OS X Daily: Use a Mac as a Bluetooth Keyboard for iPhone, iPad, or Android with Type2Phone

Use a Mac as a Bluetooth Keyboard for iPhone, iPad, or Android with Type2Phone
First Beta of OS X Lion 10.7.3 Seeded to Mac Developers
Repair User Permissions in Mac OS X Lion
iPhone or iPad Running Slow After Installing iOS 5? Here’s How to Fix the Speed
“Developing Apps for iOS 5″ is a New Free Online Class from Stanford University

Use a Mac as a Bluetooth Keyboard for iPhone, iPad, or Android with Type2Phone

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 06:00 PM PST

Type2Phone

If you don’t have a spare Bluetooth keyboard to connect to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch with, why not use a Mac? This seems like a no brainer of an idea, but until the Mac app Type2Phone came along, I haven’t heard of any such solution. The app works by pairing a Mac to the iOS device (technically it works with Androids too), which is fooled into thinking the Mac is a Bluetooth keyboard, then all you have to do is type in the Mac app and it appears in iOS. Smart huh?

Type2Phone costs $4.99 on the Mac App Store (App Store link)

Requirements for using Type2Phone are fairly basic: you’ll obviously need a Bluetooth enabled Mac and iOS device that is set to discoverable, and Mac OS X 10.6.6 and iOS 3.2 or later. Then all you need to do is launch the app on the Mac, and from the iPhone/iPad tap on Settings > General > Bluetooth to enable and then select the visible Mac to pair the iOS device to.

Other than the ability to use a Mac keyboard as a way to type on the iPad or iPhone, you can also use the app to finally copy text from Mac OS X and paste it directly to an app on the iOS device. These two features are so useful that it makes you wish Apple had included them in iOS and Mac OS X directly, it just makes sense.

Turn a Mac into a Bluetooth keyboard for iOS Devices

This is a great find by Lifehacker, who reminds us that the price of the app is significantly less than the price of a separate bluetooth keyboard.

If you’re having problems getting the app to work, here’s a quick little troubleshooting guide from the description on the Mac App Store:

When attempting to pair, your iOS device may not list your Mac or indicate that it is incompatible. The workaround is as follows:

- If the Mac is listed with a blue arrow, tap that arrow and select “Forget this device”.
- Disable Bluetooth on the Mac
- Reenable Bluetooth on the Mac
- Set Bluetooth on the Mac to be discoverable
- Launch Type2Phone
- Now restart your iPhone / iPad
- On your iPhone / iPad, go to Settings > General > Bluetooth
- Enable Bluetooth on your iPhone
- Tap the name of the Mac to start the pairing procedure

If this convoluted procedure is needed, it is needed only once during initial pairing. Future connections are initiated from the Type2Phone software.

First Beta of OS X Lion 10.7.3 Seeded to Mac Developers

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 02:55 PM PST

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 developer build

Apple has seeded the first release of Mac OS X 10.7.3 to developers, the build is 11D16 and focuses on iCloud document storage, in addition to changes to Address Book, iCal, and Mail.

The update weighs in at 633MB and is downloadable through the Mac Developer Center to registered devs for both OS X Lion Client and Server. Apple recommends that users install the update only on Macs they don’t mind erasing, warning that downgrading back to the stable 10.7.2 build is impossible (although this is usually easy through Time Machine backups).

We’re hoping the vague “iCloud document storage” changes are to officially include native iCloud file syncing in Mac OS X, although there is no word on that yet. If you’re interested in reading the official release notes, you can check them out on 9to5mac.

For reference, Mac OS X 10.7.2 was released on October 12, 2011 and included iCloud support in addition to bringing a variety of fixes and adjustments to Lion.

Repair User Permissions in Mac OS X Lion

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 01:26 PM PST

Repair User Permissions in OS X Lion In Mac OS X Lion, repairing permissions from the Disk Utility app doesn’t repair the users file permissions, oddly this has to be done separately on a per-user basis. If you’re running into problems with Spotlight not finding documents or folders, or if you’re having other issues that can usually be fixed with a permissions repair, this can resolve those problems.

This is a great tip from a Mac Genius that one of our readers sent in, it’s well written so we’ll just publish the entire thing verbatim:

Repairing User Permissions in OS X Lion

You’ll need to reboot to perform this, and then use the same resetpassword utility that is used to change passwords in Lion, but instead choosing a hidden option.

When you use the Disk Utility app and Repair Permissions — it doesn't actually repair the permission settings on folders and files in your Home folder where your documents and personal applications reside.

In Lion, there is an additional Repair Permissions application utility hidden away. This tool is located inside boot Repair Utilities. Here's how to access it.

Restart Lion and hold down the Command and R keys.

You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.

In the Terminal window, type resetpassword and hit Return.

The Password reset utility launches, but you're not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac's hard drive at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where you are having issues.

At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.

The reset process takes a couple of minutes. When it's done, quit the programs you've opened and restart your Mac. Notice that ‘Spotlight’ starts re-indexing immediately.

Great tip, thanks for sending this in Tony R!

iPhone or iPad Running Slow After Installing iOS 5? Here’s How to Fix the Speed

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 11:27 AM PST

iPhone, iPad, and iPod

If your iPad or iPhone is running slow after updating to iOS 5 you’re not alone, for many the update has made their device feel sluggish, with taps taking longer to register, stalls between swipes, and just a general noticeable decrease in performance. This seems to effect all iOS devices too, indicating it’s not necessarily a hardware issue but a software one.

There are two solutions that are both relatively simple, for best results you need to do both:

Update to iOS 5.0.1 – if you haven’t done so already, do it manually or through OTA
Back up and restore the iPad or iPhone after updating to iOS 5.0.1 – do this if you’re already running 5.0.1 and it feels slow, this works, we walk you through the process below

The iOS 5.0.1 update seems to make a difference in performance because whatever was constantly running in the background draining battery (location services?) was presumably causing the devices to run slow as well. This was partially resolved with some battery tips that involved turning off tons of features, but the 5.0.1 update helps for most users and is thus highly recommended in and of itself. Even after installing the update though, some users report sluggish behavior and in that case you’ll want to backup and restore.

Restoring the iOS Device to Resolve Speed Issues

How long this takes depends on how much media is on the iPhone or iPad and how large the backups are:

Connect the iPad, iPhone, iPod to the computer and open iTunes
Right-click on the device and choose “Back Up” and let the process finish, this may take a while
When the backup is finished, click on “Restore” (you can also select to back up from here) and let the device be wiped clean
Once the iOS device is completely restored and in it’s original state, go back to iTunes and right-click on the device name again, this time selecting “Restore from Backup” – this also may take a while but let it run

After the device is finished restoring from the newly created backup, it should be significantly faster than it was before running the latest version of iOS.

We’ve tried this on a variety of iOS devices and it seems to work wonders, did it work for you?

“Developing Apps for iOS 5″ is a New Free Online Class from Stanford University

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 10:04 AM PST

Stanford University Developing Apps for iOS 5

Stanford University’s School of Engineering has released full HD videos and slides of their Fall 2011 “Developing Apps for iOS” course. The lectures and lessons for CS193P are focused on iOS 5 and downloadable for free from iTunes University, offering a great look at beginning iOS development through the eyes of a world class engineering school.

iTunes U & Stanford: iPad and iPhone Application Development (iTunes link)

If you haven’t downloaded any courses from iTunes before, a new section in the iTunes Library sidebar titled “iTunes U” will appear to contain the lessons.

Stanford’s description of the course is as follows:

Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone platform using the iPhone SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multitouch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller pattern, memory management, Objective-C programming language. iPhone APIs and tools including Xcode, Interface Builder and Instruments on Mac OS X. Other topics include: core animation, bonjour networking, mobile device power management and performance considerations.

Official prerequisites to the course are: C language and programming experience, and recommend experience with UNIX and object oriented programming. You’ll obviously need a Mac, Xcode, and the iOS SDK installed as well.

Download Xcode 4.2 from iTunes – free
Install the iOS SDK – free

Stanford University has made it a tradition to offer select courses for free online, including past iPhone development classes and the currently ongoing “Intro to Databases” course.