Guide to Mac, iPod, iPad and iPhone news and reviews
When Apple first introduced Touch ID in 2013, they only allowed you to utilize it for unlocking your iPhone and for confirming App Store purchases. Now, thanks to iOS 8, app developers can securely take advantage of Touch ID to protect and secure purc…
U2 took the stage today at Apple’s iPhone event and along with a free performance, also announced that their new album, Songs of Innocence, would be made available for free to all iPhone and iPad owners via iTunes. The biggest question we’re getting b…
The Music app that comes built into every iPhone and iPad is responsible not only for storing your music collection from iTunes, it also houses iTunes Match and lets you access iTunes Radio, both of which can eat tremendous amounts of data. And that’s not counting any iTunes in the Cloud purchases you may make. If you aren’t careful, the Music app can quickly eat through your carrier’s data allowance. If this is an issue you’ve been running into, here are some ways you can curb how much data the Music app consumes!
The quickest and easiest way to keep the Music app for eating through your data plan is to restrict its access to only Wi-Fi. Doing this, you’ll still be able to listen to any content that is physically stored on your iPhone or iPad. You just won’t have access to anything that relies on data such as iTunes Match, iTunes in the Cloud purchases, and iTunes Radio.
That’s it. The Music app should no longer consume any cellular data.
If you don’t want to go nuclear but would still like to conserve some cellular data, syncing music you listen to often instead of relying on iTunes Match, is a great way to do just that. Simply sync over your favorite playlists, artists, and albums from your iTunes library on your computer. Or download them while on Wi-Fi with iTunes in the Cloud. This will minimize the amount of data your iPhone or iPad pulls. Then when you want to access music in iTunes Match, you’re only doing so for things you don’t listen to quite as often.
If you purchase a lot of music from iTunes, you may notice that you can download and delete it on demand. If you have fast data speeds, this makes it extremely convenient to download music and then delete it to save storage on your iPhone or iPad.
I know many people that do this on a regular basis. Just keep in mind that each time you download an album over cellular, it most likely consumes several megabytes of data at a time. So if at all possible, avoid downloading music when you’re on cellular and opt for Wi-Fi instead.
Like any other streaming music service, iTunes Radio uses a data connection in order to serve up radio stations on your iPhone or iPad. If you use the service frequently, this is most likely the reason you’re using so much data within the Music app. Just like iTunes in the Cloud purchases, limiting iTunes Radio usage unless you’re on Wi-Fi is a huge way to mitigate how much data the Music app eats.
If you purchase music on your computer via iTunes or through another device regularly, your iPhone or iPad may be downloading it over cellular without you knowing it. Luckily, there’s a super easy way to prevent this behavior from happening by disabling music from downloading automatically. Or if you don’t want to completely disable automatic downloads, just disable the option to use cellular data for all automatic downloads. You may find you save even more data.
If you’ve had the Music app eat large amounts of data on your iPhone or iPad, what was actually causing the issue? Was it something different than listed above? If so, be sure to let us know what and how you resolved the problem in the comments!
Want to load up on the best iPad apps to help you edit and touch up your photos on the go? Since the iPad offers a lot more screen real estate than the iPhone, it lets you see detail and fine tune things you may miss otherwise. From fixing facial blem…
iMessage is Apple’s own proprietary messaging service that ties directly into the Messages app of both iPhone and iPad. By doing this you can seamlessly send regular SMS and MMS messages alongside iMessage. If your friends and family have iPhones or iPads too, iMessage just works. Well, most of the time. Just like any other service, iMessage isn’t error prone. From activation issues to errors sending, iMessage has its fair share of problems and most of us have experienced them at one time or another. Here are some steps you can take next time iMessage is giving you problems:
A lot of us spend more time inside the Messages app than any other app on our iPhones or iPads. If your messages are hanging up and not sending, be sure that you have an active data connection. Do this by loading a webpage or another app that requires a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.
If no data is loading period, the problem is with your data connection, not iMessage. If everything else loads fine, the issue is iMessage related and you should move on to the next section.
From time to time Apple may perform maintenance or run upgrades that could temporarily interfere with services such as iMessage. You can quickly check iMessage’s status by clicking the link below.
If you live outside the US, a quick Google search for something like “iCloud system status UK” — replacing UK with your country name, should bring up the system status page for your country.
If the status light next to iMessage is not green, that means there are known issues so you’ll need to just wait it out. If the status light is green, continue on to the next step.
Restarting your iPhone or iPad can fix a lot of problems, and iMessage connection problems isn’t excluded. In order to reboot your iPhone or iPad, just hold down the Home button and Power button simultaneously and don’t let go until you see the Apple logo.
Try and send an iMessage once your iPhone or iPad finishes rebooting. If it sends and all is well, you can stop right here. If it doesn’t, continue on to step 3.
Sometimes iMessage hiccups can be caused by an error connecting to Apple’s servers, or due to syncing issues between devices. This is most likely the issue if you find that some of your devices receive messages just fine while others don’t. It’s important that you turn iMessage off on all devices that are tied to your Apple ID before enabling it again on any of them. Be sure you don’t forget any Macs that may be linked to your iMessage account, as those are easier to overlook.
Once you’ve disabled iMessage on all your devices, give it a few minutes before you flip the switches back on. If you aren’t sure on how to turn iMessage off an on, you can follow our guide.
If your date and time settings are incorrect, iMessage will experience all kinds of weird issues from not sending messages to not being able to activate at all. If you’ve recently traveled between time zones or you were messing with your date and time settings for another reason, such as to speed up time in a game, be sure you set them back once you’re done.
If nothing else seems to be working, resetting your network settings is always worth a try. Keep in mind this will clear any Wi-Fi networks you have joined as well as any VPN settings. You’ll have to re-enter them all again. However, if you’ve tried everything else and still can’t seem to get iMessage to work, you may need to. This is especially the case if you’re only experiencing issues on a single device but all others are functioning properly.
It’s possible that the issue you’re experiencing hasn’t been reported yet. Whether it’s a system outage or something else, Apple should be able to further troubleshoot the issue for you. On the same system status page we linked in step 2, you can click the link labeled Contact Support in order to submit a support ticket.
If you’ve had issues with iMessage in the past, have you figured out any other tricks that aren’t listed here? Be sure to leave them in the comments!
See also:
Looking for the best iPad apps to help you sort, organize, edit, and just plain better manage your PDF collections? Whether you store tremendous amounts of PDFs that need to all be searchable or you just need to be able to paperlessly sign and send of…
If you use iCloud to back up your contacts, you can quickly bring them down to a new iPhone or iPad in a matter of seconds. There have also been reports of contacts mysteriously disappearing completely, which may require you to push them back down from iCloud again. Regardless of the situation, you can restore contacts from your latest iCloud backup in just a few taps.
Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for all your contacts to come down. If you’ve recently had contacts disappearing from your iPhone or iPad that you know you previously had, this could potentially solve the problem. If it doesn’t, you can also try one other fix for disappearing contacts via the link below.
Looking to make the most of your time at the gym? From weights to workout challenges, these are the best gym apps for iPhone!
Are you looking for the best iPhone apps to help you track weights and monitor your activity at the gym? Whether you’re training for a specific activity, trying to drop weight, or just tone up, there are lots of gym apps that can help you track your progress and add some variety to your workouts. No matter what your goals are, the App Store has something for everyone, and we think these are the very best:
Fitocracy turns tracking your workouts into a competition with others. You can track things either as you do them at the gym or once you’re done. Along with adding exercises you already know, Fitocracy is a great way to learn new ones. There are lots of premade workouts as well that can add a lot of variety into your workout. You can also build and save your own.
If you need some motivation to give your workout your all and need some help mixing it up, Fitocracy is a great choice.
Strong is a workout tracking app that lets you quickly and easily enter information about your workout. Like Fitocracy, you’ll unlock and collect achievements when you reach certain fitness milestones. Add routines and then easily add them to new workouts whenever you need to. One of my favorite features of Strong is the warmup calculator that helps you pick what weights you should use to get warmed up before each workout.
If you want a simple way to track your workouts and watch your progress, give Strong a try.
30 Day Fitness Challenges lets you choose a fitness challenge to commit to. You can then set up reminders and perform it and track your progress each day. When you start a challenge, 30 Day Fitness Challenge walks you through each part of the workout and doesn’t move on until you’ve said you are done. Currently you can choose challenges that work arms, core, legs, and overall general strength.
If you want to mix up your gym workouts and need something new, get 30 Day Fitness Challenges.
GymBook is another workout tracker but focuses more on strength training than anything else. You can easily create new routines and workouts, browse and see beautifully animated GIFs of each type of exercise, and more. If you’re using weight resistance on any exercise, simply enter the amount in pounds or kilos and the amount of reps. One of my favorite features of GymBook is that you can see data next to a specific exercise containing the last few times you performed it and how many reps and for how long. This keeps you aware of your progress in just a single glance.
If strength training is your main goal and you want a flexible and powerful way to track things, you want GymBook.
JEFIT Pro may not have as nice of a design as some of the other apps in this list but it more than makes up for it with its huge catalog of exercises. JEFIT Pro is crammed with lots of useful stats and information from 1RM and total volume charts to cardio tracking. JEFIT Pro gives you a great overall picture of the state of your body and what you should be focusing on to improve it.
For the largest database of exercises and the best overall picture of your body, give JEFIT Pro a try.
If you frequent your local gym — or even work out at home — what apps do you depend on to track your progress, help you strength train, and make the most of your workout? Vote in our poll and we’ll highlight your favorite picks later this week! If you use something different than what’s listed, be sure to let us know in the comments!
Whether you’re on the road, working from home, or in the office — these are the very best expense tracking and reporting apps for iPhone!
Looking for the best iPhone apps to help you keep track of expenses? Just like budgeting apps it’s not one-size-fits-all when it comes to finance app. Luckily you’ve come to the right place! Whether you just need to track your gas mileage for reimbursement or need a way to create and send detailed expense reports, we’ve got the App Store apps you need to track your expenses and get your reports where they need to be. So which expense tracking apps are the absolute best?
Concur is an expense tracking app for small and medium size businesses that lets you build detailed expense reports in just a few taps. You can track travel, approve travel for other employees, and even see the status on all your expense reports in one place. Concur can also link up with all your credit cards and automatically import all charges. The ability to book hotels and flights inside Concur is also wildly convenient for professionals who are constantly on the move.
If you or your employees are constantly on the move, Concur handles travel expenses with ease.
See also:
Expensify lets you track any kind of expense as well as billable time and mileage. The main menu lets you choose what you need to track. Just input all the information, snap a photo of any applicable receipts and you’re done. When it comes time to invoice someone or submit an expense report, just add all the relevant items to a new expense report and send it on its way. The nice thing about Expensify is that you can have as many different expense reports as you need simultaneously which makes it a great option for anyone with multiple clients.
If you’re a freelancer or contractor looking for a more efficient way to track expenses and billable time for client reimbursement, you need Expensify.
Mileage Log+ is by the same makers of Launch Center Pro and focuses strictly on tracking gas mileage. Set up custom categories for your specific needs and start tracking. Mileage Log+ also includes IRS rates for reimbursement. If you travel to the same places for work often, Mileage Log+ can store those under frequent trips so you can add them in just a tap. Sync your data with Dropbox and export it to PDF or CSV. When you’re ready to submit a report, just hit the share button and choose your format and it’s on its way.
If you’re only concerned with mileage reimbursement, Mileage Log+ is what you want.
Shoeboxed is an expense tracking app for iPhone that lets you photograph your receipts and file them accordingly. Either label them for reimbursement or as deductible. Shoeboxed then sorts and organizes them by type and who they need to be sent to for reimbursement. If you’re a premium subscriber to Shoeboxed you can also receive prepaid envelopes delivered to your door that you can stuff your receipts into. Shoeboxed then files them for you and takes care of the rest.
If you have lots of receipts to keep track of and can’t risk losing any of them, you need Shoeboxed.
Dollarbird isn’t a dedicated expense tracker app and doesn’t generate expense reports. Instead it focuses on helping you figure out where your money is going so you can quickly cut down on expenses. The thing I love about Dollarbird is the itemized expense view that lets you see exactly what percent of your income is going to what expenses. This makes it easy to pinpoint problem categories and quickly remedy any issues. While Dollarbird could pass as a budget app, it works much better at determining problem expenses in my experience.
If you don’t need to generate expense reports but really need to get a handle on cutting down on personal expenses, Dollarbird is for you.
If you have to track receipts and create expense reports of some kind on a regular basis, do you use any apps on your iPhone to generate and send them? If so, let me know what your favorites are in the comments and why you picked them!
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The best invoicing apps for iPhone to help you bill clients on time and easier than ever! Looking for the best iPhone apps for managing your invoices? Whether you’re a contractor or freelancer, one of the most important aspects of running a successf…
Once a year members of the jailbreak community from around the globe congregate at WWJC, better known as JailbreakCon. It’s a great place to learn more about jailbreak itself, to listen to the pioneers and the developers speak, and to network with oth…
