Guides

Over a decade after Google first introduced its Street View map feature, Apple is ready to debut its own version known as Look Around. While it is almost exactly the same as Street View, Look Around's imagery uses parallax processing to achieve a 3D quality and its scenery transitions are much smoother than its rival's. The feature will launch with iOS 13, so if you prefer Apple Maps to Google's you'll be able to take a virtual tour of locations you are interested in without leaving the Maps app. Here's how to use it:

Animoji and Memoji are animated emoji that mimic your facial expressions using your iPhone's forward facing camera. While most adults are probably not going to converse with animated emojis, kids definitely delight in them. Unfortunately only the iPhone X or later, iPad Pro 11-inch or iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) can create and send Animoji and Memoji (though any iOS or Android device can receive them).

With iOS 11, Apple adopted the High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) as a replacement for JPEG on both iOS and macOS. The HEIF format saves a considerable amount of storage space with its .HEIC files (High Efficiency Image Container) being up to 50 percent smaller than the same image saved in JPEG format. Despite the smaller size, the HEIF format can capture 16 bit color whereas the JPEG only handles 8 bit. Clearly HEIF is preferable to JPEG right?

The Reminders app was given a complete overhaul with the release of iOS 13. The all-new design includes new features such as a "quick toolbar," enhanced Siri intelligence and Siri suggestions, the ability to add photos, documents, scans, and web links, and the ability to create tasks and grouped lists.

Tasks and grouped lists makes the Reminders app more useful by allowing you to add smaller tasks to larger groups. Say you wanted to do a little shopping, and you created 3 separate lists for the grocery store, Target and Home Depot. You could drag your 3 lists into one group titled Shopping and have them all in one place. Here's how to create a grouped list in iOS 13 and later:

If you are an avid podcast fan then you should know how to queue episodes from a variety of shows, just as you would make a playlist of your favorite music. You may not want your show to end and automatically start playing the next episode, especially if it is a hit-or-miss type show. Even worse, you don't want your show to end and then start playing another episode that you've already heard. Curating playlists is essential for long car trips and flights - who wants to have to spend time searching for another interesting podcast to listen to, especially when they are driving?