Ten Tips for New iPhone Owners

So, Santa Claus brought you an iPhone! Great news. I hope it's an iPhone 4S, with Siri. Here are ten tips that will help you take advantage of the iPhone 4S's amazing capabilities.

1. Make your address book as complete as possible. Don't stop with names and phone numbers-- fill that thing up with email addresses, home and work addresses, and birthdays. You'll thank me later. Note that you can get to the Address Book from the Phone app so if you're already using the Phone app just tap the button that says "Contacts" at the bottom of the screen.
2. Sync your address book and calendar between your iPhone and computer using either MobileMe, iCloud, or directly using a USB cable. This lets you do most or all of the work on your computer, where it is probably easier to do. It also means you'll have a backup of those important items.
3. Learn about Siri. I have a few articles for you here, and here. Look for a microphone to the left of the space bar when you are typing-- when you see that, touch it, and start talking. Say the punctuation out loud; that is, if you want a comma, say so. Like this: "I like brisket comma sausage comma and pork ribs period". Be sure Siri knows who you are (Settings/General/Siri/My Info).
4. Learn about the Maps app. For starters, that little arrowhead at bottom left will show you where you are if you tap it. (If you're asked about using your current location, say yes.) Once Maps knows where you are, use the Search mode (at bottom) to search for something or someone-- coffee, ATM, your friend Joe. Or, use the Directions mode (at bottom) to see how to get from Place A to Place B. I have more about the Maps app for you here.
5. Dim your screen and turn off Push emails. That's Settings/Brightness, and Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendars/Fetch New Data. This will save you hours of battery life.
6. Get to know the Camera. Get to the Camera app quickly (double-tap the Home button when the iPhone is asleep/locked, and look for a little camera icon at bottom right). Turn the iPhone sideways, holding it like a "real" digital camera, and taking a picture by pressing the Volume + button. Before you take the picture, tap on the part of the picture that you want in focus. That will also be the part of the picture that controls the exposure. After you take the picture, tap the square at bottom left to see the images you've taken. Tap an image to see controls for editing (at the top right) and for sending via Email and Twitter (bottom, second icon from left).
7. Turn the iPhone sideways. Sometimes (not always) you'll get a different version of the app you're using. This works with the Calculator, the Calendar, Mail, Safari, and many others.
8. Explore the App Store. You have an icon for the App Store on your iPhone already. Tap it and see if you can find an app that interests you. There are hundreds of thousands of them, many free, so there's probably one there for you.
9. Set up FaceTime. (Settings/FaceTime.) This will let you video-chat with people using the iPhone 4 or 4S, the iPad 2, or a Macintosh with OS X 10.6 or higher. Super-fun. When you're doing a FaceTime chat there's an icon on the screen that lets you switch to the other camera (the one you use when you take pictures). That lets you show things to the other person, such as what you're looking at now.
10. Learn a few shortcuts. Double-tap the Home button to see all of the active apps, and swipe left or right to see others. Tap the one you want to jump to. Hold the Home button down until you hear a double-beep to activate Siri. When on any of the Home screens, press the Home button again to jump to the first Home screen. If you are already on the first Home screen it will take you to a Search screen, where you can search for anything on the iPhone.

Make mine Mint (dot com)

Wow, what a cool website: www.mint.com.



They call it “the best way to manage your money.” And it’s free.

Anyone can sign up for a mint.com account. You then enter information about your financial accounts-- savings, checking, investments, credit cards. Do that, and at a glance you can see ALL of your financial information in one place.

Better than that: you can see every transaction for every account, right there on the site. You can find every transaction that had to do with dining out, or gasoline, or presents for your uncle. Very handy. Download them if you want.

Better than THAT: you can get reminders emailed or text messaged to remind you to pay your credit card bill, or to alert you that a large purchase was made, or to tell you that a deposit is now available. How handy.

Better than THAT: you can download a copy of Mint for your iPhone and carry all this information around with you. It’s free. Here’s the link.

cboyce says “Check it out.”

How to Print Mailing Labels from an iPhone or iPad

It's Christmas-card time… and that means it's also "Help! I need to print mailing labels!" time. In the olden days it was easy: you used the Address Book program on your Mac (I wrote about printing mailing labels back in 2010). But what if all you have is an iPhone or an iPad? How do you print mailing labels then?

Actually, it's easier than you might think.

First thing you do is you get the Avery Templates Everywhere app from the App Store.

UPDATE October 9th, 2014: the Avery Templates Everywhere iPhone app is not available on the App Store any longer. I don't know when it disappeared but it's not there now. This complicates things. iPad users can download the free Avery Design & Print app but iPhone users are out of luck.

UPDATE November 23rd, 2013: If you're using an iPad, you might want to try the Avery Design & Print app instead. It's a little clumsy but it handles multi-line street addresses, which Templates Everywhere did not. So that's progress.

Hey! Want more tips like this, delivered to your email inbox? Sign up for my mailing list and never miss a post.

(The following was for the Avery Templates Everywhere app-- I am leaving it here for posterity. The Design & Print app has different screens. If you're really stuck email me and I will try to help you.)

When you launch the app you'll see this. Choose "Create Project."


Next you'll see the GIANT list of Avery label templates. Choose the one corresponding to the labels you're going to use. If you just want to play around in advance of getting your labels try the 5160s. Three across, ten down. Standard as can be.


Next, you'll see this screen showing you how your labels are going to lay out. You can drag things around here but they start out with something that works fine for me. All you need to do is choose which contacts you want to print. That's what the "Contacts" button is for. So tap that.


You'll get a message asking whether Avery can access your contacts (that's nice of them, but it's also required by Apple's iOS). Tap OK. Next you'll see your entire list of contacts. Tap the checkbox to the left of the contacts you want labels for.


When you're done, tap "Done," and then tap "Preview." You'll notice by the way that the number of contacts chosen is displayed next to the word "Contacts." If you are trying to fill a sheet of labels it's nice to know how many names you've selected.


If it looks good to you, tap the Share button That's the curvy white arrow at top right. You'll get three choices.


Save lets you save your project for later revising (or for printing again). I highly recommend saving your project. You'll have to create an Avery account first but that's easy: email address and a password (NOT your regular email password-- just something for Avery). Print lets you print to an AirPrint-enabled printer. AirPrint is sort of new and only works with certain newish printers so you may be out of luck there. Go ahead and try-- you have nothing to lose. Email is your Ace in the Hole because it lets you email your labels as a PDF to someone who DOES have a printer. Here's what it looks like when you tap Email.


That's all there is to it. Nothing fancy but it works. If you have an extra label you can make one for me.

Christian Boyce
3435 Ocean Park Boulevard #107
Santa Monica, CA 90405

iCal College Football Bowl Calendar

It's time for the college football bowl games. Here's a handy iCal calendar with the entire schedule. It's updated to show you the most recent information (dates, times, TV network, and even the scores). Click the link, add it to your iCal calendar, remember to tell it to refresh (recommendation: daily), and you'll have the information at your fingertips. Or at least on your computer.

Thanks to DavidGagne.net for the calendar.

AppShopper website

Here’s a handy website for you iPhone users. It’s called “AppShopper.” With more than 10,000 iPhone applications available it’s getting harder and harder to find just the one you want via the iTunes Store. AppShopper makes it easy. Here’s a screen shot.

Even More Stuff I Like: Cameras preference pane

One of the things I like about iPhoto is it kicks in automatically when I connect my camera. One of the things I don't like about iPhoto is it kicks in automatically when I connect my iPhone for synching or charging (iPhoto kicks in because it thinks of the iPhone as a camera, and wants to import its pictures). You might be thinking "Go into iPhoto's preferences and tell it not to connect automatically, as shown below"--


... but if I do that, iPhoto will NEVER launch automatically, and I usually want it to-- just not when I connect my iPhone. I do want iPhoto to open when I connect my camera, but I don't want iPhoto to open when I connect my iPhone. I want it both ways-- but how can I do that?

The answer is "You use the Cameras preference pane, available via this link." And guess what: it's free.

(Note: if you're using 10.6 (Snow Leopard) you have something like Cameras built in. It's in the Image Capture program, inside the Applications folder. You don't improve things by having two programs trying to control your cameras, so if you're using 10.6, find the Image Capture program, make your adjustments there, and forget about installing Cameras. If you're using 10.4 or 10.5, Cameras is the way to go.)

When you install Cameras you get a new item in your System Preferences, in the "Other" section. At first, it's pretty empty in there, but as you connect cameras to your Mac you'll get messages like this one:

(The "No Name" camera is the camera card in my Olympus. I want iPhoto to open when I connect that camera.)

I get a similar box when I connect my iPhone the first time, but I make a different choice:

I could leave it at that, but there are some other options. If you open the Cameras preference pane in System Preferences you see your list of cameras and the instructions for each one, like so:


You can click in the "When Connected" column for more options:

So... if you want some other program to launch when you connect your camera, Cameras can take care of that too. (So can Image Capture.)

I used Cameras until I updated to 10.6, and it worked great. As of 10.6 I'm using Image Capture, and it's also working great. Thanks to these programs, the days of iPhoto launching itself when my iPhone connects for a sync are over, and while I'm not sure that I'm doing anything productive with the few minutes I'm saving each day it's nice to think that maybe I am. Give this tip a try and save some time for yourself.

More Siri Tips

I've discovered some interesting Siri features that I didn't find in the manual, which isn't surprising since there isn't a Siri manual. In no particular order, here are the tips:

1. "Set a timer for 20 minutes." Everyone knows how to do that. But, after a bit, the timer is off the screen, as you switch to some other app or the iPhone goes to sleep. The cool thing is that you can say "Show me the timer" and it comes back to the front. Very cool. I am using that today as I cook my pumpkin pies.
2. "Play some music." Everyone knows how to do this too. The cool thing is that you can say "Stop the music" and it will stop. Nice.
3. "Make an appointment." Everyone knows how to do this too. Siri will ask "When is your appointment?" and you can tell it "4 PM tomorrow" or whatever you like. If you do it this way, Siri will make an appointment that has the title "Appointment." The cool things is you can change the title later. So, when Siri says "Here is your appointment, are you ready to confirm it?" you can say "yes"... and Siri will show it to you. Then, tell Siri "Change the title of the appointment" to anything you'd like. In fact, you can just say "Change the title to blah blah blah" and it will work. Siri knows what you're talking about because the appointment is still on her mind, so to speak.
4. Still talking about appointments, how cool is this: you can say "Make a haircut appointment for 4 PM tomorrow" and it's done in one shot. Very cool. Especially if you want a haircut.
5. Suppose you want to talk to your friend Dave Fournier, on the phone, and you want Siri to set that up. But, suppose also that you have Dave in your address book as "David." Doesn't matter: when you say "Call Dave Fournier" Siri knows out that "Dave" is short for "David" and she makes the call. Same thing with Tom and Thomas. And Chris and Christian, though I never call myself on the phone.
6. In some cases, when talking to Siri, you can interchange "office" and "work", and "house" and "home", and "cell" and "mobile", but not always, and especially not tonight with Siri seemingly overloaded. There are many inconsistencies in Siri, so what works when you're asking for a phone number might not work when you're asking for an address, and this may be one of the reasons Siri is still a "beta" feature. Expect this to improve and become more consistent in the future.

(Yes I am surprised that Apple put Siri out before it was fully ready. Very non-Apple-like.)

By the way, I would not be surprised to see Siri show up on Macs and iPads someday soon. Makes perfect sense.

More tips as I find them.

UPDATE: I found them. Here's a terrific list of Siri commands, from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). Well done, TUAW.

UPDATE #2: Here's Apple's Frequently Asked Questions for Siri. Good stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. I'll spend my Thanksgiving cooking a turkey in the Primo Kamado cooker on the balcony, doing a little online shopping, and keeping an eye on the key football games. Here is how I do it. You can do it too.

Cooking a turkey in the Primo Kamado
A Primo Kamado is a ceramic cooker, something like a Big Green Egg. I've cooked a lot of turkeys on my Primo over the years and they have all been delicious. Turns out that the preparation and cooking are much more important than the spices. There are probably fifty ways to cook a turkey on a barbeque but here's the one way I do it every single time.

Get your cooker going with plenty of fuel. Your turkey will cook for about three hours, maybe a little longer. Set it up for about 300 degrees F. You don't want flames to touch your turkey so put a pan down on a lower rack to block the flames or just put the coals on one side of your cooker and the turkey on the other. I have an old cookie sheet (a round one) that I put on the lower rack and it catches the drippings and blocks the flames.

1. Start with a nice fresh turkey. Frozen is OK but if a fresh one is available, get one. I usually pick one that's in the 12 to 15 pound range. If you go too big you won't be able to fit it on the cooker. I've cooked brined turkeys, Butterball turkeys, plain fresh turkeys, and probably some other kinds that I don't remember and they all came out great.
2. Take out the neck and giblets and do whatever you want with them. That's up to you.
3. Cut the backbone out, using heavy kitchen scissors or poultry shears. Some people call this "butterflying," some people call this "splaying," some people call it "spatchcocking." Watch this video, and call it anything you want. The video shows how to do it to a chicken but it's exactly the same on a turkey, only harder. You will need some strength. Watch your fingers. The reason you do this is it cuts your cooking time almost in half.
4. Cut off any extra fat and rinse the turkey off. Pat it dry with paper towels. You will need more paper towels than you thought.

Like I said, the preparation and cooking are more important than the spicing. I've made great turkeys using Dizzy Dust, Grub Rub, Texas BBQ Rub, and Bob Tallman's Ranch Rub. These are all fairly heavy on the brown sugar. You'll need a good bit, maybe half a bottle. You're going to apply rub inside and out, and under the skin, so plan accordingly. Pour a bunch of rub into a coffee cup or some other smallish container and put a spoon in it now because your hands are going to be all slippery pretty soon and you don't want to make a mess of your cupboards if you can help it. While you're at it set out another coffee cup and put an inch or two of olive oil in there. You'll need a brush to apply the oil later so you may as well get that out now.

First, run your fingers under the skin on the breast meat to loosen up the skin as much as possible. If you are careful you can get the skin completely loose from the breast. Get a spoonful of rub and put it onto the breast, under the skin. Do it again on the other side and pat it down with your fingers. You will almost always wish you used a little more rub so this is the time to do it right. Put some more in there.

Next, do the same thing with the thighs. The skin comes loose very nicely and you can dump a good bit of rub onto the thighs, under the skin. This takes a bit of time but it's worth it.

To this point you have not put any rub on the outside of the turkey. It is all under the skin, which is great because the rub you put on the skin isn't going to get into the meat nearly as well as the rub you put down under the skin.

Now put the turkey breast-down, exposing the inside of the bird. Brush the inside of the bird, and any part of the bird that is exposed in this position, with olive oil. There are three reasons for this:

• It makes the skin brown up very nicely
• It makes the rub stick to the bird
• Olive oil makes a lot of stuff better and this is no exception.

After you've brushed everything you can reach with the turkey breast-down, sprinkle rub all over the bird, knowing that you are later going to roll it over and do the other side. Give it a good healthy sprinkling. Like I said, you will usually wish you'd used more.

Now you are almost ready to cook. Hopefully your cooker is ready to go. Put the bird onto the cooker with the breast up.

It will look something like this:

You can see the rub under the skin on the breast.

Take your olive oil and brush everything you can reach. Sprinkle with rub. Yes, the fire is going but it won't be so bad. Work fast.

Your turkey will look like this when it's olive oiled and sprinkled with rub.

Close the lid to the cooker and let time do its magic. A thermometer with a digital read-out outside the cooker will be very handy so get one of those if you can. Put it into the thigh and in a few hours have a look. When it's 170 degrees in the leg your turkey is done. In my experience that's going to take somewhere around three hours. That is probably less time than you expected but that's the whole point of spatchcocking.

It will look something like this when it's ready to come off. I use tongs to lift the turkey but be careful as the legs will be pretty loose and might come off.


Put it on a rack in the kitchen and let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes. It's impossible to carve when it's super hot, so let it cool down a bit. Then, carve it following these instructions. This is the finishing touch and it makes all the difference. Forget about carving it at the table. Carve it in the kitchen and bring out the cut-up meat. Everyone will be impressed and it will be a million times easier to serve.

Here's what it looked like when I'd carved one breast for transport to a friend's house.


Notice that the breast meat is cut much thicker than what you're probably used to. That's the right way to do it. Note that this kind of cooking does not result in a smoky flavor. What it does result in is a juicy, delicious turkey that looks and tastes great.

Practice on a chicken (cooking time: about an hour) and be an expert by Christmas.

Online Shopping Tips
My sister likes to get up early on the Friday after Thanksgiving and get deals at the stores. I like to sleep in and do my shopping online. Here are a couple of tips that will save you money while letting you shop from home.

• Visit www.dealnews.com. Set up an account and have them send you emails when items you want are on sale. I devoted an entire blog post to them and here is the link. Hint: sort the list of deals chronologically. That way, when you check the site a second time, you can quickly see what's new since your last visit.
• Visit www.retailmenot.com before buying something online. RetailMeNot finds discount codes which you can use to save money on your online purchases. This should be part of your routine. Find the item you want to buy online, then make a new browser window (File menu) and go to retailmenot.com to see if there is a discount code for what you're about to buy. I wrote about this site a bit ago and here is the link to that.
• Visit Amazon.com and see what's cooking with their Gold Box specials and also their Black Friday specials.

You'll probably save money with these tips and you'll definitely get more sleep. For some people, the thrill of the hunt makes getting up in the dark and driving to the mall worth it. If that's you, tell me about it sometime after 9 AM.

Keeping Track of the Football Games
You're probably thinking "turn on the TV, silly." Turns out that I don't have a TV, so I keep up with the games in other ways. First, there's the ESPN ScoreCenter app for the iPhone and for the iPad. This keeps you up to date on the scores of the games. Next, there's the Watch ESPN app, for the iPhone and for the iPad. This one actually lets you watch the games right on your iPhone or iPad, with some restrictions based on your internet provider. I also use the Watch ESPN website to watch games live, but also to watch games I've missed, on my Mac. It is very cool to be able to jump to the 4th quarter of a game, or to rewind a game in order to see a key play. Even Monday Night Football can be seen this way.

I also use Yahoo's Sportacular app on the iPhone and on the iPad. These apps do a great job of keeping up with scores and they also provide written play-by-play, so you can keep up with a game without really watching it. Very handy stuff. With several key games this weekend, college and pro, you need all the help you can get.

So there you have it: turkey, shopping, and football. If that's not Thanksgiving in a nutshell I don't know what is. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and thanks for visiting the blog.

How to Use Safari's Reader

Every so often I show my Mom something on her iPad (or her iPhone, or her Mac) and her reaction is incredibly enthusiastic. Actually, sometimes it's more along the lines of "I wish you'd shown me this before." Either way, when that happens, I write it up for everyone. This is one of those times.

Safari's Reader feature has been around for a bit but since Mom didn't know about it I'm assuming that there are at least a few others who don't know about it too. In a nutshell, it makes web pages easier to read by eliminating the ads and other distractions. It's available on the Mac, on the iPad, and on the iPhone. It makes a huge difference in readability, especially on the iPhone. You really ought to try it.

Here's an example of a web page on the iPhone, in the normal view:


Here's the same page, after clicking the big grey "Reader" button at the top of the page:


Which would you rather read? Of course you'd rather read the second one. It's a million times more readable. Note the buttons at the top for changing the font size and for sharing the page by email or printing or Twitter or whatever. There's also a "Done" button which takes you back to "normal."

Interestingly, the Reader button is blue when using Safari on a Mac, while it's grey on the iPad and iPhone. Double-interesting: when Reader can't figure out which part of a web page is the "real" content, it disables itself… and on the Mac, it indicates "I can't do this in Reader" with a grey button while on the iPad and iPhone, the button simply doesn't show up. Just to confuse things more, when you're using Reader on the iPad, the button turns purple, and you tap it again to turn leave Reader and turn the button grey. Save us, Jony Ive.

Interface inconsistencies aside, Safari's Reader is a fabulous feature. You should try it.

BONUS: you've probably had to deal with stories on the web that are split into multiple pages, such as the one shown below (with the "next page" buttons highlighted). This screenshot is from an iPad.


Sites that cut their stories into pieces that way do it because it gives then another chance to display ads, which means money for the site. It also means it's more difficult for you to read because you have to read-click-read-click-read. Safari's Reader feature takes care of sites like that by "reading ahead" so that page 2 follows page 1 without a click.

Here's how it looks in Reader:


Did I mention you should try it?

iPhone 4S: First Impressions

I've had my iPhone 4S for a couple of weeks, long enough to know what I like and don't like.

What I Like

• It's fast. I didn't think my iPhone 4 was slow, and it isn't, but the iPhone 4S is faster.
• Siri is handy and fun. I use it all the time, especially to make reminders and to set timers.
• In general, I like iOS 5, which comes pre-installed.
• I really, really like the over-the-air software updates. This works extremely well.

What I Don't Like

• The battery drains very quickly. iOS 5.0.1 came out yesterday and is supposed to fix "most" of the battery problems but my iPhone 4S still seems to drain more quickly than I'd like. The biggest problem is the inconsistency. Sometimes (tonight) the battery hardly drains at all. Other times it drains 5% an hour just sitting on my desk.
• Some iPhone 4S screens have a yellowish tint. My previous iPhone (the iPhone 4) has a cool blue screen, which to my eye is nicer. This seems to be a problem specific to some of the AT&T iPhone 4S devices.
• The sound quality for phone calls ranges from superb to terrible, without changing locations. Sometimes the sound is so great it's like having the other person right there in the room. Later, in the same call, the sound can be so bad that I can't continue the conversation. Hanging up and redialing solves it, but geez man. This has to be fixed.

Odds and Ends
Siri is beta software, and it shows. There are so many things that seem not-quite-ready. For example, Siri can read your text messages to you, but it can't read an email. It can tell you that you have an appointment at 9 AM tomorrow but it can't read that to you either. Here's an interesting conversation I had with Siri about it:

• Siri requires an internet connection, something that wasn't made obvious in the promotional materials. When the internet is slow, Siri is slow. The slowness is a drag, not because I'm in a rush, but because when Siri is fast, it's indistinguishable from magic. When it's slow, the magic goes away.
• Reminders are cool. But the Reminders app is harder to use than it ought to be. And why isn't it part of the calendar app? Reminders and To-Dos are pretty closely related. I think the Reminders functionality ought to be part of the calendar.
• Notifications are also cool. However, Notifications are a lot of work to set up, and for some reason different apps have different notification methods by default. Some use the banner across the top of the screen, some use the larger "alerts" in the middle of the screen. There's no explanation why you'd want one app to show notifications at the top of the screen and others in the middle. Why not make them all the same, or at least give me that as an option?

Conclusions and Advice
It seems to me that the iPhone 4S, and iOS 5, were a little bit rushed. That's sort of funny to say, considering that many industry people believe that the iPhone 4S came out three or four months late, but I still think it was rushed. Siri's in beta (and that's the first time that Apple's released anything with a "beta" label), and there are battery issues, and there are sound quality issues, and there are more than a few clunky interface issues. If you're looking for pre-purchase advice, I'd say wait until Apple puts out iOS 5.0.2. Hopefully, that update will solve the rest of the battery problems, and maybe solve the sound problems too. The lines will be shorter then anyhow.

(No, that's not the official iCloud logo, but I thought it would be fun to build one from Safari icons.)

How to Use Safari's iCloud Tabs

Safari's iCloud Tabs is a feature I didn't think I'd be interested in, and now I use it all the time. Give it a try and see if you're not hooked, same as me.

iCloud Tabs keeps track of every Safari window (and every Safari tab) on all of your Apple devices, including Macs, iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Then, it makes the combined list available from each device. What this means is you can start reading a website on your iPhone and have it automatically waiting for your on your Mac so you can finish reading it there.

Before we go any further I have to tell you that this only works with Macs on Mountain Lion (10.8) or higher, and iPhones/iPads/iPods on iOS 6.0 or higher. OS X 10.7 won't do and neither will iOS 5. And, you have to have an iCloud account, but that's free so it's not much of a hurdle.

Let's see how it works.

Here's a screenshot of a fresh-from-the-box Mac Safari window. Notice the toolbar buttons (circled in red). All we have is the back button, the forward button, and the Share button.


(If, in addition to the back, forward, and Share buttons you also see an iCloud button it means your Mac is already set up to sync Safari via iCloud. If not, go to System Preferences, click the iCloud button, and check the box next to Safari. This will lead to a box asking you whether you want to merge bookmarks across your devices. You probably do, so click Merge and move along.)

When your iCloud settings include a checked box next to Safari your Safari toolbar will look like this:



The middle button is the iCloud Tabs button, and it shows up automatically.

Click the iCloud Tabs button and you'll see something like this: a bold grey heading for each of your iCloud Tabs-enabled devices (except for the one that you're currently using) and under each heading the Safari web pages that are open on that device.



You can select an item from the list and load up that web page on whichever device you're using. For example, in the picture above we see that I was looking at a web page called Simran Design | portfolio on my iPhone 5. If I want to see that page on my iMac (the machine I'm currently using) I can select it in the iCloud Tabs list and load it right up. See below.

(In this real-life case, I was browsing the Simran Design site on my iPhone and became distracted-- then, hours later, I was on my iMac, clicked the iCloud Tabs button in Safari, and I could easily go right back to where I'd been earlier. All without having to "do" anything other than ONE TIME going to the iCloud preference pane to be sure the Safari box was checked.)


Here's how it looked on the iPhone.


Actually, there's one more thing you have to do, and that's "set it up on your iPhone too." That's easy:
Tap Settings, then iCloud, then be sure the switch for Safari is "on."

If you want to work it in the other direction (that is, you want to use your iPhone to see web pages that are open on your other devices, such as your Mac), just tap the Bookmarks button (looks like a book), then tap the left-pointing arrow at the top of the iPhone's screen until you see something like this:



Tap the iCloud Tabs button and you'll see the list of open web pages:



Tap any item in the list and you'll load it in Safari on the iPhone.

Pretty cool stuff.

A few things you need to know about iCloud Tabs:
1. You can't do iCloud Tabs without merging bookmarks. This is probably not an issue for anyone.
2. This doesn't work with Google Chrome, and it doesn't work with Firefox. Sorry.
3. Obviously (I think), you have to be signed into the same iCloud account on all of your devices.
4. Remember: Mountain Lion (or higher) on your Macs, and iOS 6 (or higher) on your iPhones, iPad, and iPods.

UPDATED September 5th, 2014: Boyce Blog reader Antonio informs me (from Mexico!) that turning on Private Browsing in Safari will keep that device's windows from showing up in Safari on your other devices. So, if you can't seem to get iCloud Tabs to work, take Antonio's advice and check to be sure that you're not running Private Browsing. I should add that none of this works without you turning on the Safari option in System Preferences/iCloud on the Mac, and Settings/iCloud on your iOS devices. I should have mentioned that to begin with. Thanks, Antonio, for making me go back and make this blog post better. Now please join the mailing list so you can help me out in the future!

iCloud Tabs is a great example of the kind of service that iCloud provides. It's not something you interact with directly-- rather, it's something that allows you to get to "your stuff" no matter which device you're using, in a completely transparent manner. It's about as close to magic as it gets. You should give it a try.

Written by +Christian Boyce

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Introducing Managed Service from Christian Boyce

We're introducing something new today: Managed Service from Christian Boyce. In a nutshell, you get the same great service as always, but you get it sooner and it costs you less. Click this link to read all about it.

Google Stuff You Didn't Know

When you want to find something on the web I'll bet you head for Google. It's so easy, so fast, so powerful-- and so free! I'm sure you use Google all the time, and you're probably completely satisfied. So was I, until I did a little extra poking around. Turns out we're using just a tiny bit of Google's powers. For example...

Want a weather update?. Just type "weather" into the Google search box and hit Return. You get up to the minute weather, and a couple of days of forecasts. You don't have to type in your city-- Google knows where you are. (If you want to know the weather somewhere else, type the city's name or zip code in too.)



Want to check a stock? Type the symbol into the search box and hit Return.



Wondering how many feet in a furlong? So was I, until I asked Google. Sort of nice to be able to ask my question in plain English.



I could go on and on-- there are all kinds of questions that Google can answer for you. Movie times, airplane flight information, sports scores, package tracking. And more. Luckily, Google's provided a page called "Explore Google Search," which you can access by clicking here. Have a look. I'm sure you'll learn something.

Note: I could have titled this "Google Stuff I Didn't Know (until a little while ago)."

Bonus Google Tip for Safari Users
Save the time and trouble of moving the mouse up to the Search box in Safari's Toolbar by pressing Command-Option-F. Try it a few times and you'll be hooked.

iOS 7: Get the iOS 7.0.3 Update

Get the iOS 7.0.3 Update

If you're still using iOS 6 that's fine-- stay there if you want. But if you're on any version of 7 lower than 7.0.3, get your device updated to 7.0.3 pronto. There are lots of improvements in iOS 7.0.3, but here are the most important ones:

1. iOS 7.0.3 introduces the iCloud Keychain feature that remembers your log-ins for websites and your passwords for WiFi networks. Enter the info once and it's remembered, so you don't have to enter it ever again-- and it syncs across all of your iOS devices (as long as they are on 7.0.3 or higher). Imagine how nice it will be to enter log-in info, or WiFi passwords, on your iPhone-- and have it show up on your iPad! For the person who has an iPad and an iPhone the iCloud Keychain feature is a dream come true. Even with a single iOS device it's a very useful and handy feature.

2. iOS 7.0.3 brings back the "search the web" option for Home screen searches, same as in iOS 6. (Rick, I think they did this one for you.)

3. iOS 7.0.3 fixes a bug that made activating iMessages impossible.

Apple is a little bit quiet about the bugs that they've fixed with 7.0.3 but I would guess that some of the bugs were revealed

You can read Apple's iOS 7.0.3 release notes and find out more.

Get the update by connecting your device to a charger and then going to the Settings app, then General, then Software Updates. Never roll the dice by installing a software update on battery power. Never ever.

Rick S. wins the Coffee Cup for inspiring this blog post. Congratulations, Rick.