iPhone | At Home with Tech

December 31, 2023

My Biggest Discoveries I Blogged About over the Past Year

Here’s my At Home with Tech year in review. Below are the links to my key learnings and tech discoveries.

So yes, these next few weeks can all be about looking forward. The fresh start. The resolutions. The turning over a new leaf. But I like to think of this time of year as the next chapter that builds on the past. It’s not so much ‘the new’… as ‘the next.’

I try to carry it forward. That way, I can greet these annual cycles with the perspective of my past years’ experiences. Said another way, it’s important to look back as you look forward. Otherwise, a lot can get lost across the years.

That’s why I think it’s critical to package up the story of your past year in an organized photo collection (digital or book) or perhaps an edited video-clips overview.

You might also want to perform a mental review and acknowledgement of your other notable actions and learnings.

Take it in. Then lock it in, or let it go if need be.

At Home with Tech Year in Review

As you know, I document my thoughts on technology and family life each week. So, I’ll follow my own advice and offer this summary of my blog posts that reflect my big learnings across the past year. Please check out the links below that most interest you!

My Growth as a Parent

Working in our Post-Pandemic World

My Journey as the Family Photographer

My Role as the Family Archivist

How a tiny film-to-digital converter brought new life to my father’s old analog slides
How to quickly turn a scanned negative into a positive image on a Mac
How to use SmugMug as a family photo archiving tool
How to prevent your family’s identity from being washed away by time

Maximizing your Family Video Clips

My Family Vacation Tips

Best Practices for your iPhone

My Evolving Understanding of Apple Computers

Here’s to a Prosperous 2024
As always, thank you for reading my blog. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you in the year to come.

Happy New Year!

November 19, 2023

How to Stop your iPhone from Buzzing All Night Long

Unless you want to be kept up by your iPhone with endless updates while you’re trying to sleep, you need to give it a bedtime. Here’s how.

I am the Borg. You are the Borg. We are the Borg. Yes, humanity has already been assimilated.

Remember, those evil “Star Trek” cybernetic bad guys who kept running into Captain Picard and wanted to take over the galaxy? The Borg were all wirelessly interconnected and acted in sync like a colony of bees. Their hive mind kept them instantly updated.

Okay. Well, no… we’re not completely moving throughout our day following the constant direction of a unified data stream. But I think the scary reality is only because it’s not unified. (Well, not yet.)

Time to Put your iPhone into Sleep Mode
Our smartphones are constantly bombarding us with various updates…. from family, friends and work to various companies and organizations we’ve touched and shared our personal data with.

These ongoing texts, emails and calls can become a persistent din. It’s like the world is screaming at you. If you wear an Apple Watch with haptic feedback on your wrist, there’s a constant visceral reminder that someone or something wants your attention.

All that noise, noise, noise!

Sure, you have instant access to so much more information, but it comes at a price. (What’s a Borg drone to do?)

And the last thing you need is to have that constant drumbeat interfere with your sleep.

There’s got to be a way to turn it off.

Well, of course there is…

How to Activate Sleep Focus
I realized recently that I really needed to take some action and effectively put my iPhone 15 Pro Max to sleep while I was sleeping. Yes, it was muted, but my iPhone would wake me up with all the buzzing and screen brightening to alert me of something new in the wee hours of the morning.

I needed my REM sleep!

I knew that I could simply move my iPhone to a different room, but I like to charge it up on my nightstand. Fortunately, I can set it and forget it…if it will let me. (I usually don’t wake up in the middle of the night with the need to grab it and see how my blog’s metrics are doing.)

Instead of turning my iPhone off (whoever does that?!), I activated the sleep setting in the Focus App.

Here’s how to do that.

Tap on Settings
Tap Focus
Tap Sleep
Set a Schedule

Then you assign a lock screen for this setting. (The trick I think is not to assign it to the screen lock photo that you use throughout your day.)

You can also program exceptions to let certain contacts make it through your Do Not Disturb barrier.

Done.

Now my iPhone goes totally dark at my bedtime and does not respond to any incoming anything throughout the night.

Happiness restored.

Silence in your Sleep Chamber
It’s ironic that we now need to tame our smartphones to prevent them from overwhelming us with too much of what was supposed to be a good thing.

The simple truth is everyone and everything should not have immediate access to your attention.

Even the Borg knew that. They had those cool standing sleep chambers throughout their Borg cube ships where their drones could catch up on their sleep… uninterrupted.

And as we all know, it’s never a good idea to wake up a sleeping Borg.

October 8, 2023

How to Protect the Camera Lenses on the Back of your iPhone

If you worry about destroying your iPhone’s three camera lenses, you might want to consider buying a case with a lens cover.

In many ways, the most prominent feature of an iPhone is its camera system. Being able to make a phone call these days is almost an afterthought. And those three camera lenses on recent iPhones are fairly large. Long gone are the little lens dots on the back of smartphones.

As I began to consider my daily life with my brand-new iPhone 15 Pro Max, I thought about how to best protect its three lenses from damage. Of course, I know I’ll be constantly placing my new iPhone on various surfaces facing up to maximize its ‘always on’ trick. (Love that!) And in practicing this technique, my iPhone will always rest on its camera lenses.

That doesn’t feel quite right.

A Standard Case Won’t Cover Every Danger
Sure, many iPhone cases have a lip surrounding the lenses that prevent direct contact. Other cases can even out the back side of an iPhone, so it becomes one flat surface without the lens bump. Then, they won’t protrude at all.

But those three lenses are still unprotected and exposed to the grimy elements.

You wouldn’t mistreat any other camera lens that way. You’d have a lens cap for it, right?

What happens to those three iPhone lenses after daily contact with any number of surfaces? Wouldn’t that eventually smudge and scratch them, affecting the optics of all your photos and videos?

Sure, the little camera lenses are natively constructed with sapphire crystal lens covers. Does that make them impervious?

A Genius Perspective
So, I brought my concern to a couple Apple Genius’s when I picked up my iPhone 15 Pro Max at the Apple Store.

One mostly brushed off my question as irrelevant. He said that he simply wipes off his iPhone’s lenses for smudges and they’re ready to go. He said otherwise, he “doesn’t think much about it.”

Whenever I visit an Apple Store looking for answers, I often quiz multiple Geniuses. So, I kept going…

I found another Apple Genius who appeared more analytical. (Maybe it was the glasses.) He told me that all flat clean surfaces were safe to rest an iPhone on. I should just be mindful of avoiding gritty surfaces. Those “might” scratch the camera lenses.

I felt a bit better with that answer. But life isn’t flat and clen. Life is gritty, especially when you least expect it.

An iPhone Case with a Lens Cover
The standard solution of simply wiping off my three little lenses with a microfiber cloth (or my sleeve) just wasn’t going to cut it. I knew I wanted a more comprehensive plan.

Question: Had any iPhone case manufacturers yet designed their cases with a dedicated lens protection solution? After a little quick Googling, I realized that in fact, yes… some of them had.

Though I may be in the minority for wanting this extra protection, I decided to buy an iPhone case that offered a protective lens cover.

Cases for new iPhone models take time to enter the market. So, I looked for a quick and dirty solution to help my iPhone’s lenses avoid the grit.

I found two types of cases built with little plastic covers that shielded the camera lenses. They moved one of two ways:

Sliding over and away (left to right)
Folding over and back (like a little door)

SUPCASE Closed-Door Solution
I ended up trying out the tiny door concept with the SUPCASE UBMag XT Case.
Amazon has it for $26.99.
The little lens door locks in place when it’s closed and is appropriately stiff as you move it. (The plastic flap doesn’t swing around when it’s open.) The door can also double as a kickstand for your iPhone.

The SUPCASE allows for MagSafe charging and magnetic grip, and functionally works just fine.

Most importantly, the “closed door” gives me peace of mind as I move my iPhone and its three camera lenses around.
All this said, the lens cover does require the extra step of opening it before taking a photo. So, in those spontaneous moments, you’ll inevitably lose a second or two before getting off your first shot.

Cautious Optimism
I wanted immediate protection for my new iPhone, and for a case in the sub $30 category, this was a solid choice. It’s a good way to begin ahead of other iPhone 15 Pro Max case options entering the market.

Does that mean I’ll eventually upgrade to another case? Perhaps. No case will last through your iPhone’s expected lifetime. My iPhone cases have all shown wear and tear long before that. But isn’t that the whole point?

The case takes the licking, and your iPhone keeps on ticking.
(Wait…that’s another brand.)

Bottom line: My three new camera lenses now have their extra layer of protection. Do they actually need a cover? Who really knows for sure…

But the idea of it certainly makes sense to me.

Case closed.

Tag: iPhone

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