• apple,  apple watch,  ios 9,  ipad air,  ipad mini,  iphone 6s,  iphone 6s plus,  watchos 2

    Apple Releases iOS 9.3, watchOS 2.2 Updates

    As part of yesterday’s media event to introduce the new iPhone SE and iPad Pro, Apple released iOS 9.3 and watchOS 2.2.

    iOS 9.3 Update

    iOS 9.3 add new features to your iOS device and is not just a run-of-the-mill maintenance update.  New in iOS 9.3 is the ability to password protect individual Notes and Night Shift.

    Password protection of the Notes app is nice feature especially if you often keep private thoughts mixed in with notes about buying eggs, milk, and bread at the grocery store.  Personally, I don’t often use the Notes app other than to jot down information quickly that I’ll come back to later on and organize.  Still, it is a nice feature to have available.

      
    Night Shift is a very nice enhancement because it can use either the schedule you set or the sun down and sun rise information based on where you are in the world, to adjust the colors of your screen.  Under normal conditions, your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch display emits a more harsh blue hue light.  During the day, this does not create any problems.  At night, however, exposing yourself to harsh blue light can make it harder for your to fall asleep if you use your iDevice just before bed.  Night Shift will shift the color tones from the “cold” blue light to “warmer” yellow/orange light that is less likely to disrupt your body’s natural processes for falling asleep.  As you can see below, I have configured my iPhone 6s Plus to activate Night Shift based on the time of day.  Night Shift, however, will only work on the iPhone 5s and later, iPad Pro, iPad Air and later, the iPad mini 2 and later, and the most recent iPod touch.
    iOS 9.3 is available now for any iOS device that is capable of running iOS 9, which is pretty much any iOS device that has been released since 2011.  The software and be installed from a Mac or Windows PC, or over the air using Settings > General > Software Update.
    For more information on the new features of iOS 9, including those added with the iOS 9.3 update, visit the iOS 9.3 update website.
    watchOS 2.2 Update
    watchOS 2.2 is primarily as maintenance release for Apple’s iPhone accessory.  I’m not sure who needs to be able to pair more than one Watch with an iPhone, aside from app developers maybe, so I’m having a hard time coming up with who else might need this feature.  (Are day and night watches really a thing?)  I’m all for updates to the Maps app.  The data behind Maps has gotten pretty good and any improvement that keeps from having to pull out my iPhone while trying to walk around Manhattan is a welcomed update for me.
    To update to watchOS 2.2, launch the Watch app on your iPhone and goto General > Software Update.  Before you can apply the update, your Apple Watch will need to be charged up to at least 50% and be in range of your iPhone, which, will wireless deploy the update to your Watch.
  • apple,  apple watch,  update,  watchos 2

    iOS 9.1 and watchOS 2.0.1 – Small But Important Updates

    [Editor’s Note: I don’t know why this article didn’t publish on the intended date and time, so we are publishing it now for completeness.]

    October turned out to be a much busier month than I had originally expected it to be as I was working a particularly tricky production email migration from one cloud based vendor to another.  (Upgrades to Exchange Server 2013/Office 365 and Outlook 2013 were thrown in for fun.)

    All that said, I didn’t want to let a pair of updates from Apple slip by without at least mentioning them.

    iOS 9.1

    iOS 9.1, available for all devices that are capable of running iOS 7.0 and later, is a minor update to iOS 9 that adds 150 new cartoony emoji images.  Anyone who has kids knows how important that is. (Ok, my wife and I send emojis – emojii? – to each other more often than we should.)  Let’s just get it out of the way now, the finger emoji is in this update.  It’s my wife’s favorite.  iOS 9.1 also has the “eye in a speech bubble” Ad Council anti-bullying campaign emoji.  At lease we got the taco emoji.

    The other iOS 9.1 update is for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and the Live Photos feature.  With iOS 9.1 on board, your new iPhone and detect when you are raising or lowering your phone to take a Live Photo and not include those images in the Live Photo image.  It’s a nice feature to have.  When I was taking a few Live Photo shots, the early ones didn’t come out so great unless I was holding my iPhone 6s Plus perfectly still while shooting them.

    watchOS 2.0.1

    With watchOS 2.0.1 Apple rolled out some minor but necessary updates for the Apple Watch.  As you can see from the screen shot (above), all of the fixes address bugs that if not otherwise patched right way could leave to a poor customer experience.

    Both updates are available right now using the iOS Software Update feature for iOS devices and, for Apple Watch owners, via the Software Update feature in the iOS Watch app.  Both updates are recommended for iOS and Apple Watch owners.

  • apple,  apple watch,  iphone,  watchos 2

    Apple Releases watchOS 2.0

    Earlier this week, on Wednesday, Apple-mainia continued with the release of watchOS 2.0, the first major software update for Apple Watch.

    With watchOS 2.0, Apple adds a number of software enhancements for customers and developers alike with new features like improvement to Siri for making FaceTime audio calls and replying to email, new watch faces, Time Travel, third-party complications, and apps that run natively on the watch.

    The new Apple filmed time lapse watch faces look fantastic. (Spoiler: New York is my favorite!)  The Music app now supports Apple Music and Beats 1 radio.  Passbook has been upgraded to Wallet with Apple Pay and you can now use a single photo or all of the photos from a selected photo album as the artwork for your watch face.

    The real magic of watchOS will shine through as developers begin releasing watch native applications that don’t require an iPhone to be within Bluetooth or Wi-Fi range to run.  And with third-party watch face complications, developers will be able to surface more options for providing you with personalized information at a glance.

    watchOS 2 is available now for all versions of Apple Watch.  To install it, you must first download the 512MB update with your iPhone, connect your Apple Watch to it’s charger, charge it up to at least 50% and keep your iPhone and Apple Watch within Wi-Fi range on the same wireless network.

    The watchOS 2 update should take less than 30 minutes to install.

    iOS 9.0 was release last week and watchOS 2.0 was suppose to launch along side it.  Apple chose to pull the watchOS 2 update after Apple confirmed they needed some extra time to correct a software bug, which has since been resolved.