Local Business Contacts Added Easily
I use Contacts.
All. The. Time.
While I was out this weekend I discovered that if you use Local Search in Maps on your iPhone or iPad, you can not only locate businesses of a certain type near you, you also can save the contact cards for those businesses - directly to your Contacts.
In Maps, simply search based on your location. I searched for restaurants near my location at the time.
When the search results appear, tap any listing to view photos, tap to dial phone numbers, get an address, find websites, see which places accept Apple Pay, get reviews, and more. Apple also lets you tap the Quick Route button to get turn-by-turn directions.
If you scroll down on the listing detail, you'll see an option to "Create a New Contact" or "Add to an Existing Contact." If you tap "Create a New Contact," you can save all those details - and add that great local pizza place to your phone automatically.
Lastly, tap done. What a convenient way to capture a contact card!
Save & Share iPhone Voicemails
A welcomed, but frankly, long overdue feature of Apple’s iOS 9 is the ability to save and share iPhone voicemails. We all can think of some of the reasons why we’d want to do this. It could be a message from your Mom or Dad or perhaps a loved one that has since passed away. It may also be a voicemail that you need to save for business purposes. There are countless reasons. Fortunately, Apple makes it simple. Here’s how:
- Bring up the Phone app and touch Voicemail option at the bottom right.
- Touch the voicemail message you want to share.
- Touch the Share button.
- Share the message in whatever manner you’d like (e.g. send it via text message, email it, save it as a voice memo, put it in Notes, save it to Dropbox, etc.). Any iOS app that supports .m4a files can play these voicemails. That’s it - enjoy!
Should You Use Wi-Fi Assist?
At the bottom of the Cellular Data settings, there is a slider switch for Wi-Fi Assist. If this box is on (it’s green in color), your iPhone will use cellular data whenever you have a poor Wi-Fi signal. This is no big deal if you have an unlimited data plan. If, on the other hand, you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you might find yourself plowing through your data plan and paying more when your cell phone bill arrives.
Unless you’re on an unlimited data plan, I’d recommend that you de-activate the Wi-Fi Assist feature unless you really need it and then only turn it on sparingly.
Mac Spyware/Adware Scam!
I inadvertently clicked on an ad in Facebook and the next thing I see is this screen about my Mac having spyware and adware. I've had several clients call me about it but this was the first time I had experienced it first-hand.
It would not let me close the tab nor the window and, essentially, Apple's Safari web browser was locked up and I could not do anything but Force Quit the application. When I relaunched Safari, I got the same window saying I need to call a telephone number for assistance. Based on what my clients have told me, a person with a thick accent will answer and ultimately recommend that you pay them approximately $200 to get this issue resolved. Don't do it!
The fix is simple and FREE: Force Quit Safari and re-launch it with the < SHIFT > key held down. This will prevent Safari from reopening previously open tabs and windows. Then, simply click on Safari in the top-left menu bar and choose, "Clear History and Website Data." A little dialog box will appear and ask you what you want to clear. Usually just clearing today's history, cookies, and website data does the trick. One word of caution: you will lose all open tabs and windows that you had opened before this issue happened so don't be tempted to use Safari's "Reopen All Windows from Last Session" option under "History" in Safari's menu bar or you'll be right back where you started.
As Sgt. Phil Esterhaus used to say, "Let's be careful out there."