Sam Oliver
Consumers new to iOS — as well as novice users or those who do not closely follow Apple updates — have a new learning resource in Apple's new "Tips" app, added to iOS 8 in the mobile operating system's fourth beta.
As its name implies, Tips provides with users short instructions on how to use hidden, or simply less well-known, features in iOS Apple says that new tips will be added every week.
Topics covered in the first round of tips include "Quickly respond to a notification," "Notify me when there's a reply," "Hey, Siri," "Send a spoken message," "Quickly manage your mail," "Be in the shot," and "Come back soon."
Each tip is short, providing a screenshot and a one- to two-sentence explanation of how to use the feature. "Be in the shot," for instance, instructs users thusly:
Use the shutter timer to include yourself in your photos. Frame your shot, tap [the timer button] and the number of seconds, then tap the shutter button. Now jump into the picture!
The Tips app was first outed in screenshots that surfaced in March, though accompanying apps — iOS versions of Preview and TextEdit — have yet to appear. Many believe that if those apps were indeed legitimate, they were likely designed to test the functionality of Apple's new iCloud Drive.
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7 Comments
Great idea, especially not using a paper clip icon that jumps up and down and annoys the hell out of you to accomplish this.
Great idea, my Windows Phone has a choice of a couple of apps that sort of do this in a similar way. We know the paper pamphlet gives you the bare minimum info on essentially turning it on and logging into iCloud, but then the rest is up to the user to already know or discover, any many iPhone users I know don't know about loads of what should be obvious and essential actions, like a double space to insert a full stop and space etc. The user guides on iBooks are usually great, but currently that relies on the user first downloading the iBooks app (I believe this is included by default in 8), then knowing that the guides are available and downloading them. A nice app with notifications for new tips as and when the OS is updated (whether major or minor) could help a lot of people get more from their device.
Yay. Another app you won't be able to uninstall.
I was going to say, “In before the whining from the uneducated about preinstalled apps,” but I guess I’m in after.
Wasn't there a mention about text editing capabilities in notes app? Maybe that's what text edit became.