Let Siri use iCloud to sync its machine learning data across all your Apple devices so you get an improved, uniform Siri experience, regardless of the iPhone, iPad, or Mac you use the voice assistant on.
Safari has a built-in Reading List feature for saving webpages you'd like to revisit later. It's like bookmarks, but with full offline support. That is, any webpage saved in your Reading List prompt Safari to download and cache its text, images, layout and other assets on your device so that it can be read at any time, even without an Internet connection.
And with iCloud syncing, a webpage added to Reading List on one device gets individually cached across all your other devices, too. Caching webpages isn't the smartest idea if you're on a metered cellular plan, especially if you frequently use Reading List on the go.
Thankfully, iOS lets you decide whether or not Reading List items should be downloaded when your iPhone is connected to the Internet through your carrier's cellular data network.
About Safari Reading ListReading List made its debut with the release of OS X Lion and iOS 5 in 2011.
The feature received offline support the following year in OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6. Reading List is unavailable on a device unless Safari syncing is turned on in Settings → iCloud on iOS or in the iCloud preference pane in System Preferences on macOS.
Don't confuse Reading List with Safari's regular bookmarking feature, which simply stores a webpage URL rather than download and cache its full contents, like Reading List does.
Due to the fact that a vast majority of websites take advantage of high-resolution image assets, your offline Reading List cache can eat up a significant amount of on-device storage.
And because Safari syncs your Reading List, bookmarks and other data via iCloud, adding a webpage to Reading List on your iPad prompts your iPhone to download it, and vice versa.
Thankfully, you can revert this behavior with a few taps, here's how.
How to stop Reading List caching via cellularSafari on iPhone and iPad defaults to caching all Reading List items for offline access, whether you're connected to the network via Wi-Fi or through your carrier's cellular data network.
To tell Safari to cache your Reading List items for offline access only when your iPhone or cellular-enable iPad is connected to a Wi-Fi network, do the following:
1) Open Settings on your iPhone or cellular iPad.
2) Tap Safari.
3) Scroll to the bottom of the Safari settings screen, then slide the switch Use Cellular Data underneath the Reading List headline to the OFF position.
This will stop Reading List items from being downloaded through this device's cellular connection. You must do this on every iPhone and cellular iPad using the same Apple ID.
With cellular updates turned off, any webpages you add to your Reading List in the future will still show up in Safari's Reading List menu but they'll only get cached via Wi-Fi.
Deleting offline Reading List cacheTo free up storage space taken up by Safari's offline Reading List cache, go to Settings → General → iCloud & Storage Usage, then tap Manage Storage under the Storage headline.
Find and tap Safari in the list of apps, swipe left over Offline Reading List, then hit Delete.
Wiping the cache clean won’t remove any items from your Reading List in iCloud.
You will still be able to open any webpage from your Reading List like you normally would, but your device will need to be connected to the Internet to display a non-cached item.
And one last tip before we sign off—knowing your Reading List is archived automatically in iCloud, you are actually able to easily restore it from an earlier version at any time.
Need help? Ask iDB!If you like this how-to, pass it along to your support folks and leave a comment below.
Got stuck? Not sure how to do certain things on your Apple device? Let us know via help@iDownloadBlog.com and a future tutorial might provide a solution.
Submit your how-to suggestions via tips@iDownloadBlog.com.
Your iPhone can automatically answer any incoming phone call without you having to move a muscle, and this tutorial shows you how to set that up.
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In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to turn on two-way iCloud sync for the Messages app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac so your texts are synced and updated across all your devices.
Spotify is perhaps one of the largest names in the music-streaming industry, and while Apple Music is indeed catching up, a large number of iPhone users are still using the third-party alternative.
Despite its popularity, many Spotify users aren’t fond of the persistent Behind the Lyrics feature that interrupts your view of the album artwork whenever music is playing.
One of the little things in iOS 11 includes the ability to set up the AirPods double-tap action to skip forwards and backwards between tracks, cancelling the need to invoke Siri to change songs. As iDownloadBlog reader Harshit Yadav has discovered and shared with us, you can also get this next/previous track control functionality to work on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 10, here's how.
First of all, your AirPods must be running the firmware version 3.7.2 or later, which enables you to customize double taps independently for both the earbuds. To find out your AirPods current firmware version, go to Settings → General → About → AirPods on your iPhone.
Your AirPods must be connected to your iPhone to appear there.
TUTORIAL: How to install software updates for your AirPods
To ensure your AirPods have the latest available firmware, put both the earbuds inside their charging case, then close the case and connect it to a charger or a USB port on your computer. Your iPhone must be paired with your AirPods and connected to Wi-Fi in order for the firmware to download and install.
With the 3.7.2 firmware installed on your AirPods, do the following:
1) Connect your AirPods to an iOS device running iOS 11. This is very important that your AirPods be connected to an iOS 11 device. If not, the option to customize Left and Right ear will not appear.
2) Go to Settings → Bluetooth on your iOS 11 device.
3) Tap the “i” next to your AirPods.
4) Tap Left underneath the Double Tap on AirPod heading, then choose Previous Track from the list of double-tap actions for your left earbud.
5) Tap Right underneath the Double Tap on AirPod heading, then choose Next Track from the list of double-tap actions for your right earbud.
6) Close out the Settings app and play some music to verify that double-tapping either AirPod takes you to the next or previous track.
7) You're done.
With your AirPods updated to the firmware version 3.7.2 and the double-tap action set to next/previous track, you can now pair them back to an iOS 10 device and they will continue to work.
It's important to note that attempting to change your AirPods settings on iOS 10 will overwrite any changes made on your iOS 11 device, meaning you'll loose the next/previous track functionality.
Let us know in the comment section below how it went for you.
In this guide, we'll demonstrate how to create a USB install drive from your downloaded macOS High Sierra software update so that you can install it to multiple machines without redownloading, perform clean install, keep a copy safe for troubleshooting purposes and more.
Apple will be live-streaming its WWDC 2017 event, just as they have for the last several years, so the world can tune in and see what’s new in the world of iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and more.
No matter what type of device you’re using the day of the event, you can live-stream the keynote. In this piece, we'll go over all the methods on how for every operating system and platform.
With privacy becoming a hotter topic these days, web users are becoming more and more wary about what they share online. While there are many different steps that can be taken to increase your online privacy, a very simple way to get started is to use a web browser in Private mode.
In this post, you will learn about what Private mode means in Safari, and you will find out how to always open Safari in a private window to make this simple precaution an automatic way of accessing the web on your Mac, your iPhone, or your iPad.
Learn how to prevent the Mac's Mail app from downloading all email attachments locally and taking up a lot of unnecessary space.
Apps designed to use iCloud Drive for syncing data between devices “just work”. On the other hand, those that don’t natively support Apple's secure Two-Factor Authentication system may ask for your Apple ID password to access data stored in your iCloud account.
For instance, Fantastical for Mac may require your Apple ID user name and password to import your iCloud calendars. And what if you'd like to use your iCloud email account in apps like Spark or Airmail, but don't want to expose your Apple ID credentials to the app?
Given that asking for the user's iCloud password poses a dangerous attack vector, Apple now mandates that all native apps use app-specific passwords to access user data stored in iCloud.
The change goes into effect on June 15, 2017.
To ensure worry-free experience, you can use an app-specific password to sign in to an app or service not provided by Apple, without ever typing your Apple ID password.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to create an app-specific password for any native app that wants to access your personal data stored in iCloud, revoke all of your generated passwords one by one or all at once, and more.
About app-specific passwordsSecurity is paramount.
Protecting your Apple ID account against hackers and nefarious users by turning on Apple's older Two-Step Verification system or the modern, more secure Two-Step Verification also entails using app-specific passwords for any web apps, online services and apps that don’t natively support entering verification codes.
TUTORIAL: How to protect your Apple ID with Two-Factor Authentication
App-specific passwords maintain “a high level of security and ensure that your primary Apple ID password won’t be collected or stored by any third-party apps you might use,” notes Apple.
You can have up to 25 active app-specific passwords at any given time. If you need to, you can revoke passwords individually or all at once.
How to generate app-specific passwords1) Sign in to your Apple ID account page at appleid.apple.com/account/home.
2) In the Security section, click Generate Password below App-Specific Passwords.
3) Type a password label into the text field, then click Create to generate a random password. The password label helps distinguish one app-specific password from another.
I'll create an app-specific password for Fantastical and name it “Fantastical for Mac”.
4) Click Done to finish creating the password.
5) Now paste the password into the password field of the app as you would normally.
Again, I'm a Fantastical believer so I'm going to type the generated password into Fantastical.
Using an app-specific password ensures that Fantastical is able to access my iCloud calendar and gives me a piece of mind knowing I don't have to worry about the security of my Apple ID.
As a reminder, you can have up to 25 active app-specific passwords at any given time. Keep in mind that each app-specific password is case-sensitive and only works in one app.
How to revoke app-specific passwordsYou can revoke app-specific passwords individually or all at once. Revoking an app-specific password stops the app from accessing data in your iCloud account.
1) Sign in to your Apple ID account page at appleid.apple.com/account/home.
2) In the Security section, click Edit.
3) In the App Specific Passwords section, click View History.
4) You can now revoke an individual password or all passwords at once:
Revoke individual passwords—To revoke an individual password, click the “x” next to a password you'd like to delete, then click Revoke. Revoke all passwords at once—To revoke all the app-specific passwords you've generated thus far, click Revoke All.“After you revoke a password, the app using that password will be signed out of your account until you generate a new password and sign in again,” notes Apple.
Be sure to generate new app-specific passwords for any apps that don't support entering verification codes because, for the sake of your own security, all of your app-specific passwords are auto-revoked any time you update or reset your primary Apple ID password.
Need help? Ask iDB!If you like this how-to, pass it along to your support folks and leave a comment below.
Got stuck? Not sure how to do certain things on your Apple device? Let us know at help@iDownloadBlog.com and a future tutorial might provide a solution.
Submit your how-to suggestions via tips@iDownloadBlog.com.