Use the iPhone Camera’s Zoom to Avoid Glare, Reflections, and Shadow

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We increasingly need to take photos of documents—vaccination cards, driver licenses, passports, etc.—to submit for online verification. That’s often easier said than done, especially when taking a photo at night under lights that obscure the text with glare and shadows. Similarly, when photographing a screen to document a problem for tech support, it’s often difficult to capture it without a problematic reflection. For a possible solution, back up from the thing you’re photographing and use your iPhone’s zoom feature to enlarge the document or screen. The extra distance often lets you adjust the angle and positioning to prevent glare, shadows, and reflection.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Where to Find Lyrics in Apple’s Music Apps

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It’s often tough to figure out exactly what a singer is saying (which can lead to some amusing mistakes), but for many songs in Apple Music, you can bring up full lyrics in the Music app, regardless of which device you’re using. On the Mac, click the speech balloon button in the upper-right corner to display the lyrics pane on the right side of the window. On an iPhone, tap the playback controls at the bottom of the screen to bring up the Now Playing view, then tap the speech balloon button in the lower-left corner to show lyrics. Music on the iPad is similar to the iPhone, but the speech balloon button is on the right side. With many songs, the lyrics will scroll as the song plays, but with others, you’ll just get a static display. Either way, you’ll know that the ants, my friends, are not blowin’ in the wind.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Chattrawutt)

The Best Characters to Use When Naming Files and Folders

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Back in the early 1980s, DOS filenames couldn’t be more than 8 characters long with a period and a 3-character extension. That was limiting, so when Apple developed the Mac operating system in 1984, it allowed longer names and eliminated the need for an extension, although Mac OS X’s Unix roots meant a return of the filename extension in 2001. Since then, filename restrictions have loosened to the point where it’s easy to think that they no longer exist.

If only that were true! In some ways, the situation has become even cloudier, thanks to additional limitations from file-sharing services like Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box. (Google Drive’s native Web interface reportedly has no naming limitations, but files whose names contain Windows or macOS forbidden characters may not sync via Google Drive’s desktop software.) Plus, people tend to move files between operating systems more than ever before—if you’re sending a file from your Mac to a Windows user through Dropbox, you need to make sure that all three can deal with the filename.

At least length isn’t something that you generally have to think about these days, since both macOS and Windows—and the cloud services—accept filenames up to 255 characters in length. Technically speaking, Windows limits directory paths (the enclosing folder names along with the filename) to 255 characters, but even still, that shouldn’t be difficult to avoid.

What could go wrong if you run afoul of a naming restriction? macOS and Windows may simply not let you type the character—for example, you can’t put a colon in a Mac filename. Putting a period at the start of a Mac or Unix filename will hide the file. Cloud sharing services might rename the file, or you might encounter syncing issues where files don’t appear where they should. Certain characters can also cause trouble when files are used at the command line.

Here are the characters to avoid and the operating systems and services that prohibit them:

  • : (colon): macOS, Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • . (period): macOS (at the start of a name), Dropbox
  • / (forward slash): macOS, Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • \ (backslash): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • < (less than): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • > (greater than): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • ” (double quote): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • | (vertical bar or pipe): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • ? (question mark): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • * (asterisk): Windows, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
  • ^ (caret): Windows (using FAT-formatted drives)

In addition, avoid using special characters like the © (copyright) symbol or emoji 🤷🏽‍♂️  in filenames. They might work locally, but all bets are off if you share the files in any way.

A few other recommendations:

  • Avoid unusual punctuation; in particular, note that OneDrive renames filenames containing:
    • , (comma) to ^J
    • # (number sign) to ^N
    • & (ampersand) to ^O
    • ~ (tilde) to ^F
  • Never start or end file or folder names with a space, and avoid spaces in filenames that will be uploaded to a Web or SFTP server.
  • Avoid putting more than one period in a filename, and don’t put a period after a filename extension.
  • Never assume that names are case sensitive—always make sure that similarly named items differ by more than just case.

If all that seems like a lot to keep in mind, here’s the simple rule that will ensure your filenames will work everywhere:

Name files only with uppercase (A-Z) and lowercase (a-z) letters, digits (0-9), and the hyphen (-) and underscore (_), plus a single period (.) and extension.

(Featured image by iStock.com/cosmin4000 and smartstock)

Business Uses of the Apple TV—Really!

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Many people have an Apple TV in the living room, hooked to a large-screen TV. It’s a great streaming media box for Apple TV+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and a slew of other services. It even supports a bunch of games. Don’t let the Apple TV’s consumer focus fool you, though. It’s also a highly useful device for businesses in two important ways: digital signage and presentation display.

Apple TV for Digital Signage

For businesses that need to post signs, it’s easy to print something out and stick it on the wall. But that can get out of hand quickly, and once you have more than a couple of sheets of paper posted, people won’t read them. And, let’s face it, a piece of paper taped to the wall isn’t exactly eye-catching. Professional-level design and large-format printing can help, but then costs start going up quickly, and print signs aren’t easy to update.

An Apple TV coupled with an inexpensive TV might be a better solution. Conceptually, a digital sign is just one or more graphics displayed on a screen, rotating as necessary—it’s a slideshow. For a one-off solution, you could add some images to Photos and display them as a slideshow or as a screen saver. If you go this route:

  • Make your images 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high, assuming that your Apple TV’s resolution is set to 1080p in Settings > Video & Audio > Resolution. (If not, match whatever you’re using there.)
  • Avoid putting content within 60 pixels of the top and bottom of the screen and within 80 pixels of either side. Content can be difficult to read near the edge, and it may be cropped due to overscanning on older TVs.
  • It’s safest to set up a clean Apple ID for the Apple TV to ensure that Photos contains no personal snapshots.
  • After creating images on your Mac, add them to a shared album in Photos that’s shared with the Apple TV’s dedicated Apple ID.
  • On the Apple TV, open the Photos app, go into Shared, select the album, and start the slideshow or set the album as a screen saver. If Shared doesn’t appear, turn it on in Settings > Users and Accounts > Your Name > Shared Albums.
  • If you use the Set As Screensaver option, you must still configure it in Settings > General > Screen Saver.
  • For either the slideshow or the screen saver, set the theme to Classic for a simple, full-screen display. Make sure Repeat Photos is on (slideshow only), set the Time Per Slide to 20 seconds, and stick with a simple Transition.

For more capabilities when creating and switching among slides, turn to a digital signage app. Searching on the Apple TV’s own App Store will reveal numerous digital signage apps, including DigiBoard TV and ez plus.

If you have multiple Apple TVs running digital signage, such as in a hotel, you’ll want to manage them via an MDM solution like Addigy, Hexnode, Jamf Pro, Kandji, or SimpleMDM (to name just a few that support Apple TV management). Details vary, but it’s important to be able to lock the Apple TV to a single digital signage app that will be the only thing that runs and that automatically launches whenever the Apple TV reboots after updating tvOS or after a power failure. (You can also set this mode via Apple Configurator if you don’t have an MDM solution.)

For industrial-strength digital signage, look to systems like Carousel and Kitcast. They offer significant feature sets but charge $20–$25 per screen per month, making them appropriate mostly in larger business scenarios.

Apple TV for Presentations

The other notable business capability of the Apple TV is displaying presentations on a large-screen TV via AirPlay, which lets you avoid the cabling issues and extra hardware associated with projectors. To enable that, Apple added Conference Room Display mode to tvOS to make it easier for people to connect to the Apple TV via AirPlay.

First, make sure AirPlay is on in Settings > AirPlay and HomeKit. Then, in Settings > AirPlay and HomeKit > Conference Room Display, enable Conference Room Display. Once it’s on, you can:

  • Require a PIN on every use of AirPlay. Enable this setting if you’re concerned about someone sending inappropriate content to the TV.
  • Set a custom message for the onscreen alert that encourages people to use AirPlay whenever the Apple TV is in Conference Room Display mode.
  • Choose a custom photo as the background whenever the Apple TV is in Conference Room Display mode.

From then on, when you turn on the Apple TV, it will open to the Conference Room Display screen and alert. Note that the screen saver plays while in Conference Room Display mode, although the alert may obscure any digital signs you want to display using the screen saver.

AirPlay is the key for sharing screens, displaying Keynote or PowerPoint presentations, or playing videos on an Apple TV in Conference Room Display mode. From a Mac, go to System Preferences > Displays and choose the Apple TV from the Add Display pop-up menu. From an iPhone or iPad, go into Control Center, tap the Screen Mirroring button, and select the Apple TV from the list.

What if someone wants to play a presentation from a Windows PC or share its screen? The solution, though it requires advance setup, is the $17.99 AirParrot, which enables PCs to share screens with Apple TVs.

This is a high-level overview of how you can leverage an Apple TV for digital signage and presentation display—there are lots of details that may be important in your particular situation. If you need help creating an ideal configuration, don’t hesitate to ask us.

(Featured image by iStock.com/necati bahadir bermek)

Copy and Paste between Your Apple Devices with Universal Clipboard

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Everyone is accustomed to using the Copy and Paste commands on the Mac, but fewer people know that you can also copy and paste between your Mac and your iPhone and iPad. Apple calls this feature Universal Clipboard, and it’s so deeply integrated into macOS, iOS, and iPadOS that it can be easy to miss. You won’t find a switch for Universal Clipboard or any other mention of it in System Preferences or Settings.

To use Universal Clipboard, all you have to do is copy some content—a bit of text, an image, a video—on one device, switch to another device, and paste it into an app that can accept the copied content. It’s a great way to move data between your devices. (When going from Mac to Mac, you can also copy and paste entire files in the Finder.)

Or at least there’s no fuss if you have the right settings enabled on all your devices—miss even one of these and Universal Clipboard won’t work. Here are the necessary supporting conditions:

  • Apple ID: Each device must be signed in to iCloud using the same Apple ID. Ensure this is the case in System Preferences > Apple ID on the Mac and in Settings > Your Name on the iPhone and iPad.
  • Bluetooth: Each device must have Bluetooth turned on. On the Mac, look in System Preferences > Bluetooth (or Control Center, or the Bluetooth menu); on an iPhone or iPad, check Settings > Bluetooth (or Control Center).
  • Wi-Fi: Each device must have Wi-Fi turned on and connected to the same Wi-Fi network. It’s unlikely this wouldn’t be the case, but you can verify it in System Preferences > Wi-Fi (or Control Center, or the Wi-Fi menu); on an iPhone or iPad, check Settings > Wi-Fi (or Control Center).
  • Handoff: Each device must have Handoff enabled. Check that on the Mac in System Preferences > General and on an iPhone or iPad in Settings > General > AirPlay & Handoff. There’s almost no reason to disable Handoff, so it should be on.
  • Recent devices: Your devices must be relatively recent—from the last 7–10 years—and running at least macOS 10.12 Sierra or iOS 10. In other words, don’t expect Universal Clipboard to work on some ancient MacBook or iPad.

If those settings are all correct, but Universal Clipboard still isn’t working, restart your devices and verify that they all have Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity when they come back up.

Most of the time, however, Universal Clipboard just works. It normally transfers the data between devices almost instantly, although if you copy a particularly large image or video on one device and switch to another, you may see a progress dialog while it finishes moving the data. In the screenshot below, Universal Clipboard didn’t even have time to calculate the time remaining before it finished pasting a photo.

Remember that Universal Clipboard simply populates each device’s clipboard just as though you had copied from that device. As soon as you copy something else on any device, it immediately replaces whatever came in from Universal Clipboard. Plus, if you copy something but don’t paste it on another device right away, the clipboard on that device may revert to its previous contents after about 2 minutes.

(Featured image by iStock.com/voyata and Sielan)