Apple, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, iPhone 13 Pro, M1 Max, Mac, MacBook Pro, macOS 12 Monterey, OS Software

Ten Insanely Useful New Features in iOS 15: videos of top tips

Video April 17, 2022 Wiley Simms

The list is long and the potential is deep: learning the most useful tricks that can help clarify the options

At the bottom of this post is a list of just some of the new features, as compiled by Apple. These are the ones that they deem important enough to be considered “Key Features and Enhancements” for iOS 15.

Just to scroll through hundreds of entries and even just casually browsing the features and enhancements would be a lengthy endeavor, but to exhaustively learn to use even the top 10 or 15 most interesting features would require a real investment of time and energy.

Fortunately we have begun the process of converting the best tips and new software capabilities into how-to videos has yielded a batch of simple, quick and easy explanations to make it easier to get an iPhone iOS 15 diploma cum laude. See videos and features list below:

Here are just a few of them:

Apples Key Feature List Below:

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New features
available with iOS 15.

iOS 15 brings amazing new features that help you connect, focus, explore, and do even more with iPhone.

Key Features and Enhancements

FaceTime

SharePlay: Watch together

Bring movies and TV shows into your FaceTime calls and enjoy a rich, real-time connection with your friends while watching the same content.

SharePlay: Listen together

Share music with your friends right in your FaceTime calls.

SharePlay: Share your screen

Share your screen to bring web pages, apps, and more into your conversation on FaceTime.

SharePlay: Synced playback

Pause, rewind, fast-forward, or jump to a different scene — everyone’s playback remains in perfect sync.

SharePlay: Shared music queue

When listening together, anyone in the call can add songs to the shared queue.

SharePlay: Smart volume

Dynamically responsive volume controls automatically adjust audio so you can hear your friends even during a loud scene or climactic chorus.

SharePlay: Multiple device support

Connect over FaceTime on your iPhone while watching video on your Apple TV or listening to music on your HomePod.

SharePlay: Connect through audio, video, and text

Access your group’s Messages thread right from the FaceTime controls and choose the mode of communication that matches the moment.

Portrait mode

Inspired by the portraits you take in the Camera app, Portrait mode in FaceTime blurs your background and puts the focus on you.1

Grid view

Lets you see people in your Group FaceTime calls in the same-size tiles, and highlights the current speaker so it’s easy to know who’s talking. You’ll see up to six faces in the grid at a time.

Spatial audio

Creates a sound field that helps conversations flow as easily as they do face to face. Your friends’ voices are spread out to sound like they’re coming from the direction in which they’re positioned on the call.1

Voice Isolation mode

This microphone mode spotlights your voice by using machine learning to identify ambient noises and block them out. So a leaf blower outside or a dog barking in the next room won’t interrupt your call.1

Wide Spectrum mode

This microphone mode brings every single sound into your call. It’s ideal for when you’re taking music lessons or want your friend to hear everything that’s happening in the space you’re in.1

FaceTime links

Invite your friends into a FaceTime call using a web link you can share anywhere.

Join FaceTime on the web

Invite anyone to join you in a FaceTime call, even friends who don’t have an Apple device.2 They can join you for one-on-one and Group FaceTime calls right from their browser instantly — no login necessary.

Calendar integration

Generate a web link for a FaceTime call while creating an event in Calendar, so everyone knows exactly where to meet and when.

Mute alerts

Lets you know when you’re talking while muted. Tap the alert to quickly unmute and make sure your voice is heard.

Zoom

An optical zoom control for your back camera helps you zero in on what matters when you’re on a FaceTime call.

Messages

Shared with You

Content sent to you over Messages automatically appears in a new Shared with You section in the corresponding app, so you can enjoy it when it’s convenient for you. Shared with You will be featured in Photos, Safari, Apple News, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and the Apple TV app.

Shared with You: Pins

For content that’s especially interesting to you, you can quickly pin it in Messages, and it will be elevated in Shared with You, Messages search, and the Details view of the conversation.

Shared with You: Continue the conversation

Alongside shared content in the corresponding apps, you can see who sent it and tap the sender to view the associated messages and continue the conversation — right from the app — without going to Messages.

Shared with You: Photos

Photos sent to you over Messages automatically appear in your Photos app. Your library includes the photos you care about most — like the ones you were there for. And in For You, the broader set of shared photos will be featured in a new Shared with You section, your Memories, and your Featured Photos.

Shared with You: Safari

Interesting articles, recipes, and other links sent over Messages automatically appear in the new Shared with You section on the Safari start page. Articles that can be found in Safari and Apple News conveniently appear in Shared with You in both apps — so you can enjoy them in either place.

Shared with You: Apple News

Interesting stories sent over Messages automatically appear in the new Shared with You section in the Today and Following tabs in Apple News. Stories found in News and Safari appear in Shared with You in both apps — so you can enjoy them in either place.

Shared with You: Apple Music

Music sent over Messages automatically appears in the new Shared with You section of Listen Now in Apple Music.

Shared with You: Apple Podcasts

Podcast shows and episodes sent over Messages automatically appear in the new Shared with You section of Listen Now in Apple Podcasts.

Shared with You: Apple TV app

Movies and shows sent over Messages automatically appear in the new Shared with You section of Watch Now in the Apple TV app.

Photo collections

Enjoy multiple photos as beautiful collections in your Messages conversations. A handful of images appears as a glanceable collage and a larger set as an elegant stack that you can swipe through. Tap to view them as a grid and easily add a Tapback or inline reply.

Easily save photos

You can quickly save photos sent to you by tapping a new save button right in the Messages conversation.

SMS filtering for Brazil

Messages features on-device intelligence that filters unwanted SMS messages, organizing them into Promotional, Transactional, and Junk folders so your inbox can stay clutter‑free.

Notification options in Messages for India and China

Turn notifications on or off for unknown senders, transactions, and promotions to determine which types of messages you want to receive notifications for.

Switch phone numbers in Messages

Switch between phone numbers in the middle of a conversation on an iPhone with Dual SIM.

Memoji

Clothing

Customize your Memoji with over 40 outfit choices to reflect your style, mood, or the season — and choose up to three different colors. Show it off using Memoji stickers with expressive body language that include the upper body.

Two different eye colors

Now you can select a different color for your left eye and your right eye.

New glasses

Customize your Memoji with three new glasses options, including heart, star, and retro shapes. Select the color of your frame and lenses.

New Memoji stickers

Nine new Memoji stickers let you send a shaka, a hand wave, a lightbulb moment, and more.

Multicolored headwear

Represent your favorite sports team or university by choosing up to three colors for headwear.

New accessibility options

Three new accessibility options let you represent yourself with cochlear implants, oxygen tubes, or a soft helmet.

Focus

Match your devices to your mindset with Focus. Automatically filter notifications based on what you’re currently doing. Turn on Do Not Disturb to switch everything off, or choose from a provided Focus for work, personal time, sleep, fitness, mindfulness, gaming, reading, or driving.

Focus setup suggestions

When you’re setting up a Focus, on‑device intelligence about your past activity suggests apps and people you want to allow notifications from.

Focus contextual suggestions

Get intelligent suggestions about selecting a Focus based on your context, using different signals like location or time of day.

Focus customization

Create a custom Focus to filter notifications based on what you’re currently doing. Choose an icon for your custom Focus and name it whatever you like.

Focus across your devices

When you use a Focus on one device, it’s automatically set on your other devices.

Matching Home Screen pages with Focus

Dedicate a page on your Home Screen to a specific Focus and organize your apps and widgets in a way that reduces temptation by making only related apps visible. The page appears when you’re in a Focus and hides everything else.

Allowed notifications

Select the notifications you want from people and apps so that they get through to you while you’re focusing.

Status

Contacts outside the notifications you allow for a Focus will be told that your notifications are silenced. Your status appears the moment someone tries to contact you in Messages, so they know not to interrupt.

Driving auto-reply

Turn on an auto-reply for your contacts when they message you while you’re using the Focus for driving. You can customize your auto-reply to say whatever you like.

Urgent messages

If someone’s status is turned on, signaling that they have notifications silenced with Focus, you can break through with an urgent message. If you’re on the receiving end, you can prevent an app or person from breaking through.

Status API

For conversations in third-party messaging apps, developers can use your status to reflect that you’ve stepped away.

Notifications

New look for notifications

Notifications have a fresh new look, with contact photos for people and larger icons for apps.

Notification summary

Receive a helpful collection of your notifications delivered daily, in the morning and evening, or scheduled at a time you choose. The summary is intelligently ordered by priority, with the most relevant notifications at the top, so you can quickly catch up.

Mute notifications

Mute any app or messaging thread temporarily, for the next hour, or for the day.

Muting suggestions

If a thread is really active and you aren’t engaging with it, you’ll get a suggestion to mute it.

Communication notifications

Notifications from people across your communication apps now feature contact photos to make them easier to identify.

Time Sensitive notifications

Time Sensitive notifications from apps are always delivered immediately, so you won’t miss out on timely alerts like a fraud alert, car waiting outside, or reminder to go pick up your kids.

Notification APIs

New notification APIs for developers allow them to automatically send Time Sensitive notifications and adopt the new look for notifications coming from people.

Maps

Interactive globe

Discover the natural beauty of Earth with a rich and interactive 3D globe, including significantly enhanced details for mountain ranges, deserts, forests, oceans, and more.1

Detailed new city experience

Explore cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and London with unprecedented detail for elevation, roads, trees, buildings, landmarks, and more. Road details like turn lanes and crosswalks and 3D views for complex interchanges help you navigate.3

New driving features

A new dedicated driving map highlights details like traffic and incidents, and a route planner lets you view your upcoming journey by choosing a future departure or arrival time.

Immersive walking directions

Get where you’re going with step-by-step directions shown in augmented reality.1

Redesigned transit

The transit map has been redesigned for the new city experience and now shows key bus routes. While you’re riding transit, a new user interface makes it easy to see and interact with your route with one hand. And when you’re approaching your stop, Maps notifies you that it’s almost time to disembark.

Nearby transit

Frequent transit riders can now get one-tap access to all departures that are near them. They can even pin their favorite lines so that they always show up at the top if they are nearby.

All-new place cards

Completely redesigned place cards make it easy to find and interact with important information for businesses, explore details about cities, and learn about physical features like mountain ranges.

Editorially curated Guides Home

It’s now easier to discover great places with the all-new Guides Home, an editorially curated destination where you can find Guides for places you’ll love.

Improved search

When looking for places like restaurants, you can filter your search results by cuisine or whether they offer takeout. Or you can choose to see only places that are open right now. When you move the map while searching, Maps automatically updates your search results.

User account

Maps users can now find their most used settings all in one place, including their preferred mode of transit, reported issues, favorites, and more.

Redesigned Maps contributions

With an all-new design, it’s faster and easier to report an issue in Maps.

Safari

Bottom tab bar

The bottom tab bar puts controls right at your fingertips. Swipe left or right on the address bar to move between tabs. Or swipe up to see all your open tabs.

Tab Groups

Save and organize your tabs in the way that works best for you. Switch between Tab Groups in the tab overview.

Tab Group syncing

Tab Groups sync across devices so you have access to your tabs from anywhere.

Customizable start page

Customize the start page to make it your own. You can set a background image and select new sections to display, like Privacy Report, Siri Suggestions, and Shared with You. Customizations sync across devices, so you can have the same Safari everywhere.

New privacy protections

Intelligent Tracking Prevention now also prevents trackers from profiling you using your IP address.

HTTPS upgrade

HTTPS upgrade automatically uses HTTPS whenever available.

Pull to refresh

Refresh a web page by pulling down from the top of the page.

Web extensions on iOS

Personalize Safari on iOS with web extensions. Web extensions can add functionality and features to Safari. You can install extensions through the App Store.

Voice search

Search the web using your voice. Tap the microphone in the search field and speak your search to see suggestions or be taken directly to the page you’re looking for.

Tab overview grid view

The tab overview now displays your open tabs in a grid, making it easier to see the tabs you have open and switch between them. Tap the Tab Overview button or swipe up on the tab bar to see all your tabs.

Wallet

Home keys

Add home keys to Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch, then simply tap to unlock a compatible HomeKit door lock for seamless access to your home. Home keys live in the Wallet app with other important items like your car keys and credit cards.4

Hotel key

Hotel keys can be added to Wallet from the participating hotel provider’s app. Add your hotel key in Wallet after making a reservation, use it to check in so you can skip the lobby, and use your iPhone and Apple Watch to tap to unlock and access your room. Wallet automatically archives your pass after you check out to keep passes organized as you travel.4

Office key

For supported corporate offices, add your corporate access badge to Wallet and then use your iPhone and Apple Watch to access locations where your corporate badge is accepted. Tap to unlock your office doors and use your corporate badge in Wallet.4

Car keys

Unlock, lock, and start your car without having to take your iPhone out of your bag or pocket. Ultra Wideband provides precise spatial awareness, ensuring that you won’t be able to lock your iPhone in your car or start your vehicle when iPhone isn’t inside. Even honk your horn, preheat your car, or open your trunk using controls in Wallet when you’re a short distance from your vehicle.4

ID in Wallet

You can add your driver’s license and state ID to Wallet on your iPhone and a paired Apple Watch and present them securely at TSA checkpoints.5

Archived passes

Your expired boarding passes and event tickets will be automatically moved to a separate list so you can easily access your relevant cards and passes without having to deal with the clutter of old passes.

Multiple-pass downloads

Using Safari, you can now add multiple passes to Wallet in one action instead of manually adding one pass at a time.

Live Text6

Live Text in photos

Text is now completely interactive in all your photos, so you can use functions like copy and paste, lookup, and translate. Live Text works in Photos, Screenshot, Quick Look, and Safari and in live previews with Camera.

Visual Look Up

Swipe up or tap the information button on any photo to highlight recognized objects and scenes. Learn more about popular art and landmarks around the world, plants and flowers out in nature, books, and breeds of pets.

Spotlight

Rich results

Brings together all the information you’re looking for in one rich result. Available for contacts, actors, musicians, movies, and TV shows.

Photos search

Spotlight uses information from Photos to enable searching your full photo library by locations, people, scenes, or even things in the photos, like a dog or a car. Find images shared through Messages by including a contact name in your search.

Web images search

Spotlight allows you to search for images of people, animals, monuments, and more from the web.

Lock Screen access

Pull down from the Lock Screen or Notification Center to open Spotlight.

App Clips in Maps results

For businesses that support App Clips, you’ll see an action button on the Maps result in Spotlight. Action buttons include Menu, Tickets, Reservations, Appointments, Takeout, Order, Delivery, Waitlist, Showtimes, Parking, Availability, and Pricing.

Improved App Store search

Quickly install apps from the App Store without leaving Spotlight.

Photos

Memories: Apple Music

In addition to the hundreds of newly included songs, Apple Music subscribers can add any of the tens of millions of songs from the Apple Music library to enjoy on their devices.

Memories: Song suggestions

Apple Music song suggestions are personalized just for you, combining expert recommendations with your music tastes and what’s in your photos and videos. Song suggestions can even recommend songs that were popular at the time and location of the memory, songs you listened to while traveling, or a song from the artist you saw for a concert memory.

Memories: Memory mixes

Customize your memory by swiping through Memory mixes, which let you audition different songs with pacing and a Memory look to match.

Memories: Fresh new look

Memories has a fresh new look including animated cards with smart, adaptive titles, new animation and transition styles, and multiple image collages for a cinematic feel.

Memories: Memory looks

Inspired by the art of cinematography, 12 Memory looks add mood by analyzing each photo and video and applying the right contrast and color adjustment to give them a consistent look — just as the colorists at film studios do.

Memories: Interactive interface

Tap to pause, replay the last photo, skip to the next, or jump ahead, and the music keeps playing and the timing adjusts to keep the transitions on the beat. Change the song or Memory look or add or remove photos, and the adjustment happens in real time, without the need for the movie to recompile.

Memories: Browse view

View all the content from your memory in a bird’s-eye view where you can add, remove, or change the memory duration or jump ahead to another part of the memory.

Memories: New memory types

New memory types include additional international holidays, child-focused memories, trends over time, and improved pet memories, including recognizing individual dogs and cats.

Memories: Watch next

Memories suggests related memories to watch next after your memory finishes playing.

Memories: On-device song suggestions

Song suggestions are determined on device to protect your privacy.

Shared with You

The Shared with You section in the For You tab allows you to view photos and videos that have been shared with you in Messages. Photos taken when you were present also appear in All Photos and in Days, Months, and Years views and can appear in your Featured Photos and Memories, including the Photos widget. Save a photo to your library or respond to the sender in Messages.

Richer Info pane

Swipe up on a photo or tap the new info button to view information about the photo, such as the camera, lens, and shutter speed, the file size, or who sent a Shared with You photo in Messages. You can also edit the date taken or location, add a caption, and learn about items detected by Visual Look Up.

Faster iCloud Photos library initial sync

When you upgrade to a new device, iCloud Photos syncs more quickly, so you can get to your photo library faster.

Limited Photos Library improvements in third-party apps

Third-party apps can offer simpler selection workflows when you grant access to specific content in the Photos library.

People identification improvements

The People album has improved recognition for individuals.

People naming workflow

Correct naming mistakes more easily in the People album.

Selection order in the Photos image picker

The Photos image picker, including in the Messages app, now allows you to select photos in a specific order for sharing.

Suggest less often

Tap Feature Less to let Photos know you prefer to see less of a specific date, place, holiday, or person across Featured Photos, in the Photos widget, in Memories, or highlighted in the Library tab.

Health

Share health data with others

Share your health data with people important to you or those who are caring for you. Choose which data and trends to share, including heart health, activity, labs, vitals, Medical ID, cycle tracking, and more.

Share notifications with others

People you share health data with can view health alerts you receive, including high heart rate and irregular rhythm notifications. You can also share notifications for significant changes that are identified in the shared data categories, such as a steep decline in activity.

Share health trends with Messages

View trend analysis of someone’s health data that’s been shared with you and easily start a conversation with them about changes in their health by sharing a view of trend data through Messages.

Share health data with your doctor

Securely share the health data you store in the Health app with your healthcare provider. Your doctor will be able to view the data you share in a dashboard in the provider’s health records system.7

Trends

Trend analysis in the Health app lets you see at a glance how a given health metric is progressing, whether it’s increasing or decreasing over time. You can choose to receive a notification when a new trend has been detected in your health data.

Walking Steadiness

Walking Steadiness on iPhone is a first-of-its-kind health metric that can give you insight into your risk of falling. It uses custom algorithms that assess your balance, strength, and gait. Choose to receive a notification when your walking steadiness is low or very low. You can also learn how to improve your walking steadiness with curated exercises.8

Lab results enhancements

When you view your lab results through Health Records on iPhone, you can now see a description of the lab to help you understand what it means. You’ll also receive lab highlights in your health summary, including whether they are in range. You can pin labs that are most important to you for quick access.7

COVID-19 immunizations and test results

Scan a QR code from your healthcare provider and store your COVID-19 immunizations and test results securely in the Health app.

Blood glucose highlights

Receive highlights that show your blood glucose levels from a connected blood glucose monitor during sleep as well as during exercise. Interactive charts make it even easier for you to review your blood glucose data.7

Mail

Mail Privacy Protection

Mail Privacy Protection helps protect your privacy by preventing email senders from learning information about your Mail activity. If you choose to turn it on, it hides your IP address so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your location. And it prevents senders from seeing if you’ve opened their email.

Privacy

App Privacy Report

A section in Settings lets you see how often apps have accessed your location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts during the last seven days. It also shows you which apps have contacted other domains and how recently they have contacted them. This is a good complement to an app’s privacy label, so you can be sure you’re comfortable with how it’s treating your privacy.9

Secure paste

Developers can allow you to paste content from another app without having access to what you’ve copied until you want them to have access.

Share current location

Developers can let you share your current location with a customizable button in their apps. It’s an easy way for them to help you share your location just once, without further access after that session.

Limited Photos Library improvements in third‑party apps

If you’ve granted limited access to your Photos library, third‑party apps can offer simpler selection workflows when you allow access to specific content in the library.

Siri

On-device speech processing

The audio of your requests is now processed entirely on your iPhone unless you choose to share it. The power of the Apple Neural Engine enables speech recognition models with the same high quality as server-based speech recognition.10

On-device personalization

Siri speech recognition and understanding improve as you use your device. Siri learns the contacts you interact with most, new words you type, and topics you read about — all privately on your device.11

Offline support

Siri can now process many types of requests offline without an internet connection, including Timers & Alarms, Phone, Messaging, Sharing, App Launch, Control Audio Playback, and Settings.10

Fast on-device processing

Processing on device means that Siri is incredibly fast.10

Sharing

Share items onscreen like photos, web pages, content from Apple Music or Apple Podcasts, Apple News stories, Maps locations, and more. For example, just say “Send this to Vivek” and Siri will send it. If the item cannot be shared, Siri will offer to send a screenshot instead.

Refer to contacts onscreen

Siri can now use onscreen context to send a message or place a call. For example, if you’re looking at a contact in the Contacts app, a conversation with someone in Messages, or a notification of a message or missed call from someone, you can say “Message them I’m on my way” and Siri will send it to the appropriate contact.

Maintaining context

Siri is even better at maintaining context between requests, so you can conversationally refer to what you just asked. For example, after asking “Is Glacier National Park still open?” you could ask “How long does it take to get there?” and Siri will make the connection.

Announce Notifications

Siri automatically announces Time Sensitive incoming notifications on AirPods. You can also have notifications that are not Time Sensitive enabled for any app through Settings.12

Announce Messages in CarPlay

Siri can announce incoming messages in CarPlay. You can turn announcements on or off when a message is read and Siri will remember your preference. Or you can set announcements off or always on through Settings.

Control smart home accessories at a specific time

You can ask Siri to control a HomeKit accessory at a specific time. For example, say “Hey Siri, turn off my bedroom lights at 7 p.m.” or “Hey Siri, turn off all the lights when I leave.”

Neural text-to-speech voice in more languages

The latest neural text-to-speech voices are now available in more languages: Swedish (Sweden), Danish (Denmark), Norwegian (Norway), and Finnish (Finland).

Mixed English and Indic language support in Siri

Ask Siri to play your favorite song, call a friend, and more using a mix of Indian English and your native language. Nine languages are supported: Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi.

Apple ID

Account Recovery Contacts

Choose one or more people you trust to become an Account Recovery Contact to help you reset your password and regain access to your account.

Digital Legacy program

The Digital Legacy program allows you to designate people as Legacy Contacts so they can access your account and personal information in the event of your death.9

iCloud+

Beta

iCloud Private Relay

iCloud Private Relay is a service that lets you connect to virtually any network and browse with Safari in an even more secure and private way. It ensures that the traffic leaving your device is encrypted so no one can intercept and read it. Then all your requests are sent through two separate internet relays. It’s designed so that no one — including Apple — can use your IP address, location, and browsing activity to create a detailed profile about you.13

Hide My Email

Hide My Email allows you to create unique, random email addresses that forward to your personal inbox so you can send and receive email without having to share your real email address.

HomeKit Secure Video

Connect more security cameras than ever to record, analyze, and view your footage in the Home app. iCloud will store your recordings in an end-to-end encrypted format automatically, so that only you and people you choose can view it. None of the video footage counts against your iCloud storage — it’s part of your subscription.14

Custom email domain

Personalize your iCloud Mail address with a custom domain name, and invite family members to use the same domain with their iCloud Mail accounts.

Even More

Accessibility

Explore images with VoiceOver

Explore people, objects, text, and tables within images in more detail with VoiceOver. Navigate receipts and nutrition label values intelligently in logical order. And move your finger over a photo to discover a person’s position relative to other objects within images.

VoiceOver image descriptions in Markup

Markup lets you add image descriptions that can be read by VoiceOver. Image descriptions persist even when shared and can be read in a range of supported apps on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Sound actions for Switch Control

Sound actions for Switch Control let you control iPhone with simple mouth sounds — such as a click, pop, or “ee” sound — without the need for physical buttons, switches, or complex verbal commands.

Background sounds

Background sounds play balanced, bright, or dark noise, ocean, rain, and stream sounds continuously in the background to mask unwanted environmental or external noise and help you focus, stay calm, or rest. The sounds mix into or duck under other audio and system sounds as you use your device.

Per-app settings

Customize display and text size settings on an app-by-app basis. Bold or enlarge text, increase contrast, invert colors, add color filters, and more for only the apps you want.

Import audiograms

Import paper or PDF audiograms in Settings and quickly customize Headphone Accommodations to amplify soft sounds and adjust certain frequencies based on your hearing test results.

Magnifier app

Magnifier becomes a default app on iOS, so you can use your iPhone as a magnifying glass to zoom in on objects near you.

Accessibility Memoji

Memoji represent more of your look and style with new customizations, including oxygen tubes, cochlear implants, and a soft helmet for headwear.

New Voice Control languages

Voice Control adds new language options including Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Cantonese (Hong Kong), Japanese (Japan), French (France), and German (Germany). These languages use Siri speech recognition technology for incredible accuracy as you dictate your commands.

App Library

Reorder Home Screen pages

Personalize your Home Screen by reordering pages.

App Store

In-app events

Discover timely events within apps and games — such as a game competition, a new movie premiere, or a livestreamed experience — right on the App Store. Events are discoverable in editorial curation and personalized recommendations on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs, in search results, and on the app product page.

App Store widget

See the stories, collections, and in-app events from your Today tab right on your Home Screen.

Apple Card

Advanced Fraud Protection

With Advanced Fraud Protection, Apple Card users can have a security code that changes regularly to make online Card Number transactions even more secure.

Improved card number discoverability

Now quickly view your card number by opening Apple Card in Wallet and tapping the card icon.

Apple Pay

Apple Pay new payment sheet design

A redesigned Apple Pay payment sheet lets you add new cards inline, without ever leaving the Apple Pay experience. You can now enter coupon codes into the payment sheet, helping you save more whenever you use Apple Pay. And the enhanced summary view lets you see more detailed information, such as payment items, discounts, and subtotals, giving you the confidence to shop with Apple Pay.

Augmented Reality

RealityKit 2

Apply custom shaders, add post rendering effects, and build more immersive AR experiences with RealityKit 2 — Apple’s 3D rendering, physics, and spatial audio engine built from the ground up for AR.15

Books

Search redesign

Search results come up as soon as you start typing and will correct spelling mistakes. Enjoy personalized showcases of top books, audiobooks, and genre collections within your results. Buy directly from the Search tab to get started on your book faster.

Camera

Improved Panorama captures

Panorama mode in iPhone 12 models and later has improved geometric distortion and better captures moving subjects while also reducing image noise and banding.

Zoom in QuickTake video

Swipe up or down while taking a QuickTake video to zoom in or out.16

Select from UPI payment apps in India

Choose from up to 10 of your most recently used UPI payment apps when you scan UPI QR codes using the Camera app for merchant payments.

Car Keys

Ultra Wideband support for car keys

Remote keyless entry controls

Lock or unlock your car, honk your horn, preheat your car, or open your trunk using controls in Wallet when you’re a short distance away from your vehicle.4

CarPlay

Announce Messages in CarPlay

Control Center

Shazam

Shazam music recognition in Control Center now automatically saves songs you’ve recently discovered. Touch and hold the control to open your history view.

Dictionary

New dictionaries for India

Bilingual dictionaries for India include Urdu–English, Tamil–English, Telugu–English, and Gujarati–English.

New thesaurus and idiom dictionary for China mainland

There’s a new Simplified Chinese thesaurus with synonyms and antonyms as well as a dictionary of idioms.

New dictionaries for Hong Kong

Dictionaries now include a Traditional Chinese–English dictionary of Cantonese colloquialisms and a Traditional Chinese dictionary of Standard Mandarin with Cantonese pronunciations.

Find My

Live locations for family and friends

See your family and friends’ locations with continuous streaming updates. This provides an immediate sense of direction, speed, and progress when viewing people’s locations.

Locate when powered off

Locate your devices using the Find My network for up to 24 hours even after they have been turned off. This can help you locate a missing device that may have been turned off by a thief.

Locate after erase

The Find My network and Activation Lock can locate your device even after it has been erased. To help ensure that nobody is tricked into purchasing your device, the Hello screen will clearly show that your device is locked, locatable, and still yours.

Separation alerts

Enable separation alerts, and if you leave a device, AirTag, or compatible third-party item behind, your iPhone will alert you with notifications and Find My will give you directions to your item.

Find My network support for AirPods

Use the Find My network to get an approximate location of your missing AirPods Pro or AirPods Max. This will help you get within Bluetooth range so you can play a sound and locate them.*

Find My widget

Keep track of your friends and personal items right from the Home Screen with the Find My widget.

Enhanced connectivity on 5G

More app and system experiences are enhanced by faster 5G connectivity, including support to back up to iCloud and restore from an iCloud backup, stream audio and video on Apple and third‑party apps, download higher‑quality Apple TV+ content, sync photos to iCloud Photos, download Apple News+ magazine issues for offline reading, and download machine learning models.17

5G preferred over Wi-Fi

iPhone 12 models and later now automatically prioritize 5G when Wi‑Fi connectivity on networks you visit occasionally is slow, or when you are connected to captive or insecure networks, so you can enjoy faster, safer connections.

Gaming

Game Center recents and groups invitations

Bring your most recent Messages friends and groups into Game Center–enabled games with the new multiplayer friend selector.

Game Center friend requests

See incoming requests in the Game Center friend request inbox. Navigate to the App Store or within your Game Center profile in a game.

Game highlights

With a press of the share button, save a video clip of up to the last 15 seconds of gameplay using game controllers like the Xbox Series X|S Wireless Controller or Sony PS5 DualSense™ Wireless Controller.

Game Center widgets

The Continue Playing widget displays your recently played Game Center–enabled games across devices. The Friends Are Playing widget helps you discover the games your friends play.

Focus for gaming

Choosing the Focus for gaming lets you stay fully immersed in your game by filtering out unwanted notifications.

Home

Home keys

Using iPhone, simply tap to unlock a compatible HomeKit door lock for seamless access to your home. Home keys live in the Wallet app with other important items like your car keys and credit cards.4

Siri-enabled accessories

HomeKit developers will be able to enable Siri in their products through HomePod. You can easily and securely ask Siri to send a message, set a reminder, or broadcast an Intercom message to the family from more devices in your home.18

Package detection

Using HomeKit Secure Video, your security cameras and video doorbells can now detect and notify you when a package has arrived.14

Inclusive Language

Choose your term of address

Choose your term of address for Spanish to make your device feel more personal. In Language & Region settings you can choose how you would like to be addressed throughout the system: feminine, masculine, or neuter.

Keyboard

Magnification loupe for text cursor and selection

Select exactly the text you want with an improved cursor that magnifies the text you’re looking at.

QuickPath language expansion

New keyboard layouts

Enhanced 10-key layout includes improvements that let you quickly switch to QWERTY, access symbols more easily, and type words that share the same keys with greater accuracy by allowing you to select the exact Pinyin for more than just the first syllable in the phrase.

Keyboard Dictation

Continuous dictation

With on-device dictation, you can dictate text of any length without a timeout (previously limited to 60 seconds).20

Lock Screen

Media playback controls

Media playback controls automatically appear on the Lock Screen of your iPhone when a HomePod mini playing music is nearby.

Music21

Spatial audio with dynamic head tracking

Listeners with AirPods Pro and AirPods Max can now get an even more immersive experience of Dolby Atmos music with Apple’s dynamic head tracking.22

Shared with You

See all the music your friends have shared with you in one place, right in the Music app. And when browsing music, quickly jump back to Messages to keep the conversation going.

Photo Memories

Bring memories to life with Apple Music. Select tracks from your library or from the catalog to create the perfect soundtrack to accompany your memory and share it with your friends.

SharePlay

Use SharePlay in FaceTime to listen to music together in real time. You can pick out songs with your friends, and everyone can pause, rearrange, or skip tracks in the SharePlay queue.

News

Redesigned News feed

A new design makes it easier to browse and interact with your News feed. Information like publication dates and bylines are more prominent, and you can save and share stories right from the feed.

Shared with You

Interesting stories sent over Messages automatically appear in the Shared with You section in the Today and Following tabs in Apple News. Stories found in News and Safari appear in Shared with You in both apps.

Notes

Tags

Tags are a fast and flexible way to categorize and organize your notes. Add one or more tags by typing them directly in the note — like #activities or #cooking.

Tag Browser

The Tag Browser lets you tap any tag or combination of tags to quickly view tagged notes.

Custom Smart Folders

Custom Smart Folders automatically collect notes in one place based on tags.

Activity view

See what others have added to your shared note while you were away. The new Activity view gives a summary of updates since the last time you viewed the note and a day-to-day list of activity from each collaborator.

Highlights

Swipe right anywhere in your note to reveal details of who made changes in a shared note. View edit times and dates with highlighted text color-coded to match collaborators in the note.

Mentions

Mentions make collaboration in shared notes or folders more social, direct, and contextual. Type or handwrite an @ sign and the name of a collaborator anywhere in your note to notify them of important updates and link them back to the note.

Quick Note: Easy to access

Find and edit the Quick Notes you created on Mac and iPad in Notes.

Other

Drag and drop

With support for drag and drop across apps, you can pick up images, documents, and files from one app and drag them into another.

Passwords

Built-in authenticator

Generate verification codes needed for additional sign-in security. If a site offers two-factor authentication, you can set up verification codes under Passwords in Settings — no need to download an additional app. Once set up, verification codes autofill when you sign in to the site.

Podcasts

Personalized recommendations

Discover new podcasts about topics you’re passionate about. The best podcasts, personalized for you, grouped by topics you care about.

Shared with You

Share your favorite podcast episodes in the Messages app and find all the episodes shared with you in Listen Now.

Reminders

Tags

Tags are a fast and flexible way to organize your reminders. Add one or more tags, like #errands, to your reminders to make them easy to search and filter for across your Reminders lists.

Tag Browser

The Tag Browser lets you tap any tag or combination of tags to quickly view tagged reminders.

Custom Smart Lists

Create your own Smart Lists to automatically include reminders that matter most to you by selecting for tags, dates, times, locations, flags, and priority. Choose more than one tag (such as #gardening and #errands) and combine them with other setting filters for more specific lists.

Delete completed reminders

Access quick options to easily delete your completed reminders.

Improved natural language support

Type more advanced phrases to create reminder settings. Try something like “Jog every other morning” for a specific, recurring reminder.

Expanded suggested attributes

Choose tags, flags, priority, and people you message with a quick tap when creating a reminder.

Announce Reminders with Siri on AirPods

Siri can announce your reminders when you’re wearing AirPods or compatible Beats headphones.

Screen Time

Screen Time API

Developers can use the Screen Time API in parental controls apps to support an even wider range of tools for parents. The API provides developers with key features like core restrictions and device activity monitoring, all in a way that puts privacy first.

Downtime on demand

Turn on downtime on demand. During downtime, only phone calls and apps you choose to allow will be available. A five‑minute downtime reminder will be sent and downtime will be turned on until the end of the day.

Settings

Software Updates

iOS may now offer a choice between two software update versions in the Settings app. You can update to the latest version of iOS 15 as soon as it’s released for the latest features and most complete set of security updates. Or continue on iOS 14 and still get important security updates.

Setup Experience

Temporary iCloud storage to transfer your data

Now when you buy a new device you can use iCloud Backup to move your data to your new device, even if you’re low on storage. iCloud will grant you as much storage as you need to complete a temporary backup, free of charge, for up to three weeks. This allows you to get all your apps, data, and settings onto your device automatically.

More content transferred from Android

Move to iOS can now also move your photo albums, files and folders, and Accessibility settings so your new iPhone feels even more like your own.

App discoverability

It’s easier than ever to get the Move to iOS app. Simply scan the QR code, and you’ll be taken to the Google Play Store where you can download the app.

Shortcuts

Cross-device management

Build and manage shortcuts on iPhone, iPad, or Mac for any of your devices — shortcuts automatically sync across all of them.

Improved sharing

Share shortcuts as easily as sharing a link and download them for your own use without managing complicated security settings. If you’re the recipient, smart prompts allow you to share only the data you want.

Smarter Shortcuts editor

Next Action Suggestions help you complete the shortcut you’re building.

System Font

SF Arabic system font

The new SF Arabic system font features a refined, contemporary design that is integrated with the SF font, providing a clear, cohesive reading experience.

Translate

System‑wide translation

Translate text by selecting it and tapping Translate. Then copy, save, replace selected text, or open the translation in the Translate app. You can also translate selected text in photos.

Auto Translate

Translate speech without tapping the microphone button in a conversation. Auto Translate automatically detects when you start speaking and when you stop, so the other person can just respond.

Face to face view

Change the conversation view when chatting face to face so that each person can see the conversation from their own side.

Redesigned conversations

Start a conversation using the Conversation tab in landscape or portrait view. The redesigned conversation view has chat bubbles so you can follow along more easily.

Easier language selection

Selecting languages is now easier with convenient drop‑down menus.

Shared with You

The Apple TV app now helps you see all the shows and movies your friends and family have shared with you in Messages. See them in a new dedicated section called Shared with You on Watch Now and easily keep the conversation going directly from the Apple TV app.

SharePlay

The Apple TV app works seamlessly with Messages and FaceTime so you can watch your favorite shows and movies together with friends and communicate using text, voice, or video while you watch. SharePlay lets your friends join in from their iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV — so everyone can watch together wherever and however they want.

Now works with streaming apps in Japan

The Apple TV app now works with popular streaming apps in Japan. Connect your favorite apps and use Up Next to continue where you left off from all your favorite shows and movies all in one place. Browse each service through the Apple TV app to easily discover and watch the best of what’s on TV.

Voice Memos

Playback speed

Speed up or slow down playback of Voice Memos recordings.

Skip silence

Voice Memos analyzes your recordings and automatically skips over gaps in your audio with a single tap.

Improved sharing

Share multiple Voice Memos recordings at once.

Weather

Weather maps

View full-screen weather maps showing precipitation, air quality, and temperature. Animated precipitation maps show the path of a storm and intensity of upcoming rain and snow. And air quality and temperature maps make it easy to see different conditions near you.23

Next-hour precipitation notifications

Get a notification when rain, snow, hail, or sleet is about to start or stop.24

New design

The layout adjusts to show the most important weather information for that location and includes new maps modules, an updated 10‑day forecast, and new graphical weather data.

New animated backgrounds

There are now thousands of variations of animated backgrounds that more accurately represent the sun position, clouds, and precipitation.1

Widgets

Find My widget

Keep track of your friends and personal items right from the Home Screen with the Find My widget.

Contacts widget

Stay connected to family and friends from your Home Screen with the Contacts widget. Reach them via Phone, Messages, FaceTime, Mail, or Find My. With Family Sharing, you can take additional actions, like approving purchases or Screen Time requests from your kids.

Game Center widgets

The Continue Playing widget displays your recently played Game Center–enabled games across devices. The Friends Are Playing widget helps you discover the games your friends play.

App Store widget

See the stories, collections, and in‑app events from your Today tab right on your Home Screen.

Sleep widget

See data about how you slept and review your sleep schedule with the Sleep widget.

Mail widget

Glance at your latest email and get quick access to one of your mailboxes with the Mail widget.

Default widgets

When you upgrade, you’ll see a new default layout, with widgets from the apps you use most arranged in Smart Stacks.

Intelligent widget suggestions

Suggested widgets for apps you already use can automatically appear in your Smart Stack at the right time based on your past activity. An option lets you add the widget to your stack so it’s always there when you need it.

Reorder Smart Stacks

Easily reorder the widgets in your Smart Stacks right from the Home Screen with new controls.

Apple, iOS 15, iPad, OS Software

Live Text in iOS 15.1 is Deep – with Layers of Options and Powers

Video October 30, 2021 Wiley Simms

The huge iOS and iPad OS 15 update keeps yielding more tips and tricks to learn

We’ve all gotten so used to a slew of system software updates from Apple each year that we kind of just sleepwalk into them, it seems. With so many new features and new ways to use them, it would take an encyclopedia to catalog them all.

Live text is one of the best liked and most useful of this year’s mountain of changes. The ability to extract test from a photo or from the live camera feed – that can be accessed from an assortment of built-in apps, is something that may seem like a nifty trick, perhaps, at first, but when mastered in a deeper way, is something that will, one day, be hard to imagine having lived without. Like having a camera in your pocket at all times.

The interdependence and interaction between built in apps is key

In this how-to video, the second from Madison on Live Text so far, a business card is used as an example. This is a great choice as it contains a web address, a phone number, a street address and an email address, as most business cards do.

This allows the Live Text feature to get busy – and the video shows how you can, just from the camera app, extract the text from the card (or text on any visible object) and then “route” the information in the text to the best app to do what you want with it.

The, at times dramatic, examples include taking the address and sending it with a click to the maps app where a route can be generated to drive or walk there, immediately. Naturally, once the address is ingested into the maps app there are additional things that can be accessed, like the satellite view, or the 360 degrees look around feature. If it’s a business in a shopping center there is also a new “look inside” feature where hours of operation, photos and more can also be accessed.

The phone number on the card can be extracted and made “click-able” to call, copy, use to initiate a FaceTime session, add to contacts, and so forth.

Email addresses and web addresses can be instantly used to compose and send an email message or open a web page in Safari. These example only give one short peek into a single layer of what you might use LiveText for, in this case with a single business card.

Check out Lynxotic on YouTube:

A Steamroller where a flyswatter would suffice?

While, like any high tech magic, there are times when LiveText seems like a million dollar way to avoid using a pen and paper, at other times it is, well, magical, when large amounts of inaccessible text can be instantly accessed, for example.

I have taken to using to extract text from a screen shot, one that I take when a week site has text that is not clickable and can’t be copied directly (so annoying!) and that alone is a life saver when dealing with data for life’s everyday chores and information gathering.

All in all the new iOS 15 update is one that we will all have to grow with and adapt to – and while that won’t always be smooth and bug-free, the ways that life’s little tasks are made just a tiny bit easier is what will make the extra effort ultimately worthwhile.

Check out Live TEXT #1 on YouTube:

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Apple, iOS 15, iPhone, iPhone 13 Pro, OS Software

Put Proof of Vaccination ID into your Wallet with iOS 15.1 Upgrade

Video October 26, 2021 Kat Lee

Finally: the whole package – and a convenient way to prove vaccination status

Now that the iOS 15.1 update is available for the general public featuring the ability to add your proof of vaccination status to the Health app and then create a vaccination ID card in Apple Wallet.

Many businesses, venues, restaurants, and more are requiring proof of vaccination for entry. For example California is the first state where proof of COVID vaccination or negative test for indoor events over 1,000 people.

The new feature in iOS 15.1 is made possible by the support Smart Health Cards which are valid for California, Louisiana, New York, Virginia, Hawaii, and some Maryland counties, as do Walmart, Sam’s Club, and CVS Health.

Therefore, using this system you would be able to to look up their information in state databases, if you are in any of the states listed above, but if you were vaccinated through at Walmart or CVS it will also be feasible to add your information to the Health and Wallet.

Once you have gone to the web site for your state, for example in California it would be found at https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov where you can type in personal information such as name and date of birth to get access to your records and status.

Though iOS 15 already had the ability to download the information to your Health app, and you could do that since the official launch of iOS 15, the last step, adding an ID to your wallet from the health app has not been possible until the new upgrade to iOS 15.1.

The record is locked to your name and can only be used by you. There will be a QR code that you will first download to your health app on the iPhone, then, once it is in the health app there will be a prompt to allow you to “add to wallet”. By clicking that link a vaccination ID car, with the QR code will be generated and added to your wallet.

iOS 15.1 is available under > General > software update in your phone’s Settings app starting today.

Tap the download link on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Tap Add to Health to add the record to the Health app.
Tap Done.

Once the ID is in the health app a button / prompt appears “add to wallet”.

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Apple, iOS 15, OS Software, Safari

Resetting the Safari Address Bar in iOS 15.1 and other stress reducing tips

October 25, 2021 Madison Santel

The biggest iOS update in years comes with a learning curve to match According to analytics company mixpanel, the adoption of iOS 15 is much slower than iOS 14 a year ago. Speculation in the media for the cause of the reluctance is a few “bugs” that they also widely reported. The fear of bugs … Continue reading Resetting the Safari Address Bar in iOS 15.1 and other stress reducing tips →

Apple, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, OS Software

Now with iOS 15.1 you can put Proof of Vaccination ID into your Wallet

Video October 25, 2021 Kat Lee

Though iOS 15 already has the ability to download the information to your Health app, and you can do this today, the last step, adding an ID to your wallet from the health app will not be possible until you have upgraded to iOS 15.1.

iOS 15.1 is likely to be available under > General > software update in your phone’s Settings app starting today.

Tap the download link on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Tap Add to Health to add the record to the Health app.
Tap Done.

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Enjoy Lynxotic at Apple News on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

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Apple, iOS 15, iPhone

Live Text in iOS 15 shocks people with its utility and power

Video October 22, 2021 Madison Santel

Master the ways you can use it and information gathering on iPhone will never be the same

We are all cyborgs now, to paraphrase Elon Musk when speaking about his neural network project, neuralink. The implication is that we rely so heavily on the iphone in our pocket that it has been come a literal extension on our minds and bodies, like a bionic arm.

With live text features and functions using iPhone (or iPad) in iOS 15 and 15.1 there is a new and very powerful addition to our already amazing arsenal of sensory extension. But the use of these new powers is not always obvious, and since the iPhone comes without a user manual, or rather an infinite number of them via YouTube and the web, learning just how far this feature can take you is a journey in itself.

In typical Apple fashion, if there are 10 ways to use live text then there are 100

The first thing that is not immediately apparent but becomes clearer on repeated use is that you can extract text, including most handwriting, from any existing photo. It can be a photo you took to store some text (like a menu posted behind the deli counter or a for sale sign in front of the house you might want to bid on).

Less obvious is that you do not need to take a photo at all to activate the live text recognition options. You can just point the camera at the “thing” that has text on it that you want to extract. But taking this to it’s most extreme logical conclusion Apple has made it possible to access the camera from within various apps specifically to make it less of a hassle to get the text directly from that app you plan to store it in or send it from.

Examples in the video below include the Notes app, the Messages app (formerly iMessage) and the mail app.

It will also allow you to go directly to the phone app or Apple Maps to “act” on information that you gather, from any camera access node or from the camera app – such as extracting a phone number from a business card or a billboard and then just clicking call, or sending an address from either of those examples into Apple Maps and immediate get directions.

These are just a few of the “live” uses of the feature that come up amazingly often in real life. More detailed use cases will be in both the video below and in subsequent videos on this feature, already in the works.

iOS 15.1 is filled with features that have a myriad of use cases, almost too many to list or describe

Every year when a major upgrade is sent down from on high, there is adapting to do and bugs to avoid. Sometimes it seems like the effort to learn how to use the new features is nearly on par with the gains in productivity from the better performing software. Three steps forward and two steps back, as it were.

This is not the case with iOS 15 – it’s more like 10 steps forward and only four steps back! Seriously, there are so many new features that it is completely reasonable to want to slowly adapt to the improvements, no matter how exciting they may be.

But in the case of live text, as well as the extensive upgrades to nearly all the built in apps for iPhone, iPad and Macs, the future will reward those of us that proactively evolve with the software’s upgraded abilities.

For those that use iPhones and iPads with a mac laptop or desktop, the changes coming with iOS 15.1 and macOS 12 Monterey (scheduled to go public next week) are just the beginning of an intense evolution toward what we have been calling the “Apple OS ecosystem singularity”.

The added power from improved hardware in all Apple devices, along with the ever converging and evolving ability to interact with one another via software upgrades, is going to make the world feel like a very different (better?) place a year or two from now.

It’s only a question of if we, with our non-bionic brains and bodies, can adapt to the new powers that come our way fast enough to gain from them before the next wave of changes hits us with new challenges of adaptation.

Apple Articles:

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Apple, iOS 15, iPhone, OS Software

How to Reset Safari in iOS 15 and other stress reducing tips

October 10, 2021 Eric Cho

The biggest iOS update in years comes with a learning curve to match According to analytics company mixpanel, the adoption of iOS 15 is much slower than iOS 14 a year ago. Speculation in the media for the cause of the reluctance is a few “bugs” that they also widely reported. The fear of bugs … Continue reading How to Reset Safari in iOS 15 and other stress reducing tips →

Apple, Apps, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, iPhone 13 Pro, OS Software, Tech

Live Mode in iOS 15.1 Find My app is Whack! See Video Now

Video October 7, 2021 Wiley Simms

With live view in Find My and ETA in Maps, iOS 15 is on a whole new level with keeping track of traveling significant others

Find My App (left) in iOS 15

In an update that is “just there” there has been an upgrade to the performance of the oft overlooked Find My app for iOS 15. In case you don’t use it, it’s the app that will help you find your iPhone or other iCloud connected device, as well as AirTags (or third-party geolocation products) and the devices they are attached to.

When you are following a person, generally with an iPhone or iPad (though, again the above additions and exceptions apply) you can click on that person’s name or icon (once they’ve allowed you to see their location (by turning on share my location in the FindMy app on their iPhone), in Find My and the their current location will show on the screen.

This is especially helpful, of course, if they are driving home from work, or on a road trip and you would like to follow along to see when they arrive, as examples. This level of intimate knowledge may not be necessary or appropriate for every contact in your address book (!) but between significant others (one obvious example) it can be incredibly useful.

One caveat, however, is that since this is a “stealth” update that “just works” your actual results may not be the same. Our video example was accomplished with two connected iPhone 13 Pro Max phones, both having 5G connectivity. Your results may vary.

With live view and in conjunction with the Maps app location tracking is now in a whole new universe

The update, which has been in a gradual roll-out since the public release of iOS 15 and upgraded in iOS 15.1 is a live feature where you can literally see the person (the icon or photo they have set) as they are driving, or even walking, and follow along with a moving map that updates in real time.

If used, for example while driving and using maps for the route, the map will update incrementally, showing the progress with a highlighted route all the way to the destination, while in FindMy there will be a second by millisecond live map showing the actual location as it changes. See the video above for the full effect!

The Maps app will also send notices and updates with an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) and will re-notify if the arrival time is significantly sooner or later (the exact amount that is deemed enough of a change to trigger a notification is unclear.

Just plain fun to watch, but also useful if the movements of a loved on are critical

There is also a secret, exclusive tip that we can divulge, which we stumbled on through trial and error. If you are watching someone driving, say on a freeway with little traffic, and they are moving smoothly along, but you want to see them at full speed, you can do the following:

Use a two-finger pinch-and-zoom gesture 3-4 times – the 3 or 4th gesture will zoom in to-the-max
Repeat #1 to maintain zoomed in status
Allow Find My live view to re-set to the standard zoom (medium)
Repeat as desired

Using this technique the person / car will be seen in an extreme close-up of the road (highway, freeway, etc.) and will appear to be traveling at the actual speed they currently are in relation to the zoom.

Think of it like a virtual drone that is following the car / person and then dives in close and has to keep pace to keep the subject in frame. Crazy.

In zoomed in mode it is also possible to do a one-finger-swipe in the direction of movement in order to keep the car / person in view (rather than letting them drive starlight off the edge of the iPhone screen).

The future is out there, and already here on your phone (with enough bandwidth and other possible requirements).

Increasing this feature to this degree of intensely detailed functionality may not be much more than a basic useful feature on overdrive, but applications for the future, for example the same feature but with satellite imagery, or maybe a simulated live view, could be a metaverse standard communication activity. We might all need to get used to having the ability to stay literally connected (in a virtual way) even as we hurtle through space. In a self-driving Apple Car, perhaps?

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Apple, iOS 15, iPhone, Mac, Observation, OS Software, Tech

iOS 15 & iPhone 13 Pro: Problems, Known limitations, Issues & Highlights

Video September 26, 2021 Wiley Simms

Upgrades for hard and software, though groundbreaking and exciting, do have limitations and problems

The new upgrades for iOS 15, iPad OS 15, mac OS 12 Monterey and the rest are in many ways amazing, feature filled wonders, as we’ve discussed at every opportunity. The multi-year transition to a more unified system across all apple devices is underway and we are big supporters of the benefits.

However, nothing is perfect, and particularly in the early days it is to be expected that glitches and strange twists and turns in the journey can disappoint and confuse along the way.

Below we’ve outlined a few.

Various less than perfect ideas and execution in the OS software

Some issues are not really issues at all but things that people just don’t like. One example is the move of the address bar on safari in iOS 15 to the bottom. Many people had trouble getting used to this so a button was added to move it back to the top.

Other glitches include a false warning that you are out of storage space. Others have reported a reduction in perceived (if not real) battery life. Although these are minor annoyances and will be fixed with future updates, such as iOS 15.1 due any minute now, they show that this bug hunting is, unfortunately part of the process of any upgrade, much less a huge and important one like iOS 15.

There are also specific limitations though that should be mentioned about the iPhone 13 Pro camera system.

This issues are less bugs or errors and just limitations that may, or may not, be improved at a later date.

The new high end Pro camera system for the iPhone 13 Pro series is a major upgrade that has so many features and new capabilities that it is hard to even list them all, let alone illuminate the multitude of options and enhancements that they create.

On the obvious down side, however, a few things have jumped out at users now that these phones are in the wild.

Cinematic mode only works (currently) in 1080p. This is a serious limitation, since the whole idea of “Pro” is 4k and above. Many even go so far as to say that 1080p aka HD is no longer the standard for video and even obsolete. While there are rumors that this could get a software upgrade, perhaps even before the next iPhone model next fall, but it is not at all clear if, or when, that might happen.

This limitation is a fairly serious one, since an entire project would have to be shot at 1080p HD rather than 4k to make any use at all of the beautiful and fascinating rack-focus effects available in cinematic mode.

Less and issue but often mentioned is the inability to shoot 4k slow motion footage.

The lack of slo-mo at any resolution above 1080p is also something that has surprised aficionados. There is an option for 1080p at 240 fps, but unless you are shooting ultra high speed action that is not a hugely useful setting.

It seems odd, since a large part of the limitation is likely the large amount of data required to make this happen at 4k but there is a silver-lining here that few have mentioned in recent articles decrying the lack of 4k slow-mo options.

Since the system is already capable of shooting 4k at 60fps, and a final project setting for editing could be 4k at 30 or even 24fps, the 4k 60fps could be seen as a double speed slo-mo setting for a 4k video projects shot at 30fps for standard and 60fps for footage to be slowed to 30fps for the 1/2 speed slo-mo effect.

In the feature film 35mm celluloid days this was a very common and useful way to get slow-mo without eating up tons of expensive film stock.

Also, shooting at 4k 60fps for a 4k 24fps project would yield a 1.5 ratio of frame rate, giving an even more extreme slow-mo effect. For most slow motion effects 1 to 1.5x speed in-camera for later playback at the project rate is more than adequate.

The 120fps rate, since the top frame rate at 4k is 60fps, is, indeed, double which, as stated above, standard.

Therefore, for all practical purposes, there is already a way to produce beautiful 4k slow motion effects in a 30fps or 24fps project and have those be in camera pristine slo-mo and not the less desirable edit-only EFX.

Summing up, even with glitches and minor disappointments, it’s a beautiful world and now we just have to shoot it

If no more serious glitches or known issues pop up during the transition from iOS 14 to iOS 15, and iPhone 12 Pro to iPhone 13 Pro, we can be satisfied that this is a monumental job well done by the gang at Apple.

Though there are a lot of shortcomings that we may perceive in the new world topping combo-pack; iPhone 13 Pro Max running iOS 15.1, these are when compared to far more costly and cumbersome alternatives, or simply, when compared to our wildest dreams. Those will have to wait a few years, in all likelihood.

Human greed is a powerful thing. When given a photographic system that even attempts to approximate a profession system based on prime and zoom lenses and accessories, there’s a tendency to want it all, right now!

Of course, instead, what we get is an amazing extension of the iPhone photo tradition – taken up a bunch of notches at once. The computational enhancements are incredible and will only get better – in many cases without a new phone as they are based on AI and machine learning, which as the name implies, are continually improving while you sleep.

It is also the reason why real lenses and traditional DLSR cameras still have an important use and value.

The new system unveiled with the iPhone 13 pro is revolutionary precisely because of the potential for people to create new visual expressions and ways of communicating.

These photographic traditions and the efforts that were made in the design to emulate them are important and valuable. However, the future will benefit from the spontaneous and new ways that people will decide to use this evolving system and the current extensions of our eyes, ears and minds….

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/iphone-13-pro/2021/404b23a8-f9c5-466c-b0e6-3d36705b959d/anim/macro-video/large.mp4

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Apple, Breaking News, Coronavirus, Health, iOS 15, Lifestyle

In iOS 15.1 you’ll be able to put Proof of Vaccination ID into your Wallet

September 23, 2021 Wiley Simms

When the iOS 15.1 update drops for the general public (likely soon as it’s already been seeded to beta testers since Monday) it will feature the ability to add your proof of vaccination status to the Health app and then create a vaccination ID card in Apple Wallet. Many businesses, venues, restaurants, and more are … Continue reading In iOS 15.1 you’ll be able to put Proof of Vaccination ID into your Wallet →

Apple, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, Mac, macOS 12 Monterey, OS Software

iPhone 13, iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS 12 Monterey Unveiling now Hours Away

Video September 12, 2021 Danny Leeds

The new Os’s are free and will be adopted fast if recent past is a guide

Apple has had a fairly predictable cycle for new iPhone releases and the yearly, free, software upgrades. If you use your apple devices for business or WFH like many, this ritual can be excruciating since you already know you will have to get your hands on the best new gadgets.

Nevertheless, with sky high prices for the best devices not going away, choosing when exactly to upgrade which devices can be a tricky process requiring skill, cunning and some serious bucks.

A lot of us see the iphone top-of-the-line product as a must upgrade either every cycle or every-other year if budgets are tight (and some years do seem like “off” years).

For iPads, various mac machines, Apple Watch, Apple TV and so on, there is more leeway and potential confusion. And for mac, there are times (like now!) when we all know the next iteration of various models (macbook Pro, mac mini, mac pro, iMac 27” +) are on the way but there is the unknown factor of what to pick and when-the-heck it can be ordered and shipped.

We all know there is a chip shortage, and with the Apple Silicon M1 potentially being upgraded for a slew of machines to the M1X, M2 or M2X as various rumors have discussed, the timeline is very uncertain.

The best things in life are free, software edition

All this leads us to the good, even very good, if obvious, news. iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey have been in public beta for some time now and, if history is a guide in this case, should be released publicly soon after the Apple Fall Event announcements on September 14th, regardless of what hardware is coming down the pike, or in what particular order.

Generally the hard date for the new OS systems to be public available is the date that any new hardware, always optimized for the new OS, hits the street and becomes deliverable.

Sometimes certain iPhone models, such as the very high end Pro Max, etc., are delayed, but whichever model ships first that device should also be shipped with the Golden Master of the new operating system, iOS 15 in this case.

This is not 100% guaranteed, as nothing in like and Apple releases is 100%, but this looks extremely likely. Therefore we could and should see the new iOS and macOS going live publicly soon, possibly this week.

What to watch our for and expect, besides great new features and work-flows

Often in the past, a “Golden Master” release has been followed within a day or two with an update patching issues that arise once a mass “test” has revealed flaws and weaknesses in the initial public version.

This is nothing to worry about, as per past experiences, but if you are someone that gets easily annoyed by constantly updating, you could wait a week or so to bypass these intermediate “patch fix” versions.

Also, since with Apple, as opposed to Android, the adoption rate for people to upgrade quickly to the newest versions of the OS is extremely high there will be a sea change in the air. That means that within a few weeks up to a billion devices, or more, could be running the newest OS systems across all the various devices in the wild.

This is great news, because some of the best features in all the new software upgrades function best with various devices within an iCloud account or family group and, in some cases, between two devices anywhere interacting, as long as they both have the newest systems.

The best new features are only going to get better after the launch, more so even than usual; here’s why

During our tests of the various systems, first in the developer-only phase and then in the more recent public beta, one thing was a small annoyance that, after the full launch, will instead become a huge plus.

When operating within a company, for example, and in some cases with multiple devices on the same iCloud account, there have been a lot of glitches related to how the Big Sur devices interact with the macOS Monterey devices, or an iPhone with iOS 14 and one with iOS 15 function in tandem.

This is because, more so than in any previous upgrade cycle, this system focuses on virtually every built in app that is bundled with the OS, like photos, mail, messages, notes, FaceTime, reminders, calendar, contacts, voice memos, etc, etc, etc.

There are so many, with so many upgrades it is hard to make a list, as above, of what they are all called and what they do. In the best Apple fashion, they “just work” and we tend to take them for granted.

In case you ever wanted to know the complete list (for iOS 15) we have added it at the bottom of this post.

These apps are pretty much all getting big upgrades in iOS 15, along with a similar situation happening for iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey, TVOS, WatchOS etc. The difference this time is that they are being actively designed to become more and more interoperable and interactive between devices and system software types.

The big picture is extreme big, much wild, and will be quite a ride…

This is a huge push that will go on for years. We call it the Apple System Singularity. And it is a big deal!

It will, ultimately, create a kind of seamless clarity of function between your devices, particularly the mobile or semi-mobil variety, such as iPhones and iPads, and the slightly less mobile (laptops, desktops) of the macOS variety.

Meaning that the ultimate transition that is being made possible through the switch to Apple Silicon and that a whole new concept philosophy and structure of the device hardware and software. And it’s all being created via the interaction and potential synergies coming available and these are being maximized during the process.

All of this is not to mention machine learning, neural networks, A.I. and all the interactive hardware and software upgrades that are now nearly continuous and happening without a user to intervene.

An example of this is in the photos app where various library functions, a.i. object and facial recognition, search cataloguing, etc. are continuous while you sleep. Another example is how iCloud manages data and storage across your devices regardless of geography or proximity 24/7/365.

Welcome to the first phase of this with the first devices incorporating Apple Silicon across all product lines being harmonized more and more via, guess what, the free system upgrades.

These upgrades will yield maximum fruit in the short term after the world wide population of devices adopts the new systems, and longer term, as more and more devices out of the total are already using and maximizing performance and features by having Apple Silicon and other associated hardware & software upgrades under the hood.

Rest assured, while this sounds complicated, and there will be glitches, the transition starting this fall, and over the life of iOS15, iPadOS15 and macOS Monterey (around a year as usual!) will be one of continuous change, improvement and discovery, unlike any you have seen in the history of Apple.

App Name | Bundle ID

Latest Lynxotic Apple stories

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Apple, iOS 15, OS Software, Tech

Breaking: Apple iOS 15 Beta 8 released ahead of Launch

September 2, 2021 Wiley Simms

Version rapidly approaches Golden Master ahead of possible September iPhone 13 release event Today those participating in the iOS 15 public beta program are able to update (again), this time to beta 8. This beta process is a “live” test of all the new features, indeed when participating in the program many features change and … Continue reading Breaking: Apple iOS 15 Beta 8 released ahead of Launch →

Apple, Tech

Breaking: Apple iOS 15 Beta 7 released ahead of Launch

August 26, 2021 Wiley Simms

Version rapidly approaches Golden Master ahead of possible September iPhone 13 release event Today those participating in the iOS 15 public beta program are able to update (again), this time to beta 7. This beta process is a “live” test of all the new features, indeed when participating in the program many features change and … Continue reading Breaking: Apple iOS 15 Beta 7 released ahead of Launch →

Accessories, AI, Apple, Apple Services, Apple TV+, Apple Watch, Breaking News, FaceTime, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, Mac, macOS 12 Monterey, OS Software, Tech, WWDC2021

iOS 15: It’s not just about the new Weather Animations, there’s a lot more

Video June 11, 2021 Eric Cho

For what seems like a long time many of us have been living inside our iPhone, immersed in a metaverse of our digital lives.

And the deeper into Apple’s walled garden we are submerged, the more monumental the yearly OS upgrades become. That’s because, when you are in a digital life, we’ll, lots of things are worse than the “real” world. The sensual experience is built of fractions of the full sensory bandwidth of life.

But there’s one thing about the metaverse, the fact that, since it’s artificial and human engineered, it can, and does, improve.

In the case of Apple’s universe, the yearly upgrades and constant, sometimes nearly imperceptible changes in a thousand different parameters add together, over time, and suddenly, the world comes alive with vibrant, super sensual satisfaction …

Sure, the weather animations just got sent to a 3rd convolution level of better-ness, that’s true. But add this to all the thousands of better feelings and deeper interactions with yourself and the spirit of ourselves, and you will find: the future

Photo credit: Apple

WWDC 2021 was a pure upgrade fest with a lot of detail to sift through

We are in the middle of our ongoing coverage of the Apple event and all that was revealed. There are so many features and so many important details and interdependent uses for this features that it can be more easily digested in bites.

What we are witnessing is the growing interdependence and interoperability of iOS 15, iPad OS 15 and macOS 12 Monterey, particularly with the built in apple apps they all have built in.

Safari, though still with slight variations between the three OSs, is becoming more powerful everywhere, FaceTime got a huge upgrade in the new systems, and utilities connected to iCloud such as the Find My network are also extensively revamped.

While some find the sheer width and breath of Apple’s hardware, software and services conceptually off-putting, it is, at this early stage of the monumental changes that are being wrought by Apple Silicon, a wonder to behold how all the various products and underlying software for those products is evolving in a way that is constant and deep.

As put forth in articles published by Lynxotic years ago the changes that are underway are vast and were conceived and put into motion based on Steve Jobs’ core concepts for the future of Apple many years ago. And Tim Cook and the rest of Apple have not deviated from that vision, in fact are reaping benefits on behalf of users that could barely be imagined a decade ago.

One bite we’ve started to delve into is the dual and interdependent features from macOS Monterey; Airplay to Mac and Universal control. It turns out that compete interoperability for Airplay to Mac is still in the future, the list of the various models and vintages that it functions on is as follows:

2018 or later MacBook Pro or MacBook Air
a 2019 or later iMac or Mac Pro
an iMac Pro
the 2020 Mac mini

As you can see this is a fairly exclusive list. What is most conspicuously missing is the possibility to use and older mac, such as a 2018 27” 5k iMac to take advantage of the beautiful screen.

Universal Control, meanwhile appears to work with most devices that run on iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey. It allows you to a single mouse and keyboard and flow from ‌iPad‌ to Mac and back, pretty much as you would imagine using the cursor and keyboard for either, and, thankfully there is no setup required.

FaceTime just got a Facelift

FaceTime’s big jump ahead is somewhat more complex since the iPhone, iPad (various models of both) and the mac each have a UX and screen size that varies, as well as different computing advantages. One interesting note on the various technical enhancements, pretty much across the board from what was announced at WWDC 2021, M1 chips and Apple Silicon based devices get the biggest boost from all the new capabilities.

Rather than being a marketing ploy, at least so far there’s no evidence of that kind of approach, this is an organic by product of the underlying “big picture” goal – to unify the experience and potential of the three device categories even as they cross pollinate one-another.

All the various, and gradually hard to list, OS flavors, macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, watchOS 8 and all the various accessories that benefit from the upgrades such as AirPods pro spatial audio, HomePod mini liaison with Apple TV 4k and tvOS 15, as well as SharePlay where FaceTime can allow multiple users to share streaming audio or video content for a synchronized experience.

Please stay tuned for the many articles to come that will further dive into the changes and improvements that are on the way, free of charge, for Apple users with this massive roll-out that will culminate in fall 2021.

As per Apple:

Redesigned Weather and Notes Apps

Weather includes more graphical displays of weather data, full-screen maps, and dynamic layouts that change based on conditions. Beautifully redesigned animated backgrounds more accurately reflect the sun’s position and precipitation, and notifications highlight when rain or snow starts and stops. Video animation below:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/apple-iphone12pro-ios15-weather-app/large_2x.mp4

Notes adds user-created tags that make it easy to quickly categorize notes, and mentions allow members of shared notes to notify one another of important updates. An all-new Activity view shows the recent history of a shared note.

Notes adds user-created tags that make it easy to quickly categorize notes in line with relevant content:

FaceTime gets Portrait Mode in iOS 15 to give the look of DSLR prime lens systems

Video June 7, 2021 Madison Santel

The “Pro-Vlogger” look popularized on YouTube now available to all…

Above: The stunning Portrait mode from the Camera app is now optimized for video calls in FaceTime.
Photo Credit / Apple

If you are a prolific FaceTime user or if you don’t use it as much as you would if the aesthetics were a bit better (read: more flattering selfie styles) you are in luck. In a twist which takes advantage of tech that was initially created to make portrait mode a reality in the iPhone camera app is now coming to FaceTime on iPhone and also on iPad.

The maturation of features across platforms is paying big dividends

Portrait mode was added to the camera app as a way to get a DSLR style “prime lens” look with “bokeh” which is a Japanese term for the beautiful background out of focus blur that a long lens focused on the subject in the foreground will produce.

The computational fireworks required to produce this effect are nothing short of…. well check out Apple’s description:

” It’s a depth-guided, people-focused segmentation mask generated from a proprietary Apple neural network trained to detect people. It separates an individual in the foreground from whatever is in the background, with greater detail and clarity than with the depth map alone. It achieves this clarity in part because the matte image has higher resolution than the depth map.”

So this effect, which has been in the iPhone camera app since iOS 12 is now, likely due to the ever beefier potentials of the proprietary Apple neural network can now, starting with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 be applied to video. Live.

This, like so many other upgrades revealed today at the WWDC2021, is a great idea. High end YouTube videographers know it’s a great idea which is why they buy special DSLR camera with prime lenses just to get the very beautiful and flattering effect of a sharp subject in the foreground and a compressed, blurred “bokeh” effect in the background.

New features in FaceTime help users look and sound their best.

Not only visual but also audio upgrades are coming

They are also adding another obviously useful feature “spatial audio”, which creates the effect of having the perceived source location of each speaker match where they appear on the screen.

This is combined with “new microphone modes” which can reduce background noises and audio interference when in a chaotic sound environment and, alternatively when appropriate pickup an entire soundscape all at once.

All in all these improvements to both the visual experience, and the audio are a much needed change from the often ugly reality of bad-webcam zoom style meetings we all endured during 2020.

And with the front facing camera, lighting and software beautifications constantly getting better, we can, at least those with great internet and high end devices, look forward to a much more sensually pleasing level of FaceTime interactions.

Additional new upgraded features for FaceTime include, but are not limited to:

A new grid view that makes it possible to do a “zoom” like stack of equal size boxes.

SharePlay which is a somewhat odd sounding option to share “Apple Music, watching a TV show or movie in sync, or sharing their screen to view apps together”. Additionally, sharing can include anyone using an iPhone, iPad or Mac and if shared playback controls are active any of the parties that are sharing can play, pause or jump ahead.

Users can now share experiences with SharePlay while connecting with friends on FaceTime, including listening to songs together with Apple Music, watching a TV show or movie in sync, or sharing their screen to view apps together. SharePlay works across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and with shared playback controls, anyone in a SharePlay session can play, pause, or jump ahead.

There’s an expanding list of sources that can be used, including, of course, Apple TV, but also third party services that opt in, and currently, according to Apple the list already includes: Disney+, ESPN+, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, Paramount+, Pluto TV, TikTok, Twitch, and many others

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/apple-ios15-shareplay-music/large_2x.mp4

FaceTime calls that use all of these new features will continue to be end-to-end encrypted, so privacy is not compromised.

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AI, Apple, Apple Services, Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, FaceTime, iOS 15, iPad, iPhone, Mac, macOS 12 Monterey, Observation, OS Software, Politics, Science, Tech, WWDC2021

Apple’s free upgrades are Inviting you into the Metaverse: iOS15 – macOS Monterey & iPadOS15

Video June 12, 2021 Danny Leeds

Sci-fi sounding, inevitable upgrade for today’s online communications

You might have heard lately about the “metaverse” and yet that can mean a variety of different things to different people. Often, it’s a term that relates back to gaming and 3D augmented reality enhancements of networked communications.

There are even crypto and blockchain related projects using this term and concept. While all of these various factors are welcome, and potentially part of this next phase of convergence of communication via networked technology, there’s something else happening under the surface.

”The pandemic, with its requirements of physical distancing, has brought people into online digital environments for a growing range of shared human experiences.” — Wired UK from “The Metaverse is coming” by David Baszucki

The acceleration in AI application, machine learning, and converging use cases for all communications tech has created a situation where the entry-portal to the emerging metaverse is already here.

One often overlooked aspect of a transition to a more complete digital life is the need for humans to have adapted to the need and potential benefits of the idea. This is what is happening via many routes, including Apple and the constant synergistic upgrade cycles that have just gone into a new, bigger phase with the migration to a unified OS structure built around Apple Silicon.

The gradual increases in iOS functionality and user sophistication are changing how we interact

iOS15, previewed this week at the WWDC2021 is rolling out literally dozens of new features, many based on machine learning, neural networks and AI that propose a new level of highly sophisticated options to communicate with video, photos and text.

While this mixture of “basic” media has been the staple of our current modes of online communication, particularly via social media, the incredibly increased depth of new options and functionality of iOS15 and iPadOS15 and MacOS Monterey will make all modes of communication feel completely new.

In the evolution of online media and enriched communication (OMEC to coin an 80s sounding acronym) the slow and uneven progress is based on many factors. #1 is always user adoption and sophistication.

Second is the quality of the hardware devices and software upgrades each user around the world has access to. In the case of iOS (iPad, iPhone & macOS) the immediate adoption of upgrades is a large factor on the plus side, helping new innovation to arrive in general use more quickly.

The last factor, a huge one, is access to fast ubiquitous internet data connections, and, in the US at least, this is less consistent than ever (or our expectations are rising faster than the build out).

Related Story links:

However, particularly in Asia, 5g is beginning to make a dent. Satellite broadband, like Starlink, should also start to be a factor as early as 2022. Government infrastructure build-out funding and subsidies in the US is on the way in 2021.

Augmented 3D features are still growing but will merge with 2D

The upshot of this topic is that “2D” factors and increasingly sophisticated manipulation and interactive features that are already coming in iOS15 will bring us all closer the entry-portal stone-age version of the metaverse.

We all depend more and more on communications and using our devices – work from home, personal, business and hybrid activities (such as the emerging content creator class). Often, as a result, we have fewer options to go offline for “organic” RL (real life) interactions.

The increasingly sophisticated capabilities available are beginning to make even face to face communications, particularly in work situations, feel “un-enhanced” as we become accustomed to and dependent on the digital enhancements and potential of a full media rich interaction.

This is an example, one could say, of the subtle encroachment of the emerging metaverse onto the “real world” and how the boundaries are blurring and even beginning to disappear.

Rather than a sudden “jump” into a metaverse, similar to the cliché sci-fi plots from films like “Ready Player 1”, what is happening is a nearly imperceptible transition to metaverse-like experiences that will become commonplace, initially in a primitive form, and then eventually become the norm. Similar to the proverbial Frog in pot, with warm water temperatures that increase so slowly that the Frog doesn’t even notice, until it finds that it is swimming in pot that is already boiling.

The misconception that a “killer app” or sudden shift into an online, virtual reality world, is the future, and that a big leap will happen nearly all at once, is harmlessly superimposed on the real transition that has already begun.

When Apple’s 2007 launch of the iPhone changed communication forever: the journey began

The new “Digital Legacy Program”, also announced at WWDC2021, is another hint that we are already living in an extremely primitive version of the metaverse. Our online identity, data, and even behaviors and experiences are so essential and all pervasive that it has become necessary to keep a digital key to access the huge trove of personal data we will leave behind to pass on to our living loved ones, after we are gone.

The metaverse, that means, is not only creating a parallel digital universe for us to live in, in an ever more complete and sophisticated way, but we are also already setting up the eternal storage of our virtual life experiences to be passed down to future generations.

Though nearly invisible while in such a relatively primitive iteration, the concept, an example of overlapping advancements in innovation, is a tiny step towards digital immortality.

The metaverse could help to save us all

It’s not just professional and work related communication that relates to the gradual increase in the depth of networked communication options, but, even more so, casual and leisure communication and interaction is key.

TikTok and other video communication trends are at the forefront of of user evolution and metaverse activity expansion. When people feel motivated to find new and better ways to communicate using richer media and augmented techniques for fun, and to gain more recognition in online societies, that advances digital sophistication.

This process of the evolution of user comfort and sophistication, while existing and interacting in the metaverse, is the fastest way for the augmentation to become more effective.

There’s a mostly unseen benefit and need for this, otherwise seemingly pointless, global development

The challenges that the world faces, encroaching, devastating fallout from global warming and excess carbon in the atmosphere, political corruption and inequality, disinformation and cybercrime, and so on.

Ultimately, unlike at any time in human history, we are facing a challenge. The survival of our species and even the planet are at stake.

In the years and decades to come it will become more and more obvious that there are only two paths possible. One path toward a kind of Utopia, or another one that will lead, inexorably to Oblivion.

Though the metaverse is scary in many ways, and does not always appear as a way to a better life, augmented and enhanced communication is one of the most desperately needed ways that solutions could eventually be discovered and implemented.

And that would put this progression and evolution of tech more in service of Utopia, and could be at the heart of a rescue plan to prevent Oblivion, before it’s too late.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/universal-control/Apple-Universal-Control-cc-us-_1280x720h.mp4

Above: Craig Federighi Demo Video at WWDC 2021

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Apple, Apps, Cutting Edge, D.I.Y., iOS 15, macOS 12 Monterey, OS Software

iPadOS 15 Preview: Get Ready for AI and Machine Learning that will Blow You Away

Video July 4, 2021 Eric Cho

Boring? Are you kidding me? Time to look under the hood…

Somewhere in the land of media herding there was a familiar refrain. iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are “boring”. Apparently the idea behind this is that there is no single feature that changes the entire experience of the iPhone or iPad – no “killer app” or killer upgrade.

The “boring” crowd have focused on things like “you can banish your ex from memories in iOS 15”. I saw a slew of articles with a variation on that title.

The biggest problem with the attitude, which must have been initiated by someone that has not really been hands on with any of the new iOS software (which is still in non-public beta only) is that it’s not true. (A public beta is expected in July but it is not recommended unless you are a developer testing on “non-critical” devices).)

Why? Because there are so many killer upgrades that it’s overwhelming, basically due to the avalanche of amazing new features and improvements. This article will attempt to give an illustration of that by focusing on only one feature inside one built-in app: Memories inside of the Photos app.

First a short digression. We have been testing on several devices including a MacBook Pro 15” from 2017, an original 1st generation iPad Pro (2015) and an iPhone XS Max from 2018. None of these machines have the new Apple Silicon chips and for that reason they are only able to produce the upgraded features that don’t require it.

That makes the improvements that are possible without buying any new hardware even more amazing. Stunningly, of the three devices we upgraded the MacBook Pro was the most stable right out of the gate. Any beta software will have bugs, glitches and sometimes crash but that does not prevent one from testing out features that are new.

The iPad pro, in a non-technical observation almost appears as if the screen resolution has been increased, obviously not possible but, as you will read below, could be part of a stunning emphasis on increased beauty, sensuality and luxurious feel in the new suite of OSs.

Memory movies on iPad OS15 are an amazing example of how AI and machine learning are evolving

For those not familiar with “Memories” they are auto-generated film clips that can be found in the “For You” tab in your photos app on iPhone and iPad. While you are sleeping this feature scans everything in your photos library and uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and neural networks to choose and edit the clips, as the name says, for you.

One not confirmed but almost certain technical backdrop to this is that the learning is improving even between updates to the OS. Not only that but all Apple devices on earth are “cooperating” to help each other learn. That’s a powerful force that spreads across over 1.65 billion devices.

This feature was added in iOS 12 but started to function in iOS 14 on a much higher level. If you had tested and used the feature over the last few years as we have you’d have noticed that the ability of the AI to “see” and select photos and videos to include was limited and, at times, comical. Not any more.

Much of the data that clues the software in as to what photos belong together is from the embedded meta data. The date, time and location information helps to tell the AI that you took a group of images or videos on a day in a particular location.

The difference in iPad OS15 (iPhone too, of course) is that the more difficult to accomplish tasks, such as recognizing the subjective quality of one photo verses another (humans often take several photos of the same scene to try to capture the best out of a bunch). Or, more importantly, who and what are the subject of a photo.

All of this began to get interesting in iPad OS 14 and many groups of photos and videos were already being chosen, edited and enhanced by the software to a level that was fairly impressive.

AI and aesthetics collide and the result is a Joy to witness

Something that is starting to become a thread and a definitive direction that Apple is taking, particularly with the iPad Pro series, is, true to the name, a Pro level of visual production and manipulation throughout the OS.

Center Stage, for example and many other video and photo related upgrades were some of the big features in the newest generation of iPad Pro. Those are great, but require a new iPad along with the OS upgrade.

When it comes to the memory movie clips what we found is that even on the oldest iPad Pro from 2015 the evolution of the software due to the constant learning by the AI is already taking a huge step forward doing all the things that it was already doing only much better.

Apple’s upgrade took that and give it an additional kick up a notch with somewhat that the company is known for: good taste.

What has changed specifically?

In iPad and iPhone OS 14 there were a few things that felt awkward in the way movies were created. The biggest shortfall was in the softwares ability to deal with various aspect ratios.

These days when we shoot photos and videos with an iPhone it is tempting and, at times, wonderful to use the vertical orientation. Other times, for landscapes and other scenes we might prefer a traditional film aspect or even use the panorama feature to get an ultra-wide screen “cinema-scope” style.

Until now this was dealt with very poorly by the software. Mostly the photos would constantly zoom in (the so called “Ken Burns” effect) and if shown without zooming in a vertical portrait shot would have ugly side bars (like a vertical letterbox effect).

The zooming and most of the effects in general destroyed the resolution and therefore the quality of many photos by enlarging them and adding the effects.

Additionally the effects that were added, while cute and fun, were not much more than a way to add fun and not what would likely be used by a human editor. All of this and more made for a kind of novelty feel to the whole process that was nice to have, but many never even bothered to look at the movies that software created for them.

That’s about to be over.

A whole new array of options for the AI to use while trying to entertain

In iPad OS 15, as can be seen on the photos and videos in this article, the ways that the software solves the aspect ratio issue as described above is genius and, dare I say it, beautiful.

In a collaboration between the AI and the software itself it now has a new bag of tricks to use and, boy, does it work. One feature that is fantastic is the letterbox generator for any wide screen photos in any aspect ratio.

How this works is that it takes the iPad aspect ratio and then uses the photo in it original at 100% full resolution and then adds a letterbox. But this is not the usual plain black bars we are all familiar with – the software and AI are able to see and analyze the photo and create a custom gradient letterbox that can be any shade or color.

The effect is often astoundingly tasteful and often makes the original photo look even better. We tested it on award winning photos (video above) and the result is, basically art. Also on our own “nice” photos, chosen 100% by the AI and software, look amazing also.

Actually, all the photos and videos in the clips generated from the library look much better than I had remembered. That turns out to be because the software and AI now do automated color grading on all the photos and videos in all the generated memories !

Color grading also known as color correction, especially for video, has traditionally required an expensive expert and high end software (and hardware) to enhance and color match various photos and clips, that have often been taken at different times and places, where lighting conditions vary and sometimes were shot with different camera.

AI and machine learning software on iPad OS15 (and iOS 15) now has a virtual colorist actively adjusting your shots and enhancing and color matching them while you sleep. That is basically insane. That’s probably why it appeared that the photos and even the iPad itself had been upgraded.

Ok, I could go on and on about that one feature, but let’s move to some more features. There are also new effects that are added that vary with each memory (there are a lot more clips being generated, including various versions of the same idea to choose from).

In the experiments so far the effects are clearly better and more subtle than in iOS 14. Again in many cases I found myself saying the word “beautiful” when I tried find an adjective to describe the results.

For shots that have a vertical bias there’s a vertical geometric split screen effect, often with a thin black border, and it has a kind of 60’s on steroids feel with the bars sliding in and out and resizing into place.

Another effect not seen in iOS 14 is a kind of circular rotation – great for landscapes – it’s not a common effect probably because it is computationally complex, but for the AI, it’s a snap. Sometimes this effect has a kind of blur-dissolve added which makes it fun and, again, still tasteful.

It appears that the effects are not only better and there’s a larger bag of them, but they appear to evolve and adapt to the content, that is to say that the speed and depth of each changes with the music combined with the photo and video content.

Oh, and the music. OMG. Each clip has 6 songs pre-selected and the entire clip adapts, in real time (!), when you change the song, showing you various styles and looks that match. Apparently Apple Music is also connected if you have a subscription.

As a mater of fact, it is hard to be certain, as we have not had more than a few hours to test this, but nearly everything appears to be “live” and constantly evolving in real time. In order to “freeze” a version of a memory you have to “favorite” it (with the typical heart symbol) and then “add to memories” in order to edit (change the names or choose more images – or remove anything if it is not to your liking).

There is so much more not yet mentioned here: this article could probably be a book

The AI is also getting creative with names and “concepts” for the clips. For example, if you had lunch (or took photos) over the years in the same city (for me it was Knoxville, TN) it might look at the coincidence that you tended to take photos around midday in that town and then create a memory clip called “Lunch in Knoxville over the Years”. Or for example the clip at the head of this article: “Golden Hour Over The Years”.

This is an early and primitive foretaste of the literary ambitions of AI. In the new Photos App in iOS 15 it is beginning to “think” about when, where and why humans take photos and videos and then conceiving a story that fits the behavior it is witnessing.

Other titles go beyond the basic “Amsterdam in 2016” and start to use the understanding and visual ability to “see” what is in the photo to create a clip like : “Playing in the Snow at Christmas”. Snow? Does it know it’s cold? Maybe just that it’s white and happens in the northern hemisphere in December. This is just the very beginning of something that will evolve, hourly, from now on. I can’t wait.

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Entertainment, Movies, Stock Market, Videos

Watch ‘The Big Short’ and ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ if GameStop Mania has your Curiosity Piqued

Video January 30, 2021 Eric Cho

Stories from Past Crises can Reveal New Insights as we Encounter huge Challenges

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/thebigshort/thebigshort-onlinespot_h1080p.mov

Right now, the best movies on the financial crises of 2008 and 2000 and stock trading in general are all trending on the streaming rental market, since they are nearly impossible to find on subscription based platforms such as Netflix, HBO Max, Disney +, etc.

As a result, paid views have skyrocketed, for example, on iTunes, where “The Big Short” is #3 and “Wolf on Wall Street” is #4

This surge applies to other films such as the excellent ‘Boiler Room” with Giovanni Ribisi. The films are all excellent and worth paying for if the chaotic craze with huge money gained and lost with GameStop, AMC and the whole Reddit, Robinhood brouhaha has you curious to learn more about the financial markets.

Click to buy “The Big Short”
and help Lynxotic
and all Independent Local Bookstores.
Also available on Amazon.

The reality is sinking in, slowly, that the future is truly unknowable and that big changes and even bigger challenges are looming. Twin shocks of a health emergency and a financial crisis, intertwined and yet with separate trajectories, are still to be resolved in our near future.

And then there’s the myriad of other challenges that were already acute, such as global warming and the “other” epidemic; corruption and greed. It’s almost too much to face up to, and no one can be blamed for wanting to just turn away.

Too much has been glossed over. After the 2008 crisis we all just wanted to put that ugly mess behind us and get on with our lives. I suppose the criminals that netted billions as a “reward” for almost destroying the entire global economy were also eager to just move on.

All that as it may be, perhaps, a way to begin the process of regaining our courage and looking into the future with some kind of hope, or at least a deeper understanding of the human dilemma and historical precedents, might be to enjoy films about small moments of triumph before great adversity. Here are a few recent options:

The Big Short:

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/thebigshort/thebigshort-fte1_h1080p.mov

Barely 12 years ago, the financial collapse and ensuing “Great Recession” was a nightmare scenario. The aftermath of that debacle is also a contributor to the economic dangers we see before us in 2020. This film, likely the best based on that era, highlights how outsiders and misfits were able to prosper, even as they witnessed the corruption, failure and systemic injustice that brought the world to the brink of total economic chaos.

Starring: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.

Want know more about shorting? About the shady and complicated scams? And also see an incredible film?

‘Wolf of Wall Street’:

The Wolf of wall street is simply a great movie. It’s even better though if you watch it in the context of stock market mania. Just like the one that’s happening now.

Beyond the fact that the story is incredibly entertaining it does also get into the heart of the “pump & dump” boiler room mentality. While the so called ‘retail investors” who are riding the Robinhood stock purchasing app to what they see as well deserved revenge on Wall Street, and Belfort who was the real life “Wolf of Wall Street” was more of a wannabe that couldn’t get into the establishment.

He then set forth, with chutzpa and insanity and some drugs, built his own criminal empire, there are some very clear correlations between his tricks that made him rich and what the short-squeezing Reddit & Wall Street Bets chat room vigilantes are doing right now.

Can we all be like the guys, Jordan Belfort or Michael Burry, who was played by Christian Bale in the movie, and even though it was about going short, it’s sill ok, cause, Christian Bale?

History does exist, even if it happened before your uncle was born

Up until 1934 many things were legal and rampant that today, technically, are not allowed. Insider Trading is the most obvious and best defined, look up Martha Stewart and jail time if you want to know more about that.

Collusion in the market is another less well known practice, also known as “pump & dump” that has as many variations as Ponzi schemes and, though illegal, will never be stamped out. The technical terms for Colluding in relation to stock trading are “securities fraud” or “market manipulation.”

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/paramount/wolfofwallstreet/thewolfofwallstreet-tlr2_h1080p.mov

Not to get technical but here’s an partial excerpt of the legal specifics:

15 U.S. Code § 78i – Manipulation of security prices

(a) – (2 To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security registered on a national securities exchange, any security not so registered, or in connection with any security-based swap or security-based swap agreement with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/independent/anthropocene/anthropocene-trailer-1b_h1080p.mov

Cinderella Man

This Depression era feel-good story takes on new meaning as we see a “Great Depression II” potentially looming. Looking for strength and courage facing forces that threaten our survival, and coming out at the end in a better place, that’s a synopsis and blueprint we can all benefit from observing, even if it’s packaged as a Hollywood vehicle. Russel Crowe at his best. Maybe worth a second look.

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Apple, OS Software, Tech

iOS 14 Quick & Easy: how to set-up iPhone to do a screen-shot with a double-tap on back

Video October 9, 2020 Kat Lee

Use this powerful setting for Screen-shot Back-Tap or many other actions

As many of you out there have undoubtedly realized, iOS 14 is a huge and powerful upgrade with layers of new features and options. Some can be learned by just getting used to the “lay of the land” and intuitively adapting.

Others are “secret” or at least hidden to an extent, and require a road map to find. For this reason we have begun a YouTube series we call “iOS 14 Quick & Easy” to give you a quick, easy road map to learning and using all the best tips and tricks.

This installment shows the easy way to set your iPhone to initiate an action when you tap the back of the iPhone itself – either twice (double-tap) or three times (triple-tap).

There is actually a very long list of possible actions that can be triggered, but we chose screen-shot for this tutorial since it is really useful, fun and the steps would be the same for any action.

Infinite Flexibility is built-in to iOS14, you just need to choose your custom settings

The many other actions can be seen in the photo or just by scrolling to the “double-tap” menu as per the video and checking them out yourself.

Additionally there’s a shortcut section where ANY action that you set up as a shortcut can be accessed as a double-tap or triple-tap (meaning up to two actions dependent on 2 or 3 taps).

This illustrates the vast, basically limitless, ways that the new operating system and your phone can be customized and configured for fun, power and pure creative joy.

Check out other iOS 14 quick & easy tips:

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Apple, OS Software, Tech

iOS14 quick & easy with Wiley Simms – how to create Perfect Shapes in Markup Mode

Video September 23, 2020 Eric Cho

A Simple but Fun Trick to use: New iOS14 Markup feature: Drawing Perfect Shapes

iOS 14 is out and probably on your phone by now. If not, it likely will be soon. Sometimes with a big, new, update like this, feelings of excitement and joy can be mixed with the fog of navigating a virtual environment where many things have changed, even while some remain familiar.

Sometimes a great way to get some immediate satisfaction is to choose a simple new and improved feature and then master it, just to associate a feeling of confidence and accomplishment to the mix.

Apple picked the new markup features as one to introduce to new iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 users right away via the notification in the new widgets area. It’s simple and fun, and especially for people who are not great at drawing with fingers, can be very useful to emphasize areas in photos and screenshots. I use this daily as a way to communicate, rather than just text and email.

In this short 2 minute tutorial Wiley Simms, staff-writer and videographer on loan from our sister-site InforMinx.com, shows how it’s done. First getting easily into Markup Mode by clicking “edit” then the small circle with 3 dots – then from the drop down menu choosing “markup”.

Once in markup mode the markup pallet appears with various markers. There’s a new “selection pen” but the rest should be familiar, if you are a previous markup user. The simple trick is to draw a shape, say, for example, a star. Even if you draw a pretty rough version of the star, as long as you hold still and do not remove your finger from the screen at the end of the star – the software will figure out what you are trying to draw and “correct” or “perfect” your rough drawing into a perfect shape.

This works for stars, circles, ovals, squares, hearts and straight lines. With this group of common shapes you can do a lot of interesting compound drawings and illustrations. In particular, the straight line correction feature is very useful to build shapes that are not on the main list.

This limited 2 minute tutorial is meant to help to get a jump on learning the hundreds of new features in iOS 14 and thanks to Wiley for the video demonstration.

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Apple, OS Software, Tech

iOS 14, iPad OS 14 Drop, World About to change: here are some of the best new features

Video September 16, 2020 Danny Leeds

Along with watchOS7 it’s all new with 100s of features to learn

2020 has been one hellava year so far. The fires, political chaos, pandemic lockdowns, economic depressions are all still evolving. Finally, some better news. Over the last several months the stability of the beta versions of the new operating systems became far better. In order to stay ahead of the curve we tested some of the most interesting new features including these 5.

iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 will be available on September 16th to download on your iPhone and iPad. This is a major update and includes a lot of changes to your world.Now you will be able to add widgets to your home screen, find apps easier with the App Library and there are many new features in iMessage.

There are also, digging a little deeper, hidden gems like the Apple Translate App. in the video above we demonstrated an interesting difference between the Apple software and the well known Google Translate. This feature, called “Conversation Mode” foreshadows what we believe is going to be the hallmark of all Apple Software upgrades going forward: machine learning and built in AI for the OS and apps.

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In conversation mode the voice recognition engine is able to recognize what language it is “hearing” and then translate into the other language, based on the selected pair, in this case English and German. It can also recognize slang and alternate vocabularies and even some dialects and accents, such as UK vs American English.

At first blush this may seem like it is too deep into the detailed function of the app to be significant, after all for the most part we just need to know what a phrase means in an alternate language. But, in typical spectacular fashion, this feature is an example of something you don’t realize you need until you have it – then you can’t imagine you ever lived without it. Ultimately a conversation could be translated “live” without having to stop each time to let the app know who is speaking which language – making the flow of the conversation remain intact while the app “just works”.

Also in typical Apple fashion, it will probably take an iPhone 12 Pro, a 5G connection and a few months of machine learning to make that scenario a reality, but it would be an interesting experience nonetheless, when it is finally a reality.

Apple News goes Audio: Built in articles out loud

Apple News + might get a boost with the new Apple One bundle, also revealed in the Apple September 2020 keynote event. Those who opt for “Premier” will get Apple News+ access bundled in. Even without the News+ upgrade all users get access to audio stories released periodically “Apple News Today”, somewhat like a teaser sample pack to let you try out with your AirPods and see if the additional audio, including sync with text version and Apple Car Play might entice you to become a News+ subscriber ($5 per month without the bundle).

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Privacy features delayed due to Facebook being terrified but coming soon

Although delayed, these features are some of the most important in the new OS versions. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg. The gist of the situation is that Apple is finally asserting it’s rightful place in the internet ecosystem: users should be allowed to opt in to surveillance by advertisers and predatory juggernauts like Facebook and Amazon, rather than be surveilled automatically and then have to jump through hoops (and potentially add blockers and plug-ins to escape).

Apple’s billion users would need to allow their data and browsing habits to be monetized by those massive ad built eco-system killers. A lot has also been discussed about how this new regime change by Apple could negatively affect publishers, like Lynxotic, but this is a case of seeing the big, long term benefits, such as an internet where the users and netizens, and not Zuckerberg, are finally in charge. This goal is lofty and honorable and long overdue. Therefore, any adjustments needed to be made by publishers business models is well worth it.

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That’s not all, in iOS 14 and iPad OS14 searches will default for “best for user” rather than automatically being diverted to google or any other “search engine”. If you are searching for a news article or information about an apple product, for example, the search will offer you results, within the global search on your device rather than in a browser, and this will direct you to your Apple News App or to Safari, landing directly on a web site, as appropriate.

Above: Changes to search in the new iOS14, iPadOS14 and macOS 11 Big Sur

Searches might finally find what you want, coming soon

As many have noticed Google has been diverting searches to Google hosted pages rather than offering results that take you directly to the web site that published the information. This practice is the reverse of what Apple is trying to do. Google want to “hold” you in Google “territory”, just as Facebook tries to block you from leaving its ecosystem that you are logged in to. Apple, on the other hand, is set up to send people directly to the source of the information, such as news web sites, etc., albeit via Safari or the Apple News App.

This will all continue to be a contentious issue going forward as it is akin to a war between Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook (!), so we will be following this closely and will continue to report, ahead of the fact in many cases, in an ongoing fashion.

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Apple, Apple Services, OS Software, Tech

AppleNews App in iOS14 and iPadOS14 New Audio Features

September 13, 2020 Kat Lee

Apple News Plus Audio features may remove “boring” from the aggregator Among the many announcements anticipated for the September 15, 2020 Apple Watch and iPad virtual event: “Time Flies” there will surely be a lot of new iOS and iPad OS features revealed. Some are already available for testing in the iOS and iPad OS … Continue reading AppleNews App in iOS14 and iPadOS14 New Audio Features →

The list is long and the potential is deep: learning the most useful tricks that can help clarify the options

Here are just a few of them:

Apples Key Feature List Below:

Recent articles for more reading:

The huge iOS and iPad OS 15 update keeps yielding more tips and tricks to learn

The interdependence and interaction between built in apps is key

A Steamroller where a flyswatter would suffice?

Finally: the whole package – and a convenient way to prove vaccination status

Master the ways you can use it and information gathering on iPhone will never be the same

In typical Apple fashion, if there are 10 ways to use live text then there are 100

Examples in the video below include the Notes app, the Messages app (formerly iMessage) and the mail app.

iOS 15.1 is filled with features that have a myriad of use cases, almost too many to list or describe

Apple Articles:

With live view in Find My and ETA in Maps, iOS 15 is on a whole new level with keeping track of traveling significant others

With live view and in conjunction with the Maps app location tracking is now in a whole new universe

Just plain fun to watch, but also useful if the movements of a loved on are critical

The future is out there, and already here on your phone (with enough bandwidth and other possible requirements).

Upgrades for hard and software, though groundbreaking and exciting, do have limitations and problems

Various less than perfect ideas and execution in the OS software

There are also specific limitations though that should be mentioned about the iPhone 13 Pro camera system.

Less and issue but often mentioned is the inability to shoot 4k slow motion footage.

Summing up, even with glitches and minor disappointments, it’s a beautiful world and now we just have to shoot it

The new Os’s are free and will be adopted fast if recent past is a guide

The best things in life are free, software edition

What to watch our for and expect, besides great new features and work-flows

The best new features are only going to get better after the launch, more so even than usual; here’s why

The big picture is extreme big, much wild, and will be quite a ride…

Latest Lynxotic Apple stories

For what seems like a long time many of us have been living inside our iPhone, immersed in a metaverse of our digital lives.

WWDC 2021 was a pure upgrade fest with a lot of detail to sift through

FaceTime just got a Facelift

Redesigned Weather and Notes Apps

Related Recent Article Links:

The “Pro-Vlogger” look popularized on YouTube now available to all…

The maturation of features across platforms is paying big dividends

Not only visual but also audio upgrades are coming

Additional new upgraded features for FaceTime include, but are not limited to:

Recent related links:

Sci-fi sounding, inevitable upgrade for today’s online communications

The gradual increases in iOS functionality and user sophistication are changing how we interact

Augmented 3D features are still growing but will merge with 2D

When Apple’s 2007 launch of the iPhone changed communication forever: the journey began

The metaverse could help to save us all

There’s a mostly unseen benefit and need for this, otherwise seemingly pointless, global development

Boring? Are you kidding me? Time to look under the hood…

Memory movies on iPad OS15 are an amazing example of how AI and machine learning are evolving

AI and aesthetics collide and the result is a Joy to witness

What has changed specifically?

A whole new array of options for the AI to use while trying to entertain

There is so much more not yet mentioned here: this article could probably be a book

Latest Related Articles:

Stories from Past Crises can Reveal New Insights as we Encounter huge Challenges

The Big Short:

Want know more about shorting? About the shady and complicated scams? And also see an incredible film?

‘Wolf of Wall Street’:

History does exist, even if it happened before your uncle was born

Not to get technical but here’s an partial excerpt of the legal specifics:

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

Read more: “GameStonks vs. Wall Street”: Heroes, Victims and Hogwash

Cinderella Man

Use this powerful setting for Screen-shot Back-Tap or many other actions

Infinite Flexibility is built-in to iOS14, you just need to choose your custom settings

Check out other iOS 14 quick & easy tips:

A Simple but Fun Trick to use: New iOS14 Markup feature: Drawing Perfect Shapes

Along with watchOS7 it’s all new with 100s of features to learn

Apple News goes Audio: Built in articles out loud

Privacy features delayed due to Facebook being terrified but coming soon

Above: Changes to search in the new iOS14, iPadOS14 and macOS 11 Big Sur

Searches might finally find what you want, coming soon

News: Climate Solutions, AI, Books, Entertainment and more