Apple Creates A Mess With A Major Safari Redesign In Ios 15
The pretty radical Safari redesign in iOS 15 was met with pretty universal criticism. The updated interface isnt very intuitive, to begin with, with tabs and several other controls consolidated into a new floating bar at the bottom, basically ruining years of muscle memory.
This tabs-at-the-bottom interface is turned on by default when you upgrade your iPhone to the latest iOS software. This is to say, some people could very easily get confused by this interface to the point where they might lose confidence in the Apple browser.
Surprisingly enough, though, Apple does let you switch between the address bar at the top, where it belongs, and the bottom, which is how Apple would prefer you use the browser.
Field Test Mode: What It Is And How To Enable It On Your Phone
One of the first steps to selecting a cell phone signal booster for your home or office, vehicle, or large building is to determine how strong the outside signal is. When most people talk about cell phone signal strength, they talk about bars in reference to the signal strength bar indicator on the phone. While bars are an easy way to talk about signal strength, it turns out that its not a very accurate way to signal test. While many phones show the signal strength on a 5-bar scale, some phones only have 4 bars while others have 8. Even among phones with the same number of bars, theres no standardization, so the strength of a 4 bar signal on one phone can be very different than a 4 bar signal on another. Finally, bars arent very granular so for example, saying 3 bars of signal is not being very specific.
When experts discuss cell phone signal strength, they measure the signal in decibels. Decibels are a logarithmic unit of measuring signal strength and are very precise making them ideal for performing a signal test of just how strong of a signal is that youre currently receiving.
Most phones have a setting we call Field Test Mode that can show you useful information about your phone, including the signal strength in decibels. Here are a few things to keep in mind about taking signal readings in decibels:
How To Change Position Of Safari’s Address Bar Through Settings
The primary method of changing the location of the Safari address bar on iPhone is through the device Settings itself. Here’s how to do just that.
Select whether you want the Tab Bar or Single Tab .
Once you set Safari’s address bar position through the Settings app, it will stay that way until you change it again.
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Clear Your Browser Cache
Your iPhone might be storing a lot of website history and data that you no longer need.
It’s quick and easy to clear the cache for Safari on an iPhone.
Clearing the caches for Safari and Chrome will log you out of your most-visited websites, so remind yourself of your passwords before you start cache clearing.
To clear your cache for Safari, open Settings and then swipe down to “Safari”, then tap to enter “Safari settings”.
In your Safari settings, scroll down until you reach “Clear history and website data”, under the privacy and security section, then tap to activate.
Tap again to confirm – and it’s as simple as that.
Why Do I Only Have One Bar On My Phone
Usually, one bar of service on your phone means youre receiving poor signal because youre too far from the nearest cell tower or something is blocking the signal from getting to your device. As you read above, how poor a one-bar signal actually is will depend on your phone, but its the worst the signal can be, relatively speaking, for each device before you dont have service at all.
Some common signal blockers can include building materials such as concrete, steel, brick, fiberglass insulation or wood.
If youre in a densely populated area such as a major city, the issue of network traffic can also arise. People assume theres plenty of cell coverage to go around, but cellular tower resources are limited. If a lot of people are on the same network and tower, downloading things, sending messages or otherwise taking up bandwidth, the tower might struggle to support that level of usage.
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How To See Quick Actions With 3d Touch Or Haptic Touch On The Home Screen
On the iPhone 6s or later, you can press firmly on an app icon to bring up quick actions. Doing this involves either 3D Touch or Haptic Touch. The former uses capacitive sensors integrated into the smartphone’s display to sense three degrees of pressure in a user’s touch and responds differently based on the amount of pressure exerted. The latter doesn’t detect pressure. Instead, it registers how long you leave your finger on the UI element. When pressed for long enough on an app icon, you’ll see the list of quick actions.
Regardless of whether you’re using 3D Touch or Haptic Touch, these actions act as shortcuts for the app. Some apps have several quick actions, including dynamic quick actions that update based on the last person you contacted, article you read, show you watched, etc. Tap on an action to go directly to that feature or content in the app.
Tap on the action you want to perform.
Remove The Objects That Interfere With The Cellular Reception
Here’s what you should understand about how cell phones work. If you want your phone to receive signals from the cell tower constantly, it would help if it is in line with the cell tower with minimal obstructions. Reduce objects standing between them. If the signals from the cell phone towers have to pass through a lot of obstructions such as walls, window glass, etc., they can get considerably weakened.
What can you do to reduce, if not eliminate the interference between the cell phone and the nearest cell tower? Well, you can move closer to an open window for one, or go upstairs to the terrace, when you’re using the phone. This is something you do anyway, without anyone telling you about it.
There’re other obstructions you can do nothing about such as trees, mountains, hills, tall buildings, metal structures or any thick walls or building material, whether it is made from metal or concrete.
The weather is another thing you can do nothing about. The weather can get bad all of a sudden causing signal strength to drop instantly. Sometimes there are storms and hurricanes. The weather can drastically interfere and block the cell phone reception, but you cant possibly wish away the weather.
You could do something about some of the internal interference such as electronics, metal objects, or for that matter anything that sends magnetic or electronic signals and interferes with the cell waves. Therefore, get rid of any internal clutter as much as possible.
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How To Access iPhone Field Test Mode On Ios 1:
If youre using iOS 15, refer to the next section, below this set of instructions.
Turn off the WiFi on your phone
Go into the Phone application, as if you were going to make a call, then type in this code: *3001#12345#* and hit the dial button
The page that opens will have a Dashboard tab and an All Metrics tab. Go to the All Metrics tab by tapping the three lines on the top right corner of the menu
You should see a list of options. Under the LTE heading, tap on Serving Cell Meas to access your LTE signal readings
You will see rsrp0, rsrp1, sinr0, and sinr1. Were still not exactly sure what the 0 and 1 represent, its likely these are two separate measurements from the two antennas in your phone
These measurements will not continually update in iOS 14. When you need to take a new measurement, go back one page and then back into Serving Cell Meas again to get updated values.
Take a screenshot of the readings you see on this page and label it appropriately
We recommend taking at least two measurements on each side of your building and naming each reading North, South, East, and West. We also recommend taking readings on any upstairs balconies or on the roof if you can.
Repeat steps 5 to 6 until youve got a couple readings from each side of your building
When youre ready, send the labeled screenshots of your readings to us via email.
How Do I Make Sure Im Freeing Up Storage Space From Deleting Photos
Its important to remember that in order to actually free up all the glorious space you just cleared in photos and videos, youll need to clear out the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app.
If you tap Select in the top right corner of this album, youll be given the option to Delete All or Recover All items in the album. Otherwise, items are usually automatically deleted from this folder after 30 days.
Hopefully this advice allows you to clear up some space for more pictures and take away some of that storage anxiety.
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Why Is My iPhone Signal So Bad
A poor signal on your iPhone can be the result of numerous factors. Here are some of the more common causes of a weak iPhone cellular signal.
- Inadequate network coverage by your provider.
- Out-of-date apps or operating systems.
- Buildings or terrain blocking the signal.
- Too many users are trying to access the network at the same time.
- An iPhone cover is blocking the antennae.
How To Determine Signal Strength
The higher the number, the better the signal strength. But keep in mind, since these are negative numbers, a higher number will actually display as a lower digit. To give you some context, a good, five-bar signal will be roughly around -40 to -77. If you have one bar, then the numbers will be closer to between -102 to -120.
This is a simple trick that can improve the look of your status bar while also serving as a useful feature, and it’s all possible without the need to jailbreak your iPhone.
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Q: How Do I Get Better Signal On My iPhone
There are good practices to improve cell phone reception. But when comes down to the best option, it’s a no-brainer: a cell phone signal booster.
90% of the Americans own a cell phone and 72% of them experience frequent dropped calls and disconnected service. Doesn’t matter if you own an iPhone 4, 5, 6, 6s Plus, whatever. Like an expensive car without gasoline. No matter how nice it looks or powerful it runs, without a drop of gas, it’s stationery. No signal to your phone means you’ve got an expensive music player and calculator.
This isn’t what you’re paying your monthly bills for.
A cell phone signal booster is a FCC-certified device that takes weak cell signal, amplifies it up to 32X, and rebroadcasts the signal to an area in need inside a home or car.
Signal boosters work with all 2G, 3G, and 4G networks on all iPhones and other smartphones, too. They work on all carriers .
They are one-time investments with no monthly fees nor do they need landline broadband internet to work.
How To Use The New Safari Tab Bar In Ios 15 If You Want To
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Apple is giving you the choice in iOS 15 of sticking with Safari’s old style of tabs, or adopting the new tab bar. Before you eschew the new one, though, give it a try.
It’s not as if the redesigned tab bar in Safari for iOS 15 has some enormously better capabilities on any one website than it did before. It does have a new way of moving between sites, but really what it has is a different approach, an unfamiliar design.
Apple wants tabs to get out of your way and that’s laudable. It’s more than laudable that Apple has brought the new Tab Groups feature to iOS 15, it’s brilliant – and it’s different. Everybody either loves Tab Groups or simply has no reason to even know they’re there.
Whereas no one can use Safari without using tabs, so a major redesign is a very big and very unavoidable deal. Or it was until Apple introduced the option to go back to the old design.
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Move To A Better Location
Your surroundings can have a bigger impact than you think. If you have poor reception inside your home or office, but it drastically improves whenever you go outside, theres a good chance the building is impeding your signal.
If youre outside and still cant get good reception, try moving away from tall buildings, trees, and anything else that could cause interference. If youre in a rural area, try moving to a higher elevation. Its also common that crowds such as concerts, music festivals, or even downtown areas with major events in town can create stress on the wireless towers, limiting signal and data speed on your smartphone.
Using Field Test To See Your Cell Signal Strength
Now that youre in this weird Field Test menu, how do you check your cellular signal strength?
Theres a lot of stuff in here, and its not very well labeled. After all, this is not a menu for regular users, but for service technicians.
Start by choosing LTE from the first menu.
Choose LTE first.
Then look for menu labeled Serving Cell Meas. This will contain measurements taken from the serving cellthe one youre currently connected to.
Next, select Serving Cell Meas
Selecting Serving Cell Meas will take you to a page of data. Youll notice the order of the listing here changes every few seconds, as the measurements continually update.
Youre looking for rsrp0, which is the Reference Signal Received Power for the tower closest to you .
The figure you should be most concerned with is rsrp0.
This should be a negative number, in a range from around -40 to -140. A number closer to -40 is a really strong signal, while a number closer to -140 is a really poor signal. Anything between -40 and -80 is very good and you shouldnt have any signal problems. Anything below -120 is very poor, and you might suffer interruptions in your connection and very poor data speeds.
Theres another useful data point on this page, labeled RSRQ0 . This is a value derived from both the signal strength and interference. This usually ranges between -3 and -19.5 . Its possible to have a lower number, but to do so you have to have a really noisy, low-power signal.
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Field Test Mode On Android Phones
There are a number of apps for taking field test signal measurements on Android, including our free SignalStream App.
SignalStream shows field test information under the “Signal Info” tab, but it also allows you to take, save, and optionally share 3G, 4G, and 5G signal readings with our team of SIgnal Specialists, who can recommend a booster.
Another free app that also allows you to take signal measurements is Network Cell Info Lite.
Do iPhone Signal Boosters Really Work
For iPhone signal booster to work, there must be existing cell signal outside your home. A cellular amplifier ENHANCES existing signal, but does not create it. Here is a simple test to know if you do have existing signal Can you make calls outside your home? Do you find that your cell phone signal is stronger outside? If the answer is yes, then a signal booster will work for you.
If you want more specific information, there is ways to measure your cell phone signal strength. Dont put all your trust on the bars your phone shows you they are not always accurate.
For iOS 11 and above:
Check out this highly recommended way of reading your cell phone signal strength.
For iOS 10 and below:
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How To Move Ios 15 Safari’s Address Search Bar Back To Top
During the beta phase of iOS 15, Apple added a new Safari design element that moves the URL and tab interface to the bottom of the screen, a decision that was immediately controversial with iPhone users.
After listening to a chorus of feedback from users who didn’t like the change, Apple eventually added a toggle that sent the address bar to the top of the iPhone screen instead of the bottom, allowing users to return Safari to a more iOS 14-like experience if they wished.
If you can’t get on with the address bar living at the bottom of the screen and would prefer to have it in its original position at the top, like it was in iOS 14, follow these steps.
You can also control this design change in Settings -> Safari, under the “Tabs” section. To take the URL bar to the top of the Safari interface, select Single Tab.