BrothaTech
I’m in Georgia, so while the rest of the country can (sort of) move on from the dumpster fire that was this past election season, we have to endure one more election cycle.
That means more text message blasts asking me about my vote. So I wrote a post for PCMag on how to use Apple Watch default replies to quickly unsubscribe from voting text message campaigns...
Even before “dat ‘Rona” hit, our family has BEEN in these Amazon streets. Now that we have drastically limited our in-person shopping due to COVID-19, we’ve had Amazon deliveries at our front door seemingly every day.
My crib isn’t on the Smart Home level that I want because Apple’s HomeKit still isn’t fully realized yet (and them sh*ts be expensive). But I do have some Smart Home tech…in the house.
Specifically, my MyQ Smart Garage Door opener that lets me open/close my garage with my iPhone, and monitor the door’s status with my Amazon Echo devices. Since MyQ is compatible with the Alexa smart assistant, I have finally decided to give Amazon Key a try.
Without drawing out this blog post any further (because who even blogs anymore?), I can use my Amazon Key to enroll in the In-Garage Delivery Program that lets Amazon drivers access via MyQ to leave deliveries in my garage in order to:
We’ve still got some shopping left to do, so I will test it out and circle back with my results.
I use Siri as much as I can but there are still some commands I habitually grab my phone to accomplish when I could’ve easy asked Siri to do it (Voice recognition tends to work better on my Apple Watch vs. my iPhone, but I digress).
How many tasks do you accomplish with Siri? Check out the story on Fast Company and let me know if you use any of these in the comments.
So I was bored one day and decided to hunt around and find some new widgets to add to my iPhone Home Screen.
I’ll be honest, most of the current widgets are wack, that is until I found the Event Countdown app from Widget Studio.
With the app, you can create a countdown to keep track of any important date/event. In my case, my birthday is coming up so….
Once I created the countdown and added all the specifics (name, date, color, icon, etc), I added the widget to my Home Screen.
Now every time I look at my phone, I get a constant reminder that I’m about to get one year older. Yay?!
I’ll probably add a countdown for when the zombies start tearing up the world after this first batch of COVID vaccine starts to be administered…
Back in the day, Apple bought the popular music discovery app Shazam. For the longest, Apple kept the service as its own standalone app.
Apple has started to integrate Shazam natively into its ecosystem with the latest iOS 14 release. Peep my latest for PCMag on how to enable it.
Why do you ask? If I’m honest with myself, I wanted a new phone sooner than later, so I convinced myself that the smaller iPhone 12 Pro would be just fine.
The screen size of the XS Max is 6.4″, while the 12 Pro is 6.1″. That’s only a .3″ difference! My original thought was that’s not enough of screen difference to notice. Additionally, I also have an iPhone XR and it’s the same screen size of the 12 Pro, and I assumed the 12 Pro at the same screen size, would FEEL the same in my hand as the XR.
I was wrong. The 12 Pro is slimmer and more compact than the wider XR. So while the viewing size of the devices are similar, the FEEL of the device in my hand is different.
All that to say, after a couple of days of playing with the iPhone 12 Pro, I thought I could get used the one-hand usage of the 12 Pro. I even bought a dope slim case for the iPhone 12 Pro to add some girth, but I could still tell the difference.
All that to say, if I’m being honest, I was just trying to fool myself into NOT waiting for the iPhone 12 Pro Max when it drops in November.
So I’m moving my data BACK to my XS Max and I will reluctantly, but patiently wait for a couple weeks to get what I really want.
Apple’s September event is upon us, but it’s not expected to include the launch of a next-gen iPhone. Instead, the gathering’s “Time Flies” moniker suggests a new Apple Watch, while rumors tip updated iPads, too.
This isn’t totally a surprise; COVID-19 has put a strain on the global supply chain, and that includes iPhone parts. “As you know, last year we started selling new iPhones in September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later,” Apple’s CFO said in July.
Still, we will get the iPhone 12—or whatever Apple calls it—eventually. And until then, here’s what we hope Apple will add to its smartphone.
Read the entire story on PCMag, then let me know what features you want to see on the upcoming iPhone 12
With the iOS 14 public beta now available, I threw caution to the wind and installed it on my main iPhone. I wasn’t too worried, as the past few public betas from Apple have been surprisingly stable. But I did make an archived backup of my iPhone just in case, and I recommend other beta testers do the same.
It’s a safe bet that many if not all of the features present in the public beta will make it to the final release scheduled for this fall. After digging through and trying out all the features, here is a look at seven of the more notable ones you will want to try first.
Customize Your Home Screen With Widgets
App Library Ditches Endless Pages of Apps
No More Full-Screen Phone Call Notifications
Siri Gets Less Intrusive, More Informative
Video Picture-in-Picture
Better Organizations for Messages
Beefed-Up Privacy, Security Features
I recorded and published this walk-through video of Apple’s Time Machine backup process way back in 2015. The cool thing about the process is that it’s so simple to setup and use, that I didn’t even need to record a new video to update said process.
Time Machine is $free.99 and is included with every Mac. All you need is an external Hard Drive with enough space (Peep my Hard Drive recommendation below). Overall, it just works…
The above backup process stores a copy to an external Hard Drive that you keep on hand just in case something happens to your Mac. The only problem with this is the “worse case scenario” where BOTH your Mac and your external Hard Drive is damaged, lost, or stolen. Or in my case, you have a different (and very important) external Hard Drive that can’t be backed up via Time Machine.
With any of those cases, you need to create an additional off-site (remote) backup that you can access if the worse-case scenario becomes a reality…Like it was for me. To solve that potential problem, I recommend BackBlaze to backup your files to the cloud. Check out this video I did outlining how BackBlaze saved my ass
I don’t know how important your files are to you, but my files are very important to me. Don’t wait until something happens before you figure out how to restore your data, go ahead and follow my suggestions, and you will be prepared WHEN (not if) your data is gone.
I’ve seen a ton of folks transition to digital during this new social distancing experiment. DJ’s, podcasters, and video content creators all stepping up their digital game to share their influence.
Many of those content creators are using the popular Yeti Blue Mic…WRONG!
From one digital content creator to another who uses the Yeti Blue Mic, STOP TALKING INTO THE TOP OF THE MIC…There’s literally no mic up there!
The mic(s) are on the front, back & sides (depending on what mode you’re in). So do me a favor: If you want crisp & clean audio for your digital content, think of this pic before you go “live”
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