Todd Bernhard

Author Details

Todd Bernhard's picture

Author Details

Todd Bernhard

Todd Bernhard is a bestselling (6+ million downloads) award-winning (AARP, About.com, BestAppEver.com, Digital Hollywood, and Verizon) developer and founder of NoTie.NET, an app developer specializing in Talking Ringtone apps including AutoRingtone. And his profile photo is of the last known sighting of Mr. Bernhard wearing a tie, circa 2007!

An iPhone is almost always attached to his hip or in his pocket, but over the years, Mr. Bernhard has owned an Apple Newton, a Motorola Marco, an HP 95LX, a Compaq iPaq, a Palm Treo, and a Nokia e62. In addition to writing for iPhone Life, Mr. Bernhard has written for its sister publications, PocketPC Magazine and The HP Palmtop Paper.

Apple's new iOS 8 is great, and one of those great new features is Continuity. With Continuity, users of multiple Apple products can take a phone call on one device and switch to another on the fly. I typically leave my iPhone docked at the entrance to my house and then I work upstairs on my MacBook. When the phone rings, I have to make a mad dash to answer it. Now I can take the call on my iPad. And soon, with Mac OS X Yosemite, I can answer the phone call on my MacBook!

The iPhone 5s gave us Slo Mo video capture, where images are recorded at 120 FPS (Frames Per Second) and then played back at 30 FPS. But now the iPhone 6 offers Super Slo Mo, which captures 240 FPS. This will allow for some incredible action videos. I played with this new feature at my daughter's softball game and was able to analyze her swing and running essentially in real time. This could be a great boon to coaches and athletes, not to mention a lot of fun! Here's how to use it:

As an App Developer, every new release of iOS means a scramble to make sure my apps are compatible, and usually they are. But once in a while, Apple changes things just enough that old apps need to be tweaked to work with the new operating system. Making a living on the App Store, while difficult, is possible, but you have to keep your apps updated and add new features as Apple adds capabilities. The sad fact is, not every developer does that. Indeed some developers will be probably have apps in the App Store that simply won’t work on iOS 8, and never will. The developers may have shut their doors, and there may be no plans to fix incompatibilities.

How much memory should you get in your next iPhone? Apple kept their usual price points ($199, $299, and $399 for the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and $299, $399, and $499 for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus) but instead of the 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB configurations, they dropped the 32 GB tier and added a whopping 128 GB tier, as predicted. This mirrored their move with recent price drops for the iPod touch and finally brings their memory pricing in line with the industry. And the 128 GB capacity is a very welcome addition, especially since iOS devices do not have expandable microSD card storage of most Android phones.

It’s always a good idea to keep your iPhone backed up. Frequent backups make it easy to switch to a new device, like the upcoming iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and are crucial when dealing with loss, theft, and damage. Apple iOS devices can be backed up to iTunes on your computer by connecting via a cable, or via WiFi if you’ve enabled that in iTunes.

Keep in mind that the new iPhone will likely be in short supply, as the iPhone 5s was (especially the gold model.) If you're not willing to wait, you may not get your first choice, and that might mean a step down in storage from your current iPhone. For example, assuming Apple ships a 16 GB iPhone 6 (instead of making 32 GB the minimum) and you currently have a 32 GB iPhone 5, you probably have more than 12 GB of content. Remember, the iPhone uses some of the storage so a 16 GB iPhone really only has about 12 GB of space. I have a 64 GB iPhone 5s and I'm using over 29 GB. That tells me, without some creative pruning, I can't downgrade to a 32 GB model let alone a 16 GB version.

I just learned of (and backed) a Kickstarter campaign to learn Swift and iOS 8 programming. It's being run by a friend and colleague of mine, named Paul Solt. He's an award-winning app developer and a great instructor. I've had the opportunity to attend live training from him, and he's offered video training before, also via Kickstarter, with great success.

I've backed a few projects on Kickstarter, but they're usually boring things like stands and cables. The other day I saw the MYBELL and had to put my money down. The MYBELL is a bicycle horn for the smartphone age. Obviously it mounts to a bicycle handlebar, though I might try it out on my scooter. What makes the MYBELL unique is that you can customize the sound that it plays, just like a custom ringtone on your smartphone. In fact, it will accept MP3 files via the included (weatherized) USB port.

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