iPhone Smarts

Sing the Blues with Mikey

2009-12-26T04:27:00.000-08:00

The iPhone is a competent little field audio recorder. Since it can make CD-quality, 44.1 mhz, 16-bit recordings, it rivals the dedicated stereo field recorders in the under $500 price range.

The built-in mike is not up to the task of making professional recordings, but the Blue Mikey is. This $80 attachment is the best quality snap-in mike available for the iPhone. It has the largest condensers for it's size, allowing a nicer bass response for good, flat recordings.

The built-in mike is fine for recording audio notes and lectures, but where the Mikey excels is in making professional recordings of voice and music. The three-position input switch covers must audio recording situations, with the lowest setting just made for recording live performances. Expect to hear a lot of bootlegs recorded with Mikey in the future, since it's small enough to pass through security and remain inconspicuous while recording. Check out Derek Helmer's U2 recording. The Mikey's 5-position swivel head allows for a lot of positioning flexibility.

There's not a lot that's bad about the Mikey. It's biggest issues are that it doesn't fit snugly into the port of the iPhone, has little stereo separation (a weakness when recording sound effects) and no line input (the TuneTalk and iVoicePro both offer this.) But I think once you hear the quality of recordings, these won't annoy most.

I have been using the Mikey with the 4-track stereo RecordStudioPro app on my iPhone for recording professional demos, voiceovers and percussion loops. The Mikey can be can be placed 6 inches away from an amp at practice volume or can record a chorus in a cathedral. The two give the musician and producer a lot of flexibility to make CD-quality recordings anywhere with a minimum of fuss.

Tip: One issue with the mike attachments for the iPhone is that playback comes through the speaker, not through the headphones. This is especially annoying with multitrack recording apps. You can start playback, unplug the headphones and plug them back in to route the audio through the headphones, but it's a pain to do each time. For playback I find it easier to instead record to an empty track and mute it. If a track is being recorded, your iPhone will play through the headphones.

Comics on Your iPhone

2009-10-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

Two cool apps for your iPhone can make some impressive-looking comics from of your photos. PhotoArtist will convert your photos to comics drawings. Though these are just sets of filters, the results are very impressive. The real shortfall of this app is that you're limited to screen-size results.

Comic Touch is by far the best photo captioning software available for your iPhone. In addition to making clean balloons, it has an authentic comic strip font. The smudge tool is great, but the warp tools would probably best be replaced by graphic effects more like PhotoArtist has.

The two apps together make a good combo. (You thought I was going to say Dynamic Duo, didn't you?) Together they can make a comic photo of a friend that you can email from your iPhone that they'll be talking about and passing around for months.

Car Charge Fixed

2009-09-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before about the charging issue caused when Apple removed the deprecated Firewire charger recently from iPhones and iPods. Griffin introduced Charge Converter which works with old connectors and new iPods. They're $24.95 and welcome news for those of us who were looking into the $500-$1000 it would cost to replace our old iPod ready car stereos.

Notes, Finally

2009-09-19T02:01:00.001-07:00

Notes finally sync with Mac Mail and Outlook. To enable notes:

Plug in your iPhone to your desktop.
In iTunes, click on your iPhone in the Library list.
Click on the Info tab.
Check the Notes box.
Click the Sync button.

Now open Mac Mail or Outlook. You will see all the notes from your iPhone and Mail synced on both your Phone and desktop. Note that notes won't transfer over the air, only by cable sync.

While it seems a small victory, it's one more step towards making your iPhone's Notes app indespensible. I've covered Notes Search option and the fact that more and more text, like street addresses, numbers and links are smartext that your iPhone can identify and trigger apps like mail, Safari and Maps. This gives you the ability to save huge blocks of text as a note on your desktop and transfer it over to your iphone.

You'd think from the interface of Notes on your iPhone that they're plain text. They're actually rich text, but you have no way of changing this on your iPhone. However, you can use rich text in notes created on your desktop. As you see here they iPhone can view these just fine. It can also send rich text notes as rich text email. So if you want to write up some fancy directions that you send out regularly, you can write these as a note on your desktop with formatting and then sync to your iPhone, the formatting sticks when your email the note. The annoying yellow note background will not be sent in your email.

Font, size and color translate provided the font is viewable on your iPhone. The Mail ToDo will appear in the note you your iPhone (as well as when a Note is sent as email) as text. And attachments don't transfer either. The paperclip marking where an attachment was in a note created in Mail is a graphic you can't do anything with.

App: RecordStudio Pro

2009-09-06T04:16:00.001-07:00

After examining the multi-track recorder apps in the App Store RecordStudio stood out. No frills here, just simplicity. Many others had tacky, confusing interfaces and a ton of features that looked easy to get lost in and seemed like they'd be better done later on a computer. Record Studio is a nice little musical scratchpad that records 4 CD-quality tracks.

The quality of the built-in 3Gs iPhone mic with RecordStudio is substantially better than you'd expect. You can set your iPhone on the edge of a table for recording acoustic strings, in front of an amp at low volume for amped instruments or hold it in your hand for vocals.

RecordStudio has a sleek interface and is no nonsense. You tap a track to put it in record mode and then tap the record button. You're rolling. And RecordStudio is very stable when it comes to laying down tracks. I'm seeing issues with this in competing apps.

One thing to be aware about this app is that you can't hear the track you're recording in the headphones. I assume this was done because of latency problems. What's amazing is that there are no latency issues with RecordStudio. These exist in apps like Garage Band and even in dedicated digital workstations. It's refreshing not to have to face them in RecordStudio. There's no punch-in or cue. While some may not like this, it keeps the controls to what's necessary.

RecordStudio gives you a flat "dry" recording with no effects and doesn't do mixdown. Competing multitrack apps for the iPhone seem to be limited on mixdown capabilities. And this is really best left to an app like Garage Band or Audacity. Once you send the tracks to your computer by WiFi you can set up patches that gate the noise and add effects to really sweeten your tracks. You'll be surprised with what the symbiotic relationship between RecordStudio and an app like Garage Band can create.

One nice feature is that you can import stereo backing tracks and still have three tracks to record. This allows you to add instrumental and beat tracks. RecordStudio can take short .aif file and loop them. This feature is Ideal for rapp and hiphop artists, but is also useful for composing. I created a bunch of loops in Garage Band with a Kaossilator and have these always handy on my iPhone for experimenting. There is also a metronome which takes up a track, but you can turn it off once you have three tracks down and free up the fourth track.

So will you record your next album in RecordStudio? Probably not, but you'll find yourself doing crude demos on the fly with it. The beauty of RecordStudio is that with a decent set of earbuds you can take it and record whenever or wherever inspiration strikes.

Getting Full Size Images Onto iPhone

2009-09-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

The Camera Roll is the only space on your iPhone capable of holding full size images that other apps have access too. It's not convenient to get them there, especially if you have multiple images, but it can be done. If you're viewing a large image on your iPhone in either Mail or in Safari, you can tap it and save it to your Camera Roll. (iTunes modifies all photos in the folder to be screen size to save space.)

Note that most photo processing apps on the iPhone shrink images in processing. So don't expect them to stay full size if you start tampering with them.

Mass Mailing Photos

2009-09-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Photos now has a mass mailer built in:

Open your Camera Roll.
Tap the icon that has a photo with an arrow on the bottom left.
Tap the photos you want to send.
Press the Share button.
Press the Email button.

Nice for sending a lot of images. This shrinks the images to 800x600 on the 3Gs. You can theoretically fit more than 50 images in an email before risking the 10 meg limit of many email servers.

Battle of the Photo Fix Apps

2009-09-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

One weakness of any camera is that exposure isn't flawless. To get some shots looking really good you have to doctor them. iPhone's camera in the new 3Gs is pretty solid, but you still have those times you'd like to get the exposure right. If you want to email these photos directly from your iPhone, you need to be able to fix these on the fly. This post examines some of the quick fix apps for the iPhone that allow you to improve exposure before emailing a photo on it's way. While there are a lot of apps that do this, these are simple apps dedicated fixing photos typically with the push of a button, like iPhoto's enhance button. Most work by automatically lightening the mid-tones without burning out the highlights, adjusting contrast, saturating colors, sharpening and modifying color, or some combination of these filters.

This photo really gives these apps a workout. Watch the faces closely. Both are in shadow with uneven lighting, but the lighting is very different on each. Only parts of each image are underexposed so the test goes well beyond just lightening the images.

Jade You don't even have to press a button and it modifies the photo. There's a slider to tweak the filter. Jade can handle some very dark images well, but can leave skin looking mechanically enhanced on these images.

BetterPix This correction app has a Flash button and slider to fix exposure and as well as a Focus button and slider. The effects of this filter can be a little more subtle. The Focus filter can come in handy.

PerfectlyClr has a patented filter. It corrects when you load the photo. It also has a five slider tweaking set to monkey with the image and well as a FixDark button that does some extra work on the deep gray tones.

iFlashReady has three buttons: Flash, More Flash and High Flash. It also can turn images sepia as well as black and white. This is the only app without a slider to control the filter. The three settings seem to be well chosen.

You can judge the results for yourself:

Jade

BetterPix

iFlashReady

PerfectlyClr

PerfectlyClr FixDark Mode

My Conclusion All apps performed well on some photos. PerfectlyClr and iFlashReady have much stronger filters for lightening and taming tones than Jade or BetterPix. Both PerfectlyClr's FixDark button and iFlashReady's More Flash button do a solid job without making this image look unreal. PerfectlyClr can work a little harder but I think iFlashReady's More Flash button maintains a little more natural look. A downfall of PerfectlyClr is that gives you a shrunken final product with a maximum picture size of 800x600.

iPhone Car Charging Issues

2009-08-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

Having issues with your iPhone 3G or 3Gs not charging in the car? The problem is that once Apple switched from Firewire to USB connectors for iPods a few years back, they left the Firewire charger intact on the iPod. It was cheaper for third party charger makers to use the deprecated Firewire connection for charging instead of adjusting the voltage to charge by USB. This still worked with the first gen iPhone. Recently Apple dropped the Firewire connection from the plug so older chargers no longer connected.

Most newer chargers work fine. But look for "works with iPhone 3G" on the package to make sure.

App: TonePad Pro

2009-08-13T02:05:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. The Tenori-On $1,200 or TonePad Pro 99¢,. Which will I go for? For those not familiar with the Tenori-On, it's a visual musical instrument developed by Japanese artist Toshio Iwai with Yamaha. The basic premise is the "keyboard" is a 16x16 grid of LED buttons that light up when you play. Vertically the buttons control pitch and horizontally they control a 16-note sequencer. It sounds rather complex, but this is an amazingly intuitive way to play music. TonePad Pro simply and elegantly brings this concept to the iPhone.

You program the instrument as opposed to play it. By tapping the screen to turn the dots on or off you can create complex harmonics of up to 16 tones. The resulting composition plays short sinewave bursts with an echo that's mapped on the screen as it plays. Those with some musical theory behind them will immediately be able to map out complex melodies that would require up to four hands on the piano. For those who want to take the Zen approach, simply draw on your screen and you create some very rich patterns. There are some unique controls that allows you to shift up or down an octave, turn patterns on their side or randomly shuffle the dots.

These compositions can be shared with other TonePad users directly from your iPhones or emailed as ringtones and synced back to your iPhone. You can also play your compositions back into a computer or amp via the headphone out on your iPhone.

The ad-ridden free version does everything except create ringtones, so you can try before you buy and even import your compositions into TonePad Pro if you upgrade. While the Ternori-On has a few more features...okay a lot more features, TonePad Pro has a little more bang for the buck. Literally, the buck.

App: MobileMe iDisk

2009-07-31T02:23:00.001-07:00

MobileMe has now been seamlessly extended to your iPhone. There are already apps costing up to $10 that do this and some do a little more. But this is free, reliable and or course, Maclike.

For the most part, this app will work just like the MobileMe does when you access it remotely by desktop Safari. The iDisk file system boots quickly and even caches files for offline viewing. There are some folders that are noticeably missing: Backup, Library, Sites, Software and Web. To view these, just turn on System files in Settings.

You can view and play all the standard files that your iPhone supports, including Office, iWork, PDF, RTF, RTFD, TXT, HTML and QuickTime compatible audio and video. With the example of an RTFD file, you can view it, copy photos out of it for emailing, copy text out of it for adding to Notes, share it by sending an email link and delete it. Files you have viewed are cached and show up under the Recents tab for offline viewing.

MobileMe's sharing features are supported. When you share a file, you can set the link to expire or password protect it. Shared files even have their own tab for easy finding and sending. While zipped files, disk images and others are not viewable on your iPhone, you can send links to them.

Another feature which is exclusive to the MobileMe iDisk app is the ability to access other MobileMe users' Public folders. It will even search your addressbook and find other MM users. If you work or play in a Mac environment, this gives quick access to MM users public folders across the world.

Interestingly, the trees seems to upload faster than they do on desktop Safari. This adds yet another strength to MobileMe and is a nice implementation by Apple.

Mailing Full-Size Photos & lots of them

2009-07-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hold your finger over an image or thumbnail in your Photo Library and A little Paste Bubble pops up.
Slide your finger up to it and release it. It will turn blue and copy the full-size image to the clipboard.
Open an email.
Tough and hold inside the body of the email.
Press the Paste button.

You can paste this into the body of an email and send it. To mail multiple images:

Open your Camera Roll.
Tap the icon that has a photo with an arrow on the bottom left.
Tap the photos you want to send.
Press the Copy button.
Open an email.
Tough and hold inside the body of the email.
Press the Paste button.

Be wary of the 10 megabyte limit of some email servers.

Apps: Done is how todo should be done.

2009-07-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

Done (by Chilli X) is an elegant todo app is what a task manager for iPhone should be: simply useful. If you've tried others and are sick of the tacky graphics and the myriad of confusing screens, Done is easy on the eyes, simple to use and fits the most entries on the screen of any todo app I've tried. There are priorities and due dates available, but they're not required and don't get in the way for users who just want to enter something on the list and not have to overly think it.

The Sort function rocks. Shake your iPhone and completed items drop of the bottom of the list. If you've added priorities and due dates, the important and pertinent items will rise to the top of the list.

Another innovative feature is SnapShot. Tap the list button at the bottom center and your top six events are dumped as an image onto your camera roll. You can then assign this image as wallpaper. It's slightly inconvenient, but Apple has not allowed third party apps to assign wallpaper yet. You don't even needed to wake your iPhone to see the list. Just tap the Home button, view your list and the iPhone goes back to sleep in a few seconds.

In addition to using Done as a second mind for personal todo items, I use it as both a project management tool for work and a grocery list. For projects, I use the notes field to track hours and where the project stands. For groceries I keep a list of items, uncheck what I need and then shake the phone. The unchecked items rise to the top to the list.

Done also has a unique delete feature. Just turn the phone sideways and a giant button appears. Tap it and all checked items are deleted.

You can see individual lists or all your entries together. Done color categorizes entries, so if you want to view all items it's easy to tell what list they're from. All settings for Done are accessed from within the app so you don't have to go to systems settings to make a change.

Done is simple, flexible and looks like Apple made it. There's another version of done, so make sure you buy the one by Chilli X. It's worth the dollar.

App: Photo Sketch Lets You Skip Art Lessons

2009-07-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly the iPhone is rapidly becoming a powerful portable photo-manipulation platform. As the quality has improved to a focusing 3-megapixel camera in the 3Gs, almost 900 photo apps are now available, most of which have functions to change images right on your iPhone.

Photo Sketch turns a photo into a black and white charcoal drawing. Choose a photo, pinch to zoom, and set the parameters if needed. That's it. Photo Sketch goes to work. You can set the number of tones to 1, 3, 7 or 15 and the paper as grainy or smooth. I have noticed that some photos look better with less tones and some with more, so it's recommended that you try a few. I'd recommend 7 and 3 or 15 and 3.

The really powerful feature is image size. Even if your image was a tiny area of an image to start with, you can save renderings up to 2048 x 2048 in size. This allows you to make a high-quality 4-meg piece of art work from even tiny icons. Unfortunately iPhone's email will restrict the image to 800 x 800 for mailing, but the full size image will be saved in your camera roll for transferring to your computer.

One of the current limitations is that the app has no ability to adjust the exposure of the image you're rendering from for the best look. A little adjustment in an app like Free Photo Filters (actually one of the nicest apps for adjusting image exposure) will allow you to both control images for the correct lightness and sharpen blurry blowups for sketching. Slightly overexposed shots can look best.

This app meets the main criteria for being iPhonish: one easy-to-use screen. While not a must have for everyone, this is a fun app that shows off the powerful photo tool the iPhone has become.

Tripod Mount

2009-07-17T02:36:00.001-07:00

Keeping the camera still while shooting video, especially if you're in the frame, has always posed a problem, since the iPhone has no tripod mount. Here's a fix for that.

This is not a detailed set of instructions, but just a visual idea on how to create a tripod mount for your iPhone. The trip to the hardware store cost me $2, but the holder, a Griffin Window Seat, cost $29 so this is not the cheapest option. But it's extremely secure, portable and fits on most micro tripods. I'd recommend a micro tripod with wider legs for more stability.

I made this by running a carriage bolt through the hole in the back of the Window Seat bracket and then bolted on a hex connection nut that's 1/4" wide with 20 threads per inch. This is a standard nut that's the official US tripod mount size. I drilled a hole through the top of the nut for the carriage bolt to go through. This nut is actually a little short for connecting to a larger tripod, but another hex spacer nut the same size, a short bolt with the head severed and a lock washer would make an extension to fit any tripod.

I drilled a hole in the plastic for the camera to peek through. If the hole it too big, it may crack the plastic mount. If it's too small the lens will be blocked. Mine is not precise, but it works.

Tips:

For videos with you in them, the iPhone retains whatever focus distance you start with, so you'll need to focus on something the distance you plan to be from the camera. The exposure will change automatically. Just start recording and turn the camera around. You can edit the beginning off later.
Since the screen is where you can't see it when shooting, record with a mirror in front of you. That way you can see the screen and the camera at the same time.

Notes Supports Links

2009-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fascinating to open a note and see a link. Even more fascinating is what the link is. "place overnight and gave it 24." Turns out that my iPhone thinks this is an address and opens the location of a nearby hotel in Maps. Other links supported are the standard: email, urls and phone numbers. Put these in your notes and they're tappable and call up email, the browser or dial the number in question. So now you can type a list of links and click on them.

Camera: Adjusting Exposure

2009-06-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

There's no switch for this, but it's possible in some images. If the exposure is off, tap on something in the frame that is about the same distance as your subject. Tapping something lighter will darken the image. Tapping something darker will lighten the images. In the example the exposure is thrown way dark by the light coming from the window. By tapping on the iPhone screen on the floor just in front of the window the focus and exposure are readjusted to lighten the interior.

If you're taking a shot of two people and one has on dark clothes and one has on light clothes, tap on the appropriate person's clothes to lighten or darken the image. It's important that what you tap on is the same distance from the camera, or the key parts of the image will be out of focus.

Quit Applications

2009-06-28T17:09:00.001-07:00

When you exit an application, it's still running in the background. If an app snags, you can force quit it without having to reset the iPhone. To force quit an application:

Make sure you're in the app.
Hold the Sleep button on top until the Power Off switch appears.
Hold the Home button for about 8 seconds.

Wiping Your iPhone

2009-06-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's not a good idea to pass on an iPhone with any data on it. It's probably not even a good idea to leave an old one lying around with intact data on it. There's a simple way to wipe the contents of your iPhone so that sensitive data is gone.

From your Home Screen tap the Settings (Gears) icon.
Then: General>Settings>Erase All Content And Settings
Okay the prompts.

Wiping will take an hour or more, so make sure it's plugged into power if necessary.

iPhone Video

2009-06-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

The 3Gs adds excellent video capability with beautiful motion and nice audio.

Recording

Open the Camera app and slide the switch right to video.
Press the record button. Note that focus and orientation are locked at the start of the video so make sure the camera is oriented correctly and that what you want to focus on is in the middle of the screen before you press the Record button. The macro will focus down to about six inches.
Press the Record button again to stop recording.

Playback

Press preview button on the left to view the video.
To edit drag the ends of the timeline in. Press Play to make sure you have edited correctly, then hit the trim button.
To Share hit the Share button with the arrow. You can email, send to MobileMe, YouTube, or by MMS (if enabled.)

Voice Memos

2009-06-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Voice Memos app is simple and quick. You're supposed to be able to record with a compatible stereo mic, but Apple hasn't made it clear which ones work. Though you get a warning saying it won't work, Belkin's TuneTalk stereo mic works. You can mail and send voice memos by MMS (if the service is available.) They also sync automatically with iTunes and appear in a Voice Memos playlist.

To record, tap the round red Record button. To pause, tap the Pause button. To stop, tap the lack square Stop button.
To view memos, tap the List button on the right.
Top edit a memo, tap the Trim button. Drag the sides in and press the Play button to make sure you've edited correctly. When finished, tap the Trim Voice Memo button.
To email or send by MMS, tap the Share button.

To title a voice memo press the > indicator twice and then press the > next to Custom.

Copy and Paste

2009-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

This long awaited feature is here and delivers more than expected. Not only can your copy and paste text, but you can copy and paste intact sections of web pages.

In Text Apps:

Tap and hold where you want to start highlighting. Release.
Select All selects the entire document.
Select selects a word. You can then drag either direction to highlight more. Tap Cut or Copy.
To add elsewhere, tap and hold where you want to paste. Tap the paste button.

In Safari:

Tap and hold until the blue window appears. Drag the window up, down, in or out with the blue dots.
Press the Copy button.
To add to another app, tap and hold where you want to paste. Tap the paste button.

In Email you can paste photos and correctly formatted text. In text apps, like Notes, you just get the text. Incidentally, you can copy from email attachments you get.

Home Really Goes Home

2008-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

When you have a lot of Home screens, flipping to get to the first screen where most of us keep our most important apps can be tedious. Just press the Home button in an home screen and you're taken back to the first screen. Press it again and it calls up Spotlight to search your iPhone.

Taking Video Stills

2008-10-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

With your iPhone's hidden screenshot utility you can grab stills from any video you can view. This includes YouTube vids, iPod vids, Net vids, email vids, and those stored on your iPhone with apps like Air Sharing. There's a size restriction: the images will be 320 pixels high by a width of up to 480.

While viewing a video, tap the screen to call up the controls.
When you get to the frame you want, tap the Pause button.
Tap the screen to hide the controls.
Hold the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time and release them.
The images are stored at Home/Photos/Camera Roll.

Cropping Photos

2008-10-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

Though it's not intended, you can crop photos within iPhone's Photo viewer. The limitation is that images are restricted to screen size of 420 x 320, either in portrait or landscape. The secret is the hidden screenshot app.

Go to Home/Photos and choose the photo you want to crop.
Unpinch to enlarge the photo to the magnification you'd like to crop to.
Tap the screen to hide the controls.
Hold the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time, then let go. You'll see a white flash when the screen shot takes.
Tap the screen to show the controls.
Tap iPhone Libray/Photo Albums/Camera Roll.

Your cropped image can be emailed or post to your MobileMe gallery like any image.

Moving Icons on the Home Screen

2008-10-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

The iPhone Home screen is an electronic version of on of those slider puzzles. Move one icon and all go out of place.

The simple solution is to drag one icon to the right off the screen you want to add an icon too and place it on the last screen . This leaves a blank space as well as doesn't destroy all your other screens. Then drag the new icon in.

App: Tumble

2008-09-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Social networking is branching out an an amazing rate. In the blogosphere many of the lengthy blog have been replaced by micro-blogs. A micro-blog is designed for short posts that often contain media like links, photos, movies and audio. More of a "Hey look what I saw" type post without a lot of need for more than a quick quip. Tumblr is a strong contender for this market. It's free and so simple to set up, yet hackable for those who like to tinker. And typically the screen area is smaller and fonts are larger than traditional blogs, so Tumlblogs display great on an iPhone in Safari.

There are currently four apps designed for posting to Tumblr directly from your iPhone. I like Tumble. It's free and allows for fast blogging and posting. The interface is extremely logical and simple. The opening screen gives you five options to post: text, quote, url, photo or the contents of a Tumblr chat. Tap one, a dedicated editor opens and your press the post button. Even simpler than posting through Tumblr itself. Once you've set your Tumblr username and password in Tumble for posting you won't have to fool with them again.

Currently there's no interface to see your posts or modify old posts. But this is simple enough to do through Safari. Save your Tumblr site or dashboard on your home screen next to Tumble and you'll have easy access to check out your posts. Here is my Tumblog of poems and drawings made on my iPhone with the Sketches app.

I like the simplicty and speed of Tumble so much, I kind of hope they don't integrate more complex features. Tumble had pretty near flawless fuction, so why mess with a good thing?

Tips

Tumble is capable of sending html code. It's cumbersome to type tags so you probably won't do much of it. I tested emphasis and links.

Photo Album Order 

2008-09-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have a Smart album in iPhoto that feeds images shot with my iPhone back onto my iPhone. So I'm never without those images. As this album grew by the hundreds it was getting more and more annoying to have to flick through the list to get to the most recent images. The iPhone has no control for ascending or descending order. However I found that iPhone will follow the sort order of the albums in iPhoto that you sync to your iPhone. So I changed the sort order of the Smart album in iPhoto to View/Sort Photos/Descending. Now the newer images are at the top of the album on my iPhone too.

Big Brother 

2008-09-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what's happening with the pets at home while you're away or who's using your computer at work while you're at lunch? You can create a snoop app on your Mac that's activated by sending an email from your iPhone. You get an email back moments later with a photo taken at that moment from your iSight camera. It requires an Automator app, an Applescript and a mail rule, all of which you can create yourself without too much trouble. I messed with this a while back when Automator's Take Picture action will still working with Photo Booth. It's seemed like a fun app to revive for iPhone. After recreating it, I discovered that The Unofficial Apple Weblog had instructions for doing almost the same thing. As opposed to give you my instructions, theirs will work just as well.

Genius Playist

2008-09-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

The idea of a Genius playlist is pretty simple: Select a song from your iPod on your iPhone and Genius compliles a playlist of similar tunes. It's surprisingly good. To create a Genius playlist:

From your Home screen, press the iPod icon.
Tap Playlists.
Tap Genius ar the top of the list.
Tap a song in your list.

Genius will create a 25 song playlist. It's a very nice way to hear some tunes you've forgotten on your iPod.

Tapping Through the Home Screen

2008-09-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

If flicking is just not your style you can tap your way through the Home screens. Just tap the leftmost or rightmost page marker dots at the bottom of the screen.

App: BlogPress

2008-09-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

For those who blog with Blogger, the only option for iPhone has been blogging by mail. This is not a bad option since you can also send photos to your blog as well as text. Now BlogPress allows more blogging flexibility:

Edit older posts
HTML formatting
Post to multiple blogs including Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, WorsPress, Movable Type and TypePad
Picasa photo loading

Cool. Does it work? This entry was created with it.

However there are issues. It is not really a WYSIWYG rich text editor as claimed. I think this is more a result of the developer's poor command of English. You can insert an image in the middle of your text. If you want rich text, or links you'll need to code them yourself. And s editing old posts is far from WYSIWYG: You need a basic knowledge of HTML to read as well as not screw up posts.

The app is a little pricey at $10. I hope the developer will grow it. If he can't make a real WYSIWYG editor (not a simple feat) then he needs to make some sort of HTML tagging feature or the posting abilities will remain what you can already do with free blogging by mail. The photos can't be resized from full screen and there are currently some rendering issues with the text field not showing type.

While overpriced the app is decent enough in what it really does that serious bloggers will probably be happy with the added function.

Silencing Email at Night

2008-09-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

Generally most of us don't depend on email for emergencies and get a lot of mail in the night that's low priority, if not bordering on junk. So if you keep your iPhone by your bedside, you don't want to turn your ringer off in case you get an important call or text, but don't want to be awoken by garbage email. To rectify this, turn your mail app off before you go to bed and then turn it back on in the morning.

To turn Mail off:

Tap the Mail icon on your Home screen.
Hold down the Home button for 8 seconds.

To turn Mail back on:

Tap the Mail icon on your Home screen.

Send From Another Account

2008-09-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Your iPhone will send all mail from a default account unless you tell it otherwise:

Click on the CC/BBC, From field.
Click the From field.
Choose your account.
Tap the upper part of your screen.

Adding CC or BCC to Mail.

2008-09-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Click on the CC/BCC field.
Tap the field if there is no plus icon.
Tap the plus icon.
Tap a name in your Contacts.

Pausing an App While Loading

2008-09-23T05:23:00.000-07:00

Apps for your iPhone can be huge. Edge and 3G have a download limit of 10 megs, which can take a while. If you need to pause the download to do something else at a faster speed:

Go to the Home screen where the app is loading. It will say "Loading" below it.
Tap the icon and it will show as "Paused".
When ready to start loading, tap the icon again.

Scientific Calculator

2008-09-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

To call up the scientific calculator, just turn your iPhone sideways while in the calculator app.

Spotlight

2008-09-23T02:32:00.000-07:00

The iPhone Spotlight. You can search Contacts, Email (including those on your server with Mobile Me), Notes and your entire iPhone:

To search your iPhone, drag your Home screen right. For searching from individual apps, drag the screen down to reveal the search window.
Start to enter the name.
When you see it on the list, tap on it.

Saving Images

2008-09-23T02:21:00.001-07:00

You can save any image you can view in Safari or Mail to your camera roll. This will be synced to your computer with your other camera images the next time you sync your iPhone:

Tap and hold on the image.
Tap the Save Image button.

The image can be emailed, added to a contact, used as wallpaper or added to your MobileMe gallery.

Moving Mail to a Folder

2008-09-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

To move an email:

Open the email.
Tap the folder icon.
Tap on the folder you want to move it to.

To move multiple emails:

Tap on the Edi button.
Tap on the left side of the email to check it.
Tap the Move button.
Tap on the folder you want to move it to.

To add folders try this.

Deleting Mail

2008-09-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

To delete an email:

Swipe right on it in the list.
Press the delete button.

To delete multiple emails:

Click on the Edit button.
Tap on the left side of the list to check an email for deletion.
Tape the delete button.

Deleting Email Addresses From a Reply

2008-09-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

Say you are replying to a message with multiple recipients but want to delete a recipient before sending.

Tap the To, CC or BCC field to expand it.
Tap the address you want to remove and it will change to blue.
Tap the Delete key.

App: Jade Fixes Photos

2008-09-08T04:02:00.000-07:00

iPhoto's camera is one of the better available on a phone, but there are no controls: you can't adjust for backlighting or underexposure. You take what you get. And if shooting conditions are less than ideal, the results may not be what you want. Jade is the app I have been waiting for. There are a few other image editing apps already available for the iPhone. But I wanted one that's really simple and can quickly and accurately clean up some of the issues we face with iPhone cameras: underexposure, washed out colors, lackluster contrast, haze from the lens coating wearing off. This is it.

Jade automatically corrects for these and does a decent job. You open it and select a photo. Jade goes to work and makes the correction. It works better at this than iPhoto's Enhance button, which is more than I was hoping for in an iPhone app. The Filter slider position will vary based on what Jade has done. You can slide it more if you like. In very underexposed images, sliding right will lighten the image more. Press the Save button when done. You get a 640 x 480 emailable or Web-postable image.

The app has not had good reviews at the App Store. I think people don't get it. They're expecting PhotoShop, or even worse: they're expecting miracles. If you have worked with something as simple as iPhoto, you know that improving an image is a real art that typically requires time and finessing, yet often leaves you with only a better image, not a great one. I'm seeing Jade get sensible results without even touching the slider. To compare, just tap the screen to see the original. You may still get a lousy image, but then you may have still had a lousy image after PhotoShopping. Some images are just not fixable. I suggest you do a side by side comparison with your desktop image editing app. I think you'll find Jade holds it's own.

Jade is especially adept at lightening dark photos without blowing out highlights. When photos are a little washed out or hazy, Jade can add a nice snap. The advantage is that you can do all this with a photo you've just taken with your iPhone camera and email it without being near your computer. And Jade is no simple piece of software. It's available http://jade.datamind.biz/ for iPhoto and Aperture as well.

Negs? There seems to be some bizarre texture sometimes added in formerly underexposed areas. I hope this is addressed in an update soon.

App: Face Melter

2008-08-17T03:45:00.000-07:00

Face Melter is a great example of how a developer can take control of some of the powerful technology that's built into the iPhone's OSX and let you control it with a very simple interface. This liquid art app by Nico Becherer uses some of the built in features of Apple's Core Image. (Core Image is an invisible image engine built into OSX, just waiting for developers to toy with.)

Use of Face Melter is simple: Smudge with your finger and unpinch or pinch to magnify or demagnify an area. The Back button is a liquid undo that allows you to unsmudge with our finger. This can be useful for restoring the edges of the canvas if you've pulled them too far in. To unmelting the image: just shake your iPhone like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can use images from your albums, camera roll or call up the camera and shoot from inside the app.

Face Melter is $2. If you (God forbid) hand your iPhone over to your kids for entertainment, this one is probably more entertaining than any game. Even the really young get the hang of this quickly and love abusing the faces of loved ones. But I cringe at the thought of a tot shaking a little too hard and an iPhone flying out a pediatrician's office window.

While powerful, Face Melter has its limitations. It's designed to warp your Contact images and limits output to screen size. I'd like to see it work with the 2 megapixel camera-size images that the iPhone produces. The shake feature is a little cumbersome at the moment. It takes about the same amount of time as pressing the undo button and unsmudging the entire image.

For the price, this is a very cool little app.

Tip:

Fill the screen with faces when taking pictures that you're planning on using with Face Melter or Contacts.
The effect looks cooler when you put people against a plain background as in the example photo. You won't get a melted background, just a melted face.
Use a Pogo Stylus for better control.

App: Facebook

2008-08-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

If you've been using the Facebook web app on your iPhone, you can now download the Facebook app for your iPhone. Those using the Web app will find the native Facebook app to be much faster, full-featured and more stable. If you're addicted to Facebook, this is a necessity and it's free. The Facebook app is a real winner and really getting much easier to use than the Web version of Facebook on your desktop.

Better iPhone Self Portraits

2008-08-16T03:31:00.000-07:00

Taking a self portrait with your iPhone seems like a crapshoot, but here are a few tips that can substantially improve your photos.

Pose in ample, indirect light. It may not seem it, but indirect light coming from a window will be brighter than any artificial light source. The more light the sharper the picture will appear. Noise and reduced contrast in low light scenes makes images look less focused. If there's too little light your image may also be blurry.
Your iPhone should be between your light and your face.
With the screen of your iPhone facing you, hold down the shutter with your index finger. Turn the camera toward you and release. The shutter button sits about 1/2 inch above the home button if you're working by feel.
Hold the camera at eye level about a foot to arm's length from your face. The further away from your face you hold the camera, the smaller your head will be, but the less distorted it will look.
Look in the mirrored Apple on the back of your phone. When you can see the right side of your chin, your image will be centered.

The Pogo Stylus

2008-08-16T03:07:00.000-07:00

The Pogo stylus is the first (and appears only) stylus for the iPhone. It seems useless at: a stylus for a phone designed to be stylus-free and actually designed not to work with any stylus.

So why should a company work so hard to develop a stylus that actually works with the iPhone? Those with large fingers find it useful. Some find typing with it is faster (though that just means they're too cautious typing in the first place.) But the real advantage is that you can get more accuracy with newly available art programs for the iPhone. I have used it with Sketches and find it a necessity for drawing and on-screen writing.

The Pogo works by mimicking a finger. It's about 1/4 the size of a pinky. I assume this is as small an area as the iPhone can be fooled into thinking is a finger. It has an aluminum barrel that comes in various colors and has a soft tip with as much capacitance as a finger to pass an electrical charge to react with the screen.

As for accuracy, the Pogo stylus is not quite as accurate as your finger for pressing buttons. It is far more accurate than your finger at screen movement.

Tips:

Hold straight up and down, not at an angle.
Make firm contact.
Keep your screen clean. (Good advice when using your finger too.)

App Review: Checklist

2008-08-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

I think that people who create To Do apps are not unorganized people. How many of these things have you seen that require a phd in organization just to use? There are due dates and priorities and categories. And their weird thing is that they look a mess on the screen and force you to weed through data. I just want to press a button to open the app and see my To Dos. That's how unorganized people work.

I'm convinced that Rhys Cox, the developer of Checklist, is one of us. I'm betting he has a foot-high pile of papers on his desk and this month's unpaid bill for net access is at the bottom somewhere. Rhys has created a stupidly simple To Do list for the rest of us. No frills, just function. Checklist has one scrollable screen, so when you open it, you see your checklist. You don't get a screen full of lists you need to choose from first. Or minor things are were due a week ago cluttering the top of your list forcing you to scroll to get to the important stuff.

The function of Checklist is simple. You'll see the first nine items on your list. This appears to be the most of any To Do or Tasklist app for iPhone. To see more, flick up to scroll. When done with the item, you have two choices: Tap the checkbox to check it off, or delete it by swiping right. Want to change the order of the list? Tap the Edit button, put your finger on the list icon on the right of an item and drag the item where you want it.

Checklist is free. And it's as convenient as it gets for those of us so unorganized that we're currently wearing the wrong sock on the right foot and no sock on the left.

Tips
I type a "w" and a double space before work-related entries to distinguish them. Minimal screen space wasted and a very quick to do.

Typing Faster

2008-08-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

If you're struggling with typing speed on your iPhone, then you're not being wreckless enough. Your iPhone keyboard is smart enough to know what you intend to type. In many cases it can guess what you want to type, even when you miss a numerous keys.

Go ahead: type a sentence as fast as you can WITHOUT any concern for mistakes. Just type. You'll be surprised how many mistakes your iPhone corrected for. Typing with complete abandon and then correcting the few mistakes left is substantially faster than the frustration of typing cautiously. If you're typing with one finger you also might try typing with two fingers or two thumbs. You can gain even more speed this way. Another timesaver is to stick with one keyboard screen of the three and add punctuation and numbers later.

App: Recorder

2008-07-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

We have Jeff Hawkins of Palm to to thank for the philosophy behind our smart phones. The rules at Palm have always been: one function apps, just the controls you need on screen and minimal taps to work the app. Apple encourages iPhone developers to think with a similar set of philosophies which gives us extremely easy to use apps.

A fine example of an app like this is Recorder by Retronyms. They're only charging a buck for this very useful piece of software. For those who have been waiting for a dictaphone, it's here. There are a few others out there as well. I have tried the free ones which seem clumbsy and most of the other apps you have to pay for were quite a bit more expensive or cumbersome.

What makes this one great it that you open the app there's a big fat record button at the bottom of the screen ready to tap. Why the bottom? You turn your recorder upside down to use it since that's where the mic is. Tap the button to start recording and tap it again to stop. All recordings are titled "Memo" so there's no text screens to okay or to have to type in just to jot a quick note. This is a problem on some of the other recorder apps.

Playback is also simple. Just tap the title in the list and it will play through your iPhone's speaker. There is a pause button for playback. You can also drag the timeline cursor back a little or drag it to the end to stop it. And if you tap the memo title again while it's playing, it starts from the the top. To delete simply swipe right on the title and tap the Delete button.

Tap the blue arrow button on the right of a memo and you can retitle it as well as email it. There are restrictions in your iPhone's email that won't allow an application to add attachments except for images, so Retronyms came up with a clever solution: the file is sent to a Web server and an email is generated with a link to it. The files are standard AIFF files that Mac will play just fine and PC should play with little trouble. The latest version offers wifi downloads of your recordings. Just type the link shown in Recorder in any Web browser.

That's pretty much it. Recorder does just what you need it to, nothing more or less. No cumbersome useless features to get in your way. The recording quality is about what you'd expect in a pocket recorder. Not great, but fine for your voice. This gives you plenty of recording time. If you put your iPhone on the podium you'll be able to record one single recording until your iPhone runs out of space, but it will run out of power before that. Recorder will lay down well over 100 hours on most iPhones, even if you have a lot of tunes on there. And do be careful: Recorder keeps recording after your iPhone goes to sleep. Not saying it's a great espionage tool that you can innocently lay on a desk and clandestinely record a conversation when it appears that your iPhone is off but...

Not sure it was the developer's decision or just the way the iPhone is built, but it appears the mic is EQed so it just picks up voice and cuts way down on background noise.

Tip: Do short dictations, maybe a sentence or two. These are very easy to jot down, navigate through and erase.

Update 9/8/09: Recorder now records outgoing phone calls. This service costs a few cents a minute. Nice addition for anyone who does interviews by phone. Note that law states that you must tell the party you're recording immediately when they answer the phone.

Taking Screenshots

2008-07-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

Hidden in the iPhone's OS 2.0 is a screenshot utility. It's easy to use: Hold the Home button and the Sleep button at the same time and release. Your screen will flash when the screenshot takes. It's saved as a nice sharp PNG file in our camera roll and will be transferred the next time you sync.

App Review: Sketches

2008-07-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Late Night Software's Sketches app was the first and still best drawing app for the iPhone. Sketches sells for $5 and is worth every penny. Just draw with your finger. Finger too big? There's a zoom tool that helps. There are 24 pen colors plus eraser and a variable size pen. The slower you draw the smoother the line is. To undo tap the Undo button on the left or just shake your iPhone like an Etch-a-Sketch to undo all. There is also a Revert to Saved feature if you hold down the undo button.

There's a library of backgrounds and basic clip art you can use. You can import images from your photo albums and draw over top of them or use the camera while in the app. You also can take a screenshot of a web page or map (it can find your location) that you can mark up. If you double tap the screen, the controls go away and you can work full screen. And the Index is a cork board of thumbnails that you tap on to call up your image. As a matter of fact, the user guide is a series of images on your cork board. Check them out thoroughly before deleting so you don't miss any features. You can also reinstall these from Home/Settings/Sketches.

One of the coolest features that really shows off the power of the touch screen is shapes. Unpinch to draw the shape and size it. Without lifting your fingers, move them to place it or move them in a circular motion and you can turn most shapes. Pen size and color determines the shapes boundaries. And there are three fonts for the text field. Text can be placed, sized, and rotated as you like. You can export to Twitter, Web (view from any browser), email or an iPhone Album. Once in an iPhone Album it's available for as a contact photo, wallpaper, or to send to a MobileMe album. Examples of some of my stetches are on tumblr.

With 2.0's new ability to save images from email and Safari, you have even more options for images to draw on while mobile. Sketches is what an iPhone app should be.

Tips:

If you use a basic drawing a lot, save it as an image and call it up when needed. For instance, I created a drawing of a ukulele fretboard that I keep in an album and can call up quickly to draw chord tabs on top of.
I regularly post screenshots to the Web from my iPhone but they're big fat PNG files. Open them in Sketches and export them to an album and they're saved as leaner JPEGs.
If you do a drawing without a photo for a background, Sketches orients it to portrait. I created a clean white image with the horizontal orientation tag. When I use it as a plain background and export, I get the drawing in Landscape mode for Web posting from my iPhone.
Since the background is interchangeable at any time, you can trace over a photo of someone and then change the photo to a white background for easier portrait drawing.
Save regularly when you're at a stage you are happy with. You can experiment and Revert to Saved by holding the Redo button.
Change Pen size before changing the color. You won't have to call the pen window up twice.

"If Found" Message

2008-03-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

A simple way to put an "If Found Call..." screen on your iPhone is to create a graphic it, save the image to your iPhone and then uses it as your wallpaper. This way it's the first thing on your startup screen, the finder would see when they turn on your iPhone.

You can create a screenshot of the text in a word processing program or create a slide in Keynote or Powerpoint. Or for a simpler way, draw it on a posterboard and use your iPhone to take a picture of it.

Use Mac Desktop Wallpaper

2008-03-02T04:28:00.000-08:00

Any of the standard Mac desktop wallpapers can be put on your iPhone with a few moves in iPhoto. I particularly like the Jaguar Aqua Blue of contrails and use it. Note that you'll be cropping the image to become a vertical image instead of horizontal:

On your desktop go to HD>Library>Desktop Pictures (This is the folder where they're all stored)
Drag the image of your choice to the iPhoto icon on your doc (This imports the image)
Double click on the image to open it in the Edit mode
Click Constrain
Choose 2/3 from the list
Hold the Option key while dragging the constrain box to full screen (This rotates orientation)
Click Apply
Click Done
Drag the image to a folder you have set to sync with your iPhone

The next time you sync the image will appear in Photos on your iPhone. To set it:

View the image in Photos
On the bottom of your screen, tap the icon of the photo with the arrow coming out of it
Choose Use as Wallpaper
Tap Set Wallpaper

Those who are anal about saving space on the iPhone can export the cropped image and resize the export at 320 wide in iPhoto. Then drag this back into the iPhoto folder that syncs with your iPhone.

Setting Up GoDaddy Mail

2008-03-01T20:47:00.001-08:00

I'm not a fan of GoDaddy, but recently had to set up one of their mail accounts on an iPhone. It's not that complex but many are experiencing issues with figuring out the settings:

Home>Settings>Mail>Add Account>Other
Select POP
In the Name field, enter your name as you want it to appear in emails
In the Address field, enter your full GoDaddy email address
In the Description field, enter how you want the account identified, such as GoDaddy Mail
Under Incoming Mail Server in the Host Name field enter pop.secureserver.net
In the User Name field enter your full GoDaddy email address
In the Password field enter your password
Under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) in the Host Name field enter smtpout.secureserver.net
In the User Name field enter your full GoDaddy email address
In the Password field enter your password
Tap the Save button
Wait a while...maybe a very long while
Tap the Advanced button
Under Incoming Settings make sure Use SSL is ON
Under Outgoing settings make sure Use SSL is OFF

How to Use the Apple Bluebooth Headset

2008-02-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a little confusion about the working, pairing and connection of BT. I'm going to talk about Apple BT. I own one so I can tell you how it really works, not just how it should work. Since the Apple BT was built for the iPhone it has some cool features like auto-pairing and it's own icon complete with BT battery level in the iPhone display.

The Apple BT is dedicated to the iPhone. Really dedicated. As pointed out elsewhere here, don't even thing of connecting the Apple BT to something else if there's an iPhone within 30 feet of it. It has a tendency to unpair from any other device and pair with the iPhone. Not every BT headset will play this well with your iPhone, so don't expect everything mentioned here to happen with a third party set:

When the Apple BT and the iPhone are in the dual dock. They re-pair. This pretty much guarantees the set will work 100% of the time.
When you remove the BT from the dock, it often has been reset to off during the charge. I don't use the LED on the BT for reference that much. I usually put it in my ear and tap the button on the back of the BT. If you get a beep you're in business. If you hear nothing it means the BT is off. Hold the button until you hear four ascending tones. Now you're in business.
Anytime the iPhone and BT are more than 30 ft (10 meters) apart the connection will be lost. So if you leave your BT in the car, it's a good idea to reconnect when you get back in. Just tap the button. If listening you'll hear a beep. If looking at the BT you'll see a green LED flash. Or just look at the iPhone screen when connecting, the BT symbol will flash and then the headset icon will show on the top right next to your iPhone battery gauge. All is set.
Should you forget to reconnect you may find the BT not responsive when you get a call. Don't start tapping the button like crazy. This won't connect it. Tap the button once. This is usually all it takes. After a few seconds the phone will answer. If you hear more than two rings in the BT, tap again.
If you want to switch to the BT headset while in the middle of a call, just put the BT in your other ear and press the button once. If no response wait at least two seconds and press again.

Follow these simple procedures and your BT will give you good service with no further fuss.

FreeFi Tips

2008-02-24T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to see the FreeFi movement continue to grow as more businesses discover how profitable it can be and local governments find out what a great service it is to locals and visitors. Many cities can get free or discounted WiFi but even for businesses, a $100 router and $50-a-month cable connection can dramatically increase business. If FreeFi generates 10 $5 tabs a month it pays for itself. Beyond that, it's profit a business wouldn't have had otherwise.

Connecting at these places is another story. With some it's just a matter of letting your iPhone find the connection and choosing it. Others require a login. This is not to make your life inconvenient but usually to assure that usage is limited to customers and not people in the lost or next door. It speeds up your WiFi usage so it's a good thing. Usually the place that requires your email address will give you the option to opt out of promotional emails.

Some places offer paid service. While the idea is entirely fair, rates may not be so inquire before fork over your credit card.

Here's standard procedure to connect:

Usually your iPhone will find WiFi for you. You can also go to Home>Settings>WiFi to manually start the process.
If no lock is shown and the signal is strong you can usually just connect by tapping the router on the list.
If there's a lock and you know it's the router of the place you're standing in, ask. They may just hand you a passcode.
Some routers, whether locked or not, may have a login screen. If you're in email you'll be connected but will just get the spinning hyphen and no action. Open Safari and most likely you'll get the login page. Some login pages are not visible on the iPhone. Back when Caribou was iPhone friendly you could call an 800 number and connect. (Don't bother with Caribou anymore. Too many hoops to jump through.) If you're having problems ask at the desk about how to connect. If the place is a national chain they may have a support site you can connect to by Edge. They will be much more knowledgeable than the employees.

Always thank places for the use of their FreeFi by making a purchase, even it's it's a cup of tea or a bottle of water. Those who treat FreeFi as a right and are crass enough to use it without playing along will ruin it for everybody.

Camera: Avoiding Under Exposure

2008-02-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

A little understanding of autoexposure will go a long way in helping you take better photos with your iPhone camera. Examine the two images above. Both shots are of the same buildings taken just seconds apart. So why is one darker than the other? It's simply a matter of brightness. Though it may not seem that way to your eye, the sky is substantially brighter than these shaded buildings. The reason we don't perceive that at first is that your eye and brain have their own built-in autoexposure controls.

When the differences in light in the scene are as great as they are in the darker image the camera makes it's choice based on what's brightest. So the sky won. The lighter image was taken at a lower angle with no bright sky visible in the scene so the camera exposed for the buildings. When you shoot follow these tips to avoid underexposure:

Make sure your subjects are well-lit if you include sky in your image.
Light sources like lamps and the sun should not be visible in the scene. These will darken the image.
Highly reflective backgrounds that are white or silver can darken your subject too. Place your subject against medium toned backgrounds.
Pointing the camera down on a subject as opposed to up will generally give you better exposed shots.

V-Moda Vibe Duo Headset

2008-02-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

The Vibe Duo is the first non-apple mic/headset combo made specifically for the iPhone. Unfortunately V-Moda uses words like "luxury", "fashion-forward active lifestyle" and "on par with high-fashion jewelry." These are a real turnoff that had me laughing at the steep pricetag when I first saw the Duo in the Apple Store.

But then after some questionable practices of GE Moneybank with my PayPal Plus credit card I decided I really didn't want to lose anymore money to them and wanted to dump the card. That left me with a bunch of PayPal reward points that needed to be cashed in pronto. (I guess I should note that I am a big fan PayPal and that my only gripe with them ever is their judgment of who to work their credit card through.) Most of the things I currently needed I couldn't find quickly at places that took PayPal. V-Moda did, so I thought I'd give the phones a try for free.

I didn't like them at first (maybe that was just prejudism of the hype) but they grew on me. The buds are so small, they're hard to get in and out of your ears. This was a pain at first, but it also makes them among the few buds I've ever tried that actually stay in my ears. Another problem is that the buds have no friction-absorbing tube on the earpiece that covers the cloth cord. This makes them harder to insert and remove, plus it causes a lot of conductive noise when the cords rub against clothes. The have to be worn especially lose to avoid this. Another complaint is that the tubular switch design makes finding the answer switch harder than the buds that come with the iPhone. Enough complaining. That's really all small stuff compared to what really matters.

The sound? Admittedly it's decent. If I had to be extremely picky over a pair of hundred dollar buds, I would say that the extreme high end is crisp, but a touch distorted. The bass is solid and the range seems un-colored which is normally a problem in lower-priced earbuds. They don't claim to be noise canceling, but rather "noise isolating". Whatever, they do a decent job of removing outside noise. I can no longer hear people begging me for change on the street.

These are the first buds I have ever had that have an all-metal construction. I think this keeps them from absorbing vibrations like plastic buds and helps them transfer the bossy bass response. While I am convinced the cord will eventually short, it looks like the buds will last a long time and even stand up to a good stepping-on.

The fit is the best I've had in a pair of buds. I really can't tell they're in, despite the fact that they weigh more. They really can be worn for hours. They come with 6 sets of earpads: 3 in 2 different colors. You also get a cheap, but useful case. For the fashion conscious the Duo comes in three colors, including Nero which matches the iPhone colors perfectly.

Bottom line: If you need buds with a mic there are currently two options, the Duo and the buds that come with your iPhone. The pricetag is expensive, but don't let the fashion talk scare you away if you want something better than the static quo. I'd give them a 4 out to 5 for sound (quality skewed partly by the expectation for the cost.) I'd give them 5 for fit. Apple Store customers give them a 3 overall

UPDATE: Ultimate Ears Super.fi 4vi are available. They sell for $150 and are currently rated at 3.5 at the Apple Store.

The Company Name Conflict

2008-02-13T03:23:00.000-08:00

On your desktop you can set preference to show a company instead of person. The problem is that the company name appears on your iPhone and nothing else. You have to open the contact of each person at the company to see the individual. The two best options to fix this are to lave your desktop contacts set to show the contacts name and:

Create a group for each company on your desktop and make sure that group is synced to your iPhone. Press the Group button on the top left of your iPhone to filter and view only the contacts for that company.
Include the company name in the first name field: "ATT Mike". Provided you have your iPhone set to sort by first name you'll get "ATT Mike Smith". This puts all your ATT contacts together under "A". If you prefer last name, just include the company name at the start of the last name field instead and go to Home>Settings>Sort Order>Last, First.

The Camera Doesn't Lie

2008-02-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

Your iPhone camera is extremely useful for capturing evidence. All photos contain date and time information to help you prove your case.

Shoot that dent in the rental car when you pick it up to prove it was already there.
Snap new purchases in your house as proof for insurance in case of a robbery.
Shoot apartment damage when you first move in to protect your security deposit.
Snap your luggage at the airport so you can show the airline what you lost.
Take a photo of the kids before shopping or public events in case they get lost. Not only do you have a photo that can be passed around, but you won't have to tax your mind at a time to panic to try to remember what they're wearing.
Shoot damaged packages you get in the mail as proof that it was broke when you got it.
Not as critical, but extremely useful is to shoot a descriptive photo of where you parked your car.

Faster Notetaking w/ your Camera

2008-02-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

While the iPhone's keyboard is easy to use, your camera is often a faster way to take notes. Taking photos of a whiteboard or blackboard can save you a lot of typing time. The 2 megapixel camera has enough resolution that you'll be able to see everything.

Don't clutter your pockets with business cards. Take a photo and hand it back. When you have time later at home you can enter it into your desktop contacts. Or if you go to a great restaurant, snap the menu. You can use your camera to capture screenshots or anything that you'd use a scanner for. The advantage is that you can even "scan" posters on the wall that you can't get into the scanner. Decent OCR software may even be able to characterize notes for you.

Visual To Do List

2008-02-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

Your camera roll makes a very handy To Do list. When you're out of a food item, take a photo of the package before pitching it. When you go to the store browse your camera roll thumbnails for what you need and delete what you put in your cart. This is especially useful for things like ink jet cartridges that you never can remember the number of. The iPhone camera can be used at about a foot away, so you can accurately capture readable serial and model numbers.

Change Shifts

2008-02-10T03:35:00.000-08:00

iPhone's keyboard is capable of receiving more than one input at a time. So you can hold the shift key to get all caps. (You can also enable Caps Lock in Settings>General>Keyboard if that suits your typing habits better.)

This also give you another option for working with the three keyboards. Normally to get to the extended punctuation third keyboard in Mail or Notes, you press .?123 and then the curing key #+=. The third keyboard will stay engaged until you type a space. But if you hold the cursing key and let it go, it shifts back to the numbers keyboard. I know it's a small point, but one that can help you become a faster typist on your iPhone.

Movies on Your iPhone

2008-02-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

The easiest way to format video for your iPhone is QuickTime Pro. You won't regret the $30 investment. QT Pro is simple, straightforward and can also be used to record video directly from iSight. QT Pro looks just like your QT player (with a bunch of new features and menu items added) so you'll find the interface very familiar. You can edit movies directly in QT Pro. Users are beginning to prefer this over iMovie, since iMovie '08 has gotten ridiculously confusing to use.

Drag your video clip into QT.
From the menu choose File>Export.
Set the Export Format to Movie to iPhone.
Press Save.
Drag the file into iTunes.
Plug in your iPhone and choose it from the list.
In the Movie tab check your movie.

That's about as simple as it gets. Quality is restricted by your camera, but if your camera does great video, it will probably look even better on your iPhone. The motion is great and screen is very crisp.

Your iPhone is also capable of playing MP4 and 3GP files as attachments in Mail. If you have video on DVD you can use the freeware Handbrake to convert it to iPhone, provided it's not copyright restricted material. QT Pro and Handbrake as a combo can handle just about any kind of video.

Clandestine Calling

2008-02-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

Don't want to be identified when calling? To turn off your caller ID: Home>Settings>Phone>Show My Caller ID>OFF.

Maps: I Can See My House From Here

2008-02-03T04:22:00.000-08:00

Maps makes the punch line to this awful joke possible. In addition to a paper map view you also have the option of satellite and a hybrid view between the two that drops in location names over the satellite map. To change to the satellite, tap the Eye button. Double tap the screen to zoom in. You can zoom all the way down to see individual trees and cars. (While out of town I used it to catch the guy in the white BMW squatting in my parking space.) Tap with two fingers to zoom out.

While the satellite view may seem a true geek feature at first, it's extremely useful:

You'll find more practical uses in everyday life. My son was doing a project on the Sphinx, so he found a satellite view of it on his Touch.
Since more and more remote locations, like national parks have cell coverage, it can be used as a topographical map of the area.
Combined with the Locate button (the one with crosshairs) you may be able to find yourself if you truly get lost.

Note that the info on Google maps varies in quality and accuracy. It's just depends on what's available. Both satellites and planes are used to snag the aerial views. A few places, like Indiana , have intricately mapped out every inch of the state for really solid views. In other places you'll find that even big cities are not that good. Also the images are all of varying ages: from very recent to numerous years old. So even though you may see your car parked in your driveway, looking closely you may find it is your previous car.

Maps: Your Traffic Reporter

2008-02-03T04:05:00.000-08:00

Maps traffic feature is technology at its best. I'm fortunate to live in Cincinnati, a city that's had an advanced traffic system for years. Artimis has online cameras and a caller network that often lists accidents before the police even get there. Traffic on your iPhone reads like a traffic light:

Green: Clear
Yellow: Congested
Red: Stopped
Gray: Unknown

Your iPhone connects to traffic in about 80 major US cities.

Maps: Your Other Search Engine

2008-02-03T03:46:00.000-08:00

Maps uses the power of Google in a convenient package for some useful searches. Instead of just returning information, it returns geography. You can search the following:

Zip Codes
Addresses
Intersections
Businesses, like burgers spokane
Places like mt rushmore
GPS coordinates
Airport codes
Sometimes even works like white pages.

At the moment WiFi search isn't useful. It's easier to search a city and business that you know has free WiFi, like Dayton Panera. When you get a hit, tap the blue arrow. This gives you a tappable link to the Web site in Safari, directions plotting, an option add a Maps Bookmark for easy call up by the Bookmark button, the option to add the address to a contact.

Plotting a Route w/ Maps

2008-02-03T03:30:00.000-08:00

Maps can act as a digital Triptik. Provided you're within an Edge area Maps will plot every move of the trip with both written directions and visually on the map.

Press the Locate button.
Tap the Directions button.
Your location will appear as End.
Tap the Squiggle button. Your location is now in the Start field.
Tap the End field.
Enter the destination address and tap the Route button.
Tap the Start button. The map will magnify and give you the first step of the journey.
Press the right arrow button. This gives you the second leg.
Keep tapping the right arrow button. A you go, each turn will be highlighted by a purple circle.

Who's Calling?

2008-02-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you've tried the reverse phone lookups online, you know that they can be surprising useless. So many numbers are blocked that you seldom get a match.

But your iPhone already has it's own number detective. After you've received a call from a number not in Contacts, tap Recents and the the blue arrow. Your iPhone will reveal the state and larger cities where the calls are from based on the Area Code. You can do the same in voicemail to help narrow down who might have left you a message.

Creating a Google Doc

2008-02-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

Though Google Docs are not fully functional with iPhone, you can create them from a standard email message. On a desktop browser, those you share with can open them, edit them and download them in various file formats. From your desktop, sign up for Google Docs, log in and press the Upload button. At the bottom of the screen you'll see a lengthy email address. Copy and paste this in your Contacts and sync it with your iPhone. Anything you email to this address becomes a Google doc. The Subject is the title of the doc and the body becomes the content.

A cool feature is that you can add emphasis to your doc with standard html tags in your email:
For italic use <i>emphasized text</i>
For bold use <b>emphasized text</b>
For links use <a href="http://iphonesmarts.com/">shown text</a>
For email links use <a href="mailto:me@myselfandi.com">shown text</a>
These are the basics. Many other html tags also work.

View your docs online at Google Mobile. This becomes a convenient place online to store any doc that you commonly need to view.

Home Screen Photo Link

2008-02-02T04:45:00.000-08:00

Want of photo of your loved one(s) on your Home screen? (It makes them think you care.) If you have Web space you can create a Web clip for your desktop that turns the image into a thumbnail.

Copy the image to your Web space
Open it in Safari
Tap +
Tap Add to Home Screen

Now when you tap the icon of your loved one on your Home screen it will call up the full image in Safari. One caveat: if the site already has it's own Web icon, like some photo sites, you may get theirs instead of the screenshot of your image. A personal Web space, like .Mac, will only have a Web clip icon if you've installed it yourself.

You can also create a custom icon for of any image in your .Mac Web gallery. Just go to the photo on your iPhone and add it to your Home screen. When you tap the icon you'll be taken to that specific image in your gallery.

Mail Delete Cure

2008-01-31T04:11:00.000-08:00

Many people seem to have issues with deleting messages from the iPhone. Either they can't get the iPhone to delete the message from the server or the iPhone also deletes the mail from their desktop. The problem is that there are many variables: POP, IMAP, settings in mail on iPhone, settings in mail on desktop, etc.

Instead of taking an hour to change this in settings, I took a minute to change my attitude. I now think of Mail on my iPhone as a viewer, not a manager. After all your iPhone really is only set up to view a limited number of messages on your IMAP server.

I don't delete any messages. It's much easier and quicker to delete them from the desktop. I create, reply and forward from my iPhone. I just manage once I get home.

Avoid Junk Mail on MobileMe 

2008-01-31T03:59:00.000-08:00

If you enable your Junk Mail filter correctly you won't get garbage on your iPhone or it will disappear automatically. In your desktop Mail app:

Click Mail>Preferences>Junk.
Check Enable Junk Mail Filtering.
Click Move It To The Junk Mailbox.
Click on Accounts>Mailbox Behaviors.
Make sure Junk is not checked.
In Safari on your desktop sign into your MobileMe account and go to Mail>Preferences>General and make sure the Junk Mail box is not checked.

Save your Addresses

2008-01-31T03:18:00.000-08:00

Maps gives you an option to save an address with a contact. Once you find an address in Maps, tap the blue arrow and choose either Create New Contact or Add to Existing Contact. This can save you some typing.

Once in a contact, this becomes a tappable field that will bring up the address in Maps. This is a fast way to get directions to anyone in Contacts.

Send Email Again

2008-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Your iPhone doesn't really give you this feature, but you have an option to resend the same message without the telltale blue frame in the body. Type the email on your iPhone in Notes. Tap the Envelope icon and it becomes an email with the first line as the subject. This can be cleanly sent as many times as you like.

Birthdays in Calendar 

2008-01-30T02:43:00.000-08:00

On Mac, you can easily show birthdays in your iPhone's Calendar:

Add the birthday to the person's Contact info.
In iCal on your desktop, go to iCal>Preferences>General>check Show Birthdays in Calendar.
in iTunes on your desktop connect your iPhone and click on your iPhone in your Library list>Info tab>check the Birthday calendar.

Trouble: Battery

2008-01-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Better Battery Life Many things influence power drain on your iPhone:

Check for the tiny blue Play triangle at the top right of your iPhone screen, Sometimes your iPod can be running and you don't know it. Press the iPod icon and then hold the Home button for about 6 seconds to shut down the iPod.
A reset by holding Home and the Sleep button on the top right of your iPhone for about 10 seconds will dump out of all running apps.
Turning off WiFi can improve life when not connected to WiFi since your iPhone is searching for it continually.
Set Mail to retrieve once an hour or manually.
Press the Home button before sleeping your iPhone. If you have an app on screen that uses the Net, like Safari, Mail, Maps, Stock, Weather, etc, these will continually try to update and burn the battery down quickly.

Trouble: Sounds

2008-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Sound Disappears Though the headphones and ringtones work fine, the phone, speaker and system sounds are gone. It's a software bug that happens when you unplug your headphones while the iPod is playing. Plug the headphons back in, press Play and then press Pause. It should go away.

Trouble: Sync

2008-01-29T19:56:00.001-08:00

Sync Problems w/ Your Desktop like incomplete syncs and garbled photos are usually the results of USB issues. Make sure your iPhone is plugged directly into the USB port and not through a hub. Disconnect any other USB Devices. If you have scanner software running it may be looking for a USB device. Quit the software. Restart the computer with all other USB unplugged. Then sync again.

Trouble: Photos

2008-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

Too Many Photos Sometimes you'll get an alert that say you have have too many photos. This is often accompanied by your camera roll scrolling slowly. The problem is that the camera roll is really set up top be effective with about 100 photos. It's a good idea to sync and download them to your desktop before that point.

Photo Total Comes Up Short It's common that the Photo Library total is less than the sum total of the albums.

Trouble: Wifi

2008-01-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Wifi Frozen Clear Safari's cache by going to Home>Settings>Safari>Clear Cache.

Trouble: General

2008-01-29T19:48:00.000-08:00

Any Issue For just about any issue, restart your iPhone by holding both the Home and Sleep button (top right) together for about 7 seconds. Ignore the prompt. The Apple logo will appear letting you know your iPhone has restarted. Your data is safe. This is equivalent to restarting your desktop computer. If this doesn't work, try restoring. After you have connected your iPhone to your desktop, wait for the sync to finish. Click on the Sync button. Let it finish again. Click on the Restore button.

App Frozen Hold the Home button for about 6 seconds. This force-quits the app.

General Slugishness Like OSX, your iPhone can run many apps at once. For that matter, it's running all the apps you've started up since your last reset. You can exit apps you're not using by holding down the Home button while in that app. This will improve both speed and battery life. To turn off all apps at once, hold the Home and the Sleep button on the top right of your iPhone for about 10 seconds.

Clear SMS Messages

2008-01-29T17:12:00.000-08:00

To clear the conversation but leave the header use the Clear button
inside the conversation. This works like a favorites list of people
you regularly text.

To delete the header too use the Edit button on the main SMS screen.

Saving Drafts in Mail

2008-01-29T13:17:00.000-08:00

Saving a draft is intuitive but not obvious at first. When composing just press the Cancel button. Then choose Save.

Make Sites iPhone Friendly w/ Web Clips

2008-01-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

Web clips allow you to bookmark sites with an icon on your Home screen. This is very useful for those who use their iPhone for a dozen sites they regularly visit, since 16 will fit on their own page of your Home Screen. While this in itself is cool, the best function of these is that you can zoom in on a portion of a page. When you launch your Web clip from the Home screen it's pre-zoomed so you don't have to resize the page to read it. This trick works extremely well with Apple's discussion sites. If you zoom in on the top of the list of posts, they're legible without having to manually zoom or tap each time you go to the page. When you page back to this page, they remain zoomed in.

Go to a site you want to clip in your iPhone's Safari.
Tap or pinch to zoom in on the area you want to focus on.
Press the + button.
Choose Add to Home Screen.

It's convenient to create a second Home screen of Web clip icons so your top 16 sites are quickly accessible. Hold a newly-created web clip until it wiggles and drag it off the right side of the screen to the second page. Press the Home button when done.

Mailing w/o Wifi

2008-01-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a trick you can do if you're on IMAP mail and need to send an email with attachments from your laptop when you're not near WiFi and your iPhone can connect with Edge.

Create the mail with the attachment on your laptop.
Save it as a Draft.
Sync your iPhone.
Find the email in the Drafts folder on your iPhone and send it.

You may find that some attachments are too large for Edge to send.

Recover Backup Data 

2008-01-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

iPhone does backup files each time you sync. If you've deleted something on your iPhone and haven't yet synced, you can retrieve the info from the backup. On Mac the folder is Username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. Inside this folder you'll find numerous files. The ones that are larger than 4K usually contain data, like Notes, Calendar, and SMS. You'll have to fish. Drag the suspected file to TextEdit. You'll see what the file is in the first line. You can highlight and copy the hunk of text out from this mess.

Archive Text Messages 

2008-01-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

Your iPhone stores thousands of text messages. This seems like a lot until you realize how quickly a few threads fill up with hundreds of messages each. If you're on Mac, there's a nice little freeware utility called SyPhone that archives your SMS messages for you. Once you start it up, it will back up your iPhone's SMS messages through a helper app, so you don't even need to think about it. When you open SyPhone you can view all these messages in threads like on your iPhone.

SyPhone works by copying the messages from the backup of iPhone that iTunes makes each time you sync, so make sure you've recently connected before deleting new messages you want to save.

Apple Bluetooth Headset Quirk

2008-01-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

Strange thing, but the iPhone Bluetooth headset has a unique allegiance. As long as there's an iPhone around, it won't work with anything else. Here's my case in point: I linked mine with my Mac for use use with Skype. But the moment the iPhone was in the dual dock with it, it paired with my iPhone and unpaired with the Mac. A call to Applecare got the admission that if an iPhone is in the area, the BT Headset will pair with it and forget whatever else it may already be pared with. So if you planned on using your iPhone BT with anything else, forget it.

iPhone Bluetooth Headset

2008-01-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

Review: Good, bad but not at all ugly.

The bad:

The headsets have no real noise cancelling power. I you're in a noisy environment, expect you'll have to talk a little louder.
The range between you and your iPhone is minimal. This isn't normally a problem if your iphone is in your pocket or strapped to you, but you can't get more than 10 feet away from your phone without the signal breaking up. Most other high end sets have about a 30 foot range.
Battery life is reportedly short. But I've never had any problems with it on a normal day, even when it sits in the car in the cold.

The good:

For all the complaints on the Web about the Apple BT, it does have it's place.
It was made for your iPhone. It pairs with your iPhone automatically when you put them both in the dock. This minimizes connection problems.
It's tiny, comfortable and stays in your ear. This can be a problem with other bugs, all others I tried. (A 'bug' is a headset with no loop. A 'tick' has a loop. Those names are offical BT slang, so people will think you rock if you use them.)
It sounds great. With iPod technology behind it, it doesn't sound tiny like other sets I tried.
It comes with the dual dock so you can charge your BT and iPod at the same time. In many scathing reviews, this is an overlooked convenience factor.
Another convenience factor is that it has one button. That's it. No volume controls or other gizmos to accidentally press. Other tiny sets I tried made it almost impossible to answer a call without pressing another control. To control volume, use the volume rocker on your iPhone.

Conclusion: Not the greatest on the market or the most technologically advanced and it's pricey. But it does a good job at what it's supposed to do. And it's simple. I love that. Also it looks simplistically non-geeky, like you'd expect from Apple.

I bought the Apple BT and took it back. I then bought three other headsets in the same price range and below. The Samsung had a better range, but sounded tiny and wouldn't stay in my ear. Plus it had volume buttons you couldn't help but mis-hit. The Jabra was cheap but had a noise gate that required me to yell just to be heard and used a huge AAA battery. It seemed like it weighted as much as the iPhone and wouldn't stay in my ear either. Realizing that the grass wasn't any greener, I bought the Apple BT again.

Ear Buds: Ear Jams

2008-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

Currently there are few options for in-ear iPhone buds with remote controls. There's only one set on the market, the Vibe Duo. But actually thanks to a little clever ingenuity there are two. Griffin's Ear Jams will convert your standard iPhone buds to in-ear. These boost the bass response and raise the volume by about 10db. They're also comfortable and cancel out some noise.

But you can't just buy any Griffin Ear Jams. There are two kinds. They have the same model number so it makes it harder to tell them apart. The older models only worked on the first generation iPod headphones. The new Ear Jams have fittings for both. The only way to tell that you're getting the right ones is to make sure you see four white ear pieces through the clear plastic package. The older models, which won't fit, had only two. That's why I'd recommend you not buy them off the Net. I found mine at Radio Shack.

These retail for $20 and come with three sizes of silicone pads, the old ear jams (which might be useful on old style headphones for an iPod) and a very nice little case that no one ever uses.

I bought them specifically because the standard bud for my iPhone was falling out of my left ear. Not anymore. Since they're louder, when you turn them down to a normal level, you'll also get better battery life from your iPhone. The sound is really bassy. If it's distorted change your EQ setting on the iPhone to tame the bass. I like the Acoustic setting, which gives you a nice bit of high end presence.

For those who want some more high end options that have a remote, the Ear Jams may be a good interim measure while you wait for them to hit the market.

Ear Buds: The Remote

2008-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

On the iPhone's ear buds the mic and remote control are almost unnoticeable. Once you get used to them you'll be miffed that only one other brand has the same setup so far. On the right cord is a tiny strip with a hole in it. The hole contains a crisp little mic. Squeeze the center of strip to operate the clicker. Operation is not complex, but well thought out:

Click once to pause or play your iPod. If you click once while there's an incoming call, this answers the phone. Click once when done to go back to your music.
Click twice to skip to the next song. This works on videos to skip to the next chapter.
Hold the strip for two seconds to put an incoming call into voice mail without answering.

Cool. The downside of these new earbuds is that they don't stay in your ears as well. I'm thinking of having plastic surgery to my left ear for a better fit. Or maybe I'll just ask Hans, my local tattoo and body piercing artist, if he could mount the clicker on an earring. Way cool.

I hope you know I'm kidding. My local tattoo artist is named Vinnie.

International Keyboard

2008-01-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

Your iPhone has advanced international keyboard support. Go to Settings>General>Keyboard>International Keyboard to set it.

Even with the good old English keyboard many international characters are available. The characters eyuioaslzcn?! all have foreign characters available by holding the key. Then just slide your finger to the accented character you want.

Kill the Keyboard Click

2008-01-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

Some find the keyboard clicking annoying, but I find it useful in giving you confirmation that you have indeed pressed a key. You can turn it off permenantly by going to Settings>Sounds>Keyboards Clicks off. But if you just need to turn it off temporarily, like those moments that you don't want your significant other to know you're texting your bookie in church, just turn the ringer switch at the top of the left side of your iPhone off. This silences the clicks too.

Secrets of Auto Suggest

2008-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Auto-suggest works like a real-time spell checker on your iPhone and is only visible when it pops up a word suggestion in Email, Notes or other apps. It's a little confusing at first: if it makes a suggestion and you type a space after the word, it accepts it whether you wanted it or not. To keep it from doing this, you must press the x by the suggested word to dismiss it. Seems backwards, but as time goes by its accuracy improves and you'll find you're dismissing less and less.

No, it's not your imagination. It learns to be more accurate for your typing. Auto-suggest takes words from a list built into memory, from your address book and from a user-built list. And you're the user who's been building this list from the first time you typed on your iPhone. The second time you dismissed a word, used the space bar, used punctuation or typed a return, iPhone has added your unrecognized words to the list. Also when you 've dismissed a suggestion twice the phone will no longer suggest it.

The reality is that if you've made a flub, you may actually start seeing the flub as a suggested spelling. But not to fear, autosuggest ranks words according to use. Since you never use the flub it will keep ranking the flub lower on the list and eventually stop suggesting it.

If you've really messed up the first few days you had your iPhone, you can delete the user auto-suggest list: go to Home>Settings>General>Reset>Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

On the other hand if you want to improve your odds off the bat, create a seed list. Just create a new Contact on your iPhone and type into the note field the words you want to add, each separated by a space. Since it scans your Contacts as a word source, it will suggest these words. If you use a lot of technical terms, slang or SMS abbreviations, this will greatly improve your typing speed. You can seed these words by typing them into a Contact entry on your desktop and then sync if to your iPhone.

Another point on the keyboard is that your iPhone guesses what you're trying to type based on the keys around where you hit. So if you missed a key in the middle of the word, it will determine what keys you could have been trying for based on the frequency of words you use instead of one that's more commonly used. Type ouzza and you get pizza. So even when you type fast and flub, many times auto-suggest has you covered.

It has been reported on the Net that will contractions like he'll and I'll require you to type a third l so it can determine them from will and ill. However, if you just type them in manually twice or store them in a Contact notes field they'll become suggestions. Just like they'll.

And another thing: The keyboard actually increases the size of the touch area for keys based on what it expects you'll type. So when you type tim it enlarges the area of the e key since w and r are not likely candidates.

What all this mean is that once you get moving with the iPhone keyboard not only do you improve, but your iPhone improves too.

Keyboard Shortcuts

2008-01-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

Typing on the iPhone is faster than you'd think. By following a few tips you'll be surprised how fast you can move accurately.

Double tap the space bar to add a period, space and start a new sentence with a cap. This is so useful that you'll miss it on your desktop.
Instead of pressing Shift key, hold it and slide to the character you want on the numbers keyboard. This types the character and returns the keyboard to QWERTY.
From the Number keyboard, a space automatically returns you to the QWERTY keyboard.
The dictionary makes suggestions for mistakes and to complete words. When the suggestion is correct, press the space bar to accept. It will finish the word and add a space. Press the space bar twice to accept and it adds a period. If you don't like the suggestion, press the x to dismiss it.
If you mistype a letter, with your finger still on the key, just slide it to the correct key.
Type contractions without the apostrophe. The dictionary will suggest a correction for you. We'll and we're need the contraction added manually. To get to Hell (only literarily) touch the original word above the correction before typing the space.
Delete deletes a character. Holding it deletes backwards through many letters. Holding it longer will start deleting words.
For better accuracy, type normally with a fearless press of your finger. When you type hesitantly and daintily with the tip, you'll get more mistakes.
Correct with the magnifier. Hold your finger over the mistake and the magnifier appears. Moving your finger moves the cursor.
From the number keyboard there's a third keyboard available by pressing the #+= cursing key. These are the even lesser-used characters.
Enable caps lock from Home>Settings>General>Keyboard>Enable Caps Lock. Caps lock shows as blue when you double-tap on the cap key.
When the .com key is visible you can hold it down and .org, .net and .edu appear as a list. Slide your finger over the domain and let go to accept. This also works by holding the period on any alphabetical kb where the @ appears.
Hold down the quote or apostrophe key for smart quotes.
Benchmark yourself. This app will help you test your speed.

Eventually your cries for a Bluetooth keyboard will diminish, or be squelched out by your adeptness.

Redeeming Gift Cards

2008-01-27T14:17:00.000-08:00

In addition to purchasing music on your iPhone, you can redeem gift cards directly.

Tap Downloads.
Tap Redeem.
Enter code.
Tap Redeem.

Backing Up iPhone Purchases

2008-01-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

You can buy music directly on your iPhone through Wifi. So if you hear a song on the way to your local Wifi-connected hangout and you have to have the song, you can buy and download the track once you're there. But be aware that this song is only on your iPhone and not automatically synced with your iTunes library. You'll need to do that manually. Back at your desktop:

Put your iPhone in the dock.
File menu>Transfer Purchases From "Username's iPod".

It's always a good idea to back up all your iTunes purchases on a CD or DVD. The iTunes store will only let you download them once.