Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Lee Westland is confounded by iOS 6’s Music app. She writes:
I’ve downloaded several albums-worth of music to my iPhone from iTunes Match. I’m running short of storage and would like to delete some of that music to make room for an app I want to download. I don't see a way to do that. What’s the trick?
The trick involves understanding how the Music app and iTunes Match interact. If you’ve switched on iTunes Match on your iOS device (Settings -> Music -> iTunes Match On), you can’t manually delete tracks stored on your device.
The rapid adoption of Apple’s iOS 6 has been impressive. Initial estimates claim that as many as 25 to 35-percent of all iPhones were running iOS 6 within 48 hours of its release.
With all those users hammering away at the new OS, you can be sure that any bugs that survived Apple’s beta testing would soon be uncovered and publicized on the web. And that’s exactly what’s happened.
An excellent first stop to check for bug reports is the iOS section of Apple Support Communities. Two hardware-related items there especially caught my attention: short battery life and loss of Wi-Fi connectivity. Other iOS 6 problems, beginning with iTunes Match, extend beyond what I found at Apple’s forums.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Simon Concannon is interested in pursuing an activity that's considered illegal in many quarters. He writes:
I occasionally need to record phone conversations with clients and I’d like to do it with my iPhone. Is there an app for that?
Before offering an answer, I should mention that there are U.S. federal and state laws that govern this kind of thing. In some states you’re allowed to record a conversation with the permission of at least one participant. In others, all participants must agree to be recorded. If you’d prefer to not wade through the laws of these many united states (as well as avoid a trip to the hoosegow), make sure that the person you’re talking with is aware that you're recording the call.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Cynthia Nakano needs a more streamlined way to create reminders. She writes:
I’m running Mountain Lion on my MacBook Air and I often receive email messages that I can’t deal with at that moment but wish to act on later. I’ve tried flagging these messages but I sometimes receive so much email that my flags get lost in the shuffle. Any hints?
I can provide two. One harkens back to the old days and the other is something newish and coolish.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Jay Lindell has a problem feeding Safari. He writes:
I’m running Mountain Lion and, with it, Safari 6. I understand that Safari no longer displays RSS feeds but instead sends them to a dedicated RSS reader. I have a couple of RSS readers and chose one originally but would prefer to use another. Unfortunately I don’t see any setting for changing which reader Safari opens. How do I do that?
I’m in the same boat. Like you, I have a couple of different RSS readers on my Mac. As you suggest, Safari gloms on to the one you chose the first time and, from then on, opens it when you click on an RSS link.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Dwayne Norris has a problem with Dropbox links. He writes:
A friend sent me a link to a movie file they’d like to share with me on Dropbox. The link appears in this form: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1234567/test.mov. When I click on the link, Safari launches and the movie starts playing. I’d like to download the file directly but can’t find a way. Do you have any advice?
Starting the week with one of this column’s shortest answers, I do indeed.
It began innocently enough. I helped a friend set up a Skype account and phone number. All seemed to go well—until we tested out the phone number. I dialed the number from my landline phone and kept getting a busy signal. I couldn’t even leave a voicemail message.
Trying to figure out the ultimate cause of this frustrating symptom led us down a dark tunnel that, at times, seemed to have no light at the end. If you can guess the final answer before I reveal it, you’ve earned a Bugs & Fixes gold star.
The proximate cause of the busy signal was easy to locate. We navigated to the Privacy section of Skype’s Preferences. The options to “Allow calls from” and “Receive calls to my Skype Number from” were set to “Contacts” rather than “Anyone.” This meant that anyone not in my friend’s Skype Contacts list (which was empty at the time) could not call her. Apparently, when such calls are blocked, the caller gets a busy signal.
