iPhone

Ann got a new iPhone and it only works intermittently with her Mercedes SL. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The dealership says to let the car "warm up" and let it acquire it. What can she do? Leo says that Bluetooth is rather hit or miss sometimes, and in Mercedes, there are some issues with iPhones. Leo says that a car with CarPlay works best when plugging the phone into the USB port with the lightning cable. Then CarPlay will see the phone. That will probably work better. Ann should also try unpairing or forgetting the phone and then re-pairing it.

Christine hates the iPhone Calendar. She wants her Google Calendar to be the default. Rich says that iOS is sandboxed and there's no way to set a default app that would send her information where she wants. Rich recommends going into the iPhone's calendar settings and setting Google Calendar as her main calendar. Then all she will see is the Google Calendar. It's still using the iPhone calendar app, but it's all her Google Calendar information. That's about as good as she can get it.

As for invites, Rich hates invites. He prefers to delete them.

Scott got his daughter an iPhone 7 and he wants to know the best way to lock it down to protect her online activity. Leo says that there are parental controls built into the iPhone, but there are apps that really take it to a new level. He can block apps and features as well. He can even white list numbers that would allow calls while disallowing others. He should also look at what restrictions the carrier offers. There are kid friendly browsers. iBlacklist will filter calls and SMS.

Jack is in the banking industry and he recently left his job. But when he did, he lost his Apple ID and they remote wiped his phone. Will he have trouble switching it over to a new Apple ID and will he lose all the apps, music, etc. that he bought? Leo says that Jack should be able to go to the Apple ID and change the email associated with it. They'll look for confirmation on the old email, though. He'll need to also log into the old Apple ID account and turn off Find My iPhone and back up to iCloud.

Chuck needs an option to be able to grab an image of his text messages and produce a PDF of it. Leo says that's easy on a Mac because he has access to Apple Messages, but he doesn't have the ability to include Android text messages. Leo says that a Google Voice number may be the ideal option using Hangouts.

Ricardo would like to recover some data from his phone, including his messages. How can he do that? Leo says that there's a program called ECamm PhoneView is the best one he knows of. It's Mac only though. Free to try, then it costs $30. What about Doctor Phone? $100 is really pricey, and it has page after page of one-star reviews. So Leo would recommend steering clear of that one.

Rob has a friend who's computer died. She tried to use her iPhone to type something and she hit the space bar and it disappeared. How can she get it back? Leo says it may be possible to get it back by shaking the phone. The iPhone has a feature that if she shakes the phone, a popup will appear that says "undo typing?" But the text must be available in the clipboard for that to work.

Fred is vision impaired and wants to know what devices would be good for him to suggest to others who have the same condition. He uses Siri on the iPhone and iPad. Are there others he can recommend?