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4
Apr

Editor’s Roundtable — how we enjoy reading


Everyone reads a little differently, especially when technology is involved.

One of the cool things about ebooks is the sheer number of ways you can consume a book. Whether you’re jumping between device with cloud sync, ePaper all the way with a nice standalone device, or you lay across your bed with a Chromebook tilted on its side (hey, no judgement here), the ability to access all of your books wherever you are is an incredible feeling. At the same time, having a physical book to hold is a timeless experience that doesn’t require power or internet. Since we’re all pretty much plugged in 24/7/365, it seemed kind of obvious that the AC editors would all use some kind of gadget to get some reading in, but there’s some impressive variance in how we all get access to and read our books.

4
Apr

Save 60% today on this rugged hybrid case with kickstand for Lumia 822


This Lumia 822 hybrid case provides serious protection against drops and scratches while sporting a built-in kickstand that can be used for watching movies and more. The inner-most layer is made of a shock absorbing silicone that sits underneath a thick plastic exterior. On sale today for $7.95!

4
Apr

Save 50% today on this hard case and holster for BlackBerry Passport


Give your BlackBerry Passport the protection it deserves without the huge price tag. This Amzer Shellster Combo includes both a durable, textured hard case and a quick access swivel holster to keep at your side. Get yours today for only $8.95 while supplies last!

4
Apr

How to use Calendar for iPhone and iPad: The ultimate guide


Calendars help you keep track of what you’re doing and when, which is why it’s one of the core apps on all mobile devices.

That why, when iOS launched in 2007, it included a Calendar app. You can use Calendar by itself, sync it via iCloud, Google Calendar, Microsoft, or something else. No matter what service you use, it’s the default way to add and find appointments and events. Whether you’re just getting started with Calendar for iPhone or iPad, or just want some new tips and tricks, we’ve got everything you need to know!

How to set up iCloud calendar on your iPhone or iPad

If you didn’t originally set up your iPhone or iPad with iCloud Calendar, or if you want to use a different iCloud account for Calendar than you do for iTunes purchases, you may need to sign in and set up iCloud outside of the initial setup process. In some cases, you may simply want to add an additional account to your device, you can add an iCloud account at any time via the Settings app.

How to access iCloud calendars on the Mac, Windows, and the Web

If you can’t get to your iPhone or iPad but still need to manage your iCloud calendars, you can also access them on the Mac, Windows, or on the Web. Perhaps your iPhone is dead and you need to use your Mac or a friend’s PC, or you’re on holiday and don’t have mobile data but there is an internet cafe or terminal close by. Either way, you can quickly and easily access you calendar and many of the other iCloud services from any web browser.

How to setup Google Calendar on your iPhone or iPad

Google Calendar is incredibly popular and, what’s more, is incredibly easy to setup on your iPhone or iPad. If you have a free Gmail account, you can set it up through the iOS Settings app and access it through the built-in Calendar app. If you have a paid Google account, you can also use Google Sync, Google’s implementation of Microsoft’s ActiveSync service. (Sadly, Google discontinued ActiveSync support for free accounts in 2013).

How to set up Microsoft Outlook calendar on iPhone and iPad

If Microsoft Outlook.com — Live or Hotmail if you’re retro — is your calendar provider of choice, it’s easy to set up and access it right on your iPhone or iPad. Microsoft might have taken a while, and gone through a lot of names and iterations, to get their online consumer services into the modern age, but what they’ve finally settled on is impressive. There’s Exchange if you need ActiveSync. If you don’t, there’s Outlook.

How to setup Exchange calendars using ActiveSync on your iPhone or iPad

Exchange is Microsoft’s corporate email, calendar, and contact system, and ActiveSync is their fairly awesome protocol to keep it all updated on all of your devices, including iPhone and iPad. No matter whether you use Exchange directly from Microsoft, from Google, or from your company or a third-party service, it’s all setup the same way. All you need to know are your credentials.

How to setup calendar accounts using CalDAV on your iPhone and iPad

While iOS makes it easy to add popular calendar accounts to your iPhone or iPad, you can manually add any calendar that supports the open CalDAV standard as well. For example, if you’re using the Gmail app for your Google mail, you might want to use CalDAV to add your Google Calendar to Apple’s built-in Calendar app. If you’re running our own calendar server, CalDAV is what you’ll want as well. As long as you have the login information for the CalDAV account, you’re good to go.

How to add and delete calendars on your iPhone and iPad

The Calendar app on the iPhone and iPad can keep track of all your events and appointments, all in one place. But it doesn’t have to keep them all in the same calendar. If you prefer to keep your work life and personal life separate, or to have a specific calendar for kids activities, or a special vacation, or for anything else, you can easily do so. Since each calendar gets its own color, and you have the ability to hide or show individual calendars, it’s a great way to stay organized and stay sane at the same time. Additional calendars are easy to setup, and if you ever stop needing them, they’re easy to delete as well.

How to create, edit, and delete calendar events on your iPhone or iPad

The Calendar app for iPhone and iPad provides a great way to keep track of all your appointments and events. While it’s faster to use Siri to create basic events, if you need more precise control, or if you want to edit existing event details, you can also do it the old fashioned way – by tapping your way through options inside the Calendar app itself.

How to create, view, update, and cancel calendar events using Siri

Since Siri is meant to be your personal assistant, it only makes sense to have it schedule and manage your meetings and events on your iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPod touch 5, iPad 4, iPad 3, or iPad mini. Asking Siri to create a Calendar event only takes a few seconds and is much faster than creating them manually and entering all the data yourself. Whether you need Siri to schedule a meeting, tell you what’s on the agenda for the day, or move an existing meeting to another time to make room for a conference call or a power nap, Siri will help make sure your schedule is set.

How to subscribe to calendars on your iPhone or iPad

Calendar subscriptions let you stay up to date on everything from your team schedule to national holidays to network programming. The iPhone and iPad let you subscribe to any calendar that provides a compatible URL. As long as you have the link for the subscription, you’re good to go.

How to set default calendars, alert times, sync options, and more on iPhone or iPad

The iPhone and iPad Calendar app allows you to set not only your default calendar, but to customize many other settings that change how your calendar events behave. Having good defaults can make it much faster to add new events and appointments, especially if you often add events to the same calendar, with the same alert requirements. You can also set how far back your iPhone and iPad will sync those appointments and events, so you can keep handy just your most recent entries, or entries going back for months. You can toggle automatic time zone shifting, and even turn off invitation alerts if you need fewer distractions in your life.

How to use the Family Sharing calendar on iPhone and iPad

When you set up Family Sharing on your iPhone or iPad, iOS 8 automatically created a shared family calendar that every member of your Family Sharing group will have access to. From soccer games to PTA meetings and everything in between, the Family Sharing calendar can help your entire family on schedule and in touch!

How to share or make an iCloud calendar public using your iPhone or iPad

If you use Apple’s free iCloud service, and you’ve added calendars to better organize your events, you may want to make one public or share it completely. For example, if you manage a club or league, and want other members to be able to view it as well, but not edit it like they could a shared calendar, a public calendar is the way to go. If you’re planning a trip or maintaining a work schedule, and want other people to be able to not only view, but add and edit events, then a shared calendar is the way to go.

How to use notes and links in Calendar for iPhone and iPad

Sometimes just an event name or a location isn’t enough. This may especially be the case for things like conference calls where you have pertinent information to share with attendees, such as call-in numbers and access codes, links, documents, and more. Regardless what you need to share, you can easily do so by attached notes and links to any calendar entry.

How to use travel times with Calendar for iPhone and iPad

While the Calendar app can remind you and let you know what’s coming up for the day, it’s your job to stay on task and be on time. If you have a meeting coming up and the event has an address attached to it, your iPhone or iPad can figure out how much time it will take you to get to your meeting.

How to quickly change or move a calendar event on iPhone and iPad

If you need to quickly change the time of an event or appointment in your iPhone or iPad’s Calendar, the today view gives you an incredibly easy way of doing so by dragging and dropping instead of entering into edit mode for each event you need to change. Unfortunately, the Calendar app doesn’t make the option very obvious. But once you know where it’s at, we’re pretty sure you’ll prefer it over editing individual events when it comes time to plan your day.

How to send and accept calendar event invitations on iPhone and iPad

When you’re creating an event or appointment in the iPhone or iPad Calendar app, you might want to add other people to it, and alert them about it. That’s where invitations come in. If you’re using a calendar service that supports it, like Apple’s iCloud service or Microsoft’s Exchange, all you need are the email addresses for the people you want to invite.

How to switch calendar views on your iPhone or iPad

The built-in Calendar app on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch offers several different ways to view your events and appointments. The default view is Month, but you can also switch to List and Day view, and on the iPad, Year view. This lets you easily see everything at a glance, or drill down to one specific hour.

Best calendar app alternatives for iPhone and iPad

While the built-in iPhone and iPad calendar app is clean and functional, it’s not the right calendar app for everyone. That’s where the App Store comes in. There are several really great calendar replacement apps, and they can all tie into the same iOS calendar database, so all of your appointments, events, birthdays, and more will “just work”. But which calendar app for iPhone or iPad is the absolute best for you?

Note: Originally published February 2013. Updated April 2015.

How to get more help with iOS

4
Apr

iMore show 451: Live from Ùll 2015


The iMore show brings you everything you need to know about the week in iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple! On this episode We’re live from the Ùll conference in Ireland talking Apple Watch, Macbook, Tim Cook, and more! With Serenity Caldwell, Georgia Dow, Rene Ritchie, and special guest Jason Snell!

http://images.precentral.net/sites/precentral.net/files/mp3player/player.swf
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Show notes

Hosts

4
Apr

How would you change the Lock screen?


The Lock screen serves too diametrically opposed functions — to secure your iPhone or iPad against unauthorized access, and to provide convenient access to information and actions.

The original iPhone simply, delightfully let you swipe to unlock, with or without a passcode. Over time, Apple has added greater security to the Lock screen, including passwords, hardware encryption, Touch ID, PreBoard, and more. The company has also added greater convenience, including showing the time and date, alerts, wallpaper, optional direct access to Siri, Notification Center, Control Center, Passbook, motion wallpapers, Emergency Card, and more.

That’s what is, but what about what could be? If Apple asked you what you want for the Lock screen in iOS 9, what would you tell them?

  • Pattern unlock, like Apple Retail.
  • Slideshow backgrounds, like Apple TV.
  • Better animated backgrounds, like Apple Watch.
  • Customizable appearance, like Apple Watch “faces”.
  • Customizable information zones, like Apple Watch “complications”.
  • Guest mode.
  • Better interactive notifications on Lock screen.
  • Predictive alerts.
  • Short and long notifications to keep information private.

It’s not hard to imagine that, in a post-Apple Watch world, we could see a short look notification on our iPhone to tell us a message has come in, pick it up to see more information, and respond right there with text or voice. That our favorite photos would float past or a jelly fish swim by as we glanced at the time, our next meeting and the current traffic to get there. That we could hand the phone to a friend at a conference to make a quick call or look up a quick piece of information on the web without giving them access to our data.

The Lock screen has come a long way, but in iOS 9, where would you like to see it go next?

4
Apr

Top Windows Phone apps for keeping up with Major League Baseball


Opening Day for Major League Baseball is right around the corner and for those who like to follow all the action around the Diamond, there are a few Windows Phone apps that might come in handy.

While it is doubtful that MLB At Bat will return to the Windows Phone Store lineup, it wasn’t the only game in town. For this week’s roundup, we’ll toss in a few apps dedicated to Major League Baseball, one to help you keep score of the game and will also mention the usual suspects. Please Note that some of these apps have not been updated to reflect the 2015 Major League Baseball Season. This often happens at the last minute and with the season kicking in on Monday, we expect updates to be pushing out soon.

As always, if we have overlooked your favorite Major League Baseball Windows Phone app be sure to toss out your recommendation in the comments below. We try to include some of the more popular and top rated apps and games in our roundups but we do miss a few from time to time, as well as needing to thin things out for the sake of print space. Plus we like to hear from our readers as to what is trending out there.

4
Apr

OnePlus releases OxygenOS for the OnePlus One


OnePlus’s own take on Android — OxygenOS — is now available for the OnePlus One

As promised back in February, OnePlus has released their replacement for the CyanogenMod OS: Oxygen OS for the OnePlus One. OxygenOS is a rather light take on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, keeping with the standards of Material Design.

4
Apr

Watch and win as we play Geometry Wars 3 Evolved tonight on Twitch


Every weekend, Windows Central streams an Xbox One game or two on Twitch for 1-2 hours and gives out free games to the cool people who join us during the stream. It’s like a live podcast, only you also get to watch a game while chatting with our awesome readers and viewers!

Tonight at 8pm Central (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific, 2am GMT), we’ll be playing Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved from Lucid Games and Sierra/Activision. Not only is Geometry Wars 3 the best twin-stick shooter on Xbox One, this week it received a massive update that adds new levels, modes, and items. Watch us play that new content tonight and you could win a copy of the game for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows!

Just follow me on Twitch.tv/Eastxtwitch, enable email notifications, watch along, and participate in chat for your chance to win. After the stream ends, we’ll have a full YouTube video of the stream!

4
Apr

Microsoft’s Surface 3 on display at Best Buy


I swung by the local Best Buy to do a little window-shopping and stumbled upon the Microsoft Surface 3. It was a display unit for the 64GB version of the Surface 3, and it looked good.

As appearance goes, the Surface 3 looks and feels a lot like the Surface 2. You do have the obvious difference with the charging ports, but screen size, weight, thickness and the screen quality all seem in the same ballpark.

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