Third-Party Apps

It’s not that I don’t like cooking, it’s that I don’t want to cook at the end of a long day. Yet I’ve felt the consequences of microwave meals and take out— my body is not a fan. So when I was asked to test out Mealime Pro ($5.99/mo), I figured this was a great excuse to get back in the kitchen. Mealime is a meal planning app with quick recipes that can be tailored to your personal eating preferences. The service offers five different menu types from Low Carb to Vegetarian and scales the amount of food you make based on your selection of 2 or 4 servings. Overall, I’ve made some incredibly yummy and healthy dishes the past couple weeks. But there’s certainly room for improvement here too.

It appears that Apple is in talks with Tidal to acquire the music streaming service owned by rap mogul Jay Z, reported The Wall Street Journal. The initial report came as a surprise to many, but now bloggers are making the case for why it could be the best of both worlds. Tidal and Apple Music both have exclusivity with certain artists, but Tidal has maintained higher pay-per-stream rates for Tidal artists.

Furthermore, Tidal now has 4 million paying subscribers while Apple Music has 15 million. If either plan to catch up or surpass Spotify’s 30 million paying subscribers, combining efforts could be a way to help bridge that gap.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who love logging on to Facebook and seeing the latest sports scores. I only tend to see these while a game is currently underway, but Facebook is the only way I know a game is being played because I don’t care for watching sports. So if you’re like me and you’d rather not see those sport scores at the top of your Facebook feed, there is a way to turn it off. Here’s how to get Facebook to stop showing you sports scores.

Before there was Apple Music, there was Spotify—a $10 per month streaming service that continues to be quite popular, with over 30 million paid subscribers worldwide and millions of songs available. A free, ad-supported version offers favorite artists and albums, but to get ad-free music and features such as offline listening and on-demand songs, as well as higher quality streaming, you’ll need to go with the premium version. I couldn't immediately find a way to upgrade to premium from within the app, but it's long been cheaper to sign up via your desktop computer anyway ($10 as opposed to $13 from within the app). In this post we’ll give you 15 tips for getting the most out of Spotify.

Facebook uses complex algorithms to try to provide you with the content you want to see the most. Some people hated it when Facebook made the change, because now there are posts from friends you may never see. But Facebook has also added the ability to choose whose posts pop up at the top of your news feed. Here’s how to choose whose posts you see first on Facebook.

You can now set temporary Profile Pictures on Facebook to commemorate events or show support for causes. The Profile Photo expires after a set amount of time, automatically switching back to the original photo it replaced. This is an awesome way to promote a show you’re in, a holiday or event photo that’s fun, or to show support for a cause such as when Facebook allowed users to overlay the rainbow flag on their pictures. Here’s how to set a temporary Profile Picture on Facebook.

Awhile back, Facebook began rolling out the ability to upload a seven second video in place of your Facebook profile picture. The short video plays in place of the usual still photo and doesn’t include sound unless someone clicks on the video specifically. It’s yet another addition to the social network that allows you to customize your profile and generally have fun with it. Without further ado, here’s how to set a video as your Facebook profile pic.

Some of your Facebook friends like games. A lot. Some of your Facebook friends want you to like games a lot too. And you know this because they've sent you so many Facebook game requests that you are considering unfriending them just to make the onslaught stop. 

We at iPhone Life don't want to tell you who to be friends with, but you don't actually have to unfriend the Facebook gamers you know in order to make the game requests stop. Here's what you can do instead:

Have you ever been watching something on Netflix with your iPhone or iPad only to realize the app was using cellular data instead of Wi-Fi? Most of us do not have unlimited data available, so that can be an expensive mistake. To avoid using data when you don't have to, it's a good idea to prevent data-gobbling apps from accessing data as their default setting. You can do this by turning off cellular data for specific apps, like video and music streaming apps, and changing the frequency with which apps like Mail fetch new data.

With all of our information in "the cloud," it feels like we have everything at our fingertips. Emails, dates, calendar appointments, and phone numbers easily pop up on whatever device we're using and sometimes we take for granted how it all syncs up. Syncing your Google and Yahoo contacts with your phone is a super simple process and I'm going to walk you through it now. 

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