iOS & iPhone: Page 20

Who's ready for another beta season? We beta testers have had quite the break: Apple released the fourth public beta for 13.2 on Oct. 23, and since then, two full weeks have gone by without a shred of beta news. It seems this Wednesday, Nov. 6 is our lucky day, as Apple just released the first public beta for iOS 13.3.

Everybody loves AirPods, right? Well, maybe everybody whose ears fit AirPods. That was the issue with the first two generations — one size doesn't fit all. But the new AirPods Pro come with three rubber ear tips of different sizes. While you can experiment on your own to figure out which fits best, Apple programmed your AirPods Pro to make that determination itself.

In iOS 13, Apple finally took the built in Files app from an extremely rudimentary file browser to a full featured app that can serve the needs of most any user. Among the new features is the ability to compress a file or series of files into a standard ZIP archive right from your iPhone.

The prospect of loss or theft is something we constantly live with. Stolen iPhones fetch a premium price on the black market for parts like OLED display assemblies, frames, and charging ports. Making matters worse, if someone were to steal your phone, they could simply turn it off to avoid anti-theft features like Find My iPhone.

Removing unwanted apps from your iPhone is a straightforward affair — long-press an app's icon, then hit the delete button once it appears. Unfortunately, the same can't be said when it comes to uninstalling tweaks from a jailbroken iPhone.

Incoming phone calls and FaceTimes, whether you want to answer them or not, will take over your entire iPhone's screen — no matter what you're in the middle of doing on the device at the moment. You could be browsing the web, playing a game, or chatting on social media. It doesn't matter, you'll get interrupted. But you don't have to put up with it anymore.

The iPhone's home screen gets its signature aesthetic from a grid of icons that seamlessly blend in to almost any background. It's a somewhat minimalistic look, but that's interrupted by cluttery text labels for apps and folders. Fortunately, there's a way to remove these labels, but you'll have to be jailbroken to pull it off.

Back in its infancy, the App Store was filled with text bomb apps that allowed users to send a barrage of text messages to friends, family, and foes. It was a fun way to annoy people, but Apple quickly scrubbed the apps because of technical issues. Although text bombs are still banished, you can now use a Siri Shortcut to send text bombs through iMessage on your iPhone.

For most of the iPhone's history, rearranging apps has been a giant pain. On the surface, iOS 13 seems to make things worse — with the new long-press gestures, it takes longer for iOS to know you want to move apps around. That might be true, but iOS 13 also introduced a way to make the process so much faster.

Another day, another beta, right? Well, that's not always the case. Apple can be pretty inconsistent when it comes to beta releases. In the past, a beta release once every two weeks was pretty much guaranteed. Nowadays, these updates can come at any time. Consider today's release, iOS 13.2 developer beta 4, which comes one week after the release of dev beta 3.

The wait is finally over. Apple just released iOS 13.2 for iPhone, the latest update to this year's iOS 13 release. The update contains a slew of exciting new features, such as Deep Fusion for 2019 iPhones, a suite of new emojis, the long-awaited Announce Messages with Siri, among many, many others.

By default, Apple's Maps features a 2D overhead viewing angle when you search for a place or get directions to a specific address. In the past, Apple Maps had a button in the top-right to view cities and landmarks in 3D, but that has now disappeared for the most part in iOS 13. However, the feature is still available to use — it's just sort of hidden this time around.

If your job revolves around prospective clients and customers, you may frequently receive iMessages from unknown numbers. Although this isn't necessarily a bad thing, being bombarded with messages from strangers can create disarray in your inbox if you're not careful. Luckily, Apple makes it easier to organize your conversations by allowing you to filter unknown numbers in the Messages app.

Your iPhone is full of search bars. Messages, Notes, Photos, Reminders ... these apps and more allow you to search for specific items to speed up whatever it is you're doing. But the fastest way to search in iOS might not be by typing.

Not long ago, connecting your iPhone to Bluetooth devices was a true pain in the neck. Control Center's AirPlay button made connecting to certain devices much easier, but it was with iOS 13 that Apple finally made connecting to wireless acceessories like AirPods, speakers, and keyboards so much better.

Pasting on your iPhone has never been easier.

Reminders may have received the biggest update out of all the native Apple apps on iOS 13. Among other things, the new Reminders app now comes packed with smart lists to make it easier find things, and a flagging feature to help you better manage your most important reminders.

By default, videos in the Photos app auto-play in several instances on iOS 13, making it a great way to get a quick, extended glimpse when you're browsing. But this isn't always ideal — especially when you're flipping through private or embarrassing videos and other eyes are on your screen. Fortunately, Apple has an easy way to disable this feature.

The latest update to Apple's Mail app introduces a suite of new colors for flags, unique amongst even the best email apps on the App Store. The problem is they're hard to find — if you try to flag an email the old fashioned way, it'll use the default orange color, with seemingly no way to change it. Of course, there is a way, it's just a little out of the way.

On all other iPhone models, you go to "Battery" in the Settings app and toggle on "Battery Percentage" in order to see the exact amount of power left in the status bar. On the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, and XR, however, that option no longer exists since there's not enough room up there to show the percentage indicator because of the notch for the TrueDepth camera system. But that doesn't mean it's gone entirely.