Don’t microwave your iPhone, please.

So some guys from 4Chan have been doing their dastardly best to throw the iPhone owning world into chaos. You might have seen this floating around the interwebs:

A very nicely produced ad designed to look like it came direct from Apple, introducing an amazing feature that means  you can charge your iPhone in the microwave.

Last year they used their super viral internet ninja skills to spread the world that the then new iPhone 5C and 5C were waterproof, leading to Trusty McTrusterson people all over the world trying to see the proof for themselves. Of course, they weren’t waterproof.

And putting your brand new shiny iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus in the microwave will NOT charge your phone. It will kill your phone, in a horrible, sparky McDeath way.

So please, admire these guys for their ninja viral internet skills, but don’t trust them. They be dastardly.

How to download iOS 8 the easy way!

Here’s the deal guys: iOS 8 is available to download onto your iPad or iPhone right now, and iOS 8 needs a lot of space to download onto said devices. Like, up to 6GB of free space.

BUT! Don’t panic and delete all of your photos and videos (which is where all of your space is usually taken up). That can end in error. Nobody likes deleting photo errors!

First – Back up your device to the cloud, silly. Sh*t happens. You don’t want it happening to your data.

Second- Plug your device into your laptop and open iTunes.

You may be asked to ‘check for update’, or if it recognizes that there is an update available, just ‘update’. DO NOT click ‘Restore iPhone’ as that will ruin everything and restore the device back to it’s very birth. IE it will forget it ever knew you.

Download and update your device with iOS 8 directly from there! Yay! Much less space needed and more reliable than an Over-The-Air update which is performed on the device itself.

The update should take roughly 25-30 minutes and then BAM! Hi iOS 8!

We’ll be testing all kinds of things featured in iOS 8 and letting you know all the ins and outs of the new operating system so if you’re not updating yet we can let you know what to expect!

We’re already addicted to not typing our own messages. Booyah!

iOS 8 Launching September 17!

The new mobile operating system, iOS 8, launches on September 17th and will be available for you to download from the app store for free! Whee!

It’s been a while though, folks, so we figured some of you may need a bit of a refresh on what to expect from and what to look forward to with iOS 8. Check out our in depth rundown of what features and improvements iOS 8 will bring to your life, as well as some other features that we’re looking forward to. 

It is always important to consider that although Apple has had lots of super smart people working on the new iOS for a while now, the first release will probably have a few bugs that although not usually anything major, need to be ironed out before it’s ‘perfect’.

Hence, if everything working perfectly is important to you as a mobile user, even small things, a lot of people advocate waiting to download the new iOS until these kinks have been ironed out.

We will be jumping in all over iOS 8 so if you do want to wait, we can let you know exactly how nice or buggy it is.

Also, iPhone 4 owners? You’re a bit sh#t out of luck with iOS 8, as you will be unable to update to the new operating system on your phone. Time to upgrade? We hear there’s a shiny new iPhone out there now… and we also hear there’s a company that’ll give you lots of quick cash for that stinky old iPhone 4 so you can buy that shiny new iPhone…

Just sayin’.

Exciting tool revealed in iOS 8 Beta 5 released today!

This morning, Apple released the Beta 5 update to iOS 8 as well as OS X 10.10 Yosemite Developer preview 5 to developers. Aside from being good news indicating that things appear to be moving along relatively smoothly with the new iOS, there is something we think is particularly exciting being reported about the updates in iOS 8 Beta 5.

What’s so exciting iPhone Antidote? Well, kids, Healthkit now includes the addition of Spirometry.

Uh…. wha?

Spirometry! Apart from being an excellent word to say, (c’mon, say it aloud, you know it’ll make you feel good..) spirometry is the most common of the pulmonary function tests measuring lung function. It’s an important tool used for generating pneumotachographs, which are helpful in assessing conditions such as asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

We hate ALL those stupid things, so spirometry is a tool we’re excited to hear will be included in iOS 8.

The Health app was also updated with new icons for Body data, Data Exporting, and a new option for showing Medical ID on Emergency Lock screen. Those things are cool too, we guess.

Image from page 569 of “The science and practice of medicine” (1866) by Internet Book Archive Images is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

New iOS 8 Features discovered

There’s by now been some time since the features of iOS 8 were announced at WWDC 2014. Developers have had access to the new operating system since then and some more details have arisen from that. Hooray for developers!

Here’s some of what they’ve discovered:

* You can send your iPhone or iPad’s last location to Apple before it’s battery dies.

* The magical miracle of Shazam will not be integrated into Siri, and you will have the option to buy or find out more about the song playing once it’s identified. Um, Awesome.

* Using Safari, you will be able to use the device’s camera to scan in credit card numbers when you make online purchases, rather than typing the number in. Because those numbers are soooo long, you guys.

* You know how sometimes you hand your phone or iPad to a friend so they can see a photo? And then they just start rolling on through all the rest of your photos? And sometimes we have photos that should not be seen by others, are we right? Well, in iOS 8 you will have the option to hide certain photos from the Moments, Collections and Years view within the app. The photos will still be visible in the albums view, but in a sneaky new ‘Hidden’ album.

* The Photos app will have two new albums; “Recently Added” and “Recently Deleted.” The Recently Deleted album will temporarily show photos that have been recently deleted. (d’uh).

* The Camera app will have a sweet new Time Lapse feature, manual exposure controls and a self timer mode for 3 or 10 seconds.

* The new Weather app will take it’s information from The Weather Channel in iOS 8 and will feature a bucket load more details about the weather- UV Index, sunset/sunrise times, humidity, pressure and that all important ‘feels like’ option.

* Photos will be able to be inserted into notes in iOS 8, so that instead of trying to describe that amazing thing you saw that one night that meant that you were actually supposed to be an astronaut, you can take a photo. Cos that’s a thousand words right there.

*There will be new options for calendars in iOS 8, including Islamic, Chinese and Hebrew. Meanwhile, keyboards will be available in Filipino, Marathi, Slovenian, and Urdu. Sladko!

* There will be location based apps displayed on your screen depending on where you are – the example given is the Apple App store App will display automatically if you’re in an Apple store. So many Apples.

* Peer-to-peer Airplay will give users the option to stream content via Apple TV without having to share a network connection.

So there you have it, some more details surfacing about iOS 8! Pretty neat ones too. Although we really can’t wait until the developers tell everyone about the iOS 8 line of sight transportation feature. Now that’s a rad feature.

ioS 8!

Welcome to the new iOS 8! As well as a bright new user interface update, iOS 8 will bring to our phones a new level of sharing – between family members, between app developers and between iDevices and Macs.

We’re pretty excited about the new software functionality this operating system is promising, and below you will find a comprehensive outline of everything ( that we know of so far) that iOS 8 will bring to your lives with it’s release in the Fall.

New Spotlight

The search function in iOS is called Spotlight, and with iOS 8 it brings a much broader ability to search, both on your iDevice and on the internet. For example -type in a term and you can see a part of a Wikipedia article, including a picture and a short summary. Tap it, and Spotlight takes you to the full article.

Spotlight will also show you search results like trending topics, popular websites, nearby restaurants with phone number and hours of business that can connect you to maps,  search results within the iTunes Store or the App store, and search results for movie times.

It seems like there is a slight crossover with Siri’s functionality in the new Spotlight, but making things easier all round can only be good!

Messaging

Messaging gets a lovely new overhaul with iOS 8!  Starting off impressively is the new ability to add video and audio messages. Simply touch and hold the new microphone button to record your message, and swipe to send. on the other end, to hear a message, you can now hold your iPhone to your ear and listen or just tap the play button next to the message.

All messages, text, video and audio, will now have the option to be deleted automatically, or within a time period ranging from a year to forever.

With iOS 8 you will be able to create larger and better controlled group conversation threads where people can be added and can leave at their leisure. Group conversations can be named for an event or experience, the attachments can be seen all in one place rather than opening them one at a time, and you can put the conversation on ‘Do Not Disturb’ so you can read the thread when you want without being, well, disturbed.

A new option with messaging which I’m sure teenagers are just going to love is the new location services within the messaging app. It is of course just that – an option – to show others that your are messaging where you are ( and if you really are studying in the library with Rachel, why do you have your location option switched off? HUH? uh oh).

Other than that, we can see this addition promising to be very useful. You can show your location with individuals or everyone for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.

Finally, a small but lovely touch is the new ability to send multiple photos and videos at once through messaging. YAY Let’s bombard EVERYONE WITH SO MANY CAT PHOTOS AND PHOTOS OF THOSE SWEET MOUNTAINS WE SAW ON OUR VACATION!

Health

The new Health app gives you an easy-to-read dashboard of all of your health and fitness data (Think heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol etc) . This data can be collected ( if you choose) from 3rd party sources and apps such as Nike, Fitbit, FitnessPal, medical devices etc and shown here consolidated for you and others ( again, if you choose) to access. This can mean that your Doctor or fitness specialist can be notified when something is wrong, or if you’ve hit a certain metric or met a goal.

Apple has been working  with the Mayo Clinic working towards what they say will  ‘bridge the gap between patients, doctors, and health-tracking devices…with ‘the potential to revolutionize how the health industry works.’

With health in iOS 8 you can create an emergency card  with all of your vital medical information ( think blood type, allergies, medications) that’s accessible from your Lock screen.

Despite all of the focus on Apple’s health related initiative before WWDC, the company spent very little time going over the Health app. It is likely we’ll see an additional focus on Health in the coming months as it is likely to also integrate with Apple’s much-rumored wearable device, the iWatch.

SIRI

Siri gets several updates with the ability to be invoked hands-free with the phrase “Hey, Siri” along with Shazam song recognition, 22 new dictation languages, as well as streaming voice recognition to show you guys search results as you speak. In order to preserve battery life, Apple requires that the device be plugged into power for “Hey Siri” to work.

Notification Interaction

When a notification comes up on your phone, from Facebook, Skype, Messages,  Calendar – whatever- you will now be able to respond those notifications without leaving the app you’re already in. Hoo- RAH! Such a small thing, that will make it so incredibly less frustrating than before!

Email 

Now from your inbox, you can swipe to mark an email as read or flag it for follow-up. Jump between a draft email and an email in your inbox super easily, and when you get a reservation, flight confirmation or phone number in an email, a notification appears. Just tap to add an event to your calendar or a phone number to your contacts.

Safari in iPad

Just like above, you can now see all your tabs on your iPad, just like on your iPhone. You can see all your open web pages with tabs from the same site grouped together. There’s also a new Sidebar that slides out to reveal your bookmarks, Reading List, and Shared Links.

Home Button

From any screen, press the Home button twice to see the multitasking interface which now comes complete with a few friendly faces. These are the people you’ve recently talked to and if you swipe to the right — your favorite contacts as well. Just tap one to call, text, or start a FaceTime call.

New keyboards

QuickType is the new predictive text and something we’re sure will change the way we communicate. We can also see it being comedian’s late night fodder for sure, but until then – it’s a clever and useful feature of iOS 8.  As you use the new keyboard over time, it will learn the way you communicate, get to know your favorite phrases, and suggest options for the logical next word that adapts to the current context with the caveat that those words change, depending on who you are talking to. The iOS 8 predictive text engine is optimized for 14 countries.

Apple is also going to allow users to install third-party keyboards for the first time, which means keyboards like Swype can be used natively on the operating system.

Family Sharing

Family sharing is pretty cool. Up to six people in your family can share all kinds of things across their devices. This includes: calendar information and purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store, (with the ability to pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device.) You will be able to automatically set up a family photo stream where you can share photos, videos, and comments. And everything stays up to date on everyone’s devices.

Family Sharing can automatically share your location with your family members and show you where they are. You can hide your location too… because that’s not suspicious or anything.

iCloud Drive 

You can safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud, access them and work on them live from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.

Using iCloud Drive means you’ll always have access to the latest version of all your documents from any device.

What’s really cool is that now your apps will be able to share files, which means you can access and work on the same file across multiple apps. The example Apple gave is this: you can create a drawing in a sketching app, then open it in a paint app to color it in. Or create a chart in one app and place it in a slideshow using a presentation app. No more making copies or importing documents from one app to another. It’s a whole new level of collaboration between apps.

Cross platform interaction

Um, what? You can do what now? Yass. Now you can make and receive phone calls on all of your devices and your Mac as long as your iPhone running iOS 8 is on the same Wi-Fi network. Incoming calls show the caller’s name, number, and profile picture. Just click or swipe the notification to answer, ignore, or respond with a quick message. It all works with your existing iPhone number, so there’s nothing to set up.

AND

PERSONAL HOTSPOT WHAT. If you’re out of Wi-Fi range but your iPhone is close by, your iPad or Mac will now be able to connect to your phone’s new personal hotspot to surf the interwebs and all that cool internet type stuff.

 Swift

This is a new programming language that Apple has introduced, which for developers, is pretty dope. For the general population, it’s also pretty dope, but on a different level. What it comes down to for you guys – apps for iOS 8 will be better. Which we like.

Extras We’ve learnt about since the WWDC keynote !

iPads will gain the ability to take Panoramic photos like the iPhone, while the Camera will gain an instant burst mode, a timer mode, and separate controls for focus and exposure. iBooks will support an auto night mode and the ability to organize books by series, while notifications will include travel time.

A mysterious Tips app, which was first depicted in an early screenshot of iOS 8, is also mentioned, though it is unclear what this app will do. It is possible Tips will provide iOS users with information on lesser known iOS features, serving as a tutorial app for those who want to learn the ins and outs of their devices.

So there you go, guys, iOS 8. Overall we’re really quite impressed, and very much looking forward to it’s release in the Fall. Apple developers have access to iOS 8 and will be working on creating awesome apps for the update so we can use the operating system precisely how Apple planned. It will, of course, be free.

The only downfall of iOS 8 – Those of you who have an iPhone 4, it doesn’t appear as if iOS 8 will be compatible. . Soooo… you guys…. have you heard about the new iPhone 6 that’s coming?

Stay tuned for our comprehensive outline of OS X Yosemite – and let us know if you have any questions about iOS 8 and we’ll try and answer them as best we can!!

WWDC 2014

The WWDC keynote began at 10:00am Pacific time at the Moscone Center in San Francisco with an introduction by Tim Cook, however it soon became The Craig Federighi show, with the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering introducing both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

The big theme of the keynote was sharing, from new Family sharing, to the new iCloud Drive, to cross platform interaction, or, ‘continuity’, the ability to use Apple functionality  across iOS Devices and Mac, from phone calls, to messaging, all the way to your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs and images.

Both system updates have a pretty new makeover, with new buttons, icons, transparency and fonts. The acquisition of Beats by Dre wasn’t only briefly alluded to, when Craig Federighi showed how to make a phonecall from his Mac, and called The good Doctor himself. The introduction to the new health app was nice, albeit brief, leading many to believe that a more in-depth look at the app will be coming, as it will have more integration with the rumored iWatch than with the iPhone or iPad.

As many had guessed, no new products were announced, but the amount of subtle and apparent improvements to both system updates were enough – for now.

Stay tuned for a comprehensive run down of all the awesome new functionailty and UI of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite!

WWDC Lands Tomorrow!

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference starts tomorrow at San Francisco’s Moscone center! The proceedings will kick off tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M. PST with a keynote speech most likely given by Tim Cook.

In that speech, we’re preparing to hear about iOS 8, OSX 10.10 ( or El Cap as it is believed to be called), as well as a range of other updates and possibly new software products such as the much rumored ‘Healthbook’.

We as consumers won’t see any of the new updates or products for a while, as the conference is used as a chance to have developers, well, do their developing job in time for the update or product’s release to the public months afterward.

There is always a chance that Apple will pull magical rabbits out of their beautifully packaged hats tomorrow, the same as there is always a chance that people will be disappointed if there is only incremental updates to the operating systems.

We’re hoping for the first of those options, and we actually think we might get it this year. We also may or may not still believe in Santa Claus, so there’s that.

But! We’re excited for tomorrow! You can watch the whole keynote on your Apple TV or catch the live stream via Apple. It requires Safari 4 or later on OS X v10.6 or later; Safari on iOS 4.2 or later.

OR you can keep an eye out for our comprehensive coverage of the keynote, with everything you need to know about what was revealed straight from sunny San Francisco!

iOS 8 Banner at the Moscone center for WWDC!

Apple is getting San Francisco’s Moscone Center ready for their annual Worldwide Developers Conference! New banners recently added feature OS X 10.10 and, as you can see below, iOS 8 ( photo supplied by Business Insider’s Jaw Yarow).

iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 will both be featured in the keynote speech that kicks off the whole event, starting 10am PST on Monday morning.

Hooray for new operating systems!

iPhone Tip Of The Day!

Forgotten how to use the search function on your iPhone? Trying to find that weird app you kind of remember downloading but can’t quite lift the fog on where it is among your vast collection of ( all necessary btw) apps?

It happens to the best of us!

For owners of an iDevice that has iOS 7 and above, you can access  the Spotlight search function by dragging your finger downwards anywhere on any home screen page.

Spotlight search will now appear and you can search for apps, texts, or any other content that is ( or that you think is) on your device.

For owners of a device that hasn’t yet been updated to iOS 7, swipe left from the first home screen to access Spotlight.

For owners of a device that has iOS 8, please call us, cos we would love to know how that whole thing is going…

Image courtesy of iMore.com