How To

Understanding iTunes Match in iOS 6

The Music app received a mostly cosmetic makeover with iOS 6, but there are a couple of items under the hood that have changed. If you use Apple's Podcasts and iTunes U apps, you'll soon discover that content for those apps are now directed to those apps and no longer available in the Music app. The bigger change has to do with iTunes Match.

Before, when you played a song stored in iCloud via iTunes Match, the song would be downloaded to your device as you listened to it. And next to each track stored in iCloud was … Read more

iOS 6 tip: Wake up to any song in your library

With iOS 6, you can roll out of bed to a mellow reggae beat or leap out of bed to thrash metal -- your choice.

If you use your iPhone as your alarm, you likely have grown tired of starting your day to the same marimba tone. You may not have noticed yet that after installing iOS 6 you can set the alarm to play a song instead of a tone.

Open the Clock app and choose Alarm. When you add a new alarm or edit an existing alarm, tap Sound. Here, you'll see a new Songs section. Tap &… Read more

Restrict iMessage alerts to your contacts only

When I first wrote about iMessage last year with the release of iOS 5, I made a huge mistake. I had gone through and edited all of the screenshots, but forgot to blur out an e-mail address linked to my iMessage account. Readers noticed this, of course, and began sending me iMessages almost immediately.

I heard from a lot of nice readers, and I also had the occasional person who would send me multiple messages at all hours of the night. It took me a few weeks to figure out how these people knew how to contact me, but even … Read more

How to set multiple e-mail signatures on iOS 6

Multiple e-mail signatures, a feature that should have been in iOS from day one, has finally been added to the operating system with the iOS 6 update.

Before iOS 6, users would have to set one generic signature and then add any extra information as they were sending the e-mail. Not anymore.

To set up your e-mail signatures, launch the Settings app and then select Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down until you find the Signature option and tap on it. You'll be presented with the option to set one e-mail address for all accounts, or to set a signature … Read more

How to set up Find My Friends notifications

Find My Friends, an iOS app aimed at helping friends and family members keep tabs on one another, was updated with the release of iOS 6. Other than some simple user interface changes, there wasn't a whole lot added to the app, with one exception -- notifications.

You can now set notifications to get alerted when a contact in your Find My Friends app arrives at or leaves a location you set.

To set up a notification for a friend, view their current location. In the upper-left corner of your screen, you'll see a button titled "Notify … Read more

Getting started with Passbook on iOS 6

Passbook is Apple's first foray into something that slightly resembles a mobile payment solution. Passbook is a new app included in iOS 6 that allows merchants to develop Passes to be stored in the user's Passbook.

With the release of iOS 6 only a few hours old, there aren't too many examples of apps that have incorporated Passbook into them, so I used this site to help me make some sample Passes just for this post.

When you launch Passbook for the first time, it will more than likely be empty. There will be a link that … Read more

How to bring back Google Maps in iOS 6

One of the biggest changes iOS 6 brings forth is the new Maps app, which is no longer powered by Google's robust mapping software.

As you get to know Maps on iOS 6, you'll discover the new 3D maps and the Flyover feature, along with long-awaited turn-by-turn voice navigation. These features are certainly impressive, but the new Maps app lacks anything approaching Google's Street View. Many early adopters have discovered major problems with the app's maps and directions, as well as some hilariously awkward satellite photography. Others have complained that the new Maps app does not … Read more

Attach a photo, video when composing an e-mail on iOS 6

One of the biggest gripes about the Mail app on iOS has always been the inability to attach a photo or video from within the app.

Previously, once you began composing an e-mail, you'd have to leave Mail, copy the photo from the Photos app, then return to Mail to paste the photo in the message. Alternatively, you would have to begin the e-mail from the Photos app by selecting a single photo to send. Neither method was convenient.

Thankfully, Apple has finally decided to take care of this issue in iOS 6.

To attach a photo or video … Read more

How to use Safari's full-screen mode on iOS 6

Browsing the Internet on your iPhone or iPod Touch is super convenient, but at times it can be a bit frustrating. The screen size isn't ideal for consuming large amounts of information on some Web sites. Even if you turned your iPhone on its side to view it in landscape mode, the top address bar and bottom controls took up much of the screen.

With iOS 6, Apple has addressed this problem by introducing a full-screen mode for browsing the Web in landscape mode on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

When using Safari, assuming you don't have the … Read more

With iOS 6, you can upload photos in Safari

Until iOS can fully replace your computer, it's going to have to gain a lot in terms of capabilities. Luckily, with each update to the operating system, more and more of those much-needed features are added. One such feature is the ability to upload photos to a Web site through Mobile Safari.

The process and workflow is identical to what you're used to when using a computer, but it's been adapted to iOS.

Using Tumblr as an example, when you want to upload a photo, tap on the Upload button and then select if you want to … Read more