Apple’s most common iOS 8 questions answered

When you write about Apple your chums ask for tech advice each time a software upgrade is released. Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked iOS 8-related questions:

NB: If you are having problems installing the OS, please read this report.

How do I lose these faces?

iOS 8 will display your most recently contacted contacts in the multi-tasking screen (accessed with two taps on the Home button). You can switch this off:

Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Show in App Switcher and toggle the switch to Off”.

How do I switch off predictive text?

Each to their own — I quite like Apple’s context sensitive text, but some of my chums have felt like it slows them down when they type. You can switch it off easily: Settings>General>Keyboard and toggle that switch to Off.

However, there’s a better way that puts the feature into the background while keeping it available. Tap on any word in the suggestion box, drag it down and you’ll see this closes the suggestion draw leaving a thin line. Next time you want to use predictive text just tap that line and raise it to open the draw.

Where are my photos?

The seemingly arbitrary disappearance of Camera Roll caused havoc among some of my friends who needed help understanding where their older pictures had gone.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Open Photos app and tap the Photos tab, not Albums tab.
• In the upper left corner of the Photos tab screen there is the word “Years”.
• Tap this to see a view of all the photos you’ve taken that are stored on your device.

How to delete images

All deleted images are now kept for a period in the ‘Recently Deleted’ album. That’s handy if you ever delete things in error, but be sure to Delete All the images in that album if you happen to be a celebrity trying to keep intimate images from leaking online without your permission.

How to hide images

Speaking of hiding images, if you want to hide one of your own just long tap the image and the Copy/Hide dialog pops up. Tap Hide and the image goes dark to show it has been hidden. You can still find it in the Hidden album, but no one else will see it.

How to shut message alerts off?

Repeating message alert sounds getting you down? You can switch it off: Settings>Notifications>Messages Scroll to Repeat Alerts and flip this to Never. Now you will only be alerted once when new messages reach you.

When I get a call my iPad rings…

If you have multiple Apple devices that all use your Apple ID you may start to receive calls on all your devices at once. You can control this by switching off iPhone Cellular Calls in the FaceTime section of each device’s Settings menu, but be sure to only disable this in devices you don’t want to use for calls.

I hate the noisy keyboard

If the clicks of your iOS 8 keyboard are driving you mad, switch it off in Settings>Sounds>Keyboard Clicks, toggle to off.

Lost iMessages

Now you can send short audio messages using iMessage you may want to review how long your device keeps them. Scroll to the bottom of the Settings>Messages screen and you’ll find three controls that configure how long messages are stored:

• Message History: 30 days, 1 year, forever
• Audio Messages: Expire after 2 minutes or never
• Video Messages: Expire after 2 minutes or never.

Don’t forget that if you keep audio and video messages forever they’ll use up lots of space.

Hope these help some people out!

Also read:

• An iOS 8 troubleshooting guide
• How to get ready for iPhone 6 and iOS 8
• Apple Pay: What you need to know

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