OS X Daily: Quickly Access iPhone & iPad Settings with IconSettings Shortcuts

Quickly Access iPhone & iPad Settings with IconSettings Shortcuts
Send a Message to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac from iCloud
Remove the Old MobileMe Menubar Icon After Switching to iCloud

Quickly Access iPhone & iPad Settings with IconSettings Shortcuts

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 12:44 PM PST

IconSettings is like SBSettings for iPhone and iPad

Using iOS folders and some bookmarks, anyone can mimic the quick iOS Settings access of the popular jailbreak tweak SBSettings – minus the jailbreak. It’s simple and you don’t have to install anything but a few shortcuts:

Launch Safari on iOS
Go here and scroll until you see a list of settings names and click on them to create icon shortcuts to the settings you want quick access to
Drag the shortcuts into each other to create a folder to then add more

Some of the most useful shortcuts to add are: Network, Brightness, Software Update, Bluetooth, WiFi, HotSpot, etc. Going to the bottom of the page will show the ‘old’ method of creating bookmarks through Safari rather than using profiles, you can go with whatever method you’re comfortable with. Most of the choices should behave on all iOS 5 hardware, but some are going to be limited to iPhone or 3G equipped iPads.

This is a great alternative for anyone wary of jailbreaking, or if you just don’t like the current tethered solutions. Found via MacStories

Send a Message to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac from iCloud

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 11:09 AM PST

A message from iCloud

With iCloud and the “Find My iPhone” feature, you can send messages to your remote Apple gear. These come through in the form of a pop-up window in Mac OS X and a notification in iOS 5, and while there’s a variety of uses for this, it’s also a fun way to send a quick message to someone using your hardware, be it a loved one or a thief. You can also choose to play a pinging sound with the notification, it will repeatedly play at full volume until someone acknowledges the notification, guaranteeing that it can’t be ignored.

You’ll need iCloud enabled and have iOS 5+ on the iPad or iPhone, and OS X 10.7.2+ on the Mac, and all hardware must be sharing the same iCloud ID.

Send a Message to Your Apple Hardware from iCloud

We’re going to send a message to a MacBook Air for the purpose of this walkthrough, but it’s identical on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch too:

Go to iCloud.com and login
Click on the “Find My iPhone” button – it will say iPhone even if you want to send a message to a Mac, iPad, or iPod

Send a message to iPhone, iPad, or Mac from iCloud

A list of compatible devices will load in the left menu titled “My Devices” and the location of the device will appear on a map
Click on the blue “i” button to bring up a the “Find My Mac” (or iPhone/iPad) control panel for that machine, select the “Play Sound or Send Message” button

Send message to a Mac from iCloud

Type your message and click on “Send” , keep the ON switch for “Play Sound” if you want the loud pinging sound to repeat until the notification is acknowledged

Sending a message from iCloud

Messages are delivered practically instantaneous. From the users end they look like the pop-up at the top of the screen, and the sender will get a confirmation in the email that is attached to their iCloud account:

iCloud message confirmation email

Bonus points if you send a nice message to a significant other or loved one, or if you gently nudge your iPad hogging roommate who is addicted to Temple Run.

Remove the Old MobileMe Menubar Icon After Switching to iCloud

Posted: 18 Nov 2011 08:39 AM PST

After you’ve made the transition to iCloud from MobileMe, the option to remove the old and now obsolete MobileMe menu bar icon disappears. It’s easy to get rid of though, as Tony R shows us in this tip he sent in:

Hold down the Command key and click and hold on the old MobileMe icon, then just drag it out of the menubar

The little icon will disappear into a puff of smoke. You can use the same command key trick to rearrange menubar items and remove other ones as well.

If you haven’t done so yet don’t forget to get iCloud configured, the basic account is free and it’ll sync data between your Macs and iOS hardware easily.

Thanks for sending this in Tony R!