Pat Walsh IT Services

Update on Apple / Mountain Lion wifi issues

One of the Apple Support Communities pages I am subscribed to is all about the ‘wifi dropping’ issue people have had when updating to Mountain Lion. This has now reached its 14th page and new issues are added almost daily.

I found that the wifi dropping/connection issues went away when I followed Apple’s recommended settings for Wifi on iOS and OSX. The main thing to improve the situation was changing the security to WPA2.

Wifi Troubleshooting Software

As wifi constantly seems to be a problem – eg signal strength, interference and dropout – I have been searching for software which allows you to check what wifi traffic there is in your location. Up to now, I haven’t found anything useful, but I then read in an IT World article about software called inSSIDer – which is the exact thing I was looking for.

It’s well worth installing to see what wifi traffic there is in your area and what may be causing wifi issues. You can check each wifi channel to see how many other wifi networks are using it – and probably clogging it up – and then perhaps make changes to your wifi setup to try and fix the issues. It also shows you its rating of your connection, in terms of a Link Score – the higher the better.

There are versions available for Windows, Mac and Android.

By Pat Walsh|April 19th, 2013|Apple, iMac, iOS, iPad, iPhone, OSX, Problems|0 Comments

Top 10 iOS Apps for Business On The Move

This is a personal list of the Top 10 iOS Apps I have found most useful for business, when out and about and on the move, travelling to/from meetings, events, training sessions etc. This includes emails, website stats, travel information, event information, project communications and much more. Every person asked would probably have a different Top 10, but some of these apps would probably feature across most people’s Top 10.

Putting this Top 10 together, I’ve noticed that it’s mainly Apps which allow quick and easy access to information and accounts usually accessed via websites.

1 Mail

Apple’s own Mail App has proved vital when out and about attending business meetings and events, allowing me to keep up with the stream of emails coming into my business Inbox and personal Inbox.

2 Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management, online collaboration and communications platform. Using the Basecamp app allows you to keep in touch with the latest developments on projects you’re involved in. You can access multiple Basecamp accounts if you have them, switching between them as required.

3 Dropbox

Having access to important documents is vital – whether you want to re-read some meeting notes you’ve prepared, read some documentation on the company you’re visiting or read the notes on the event you’re attending.

Dropbox seems to be able to read every type of document I store on it, including PDF, DOCX and XLSX.

One of the most useful features is being able to favourite documents so they can be accessed even when no net connection is available. This is achieved by storing them on your device and you can set the storage limit for this feature.

4 Maps/Google Maps/Citymapper

There isn’t a clear winner for me yet out of these different Apps. I’ve mostly used Apple’s Maps and Google Maps with differing degrees of success. Therefore, I’m going to try out Citymapper and see how it performs when needed. It has the advantage of not just being a Maps App, but also shows you how to get from A to B, plus also easy access to travel information.

5 Fast Analytics

This App is an excellent way of keeping track of your website stats / Google Analytics figures. It allows quick and easy access to stats for Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days and Last Year. You can view a Dashboard to get an overall view, or drill down into the detail to see the Source of visits, the Content visited, the Keywords used to find it, Browser used, Country visited from and Engagement.

6 Zoho CRM

The Zoho CRM App allows easy access to your Zoho CRM info – such as Contacts, Accounts and Events. The App itself is free to download, but you need to pay a small subscription each month (currently $3) in order to access the data.

7 National Rail & London Tube Status

These Apps provide quick and easy access to train and tube information, which is is vital when using them to get about from A to B.

The National Rail App used to be a paid app but is now free. You can easily access train times and the Journey Planner is a useful and fairly quick way of accessing train times and information.

The London Tube Status App is free and a great way to quickly check the status of the Tube lines, showing them all on one status page. A green tick shows you the Tube line is running ok, whereas any problems can be checked by pressing the relevant Tube line name for more info.

8 Eventbrite

This App allows easy access to your Eventbrite account, so you can keep track of which events you’ve booked up to attend. It also allows you to Find Events based on location (‘View events near you’) or time (‘Find an event tonight’). The ‘My Ticket’ area lets you see which events you’ve booked and shows details such as Date and Time and Location, with a Map. Some Events will allow you entry by showing your Ticket on your phone, whereas some may require a print of your booking.

9 Twitter

This is a fairly essential App if you’re maintaining one or more Twitter accounts for your business. It allows you to keep up with the latest Tweets and post your own Tweets. It has to be said though, its not the greatest App and I always experience a long delay when starting it up, usually about 4-8 seconds. One of the best features of the App is the ability to switch between Twitter accounts easily.

10 MailChimp

This App allows you to easily access the latest stats on your Email Marketing campaigns performed using MailChimp.

By Pat Walsh|April 16th, 2013|Apple, Apps, iOS, iPhone|0 Comments

News: April 9 2013 – iOS 7 Concept Video

This isn’t so much News as speculation, but there have been a few iOS 7 Concept Videos recently. One of the best ones was created by designer F. Bianco and reported on TUAW.com and also on the Huffington Post website.

By Pat Walsh|April 9th, 2013|Apple, Apps, Featured News, iOS, iPad, iPhone, News 2013|0 Comments

Apple’s Recommended Wi-fi Settings for iOS & OSX

The Apple eco-system – iOS devices and OSX systems – seems to have a few problems with wi-fi connections, especially in the time just after upgrades. I have experienced this myself a couple of times, as I documented here on my blog.

Recently, I found a page on Apple’s Support site, which details Apple’s Recommended Wi-fi settings for iOS and OSX.

Below I’ve outlined the main recommendations:

SSID – Any unique name
Hidden Network – disabled
MAC Address authentication or filtering – Disabled
Security – WPA2 Personal (AES)
Channel – Auto

I’d suggest checking the page on Apple’s Support site in full before making any changes to your wi-fi setups.

Note: Changing the security to WPA2 recently fixed my Wi-fi problems after the OSX upgrade to Mountain Lion.

By Pat Walsh|January 30th, 2013|Apple, iMac, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, OSX, Problems, Upgrades|0 Comments

Apple TV 2nd Gen

Here’s a little tip for anyone who’s experiencing problems watching movies via their Apple TV, having recently upgraded to iTunes 11.

I had this issue last night and thought it might take a lot of messing around to come up with a fix – but, luckily found that practising that old adage of “if it don’t work, restart it” worked first time.

Trying to access my iTunes shared library from my Apple TV (2nd gen) just wouldn’t work, which was annoying to say the least. I then also tried to AirPlay the film from my iPad to the Apple TV, but this wouldn’t work either.

I had a quick check online for similar issues, but before going too far down that line, I restarted the Apple TV. After the short reboot, it then worked perfectly and my shared library came up almost straight away and I could watch the movie I wanted (The Bourne Supremacy)

Hope this helps someone else, as its easy to get these kind of errors with all these different upgrades going on continuously of software, O/S, devices, computers etc.

By Pat Walsh|January 26th, 2013|Apple, iMac, iPad, OSX, Problems, Tablet, Upgrades|0 Comments

iOS 6 Upgrade – Part 3 – Moans and Gripes

I’ve now upgraded my iPhone3GS from iOS 5.1.1 to iOS 6. This has been delayed mainly due to a freelance iOS App Testing project I was working on at iOS 5.1.1 plus also partly due to waiting for some fix version releases, to address any initial problems (e.g. iOS 6.0.1)

In Part 1 of this series of blog posts, I covered the actual Upgrade process and my Initial Thoughts.

Then, in Part 2, I covered the New Features and Changes in iOS 6.

Now, in Part 3, I cover Moans and Gripes with iOS 6.

What’s Not There – Google Maps

Much has been made of Apple’s removal of Google Maps from iOS 6, while replacing it with Apple’s own Maps App. For me, I haven’t really noticed a problem with Apple’s Map App but I have downloaded and used the recently-released Google Maps App.

Both seem very good but as I don’t use them much, I haven’t really noticed any problems. Maybe one day when I’m out and about and need to find something in the local area (a shop, tube station etc) I’ll really find if there’s any problems.

What’s There – Auto-Correction in iOS 6

I was hoping Apple would really improve the Auto-Correction feature in iOS6, as its always been one of the worst parts of iOS.

So far, I’ve seen no improvement and actually think its got worse.

I’m not the only one and many people have been venting on this particular annoyance.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4329450?start=0&tstart=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-bosker/apple-ios-6-maps-debacle_b_1900211.html

http://bgr.com/2012/08/29/iphone-5-criticism-ios-6/

The Auto-Correction ‘feature’ has always been a source of problems and there are several sites dedicated to the funny situations that end up occurring if you don’t notice what the Auto-Correction gremlin has done to your message.

http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

Changing Auto-Correction Settings in iOS 6

Turning off Auto-Correction may be useful for many iOS 6 users, so I thought I’d to include how to turn it off.

Go to Settings, then General then Keyboard.

Then, as the screenshot below shows, you turn Auto-Correction ON/OFF

App Store Gripes

In general, the App Store still seems slow to load and use.

But worst problem is that when you search for an App the list of matching Apps is shown in the manner of a horizontal list and to move through the list you swipe sideways, one at a time. This seems a slow and cumbersome way of navigating a large list – so to me this is a Usability Fail

By Pat Walsh|January 6th, 2013|Apple, Apps, iOS, iOS App Testing, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, Mobile Testing, New Tech, Upgrades|0 Comments

iOS 6 Upgrade – Part 2 – New Features and Changes

In Part 1 of this series of blog posts, I covered the actual Upgrade process and my Initial Thoughts.

Now, in Part 2, I cover the New Features and Changes in iOS 6. This is not an exhaustive list, but those that I have noticed/found in my own use so far of iOS 6.

New Features and Changes

The Google apps – Maps and YouTube – have both been removed from the iOS 6 package, so after the upgrade to iOS 6 you no longer have access to these. Apple’s own Maps app replaces Google Maps and has had a mixed reception, though in my brief use of it so far, I haven’t noticed any problems. Below is a screenshot of the Maps app in use, on my iPhone3GS.

Facebook is now integrated into iOS, in a similar way that they integrated Twitter in a previous release.

The Share screen has been funkily re-designed and now features more options. These are: Mail, Message, Twitter, Facebook, Add to Home Screen, Print, Copy, Bookmark and Add to Reading List

The Mail app seems more or less the same as before, though there’s now a ‘pull to refresh’ facility to refresh your Inbox. Also there’s a facility to set VIP emails, so you’re less likely to miss important emails – though I haven’t set this up yet.

The Passbook is a new App, supposedly handy for storing Boarding Passes, Tickets etc, though I haven’t used it / set it up yet.

The Phone functionality has been improved, including extra options being available when you get an Incoming call. Now in addition to the usual Decline and Answer buttons, you also have the options of ‘Reply with Message’ and ‘Remind Me Later’. You can also use the new Do Not Disturb functionality, to avoid being disturbed.

Google Maps

As mentioned above, the Google Maps and YouTube apps are not included in the upgrade to iOS 6. Apple’s own Maps app replaces Google’s version and YouTube has just been left out.

By now, Google have released a version of Google Maps for iOS 6 – the release of which has apparently seen a surge in iOS 6 upgrades – and have also released a YouTube app. I’ve installed Google Maps to my iPhone3GS and it seems to operate mostly the same as before. One big plus is that the Street View feature now works really smoothly and with full screen images. Screenshots of Google Maps below.

YouTube App

I have also downloaded the You Tube app from the App Store. Initial thoughts on this are that its not very good, as they’ve either taken away or hidden commonly used features from the previous App that was included in iOS. A screenshot is shown below.

Due to the shortcomings of the official You Tube app, I searched out some more alternatives and found You Player app, which has a UI more like the original YouTube app, so easier to use. I found it performed well, although there is the odd crash.

In Part 3, I discuss the Moans and Gripes found so far in iOS 6.

By Pat Walsh|December 23rd, 2012|Apple, Apps, iOS, iOS App Testing, iPhone, Mobile, Mobile Testing, New Tech, Upgrades|0 Comments

iOS 6 Upgrade – Part 1 – Upgrade and Initial Thoughts

I’ve now upgraded my iPhone3GS from iOS 5.1.1 to iOS 6. I put this upgrade on hold, mainly due to a freelance iOS App Testing project I was working on requiring me to keep iOS 5.1.1 but also partly due to waiting for some fix version releases, to address any initial problems (e.g. iOS 6.0.1)

One of my main hopes for the iOS 6 upgrade was that it would address some of the performance problems I’d experienced using iOS 5.1.1 where some of the Apps seemed to be working in slow motion. Some net reviews / blogs were encouraging reading on this point. Though of course, you never know until you upgrade your own device.

Upgrade

The upgrade process was fairly painless, though took a bit longer than expected.
I synced my iPhone3GS before the upgrade, so I had a recent backup. This meant I upgraded via iTunes, with the iPhone3GS in the cradle.
The device had 1.12 Gb free space on it, according to iTunes.
iTunes said iOS 6.0.1 was available for the upgrade
Took quite a while to download the actual upgrade file(s) – which proved to be 780 Mb
Once downloaded, I then installed it.
The whole process took just over 30 minutes
Once the upgrade was completed and the iPhone3GS had restarted, there were a couple of steps to go through before using it.
Step 1 – Select wifi network – this had my existing wifi network already chosen in the list and was as easy as just selecting it
Step 2 – Turn on Location Servcies
Step 3 – Signin with Apple ID – it says for iCloud, Messages and FaceTime

Initial Thoughts

Initial thoughts are that it looks a little bit different, but hardly noticable differences
After a couple of days usage, it does seem to be a smoother and faster experience, with fewer delays when using the built-in Apps. This was especially noticed (and appreciated) in the Notes and Calendar Apps.
However, some Apps are still slow – with the re-designed App Store still slow and painful to use.
One interesting point is that there’s now 2.4 Gb of free space on my iPhone3GS, so after the upgrade I’ve got an extra 1.2 Gb
Apps-wise, some big changes have made in the upgrade process – with Google’s Maps and YouTube apps no longer being included.
Apple’s own Maps app replaces the Google Maps app – much has been written of people’s disappointments with the Apple Maps app

The next blog post – Part 2 – will look at the New Features and Changes in iOS 6

By Pat Walsh|December 23rd, 2012|Apple, Apps, featured-posts, iOS, iOS App Testing, iPhone, Mobile, New Tech|0 Comments

iOS App Testing – Ad Hoc App Delivery Method

As I recently started using TestFlight for this, I thought I’d outline how the other way of delivering Apps to testers works – that is Ad Hoc Delivery.

Firstly, the UDID of your iOS Device(s) has to be known by the Developer delivering the App to you, otherwise this whole process won’t work. Here’s a handy guide to finding your device’s UDID.

Then, you need to follow these manual steps:

You will normally need to delete old versions of the App to be tested (not always necessary, so check first) from iTunes / your iOS device
Delivery of the App could be via email or Dropbox or similar method
The App will either be delivered as an .ipa file or a ZIP file
If necessary, unzip the ZIP file
If a Mobile Provisioning File has been supplied also, you will need to add this to your iTunes Library first. Also, the accompanying file will be named .app rather than .ipa
Depending on which type of delivery, add either the .app or .ipa file to your iTunes Library
Go to your iOS device in iTunes and look under Apps.
Find the new App – easiest way is to sort by Date
Click to select the new App to be tested
Then sync your iOS device
May also need to click Apply also

As you can see, this is a lot longer route than using TestFlight.

Here’s some extra info on the Ad Hoc delivery method.

http://www.camiloo.co.uk/install-your-app-iphoneipad/

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Ad-hoc-iPhone-OS-Apps

Installing via Windows http://www.innerfence.com/howto/install-iphone-application-ad-hoc-distribution

By Pat Walsh|October 11th, 2012|Apple, Apps, Development, iOS, iOS App Testing, Mobile, Mobile Testing, New Tech, Software Testing|0 Comments

Apps World 2012, Day 2, Wednesday 3 October 2012

Last Wednesday, I went along to Day 2 of Apps World 2012, at Earls Court 2. I went for the full day, as there was more of interest during the morning session, especially around the area of Mobile Testing.

My photos from the day are below, some of dodgy quality as all are via my iPhone. There’s also the official photos available at Apps World blog

Here’s my findings, on the days events:

I saw several presentations at the Developer Zone and some of these presentations are now available on the Apps World website, either as Audio and/or Slides downloads. The ones I saw on the day included the following:
- At 1040, the presentation on Mobile Testing, by Becky Wetherill of Borland. This dealt with both areas of Mobile Testing and also Borland’s Silk Mobile testing product. One of the interesting points was that due to the number of different devices, screen sizes and O/S combinations, there’s over 100,000 possible device combinations – obviously impossible to test all of those! Therefore, the Edge Strategy is used, to test minimum and maximum O/S versions, on different devices, with minimum and maximum device screen sizes. There all also many factors which affect an Apps performance and behaviour, including O/S Versions, Screen Size and Chipsets.
- At 1110, the Applicasa presentation was interesting and eye-catching – their idea being to take Zombie users out of developers Apps and turn them into active/paying users
- At 1120, Tim King, the CTO of 5app, gave his forthright presentation on the amount of cowboys in the world of App development.
- At 1130, there was a presentation from Grant Skinner, on Building the Atari Arcade in HTML5 & CreateJS. His company got this projects from Microsoft and Atari and was a way of showcasing HTML5, in this case for games.
- After lunch, at 1300, there was then a panel from AQuA – the App Quality Alliance – which is a non-profit organisation created by Sony, Orange, Oracle, Samsung and many others with the aim of promoting App Quality, mainly in the Android area.
- At 1330, there was a presentation from PayPal, on simplifying the payment experience. Part of this covered the Mobile Payments Library (MPL) for iOS and Android, which allows developers to build PayPal payments functionality right into their Apps. Another interesting fact I picked up was that PayPal provide a global test platform at developer.paypal.com where developers and testers can test the whole payment process – including multi-currencies and multi-countries. This allows all use cases to be tested before going live. Dev resources can be found at x.com/mobile and x.com/developers/paypal. Tech support is also available at paypal.com/mts.

The whole area of Mobile Payments is an interesting and intriguing one, as it seems to be where everything is heading more and more. With so many competing Mobile Payments technologies it will be interesting to see who’ll be left standing after the coming period of consolidation – surely it won’t just be PayPal? I think testing these different types of Mobile Payments is an interesting challenge, made more difficult by the sheer variety of payment options.

At Apps World, I talked to the following Mobile Payments companies briefly, some of which I’d heard of, some of which I hadn’t:

Zooz – they provide an SDK to developers, so they can then choose which payment options to enable for their users. They provide a sandbox for testing.
iZettle – similar to Square, they use a dongle to read card details and an App on the Mobile device to do the payment processing.
Payoneer – they provide global payment solutions, where payments are made to a prepaid Mastercard, ideal for international freelancers etc who need to be paid for their work via different online work platforms.

Overall, Apps World was well worth attending, a good way of networking and finding out the latest trends and news in the Apps World, with areas of interest for both developers and testers.

By Pat Walsh|October 9th, 2012|Android, Android App Testing, App Testing, Apple, Apps, Development, Events, iMac, iOS, iOS App Testing, Middleware Testing, Mobile, Mobile Testing, New Tech, open source, Selenium, Software Testing, Sony, Twitter, Website Testing|0 Comments

12 3 Next

Apple

Wifi Troubleshooting Software

1 Mail

2 Basecamp

3 Dropbox

4 Maps/Google Maps/Citymapper

5 Fast Analytics

6 Zoho CRM

7 National Rail & London Tube Status

8 Eventbrite

9 Twitter

10 MailChimp

What’s Not There – Google Maps

What’s There – Auto-Correction in iOS 6

Changing Auto-Correction Settings in iOS 6

App Store Gripes

New Features and Changes

Google Maps

YouTube App

Upgrade

Initial Thoughts

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