Find My iPhone Archives - The Online Mom

By Tracey Dowdy

Three very important, world changing events happened last past week:

1. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club voted to admit female members;
2. The TV networks launched their new fall line-ups and season premieres; and
3. Apple released iOS 8.

Granted, in the grand scheme of things, numbers one and two may not actually count as world changing, but humor me. You can at least see the importance of #3.

Here are my favorite features from iOS 8:

1. Siri can now “name that tune.” Shazam has long been everyone’s go-to music search app but now Shazam is integrated into Siri, so you can more easily identify music whether it’s playing on your device or part of a movie soundtrack.

2. Family Sharing allows up to six users to share purchases from iTunes, iBook and the App Store, without having to share the same account. Kids under 13 can now have their own account linked to yours for billing purposes via “Ask to Buy,” so all purchases are pre-approved by you. If you’d prefer your children not have access to your collection of hardcore rap albums, you can choose to hide individual items.

You can also take advantage of the Family Photo album, with anyone in the circle being able to curate and add to it. Perhaps my favorite feature is the Family Calendar, so I can keep track of work schedules, appointments and plans from one central location. I’ve had a dry erase calendar on a cabinet door since we moved in to our current house – and it still says “October 2013.” Kudos to Apple for finally getting my family on the same page.

3. “Find my iPhone” has been around for a while, but with iOS8 you now have the added Send Last Location feature, which syncs with iCloud to send a “distress signal” when the battery is about to run out.

4. I would say my single greatest complaint about my iPhone 5 is how quickly the battery drains. Now, iOS 8 identifies which apps are the worst offenders, so users like me can decide what to keep, what to delete, and what to adjust. (Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage).

5. One of the best new features in Messaging is the ability to name, mute, or leave a conversation that involves more than two participants. Simply click “Details” in the top left corner and run away.

6. Some of the biggest changes are to the Photos app. When you open your Photos, you will note a change in how albums are organized. Tap the new search tool and you are presented with auto-populated categories for your current location, photos shot one year ago, photos shot at your home address, photos tagged as favorites, and a list of recently found images. There are also enhanced editing categories: Light, Color, and B&W, with over a dozen additional manual editing features between them.

7. Being able to take a time lapse photo has been an option via third party apps but now it’s integrated into the iOS 8 camera functions. Swipe all the way to the left on the camera mode dial and set the timer for three or ten seconds. There are also options to set exposure levels.

8. Finally, continuity between devices will be a big feature going forward. OS X Yosemite (projected for release in late October) will pair with iOS 8 for seamless integration between Apple devices. You’ll be able to answer iPhone calls on your Mac, receive texts on your computer, and even pick up where you left off in a document by a simple one touch sweep of an icon.

Tracey Dowdy is a freelance writer based just outside Toronto, ON. After years working for non-profits and charities, she now freelances and researches on subjects from family and education to pop culture and trends in technology. Follow Tracey on Twitter.

The current celebrity hacking scandal is a stark reminder of the dangers of posting risqué photos to the Internet, but some of the comments of the parties involved suggest that they might not have known the photos were actually online. How is this possible?

Welcome to the age of automatic backup and cloud storage. Originally regarded as a life-saver for compulsive smartphone photographers and on-the-go office workers, online backup services are now giving users pause for thought.

In the current scandal, both the victims and outside observers have been quick to point the finger at iCloud, Apple’s backup service for iOS devices. Introduced in 2011, iCloud now has over 300 million users, who take advantage of the service to store music, photos, apps, documents, contacts, and more.

But as mentioned earlier, not everyone is aware that they are using iCloud or what iCloud is backing up and storing on their behalf. There is also an iCloud sub-service called Photo Stream, which automatically pushes photos to all the other devices registered to an iCloud user. These include not only phones and tablets but laptops and computers and even Apple TV.

Of course, Apple is not alone in offering these kind of backup and cloud storage services. Google has Google Drive, Microsoft offers OneDrive, and there are a host of third-party services such as Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, SafeSync, and more. Once activated, each of these services works quietly in the background, periodically scanning content folders on various devices and updating to the cloud.

Playing the blame game

But even if we backup photos and other content without realizing it, aren’t these services supposed to be secure? The answer is clearly ‘yes,’ but once content is uploaded to the Internet, it immediately becomes vulnerable to hackers and all kinds of security breaches.

In the case of the celebrity photos that are currently circulating the Internet, Apple was quick to release a statement claiming that there was no breach in any of its cloud services, including iCloud and Find My iPhone. Instead they alleged that the hackers targeted user names, passwords and security questions. To protect against this type of attack, Apple recommended using a strong password and what it referred to as “two-step verification.”

What does all this mean? Well, it means that most of us, including well-known celebrities, are still incredibly sloppy when it comes to password use. One of the biggest vulnerabilities is in the area of password recovery. If a hacker knows someone’s e-mail address, then it can be relatively easy to recover a password, as the answers to secondary security questions such as ‘What was the name of your first pet?’ or ‘What is your mother’s maiden name?’ can be easily obtained through social media or other public sources.

While effective, the two-step verification that Apple recommends can be time-consuming and awkward, as it involves sending a secondary password to a cell phone or other device every time you log in. Almost every cloud service offers this extra protection but only a tiny fraction of users have signed on.

How can you protect your personal information?

So how can a celebrity – or regular user – protect their personal information? First of all, avoid using easy-to-hack passwords. You should also consider using one-off e-mail addresses for each of your cloud services, so it’s harder for anyone to claim a lost password. Also, lie when you answer those security questions. If you actually have a dog called Fido, that’s the last name you should use when asked about your favorite pet!

Next, consider using two-step authentication, even if it means more of a hassle when you log on. Barring a data breach at the server level, this is the one move that can almost guarantee the security of your account.

Finally, if you want to make sure you don’t want someone to have access to your personal information, don’t put it online – period. To be honest, the idea that major box office celebrities and models would happily post nude pictures of themselves to the Internet is a bit of a head-scratcher, unless they didn’t realize they were posting online in the first place. Yes, there is an expectation of privacy, but that expectation is diminished with every new headline detailing the perils of the digital age.

Tag Archives: Find My iPhone

8 Favorite Features from iOS 8