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YouTube Subscription Enhancing App Tube Alert Now Available for iOS Devices

Posted by Tre Lawrence on March 27th, 2014
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

TubeAlert is a new app that looks to help Youtube using iOS users to streamline the notification and sharing process.

According to the developer, the app was made to "enhance subscriptions" by creating more traffic to one's channel with instant notifications of newly uploaded videos. In other words, TubeAlert wants to help channels get exposure.

TubeAlert is available for free on the App Store.

Debt Down Review

iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
By Angela LaFollette on November 27th, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: IMPRESSIVE
Debt Down manages debts and helps iOS users pay them off by utilizing the debt-snowball method, budgets, and expense tracking.
Read The Full Review »

How To: Use Notification Center in iOS 7

Posted by Carter Dotson on September 30th, 2013

Notification Center may be nothing new to iOS users, but iOS 7 brings a bit of an overhaul to the veritable notification bar. Here's a guide to what's new, what's different, and what's been removed.

The first big change is that there are now three sections to Notification Center: TodayAll, and Missed.

Today replaces many of the widgets that were originally displayed at the top of Notification Center. This shows the current weather in a human-readable forecast, saying what the weather today will be, what the current temperature is, and what the high will be. Below this, Notification Center will tell you what events you have today and show you which events are coming up in the next few hours. Below this, the Stocks widget is displayed. At the bottom, the summary of events for the next day is displayed.

All is the traditional list of notifications: based on how they are sorted in Settings, apps' recent notifications will all display here as they come in. Tap the X next to an app's name in this view to clear out all of that app's notifications.

Missed shows notifications as well, but only ones that appeared while the device was locked. These are not sorted by app, but are sorted purely by when they came in. Clearing the app's notifications out of All or opening up the app the notifications came from will clear it out of Missed.

As well, Notification Center is now available from the lock screen, so you can see the Today, All, and Missed notification views from this screen. As well, you must swipe on the notification itself to open it up - the bottom Slide to unlock bar will always unlock the device, not view the most recent notification.

Many of the settings for Notification Center remain the same as they were in previous versions, particularly arranging notifications for the All view, but there's new settings for the new features. You can control Access on Lock Screen to enable or disable access to the Today view and to view notifications while the device is locked. Disable both to disable the Notification Center pulldown on the lock screen entirely.

The Today View settings control which widgets appear in Notification Center. Most notably, the ability to share to Twitter and Facebook from Notification Center has been removed.

This covers the changes to Notification Center in iOS 7. Now go on, be notified! Be aware!

Morning Review

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
By Angela LaFollette on July 2nd, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: CONVENIANT
Morning makes it possible for users to stay updated and keep track of their day thanks to its eight customizable panels and attractive interface.
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How To: De-Clutter Notification Center

Posted by Carter Dotson on April 29th, 2013

Is Notification Center far too busy? Can you not find what you want at any point, and thus any semblance of usability for the drop-down menu has gone the way of the dodo? Well, we can help you de-clutter Notification Center with these handy tips!

Clear out individual apps:

Most apps' notifications will clear when you enter the app, but some, like Instagram, will not disappear. Thus, just pull down from the top status bar to access Notification Center, scroll to the app that's got too many notifications, tap the X to the right of the app's name, and then tap Clear. All these notifications will disappear and the app won't reappear until new notifications come in.

Disable notifications for an app entirely:

Do you really need to see notifications for that game you barely play? Well, to disable notifications entirely, go to Settings -> Notifications, and scroll down to the app you want to disable. From here, turn Notification Center off, and this will hide notifications from appearing in the drop-down menu, though they will still come in. If you want to disable them entirely, set Alert Style to None, and disable Badge App Icon and Sounds.

Reduce the number of items that appear in Notification Center:

It's also possible to just make an app take up fewer slots in the menu. Go to the app's page in the Notifications setting menu, and tap the Show menu. From here you can only show 1, 5, or 10 recent items. All notifications will still come in, but only that many recent ones will appear.

Use manual notification sorting:

So, you still want notifications to appear in Notification Center but maybe just want to have the important ones appear first? From the main Notifications settings menu, choose Manually under Sort Apps:, and then tap the Edit button in the top-right corner. You can now use the drag selector on the right side of an app's listing to drag it around in the list. Apps will always appear in the order you specify. Note that new apps always get added to the bottom of the list, so you must always sort them to your desired position yourself.

Disable widgets:

If you don't need to check stocks, think social media is for teenagers, or live in Texas and don't need to check the weather ever, you can disable each of the three built-in widgets by tapping on their entries in the Notifications settings and turning Notification Center to off.

Hopefully these tips have made Notification Center a much more useful place for you!

How To: Manage App Notifications in Notification Center

Posted by Carter Dotson on December 10th, 2012

Sometimes how to articles can cover topics that might seem too advanced. This week, however, I want to cover Notification Center, that helpful list of notifications that can be displayed by swiping down from the status bar. It is possible to manage different apps’ notifications and how they appear on a device, and this guide will make it hopefully less daunting to manage.

To manage notifications, go to Settings and select Notifications. First you will see Do Not Disturb, Sort Apps, and In Notification Center. We’re going from bottom to top.

Each individual app that supports notifications is in this list. For apps from the App Store, this is the default view:

The Notification Center toggles whether the app will appear in the list of notifications available by pulling down from the status bar. Notifications will still appear if enabled. Show will configure how many entries will appear in Notification Center. This way, one app can’t clutter up too much space in the list, or important apps can show many recent notifications.

Alert Style can be set to Banners, which shows the standard relatively unobtrusive banner that appears across the top of the screen. Alerts makes the notification pop up in the middle of the screen, which must be dismissed before continuing to use your device. This is the style of notification that appeared before iOS 5. None means that no alert will appear at all.

Badge App Icon means that as notifications come in, the number on the app will update. Disable this if that number is unimportant or just annoying. Sounds can be toggled to make notifications have sounds or not. View in Lock Screen causes notifications to appear in the lock screen – this can be disabled for emails to protect their private contents, for example. These settings can be mixed and matched: for example, if you want to know about incoming tweets while your phone is locked but not while you’re using it, just enabled View in Lock Screen and Sounds, and then you won’t be bothered while actually using your device, though you can still hear the sounds go off.

Different system apps have different settings: Phone lets you configure the Ringtone from its entry. Messages lets you configure several extra sound and display settings:

Mail lets you configure different notifications for different accounts, along with the VIP settings, as covered in an earlier topic. Finally, the Weather and Share Widgets are just simple On-Off toggles.

Sort Apps allows for apps to either be sorted by time, meaning the latest notification to come in move sall that app’s notifications to the top, or Manually. This means that based on how the apps are sorted in this settings page, done by tapping Edit in the top-right corner and dragging the icon that appears on the right of each list item to move them, will make the notifications always appear in that order in Notification Center.

Do Not Disturb allows for notifications to not go off at certain times. It can be manually enabled in Settings right below Notifications, or it can be scheduled to be set at specific times in Notification Center. Turning the Scheduled switch on allows for specific times to be set on a daily basis for when notifications will not make sounds. Calls can be set to be allowed from Everyone, No One, Favorites in your contacts, or by Groups of contacts. Finally, Repeated Calls means that if someone tries to call again within 3 minutes, then it will not be silenced, so really important calls are not missed.

Hopefully by learning what each setting does, now you know how to manage your notifications like a pro!

Launch Center Launches New Third Party App Notifications

Posted by Carter Dotson on February 2nd, 2012
iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad

Launch Center has gotten a major new update that brings new automatic app detection. While the app launched with support for built-in notifications, now the app supports launching third-party apps with specific commands, that can be scheduled to appear as notifications on iPhone and iPod touch.

The way it launches third-party apps is that iOS lets apps register with the device a specific URL scheme. Like how websites begin with http://, apps can register as tweetbot:// or facebook://, for example. Thus, when the device prompts to open up one of these URLs, the app will open. As well, special commands can be added after the // that will perform actions in those apps. Launch Center has commands for a selection of apps with registered URL schemes that it can launch. Those apps that are installed are displayed at the top of Launch Center's list, and then the specific control options are given. Then, the command can either be just displayed in the Launch Center main list, or scheduled to be appear at a certain date and time.

The uses for this are many. Want to be reminded to post a tweet with Tweetbot, with the specific text automatically entered in, at a certain time? That can be done with this app. As well, an app like Camera+ that supports launching from external apps can be queued up, reminding users to launch it at a certain time. These notifications can also be customized with particular titles in Notification Center for greater convenience.

Note that the feature is not perfect: apps sometimes crash, or work better if they've been closed from the multitasking bar, instead of being loaded into an app currently in memory. These are more the fault of the apps in question, rather than anything Launch Center does, as it is just using the app URL schemes that apps have baked in to them. This update to Launch Center is available now as a free update.