Meeting Report

iOS 13 Features and More

At the July meeting (held on Friday the 12th) we talked about new features coming in iOS 13. Members also shared tips and app suggestions.

iOS 13

We discusses the new features coming in iOS 13 this Autumn which were announced at last month’s World Wide Developer’s conference. Features of particular interest to members included:

  • QuickPath swipe keyboard.
  • Improved and redesigned Reminders app.
  • Sign in with Apple.
  • FaceTime attention correction.
  • Time synced lyrics in Apple Music.
  • Safari per-site preferences.

Apple have a detailed page listing all the new features.

Tips

Robert had a couple of handy tips for us:

Document Scanning

The document scanning feature in the iOS Notes app is really useful for quickly scanning documents. Robert pointed out that this feature allows you to scan items like posters and newspapers which are too big for a traditional flatbed scanner.

When using the document scanner Robert noted that you can adjust the cropping and whether the document is scanned in colour. He shared these tips:

  • Use the appropriate colour option.
  • Black and white documents tend to look best in greyscale.
  • The greyscale and black and white options optimise the contrast to remove wrinkles.
  • Use cropping to cleanup edges.
  • You can adjust by dragging anywhere in the appropriate quadrant of the image (e.g. the top right), keep your finger away from the magnifying circle so you use it to position accurately.
  • When making fine adjustments, you can rock your finger on to touch screen.

Archiving Mail

Following up on a question from a member at the previous meeting Robert explained the email Archive feature available in Apple Mail and GMail. This moves a message out of your inbox but does not delete it. He showed how mail can be archived in both the Mail and GMail apps. A useful tip was that the actions when you swipe across a mail in the list can be customised in both apps. This allows you to add an Archive swipe action to Apple Mail and to remove the Archive swipe action in GMail (where it’s available by default) if you find yourself using it accidentally.

  • For the Apple Mail app on iOS, open the iOS Settings and go to Mail and then Swipe Options.
  • For the GMail app on iOS, go to Settings in the side bar and then Swipe actions.

App Suggestions

DaveK mentioned that Apple has released a new version of its Texas Hold’em game to the iOS App Store to celebrate the store’s 10th anniversary. The game was originally released for the 5th generation iPod (with click wheel) in 2005 and was an early game when the App Store came to the iPhone and iPod touch.

Denesh recommended the email app Edison which automatically categorises your email, for example, messages related to travel, packages or receipts.

News Discussion

Our Apple news discussion covered: