iPhone 101: Clearing cookies from Mobile Safari
This morning, I Farked my way over to this story about British Tea Cakes. The tea cakes, which appear to be nothing more than British mallomars, have been re-categorized from biscuits to cake. Far be it from me to dispute the accumulated wisdom of the EU high courts, but from this American vantage point if it looks like a cookie and tastes like a cookie, perhaps the tea cake actually is a cookie -- and not a cake. I consulted TUAW's in-residence Britishness expert Nik, who threw up his hands and asked (justifiably) whether this was actually related to Apple or its products.
Being in a cookie-minded mode, I decided to respond to a reader who asked about issues on the iPhone in visiting mobile versions of sites that were less than accommodating upon revisits. Some mobile sites hide "log out and log in as another user" details in their mobile formats. (I would point the finger at FireEagle/Yahoo--but lately they've cleaned up those problems rather nicely.)
If this situation happens to you and you really need to access a site as if it were your first visit, let me recommend clearing your cookies. And yes, I can hear you groaning: "You want us to do...what?". Unfortunately, with Mobile Safari, cookie clearing is an all or nothing proposition. You can't just clear cookies associated with a single site. It's a clean sweep or nothing at all.
To do this, open Settings > Safari. Scroll down and select Clear Cookies. The iPhone throws up a pop-up confirmation. Tap Clear Cookies and quit from Settings. Your problem sites should now act as if it's your first visit.
And, as for that whole tea cake thing? If you serve cookies for supper, are they tea cakes rather than biscuits? British people feel free to expound in the comments.
