Edward C. Baig

Article / Updated 10-29-2021

You know that frustrating, annoying, sometimes panicked feeling you get when your Mac isn’t doing what you expect? If an application freezes or your computer is generally misbehaving, try these tips to escape with minimal disruption. Use Force Quit when an application is unresponsive. Choose Force Quit from the Apple menu or press Command+Option+Esc keys. Click the name of the deviant application (it probably has not responding next to its name). You typically won’t have to reboot. Restart. If Force Quit doesn’t bail you out, try rebooting the computer. If a frozen Mac prevents you from clicking the Restart command on the Apple menu, hold down the power button for several seconds or press the Control+Command keys and then press the power button. If all else fails, pull the plug, but remember that powering down without logging out should be used only as a last resort. Restart in Safe Mode. Press the power button to turn on your computer, and then press and hold the Shift key the instant you hear the welcome chime. Release Shift when the Apple logo appears. You will see a status bar as the computer boots, after which the words Safe Boot appear in red in the upper right corner of OS X’s login screen. In Safe mode, the Mac unleashes a series of troubleshooting steps designed to return the computer to good health. If Safe Boot resolved the issue, restart the Mac normally the next time.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 09-10-2021

Macs and Windows computers have unique operating systems. They see things differently, and most Mac users would argue that Macs do things better. Macs come equipped with helpful keyboard shortcuts and a short list of procedures to follow if your Mac freezes.

Article / Updated 04-23-2021

If you own Intel-based Macs, you can run OS X and Windows on one machine. In fact, it’s been possible to run Windows on a Mac for some time — with agonizing limitations. Near-extinct Mac models loaded with Virtual PC emulation software could do Windows, too, but the program was painfully slow. Even if you find an old copy of the software, it won’t work with any current Macs. Credit: © iStockphoto.com/BernardaSv Boot Camp software from Apple shook up the computing public on its apocalyptic arrival in April 2006. Boot Camp graduated from beta, or nearly finished, status with the arrival of Leopard. Boot Camp Assistant software is stored in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. Boot Camp itself is free. You have to supply your own single-disc or downloadable full-install version of Windows; an upgrade disc won’t cut it. It’s also important to note that you can use a 64-bit version of Windows, Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Consult Apple support to see which Mac models are compatible with which versions of Windows. In its current incarnation, Boot Camp isn’t compatible with 32-bit versions of Windows. Other requirements follow: An Intel Mac with OS X version 10.6 or later At least 2GB of RAM and 20GB of available space on the Mac’s storage drive that you want to donate to Windows A blank CD or USB storage device that you’ll use for Windows software drivers If you don’t run into snags, the entire installation should take about an hour. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 are optimized for a touchscreen environment, though you can use it with a standard mouse and keyboard. For now, Macs don’t support touchscreen computing. To install Windows 8 via Boot Camp, you still must have a legitimate Windows 8 license from Microsoft and a Win8 installation disc, assuming that you have an optical drive. If you don’t have an optical drive, you may be able to create a Windows installer from an ISO file downloaded from Microsoft on a USB flash drive that’s 8GB or larger. Because snags are possible, back up all your important information on the Mac’s startup disk. Basic training Following are the basic steps to get through Boot Camp: Run Boot Camp Assistant (in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder) to make sure that you have the latest firmware on your computer and to install any support software from Apple that you might need. You’ll find any updates at Apple support. If you’re using a laptop, make sure to connect the power adapter. You will also be given the option to create a Windows 7 (or later version) install disk for which you’ll need a USB flash drive and an ISO image downloaded from Apple. Follow the prompts in Boot Camp Assistant to create a partition for Windows. You’re essentially carving out an area of your hard drive for the Windows operating system. This partition must be at least 30GB and can swell to the total free disk space on hand minus 30GB. If you don’t plan on doing much in Windows, keep the partition small. Drag the divider to set the partitions for both OS X and Windows, or click Divide Equally to make equal partitions. You can’t resize a Windows partition after creating it, though you can replace it with a larger Windows partition. If you have a Mac Pro with more than one internal hard drive, you can select which drive to partition. If any of this makes you nervous, know that you can remove the Windows partition later and go back to a single-partition Mac. Insert the Windows CD or a USB flash drive with the Windows ISO file and then click Start Installation. If you exited Boot Camp Assistant before installing Windows, open it again, choose Start the Windows Installer, and click Continue. When you’re asked to choose the Windows partition, select the partition that says BOOTCAMP. You may have to scroll down to see it. Don’t erase any partitions that you see or create a new partition here. Failure to heed this warning could wipe out your entire Mac OS X startup disk. (Optional) If you see a listing for Drive Options, click it; otherwise, proceed to Step 6. Reformat the partition by using the Windows installer: Click Format. You’re using the reliable and secure NTFS file system, but you won’t be able to save files to Windows from Mac OS X, at least not without a techie workaround. Follow the onscreen instructions to finish installing Windows. Boot Camp 5.1 includes several Mac drivers so that Windows will recognize your trackpad, Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, the iSight (or FaceTime) camera, the Eject key on the Mac keyboard, networking, audio, graphics, and so on. A Boot Camp Control Panel for Windows and an Apple Boot Camp system-tray item will be added. As with any new Windows computer, Microsoft requires that you activate your Windows software within 30 days. Switching operating systems You can go back and forth between OS X and Windows on your Mac, but you can’t run both operating systems simultaneously under Boot Camp. Instead, you have to boot one operating system or the other — thus, the name Boot Camp. Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key until icons for each operating system appear onscreen. Highlight Windows or Macintosh HD, and click the arrow to launch the operating system of choice for this session. If you want OS X or Windows to boot every time, choose app → System Preferences, click Startup Disk, and choose the OS you want to launch by default. You can perform the same function in Windows by clicking the Boot Camp system-tray icon and selecting the Boot Camp Control Panel. Click either the Macintosh HD or Windows icon, depending on your startup preference.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

If you're like most, you might find it helpful to know how to delete and organize apps on your iPhone. How to delete apps on iPhones You may delete many of the Apple apps that came with your iPhone as well as any third-party app you no longer want or need. Here’s how to delete almost any app on your iPhone: Long-press any icon, and then choose Edit Home Screen to start the icons jiggling. Tap the little – (minus sign) in the upper-left corner of the app you want to delete. A dialog appears, informing you that deleting this app also deletes all its data. To remove the app from this device, tap Delete App. If you instead tap Move to App Library, the app will be removed from the home screen and only appear in the App Library. You can download any app you’ve purchased again, for free, from the App Store. So deleting it means only that it's gone from your device. You can always get it back by downloading it again unless, as previously stated, the app is no longer available in the App Store. Just remember that deleting an app from your iPhone this way doesn’t get rid of it permanently. Even then, it’s not really gone forever because you can download purchased apps again for free. And, of course, you can download free apps again for free because, well, they’re free. If you see a warning that deleting the app also deletes any associated data, you may want to save the data before deleting the app. Different apps have different schemes for importing and exporting data; the important thing is that if you create documents with an app (notes, images, videos, and such), deleting the app will delete any files you’ve created with that app unless they’re saved to iCloud or elsewhere. Forewarned is forearmed. If you delete an app and later change your mind and want it back on your iPhone, just tap your-face-in-a-circle in the App Store app and then tap Purchased. Then just tap the little cloud icon to reinstall the app on your iPhone. How to organize apps on iPhones You can have up to 19 Home screens (or pages) of apps. And if you’re like many iPhone users, you’ll soon have a substantial collection of apps on your iPhone. So let’s look at a few ways to organize those apps for easy access. To rearrange apps or create folders on your iPhone, long-press any app or folder and choose Edit Home Screen, which makes the app and folder icons jiggle and dance and little “delete me” minus signs appear on the apps. A folder icon is the same as an app icon when it comes to rearranging icons on-screen. Also, the app or folder you press and hold down to start the jiggling doesn’t have to be the one you want to move — any app or folder will do. To move an app or folder after the jiggling starts, press it, drag it to its new location (other apps on the screen will politely move out of its way to make space for it), and release it. If you move an icon onto another icon and pause for a second, a folder will be created. If you move an icon onto a folder and pause for a second, the folder will open so you can place the icon wherever you like in the folder. Like Home screens, folders can have more than one page; if you see two or more little white dots at the bottom of the folder — one for each additional screen — swipe left to see the next screen or swipe right to see the previous one. To move an app to a different Home screen after the jiggling starts, press the app and drag it all the way to the left or right edge of the screen. The preceding Home screen or next Home screen, respectively, will appear. Keep dragging the app to the left or right edge of each successive Home screen until you reach the screen you want. Then drop the app in its new location on that screen. If the screen already holds 20 apps, the last icon on the page will be pushed to the next Home screen. Be persistent — sometimes it takes a few tries to make the screens switch. All these techniques work with apps on the dock (Phone, Safari, Messages, and Music by default), as well as with apps on Home screens and folders. iOS 14 introduced the ability to add widgets to any Home screen. To do so, long-press an app or folder and choose Edit Home Screen, then tap the + in the upper-left corner of the screen to see the Widget gallery overlay. Tap an item for more info; tap the +Add Widget button to add the widget to the current Home screen. To move the widget to a different Home screen, long-press an app or folder and choose Edit Home Screen and then press and drag the widget left or right to move it to the previous or next Home screen. A few more facts about Home screens. We mention this elsewhere, but in case you missed it: The little dots above the four apps on the dock indicate how many Home screens you have. The black dot denotes the current Home screen; the gray dots represent other Home screens. And last but not least, we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least provide the following reminders. After you have a few screens full of apps and folders, remembering where you put a particular app can be difficult. When that happens, Search can quickly find and launch apps no matter which Home screen they’re on or folder they’re in. Or ask Siri to open the app by name. Finally, take advantage of multitasking by double-tapping the Home button (Touch ID) or swiping upward (Face ID) to quickly switch between recently used apps. There you have it — you now know everything you need to know to find, install, delete, and organize iPhone apps! App Clips App Clips are, according to Apple: A small part of an app experience designed to be discovered the moment it is needed. App Clips are associated with a particular product or business, and load within seconds to complete a specific task, such as renting a scooter, purchasing a coffee, or filling a parking meter. They can be easily discovered and accessed by scanning a new Apple-designed App Clip code, or through NFC tags and QR codes, or shared in Messages or from Safari, all with the security and privacy expected from apps. App Clips, which require an active internet connection, are invoked by pointing your iPhone camera at a QR code, tapping an NFC tag with your iPhone, or tapping a link to an App Clip in Mail, Messages, or Safari. A banner appears describing the App Clip and what it does. Tap the banner and an overlay lets you choose to either use the App Clip immediately or visit the App Store to download the full version of the app. If you choose to use the App Clip right away, it opens and behaves like any other app, allowing you to complete the task without visiting the App Store or downloading an app to your iPhone. When you’re done, exit the App Clip as you exit any app (by pressing the Home button or swiping upward). Note that the App Clip will remain in your multitasking app switcher for a while unless you specifically close it by swiping it upward. App Clips are a convenient way to perform a task that would otherwise require a visit to the App Store. So, keep an eye out for App Clip NFC tags, QR codes, and links — they can save you time and bandwidth.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

If you’ve ever been desperate to find a bathroom in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, or are merely a famished tourist seeking a decent place to eat, you'll surely appreciate the iPhone's new Translate app, which arrived with iOS 14. As of this writing, the app can translate text or voice across a dozen language pairs, even when you're offline: English US and UK, Arabic, Chinese (China mainland), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Tap the microphone icon and speak to have your words translated. Or type text using the keyboard native to the chosen language. Here’s what's neat: That language-specific keyboard will automatically slide up; you need not manually download or select the keyboard. Apple supplies a Favorites area for saved translations. When you select a keyboard in a different language — or English for that matter — you can select different software keyboard layouts (QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTX) and a hardware keyboard layout (if you connect a hardware keyboard via Bluetooth). You can also turn the phone to its side to enter a conversation mode with a split screen showing text from two speakers, as shown in the following figure, left. Or tap a button when you’re in landscape mode to grab a local speaker’s attention, as shown, right. From any view, press the play arrow to hear the translated phrase spoken out loud. It could be a lifesaver when nature calls. A keyboard for all borders Apple continues to expand the iPhone’s global reach by supplying international keyboard layouts for more than 120 languages. To access a keyboard that isn’t customized for Americanized English, tap Settings  →  General  →  Keyboard, Keyboards  →  Add New Keyboard. Up pops a list with custom keyboards for numerous countries. Have a multilingual household? You can select, in turn, as many international keyboards as you want. When you’re working in an app that summons a keyboard, tap the international keyboard key until you see the keyboard you want. Tap again to select the next keyboard in the list of international keyboards (as well as the Emoji keyboard) that you turned on in Settings. Keep cycling to get back to your original English layout. Here’s an alternative method for summoning a keyboard you’ve enabled: Press your finger against the international keyboard key to summon a pop-up window that displays all the keyboards that are ready for action. Slide your finger along the list until it lands on the keyboard you want to use (or Keyboard Settings) and then release it to select that keyboard. You can use handwriting character recognition for simplified and traditional variations of Chinese. Just drag your finger in the box provided. Some Chinese keyboards don’t rely on handwriting. And here’s another neat trick: You can type in two languages you’ve enabled without switching from one to the other. Just type the appropriate word or words in whichever language makes sense and the iPhone takes a stab at what it thinks you mean to type next — in the appropriate language. The list of compatible paired languages includes English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. And this multilingual typing feature is also supported for English and Chinese.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

New with iOS 14, your iPhone now has two new features: the App Library and built-in widgets you can add to your Home screens for easy access. Visiting the App Library With iOS 14, Apple supplied a potentially simpler and faster way to access apps: App Library. You can find it at the very end of your home screen pages as you swipe from right to left. At top is the App Library screen is the search bar, as shown, left. If you tap inside the box, all apps on your phone will be listed alphabetically, as shown, right. You can scroll down to the app of choice, enter the app name in the search box, or tap a letter on the side to jump to listings beginning with that letter. The # symbol (after Z) takes you to apps whose names begin with a number. Just below the search box, Apple organizes apps into Suggestions and Recently Added. The latter is self-explanatory. The former consists of suggested apps based on time of day, location, or activity. On the rest of the screen, Apple intelligently lumps apps into various categories, such as Social, Health & Fitness, and Games. Apps in these groupings appear in order of those you use most. Watching widgets Apps and the App Library serve an obvious purpose. But sometimes you just want to glance at the headlines, a weather forecast, or other information. With that in mind, Apple added widgets, which you can customize on any of your Home pages and the today view. iOS 14 includes built-in Apple widgets for Weather, Clock, Calendar, News, Maps, Fitness, Photos, Reminders, Stocks, Music, TV, Tips, Notes, Shortcuts, Battery, Screen Time, Files, Podcasts, App suggestions, and Siri Suggestions. Third-party developers can also contribute widgets. You can find these widgets in a centralized hub or widget gallery. How do you get there? Glad you asked. Press and hold down anywhere on the Home screen to make the apps jiggle, as if you were going to rearrange them or move them into folders. Only now tap + in the upper-right corner. If you see a widget you like, drag it out onto the Home screen or the today view. Couldn’t be much easier than that. If you’re in the today view while the phone is still wiggly, you can also tap Edit at the bottom of that view to add widgets. The rectangles representing widgets are larger than those for corresponding apps or folders, so they stand out. The figure shows widgets for Apple’s Calendar, News, and Music apps. You can also drag one widget on top of another to create a widget stack. You can then flip through these stacks. Inside a stack, Apple displays what it thinks is the right widget based on the time, location, or activity. You can also curate widgets into smart stacks that show up at the right time. For example, you might see widgets for the News app when you wake up, the Calendar app as an appointment time nears, and a Fitness summary come evening.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

When you first set up the iPhone, you have the option of turning on Siri, during which you can train Siri to your voice by repeating “Hey Siri” and a few other phrases. If you did set up Siri, you’re good to go. If you didn’t, tap Settings→ Siri & Search and flip the Press Home for Siri or Press Side Button for Siri switch, depending on the model, so green shows. You can turn off Siri by tapping the switches again. Having Siri on is a prerequisite to using the Dictation functionality on your phone. Siri assumes a vital role in searches. You have a few ways to call Siri into action. The traditional way is to press and hold down the Home button or side switch until you hear a tone. Pretty simple, eh? You see the roundish Siri icon, as shown in the following figure. That’s your cue to start talking. In addition to a verbal answer, Siri delivers relevant results to your query at the top of the screen in a notification banner or box. You have the option to display captions on the screen for all Siri dialogue. If you don’t see the captions, visit Settings→Siri & Search→Siri Feedback→and flip the Always Show Siri Captions switch so that green is showing. Siri used to take over the entire screen when you summoned her, thus covering up the app you were using. That changed with iOS 14 and Siri's new compact user interface. So now when you ask Siri for help, you can get answers while keeping things in context. On iPhone models without a Home button, grab Siri’s attention by pressing the side button for a second or so. You can also summon Siri by merely saying, “Hey Siri.” And yes, this is Apple’s answer to the “OK Google” and “Hey Google” voice commands on Android phones. Just make sure the Always Listen for “Hey Siri” option is turned on in Siri’s settings. Siri responds also when you press a button on a Bluetooth headset or tap an Apple AirPod when it is in your ear. What happens next is up to you. You can ask a wide range of questions or issue voice commands. If you didn’t get your words out fast enough or were misunderstood, try again. Siri relies on voice recognition, artificial intelligence, and, of course, an internet connection. She (or he) will respond in a conversational manner. But using Siri isn’t entirely a hands-free experience. Spoken words are supplemented by information on the iPhone screen, even when Siri no longer hogs the entire display. Just where does Siri get that information? By tapping into Location Services and seeking answers from the web using sources such as Bing, Wikipedia, Yelp, Yahoo!, OpenTable, Twitter, and Wolfram|Alpha. And Siri can also open apps, Apple’s own as well as third-party apps. Indeed, from your contacts, Siri might be able to determine your spouse, coworkers, and friends, as well as where you live. You might ask, “How do I get home from here?” and Siri will fire up Maps to help you on your way. Or you can ask, “Find a good Italian restaurant near Barbara’s house,” and Siri will serve up a list, sorted by Yelp rating. Siri can even let you make a reservation (via OpenTable). If you ask about a favorite sports team, Siri will retrieve the score of last night’s game. And if you’re rummaging through a longish email that you can’t quite get through at the moment, you can have Siri set a reminder to follow up later in the evening. We also think it’s pretty darn cool that Siri teams up with one of our favorite apps, Shazam, to identify the name and artist of the musical track that’s playing. Just ask Siri what song is playing and she’ll tell you (assuming that she can identify the song). When the song is properly identified, you even get a chance to buy it. (Apple bought Shazam a few years ago.) As noted, Siri requires internet access. In addition, many factors go into its accuracy, including surrounding noises and unfamiliar accents.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

You probably won’t find the icons described here on your iPhone's Home screen — at least not on the first (main) one. These apps usually appear on the second Home screen. If you just can’t wait to see them, swipe your finger across the screen from right to left and they’ll appear like magic. Outside the Utilities folder In addition to the Utilities folder, you find several additional icons on the second Home screen: Files: Displays documents saved on your iPhone or saved in the cloud to iCloud, Dropbox, or several other cloud-based storage services. Find My (formerly Find My iPhone and Find My Friends): Displays a map with the last known locations of your family’s iPhones and other Apple devices (assuming the feature was enabled on each misplaced device before it was misplaced). It can also display the locations of friends who have consented to being tracked by Find My. Shortcuts: Creates multistep shortcuts you can trigger with your voice. iTunes Store: Accesses the iTunes Store, where you can browse, preview, and purchase songs, albums, movies, and more. Translate: Introduced with iOS 14, this app provides a quick (and mostly accurate) translation of voice or text for 11 languages. Contacts: Stores contact information, which can be synced with iCloud, macOS Contacts, Yahoo! Address Book, Google Contacts, and many more. Watch: Manages features on your Apple Watch. It’s useless unless you have an Apple Watch. Tips: Provides tips for using your iPhone and iOS 14. Inside the Utilities folder In the Utilities folder, you find these icons: Voice Memos: Turns your iPhone into a convenient handheld recording device. Compass: Adds a magnetic needle compass inside your iPhone, but better. Measure: Measures things. To use this cool virtual reality-measuring tool, you just point it at an object and see its dimensions! Calculator: Performs addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Give the phone a quarter turn, however, and you’ll find a nifty scientific calculator that does all that and much more. App library and Home screen widgets iOS 14 introduces two new features that make finding what you need on your iPhone faster and easier: App Library and widgets on Home screens.

Article / Updated 07-08-2020

Apple TV+ is Apple's new original content subscription service. Apple TV+ offers subscribers TV shows and movies developed for and available exclusively though Apple TV+. Currently, Apple TV+ is just $4.99 per month, with a one-week free trial when you first subscribe. For a limited time —Apple hasn’t said when it will end — people who buy a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac get an entire year for free. It’s not expected that Apple will offer that free year forever, but it makes sense to do it now, while the service is new. That's because Apple is rolling out new shows as they go, and while many of those shows are great, there's not yet a deep catalog to justify the price. This is especially true when you consider Apple TV+'s competition is Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, and other services with more extensive catalogs of original and sometimes third-party legacy content. Apple TV+ has launched shows such as See, The Morning Show, For All Mankind, Servant, Truth Be Told, and Little America, as well as documentary movies such as The Elephant Queen and kids shows such as Ghost Writer and Helpsters. Dozens of other shows have been signed by Apple and are in development, and Apple adds new shows every few weeks. To watch Apple TV+ shows, tap the Apple TV app on your Home screen, and then tap the Watch Now icon at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down and tap one of the Apple TV+ buttons. You see a landing page dedicated to Apple TV+ content. If you haven't already subscribed to Apple TV+, you'll be able to browse the content with frequent opportunities to start a 7-day free trial. During that trial, you can watch as many shows or movies as you want. If you don't cancel your subscription before the 7 days is up, you'll be automatically billed $4.99 per month. If you have a free year because you purchased an Apple device, you won't start paying until that year is up. To view a movie or episodes of a show, tap the cover art for that movie or show. Then tap the Play First Episode button to start a new show, or play Next Episode for a show you've already started. Scroll down on the show's information page to see a list of seasons and episodes. You can download any show to your iPad by tapping the iCloud download icon below the episode. By downloading, you can watch shows offline, say on an airplane, a long car ride, or anywhere else you may not have Internet access. You will, of course, need a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection to stream shows. Streaming video can use a lot of bandwidth, so be mindful of your cellular data caps if you're watching a show over your cellular connection. To leave the Apple TV+ section of the TV app, tap the Watch Now button in the upper-left corner, or tap one of the icons at the bottom of the TV app screen. This service is a great experience on the iPad. When added to all the awesome apps you’ll have on your iPad, you can do so many great things!

Article / Updated 07-03-2020

Killer app is familiar jargon to anyone who has spent any time around computers. The term refers to an application so sweet or so useful that just about everybody wants or must have it for their iPad. You could make the argument that the most compelling killer app on the iPad is the very App Store itself. This online emporium has an abundance of splendid programs, many of which are free. These cover everything from food (hey, you gotta eat) to showbiz. Check out the App Store and discover your favorite killer iPad apps. TripCase Frequent travelers can benefit from an intelligent repository for travel-related information, one that is smart enough to alert them of gate changes, weather delays, flight cancellations, and the like, and one that was easy to configure, convenient to use, and free. TripCase is all that and more. It’s a free app (and website) that organizes details of each trip in one place, with reminders and flight alerts delivered directly to your iPad. TripCase has a lot to like, but one of the best things is that it’s drop-dead simple to add your travel events — without copying and pasting or even typing. You simply forward your confirmation emails — for flights, hotels, rental cars, and other travel-related services — to [email protected]. TripCase parses the details, creates an itinerary, and sends you an email to confirm that our trip is ready to view in TripCase. You can forward confirmations from at least a half dozen travel providers, and TripCase has never failed to interpret them correctly. (And you can always enter details the old-fashioned way — by copying and pasting or typing.) After TripCase has your info, you can view it in the TripCase iPad app or in any web browser. The app is well-organized, with a timeline view of the itinerary. Other details are but a tap away. TripCase also includes an action view with flight alerts, reminders, and other messages. Any way you look at it, TripCase does most of the work for you. TripCase can even help you locate an alternate flight based on your original reservation should your flight be cancelled or delayed. And it reminds you to check in and print boarding passes 24 hours before each flight. Sweet! TripCase’s motto is “stress-free travel.” Although it may not make travel stress free — or increase the legroom in and around a cramped airline seat — it definitely makes travel less stressful. And one more note about TripCase. If you purchase their Receipts feature ($5.99), you can take pictures of your receipts, and TripCase will collect them for you until you’re ready to download them as a PDF. Handy! Shazam Ever heard a song on the radio or television, in a store, or at a club and wondered what it was called or who was singing it? With the Shazam app, you may never wonder again. Just launch Shazam and point your iPad’s microphone at the source of the music. In a few seconds, the song title and artist’s name magically appear on your iPad screen. In Shazam parlance, that song has been tagged. Now, if tagging were all Shazam could do, that would surely be enough. But wait, there’s more. After Shazam tags a song, you can Buy the song at the iTunes Store Watch related videos on YouTube Tweet the song on Twitter if you set up Twitter in Settings Read a biography, a discography, or lyrics Take a photo and attach it to the tagged item in Shazam Email a tag to a friend Shazam isn’t great at identifying classical music, jazz, show tunes, or opera. But if you use it primarily to identify popular music, it rocks (pun intended). It has worked in noisy airport terminals, crowded shopping malls, and even once at a wedding ceremony. Oh, and one more thing: You can have Siri (with Shazam’s assistance) identify a song for you even if you don’t have the Shazam app installed. Flipboard Flipboard is a socially oriented personal magazine app for the iPad that is great for news and information junkies. To get started with Flipboard, tap the topics you’re interested in: business, technology, sports, arts & culture, wine tasting, music, cute animals, and a lot more — over 30,000 topics, in fact. Flipboard then delivers articles based on your selections, all presented in a handsome, intuitive interface. Swipe left and right to move from page to page. Tap on the articles you want to read. Fine-tune the articles that Flipboard delivers by tapping a thumbs-up (more like this) or a thumbs-down (less like this) icon. You’ll find articles in Flipboard that are a lot more appetizing than that one. As a bonus, you can link Flipboard to various social media accounts. Movies by Flixster If you like movies, try the Flixster iPad app. Feed it your zip code and then browse local theaters by movie, showtimes, rating, or distance from your current location. Or browse to find a movie you like and then tap to find theaters, showtimes, and other info. Another nice feature is the capability to buy tickets to most movies from your iPad with just a few additional taps. You can read reviews, play movie trailers, and email movie listings to others with a single tap. You will also enjoy the movie trailers for soon-to-be-released films and DVDs. Other free movie showtime apps are out there, but Flixster is one of the best. IMDb Movies & TV While you’re on the subject of the silver screen, try opening IMDb, shorthand for Internet Movie Database (owned by Amazon). And what a database it is, especially for the avid filmgoer. This vast and delightful repository of all things cinema is the place to go for complete cast/crew listings, actor/filmmaker bios, plot summaries, movie trailers, critics’ reviews, user ratings, parental guidance, famous quotations, and all kinds of trivia. You can always search for movies, TV shows, actors, directors, and so on by typing a name in the search field at the top of the iPad screen. You can also browse various menu choices to find current movies by showtimes, what’s coming soon, or what’s popular. You can browse TV recaps, too, or find people born on the day you happen to be looking and poking around the app. It’s also fun to check out Trending Celebrities on IMDb. The recent roster included Jaimie Alexander, Tom Hardy, Alexandra Daddario, Priyanka Chopra, Emilia Clarke, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Natalie Dormer, Michael Fassbender, Rooney Mara, among many others. One piece of advice to movie buffs: Avoid IMDb if you have a lot of work to do. You’ll have a hard time closing the curtain on this marvelous iPad app. Netflix Flixster, IMDb, and now Netflix. You’ve no doubt detected a real trend by now, and that trend is indeed our affection for movies and TV shows. If you love TV and movies, too, you’re sure to be a fan of the Netflix app. From the iPad, you have more or less instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows on demand as well as Netflix’s original content. You can search by genre (classics, comedy, drama, and so on) and subgenre (courtroom dramas, political dramas, romantic dramas, and so on). Netflix Originals include popular shows such as Orange Is The New Black, the huge hit Stranger Things, Jessica Jones, The Irishman, the Lost in Space reboot, The Witcher, Mindhunter, and The Crown. Although the app is free, you have to pay Netflix streaming subscription fees that start at $8.99 a month. You also need an Internet connection, preferably through Wi-Fi, though it will stream over cellular networks, too. Streaming movies over 3G or 4G can quickly eat up your data, so be mindful of your data plan. Comixology The Comixology app is a fantastic way to read comic books on a touchscreen. Its online store features thousands of comics and comic series from dozens of publishers, including Arcana, Archie, Marvel, Devil’s Due, Digital webbing, Red 5, DC Comics, and Zenescope, as well as hundreds of free comics. Furthermore, many titles are classics, like issue #1 of The Amazing Spider-Man. Released in 1963 for $0.12, a copy in excellent condition goes for at least $25,000 today! Other comics are priced from $0.99 per issue, though many issues of many series are available for free as a teaser. Finally, this app provides a great way to organize the comics you own on your iPad so that you can find the one you want quickly and easily. New releases are available every Wednesday, so visit the web store often to check out the latest and greatest offerings. Both the store and your personal comic collection are well organized and easy to use. And reading comics in Comixology is a pleasure you won’t want to miss if you’re a fan of comics or graphic novels. Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List Do you love to eat, but now your gourmet chef skills could use a boost? You can get a lot of that culinary assistance from Epicurious, which easily lives up to its billing as the “Cook’s Companion.” This tasty recipe app comes courtesy of Condé Nast Digital. With more than 33,000 recipes to choose from, we’re confident you’ll find a yummy one in no time. From the Home screen, you can browse categories, often timed to the season. Recipe collection categories include Halloween Treats, Vegetarian Thanksgiving, Lunches Kids Love, and Chocolate Desserts. Some recipes carry reviews. If you tap Search instead, you can fine-tune your search for a recipe by food or drink, by main ingredient (for example, banana, chicken, pasta), by cuisine type, and by dietary consideration (low-carb, vegan, kosher, and so on), among other parameters. When you discover a recipe you like, you can add it to a collection of favorites, email it to a friend, pass along the ingredients to your shopping list, summon nutritional information, or share it on Facebook and Twitter. If you want to sync favorite recipes on your iPhone and iPad through a personal recipe box on Epicurious.com, you can now do so for free. Bon appétit. Evernote Let’s take a quick look at the problem Evernote resolves for most iPad users: storing our little bits of digital information — text, pictures, screen shots, scanned images, receipts, bills, email messages, web pages, and other info you might want to recall someday — and synchronizing all the data among all our devices and the cloud. Evernote is all that and more, with excellent free apps for iOS, macOS, Android, and Windows, plus a killer web interface that works in most browsers. You can create notes of any length on your iPad by typing, dictating, or photographing. You can add unlimited tags to a note, and create unlimited notebooks to organize your rapidly growing collection of notes. Getting words and images into Evernote couldn’t be much easier, but the info will be useless if you can’t find it when you need it. Evernote won’t let you down, with myriad options for finding and working with your stored data. In addition to the aforementioned tags and notebooks, Evernote offers searching and filtering (Tags and Notebooks) to help you find the note you need. Two other nice touches are worth noting about Evernote: Notes are automatically tagged with your current location (as long as you create them on your iPad or other location-enabled device), so you can filter by Places. You can attach reminders to notes and receive notifications on the date and time you chose. Best of all, you’ll be notified on your iPad as well as on your other iDevices, Macs, PCs, and on the Evernote website! Our two favorite Evernote features are syncing notes with all your devices and the cloud automatically and that everything — creating, organizing, and syncing notes — is free. Pandora Radio This custom Internet radio service is available gratis on the iPad. And you can play Pandora music in the background while doing other stuff. Pandora works on the iPad in much the same way that it does on a Mac or PC. In the box at the upper left, tap + Create Station and type the name of a favorite artist, song title, or composer via the iPad keyboard, and Pandora creates an instant personalized radio station with selections that exemplify the style you chose. Pandora will also suggest some stations you might like based on the stations you’ve already established, and you can browse genre stations. Suppose you type Beatles. Pandora’s instant Beatles station includes performances from John, Paul, George, and Ringo, as well as tunes from other acts. And say you type a song title, such as Have I Told You Lately. Pandora constructs a station with similar music after you tell it whether to base tunes on the Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, or another rendition. You can help fine-tune the music Pandora plays by tapping the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon at the bottom of the screen associated with the music you’ve been listening to during the current session. Pandora also takes advantage of the generous screen real estate of the iPad to deliver artist profiles, lyrics, and more. You may see ads, too, unless you opt for Pandora Plus ($4.99 a month) or Pandora Premium ($9.99 a month), premium upgrades that eliminate them. Both plans add other benefits as well, such as permitting you to more often skip music you don’t like, on-demand listening, and more. If you tap the share icon below an album cover of the currently playing song, you can write a message about the song, and then share it on Facebook or Twitter or email it. Other options in Pandora let you bookmark the song or artist that’s playing or head to iTunes to purchase the song or other material from the artist directly on the iPad (if available). You can instantly create stations from artists or tracks or also indicate when you’re tired of a track. Want to learn more? Check out these ten iPad hints, tips, and shortcuts.