Setting Default Apps for Email and Web

This one isn’t for everyone, I admit. Yet there are a lot of people who enjoy downloading new apps and trying them out on their iPhones and iPads. My hand is up… I’m one of those people!

I’m always downloading apps and “test-driving” them on my phone. I have a special place in my techie-heart for email apps. I’ll bet I’ve tried a dozen of them! For other people, they may try and use different web-browser apps. This is especially true for people who have an iPhone or iPad, but use a Windows-powered computer at home or at their office. (That’s probably the same place for most of us right now, yes?)

For most Windows users, their web browser of choice is Google’s “Chrome” app. It dominates the browser market and is the go-to choice for most people. When I upgrade a computer or install a new one for a local tech support client, one of the first things I do is to download and install Chrome. It’s just the one that most people use.

So you may have downloaded the Chrome app on your iPhone or iPad. That’s the easy part, right? Yet when you click on an internet link (in a text message or email), your iPhone (or iPad) may still “think for itself” and open the web page through the built-in Safari browser app. Safari is the built-in browser on all Apple devices, from iPhones to iPads to computers of all sizes.

Well now with the upgrade to iOS 14, it’s possible to set the “default” browser (or email app, for that matter) to whatever one YOU want on your device. This is something brand new in this latest software upgrade and wasn’t available until now.

In this video, I’ll show you the easy way to change the default apps for browser and email, so your device uses which-ever app you want, and not the baked-in one Apple set at the factory.

Just another way you can “make your high-tech life easier.” Check out the video, and let me know how it works for you. Don’t forget: You can get a free weekly "Recap" email telling you all about the past week's videos, and a link to download the free "class handout" to show you exactly how to do it what we show on the videos (usually the iPhone Friday video, but sometimes both the weekly videos have handouts.)