9 Things to Love About iOS 9

9: A New Font

From Helvetica to the new San Francisco, Apple has introduced a new font to their products and to the font market.  As always, Apple knows how to please their users; this time with a soothing & well-curved font!

8: Photo Search

With an increased functionality search on photos, you can now search by location orrrrr date. I do wish there were a way to add tags to photos though so that I could just search based on tags that I set as well.

7: Siri Nearby

There’s an new addition to the search page on the home screen (the leftmost page on your home screen that you didn’t create): the nearby list!

Even though it’s just a convenience thing, but now Siri will tell you quickly what location options are near you. Of course, we’re talking about Apple here so their four options that’d they present you with are somehow dependent on what time of day it is and maybe even where you’ve just been. Slightly creepy…but mostly helpful.

Side note: I would prefer there be a way to switch the default mapping app to whatever you want (*cough*Google Maps*cough*) instead of defaulting to Apple Maps…which we all know is SUCH a winner.

6: AutoFill Password

So I noticed this pretty cool, but totally random feature that pops up when you go to create a new account for something.  I believe it’s based on the passwords that you have saved in your iCloud Keychain, but when the system asks you to select a password, an autofill password option shows and lets you select passwords that you use for other sites.

 

5: Split Screen

Unfortunately, this update is only really applicable to iPad users….but let’s be real. iPhones don’t exactly have the screen real estate for this luxury.

Now with this OS upgrade, iPad users can split their screens to multitask. However, I’d advise you not get too excited about this, considering that it’s just a temporary overlay of your second app. You can’t actually have both open consistently and use both. Baby steps though, I guess. Maybe iOS 10 will enhance the “multitasking” feature to actually allow multitasking.

It’s also currently limited to a selection of stock apps, which isn’t ideal.  But as I said, there will always be another update!

4: The Scheduled Reminders

There’s now a new, automatically generated list in the Reminders app.  With this Scheduled list, the OS takes all the reminders that have due dates on them, consolidates them to one list, and organizes it by date.  This way, if you use different lists as a categorization, but still utilize the due dates, you won’t have to go through each list to see if something is due today.

Honestly, I use the scheduled reminders for my bill paying: gotta keep dat credit score high (especially if I want to keep shopping) 🙂

3: Siri Suggestions

As of iOS 8, Siri started displaying the last four people you had contacted as a quick contact sort of thing when you would double-click the home button (shown with the app switcher).

Now with iOS 9, Siri made this more available by adding it to the search screen off the home page. By default it will show the last four people, but you can click Show More to extend the list to 8. In addition to showing contacts, it also shows the last four (or eight) apps that you’ve opens. In my opinion, that’s super helpful…way better than using the app-switcher.

And, as you can see, just like in the previous iOS, you can click on a contact to choose what to do: call, text, or see details.

2: Back to Previous App

Ok–definitely a huge, huge improvement that’s immediately noticeable is the Back to Previous App addition. So now if you get a notification while you’re in app A and you tap it to go to app B, you’ll have an option in the top left corner to go back to app A. Massively helpful and convenient feature.

So, when I click on a link in my email (I use the Inbox app), it’ll open in Google Chrome, but that little arrow and button pops up on the top-left and gives me the option to return back to Inbox.

1: Battery Life

Best thing about the new iOS 9 is the battery life hands down. It’s a significant improvement that is obvious from the first use.

Seriously, the first day that I downloaded this, I was concerned because I thought there was a bug that wasn’t displaying my remaining battery percentage correctly….turns out it was just the better battery.

And all of these improvements make me a happy iUser 🙂

So, download the new iOS and enjoy all these new features that I’ve been enjoying!

Say Hello to Trello

What Is It

In one word? Amazing. It’s one of the best management, organizational tools that I’ve ever used.  And trust me, I’m a big fan of organization (everything except my apartment, so I should probably limit my expertise to virtual organization).  What started off as something that was introduced to me at work as a task management tool slowly creeped its way into my personal life. I know, I know—they always tell you to keep your professional and your personal life separate. I guess I’m just the type of person to mix it up and live life on the edge.

A Brief Trelloview

The best thing about Trello is that you can organize your organized lists. It’s brilliant. You have your home page, with lots of boards.  And then each board has multiple lists, and then each list has multiple cards.

So I have a few boards for different things at work, and then a board for my personal things.

As you can see, I made the personal one with a pretty background instead of the boring work ones.

In each board I have multiple lists:

I keep track of things like, my shopping list, things I need to get done, recipes that I want to make-eat-blog, etc.

And then there are cards.  Each card has a title, description, comments, links, due dates, and you can prioritize each card using labels (clearly I categorized the recipes based on how awesome it tasted when/if I made it).  You can create sublists in the card as well, for situations where you need a checklist….inside a card, inside a list, on a board. 😀 I also think the comments are super helpful in my work boards, considering you can tag people and address them directly, and they’ll get notifications for them so they can follow-up with you.

Speaking of tagging people, you can also share your boards with other Trelloians by adding them as Members of the card.  That way they’ll get notified regarding any changes on that card.  It really helps with coordination among, say, your team at work! Or, if you have any roommates that you want to share the shopping list with or divide up chores. See? A cornucopia of options!

The Cornucopia of Options

There are absolutely, so so many ways you can utilize Trello.  Some of them I’ve already mentioned throughout this post, but since I’m SO nice, I’ll add them to this list anyways.

1. Shopping lists – archive things when you buy them, and share the list with your roommate or something
2. To do tasks – good use of the due date! (And if you use Sunrise calendar like I do, you can integrate it with your calendar)
3. Chores – Sharing is caring. Plus no one like to ALWAYS take the trash out. Use Trello to remind people whose turn it is.
4. Process flow – I have an entire board for a process we do at work, and each list is a part of our “grading” process. So when someone completes one part of it, they click and drag it over to the next list in line.  It’s a good way to see where in a process something is to not duplicate effort.
   
5. Trip planning – you have a board for a vacation! Add a list for all the relevant things: packing list, places you want to go (link them up to their websites!), hotels on where you need to stay, keep track of reservations and tickets with those due dates
6. “Sprint” planning – or any type of task managing, really. One cool power-up that you can enable for this is Card Aging.  So if you have a task (and all those little subtasks in those lists), it fades away based on inactivity.  Also good for teamwork if you want to vote on something; voting is another one of their power-ups.

That’s all I have so far, but I’m sure that all my creative readers will contribute and add to the cornucopia via the comments section 😉

The App

This entire time I’ve been giving you screenshots of the web app and browsing through all those options, but since I am the mobile queen, I feel obligated to tell you about their amazing app, available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, and apparently Kindle Fire too (go Trello!).

Other than their high platform compatibility, I don’t really have that much to say except for 2 things:

1. They’ve managed to encompass all of their features very beautifully into their app. It’s perfectly flawless….almost like Beyoncé. I guess that’s what I should expect from a TechCrunch startup though.
2. My favorite part about this app is that when you’re on a list, you click and drag to the top of the screen to archive a task. I love it. I don’t know why; I have no explanation, but I love it.

……..Sidenote: I may have to reconsider how easy it is for an app to impress me…..

So now that you know all about it, say hello to Trello and welcome it into your life 🙂

www.trello.com