#i’ve already ordered what looks like a pretty good bluetooth keyboard and i was like ‘okay but i need to elevate my ipad to eye level so i’m

[fingertipsmp3]

Also I love when I order something and then almost immediately see a better way of doing what I was going to try to do and then getting to cancel the order and save my money. Feels like a very cheap drug

[moustacheimpossible-blog]

Peace of Mind

CIA Agent August Walker is in trouble with Solomon Lane after this last one grows suspicious of his activities with the CIA. Solomon Lane has asked Agent Walker to bring him Ethan Hunt alive, but as weeks passed without any news from Walker, Lane concludes that Walker is a traitor and goes as far as kidnapping Walker's sister in order to get what he wants from Agent Walker...

CHAPTER 1

The sun rays shined directly into her blue eyes, forcing the young woman to put on her sunglasses. She smiled, displaying her white teeth, content as the music coming out of her Bluetooth speakers pleased her. She grabbed her smartphone, and repeated the same song that had just ended, not getting enough of it. She stood up from the sunchair and entered her small house to retrieve something. She then came back outside on the patio and sat at the table, eating a plate of chicken and rice, taking off the sunglasses from her face.

The man took another picture of the young woman as her face appeared directly in the focus of his lens that he had adjusted in order to have a better view on her face. He narrowed one of his eyes and kept taking pictures of her face, while she seemed to be wondering about something... Her short pale blonde hair blown by the warm wind kept her face free from her bangs, allowing the man to capture her face over and over on his camera.

"I'd be worried too if I were you sweetheart!" He added while seizing other pictures of her. When he made sure he had taken enough pictures of the woman, he returned inside his Black SUV and headed to his motel room where he'd communicate with a man. Before calling the man that had hired him, he sent the series of pictures he had taken to a secure email address and then called the man to see what he thought of this.

"Good evening Mr. Lane, I've sent you pictures of the woman you were looking for..."

Lane listened to the man speaking on the phone while his blue eyes were glued to the screen of his laptop. He slowly brought his fingers to the screen and caressed it as if he was trying to caress the face of the young woman displayed on the pictures.

"Yes, that's her!" He nonchalantly said, his eyes still admiring the woman on the pictures. He wasn't finding her attractive or interesting, even though she was indeed a beautiful woman, Lane just wanted to get his hands on her because she would be of an use at some point. She was in a way a backup plan for him.

"Hmm!" He snorted as he zoomed in the picture.

"She's got a dimple in her chin just like him..."

The man that had taken the pictures asked Lane if he was done with his work and Lane revealed to him that he wasn't done yet. He'd need to keep an eye on the young woman, just in case Lane had the intention to execute his plan. Lane ended the conversation and saved the pictures on his smartphone in order to send them to a certain man he had lost faith in. He didn't know anymore if he could trust him, knowing well that he was now working with Erika Sloane. The last time he had heard from him was 3 months ago, and Lane was growing suspicious of his activities.

Sitting at his desk, Lane calmly typed on his keyboard via a secure email that couldn't be tracked down.

"Hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Walker... I'd like to remind you that you have forgotten to contact me over the past few weeks, which worries me about your activities with the CIA. I thought your mission was to push Ethan Hunt to me. So far you hadn't done any of what I asked you. Don't go thinking that I'm not aware of your surroundings. Perhaps these pictures attached to the email will eventually stir you up a bit... Isn't she lovely, so innocent and fragile... I'm pretty sure she's the only human being you do care about and that you only wish the best for her. If you don't trap Ethan Hunt, I will personally take care of your little sister Walker and you'll never see her again! You don't even want to imagine what they'd do to her Walker..."

Lane sent the email and lowered his eyes on his smartphone, knowing he'd receive a call in the few minutes to come. He didn't even have the time to turn away from his laptop that his smartphone's screen lighted up as he received a call from an Unknown ID Caller. He didn't need to know who it was, Lane was smart enough to realize that he had found Walker's fatal weakness, and she was called Kiley Walker...

When Lane accepted the call, he had to hold his smartphone away from his ear since Walker was obviously pissed with Lane.

"If you touch her, I'll kill you Lane. I swear to god, I will kill you and all of your men!!" Lane wasn't intimidated by Walker's useless threats.

"It will bring you nowhere August. We're in the same team, remember?! I've finally found your Achilles heel. I knew the more I'd keep searching about, the deeper it would affect you. You think I wouldn't find out about your sister? I'm surprised though, you never told me that you had a sister. "

Lane could hear August breathing loudly at the other end of the phone. He had finally retrieved what could hurt Walker. She wasn't just a girlfriend or a spouse, she was his younger sister. The only human being he had taken care of and had seen growing up since she was just a baby...

"If you approach her Lane, you can bet your ass that I'm not bringing you, Hunt! I will find you and take care of you personally!!! You'll regret it and mark my words about it!"

"Human Nature; My weapon of choice. From what I can see, you do feel her pain and you will do everything in your power to protect her. Bring me Hunt and I won't hurt her, simple as this! I'm far from you Walker, looking for me would be a waste of time. When I'll get my hands on your little sister, I will make sure to be the only one aware of her location, so if the thought of killing me would cross your mind, it would eventually be a fatal move for your sister... She's just 29, I'm pretty sure you would like her to live longer than this, right August?"

"I can't bring you, Hunt, right now! He's gone on a mission, he'll come back in a few days from what I heard from Sloane. I told you it would take me longer, or else they'll grow suspicious of me!"

Lane quickly interrupted Walker as he explained to him why he couldn't bring Hunt to him right away.

"Do you think I'm stupid Walker? You've been with the CIA for years now, don't you think it could already be over this Mission with Hunt? by the Way, Ethan Hunt has been spotted in Washington today, he's already back in town... Don't lie to me Walker, you're only asking for trouble. As for your sister, there's a man watching over her place, and once I'll give my man the order to kidnap her, you won't have the choice to bring Ethan Hunt with you in order to save her. So, bring me Hunt and I'll give you back your sister!"

Lane kept smirking as he had succeeded in angering Walker. He knew it wouldn't take long for the CIA Agent to bring him, Ethan Hunt. Lane was about to add his last word when he realized that Walker had already ended the conversation.

"Better run Walker!" Said Lane, as he dialed the phone number of the man who was parked near the house of Walker's sister.

"Bring me the girl, please." Lane didn't need to say more to his man. His Henchman knew what was the job, and didn't need further explanation from Lane. The man replied with a simple yes over the phone before Lane ended the call. Still sitting in his chair, Lane kept his cold regard glue on the screen of his laptop.

"That will be so easy!" He shook his head, almost ready to claim his victory over Walker.

Also Available at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697128

https://www.wattpad.com/618918688-peace-of-mind-august-walker-chapter-1

[tech-battery]

Hands-On with the Lenovo Yoga C740

Lenovo’s Yoga C740 is an affordable premium convertible PC that comes in both 14- and 15.6-inch form factors. I’ve been using the smaller version for the past few weeks during our stay-at-home order—thanks, Coronavirus!—and the 15-inch version arrived the other day. So here are some thoughts from my hands-on experience.

Design. The C740 provides a premium all-aluminum design that I find to be both modern and attractive. (Both versions are available in Iron Gray, but the 14-inch can be had in Mica as well.) Its curved rear pieces provide a unique look that is nicely offset by the device’s strong hinges, and they make it more comfortable to carry. As a convertible PC, the C740 supports multiple versatile usage modes—like tent mode, stand mode, and tablet mode—in addition to the standard laptop-style clamshell mode.

Display. The C740’s IPS displays are wrapped in small bezels and provide a Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution in a 16:9 panel with roughly 300 nits of brightness. The displays do support both multi-touch and active pen support, and they are exactly what one should expect at this price point. The 15-inch version can be had with an optional HDR 400 glossy display that is much brighter and offers wider viewing angles and Dolby Vision capabilities, albeit at the same Full HD resolution. But I find both versions to be bright, crisp, and colorful.

Components. The Yoga is powered by a 10th-generation Intel Core i5 -10210U or i7-10510U processor with Intel UHD Graphics, 8 or 16 GB of RAM, and 256 GB to 1 TB of PCIe-based SSD storage.

Noise and heat. Both versions of the C740 exhibit noticeable fan noise, but it is especially prevalent in the 15-inch version.

Connectivity. Connectivity is pretty standard for 2020, with Intel 9560 802.11AC (2 x 2) and Bluetooth 5.0. There is no cellular data option.

Ports. The 14-inch version of the C740 provides two USB-C 3.1 ports on the left and one full-sized USB 3.1 port on the right; the 15-inch version adds a second full-sized USB 3.1 port on the right. Both portables are powered by USB-C and ship with a 65-watt Lenovo power brick. There is a headphone jack on the left, and a large power button on the right. Lenovo places the power button there so you can access it no matter which usage mode you’ve configured.

Keyboard. Lenovo is usually near the top of the pack when it comes to keyboard quality and typing experience, and the C740 is no exception, with its backlit, scallop-shaped keys. However, the 15.6-inch version of the C740 provides a full numeric keyboard in addition to the standard keyboard; I’m not a big fan of this design because it offsets the most-often-used keys to the left, and many keys are actually smaller than on the 14-inch. The numeric keypad is small and easy to hit by mistake.

Touchpad. The Yoga provides a small, glass precision touchpad that is fast and accurate, and works well with multi-touch gestures.

Active pen. The C740 does not include an active pen, but it is compatible with the $70 Lenovo Active Pen 2, which provides 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and three buttons, but no tilt support.

Sound. Thanks to its dual Dolby Atmos speakers, the C740 provides a configurable spatial sound experience that works well across movies and music. (The 14-inch version has upward-facing speaker grills, but sound on the 15-inch version appears to come up through the keyboard.) Overall, the sound quality is decent.

Unique hardware features. Lenovo has outfitted the C740 with its secure Match-On-Chip fingerprint reader, which has been speedy and reliable in my tests. The webcam is lackluster, quality-wise, and it doesn’t provide Windows Hello facial recognition. But in the good news department, there is a small privacy shutter you can use to prevent unwanted access of the webcam. The C740 also provides dual far-field microphones so that you can interact with Amazon Alexa or Cortana from up to 12 feet away.

Portability. Lenovo claims that the 14-inch version provides about 13 hours of battery life while the 15.6-version is rated at up to 15 hours. I haven’t been able to test the battery life satisfactorily, sorry, but I expect the real-world figures to be about half that. In the good news department, its Rapid Charge capabilities allow the C740 to be charged to 80 percent in one hour. As for weight, the 14-inch version arrives at 3.09 pounds, which is at the upper-end of the weight range for this class, probably because of its sturdy all-aluminum design. The 15.6-inch version weighs 4.19 pounds and, yes, it feels as heavy as expected.

Software. The Yoga ships with Windows 10 Home version 1909 and I don’t believe that Pro is available, even as an option. Crapware volume is pretty low: Lenovo provides only a handful of its own utilities, but Lenovo Vantage, which provides software updates, has already spammed with upgrade offer notifications. And Lenovo still bundles McAfee on its PCs, software that I consider to be a crime against humanity.

Pricing and configurations. The 14-inch Yoga C740 starts at $900, while the 15.6-inch version starts at $860; both can quickly rise to about $1100 with processor, RAM, storage, and display upgrades. But both are likewise always on sale for less than those prices. Best Buy, for example, is selling the 14-inch review unit right now for $800. These are reasonable prices for the design, performance, and flexibility provided by the C740 in either configuration.

Recommendations and conclusions. With its modern, premium design and affordable pricing, the Lenovo Yoga C740 is a viable alternative to PCs costing hundreds more. I expected to love the 15.6-inch version, but the numeric keypad gets in the way of reliable typing, making the 14-inch version the more obvious choice in my opinion. Either way, the Yoga C740 is a solid choice and a great value.

At-a-glance

Pros

Modern, premium design

Affordable

10th-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors

Excellent fingerprint reader

Privacy shutter for webcam

Cons

The numeric keypad gets in the way on the 15.6-inch version

Fan noise

A bit of crapware

[hellotechsgeeksfan]

Alright here's my review of the Samsung Galaxy Folder-you can't get this phone  focusing piece of junk you can't get  this phone in North America it's I had  to order this from Japan this one I got  from my buddy because you fell in love  with my phone when I got it I got I've  had this for about I want to say Oh two  weeks now and I absolutely love it I  used to have an s8 before this but as  all s8 they're all round screened  and frankly that round curved screen  bull crap I really don't like it and I  don't like it because what happened to  my girlfriend's phone and why I'm at  this right now she dropped her essay and  it was Annek Otter box case a full Defender Series case dropped it from literally maybe two three feet in the air landed like this and fell the corner  of her S8 because the screen is curved  right there in this area was cracked  breath not cracked like shattered almost  like a puncture screen still works it's  just she didn't want to crack screen so  I priced out how much it would have been  a fixer s8 and that s8 they quoted me  close to $450 just to replace the screen  so I gave her my old s8 because I wanted  the folder to because I just I love flip  phones and this is an Android 6.1.

I believe operating system flip phone and  it is phenomenal so let's get into the  unboxing alright this is literally brand  new just got in the mail came from Japan  took three days to get here the shipment  FedEx I'll leave a link in the  description of one I ordered from the  seller I ordered twice and in both days  they were shipped and I received them in  three days  FedEx all right let's crack her open  here also I should point out that it was  shipped with a where is it I don't know  where it is hey it's a Yui you plug so  they ship it with an adapter a real  janky looking adapter that I would not  use on anything so I just throw that  away and use a micro USB all right this  is the phone kind of dirty out of the  box but yeah all right so. 

Look Brown off  that phone outcome on any time now  there should be all right this is the  phone how you get her  this thing is dual sim and micro SD I got  this little protective film on here I'm  not gonna open this up because just like  I said this is my friend's phone we'll  just use mine I'm just showing you no  boxing actually, you know what screw it  we'll put up some plastics already  literally coming off all right there it  is out of the box brand-new I have all  this protective plastic shipping film on  it so you know you don't scratch or  anything the back cover comes off raised  or guess you a piece of junk not over.

There I focus there Oh anyways it has right here you could pry up to install  your own battery one second here I'll  just all right okay that's the back open  you got your dual SIM card slots there  and your SD card slot and that's  pretty much it you have to put in your  own battery which who can remember last  time anyone's ever done that it's great I love it alright let's stick that back  back on there let's just focus on like so click click click make sure your heads not there all right you got your volume button no Bixby button which is frickin awesome. 

You got your the hell is that I don't  know what this is there's no button on  this side so all you got your volume buttons no headphone jack they do  include an adapter it's micro USB here for charging and your camera and your  flash and your speaker one the thing I don't like about this phone what I really don't care is when you open it and you have the camera going the cameras down  here so you have to point it like this  and it's horrible but yeah otherwise, it's a really good phone that's the gist  of it now let's open up the rest of the box containing all right all right you got  your Japanesey box there you got a pair of headphones which as I was these are micro USB headphones which is strange  but that's what it is we've got your EU plug that I don't know  what who would want to use that I'd just put mine in the closet you got your  battery and you got your micro USB cable so just like every other phone let's  just shove those in there real quick all  right  and that's it and now when you boot up  these phones for the first time you're  greeted with the typical Android operating system boot-up screen you know enter your Google information also make  sure you have your SIM card in the right way and yeah you'll boot up it'll be  greeted this is mine customized obviously but yeah the keyboard layout  live lights up and your screen it is touchscreen there you go say you can just like  regular Samsung or a regular Android and it's a dollar app swipe down here you can't see nothing because the  saturation is horrible you go to settings oh my gosh Mrs. Bennet poor well I'm gonna start shooting it in less light here just alright go down to about phone it is software information Android  7 focus a piece of junk shop these automatic folks and crap there we go  alright it is  Android 7.11 so yeah I will say when I  first, put it up this phone it started up  did all the fancy stuff and then during  the boot it actually updated to had a  Samsung update you got some buttons here on your keyboard, you got your messenger these are assignable.

By the way, this is  my text messaging more app which I use  Google boom boom this is my Whatsapp I have a set of Whatsapp what the hell  okay apparently now it's at the Google  what the is this go away  I don't want to do no Google Drive back up off steeped it Frick  and there you go alright I have that set  to Whatsapp back boom Whatsapp and this  is your camera obviously dancing that's  because my fingers in the way that's  your camera qualities alright I guess I  don't know I don't really use my phone  for a camera I use it for just regular  phone stuff see I'm not I don't have Facebook nor do I have any hardcore  text messaging craze or anything I just  use a phone for what it is a phone and  this is your dual micro SD card thing in  there this button so if you have two  micro SD cards you could the switch or  something I'm not too sure you got your  apps button to show you what apps are  currently running those at home in the  back and yeah your power your n  call answer call or you can just flip it  open flip the clothes which are extremely  gratifying being able to do that again  Bluetooth is a little bit iffy on here too but it works Wi-Fi I find something  very very annoying with the Wi-Fi on  this phone  whenever I closed my phone I was  connected there it was blues connected  to my Lawrence wife I closed my phone  and open it for a little while probably  won't do it now because it didn't do  fast enough it will disable Wi-Fi to  save battery life it'll automatically reconnect when you open it takes some  time like a couple seconds but it's just  annoying knowing that when my phone is  closed like this, I'm not connected to Wi-Fi even though I should be texting on  this the phone is you can either use the  on-screen a keyboard like a typical  Android device or you can use the  keyboard which I've been practicing a  lot because I prefer it that way so  let's just send a picture yeah I'm  trying to see how I can demo this on  here no no no no no no no --gel maybe have some notes now screw it anyway so it's pretty straightforward let's go to Chrome let's type in an address here so yeah this would be well its regular t9 everyone knows how t9 works you type in the letters the numbers corresponding to the fricken this crappy ass frickin no good.

Crappy never buy a Nokia camera there's Nikon camera they suck autofocus is absolute garbage please thank you  sakes  anyways t9 I like it  the backlit keyboard goes off after so  many seconds 10, I wish it would stay on  for as long she had this open but it  doesn't the closed-end open is the best  part I don't know what else really does  just say it's an Android flip phone it's  great I love it I love the fact that I'm  not gonna have to buy a case for this  because it's a flip phone there's no  screen out here it's just shiny metal  has a small LED right there right in  that area, I'll blink when you get messages it's a great phone I love it it's better than -8 and I'll probably  never be upgrading unless Samsung  eventually does release a folder 3 or  something but this is great and yeah  like I said it's a phone it does what it  needs to it's all people that are texting every five seconds of their life to respond the social media tweets and like that this wouldn't be the phone for them but frankly for me does the job great and I really don't even use it that much because I  have my tick watch and I do everything based off of my taste off of my tick watch so because I get my messages and everything I might pick watch from my phone so I can call from and everything but yeah so if you're looking for an Android flip phone and you dot on social media hardcore or any garbage like that you're just looking for a good saw a  decent phone for a good price these were  262 Canadian shipped with FedEx and it took three days to get and I think that is a really good price for what you're getting so yeah that's my quick little mash up review I guess you would be of the full samsung folder to get it while you can this beautiful phone the guy I had it from had a couple left available so yeah works on LTE networks in Canada I'm on TELUS works perfectly this is gonna be on local SaskTel or work perfectly they've told me any LTE  network so yeah have a good day.

[sheminecrafts]

iOS 12 makes your phone faster than ever

iOS 12 could be summed up in one feature: speed. The rest is just a footnote, especially when you compare iOS 12 to iOS 11.

You may remember that iOS 11 was filled with many new features, especially on the iPad. But it was also the buggiest release to date. Even the Calculator app wasn’t working properly. And let’s not forget about messages arriving out of order or your keyboard replacing the letter “it” with “I.T”.

Like many of you, I’ve been using a beta version of iOS 12 for the past few weeks. Even though it was just a beta, iOS 12 is by far the fastest version of iOS of all time. And Apple just released iOS 12.0 today. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 12.

Low level

If you are reading this article on an iPhone or iPad, chances are you’re using iOS 11. Many devices support iOS 11 — the iPhone 5s, the iPad mini 2, the last iPod touch, and everything that Apple released since then.

And the good news is that Apple hasn’t dropped support for a single device with iOS 12. While this might seem anecdotal, it reveals Apple’s mindset with iOS 12.

In the past, Apple usually added new intensive tasks for your CPU, GPU and RAM. And at the end of the development process, those features would be vaguely optimized for older devices. That’s why older phones never got some features. Or some features were simply too demanding. In some cases, your battery life took a hit.

This time, when it comes to performance, Apple started from the bottom of the iPhone chain. For instance, if you optimize app launches and typing on the iPhone 6, newer devices will also benefit from those optimizations. Even after updating my iPhone X from iOS 11 to iOS 12, everything feels much smoother.

Apple didn’t stop at raw performance. The company worked on some much needed refinements for notifications, Do Not Disturb and the way you use your phone.

Android users will laugh at this feature, but iOS 12 finally groups notifications together. Most of the time, your notifications are grouped by apps. For instance, if you receive multiple New York Times and CNN notifications, you will get two stacks of notifications that you can expand or dismiss altogether.

More interestingly, your notifications are now grouped by threads. For instance, you may have some very active groups in WhatsApp. iOS doesn’t just group all WhatsApp notifications together. You can see all the notifications from a specific group in one stack. This way, you can ignore the noise and concentrate on the rest.

While you could already silence notifications in iOS 11, iOS 12 makes this incredibly easier. You can now swipe on a notification and hit “Deliver Quietly”. This option is the combination of multiple notification settings.

If you select that, notifications won’t make your phone buzz and will skip the lock screen. The only way to view them is by manually pulling up the Notification Center. I already use it for most news apps as I don’t need to see the headlines right away.

And if you keep getting spammed from a free-to-play game and never tap on those notifications, you get a suggestion on your lock screen to silence notifications from this app.

Do Not Disturb is also receiving some minor but important improvements. You can now use 3D Touch to turn on Do Not Disturb for an hour, until this evening (or the next morning), until the end of an event or until you leave a location.

Many people never use Do Not Disturb because they forget to turn it off. And yet, it’s one of the most powerful tools when it comes to using your phone less.

Talking about digital wellbeing, Apple is going all in with a bunch of new features. Screen Time sends you a notification every week to help you understand how you use your phone. You may know that you spend too much time on Instagram, but seeing that you spend an hour or two every day in the app might be an eye-opening moment.

In the Settings, you can now configure Downtime and App Limits so that only the most essential apps remain accessible at night, such as Messages and Phone. You’ll have to bypass the restriction screen to keep using other apps. It’s pretty smart as it works across your devices and also recognizes if you’re trying to access a social network in Safari for instance.

Medium level

A new version of iOS also means new features. Competition with Android means that Apple needs to keep pushing forward on the feature front.

If you have an iPhone X or later, the big new thing is Memoji. In Messages, you can now create your own Bitmoji-style avatar. You can then use your digital face in selfies, use it as a sticker and record audio messages. There are also new Animojis.

The Photos app is getting a new “For You” tab and an improved search experience. There’s not much to say about this except that it works better than before. It’s easier to look for a specific location, events and more. Photos already had some smart albums, but the “For You” tab make them more prominent.

The Stocks app has been redesigned with better looking charts and business news headlines. Apple News has also been slightly redesigned, especially on the iPad. And Voice Memos now works with iCloud. You can record a memo on your iPhone and find it on your iPad or Mac.

11 neat hidden features in iOS 12

Apple Music now supports lyrics and features new artist pages that look more like Spotify. And Apple Books (the new name of iBooks) is getting a visual redesign similar to the App Store redesign from last year. It looks great.

Finally, if your car supports CarPlay, Google Maps and Waze are working on navigation apps for your car. You won’t be limited to Apple Maps anymore.

Apple was supposed to add group conversations in FaceTime, but it isn’t available just yet. Apple says it will be available later this fall.

Top level

Now that the most straightforward features are out of the way, I’d like to talk about Siri, Shortcuts and Siri Shortcuts. While those three names sound similar, those are three different things in iOS 12.

Siri is the voice assistant of iOS 11 that you know and (rarely) use. It can do some basic things reasonably well, such as weather reports and setting timers. And it has also become quite good at understanding your voice and turning it into a text query.

In many cases, Siri understands what you say but can’t answer your question. That’s why many people now rely on an Amazon Echo or Google Home for voice queries.

Apple found a clever way to solve that by leveraging its developer community and acquisition of Workflow. Developers can now add new features to Siri through their apps. Those extensions to Siri’s brain are called Siri Shortcuts.

For instance, you can configure Carrot Weather and ask for hyperlocal weather forecast using Siri. You can start a playlist in Overcast and listen to your latest podcasts on your HomePod. You can open a specific note in Ulysses much more quickly. All you have to do is set up customized phrases to run the Siri Shortcuts.

But expert TechCrunch readers like you can also go one step further and create scripts in the Shortcuts app. It looks and works just like the existing Workflow app.

For instance, you can create a “Going to Bed” shortcut that turns on Do Not Disturb, turns down the brightness and ringtone levels, turns off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and your Philips Hue lights, and sets Low Power Mode on.

Shortcuts also work with many third-party apps. The ability to chain actions together has changed the way I use my iPhone and iPad. This is not new if you were already using Workflow. But many more users will use Shortcuts now that it is deeply integrated in the operating system and with HomeKit.

Conclusion

iOS has grown immensely over the years. At first, it was a mobile operating system with no support for third-party apps. I’m sure the first release of iOS (iPhone OS 1.0) was much faster than iOS 12. But systems on a chip are also an order of magnitude faster.

That’s why the combination of hardware improvements with software optimizations make iOS 12 a great release when it comes to user experience. For this reason alone, there’s no reason not to install the update.

iOS 12 is now available to download

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2NjeT1L via IFTTT

[theinvinciblenoob]

iOS 12 could be summed up in one feature: speed. The rest is just a footnote, especially when you compare iOS 12 to iOS 11.

You may remember that iOS 11 was filled with many new features, especially on the iPad. But it was also the buggiest release to date. Even the Calculator app wasn’t working properly. And let’s not forget about messages arriving out of order or your keyboard replacing the letter “it” with “I.T”.

Like many of you, I’ve been using a beta version of iOS 12 for the past few weeks. Even though it was just a beta, iOS 12 is by far the fastest version of iOS of all time. And Apple just released iOS 12.0 today. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 12.

Low level

If you are reading this article on an iPhone or iPad, chances are you’re using iOS 11. Many devices support iOS 11 — the iPhone 5s, the iPad mini 2, the last iPod touch, and everything that Apple released since then.

And the good news is that Apple hasn’t dropped support for a single device with iOS 12. While this might seem anecdotal, it reveals Apple’s mindset with iOS 12.

In the past, Apple usually added new intensive tasks for your CPU, GPU and RAM. And at the end of the development process, those features would be vaguely optimized for older devices. That’s why older phones never got some features. Or some features were simply too demanding. In some cases, your battery life took a hit.

This time, when it comes to performance, Apple started from the bottom of the iPhone chain. For instance, if you optimize app launches and typing on the iPhone 6, newer devices will also benefit from those optimizations. Even after updating my iPhone X from iOS 11 to iOS 12, everything feels much smoother.

Apple didn’t stop at raw performance. The company worked on some much needed refinements for notifications, Do Not Disturb and the way you use your phone.

Android users will laugh at this feature, but iOS 12 finally groups notifications together. Most of the time, your notifications are grouped by apps. For instance, if you receive multiple New York Times and CNN notifications, you will get two stacks of notifications that you can expand or dismiss altogether.

More interestingly, your notifications are now grouped by threads. For instance, you may have some very active groups in WhatsApp. iOS doesn’t just group all WhatsApp notifications together. You can see all the notifications from a specific group in one stack. This way, you can ignore the noise and concentrate on the rest.

While you could already silence notifications in iOS 11, iOS 12 makes this incredibly easier. You can now swipe on a notification and hit “Deliver Quietly”. This option is the combination of multiple notification settings.

If you select that, notifications won’t make your phone buzz and will skip the lock screen. The only way to view them is by manually pulling up the Notification Center. I already use it for most news apps as I don’t need to see the headlines right away.

And if you keep getting spammed from a free-to-play game and never tap on those notifications, you get a suggestion on your lock screen to silence notifications from this app.

Do Not Disturb is also receiving some minor but important improvements. You can now use 3D Touch to turn on Do Not Disturb for an hour, until this evening (or the next morning), until the end of an event or until you leave a location.

Many people never use Do Not Disturb because they forget to turn it off. And yet, it’s one of the most powerful tools when it comes to using your phone less.

Talking about digital wellbeing, Apple is going all in with a bunch of new features. Screen Time sends you a notification every week to help you understand how you use your phone. You may know that you spend too much time on Instagram, but seeing that you spend an hour or two every day in the app might be an eye-opening moment.

In the Settings, you can now configure Downtime and App Limits so that only the most essential apps remain accessible at night, such as Messages and Phone. You’ll have to bypass the restriction screen to keep using other apps. It’s pretty smart as it works across your devices and also recognizes if you’re trying to access a social network in Safari for instance.

Medium level

A new version of iOS also means new features. Competition with Android means that Apple needs to keep pushing forward on the feature front.

If you have an iPhone X or later, the big new thing is Memoji. In Messages, you can now create your own Bitmoji-style avatar. You can then use your digital face in selfies, use it as a sticker and record audio messages. There are also new Animojis.

The Photos app is getting a new “For You” tab and an improved search experience. There’s not much to say about this except that it works better than before. It’s easier to look for a specific location, events and more. Photos already had some smart albums, but the “For You” tab make them more prominent.

The Stocks app has been redesigned with better looking charts and business news headlines. Apple News has also been slightly redesigned, especially on the iPad. And Voice Memos now works with iCloud. You can record a memo on your iPhone and find it on your iPad or Mac.

11 neat hidden features in iOS 12

Apple Music now supports lyrics and features new artist pages that look more like Spotify. And Apple Books (the new name of iBooks) is getting a visual redesign similar to the App Store redesign from last year. It looks great.

Finally, if your car supports CarPlay, Google Maps and Waze are working on navigation apps for your car. You won’t be limited to Apple Maps anymore.

Apple was supposed to add group conversations in FaceTime, but it isn’t available just yet. Apple says it will be available later this fall.

Top level

Now that the most straightforward features are out of the way, I’d like to talk about Siri, Shortcuts and Siri Shortcuts. While those three names sound similar, those are three different things in iOS 12.

Siri is the voice assistant of iOS 11 that you know and (rarely) use. It can do some basic things reasonably well, such as weather reports and setting timers. And it has also become quite good at understanding your voice and turning it into a text query.

In many cases, Siri understands what you say but can’t answer your question. That’s why many people now rely on an Amazon Echo or Google Home for voice queries.

Apple found a clever way to solve that by leveraging its developer community and acquisition of Workflow. Developers can now add new features to Siri through their apps. Those extensions to Siri’s brain are called Siri Shortcuts.

For instance, you can configure Carrot Weather and ask for hyperlocal weather forecast using Siri. You can start a playlist in Overcast and listen to your latest podcasts on your HomePod. You can open a specific note in Ulysses much more quickly. All you have to do is set up customized phrases to run the Siri Shortcuts.

But expert TechCrunch readers like you can also go one step further and create scripts in the Shortcuts app. It looks and works just like the existing Workflow app.

For instance, you can create a “Going to Bed” shortcut that turns on Do Not Disturb, turns down the brightness and ringtone levels, turns off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and your Philips Hue lights, and sets Low Power Mode on.

Shortcuts also work with many third-party apps. The ability to chain actions together has changed the way I use my iPhone and iPad. This is not new if you were already using Workflow. But many more users will use Shortcuts now that it is deeply integrated in the operating system and with HomeKit.

Conclusion

iOS has grown immensely over the years. At first, it was a mobile operating system with no support for third-party apps. I’m sure the first release of iOS (iPhone OS 1.0) was much faster than iOS 12. But systems on a chip are also an order of magnitude faster.

That’s why the combination of hardware improvements with software optimizations make iOS 12 a great release when it comes to user experience. For this reason alone, there’s no reason not to install the update.

iOS 12 is now available to download

via TechCrunch

[technicalsolutions88]

iOS 12 could be summed up in one feature: speed. The rest is just a footnote, especially when you compare iOS 12 to iOS 11.

You may remember that iOS 11 was filled with many new features, especially on the iPad. But it was also the buggiest release to date. Even the Calculator app wasn’t working properly. And let’s not forget about messages arriving out of order or your keyboard replacing the letter “it” with “I.T”.

Like many of you, I’ve been using a beta version of iOS 12 for the past few weeks. Even though it was just a beta, iOS 12 is by far the fastest version of iOS of all time. And Apple just released iOS 12.0 today. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 12.

Low level

If you are reading this article on an iPhone or iPad, chances are you’re using iOS 11. Many devices support iOS 11 — the iPhone 5s, the iPad mini 2, the last iPod touch, and everything that Apple released since then.

And the good news is that Apple hasn’t dropped support for a single device with iOS 12. While this might seem anecdotal, it reveals Apple’s mindset with iOS 12.

In the past, Apple usually added new intensive tasks for your CPU, GPU and RAM. And at the end of the development process, those features would be vaguely optimized for older devices. That’s why older phones never got some features. Or some features were simply too demanding. In some cases, your battery life took a hit.

This time, when it comes to performance, Apple started from the bottom of the iPhone chain. For instance, if you optimize app launches and typing on the iPhone 6, newer devices will also benefit from those optimizations. Even after updating my iPhone X from iOS 11 to iOS 12, everything feels much smoother.

Apple didn’t stop at raw performance. The company worked on some much needed refinements for notifications, Do Not Disturb and the way you use your phone.

Android users will laugh at this feature, but iOS 12 finally groups notifications together. Most of the time, your notifications are grouped by apps. For instance, if you receive multiple New York Times and CNN notifications, you will get two stacks of notifications that you can expand or dismiss altogether.

More interestingly, your notifications are now grouped by threads. For instance, you may have some very active groups in WhatsApp. iOS doesn’t just group all WhatsApp notifications together. You can see all the notifications from a specific group in one stack. This way, you can ignore the noise and concentrate on the rest.

While you could already silence notifications in iOS 11, iOS 12 makes this incredibly easier. You can now swipe on a notification and hit “Deliver Quietly”. This option is the combination of multiple notification settings.

If you select that, notifications won’t make your phone buzz and will skip the lock screen. The only way to view them is by manually pulling up the Notification Center. I already use it for most news apps as I don’t need to see the headlines right away.

And if you keep getting spammed from a free-to-play game and never tap on those notifications, you get a suggestion on your lock screen to silence notifications from this app.

Do Not Disturb is also receiving some minor but important improvements. You can now use 3D Touch to turn on Do Not Disturb for an hour, until this evening (or the next morning), until the end of an event or until you leave a location.

Many people never use Do Not Disturb because they forget to turn it off. And yet, it’s one of the most powerful tools when it comes to using your phone less.

Talking about digital wellbeing, Apple is going all in with a bunch of new features. Screen Time sends you a notification every week to help you understand how you use your phone. You may know that you spend too much time on Instagram, but seeing that you spend an hour or two every day in the app might be an eye-opening moment.

In the Settings, you can now configure Downtime and App Limits so that only the most essential apps remain accessible at night, such as Messages and Phone. You’ll have to bypass the restriction screen to keep using other apps. It’s pretty smart as it works across your devices and also recognizes if you’re trying to access a social network in Safari for instance.

Medium level

A new version of iOS also means new features. Competition with Android means that Apple needs to keep pushing forward on the feature front.

If you have an iPhone X or later, the big new thing is Memoji. In Messages, you can now create your own Bitmoji-style avatar. You can then use your digital face in selfies, use it as a sticker and record audio messages. There are also new Animojis.

The Photos app is getting a new “For You” tab and an improved search experience. There’s not much to say about this except that it works better than before. It’s easier to look for a specific location, events and more. Photos already had some smart albums, but the “For You” tab make them more prominent.

The Stocks app has been redesigned with better looking charts and business news headlines. Apple News has also been slightly redesigned, especially on the iPad. And Voice Memos now works with iCloud. You can record a memo on your iPhone and find it on your iPad or Mac.

Apple Music now supports lyrics and features new artist pages that look more like Spotify. And Apple Books (the new name of iBooks) is getting a visual redesign similar to the App Store redesign from last year. It looks great.

Finally, if your car supports CarPlay, Google Maps and Waze are working on navigation apps for your car. You won’t be limited to Apple Maps anymore.

Apple was supposed to add group conversations in FaceTime, but it isn’t available just yet. Apple says it will be available later this fall.

Top level

Now that the most straightforward features are out of the way, I’d like to talk about Siri, Shortcuts and Siri Shortcuts. While those three names sound similar, those are three different things in iOS 12.

Siri is the voice assistant of iOS 11 that you know and (rarely) use. It can do some basic things reasonably well, such as weather reports and setting timers. And it has also become quite good at understanding your voice and turning it into a text query.

In many cases, Siri understands what you say but can’t answer your question. That’s why many people now rely on an Amazon Echo or Google Home for voice queries.

Apple found a clever way to solve that by leveraging its developer community and acquisition of Workflow. Developers can now add new features to Siri through their apps. Those extensions to Siri’s brain are called Siri Shortcuts.

For instance, you can configure Carrot Weather and ask for hyperlocal weather forecast using Siri. You can start a playlist in Overcast and listen to your latest podcasts on your HomePod. You can open a specific note in Ulysses much more quickly. All you have to do is set up customized phrases to run the Siri Shortcuts.

But expert TechCrunch readers like you can also go one step further and create scripts in the Shortcuts app. It looks and works just like the existing Workflow app.

For instance, you can create a “Going to Bed” shortcut that turns on Do Not Disturb, turns down the brightness and ringtone levels, turns off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and your Philips Hue lights, and sets Low Power Mode on.

Shortcuts also work with many third-party apps. The ability to chain actions together has changed the way I use my iPhone and iPad. This is not new if you were already using Workflow. But many more users will use Shortcuts now that it is deeply integrated in the operating system and with HomeKit.

Conclusion

iOS has grown immensely over the years. At first, it was a mobile operating system with no support for third-party apps. I’m sure the first release of iOS (iPhone OS 1.0) was much faster than iOS 12. But systems on a chip are also an order of magnitude faster.

That’s why the combination of hardware improvements with software optimizations make iOS 12 a great release when it comes to user experience. For this reason alone, there’s no reason not to install the update.

iOS 12 is now available to download

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2NjeT1L ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[intellectualth0t]

January 7, 2017

My first week back at school has finally reached an end. For some incredibly strange reason, I woke up in a great mood Monday morning. Arriving back to school after a long break- actually even 2-day weekends too- is upsetting. I wake up groggy, anxious & unhappy. I have no idea what it was though because as much as I was dreading the end of the break, I was also happy to be back at school... Hmm, interesting. As most of you probably already know (assuming that if you read this, you follow me on Twitter), I made of of those little positivity-jar-things. You know, where every day you write one good thing about your day on a slip of paper, fold it and put in in the jar to add to a collection that you can dump out, unravel, and read through at the end of the year in order to look back & reflect on the great moments you experienced. I'm not sure how long the idea of those jar things has been around, I'm not sure how many people have actually committed to writing 365 great things on tiny pieces of paper. Either way, I think it's a great idea. I got a new pair of shoes Sunday My friend Kait gave me her extra chicken nuggets at lunch on Monday The sunset looked really pretty on Tuesday Dance team officers had a very productive, successful practice on Thursday I got my driver's license Friday (yesterday) This year, I'm taking note of everything positive- big or small- and using it to my advantage. I'm learning to appreciate everything that comes my way. So many times this week, I've had the chance to have a bad day, or have my day ruined my something petty and small. Unlike most chances, I didn't take these. I'd say I had a great week. It's Saturday, 9:00 pm as I write this. I'm babysitting a 16-month old boy while his parents are at a Spurs game. I've been working with this family for around a month now. Along with being a great couple themselves, I absolutely adore this baby. Babies have always made me anxious. I could never stand to be around small, messy, fragile humans with little to no communication abilities. But this baby is really chill. He never cries, never screams or makes loud noises, never slobbers, never throws his food, never fidgets or has spastic tantrums. I can definitely say that I enjoy this job. Along with the ample amount of money I get payed, I'm learning the valuable lessons of taking care of a small child (which I hopefully won't actually put to use of my own for another 7-8 years. But hey, it's not bad to start learning early.) The baby's asleep & his parents won't be back for another 2 or so hours. They [parents] have given me access/privilege to watch their TV- which I have done in the past- however I'm not in a tv-watching mood right now. Starting a blog & aiming to keep up with it has made me in a mood to write almost 24/7. I've brought along with me a bluetooth-keyboard in order to type out on my phone (so my hand doesn't get cramped up with the compressed, phone-sized keyboard). Along with summarizing my week, I wanted to mention what my Saturday consisted of (aside from babysitting in the evening). Today was definitely eventful. Not too eventful, but I definitely did a lot. I did the right thing. As much as I'd love to elaborate of the definition of the "right thing", I'll have to keep it short and simple- almost anonymous- for now. I'm not going to give too much away, just because it happened to recently. But I'll still go forth and vent a lil about it. Will I turn this into a more elaborate, detailed story in the future? Quite possibly. I returned a favor, as well as a physical object. A good month ago, I was given a hoodie from someone who was very special to me. Time passes. Life happens. Before I knew it, I wasn't really special to this person anymore. I could have easily hoarded the hoodie away in my closet forever. Or even worse, thrown it away or donated it to a thrift store. But this person that the hoodie originally belonged to- it was their favorite. That's why they let me have it in the first place. I really, truly, treasured the hoodie, as well as the gesture behind it. But I also treasure the person who gave it to me, no matter the outcome of what we had. Out of respect, I gave it back to them This was the right thing I did. I folded it nicely (crumpling it up into a wadded ball made it look like dirty laundry, which seemed a little disrespectful to me) before placing it in a brown paper grocery bag that I had written their name on with sharpie. I slipped in a handwritten note- a brief and semi-emotional explanation of why i was returning it. After placing it in the passenger's seat of my mom's SUV (which I'm borrowing while she's out of town visiting family), I opened my "this is my emo playlist" playlist on Spotify (1. I wanted to force myself to be emotional over this person one last time. 2. yes, I have a playlist by that name) and drove off- this is the first place I independently, solitarily drove once I finally earned my license. On another note, driving is reeeaaallly fun Anyways. I arrived at their house in the midst The 1975's "Robbers". I parked the car along the sidewalk and clutched the paper bag as I took a few anxious breaths. "I'll give him one more time We'll give you one more fight Said one more lie Will I know you" The majority of my anxiety came from the fear of them happening to see me step up their driveway & place the bag on their front porch- which luckily did not happen. However I still scurried down the driveway back to my car, tripping over myself in the process. I shut the door and before turning on the car and driving off for one last time, I breathed deeply again. Well, this was it. My heart was racing. My head was pounding. I almost felt like crying, but I couldn't feel any trace of tears forming in my eyes. "Now if you never shoot, you'll never know And if you never eat, you'll never grow" I found myself on the highway eventually belting out Tame Impala's "Yes I'm Changing" as the playlist streamed on. "I felt the strangest emotion, but it wasn't hate" Ironically, I was feeling strange emotions- none of which were hate, or even sadness, or regret, or anything too negative. As I said, I did the right thing. And I was relieved, for the most part. The rest of my independent-driver adventure consisted of binge shopping at Target and Bath & Body Works (which I don't feel guilty about at all- Target has a section of affordable makeup and BBW was having a 75%-off sale). I was satisfied, with my purchases and with the accomplishment of doing the "right thing" As I have reached the end of summarizing my day, I would like to say thank you for reading (if you actually took the time to read all of this lmao). Whoever you are, I hope you're having a great day/week/life :) -mariah P.S- Shoutout to Noelle & Nick, the coolest internet-friends ever. Happy Birthday Y'all!!!!