Top iOS 7.1 features you should try out

Features of iOS 7.1 to be tried out right now

Early this week the world got their hands on to the latest iOS offering the iOS 7.1, which brought a wide range of fixes, improvements and new features for compatible iPhones, iPads and iPod touch handhelds. Some of them are listed below to be checked out. These are a must try features of the new iOS 7 as listed below.

1. Keep the zoom effect but kill parallax
2. Manners can be taught to Siri
3. Buttons can be brought back
4. HDR Auto enabling
5. New visibility option

Kill parallax, keep the zoom

Apple has made it possible in iOS 7.1 to disable the annoying parallax wallpaper effect without eliminating the great zooming transition animations when opening and closing apps. First ensure that "Reduce motion" is toggled off in Settings > General > Accessibility. Then go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness and tap your lock screen wallpaper. Toggle "Perspective Zoom" to off and tap set, then do the same thing for your home screen wallpaper. 

Teaching Siri some manners

iOS 7.1 includes a number of enhancements to Apple's virtual personal assistant Siri.

Siri is a great interrupter. By default Siri does not know when you've ended a question or command and often misinterprets a pause as the end of your query. But in the new iOS 7.1, you can easily correct Siri's poor manners. Simply holding the Home button until you've finished your entire question or comment. This way Siri waits until it interrupts you. 

In iOS 7.1 the languages sound more authentic and natural. Change Siri's voice to male or female and languages like Australian English, U.K English, Canadian English and American English. Other languages include Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean. Here's how you do it.

1. Open the Settings screen, tap on the General tab, and then tap on Sire.
2. Tap the language option and select your favourite language. Tap on the Back link and then tap on voice Gender to choose Male or Female.
3. Tap on the Home button to exit the Settings screen. Now Siri's accent-tinged responses should sound closer to the real thing.

By default, you can activate Siri one of the two ways: lifting the phone upto your ear or holding down the Home button. But sometimes Siri inadvertently pops up when you raise the phone to talk to someone or press the Home button a second too long. And both methods require a hands-on approach

1. Open settings screen tap on the General tab, and then tap on Accessibility.
2. Scroll down toe ht Accessibility screen until you see a section called Physical and Motor. Tap on the option for Switch control.
3. In Switch control screen, tap on the settings for Switches. In the Switches screen, tap on add New Switch.
4. In the Source screen, tap on Camera. In the Camera screen, tap on the option for Left Head Movement.
5. Scroll down the Actions until you see Siri listed. Tap on the Siri option. iOS shows you that your head movement will now activate Siri.
6. Tap on the Back link to return to the Switch control Screen. Tap on the button for Switch control to turn on the feature. tap on the Home button to exit the Settings screen. Now move your head to the left, and Siri should pop up, awaiting your command.

Bringing the buttons back

iOS 7 compared to earlier versions of Apple's mobile software had tap targets were confusing in the minimalistic OS. With iOS 7.1 users can now add button shapes to the software's text-only tap targets.

Adding button shapes is simple. Just go to Settings > General > accessibility and toggle "Button Shapes" to on.

Enable HDR Auto

iOS 7 had an awful bug that caused devices to constantly disable HDR each time the camera app was closed. In iOS 7.1, Apple repented for its annoying mistake by introducing a new "HDR Auto" setting on the iPhone 5s that will monitor the surrounding lighting conditions and enable or disable HDR automatically. Enabling this feature simply tap on  "HDR on" or "HDR Off" at the top of the screen with the camera opne. Then select "HDR Auto" and you'll never have to think about it again.

New visibility options

Apple iOS platform is a clear leader when it comes to accessibility options for the disabled. In the iOS 7.1 it has added new fine-tuned options for increasing the contrast on the screen of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. To enable this go to Settings > General > Accessibility and tap "Increase contrast." Three options will be found.

"Reduce Transparency" will remove all of the transparency effects in areas including the home screen dock, folder backgrounds, the Notification Center and the Control Center.

"Darken Colors" will do just that: Darken all of the colors on the device's display to make them more visible.

"Reduce White Point" will make whites on the screen less bright, which is another way to improve visibility.

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Latest Buy back offers by Apple

Apple India offers up to Rs. 40,000 buy back discount on purchase of new laptops

When everybody is heading towards the mobile platform and smaller devices, Apple is trying to lure laptop customers by giving buy back offers to boost sales.

It is offering up to Rs 40,000 buy back discount on purchase of new Mac laptop in India when turning  in your old Mac for exchange. It is an advertisement in a leading daily, apple offering discounts upto Rs 40,000 if you give a Mac that is less than two years old in exchange. It offers Rs 30,000 for turning in Apple portables between two and three years old and for those between three and four years old it is Rs. 25,000. If your Mac is older than four years you are out of luck. There is no end date mentioned.

These discounts are offered only on Mac laptops and not on Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro. 

You can even try your hand with Windows laptops by querying at your local apple dealer and check the buy back offer. But for the windows side it will be on the lower side.

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