Tag: icloud

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February 2026: iPhone Literacy, Part 2

by straitmacvp

Our February 17, 2026, meeting was titled “iPhone Literacy Part 2.” The goal was to show many (definitely not “all”) the things you could do with an iPhone, right out of the box, besides making or receiving phone calls. There were lots of short video demonstrations, and plenty of commentary.

English gentleman attempting to consume everything there is to know about an iPhone.
English gentleman attempting to consume everything there is to know about an iPhone.

Immediately after the February meeting ended, and the host closed the Zoom meeting, Zoom informed me that it could not convert the Zoom file to video because the file was “corrupted.” No transcript of the closed captioning was available, either.

This was not an auspicious ending. But there were still all those individual demo videos, and they are shown below.

In March, we will continue with iPhone Literacy Part 3. We may even show how to make a phone call, but no promises.

Slide Presentation on iPhone Literacy, Part 2

These are the slides from the February 2026 meeting. They were done in Keynote, but not on an iPhone.

iPhone Literacy, Part 2Download

Videos from the February 2026 meeting

All videos were recorded on an iPhone 17 Pro Max using the Screen Recording function in Control Center. Most of them do not have any sound, and since they are screen recordings, you can’t see a finger pressing, sliding, stroking, or flicking something. You do, however, see how various apps appear and, with luck, why you’d want to use that app. All of the apps are bundled with iOS 26, except Classical, Apple’s classical music app, which is a free download.

These are presented in the order shown during the meeting. Note that, in most cases, the iPhone search function is used to find and launch the app, rather than flipping back and forth through multiple screens to find the app. This is a hint: use the search function; it saves time.

iOS 26 Control Center

Control Center (https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-and-customize-control-center-iph59095ec58/ios) is not really an app but an overlay that you can call up at any time by swiping down from the right top edge of the iPhone screen. It brings up a list of controls for doing things like turning on Airport Mode, increasing screen brightness, or turning on Do Not Disturb, or any of a number of other functions. It is customizable by the user, and you can add or remove functions according to taste. Along the right margin of the screen are five small buttons that go to functions by group — favorites, functions, music, home automation, and networking.

iOS 26 Measure app

The Measure app can be used for measuring things, both large (walls, doors, oversized TVs) and small (a very small atomic bomb). Additionally, if you click the menu in the upper left, an overlay will appear showing you the measurement in both English (inches, feet) and metric (millimeters, centimeters, meters).

iOS 26 Measure app, used as a level

The Measure app can also be used as a bubble level, showing how many degrees off from level something might be, or indicating that something is flat with a fully green screen. No bubbles are harmed with this app.

iOS 26 Calculator app

The iPhone Calculator can be used to convert weights, temperatures, currencies, and other things, as well as act as a basic calculator and a scientific calculator. It also has a virtual “paper tape,” keeping track of calculations and conversions.

iOS 26 Calendar app

If you sync your Calendar via iCloud, anniversaries, reminders, and appointments are shared among your devices. You can also go back in time to mark birthdays and anniversaries, or see what day of the week the Declaration of Independence was declared (Thursday, July 4, 1776), though that is a lot of scrolling, or Chinese independence from the Manchu dynasty (Tuesday, October 10, 1911), which is less scrolling.

iOS 26 Clock app

The Clock app is not only a clock, but a World Clock, and also does alarms, timers, and has a stopwatch function.

iOS 26 Weather app

You can set the Weather app to not only display local weather but also the weather in other parts of the world. Click on an individual day, and a pop-up menu allows you to see the UV index, wind speed, precipitation, humidity, visibility, and air pressure throughout the day.

iOS 26 Voice Memo app

The Voice Memo is a quick way to take a quick voice memo, and also a quick way to record odd sounds, such as a damaged fan blade or the thunder noise made when the garbage truck collects cans. If you have an Apple Watch, you can also trigger a voice memo from your watch.

iOS 26 Find My app

Find My can find your iPhone, your MacBook, or things with an attached Apple AirTag. The video shows a search for a TV remote hidden under some papers. Though you can’t hear it, you can see when the button is pushed to trigger a sound from the AirTag.

iOS 26 Maps app

Apple Maps can give you detailed driving directions, which is handy. But you can also use it to find Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, complete with a 3D model of the building.

iOS 26 News app

Apple’s News app is a “news aggregator,” collecting recent stories from a variety of publications, according to your preferences.

iOS 26 Notes app

The Notes app can be used to store handwritten notes (which it can optionally convert to text), typed notes, voice notes, and can also hold images, sounds, and lots of other things. The collective notes are searchable, and you have the option of password-protecting individual notes.

iOS 26 Reminders app

Reminders are a great way to create a shopping list, and you can optionally add a location. With a location attached, your phone can alert you the next time you drive near Costco to stop in and get raccoon stuffing, or something more useful.

iOS 26 Apple TV app

Apple TV is a streaming video service with movies and TV-style series presentations. And yes, you can watch them on your iPhone.

iOS 26 Apple TV remote control panel

Confusingly, Apple TV is also a small device that you can use to control your TV. The iPhone comes with a Control Center control to turn on and off the Apple TV, mute it, control the volume, change channels, pause, fast forward, etc.

iOS 26 Classical music app

While you have to download Classical from the iPhone App Store, it is made by Apple, and is free. It is a music app focused just on classical music.

iCloud on Windows application

This is not an iPhone app but an application for Microsoft Windows. It allows you to sync things from your phone directly to your Windows computer via iCloud. The application is made by Apple, and is free.

iOS 26 Tips app and iOS Books app

Two apps are in this video: Tips, which is a searchable encyclopedia of what you can do with your iPhone (and, if you have one, Apple Watch), and Books. An iPhone is just slightly smaller, and about the same weight, as a paperback book, but with Books, you can carry thousands of books with you — on your phone.

We will explore more of what your iPhone can do on March 17, 2026, in iPhone Literacy, Part 3.

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iCloud

by straitmacvp

SMUG meeting, August 16, 2022

Meeting notes by Kathleen Charters

This month’s topic was iCloud, Apple’s suite of cloud-based services. “Cloud-based services” both correctly describe the services, and cloud understanding of those services, since many people don’t understand what a computer “cloud” means.

As a quick summary: iCloud provides email (Apple Mail), contacts (Apple Contacts), calendar (Apple Calendar), photos (Apple Photos), file storage (iCloud Drive), notes (Apple Notes), reminders and lists (Apple Reminders), word processing (Apple Pages), spreadsheets (Apple Numbers), slides (Apple Keynote), news (Apple News), and location services (Find iPhone) across all your Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and the web, via almost any web browser on almost any device.

Assuming you have everything properly set up, these services allow you to view photos, send email, create word-processing documents, and sync passwords from almost any Apple device to any other Apple device. You can also combine family member iCloud accounts into a Family Plan, expand the storage used by iCloud, and generally make life easier with iCloud services.

Q&A

Mac OS12 – security features for Apple silicon machines, interface looks the same but underneath is different and faster, people doing YouTube video bottleneck is Internet speed, still photography not noticeable change; screen drawing issues addressed, open folder of images quickly or 20 tabs open on the browser, speed up routine activity; MacBook Air running Apple Silicon and MacOS 12.5 can do production work

iPhoto on iPhone go to desktop automatically, the link between phone and desktop is through iCloud; if do not want on iPhone use iCloud to manage photos, may allow Mac to control photos on all devices; free iCloud is only 5 GB, may have to pay for more space, Lawrence has 2 TB on iCloud and uses this for iPhone photos on a family plan for spouse and daughter in U.K.

Note: SLR camera photo is 44 MB per photo; these are not on iCloud

If iPhone full can upgrade to a new iPhone with higher capacity; to get rid of things manage and delete from desktop and tell to delete from all devices; if want to keep on desktop and not iPhone, go to iPhoto, select all, export to a folder, put on a USB drive or SD card, then delete out of iPhoto and manage the photos in another program; e.g., Adobe Lightroom

iPhoto works for most people for most purposes

Do not put quarters into the machine even if there is an instruction to do so – this is a joke

Music does not work the same as photos, which used to sync with iTunes, but not anymore

Difference between a dynamic database of photos and an archive of photos to hold somewhere else, e.g., a safe deposit box

iPhoto is an organizing system, not an archive system

Example of having an external hard drive hooked up, but not telling the computer to back up to it

If you get a new Mac computer, Migration Assistant will copy files, documents, and accounts from your old machine to your new machine, unless the program is incompatible

Time Machine for backup – attach to the current machine, use Migration Assistant to copy from the current machine to Time Machine storage, external drive

Apple Gatekeeper on recent Mac OS 11-12 update set up (mark checkbox) to install automatically for automatic update; Apple updates software with the most recent code; run the update for increased security; can check Automatically keep this machine up-to-date to protect from malware

Business meeting

President – welcome to Audrey, issue resolved

Treasurer – 1 new membership; balance is $1633.63

VP Programs – Basic computer Literacy program for the community, bandwidth challenges: CenturyLink, Wave Cable, Cox; encouraged to change to a global e-mail account, e.g., Gmail, so they still have access to e-mail when there is a local outage

Port Angeles space is available for free if open to the community

What topic for September?

October Community Computer Literacy event on a Saturday?

iCloud – what is it?

Apple ID – List of services available, ability to delete accounts from here; if you have a basic account, turn on all services except iCloud Photos and Drive

In System Preferences, click on your icon at the top and turn on the iCloud services you want. If you have only the free 5 GB plan, don't turn on Drive or Photos.
In System Preferences, click on your icon at the top and turn on the iCloud services you want. If you have only the free 5 GB plan, don’t turn on Drive or Photos.

Hover the mouse over individual sections of the iCloud Storage graph to see which services are using your iCloud space.

It appears Peter Lyon is using most of his space for photos. You can run out of space quickly, so consider switching to a paid plan with more storage.
It appears Peter Lyon is using most of his space for photos. You can run out of space quickly, so consider switching to a paid plan with more storage.

You have access to iCloud from other devices, and you can even use a machine that isn’t yours to access iCloud via the web:

Opening screen of iCloud as shown in a web browser. You can access any service listed by clicking on the icon.
Opening screen of iCloud as shown in a web browser. You can access any service listed by clicking on the icon.

This is what Apple Mail looks like as seen from a web browser. It looks and acts pretty much as it does on a Mac or iPad or iPhone.

Apple Mail as seen in iCloud. Pressing the + icon next to Folders in the left menu bar will show you any custom folders you have set up.
Apple Mail as seen in iCloud. Pressing the + icon next to Folders in the left menu bar will show you any custom folders you have set up.

If you are away from your computer, or your computer has died, you can look up your Contacts in iCloud by using any computer and logging in.

Contacts, as seen in a web browser looking at iCloud. Interesting: Peter has a cat that appears to be allergic to people, and Peter is allergic to asparagus.
Contacts, as seen in a web browser looking at iCloud. Interesting: Peter has a cat that appears to be allergic to people, and Peter is allergic to asparagus.

Apple Photos, as seen via a web browser in iCloud:

Apple Photos, as seen in iCloud through a web browser. From a visit to the US Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Apple Photos, as seen in iCloud through a web browser. From a visit to the US Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio.

iCloud Drive tries to organize files by type, though you can just drop things at random.

iCloud Drive, as seen in a web browser.
iCloud Drive, as seen in a web browser.

In System Preferences, while looking at iCloud service, you can select “Manage” to add storage: 5 GB free, $1/month 50 GB, up to 2TB drive space

Apple One service, Apple bundle in family version, so everyone has the same set of services

iPhoto stores photos in iCloud, so multiple locations have copies of the data

Keychain allows the sync of passwords across devices, securely and invisibly

Hide what is on the Web or hide e-mail to give a different e-mail address

People use iCloud Mail and Contacts. If updated on one device, all updated

Calendars, Reminders – can set to location; sync Notes, Safari for bookmarks

Find My Mac to track down the location of the device

Home for Home Pod so you can access from anywhere and can speak to a person at home

Siri – synchronize

All devices have the same access to everything

Photos by media types, panorama examples, create a catalog of people and objects, e.g., airplanes and ships

Tools in iPhoto to adjust exposure

iCloud.com, log on, look at photos there, cannot edit photos there, but can access from anywhere you have Internet access

Have a menu to go to other services, e.g., Mail, fully functional; Contacts – can store information on anything and search on it, e.g., list of devices, part of the database of people on the Web as an iCloud service

Calendar – can be shared, can set preferences for reminders so only the person with the calendar gets them and not the person who subscribes to that calendar; Lawrence and Kathleen use Google Calendar for sharing

Password length is the thing that makes password safe, government guidelines are not necessary

Can share documents, PowerPoint presentations, and synchronize notes

iCloud drive – store files

Reminders – create date time or location triggered reminders (tied to Apple Maps); phone will remind when arrive at that address; Web version harder than iPhone or Desktop to set up

Pages saved to iCloud go into the Pages directory; same for Notes

Find My… iPhone

Cloud Services – must be aware of use of space, if needed more than what is free, the cost of storage is reasonable, do not have to think about how to integrate with devices; if needed to store photos, triple that for a year

If the Directory shows half a TB in use, then pay for 2 TB so you do not have to delete things

Information about the account

Q&A

Go to your iCloud account

To find your things, can sort same way as in Finder; you can create folders to organize files

From the desktop can search in iPhoto by media type, e.g., screenshots or .jpg

Things in iCloud viewed on the desktop

Can use a browser to view Apple iCloud

Comparison with Google services

Google has search capabilities, but integration is manual

Google Drive is not integrated with the desktop; you can do this manually

Things may not work as well

Notes drawing function on iPad but not on desktop, strengths, and weaknesses, Adobe application on iPad to show on desktop

Safety of Cloud Services – once every 6-8 months see story about iCloud hacked, no one has hacked by using normal hacking tools, celebrity stories usually about having password guessed; items are encrypted in transit, messages encrypted Apple to Apple but third party may not be encrypted, Google campaign asking Apple to fix messaging since Android phone shows up green (unencrypted) on iPhone but Apple to Apple messages are blue (encrypted); same for mail systems – Apple mail is encrypted but other mail systems are not

Have a choice in how to send, if going Mac to Mac will be encrypted, Mac to anything not Mac will not be encrypted

Use both iCloud, Google Services, Microsoft OneDrive and Outlook, Gmail, and authentication services

Notification of meeting – e-mail not received by one member, NextDoor notifications coming out 8-12 hours after posted

My 2017 machine died, spoke to Apple, took it into the store, not able to access how to clear nonvolatile RAM? What is there is encrypted; see Apple’s list of steps to take before giving away/selling a Mac; remove from the machine, then smash the hard drive, hard to drill since solid; Disk Utility admin User can erase the drive the number of times you specify, takes a long time; drive gets hot

How to Sanitize Equipment – put this information on SMUG Website; especially old devices no longer supported; graceful migration and erase the machine; iCloud makes migration easy

Need help with terminology used; have on Mac the application “Dictionary” which is a full version of the Oxford Dictionary; Apple dictionary for Apple-specific terms; in applications folder under “Dictionary”; can search Wikipedia

Demonstrate things that can be done in the terminal, the built-in mail server on Mac comes with a manual, UNIX was designed by Martians since the list command is ls and more detail is ls -al; invented by people ages 15-25; spelling variations: disc vs. disk

Meeting topic suggestions

September – How to use Numbers, Pages, Keynote; Excel macros with Visual Basic and use for log files to audit, basic stats; 3D printing and creations;

October – basic computer literacy

November – new OS? Cost of Monterey estimated at $10B; Lawrence will install the Beta when available

Later:

Diagnostics – in-person

Accessibility features

Uncategorized

Setting up iCloud services

by straitmacvp

Strait Macintosh User Group (SMUG), January 21, 2020

Notes by Kathleen Charters

Q&A

New machine – no reason not to upgrade to the latest OS

Wi-Fi router vs Wi-Fi extender vs Mesh – Nighthawk router better than extender (hard to set up and not very effective); Mesh is cooperative network of devices so robust but expensive, the slow part is not internal WIFI it is the WAVE Cable modem at 5-10 MB per second; WIFI router pugs into ethernet port of WAVE modem, just follow the instruction

A Wi-Fi router is just focused on the Wi-Fi signals and connects to the modem

Time capsule does 5 functions: Wi-Fi network router, Ethernet switch, Time Machine hub, printer, firewall

Wave sells a modem (modulator-demodulator). A traditional modem sends sound over a wire, turns sound into digital (historic); the Wave modem sends digital signals; an ISP, internet service provider, gives you a modem, may have 2 boxes, and one is a set-top box for the TV and controlled by a remote for the TV, and one is Internet access

Meeting convened by Lawrence Charters, VP of SMUG

President Sabrina is in Europe

First-time attendees acknowledged

Anika, treasurer, collects dues to support the SMUG infrastructure

Future topics requested: how to set up iCloud Services, GMAIL services

Tonight: iCloud Services setup

Illustration: a university building map and legend that shows no logic, confounds those trying to read the map = how people think about instructions to set up services

If you do not have a Mac and get an Apple ID and use iCloud, useful to have integrated services, no cost, and powerful

Google “Apple ID” and go to the Apple ID site, go to Apple ID support, and get directions on how to set it up, or go to AppleId.com

First Name, Last Name, birthday (for minimum age check to restrict content if under 16 based on European privacy laws and US has no Federal privacy laws but US companies doing business with Europe use those laws everywhere); if want to be over 16 use correct day and month but false year greater than 21 years ago so cannot give out personal information but remember the year as will need it in the future

Can give any name, reasonably complex, as an email address; recommend getting an email account that will move with you, Apple email, and Google email are widely used, Space Station uses iCloud to communicate with family

Select security questions to answer, and put this information into 1Password to securely save it for future use

At the bottom asks what mailing lists you want to be on? Recommend “Apple News” to get useful information about what is going on

Enter the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) code

Go to iCloud to set up services – can get mail, contacts, calendar, photos, iCloud Drive, Notes, Reminders (date/time, or location dependent), Pages, Numbers, KeyNote (much better than PowerPoint), Find Friends, Find iPhone (any device registered with this service)

Keychain – visible portion of Unix-based password server, hard to understand the interface, 1Password is a better solution since easy to understand, handy for iPhone and Mac, encrypts information stored.

ICloud set-up on computer: go to Internet accounts, set up a new account, click on iCloud button, enter AppleID, password, and will see with list of possible services, how much storage, default is 5GB free, if want more there is a cost; minimum: turn on for Mail, Contacts, Calendar,  Reminders, Safari (bookmarks and reading list), Notes, Keychain (shared passwords for use by both computer and iPhone or iPad etc.), Find My Mac,

Optional: Siri, Stocks, News, Home (HomePod when controlling things like lights in the home)

Caution: Photos consume a lot of space; if you only have 5GB will use this up rapidly; select Manage and you can buy more storage, 2TB is cheap at $10/month and can be shared

When you find an interesting article, click on “+” and mark it so you can read it on any device, can also save for offline reading (set on Safari Preferences Advanced); saves any URL; saves it until you get rid of it

Still need Keychain even if you have 1Password; Keychain automatically stores everything, 1Password is intentional, so it may not store everything

Possible to use up storage with email, can see what uses up storage, if close to limit, buy more, can do this for 1-2 months

iCloud vs iCloud Drive – launch Pages, create a document, save to iCloud Drive – saves to Cloud, not to computer, so can have it independent from a device, best for collaboration

Backup to cloud and do not get everything when restore, possible Internet service is not reliable, get a fraction of what is advertised, 10 MB per second best possible for upload with Wave

To get rid of items from iCloud Drive, just throw them away; you need to go to iCloud Drive and send them to trash

Finder -> Preferences -> Sidebar: turn on everything so you can find it

Washington Post example of how to get rid of ads by creating a reader view so you only see the story; the location bar on the left has grey lines, if you click on this, the ads go away

Use up significant space: Photos (e.g., panoramas are huge) – when save in Photos have option to save to iCloud but uses up space quickly; if lose phone still have photos; when iPhone saves to iDrive synchs the photos so all devices have a copy; full size original downloaded to Mac and smaller versions to devices with less storage space

iCloud backup – turn on for phone, if the computer has a small drive, this will use a lot of space

Google services – Gmail, calendar, similar to iCloud but different, 15GB free but not as tight integration as iCloud; if you upload high-quality photos but not full resolution no limit on Google; different collaboration tools, e.g., Google Docs

Can set up so automatically forwards Gmail to iCloud mail, so read in one place

Family information (more sensitive, personal) on iCloud, joint account for Gmail calendar (less sensitive)

Google and Pages can read Word, can export to the format others can read, Word or plain text can be read by others but only saves text; PDF works but a way to spread virus in Windows world; PDF to keep others from editing it; since a page and look at it on a phone cannot read it; ePub flows the text to fit the screen size

Text .txt vs. Text Edit vs. Word .doc; TextEdit can read Word but throws away the formatting

Video – most common format is .mp4; Apple App Store using iCloud account can get a video converter; recommend Smart Converter (free); gives it the right extension so you can share with others

A video is just a file, but a bookmark is a pointer to a file that is somewhere else

May not be able to move if there is not enough room where you want to put it

Finder -> View -> Show View Options -> Status Bar (turn this on and use it as a default for Finder windows), so you can see if there is enough room

Q&A

Reminders – launch on desktop; welcome; upgrade now – do this on desktop and phone, and iPad at the same time; Preferences, Reminders demo – item, date/time, location (iPhone shows map)

Next Topic

Sort Mail – need to cover Google Services first.