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Check out useful features in the Google App

By BY GEORGE GORDON/Computer Guru - | Mar 26, 2021

Boy, do I have a good one for you! If you open up the Google App or the Google Widget on your iPhone, you’ll see a weird icon left of the microphone icon. It’s called Google Lens. Click on it — and don’t freak out if your iPhone camera suddenly appears.

So? Big deal! Well, place it over something on your desk — like maybe a flower or an old engagement ring that’s been sitting on the shelf for the past three years. Click on the big white circle with a spy glass in it. Wow, what happened? A bunch of smelly flowers shows up with their names and other information about them.

Clicking on your old engagement ring can show its price. What? You spent that much on her ring? Ready for some more? Have an electric car? Well, Google Maps can locate the nearest charging station for you (so find one and get juiced up for that trip over the Pali).

Do you always lose your car keys? I do. Well, next month Apple may come out with its AirTags. It’s a small, round disc the size of a 50-cent piece that can attach to almost anything, and using your iPhone, you can locate it. I’m definitely getting one for my dog, who loves to dig a hole under the fence.

Here’s another good one: now you can create a signature on all of your iPhone e-mail accounts. It’s really simple to do. Click on Settings, Mail, and scroll on down to the bottom where you see Signature. Click on it, then click on “All Accounts,” then on the bottom start typing in your name.

Many people who have iPhones, iPads and MacBooks wonder why they don’t see text messages that were sent on the iPhone, but they don’t appear on the iPad or Mac. Well, there is a setting on the iPhone that will enable all text messages to display on all devices. Go to Settings, Messages, an click Test Message Forwarding. A list of devices shows up, so click on ALL of them.

There is a cool feature that helps improve iPhone sound when you place your iPhone up to your ear for a phone call. It’s called Phone Noise Cancellation. Go to Settings, Accessibility, Audio/Visual, and click on Phone Noise Cancellation. Your phone calls should sound much clearer.

When you click on the Finder, you’ll see a list of icons that represent Photos, Videos, Documents and Music. If you double-click on one, the program app opens up and shows you what was in it. But I can save you a lot of time by just a making a single click. Doing this, the photo or the text will appear only on the right side of the screen. So you just have to click on the Finder on the bottom left, click on View at the top of the screen then on “Show Preview Options.” The image on the right is not really big, but if you choose the icon on the top of the Finder window that looks like a rectangle with five dots under it, the image appears really big in the middle of the screen. This is called gallery view, and it’s great to see large photos. This saves time by not having to open up the Photos App, scrolling through and clicking on one of the photos.

I saved the best for last! If you just single-click on a photo, just hit the space bar — it really blows up. And you can select a bunch of photos, hit the space bar, then use the arrow keys to scroll through the big size photos. It’s almost like a slide show! Now if you double-click on a photo or a group of photos, the Preview App opens up where you can edit the photos. So that’s how you can view photos and documents.

Send your computer-related questions to MauiMist@aol.com.