Cearbhall
A fantastic report of today’s meeting. You captured everything.
All The Best,
Ken
On 23 Mar 2024, at 17:26, Cearbhall O'Meadhra <cearbhall.omeadhra@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Attendance 12
ken bought new EarPods thanks to wonderful Jackie who modestly claims that
she did not put him up to it! Seriously though, Ken had so much trouble
switching between the iPhone and the iPad with the same EarPods that he
decided to leave the original set permanently connected to the iPad. he then
bought the new EarPods from a company called Xiaomi and the earphones are
called Redmi Buds 3. Ken finds the sound quality to be excellent and that
they stay in his ears without difficulty.
Jackie updated the Alexa app and discovered that she had lost all her groups
that link her many devices together. Realising that there was no point in
complaining to Amazon, she carefully rebuilt the groups again. She still has
no idea why this happened and a Google search does not record this to be a
regular problem with Alexa.
Ronan confessed to not owning an Amazon Echo and was enthusiastically
informed from all at the meeting on the advantages and usefulness of the
device. He was warned to look for the 5th generation "Dot" which is found to
be the best device.
Martin wanted to know how to take a screen shot in the iPhone. Ken, et al,
pointed out the three ways in which this can be done:
1. For phones with a power button: Press the Home button and the Power button
together;
2. Ask Siri to take a screen shot;
3. For phones that have no home button: Press the volume up and power
buttons together.
Paul upgraded to Windows 11 without any problem. He finds that Windows 11
runs faster than windows 10 did.
Adrian advised that some older PCs might not be compatible with Windows 11
and so it is best to run "PC Health check" app to find out if the PC is
compatible. he indicated that Windows 11 requires a CPU that is 8th
generation or above. This can be seen in the Health check response or by
opening "About" in Windows settings and noting the first digit of the CPU
reference number.
Joanne loves the sound of the birds in the morning and always wakes up to the
dawn chorus. The Merlin bird ID app is excellent for identifying a particular
bird either by recognition of a live creature or by playing a recording of
the sound made by a suggested bird.
Jackie had an instance of her amazing guide dog. The dog insisted on
approaching a set of steps that Jackie did not know and would not risk
taking. However, the trainer advised her that the dog was absolutely correct
and that these steps should be taken as the safest way to move out of the
area. Chris had a similar instance where he normally coped with the
difficulty of a flight of steps that the dog did not want to lead him to.
Later, when he gave in to the dog and let it find the way, the dog moved to a
ramp at the side of the steps that Chris had not known existed and was the
easiest way to get down.
The discussion moved to a passionate outcry against pavements with no kerbs
or physical distinguishing marks. People often found themselves standing in
the middle of a roadway, about to be run over by an oncoming vehicle. Chris
and Ronan described the alarming removal of kerbs and the danger of buses
setting down in the middle of the road in Limerick and Dún Laoghaire.
The discussion turned to the use of the European Galileo satellite system.
Galileo could improve your phone’s location accuracy up to 100 times. It is
installed in the Apple: iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 10/X and upwards.
Here’s a link to help you to find out if you can use it and what it can do:
https://galileognss.eu/is-your-phone-using-galileo/
Cearbhall finally managed to replace his dying battery. His iPhone SE2022 was
losing power and had to be recharged every two hours. The Apple agents all
required 7 days before returning the phone with a replacement. He found a
local IT shop that was happy to replace the battery in one hour! The new
battery is now installed and working fine. He noticed that Apple refuses to
report the battery health withing the phone because it is not an Apple
product. The group gave copious advice on those settings that should be
turned off to increase the life of the battery. Dominique posted some advice
recently to the FB-Exchange list.
Here is a useful link that covers all the settings to be considered:
https://uk.pcmag.com/how-to/9962/how-to-save-battery-life-on-your-iphone
Chris finds Amazon tiles very useful and effective over long distances. They
are advertised to reach up to 60m away even though they are described as
Bluetooth enabled. Apple AirTags have been discussed at earlier meetings and
are more expensive than the tiles. Battery life is a consideration.
The tiles are found by clicking on a card that is a little thicker than a
credit card with a button on it. When exhausted, the whole tile needs to be
replaced whereas the Apple AirTag is kept and the battery is replaced. The
detection of AirTags is built into IOS automatically.
Further information on AirTags is to be found at:
https://www.apple.com/ie/airtag/
There will be no meeting next week as easter is upon us!
The meeting ended.
All the best,
Cearbhall
m +353 (0)833323487 e: cearbhall.omeadhra@xxxxxxx
