Friday, October 5, 2012

Hidden Features of iOS 6


iOS 6 has been out for a couple of weeks, and there have been quite a few changes.  Some of them have been talked about over and over, but at least one I had never heard about.

When Apple released iOS 6 everyone knew there would be a clock app.  I decided to take a look at it recently and discovered something interesting.  I tested out the timer, and immediately noticed that it includes a visual reminder.  Starting the timer starts visual representation of how much time is left.  It actually is very similar to what a Time Timer looks like.  It's a very simple representation, but it might be just what you need in a pinch.  Check out this video I made of what it looks like:

Visual timer in iPad Clock app

Speak Selection has been available as an Accessibility option since iOS 5, but with the update word highlighting has been added as an option.  Once you turn on Speak Selection (Settings - General - Accessibility - Speak Selection), you can turn on Word Highlighting.  To use, just long hold on a block of text and highlight it, then Speak will be an option.  You can see a short video about it from the latest episode of EdCeptional.

Word Highlighting with Speak Selection

Guided Access has been talked about quite a bit, it brings an interesting option for shutting down access to an iDevice.  Once turned on a student cannot exit the app without a 4 digit code.  You can also disable certain portions of the screen.  Mark Coppin showed it off in this clip from EdCeptional.

Guided Access

Have fun checking out these new features!



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