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Should You Install the iOS 10 Beta on Your iPhone or iPad?
No
You might be tempted to install the iOS 10 beta on your iPhone or iPad, but trust me when I tell you it's not worth the risks or headaches yet. We're not even to the public beta yet, and by then I would expect things to be in better shape,
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The Watch-ification of iOS
I watched the Apple keynote yesterday and thought the new features of iOS 10 looked good, but it wasn't until I installed it on my iPhone that I realized just how eerily similar a lot of these new features feel to what I enjoy everyday on my Apple Watch.
Raise to wake looks
Android
The Perks of Being an iOS User
Google Photos is one of the most valuable tools on my phone. It's a wonderfully accessible archive of all the photos I have ever taken. Smart searching is Google Photos' killer feature, as I can find just about any photo by simply typing the name of something in that photo.
Google also
Android
Greener Grass
Marco Arment wrote a good piece yesterday about how Apple could become the next Blackberry in the smartphone world if they're not careful.
If Google is wrong, and computing continues to be defined by a tightly controlled grid of siloed apps that you poke a thousand times a day on a smooth rectangle
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What I Want to See in iOS 10 for iPad
iOS 9 was a good release for the iPhone, but it was a great release for the iPad. Split screen support, enhanced Bluetooth keyboard features, and picture-in-picture really made it a more powerful machine. These features in conjunction with some great app updates over the past few months have really made the iPad
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Apple Shouldn't Copy the Surface and They're Not
Apple has learned nothing from Microsoft's Surface - The Verge
It also goes far beyond the hardware fundamentals. Apple's iPad Pro ships with a tablet operating system that doesn't have true support for a mouse and keyboard.
Look, I get it that iOS isn't caught up to traditional
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MacID Review
MacID, developed by Kane Cheshire, was released on January 15, 2015, yet it didn't make it onto my iPhone until about a month ago. Oh, how I had been missing out! MacID facilitates a very elegant way to interact with your Mac in a way that is so good, you wonder why Apple
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You Can't Have it All with Twitter Apps
It seems that you can never get everything you want with Twitter on the iPhone. You have a few options with the official app, Tweetbot, and Twitterrific as the 3 most obvious options. I'm not a Twitterrific guy, but I've bounced back and forth between Tweetbot and the official app for
Android
What Phones are Getting Updated to iOS 9 and Marshmallow?
A few months ago, I made this chart showing how far back different phone makers were supporting the new mobile OS’s hitting the market.
Some things have changed since then and I only felt it necessary to update the chart (different scale and colors, but same point).
So the story isn’t quite as
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What If You Used iOS 9's Low Power Mode all the Time?
One of my favorite new features of Apple’s iOS 9 is Low Power Mode. This feature is designed to kick in when you reach 20% battery remaining, and give you a little more time before you have to race to a charger. And while most iOS 9 reviews covered this mode briefly and determined
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Low Power Mode Preview
The above graph is of my battery life on my iPhone 6 Plus over the 17 hours I was awake yesterday. I am testing how iOS 9’s Low Power Mode impacts battery life, and what sacrifices need to be made to get those benefits.
While I am going to write a more detailed overview
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3D Touch is the biggest UI change to iOS since multitasking
I think 3D Touch is the biggest thing to change in iOS’s interface since multitasking was introduced in iOS 4.
I see the killer feature of 3D Touch on the iPhone to be the quick actions you can perform from the home screen. Good app developers will take advantage of this feature by figuring
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Apple's Next Messaging Push Should be to Venture Online
Yesterday I tweeted this:
Come on Apple, you know there's room on this page to add iMessage in the cloud! Maybe iOS X. pic.twitter.com/8Z5EK2XRcV
— Matt Birchler (@mattbirchler) August 17, 2015
I was at work yesterday and was struggling to keep a conversation going with my wife over a combination of
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On Apple's Supposed "Planned Obsolescence"
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “Apple just releases updates to make your phone obsolete so you have to buy a new one.”
I get this statement more often than I feel is reasonable. There are a surprising number of people out there who seem to think that Apple is out to
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Should You Install the iOS and OS X Public Betas?
I'll once again open this post like I always do: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
However, my "NOOOO…" is a little more mild this time compared to my suggestions for the first 2 iOS and Os X betas. Below I lost my recommendations for whether you should install each beta for the iPhone, iPad, and
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iOS is 90% There, but That Last 10% Hurts
It's amazing how much you can get done on a smartphone in 2015. For the last couple weeks, I've been away from my Mac for almost half of each week and my life goes on just fine. I'm not a casual computer user either; I have a very active
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iOS 9 Installs Should be Way Easier Than iOS 8's
66% of my customers on eligible devices have at least 1.3GB of free space [enough to install iOS 9]. This compares to just 37% of users who would have immediately had sufficient space at the old iOS 8 requirement.
via David Smith
Speaking as an owner of a 16GB iPhone, this is great news!
Android
How Does a $60 Phone’s Camera Stand Up?
One of the major things that you pay for when you buy a fancy, high-end smartphone. The iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S6, and LG G4 all sport insanely impressive cameras that are way better than something that small has any right to be. They also come with zippy processors, amazing screens, and a bunch