Tips, Tricks, and other nuggets of interest

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Tips, Tricks, and other nuggets of interest

Here’s an interesting site for those who are interested in nutrition.  https://nutritionfacts.org

Livability Index (from AARP) https://livabilityindex.aarp.org  type in a zip code or city.

MacOS Monterey was released on October 25. I will upgrade to it this week. It has some very interesting features.

IOS 15 was released recently, and Apple continues to improve the ecosystem.

Here is a summary of Marques Brownlee’s top tips on iPhone IOS 15.  https://youtu.be/O1sZcX-BBSA

  1. Redesigned pre-loaded apps. Weather has more features and appeal.
  2. Maps continues to improve, sometimes adding city guides for large cities,
  3. Clock app has small improvement to make it easier to use.
  4. Safari has search box at bottom of screen now. It seems to be more fluid while using. Also, you can slide across search box to move between Safari pages.
  5. Facetime – spatial audio now included (if you have AirPods Pro), a new grid view, portrait mode to blur your background and microphone selections to help you be heard more clearly. Share play let’s you watch or listen to a movie or song with someone else.
  6. FaceTime calls can now be events so they can be put on a calendar and even shared with others who don’t have FaceTime. They can join sfrom a link on their browser! Think of FaceTime on Android!
  7. Live Text. If there is text in a photo, long press on the text and you can then copy it or try “look up”. Interestingly, if you had a photo of an animal and see the “i” with a circle, press on it and Photos, would attempt to tell you what the breed is. This also works for landmarks, plants, and even works of art. This feature will work on newer iPhones.
  8. Focus is a new feature – swipe down from top right corner of home screen and press Focus. Here you can customize how you work and who you allow to reach you at certain times and notifications from certain apps. The settings can be precise to control what you want to see in different modes (personal, work, sleep, etc). The settings will be the same all your devices.
  9. Also he says Spotlight offers more suggestions and speech to text is improving.

If you have a family member that is older, you can use the Health App to monitor their steadiness in walking. The accelerometer will notice their walking speed and side to side gait and rate them as OK, Low, Very Low.  You can have it send a notification for Low or Very Low as it may predict future falls from lack of steadiness. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212503

Don’t forget to look at Tips on your IOS device from time to time. You’ll find interesting things you might not know or forgot about. Just swipe down from the middle of the home screen and type: tips. There are numerous categories to explore.