fixed : get rid of “purple paper plane” arrow-icon in iOS

Posted on 02-02-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

Today, I noticed there was a “paper plane”-icon on the top menu bar of my iPhone. More accurately described, it is a “point of a hunting arrow” icon, and sometimes it’s grey, and sometimes it’s purple.

What does it mean ? And how do I get rid of it ?

Answer :

The “point of a hunting arrow” icon means that you one or more apps are using Location Services on your iPhone (or iPad), which might drain your battery, especially when the icon is outlined in purple.

There are 3 versions of the Location Services icon (a.k.a. “paper plane” or “point of a hunting arrow”) :

1- a purple Location Services icon will appear next to an item that has recently used your location.

2- a grey Location Services icon will appear next to an item that has used your location within the last 24 hours.

3- an outlined purple Location Services icon will appear next to an item that is using a geofence. (*)

(*) geofence = virtual perimeter around a location. Apps use geofencing to notify you when you arrive at or leave these locations, but… if an app is constantly checking to see whether or not you are within it’s virtual perimeter, and you are nowhere near this will drain your battery…

To get rid of the Location Services icon (a.k.a. “paper plane” or “point of a hunting arrow”) :

open the Settings.app –> Privacy –> Location Services
in the window that opens, you can choose to switch off Location Services entirely, or select the apps from the list and choose their Location Services setting one by one
the primary advice is to set all apps that have the ‘outlined purple’ Location Services icon next to them to “Never”
the secondary advice is to set all apps that you do not regularly use to “Never” also

More info on Privacy and Location Services in iOS8 and iOS9 can be found on the Apple-website :

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033

…that’s it – enjoy !

😉

fixed : battery empty extremely quickly on new iPhone

Posted on 02-02-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I recently got a new iPhone 6 and after about a week, for some reason it’s battery was empty with half a day, even on days when I rarely made any calls, played any games or made any photos.

Any idea what the problem could be ? (besides a problematic battery)

Answer :

In iOS9 you have the option to quickly check what apps have been using the most battery power lately. To do so :

open the Settings.app –> Battery
in the window that opens, wait for the rest of the page to load under “BATTERY USAGE” (this might take a few seconds)
when the loading is complete, a list of apps is displayed together with the percentage of battery power they’ve used in het “Last 24 Hours” (or in the “Last 7 Days” if you click on the other tab-label)

If any odd apps show up in this list, make sure to always close these immediately after usage. To do so :

double-click on the MENU(fingerscan)-button
in the view that opens, select any app you need to close by putting your finger on it, the swipe up

…if that doesn’t help, there’s another service that might be draining your battery : Location Services. To shut down al unwanted and unneeded Location Services, do this :

open the Settings.app –> Privacy –> Location Services
in the window that opens, there’s no need to shut down Location Services right away, but you should go down the list of all apps that have would like to have your location info
see if there is any app that is marked by an purple outlined arrow, and set the setting for this app to “Never”

…that’s it – enjoy !

…and if that doesn’t fix your battery problem, visit an AppleStore an let them check the quality of your iPhone’s battery

NOTE : the purple outlined arrow indicates an app that is constantly checking if you have arrived within it’s geofence, meaning it can start using your location since you have entered “it’s area”… this constant checking of availability costs a lot of power and is draining your battery…

more info on this is displayed at the bottom of the list of apps in the Location Services window

BEWARE ! : “Damaged message was restored” phishing scam eMail

Posted on 02-02-2016 by MacManus.nl

! BEWARE !

today I got an eMail from Google Administration, stating “Damaged message was restored and re-sent to you”,

on my Mac this was immediately recognizable as a Junk-message (or rather : a Phishing Scam-message), as you can see in the picture below.

so BEWARE ! and don’t let yourself be fooled or mislead by this eMail scam !

fixed : close that one window that blocks off the rest of Safari

Posted on 26-01-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

While browsing the internet using Safari, I suddenly got a popup window which I can’t close. I expect it to be a scam, as there is only one button ; an OK-button.

As I don’t agree with the text I am supposed to agree on, and I don’t trust the sender either, I just want to close this popup-window. But the red ‘Close Window’-button is not responding, and I can’t switch to any other open browser windows either. Safari seems to hang.

I could of course restart Safari, but I have several windows open I haven’t saved yet and it would be a real hassle to loose them…

Isn’t there any way to shut this popup down without loosing any other open windows ?

Answer :

The popup you have encountered is most definitely a scam-popup, as there is no option to ‘not agree’.

It’s rather simple to get out of this awkward situation :

shut down your WiFi-connection : goto the ‘piece-of-pie’ icon in the top menu bar of the Finder –> then select “Turn Wi-Fi Off” from the pulldown menu that appears
pull the ethernet-cable from your Mac
now you’re disconnected from the Internet, you can safely click on the OK-button in the popup-window
the popup-window will now close, and you will now be able to normally use Safari again
now close all other windows you don’t need to have open
even though you could now reconnect to WiFi- or Ethernet-internet, it’s recommended to do the following first
still without internet-connection, open a new browser window : File –> New Window (or just press the CMD + N key-combo)
then open the Reading List sidebar in that fresh window : View –> Show Reading List Sidebar (or just press the SHIFT + CMD + 2 key-combo)
now drag all open browser windows you want to keep to the reading list
when done, clear Safari’s history and website data : Safari –> Clear History…
in the popup window that opens asking you to “Clear history will delete related cookies and other website data.” click on the “Clear History”-button
then close Safari
then reconnect to the Internet (either via WiFi or Ethernet-cable)
and reopen Safari

…you can now find all previously open windows in the Reading List

enjoy !

fixed : international YouTube for teenagers on age restricted iPad

Posted on 25-01-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

My children have an age-restricted iPad, but ever since Google/YouTube upscaled the age-restriction of the YouTube-app to 17+ in 2015 they can no longer view YouTube video’s on their iPad, not even in Safari.

As they are young teenagers, I would like to enable them to view YouTube videos on their iPad, but I don’t want to upscale their age-restriction to 17+ for a few years.

Is there any way to do this ?

Answer :

Since Google (the (step)mother of YouTube) upscaled the age-restriction to 17+ in 2015, they have also introduced the new YouTube Kids-app which has just a 4+ age-restriction.

You can get the YouTube Kids-app here :

iOS YouTube Kids-app

…however, as Google advertises this as a “made for ages 5 and under”, this is not for teenagers…

on top of that, the YouTube Kids-app is only available in the US iTunes store, even though it’s claimed to be available in most international languages…

…luckily, there are some alternatives for international teenagers :

iOS VideoTube-app

iOS Tubex Video and Music-app

iOS Tubex Free Music and Video Player-app

all three are available internationally and only have a 12+ age-restriction

and even tough both Tubex-apps use the same name, they are entirely different apps made by different developers…

note that none of these are endorsed by either YouTube, Google or Apple, but that doesn’t have to be problematic of course…

enjoy !

fixed : can’t delete unnamed app without icon from iPad

Posted on 23-01-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

I have an icon on my iPad that has a generic icon and no name. If I double click it, the name turns into “Waiting…” and nothing happens, even after a long wait. If I try to delete it, I get the small X-tag, and if I click on it, I get a window saying :

Delete ‘ ‘

Deleting ‘ ‘ will also delete all of its data.

…and two options to click on : “Delete” and “Cancel”

…still no name of the app is given, and since the icon is generic (a.k.a. “empty” ; showing only a greyish-white icon with a dark grey grid, some circles and diagonals) I still don’t know how to delete it.

What can I do to fix this ?

Answer :

For some reason (unknown and probably irrelevant also) this app has stalled during an update or even during it’s initial install. To figure out the actual name of the app, do this :

in iOS, go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Restrictions”, and make sure you have permission to delete apps and change accounts
then, go to “Settings” –> iTunes and App Store and log out
then, when in iOS8, go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Usage” –> “iCloud” –> “Manage Storage” ; in the next window, click on “Backups” ; in the next window, click on “Show all apps”
or when in iOS9, go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Storage & iCloud Usage” –> “STORAGE” –> “Manage Storage”
now find the app that has a generic icon in the list of apps you see
write down the name of that app (the one with the generic icon)
then, when the Menu-button has a white square icon on it, restart your iPad (or iPhone) by simultaneously pressing the Menu-button (below the screen) and the ON/OFF-button (on the right top edge of your iPad’s/iPhone’s housing, hold this key-combo until your iPad/iPhone shows a white Apple-logo on a black screen, then release
or, when the Menu-button has fingerscan, restart your iPad (or iPhone) in the way described in this post
when the reset is done, login to your iPad (or iPhone) if you have an access pincode on it
then, go to “Settings” –> iTunes and App Store and login
then, when in iOS8, go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Usage” –> “iCloud” –> “Manage Storage” ; in the next window, click on “Backups” ; in the next window, click on “Show all apps”
or when in iOS9, go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Storage & iCloud Usage” –> “STORAGE” –> “Manage Storage”
now find the app has still with the name that you wrote down (this app may or may not have a generic icon now) and click on it
in the next window click “Delete App”
then click the Menu-button to get back to the main screen
then go to the “App Store”-app –> “Purchased” –> “Not on this iPad” (“Not on this iPhone”)
in the list, find the app with the name you wrote down and (re)download it from the App Store by clicking on the ‘cloud with blue downward arrow’-icon behind its name
when the app starts downloading, click on the Menu-button to return to the main screen
finally, turn restrictions back on if you had any initially (in “Settings” –> “General” –> “Restrictions”)

…that’s it – enjoy !

fixed : animated GIFs not playing in Preview.app

Posted on 23-01-2016 by MacManus.nl

Question :

For my work I regularly get animated-GIF for online advertising campaigns send to me offline. As it turns out I can only view them in the Finder’s preview, but when I double-click on them, they open in Preview.app as a static picture…

What can I do ?

Answer :

As any .gif-file is considered as a picture by OSX, both static and animated GIFs will be opened in Preview.app by default. Too bad, but Preview.app can only display static pictures, no movies, nor dynamic pictures…

The solution is simple ; just make OSX by default open all .gif-files in an application that can handle animations, like your web browser.

to do so :

locate and select any of your animated .gif-files in the Finder
then press the [cmd]+[i] key-combo on your keyboard (a.k.a. “get info”)
in the info-window that opens, scroll down to “Open with:”
make sure the triangular arrow in front of “Open with:” is pointing down
if the triangular arrow is pointing to the right, click on it
just below “Open with:” you will see “Preview (default)”
click on that, and change it to “Safari” (or any other application that can handle animated GIFs, if you don’t see the application you’re looking for listed, select “Other…” and select the one you prefer from you Applications folder)
then, don’t forget to click on the “Change All…”-button also

…that’s it, from now on, any .gif-file on your Mac will be opened in Safari (or your chosen alternative) by default, and you will see all animated-GIFs opened as animations when you lick on them.

enjoy !

😉

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