Microsoft’s having a busy Monday morning, and for anyone that uses Office on the go, its new app might be the major gamechanger.
The company’s newly unveiled Office app is an attempt to put everything you might need in one place. Instead of grabbing separate apps for Word, Excel and Powerpoint (aka the Office Triforce), today’s public preview puts them all together.
The app also includes a new Actions pane that should be especially effective for document editing on-the-go. Microsoft says you’ll be able to create and sign PDFs with ease from your tinier smartphone screens, and sharing files has also been simplified and streamlined. The Office app also makes better use of your phone’s talents, with the ability to take a photo of a document and turn it into an editable Word file on the fly, or even do the same with printed-out tables in Excel. Details ahead of today’s launch was otherwise a little scarce — but nevermind, you can test them out for yourself starting this morning. The Office app preview is available on Google Play now, and for iOS users that are using Testflight. There’s no date yet for when the app will launch outside of preview.
Apple has barely released iOS 13, but you might be getting another significant revision mere days later. The companyhas told Engadget it’s moving the releases of iPadOS and iOS 13.1 to September 24th, or nearly a week before the originally scheduled September 30th debut. While there’s no mention of just why Apple is stepping up the pace, it might be due to software stability. Some iPhone 11 reviewers (including Engadget) have noticed buggy behavior in iOS 13.0, and this could iron out the kinks before there’s been too much opportunity to complain.
You will get some new features in return. iPadOS, as you may know, is a major shake-up that introduces more iPad-specific features, such as better multitasking and a widget view on the home screen. The iOS 13.1 update mainly adds features that didn’t make the cut for 13.0, including ETA sharing in Maps, automated Siri Shortcut actions and data separation for enterprise devices. This definitely isn’t a seamless release, then, but you at least shouldn’t have to wait long to see new features and a smoother overall experience.
After years of customer requests, Apple has finally bought Dark Mode to iPhones and iPads with the upcoming iOS 13 and iPadOS releases.
Not just a palette swap, Dark Mode offers a significant boost to battery life for OLED iPhone users (iPhone X, iPhone XS and XS Max) by conserving power that would usually be used to light more pixels.
It also provides a display which is easier on your eyes in darker environments – perfect if you’re using your iPhone or iPad in bed.
Tap Settings
Tap Display and Brightness
Tap Dark Mode
While developers have enabled their own Dark Modes within apps before, this is the first time Apple has included at a system level – meaning it permeates all sorts of apps, from contacts, to messages, to photos and Apple Music.
If you want to send your device into an emo phase, read on to find out how to enable Dark Mode on iPhone and iPad. It’s worth noting though, this will only work on the current public betas of iOS 13 and iPadOS.
The final of build of these software platforms are expected to hit devices in September 2019, as a free software update.
How to enable Dark Mode on iOS 13
As you may imagine, how to enable Dark Mode on iPhone and iPad starts in the Settings app. Head there, and then tap Display and brightness.
You’ll then find two small screenshots showing both Light and Dark mode – so take your pick. One tap on the Dark Mode image is all you need, and you’ll see the Settings menu itself change color.
It really is as easy at that, but you can be cleverer with it…
How to schedule Dark Mode
Did you spot the “Automatic” toggle on the previous window? That allows your iPhone or iPad to switch to Dark Mode at sunset, before switching back to light mode at sunrise.
You can add a custom schedule, too, by tapping to Options menu that appears when you hit Automatic.
This will allow you to use Light Mode throughout the day, for example, and then Dark Mode from say, 5pm onwards.
How to enable Dark Mode from Control Center
This is one of Dark Mode’s lesser known tricks, but a good one. There’s a simpler way to activate Dark Mode on iPhone and iPad than having to dig into your settings menu or scheduling it.
Bring up the Control Center shortcuts panel on screen (by swiping up from the bottom of your phone if it has a home button or down from the top right corner if it doesn’t have one), and press down on the Screen Brightness slider to make it bigger.
In the bottom left corner, you’ll find a toggle labelled “Appearance” which you can use to quickly switch from Light Mode to Dark Mode.
Back when the Pixel 3 launched, Google introduced an AR feature to Google Maps called Live View. It’s an augmented reality walking direction functionality guiding you through the streets. Well, today, Live View directions will work on more than just Pixel phones.
All Android handsets supporting ARCore and iPhones with ARKit can take advantage of the functionality. Once you select a waypoint in Google Maps, you can select walking directions and then tap on the Live View option at the bottom of the screen.
You can then look at the streets using the camera of the phone and you will get visual directions in real-time, hence the name of the feature. It’s pretty neat so if you have the chance, try it out.
Google security researchers have discovered a total of six vulnerabilities in Apple’s iOS software, one of which the iPhone manufacturer has yet to successfully patch. ZDNet reports that the flaws were discovered by two Google Project Zero researchers, Natalie Silvanovich and Samuel Groß, and five of them were patched with last week’s iOS 12.4 update, which contained several security fixes.
All of the vulnerabilities discovered by the researchers are “interactionless,” meaning they can be run without any interaction from a user, and they exploit a vulnerability in the iMessage client. Four of them (including the as-yet-unpatched vulnerability) rely on an attacker sending a message containing malicious code to an unpatched phone and can execute as soon as a user opens the message. The remaining two rely on a memory exploit.
Details of the five patched bugs have been published online, but the final bug will remain confidential until it can be addressed by Apple. Regardless, if you haven’t updated your iPhone to iOS 12.4, now might be a good time. Silvanovich will host a talk on interactionless iPhone attacks at next week’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
We’re lucky that these vulnerabilities were discovered by security researchers who had no interest in exploiting them for their own benefit. ZDNet notes that bugs like these are invaluable to manufacturers of intercept tools and surveillance software, and the right buyer would likely pay millions for access to them before Apple is able to patch its software in defense. By disclosing these bugs to Apple, these security researchers have done a service to iOS users worldwide.
