MacMost: Archives

You can control a Keynote presentation on a Mac with your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using the Keynote Remote app. But this requires that both the Mac and iOS device be on the same wi-fi network. In cases where you don't have a wi-fi network, such as a presentation hall or classroom, you can establish your own local network using your Mac, and connect to it with your iOS device. This allows you to control the Keynote presentation directly from your device to the Mac.

In your Mac's Applications folder you've got a Calculator app that you probably haven't given a second look. This is much more than a simple utility. You can use it in scientific and programmer mode, convert units, time and currency, work in octal and hexadecimal, produce a tape of your calculations, and even get it to talk to you.

Learn how to add keyboard shortcuts to your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Keyboard shortcuts can make it much easier to type using the on-screen keyboard. You can substitute short groups of letters for longer phrases, like 'em' for your email address or 'icu' for 'I'll call you later.'

Apple issued a quiet update this week of its MacBook Pro line of laptops. The new models have the same design and basic features as the previous line, but have minor updates to processor speed and hard drive space. For instance, the low-end MacBook Pro now comes with a 2.4GHz i5 processor and a 500GB drive. It previously had a 2.3GHz processor and a 320GB drive for the same price.
The Apple Stores are experimenting with in-store pickup. Three stores in the San Francisco area are now offering the ability to order and pay for products online, and then stop by the stores to pick up the products. It appears that Apple will soon be offering this in more stores in the U.S.

A classroom in Kent, Washington needs an iPod touch so the students can use educational games and listen to books. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

“Only an A- on your report card? I know you said you’d get a B+, but my expectations were an A+. I’m going to have to downgrade you.”

Keeping your Address Book contacts in a good state is even more important now because of integration with iCloud, iOS 5 and social networks. There are several fields in Address Book that are more than just bare information. Learn the special properties of the birthday, nickname, phonetics and URL fields.

While Siri has brought speech commands to the iPhone 4S, Mac users have long had the ability to speak commands to your computers. Learn how to enable Speakable Items on your Mac, find out which commands work and how. You can also add custom commands and have your Mac speak to you.

iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad has a great set of accessibility features that can be useful for just about anyone. You can zoom in on the screen, change the font size for some apps, have your iPhone speak text on web pages and in documents, use multi-touch gestures with just one finger, and even set custom vibration sequences.

The launch of the iPhone 4S mirrored previous iPhone launches with long lines, sell-outs and broken sales records at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. A reported 4 million units were sold over the weekend. The downside was slow and problematic activation for the new phones, with some people having to wait hours before they could use them.
In Apple’s quarterly report it showed new highs for Mac sales with almost 5 million Macs being sold in the last quarter. This is despite the sale of more than 11 million iPads, some of which may have been purchased instead of a new Mac.
Wall Street wasn’t impressed with Apple’s numbers. Even though they passed Apple’s own estimates, they missed the estimates of Wall Street analysts. This was mostly because of lower iPhone sales due to the fact that a new iPhone model wasn’t released until after the end of the quarter.

A classroom in West Chatham Elementary School in Pooler, GA needs two Mac minis. The students will use them to make podcasts, web sites and ebooks. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

“Our new Mac mini doesn’t have an optical drive. I can’t make the fun sing-along CDs for our road trips anymore!”
“Oh too bad.”

Reminders are calendar events that can be used as to-do items or alerts. They sync between your Macs and iOS devices. They can also be set as location-based alerts on the iPhone. You can use Siri to create new reminders on the iPhone 4S.

See how you can use iCloud to view the same contacts, calendars and bookmarks across you Macs and iOS devices. You can also work on Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents across iOS devices and access them on your Mac as well.

Siri is the new voice-controlled personal assistant in the iPhone 4S. Sir has a sense of humor. You can ask Siri some things and get some funny, weird or even bizarre answers. Watch to see 50+ examples of the funny things that Siri says.

Take a look at the new iPhone 4S. It has a faster processor, new antenna design, and new camera. It also allows you to mirror the screen through a cable or AirPlay to Apple TV 2. The biggest new feature may be Siri, the voice activated assistant. It even has a sense of humor.

A teacher in Clarksville, Tennessee wants to get an iPad for her second grade classroom. She has already identified several apps and other uses for the iPad that will enhance learning for her students in this high poverty area. And it looks like she is close to her goal. So join me in helping her get that iPad for her class. Join MacMost in supporting this project.

This week Apple pushed out more major updates than it has ever done before at a single time. On Wednesday, iCloud went live, and to support it Mac OS X 10.7.2 was released along with iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Then users were asked to switch their MobileMe accounts to iCloud, or establish a new free iCloud account. New versions of iTunes and iPhoto were sent yesterday as well to support iCloud and iOS 5. There were also new versions of Aperture and Xcode. A new update to Lion’s restore feature was also there, seemingly to support the new “Find My Mac” feature.
iOS 5 included much more than just iCloud support, of course. New features and standard apps were introduced for recent models of iOS devices. The new Reminders and Newsstand apps were added, as well as updates for the Music app (formerly the iPod app), Messages, Maps and Safari. In addition, Apple added more optional apps that you can download from the app store: Cards, Find My Friends and Airport Utility.

“I’ve hacked Time Machine to show files in the future as well as the past. According to our iPhoto collection we go to Hawaii next year.”

Take a look at the new features in iOS 5. New apps like Reminders and Messages add new functionality. Notifications now have a wider set of options. Twitter is built in to many apps. You can move and split the on-screen keyboard. You can sync with iCloud and use an iOS device independent of any computer.