it will be getting a sapphire screen which will make it much less likely to shatter.

5.5 inch: I hope we don't see this model, there have been a few leaks indicating it, but I really hate phablets, and so my personal side is causing me to say no on this one. It just seems to big to the point that it would be filling the same spot the iPad mini already does.

iPhone and iPad tip: How to add the Smiley Face (Emoji) Keyboard

Have you always wanted to be able to get all those smiley faces and other special characters on your iPhone and iPad? These can help you to express emotions in what are normally plain text situations. Getting them is simple once you know how to do it.

In order to get these characters you will need to install an extra keyboard onto your iPhone or iPad. If you speak a language other than English you are probably already familiar with how to do this, but for English speakers the Emoji keyboard is often the only one they ever add.

1. Go into your settings app.
2. Click "General"
3. Then scroll down to "Keyboard" and tap it
4. Then tap "Keyboards"
5. Then Add New Keyboard
6. You well then see a list of all the international keyboard in alphabetical order (except for English which is on top.
7. Scroll down to "Emoji" and tap it.

You are now done. Now whenever the onscreen keyboard opens up you will see the globe icon in the bottom left. If you click that it will switch to the Emoji keyboard.

Here is a Gif I made that shows you how. You might want to  for later.

Isn't that awesome! Now you can express all that emoji goodness. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. And remember, live better.

iPhone and iPad Tip: How To Close Apps

Here is your iOS tip for the week. Most people don't realize or even think about the fact that when they press the Home button on their iPhone or iPad the app that they leave continues running in the background of the devices operating system.

This is a good thing because it allows you to use multitasking to switch between apps without rebooting each app each time. This can be very useful feature if you need to copy and paste something into an email, or you need to a so quick calculations on the calculator, or any other number of reasons.

But if you use a lot of apps (like I do) you can end up having a lot of apps open in the background and that can slow down you iPhone's or iPad's processor. Every once in a while it is a good idea to close out all the apps, particularly if you are getting a lot of crashes or a lot of spinning wheels.

Here is how:
1. Double tap the Home button (meaning click it twice quickly).
2. The multitasking menu will open, you can swipe through all your open apps by swiping to the left.

3. Close out apps by swiping up on them. You can actually close up to 3 at a time by using three fingers.

And that is it! Your apps are now closed. You will want to do this from time to time just to keep things tidy. I would suggest about once a week or more if needed. Older devices will likely need it more often than newer devices.

Note for old devices: if you are running iOS 6 or earlier your screen will look different. When you double tap you will get a "tray" of app icons at the bottom of the screen. You will have to hold down on one of these until the icons wiggle and little red buttons appear in their corners. Click the buttons to close the apps.

I hope that helps things go a little smoother for you. If you have any iPad or iPhone questions you want answered please put them in the comments below. And remember, live better.

iPhone and iPad Tip: How To Quickly Scroll to the Top of a Page

Here is another quick tip that has been around for a while but many people forget about. When you are in an app and you scroll way down (this often happens in apps like Facebook and Pinterest) how do you get back to the top of the page quickly?

Double tap the status bar

Simple right? Whenever you want to just zip up to the top, tap twice on that status bar (the best place is normally right on the clock) and there you are. The screen shot below is of the Gospel Library app, which is an app I use in church a lot. I often need the double tap option in this case because I will end up way down a chapter of scripture and need to get back to the beginning.

Just double tap on the clock

And you jump straight to the top

And that is it. Another really simple tip that can help make things a little easier for you. Please leave you iPad and iPhone questions in the comments below so I can answer them in a future post. And let's all remember to live better.

iPhone and iPad Tip: Home Page Corner Tap

Here is a quick little tip that many people do not know about iOS.

Most people know that you navigate between home screens by swiping left or right as shown below:

But not everybody realizes that you can an also navigate between the home screens by tapping the corners directly above the dock as shown in yellow below:

It can take a little effort to use this navigation technique, but it can be useful for moving quickly between pages.

Hope you enjoyed that tip. If you have iPad or iPhone questions that you would like answered please comment below. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.

App Review: Ninja Fitness

Name: Ninja Fitness
Price: Free or 99¢
Stars: 4
Type: Workout game

Some people will remember that I reviewed the Gorilla Workout app a while ago and really liked it. Well this app is from the same people over at Heckr. It is a really great app for those who are looking for workouts they can do quickly at home.

The Concept
The idea is to gamify your workout. You are a young ninja in training by an ancient and often comedic sensei, Master Old Beard. You have to buy new workouts and gear with "ninja stars" which you earn by completing workouts. You also get stat points in four different areas of training. You must achieve certain numbers of stats to get new colors of belts.

Four Areas
Where this app really surpasses Gorilla Workout is by having four areas of development which you can choose to work on. These are Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Zen.

These areas must each reach certain levels of skill points before you can advance to the next belt, and certain belts are required to purchase better gear. This encourages you to take a balanced approach to your training instead of focusing on just one area that you are good at or that you enjoy.

The strength and agility workouts cover most of the same exercises that the gorilla workout did, but the endurance and zen areas have new workouts focusing on cardio and stretching. Each workout is timed depending on its difficulty and the ninja star reward for completing it.



Your Ninja
Basically the whole point of the game is to customize your 3D ninja self with weapons and armor. You can choose whether or not you are a boy or a girl when you start as well as giving yourself a ninja name. Then you can choose the hair style, hair color, and facial structure that are most your style.

Problems
While I like the app a lot, and it seems to be very stable, there are a few things I wish would be improved.

The first is that there is no audio playback during workouts, I alway like to listen to music or podcasts while I do cardio, but I can't do that and have the ninja workout run at the same time because if you leave the app the workout will pause. This seems like a major oversight and a gap in market research since many people listen to audio while working out. Audio playback in other apps is totally possible in iOS so I do not know what the excuse for this is.

My second complaint is that while it is fun to level up my ninja, the ninja doesn't actually do anything and the store selection is small for ninja gear. I think there should have at least been some type of mini game that the ninjas could engage in so that their armor, weapons, and stats actually matter. This would give greater motivation to completing balanced workouts.

My last problem with the app is that unlike gorilla workout there is no offline instruction on how to do the exercises. Gorilla had written instructions in the app and video instruction online, but Ninja Fitness has only the online videos and the app freezes if you click on one of these without an internet connection, making it impossible to complete any exercises you are unfamiar with.

Well other than those few problems the app is very good and well put together. It makes it fun to workout (well as fun as a workout can be anyway) so I encourage you to check it out. Their is a limited free version, but I would suggest using this to check it out and not to spend too much time on it because your stats, gear, and ninja stars will not transfer to the full version.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on this or other workout apps below and also let me know any questions you might have. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.

7 Ways to Spring Clean Your iPad

Well, it is that time of year again in the northern hemisphere where the birds are buzzing, the bees are singing... scratch that, reverse it. In any case, many people are going through their closets, garages, and cupboards (an aside, I remember the first time I realized that cupboard was a compound word; changed my life). They are throwing out junk, setting things aside for their summer yard sale (like android tablets and windows phones) and dusting in places that got missed all winter.

Its a great time of year. Spring cleaning originated because as the weather warmed windows could be opened, furniture and children could be moved outside, and the garage and yard were warm enough to work in (thus husbands also could get out of the way). Just because our iPads have nothing to do with the weather does not mean we can't use the opportunity of spring to clean them out. When their is a mental state already in place I say use it. Let's take advantage of our cleaning mood this spring to clean up our digital life.

Here are seven ways to go about spring cleaning your iPad. If you have others please comment or tweet them at me.


Camera Roll
Here is one of the great culprits of iOS clutter. We use the camera and camera roll for so much more than actual photography and photo organization that it becomes very messy.

• Delete all photos you don't need any more
• Transfer photos to computer for storage
• Set up albums to organize your photos

Apps
We love apps so much, and so many of them are free that we can end up with quite a collection of apps we never use. I know I am a big culprit of this. Try these tips to know which ones to delete.

• Go to settings > general > usage
• see which apps are taking up the most space and delete the large ones you never use
• see which apps have large "Documents and Data" files. Go into those apps and decide if some cached files can be deleted or cleared to free up space.
• Clear out all open apps, then don't clear any for a week
• At the end of the week go through and make a list of all the apps you opened. Delete apps that did not make the list.

Software Update
If you have been putting off updating to the latest version of your operating system Spring cleaning is a great time to do it. As of this writing the newest version is 7.1 and it should be fine for everyone to update to, except for jailbreakers.

App Updates
Does your App Store icon have a large number in a red circle on it because you always push off updating your apps? Sometimes there are good reasons to hold off on an update to a particular app, but many of us just forget to go in and do it, now is a good time to take care of that chore.

Permissions
Throughout the year you download lots of apps, and on first opening a lot of those apps ask for permission to do certain things. Spring cleaning is a great time to go back and see what you have given permission for and take it away from apps that don't need it.



Go to settings > privacy and you will find:

•  Location Services
• Contacts
• Calendars
• Reminders
• Photos
• Bluetooth Sharing
• Microphone
• Twitter
• Facebook

Each of these represents a feature of iOS that an app can ask for access to. None of these can be accessed without your express permission, and a list of all the apps that have asked for access can be found by clicking on each item.

Go through each of these as part of your spring cleaning an make sure they all actually need permission for what they have asked for.

App Folders
If you don't use app folders to organize your apps, spring cleaning is a great time to go a head and make some. Here is how.
If you do already use app folders go through them and make sure that apps are in the best place where it will be easiest to find them.

Notes
Chances are that just like your photos app your notes app is full of small files that you created for specific reasons that are no longer relevant or needed. Go through and delete everything you don't need. Notes you do need for later should probably be moved to a more permanent location.

And that's it! Once you have walked through these seven steps I think you will feel much better about your iOS organization and your devices will likely be much cleaner and have more space. If you have other tips for spring cleaning your iPad please leave them in the comments below or tweet them to @halduauthor.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.

RIP iPad 2

The iPad 2, the only iPad with a number officially in its name, has been put to rest by Apple. It was removed from the Apple online store and replaced at the same pricepoint with the previously thought dead iPad with retina and lightning port (the 4th gen iPad).

One of Apple's longest running products the iPad 2 has really had a remarkable life. This long life is particularly interesting considering the fact that both the iPad 3rd gen and 4th gen (until now) had such short times on Apple's shelves.

Personally I always found it very odd that they kept the iPad 2 around as the low entry model for so long instead of just moving the last years model into that spot. This is the pattern they had been following with iPhones up until the last release where the 5 went into early retirement.

I guess the reason that the iPad 2 lived so long is that people kept buying them. Now personally I can't fathom doing such a thing as buying a two or three year old model new just to save a hundred bucks. This especially became true when the iPad mini came out cheaper than the 2. But I guess many people could and did do such a thing. I think I know more people with 2s than any other iPad model. Most people just don't grasp what the difference in processing power means and in a side by side store demonstration can't tell the difference between a retina screen and a non retina screen.

However, as well as the iPad 2 has done it really was time for it to die a while ago. And now with Apple offering refurbished iPad Airs for just $419 their really was no reason for people to ever buy a 2 for $400. The refurbed Air is my recomedation for anyone buying an iPad right now.

The big question now though is whether or not th iPhone 4s is going to die as the free iPhone option. With the iPad 2 dead it has no more 30 pin charger friends in the Apple store (except the iPod classic, but who counts that). And it may make sense at this poine for Apple to unify the line. They did just release a lower end 8gb iPhone 5C in other countries, but no word on if that will come over to America or not.

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens the next few months while we are in Q2, it is about time for another Apple event...

Hardware Review: Jot Stylus

Update: The Jot Classic that I refer to in this article is no longer available from Adonit, the other versions of the Jot are still available.

Finding a stylus that works well on a capacitive touch screen has been a challenge since the first iPhone came out. Prior to that time most people's experience with touch screens was in the checkout line at Walmart signing their name, or if they were either an important CEO, or just very nerdy with a palm pilot. I was a nerdy kid who did not buy much so my experience was in the latter. But these two touch screens shared a commonality that has never been present it the iPhone, they used a stylus to write and tap on a resistive touch screen. If you wanted to use your finger you couldn't, the best you could do was your finger nail.

Enter the iPhone, the first widespread device with a capacitive touch screen. Steve Jobs gambled that people actually did not like tapping around with a stylus on a Palm Pilot, or hunting about with a BlackBerry scroll wheel. He thought they would like to just be able to touch the screen with their fingers and have it work. It turns out he was right.

But a problem has remained since then and that is the trouble with hand writing on an iPhone or iPad (or any capacitive touch, rip off phone that has followed). It's not that people haven't tried to create styli for touch screens, but almost all have tried from the same basic concept: lets take something that feels like a finger and put it on the end of a stick for people to write with.

This concept has resulted in many cheap, and even some expensive, rubbery tipped styli. None of which work well. The problem in that they have no precision at all, they are the touch screen equivalent of drawing with a blunted crayon.

Enter Adonit. A creative team of thinkers who looked at the problem in a new way and came up with the Jot stylus:

Their idea was to make a stylus that felt like writing with a ball point pen, something no one had ever done before because even the old resistive touch styli felt more like a pencil.

The Jot uses an innovative concept to accomplish its goal. It is tipped with a metal ball covered with a conductive disk. The ball presses down on the disk to activate the screen with much more precision than either your finger or a rubber tipped disk. The disk is clear so that you can see what you are drawing.

Their are certain apps that have been optimized for the Jot to make it even more precise, but it works well even in apps that haven't been. I have found the Jot to be the most natural writing experience I have ever had on the iPad or iPhone. I have owned two Jots for several months now, both the Jot Classic, and the Jot Flip (which reverses to a normal ink pen).

The main complaint that I have with the Jot and that I have seen other have is that sometimes the disks that come on the Styli become "loose" and loose their precise nature. This has been the case on my Flip almost from the beginning and finally two weeks ago the disk fell off completely making it useless until I get a replacement disk.

Other than that it is one of the best companion products you can have to the iPad. Their is a large selection of Jots available now, including some that use bluetooth to increase accuracy and all for natural writing with the wrist down (I have not tried these).

Since its invention others have made precision styli but I have not yet had the chance to try any of those. If you are looking for a good stylus I highly recommend that you check out the Jot, especially if you were thinking about getting a rubber tipped that cost $10 or more you might as well just spend a little more for the much more precise Jot Classic.

Thanks for reading, that's all for now, but remember, live better.

If you have questions or comments about the jot please leave them below or tweet them to me @halduauthor

You can order a Jot from Amazon here (affiliate link).

App Review: IQTELL (with email integration)

Note: I have previously reviewed this app here, in that review I talked about how I wished that the email integration from the web service would come to the iOS app, well it finally has and that is why I am doing an updated review of the updated portions. 

Name: IQTELL
Price: Free
Stars: 4
Type: Productivity









IQTELL has been my todo list manager for quite a while now, and I feel like this update has been long in coming since representatives from the company have been assuring me that it was on its way since the app first came out. I am happy to say though that it has not disappointed now that it is here.

Email Integration
The powerful concept here is to integrate email and your todo list into one app that you have with you everywhere. It is not to make email your todo list but rather to closely integrate them so that the information from emails that should become todo items or resources can do so easily and go into the proper form to get them out of your inbox and off your mind when you don't need them. 



How does this help you get the tasks off your mind? By putting them into a system that you know will surface at the proper time and place. That way you no longer need to try and keep track of them mentally. For a full explanation of this you should read David Allen's book "Getting Things Done". 

Swipe Controls
There have been a lot of todo systems that have used email as a way to add items. In fact IQTELL has offered this for a long time through their email gateway option. So, what is special and different about this new option? The answer is the ease with which it can be done now by using swipe controls.

I have written before about the usefulness of managing email from your phone, partially because of the swipe controls built into iOS directly by Apple. Last year the app Mail Box pioneered a more complete set of swipe controls for better email management. Much of that philosophy has made it into this IQTELL email app with, in my opinion, better execution.
You have two options:

• Swipe to the left: receive a set of email tools. Delete, archive, move, and reply/forward. I lave having all these options available without ever opening the email itself. Even if this were just an email app it would make reaching inbox zero much easier.
• Swipe to the right: receive a set of "macros" that will take various actions on that email, such as turn it into a action on you todo list or into a project. 

Another nice addition is that a menu hand gesture has been added when you swipe from the left edge of the screen it will pull out the menu allowing you to quickly change the area of the app that you are in.

Still Waiting
Not everything in the world of IQTELL is perfect, I am still waiting on several of the features I noted were missing in my last post, such as calendar and contacts integration which would help to really get everything in one place. I would also like to see full functionality of the web app brought to iOS, for example I still can't do things like make a repeating task or a custom macro in the app and it is annoying to have to go to my computer for these things. Of course I may just be missing how to do these, in which case I am sure someone will let me know in the comments. 

All in all this is a great app at the right price. If you need a way to integrate email and todo list I suggest you look at it. That's all for now. Remember, live better.