As predicted, Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ biography is Amazon’s best-selling book of 2011. It is remarkable considering that ‘Steve Jobs’ is only released in late October. The biography is an interesting read into the man for fans and non-fans alike.
If you use the dock but hate the blue indicator light below open applications, OS X Lion now allows you to turn the lights off. Go to System Preferences > Dock, uncheck “Show indicator lights for open applications”.
Path has just released version 2, with a revamped interface that is about sharing all aspect of your life, photos, vides, message, songs, location and even sleep. Called it a micro blogging app or life journal app, Path 2 is what the app should have been in the first place. The famous 50 person limit is increased to 150 in Path 2. Yes there is still a limit to the number of people you can share things in the app. And the app now sync your Path pots with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr.
OS X Lion comes with a new “iTunes Artwork” screen saver, which displays album covers from your iTunes library as flipping grids of images. When you click on an album cover, the songs from the album will start playing.
The settings for screen saver is under System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver.
AirDrop is a new OS X Lion feature that provides an easy way to share files between Wi-Fi enabled Macs, using drag-and-drop right from within Finder. Unfortunately AirDrop is not available for all Macs running OS X Lion as the feature requires a Wi-Fi hardware feature available only on newer Macs.
If AirDrop is not listed on your Mac’s Finder window sidebar or under the Go menu, then your Mac doesn’t support AirDrop. Apple has a support document listing the Macs supporting AirDrop. Macs that are the same as or newer than the models listed below support AirDrop:
Apple Support Doc: Can I use AirDrop with my computer?
We have covered the built-in Emoji support in OS X Lion. Turns out that iOS 5 has the same Emoji characters for you when text is just not enough. In order to enter Emoji characters in iOS 5, you need to add the Emoji keyboard.
From Settings app, go to General > Keyboard > International Keyboards > Add New Keyboard. Look for “Emoji” and tap on it to add the keyboard.
Once a keyboard is added, it can be accessed from the globe icon on the keyboard during text editing. Each tap on the globe icon will toggle among the added keyboards from the Settings app.
AirPrint is the printing module of iOS that enables wireless printing from apps from your iPhone and iPad. However in order to support AirPrint, printers need to have wireless networking feature and specifically enhanced in hardware in order to support AirPrint. You can check out the list of current AirPrint compatible printers from Apple support site. Before you rush out to buy an AirPrint printer specifically, read on.
If your current printer is not AirPrint compatible, you can still enable AirPrint by running an agent software such as AirPrint Activator on your Mac. AirPrint Activator app will broadcast the printers connected on the Mac to your iOS devices via the AirPrint protocol. When you send a print job from iPhone, AirPrint Activator will route the print job to the printer.
The prerequisite for AirPrint Activator is a running Mac in order for the connected printers to be accessible. You also need to enable OS X’s “Printer Sharing” from System Preferences > Sharing.
AirPrint Activator is a third party solution and is not endorsed by Apple. There are other similar apps but AirPrint Activator is recommended as it is simple, it works and it is free (donation is happily welcomed by the developer). Until Apple release similar feature in future OS X, AirPrint Activator is the next best thing without spending the extra for a new printer.
Popular indie game Minecraft has made it into the Apple iOS world. Minecraft Pocket Edition is an universal app for both iPhone and iPad. The game however is a scaled down version of the full version on PC/Mac. Minecraft Pocket Edition lacks the survival mode, has a different control using touch, only has 36 type of blocks and visible elements differences such as terrain, water and sky. Nevertheless, developer Mojang has mentioned that they are working to close the feature gap between the Pocket Edition and the full version.
If you’re not a fan, check out the free Minecraft Pocket Edition Lite to find out what the hype is all about. The Lite version has fewer block types and you can’t save your progress in the game.
You might be familiar with the File > Duplicate (Command-D) command in Finder. New in OS X Lion is the function “Duplicate Exactly”. You can access Duplicate Exactly by pressing Command-Option-Shift keys while in the File menu. The “Duplicate” menu item will change to “Duplicate Exactly”. Or you can just press the keys Command-Option-Shift-D.
When you choose the normal “Duplicate” command, OS X will create a copy of the file and set the file owner to your login account. “Duplicate Exactly” will create a copy of the file but the ownership of the file follows the source, thus ensuring the exact same file even for file permissions.
For its iOS devices, Apple is striking a good balance between hardware features and usability. Having good battery life is one essential usability feature high in Apple’s design agenda. Thus you do not find battery draining LTE components in iOS devices, as Apple is awaiting for those technology to mature.
Battery life on iPhone or iPad are acceptable and is the best among smartphones. You should not have to turn off features in order to get reasonable battery life. The following tips are just to highlight areas that impact battery life on your iPhone and iPad.
1. Display Screen. The screen is one component that uses much battery juice. By default, screen Auto-Lock is set to one minute on your iPhone and 5 minutes for iPad. Make sure you know what you are doing if you choose the “Never” option. You can save on battery life by lowering the Auto-Lock minutes for iPad. To adjust, go to Settings app, select General > Auto-Lock.
2. Auto-Brightness. When the screen is brighter, more battery is required. Make sure Auto-Brightness is turn on to let iOS adjusts the display’s brightness according to your current environment. To adjust, open Settings app and select Brightness.
3. Location Services. With location service turned on, the GPS component in your iPhone or iPad is working, thus is draining the battery. Nowadays it seems like almost every apps wants to use your location. You can turn off location service from Settings > Location Services. It is advisable not to shut down location service for all apps as it is useful feature for some essential apps such as Photos, Reminders and Find My iPhone. Instead turn off location service for apps that you do not use for their location aware feature.
4. Bluetooth. The settings for Bluetooth is under Settings > General > Bluetooth. Turn off Bluetooth when not in use will save some battery life.
5. Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is another radio component that uses battery as it searches constantly for Wi-Fi network around you. You can turn off Wi-Fi from Settings > Wi-Fi. Turning off Wi-Fi is not recommended if you use Wi-Fi a lot, nothing beats the convenience of having access to the network automatically wherever you are.
6. Fetch New Data. For mail, contacts and calendars, you can disable Push to saw battery life under Settings > Mail,Contacts,Calendars > Fetch New Data. It is not recommended to turn Push off if you use iCloud for mail, contacts or calendars and require up-to-date data to be always available. If you do not use Push for mail, contacts or calendars, you can setup to a lower fetch frequency to save battery life. Instead of fetching every 15 minutes, set it to fetch hourly for example.
7. Vibration. If you receive a lot of calls, alerts or messages, you can save battery life by turning off the phone’s vibrator. Go to Settings > Sounds for the settings.
8. Equalizer. The Music app has an EQ equalizer feature which adjusts music on the fly and uses battery while doing so. Make sure it is off if you do not use it. The settings is under Settings > Music > EQ.
