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.

AirPrint Activator

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.

Minecraft – Pocket Edition

Minecraft – Pocket Edition Lite

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.

New in OS X Lion is the build-in support for Emoji characters. Feeling moody or a little playful? You can now add smiley faces and cute animals to your email, chat or the monthly report. In TextEdit, Pages. iChat or any apps that support this system feature, select from menu File > Special Characters… or press Command-Option-T. A “Characters” window will popup. Select Emoji from the sidebar. Choose the category such as “People” or Nature”, and double-click on a character to place it into your document or chat window.

As you may have discovered by now, OS X Lion has killed the “File > Save As…” command. The change has taken effect in apps such as TextEdit, Preview and Pages. More apps are expected to follow suite when they update to support OS X Lion.

The “File > Save As…” function is now sorted of being replaced by the new “File > Duplicate” command. But there are differences. This is a big deal if you rely heavily on “Save As…” in your document workflow, as the new ”File > Duplicate” command double the steps required.

In the old way using “File > Save As…”, you simply enter a new document name, click the Save button, and you can start working on the new document.

When you issue “File > Duplicate” command, a new document window will appear with a copy of the same document content. You then have to issue “File > Save…” to actually save the new document as file.

This changes might appear more consumer friendly, but it is a pain to adjust to for many who are used to the long time computing “File > Save As…” workflow.

If you’re running out of new levels for Angry Birds or Cut The Rope, check out Where’s My Water?, another addictive game to fill your hours. Check out this game to find out playing with water on your iPhone or iPad could be fun. Coming from Disney, Where’s My Water? is only $0.99 and is a universal app for both iPhone and iPad.

Where’s My Water? on App Store

Apple TV is now at $89.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, a price drop of about $10. At Apple’s online store, Apple TV is still listed at the usual $99.

The price drop might be an indication that retailers are making room for a newer model. Mid-November is unusually late for a product launch ahead of Christmas shopping season. But it is nevertheless good bargain if Apple TV is in your shopping wish list.

Apple TV at Amazon.com

A new feature in iOS 5 Photos app is the ability for you to create photo albums directly. You can create albums and add photos from your camera roll into them.

One caveat is the albums created on your iOS devices are not standalone folder for you to store your photos. Albums in iOS 5 Photos app is more like grouping or category or tagging for the photos in your camera roll. When you remove from the camera roll photos in an album, the photos are removed from the album. When you remove photos from within an album, the photos stay in the camera roll.

iCal the calendar app in Mac OS X Lion has a new trick. You can create calendar events using plain English. Click on the icon with a plus sign or press Command-N to activate the Quick Event pop-up. Enter your calendar event in plain English, for example “Dinner with Sarah Friday at 7pm”. Press Enter and the event will be created for you on the calendar.

You can create multi days event by keying the start and end date. For example “Year end holidays from Nov 22 to Nov 28″.  For one thing, you can’t specify “next weekday/week/month” with Quick Event such as “Movie with Sam next Saturday 8pm”. Let’s hope iCal will improve on this feature for future release. But for now, using plain English is a better way than entering the event date/time manually.