iOS Tip 152 - Share Audio Messages

The visual voicemail area of the Phone app now has a share button! You can send the audio of the message to a ton of apps—Email, Notes, Messages or Facebook Messenger (to send to others!), Voice Memos (to edit), even biz apps like Basecamp and Slack. Or shoot it to Dropbox to save in the cloud and on your desktop as an .m4a (MPEG 4) audio file—we call that a "forever blackmail." It's also a quick way to make voice memos to yourself when you can't access your phone; simply transfer your own message to other apps.

Open Voicemail on your iPhone, tap on the caller, tap on the Share icon, then tap to Share on the App of your choice.

iOS Tip 151 - Drift Off to Music or Lectures

iBooks in iOS has a built-in sleep timer that can automatically pause playback after a specified amount of time, which is great for listening to an audiobook as you go to sleep (tap the Moon button below the volume slider). What if you prefer listening to content that’s not in iBooks, like music or a college lecture? To set a sleep timer that works for Music, iTunes U, or any other app that plays audio, open the Clock app and tap the Timer button. Next, tap When Timer Ends (iPhone) or the selected sound (iPad), scroll to the end of the list of sounds, and select Stop Playing. When you’re ready to listen as you drift off to sleep, start the timer just before or right after you press Play in your audio app.

Watch the Rio Olympics Live on iPhone or iPad

You can easily watch any of the 2016 Rio Olympic games and competitions live right from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (or Android too, but we’re obviously focusing in iOS), meaning you can watch any game and any country and any sport you want, you don’t have to wait for the evening highlights. You don’t even need a cable TV package, any iOS device will do.

All you need to do to watch live footage of any current Rio Olympic games is to download the NBC Sports app. Anyone can then watch live footage of the 2016 Olympics from within the app, it’s that easy.
• Get the NBC Sports app here from the iOS App Store
Just launch the NBC Sports app, go to the “Live and Upcoming” tab, and browse through the currently active games. Tap on what you want to see live, and away it goes, the live stream of the event will start immediately. It’s that easy.

You’ll also want to login to a local authorized TV or cable provider, which extends the length of time you can watch live coverage for beyond the 30 minutes. Just about every general TV provider in the USA is included, so whether you’re a member of a cable monopoly or a smaller provider it’s likely going to be in the provider list.

iOS Tip 150 - Teaching Siri

Schooling Siri on Unusual Names

Teaching Siri .
Like us Siri can sometimes stumble over names that don’t read the same way they sound when spoken aloud. But you can tell Siri the proper pronunciation of a name for future reference.
The next time Siri mangles a name, tap the microphone button and say, “That’s not how you pronounce [Name].” The program should respond with, “O.K., how do you pronounce the name [Name]?” Say the correct pronunciation of your first and last name as clearly as you can.
Siri will then fire back with, “O.K., thank you. Which pronunciation should I use?” and offer a few variations of your first name to play back. After you have listened to the choices, tap Select next to the one you want and then move on to Siri’s attempts to pronounce your last name.
If none of the options sound correct, tap Tell Siri Again and repeat the pronunciation exercise until you get better results. After you make your selections, Siri should use the corrected version of your name from then on.
If your Contacts list contains names with unusual spellings and pronunciations that Siri cannot accurately match up when you ask for them, you can try adding a phonetic version of the name to the person’s contact card. To do that, call up the contact, tap Edit in the upper-right corner and scroll down to Add Field.
Tap the Add Field option and on the next screen, select Phonetic First Name or Phonetic Last Name. Once the chosen field appears, type in the syllables of the name the way that they sound rather than how the name is spelled.
For example, if Siri trips over the Irish name Siobhan, enter “she vann” into the Phonetic First Name field and tap Done. Later, when you want to send your friend a text message, say the name the way it sounds. Siri should hear “she vann,” but address a message to Siobhan.