Sunday, December 9, 2012

Tips to Set Birthday Reminders on iPhone and Mac


By Semeli Karen McPherso

Dependence on technology might have lowered our ability to recall anniversaries or birthdays but often our mobile gadgets come handy at the time of setting reminders. Forgetting or missing out on someone's birthday can be overcome if you are using an iPhone or a Mac.
If you own an iPhone 4S or 5 then it becomes easy to set reminders for birthday. Additionally, if your iPhone is already loaded with widgets and reminders then you may find buzzing off annoying reminders that keep reminding you about various alerts including, Facebook alerts and messages from your friend network. All this is easily manageable with your iOS device including setting important birthday alerts. You can even make settings to turn off unnecessary reminders that are no longer needed like that of random business contacts or birthday parties that you would rather like to give a miss. Whatever be your reason here are a few tips that will help you manage your birthday alerts on your iPhone.
Before we get started upon how the birthday reminders work and how to manage them you first need to ensure that you have the birthday details in your Contacts App. You can set an automatic birthday reminder by tweaking your calendar settings or turn off the reminder as per your convenience.
Apply the following steps for setting a Birthday reminder:
• Initially you need to launch the Calendar app on your iPhone by tapping on the Calendars located at the right side upper corner of your iPhone screen.
• Scroll down to the Calendars menu and locate Birthdays under Other.
• If you are looking forward to enable the option for birthday reminders on your iPhone then you need to ensure that your Birthdays calendar is check marked or is already a selected option. This will fetch you birthday reminders and send you alert message whenever a birthday is coming up.
• If you do not want to get any birthday alerts then simply tap Birthdays to unselect the option. Now you will not receive any reminders.
• If you want to connect your iPhone to Facebook then, Settings>Facebook> enter user name and password and then select the Birthdays option. This way you will be reminded of any arriving Birthdays occurring amongst your Facebook friends. Similarly, to turn off the feature you just need to unselect the Birthdays option.
• To make settings on your iPhone you need to go to Settings> Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars section> Calendars>Default Alert Times. This will reveal three options, Events, Birthdays and All-Day Events.
• Tap to select Birthdays and choose a time to remind you for an upcoming birthday. This time can be two days earlier, same day, a day earlier or a week earlier. If you do not want to set an alert for birthday then you can choose the none option.
• You can also pick a style to suit your birthday reminder alert. For example, you can choose from the given options of banners or pre-defined alerts for Calendar or Birthday reminders.
Now that you are already aware of the calendar and birthday synching options on your iPhone let us take a look at other tips that may come handy for your Mac. Let us move on to another section where you will learn about iCal and iCloud synchronizing option on your Mac to enable reminders and birthday alerts.
Some Tips for Mac Users
In addition to the tips given above you can also make other settings that include synchronizing option related to iCal for your Mac via iCloud. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that iCal has inbuilt settings for sending automatic alerts for birthdays on your Mac. For iCal synchronizing apply the following steps:
• Launch iCal on your Mac> iCal Menu>Preferences> Alerts
• Go to the pull down menu and then choose the option from Calendar Accounts that contain options like Google, Yahoo, iCloud, etc. choose iCloud option
• Now you need to choose settings for receiving automatic alerts for Birthdays by selecting Birthdays
Following the above-mentioned tips will help you set birthday reminders on your iPhone and Mac.
She is a Technology writer who is keen on any new emerging technology updates. She is working with Qresolve as a Technical Support Engineer. Semeli Karen McPherson has been offering online tech support to global customers for issues related to laptops, desktops, Mac and devices including iPods, tablets, iPhones, computer support and more. She caters to the segment of core technology and provides viable solutions to any issues related to technology and software. Her expertise and skills in handling key technology issues is immaculate and quick result bearing. Through her articles and postings she aims to provide knowledge and solutions to common technology issues that a user faces.