Apple recently launched a new update that brought many popular new features such as group FaceTime, 70+ new emoji’s, and more. You can now group FaceTime with up to 32 people, as well as being able to use “Animoji” and “Memoji” during your call. For emoji lovers, there are now people with red, grey, bald and curly hair. There are new sports, animal and food options as well. My favorite new emoji is the party face one.

In iOS 12.1, there are now grouped notifications on your lock screen to make it easier to see everything at a glance and get of rid of less important notifications quicker.

Another interesting thing that Apple did was add “screen time”. You get a weekly report sent to your phone with all your activity broken down between app usage, highest phone pick up time, and apps that send you the most notifications. Within this setting you are able to set weekly time limits as reminders, as well as block apps for a period of time. With family sharing you can set time limits on apps for kids sharing. Screen time is a cool way of sharing the different ways you use your phone every week, and shows you which apps you’re most addicted to.

I personally like the next one a lot. Apple makes a visual reminder on your lock screen when you have DND (do not disturb) mode on. This is a nice helpful reminder because I use do not disturb mode very often when I’m in class or at work, and so most of the time I forget to turn it back on. With this helpful reminder, I never forget to turn it off now and risk missing an important notification.

Along with that, they also added a do not disturb bedtime mode. So it’ll not only silence your notification, but your screen will stay dark, as to not distract you when you’re trying to sleep.

Communication is used all the time, everyday. Therefore, it’s something we must be good at. Here are some tips:

Do –

• Be clear and direct – Say exactly what needs to be said and make sure your message is understood by the receiver
• Paraphrase – Let the speaker know you care about what they are communicating
• Be respectful – Use the person’s name, eye contact, and nod your head to demonstrate understanding
• Tailor conversation to audience – Know who you’re speaking to. Be more professional when talking with a boss or a coworker, rather than a friend
• Face to face – If you know the subject of conversation is something important, choose to talk to someone in person rather than over text

Don’t –

• Give more attention to your phone than a person – This is just rude and shows you aren’t engaged in the conversation
• Overuse abbreviations – People will get in a habit of doing this, which ends up looking unprofessional on their part
• Monopolize the conversation – Communication must flow both ways to be effective
• React or get upset – This can leave a bad impression
• Interrupt – Allow everyone to be involved

In this post I’m going to give a short review for a couple social media apps I have in my phone. In no particular order, let’s review:

Snapchat

This is the app I would say I use the most. I love this well-known app because it is very simple and a good way to contact someone if you need a quick response, because everyone is always on Snapchat. The use of filters makes it very humorous. I personally don’t know anybody who doesn’t have the Snapchat app. Everybody I know has it, my mom, dad, 14 year old sister and 9 year old brother have snapchat. Teachers have snapchat. Super popular.

Facebook

Unlike Snapchat, many people I know that are around my age do not have a Facebook, or at least do not use their Facebook account anymore. I’d say most people in my age range stopped using Facebook when they were around 16. I personally still use Facebook to connect with family and professionals, and I know people older than me, adults, use Facebook pretty often. I’m very close with much of my family but a lot of them live far away so we use Facebook to keep in touch. I post pictures from college to keep everyone updated but I don’t post too obnoxiously.

Facebook Messenger

Because Facebook is dumb, and can’t use their own app to chat with other people online, they made a whole different app called Facebook Messenger for you to chat on. That is all.

Twitter

I feel like twitter is used for two main groups of people. Classrooms/Teacher/business related stuff, and then teens-young adults. I think that Twitter is funny, all I do is scroll and retweet hilarious stuff. You can also get the latest news on Twitter which I believe many people use it for as well.

What’s your favorite social media app, and why? Mine is Snapchat, obviously!

I was assigned to download a free app on my phone, check it out for a few days and then review it. The app I chose to review is Redbubble. I picked this app because I work in the mailroom at my school, and a lot of students order stuff from Redbubble which comes in a red package, so I wanted to see what the hype was all about.

When I went into the app for the first time, I signed myself up for a Redbubble account. It then showed many different themes such as animals, music, travel, mountains, ect. and had you check the one’s that you’re interested in. The next screen showed many different art designs related to your interests that you checked off. If you press on one of the designs that you like, it offers the design as t-shirts, sweatshirts, iPhone cases, laptop cases, stickers, tapestries and more. I ended up finding three different travel related stickers that I was interested in buying. Each sticker was ranged from one to two dollars so the total price wasn’t too bad. Here’s an example of one of the stickers I bought:

I’m personally a big fan of tattoos, and I enjoyed scrolling through all of the different designs on this app because I saw a lot of good future tattoo ideas, for example, pretty flowers.

On this app you can scroll down the main page which has your personal interests, and you can also use the search bar to search for anything you want! You can save stuff that you enjoy in the “favorites”, and you also have a shopping cart for items you want to purchase. The last portion of the app is your profile page which has all the normal “settings, privacy, customer support, user agreement” type of options.

I give this app a 10/10 because it is fun, colorful, and easy to use. I love scrolling through the stickers and tapestries and adding basically everything I see to my favorites. My order shipped very quickly and everything was in perfect condition.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/redbubble/id1145737091?mt=8

https://www.redbubble.com/explore/