The TNW magazine have issued a new item to say they are no longer going to produce their magazine on android. The have cited many reasons, but again it just highlights the iOS app advantage over any other operating system.
The diversity of android is its strength but also it’s weakness.
iOS 6 is a marvellous operating system. There are many little tricks to make it even better to use. And what’s surprising is how many people haven’t even bothered to look at a certain menu in their tablets or iPhones.
So lets get started. We will use the iPhone as the example, but the principle is similar for your iPad, except for flashes.
First up, go to the settings app, select general, keyboards, add new keyboard. Scroll down til you get to Emoji. Select this. Whenever you go to use the iOS keyboard you will now have a globe icon bottom left. Tap this to switch between emoji and the standard keyboard.
Next go to settings app again, general , accessibility and turn on speak selection, scroll down a bit and turn on led flash for alerts.
So what do all these settings do in practice. Emoji icons allow you to do this “😄🏁🚲💉🍻⛄☕” now if you don’t have an apple device you won’t see them. Some android devices do have the emoji plugin or installed as a third party option, but it’s not standard yet in that system.
Problem is, what do some of the emoji icons actually mean. There are so many different facial expressions it can be tricky working out their meanings. Panic no more, simple hold and select them , and one of the new options is speak. Tap this, and Siri will read out all the emoji icons expressions in full. Speak all will read out any text highlighted. Siri is quite fun with this.
The led flash for alerts does exactly what it says, when the phone is asleep or screen off. The camera flashes briefly to alert you on a notification. On the iPhone 5 it is a powerful yet discreet alert. On older iPhone models like the 4S the flash is very bright.
So there we have a few tips for your today. If you have any other ones, feel free to share in the comments.
Starting January 28, Foursquare will be changing two main things: your full name will be displaying your full names and businesses will see more of their customers’ info (for more than 3 hours).
From Foursquare –
1. We will now display your full name. Currently, Foursquare sometimes shows your full name and sometimes shows your first name and last initial (“John Smith” vs. “John S.”). For instance, if you search for a friend in Foursquare, we show their full name in the results, but when you click through to their profile page you don’t see their last name. In the original versions of Foursquare, these distinctions made sense. But we get emails every day saying that it’s now confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public. As always, you can alter your ‘full name’ on Foursquare at https://foursquare.com/settings.
2. A business on Foursquare will be able to see more of their recent customers. Currently, a business using Foursquare (like your corner coffee shop) can see the customers who have checked in in the last three hours (in addition to the most recent and their most loyal visitors). This is great for helping store owners identify their customers and give them more personal service or offers. But a lot of businesses only have time to log in at the end of the day to look at it. So, with this change, we’re going to be showing them more of those recent check-ins, instead of just three hours worth. As always, if you’d prefer not to permit businesses to see when you check into their locations going forward, you can uncheck the box under ‘Location Information’ at https://foursquare.com/settings/privacy.
What do you think of the changes. Personally they don’t seem to onerous.
Did you know you can completely control twitter via SMS. Go to your twitter profile and add your mobile number and allow SMS control if asked. Make a note of the twitter SMS number.
Twitter SMS Commands –
Turning mobile Twitter updates OFF and ON:
ON: turns ALL your authorized Twitter updates and notifications on.
OFF: turns ALL phone notifications off.
ON [username]: turns on notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: ON alissa
OFF [username]: turns off notifications for a specific person on your phone. Example: OFF blaine
FOLLOW [username]: allows you to start following a specific user, as well as receive SMS notifications. Example: FOLLOW jerry, or F jerry, for short.
UNFOLLOW [username]: allows you to stop following a specific user.
LEAVE [username]: this command allows you to stop receiving SMS notifications for a specific user without having to unfollow them. When you log into twitter.com from the web you will still see this user’s updates in your timeline. Example: LEAVE benfu, or L benfu, for short.
STOP, QUIT, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, or ARRET: will deactivate your account if you are an SMS-only user. If you completed the sign-up flow on the web, sending any of these commands to your Twitter short code will simply remove your phone number from your Twitter account.
Fun stuff – friends, favorites, and stats:
Use the commands below to send direct messages, mark Tweets as favorites, and more.
@[username] + message – shows your Tweet as a reply directed at another person, and causes your Tweet to save in their mentions tab. Example: @meangrape I love that song too!
D [username] + message – sends that person a Direct Message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive. Vital you keep SMS under 160 characters
RETWEET [username] – sends that user’s latest Tweet to your followers
SET LOCATION [place name] – updates the location field in your profile.
SET BIO – edits your Bio information on your Twitter profile.
SET LANGUAGE [language name] – selects the language you’d like to receive notifications in.
SET NAME [name here] – sets the name field on your Twitter profile.
SET URL [url here] – sets the URL field on your profile.
WHOIS [username] – retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter.
GET [username] – retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by that person. You can also use g [username] to get a user’s latest Tweet. Examples: get goldman or g goldman.
FAV [username] – marks that user’s last Tweet as one of your favorites (reply to any update with FAV, FAVE, FAVORITE, FAVOURITE, or * to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time). Examples: fav crystal, fave crystal, favorite crystal, or *crystal
STATS [username] – this command returns the given user’s number of followers, how many people they’re following, and their bio information.
SUGGEST, SUG, S, or WTF – this command returns a list of Twitter users we think you might find interesting and would like to follow.
HELP, INFO or AIDE – texting help, info, or aide to Twitter will bring up helpful tips.
SUGGEST – this command returns a listing of Twitter users’ accounts we think you might enjoy following.
A few notes on SMS commands:
Using ON/OFF [username] from your phone only stops notifications coming to your mobile phone; you’ll still collect a person’s updates on the web since you’re still following them.
Use UNFOLLOW [username] to unfollow a user via SMS.
Use BLOCK [username] or BLK [username] to block a user via SMS.
You can also use UNBLOCK [username] or UNBLK [username]
Use REPORT [username] or REP [username] to report a user as spam.
The following commands perform the same actions: FOLLOW = ON. And LEAVE = OFF.
Following someone from a phone for the first time will also cause you to follow them on the web.
You don’t have to use ON/OFF [username] from your phone, you can also set individual notifications from a person’s profile page on the web, or check your following page and manage all phone notification settings there.
Today’s specials are as follows –
Apple – Ed Sheeran – 3 live songs EP
Amazon – still not updated from yesterday. Will update soon. Update. Free app Lets Break Stuff Premium.
Google – Free stuff from Moog. Google’s specials are really weird.
As each year passes the respective mobile operating companies like Amazon, Google and Apple are trying to push you further and further towards their own offerings. It is becoming clear that at some point in the future you may be forced to make a decision.
So over the next few months I’m going to try using first up Apple and iOS exclusively and then I’ll do the same experiment with Google and android.
So firstly I moved all my pim information into the iCloud and switched my email too. Then I looked at all the iCloud settings and turned everything on from bookmarks, notes, documents, photos, photostream, apps,movies and books. I also turned on iMessage and FaceTime.
So what did all this mean. Welll what I found was no matter what I was on using, (Mac, iPad, iPhone or Apple TV) everything was synced across all the devices without any effort. Also I was able to make a face time call from any device and make that to any other type of device at the other end. In addition with iMessage I could either use my iPhone or iPad to send a text message to another iPhone user. If I took a photo on the iPad or iPhone it would appear on all the other devices with no intervention from myself. It would also be sorted in month order as well on iPhoto on the Mac. If I bought any media (music film app) it would download and install on any of my devices. If I saved a new bookmark on my iPhone that same bookmark would be on my iPad and Mac. If I created a new calendar, contact or a note, again this would be synced across any device. In fact what I’m finding is the Apple syncing and management between all the devices is extraordinarily simple and fantastic to experience.
No wonder people find it difficult to change for one operating system to another.
Time have compiled 57 of the worst moments in tech in 2012.
Some absolute classics.
Before I start I have deliberately left out the Microsoft tablet. It wasn’t in any stores and therefore nobody was buying it. In fact nobody is buying it online either.
So there are was shopping in Plymouth, Devon yesterday. It has a superb selection of mobile and technology shops. You can buy all the above tablets with ease.
I spent time playing with each, as you do if you like technology, but also seemed to become a salesperson whilst in the stores helping people of all ages.
Whilst the iPad well actually the iPad Mini draw crowds, the real surprise came from another tablet. And it wasn’t the Nexus 7. The one tablet that was buzzing through the tills was the Kindle Fire HD.
Now I spoke to several people to find out why the Kindle. Like Apple has brand recognition, so does Amazon. And Amazon was more popular than Google’s Nexus 7 tablet.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see Amazon eventually overtake Google and even Apple in 2-3 years time.
Below are the specials from Apple, Amazon and Google. Updated.
Apple – Free Book – Rachel’s Holiday – Marian Keys
Amazon – Free App – this is still showing Edge Extended. I will update later if this changes. This has now changed to Word Off – the ad free version
Google – 30 Rock – Purchase with a discount of $10.99 a series
Yesterday I went shopping specifically to buy a Note 2. It’s uniqueness has been rattling my door for a while, and the decision to buy was becoming more and more swayed by hearing my gadget friends had got one for Christmas.
So, I went into several mobile phone stores and to my surprise I found the Note 2 had standalone tables with several units available to play with in several of the mobile phone shops. So once again I had a good play with the device and found I really loved the big screen and the accuracy of the S pen.
I even found a good price in one of the phone shops and they had the titanium grey colour in stock. But I just couldn’t make myself buy it. I kept looking at my iPhone 5 and thinking how compact it looked and how useful iOS 6 and the Apple ecosystem really was. By moving to the Note, I would lose the Apple synchronisation between every Apple device, but I was going to the gain the android operating system benefits. I would also lose some applications that are only available on iOS and also some of the great games that just seem to work so much better on the iPhone.
I decided to have a think about it and went for a browse in all the gadget type shops. I realised that for the same price as the Samsung Notes 2, I could buy a DLSR camera, a kindle paperwhite, and a speaker system. That made me realise that actually I was way better keeping the iPhone 5 and passing this time on the Samsung.
Reflecting on what happened today it made me realise actually what I actually like is a 5 inch iPhone. Apple if you haven’t read my blog please do so, then please make a 5 inch iPhone. If you have any views on this please post them in the comments. Did you do think Apple should make a 5 inch iPhone?
