Sadun
Latest
iOS 7 Quick Guide: 5 must-know iOS 7 features
iOS 7 represents the latest iteration of Apple's mobile device operating system and a sea change in the way that the company's customers interact with their smartphones and tablets. No more do skeuomorphic user interface elements clutter the screen; Apple designers know that after six years of iOS, customers have pretty much figured out how to use the devices. That doesn't mean there aren't new and exciting features! On the contrary, iOS 7 introduces some really terrific improvements that you'll love. Here are 5 of our favorites! Switching Apps. In iOS 6, you used to double-tap the home button to access a list of recent apps, which displayed as a scrolling row at the bottom of the display. iOS 7 updates that display, providing a tableau of screen shots enabling you to select an app with a single tap. It's a fabulous new feature, one that gives you a lot more context than a simple icon. Quitting Apps You used to have to open the recent apps, tap-and-wait, then click the minus sign on a wiggling icon to quit out of an app. Now? Just push any app's screenshot upwards from the tableau. Searching for Apps In iOS 6, you found Spotlight just to the left of your primary home screen. iOS 7 brings Spotlight search to every home screen, not just the first one. Just drag down from the top row of icons and presto, Spotlight is ready to help you find apps, contacts, events, mail and more. Don't forget, you can choose what items show up in your Spotlight searches by visiting Settings > General > Spotlight Search. Panoramic Wallpapers One of our very favorite features in iOS 7 is the motion panorama, or as Apple calls it, the "Panorama VR Wallpaper". It allows you to add a panoramic photograph to your home screen background and navigate around it by moving your phone. To set this up, scroll down on the Choose Wallpaper preferences screen. There, you'll find a list of My Panoramas. Tap it, select a panorama and tap Set. Choose Lock Screen, Home Screen, or Set Both. [Apparently Panoramic Wallpapers got dropped from the final iOS 7 release. Pity.] iPhone Level In iOS 7, the built-in compass has been totally redesigned. It adds a new digital level feature that enables you to hang paintings and install shelves. The new presentations are eye-catching, with lots of subtle, but powerful features. To start, tilt your screen to move the red calibration dot until you complete a full circle. Once calibrated, you'll be able to start using the compass and level features. They are visually stunning and a lot of fun to use. Yoni Heisler, Erica Sadun and Steve Sande wrote iOS 7 Quick Guide, an upcoming Amazon/iBooks eBook. It's aimed at experienced iOS users who want to hit the ground running for iOS 7. They're sharing some of their tips on TUAW in a series of posts about the iOS 7 upgrade.
BananaTunes beta streams beautiful music from iOS to your Mac
One of the great things about being a buddy of Erica Sadun is that sooner or later, she surprises you with an amazing app. [Ed: This is also known as "assault by beta testing" under Utah's penal code.] Her BananaTunes beta evolves iOS-to-Mac video app BananaTV to the next logical step -- it transmits full stereo music from your iOS device to your Mac. Built around the recent AirPlay reverse engineering, Sadun promises that this capability will eventually be factored back into BananaTV, her iOS-to-Mac video app. For now BananaTunes allows you to bring your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to the office or a friend's house and use its built-in iPod app AirPlay functionality to stream music to a Mac running this software. BananaTunes is currently available as a limited-time beta app so that Erica can work out bugs as time permits. It requires Mac OS X 10.6 and 64-bit, so be sure that you know what you're running before you try out the Mac app. When BananaTunes becomes part of BananaTV, users will need to bring their own key.pem file for authentication. Want to give it a spin? Either download these two zip files off of Erica's site and follow the instructions, or use this all-in-one installer package. Word of mouth is that the installer package works great, but our standard TUAW paranoia mandates that we warn you that we've been unable to authenticate its contents. (In other words, use at your own risk, but it's probably just fine.) In my limited beta testing today, I found that BananaTunes worked very well with my iPad 2. Tunes beamed from my iPhone 4 experienced some garbling. This could be due to network traffic, so be aware that your mileage may vary. Then again, it was a 1950s Dean Martin recording, so he may have been gargling Scotch while crooning the tune I was listening to. In the end, BananaTunes is a fun Mac app for when you want to control your music world from your iPad.
Give presentations on Apple TV with AirPDF and AirFlick
As I've been exploring the newest Apple TV, people keep asking to see if I can push boundaries in new directions. Apple TV's concept of a wireless video endpoint that connects to a large screen TV has excited a lot of people. Although I haven't yet been able to produce a way to show live game screens from iPhones (games are likely going to have to rely on local Apple TV resource processing for that, probably involving a unit jailbreak, at least at first), Apple's AirPlay does provide a ready way to give presentations using a Mac and Apple TV. In the video that follows after the jump, you'll see a new tool that I put together in response to TUAW reader requests. It transmits PDF files a page at a time to Apple TV. Read on to learn more about how this works and how Mac developers can easily hook into Apple TV transmission.
DVDs are playing back on my Apple TV using AirFlick and AirPlay!
The Unicorn has landed! Rainbows! Starshine! Skittle poo! It's like Christmas in...um...December! So why this exuberance and excitement? My Apple TV is right now, this very second, even as we speak, playing back a DVD of Finding Nemo. It's seriously awesome. Why watch a DVD on a laptop when you can easily stream it to your Apple TV? And it's not even all that hard to do if you're a bit of a do-it-yourself-hacker. Although, seriously, if the command line frightens and intimidates you, it's time to move on to the next TUAW post. Mac aficionado Erick van Rijk figured out how to use VLC to transcode a DVD in real time so that my AirFlick application could play it across to an Apple TV. The instructions, which you are heartily encouraged to follow only at your own risk, follow after the jump. Okay? Deep breaths. Here we go.
Introducing AirPlayer: Mac-based AirPlay service allows device-to-Mac playback
AirPlay is a very, very cool technology. Unfortunately, if you don't own an Apple TV 2 or other capable receiving device, it's not going to do you much good. (If you have the cash on-hand, for $99, the Apple TV mark 2 is a pretty sweet purchase. Just saying.) So I decided to figure out a way that people who didn't own an Apple TV, or who were on the road with their iPhone and a laptop could actually use AirPlay streaming "backwards" -- from their iDevice to their Mac. Behold our TUAW exclusive introduction, the development build of AirPlayer -- click Read More to see the video. What AirPlayer does is create and advertise a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV. Bonjour is Apple's zero configuration networking solution for allowing devices and applications to communicate with each other over local area networks. When Apple created AirPlay, it basically set up a new way for Apple TV to interact with iOS using Bonjour communications.
Apple TV Hacking: Spelunking into the AirPlay video service
When Apple announced its new iOS 4.2 feature set, Apple TV's AirPlay video service really caught our attention. That's why we were particularly disappointed when 4.2 debuted on Monday -- only Apple's own applications could ship video from iDevices to the 2nd generation Apple TV; third party applications were limited to audio transport only. We contacted Apple PR to ask for a statement about that, asking why the feature shipped without third party support -- and whether it had to do with performance licenses or similar legal matters. TUAW has not yet heard back from Apple at the time this post went live. Mike Rose asked if I could poke into the situation and see what's going on under the hood. Here's what I found. Big Massive Update: Thanks to Steven Troughton-Smith, the code has been reduced to a single line with no YouTube work-arounds needed. Details appended to the bottom of the post...
iPad and iPod touch books show off TUAW pride
There's a Yiddish word, naches, that doesn't refer to tortilla chips with kosher sour cream; it translates literally as 'joy' but with a strong connotation of pride and pleasure in the achievements of family or friends. It is, therefore, with substantial naches that we point to the work of several TUAW contributors gracing bookstore shelves near you. First up, from authors Michael Grothaus and Steve Sande with technical review by Erica Sadun, Apress' Taking Your iPad to the Max delivers a thorough guide to the magical and revolutionary tablet for both new buyers and existing owners. Retail price is $29.99, and Amazon will be happy to deliver it to you in plenty of time for the holidays. Second, Michael and Erica collaborated on the Taking Your iPod touch to the Max volume, also from Apress. The book guides iPod touch owners through all the information they'll need to make the most of their new devices, and it looks very pretty sitting under the tree with a new iPod. The book is $24.99 at retail. It's possible that longtime TUAW readers may already know a good bit of the information in these books, but there's always the chance to learn something new -- and for those family members or friends who are new to the world of iDevices, one of these books would be a great way to get them rolling.
hacksugar: Bringing back the on-screen keyboard
You've got an iPad. You've got a Bluetooth keyboard that you love. Now imagine this: You're in bed. Your keyboard is somewhere downstairs. And yet, it's still in range and paired to your device. You can tap, tap, tap in the iPad Spotlight text entry field, but there's no keyboard for you to use. Frustrating, no? Sure, you can hop over to Settings and globally disable Bluetooth. But there has got to be a better/easier way to recover the on-screen keyboard without messing with Bluetooth, right? There is -- but it's only available right now if you're a developer (sign it using your credentials) or using a jailbroken system. I've posted a little utility, which I call KeysPlease over on my website (direct application link) and on the ModMyI repository (thanks, Kyle!). I've added it to my iPad dock, and now when I'm in the wrong room I just tap the app icon to retrieve my soft keyboard. Bluetooth remains unaffected and I can keep working on whatever I've been working on.
