After weeks of waiting, iTunes Match finally rolled out to the UK and other countries yesterday, allowing users to sync their music libraries with the “cloud” for access on all of their Mac and iOS devices, and their Apple TV. Now that you’re signed up, you’ll need to set up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Thankfully, it’s incredibly easy.
If you’re an iPad 2 owner you might already be familiar with multitasking gestures – one of the 200+ new features introduced with iOS 5, they allow you to quickly access the multitasking bar, move between apps and return to the home screen without having to click on the home button. With the release of iOS 5.0.1 last Thursday, you can now also use multitasking gestures on the iPad 1.
Typing long bodies of text on an iOS device with just a touchscreen can sometimes be an incredibly painful experience. Thanks to a new feature in iOS 5, however, it’s easier and faster than ever to type common phrases and sentences.
We’ve all downloaded apps from the App Store that we might not want others to know about – the official X Factor application, for instance. Previously it wasn’t a problem, because once you’d deleted the app from your device you’d deleted any evidence of its installation. These days, however, anyone can look at the list of apps we’ve purchased from the App Store since its inception thanks to the new ‘Purchased’ section.
One of the features introduced with iCloud, Photo Stream allows pictures taken on iOS devices, or imported from your camera to your computer, to automatically appear on your other computers & devices: Apple TV, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac and PC. It’s a handy feature that makes it easy to show off your pictures, but what happens if you need to remove some of them?
If you’re the proud owner of a new iPhone 4S, you’ll undoubtedly amazed by its new Siri assistant. I certainly am. However, it does come with one serious security flaw that allows users to gain unauthorized access to your device.
By default in OS X Lion, Finder windows no longer have a status bar running along the bottom. While I can appreciate that this helps to keep windows uncluttered, I sometimes miss being able to quickly see how many items there are inside a window, and the ability to re-size icons – which can be really handy when viewing folders full of photos.
While I rarely use OS X Lion’s iOS-inspired Launchpad – which gives you a full-screen view of all the apps on your Mac, I do like discovering hidden features. And it turns out that Launchpad has one that allows you to alter the appearance of the background picture.
Apple’s newer family of Macs – only with the company’s latest OS X Lion operating system – are capable of a feature called AirDrop that allows you to conveniently share files between other Macs on your network.