Here are the notes from the Sept. 23 session:

Messages and Maps Basics

 

By Jennifer Kerr

iMessages: Fun with Texting

You can text not only words, but also photos, videos, music and more. And you can have a lot of fun—and impress your grandchildren! Practice with a friend or relative. You can also send messages to yourself to practice.

There are two kinds of texting: iMessages are with another iPhone or iPad or Mac; you will see a blue message bubble. If you are texting with someone on another kind of phone, those are SMS and you will see a green bubble. If texting to a group and one person is non-Apple, it will be green. Blue texts are free and everything you send or receive is encrypted; green ones use your texting minutes (but most plans are unlimited these days) and are NOT encrypted. 

To use iMessage, turn it on in iPhone and iPad in Settings > Messages. You can also do iMessages on Macs if it is on iCloud with your phone (open Messages on your Mac, choose Messages > Preferences, click iMessage, then select the Enable Messages in iCloud checkbox). You might need to put in your Apple ID.

To get Green messages to show up on your iPad and Mac, in phone Settings > Messages, tap on Text Message Forwarding and list the devices you want to send and receive green text messages i.e., iPad and/or Mac.

In Settings > Messages go down to Filter Unknown Senders. This option will list people not in your contacts in a separate list on your Message app. You can then screen them.

How to delete messages: To delete an entire conversation with one or more contacts, tap the three dots on the main Messages page and tap on Select Messages.  Mark the ones to delete, then tap Delete in the bottom right. To delete just one or more individual messages, press down on the message itself. You will see More… in a bottom bubble. Tap that and you can then check any messages you don’t want and hit Delete All in the top left.

You can send messages not only from the Messages app, but also from the Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Photos or Safari apps (anywhere you see a phone number or the “Sharrow.”)

 

To send a message, open Messages and tap on the blue circle with the “pen” in the upper right. Enter a phone number or name. Or click on the blue circle with a plus and it will go to Contacts. Once you have one person, you can add more to this message with the blue plus sign. Once you have one person or a group, you can type or dictate a message in the box below and hit the blue or green arrow to send it.  If you get an Exclamation Mark, the message can’t be sent right now (no service) but it will go when you get service.

To see when the message was sent and received, pull the message bubble to the left.

To reply to a message, dictate with Siri or tap into the box and type a reply. When you start typing, a keyboard will pop up. You will also see a symbol for emojis that you can add to a message.

For a Quick Tapback to respond to a message, either double-tap or hold a message and get your choice of gray emojis above the message. Tap one and it goes. 

You can send an audio message. Tap on the gray circle in the message place. If you start typing instead, that gray box will turn into the blue send arrow.

SPECIAL EFFECTS in iMessage. Practice these!!!

Quick and Easy: If you type one of these three common messages in the box, it will be sent with special effects: Happy Birthday (balloons), Congratulations (confetti) and Happy New Year (fireworks).

-Send with Effect: To see these, you must first write your message (or even part of it). Then the mic in the message bubble will turn into a blue arrow. Press firmly on this. NOTE: a quick tap will just send the message; you want to hold it down until you get the screen that says Send with effect.

1. The Bubble screen gives you four choices to change how your message is received: Slam, Loud, Gentle and Invisible Ink. Try these out!

2. The Screen screen gives you nine choices of special effects to go with your message (most have sound effects, too): Echo, Spolight, Balloons, Confetti, Inflating Heart, Lasers, Fireworks, Shooting Star and Celebration. Try all of these. They are fun and recipients love them!

-Photos. To the left of the iMessage space, slide over to the Camera. You can take a new picture or access one in your Photos (tap on the overlapping photos in top left). You can mark up your photo by tapping on it until it goes full screen. Tap Markup in the bottom left and you can write or draw on the photo, then send it. You can also add stickers.

-Apps. Tap the App between the Heart and the iMessage bubble. You will get a choice of different things to use. The four balls on the bottom left give you your choices:

1. #images gives you tons of funny GIFs (tiny movies). You can search to get ones on specific topics (birthday, etc.) or featuring someone or something (Star Trek, Spongebob, snakes, cats, etc.).

2. Music. If you have music on your phone, it will give you some of your recently played songs. You can send them.

3. Store. This takes you to the App Store, where you can get (free or small fee) sticker packages. Once you download them, they automatically show up right there in iMessages.

4. YouTube. You can send these in your messages.

-Other quick messages. Turn your phone sideways and look for the swirl on the bottom right. You can use any of the canned messages or hand-write your own.

-Digital Touch. You can write or draw in the box (choice of colors) or choose one of the Digital Touch tapping effects. These are kind of weird and they send themselves when you do them:

-tap to get a burst of color.

-touch and hold for a fireball

-tap with two fingers to get a kiss

-tap and hold with two fingers for a heartbeat

-tap and hold with two fingers and drag fingers to break the hears (this one is hard!)

Animojis and Memojis. These require Facial Recognition. 

Animojis map your face and put your facial expressions on an assortment of cute animals and figures. Your voice will be coming out of them as a message!

You can create a Memoji of yourself (as many as you want). Go to the left of the Animojis and click on the plus sign. You can also do a message with your Animoji doing the talking! 

There are Sticker Packs that go with them both and you can send them in Messages, too.

Practice all of these with a relative or friend. They are great for birthdays and other special occasions.

Here is a YouTube about a way to send a message using your voice.

Here is a YouTube link about creating a Memoji of you.

Search YouTube for Apple Support and Subscribe to get lots of short instructive videos like these.

Maps: A Few Quick Tips

Maps, like many apps, uses your location. If you would like to know which apps know where you are and when, and how you can control that, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services

You will see a list of apps that seek your location. You can tap on each one and decide when to share your location with it: Never, While Using, Ask Next Time or Always. I think the best answer for most is While Using. Some should be on Never!

Note that a little gray arrow shows an app has used your location in the last 24 hours. A purple arrow that one has recently used your location. 

Open Maps. Your current location will be in the center of the map, a blue pulsing circle. If your phone is regularly connected to your car with Bluetooth, Maps will show where your car is parked when you leave it (including your garage!).

At the bottom right is the temperature and the Air Quality Index.

Tap the i with a circle around it at the top right. You can choose map settings: Map, Transit or Satellite. Traffic or not. You can also report issues. The arrow under that indicates your location is being tracked.

The top of the map is North by default. If you move around your map so it is not, a round compass will appear under the arrow.

Use your fingers to move around and drag the map. To zoom in or out, pinch with two fingers. It will show the scale in the upper left as you zoom.

Turn on Satellite and you will see 3D by the arrow. Rotate and move with your fingers to get closeup looks. Tap 2D to go back. Tap the compass to get north back at the top.

In Map settings, look for places where it says Look Inside. Like Arden Fair. It will show you all the shops and where they are in the building.  You can get details on the various stores, and restaurants, including hours and which ones take Apple Pay. But not many pictures. In bigger cities like SF, you can get lots of pictures when you see Look Inside. In some cities or places you will see a binocular symbol. Tap on that to get views of a street or attraction. Try Chinatown in SF. Note that license plates and faces are blurred for privacy.

For directions, tap in the search bar and type the city or place where you want to go. The map will show it and offer you directions for you choice of car, walk, transit or ride-share. 14 adding bicycle routes. It often will give you several route choices, its preferred one in blue. Just tap on the gray route if you want that. 

Be sure your home address is in your contacts and is labeled as your home. Then when you want directions from some place to your home, the map knows where to go!