Category: iOS

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gadgets iOS

Bought and setup new iPad for my 10-year-old

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(Original 2025-01-27) Last week, my 10-year-old accidentally broke her old iPad (iPad gen 7th 32gb space gray). My 14-year-old said partial reason was the case was broken and didn’t provide enough projection. I was not upset about it, as this sort of thing is a part of life nowadays. The iPhone and iPad glasses are fragile, and they tend to break, if they land on hard surfaces. Our old daughter made a similar but slightly more costly mistake on my old iPhone XR about 14 months ago. That’s also how I got my new iPhone 15 shortly after, so that I can give my old iPhone 12 to her.

I did offer her (10-year-old) a new iPad recently as her current one is running out of space and cannot update to newer versions of iOS or iPad OS. That caused some issues such as she could not install certain apps 🙁

How we setup her new iPad (iPad 10th gen, we bought the pink one). Mainly we setup her own Apple account this time. In terms of new iPad setup, I used Mac Mini to transfer a backup copy of her old iPad to Mac Mini, then from Mac Mini I transferred that content to her new iPad. We used the USB cables in both instances (which is faster than Wi-Fi).

Setup her own Apple account took some time. It’s a child account and has less privilege than mine. Initially we tried to log into her new iPad, we were not successful. Took a few attempts. As her dad, I can see her account from my iCloud account.

After setting everything setup, I signed out from her new iPad (old iPad was using my iCloud account). And signed in using her own account. After that I need to authorize her to download couple apps or update them. Also, for Roblox, I believe the minimum age is 12, so I chose 12+ in the initial iPad setup. The rest are mostly default, such as Apple Pay (no credit card for now, which means she needs my attention to buy something).

Last but not least, I plan to bring the broken iPad in my upcoming China summer trip: hopefully I can find someone to fix it in a reasonable cost, and I plan to use it myself. It will be my 2nd personal iPad if it works out. Last summer I did bring back the broken iPhone XR and had it repaired, it worked only for a brief period, and I eventually did sell it on eBay – I explicitly listed the conditions and showed the pictures of the phone there. I may do it same if things don’t work out. At least, I don’t want to sell the broken iPad AS IS. (Update: actually I ended up selling the broken iPad as is, just like how I sold my broken iPhone). In both cases I erase everything from the device, and the buyer is likely going to use the device for the parts. Because although the screen is broken, the buyer can use other parts on the device as they are still good.

PS (02-07-2025) Today I learned how to Force Restart the iPad

Update (12-10-2025) I had to force restart my daughter’s school iPad (this time I refreshed my memory by watching this YouTube video). I suspect the hard case probably has something to do with the iPad being locked up like this. I recall last time (Feb 2025, refer to the above comment), the iPad was also in a hard case (it appears Google Gemini disagree with me on this).

“Locking Up” in Error If you mean the iPad becomes completely unresponsive or frozen, this is a technical issue and generally not a direct result of the case material itself (hard plastic or polycarbonate).”

Btw, I added some comments to the above YouTube video:

This is even better than Apple’s own instructions: which I followed but didn’t work. Note we just need to press (release) the volume down button, then press (release) the volume up button, at last hold the main button. Apple’s instructions led me to do an “extra” push and release – we just need a normal push and release on those 2 volume buttons.

Categories
China gadgets iOS iPhone app Life Life Tips Technology Travel Web

VPN software I have used personally

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This article can also be read on Medium. But this blog post has all the up to date information, while the medium.com article doesn’t get regular update.

Sometimes called 科学上网 in CHN

Mac:

VPN Prime – Unlimited Proxy 4+

Update early June 2025, the free plan appears stopped working in my most recent CHH trip.

Update June 12, 2025: I purchased the paid plan, and it works (again I found a sever that worked). Considering switching from the below iOS app to this Mac app for my VPN needs.

Update 06-13-25: sometimes the connection will get reset and get lost. In that case, I tried to connect to another server and it usually works.

Update 06-14-2025: I felt more confident using this app. I think this is a viable option if I need to work from CHN (right now my employer doesn’t allow that).

iPhone, iPad

VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (Update June 2025, it still works, I have the premium sub now, and I know not all servers work, and I have my fav server now. Email me if you like to know 🙂

Update 06-12-2025: I noticed this app doesn’t always work flawlessly. At least in the two hotels I stayed, it didn’t like the Hotel WiFi. I don’t know how the app works exactly, but during the connection process, it seems dropping the WiFi and used the cellular data, which would cause the connection issue.

Update 06-17-2025: again, this app works flawlessly when I am in the US. Now I tend to think due to its popularity, China blocks this app’s use 🙁

(Original) Note: both apps have free versions, and both have add-ons that are available for purchase. I verified them on my trip and they work for the most part, iPhone app sometimes takes a few tries to get going. The Mac app works out of the box most of the time.

Cell phone international roaming

I know T-mobile used to have it. Mint Mobile has international pass too: 1 day, 3 day and 10 day. The device can go to outside world just like the VPN would. One may have to check her/his current cell phone carrier and see there is such a program or a pass.

Cell phone roaming has its own advantage, for example, we can order food or ride-share cars as those apps are usually available on the smart phone and they usually require internet connection. But in the case of China, ideally one may want to get a local phone number, as it’s needed by the meituan and didi chuxing apps.

Other use cases:

Netflix (shows from other country etc.)

Organizations sometimes block certain social media websites: this can happen in the western countries too.

Other software

Nord VPN: paid. It takes some effort to get it working in CHN. It seems all the default servers are blocked. Had to open a ticket to get alternative server names (ip address etc.), try and error, to got it working in year 2023. Retrieved a list during most recent trip too (summer 2024), haven’t tried it out as I found the two solutions above are good enough.

Default setting for Nord VPN is working when in the USA. That’s true for the free versions for two apps above too.

(Update 01/03/2025) I found this bug a while back, the issue was when my phone is on the Mobile Data network (not Wi-Fi), and when the VPN was on via Wi-Fi before the cut over, it seems Nord VPN has difficulty connect to VPN. Took me a while to understand why I lost internet connection. I am ditching this app (and software) now – not solely because of this. It’s just another annoying thing or bug for me. I noticed it didn’t work out of box on the public K-12 school’s public Wi-Fi – had to use VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (the free version: I may consider support them later once my Nord VPN subscription expires).

(Original post July 2024) Open VPN (I set it up on my own $DGCN server), but it stopped working for me in CHN in my 2023 trip. Bought Nord VPN in that trip too. Refer to this Chinese article if you want to learn more about OpenVPN or setup your own OpenVPN server (note it still works outside CHN’s GFW).

PS: you may want to take a look at eSIM app for travel.

我用VPN主要是因为我的personal email 是GMail，还有我有时会听YT/YT Music上面的歌。下面是谷歌中文翻译。

======

这篇文章也可以在 Medium 上阅读。但这篇博文包含所有最新信息，而 medium.com 上的文章则没有定期更新。

中文有时称为“科学上网”，或者叫梯子：可能是从“翻墙”那里衍生出来的。

Mac：

VPN Prime – 无限代理 4+

更新于 2025 年 6 月初，免费套餐似乎在我最近的一次 CHN 之旅中停止了工作。

更新于 2025 年 6 月 12 日：我购买了付费套餐，现在可以使用了（我又找到了一个可以正常工作的服务器）。我考虑从下面的 iOS 应用切换到这个 Mac 应用来满足我的 VPN 需求。

更新于 2025 年 6 月 13 日：有时连接会被重置并丢失。在这种情况下，我尝试连接到其他服务器，通常情况下可以正常工作。

iPhone、iPad

VPN – 超级无限代理 4+（更新至 2025 年 6 月，它仍然有效，我现在有付费订阅，我知道并非所有服务器都能正常工作，而且我现在有我最喜欢的服务器了。如果你想知道，请给我发邮件

更新于 2015 年 6 月 12 日：我注意到这个应用程序并不总是完美无缺。至少在我住过的两家酒店，它不如酒店的 WiFi 好用。我不知道这个应用程序的具体工作原理，但在连接过程中，它似乎会断开 WiFi 并使用蜂窝数据，这会导致连接问题。

（原文）注意：这两个应用程序都有免费版本，并且都有可购买的附加组件。我在旅途中验证了它们，它们大部分时间都可以正常工作，iPhone 应用程序有时需要尝试几次才能启动。Mac 应用程序大多数时候开箱即用。

手机国际漫游

我知道 T-mobile 以前有这个功能。Mint Mobile 也有国际漫游通行证：1 天、3 天和10天。该设备可以像VPN一样连接到外部网络。用户可能需要检查当前的手机运营商，看看是否有这样的程序或通行证。

手机漫游有其自身的优势，例如，我们可以订餐或叫车，因为这些应用程序通常在智能手机上可用，并且通常需要网络连接。但在中国，理想情况下，用户可能需要获取一个本地电话号码，因为美团和滴滴出行等应用程序需要这些号码。

其他用例：

Netflix（其他国家的节目等）

一些组织有时会屏蔽某些社交媒体网站：这种情况在西方国家也可能发生。

其他软件

Nord VPN：付费。在中国使用需要一些时间。似乎所有默认服务器都被屏蔽了。不得不提交工单获取备用服务器名称（IP地址等），反复尝试，最终在2023年成功恢复。在最近的一次旅行中（夏季）也获取了一份列表。 2024），我还没试过，因为我觉得上面两个方案已经够用了。

Nord VPN 在美国默认设置下可以正常工作。上面两个应用的免费版本也一样。

（更新于 2025 年 3 月 1 日）我之前发现了这个 bug，问题出在当我的手机连接移动数据网络（而非 Wi-Fi）时，如果在切换之前 VPN 是通过 Wi-Fi 开启的，Nord VPN 似乎很难连接到 VPN。我花了一段时间才明白为什么我断网了。我现在正在放弃这个应用（和软件），不仅仅是因为这个。这只是另一个让我恼火的问题或 bug。我注意到它在公立 K-12 学校的公共 Wi-Fi 上无法开箱即用——不得不使用 VPN——Super Unlimited Proxy 4+（免费版：等我的 Nord VPN 订阅到期后，我可能会考虑支持他们）。

（原帖）Open VPN（我在自己的 $DGCN 上设置了它）服务器），但在我2023年的中国之行中，它失效了。那次旅行我也买了Nord VPN。如果你想了解更多关于OpenVPN的信息，或者搭建你自己的OpenVPN服务器（注意，它在中国的GFW之外仍然可以使用），请参阅这篇中文文章。

Categories
Fun iOS iPhone app

Fitbit is losing momentum

Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhy I am saying that?

I am the only active person among my “Fitbit friends”. So I assume it could means a few things:
1) All my friends stopped wearing Fitbit;
2) All my friends did not sync (or their Fitbit could not sync, which I admit is a real problem for Fitbit);
3) All my friends got Apple watch (or something nicer, good for them 🙂

IMG_5651

The stock (NYSE:FIT) has been absolutely horrible YTD, or to be more exact since its IPO about 15 months ago. I am glad my trades worked out this year though 🙂

FIT_trades

I am speculating one reason is Apple Watch is taking off. Although I tried to stay away from that $300+ “need to be charged daily, always on” gadget, it seems it’s the inevitable with the so called “series 2”. I feel the nike+ version with the swimming is the way to go. Now if I could offload a few items on ebay to make the $300 bucks…

Categories
advice and tips finance iOS

Discover Apple Pay 10% cash back until end of year

Reading Time: 2 minutesWith $10000 as spending limit. The prerequisite: iPhone 6, 6+, 6s, 6s+; iOS 9; in store purchase, no giftcard.

Stores support Apple Pay

Here in St. Louis, Schnucks, Dierbergs, WalGreens, St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera Bread) all supports Apple Pay. Though on Sept. 17 I tried at Schnucks counter, it failed, note this is the 2nd day of Discover Apple Pay launch, so it could be a glitch. It worked on Panera Bread (Sept 18, 19). I will also try Trader Joe’s as I saw it’s coming soon from the Apple website.

Why iOS 9 for Apple Pay
It’s a bit more security. Previously one can add a card to Apple Pay just from the physical card. So basically if a card is stolen, technically it can still be added. Obviously the card issuer usually has fraud detection system in place to catch those. But iOS add a two factor authentication when adding a new card, which is definitely a great idea. We catch the problem earlier this way. A thief cannot add a stolen card as easily as it used to be.

Btw, I saw the fingerprint based authentication get popular as BoA app and other apps (e.g., Apple’s own iTunes connect) use that for authentication. Save some typing work and more security.

(Update 09-20-15) It appears Discover Apple Pay still does not work on local Schnucks store. It prompts “do you want cash back”, I said “No”, then the transaction got declined. Something at a miss at Schnucks or their payment processor. Because it does work at Panera (St. Louis) Bread since Sept 18. I guess one way to test it is to swipe Discover Card directly to see if it works 🙂

(Update 09-25-2015) Used Apple Pay with Discover at Subway for lunch today, it worked flawlessly.

(Update 09-27-2015) Worked in Trader Joe’s too.

(Update 11-07-2015) Discover Apple Pay works in Schnucks now. 

Categories
advice and tips iOS

How to fix iPhone 5 5s 6 6 plus speaker after dropping it to water

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI made this mistake again. Last time I dropped my iPhone 4 into water, I tried this “put it in rice” strategy. This time I also this trick, but the speaker was not still working. Luckily I found this youtube video on the web, basically I used a cotton knob to clean up the headphone jack. It worked.

Continue reading “How to fix iPhone 5 5s 6 6 plus speaker after dropping it to water”
Categories
advice and tips finance iOS iPhone app

Small changes coming to collegeFund app

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI was listening/reading two stories on the college debt (source: NPR) and the financial well beings of millennials (source: fortune/cnn), which lead to to add some new features to the collegeFund app. The app was essentially a college savings (529 plan) and I did not thought too much of this college debt problem at the time the app was conceived 3.5 years ago. At the time I opened 529 plan for my daughter, and started put some money into it.

A lot has changed in my personal finance and to the economy in general. Now I felt for a lot of people, college debt is like a mortgage, it’s just something they have to bear with, and manage while go on with their lives. Btw, I saw another good resource for college debt here.

I just updated the app, submitted to the app store, it’s under review now. Here is the screenshot. Let me know if you have any questions. Email me at minjie dot xu AT gmail dot com.

collegeFund_iPhone5_screen

(Update 05-10-2014) I made couple more updates to fix bugs I introduced when adding this “debt free” tab/screen. It’s mostly settled now. I am thinking other enhancements, along with myNestEgg app.

Categories
iOS

UITableView update problem

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt appears the UITableView cells created via storyboard is not updating correctly, say, if we want to add or delete a row. It only update once. The workaround in this case is creating the rows programmatically (instead of static tags from storyboard).

Similarly, I recall the JSF Richfaces paging problem when add/delete a row which results in the number of pages change.

I am guessing one possible cause of this type of problem is the update process runs into deadlock.

Categories
iOS

Another simple data grid example on iOS

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI came across this example in Jan 2012 (almost 2 years ago :-). A lot has changed in iOS landscape, but the author did a good job designing the application, I think.
Displaying Tabular Data on iPhones (Tom Thompson, overview of UITableView)

Making Two-Way Tables in iOS

(a two dimensional table, with text field as input)

Categories
iOS

The modified GMGridViewDemo

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI added the 3rd tab has the excel like data table, the screen shot shown below. I can provide the source code if needed. Just email me at minjie dot xu AT gmail dot com

spreadsheet on iPad

Categories
iOS

Announcing iDataGrid ~ a place dedicated to data grid table on iOS

Reading Time: < 1 minuteA little over a year ago, I started working full time as iOS developer for a mining company. One of the first projects is create spreadsheet like application on iPad. At that time there is no UICollectionView, and I found GMGridView to be interesting. I did look at an existing product called iOS Data Grid Table but there are two limitations which prevents me from using it: 1) It displays the values only (read only); 2) Perhaps more important, at that time I don’t recall it includes source code. So I ends up creating my own spreadsheet like tables based on GMGridView. I also read the nice work done by Tom Thompson. Of course that time my knowledge on UITextField (and UITableView for that matter) is not very good, and I did not understand all good work he did. I did used the UIPicker in my project, as it helps the user input data in many cases (simplify/ease input, reduce validation), I believe I borrow some idea from RayWenderlich’s tutorial too (UIPopupController and UIPicker).

A year and half later, when I took another look at this thing, I found at least four new things which are interesting, the shinobi controls (commerical), the MDSpeadView (looks like read only, github, open source), nucliOS (by Infragistics, commercial) and UICollectionView (Apple iOS native, tutorial by RayWenderlich.com)