Notes, Finally

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.

Mass Mailing Photos

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.

Mailing Full-Size Photos & lots of them

• 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.

Notes Supports Links

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.

Big Brother 

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.

Silencing Email at Night

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

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.

• 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.

Spotlight

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

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

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

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

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.

Setting Up GoDaddy Mail

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

FreeFi Tips

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.

Change Shifts

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

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.

Creating a Google Doc

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.

Mail Delete Cure

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 

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.