iOS 8.3 vs Android...anything new?

Sharing Photos and other sharing (3rd party sharing) has improved a little bit. Some apps still don't suppourt it. But other than that everything on your list is a no

angel76ph said:

Hi there. I have heard a little bit about the new iOS 8.3 but i'm an Android user for five years running and would like to explore more by focussing on things that matter to me on my day to day use of a phone:
1. Ringtones
Does iOS 8.3 now allow you to a certain degree set/convert an MP3 song as a ringtone with or without iTunes?

2. Music
Is there a custom equaliser setting that one can set via the iPhone or iPad itself without setting it on iTunes?

3. Sharing photos
On the new Photos app can one upload/transfer more than 5 photos at a given time to a third-party such as Evernote, Twitter, Gmail, Google Drive, Instagram, etc.? (without going to the app itself)

4. Any new battery saving option (like Android) on iOS 8.3?

5. Any improvements in terms of support for 3rd-party sharing options like for instance Shazam and Evernote wherein on Android i can share them to any social or 3rd-party apps?

Please advice. Any comments are appreciated.

Thanks.

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1. Nope. Still need iTunes
2. Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but in Settings>Music>EQ there are different options for the way your music sounds
3. As the guy above me said, sharing works dependent on how well it is integrated by app devs
4. Nope
5. Nope (not going from 8.0>8.3 anyway)


Might want to stick with what you have for now.

angel76ph said:

Does iOS 8.3 now allow you to cast your iPhone (or its files anyway such as Photos or music) to your TV via Chromecast? If yes then is there any app to do that?

Also, i want to ask if you guys know of any app to send photos to someone easily especially if that person has an Android phone?

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you've always been able to do that via Apple TV, but you can't do it with a chromecast.

email?

angel76ph said:

Sending photos to an email has its limits. Any other apps i can use?

Is there a Chromecast-compatible app that i need to stream my music or photos to my TV via my iPhone?

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I'm pretty sure there is an app called video cast for chrome cast or something like that. Google that and it should pop up.

As far as sending photos, what exactly are you trying to accomplish that won't work in email or text?

angel76ph said:

3. Sharing photos
On the new Photos app can one upload/transfer more than 5 photos at a given time to a third-party such as Evernote, Twitter, Gmail, Google Drive, Instagram, etc.? (without going to the app itself)

4. Any new battery saving option (like Android) on iOS 8.3?

5. Any improvements in terms of support for 3rd-party sharing options like for instance Shazam and Evernote wherein on Android i can share them to any social or 3rd-party apps?

Click to expand...

I can comment on three of these:

3) Yes you can share more then 5 photos to third-party apps such as the Gmail app (i use it myself). The app does have to support the Apple Sharing feature. I still find it absurd that i can't send more then 5 photos via the Mail app when i try this via the Photos app.

I also find it very odd that the Apple Mail app does have a full featured option to attach more then 1 photo at a time. The odd thing is that you can add more then 5 photos but you have to attach them one by one.

I also wish they would add support for cloud storage attachments like Mailbox (from Dropbox) has with their app which only supports Gmail account but has support for e.g. Dropbox attachments so i can send with my iPhone an e-mail via my Gmail account with a Dropbox file attached.

4) There are ofcourse a lot of settings in regards to Refresh apps in background, GPS (location services), Notifications (for the previous three you can set this per app), Mail and Brightness of the screen. I always hated that with the Samsung Android 4.2 which i had for 5 months where you couldn't fine tune that (at least not at the time).

You can find the above settings here:
Settings app > General > Refresh in Background (I've turned this off completely)
Settings app > Privacy > Location Services
Settings app > Notifications
Settings app > Mail, Contacts, Agenda (set it to Fetch instead of Push per e.g. hour or manual refresh)
Settings app > Screen and brightness

There is the feature in the Settings app > General > Accessibility > Grayscale where you can turn you phone to grayscale but it seems this doesn't save battery (which i thought it would).


To access these quickly i can really recomment the Launcher widget (free, with in-app purchase) which can give you quick access to all these features via the Notification center in a widget.

5) You can share to alot of apps from within e.g. the Shazam app but it really depends on the app itself which 3rd party apps they support. I think this is something that doesn't have to do with the Sharing feature from Apple which they added as of iOS8.
In Shazam's case you can share to: Facebook, Twitter, Email, Messages, WhatsApp, Line, Google+, Pinterest.

angel76ph said:

Sending photos to an email has its limits. Any other apps i can use?

Click to expand...

You could try e.g. Gmail which works great for me.

You could also try Mailbox (Gmail only) as mentioned above which works great for attachments but i don't think it supports the sharing (extensions) feature yet. But i've seen also 'Boxer' which also works for other e-mail accounts but i haven't tried it myself.

angel76ph said:

Is there a Chromecast-compatible app that i need to stream my music or photos to my TV via my iPhone?

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There are quite a few Chromecast iOS apps out there for music, photos and videos to cast from your iDevices and/or NAS. These are the ones i really like:

- AllCast (free) - great for photos
- Remote Media Manager (AMStreamer) (free) - great especially with music and photos
- AllConnect – Play & Stream (free) - great especially with music and photos
- LocalCast (now in beta for iOS, but soon available) - great especially with music and photos
- FileBrowserLite (free) / FileBrowser (5,99 dollar)
- Infuse 3 (9,99 dollar with all features) - worth the money if you want to use a NAS with Chromecast especially for video.
- videoCast for Chromcast DLNA (free, alternative for Infuse3 but lacks quite a few DTS/Ac3/opensubtitles but hey it's free.

pacorob said:

I can comment on three of these:

3) Yes you can share more then 5 photos to third-party apps such as Mailbox, Gmail (i have both and they work perfectly). The app does have to support the Apple Sharing feature. I still find it absurd that i can't send more then 5 photos via the Mail app when i try this via the Photos app.

I also find it very odd that the Apple Mail app does have a full featured option to attach more then 1 photo at a time (and also with the maximum of 5).

I also wish they would add support for cloud storage attachments like Mailbox has with their app which supports Gmail and e.g. Dropbox so i can send with my iPhone an e-mail via my Gmail account with a Dropbox file attached.

4) There is the feature in the Settings app > General > Accessibility > Grayscale where you can turn you phone to grayscale which could save some battery.

There are also ofcourse a lot of settings in regards to Refresh apps in background, GPS (location services), Notifications and Mail which i absolutely love to set per app/account and specify what i want. I always hated that with the Samsung Android 4.2 which i had for 5 months where you ciouldn't fine tune that (at least not at the time).

You can find the above settings here:
Settings app > General > Refresh in Background
Settings app > Privacy > Location Services
Settings app > Notifications
Settings app > Mail, Contacts, Agenda

To access these quickly i can really recomment the Launcher widget (free, with in-app purchase) which can give you quick access to all these features via the Notification center in a widget.

5) You can share to alot of apps from within e.g. the Shazam app but it really depends on the app itself which 3rd party apps they support. I think this is something that doesn't have to do with the Sharing feature from Apple which they added as of iOS8.
In Shazam's case you can share to: Facebook, Twitter, Email, Messages, WhatsApp, Line, Google+, Pinterest.



You could try e.g. Gmail, Mailbox (Gmail only) as mentioned above. But i've seen also 'Boxer' which also works for other e-mail accounts but i haven't tried it myself.



There are quite a few Chromecast iOS apps out there for music, photos and videos to cast from your iDevices and/or NAS. These are the ones i really like:

- Infuse 3 (9,99 dollar with all features)
- AllCast (free)
- Remote Media Manager (AMStreamer) (free)
- AllConnect – Play & Stream (free)
- LocalCast (now in beta for iOS, but soon available)
- FileBrowserLite (free) / FileBrowser (5,99 dollar)
- videoCast for Chromcast DLNA (free, alternative for Infuse3 but lacks quite a few DTS/Ac3/opensubtitles but hey it's free.

Click to expand...

As far as photos in Mail, I believe you can simply copy and paste photos into an email and be able to add more than 5 that way (although still one at a time).

As far as battery savings, Grayscale (unfortunately) won't really do anything in relation to that, the best that could be done as far as the screen goes (aside from keeping it off basically) is essentially lowering the brightness.

C DM said:

As far as photos in Mail, I believe you can simply copy and paste photos into an email and be able to add more than 5 that way (although still one at a time).

As far as battery savings, Grayscale (unfortunately) won't really do anything in relation to that, the best that could be done as far as the screen goes (aside from keeping it off basically) is essentially lowering the brightness.

Click to expand...

I just tried and indeed it seems you can add more then 5 photos via the Mail app but you can't via the Photo's sharing feature

I thought that the grayscale would save battery but as your saying it seems it don't. I thought that grayscales would be less battery usage then color. Indeed brightness is also another battery saving feature which i forgot to mention.

I just did quite a few updates on my post so can you please adjust your huge quote so other people won't continue discussing things that are no longer in my message.

pacorob said:

I just tried and indeed it seems you can add more then 5 photos via the Mail app but you can't via the Photo's sharing feature

I thought that the grayscale would save battery but as your saying it seems it don't. I thought that grayscales would be less battery usage then color. Indeed brightness is also another battery saving feature which i forgot to mention.

I just did quite a few updates on my post so can you please adjust your huge quote so other people won't continue discussing things that are no longer in my message.

Click to expand...

Something like Grayscale would help in terms of battery when it comes to AMOLED screens, but not IPS that iOS devices use.

For your first question: you can use an MP3 for a ringtone in iTunes, but it's convoluted. You need to use a third party app to make the tone then you need to add It to iTunes then sync it to your device. A lot of people wanted custom tones. So Apple did a half assed implementation and never bothered with it again.

angel76ph said:

I know the apps (apart from Keep) have iOS versions but would you say Google services on iOS are half-baked (and because of hardware limitations it acts slowly?) and don't offer any good 3rd-party alternatives compared to it's native form on Android?

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I wouldn't.

I agree with BeeGood. Google's iOS apps are pretty much equivalent to its Android counterpart. Also, about widgets you've mentioned earlier, iOS 8 now has 'widgets' you can add in notification center, albeit the selection of widgets is limited right now. It has potential though. If you're talking about homescreen widgets then no, that most likely won't appear.

angel76ph said:

You guys have all been wonderful and never had this kind of help from anyone. I just wish this site has a "Like" or "Thank You button as i appreciate all the help.

My other wish is for Apple to expand & improve third-party app support in terms of widgets, sharing & saving. I still think Android is by far more open & flexible than iOS but the latter seems to be catching up slowly.

Is there any other way to transfer files (such as music & photos) from a Macbook (Air with Yosemite OS like mine) to an iPhone without using iTunes?

And i'm also looking for a good music player that enables you to customise equalisers, create Playlists on-the-fly & add songs on-the-fly.

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Airdrop works really well for photos and other files. The transfer is super fast. For music, I just use iTunes Match which keeps my entire library in sync. I don't think Airdrop works for music.

The default music app on the iPhone allows you to create playlists and add songs on the fly. There's also an equalizer with a long list of presets but I don't think you can make fine tune adjustments on the phone.

angel76ph said:

I had an iPhone 5C and an iPad Mini a year ago in which i sold it a few months down the line. I have purchased apps and games last year.

If i go to the app in the app store (considering i use the same logins and name) will the app show up as "free" or is there an indication that i have bought this app and i can re-download it again for free?

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Previously purchased apps will show with a little cloud with a down arrow icon to show they can be download again without paying if its the same iTunes account.

gixxerfool said:

For your first question: you can use an MP3 for a ringtone in iTunes, but it's convoluted. You need to use a third party app to make the tone then you need to add It to iTunes then sync it to your device. A lot of people wanted custom tones. So Apple did a half assed implementation and never bothered with it again.

Click to expand...

You don't need a 3rd party app to convert a mp3 file to a ringtone m4r file. In iTunes you have to right click the mp3 file you want to convert -> Info -> Options -> select the start/stop time (the ringtone has to be under 30-40 seconds) -> press ok -> right click the mp3 file again -> convert it to a AAC file -> go to the folder of the new created AAC file (right click on the new created file in iTunes -> show folder) and rename the file from m4a to m4r.

yansun said:

You don't need a 3rd party app to convert a mp3 file to a ringtone m4r file. In iTunes you have to right click the mp3 file you want to convert -> Info -> Options -> select the start/stop time (the ringtone has to be under 30-40 seconds) -> press ok -> right click the mp3 file again -> convert it to a AAC file -> go to the folder of the new created AAC file (right click on the new created file in iTunes -> show folder) and rename the file from m4a to m4r.

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I wasn't aware of this. Thanks for the tip!

I think converting, renaming, deleting afterwards etc with itunes is a pain in the behind, especially if you keep having to switch encoders. I always use this http://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/
Free, simple interface, support for many formats including lossless, outputs in m4r so no more extension renaming, and converts four files simultaneously with two cores and eight with four cores, so it's very quick as well.

angel76ph said:

Also, i want to ask if you guys know of any app to send photos to someone easily especially if that person has an Android phone?

Click to expand...

Whatsapp

I've never had any problem sending things through the regular Messages app, there are a lot of good third party messaging apps out there of course, but I feel like sometimes people think Messages only works iPhone to iPhone when actually most of my contacts are not on iPhone and it works no differently..