iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Being able to add pictures to your Notes app is a fun and useful way to increase its value. Whether you want to snap a picture of a shopping list, grab an image for a project, or help yourself remember what image goes with which words, taking pictures with the iPhone Notes app is a great option. It can be frustrating, though, when we expect a picture we took to be in our camera roll only to find it's only in the Note where we originally took the pictures. Here how to save Notes app pictures to your Camera Roll in iOS 14.

The new App Library is arguably one of the best things about iOS 14. It sorts your apps automatically and enables you to search for them alphabetically or with a Search bar, keeping you from scrolling through page after page of apps, looking for the right one. Best of all, you can organize your iPhone Home screen even further by downloading apps to the app library only, instead of having every new download appear on your Home screen. Let's take a look at how.

Remote Device Management Is Easy with Jamf Now

(Sponsored Post) By Olena Kagui on Wed, 07/14/2021

Managing smart devices is essential for businesses and schools, especially when operating remotely. Jamf Now is a cloud-based mobile device management system that currently oversees 20 million Apple devices worldwide. Jamf Now allows you to configure settings, add email accounts, download apps, and set up security measures for all of an organization's devices. You can try this with up to three devices for free and add more for just $2 per device, paid monthly.

 

Making music has been a part-time practice for me for decades now and I've dabbled in everything from guitar and piano to drums and didgeridoo. One thing that I've particularly enjoyed over the past several years is the way programs like Garage Band have made composing and recording great original tracks easy for everyone from amateurs like myself, to professionals like Trent Reznor, composer of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack and Nine Inch Nails frontman. And if Garage Band made things convenient before iOS, then since the arrival of Garage Band on iOS, recording whatever we are inspired to compose has truly become a graceful, portable and trouble-free affair.

 

So I was excited when I got the opportunity to try out the new Carbon 49 keyboard by Samson. The Carbon 49 is an economical and portable solution to MIDI music performance and it boasts a number of unique and valuable features to make the process of playing and capturing music an intuitive one, with high quality results. I got to spend hours jamming on this little instrument this week and here are some of my findings and feedback.

 

If you use your iDevice for watching videos using the built-in, stock Videos app, you may have noticed that the only way of fast forwarding or rewinding is the positioning slider at the top. You “grab” the slider with a finger and drag it to the left/right to rewind / fast forward, respectively.

Additionally, you can also drag your finger downwards to make the slider dragging speed slower. It won't help much when you run or do some other exercise and, in order to keep your pulse high, wouldn't want to stop it.

While in the gym, I tend to make / receive a lot of Skype calls to my wife or relatives. As I exclusively use stereo (A2DP) Bluetooth headphones in the gym to give me absolute, cable-less iPad 3-video-watching freedom while exercising, I've also run into problems related to the Bluetooth bugs of Skype: most of the time, I couldn't just use the headphones I already worn to conduct the call. Instead, I needed to use the speaker / microphone on the iPad itself, making my environment hear what both I and the other party say. Therefore, I decided to investigate the problem and come up with solutions to it.

 

When the good folks at iGearUnlimited contacted me asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their customized cases I first checked out their website and saw what seemed to be a quality product. Then I watched their promotional video (see below), and was even more impressed. And then I went ahead and ordered a folio style case, and not only continued to be impressed, but now I feel like I can now unreservedly recommend their products to all of our readers here at iPhone Life.

 

First of all, how great it is to be able to get a quality case for an iPad with an image of your choosing decorating it! The iPad is already so personal to so many of us; it’s a great plus to be able to customize its protection as much as we can customize its innards.

UPDATE (08/09/2012): in the comments section below, I elaborated on deinterlacing. Note that I'll devote a complete article / tutorial to these subjects (using X.264 / HandBrake / Episode to deinterlace etc.) some time. Before that, it's mostly HandBrake's (default) decombing that will be your best friend.

UPDATE (08/04/2012): THIS thread has a lot of discussion of the subject. Remember to prefer my statements to ones that state the opposite! (The thread is full of factual errors.)

Original article:

The Cuboid app is an addicting 3D puzzle game available on your mobile device.  The game is played on a beautiful 3D scene with the object being to move your ‘cuboid’ from the first tile through to the goal as quickly as possible, and in as few moves as possible.  Depending on the amount of moves and the amount of time it takes you, you’ll get a score.  While it sounds simple enough, the game gets much more complex because of all the different items in the game which will either help you speed through the level or try to slow you down.

I go to a lot of tradeshows and I see a lot of iOS accessories, especially speakers. It's rare to find a speaker, especially a small one, that can make a nice sound and be heard in a noisy trade show environment. So when I saw, and heard, an early version of the Mighty Dwarf Blue II at January's Consumer Electronics Show, I was impressed. It's now shipping and I was able to test a unit. It's well made, in a sleek, black glossy casing that looks like a futuristic UFO! The unit even comes in a solid gift box that uses magnets to keep a 'sneak peek' flap closed.

iOS forums are full (see for example THIS, THIS etc.) of complaints of (mostly) bluish (or, in some cases, yellowish) screens. In addition, several articles have been published on the adverse effects of blue(ish) lights – see for example THIS and THIS (two very important and interesting articles!)

UPDATE (07/27/2012): I've benchmarked Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate for Mac 1.6.0 ($54.95). It converted the AVI file to Full HD H.264 M4V in 15:20, which means it's somewhat slower than HandBrake.

UPDATE (06/27/2012): I've benchmarked Aiseesoft Video Converter for Mac Platinum. (1080p conversion, using the new iPad preset; version 6.3.6). Another slow, expensive (even the non-3D-capable Standard version costs a whopping $35) and, therefore, non-recommended converter: more than two times slower than Handbrake. (It took 15:26 to convert the first five minutes of the test video.) Stay away!

While I'm still working on the Camera Compatibility bible applicable to, among other applications, iMovie and featuring dozens of current cameras, to reduce the (otherwise, large) size of the final article, I've decided to separate (and publish earlier) two, distinct modules from it:

1. Explaining how you can programmatically export your video files to the Camera Roll of your iDevice and;

2. Explaining the secrets of deinterlacing, which will prove very useful for a lot of iOS users as several cameras (even popular, current ones like the Nikon 1-series or the Sony A65) (can) use interlaced recording and the iDevice (including third-party movie editor apps like iMovie) just can't play them back (or, when it comes to iMovie, edit) without some kind of conversion.

True I'm a blogger, but still consider myself a serious writer of sorts, and as such must recommend the Wordflex Touch Dictionary (formerly called TWIG, see our review here) for anyone else in the pursuit of putting fingers to keyboard or iPad screen. I do a fair amount of technical writing, and I'm always rooting around for a good synonym... WordFlex helps me immensely, and it just looks plain awesome while doing it! The latest update (besides changing the name) adds improved navigation features, Retina graphics and much more. The price is hefty at $24.99, but the beauty and capability of this app make it well worth the expense. Bullet list of features after the break...

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