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Copied from my GitHub techdiary

iOS and iPadOS tips

I spent a LOT of time on my iPhone/iPad - here are some of the tools/tips I use.

General

Global Controls (For iPhone X)

  • Goto Launcher - Right Ear -> Swipe Right
  • Goto Control Panel - Left Ear -> Mid screen
  • Screen Capture - Power and Volume Up
  • Screen Capture Video - Control Panel Round dot (enable through configuration)
  • Siri -> Hold Power
  • Hey Siri -> A better way to launch Siri
  • Scroll to top of page -> press on time
  • Reboot -> Volume up then Volume down, then press side button for 10 seconds.

iMessage Turning into Green Dots

Sometimes iMessage gets screwed up, when that happens, it’s because iPhone is using email to start convos (I think?)

GoTo settings -> Imessage and ensure you’re starting from your phone numbe.

Siri (For iPhone X)

tbd

HomeKit

tbd

Health Kit

  • QS Access - Allow you to export your health data in tabular format - pretty nice.
  • Sleep cycle - Smart wake up alarm.
  • Heart Watch - Crazy level of detail on your heart rate.
  • Auto Sleep - Watch based sleep tracking.

Photos

  • Take picture by pressing volume up.
  • Hey Siri take a selfie
  • App: LightX

Air Pods Pro

OMG - This is amazing, you can customize yoru AirPods with your hearing test results (AudioGraph)!!!

First, create an AudioGraph using mimo app, and write it to apple health! mimo app! You need to be able to see the hearing test in apple health.

Next go to AirPods Settings->Accessibility->audio accessibility settings->Headphone Accommodations->transparency mode. If you added an audio graph, it wil be available to use.

There are also sliders for environmental noises and other customizations that should help under accessiblitiy.

Apps

All

  • Just press record - Keep full voice recording (not just transcription)
  • Fantastical - Best Calendar app - period.
  • Magic Launcher - Cool idea, app launch from widget menu.
  • Dark Sky - Micro weather
  • Bear - Writing tool
  • LightX - photo editor with magic wand.

Chrome

I use chrome instead of safari since it synchronizes my passwords and my open tabs. Chrome gestures:

Gestures:

Back/Forward - Swipe Left/Right from page edge Switch tabs - Swipe Left/Right on address bar. Refresh Tab - Pull top of page down. Close Tab - Pull top of page down and to right New Tab - Pull top of page down and to left

Keyboard: Test if these work https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/fiR1lQ0mpbw;context-place=forum/chrome

Launcher

A launch center which can execute URLs best use case is from a today widget.

Workflow

Automate common tasks - like send text to person (which can be added as a share extension) and send last screen shot to person. Can also add “shortcuts” to launcher.

Watch

Here are my favorite watch apps:

Next appointment - Fantastical Exercise/Heart rate monitor - Heart Watch Smart Wake up - Auto Wake Weather - Dark Sky

A great feature on the watch folks don’t know about is multiple watch faces. I use one face for off work (photos), one for work (calendar view), and one for sleeping (smart alarm clock view)

Augmented Reality Apps

  • IKEA: Put IKEA furniture in your room.
  • Magic Plan: Determine floor plan interactively.
  • Light-Space: Paint in AR
  • AR Dragon: Play with a toy dragon

Pen

Notability

  • My recommended writing application.
  • Synchronized audio playback and writing
  • Nice iCloud syncing
  • Google Drive PDF creation
  • Excellent Hand Writing Recognition and search.
  • Side by side page view

Notes Plus

I now recommend using Notability, however a few places where Notes Plus still has superior features:

  • Prettiest Render
  • Smart Gestures (Scratch to erase, deduce shape)

OneNote

  • Best cross platform app
  • Hand writing in native, but it’s meh compared to the others

Adobe Sketch

  • My favorite drawing app - nice intuitive controls
  • Nice ink

Inkflow

  • I haven’t actually used it, but apparently it can turn photos into vector graphics (pretty cool)

Nebo

  • Augmented drawing. Cool idea you can draw connected diagrams and move them around, but it feels great for a demo, but doesn’t actually work well yet.

Keyboards

  • Google Keyboard - lets you use a swype like gesture
  • Stylus - lets you write by actually writing on the screen (similar to windows ink)

Keyboard Shortcuts

W-S-3 - Take screen shot Long press W - See supported key strokes (varies per app)

Doing development including markdown

Read my post on being an iPad developer nomad