Looking for a New Email Provider? Try These Services

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If you’re completely happy with your email provider, move on, there’s nothing to see here. But if you’re unhappy with your provider’s reliability, spam filtering, or stability as a business, or if you’re tired of having a 1990s-style address from aol.com or hotmail.com, you can switch. There are innumerable email providers, and many are undoubtedly good at what they do. But we’ve seen these services performing the best over the years. We’ll start with recommendations for business and then look at options for individuals.

Business Accounts

For a business, email is essential. You cannot put up with downtime, lost email, unpredictable spam filters, or any other nonsense. Plus, you need support for custom domains, multiple users, role accounts, two-factor authentication, and an admin console where you can manage it all (or someone can manage it for you). Although there are other providers in this space, the safe choices are Google and Microsoft. (We realize this falls into the category of “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” It’s basically true in this case—email isn’t an area to experiment with unknown quantities.)

  • Google Workspace: Previously known as G Suite, Google Workspace brings together Google’s well-known collaboration tools, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and so on. Pricing starts at $6 per user per month and includes 30 GB of cloud storage per user; $12/user/month increases that to 2 TB. The big win of Google Workspace is that it provides a first-class experience for use within a Web browser. Google also provides iOS apps, and Apple’s Mail apps can access Gmail via IMAP.
  • Microsoft 365: Previously known as Office 365 (what is it with all this renaming?) Microsoft 365 offers Web and mobile versions of the Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) along with hosted email with a 50 GB per user mailbox. 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage space is standard, along with online meetings and video calls using Microsoft Teams. The Basic plan costs only $5/user/month, but to get the desktop versions of the Office apps, you need at least the Standard plan, which runs $12.50/user/month.

The main way to decide between Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 is to examine how focused your business is on core productivity apps. If you’re already relying heavily on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, it makes sense to go with Microsoft. However, if your company is more Web-based or uses a variety of non-Microsoft productivity apps, Google is probably the better option.

Either way, it’s a big decision, and please check with us before making any major moves. Depending on your situation, there may be less obvious reasons to choose one or the other, or even a third option that’s perfect for your situation. Plus, transitioning between providers may require significant work to ensure that you retain all your email archives.

Individual Accounts

For individual users, you want reliability and good spam filtering, and some people might appreciate being able to use a custom domain name. However, most people don’t need support for multiple users, an admin console, or other big-company features. Plus, you probably don’t want to pay much, if anything. Again, tons of companies offer email—many for free—but the ones we recommend are Apple, Google, and Fastmail:

  • iCloud Mail: Nearly every Apple user has an iCloud account associated with their Apple ID, and with it comes iCloud Mail. It’s a fine choice for basic email, making it easy to access your messages on all your Apple devices and even on the Web at iCloud.com. Apple provides 5 GB of storage for free, which might seem like plenty for email, but it’s shared with iCloud Backup, iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, and more, so it’s easy to run out. For more storage, upgrade to iCloud+, which costs $0.99 for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB, and $9.99 for 2 TB. With iCloud+, you also get the option of adding a custom domain name, though it’s a rather involved process. The main thing we don’t like about iCloud Mail is that Apple sometimes goes overboard with spam filtering.
  • Gmail: The most popular email service in the world is Google’s Gmail, with well over 1.5 billion users. Although the default way to access Gmail is through a Web browser on a Mac or the Gmail app on an iPhone or iPad, you can enable IMAP support to access it using Apple’s Mail apps. There’s also a highly regarded new Gmail-specific macOS app in development called Mimestream. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage for free, which is enough to hold most people for quite some time, and more storage is available inexpensively. Gmail’s spam filtering is generally very good, and unlike iCloud, it doesn’t delete any filtered messages without allowing you to see them first.
  • Fastmail: In contrast with iCloud Mail and Gmail, Fastmail isn’t free—it costs $3/user/month for the Basic plan, but that’s limited to just 2 GB of storage, doesn’t support a custom domain, and requires that you ​​use Fastmail Web and mobile apps. For $5/user/month, the Standard plan increases the storage to 30 GB, lets you set up your own custom domain, and provides full IMAP access so you can use Apple’s Mail or any other standard email app. The big reasons to choose Fastmail are the company’s focus on privacy and to support a firm that does nothing but email.

Although switching your personal email isn’t as difficult as changing email providers is for a business, it’s still not something to be undertaken lightly. Contact us if you need advice on which service provider would be best for you and if you need assistance setting up forwards and bringing your old mail over to your new account.

(Featured image by iStock.com/anyaberkut)

The Hidden Controls in the iPhone’s Camera App

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The beauty of the iPhone camera is that it combines the ease of use of a point-and-shoot camera with the image quality of a DSLR. To take a picture, you simply open the Camera app, frame your shot, and tap the shutter button. Simple, but what’s happening behind the scenes is anything but. The iPhone captures multiple images at once, concentrating on variables such as exposure, focus, tone, highlights, shadows, and more. It then merges all that data to produce what it thinks is the best possible image. Impressively, all this computational photography happens in real-time with no perceptible delay. (That said, iOS 15 provides a Prioritize Faster Shooting option in Settings > Camera that adapts—and presumably reduces—the image quality when you rapidly press the shutter multiple times.)

Despite all this automation, Apple still provides numerous manual controls you can employ to take photos the way you want. These controls are hidden, though, so you’re excused if you haven’t noticed them or have been frustrated looking for them. (“Where is that dratted Timer button? It must be here somewhere!”)

First, you have to reveal the controls, which is easy, although you’d never guess how. When you’re in the Camera app, swipe up anywhere on the screen above the shutter button. If you swipe up on the horizontal row of camera mode labels, your swipe can be quite short. However, if you swipe up on the viewfinder image, the Camera app might interpret a short swipe as a tap-and-swipe and display the in-image exposure control instead. On the viewfinder, use a longer, more emphatic swipe ➊. Either way, the camera controls replace the camera modes underneath the viewfinder ➋.

Once you have the controls showing, tap a button to access its options, use a slider or button to adjust the settings ➌, tap the original button to hide the options, and swipe down in the same way you swiped up to hide all the controls. The really confusing bit is that not all the controls may fit on the screen, so if you’re looking for the Timer or Filter buttons on an iPhone 13 Pro, for instance, you may have to swipe left on the controls to bring those buttons into view.

Here’s the full set—note that all except Depth (the rightmost one below) are in Photo mode; some may also appear in other modes. (Not all controls appear on all iPhone models, and the Low Light button, for instance, shows up only in low-light situations.)

Now, let’s look at what the controls make possible:

  • Flash: Use the Flash control to allow the camera to use the flash as needed or force it to be on or off. You can also control the flash in Video and Slo-Mo modes.
  • Low Light: Night mode on some of Apple’s high-end iPhones makes it possible to take better pictures in very low-light situations. With this control, you can set a specific amount of time for Night mode’s exposure. The longer the exposure, the lighter the photo, but the more small movements will cause blur and graininess.
  • Live Photo: Live Photo records 1.5 seconds of video before and after you take a photo, animating the photo slightly. Use this control to set whether the camera takes Live Photos all the time, none of the time, or automatically when it thinks it’s warranted (which is a lot).
  • Photographic Styles: These custom settings—Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Warm, and Cool—let you apply that distinct look to all your photos automatically. Or stick with Standard and apply the look you want afterward by editing.
  • Aspect Ratio: Some iPhones can take photos in multiple aspect ratios. Use this control to choose from the standard 4:3 (below left) ratio, square, and 16:9 (below right). The 16:9 ratio expands the viewfinder to show what it will capture.
  • Exposure: Although automatic exposure control is usually fine (and you can adjust it afterward as well), you can use this control to increase or decrease the exposure manually. It’s also available in Video, Slo-Mo, and Time-Lapse modes.
  • Timer: For a hands-free selfie or a group photo that includes the photographer, use this control to set the timer to 3 or 10 seconds, starting from when you tap the shutter button. The iPhone counts down with both flash bursts and an onscreen number.
  • Filter: The Filter button offers nine options, three each in Vivid, Dramatic, and Mono. You may want to turn one of these on to see its effect while composing the shot. Otherwise, it’s easier to apply them in editing later.
  • Depth: This control is available only in the Portrait and Cinematic modes, where it lets you increase or decrease the depth of field. If you increase the depth of field, the background becomes sharper; if you decrease it, the background gets blurrier.

Apart from Photographic Styles, which automatically remembers your setting from session to session, the Camera app generally resets any changes you make in the next session. That’s usually what you’d want, but if you would prefer to keep a setting until you change it manually, go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings. That screen provides switches that tell the Camera app to preserve specific settings. Pay particular attention to Creative Controls, Exposure Adjustment, Night Mode, and Live Photo—we often make a point of using Preserve Settings with Live Photo so we don’t waste a lot of space unless we actually want to shoot a Live Photo.

In the end, it’s nice that these controls are neither necessary nor cluttering your view most of the time, but they’re extremely useful on occasion. We hope that Apple comes up with a way of hinting at their existence in future versions of iOS.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Darkdiamond67)

Change Your Pointer Color in macOS 12 Monterey

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Some people find it hard to find the mouse pointer at times, particularly on a large screen or when working in Dark Mode or in apps with dark interfaces. You’ve long been able to increase the size of the pointer generally and also zoom it temporarily by shaking it, but in macOS 12 Monterey, Apple now lets you change the color of the pointer. That could be a boon to those who have trouble seeing it otherwise. Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Pointer, click the Pointer Fill Color box, and choose a different color in the color picker. You can also choose a different Pointer Outline Color if that’s helpful. After customizing it, if you decide you prefer the old black-and-white version, click the Reset button.

(Featured image by iStock.com/tahir_duran)

Set Custom Text Sizes on a Per-App Basis in iOS 15

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In previous versions of iOS, you could change the systemwide text size to make all apps—at least those that support Dynamic Type—display text at larger or smaller sizes. (Most people who use this feature want the text larger so it’s easier to read with aging eyes.) In iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, however, Apple lets you adjust the text size on a per-app basis, so you can increase it only for those apps where it really makes a difference for you. First, make sure Text Size is showing in Control Center by going to Settings > Control Center, and if it’s not in Included Controls, tap the green + button for it under More Controls. Then, while in an app where you want bigger text, invoke Control Center, tap the Text Size button, move the vertical slider to the desired setting, and then tap the App Only button so the setting affects only that app, not all apps.

(Featured image by iStock.com/SandraMatic)

Did You Know That Siri on a HomePod Can Control Alarms on Other Devices?

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Siri has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, and we’ve just discovered a new one. Let’s say you set iPhone alarms to wake up and remind you to take medication throughout the day. However, if you don’t have your iPhone handy when those alarms go off, it can be annoying (for both you and others) to find your phone and stop or snooze the alarm. If you have a HomePod, it turns out that you (or someone else) can say, “Hey Siri, snooze the alarm” or “Hey Siri, stop the alarm.” Siri usually asks for confirmation—just reply with “Yes”—and sometimes tells you to continue on the iPhone, but it can be easier than finding the iPhone and stopping the alarm. (And yes, if you’re wearing an Apple Watch, you can stop the alarm from it as well. It’s also possible to set alarms on a HomePod directly, though they’re useful only if you’re guaranteed to be home when they go off.)

(Featured image by iStock.com/Antonio_Diaz)