Table of contents for Issue 136 in iPad & iPhone User

It’s that time again. Time for Apple to unveil its latest iPhones and get us all excited about the steady march of technological progress. This year, Apple had plenty to cover. There are three new iPhones, all of them with the powerful A12 Bionic processor and TrueDepth camera and Face ID system that was previously exclusive to the £1,000 iPhone X. There’s also a hot new Apple Watch Series 4. Over the following pages we round up all the major announcements made at the September 12 event. Apple Watch Series 4 When Apple introduced the new Series 4 Apple Watch, it said: “Everything about it has been redesigned and re-engineered.” And truly, this is the first Apple Watch to have major, obvious design changes rather than the minor tweaks we’ve…

The iPhone XR is technically Apple’s ‘budget’ phone from this year’s line-up, but you’d have a hard time telling that from specs alone. After all, it’s quite similar in specs to the new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. At £749, it’s also still relatively pricey, partly because so many of the innards are the same. The differences are mainly exterior, such as its LCD screen, its single rear camera, and its aluminium casing. All of which means that if you want to upgrade to a new iPhone from your iPhone X, you’ll probably be well-served with the iPhone XR when it finally ships on 26 October if you don’t want to go whole hog with the XS. You’ll lose the lovely OLED screen, of course, but you’ll get a…

For the first time since its introduction four years ago, the Apple Watch has a new design – and we don’t just mean the addition of a red dot on the Digital Crown. The new fourth-generation watch includes a larger screen and a slightly bigger case, but still retains the classic styling that has made the Apple Watch a worldwide hit. But the beauty of the new Apple Watch isn’t skin deep. We can’t wait to get our fingers on that new display, but there’s way more to it than a few extra pixels. Here are six more reasons you’ll want to upgrade to a new Apple Watch and one reason why you might want to wait. 1. The design is better than ever If you look at Apple Watch,…

Physical issues and anthologies of comic book series don’t always fit neatly into limited shelf space or travel well – but that’s where digital comics come in. Growing support for the format means that you can collect to your heart’s content and take the entirety of it anywhere you go. All you need is your iPhone or iPad. Key to the experience is a good app. While a digital comic may not please the senses as paper issues do, having an app that offers access to a wide variety of content or broad support for common file formats (PDF, ePUB, CBR, and CBZ) can ease the transition. In general, the better apps offer one of two paths: straightforward purchase (or rental) of content from major publishers like Marvel, DC, Image…

File transfers between iOS devices typically rely on iCloud, which can be inefficient if all you have are iOS devices and no desktop to act as a conduit. iPad & iPhone User reader Patty wrote in with one such quandary. She has a bunch of music files on her work iPad, but she’s leaving that job and returning it. Patty wants to transfer that music to her personal iPad, but doesn’t own a computer. What to do? The only way I can think of to transfer without a desktop system in sight is to use iTunes Match, which is £21.99 for a one-year subscription. Even then, this won’t work without a Mac or Windows copy of iTunes in the mix, but I’ll tell you why in a moment. All the…

Last autumn’s release of iTunes 12.7 disappointed a lot of people with the abruptness of change. The most notable one was removing the ability for iTunes to handle backing up iOS apps and syncing them directly. Henceforth, you have to use Internet-based retrieval of yours app for a new iOS device or after a wipe and restore. However, there’s still a way to add apps manually, though Apple doesn’t make it easy. IPad & iPhone User reader Kate wrote in asking about how to get a few apps, including sticker packs, that were no longer being distributed on the App Store, and thus couldn’t be restored as a previous purchase. They can be copied over in iTunes still. Apple offers somewhat confusing instructions in this support document under ‘Manually add…

Sure, there’s ample underground parking and free food, but the biggest attraction at any Apple media event is the chance to get your hands on new Apple products more than a week before they go on sale to the general public. I was there at Apple Park to see (and use) Apple’s latest iPhones and Apple Watch. Here’s what I learned. iPhone X, everywhere A year ago, Apple declared the iPhone X the future of the smartphone. From the perspective of September 2017, this is the future – and the biggest story out of the event is that all of Apple’s new iPhones are a part of the iPhone X family. Every single one of them has glass front and back, with edge-to-edge screens and Face ID. If you buy…

Just like last year, Apple announced three new iPhone models, but it’s not so easy to tell them apart anymore. Gone is the old-school design with the home button and the giant bezels, and in its place are three new models with iPhone X styling. (But don’t worry, if you really like the old look, you can still buy an iPhone 8 or 8 Plus.) If you’re having trouble deciding which model to buy, we feel your indecision. That’s why we created this handy guide to help you sort it all out. Size All three new models of iPhone have Apple’s new ‘all-screen’ design that dispenses of the superfluous space above and below the screen and pushes the display all the way to the edges. It also means you’ll have…

At the recent ‘Gather Round’ event, Apple announced that its HomePod wireless speaker will be received several new features in a free software update. The features mostly involve improvements to Siri, to further enhance the HomePod’s ability as a digital assistant. The Siri improvements in HomePod are available now and include the following. Song search by lyrics: HomePod users will be able to make song search based on the lyrics of a song. You can ask, “Hey Siri, play the song that goes…” and then you can state the lyric. No word on whether the lyrics field in your iTunes library will need to be completed for this feature to work. Support for phone calls: Users can tell Siri via HomePod to call someone in Contacts, or to call a…

The App Store’s unending game barrage sometimes seems like it’s simply comprised of stacks of clones and done-to-death ideas, but there’s always fun, eccentric, and exciting stuff in the mix. Just look at our picks for this month’s most enticing game debuts. No two games are alike in this bunch, which includes the hole-in-the-ground simulator Donut County, stealth action game Sneak Ops, ethereal forest puzzler Evergarden, and the basketball-meets-Nerf-gun zaniness of Shooting Hoops. 1. Donut County Price: £4.99 from fave.co/2x7exkT You’ve probably never played a game where you get to be a hole in the ground, but Donut County finally delivers on that tantalizing possibility. So, what exactly does a hole do? Well, things fall into it, and since you can actually control the hole and shift it around the…

As I’ve written before, it sometimes seems like the Apple ID back-end systems run on ancient mainframes, given how inflexible the company is about allowing changes – especially in not providing a way to merge accounts, data, and ownership associated with multiple Apple IDs. I, like many people who have kicked around in the Apple ecosystem for a while, have two Apple IDs, and use one for purchases and the other for iCloud stuff. I’d rather have one, as many of you would. iPad & iPhone User reader Deb writes in with a related question that may have a better solution. She’s been using an Apple ID connected with her Gmail address for several years. However, her daughter set up an iPad and iPhone for her with a fresh Apple…

It’s a good thing I’m a tea drinker, because we here in the Apple pundit business spend an awful lot of time trying to read the company’s tea leaves. At best, we can glean only the slightest of indications of what Apple might have in store; the company rarely makes public-facing moves, preferring to keep its cards close to its chest. In recent months, however, the company has actually done a few things that could hint at some of its areas of interest over the next few years. Let’s take a quick look at those decisions and what they might mean for the future of Apple’s product lines – both the ones it has today, as well as the ones it might have tomorrow. microLED machines The next big display…

At its ‘Gather Round’ event, Apple announced its latest high-end premium phone: the iPhone XS. As the name implies, it’s something of an upgrade to the iPhone X, with a handful of improvements but the same overall design and features. That doesn’t mean it’s a bore. Quite the contrary: for those who found last year’s iPhone X just a little too expensive for what you get, this year’s improvements might be enough to win you over. Here are the five ways the iPhone XS really differs from the iPhone X. 1. It comes in two sizes The iPhone X only came in one size: 5.8 inches. That sounds big, but the taller, narrower aspect ratio enabled by the slim-bezel design and removal of the Home button makes the phone considerably…

While we had been hearing for months that Apple would be updating its budget 4in iPhone SE (pictured) sometime this year with a new design and screen, it seems that this plan has been scrapped. In fact, any reference to the phone is gone from Apple’s website. Click on the previous landing page for the iPhone SE and you’ll be taken to the general iPhone page, where all mention of the iPhone SE has been scrubbed. In its place at the bottom of the pack is the two-year-old iPhone 7, which now starts at £449 for the 4.7in model with 32GB in black, silver, gold, or rose gold. That’s £100 more than the £349 iPhone SE, but you’re also getting a bigger screen, newer chip (A10 Fusion vs A9), better…

Price: £89.95 from fave.co/2NGo7ob Mophie’s Powerstation line of portable battery packs have been around for some time, and they’re generally solid (if somewhat expensive) products. Now, the company has versions made exclusively for the Apple Store. What sets these apart is that they recharge using a Lightning port, so you can use your standard iPhone or iPad power adaptor and cable to recharge the battery pack. In other words, you don’t have to carry around a separate Micro-USB or USB-C cable (and maybe power adaptor) just to recharge your portable battery pack. That’s convenient if you’re all-in on Apple hardware, but the fact that you can get higher-capacity batteries for less if you’re willing to lug around one more cable makes it hard to recommend. More capacity, but no integrated…

The Voice Memos app is one of the underrated gems of iOS’s stock apps, and Apple is giving it a much-appreciated makeover with iOS 12. It wasn’t bad before, but the latest update manages to transform it into both a useful recorder and audio editor without significantly changing the interface. Recordings even get uploaded to iCloud now, making it easy to import recordings into GarageBand or access them regardless of whether you’re on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It’s more useful than it looks. As a journalist, I find a good voice memo app essential for everything from recording interviews to quick article notes while I’m on the move. You, though, might find it useful for making reminders for what you need to pick up at the shops. Regardless of…

Apps come and apps go, and sometimes we rely on an app that’s been pulled from the App Store. When the inevitable time comes to switch to a new iPhone or iPad, discontinued apps typically don’t flow with your backup and restore. That’s the scenario with iPad & iPhone User reader Vibhu. With a new iPhone, Vibhu tried all the methods they could find of transferring a discontinued app they rely on. They wondered if they’d missed something? Vibhu didn’t say exactly which methods they’d tried, but the typical ones are: 1. It may show up in Purchases. In iOS, launch the App Store, tap your avatar account icon in the upper-right corner, and tap Purchased. You can use the Search field to see if it appears. Apps that Apple…