Is (Battery) Life Letting you Down?

It seems that many people are disappointed in the decreased battery life in the recent iOS7 upgrade. Looking at it through my rose colored, Apple fan boy glasses, I see it differently. I don't see the battery life decreased as much as I see the functionality of the iPhone increased. Background updating of my favorite news and weather apps means I spend less time waiting for updates when I run the app. The 3D effects aren't really "functionality," but I'm enjoying them. Location awareness in so many more apps makes their results more relevant, but also draws more power. Notifications and Push technology suck down the juice, but I like finding out right away when Amendola or Gronkowski are healthy, and I love knowing when "Rain is Imminent!" I like talking to Siri, but she wears down the battery too.

Unhappy with the time between charges?

Easy solution: Decrease the functionality.

First, take care of basics, and get rid of the stuff you really don't need:

• Have the phone lock sooner.  Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock and set the interval to a shorter time, such as 1 Minute.
• Don't automatically update Apps! Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store and turn off the toggle for Updates.
• Disable the parallax effect that gives the home screens that 3D look. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion.
• Turn off the Background App Refresh for the apps that you don't need updating all the time. Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
• Turn off AirDrop. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and select the toggle in the Control Center.
• Disable all of the Notifications that you don't really care about. Turn off the stock ticker. Go to Settings >Notification Center.  Change Alert Style to None. Turn Badge App Icon off. Turn Sounds off.
• Dim your screen some. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and slide the slider in the Control Center.

Situationally, there are more fixes:

• Turn off Bluetooth when you're not using it. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and select the toggle in the Control Center.
• Turn off the GPS if you're sitting in one place all day. Turn it on when you need them. Go to Settings>Privacy>Location Services
• Turn off Wi-Fi if you don't use it. Go to Settings>Wi-Fi
• Even if you do use Wi-Fi, turn off "Ask To Join Networks" and you'll save a bit. Go to Settings>Wi-Fi
• If you have low cell tower signal, think about using Airplane Mode. The phone uses a lot of power trying to stay connected, and if you have less than 2 bars or dots, chances are you're missing calls anyhow. Turn off Airplane Mode to make calls or check for emails.
• If instant email is not a priority, change email from Push to Fetch and set the Fetch interval higher. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars >Fetch New Data and turn it off. Scroll down and choose a new interval. The longer the interval, the more battery saved.
• If you listen to Music, set the Equalizer to Off. Go to Settings >Music >EQ and tap Off. Any other setting uses more battery.

If you're not using a car charger, you're crazy, and if you haven't invested in a charger - or at least a USB cable - for work, do so!

And finally comes the brutal but honest truth: If you want a phone with a battery that lasts all day, it's easy:

• Stop using email.
• Stop surfing the web.
• Stop checking and updating Facebook.
• Stop tweeting, Vining, Pinning and Instagramming.
• Stop taking pictures and videos.
• Stop watching Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo.

I promise that if you use your phone as a phone only, you'll have plenty of battery life.

Here's that real life advice I promised: Stop wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Safari PDF Redux

If you have recently upgraded to Safari 6.1 and you suddenly get weird messages about Acrobat Reader being blocked, or your PDF viewing is jerky and slow… Revisit this post: Fixing Safari PDF Problems

I don't know why Apple keeps reinstalling buggy Adobe plug-ins at every opportunity, but each time I simply delete them, I end up with a better Mac experience.

Your Mac and Apple Preview are completely capable of displaying and printing PDFs for you, and any application will create a perfectly usable PDF for you to send to, and be usable by, anyone.

Please let me know if this doesn't work for you!

Best Thing Since Sliced Bread? FaceTime Audio Calling!

FaceTime has always been more of a cool, Dick Tracy trick in these quarters, than an actual useful service. I mean who wants to clean up their office, brush their hair, or hey… put on a shirt, just to talk on the phone? That and the unflattering camera angle that gives even Kate Moss a double chin has relegated FaceTime to the land of the absent parent/infant lullaby and the party trick.

But no more! Not with FaceTime Audio calling.

How can it be that this is not the lead in every single review of iOS7?

In terms of call quality, iOS 7 has taken the iPhone from worst to first. We're talking Hi-Def. HQ! This is crystal clear, CD-quality audio so clean it is, at first, disturbing. You'll be so amazed at the clarity and realism that you'll lose track of the content of your conversation.

As recently as yesterday, when someone has asked, "How do you like that iPhone?" my stock reply has been, "It's the worst phone I've ever had, and you can have it when you pry it from my cold dead hand." As all iPhone users acknowledge, the rest of the iPhone user experience makes up for the up-til-now hideous telephone service. I've tried the handset, the speakerphone and well reviewed Jawbone and Plantronics bluetooth earpieces to no avail. Maybe it's AT&T but it seems that my Verizon friends all have similar complaints. It seems it may really be in the nature of cellular calls on the iPhone, because with the introduction of FaceTime Audio Calls there are no hardware limitations; this handset, this speakerphone, this earpiece… all sound great!

FaceTime Audio Calling only works between iPhones on iOS7 and on wi-fi at both ends of the call UPDATE 10/21: It seems to work over 4G as well! Give it a try. You'll stop talking about Siri's new voice, the "Control Center" and the weird new colors.

And whatever you are talking about? It will sound amazing!

Time to update to iOS7?

iPhone 4S or 5?

Definitely go for it.

But:

• Do a full, encrypted backup by wired connection to your computer.
• Do the upgrade through iTunes on your computer
• Be ready to not be able to use the phone for +-30 minutes
• Expect to have to spend a couple hours getting used to how things look and how some things are different or relocated.

My advice... start it going before dinner. Get it to the point where the software is downloaded, unpacked and you can see that it is starting to grind away on the install. After dinner, keep it plugged in to power, and mess around with it during evening.

If you have an iPhone 4 you should probably still update; your phone may be a little slower, but most people are still happy with the changes.

If you have a 5 and a non-Apple charger, the charger will not work after the update. take it to the Apple Store, give them the charger and $10 and get an official, won't fry you, Apple brand charger!

Curing Mal de Mac

Sometimes general or vague problems with a Mac - what I call Mal de Mac - can be solved by running Disk Utility and repairing the hard drive. But, you need to prepare properly. Disk Utility on your Mac will not repair your hard drive unless you follow the following steps:

If you are running OS 10.7 or later, restart your Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R), and keep holding them until the Apple icon appears. After your Mac has finished starting up, you will see a desktop with an OS X menu bar and a "Mac OS X Utilities" application window. You can run Disk Utility and repair your drive from here.

If you have an older system, the best bet is to start up from your Install Disk. Again, you can’t repair the current startup volume with the Disk Utility that's on your Mac. You need to start up from a Mac OS X Install Disk and run Disk Utility from there. But many people, especially those who bought used or inherited an old Mac from a friend, may not have an Install Disk handy. Others simply no longer have a working optical drive, but soldier on.

If you have an older system, and no startup discs, here's another thing you can try:

Shut down your Mac in the usual way.
Boot in "single-user mode" by holding down Command-S at startup.
When you see the text prompt, type:

fsck -fy and hit <RETURN>

When it's done, type:

reboot and hit <RETURN>

Full instructions (and warnings) are found on this official Apple page.

One Less Mac Mail Peeve

In Apple Mail, hovering over an e-mail address in the “To” or “From” field shows a drop-down arrow that you can click to reveal a hidden menu. From that menu, you can copy the email address to your clipboard.

The peeve? It copies it like this:

Juan Sirrakah <juan@whodat.com>

...which is kind of a pain when you just want to copy an email address and paste it somewhere besides another Apple mail message address header.

So, if you'd like it to copy and paste just this:

juan@whodat.com

...do this:

Quit Mail, fire up "Terminal^†," and paste this into it (all on one line, no returns):

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

and then hit"enter/Return." Now run Mail and try it out. Cool?

To change the behavior back:

Quit Mail, fire up "Terminal" and paste this into it (all on one line, no returns):

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

and then hit"enter/Return."

For the most part, your Mac will do anything you want it to, you just need to know how to ask. If you are having trouble communicating with your Mac and you wish it would listen to you a little better, give me a call.

The White Collar Handyman is also The Mac Whisperer. There are no bad Macs... only inexperienced owners! ;-)

^†found in your "Utilities" folder. Don't be afraid, Terminal doesn't bite!

ITunes Store Fraud Panic? Don't Panic!

Today, I discovered a couple of unauthorized $1 Apple iTunes Store charges pending on my American Express card. I visited my iTunes Store account page and found no reference to any recent charges. (Typically, when I tried to click on the "Report A Problem" button, all it did was disappear. Actually, what it does is enable other links to allow you to report a problem with specific items on the "recent purchases" list, but it's both subtle and not what I wanted.)

I immediately cleared the credit card info from my iTunes account and went back to Amex to see what I could do about challenging the charges. "Pending charges can not be contested," is the Amex reply.

Hmm. A quick check with daughter reveals that she hadn't downloaded anything without first checking with Dear Old Dad.

Was I being set up to be the next victim of the ongoing scam? [link to NY Times story]

I Googled around for a bit to check on what to do, and finally found this, buried at the Apple web site:

As with many other merchants, the iTunes Store and Mac App Store places an authorization hold on your payment card account for the approximate amount of any purchase you make. Similarly, if you update your billing information, the iTunes Store or Mac App Store will place an authorization hold on your payment card account, usually in the amount of 1 USD, to verify your account information. (emphasis added)

You might see such authorization requests on your online statement. These requests are not actual charges; they are tests to confirm that your payment card account is active and has available funds to accommodate transactions. Authorization holds are removed by your financial institution shortly after your purchase clears. The amount of time it takes to remove authorization requests varies by financial institution...

Yep, in fact prompted by Apple's recent introduction of "2 Step Verification," I had made some changes to my account a week or so ago. OK then, no problem. Time to re-enter the card info at iTunes and move on my merry way.

Hey Apple! It would be good - in light of all the fraud and scams surrounding the iTunes Store - if you reminded people of your policy at the time that they make these changes!