IntoMobile has a few good tips on how to extend your iPhone’s battery life, and most of them involve the most obvious thing you can do to keep your iPhone running: cut down on any and all extra functions. They actually recommend to turn off 3G, but you don’t have to go that far — just by holding down the Home button, you can close any background applications sucking up juice. And by resetting your phone, you can do the same thing — clear out anything running that you’re not using.

Actually, while I was in Los Angeles last week, I heard the great Leo Laporte mention a great tip on his radio show: turn off the “Ask to join networks” feature in the WiFi settings. If you’re like me, you almost always know when there’s a WiFi network around that you can use on your iPhone, and so it’s pointless (and a waste of battery life) for the iPhone to be constantly searching for one. You can always flip it back on if you do want to do a little poking around, but leaving it off will significantly help battery life.

In fact, when in extreme trouble, you can go even farther and just switch the whole thing into Airplane Mode. It’ll make your phone useless, but when you really need it — out on a trip, or waiting to make an important call — the extra battery time might make all the difference.

Posted on July 24th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Battery, iPhone Tips | No Comments »

iPhone OS 2.0 has a few undocumented, useful features, including:

Screen Snapshots - Zoom and Snapshot

We previously noted a method for taking screenshots under iPhone OS 20. James1292, a user on Apple’s discussion boards, subsequently found that the screenshot function can be manipulated using the zoom feature. Simply zoom to the desired depth then trigger a screenshot by pressing the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously.

Mobile Safari Speaks Your Lingo

Mobile Safari can speak in many languages. Launch Settings then go to: General, Keyboard > International Keyboards and toggle the desire keyboards. Using the small “globe” icon on the left side of the spacebar, you can rotate through configured languages.

Once you have the keyboard of your choice displayed you can take advantage of a hidden feature in iPhone OS 2.0: simply press and hold the “.com” key. The iPhone will display the most common top level domains for your country. In the US/English: .net, .edu, .org, .com. In Germany: .edu, .org, .de, .com. In Spanish: .edu, .org, .es, .com.

In the mobile Mail.app, the same is true. If you press the “globe” for language selection, you can then press and hold the “.” (period) key to select the top level domain associated with you language settings at that time .

This feature is not consistent across all countries and in some cases some countries are not represented at all.

via http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/07/21/undocumented-iphone-os-20-features-and-tips/

Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

A number of users report crashes from various iPhone applications, both Apple-supplied and third-party. The most common iPhone crash is one where the application you are working in suddenly ceases operation, the screen momentarily turns black, then the iPhone home screen appears. In a slightly more serious manifestation, the crash will result in a complete freeze where the iPhone is unresponsive.

Sometimes, when an application crashes, it will refuse to properly launch thenceforth, crashing immediately after its icon is tapped.

Generally, one of the three following procedures will resolve this issue. Try them in order.

Full reboot Perform a hard reboot of your iPhone as follows: Turn the iPhone off completely, by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button (on top of the device) for a few seconds then slide the red slider. Turn it back on by holding the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears. This can clear potentially problematic data, preventing some crash-types.

Restore the iPhone Try performing a restore of your iPhone. Connect it to your Mac or PC and, in iTunes, click the Restore button under the Summary tab. Restoring the phone will erase contacts, calendars, photos and other data on the phone, but will restore automatically backed-up information including text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings, etc.

Reinstall the application

• Touch and hold any application icon the icons begin to shake.
• Tap the “x” in the corner of the application you want to delete.
• Tap Delete.
• Press the Home button.
• Download the application again, either from your iPhone or your desktop computer (there will be no additional charge for the redownload)

If an application freezes or becomes unresponsive, force-quit it by holding down the home button for several seconds. This can eliminate problematic or hung processes that might be draining the battery.

To prevent future crashes, keep adequate free space on the iPhone’s internal memory. Like its desktop relative Mac OS X, the iPhone’s OS X operating system needs some head-room on the internal flash memory in order to operate properly. Try keeping at least 10% of the total space free to potentially prevent some crashes in applications, freezes and other problems.

As a last resort, go to the Settings application, tap General then select the Erase All Content and Settings. This will delete all media and data on the iPhone, as well as recent calls, etc., and all other settings. If you perform this operation and stop experiencing crashes, you might have problematic data being synchronized to the iPhone that is automatically put back when the phone is restored. In this case, you might want to go to iTunes, select Preferences from the File menu, then iPhone and delete your backed up iPhone settings — this includes text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings. Again, one or more of these data might be problematic.

Finding out what caused crashes Just like Mac OS X, the iPhone generates crash reports when things go wrong. These files are sent back to your computer whenever the iPhone is connected and synchronized with iTunes. In Mac OS X, they’re located in /Library/Logs/Crashreporter/MobileDevice/.

You might find a variety of files here with different prefixes that end in .crash. For instance, files that start with:

• “Maps” indicate a crash in the Google Maps application
• “MobileSafari” indicate a crash in Safari for iPhone

Finding out what caused crashes Just like Mac OS X, the iPhone generates crash reports when things go wrong. These files are sent back to your computer whenever the iPhone is connected and synchronized with iTunes. In Mac OS X, they’re located in /Library/Logs/Crashreporter/MobileDevice/ under the name of your iPhone.

You might find a variety of files here with different prefixes that end in .crash. For instance, files that start with:

• “Maps” indicate a crash in the Google Maps application
• “MobileSafari” indicate a crash in Safari for iPhone

You can open these files with any text editor to view their contents. Let’s look at a crash report generated by AOL’s instant messenger client for the iPhone.

• Incident Identifier: 9AFE6F0D-8F0F-4C3F-97C0-C53728C06C24
• CrashReporter Key: 7fc1bd07059a19504f4e83afe1ba44d1146fd901
• Process: AIM [1193]
• Path: /var/mobile/Applications/10915669-D64C-4ABE-993C-A07C1E586808/AIM.app/AIM
• Identifier: AIM
• Version: ??? (???)
• Code Type: ARM (Native)
• Parent Process: launchd [1]
• OS Version: iPhone OS 2.0 (5A345)
• Report Version: 103

Process tells you the name of the application that crashed, and its process number (in brackets). Path tells you where in the iPhone filesystem the application that crashed resides. Parent Process This is usually SpringBoard, the iPhone’s application launcher.

As you can see, you’ll also be presented with information about the version of OS X currently being used by the iPhone, the date and time that the iPhone crash occurred.

Next you’ll see:

• Exception Type: 00000020
• Exception Codes: 0xdeadfa11
• Highlighted Thread: 0

This tells the user exactly what type of processor exception caused the crash.

Next you’ll see the backtrace, which shows, in reverse chronological order, the series of events that happened right before the crash in each thread, e.g.:

• Thread 0:
• 0 libobjc.A.dylib 0×300c8884 0×300bb000 + 55428
• 1 UIKit 0×30a9edd0 0×30a54000 + 306640
• 2 UIKit 0×30ab1990 0×30a54000 + 383376
• 3 UIKit 0×30aa6a0c 0×30a54000 + 338444
• 4 UIKit 0×30a80eb8 0×30a54000 + 183992
• 5 QuartzCore 0×31e875c0 0×31e7f000 + 34240
• 6 QuartzCore 0×31e874d0 0×31e7f000 + 34000
• 7 QuartzCore 0×31e9e92c 0×31e7f000 + 129324
• 8 UIKit 0×30a7e9b0 0×30a54000 + 174512
• 9 UIKit 0×30ab07cc 0×30a54000 + 378828
• 10 UIKit 0×30aa8da8 0×30a54000 + 347560
• 11 UIKit 0×30aa45ac 0×30a54000 + 329132
• 12 AIM 0×00003b0a 0×1000 + 11018

Now you know (in the above example) that the crash occurred while libobjc.A.dylib was being accessed, but before that came the UIKit process, and before that the QuartzCore process. You’ll see files with the dylib suffix often in crash reports. These are OS X dynamic libraries integral to core-level iPhone functions.

RIght now, the best use of iPhone crash logs is seeking of patterns. Look for the most commonly implicated applications and processes, then direct your troubleshooting techniques appropriately. Lots of SpringBoard crashes? Try a reset. Repeated Safari crashes? Clear the cache, cookies and history as aforementioned.

A secondary use is to look for data that might be implicated in the crash, then delete it as mentioned above in the Preventing Crashes section.

Also, remember that you can send these crash reports to Apple when your iPhone is connected, providing the IPhone software team with valuable data that might be rolled into a future update.

via http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/07/16/iphone-application-crashes-preventing-and-fixing/#more-814

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

iPhoneAlley notes that AT&T has once again posted information on their website indicating that all iPhone customers have free access to their more than 17,000 Wi-Fi hotspots access across the U.S., including Starbucks locations:

AT&T knows Wi-Fi is hot, and free Wi-Fi even hotter, which is why we are proud to offer iPhone customers free access to the nation’s largest Wi-Fi hotspot network with more than 17,000 hotspots, including Starbucks*. Now users can relax and access music, e-mail and web browsing services with their favorite blend in hand from the comfort of their favorite location.

AT&T provides an online tool to find a Wi-Fi spot near you.

We had first reported on this topic back in April when AT&T had turned the feature on at hotspot locations across the U.S. This was quickly disabled just a few days later. Another week after that, AT&T advertised the new feature on their iPhone website, and again quickly removed it. When the service was active, AT&T simply required you to enter your current iPhone phone number as authentication.

There was some speculation that the delay was due to the fact that they had not yet completed their Wi-Fi deployment at Starbucks. AT&T had won the Starbucks contract from T-Mobile in February and is already offering free Wi-Fi access for their DSL and business customers.

via http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/18/atandts-free-wi-fi-hotspot-access-for-iphones-finally-announced/

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone News, iPhone Tips | No Comments »

Another quick iPhone 2.0 tip, but one that is a great new feature in the latest iPhone software - how to save an image from a web page in the Safari browser.

I was very happy when I heard this feature would be coming to the 2.0 software, and it’s nice to see it made it, works well, and already proves useful to me quite often.

And it’s dead easy - all you need to do is tap and hold on an image on a Safari page, and wait for the popup shown in the above screencap to appear.  Then just tap ‘Save Image’ - and that’s it, the image file will be added to your Camera Roll.

Posted on July 17th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

If you are running the new 2.0 firmware on your iPhone or iPod touch, you might not have noticed a new handy shortcut in Safari.

When you type in your address, hold down the “.com” button to get a selection of 3 other domain name endings: “.net,” “.edu,” and “.org.”

When you tap on any of the endings, it will be automatically inserted in the address bar.

via http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/15/iphone-101-hold-your-com-button-for-a-second/

Posted on July 16th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

Here’s another very small iPhone tip, but one that may hopefully prove useful for some who are finding iPhone syncing under the new 2.0 software to be unbearably slow.

A big part of how slow the syncs are under 2.0 - at least in my experience so far - is the ‘Backup’ section of things.  I believe one of the reasons for this is that when applications are backed up, it is not only the install files, it is all data associated with every app.  In any case, the backups are taking an awful long time.

So if you want to skip the backup portion of the sync - and greatly reduce the overall length of the whole sync - just hit the little ‘x’ to the right of the top Progress Bar at the top of the iTunes window - next to where it is saying ‘Backing up iPhoneName’ - as shown in the screenshot above.  This will only cancel backup; the rest of the sync will carry on.

Of course it’s not a great idea to cancel out of the backup every time (that’ll come back to bite you for sure), but if you know you’ve already got a recent one (or more) done and are in a hurry, this is a useful quick kill for the backup process.

via http://justanotheriphoneblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/how-to-stop-backup-during-iphone-itunes-sync-on-20/

Posted on July 15th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips, 3G iPhone | No Comments »

There’s a good chance that by now you’ve figured out which plan you’re going to get for your shiny new iPhone 3G. However, if there is some doubt in your mind that you’re not going to get the right one, there is a handy little tool over at BillShrink.

It’s pretty simple and straightforward. Just put in how much you’re currently paying, then specify how many minutes, text and how much data you use. You can also put in your zip code to see how many bars to expect. Honestly, it doesn’t really tell you much more than you probably already knew, it just puts it in a nice neat format.

Posted on July 10th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips, 3G iPhone | No Comments »

Time is a funny thing. A few weeks ago, eBay and Google were flooded with pricy first-gen iPhones starting at about $400 and people were snapping them up like crazy. Now, the same auction sites are showing dozens of listings from just $200 for 8GB iPhones.

The iPhone, as you will remember, debuted last year at $499 for a 4GB model and $599 for 8GB. Then there was the price drop, the $100 store credit and the introduction of the iPod touch. Soon after, the refurb units appeared at a slight discount, and then a bigger discount and then by March they were retailing $250 for the refurb 8GB model. Late adopters got great bargains by any stretch of the imagination, particularly those who mixed unlocking with creative data plan purchases.

Now it’s time for the iPhone 3G to appear and by every stretch of the imagination, it’s horribly priced–as is every other subsidized smart-phone out there. Unless you live in the Netherlands, the rate plans range from bad to unspeakable. If you’re in Scandinavia or New Zealand, our hearts go out to you.

From a price perspective, the cheapest way to use the phone is to buy it outright, unlock it and use it with inexpensive calling plans. Data plans, particularly, work best when you don’t have to mortgage your children to afford to visit a few websites.

Using the iPhone outside the sanctioned plans involves giving up visual voice mail but otherwise it works pretty smoothly. It also involves running unfamiliar possibly scary software and taking risks with your unit that many iPhone users would prefer to avoid. Thus there exists the always growing market of third party unlocking and resales.

The iPhone dev team hints that they’re ready to deliver unlocking and jailbreak tools as soon as Apple releases 2.0. Theoretically, you’ll be able to use your current iPhone SIM and data plan (whether licit or less licit) with the new iPhone 3G. Obviously no one has been able to test or confirm this yet outside the dev team, which remains tightlipped.

In the US, AT&T is offering a “commitment-free” 3G iPhone for just $599. It’s still locked to the network, and we’re told you still need to activate it with AT&T before it can be used. Similar overpriced “commitment free” units will go on sale in Italy and a few other countries as well. You should be able to activate and then tell your carrier goodbye if I’m reading the terms correctly. I am not a lawyer.

So here’s the question: do you want to pay the early adopter tax in order to play with shiny new iPhone? For US customers, the question reverts to bandwidth. If you can afford it, the new iPhone delivers 3G speeds. You won’t have to call out for pizza as you wait for a website to load. But if you have the flexibility to wait, you can buy a better cheaper unit soon.

Other than 3G speeds and GPS, the new iPhone does not bring a lot to the table. It still has the same crappy 2 MegaPixel camera. It appears to have the same sized screen, the same speakers, the same microphone with a few cosmetic re-designs. If the speed issue isn’t do-or-die for you, this is the upgrade to skip. You’ll pay a lot of money for little more than a design bump.

Frankly, Apple would be foolish if they didn’t have a better iPhone already in the works–one with a decent camera and other upgraded features. The 3G iPhone that goes on sale Friday, represents nothing more than last year’s iPhone–that finally got delivered a year late.

via http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/08/why-you-shouldnt-buy-the-iphone-3g-on-friday/

Posted on July 9th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

If you’re like me, you’ve likely grown hoarse from complaining about the iPhone 3G’s increased plan cost. Thankfully, there is a way to mitigate the problem. Unlike the original iPhone, which Apple received service revenue kickbacks from, the iPhone 3G is a traditionally subsidized phone. This means that it now comes with some of the same benefits that other AT&T phones do, including the one that saves you 15% each month.

According to AT&T, college and university students, as well as employees of certain companies, are eligible for a 15% discount on their entire monthly plan. Read on for more info

Quoting an email received by a user at MacRumors.com,

Wireless numbers using the iPhone 3G will be able to receive
employee/student discounts from the monthly recurring charges. The
discount will apply to the Nation 450 plan charge and the iPhone data
plan charge. You may receive the discount on the messaging plan, but
this depends upon the student discount details.

Employment or enrollment must be verified before a business discount can
be applied to the account. In order to request/apply your discount, you
would have to visit our discount request website at http://wireless.att.com/discounts. From this site you will be required to enter a work email address and
zip code, then follow the on screen instructions to have your discount
applied.

Of course, this could be inaccurate since the nature of the iPhone has always been a little strange for AT&T. We asked several AT&T store employees who didn’t seem to know for sure. To be sure, we asked Wes Warnock at AT&T if students using the iPhone 3G were eligible for the discount. He wrote:

For those colleges/universities that pass their discounts to their students, then yes, service discounts apply. No phone discounts apply.

So there you have it. College students are eligible for a 15% break on their monthly bill. Certain companies offer a discount as well. If you qualify, the discount nearly takes care of the entire price hike.

To take advantage of the discount, check out att.com/wirelessdiscounts and use your student or work email to verify your eligibility. If your email doesn’t work, you’ll need to stop by a corporate AT&T store with proof of employment/enrollment. Once verified, it will take 1-2 bill cycles to take effect.

If you sign up for the discount, let us know!

via http://www.iphonealley.com/tips-and-tricks/save-15-your-monthly-iphone-3g-bill?s=640e504b6561d6d681b5ad816a1b56e3

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »