How to iPhone

by Gerry Delval

Hopefully by now, you have reaped the rewards of synchronizing your iPhone(s) to your email account(s) and cleaned up your contacts as covered in previous articles.  In this final article on getting the most out of your iPhone, we will focus on video conferencing apps, on photos and documents apps and on banking apps. 

Video Conferencing

This is an extremely useful feature of smart phones, especially during the pandemic as it allows you to communicate visually with loved ones almost anywhere and at any time.  There are many video conferencing apps but only two that I will cover here.  These are FaceTime and WhatsApp.  Video conferencing apps all function the same way in that they operate via your email account and require you to either be connected to a WiFi network or that you allow the app to use the data allocation that comes with your service contract.  So, this means that if you are outside of your telephone service contract zone, then you will be charged roaming fees if you do video conferencing on your data plan – which could be outrageously expensive. Alternatively, unless you are on a family member’s or friend’s WiFi private network, it might be difficult to video conference on say an airport or a hotel WiFi network, either because the bandwidth is too narrow or because there are too many users.  I have never been successful in these circumstances and I simply rely on the very generous data plan of my French phone service provider.

FaceTime is Apple’s default video app and it comes automatically with your iPhone, so there is no download but you will be required to set it up with your Apple ID the first time you use it – it will prompt you. FaceTime only operates on Apple devices.  So, this means that parties at both ends of the call must be using iPhones.  WhatsApp is a third part app, the third party being Facebook.  You need to download the app from the AppStore and it is free.  WhatsApp will work on all platforms and so, you on your iPhone can WhatsApp (voice only or video) with a party on an Android phone.

One of the really neat features of video conferencing is that you do not need to configure anything in your contact information.  These apps automatically know who has downloaded them on their phones.  Yes, “Big Brother’ is watching.  So, the best way to place a video conference call is through your contact list and not by opening the app itself.  This way, it is not necessary to decide whether to use FaceTime or WhatsApp before you place your video conference call.  To do this, go to your contact list and either select your party from your favourites or search your list and select the party that you want to reach.  Once you have selected the party, press the blue “Video” icon just below the party’s name.  This will open a drop down box that will indicate the video conferencing apps that both you and your party have.  Simply press the one of your choice and your call will be made. I always use WhatsApp to place calls with my children and grandchildren even though we all have iPhones.  It is because we have been using WhatsApp from the early days when it was just a messaging app and later also a phone app and then a video app. 

If you have established a chat exchange of text messages on WhatsApp with a party on your iPhone, you will have a record of these that is kept under their name.  In this case, you can also access that party from the app itself.  Tap the WhatsApp icon; tap the “Chats” icon at the bottom of the screen and select the party.  In the upper right, tap either the camera to place a video call or the telephone to place a voice call.  When you are on a video call with WhatsApp, you can invite and add another party.  Simply tap the + symbol at the top of the screen and select the other party. 

You can also create a Group in WhatsApp that will allow you to send a text message, or place a voice call or place a video call to all members of that group at once.  To set up a group, tap “New Group” in the upper right of the screen and follow the prompts.  To select a party to add to the group, tap the circle to the right of the party’s name.

I have new important news regarding WhatsApp. As reported above, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. Recently (at least recently to me), WhatsApp announced that it will start to share users’ personal information with Facebook. If you are on Facebook, you probably won’t care about this. But this move does not sit well with millions of WhatsApp users who feel that their privacy will be violated. As a result, these unhappy users have been looking elsewhere as there are many “me too” apps out there. The one that has emerged as the leading replacement app is Signal which can be downloaded free from the AppStore. My family and some of my friends are switching. And so many others around the world have been switching to Signal that their site crashed several times. Things now seem to have settled down. Signal is totally independent and so no data will be shared – at least as long as a big tech buy doesn’t buy it. Signal works almost identically to WhatsApp so it is easy to use if you are comfortable with WhatsApp. The only difference is that unlike WhatsApp, it does not show up automatically on Contacts when you click the phone or camera app – at least for now and this may change in time.

Banking

Your iPhone has just given you one more reason to avoid making trips to the bank.  If you are already doing online banking on your home computer, you can download your bank’s app on your iPhone and this will allow you to also deposit cheques.  If you are like me, you probably don’t receive many cheques anymore, but it is very convenient when you do receive one, especially during the pandemic.  Go to the App Store, search for your bank and download its app.  You can then log on using the same password as you do for your online banking from your desktop computer.  With my bank, to deposit a cheque, after logging on the app, I tap “Deposit”, then I enter the amount and take a picture of the front and back of the cheque.  Your’s is probably the same.  The app prompts me through the process, lets me know if I should retake a picture and once complete, that cheque is deposited in my account.  I need to keep the cheque until I receive an email from the bank (generally about 2 weeks) to confirm the cheque was valid and approved by the issuing bank after which time I can destroy the cheque.  In essence, it really is no different than what the teller does when depositing at the bank since everything is done electronically now.

The Apple Wallet app is very useful.  I use my phone to pay touchless at credit card readers just as I would with my credit card.  The good thing is that I have an instantaneous record on my phone of the last 30 days of transactions, so I don’t need to take a paper copy, unless I need it for another reason.  I know that some people incorrectly believe this to be less secure than using their credit card.  In fact, all iPhones from the 5 on provide thumbprint activation.  The Wallet requires thumbprint activation as well.  If one should lose their credit card or have it stolen, anyone else can pay touchless with it indiscriminately.  But if one should lose their iPhone or have it stolen, one would also need to lose their thumb or have it stolen as well.  So, in essence, I argue that the Wallet app is in fact more secure than the credit card due to the need to activate it with the thumbprint.  The Wallet app is a standard app on the phone and does not need to be downloaded.  To add a card to the Wallet, touch the “+” in the top right corner and follow the prompts.  To use the app in a store, touch the credit card and then place your thumb on the main button but don’t press.  As your thumbprint is being read, a red thumbprint icon will activate and once the thumbprint has been recognized, a blue iPhone icon will appear prompting you to simply bring your phone to the touchless card reader.  If done too soon, it will timeout and you will need to start the process over.  The thumbprint reading is a bit tricky and requires a little bit of practice but once you have the hang of it, it works very well.  I have noticed that during the pandemic, I have some difficulty in getting my thumbprint recognized if I used a hand gel just prior.  There is no update feature to deal with a new card that replaces the expired one.  You will need to delete the old card when you destroy the physical card and then add the new one. 

Photos

Apple and Google both offer free cloud storage of photos, to a certain limit of course but well within the normal usage of most individuals.  The advantage of using this service is twofold.  First, all your photos taken on your iPhone are held securely in the cloud and so if you should be so unfortunate as to lose your phone, have it fail on you or have it stolen, especially when you are on the trip of your life, you still have access to your photos.  And this very point is true for everything else I have recommended concerning synchronizing your iPhone(s) with your email account(s) and managing your contacts.  A loss of your phone is simply a loss of hardware that you can easily replace while all of your important data are intact and retrievable.  Second, you can transfer all of your photos that are kept on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet as well and merge all of your photos in one “location” that you can then manage easily from your desktop computer.  Photos are then accessible by date, location and even by face recognition.  I was stunned to find that if I searched for my grandson, I would get his baby pictures as well.

My email account is @gmail.com and so I use Google Photos, but also because my computer tech, who maintained my business IT system when I had my agency, uses it himself and I have continued to use his services ever since.  This raises an important point that because it is a complicated process, it is best done with some assistance from your favourite computer tech.  It also takes a long time to upload.  When we uploaded our phones, we had to leave them on all night as they uploaded thousands of pictures.  But once done, we could delete them from the iPhone devices themselves, clear up space and still access the pictures just like you access email messages and contacts.

What I like about Google Photos is that all pictures that we take from any of our three iPhones get automatically uploaded to our Google Photos account as soon as we are connected to a WiFi network, or if the data function is activated.  When we are touring with our motorhome in Europe, our French phone has its data activated all the time and all our photos taken from that phone are uploaded immediately.  Any additional photos that Christine or I take with another phone (which are kept on Airplane Mode) get uploaded in the evening when we are in the motorhome and we activate the Personal Hotspot feature of our French phone.  All photos taken from any of our iPhones get automatically filed based on their date stamp, so it doesn’t matter who took which picture with which phone, they are all in the correct order.  When we have time any evening or once we are back home, we simply go to the laptop or desktop computer and we can manage our photos.  If you do this, I recommend that you add a secondary drive to your desktop computer to download a copy of your photos that are kept in the cloud and update that drive on a regular basis.  This will provide additional security to your photos.

I hope that these articles have been useful to you so that you can make the most of your iPhone.  As usual, if you want to discuss any of the points, please email me at gerry.delval@gmail.com.

Gérard (Gerry) DELVAL