Learning iOS 12–First Things First

It’s one thing to wonder if you spend too much time on social media, and another to see evidence in living color.

Hmmm…in a two hour period I spent almost half of it on social media.  How old am I? 13?

One of the new features in iOS 12 for iPhones and iPads is Screen Time in Settings—you can track how you spend your time on your devices.  I think that’s a good thing, but more about Screen Time in a bit.  But first, let’s talk generalities.

• iOS 12 is the new upgrade for iPhones and iPads.  Remember, anytime you see iOS, it’s referring to the operating system of Apple’s digital devices.  OS is for the computer side of the product line.  An operating system is the software that makes your device run.
• iOS 12 came out this past week. Go to Settings/General/Software Update to find it. Tap on the little right pointing arrow to update. Important–back up your device before upgrading to iOS 12.
• Back up your device by plugging it in with the lock screen on or by syncing with iTunes through your computer.
• It’s takes quite awhile to install–count on at least an hour if not an hour and a half.
• It will upgrade iPhones as far back as the 5S.  I upgraded a 6S, and it indeed opens apps and the camera faster.

Your phone and iPad won’t look any different and will work pretty much the same.  One big difference, however, is accessing the Control Center on newer devices.  Instead of sweeping up from the bottom, now you sweep down from the upper right hand corner. You will have to experiment. The 6S phone still sweeps up from the bottom, however my iPad now sweeps down from the corner.

The additions to the operating system are what’s fun to explore.  In this post, we’ll cover Screen Time.  Subsequent posts will cover cool things like the memoji option, Siri Shortcuts, Measure app, and changes to Notifications, Photos, and Voice Memo (spoiler alert—it’s now on the iPad!).

Back to Screen Time.  You will find it in Settings. There are a number of options parents, and perhaps grandparents, are going to like. Setting a Screen Time passcode is one possibility as well as limiting time for specific apps.

Let’s take another look at the reporting of time spent. On Sundays, you will receive a weekly report.

If you examine the image above you will see another screen capture of how I spent my time online.  Not only is there a graph, but also a list of apps with the amount of time spent there.  A little embarrassing to see that I spent 3X the amount of time on Facebook than on the Washington Post app.  In my defense (-:, the hour and 16 minutes I spent on Safari was mostly reading other news sources.

Finally, there are two more options you might be interested in.  You can share Screen Time across devices to get an overview of your total time spent on all your iOS devices.  Also, it is possible to turn Screen Time off if you do not want to make yourself feel guilty for spending four hours a day playing Words With Friends.  Check it out! Settings/Screen Time.

In our next post we will look at Siri Shortcuts which looks very useful.  Look for it later this week.

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