iOS Reminders can give you alerts when you arrive at a location, but those locations must be in your Contacts list.

I want to be reminded before I get to a location, for example, when I get to the exit off the Interstate. If I turn left, I head home, but my bank and the grocery store are the other way. It won't work to set a reminder "when arriving at the bank," because I'll never get there. I need to set a reminder "when arriving at Exit 15."

The trick is to use the Maps location. Tap and Hold the location you want to use for your reminder.This will create a "Dropped Pin." Tap on the > button to display details about that location Then tap on "Add to Contacts," "Create New Contact," and give it a name, like "Exit 15." This is kind of silly, as it isn't a person, and it isn't a business. It has no email, or phone, or even a real address.

Now go back to the Reminders Application. I can use "Exit 15" as the location for "Stop at the Grocery Store," and get a reminder, which lets me know that I need to turn right.

The only problem with this approach is that if I happen to be lucky enough to get a green light at the end of the exit ramp, I'm not at the location long enough for the Reminder to trigger.

[kirkmc adds: Interesting idea, but the bit about needing to stop seems to make it unpredictable. I don't have time today to go out and drive around to test this, but I think that if you are going to depend on a reminder that will only remind you if you get a red light, then this might not be ideal. If anyone wants to test this, please post your results in the comments.]

Transferring photos from an iOS device to a Mac can be a hassle. This is especially the case for those of us who take screenshots on an iPhone or iPad and want to use them on our Macs. I generally e-mail them to myself, but I won't be doing that any more.

A tip published on The Iconmaster website last week shows a nifty way to get near-immediate access to these files on your Mac. Here's what you need to do.

1. Make sure you have Photo Stream turned in on each of your iOS devices, as well as on your Mac.
2. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub. You'll see a bunch of subfolders with names like "013184d3f181aa175db7e48b08817861eff8cac25a".
3. Perform a search for .png files in this folder. Enter "png" in the search field; you'll see only the .png files, which are all the photos currently in your Photo Stream.
4. Save this as a Smart Folder by clicking on the Save button just below the search field. You can save this where you want: by default, this goes in the Saved Searches folder, but you can check the box that says Add to Sidebar if you want quick access from the Finder sidebar. You can also choose a different location for the Smart Folder, such as your Desktop. If you want this folder in the Dock, add it to the Dock by dragging the folder there.
5. Whenever you need to get quick access to a photo or screenshot that you took on an iOS device, just open this folder and find it. If you have a lot of files, you might want to add the Date Created column (right-click on the sort headers and choose Date Created), then sort by this date (click on that header so the most recent date is at the top).

[kirkmc adds: As mentioned in the comments below, using png only finds screenshots; use jpg if you want photos, or kind=image if you want both.]

It is possible to create an HTML signature for Mail on an iOS device without jailbreaking that device.

For this to work you need a backup of your iOS device made via iTunes.

First, create your HTML signature in your favorite text editor. It is essential that you replace the HTML tag delimiters < and > with the appropriate HTML entities: &lt; and &gt;.

Next, run Then run iBackupBot, choose your latest backup, then look for /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mobilemail.plist. Click on this file to display it in the editor, and find the <SignatureKey> section.

Below it you will find tags; paste your HTML code between these tags (overwriting what is already there) and save the file.

Exit iBackupBot, then restore your iOS device via iTunes. (Click on the device in the iTunes source list, then Option-click on the Restore button and select your backup.) The signature should then appear in any e-mails you send from that device.

[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this.]

I recently needed to add an appointment to iCal that was a couple of years from now on my iPhone. I began tapping on the forward arrow but as that was getting tiring I thought I'd try keeping my finger pressed down on the arrow. I found that it quickly skips ahead by months, and it only took me a second to get to my desired date.

[kirkmc adds: This seems more useful to view a future date. To set an appointment, just tap and hold a date when in Month view, and you can then set the date from the Add Event dialog. Just tap on the Starts or Ends dates and set the date you want there. Or, if you are using an iPhone 4S, just use Siri.]

The iPad settings let you only choose a few values for the slideshow speed setting: 2, 3, 5, 10 or 20 seconds. I prefer a slower change of pictures.

To be able to set custom values, you just have to edit the preference file "com.apple.pictureframe.plist" (in /var/mobile/Library/Preferences) and set the SecondsPerPhoto value.

Either with iFile (app freely available in Cydia, only for jailbroken iPads): you go to the "Preferences" place, scroll down to "com.apple.pictureframe.plist," touch the file icon and choose "Property List Viewer."

Or for non jailbroken iPads, you can use the Mac app iBackupBot to edit the file inside an iPad backup and restore.

I like using a value of 180 seconds per photo (= 3 minutes), but you can just set whatever you would like.

I have always been annoyed by the carrier name taking up a lot of space at the top of my iPhone screen. A few days ago I found a way to insert the much smaller carrier logo without jailbreaking the device.

Just search Google for an IPCC file for your carrier and iOS 5. Download that, go to Terminal and type in the following line:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

Connect your iPhone to iTunes and click on "Check for updates" while pressing the Option key. Select the aforementioned IPCC file, and you're done. Unfortunately it seems that the same file cannot be used for an iPad; at least it didn't work for mine.

[kirkmc adds: I didn't test this, and I'd recommend prudence before making this change. There is a chance that this could cause problems with your iPhone. For more about these carrier files, see this Macworld article by Ted Landau, where he explains what they are and what kind of changes you can make to them. Note that, depending on your carrier, you may already have an IPCC file in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Carrier Support.]

If you have a Verizon iPad 3 and an Apple TV 2 or 3, they can connect to each other, simply by using the built-in hotspot tethering. You don't need any pre-existing network, access point, or MyFi-type hotspot. They connect to each other directly and all AirPlay functionality (including full screen mirroring) is available.

I assume that if the content you share via AirPlay is stored locally on the iPad, it won't use up any of your data quota.

[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this, as I only have a Wi-Fi iPad. I did try setting up a personal hotspot on my iPhone, and my Apple TV sees the network, and can connect to it. But I'm not sure if this wouldn't still use data, as I don't see how to disconnect from my cell carrier (turning on Airplane Mode cuts off the personal hotspot), and the phone is still connected via 3G. (Phones do work differently from iPads.) If anyone else can test this with an iPad, please post your results in the comments. ]

Normally, when you stream video content from the BBC's iPlayer app, or similar apps, to the Apple TV via AirPlay, the iOS device displays a screen saying that the content is playing on the Apple TV, but as soon as you press the home button the stream ends. In other words the app has to be the frontmost running app for video AirPlay to work.

I found a way around this, by starting the stream in the iPlayer app, then switching to Apple's Remote app, and resuming playing. You can then control the AirPlay stream from the remote app instead, and return to the home screen, use other apps, and use the phone, while the stream keeps going.

I have tested this in UK with the BBC iPlayer app and the 4OD app.

[kirkmc adds: This didn't work for me, but I'm not in the UK. I don't think that should make a difference; I tried with a streaming TV app in France, where I live, but I would assume that this should work with any video app that can use AirPlay. Unfortunately, this hint was submitted by one of our most prolific posters, Anonymous, so I can't contact him or her to ask any questions. If anyone can confirm that this works for them, or confirm that it doesn't, please post in the comments.]

When using Safari on an iOS device, web pages that have mobile versions will display those versions, because they parse the user agent string sent by the browser. In general, this is a Good Thing, but you may want to see full web pages, and not the reduced mobile versions.

A blog post on the Technipages website explains a way to do this. It involves downloading a program called iBackupBot, altering a file in your iOS device's backup, then restoring it. It's a bit of work, but if you really want to view full web pages with an iOS device, you might want to try it out.

[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this, and I don't do enough web browsing on my iOS devices to need this. It's true that some sites minimize their content when you access them from a mobile device, but in most cases, this isn't a problem for me.]

You can drag items from your iTunes library to your iOS devices and they will automatically start syncing and installing. In addition to copying the item(s) you drag, a full sync is initiated. This occurs when your iOS device is set to automatically sync; you don't need to have it set for manual syncing for this to happen.

[kirkmc adds: Hmm... is this really new? I had never heard of this, but It's certainly useful. The hint submitted was about syncing apps, but when I tried other items, they installed as well. When I dragged an album, it synced, and when I checked the Music tab in iTunes, that album was checked in the list of albums. This is actually a very good way of syncing items to an iOS device. Instead of dealing with checking and unchecking boxes on the different tabs, you can just drag what you want to your device. This is different from a manual sync, where you only drag items; this retains automatic syncing, yet still allows you to add items to the device by dragging.]