Accessibility options are a pretty cool feature of tablets and smartphones. They’ll speak the words on a web page or app to you, enlarge or zoom in the screen, show large text, invert the colors and more to make it easier for individuals to use the iPad, phone, or other devices.

However, there are times when the accessibility options seem to take over the iPad by speaking everything. Everything including the touch sensitivity seems to slow down when these accessibility features are enabled as well. When your iPad takes on a life of its own, you can turn off the accessibility options to regain control of your iPad.

Here are some good tips to use when dealing with the Accessibility Options

1) A single tap will turn into a double tap – when you click on an app, it will create a border around the icon instead of opening it. You must double tap to open an app.

2) If its activated, Tripe tapping the Home button will turn VoiceOver on or off. Its a cool shortcut to remember.

3) To scroll down a screen, you must use 3 fingers to do it. Hold three fingers on the screen and then swipe in the direction you want to go. This is especially important when trying to change a setting.

To Turn off Accessibility Options:

1) Double tap on Settings

2) Double tap on General

3) Use the three fingered swipe to move down the column to Accessibility and double tap on it

4) Double tap on the feature you wish to turn on or off such as VoiceOver. You may have to swipe down to actually highlight it.

I received an Apple TV3 for Christmas this last year, and I absolutely love it. I can take my DVDs and rip them into iTunes on my PC, then stream them wirelessly to my AppleTV connected to the big LCD flat screen TV in the living room. When you rip a DVD and import it into Apple TV, it creates a nice thumbnail image to distinguish each movie from another in the list on the screen. However, recently when I rip a DVD all I get is a green thumbnail like the image below instead of a distinguishable movie thumbnail. Although its not a huge deal, I still want to create a recognizable thumbnail image for each movie so its easy to find the one I want.

This problem is not specifically Apple TV related, because the green thumbnail shows up in iTunes as well. It may be related to the upgrade to iTunes 11, but I can’t be sure.

To fix this issue, follow these directions to find and import a movie thumbnail into iTunes for each movie that has a green thumbnail.

How to Correct Green Thumbnail in Itunes Movie List

1) Choose a movie that has a green thumbnail in iTunes

2) Open an internet browser and go to the Internet Movie Database by clicking on the link below

http://www.imdb.com

3) In the search box at the top of the web page type the name of the movie. The movie should appear in the drop down list. Click on it.

4) When the movie page appears, you should see a movie poster image that you can save to your hard drive.

5) In Internet Explorer, right click on the image and click Save Picture As. Then choose the directory where you want the image saved and type a name for the image. Click Save and the image will be saved to your computer.

6) Now open Itunes

7) Click on the Movie selection in the left column

8) Find the movie with the green thumbnail. As long as you are not viewing the List view you should be able to see the thumbnails.

9) Right click on the movie and click on Get Info

10) Click the Artwork tab

11) Click Add and find the movie thumbnail in the directory you saved on your hard drive. Click on it.

12) Click Open to upload the image into iTunes

13) Click Ok

You should now see the movie thumbnail for the selected movie instead of the green thumbnail. If you open Apple TV the correct thumbnail should appear as well.

If you have thumbnails for other movies in Itunes that don’t match the movie poster thumbnails, you can use this same technique to replace the original thumbnail with a new and improved one. 

Although I have an iPad and love it, my wife owns a Nexus 7 and is just as passionate about it. The other day she plugged her Nexus 7 into charge at night and when she woke up and tried to turn it on there was no response. The screen was black and the Nexus 7 would not turn on.

After reading several articles on how to revive a dead Nexus 7, I used the following technique.

1.  Plug-in your dead Nexus 7 into a wall charger. (Jump immediately to step 2.)
2.  Immediately after plugging it in, press Volume Down and Power at the same time.
3.  Once in the bootloader menu, use Volume Down until you see “Power Off Device.”
4.  Choose that option with the Power button.
5.  Once your device is off, unplug the charger and then plug it back into the device.

Sounds easy enough, but after several attempts the only thing that would happen is the word Google would appear on the screen for a few seconds then the screen would go blank. I would also see some static similar to a TV screen static that would flash across the screen continuosly, but I could not get to the bootloader menu at all.

After talking to Asus tech support and acquiring an RMA number, I thought I would try googling for an answer one more time. After about an hour of searching, I found a post with very similar circumstances to my own: dead Nexus 7, static on screen when plugged in, etc. and I tried a possible solution.

1) Use a small knife or other small flat tool to pry the back of the Nexus 7 off. Its held into place with plastic clips so it pops on or off rather easily.

2) Locate the power cable connector at the end of the wires from the battery pack. Push this connector back together with your fingers.

Nexus 7 Power Connector

3) Put the back of the Nexus 7 back on and press the power button.

In my case, the loose battery connector had caused the problem all along. Using the simple fix, I didn’t have to RMA the unit and had it working in a matter of minutes.

Hopefully, this trick can help you revive your dead Nexus 7 as easily as I did.

Many of my clients are users over 50 years of age. In fact most of my clients are in this category, and unfortunately as you age your eyesight may diminish as well. So, one of the complaints I see from my clients regarding the iPad is the small text on it. Luckily, there is a way to increase the font size in the Contacts, Mail, Messages, and Notes apps. This iPad tip is especially helpful for the iPad mini, but also works on most other iOS devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, etc.

To Increase the Font Size follow these steps:

1) From the Home Screen, Tap on Settings

2) Tap on General

3) Tap on Accessibility

4) Under the Vision section, press Large Text and choose 6 increased font sizes: 20, 24, 32, 40, 48, and 56 point text

From my experience, 20 pt is a nice increase without causing too many issues in the apps. A font size that is too big will cause lines to wrap and may not display on the screen properly. So, your mileage may vary with this tip, but its better than using a magnifying glass with your iPad.

One of my customers gave me her iPad to fix today. She was afraid water damage or something else had destroyed the iPad. When she tried to open an app by selecting it with her finger, a border would appear around the app but it would not open. If she double tapped on an icon it would open and behave normally.

Since the iPad did turn on and the screen did not show signs of water or other damage I figured it must be a setting in the iPad that is causing it to behave in this strange way.

If your iPad is experiencing similar issues with borders being shown around apps when you press them, and having to double tap to open apps, follow these steps to fix the issue.

1) Double tap on Settings

2) Double tap on General

3) Double tap on Accessibility

4) Turn VoiceOver to off

5) Close out of Settings and reset your iPad

Once your iPad has rebooted, it should be back to its normal behavior.

Please watch out for those Accessibility options sometimes they can backfire on you.

One thing that most people want to do when they get their new iPad is to import their contact list into it. However, the real question is HOW do you do this?

If you setup your iPad without connecting it to your computer, which is now possible with iOS 5 and iOS6, then how exactly can you import your contact list. Well, the answer lies with iCloud. If you sync your device and backup to iCloud then you can log into iCloud on a computer and import your list…Sort of. After logging into iCloud, click on Contacts, and then click on the gear in the lower left corner. A menu pops up with the option to import a Vcard. Unfortunately this format is not that common when exporting contacts from almost any program including online emailboxes like Hotmail. Most of the time when you export your contact list it will be exported as a CSV (comma separated values) list.

If you are in a situation like this with your contact list as a CSV formatted file, you can use a free Gmail account to import the list, then export it as a Vcard format that iCloud will understand.

Follow these steps to do this:

1) Export your contacts as a CSV file from wherever those contacts were located and save the file to your computer.

2) Log into Gmail or setup a new Gmail account and log into it.

3) In the upper left corner of Gmail click the down arrow next to the word Gmail and select Contacts

4) Now click on the More menu item at the top of Gmail, and click Import

5) Browse to your saved CSV contact list on your computer and import the contacts into Gmail

6) If you want to delete a contact or make other changes to your contacts, do this now in Gmail.

7) To export the list, click on the More menu item, and click Export

8) Select All Contacts and select Vcard format

9) Click Export and save the file to your computer

10) Now log into iCloud, click on Contacts, and then click on the gear icon in the lower left corner

11) Click on the import Vcard option and upload the vcard formatted file you saved in Step 9

12) Wait patiently while iCloud imports the contact list into iCloud.

13) Once your contacts are loaded, sync your iPad with iCloud and your contacts should appear on your iPad

Mission accomplished!

With the introduction of iOS6, Apple replaced Google Maps with their own mapping program. The new mapping app has turn by turn directions among other added features, however in many cases it lacks the detail that Google Maps offered. In fact, in December 2012 it was reported that travelers using Apple Maps and trying to visit Mildura Australia would end up 40 miles away in the forest. Because of this lack of accuracy, many users want a way to access Google Maps as well.

UPDATE December 12th, 2012:

Google released Google Maps as an app on the Apple Store today, so you can use the instructions below to add a bookmark to Google Maps or you can go into the App Store and download a native app for Google Maps that includes turn by turn directions, live traffic information and public transportation directions.

Adding Bookmark to Google Maps

This is a fairly simple procedure that really just consists of adding a bookmark to your home page as a icon. To do this follow these steps:

1) Open Safari and go to the Google Maps site

http://maps.google.com

2) Tap on the box with the arrow pointing to the right in the toolbar

3) Tap Add to Home Screen

4) Type a name for the Google Maps icon and tap Add

5) Now return to the home screen and tap on the new Google Maps icon and you should be sent directly to the website.

Note:

If you open Google Maps and you receive the following notice:

“Google Maps does not have permission to use your location”

follow these steps to allow Location Services for Google Maps.

1) Tap on Settings

2) Tap on Privacy

3) Tap on Location Services

4) Find Safari in the list of Location Services and swipe it to On

Now open your Google Maps icon and you should not receive the warning.

I ran across an error while attempting to update an iPad 2 from iOS 4 to iOS 6. The error happened as it was backing up the iPad before starting the upgrade of the iOS.

An error occured while backing up this iPad (-5000).  Would you like to continue to update this iPad?
Continuing will result in the loss of all contents on this iPad.

Needless to say I wanted to solve the error before updating to avoid the potential loss of data.

Rebooting the iPad, Resetting the iPad, and restarting the computer containing iTunes did not solve the problem. So what ultimately fixed the issue?

Disabling Antivirus (and firewall in some cases) and then proceeding with the backup and update of the iOS worked flawlessly. While some would argue that disabling the antivirus to update the iPad compromises the system, I do not. Many times on a normal computer system you are advised to disable your antivirus before proceeding with an install or update of a computer program. The reason for this is sometimes the antivirus will not allow the update to occur because core operating system files or other important files are being updated and the antivirus views this as a virus attack and will not let the update occur.

Although there is a possibility that a virus could sneak through during an upgrade or program installation, the likelihood of this happening in a few minutes during the update is minimal. So if you experience an error (-5000) while trying to update an iPad, iPod, or other iOS device with your PC or Mac, disable the antivirus and try the update again. I bet it will work!

Every once in awhile blank emails may appear with No Sender and No Message may appear on your iOS device. The date of these messages is usually 12/31/1969 or in some cases 1/1/1970. Generally these emails cannot be deleted through normal means. This anomaly has happened throughout the various iOS upgrades from 3, 4, 5, or even 6.

The following suggestions should allow you to remove these annoying emails from your Inbox and fix the issue.

• Disable, then Re-enable Your Email
  Tap on Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
  Tap on your current Email account
  Swipe the Mail option to Off
  Exit Settings and Go into Mail
  Exit Mail and Go back into Settings and Swipe the Mail option back on
• Completely Closing Mail and Reopening
  On the Home Screeen, double tap the Home button to bring up the App tray
  Hold down on the Mail app until it wiggles, then click the X and close it to forcibly quit the app
  Now reopen Mail
• Turn off Organize by Thread
  Tap on Settings –> Mail, Contact, Calendars
  Swipe Organize by Thread to Off
  Open your Mail
  Go back into Settings and Swipe Organize by Thread back On again
• Hard Reset the iPad
  Following the steps to reset the iPad will fix the no sender/no message in some cases as well. 

I hope these suggestions will help your remove the annoying No Sender, No Message emails that may appear on your iPad.

I tried updating the apps on my iPad tonight since I had neglected to do any updates for awhile. There were 45 apps that needed to be updated. That would be almost a quarter of all the apps I have installed on the iPad. Unfortunately, when I tried updating them I was met by this error message:

Not Enough Local Storage to Update Apps

The error message told me to manage the storage by going into Settings. So, I proceeded to go in Settings, General, and Usage and discovered that I still had 2.9 GB of available storage. So, technically I should have easily had enough storage to download the updates for my various apps.

Unfortunately, the way the iOS handles updates is to download the entire update and install it before removing the old app. This means you must have enough available storage space to completely download ALL the apps before installing them. This is especially true if you select Update All from the App Store –> Updates section.

An easy workaround is to selectively update a few apps at a time until all the apps are indeed updated.

You can go into Settings –> General –> Usage and find all the apps installed on your iPad and exactly how much storage space each app is consuming. Deleting any of the large space hogging apps that you do not use will probably allow you to reclaim enough available storage space to update all the apps at once again.

Sometimes all it takes is a little spring cleaning!