iOS 7 battery life effective fix

iOS is great and I like the animation when closing the apps. But it drained my iPhone battery like a leaking oil tank. Before I upgrade to iOS 7, I only need to charge my iPhone every alternate day. After upgrade to iOS 7, it seems like I just installed a “vampire” app in my iPhone. Within three hours, I noticed that my iPhone lost 30% of its battery power.

Firstly, I made sure most of the background apps are closed and I blocked my GPS tracking. But it did not help a lot. After some experiments, I finally found out the culprit and put in the effective fix. The culprit is “iCloud”. Once I turned off all my iCloud sync in Setting->iCloud, now my iPhone battery is back to its normal self.

Hope this tip will help others that are facing same battery life problem.

iPhone and iPad Child Restrict Access

Nowadays, everywhere we go, we see kids playing with their parent iPad or iPhone. With iPhone and iPad, kids are exposed to various inappropriate content online and they might be tricked into buying apps through in-app purchase.

To prevent this, Apple has Restriction Access feature built into iPhone and iPad. To enable restrictions and to customize what the kids able to access, go to Settings, General, Restrictions and tap “Enable Restrictions.” You will first be promoted to select a 4-digit passcode before choosing which content and apps can be accessed.

  

Two useful ways of using Siri

Siri had been there for quite some time. But I seldom use it. Recently I tried to use it in some of my daily activities. And I found it is useful in two of my daily activities, quick messaging and setting alarm.

1) Quick messaging

When you are composing a quick and simple message like “Call me now” or “Where do you want to go”,  Siri will offer you a good help. Just tap the microphone icon to bring out Siri and say what you want to type. Your iPhone will do the rest for you. It is pretty accurate. This is especially useful when you are driving or when you hands are busy with something.

 

2) Setting Alarm

Well, I am a very lazy panda. If there is  something I can complete in one step, I will not do two steps.  Tap the alarm app, then tap the Alarm tab, then set the time,  these are simply too tedious for me.

Just press and hold the Home button to bring out Siri, then say, “Set my alarm for [whatever time you wish]”(for this case is 6.30am). and Siri will do the job for you.

 

If you have more tips of using Siri, please share with us.

What is the relationship between your Iphone and car?

No matter what is the relationship now between your iPhone and car, it is going to change. Apple is looking to integrating car system with its iPhone.  The USPTO published a number of Apple patent applications, including two related to automobiles.

Apple’s recent acquisition of indoor positioning system company WiFiSLAM could work very well in terms of helping provide a way to make the car and mobile phone  integration system work.  The system would involve pairing a car and an iPhone via Bluetooth, and then using that connection to automatically detect when a car ends up actually parking in a spot. Then, it uses sensor data communicated from the parking facility itself to peg a location.

The other car-related application is a system that would turn the iPhone into a remote car starter, unlocker, and essentially a parental control device for a target vehicle. Again Bluetooth is used to pair a car and a handset, and then user can choose their level of security to unlock the car.

I remember in one of James Bond movie, 007 was using a device to control his car. I think we are one step closer to make it to reality, but the consequences of over replying on technology will do more harm than good to our human race.

 

 

Character Count in Iphone Text Message

Sometimes you want to know how many characters you have typed in your message. This is especially true if there is carrier fee applied based on the number of characters you send.

To enable the display of character count, go to Settings, Messages then turn on the Character Count. The count appears as you type when your message exceeds two lines.

  

iOS 6.1.3 Solved the Security Concern

In the post iOS 6.1 Security Concern, I mentioned about a passcode security bug where someone can bypass the passcode and access the Phone app. Apple had just released the fix for it in iOS 6.1.3.

iOS 6.1.3 was started as iOS 6.1.1 in early February, but was re-labeled as iOS 6.1.3 as Apple rushed out some last minutes bug fixes.

Other key improvements that come together with this release are

– Improvement of map in Japan

– patch of security holes used by the evasi0n jailbreak tool, so users interested in jailbreaking their devices will undoubtedly want to hold off on upgrading until more information surfaces.

iOS 6.1 Security Concern

An article in techcrunch.com revealed that with a simple workaround, a person can open the phone app on any locked iPhone running iOS 6.1. From there a person has full access to the photo library, can edit contacts, and send emails, text messages or even make a FaceTime call.

Apple is aware of this bug. While waiting for the fix, users must take precaution and not simply leave the iPhone around. I definitely do not want my photos in my photo library to be viewed by others, or letting others have chance to send prank message to people in my contact list.

 

Paid App Gone Free – File Assistant, Thumb Drive Killer

File Assistant- Files Browser and Documents Manager Free until 20 Jan 2013

File Assistant Download Link.

I come across an iPhone app that gone free today.  It is called File Assistant. Usual price is U$3.99 but it is free during promotion period from 18 Jan 2013 to 20 Jan 2013.

File Assistant turns iPhone into a storage device like thumb drive where user can store files in iPhone by transferring files from PC wirelessly. It functions are more than just a thumb drive.   File Assistant enables user to view and manage your files anyway and anytime. Not only user can view different type of files, especially Microsoft office files. Users are able to copy, move, zip and email files within the app.

I  like the wirelessly transfer, where I can use Windows file explorer to manage the files stored inside this app in my iphone.

Another thing really impressed me is users can copy and move multiple files inside the app with swiping. It is like opening two windows explorer or Finder in Mac side by side and do the copy and move. It is very convenient.

There is security feature like password lock to prevent others to enter the app.

If users are afraid that the files will take up too much space in their iphone, user can choose to zip the files. When users need to use the files, just unzip it. All this can be done within the app.

As what the app claimed, users might forget to bring their thumb drive but unlikely will forget to bring the phone.

With File Assistant app in iphone, users can keep their thumb drive in the history box.

Trick to find your app immediately

We installed so many apps in our iPhone. Some are hidden in the group that we created. That day I was finding my timer and stopwatch app, Ring Go. Instead of going through each page and open up each group to look for it, here is a simple tip I want to share that can get the app showing itself  up immediately.

Step 1: connect iphone to PC and open iTunes.

Step 2: Go to your iphone device-> Apps tab.

Step 3:  scroll through the apps at the left panel and look for your app name. Since it is sorted in alphabertical order, it can be easily found.

Step 4: double click the app at the left panel and the app will automatically show up at the right panel to tell you the location  of it in the iphone.

This is amazing trick that not many people know about it yet. Feel free to share it with your friends and relatives.

Iphone, Ipad and Ipod Touch Keyboard Trick part 2

This is second part of the post Iphone and Ipad keyboard tips. In part 2, there are more tips and tricks to make your message much easier and fun.

1) Add Shortcut

Do you find yourself typing the same thing a million times a day? Go to Settings > General > Keyboard and look for Add New Shortcuts after you scroll down to the bottom. Select it and then just enter the phrase and appropriate shortcut, and the next time you type that shortcut the phrase will appear.

2) Character with Accent Mark

Want to make sure the accent mark in Montréal is correct? Just hold down the letter you need to accent, and all of the extra characters will appear. Just pick what you need and go from there.