iOS

Home screen widgets are one of the coolest features of iOS 14.

We’ve all gotten that panicked “Where are you?!?” text message at some point.

Unlike the 24-inch iMac, there are no major industrial design changes in either iPad Pro model, but Apple has made significant upgrades under the hood, most notably switching from the previous A12Z Bionic chip to the M1 chip that now powers an increasing number of Macs.

If you’ve turned on automatic App Updates in Settings > App Store on your iPhone or iPad, you might wonder how you’d know if an app was updated or what changed.

In iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Apple added two new status indicators to the right side of the status bar at the top of the screen. They’re designed to give you feedback about what an app is doing.

Remember when we had to keep magnets away from floppy disks to avoid scrambling them? Modern storage is no longer vulnerable, but magnets and electromagnetic fields from consumer electronics can interfere with medical devices, like implanted pacemakers and defibrillators

It’s difficult for most of us to imagine that a camera—something that still feels like it’s a standalone object—could be improved significantly with a software update. But now that cameras are part of our phones, code is king. With iOS 14, the camera in your iPhone becomes all the more capable.

Suppose you have an older iPhone or iPad, especially one with only 16 GB of storage. In that case, it’s possible that you won’t have enough space to upgrade to iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 through Settings > General > Software Update.

Even as we get 5G cellular connectivity and high-speed Wi-Fi networks, there are plenty of times when you might want to reduce your data usage. Perhaps you’re trying to avoid running over a data cap while traveling, or maybe you’re sharing a Wi-Fi network with a very slow Internet connection.

We’ve published overviews of the major features in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, along with detailed looks at our favorite features. But Apple keeps releasing updates with new features, and we wanted to take a moment to catch you up on what Apple has added in versions 14.1, 14.2, and 14.3.

Several years ago, Apple bought a company called Shazam, which made an app that identified songs by listening to the music playing nearby.

Photos in iOS 14 provides four views of your library: Years, Months, Days, and All Photos.

You’ve likely seen our tip on using the Dock on an iPhone or iPad as a temporary holding place that makes rearranging apps easier.

You likely know that you can use Do Not Disturb to prevent random notifications on your iPhone from waking you at night—it’s easy to set a Do Not Disturb schedule for your usual sleeping hours.

Many of us have been using iPhones for years, and apps we bought or downloaded long ago molder in corners of our Home screens. Even if you haven’t played Flappy Bird in years, its pixelated icon still stares glumly at you every time you peer at its Home screen, and it’s far from alone. To find out how many apps you have, go to Settings > General > About and look next to Applications.

The App Library in iOS 14 ensures that you can find all the apps installed on your iPhone without having to hunt through Home screens.

You’ve long had text messages forwarding from your iPhone to your Mac and iPad, but after you get a new device, it might be a while before you realize that it’s not receiving texts sent to your iPhone.

Harvest season is here again, and Apple has deemed iOS 14 (along with iPadOS 14, watchOS 7, and tvOS 14) ready for the picking.

For the second time in less than a month, Apple has made a splashy announcement. In its “Hi, Speed” event, the company unveiled a new lineup of four iPhone 12 models.

On the iPad side of things, Apple’s first announcement was the simplest. The new eighth-generation iPad replaces the previous seventh-generation model and sports only a single change. More interesting is the new fourth-generation iPad Air. The third-generation iPad Air was essentially a stripped-down version of the older 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and the fourth-generation model continues that trend with the current 11-inch iPad Pro.

Sure, you know that the Space bar in the iOS virtual keyboard types a space character. But did you realize that if you tap it twice, it inserts a period?

People whose iPhones or iPads have relatively little free space have long struggled with the fact that iOS likes to download updates so they’ll be ready for installation.

Every year at its Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple lays out its roadmap for the next releases of each of its operating systems. The COVID-19 pandemic forced Apple to record its keynote presentation ahead of time rather than having it live, but the company doesn’t seem to have tempered its ambitions for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.

If you have lots of apps on your iPhone or iPad, rearranging their icons on your Home screens by dragging from page to page is tedious. Although the new App Library promised for iOS 14 later this year will help you find apps, rearranging them will still be a manual process.

Whenever you tap a link to open a Web page on your iPhone or iPad, it automatically opens a new tab. Having hundreds of tabs open won’t cause any problems but can make working with tabs clumsy.

Four years after the release of the original iPhone SE, Apple has introduced a second-generation iPhone SE with aggressive pricing that starts at just $399.

Group FaceTime has a feature that some find obnoxious: automatic speaking prominence that causes the video tile for the speaker to grow and move around. Happily, Apple finally took the feedback and added options to disable that feature.

Every now and then, we’ve seen iPhones stop being able to access the Internet, either via Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection. Assuming that the Internet connection is working for other devices, there are two easy ways to reset your iPhone’s connection and get it working again.

Apple threw back the curtains on an updated iPad Pro that will be compatible with a new iPad Pro-specific Magic Keyboard that includes a trackpad. The iPad Pro is available now, but the Magic Keyboard won’t ship until May.

If you’re plugging your iPhone in regularly but getting low-battery warnings when you shouldn’t, consider the possibility that something is preventing your iPhone from charging successfully while plugged in.

Sharing your location works well when you’re out with friends or family and want everyone to be able to see where everyone else is.

The decision is easier than you might think, because Apple® may be phasing out My Photo Stream. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For those who still have a choice, which way should you go? Let’s look closer.

In your list of conversations in Messages, you probably have lots of people who have generic icons next to their names or numbers. A new feature in iOS 13 lets you share your preferred name and avatar picture with other iMessage users.

Have you ever seen the dreaded “No Service” label at the top of your iPhone’s screen, even when you’re pretty sure there should be cellular reception?

Historically, picking a new Wi-Fi network has required you to open the Settings app and tap Wi-Fi, forcing you to unlock your iPhone or switch away from what you were doing.

Every time Apple® releases a new iPhone®, or even an iOS update, the added apps and features put more demands on the device’s battery. Consider, too, that rechargeable batteries in today’s mobile technology are consumable components that degrade over time, and become less capable of holding a charge or delivering optimal performance.

When Apple® released iOS 13 exclusively for iPhone® (and iPod touch®) last September, it offered many new features that didn’t make headlines — but are quite useful nonetheless. One such feature is Markup tools, a hidden powerhouse, and now more capable and intuitive than ever for adding notations to screenshots and photos.

For many of us, voicemail replaced answering machines, so we don't think of voicemail messages as being something we can save or share.

AirDrop has become a fast and reliable way to transfer data from one iPhone to another that’s nearby.

You would be right if you guessed the iPhone® was Apple’s best-selling product of all time. But would you know what comes next?

Once of the fastest ways to communicate an emergency SOS is with your iPhone®. Specifically, it’s by creating a Medical ID using the Health app on your phone.

With the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max, Apple changed the way the Camera app’s shutter button works in ways that could cause confusion.

In previous versions of iOS, a scroll bar would appear on the right edge of the screen while you were swiping through a long Web page, email message, or document. Apple has made the scroll bar more helpful, and you’ll want to use it to scroll long pages more quickly than you can with swiping.

It won’t surprise anyone that YouTube and Instagram are the most popular apps on the iPhone®. But it might surprise everyone that the iPhone houses the world’s most popular camera.

A small but welcome new feature of iOS 13 is Driving ETA, which helps you share your estimated time of arrival with a contact whenever you’re navigating with the Maps app.

iPadOS 13 debuts with this new generation of iPad Pro®, iPad, iPad mini and iPad Air® devices. iPadOS serves to recognize that iPad continues to grow into its own computing platform. So while iPadOS was built on the same foundation as iOS, it delivers a truly unique and distinct experience for iPad users.

Do you use 3D Touch on your iPhone®?

Few people get so little email that they want an iPhone® notification for every message that rolls in. But many of us have just a couple of people—our personal VIPs—whose messages are important enough to warrant an alert.

If you have a friend whom you refer to only by his nickname, it can be annoying to feel like you should use his proper first name when adding him to Contacts.

On September 19th, iOS 13 will be here, with promising new ways the iPhone® will impact your daily life. So what can we expect?

The new iPhone® 11 is here. With three new models from which to choose, Apple® has upgraded performance, design and functionality over previous versions.

iOS 13 update is fast approaching, should you update?

We all do it. We want to save a few cents on store-brand napkins, lick-it-yourself envelopes and birthday cards for distant uncles. But there are some items we buy that just aren’t worth risking a buck or two.We’re talking cables here — quality cables that can help avoid possible damage to your Apple® ecosystem.

Do you sometimes find it difficult to read articles on your iPhone because of ads, banners, extraneous layout, social media icons, and too-small fonts? We certainly do, and there’s often a quick fix for the myriad ills of modern Web pages: Safari® Reader.

Apple’s Batteries widget is a little known but highly useful tool for quickly assessing which of your small Apple devices is lowest on power. Find out how to access Apple's Batteries widget.

Your technology can’t go it alone when it comes to keeping cool during hot months. Your devices need your help to continue to perform at optimum levels.

One of the key announcements from the recent Worldwide Developer Conference focused on iOS 13. But with the emergence of iPadOS as an iPad®-dedicated operating system, the noise surrounding iOS 13 was more hum than buzz.

iCloud Photos (whichApple previously called iCloud Photo Library) is wonderful when it's working properly. Photos in iOS and macOS can pause syncing for a variety of reasons, and sometimes it doesn't restart when it should. Check out how to find the sync status and how to resume syncing now.

It's maddening to want to read a serial number or other bit of fine print that you can barely see. But fret no longer - your iPhone or iPad makes a fabulous magnifying glass!

There's little worse than missing and important call or text because your iPhone was in Do Not Disturb mode or because the Mute switch was engaged. If there are certain people - a spouse, parent, or child - whose calls and texts you always want to break through the cone of silence, iOS has the solution: Emergency Bypass.

Although Apple® recently revamped its iPad® product line with two new products, it’s the elevation of the Apple Pencil® that’s making news. While a new generation of Apple Pencil was introduced last November — and here’s where it gets confusing — the new 7.9-inch iPad mini® and new 10.5-inch iPad Air® products only support the first-generation Pencil. The news here is that they support it at all, making the new models infinitely more capable.

What determines whether a message goes into the archives or gets deleted? iOS hides that option...read more to see how to choose where your messages go.

Mulitnational tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook will never call or text you out of the blue.

Need to check something in another message while composing a new one on your iPhone? Here's how...

Messages for iOS and macOS® devices generally works well, it does have its head-scratching quirks. Here are a few common solutions.

Password manager is a software app used to store and manage the passwords that a user has for various online accounts and security features. These apps store the passwords in an encrypted format and provide secure access to all information with the help of a single master password. For security reasons, CranstonIT always recommends you use a password manager...

Few iPad® owners have ever really taken advantage of the suite of gestures. But if you take the time to learn and understand their functionality, you’ll realize more productivity benefits than you might think.

It’s a constant refrain in many homes — a kid clamoring to use an iPad®, iPhone® or even an Apple Watch® to play games, watch videos or chat with friends. As a parent, you know when enough is enough, and that too much screen time can often affect homework, family dinners or socialization in general. With iOS 12, Apple® is doing its part to limit device addiction. Screen Time is a feature that not only monitors how much time your child is spending on his or her phone or tablet, but provides the tools and guidance on how to control that usage.

Now, with iOS 12, Do Not Disturb has gotten a lot smarter. Apple® claims the enhanced functionality is the result of six years of user feedback and pointed wish lists, along with a growing need for users to get more time away from their devices when necessary.

Apple Watch® Series 4 has been fundamentally redesigned and reengineered to help wearers stay active and healthy and certainly connected. The new models are 1.1mm thinner and the all-new displays are larger.

The next generation of iPhone® is here. Screens are bigger, technology is better and pricing is up, down and sideways, depending on your enthusiasm and budget.

iOS 12 enables new user experiences that just weren’t possible before, according to Apple, as well as makes everyday tasks faster, more responsive and just plain fun.

Apple’s preview of watchOS 5 demonstrated a significant update to the world’s most popular watch. And as most wearers focus on fitness and communication, Apple Watch® will become an even stronger companion to the healthy and connected with a host of new features.

Getting too many notifications? With just a swipe, iOS 12 lets you group notifications from each app together and gives you the ability to manage notifications from the lock screen. Plus, a new feature called Instant Tuning helps you reduce the number of notifications you see, right from the Lock screen.