Table of contents for 178 in iPad & iPhone User

If you’ve ever needed to replace the True Depth camera on your iPhone, you probably noticed that you didn’t get the same phone back. That might be changing the next time you take your iPhone in for a Face ID repair. Macrumors reports that authorized Apple technicians will soon have access to a new TrueDepth Camera service part containing all Face ID and front camera modules, which will let Apple Store repair iPhones with Face ID issues. The site saw an internal memo outlining the changes, which affect all iPhone XS, 11, 12 and 13 models. It’s not clear whether the iPad Pro is also part of the new repair programme. Ever since the tech arrived on the iPhone X, Apple hasn’t had a way to repair Face ID without…

When you upgrade your iPhone to iOS 15.4 (currently in beta) you’ll be greeted by a screen asking if you want to share recordings of your Siri requests with Apple to help improve the service. The recordings are pseudonymized so they can’t be associated with you specifically, but they’ll be heard by Apple employees who will use them to help make Siri better understand what you say and what you mean. But…didn’t you already do this years ago? Yes, and if you’ve had your iPhone for a long time you may be wondering what has changed. Why are you being asked this again? In short, it’s because Apple discovered an iOS 15 bug that caused Siri recordings to be shared with Apple even if the user had opted out –…

We’ve previously reported about reports that AirTags are being used to track people without their knowledge or consent. Now Apple is taking steps to make sure those reports are far less frequent. While AirTags will give proactive warnings when an unknown tag is determined to be travelling with you and an Android app will let you scan for unknown AirTags in your vicinity, some people have complained that these measures – which are more extensive than those taken by other personal item trackers – don’t go far enough. In a recent statement (fave. co/3MiXHVh), Apple addressed the issue and listed some changes coming in future software updates to help mitigate the problem. Of course, the statement starts by repeating Apple’s claim that AirTags are meant to track your own items,…

We’ve all been there. You mean to type a simple phrase like ‘What do you want for lunch today?’ and it comes across as, ‘What do you it want for launch tidy?’ Autocorrect mistakes are so common, and have been for so long, that we barely even acknowledge them anymore unless they’re unintentionally hilarious. Why is this? We’re coming up on 15 years of the iPhone – the device that pioneered and popularized touch-only keyboard input – and autocorrect has been with us in some form or another since the 1990s when Word would automatically correct accidental caps-lock or common misspellings. After decades and billions of devices sold, not to mention that meteoric rise of machine learning and AI, autocorrect feels just as dumb as ever. In some ways it…

Apple talks a lot about privacy, but when Pegasus hit the headlines last year, people are began realizing that the promises weren’t as iron-clad as they thought. A VPN won’t help prevent such malware from attacking your iPhone or iPad, but what it will do is protect your privacy when you’re online. For example your movements can be tracked by the websites you visit in Safari (or another browser) and your Internet service provider can also see what you’re up to, whether you’re connected to Wi-Fi or using 3G, 4G or 5G. Using a VPN can keep all this information private, preventing companies knowing what you buy, where you shop, what you watch, when you go to bed and where you’re going on holiday. A VPN also hides your location,…

The Focus feature Apple introduced in this last autumn’s OS updates to encompass Do Not Disturb and Driving modes has its detractors, like colleague Jason Cross, who argues it requires too much effort to manage.) A case in point – and how to solve it – happened across my devices recently when people texting me using iMessage received the alert, ‘Glenn has notifications silenced’. But I did not? Or at least I thought so. The problem was a combination of factors, including that I’m not yet running macOS 12 Monterey on my primary Mac, an M1 Mac mini, which is running the latest version of macOS 11 Big Sur. I have iOS 15 installed on my iPhone, iPadOS 15 on my iPad mini, and macOS 12 on an M1 MacBook…

We’re all expecting the third-generation iPhone SE to launch in just a few weeks, and there isn’t much we don’t know about it. We know what it’ll look like, how much faster it will be and what the premier feature will be. But there might still be one surprise left. Investor’s Business Daily reported late last month that Loop Capital Markets analyst John Donovan has “heard rumours” that the new iPhone SE could start at £300. That’s 25 per cent lower than the current model and world represent a surprising price cut. But it also kind of makes sense. We’ve read reports for months that the third-generation iPhone SE will gain 5G along with an upgraded A15 processor and better camera. A 5G iPhone SE – which will reportedly be…

While Nvidia’s $40 billion deal to purchase Arm is dead, it’s not the only acquisition news of recent weeks. Apple has reportedly purchased a small UK-based company that could bring unique AI-generated remixes to your ears. Bloomberg reports that Apple has purchased AI Music, an artificial intelligence firm “evolving music from a static, one-directional interaction to one of dynamic co-creation”. In layman’s terms that means AI could one day deliver a remix in real-time based on your mood and activity. According to its LinkedIn profile, AI Music’s goal “is to give consumers the power to choose the music they want, seamlessly edited to fit their needs or create dynamic solutions that adapt to fit their audiences”. In a 2017 interview with Music Ally, AI Music CEO Siavash Mahdavi explained that…

The new AirTag from Apple is a compact tracking device that has an extremely long life and precise locating ability in the right circumstances. Unlike a GPS tracker, which requires cell service and may drain a battery quickly, an AirTag relies on the distributed Find My network of iPhones, iPads and Macs that hundreds of millions of people around the world carry with them, and uses Bluetooth LE to signal that hardware. While there are a thousand positive and legitimate ways to use an AirTag, it can be abused when someone tracks you without your knowledge, which potentially exposes you to a dangerous situation. For example, the York regional police department in Canada recently announced that AirTags are being placed in hidden areas of target cars parked in public, and…

There are plenty of reasons to want to use Apple Music as your subscription service of choice over Spotify. Perhaps recent controversies have you rethinking where you want to send your money, or maybe you’re an Apple One subscriber and don’t want to pay for two music services. Perhaps the integration with Apple’s operating systems and services suits your life better. Or maybe you want your favorite artists to get paid more per stream, as Apple claims to do. Whatever your reason, switching from Spotify to Apple Music is simple – just subscribe, log in, and stream away. Moving your content from Spotify to Apple Music is much more difficult. There’s no straightforward way to copy your playlists, saved music, likes and dislikes, or other data from Spotify. Fortunately, there…

If you’re thinking of buying AirPods, you’ve got a few options to choose from. Apple currently has four models in the range, but how do they compare in terms of features? In this article we take a look at which AirPods are the best for your needs, not to mention your bank balance. MODELS Apple sells four different models. These range from the standard AirPods right up to the over-the-ear AirPods Max. Here’s the list: • AirPods (2nd generation) • AirPods (3rd generation) • AirPods Pro • AirPods Max It also sells the EarPods (either with Lightning connector of 3.5mm plug) and in addition Beats is a subsidiary of Apple, so Beats headphones often include Applespecific features. PRICE As the models vary quite a bit in terms of construction and…

Text messages have a reputation for being informal and inconsequential, but you might have really critical information in there! If you deleted some texts to clear up space on your iPhone and – whoops – accidentally got rid of one that’s important, all hope is not lost. There are three potential avenues for recovering a deleted text message: You can restore your iPhone to a time before the message was deleted, you might be able to contact your wireless provider, and you may be able to use a third-party app. Here’s a brief explanation of all three options. RECOVER DELETED TEXTS USING AN iCLOUD BACKUP This is probably the simplest and fastest way to restore missing texts. If you have an iCloud backup from before the time when you deleted…

If you’ve been clutching your iPhone 6 Plus and refusing to upgrade these past seven years, we have bad news for you: Apple has officially moved it to ‘vintage’ status (fave.co/3C8dYrf), which means it’s likely you won’t be able to get it repaired anymore. At 5.5 inches, the iPhone 6 Plus was Apple’s first large-screen phone and the first to support Apple Pay. It was released in September 2014 and remained on shelves until September 2016, when it was replaced by the iPhone 7 Plus in the line-up. Apple products are considered vintage when they haven’t been available for sale for more than five and less than seven years ago. After seven years, the device becomes obsolete. When a product moves to vintage status, repair shops may have a difficult…

Apple has announced Tap to Pay, a new contactless payment feature that allows iPhone-to-iPhone purchases with no additional hardware required. Apple did not reveal a release date for the new feature but the framework for the new feature appears in the second iOS 15.4 beta. Currently, when a user wants to use Apple Pay, you tap the iPhone to a payment terminal, which activates Apple Wallet, and then the user must confirm the purchase with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode. Tap to Pay eliminates the need for extra hardware, allowing the user to hold an iPhone or Apple Watch to another iPhone to complete the payment using NFC. Merchants will need to run an iOS app that supports Tap to Pay on an iPhone XS or later. Apple…

Apple products are pretty easy to recommend. When it comes to the latest iPhones and iPads, it’s hard to make a bad purchase, but even with so many excellent products to choose from, they aren’t all worthy of your hardearned cash. In Apple’s line-up right now, in fact, there are a few products that you should hold off on buying, whether it’s because of bad timing or just a bad experience. Here are four Apple products you shouldn’t buy right now and our pick for what you should buy instead: DON’T BUY: iPhone SE (2nd generation) BUY INSTEAD: iPhone SE (3rd generation) This one’s pretty obvious. The current iPhone SE is about two years old now, so it’s getting a bit long in the tooth – and that’s not a…

If we know anything about iOS as a platform, it’s that if you want to run apps on it, you need to download them from the App Store. (If you missed it, it turns out that this decision continues to be controversial.) The iPhone and iPad have never been platforms defined by a combination of Apple-approved apps and third-party apps from random sources. But what if that’s what iOS was to become? Certainly, as legislators and regulators circle around Apple and its practices, it’s possible that someone will force Apple to allow apps onto the platform without them going through the App Store. It’s almost unimaginable. And yet… what if that calamity ended up being the best thing for the App Store, and improved it – and the base iOS…

Even if you know next to nothing about VPNs, using one on your iPhone and iPad is easy. Although you may have spotted the VPN menu in the Settings app, there’s no need to venture in and configure settings: modern VPN apps do it all for you. Obviously, we don’t need to tell you how to install an app, but there are a few details we’ll share that will make your first experience of a VPN completely fuss-free. WHAT’S A VPN AND WHAT DOES IT DO ON AN iPHONE OR iPAD? Before we get to those, here’s a brief overview of why you’d want to use a VPN on your iPad or iPhone. Unblocking For most people, a VPN is a simple way to get around regional blocks that are…

While most of the spoken audio we want to listen to comes in the form of a podcast delivered via a feed to which we subscribe or from which we select episodes to download, there’s plenty of other audio out there—spoken, musical, and otherwise. Several iPhone/iPad podcast apps let you play those files, too, via sideloading. Sideloading is copying a file to a device or app outside of its preferred or normal method of accessing files. For instance, you’ve long been able to load non-Amazon e-books onto a Kindle through USB sideloading: plug the Kindle into a computer and then transfer files into a special folder. Three of the most popular independent podcast apps offer sideloading features, all slightly different in how they work. Only Castro offers one form without…