iOS 8: TidBITS Answers Your Questions
iOS 8 is here, and the TidBITS staff has banded together to answer your burning questions. Before you dive into installing iOS 8, though, be sure to read our warning articles: “iOS 8 Users: Do Not Upgrade to iCloud Drive” (16 September 2014) and “Turn Off Automatic iOS App Updates” (16 September 2014).
Our complete guide to iOS — Managing Editor Josh Centers’s upcoming book, “iOS 8: A Take Control Crash Course” — is still in the works, but anyone who pre-orders it now can download a 9-page preview PDF containing two finished chapters.
In the meantime, though, let’s dive into the questions. If you have more, please ask them in the comments, and we’ll do our best to track down answers for you.
What’s the biggest change in iOS 8?
Unlike iOS 7, iOS 8 doesn’t offer much new in the way of visual panache. (That may or may not be a good thing, depending on your opinion of iOS 7’s look.) But what developers can do in iOS 8 will revolutionize how you use your devices. Imagine being able to save articles to read-it-later service Pocket directly from Safari without any quirky workarounds, or being able to bring up 1Password in Safari, just like you can on a Mac. Not only that, but developers will be able to offer custom widgets for the Today View in Notification Center and custom keyboards that Android users have enjoyed for years, like Fleksy and Swype.
A lot of other major changes in iOS 8 are designed to bring iOS devices and Macs closer together, but those will require OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
Can my device run iOS 8?
If you’re using iOS 7 now, yes, with one exception — the iPhone 4, which had performance issues under iOS 7. iOS 8 works on anything including or later than the iPhone 4s, the fifth-generation iPod touch, and the iPad 2. Older iPhone and iPod touch models, and the original iPad, remain out in the cold.
However, not all features will work on older devices. In particular, Continuity is restricted to the iPhone 5 or later, the fourth-generation iPad or later, and the fifth-generation iPod touch. Plus, the upcoming Apple Pay feature is limited to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch (though the Apple Watch will be reportedly able to use Apple Pay even if it’s paired with an older iOS device — see “Apple Pay Aims to Disrupt Payment Industry,” 9 September 2014).
How large is iOS 8?
iOS 8.0 is a 1.1 GB download, and while user reports vary, we recommend having at least 5.7 GB of storage space available if you want to install directly on the device.
Instead, we recommend installing major updates like this through iTunes, after thoroughly syncing and backing up your device locally first. If you don’t have enough space free on the device, even iTunes will refuse to install the update, but you can always stop syncing music or movies temporarily, do the installation, and reset your media sync settings afterwards.
Is iOS 8 faster or slower than iOS 7? Is battery life any different?
We’ve been running the iOS 8 gold master (which should be equivalent to the shipping version), and performance seems roughly equal to iOS 7, for good or ill.
Battery life is the same or slightly worse, which is typical for iOS updates. As always seems to happen, we expect that some people will experience radically worse battery life after upgrading. Such problems are often resolved by restoring the device from scratch, or by making sure that all apps are upgraded to iOS 8-savvy versions. Luckily, iOS 8 now provides a way to identify battery hogs; go to Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage and look at the apps at the top of the list for both the last 24 hours and the last 4 days.
Should I wait to upgrade to iOS 8?
Obviously, we haven’t waited, and if you’re champing at the bit to check out the new features, there’s likely no actual harm in doing so. However, for most people, we recommend waiting a few days, weeks, or months, for a number of reasons:
- A number of features weren’t working in the iOS 8 gold master (or won’t be complete until the release of OS X Yosemite), including Handoff, iCloud Drive, and AirDrop. Even when Yosemite does become available, certain features will only work if you have a Mac with Bluetooth 4.0 LE.
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iCloud Documents & Data is incompatible with iCloud Drive, and upgrading to iCloud Drive is a one-way street. If you upgrade to iCloud Drive as part of the iOS 8 setup process, you won’t be able to use iCloud syncing with Macs running Mavericks or devices still on iOS 7. For details, see “iOS 8 Users: Do Not Upgrade to iCloud Drive” (16 September 2014)
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Many of iOS 8’s major changes will actually be in how apps operate, and it will take time for developers to take advantage of those features.
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During the beta period, Apple dropped a few promised iOS 8 features, such as SMS relay. We expect they’ll be added back in a forthcoming update, like Siri song identification, which has returned. Apple Pay, which will be exclusive to the new iPhone 6 models and the Apple Watch, will not be available until October.
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With the initial release of any major operating system, there are bound to be unexpected problems that later updates will resolve. Even if you don’t wait that long, it’s better to see what people are saying online before making the jump.
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Even if iOS 8 were to work swimmingly, Apple’s servers will no doubt be slammed on the first few days, which could make the update hard to obtain, and even if you get it installed, many of the new cloud-based services may not work properly until things calm down.
Wait, so when is Yosemite coming out?
Our Magic 8 Ball suggests late October, but past performance doesn’t always predict future behavior.
What’s this Family Sharing feature I keep hearing about?
For far too long, family members have had to jump through hoops or share passwords if they wanted to share apps, music, videos, and books purchased from Apple. Well, that or share a single Apple ID, which brings with it another set of annoyances. Those days are now over. With Family Sharing in iOS 8 and Yosemite, you can share App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store purchases with up to five other people in your immediate family, with all purchases billed to the organizer’s account. Family Sharing also facilitates photo sharing, location sharing, and calendar sharing, plus keeping track of each person’s devices.
Exactly how Family Sharing interacts with the many different ways families have developed for sharing (or not sharing!) data remains to be seen. If you have a setup that you’d like to us to evaluate as we test Family Sharing, let us know in the comments.
What’s new with Notification Center?
Notification Center has two exciting new features:
- Interactive notifications: You can now pull down notification banners to interact with them, without opening the app. For example, you can pull down a Messages notification banner to reply to a message or a Twitter notification to favorite a tweet.
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Today View widgets: Notification Center has had widgets like Stocks and Weather since it first appeared in iOS 5, but now third-party app developers can integrate their own widgets into the Today View of iOS 8’s Notification Center. This can be used in some unexpected ways, so, for instance, the update to PCalc can add its powerful calculator to your Notification Center, making it accessible from anywhere.
We expect Notification Center to be used significantly more in iOS 8 as people trick it out with their favorite widgets.
Is there any easier to way to access frequently used contacts?
We’re glad you asked! The iOS App Switcher (double-press the Home button) now lists your most recent contacts along the top. Tap one to see available communication options.
Is Spotlight any more capable in iOS 8?
Spotlight has been taking lessons from Siri, making it far more useful for searches beyond the contents of your device. Previously, Spotlight would offer to direct a Web or Wikipedia search to Safari, but in iOS 8, it can show you direct links to Wikipedia pages, movie showtimes, nearby locations, and more. The screenshot below shows a Spotlight search for “ninja turtles,” with the results including local showtimes for the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, along with a link to the associated Wikipedia entry.
How about Siri? Any new tricks there?
Siri, as well as voice dictation, now displays your words as you say them, so you’re not left guessing what Siri thinks you said while Apple’s servers do the transcription. In our testing, Siri seems to work noticeably better as well; some of us had largely given up on Siri in iOS 7. But perhaps the most interesting new trick is Hey Siri, which lets you activate Siri hands free while the device is charging. Just say, “Hey Siri” to get her attention.
Luckily, you can turn this off, since it’s custom made for pranksters to control your iPhone.
Siri can also work with Shazam to identify what song is currently playing in your environment. Just ask Siri to “Identify that song” or “Name that tune.”
Didn’t Apple say it would be easier to type in iOS 8?
Besides the aforementioned improvement to dictation, Apple is offering a couple of huge improvements to typing in iOS 8.
- QuickType: Say goodbye to AutoCorrect frustrations. As in Android, the new QuickType bar above the top keyboard row offers word suggestions as you type. Tap one to insert it. The leftmost suggestion is usually exactly what you typed, so you can tap it to bypass automatic corrections.
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Third-party Keyboards: Borrowing another page from Android’s playbook, Apple is now allowing developers to create alternative keyboards. Popular Android keyboards like Fleksy (the real deal, not the limited version for iOS 7), Swype, and SwiftKey are available now, but that’s not all. Smile has developed a special TextExpander snippet-expanding keyboard for iOS 8, and the forthcoming PopKey keyboard will let you type with animated GIFs. It’ll be fun to see what iOS developers come up with!
You manage these keyboards in Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards; note that some keyboards may ask for “Full Access,” which could enable the keyboard developer to record everything you type with that keyboard. Install keyboards only from companies you trust, and remember that Apple is theoretically vetting all apps that install custom keyboards. To cycle through your installed keyboards, tap the globe icon in the lower left corner of the keyboard; some third-party keyboards may replace that icon with another image (Smile’s TextExpander keyboard uses the Smile icon).
Are there any new apps in iOS 8?
You bet: Health, Tips, Podcasts, and iBooks. If those last two sound familiar, they should, since they’re not new, but are now bundled apps that cannot be deleted.
- Health: The much-touted Health app aggregates biometric information from fitness-tracking apps and devices (like the Apple Watch), and Apple has hinted that the data could be used by your doctor in the future. It also offers the option of establishing an emergency Medical ID that can be accessed by emergency workers even when your device is locked. However, Apple has delayed the HealthKit developer tool due to a bug, so Health-compatible apps have yet to arrive.
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Tips: The new Tips app is a helpful starting place for new users, or anyone who’s curious as to what’s new in iOS 8. It offers a number of helpful tips to get the most out of iOS.
Health could be game-changing, but Tips seems like the sort of app you’ll look at once and then file away with other pre-installed apps that you can’t delete.
What’s new in Messages?
iOS 8 introduces two new ways to communicate in Messages: voice messages and video messages. To the right of the text input box is a new microphone icon. Tap it, record a voice message, and tap the arrow to send it. Video messages are similar, except you hold the camera button down. You can also press and hold the camera button to take a selfie and send it automatically (be careful with that one!). Voice and video messages can be played in older versions of Messages, so you don’t need to worry about recipients running iOS 8 or Yosemite.
Messages has also improved the way you attach images. When you tap the camera icon, it displays your most recent photos instead of making you trudge over to your photo library to select one.
That’s cool, but can the new Messages help with all those “Where are you?” messages?
You can now send someone your location in Messages, as well as view the locations of others. Tap the Details link in any conversation. For most people, this feature renders the Find My Friends app obsolete (you’ll need a new version of Find My Friends if you want to keep using it in iOS 8). Family Sharing will also allow family members to share locations easily, but members can choose to opt out.
Are group messages finally manageable?
Yes! You can now add people to a conversation, leave a conversation, rename a conversation, or even disable notifications for a conversation. Again, tap the Details link to access these options. With iOS 8, Messages at last becomes a full-featured chat client.
Renaming a conversation is particularly important for those of us who have accidentally sent a message to a group rather than to the person who’s listed first in the group. Talk about a privacy hole the size of a truck! To do so, in the Details screen, pull down to reveal the name field.
What about Safari? Has Apple changed much there?
Oh yeah. Thanks to Extensibility, Safari gains full-fledged browser extensions, just like on the desktop. For example, in the new version of 1Password, you can bring up your vault from within Safari to log in to your favorite Web sites (and even unlock it with Touch ID!).
Another feature that may interest TidBITS readers is the addition of RSS feeds to Shared Links, which effectively turns Safari into an RSS reader.
Other miscellaneous Safari features include adding credit card data with the camera, the addition of the DuckDuckGo search engine (see “Search in Private with DuckDuckGo,” 20 August 2014), and separate private tabs.
Has Mail improved?
Mail has a few nice additions in iOS 8. You can now dock the compose pane (or multiple compose panes) to the bottom of the screen so you can open and refer to other email messages without having to close your draft. Also new are swipe gestures, which let you quickly perform actions on email; these also work on the Lock screen. Finally, notifications can be enabled for individual email threads.
Anything new with Photos?
iCloud Photo Library is a promising new way to store and sync photos and videos in the cloud. You can choose to keep your original photos on your device, or if you want to save space locally, you can opt to keep only small previews on your device and store the originals in iCloud. (We strongly recommend that all our celebrity readers set up two-factor authentication to protect your nude selfies on iCloud.) iCloud Photo Library promises to keep your entire photo collection synced and available on all of your devices running iOS 8, but there won’t be a connection with the Mac until the Mac version of the Photos app debuts in early 2015.
Photos now also includes new editing tools to adjust composition, light, and color. You can also search for photos by location or date. Other minor tweaks include being able to hide and mark photos as favorites, and thanks to Extensibility, you’ll be able to use third-party photo filters directly within the Photos app.
Do note that Photos replaces the old iPhoto for iOS app, which isn’t supported in iOS 8. Apple has instructions on how to migrate your data to Photos.
If you have other questions, please ask them in the comments.
You tossed this off in the piece: "Also new are swipe gestures, which let you quickly perform actions on email; these also work on the Lock screen."
What this means, among other things, is that you can FINALLY trash incoming spam email from the lock screen! That's a tiny thing that's huge for me (when you're a TidBITS staff member, you tend to get cargo-plane loads of trashable PR spam every day).
I hadn't thought of that! I may start using Mail again.
What size is the iOS 8 over-the-air update file?
I have a 16GB 4s, with just a few GBs free. Since we can't prevent the download (without disabling wi-fi-when plugged in) I'd rather not get a nasty storage shortage surprise.
It appears to be 1.1 GB. We've added that to the article now.
I have a 16 GB iPhone 5, and I had to clear some space (I had almost none free) before even iTunes could install iOS 8. So it's definitely worth making sure you have some free space, as I've noted in the article too.
"The iPhone 4 and original iPad remain out in the cold."
I think this could be phrased a bit better. The iPhone 4 was supported by iOS 7, wasn't it?
Good point - we'd forgotten that the iPhone 4 was compatible with iOS 7, since many people had significant performance problems with that combination. I've fixed this in the article.
Bahhhh- I'm bummed that Continuity won't work on my third-gen iPad :-(. Any idea whether the SMS relay feature will suffer the same fate? That would be even more tragic...
Since SMS Relay is a piece of Continuity, I'm afraid so. If it's any consolation, my 2011 MacBook Pro won't support it either.
Harrumph! I expect there's a good technical reason for this, or at least I sure hope there is, but it's disappointing all the same that three year old hardware is already too long in the tooth to get all the goodies (except things like Apple Pay which obviously need the newest chips).
It's a hardware thing. Continuity is built around Bluetooth LE. Unfortunately, USB dongles don't seem to work for Macs.
Well, I'll be! I put 8.0.2 on my third gen iPad and iPhone 5 last night and, lo and behold, was able to make and receive phone calls on the former via the latter. Looks like Continuity features are more backward-compatible than Apple thinks- yahoo!!
What app do you use on the iPad for calls? (Just curious because I was thinking of setting it up.)
No app required, it just opened up the same incoming call screen (with speaker option already activated) as you see on the phone.
And you can make outgoing calls from the iPad through the iPhone from the Contacts app.
Thanks. I see that now with the new Continuity thread. I don't use an iPhone though so it does not apply and stopped reading it.
Can fourth-gen and later iPads make calls or send texts using an attached iPhone to a non-iPhone? Apparently this is not possible with third-gen iPads like mine, though calling/sending to another iPhone remains joyfully do-able.
The meaning of this sentence is unclear to me:
"With Family Sharing in iOS 8 and Yosemite, you can share App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store purchases with up to five other people in your immediate family, with all purchases billed to the organizer’s account."
Does this mean that I can share anything that was billed to my account with family members? (Cool!) Or does turning on this feature mean that anything family members purchase will be billed to my account. (No thank you.)
Yes, Apple is pretty clear that anything purchased by any family member in the group becomes available to any other family member after Family Sharing is turned on.
How things are purchased is still a little unclear, and will require some testing. In theory, all purchases should be billed to the organizer's credit card (attached to that person's Apple ID), which is generally a good thing. And you can set Ask to Buy on children's accounts, so you can approve all purchases (presumably, if that's off, your spouse can purchase without your approval :-)).
What I don't know is if there's a way for a family member to have a different credit card billed for a purchase, or to take the money off a gift card. The gift card approach makes sense to me; the separate credit card a bit less.
My question and judgement on the matter is predicated on a family that uses separate bank accounts. Many of us do that.
Yep, that's why I said only "a bit less" - I'm sure there are plenty of families that have separate finances, but that strikes me as less common than kids (who otherwise wouldn't haven't their own credit cards) being given gift cards as presents.
Testing soon!
One thing to note about the Family Sharing feature is that app developers apparently have the ability to turn off sharing capabilities for their apps (at least I have seen some post-iOS8 updates flagged as not shareable). As far as I can tell, the main advantage of Family Sharing for apps is that you can monitor kids' purchases. Otherwise, the sharing of a separate iTunes store account would be just as functional.
My question is how to handle a family who have all been using Mum's AppleID, and have installed hundred of apps. When they get their own AppleIDs, what will happen to all the apps on their machines? Will it know that the permission to upgrade is transferred to the new kids' IDs?
And what if Mum and Dad buy things on different IDs? Are only Mum's shared (if she's the head honcha?
I'm using Yosemite latest DP build with the new released iOS 8. How can i access iCloud Drive from within iOS, especially the custom folders i tossed in from my Mac?
iCloud Drive doesn't have an app in iOS (yet?) so the only way is within apps that support it.
If you can see on apple website it clearly shows some sort of iCloud app on both iPad and iPhone
https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/icloud-drive/
I don't think that's an iCloud app, but an interface to iCloud from within some other app, such as Pages or Keynote. All Apple says there is "Or start a new document using an iCloud-enabled app on your iOS device."
Great
I'm not clear on what the changes to iCloud photos mean in the near term. If I upgrade to iOS 8 and iCloud Photo Library, does that mean I will no longer be able to access all my iCloud photos via iPhoto.app on my Mac, that I have to wait for the new Photos.app?
Here's one for you. Before iOS 8 my wife and I shared one appleID and shared the same icloud. I then made my own appleID for things like iMessage, Find my Friends, FaceTime, this gave my iPhone and iPad their own identity, and still allows us to share our icloud data. Now, if I use the same icloud account that had all of our data in it, apps like find my friends shows my iPhone and iPad and my wife's iphone and iPad as the same "person". If I turn on family sharing, I can get find my friends to work as expected. But now, I've lost the ability to view my icloud data due to now being a different apple Id/icloud login.. This is extremely frustrating. Is there a way to work around this. I can't be the only one who was sharing icloud data and had devices set up as different "identities"..
I'm going to have to do some testing with this, since I'm in roughly the same situation. I have one Apple ID that I use for all communications and purchasing, and another that I use for all iCloud data sharing. This is largely Apple's fault, since they've never provided a way to merge Apple IDs, and one of them was given more space at first, so that was the one I used for iCloud, even though it's not my primary email address.
What worries me, and what I'll try to figure out (tomorrow - I'm away from the Mac for much of today) is that Family Sharing will need to bring everything on a particular device under a single Apple ID. Or, perhaps it's that Family Sharing lumps services together in different ways than we did, and we need to shuffle our usage to match.
I've played around with is and spent several hrs searching for a solution. There seems to be no way to have both a shared iCloud like we used to have, and use Find my Friends, or for that matter use Family Sharing. I guess once iCloud Drive is publicly released there might be a way to "share" data. Nothing I read about it seems to indicate its possible to share between appleID/iCloud's in a Family Sharing situation.
Maybe Apple needs to hire a good database programmer to teach them how to merge two database files. A recent high school graduate, for example. Or maybe they can contract with one of the many database management companies to do it. Alternately, buy a database software company; there is a little known one called "FileMaker" that could do it. ;-)
There is absolutely NO excuse for Apple not being able to merge Apple IDs.
I also have two Apple IDs: a mac.com address that I use for all iCloud features, and one with my regular email address that I use for all iTunes Store purchases. On my iPhone and iPad, I'm logged into iCloud with the mac.com ID, and I'm logged into the iTunes Store with the other address.
I can not get Family Sharing activated. When I start the process, it is from the mac.com ID, since that's how I'm logged into iCloud, and on the "Share Purchases" screen it automatically fills in the other ID, which makes sense. But when I enter the password, I get a dialog that says "Cannot Complete Action: This action cannot be completed at this time."
I was hoping 8.0.2 would fix this, but no luck. Any suggestions?
sorry, I'm still not totally clear on the size of this thing. Will it take 5.7GB when finally installed on my poor 16GB iPad? ugh!
No. My understanding is that if you're installing directly on an iOS device, it needs a lot of space to move things around during the installation. If you're installing via iTunes, some free space is necessary, but less than 5 GB (mine didn't work when I had 600 MB free, but did when I cleared it to 2.5 GB by unsyncing music temporarily).
thanks, Adam
Just as a data point, my iPhone wanted me to free up about 5GB for the installation when I tried to update over Wi-Fi.
However, once I plugged my iPhone into iTunes, iTunes was able to download the update and install it without my having to delete anything. (I normally do sync my iPhone to that copy of iTunes over Wi-Fi so although it was a little bit of extra fuss to make the cable connection, my copy of iTunes already knew all about my iPhone.)
I have kept iCloud Drive and all the other newfangled stuff off for now, because I need to think carefully about what I need working from iOS 7 and Mavericks so that I can do my job. But, I am ADORING the new QuickType shortcuts for when I type.
Wasn't Preview supposed to be ported to iOS 8? It's not in 8.0.
I don't recall any promises of Preview in iOS 8. iBooks can read PDFs and is now a default app, so that may be what you were thinking of. But I could be forgetting something, if you can point to something on Apple's site.
Not Apple, but observers such as 9to5 Mac.
http://9to5mac.com/2014/03/13/ios-8-apple-works-to-further-push-icloud-as-the-future-of-the-ios-file-system/
Will be be able to add our own buttons to the control screen that pulls up from the bottom. I would like to be able to turn on the VPN there.
No, sorry, that's a commonly requested feature, but there's no way to customize Control Center without jailbreaking your iPhone (and I doubt very much that can be done in iOS 8 now.
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/12/flipcontrolcenter-beta.html
http://ioshacker.com/cydia/supercharge-control-center-awesome-tweaks
I have to say that when I heard the new version of Photos previewed I had high hopes, but upon trying it out I'm disappointed that the App still provides no ability to search by Keyword, or Title, nor any ability to display these pieces of metadata.
I lost all my PDF document titles in ibooks. No way to rename! There doesn't seem to be an edit feature like there used to be. If there were, I could change the numbers back to titles. As it is now all i have is unidentifiable numbers on PDF's. these are PDFs I downloaded from a library data base.
This happened to me too. Have you figured out how to solve this problem?
I upgraded to iCloud drive because it's not so important to me to be synced with my iMac. However, when I go to Pages for iOS, I can replicate what I see in the screenshot: where ages is open and you can see the iCloud Drive window on top of it.
I would like to transfer a lot of my Pages and Numbers documents to iCloud but I don't necessarily want to take up space on my iPad. Their solution like dropbox or Google Drive where I can see the files space on the device?
How do I convert Excel and Word files to Numbers and Pages in the new IOS8 without losing anything? Have done it yet.
Can you do the conversion on the Mac, where it will be quite a bit easier to manage the files?
So, Apple now has Family Share -- way too late. My kids have been in an iPad only school for 4 years now. When they started, I had to lie about their ages to open iTunes accounts for them. Fast forward to iOS 8 and we finally have Family Share where kids under 13 can have an account and I can manage their purchases. However, because of their false birthdays, they are "adults" and I cannot manage/approve these purchases. Someone's head should roll for this kind of screwy implementation. They've made gobs of money selling schools on using iPads in their curricula but not given us appropriate tools to let kids have the access they need. (My kids are in a K-8 school and every child has their own iPad). The worst thing is that now that there is Family Share, I am not allowed to change their birthdays to be correct so either I have to trust my elementary school kids with my credit card or go through the pain of multiple iTunes accounts for each child so that I don't have to re-purchase everything they've bought to date (previously, I managed this with iTunes allowances). For a company dedicated to selling to the education market, they really aren't prepared to play in it. Or, perhaps it's just a way to make more money.....perhaps it's time for a call to the DOJ or, at the very least, my local school board.
It's a mess, for sure, but I think your first call should be to Apple support, to see if they can help you fix the false birthdates.
Wait, you lied about something, and it's Apple's fault? I mean, absolutely Apple didn't implement things well, but you've got to expect consequences from using such an awkward end around.
To be fair, COPPA basically forced parents to lie to give children under 13 accounts on online services. I wrote about this several years ago. The online services didn't provide any workarounds then.
http://tidbits.com/article/12622
After I upgraded to ios8 wifi syncing to itunes still worked. When I upgraded to 10.9.5 wifi syncing stopped working. I'm running the latest itunes so that shouldn't be the problem. I've done a search and others are reporting that wifi syncing between ios8, os 10.9.5 & itunes 11.4 (18) is a problem. Any ideas? Apple didn't seem to know about it when I called Applecare last week.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned problems downloading iOS 8 on Verizon FiOS.
There are many, many entries here,
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r29544596-FIOS-horrible-Apple-download-speeds.
here,
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/All-Apple-updates-time-out-But-through-a-VPN-it-s-fine/td-p/744887/highlight/false
and also on the Apple forums.
One of the fixes that has worked is to change the DNS server that you use. This page has a list of alternative DNS server iPs,
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/a/free-public-dns-servers.htm
I changed the DNS servers in the Actiontec Router. The sign in info is on the label. Go to Main, My Network, Network Connections, click Edit on Broadband Connection, then Settings. Change DNS Server from Automatic to Use the following ... and enter the IP address from the link above.
I first tried Google, then Level3, then OpenDNS Home. The first two had no effect, but with the third, instead of indicating that the download would take 34 hours, it said 8 minutes which turned out to be accurate. I now have iOS 8 on my iPad. Apparently, it is somewhat random which DNS server will work, and some have reported that while one DNS server worked well for one download, it did not work so well later. This has happened to me. When I try to download the iOS update for my iPhone, I am back to (now) a 62 hour estimated download time. I will probably try some more different DNS servers to see if I can get it done, or else just give up and go somewhere tomorrow where Verizon FiOS is not the Internet provider.
Others in the thread above mentioned using a VPN, but I don' have one.
I don't understand why this problem is not in the news, as there must be many, many people with the same problem. I would love it if someone on the Tidbits staff would explain what is going on!
My Mac is OSX 10.6.8 and I have iTunes 11.3.1 and I do not make ANY use of iCloud. Will I have problems upgrading to iTunes 11.4 and then upgrading my iPhone 5 from iOS 7.1.2 to iOS 8? My use of the iPhone is very basic and I make no use of iTunes other than backing up the iPhone and updating one or two apps. I have no use for OSX 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 or 10.10 at this time. Yes, I have vital PowerPC software that I don't want to give up.
Jim, I went from iTunes 10.x to 11.4. I was told to make sure I had a GOOD backup of my iTunes folder; I had 3: Time Machine, CCC, and a copy in a zip archive. However, I'm using Mac OS 10.7.5. I also bought an iPhone 6 because I could not update my 3GS to iOS 8 (I lost my 5 four months ago).
You should be fine, Jim. iTunes 11.4 runs on OS X 10.6.8 and that's all that's really important.
A lot of talk about all the shiny wizz-bang features. Personally, none of that sounds like stuff I've actually had a lot of need for.
What I'd like to know is if iOS 8 is more RELIABLE than its predecessor(s).
So for instance, when iMessage claims a message has been successfully delivered, can I now trust that said message has actually made it to the recipient's device?
There's no way to evaluate that until we've been using it for some time, I'm afraid. And, with iMessage, there are so many moving that there's no way to know if the problem was related to the Messages app, iOS itself, or Apple's servers in the middle.
So how come no mention of glitches? Like my Shortcut Keyboard disappearing? Or the antenna for networking not working on my husbands phone so he has to return it to Apple? I bet there are others out there!
Also, how about telling us how to Uninstall iCloud Drive if we didn't see the article first and installed it.
The main glitch a number of us have seen, but can't necessarily reproduce is the keyboard itself disappearing when you want to type. We've also seen, as per the screenshot above, situations where the keyboard is in landscape and Messages is in portrait.
As far as iCloud Drive goes, you cannot go back. It's not a matter of uninstalling things - the migration to iCloud Drive happens on Apple's iCloud servers and is unrelated to any device.
Current family setup: Husband and I have a single Apple and iTunes account. He uses that account info on his desktop computer as well as his iPhone (5). I have a separate iCloud account for my iPhone (5) and iPad (4). We "invite" each other to Calendar events and show "individually" on FindMyFriends. We share apps (both iOS and desktop) fine from App Store and iTunes. I don't use iCloud much and I don't think he does either (or maybe at all?).
How will iOS change this? It's working okay for us this way. Will we be forced to change our whole setup? I'd like to bump over to iOS 8 but am unwilling to lose our current ease of use...
I think that if you don't turn on Family Sharing everything should continue to work fine.
My wife and I share a similar setup, and it works fine, though we haven't tried Family Sharing yet (she's on iOS 7). We keep separate iCloud accounts, but we both use the same iTunes account, and we share calendars through Google.
Is there any way to mass delete all old email at once? Or are we still stuck with one at a time deletion?
With iOS 8 on an iPad the scrolling behavior seems to have changed. During text entry from the keyboard in app such as Drafts and others, the screen does not scroll up as text is added. Soon, the text being entered is underneath the keyboard, and it's not possible to see what's going on without minimizing the keyboard. This is particularly difficult in landscape mode. I don't recall this problem in any previous iOS releases, and I haven't found a configuration in Settings or in apps to make the entry area scroll to keep the text visible above the keyboard.
Really more of an iPhone question but.
I'm getting a new iPhone 6 plus, arriving Oct 6. It's AT&T and I used my wife's old iPhone 4 which was eligible for an upgrade, my iPhone 5 is a few months shy of that.
The plan is that the new phone will be mine and she will get my old iPhone 5, which is already on iOS 8. Her 4 is running iOS 7 (just checked to make sure). I think I can activate the SIM card which will come with the new phone to her number, and then swap cards between the 5 and 6. But I'm not sure of which sequence of the following will work:
A. Activate the new SIM card
- should this be done in the iPhone 5 or 6 plus?
B. Restore backup of my iPhone 5 to the new iPhone 6 plus
C. Restore backup of her old iPhone 4 to her "new" iPhone 5
And which is the best path for backing up and restoring each of the old phones to the new and "new" phones?
A. iTunes
B. iMazing
C. iCloud.
Dealing with Family Sharing (most iTunes purchases have been on my account and not shared, but she has a few of her own on her account), is a separate conundrum.
Honestly, just go to an AT&T store and have them fix everything up. Our experience doing similar swaps is that even they can't necessarily get it right on the first try, so it's worth being where they can do things like install new SIM cards.
Family Sharing remains a bit of a mystery that we haven't had time to investigate fully yet. I'm guessing it deals badly with people who use multiple Apple IDs.
I agree completely about going to the AT&T store; they have SIMs of the various sizes and can activate them on the spot.
For Family Sharing, I had assumed that it wouldn't handle multiple IDs, and before starting the setup process I was already trying to figure out which ID I should use. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the option to specify a different Apple ID for purchases. It made me think Apple had anticipated this situation.
I'm not sure whether the problem I'm encountering is specific to one of my accounts, whether they're really not supporting this arrangement, or whether it's just a bug.
One thought I've had is to use the mac.com address for both parts when setting up Family Sharing, then try to add my other Apple ID as one of the members of the family. In theory that should let all of the items purchased under that account be shared. The only problem is that future purchases will be under the mac.com ID; I'd prefer to keep them all on the same account, if possible.
The ability to try out new keyboards sounds interesting, but what does this mean "note that some keyboards may ask for “Full Access,” which could enable the keyboard developer to record everything you type with that keyboard"?
Does this mean I'll be installing a keylogger that can be turned on by the developer at will?
Almost certainly not, since Apple vets every app that's submitted to the App Store for such bad behavior, but it's not inconceivable that a developer could slip something past Apple. Since the possibility - however slim - still exists, that's why the dire warnings about Full Access.
Hi! Any news on when the Take Control: iOS 8 Take Control Crash Course will be out? Also, which should I do first, upgrade to Yosemite than iOS8.1 or upgrade to iOS8.1 than Yosemite OR it doesn't matter. As always.. m(_ _)m
We're putting the final polish on it right now, so hopefully later today or tomorrow.
I don't think there's any real order that upgrades should be done in. iOS 8.1 is probably easier, but if you're going to use iCloud Drive, you'll need to upgrade to Yosemite basically at the same time anyway.