Iphone101
Latest
iPhone 101: Save space on your iPhone without removing a thing
It's important to note that this on-the-fly conversion does not alter your original files inside your iTunes library -- those will remain at whatever bitrate and in whatever file format you had them in. How well does this work? I saved a whopping 1.5GBs of space on my 8GB iPhone. Others here at TUAW saved between 2-5GBs. Of course, how much space you save will be dependent on what bitrate and file type your songs are now. The guys here who saved 5GB said their conversions took a few hours initially. As for audio quality. I didn't notice a bit of difference on my $20 headphones. However, I'm not an audiophile. If you've got an ear for music and are using the latest Shures, you might notice some quality degradation.
iPhone 101: How to force quit an unresponsive app
We here at the TUAW headquarters rely pretty heavily on our iPhones when we're away from our desks. This is especially true for the lucky ones on the floor at Macworld 2010. Sometimes however, our little pocket computers go haywire and refuse to respond to our commands. To force quit an unresponsive app all you have to do is press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until you see the red slider. Normally, this is what you would do to power down your iPhone or iPod touch. In this case however, when the slider appears, release the sleep/wake button and then press and hold the Home button. If it works correctly, your iPhone will forcefully quit the unresponsive app and return you to your home screen. I have found this especially useful on the rare occasion that Mail begins to choke on my multi-thousand message inbox. Sometimes this simple kick in the pants is all that is needed and is a lot quicker than a hard reboot followed by the waiting required during boot up.
iPhone 101: Don't forget to wipe... your iPhone's data
Stepping up to a shiny new 3GS? Thinking about selling your old iPhone on eBay or craigslist? Don't forget to wipe! I buy iPhones from time to time to unlock and offer to our local customers. One such phone arrived today and I eagerly opened the box to get things prepared. After charging the dead iPhone for a while, I powered it on and was greeted with tons of personal information about the previous owner. The phone was loaded up with three accounts full of literally thousands of emails, 107 contacts, 974 songs, a few dozen photos and a handful of apps -- all still happily filling the 8GB. There were faxed checks related to the previous owner's sales position, visual voicemails available to anyone's ears, and a huge log full of text messages. The previous owner hadn't deleted anything before sending his iPhone off to a complete stranger! While I was taking care of that important step for him, I thought "This is a perfect opportunity to save some TUAW readers from this sort of embarrassment, not to mention potential ID theft, with a quick reminder." Clearing all of the data from your iPhone was made simple with the 2.0 firmware update last year. Go to Settings Tap on General Scroll all the way down and tap Reset Choose Erase All Content and Settings Confirm (twice) that you REALLY want to lose everything Make sure you have it plugged in, as the process will take quite a long time, "about an hour" according to the warning. But, believe me, it is time well spent! Once the process is complete, you'll be left with a "factory fresh" installation of the iPhone OS with no trace of you or your data, and you can safely sell it and upgrade to the latest and greatest model. Oh, and do me a favor -- if I'm the auction winner, include a working sync cable this time!
How to make iPhone videos sparkle with iMovie
If you read my recent post about taking movies with the iPhone 3GS, you probably noted that I talked about the lack of editing capabilities on the iPhone with the exception of trimming the beginning and ending of your videos. What if you want to edit your movies, add titles or effects, or combine a bunch of short iPhone video clips? Several of the comments left by TUAW readers asked the same question, and it's so easy to do that I decided to whip up a quick tutorial showing how this works. You probably have a tool on your Mac that can do the job for you with just a few clicks, drags, and menu selections. iMovie is the perfect easy tool for creating full feature films (just kidding) from individual scenes shot with the iPhone 3GS video camera. Here's how to do it.
iPhone for Newbies: Honey, I shrunk the manual
Caveat Emptor: This is for newbies only. If you've been around, you probably don't need this. When I bought my last Verizon phone, it came with about three quarters of a pound of paper housed in three manuals allowing me to find just about anything through the index. Yeah, it was overkill -- but at least I knew where to go to learn about an option or feature. When I opened my iPhone 3GS, I quickly searched for the documentation to show me how use this puppy. All I found was an accordion-pleated piece of paper, titled Finger Tips, telling me all the wonderful things my new iPhone could do... but it was awfully skimpy on covering just how to do anything at all. On the last page of Finger Tips there were some links to get more information. Following the links would give you almost what you need. But I question how using a software-based paradigm of digital manual delivery relates to a hardware-based product like an iPhone 3GS. Perhaps that's why an industry has sprung up to print instructional books. David Pogue's massive 'Missing Manual' series speaks to my point. If a good manual were to be included in a hardware product, 'Missing Manuals' would be superfluous. Apple's manuals have been shrinking for many years; they have come a long way from that of the Apple ][+, in which Woz printed the entire ROM code of its 6502 processor. The Apple way is to compactly package hardware. This seems way more elegant than being handed a big honking box. But adding half an inch to the height of the iPhone box, to accommodate a concise manual, wouldn't damage the minimalist look. I don't feel quite right about having paid a goodly sum of money for the box and then having to download a 213-page manual using my own resources. My preference would be to have a manual the size of the iPhone 3GS right in the box, for immediate reference. With that, I could get started right away. After all, if you buy a new piece of technology, you don't want to be slowed down by needing to download and possibly print hundreds of pages along with reading a bunch of sites. You just want to push some buttons and play. For those who have either lost the brochure or want some more information, see below for links where you can get it. Of course, you can always start with the "iPhone Help" section under the Help menu in iTunes. The 213 page manual for the iPhone 3GS Quickstart guides for various iPhone 3GS features A video guided tour of major features of the iPhone 3GS And here are some other resources to get you started: Macworld's App Guide: Searchable by category 19 instructional books on how to manage your iPhone Apptism - catalog and reviews of over 53,000 apps Macworld's general listing of 3.0 features TUAW's iPhone 101 series I'm sure that many more resources are currently being written, but the links above are more than enough to get started. I wonder how many agree with me that leaving out a decent manual is a poor idea, and how many of you consider this a non-event. %Poll-31255%
iPhone for Newbies: Ringtones, double contacts, periods, and AppleCare
I just bought my first iPhone, a 32 GB iPhone 3G S, and found that that there is an abundance of information out there covering just about every aspect of its use. As an iPhone virgin, most of this is new to me, but I'm sure it's old hat to most. Apple, however, is set to sell over half a million new iPhones this weekend, so I'm sure there are a lot of virgins in my position. This post and maybe some to follow are not meant for anyone who is fluent in iPhone, but rather for newbies like me. So, skip this if you've been at the party for awhile, but if you just ripped open your iPhone box, read on:RingtonesI tried making a ringtone from iTunes, but when right-clicking on a song and choosing 'create ringtone' I found that only songs purchased from the iTunes store could be used, at least in iTunes 8.2. In reality you can make a ringtone from any MP3. You can find the easy steps here.Double Contacts and Calendar EntriesAfter setting up MobileMe and syncing my phone the first time, I found that all my contacts and calendar entries had been duplicated so that there were two identical entries of everything. Our own Chris Rawson set me straight on fixing this. If you disable calendar and contact syncing from the iPhone, all the information brought in from MobileMe will vanish. Next, re-enable them and you will be asked if you want to merge the contact and calendar information with what's on the iPhone (which was brought in by iTunes). You do. And in doing so, the problem will vanish. This tip is not just for iPhone 3G S owners, it's also happened to previous iPhone users who updated to system 3.0.Period Space Bar TrickWhen writing an email, typing the period key on my iPhone 3G S often does weird things like jumping down a line or two, slowing me down to a crawl. Chris Rawson also came to my aid by telling me that when you reach the end of a sentence, double tapping the space bar displays a period. This is much quicker for me, and my typing is cleaner. I'm not sure about earlier iPhones but for the iPhone 3G S, this must be set up manually. Go to settings-> general->keyboard and turn on the "." shortcut.ApplecareThere is no need to pay Apple $69 for AppleCare. I've been buying AppleCare from eBay at a decent savings for years. Often you don't get a full box, just a paper with the registration code, but I've never had a problem. Right now you can get AppleCare for $42 including shipping.What have you found? If you have a problem or question and are too bashful to ask: ask here and we'll put our hive-mind right on it.
iPhone 101: Basic questions, basic answers
This morning I opened my Mail inbox and was greeted with an email from a man who had read my iPhone articles in the premiere issue of iPhone Life magazine. He had a bunch of questions which, on first glance, appeared to be naive. However, I asked my rocket scientist wife (yes, she really is a rocket scientist!) if she knew the answers since she has had an iPhone for over a year, and she could only answer a few.That's true not only of iPhone users, but of people who use any technology. For most people, just learning the minimal feature set is enough. It's when you decide that you want to learn more about how to use a particular feature that you can run into questions. I often point people to Apple's excellent iPhone support Web site to get details on the minutiae of operating their iPhones. For those of you who are iPhone newbies or just afraid to ask, I've written up some answers to some common questions taken from the email and my reply to the reader. Click the Read More link below to see the rest of the story.Thanks to Fred for the inspiration!
iPhone 101: Add mobile websites to home screen
Many websites and services offer great mobile versions without being packaged in an App Store application. If you want to be able to quickly access these sites from your home screen, follow these steps: Launch Safari on your iPhone Browse to a desired mobile site (most sites will automatically redirect you to the mobile version once they determine that you're using an iPhone) Click the Favorites (+) button at the bottom of Safari Click "Add to Home Screen" Type a name for the icon that will appear on your home screen Click the "Add" button You will now see an icon on your home screen that will launch directly to the mobile website. Since I'm headed to Washington D.C. next week, I found this handy for the Metro mobile site and the Allpoint ATM search site.
iPhone 101: Reboot your iPhone for better gaming
One of the biggest comments on the recent SimCity announcement for the iPhone, other than being able to locate the SimCity International (link goes to the U.K. iTunes store) version of the game, was complaints that the game was crashing for some people. This is not a new issue for graphically intense games for the iPhone and one of the solutions for solving this is very easy: Before playing your new game, reboot the iPhone. Here's how to do it. Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, a normal shutdown/startup process, or "soft reboot," should work fine: simply hold the power button down for 3 seconds and slide to power down. The "hard reboot" described here should only be used if your iPhone isn't responding to touches or the Home button -- it is not intended as regular maintenance. Thanks to all for the feedback. [If your phone ever becomes completely unresponsive, you may need to do the 'hard reboot process described next -- but remember this is the equivalent of pulling out the power cord on your computer.] Hold down the Home and the Sleep/Wake buttons until your screen goes black, as shown at right. After a few seconds, you should see a sliding bar for powering off the phone. Ignore it and keep pressing those buttons. After about 20 seconds or so, the screen will go completely black and the silver Apple logo appears. Once your phone goes through the rebooting process, launch your game. You shouldn't have any further problems with it. One word of warning: Rebooting the iPhone does drain your battery somewhat, so if you're pretty low on power you may find yourself unable to use the phone until after you're recharged it. Why reboot your phone? The iPhone, like a regular computer, uses memory and system resources every time you launch a program. The typical iPhone user utilizes several applications at a time, often hopping back and forth between them. When a program that is heavy on system resources is launched, such as SimCity, if you haven't rebooted in awhile to refresh your iPhone's memory and resources, it could cause the program to crash. I saw this tip posted on the App Store when I was purchasing Scrabble at the end of November and followed the advice and didn't have a single problem with Scrabble on my 1st generation iPhone. I repeated it with SimCity and, again, I'm not having any issues playing the game. If that doesn't solve your issues, check out this list of iPhone troubleshooting tips.
iPhone 101: Protect your device with a passcode
Are you worried that your iPhone or its data might get stolen? If you are, then this post is for you! Let's take a look at the iPhone's security options, starting in Settings > General > Passcode Lock.If this is your first time visiting the Passcode Lock settings, then you will be prompted to create a 4-digit passcode -- this can be anything, just make it memorable. Once you've entered and confirmed your passcode, you will see a couple options. The first two buttons let you turn the passcode lock off, or change your passcode. The next option, called "Require Passcode," allows you to set the interval between which your iPhone will require you to enter your passcode. For instance, if you set this interval for 5 minutes and you "sleep" your iPhone, you will be able to wake it and start using it again (without entering your passcode) for up-to five minutes after you put it to sleep. After the 5-minute time period has passed, your iPhone will require the passcode upon waking. You also have the ability to turn SMS Preview on/off. By showing the SMS preview, the sender's name (or number) and a few lines of the message will be displayed. If you have this option turned off, you will only see the generic "1 New Text Message" on the wake screen. For more protection, enable the "Erase Data" option. This erases all data from the device if someone tries to enter the wrong passcode more than 10 times. With the passcode lock turned on, you have the peace of mind that comes with knowing your device, and data is safe. When you wake your iPhone by sliding a finger to unlock it, you will be presented with a number pad to enter your 4-digit code on. Upon successfully entering your code, the home screen will be displayed. Note that this works for the iPod touch as well.%Gallery-37434%Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's iPhone 101 section today!
iPhone 101: Geocaching with an iPhone 3G
Geocaching is a sport / hobby in which you wander about with a GPS and try to find caches, small hidden containers with swag and a logbook inside. One of the first things I looked for in the App Store was a geocaching application that would let me a) look up caches near my present location, b) tell me when I'm getting close, and c) let me log my finds on Geocaching.com.Well, nothing is available yet. But don't let that stop you from going out and doing a little cache hunting! See how you can go caching with nothing more than an iPhone 3G in your hand after the break.
iPhone 101: Jumping to the top of your mail
Mobile Safari has always had a handy feature that i wished Mobile Mail would acquire. Apple must have read my mind, because it's now available.If you're unlucky enough to receive lots of email, you can quickly jump to the top of the list by touching the menu bar (where the time is displayed) as of the iPhone 2.0 software. Ta-dah!Remember, you can bulk delete mail with greater ease now, too. Both of these improvements are welcome, but it would be even better to be able to mark all messages as read (or unread) just as easily.
iPhone 101: Saving images in Safari
Have you ever been using Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch and wanted to save an image? Well, the 2.0 firmware makes this easy!Just tap and hold on any picture in Safari. When you do, a menu will pop up allowing you to save the image to your camera roll or follow the image link. Apple even places a subtle outline around the selected image (nice touch, Apple). The great thing about this tip: it also works in Mail. Now you'll never be without your images. Now for that copy/paste (ahem, looking at you, Apple). Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
iPhone 101: Batch mail deletion
Here's a very handy feature of the iPhone 2.0 software. Previously, deleting many email messages at once was a real pain. You could either swipe across your messages one at a time (invariably selecting a few by accident), or enter edit mode and select a message, touch the Delete button and then touch the Confirmation button. Not exactly speedy.The 2.0 software makes this much easier. First, touch the Edit button. Next, touch every message you want to delete. When you're through, touch the Delete button at the bottom of the screen.Alternatively, you can use this method to bulk move messages.
iPhone 101: Taking screenshots
With the advent of the new iPhone firmware 2.0, users who have installed it report that you are now able to easily take and share screenshots of your iPhone -- all without downloading any additional software. To take a screenshot, just hold down the home button while quickly pressing the sleep/wake button at the top of the phone. The screen will flash and an image will be saved in your Camera Roll. You can easily share your screenshot by e-mailing it using the share option in the Photos app. For more iPhone tips and tricks like this, check out the iPhone 101 section here on TUAW.
iPhone 101: Headphone issues
Recently, my iPhone was having issues. Specifically, it thought headphones were inserted when they weren't. I first noticed the problem as I was typing and didn't hear that familiar "click" that normally accompanies a key press.I thought I had accidentally toggled the ringer mute button (which I seem to do often), but no, it was set to ring. I inserted some headphones and heard everything - the clicks, music, etc.I placed a call and tried turning the speaker on and off to no avail. Next, I rebooted the phone. No dice. I connected it to my Mac and performed a sync with iTunes and still, there was no sound.I reset the phone by holding down the power button and the home button. Still, there was no sound without headphones. At last, I got a can of compressed air and gave a couple of short blasts into the headphone port. That did it! The phone must have been interpreting the junk that had collected in there over the past year as headphones.A simple solution that, hopefully, will save you some time.
iPhone 101: typing accented characters
Over at MacTips they have a nice tip which I figured would make for a good iPhone 101. If you find yourself needing to type an accented character (acutes, graves, umlauts, etc.), all you have to do is hold down the relevant key for a couple of seconds and voilà a nice pop-up menu will appear with the available choices. The trick works for a number of different characters besides the vowels (e.g. 'z' and '?') and seems to function as well on the iPod touch.
iPhone 101: Browser-based playlists
Call me fickle, but sometimes I don't want to hear any of the music I've got on my iPhone. What should I do when I'm away from my computer, itching for new music? Create a browser-based playlist.The Internet Archive is a tremendous source of streaming music files (among other things) that play just fine on the iPhone. Here's how to set things up. Create a new bookmark folder in Mobile Safari. I named mine "Rock." Navigate to the Internet Archive, and find some music you'd like to listen to (I chose Smashing Pumpkins) The Flash player at the top of the page will not work, but scroll down to the botto and click either of the "Mp3" files A new page will open to play the file Click "Done" at the top of the page, then touch the menu bar Add a bookmark to the file to the "Rock" folder Done! Add as many links as you like, and you've got a web-based playlist of tunes that aren't hogging storage space.
iPhone 101: Bookmark travel destinations
I did some traveling this summer (with two toddlers, so don't be envious). Certain that I'd need to conduct a search or two, I bookmarked my destinations on my iPhone, and you can do the same. Just follow the steps: Launch Google Maps. Enter the zip code of your destination city. Once it has been found, create a bookmark. Repeat for each stop you'll make. Now, when you're jonesing for a venti iced green tea latte in a strange place, simply launch Maps, click Bookmarks and then your location. You'll be sippin' in no time.
iPhone 101: End a call quickly
When you simultaneously press the sleep/wake button and the volume button during a call on the iPhone, you'll immediately end that call and lock the screen.Now, at the end of a conversation, you may give your iPhone a gentle squeeze and slip it right into your pocket. Thanks, Will!
