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HOW TO: Stop Thieves Disabling Your Location Services

Monday May 7 2012 9:50am
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Last week UK journalist Benjamin Cohen spoke about his experiences of being mugged for his iPhone in broad daylight. In his article he describes how, even after activating Find My iPhone, the thief managed to disable location services to avoid being tracked by police.

For those of you unaware, Find My iPhone is a free service provided by Apple that can pinpoint the location of your Apple devices – iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, MacBook or iMac. It achieves this using a combination of GPS and WPS (Wi-fi Positioning System) triangulation (or just WPS for non-GPS equipped devices). The service can also remotely lock or wipe the device. If you own an Apple device and you’re not using Find My iPhone, well, you’re not my friend.

In Cohen’s case, he had activated Find My iPhone. However, the thief was smart: he quickly disabled the location services – effectively stopping Cohen or the police from locating the position of the thief and the handset.

Cohen goes on to describe how to stop a thief (or anyone else, for that matter) from disabling location services. This means that should your device be stolen you’ll always be able to track it as long as the device is powered on.

Although described in the article, I’ll run through the steps here (this applies to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 5 – the process on older versions of iOS may be different):

Open your Settings app

Here you’ll need to to navigate to General and then Restrictions.

Once there, tap Enable Restrictions.

Set a restrictions passcode

The device will ask you to set and confirm a restrictions passcode, if you haven’t already done so. Choose something that’s easy for you to remember, but is different from any other PIN code you may use on the device. You’ll need to enter this code to modify or disable restrictions in the future, so use something you won’t forget.

Disable changes to location services

Scroll down until you find the section called “Allow Changes” and tap Location.

Once here, tap Don’t Allow Changes. This is the setting that prevents anyone from making changes to any location-based settings on the device.

Don’t Get Mugged

You’re done. From this point on do your best not to get done over for your shiny Apple device. If you do, relax in the knowledge that you’ve made it just that little bit harder for the thief to get away undetected.

Remember that this method has a slight drawback: installing a new app that needs or makes use of location services will require you to temporarily disable the restriction before you can grant that app access. It’s a nuisance, yes, but a worthwhile one in the scheme of things. Just remember to reactivate the restrictions once installed!

It’s also important to know that you should report the theft of your SIM-enabled device to your carrier as soon as possible. Until you do so, you’re still responsible for any charges incurred up to that point.

HOW TO: Modify Gmail’s New Interface To Look More Classic

Wednesday November 2 2011 2:22pm
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Sometime over the last 24 hours or so Google began rolling out their new interface to Gmail users. Judging by the comments on Twitter, you either love it or hate it.

Personally, I’m somewhere in between. I like the cleaner look that is being implemented across Google’s pages, but I just don’t think it works for Gmail. My first impression was that the inbox looks cluttered and hinders readability while the thread view makes it harder to work out where one message ends and another starts off.

However, there is a way to go back to the old design whilst retaining the new look – sorta.

Clicking on the settings drop-down menu in the upper right corner gives three layout options:

Comfortable, enabled by default, is the standard new Gmail layout. Compact makes the interface look closer to the classic interface, while Cozy seems to be a mix of the two. Play around and find a setting that you like best.

While it’s probably not the exact look and feel of the classic interface, it’s a nice compromise for those who aren’t exactly pleased with the new design. Of course, it’s still possible to use the classic design for the time being (and it’s even possible to switch between the two at will), but Google will force migration at some point in the future.

HOW TO: Setup Wireless Sync With iTunes

Wednesday October 19 2011 9:06pm
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Another great new feature of iTunes and iOS 5 is the ability to sync devices wirelessly – that is, as long as your computer is turned on, you can sync your iPhone or iPad without actually having to plug it in.

To get this working you’ll have to follow a couple of easy steps:

Step 1

Launch iTunes on your computer and plug in your device.

Step 2

Once the device has been recognised by iTunes, select it in the sidebar, and open the device Summary screen (although it should do this automatically).

Step 3

Scroll down the Summary screen until you reach the Options box. Make sure “Sync with this device over Wi-Fi” is selected, and then hit the “Apply” button.

Step 4

Grab your device and head into Settings -> General -> iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, where the option to “Sync Now” should be available.

Assuming both your computer and device are connected to the same wireless network, you’ll be able to do this whenever you want to sync.

The text on the device suggests that wireless sync will only work when it is plugged into a power source. This isn’t actually the case, it will work; however the sync may not be available if you have insufficient battery power left.

Oh yeah – if you have multiple devices you’ll need to do the above steps for each one. Have fun!

HOW TO: iPhone 4S And iPad Mirroring With Your Apple TV

Saturday October 15 2011 3:52pm
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One of the nifty new features of iOS 5 is mirroring – that is, displaying on your TV exactly what is shown on your iPhone 4S or iPad screen. There aren’t a great many applications I can think of for mirroring, except maybe in a classroom or presentation situation, but it might be fun to play some games on a big screen.

To use mirroring, you’ll need an Apple TV running the latest version of the firmware (v4.4), and you’ll need to upgrade to iOS 5 on your device if you haven’t already done so. The Apple TV will inform of you an update if there’s one available when you turn it on, and it will probably take about 10 minutes or so to complete.

Here’s how to do it:

First up, make sure that both the Apple TV and the device are connected to the same wireless network.

When you’re ready to start mirroring, double-tap the home button on your device, bringing up your multitasking bar. Swipe to the right until the iPod controls appear:

Tap on the “Airplay” button (the square with the arrow pointing upwards), and select “Apple TV” (or whatever it’s been named). An option to mirror will appear underneath, and you should slide this to “On”.

That’s it! If the device has already been authorised to use the Apple TV, you’ll see the screen contents of your device on the television. If not, just enter the AirPlay password and off you go.

If you don’t have an Apple TV and still want to mirror your device, you can buy a HDMI adapter from Apple. It’s $45, but the upside is you can mirror your iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 4th gen as well.

HOW TO: Place Newsstand In A Folder Using iOS 5

Friday October 14 2011 9:28pm
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One of the most annoying things about Apple’s iOS is the inability to delete unwanted default apps, such as Stocks, Weather and Notes. In the past it’s been a case of placing them on the last page of Springboard, or more recently in a folder of their own if using iOS 4.

With the recent release of iOS 5 many people have been complaining about not only the inability to delete Newsstand, but also being unable to place it in a folder out of the way (this is because Newsstand acts as a folder in it’s own right, and one can’t have folders within folders).

However, for those who REALLY want to move it out of sight, there is a trick to placing it into a folder. Here’s how:

Step 1

Back up your iPhone and/or iPad. This process is extremely unlikely to do to any unrecoverable damage to your device (nor burn down your house or kill your extended family), but backing is a good idea anyway. You should be performing regular backups anyway.

Step 2

On a Springboard screen (the home screen where all of your apps sit), place two apps (preferably two you don’t want, like the ones mentioned earlier) next to each other, adjacent to the Newsstand folder. You can move apps around by holding down on one until they jiggle, then by dragging with your finger. You can add any other unwanted apps to the folder later.

Step 3

Create a folder by dragging those one of those two unwanted apps on top of the other.

Step 4

This is where you have to be quick!

Drag the Newsstand app into the folder you’ve just created. Newsstand will then be relegated to that folder, well out of the way.

If you’re too slow, just drag all the apps out and start again.

Step 5

Sit back with a nice coffee in the knowledge that you’ve beaten the system – until Apple release an update patching it.

STUFF TO REMEMBER: Attempting to launch Newsstand while it is placed in a folder will result in the device crashing. The phone will relaunch after a short wait. If you find that, for whatever reason, you actually want to use Newsstand, you can just open up the folder you placed it in and drag it out.

Pretty simple!