How To Create iPhone X Style Screenshots

One of the "features" of the iPhone X I had to embrace and then have come to love, is "The Notch". I'm all aboard the #EmbraceTheNotch train.  The interesting thing about the iPhone X is when you take a screenshot, you get a full screen preview without the notch.  I believe adding the iPhone X mask to the screenshot gives it some character and really shows off what you're trying to present in that screenshot.  It also get's the point across that this is what you will actually see when looking at the beautiful screen of this phone. This is particularly useful for developers who want users to see what the interface experience will be on the X.

When the iPhone X was released, one of my favorite Apple bloggers from Macstories, retweeted a link to an excellent Workflow script that allows you to create these wonderful iPhone X screenshots with the proper X masking.

Before getting started, if you're not familiar with the ins and outs of the Workflow app, please check out this post I made on using Workflow.  Then head to the instructions below.  

1. Make sure you have the Workflow app downloaded and installed from the AppStore. It's a free download.

2. Once installed, click this link to import the iPhone X Mask script into your Workflow app.

3. Grab these resource/image files (these are the mask files used) and upload them to a Dropbox directory of your choosing. Remember the path to this directory.

4. Once you upload those image files to Dropbox, got back into your Workflow script and modify the file path for both Get File sections. Link one to the mask.png and one to the xblank.png. You are now set to create your iPhone X Mask screenshot.

5. Take a screenshot of the app, home screen or whatever you want displayed in the screenshot.

6. Run the Workflow script, either from the Workflow app itself or from the Today Widget.

7. Select your screenshot

8. Voila.

9. Once the script is finished running, you can share or save the photo from there.

If you have any questions, drop them in the comments.  Check out the screen share below for the script in action.

Downloading Video and GIF's from Social Media Sites on iOS

This post was edited on December 5th, 8:56 AM to add a link to the Workflow post.

iOS has gotten better over the years in terms of behaving like an actual operating system with a file system that you can access more readily but in terms of downloading files from the web or apps it's still limited.  For a while I've wanted a way to easily download GIF's and videos via Tweetbot but Twitter and the Tweetbot never made this easy to do.  

After doing some research this past week I managed to nail down a Workflow script that allows you to easily download video styled media from major social media sites. Not only does this script give you access to downloading movie style media from Twitter, but it also gives you access to select from other popular social media sites such as Instagram, YouTube,  and Facebook.  Here is how it works.

Before getting started, if you're not familiar with the ins and outs of the Workflow app, please check out this post I made on using Workflow.  Then head to the instructions below.  

1. Grab the script and import it into the Workflow app (it works as an Action Extension or Today Widget).
2. When viewing a tweet within the Twitter app or my favorite app, Tweetbot, copy the link to the twitter media to your clipboard.  
3. Swipe over to the Workflow Today Widget and fire off the Social Media Downloader workflow script.
4. Sit back and watch the script do its thing.  
5. Upon completion of the download, the media file will be saved to your camera roll and a dialogue will tell you when the process has completed.  

Check out the screen share below for an example.

Just the Tips - Screen Capture your iOS Device + Create Animated GIF

You've probably noticed a majority of my iOS related posts include screenshots and more recently are very GIF heavy. That's because I got my hands on some incredible tools that make processes, which used to take a lot of work in Photoshop, a snap. Using a free, built in tool on OS X along with a $4.99 utility from the Mac App Store you can easily create screencasts of your iOS device and if needed convert those videos into animated GIF's with a few clicks. Let's get started.

The Tools

In order to screen capture your iOS device you need Quicktime installed on your OS X device which for most people comes pre installed with iTunes. If not grab it here. The great thing about Quicktime is not only can you capture the video with the app but you can also trim the video down just like you can in the Photos app for iOS. A very powerful, free tool. 

If you are interested in creating an animated GIF from your video there are a few tools at your disposal. The one I settled on was GIFBrewery. It's user friendly, low cost and provides a handful of advanced tools to get your GIF exactly the way you want it. 

The Process

To get started connect your iOS device to your OS X device using a lightning cable or if you have an older device a 30 pin cable. Once connected load up Quicktime and select File>New Movie Recording. Once selected you should see whatever camera source is currently selected on the screen. On a MacBook you would typically see yourself from the front facing camera. 

Select the down arrow to the right of the record button and change the camera source to your connected iOS device. You will now see your iOS device on the screen. Every action you perform on your device will appear on screen. Hit the record button and start recording whatever you like. When you're done you can save your recording as an .mov file. Before saving you can also trim the video the same way you would within the Photos app on iOS. 

Finished Product

When you're completed you can throw your .mov file into GifBrewery and easily convert it to an animated GIF. Simply load the file up, set the start and end points for the GIF using the slider and apply the specific GIF settings you want such as looping and frame-rate. Once you are done you can save the file as a GIF and use it anywhere.

GifBrewery is also a ton of fun to use with downloaded videos online from places such as YouTube. I use an Alfred workflow plugin called Luxinate to grab streaming videos online.

More on Alfred another time.

Just the Tips - Using the 3D Touch Keyboard Trackpad

When Apple holds a keynote event to introduce something new they typically focus on the marquee features, summarizing the ins and outs but not divulging all the specific details. When 3D Touch was introduced some of the more commonly used features were demoed on stage such as app shortcuts and peek and pop features. One of the features that I find most intriguing and quite frankly incredibly useful is the new keyboard trackpad.

As seen above, when 3D Touching on the keyboard, you can now activate a trackpad like cursor that you can move around freely, just like using a trackpad on your MacBook. Most users are familiar with the old skool way. Pressing down on the screen to reveal the magnifying glass and carefully moving the cursor to the proper position. 

This offers a much more convenient and quicker way to get your cursor to the proper position in whatever app you are using.

Enjoy. 

Just the Tips - Activate App Switcher with 3D Touch

A little over a week and it's official. I love 3D Touch. It takes a bit to get used to and into your "muscle memory" but if you train yourself to always use 3D Touch for app launching and peek/pop you will find yourself doing it just like double clicking the home button. It becomes natural. 

One of the subset options of 3D Touch is the ability to invoke the app switcher. The App Switcher is typically accessed by double pressing the home button. With the introduction of 3D Touch you can now use the App Switcher by 3D Touching on the middle, left side of the iPhone screen. This works when you're either on the homescreen or have an app open. I'll stick to my opinion that Apple is in the process of "training" owners of iPhones to prepare for life without a physical home button.

There are two results from using 3D Touch to invoke the App Switcher. The first allows you to quickly switch apps by 3D Touching on the spot indicated by the call out above and in one fluid motion flick the screen to the right. This will quickly open the next app. The second result from using 3D Touch for the App Switcher is bringing up the App Selector itself. Once you apply the 3D Touch in the "special spot" you slowly pull to the right and reveal the open apps (as seen in the GIF above).

As I said it takes a bit to get used to. Once you get the hang of it you will find it's much easier and quicker to switch apps while in other apps by invoking this 3D Touch feature. Instead of double pressing the home button you can quickly just flick between apps using 3D Touch.

iOS 9 Tips and Tricks Part Deux

After spending a few days with iOS 9 I managed to discover some additional useful features and tricks and was able to finally dive into the iPad version of the OS. Here are some additional things I found to get you around iOS 9.

Access Apple Pay from Lockscreen

Apple made it very easy to access Apple Pay on your Apple Watch. You simply double press the button on the right side of the watch and your cards are immediately activated. It was so much easier than using the phone I can't remember the last time I actually used the phone for Apple Pay. With iOS 9 you can now pull up Apple Pay in a similar fashion by double pressing the home button when you are on the lock screen. 

Thanks to @rm20192 for the heads up on this one.

Photos App Improvements

A handful of features and shortcuts have been added to the Photos app that aren't obvious at first glance. Let's take a look at some of the better ones.

• Swipe to Select Photos - While you can still select multiple photos to perform actions on by tapping the Select button and individually pressing on each photo you want to select, you can now swipe over the photos you want to select just by scrubbing your finger across the photo grid. 
• Photo Scrubber - While in single photo view you can now scrub through your photos by flicking left to right/right to left on the scrubber located at the bottom of the individual photo. This makes for quick browsing/scrolling.
• Swipe Down to Go Back - When viewing a single photo you can now swipe down on it to go back to your camera roll. This is much more convenient that using the small back arrow button on the top of the photo view.

Load Web Page Without Content Blocker

If you're using a content blocker in iOS 9 (I suggest Purity) their may be instances where you want to browse a webpage without the blocker loaded in the background. You can force this within safari by holding down on the refresh page button in the address bar to pull up the option menu. You can reload the page without content blockers and even request a desktop version of the website.

Search for Location Specific Photos with Siri

Among the cool Siri features that came with iOS 9 is the ability to have her search for photos by location. Simply invoke Siri and ask her to find photos from a specific city or state and you will be presented with results that have geotagged locations from that search.

Enable Picture-in-Picture on iPad

For the first time in a long time an iOS update brought iPad specific features, breathing some life back into the iPad which was becoming quite stale in regards to OS advancements. One of the best features is video picture-in-picture. Now when viewing a video (if the developer enabled PIP) you can press on the PIP button included in the video to shrink the video screen and exit the app (as seen in the screenshot above). You can then drag the video window around the home screen and place it in a location that is easy for you to view. This is a great feature especially when using FaceTime. 

This feature is only available for iPad Mini 2, 3, and 4. iPad Air 1 and 2, and iPad Pro.

Enable Slide Over on iPad

Slide Over is a new feature that allows you to "pull an app" from the right side of the screen which overlays on top of what you are currently viewing. This is a great feature to quickly access notes or view Twitter while you are in another app. You may be reading a website and need to quickly jot down some notes. Simply swipe from the right side of the screen towards the center to activate Slide Over. You can then pull down from the top of the slide over screen to pull up the app picker. 

This feature is only available for iPad Mini 2, 3, and 4. iPad Air 1 and 2, and iPad Pro

Home Sharing is Back in iOS 9

Home Sharing, the ability to access your iTunes library on your home network from other iOS and OS X devices was suspiciously removed back in iOS 8. Eddie Cue promised it would return in iOS 9 and he stuck to his word. To enable Home Sharing in iOS 9 open your Settings app and navigate to Music and at the very bottom of the page login to your Home Sharing account. Make sure you are also logged into Home Sharing in iTunes on your Mac. 

Once you're in the Music app you can access your iTunes library through the Music tab, selecting the "Sort By Artist/Album/etc" menu and choosing Home Sharing.

Bring Back Upper Case Keyboard

iOS 9 fixed the annoying shift key problem introduced in iOS 8 where you could never tell whether it was activated or not. While that was fixed a jarring change was brought to the default layout of the keyboard. You are now presented with a lowercase keyboard. This is not the normal keyboard configuration you are used to as desktop and laptop keyboards have always had uppercase. To bring back your uppercase keyboard open the Settings app and navigate to General>Accessibility>Keyboard and toggle Show Lowercase Keys. After a few days of using the lowercase layout I've gotten used to it and it just makes more sense. Give it a try and stick with it for a few days.

Roomy Notification Center on iPad

Apple reorganized the notification center in iOS 9 for the iPad. When you're in landscape mode you can now setup a second column for widgets which also contains a tab for your notifications. This can be configured in the same section where you setup your widgets by scrolling to the bottom and hitting the edit button.

Reconfigured iCloud Storage Plans

Apple made adjustments to it's iCloud storage size and prices with iOS 9. These are now active and you can adjust your iCloud storage settings by opening the Settings app and navigating to iCloud>Storage>Change Storage Plan. See the chart below for the changes in tiers and pricing.

If you've found any other tips and tricks please feel free to leave them in the comments or use my contact form. If I find more tricks I'll dump them into a third post.
 

Just the Tips - Restore Deleted iOS Contacts, Calendars and Files

Apple quietly added a long needed feature to iCloud.com which allows you restore previous versions of your backed up iCloud content including photos, contacts, calendars and files. About a month ago this would have been a huge help as I was searching for a number I had deleted from my contacts back in January. Luckily I was able to restore that number by finding an old text message conversation I had with this number on my iPad. Quick Tip: If you delete an SMS/iMessage thread on your iPhone it will ONLY be removed from that device. You can still access that thread on other iOS devices such as the iPad and even the Apple Watch. I digress.

Now when you login to your iCloud account via iCloud.com you can access previous revisions of your data. While you can't specifically restore a contact, photo or calendar individually you can restore a copy from a set time period. So in order for you to restore the data you are looking for you would need to have a good idea of when you actually removed it from your device. Here are the steps you need to take in order to make this happen:

1. Login to your iCloud account through your web browser at iCloud.com.
2. Navigate to the Settings and scroll down to the Advanced section
3. You will be presented with options to restore Files, Contacts, Calendars and Reminders.
4. Select the option you want to restore and you will be presented with a list of dates you can choose to restore from.
5. Scroll to your date and select the restore button.  
6. Voila. 

Just the Tips - Extend Your Cable Internet Using MoCA

I had a head scratching issue I was presented with when trying to extend a wireless network for a friend onto a second floor of his home. The initial concern was the wireless router, which was located downstairs, would provide a weak wireless signal to his desktop computer. The desktop computer was his media server and needed as much bandwidth as possible to provide the highest quality stream possible. I first thought about using a second router. The challenge was bridging the router with the downstairs one. The signal would not be optimal like a wired connection would provide. Since the room upstairs that housed the desktop computer did not have an active coaxial port for internet I dreaded having him pay Comcast an exorbitant amount of money to make this happen for him. I set out to find a low cost, user friendly solution that didn't require ripping open walls and installing new ethernet cable.

Hello Hello, MoCA

After doing some research I discovered a product by Actiontec called a MoCA Network Adapter which is designed for cable broadband subscribers and makes it easy and affordable to add a wired internet connection through the home's existing coaxial cable setup. I purchased a set (you need 2, one on the front end and one on the back end) from Amazon. At the time it was $119.99 but you can currently get them for $84.00 for the pair.

The setup could not have been easier. The plug n play units come with everything you need including the MoCA adapters themselves, two ethernet cables, two coaxial cables, and one coaxial splitter. There are four simple steps in order to get your MoCA setup rocking and rolling:

1. Plug an Ethernet cable into the Ethernet port of the adapter and into an Ethernet port of the device to be connected to the network.

2. Plug a coaxial cable into the coax "in" port of the adapter, and into the coax wall port nearest to the device to be connected to the network. (We had to use the 2-way splitter since we needed to hook up both the router and the DVR box.)

3. Plug the power cable into the Power port on the back of the adapter, and into an electrical wall socket.

4. Make sure the coax and Ethernet lights on the adapter are both illuminated solid green.

There you have it. Four simple steps and you now have wired ethernet in any room you want as long as you add a MoCA adapter in each room that requires connectivity. The best thing about this setup is their is zero loss in terms of bandwidth. Since the adapters are powered you can experience up to 270Mbps. On a 50MB Comcast line we were testing we were able to experience maximum speeds at 60 Mb/s down and 11 Mb/s up. The Actiontec adapters support any device that has an ethernet port including Blu-ray, XBOX and PS3/4. For our installation I actually chose to connect the front end adapter to a five port gigabit ethernet switch to provide multiple ethernet ports in that upstairs room.

Grab a pair or single units over on Amazon.

Just the Tips - Photo Sharing and Email OS X

Just the Tips is a new feature that will provide a useful computer or phone related tip to help speed up your workflow or just solve a pesky problem. If you have any problems you were looking to resolve get in contact with me.

I was presented with an interesting issue this weekend when trying to export a few photos from the new Photos app on OS X Yosemite. OS X has a nifty sharing menu which is similar to the share sheet in iOS. When trying to export one or multiple images from the new Photos app you're presented with various options, one which should be your mail app. After taking a look at my friends computer I realized he does not have an option to use Mail as a sharing source for his photos but is presented other options such as Twitter, Facebook, iCloud Photo Sharing and Messages. Mail is not even a selectable option in System Preferences, but Outlook is.

It turns out my friend uses Outlook as his default mail client. Interesting thing is while Outlook is a selectable mail client in the sharing menu options, when trying to utilize Outlook it does not appear as a choice during the sharing process. Very odd. Even more there is no choice whatsoever to use Apple Mail in either the preferences nor the share sheet itself. Bug, glitch, OS X not liking Outlook? I was puzzled.

After some tinkering I found the solution. Turns out that in OS X Yosemite one must use the Apple Mail app as the default mail program in order to share photos. You can leave Outlook installed but must have Mail set as the default. This Apple support document will assist you in changing your default client. 

I'm assuming this will be fixed in Office 2016 for Mac but I have not updated my suite yet to verify. The odd thing is that you get the choice to use Outlook or at least set it up in your preferences but are never presented the option to use it in action. This may be just a case of software from a different vendor not keeping up with operating system updates. 

Hopefully this is fixed in El Capitan or in a future update for Outlook. If someone is running the El Capitan beta and confirm this please let me know in the comments.