Focus on iOS

Here is information on the operating system and nuances common to all Apple devices using iOS.

iOS 4

One very interesting thing that iOS 4 provides is iPod display output, such that a car's dashboard display can show what's playing, in much the same way that an iPod touch can. Here's an article..

How to get PDFs onto your iOS device (iPad, iPhone)

PDF is the standard document format for page-oriented material. If you want to create documents and have them available on your Apple mobile device, generate them as PDFs (which you can readily do from any application in Macintosh OS X). With the PDF all ready, you have two ways to get it to your device:

iTunes sync:
With the PDF in your home computer's file system, drag a copy of that into iTunes, dragging it onto your "LIBRARY" section of the iTunes window (upper left). If you did not already have a Books subsection there, one will be created, with that PDF in it. Now, when you attach your device to your computer, and it opens in iTunes, you can go to the Books tab and choose Sync Books, where you can choose to have that and other PDFs copied to your device, where they will then be available under the iBooks app, PDFs section.
Email:
From your main computer, send the PDF to yourself as an attachment. When you open the email message in your device Mail app, the PDF will be announced in an isolation box whose contents are like:
Tap to download
Sample document.pdf
25.8 MB
Do not tap this — yet (it is intended to show the attachment in the context of the mail, which may be too big for that, just as large files on the Mac may be too big for QuickLook).
See if you can scroll down, where there may be:
This message was downloaded as plain text
Download full message
If not, tap the prior message; else tap the "Download full message" here, which will then show:
Downloading full message
where that section goes away after the download, leaving
pdf
Sample document.pdf
Tap that, and it briefly says "Loading", then shows the PDF, which you can then transfer to iBooks if you want, for enduring reference, via the "move to" icon in the upper right (a square with an upward arrow on it).

How to get photos from your iOS device (iPad, iPhone) to your Mac

There are times you'd like to readily copy the photos from your handheld device to a folder on your Macintosh (as when you are preparing to sell your older device). You can easily copy or move photos via the Mac OS X application Image Capture. When you attach an iOS device to your Mac, its file system will be automatically mounted, whereby you can then get at its contents. When it is mounted, launch Image Capture: your device will show up on the left, and all the photos will be listed. Within Image Capture you can easily create a new folder for the photos to be gotten, via Import To. Then click Import All to do the deed. If you've checked the box "Delete after import", the photos will be moved, leaving none on your device; otherwise it's just a copy operation.

What's still missing in iOS (as of iOS 4)

Mail:

iOS mail facilities are unable to handle certain types of mail, which handicaps your ability to depend upon the handheld device. In particular:

MIME is not supported: instead of showing that portion of the mail message, you will see a box with a question mark in it, and "mime-attachment" thereunder, with no opportunity to in any way get at the content.
iCalendar (.ics) attachments are not suported. They are the standard means for conveying calendar updates for scheduling meetings. iOS will not display the content of the .ics attachment; and it definitely will not allow its content to update your Calendar, as it does in OS X.

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