iSignature (Step 1)

The introduction of iOS 5 would seem to have been (another) ideal moment for Apple to improve on the email services offered on their iPhone/iPad products. Unfortunately, the opportunity was not grasped. As so many people have been clamouring for an improvement, and Apple are undisputed leaders in usability, perhaps something is afoot.

 

The release of a free messaging service between iOS 5 equipped products might lead one to believe that Apple is attempting to force us all down this route. Can you really imagine a world where messaging is restricted to Apple products… I can’t.

 

A long-time bugbear of mine is the default ‘signature’ on Emails that is ‘sent from my iPhone/Pad’. Whilst accepting that this is perhaps good publicity for Apple, it is also irritating.

 

This default signature is easily changed by going to Settings/Mail/Signature and then entering any text you want. At the moment I would suggest merely deleting the free advertising. Over the next few blog messages, I will show you, step by step, how to create exactly the signature that YOU want.

 

Again, somewhat irritatingly, there used to be a workaround for this to enable the creation of a signature but, with the advent of iOS 5, it no longer functions.

 

So, here we go with the first step.

 

You need to decide whether or not you want to have a real hand written signature as a part of your iSignature or not. If you do not want to have a handwritten signature, you do not need to read the rest of this message… relax and come back for the next stage tomorrow.

 

Decide on how you want your signature to look, using a piece of paper (that stuff we used before the world became iEverything). I would suggest that, for security purposes, your signature is not the one you use to sign cheques. After all, you will in due course be broadcasting this on the Internet; you have been warned.

 

This signature can now either be scanned on your printer, or photographed on your phone, and then saved on your PC (name the file ‘sig’… which is the name we’ll use later).

 

There is also an App called Autograph which you can use to create your signature. Again, transfer this file to your PC and name it ‘sig’.