Since making the decision to engage less in social media I’ve become a big fan of RSS again and have my reader of choice NetNewsWire installed across all of my iOS devices.

I started curating my feed on my iPhone only. Once I was happy I then used the export option to save to my iCloud.

On my iPad I then use this export to sync my feed. When I add new feeds I export and reimport again. The only issue with this is that when you reimport you’ll need to remove all of your subscriptions first or you’ll have duplicates.

I know this isn’t perfect but is free and saves a sign up to an RSS management app.

When you switch up to iOS 14 you’ll notice that the watch app has lost it’s old unpair option so when I decided to take a break from using it I had to dig around a little.

It’s now within the erase settings as follows.

Once you entered your password you’ll see the following.

I’m very much enjoying iOS 14 and wanted to start to share how to customise the Reminders widget.

Add the widget and then long press and tap ‘Edit Widget”.

I like to change this view to see how many items I’ve got due today. So I tap list and change.

You can change the list displayed to meet your own needs but personally I use TODAY because for me this seems most relevant to have on a widget you want to see most often.

First off here’s my setup so you know what I’m relating this post to

• 2020 11" iPad Pro
• Bluetooth vertical mouse (with scroll wheel, left and right mouse buttons)
• Apple keyboard (taken from an iMac)

Since getting my new iPad with USB-C I’ve been plugged into a USB hub with attached mouse and keyboard way more than I did when I had a lightning equipped iPad and finding new ways to work with it everyday. These might seem like a small list (I’ll be adding as I discover more) and if you’re used to using it this way may seem basic but I’m hoping others like me using it properly for the first time will find it useful.

MOUSE

• Left click the little white bar at the bottom of the screen to go HOME
• Make use of the right click in apps as you would the right click to access options on an element on the MAC, you'l be surprised at the number of apps that have this feature enabled
• Don't forget to use the scroll wheel in Safari and apps, it even works in the iPadOS settings app

KEYBOARD

• CMD+H to go home
• If you're using a MAC keyboard then the function keys work (brightness and media controls)
• Hold down the CMD key within apps to get shortcut help
• CMD+TAB to bring up multitasker (then use CMD+Q to quit any apps you want to close)

If you have more please let me know and I’ll test and add them to this page.

One of the great things about Casio is that at less than £20 there’s a chance to made it your own through some simple modding.

I’ve been wanting to mod my AE1200 for a while so whilst I had 30 mins to spare I decided to have a go.

All I used was a small screwdriver, a sharpie, spudger, some nail varnish remover and a cotton bud.

First thing I did was to remove the white text from the case above and below the display, with a cotton bud and nail varnish remover and it came off pretty simply.

I then had to take the watch apart to get at the front template with all of the text on. It’s just 4 screws holding the back on, don’t forget to keep the water seal safe when it comes off.

Use the spudger to take out the unit and the front plate will come out easily.

I tried nail varnish remover again on the text I wanted to get rid of but it didn’t work so I removed it with a sharpie.

After I was done I simply reversed the process and got it all back together.

I’m pretty pleased with my first mod on the AE1200.

You can see where it started off in my review.

I always like to restore my new iOS devices to a fresh iOS install when I get one from the factory, but like the iPhone X it’s not obvious how to do this on the 2020 iPad Pro.

You’ll need your Mac to connect your iPad to.

1. Power down your iPad by holding down the power button and volume up button at the same time then swipe to power down
2. Once powered down hold down the power button and volume up at the same time and plug in the USB-C cable
3. Keep holding until you see the restore image on your iPad

The Mac will then ask you to click restore and it’ll go ahead and download the latest iOS version and restore the iPad as new.

NetNewsWire continues to be my RSS reader of choice now I’m back on a current generation iPad Mini. I love it’s clean look and speed but I’ve only just discovered that you can quickly move between the stories by swiping left and right.

Whilst you’re reading a story you can simply swipe to move to the next or previous in your queue.

I wear my Apple Watch quite rarely these days but when I do I’m reminded how slow the series 2 is in 2020. On playing around with settings I’ve discovered a couple of settings that appear to have sped it up a bit.

Reducing transparency and motion seem to have sped up the general UI issues I was experiencing.

I’ve tried to take a step back from social media for a while and always struggle but I’ve found using the screen time feature in iOS has helped me limit the time I spend on them.

I’ve added a couple of limits to help me gradually reduce the time I spend on Twitter each day. I’ve set 20 minutes as a limit and will gradually reduce this slowly until it gets to 5.

I’ve been checking out the other apps via the ‘see all activity’ and tap on the app you want to add a limit to.

Anyone else using this?

My iPad Pro is out of action so I switched back to a 2013 iPad Mini that we have in the household. Using it for a bit now I feel I can share my thoughts on what it’s like to use one day to day in 2020.

Hardware

First off I’m very impressed with how the hardware has held up. Once I took off all of the stickers it’s still looking brand new on the back. The bezels have a few chips but nothing that bothers me. The screen is in good shape apart from a few hairline scratches and nothing visible when the screen is on. All of the buttons work absolutely fine.

iOS

This iPad is stuck on iOS 12 and coming from iPadOS 13 I miss dark mode and some apps don’t work. Luckily for me it’s just my RSS reader that’s been switched out, all of the other apps I use daily work.

Listening to music and watching video via apps like Disney+ all work fine too.

I think I’ll be ok back on iOS 12 and utilising app by app dark mode. The only slight concern is security but iOS 12 is still getting security updates so I think it’ll be ok temporarily. No trackpad support though, which is a big downside.

Performance

It’s pretty sluggish but I’ve found a few settings that help with some of the daily use. Not much you can do about slow running apps, for instance Disney+ took about 2 minutes to load and get to the point that you can watch something.

Definitely leave all your apps running in the background for a quicker launch next time. I’d suggest turning off motion though to increase the overall feel of iOS.

Settings, general, accessibility, reduce motion then turn on.

Aside from this there isn’t a lot you can do to improve the performance. Remember this is a 7 year old processor now and yes it’s a little slow but pretty amazing I’m still using it for everything, including writing this post.

Security

Here’s the major downside of using an iPad Mini 2, no TouchID. To unlock its back to a passcode.

Should you buy one?

Nope, it’s way too slow in my opinion when you can spend a bit more on a used iPad Mini 5 that also has pencil support. If like me you have one lying around and your usual iPad is out of action then it’ll do as a short term replacement but not a viable replacement. There’s no trackpad support and iOS updates are going to stop most probably soon. Spend a little more to get a 9.7” or iPad Mini 5.

I’m not going into details on this one yet but I needed to remotely wipe my beloved iPad Pro 10.5” today. I couldn’t use any buttons, the screen or the power cable but needed to remove my account and erase.

If you are in the same position there is only one way to do this, note that your iPad needs to have some power left in it for this to work and still have a working and connected network connection.

• Head over to iCloud.com
• Log in and click on Find iPhone
• In the middle of the screen you should see a drop down for DEVICES
• Click on the device you want to erase
• Click on ERASE IPAD
• You’ll be asked for log in details etc and have the option to put a message on the screen
• I also removed from my account as I won’t be using it anymore :-(

Good luck and may the force be with you.

I’m slowly but surely becoming addicted to Animal Crossing, especially with everything going on it’s a nice distraction. If you want to get serious about crafting you’ll need the flimsy axe to start chopping at trees and rocks.

To get it you’ll need to be the main player (if you are playing with more than one person on the same console) and have the net or fishing rod.

You’ll want to catch butterflies and give Tom Nook in the green tent at least 2. If you go up to him and tell him you have found an animal. He’ll need to two to give you the recipe to be able to craft one.

I’m starting fresh and clearing down my OmniFocus setup and when looking at removing perspectives it wasn’t that intuitive on how, here’s how to do it.

First off you need to SHOW all of your perspectives, tap on the SHOW icon.

Select the perspective you want to delete by tapping on it and then hit the icon marked in the image above.

Scrolling to the bottom you will see a DELETE PERSPECTIVE option.

I’ve been restoring all of my devices and noticed that iCloud Keychain was out of sync between my devices, through some testing I came across what looks to have kicked it back in sync.

1. Check your iOS devices and turn off iCloud Keychain on all of them apart from the one where the Keychain is correct (see Settings --> Passwords & Accounts --> Website & App Passwords), I'd go with the device with the higher number
2. Wait for around 20 minutes (vague I know but this seems to depend on how quick Apple's servers are working)
3. Turn iCloud Keychain back on one device at a time

You want to be looking at the count within Settings -> Passwords & Accounts –> Website & App Passwords. The number should be in sync across all of your devices.

I’ve spotted a few things including explicit language in tracks not marked as Explicit in Apple Music. I wanted to feedback so reached out and if like me you want to give Apple feedback specifically about Apple Music then use this link.

I’ve reset my iPhone to see if it fixes my iCloud sync issues and as I set it up I’m kind of on autopilot when it comes to my default settings. Here’s one of the setting I do straight away.

Head into settings and scroll down to Safari.

Tap on Search Engine.

Pick DuckDuckGo from the selection.

I’m getting more into using OF now as my main productivity app and some elements are not as intuitive as I’d like so I’ll be sharing hints and tips I’m picking up. First up is moving an existing project into a newly created folder.

Navigate to your projects and tap Edit.

Now tap the project to select it and tap the ‘i’ at the top.

Tap the icon in the lower left and then tap the project name you want to move it to.

I’ve been playing Battlefront 2 for ages now but only just discovered the best mode to use to level up quickly and also get in some practise.

This is coop, a 4 player online team vs the AI. You join a team from any of the eras you select and then go up against wave after wave of computer controlled opponents. I’m seeing that on average in galactic assault I’ll maybe average 6000 points per game, with coop I’ll get on average 20,000. I’ll also get a lot more hits so levelling up weapons and gaining challenges is a lot easier.

It’s also quite a lot of fun, especially levelling up the Ewoks and your hero or villain of choice.

I’m back with a blank slate again on my productivity system and fallen back to my old favourite OmniFocus. I thought I’d share how I’m using it over a series of posts and how I’m initially setting it up.

First off it might look intimidating but OmniFocus really can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be.

The first step is to do a bit of a brain dump. I find that even if I’m coming from another app I don’t duplicate I start fresh. I’ll go into the Inbox and start to drop in everything on my mind.

Once I’ve “dumped” everything out of my mind I’ll start to work through each one by tapping on it and picking a tag to categorise (such as errand or chores) or add it it’s own project if it’s something bigger like a trip.

To be honest you don’t need to worry about tags or projects if you’re just starting out with OmniFocus you can just drop stuff in and get it scheduled so you don’t forget.

For now step 1 is just to install, use their sync service and get whatever is in your head into the inbox and add due dates where they are needed.

I’ll be creating more posts in the coming weeks on next steps.

GT is one of my favourite game franchises of all time and whilst I’ve had it for a while it wasn’t until I invested in a wheel and pedal setup that I’ve gone all in and play it pretty much exclusively these days. It’s a bit of a steep learning curve going from single player campaign modes to playing online. The races are pre planned so most spend their time practising before the actual races, it’s very competitive.

I have to honest I’m still languishing at the back of the pack but there’s a couple of things that I’ve noticed.

• Use a manual gearbox, you just won't have the speed if you don't
• Turn off assists, only use some ABS if you need it (I do)
• Feel free to use corner makers etc to help you know your braking points but these are conservative and you'll need to break later to get quicker lap times

I’m starting to relearn driving with no assists to give me some hope of competing.

I’d recommend doing the daily races and leaving the other championships until you can compete or it’ll be a waste of your time.

The one area I’m still struggling to understand is where there is a single manufacturer race and the rest of the field have better straight line speed, this has me a bit lost at the moment (let me know if you know why).

I’ll update more as I play more of the game but I’m very much enjoying pushing myself on this one.

I’m starting to get into using Shortcuts again and going to start to share my journey. Starting off pretty basic with how to delete a shortcut. What I’ve found is I’ve created loads of test ones and the app has gotten pretty messy.

Tap the edit button in the top left.

Tap the shortcut you want to delete as above then tap the trash can.

I finally decided to eat that frog and stop putting off the worst thing I could imagine setting up iOS - Family Sharing. With us all using Apple Music in the household (with different accounts mainly) and the fact I’m paying for 2TB of iCloud it was time.

It took a couple of hours and now it’s mostly setup up but wow the experience isn’t the best or least buggy I’ve seen on iOS.

If like me you are adding a child under 13 you’ll need to create an AppleID for them which included creating their email and the mostly useless in these days security questions. This part of the process was ok and logging into the account on my daughters device with her new AppleID was also ok.

Where the experience falls down is granting access to your family members.

You grant access on an individual application level.

iCloud storage was pretty straightforward but Music and Purchases are a bit of a nightmare.

For Apple Music I upgraded to the family account but whenever I tried to use the interface above to add family members it just took me to the Music app with a dialogue saying I had already purchased Apple Music. I restarted both of our devices several times but nothing worked. In the end all it took was time, after a couple of hours this workflow changed and I could see I was sharing music. Seemed like a time delay where something in the backend needed to tell the Apple servers I had upgraded. Once this happened I could go into Music on my daughters device and it knew she was part of the family plan. I still have a bug though where the ‘For You’ tab just says error retry later and a start your free 3 month trial message but everything else works.

The most annoying though is sharing content you’ve purchased via iTunes. I want the TV app to know what I’ve purchased so can be watched but it seemed to link my wrong AppleID, defaulting to iCloud. I have to wait 90 days to be able to change this to my actual iTunes account email address. Not a huge deal but still something that could be checked on entry rather than defaulting to iCloud.

You’ll need to redo content and restrictions for your child if you were using this previously. This has to be done on the family owners device. One thing that doesn’t work though is allowed apps. You need to do this on the device of your child. If you want to hide Safari you’ll need to do this via screen time on the device of your child. Doing this on your device doesn’t sync the app removal on your child’s device, I’m raising a ticket for this one.

Overall the experience is unintuitive but eventually mostly works so far.

If I experience any showstoppers I’ll let you know.

Writing up a post this morning took me 3 times as long with the new block editor in the Wordpress app for iOS. Initially I couldn’t find a way to turn it off but thankfully you can.

Head into site settings then you’ll see a block editor option as below.

Phew, I got worried my Wordpress app experience was ruined there for a minute.

I have to be honest I haven’t used a mouse with my iPad much since it was introduced in iPadOS 13 but in the last few weeks I’ve found myself gravitating to using it again. This came from a need that I used to find myself using my MAC for - managing some of my personal productivity.

Changing to do apps seems like something I do to hurt myself but after being disappointed with TODOIST and OMNIFOCUS not syncing notifications or sometimes data between devices I moved over to REMINDERS. I’m glad to report that sync works flawlessly e.g. I created a load of new items on my iPhone that I wanted to get done today. When I picked up my iPad these items had already sync’d over and were in my widget on the home screen, this is the sort of feature that will keep me using an app.

Anyway, I’d brain dumped onto a notepad (yes using pen and everything!), which aside from having them somewhere not on iOS reminded me of some RSI issues I’m working with when it comes to writing with a pen these days, but I’m getting distracted. The next stage in my workflow was to take these handwritten notes and put them into the REMINDERS app.

In the past I’ve connected my mouse to my MACBOOK, sat down and put them in - somehow it felt more productive. Well this time I decided to keep my MACBOOK in the drawer it lives in and connected my mouse and entered it all on iPadOS and I have to say that it felt just as great and I got through them really quickly. The only downside I found was the date picker is a little fiddly with a pointer but I got used to it quickly and got them all in.

The mouse of choice for me is a cheap HP wired mouse that whilst isn’t ideal for my RSI as I usually use a vertical mouse, it was ok for these smaller stints. To connect the mouse to the iPad I used a lighting to USB/SD Card adapter I got off Amazon (a really cheap one, not even branded). I hate the wires so might have to look a vertical wireless mouse if I can but found that they don’t work when I’ve tried in the past. The USB wireless dongle that goes into the iPad adapter just doesn’t seem to sync across to the mouse itself. Please recommend me a wireless mouse that works with an iPad Pro 10.5”.

This is all to say that I forgot how great the mouse support is for me to get the job done and help me with some RSI issues when I want to swap my setup instead of lifting my arm to touch the screen (remember I’m docked with a Smart Keyboard most of the time).

10 years on and I’m still finding great ways to use my iPad.

There’s been a lot of talk about Apple not offering encrypted backups over the last week, personally I’m keeping out of this one for now but if like me you don’t need to backup your device to iCloud here is how to do it. Please make sure you are happy turning off your device backup, all of my photos, notes and music etc are in the cloud already so I don’t need this secondary backup method.

Head into settings:

Then follow these highlighted steps in the screenshots below:

Tap on iCloud:

Tap on iCloud backup:

Toggle the switch to OFF:

Working at home it’s easy to forget to move and get some exercise in so moving into new habits (not resolutions) I was looking at a way to track this.

The native health app can show steps but it’s fairly basic - that’s where Pedometer ++ comes in.

It offers a really nice visual guide into how much you’re actually moving and helps you motivate yourself with awards.

I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and with the complication on my Apple Watch it’s a stark reminder of how little I’ve moved sometimes.

I’m going to be adding this to my daily routine going forward, trying to get to 10,000 steps to help me get moving again.

Like a lot of people that work at home I want to get more active and remember to get away from my desk so I’m starting to plan to use the Apple Watch for it’s primary intended use - a health and fitness tracker. One area that’s overly busy to me is the workout metrics, that is the screen that it shows when you’re working out (walking in my case).

The good news is that you can change this pretty easily.

Within the Watch app on your iPhone make sure you tap on ‘My Watch’ from the tabs along the bottom. Then tap on ‘Workout view’ and select ‘Single Metric’.

I’ve been a fan of the NASA app app for a while but only really just started using it for getting great wallpapers.

Firing up the app you can see images on the main screen.

You can type your search terms in the top bar.

Tap on the image to load and then tap again to bring up options.

Tap on the share icon in the top right and tap ‘save image’.

I live in dark mode on iOS 13 but I don’t like having a dark background on Apple Notes. The good news is you can change this just for Notes.

Head into settings, then tap notes and you’ll see the following option

Just pick the Note Background that fits what you want to see.

I use projects to either break down a large task e.g. decorate living room or to group tasks such as a holiday.

Adding a new project is simple.

Tap on the ‘+’ next to the Projects section.

• Give your project a name such as 'Decorate living room'
• Give it a colour
• Choose to share it or not, default will be No unless you are using it with a partner or company
• Is it a sub project? Maybe you have a parent called 'DIY'
• Make it a favourite if you want quick access from the top level of the layout

This is the first time it’s happened to me but Lego offers a really great site for replacing any Lego bits missing from your kit.

Here’s the link.

If you’re planning on selling anything over the holidays I’d recommend against using Gumtree. I’m having a bit of a clear out and been spammed with scammers multiple times a day. Messages like the one above come within about 20 mins of anything posted so please be careful. Don’t give your email address out to anyone, stick within the Gumtree app. They’ll want it to send you money via PayPal then claim it’s damaged on delivery etc to force a refund.

Another telltale sign above, first trying to get a bite.

I didn’t realise this was possible but on reviewing the latest app updates I discovered you can swipe to delete directly from the update section of the App Store on your iPhone.

Being able to do this is a nice little time saver when I realise an app I haven’t used in ages is being updated and I don’t even need it anymore.

I’m a couple of weeks in with using OmniFocus exclusively and it’s actually starting to stick. I wanted to write a series of posts on how I’m using it in my daily life.

First up each morning I’m looking at what I have on my plate and adjusting the day to suit my availability and energy.

I tap on the relevant day in the forecast view to drill into the day itself.

This shows me my agenda and the to do items I have set for the day.

If there is something on there I’m not going to be able to achieve I’ll long press and move to tomorrow.

My forecast view also shows me any items I’d like to get done today but haven’t set a due date or time. I tag these items with ‘today’ and change the view settings to show me them in my forecast view.

These show at the bottom of the list in the forecast view.

That gives me a view of the day within the app. To supplement this I also use the widget and the Apple Watch complication to have a quick reference of how I’m getting on.

So far the data sync has been good but if I’m updating on my iPad and don’t open the app on my iPhone to sync then app notifications do get a bit out of sync.

At the moment I’m using the Apple Watch sporadically whilst I figure out where it fits in my life but have been playing around with settings to test battery life. I’m on a Nike Series 2 and to be fair aside from some lag here and there it’s still a great Apple Watch. The battery lasts longer than the Series 5 I had for a brief period and not needing an always on display I’m sticking to this one when I do use it.

Here’s a few tips that I wanted to share to get the best battery life out of your Apple Watch.

Use cinema mode

This is activated by swiping up on the watch then hitting the icon marked above. I use it if I leave my watch on to sleep but also in the day if I’m out and about on a long family day out for instance. It’ll turn off the screen and only be enabled when you tap it.

Turn off background refresh on apps you don't use

Within the watch app on your iPhone you can go into Background App Refresh settings and turn off all of the apps that you don’t need to be making updates in the background.

Shorter screen on time

Under wake screen settings make sure you have 15 seconds for the on tap settings, the shortest setting.

Turn the brightness to the minimum

Even on it’s lowest setting the screen is fine to my eyes and will save you a little battery throughout the day.

Pair down Notifications

It won’t have a massive impact but on showing notifications you care about is something else that you can do to help. This also helps to avoid too many distractions, I only have notifications for messages and calls.

Seeing my images being used in scams isn’t particularly nice so I’ve done a little experimenting to see how I can start to watermark all of my images I post now.

I’ve settled on using Snapseed from Google.

Once you load the app, add the image you want to add a watermark to.

Tap tools and select TEXT.

You can then change the style and double tap to edit the text.

I then add the text and align how I want it. Then you need to change the opacity by tapping the middle icon as in the image below.

I’ll then adjust until I’m happy and export the image out into my photo library.

I’m not sure if this bug is specific to my make and model of car but I’ve finally found a way to fix this annoying bug. I have a Volkswagen Golf GTE with factory fitted CarPlay and about 50% of the time it would not play any audio. I would turn the volume up and it would say ‘No Audio’.

I’ve found a fix, well a hack really. If you move into the Media section first then do a new Bluetooth search for your iPhone. Once you have seen the iPhone in the list of discoverable devices don’t tap it. Simply tap app again to go into CarPlay, the audio will magically start working again.

I wanted to post a follow up on my Notes sync issues as I’ve been testing it in the background whilst using other apps. So, first up Apple have never called me back. As I’ve already written about they seem ok with hardware issues but struggle with anything software related. Now I’m not sure if this is training related but even their senior advisors are heavily reliant on a backup software team. They need some more software people in the senior advisor role in my opinion. I still think Apple support is lacking right now.

So my Notes have stayed in sync over the last week and the speed of sync seems to have improved, yes there is a but here - only if you don’t have folders. I’ve found that in my testing if you have a flat structure then sync becomes a lot more reliable. If you’re have problems then on top of migrating out and deleting everything then start with a flat structure, don’t create any folders. I find that as soon as you introduce folders it goes awry. Sync becomes slow and unreliable, especially on macOS.

I’d tell Apple if they ever called me back but I think that ship has sailed and I’m not wasting anymore of my time being on hold for them.

I knew this should be in there somewhere, I had a play with the settings and now I can see the entire title when viewing my to do.

I’ll need to test the widget display but this gets me what I want.

I wrote that I wanted to stick with iCloud and if you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know that Reminders does my head in. I moved over to GoodTask a little while ago but didn’t commit to using it until a month or so ago. Here’s how I’m using it.

Apple Watch

Reminders doesn’t have a new complication so I’m using GoodTask to show me how many items I have due today.

Today widget

The widget shows me both my reminders and appointments on one view. This means I can see my day in order and also means I can use one widget instead of two.

Lists

I’m using lists to categorise all of my tasks. Still getting started but here are my lists so far. I’m also using Overdue, High Priorities and Within 5 days.

Today with no time

Using Reminders in the standard app doesn’t let you mark a task due just today, you need a time. I don’t like this to be the only way of doing it. With GoodTask I can mark something due just today and not worry about adding a time element.

I’ve come to really enjoy Bear again after a brief hiatus. I tried my best to use Apple Notes but started to find it slowed me down when I tried organising my Notes. The most powerful feature of Bear for me is quickly being able to organise your notes.

I’ve found that being able to quickly add a ‘#’ to the end of a note to quickly organise my Notes into ‘folders’. I started with looking at it around my writing in ‘draft’ ‘blog’ and ‘published’.

As I started to build up my Notes and everything went in Bear more tags appeared. You can see above my total list so far, it’s constantly evolving and I’m enjoying this way of organising.

I’m trying to stay off Social media a bit more limiting myself to about 20 minutes a day. The side effect of this is that I’m blogging more short form thoughts, which is good. This has meant that I’ve been using the Wordpress app as a replacement for writing down quick thoughts.

With the most recent announcement from Bear and Wordpress that they were more closely integrated I had to give it a go and it’s been working pretty great. After a little hiatus I’m back using Bear, with its tagging and theme options it’s working well with how my brain works. The only downside that I’ve found is that the post when put into the Wordpress share sheet interface doesn’t remove tags so you’ll need to remember to do this yourself. It even works with images, like the screen shots I’m adding below. I’ve found even just in the day using this method it’s going to be a lot smoother than using the Wordpress app itself.

I’m a big fan of the AirPods and as nice as it is to have a headphone jack on the Pixel it’s also nice to not have to get wires caught in stuff. I hadn’t even thought of pairing my AirPods. Well the good news is that they work (to a point), you obviously don’t get Siri and tapping them doesn’t seem to do anything but I don’t do this even on my iPhone. The one that annoys me a little is them not pausing when I remove one AirPod but that’s not a big deal for me whilst I just use them to go for a walk or whilst I’m doing stuff at my desk.

• On your Pixel head into 'settings', 'connected devices', then tap 'Pair new device'
• Make sure your AirPods are in the case and then hold down the button on the back of the case
• You'll see them pop in the list

• Tap on the AirPods and you are good to go

When I fired up Apple Music and started listening they were automatically connected.

I’ve been struggling to get my head around Android but something finely clicked yesterday. It’s overwhelming trying to figure out everything straight away but here are a few tips that have helped me.

Home button

There’s no home button on either the pixel or iPhone these days but coming from iOS I wanted to get my head around what the home button was on Android.

No matter which app you’re in tap the little white pill shaped object at the bottom of the screen to go home.

Quick launching the camera

Double click the power button to quick launch the camera. If it doesn’t work make sure it’s turned on in settings, system, gestures.

Launch recently used apps

When you swipe up from the bottom you get to app switching. There’s a little list of apps here that Google assistant thinks you might like to launch.

I’ve gotten into the habit of using this and 9 times out of 10 it shows me the correct app.

What are your tips?

Not immediately obvious for me but to save a screenshot on the Pixel you press and hold the power button and volume down for a couple of seconds.

I’ve been browsing around looking at different ways to get a Pixel 3a and came across this return policy for Carphone Warehouse

Wow, you can’t actually return a SIM free phone at all. This is unbelievable in this day in age when compared to some other stores and their 14 day return policies.

If you are after a Pixel 3a (or any SIM free phone for that matter) then I’d avoid Carphone Warehouse completely.

I try to surround myself with stuff I love, particularly in my home office. I don’t have loads of space in there but like to get collectibles that give me some joy to own and look at. After watching Endgame I really wanted a poster to hang up. After browsing around I came up with the solution to just do it myself.

I picked up these two items and it gave me exactly what I was looking for.

• Avengers: Endgame poster
• Picture frame

This’ll obviously work for any A2 poster, I’m thinking about Infinity War for my next one.

Yes, I’m revisiting some old tech and first up is my original iPad from 2010. It’s full of family photos so when presented with iOS 5 and no iCloud photo sync I needed to have a think about how this was going to work.

Here’s how I did it but you need a Mac to plug it into. You’ll need to plug in your iPad and fire up Photos. If you then open Photos on your iPad you should see the iPad show up in the left hand pane on your Mac.

I created a new Album on the Mac photo library called “old iPad”. I then selected the iPad and selected all of the photos it showed me was on it. I then simply imported and picked the “old iPad” album to import into.

These are family pictures so I created an iCloud photo share and moved the images up to the cloud to share with others. Not idea but the best I could do with the older iOS.

It may be that it’s early and my brain hasn’t woken up but when messing around with Reeder 4 this morning it wasn’t obvious to me how I unsubscribed from an RSS feed I’d added.

1. Go to the 'All Items' view

2. Long press the RSS feed you want to unsubscribe from

3. Tap unsubscribe

Argh, my iPhone XS has been dialling my wife from my pocket multiple times a day and after doing it again today I needed to figure out why. Doing a quick dig around and looking at the lock screen I came to the conclusion it’s happening from my lock screen.

Somehow my emergency contact was being dialled, not sure if my phone was unlocking before going into my pocket or a key combo or what but I’ve had enough.

Here’s what I’ve disabled on my iPhone

• Tap to wake (from accessibility)
• Auto Call (from emergency SOS)

Not ideal turning off tap to wake but removing my emergency contact From my iPhone isn’t an option.

I’ve also decided to go back to an iPhone 7 Plus to test this more. (More on this in another post).

I’m trying out Todoist again and when messing around I discovered vacation mode.

I don’t know how new this feature is but it’s potentially very useful. Being away from work allowed me to do a bit of a brain dump but I didn’t want to be reminded of chores when away. This vacation mode puts everything on hold until you’re ready to get back to it.

Somethings clicked for me with the notes app Bear. I’ve used it before but since trying Drafts and trying to get my head around workspaces I went back to try Bear and it suddenly makes sense for me. With its iCloud sync and support for the Apple Pencil and Attachments it fits my need for a better looking Notes app than Apple Notes.

The main reason I’m using it is tags - it’s really pretty simple. Every time you create a note add a tag to help organise.

Here’s my setup (so far), you can see that I have already started to organise my notes by tags and when I tap on any of them all I see is the notes with that tag. This is something I struggled with when using Drafts and gave up trying to get my head around with how workspaces worked.

The main tag I’m using is ‘blog’, anytime I get an idea (like this one) I start a new note with my heading of what I want to write about and add the tag ‘blog’. When I’m in the mood to do something for the blog I can simply tap the ‘blog’ tag and see everything I’ve started on.

Just like in this image.

Another tag I’m finding useful is ‘reading’ where I’m importing entire articles from the web to keep and read later then delete of have as reference. This is done via shortcuts, I’ll write up a post on this in the coming weeks.

Are you using Bear? How is your setup?

If you’ll remember last week I wrote down how to move from DayOne into Apple Notes, well I’m back with DayOne. I have to say it’s nice too, Apple Notes just wasn’t built to hold massive notes full of images and text. I’m talking 800MB single notes here, the performance just isn’t workable.

If the large Journal note is the last thing open I found Notes would either crash out or hang on reload. If I left it long enough it would load but it’s just not a workable solution unfortunately. Basically if I did load I needed to move away from it as soon as possible so I could actually use the app.

Viewing images wasn’t ideal if you wanted to check on events and even though I thought Photos could give me this it also fell a bit short.

Anyone else tried and succeeded?

I’ve been tinkering with GoodTask for a few weeks now and recently discovered the joy of being able to create and share themes. This is really unique and you can make GoodTask look just the way you like it.

Importing Themes on iOS into GoodTask is based on a text string that you can simply copy to the clipboard and use in GoodTask.

First off select the theme you’d like to import. I picked up mine from the GoodTask forums. Once you have found one you like copy the long text string above the image in the forum.

Now head into GoodTask and follow these steps.

The theme is picked up because it’s in the clipboard.

Let me know which theme you’re using.

I’ve been slowly growing tired of trying third party apps on iOS. I’m not sure if it’s me getting older or trying to consolidate my data in one place but an area I needed to look at was journaling. This is something that I’ve been using DayOne for but not being a premium member It’s becoming a pain as I need to manually remember to backup and manage my entries.

That got me thinking about using Apple Notes as a journal. I use it for everything else so why not? The first thing I needed to do was to figure out my folder structure. I had plans for an elaborate setup but in the end kept it simple. I created a folder in Notes simply called Journal. Then within this folder I created a note called Journal 2019. I also pinned it and then added the notes widget to my today screen so that I can quickly get at it. Every day I create a new entry with the date and just jot down my thoughts along with any images I want to add to the day. It’s pretty simple but will always be in the order of latest first. I can also add as many images as I want, something I can’t do in DayOne without paying and giving them my data. There were two areas I wanted to address. The first was searching, well after testing I’m happy with what Notes gives me. Secondly images, I can add but if I want to look back I need to see all of the text too. DayOne is great for showing just images but I’ve decided I can just use the photos app for this. That’s how I’ve initially setup but now I am looking at shortcuts to let me quickly jot down my thoughts rather than fire up Notes every time. I’m happy I don’t have to remember to manually export and backup but now I need to figure out how to get my DayOne into Notes.

Believe it or not this post was written in Apple Notes and posted to me blog via the share sheet. It’s pretty simple to do and I’ll be writing up a how to, this is my ‘hello world’ moment for Apple Notes and Wordpress publishing.

This is a nice change I’ve just found. If you go to the settings app, then general, then about you’ll now see Apple Care + coverage.

I’m feeling like I have a bit more headspace now I’m less active on social media and to my surprise it’s allowed me to focus on trying one productivity app at a time. This might sound strange but when I was on Twitter daily I’d look at others and their apps and get FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). This would inevitably lead me to trying other apps.

Well since last week I committed to using iCloud (for privacy reasons mainly) and when I saw Reminders wasn’t up to scratch I started using GoodTask. I think my problem in the past was I didn’t stick with one app long enough but now I’m not seeing others feeds I’m not tempted to switch apps.

I’m keeping it simple so far and still in the process of moving everything in from OmniFocus. As you can see I’ve split up by Reminders lists so far, I’ll be sharing more as I go but this is stage 1.

I’ll share more on creating smart lists at a later point once I get my head around them.

Are you using GoodTask? Any tips?

I’ve mostly stopped listening to podcasts but still using audiobooks to help me on my walks or in the car. I get all of mine via the Apple Books app.

Here’s how I’m doing it.

Following on from my post on how I use DayOne I thought I’d show you how I back it up.

Our Sony soundbar has been playing up for a while but I decided we needed to replace it when the speakers started to stop working well at low levels. The infrared had already broken so it was time.

I looked around and without spending £600 Plus I just couldn’t find something that I liked. It hit me whilst looking, why don’t I just use the HomePod from our kitchen. One prerequisite here is the Apple TV mind you. We have been using one for years so was ok in that department.

Setting up

So the way this works is via AirPlay. Put your HomePod to where it’s going to live under your TV then head into settings on the Apple TV. You need to look for audio settings and select the source to be the name of your HomePod. Also deselect the HDMI, which seems to be the default.

What's it sound like with one HomePod?

I put the HomePod near the centre of the TV. On listening to Star Wars, New Hope I was immediately impressed with how clear the voices and effect music was. I heard sounds in scenes I’d never heard before and I’d been watching Star Wars since the 80’s. Where it fell down for me was in scenes with a lot of music. Star Wars has a great score and the orchestra plus voice and effects was a little too much. I found the score to be put to the back and drowned out a little.

What about two HomePods?

This is were it was a game changer for me. I grabbed my HomePod from the office and put them in a left and right configuration. The first thing you need to do before using is create a stereo pair. You can do this by using the Home app and tapping create stereo pair. Once you’ve created a stereo pair that’s it.

I fired up the same scene from New Hope (escape from the Death Star in the Falcon) and wow, what a difference. A few things stood out. First the speech was clear but I could now hear the music clearly too. Second the width of the stereo effect was unlike anything I got out of my soundbar. Wide and even background sounds were audible. In this scene I could still hear the tie fighters flying around the Falcon whilst the scene was set inside on Han or Luke. Lastly the bass, two homepods make for a massive increase in bass even over the subwoofer in the soundbar. I moved forward to the final battle against the Death Star and I realised I could now hear the engines of the X-Wings whilst inside with the pilots, it’s going to be great rewatching the entire series before Episode 9 comes out.

Would you buy a HomePod over a traditional soundbar?

This is an interesting one. The issue with using a HomePod is that you can only stream to it if it supports AirPlay. So as an example I can’t listen to my PlayStation 4 on the HomePod. This means that the solution isn’t entirely fulfilling my needs at home unfortunately but I’m definitely using it to enjoy movies for now until I see the need to replace to cover my gaming. I’ve started to use my PlayStation with headphones anyway so I’m going to try to stick with this setup and see how it goes. If you have one or two already then I’d say set them up with your Apple TV ASAP. If you are in the market but don’t have one I’d say stick to the traditional route and get a soundbar. This gives you the most flexibility.

Please Apple can you make a soundbar with the HomePod tech in it pretty please.

Update

After using it again now the power has been off all night I’ve realised something really basic that’s not happening. Whenever you restart the Apple TV forgets the output and defaults to HDMI. This is going to get annoying real fast, I’ll raise a radar.

Personally I really like the addition of checkboxes in the latest Todoist update but not everyone does so the good news is whilst you can’t remove them you can go back to swiping to complete.

Yes and no 😀

Here’s my saddle brown before the washing machine. I’d already sanded off the the wax finish and added some oil to speed up the patina process. I thought it looked great and certainly improved the grip of the case.

Here’s my case after a run through the washing machine (along with all my watch bands and silicone case).

I think it looks great (looks better than the photos in person) and the wash seems to have taken off the oils that I put in there via my hands and oil I’d purposely put on it it.

I dried it off with a hairdryer and it went back to the light colour. Also note that wash has improved the feel of the case and made it really grippy.

Im glad I did it, remember your results may vary and don’t go in expecting perfect results.

Believe it or not this isn’t as straightforward as you might think if you aren’t looking beyond the end of your nose.

To turn off shuffle make sure you have the current track playing full screen as per the image on the left (see above).

Swipe down a bit and there is the shuffle button. Tap to disable shuffle.

I’ve been bumping up the font on iOS slowly over the last year or so but after switching my Apple Watch to bold text (and preferring the look of it) thought I’d do the same on iOS. I’ve done this on my iPad and iPhone and prefer the look, I’ve also been able to reduce the font size back to normal.

The keyboard is the biggest change that I’ve gotten to terms with but it’s much easier for me to see now with my older eyes.

Apps (well most of them) support this mode, some apps (looking at you Amazon) don’t seem to support bold everywhere.

Anyone else using this?

I’ve only really just gotten into creating my own watch faces and wanted to share how I’m doing it.

1. Head into photos and pick the image you want to use
2. Tap the share sheet icon
3. Tap create watch face
4. Tap which of the two watch faces you want to use

1. Tap add

I’ve created a few different ones that I’m switching in and out of. At the moment you can only add a couple of complications but hopefully in the future we’ll see more options.

I’ve started to use OmniFocus folders as my areas of focus, such as career and financial. Within these I have projects such as podcast and blog. They are building up and seem to stay in the same order they are created in. Well the good news is that you can reorder these.

To do this simply tap on one and hold. You’ll then be able to order them by moving around.

I’d like to see a sort order added to the app, if anyone knows a better way please let me know.

Whilst listening to an episode of Mac Power Users there was a really great tip shared by David when using OmniFocus.

I wanted to post this to help me remember more than anything but hopefully you will find this useful too.

If you are deep down in a project and want to quickly get back to the home you can simply long press the ‘back’ button. This may not say back but it will labelled with whatever the sub division you are in. This doesn’t matter as its always the button in the top left.

This has already saved me a tonne of taps.

I do a lot of repeating tasks and found creating them in OmniFocus a little time consuming. For each task I had to tap ‘show more’ in the inspector and before I could do anything with it.

Thankfully I’ve found a quicker way.

Tap on any task you’ve already created (this won’t work on a new task you’re creating). Tap ‘show more’ then tap ‘customize inspector’. This then let’s you drag and drop the fields you use the most when creating a new task.

I’ve used a few different apps over the years to try to build good habits but in the end they all fall by the wayside. The main reason for this is I’m not seeing or being reminded of them. When switching over to OmniFocus I thought I’d use their tagging system to help me with this.

On discovering I could add a tag to my forecast view I had an idea. If I want to build up habits why don’t I make sure I’m seeing them everyday.

So to this end I created new tasks such as ‘complete exercise rings’ and marked them with my ‘urgent ’ tag. This means that when I see my forecast I’ll always see them. The only downside is that these don’t appear on the Apple Watch app, unless I’ve missed something of course - please let me know if I have.

The task itself is never actually marked as complete so I don’t have it repeating or anything. It’s just a visual reminder to be better.

A useful feature in OmniFocus 3 is the ability to add tags to your tasks. Whilst looking at the forecast view I realised I could customise and show 1 tag along with my calendar and scheduled tasks.

I find this useful when I have something I’d like to get done but don’t necessarily want to add a hard due date and time. I created an urgent tag that I use for this.

So the image above shows what tasks have been flagged as urgent for me, basically anything I want to be reminded of daily.

To do this simply go to the forecast view, tap on the eye symbol.

You’ll then see an option for tag, simply tap this and chose your tag.

Not sure why it’s taken me so long to spot this one but I’ve found a way to move quickly through email.

If you tap on a mail to view then want to move to the next without going back to the inbox use these arrows in the top right to move between mails.

Another video from me about what’s on my iPhone.

Head over to YouTube.

Thought I would started to do some video to highlight how to’s. Gives me practice and also sometimes it’s easier just to show than write it down.

Head over to YouTube.

If you’ve picked up an updated Apple Watch this time around you’ll want to unpair your old one.

1. Watch app
2. Tap on your watch
3. Tap 'i'
4. Tap unpair

This post might seem a little strange but bear with me. I’ve always been a fan of that aged patina leather look, be it on a belt or jacket ala Indiana Jones. I’d seen a few leather cases in the wild that had aged gracefully and in my opinion looked pretty cool. The problem I had was the saddle brown case from Apple is pretty slippery. They have a wax coating that made it almost impossible for me to use day to day.

So, I set off on a quest to artificially age my case to make it look cool but also be able to be used without slipping out of my hand.

Here’s how I did it on a saddle brown iPhone XS case.

You will need:

• Very light grit sandpaper
• Some oil, I used coco butter but you can also use something like olive oil or coconut oil Here's what I used.
• Some paper towel
• Patience...

Here’s your starting point:

As you can see very light colour and a waxy slippery finish.

First step is to take your sandpaper and get rid of some of the wax finish. I had a think about where the finish would darken over time and very lightly scratched the surface. Don’t go too deep, don’t worry about the front edges and make sure you avoid the metal buttons.

As you can see from the image above I’ve tried my best to think about where it will pick up wear and tear in natural use.

Now I have removed some of the finish I can add some colour. Take a paper towel and apply some of the oil to it. Now simply rub it into the case. Make sure you do your best to evenly coat it. Just one coat will do.

Now you need to get it to dry. I put it in my airing cupboard but you can leave it out to dry naturally. I wanted to use it quickly so let it dry next to our boiler.

After. Few hours I had a case that is now grippy, looks cool and was created by me. It’s nice to have something individual to me. I’ve never been a fan of cases but using something I helped create and is unique makes it stand out from all of the other iPhones in the wild.

Let me know how your projects go.

I might be late to the party but when I sold my iPhone X back to Apple I didn’t realise that I could get a refund on the remaining Apple Care +. On checking in store I was told that my Apple Care was taken into account when I get a valuation, this is incorrect. If you have anything left on Apple Care + and you’ve sold the iPhone you can get a partial refund. Apple take into account the amount of months you’ve used and any claims.

I called Apple on 0800 107 6285 and stated I needed Apple Care support.

When I spoke to the advisor I gave the serial number and Apple Care + agreement number.

Once calculated and given your account number you’ll see the money within 15 days.

Stage 1, I’ll post a full how to but scary sanding bit done tonight.

It seems extreme but I’ve found that not only does it save me a lot of battery when I’m out and about but offers a less distracting iPhone experience.

I’d recommend at least trying it.

Here’s how.

I’ve written up a few posts on how I’ve been trying to use my device less over the last few months including switching it to black and white to reduce the attractiveness of the home screen. Whilst browsing Micro,blog I came across this post by Megan Morrone about how she is also pairing down things to help reduce the time spent on devices.

Some great tips here.

If like me you bought a larger capacity device to be able to store most of your music locally you’ll want to see how to view just this music.

Within the Music app simply tap on ‘downloaded music’, this takes you to a copy of the main menu but just shows the music you have on your device.

Whilst trying to do a how to and find an image app to combine screenshots it hit me - this is why we have shortcuts.

Using Rosemary Orchard’s amazing Day One shortcut here as a foundation I managed to create my first shortcut.

This takes images from today, allows you to select and creates a side by side image of them that can be used in how to’s.

Here’s the link

Here’s a sample:

One thing I’ve really come to like in Todoist is the ability to favourite a label and have it available as a shortcut straight under your inbox.

Here’s how

• Go to the labels you have created
• Swipe and then edit
• Tap Favourite

Since moving to the iPhone XS I’ve been seeing the low power warning pretty much every day. It was way worse than my X. I’m glad to report I’m getting through a day again, all by turning off screen time.

(How to: go to Settings, screen time, turn off screen time).

This has made a difference to my day to day experience and I feel the XS is back on par with my previous X.

If you’re having battery issues on iOS 12 try doing this setting change and turning off screen time.

Let me know how you get on.

After getting my series 4 the first thing that started to bug me (just a little) was Siri going off unintended. Turns out I moved my arm up and raise to wake went off, here’s how to turn it off.

On your Apple Watch go to Settings, then General, then SIRI.

As you can in the screenshot you can simply swipe to turn off ‘Raise To Speak’.

Wandering down the street greeting passers by is great in Spider-Man and one of the little details that makes this game so great.

When walking simply press square and you’ll pull off one of 5 different greetings.

Nightshift is a feature in iOS that allows you to have a warmer display. It cuts out the blue and should help with eye fatigue and sleep patterns. I’m going to test having it on all of the time, I actually quite like a warmer display anyways. I’ll report back on how I get on.

• Head into settings
• Then 'display & brightness'
• Then 'night shift'

Copy these settings

As part of watchOS 5 we get a new feature that can stop us from forgetting to end our workouts. If your watch detects you have have stopped moving it’ll ask you if you have finished a workout. Sounds great but in reality I’ve found it annoying. I quite often set an outdoor work if we go on a family day out somewhere. These walks quite often involve stopping to have a drink or look at something. I found that the workout app would ask me way too often.

There’s good news, you can disable this feature.

Go to the watch app, then workout, then disable ‘end workout reminder’.

Even if you set a passcode on your iPhone you maybe less secure than you might think. Buried under FaceID security settings you can tweak what is available on your lock screen when locked. I’ve included the above screen shot that shows how mine is locked down so that even if I lose my phone I’ve done all I can to secure it.

Head over to Settings then FaceID & Passcode. Scroll down and you will see the settings above. If you copy mine then it’ll be locked down.

Control Centre is really handy for getting to those settings that require a bit of drilling down quickly. I use it mainly for enabling low power mode or greyscale. Here’s how I customise it.

Head over to settings and tap control centre. From here tap customise controls. You can now add and remove items in your control centre as you see fit.

I’ve got two main tips that I use to get more battery life out of my iPhone on long day trips away from a power socket.

Low battery mode

This is a great feature even when you have a fully charged battery. Head to settings, battery and toggle on Low Power Mode.

My next tip is a bit more drastic but works wonders.

Enable display accommodations

By enable black and white mode you can stretch your iPhone battery even further.

Head over to settings, general, accessibility, display accommodations, colour filters. Turn this toggle on and use greyscale.

I deleted my Instagram account a while ago but in the last couple of months I missed seeing some of the design accounts I followed. My username became available again so I signed up again.

It took a couple of months but I decided to remove my account again. I don’t want to feed facebook data, the search screen is full of inappropriate content and I was getting no value from seeing ads upon ads.

Luckily Instagram has an easy link you can use to do this - here you go.

Bye bye Mojave beta I need a reliable production machine for podcasting.

Hold Option + Command + R and press the power button on your Mac. Hold down until you see the image above.

If you’ve moved to iOS 12 beta and want to go back here’s how to do that on iOS 11.

1. Turn off your iPhone X (hold down power and volume up for a few seconds)
2. You'll need a Mac so fire up iTunes
3. Grab your lightning cable
4. Plug it into your iPhone whilst holding down power (right side button) and volume down at the same time
5. Click restore

Once your Mac has downloaded iOS 11.4 it’ll start to restore your iPhone.

Here’s a little video on iPad changes for iOS 12 over on my YouTube channel.

I’ve done a little how to over on my YouTube channel.

I’m selling a load of old gadgets and the first thing I had to do was reset my Sonos Play 1.

Here’s how to reset

1. Turn off your Sonos at the wall
2. Hold down Play/Pause and Volume Up
3. Turn on your Sonos at the wall
4. Keep holding down until you see a red and white flashing light
5. Let go of the buttons
6. Wait until you see the light change to a flashing green and white light

It’s now reset.

I’m a fan of making tech my own, be it via a case or sticking decals on them. I know some people are horrified by this but for me it adds some personality. Everyone’s iPhone’s just looks the same.

I spent a few quid (see link below) on Amazon and grabbed this Infinity War set. In the package you get a total of 34 decals that you can stick anywhere you want.

They are clear backed so only the image is visible on your device and are easily taken off.

I was originally after a Cap shield but at this price you may as well get the entire infinity war set.

So, you’re either going to love or hate personalising your stuff this way but for me I love it.

Link: Marvel Avengers Infinity War Gadget Decals Re-Usable Waterproof Stickers, Vinyl, Multi-Colour, 21 x 15 x 1 cm

I’ve been using a lot of default Apple apps in a bid to simplify both my workflows and data. In this day and age it’s good to have your data in just a few places and I’m starting to delete third party apps that hold my data (more on this in a later post).

Here’s how I add lined paper to the Notes app on iOS.

[gallery ids=“311,312,313” type=“rectangular”]

1. Open up Notes
2. Create a new note
3. Tap on the Share icon (see first image above)
4. Tap 'Lines & Grids'
5. Choose the grid pattern that you want

In light of the recent data breach I’m taking the same approach as to anything with my data - lose it and you lose my business.

Here’s how to delete your My Fitness Pal account:

1. Go to [www.myfitnesspal.com](https://www.myfitnesspal.com/)

2. Log in

3. Click on ‘Settings’ (at the top of the page)

4. Click on ‘Delete Account’

5. Click on ‘Delete My Account’

You will now have a message saying ‘Account Deleted’.

I’m having a bit of a tech clear out and was faced with a second generation Apple TV that I didn’t have a remote for. I couldn’t get the Siri remote to work so was a bit stuck.

On looking at the back of the unit I realised that it had a mini USB port. I took it to my iMac, plugged in a usb cable and iTunes recognised it. It then gave me an option to factory reset.

With any Apple purchase I have to have that internal dialogue of “Do I really need Apple Care +?”. On something like an iPad Pro or iPhone X the answer is an obvious YES but on a device that lives at home what should you do?

I chose YES and I feel that if like me you fit this criteria then it’ll be a yes also

• Do you intend to move it around your home?, I'll be moving it between my office and kitchen
• Do you have kids?
• Do you have pets?

If you answer yes to any of these then I feel that Apple Care + is a must buy. Especially when Apple are charging over £250 for a replacement.