Some General iPhone tips & tricks
UPDATES:
3/20/09 More Ringtones added
11/18/08 Two great new app suggestions (Google Mobile & Typing Genius) & added Contents List
11/6/08 Added info about the following apps: RjDj, Bloom, iProRecorder, Google Earth, Box.net, Pano, OurStage, LifeCast, tracydanger blog. Added more links & some more tips & tricks
10/15/08 Added screen shots of music apps & added more links where appropriate
10/15/08 Music section updated (somaFM web app)
10/13/08 Ringtones & Wallpapers added
Contents
Disclaimer
Free Apps
Web Apps
Free Native Apps
Paid Native Apps
Music
Movies
Games
Tips
Ringtones
Wallpapers
Home Screen
Disclaimer
I'm gonna try to make this as thorough and succinct at the same
time as I can. I'm also trying to compose it in such a way that it can
be used as a reference. I'm also trying to write from the perspective
that the reader doesn't know much at all about the iphone. Hopefully you find it easy to explore & quickly scan with the headings; there's plenty of content here.
I've added links to some of this stuff so you can easily access it
whilst on your iphone & not have to type in cumbersome web
addresses (especially for the web apps). Click on any screen shot to get a larger image.
Free Apps
There are two types of free apps: web based apps & native apps. All web based apps are free.
There are also two types of native apps: free & paid.
Just
because there are now native applications for the iphone, doesn't mean
there are not still plenty of great web apps available (when the iPhone first came out there were no third party native apps to be had). A native app is
one that is locally on your iphone and a 'web app' is actually a
website, viewed in safari that is 1. optimized to work on your iphone
2. meant to act like an application & 3. something you can bookmark
on your homescreen and access straight from there instead of always
going into safari & typing in the address.
Web Apps
You can go to http://www.apple.com/webapps/
to browse many web apps available for iphone. When you go to the
address of a web app, simply press the plus sign at the bottom of the
page, then click 'Add to Home Screen'. At this point you can rename the
web app (which is recommended for longer names, so that it all fits
under the icon that you'll end up with on your homescreen. There are
other pools of web apps available (do a google search), but I tend to
end up using apple's website to find them.
The other advantage of web apps is that they do not take up any
more storage space on your iphone. Some of these below have a native
app version that I just don't care to have because I think the web app
is sufficient.
Web apps I like:
OneTrip - grocery lists, other lists, add your own items - it somehow even remembers your list if you close it out.
Seeqpod - I'll talk more about this under the music section
Digg - great social news website with an emphasis on tech (I actually have digg's apple page as a homescreen bookmark)
Google
- From here, get to any google apps you may use (calendar, reader,
docs, etc) or check out your iGoogle homepage from a link on this page.
iGoogle is a useful tool for your desktop browser you can set as a
homepage & use a plethora of widgets & rss feeds and even make
multiple tabs for different categories of things your interested in. If
you use it on your desktop, then it will also be useful on your iphone.
iConvert - conversion tool
Wikipedia
Dictionary
Yellowbook
Box.net - online storage - a good way to access office files & PDFs
ESPN
NBC.com (actual full episodes)
ABC.com
CBS.com
Fox News (regular FOX network mobile site needs drastic improvement, abc & cbs need more improvement to be useful)
iNetflix - netflix for your iphone
WeatherBug - I got this 'cause it shows radar
Totally
- (search google, yahoo, wikipedia, technorati, Mirriam-Webster,
events, sports, dining, cenema listings, imdb, music, shopping [amazon,
ebay, craigslist], news sites, images, tools) - seems pretty
comprehensive & I need to use it more because I think it could
easily take the place of quite a few other things listed above (because they're incorporated into this webapp)
Superpages - seems to have a similar goal to Totally (yeahnototally)
Wakoopa - search web apps from your iphone
Quick Apps - opens up a webpage made to (kinda) look like your home screen with a whole bunch of other web apps
Woot - tech deals
Price.is - look up prices of things
Congress - phone your congress person
Twitter - twitter for your iphone
Chords - shows you any guitar chord
tracydanger - this is actually my blog, but if you bookmark it on your home screen, you'll get a custom icon just like a web app.
Again, you can find a ton of web apps at Apple's web app site.
Free Native Apps
All of these I recommend, you can find by searching the itunes store.
Google Mobile - just had a significant update now you can speak an internet search query - no typing needed which is awesome. If you do type the search it searches your phone (contacts, calendar, etc) as well as the internet. You can even speak an address and if you click on the results, it will take you into the maps app for directions.
Evernote - your external brain - go to there website to figure out everything it does - highly recommended.
Palringo - meta chat program (gtalk, AIM, etc.). Negates the need for the AIM app.
Facebook - if you use facebook, get this app
Trailguru-
for avid runners/hikers - uses GPS to keep track of MPH, pace,
distance, etc, etc. Then you can view your route in google maps/google
earth on your desktop (much more too related to the trailguru online
community). I've noticed that this doesn't work well for me when I run down in the valley, but other places it works perfect.
Remote - also highly recommended. Control iTunes from your
iphone - very useful if you have your house wired for sound &
plugged into your computer.
Stanza - good e-book reader. access tons of free books
Bible
- In the settings, you can download offline translations (also, go to
'More', click edit & change the toolbar to have Books, Search &
Settings in the toolbar to make for easier navigation)
Wi-Fi Finder - Probably useful if you've got a laptop. This is a web app. If you care more about this, I recommend searching the app store because I know there are more robust options available - this just happens to be free & sufficient for me. You can also narrow your search to only include free wi-fi hotspots.
ShoZu
- Serves many purposes related to social networking. Check out the
itunes store page to see if you think it'd be useful. I'm still trying
it out.
Paid Native Apps (non-music)
iProRecorder - Top notch recorder. Evernote is good for general things, but if you want a robust recorder (for only a buck) made by BIAS, get this. Adjust playback speed, a jog wheel for scrubbing, change recording quality. It records well even picking up soft audio. Only drawback - you gotta e-mail the file to yourself & it only allows certain size uploads, so don't expect to use it for a three hour lecture if you need to upload it to your computer. That being said, it'll play back totally fine if you just play it back on the iphone (which should be most situations).
Google Earth - Google Earth for your iPhone!
Box.net - Access all your box.net files even better with this native version. Play your uploaded music files from here (not that this feature matters if you have SimplifyMedia).
Pano - Allows you to take panoramic pics using your iPhone. LifeCast - Decent app for posting to your blog. I'd rather have Blogger give a better option than their current e-mail-to-blog solution, that is, I wish Blogger had a native app, because with LifeCast or ShoZu or others, it sticks a little "Posted using LifeCast (or whatever)" at the bottom of each post. I thought I might as well show this option just so you know their are options out there. Typing Genius - A great app for practicing your typing on the iPhone with over 50 exercises. Do regular and landscape. You can measure your speed & track your progress. There are also some great tips that will have you typing faster instantly.
Music - This stuff below is probably
the most used stuff on my iPhone - some really awesome apps deserving
their own section. Several of these require accounts on a website and
are very much worth it (as in - totally free & worth the effort to create a username & password).
Simplify Media
- If you only download one app, make it this one (only free to the
first 100,000 people, then like $3 after that, but it'd be worth $20). Access every song that's
on your computer, basically makes your computer an infinite capacity
ipod. Because of this app, I no longer need to spend $250-$300 to
replace the 80 gig iPod classic that was stolen. Not only that, access
the music libraries of up to 30 friends. My user name is tracydanger -
so invite me as a friend & you can access my 40 gigs worth of
music. The desktop application works similarly to shared libraries in
iTunes. I actually put this on the permanent launch bar "dock" on my
iPhone because I use it more than the iPod app.
Pandora - Create radio stations based off of your liking.
It will continue to refine your stations every time you give a thumbs
up or down. Go to pandora.com
if you haven't before. Learn about the Music Genome Project. I get tons of use out of this, but it's better that you experience it rather than get a lengthy explanation from me about it.
Seeqpod - Crawls the web for mp3s. Find just about any song. When you go to seeqpod.com
on your desktop, create playlists that you can access on the iPhone,
making your iphone use the entire internet as your iphone's capacity.
I got a personal e-mail response from the developers saying they're gonna make a version (possibly native) that
will go from song to song automatically, which will make it totally
awesome (currently once a song is done, it goes back to your playlist).
Last.fm - social music discovery. More useful with a free account (like most of these). I can tell there are more features to this service that I've yet to take advantage of (e.g. creating playlists & stations & favorites & social networking features, etc). As you can see from the screen shot, there's a label to show if a particular band is currently on tour - that's pretty cool.
Tuner Internet Radio
- I got this because I wanted to be able to listen to Way FM out of
Nashville anywhere (like in my car). It was worth $5.99 to me. It has
plenty of stations already, but the feature I wanted (and couldn't find elsewhere) was that you can type in the URL of any online
streaming station to hear it. Once playing you can bookmark it, so you only type in the URL once.
AOL Radio - Free & just a bunch more stations (categorized). One nice feature is that it will find streams of local over-the-air stations.
SomaFM - SomaFM has some great downtempo music. This is a web app. If you wanna check out any of these streams, they are all available in the desktop iTunes player. Just go to 'Radio' in the left side bar, then look under Ambient or Electronic and look for stations that say "...on Soma FM" - I recommend checking out Groove Salad and Secret Agent streams. Some of these are great for background music when doing work.
Sticher - imagine Pandora for talk radio. I like this. It takes different talk radio type podcasts centered around a given topic and stiches them together one after another to give you the latest news or info on things you're interested in. There are many topics but I'll list a few to give you an idea of what it may cover: Election '08, Fantasy Football, News & Politics, Apple & Mac, Arts & culture, Business & Finance, Comedy, Music & Talk, Public Radio (like NPR podcasts), Health & Fitness, etc.
OurStage - Really cool way to discover new music. Indie artists post music & users vote on it. You can participate in voting or just use it as a way to discover new music. Tons of categories, like over 50 - e.g. techno, Christian, Psychobilly, Ambient, Gangsta Rap, etc. Imagine putting American Idol, Pandora and digg.com in a blender.
Shazam
- pretty sweet. Have your iPhone listen to a song playing out in the
wild (like in a restaurant) & it will identify it, tell the name,
artist, etc & give you the opportunity to buy it in itunes or watch
it on youtube.
midomi - much like Shazam, but you can wistle or hum a tune or type in or say a song title and it'll ID it too. Like Shazam, you're given the opportunity to see a YouTube video or buy from iTunes. You can also get Artist or Album info. Admittedly, this seems to have more functionality, but for simple song tagging 'in the wild' I prefer the interface on Shazam.
RjDj - adds effects to your environment. The world becomes a song. I think it must be experienced. You could say it's like a trip minus the drugs. There's a free version if you just wanna try it out. Also, there's some way to add scenes that I've yet to figure out.
Bloom - cool in a similar way to rjdj. Created, in part, by Brian Eno, a pioneer in ambient music, it makes your iPhone an intuitive instrument. They describe it as a 'generative music player'.
Movies
Showtimes (native app) my favorite so far for quickly looking up times & theaters. I've pretty much been using this as my defalut and recently deleted the other two, but there here as options. Fandango (web app)
Movies (native app) seems good for a movie lover - much more than just looking up times
Games
Games I purchased:
Monkey Ball - quite fun
Enigmo - good Rube Goldberg type puzzle game, cool graphics
Cro-Mag Rally
LineRider - this is pretty cool. Create a course for this little dude on a sled. Check out the online flash version here.
Free ones I recommend trying:
Labyrinth LE
Othello (several versions) Sudoku (several versions)
Dice - cool 3D & vibration effects
Moonlight Mahjong - 3D
reMovem
Tips
I highly recommend watching the guided tour (link) from apple's website, so I'll skip a bunch of very useful tips & tricks shared in that video.
Things I decided to have in my perminant dock for quick access: Simplify Media, Mail, Setttings & Camera.
Settings
because I want to quickly access turning Wi-Fi off & on, changing
my ringtone, brightness, wallpaper & turning auto-lock to "never"
under the "General" tab.
Contacts - On a Mac, in Address Book you can customize the names of
phones (useful for families with multiple phones), so for instance,
instead of going to my sister's family info (Jamie & VIrgil Vaduva)
and seeing "Home, Mobile, Mobile" for their lables, I see "Home,
Virgil's Cell & Jamie's Cell" I find that very useful - especially
when making out my Favorites list on my phone.
When on any homescreen on your iphone, double tap the Home button
to go directly to the Favorites section of your Contacts - because of this feature, I don't find it
necessary to keep the phone icon in the dock.
I highly recommend clear armor
for your phone. Ash & I have it & it's basically invisible, but
very tough. Check out the site to find out more. Only $20 & uses a
material used on Apache helicopters in desert storm.
There's a way to make customized webclips (icons for your web apps). Go here on your iphone & follow the complicated instructions. Here is the website that tells about it. Really cool if you have a website you wanna bookmark on your homepage, but they don't provide an icon.
When searching for apps in the iTunes app store, there are a couple of ways to 'power search'. Any time your in the iTunes store, and you use the search in the upper right of the iTunes application, it'll give all these results. From there, click "Power Search" then in the drop-down menu, select "Applications". For another option, when on the front page of the iTunes store, click on App Store in the side bar in the upper left. Then in the iTunes menu click View > Show Browser (or "command + B" on a mac or I assume "Control + B" in windows). This show a long list of nothing but the title of apps - by category.
Ringtones*
If you weren't aware, you can go to any given contact & choose a specific song for when they ring you. Some of these, I use for my alarm clock. To add any of these ringtones, simply download them, then drag them to the ringtones section in iTunes.
All This Time Still Falling (Erasure)
Bizzar Love Triangle (New Order)
Dr. Who (Theme Song)
Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
Gimme Gimme Gimme (ABBA)
Good Morning (Beatles)
Grease (Theme Song)
Halloween (Theme Song)
I love Saturday (Erasure)
Im Only Sleeping (Beatles)
Inspector Gadget (Theme Song)
It is You (Newsboys - this has consistently been my favorite ringtone)
A Little Respect (Erasure)
Mais Que Nada (Brazil 66)
Never Gonna Give You Up (if you wanna get Rick Rolled when someone calls)
Dragostea Din Tei (O-Zone)
One Week (Bare Naked Ladies)
Oxygen (The Echoing Green)
Ring Ring (Abba)
Scooby Doo (Theme Song)
Sonata in D Major (Michael W. Smith)
Super Mario Bros (Theme Song)
This Day (Audio A)
Total Eclipse of the Heart (Nicki French)
Twighlight Zone (Underground Spell)
Voulez-Vous (Erasure - Abba cover)
Waiting Room (La Rue)
You Spin Me Right Round (Dead or Alive)
Young Folks (Peter Bjorn and John)
More Ringtones (added 3/20/09)
Never Gonna Be Alone (FFH)
Safety Dance (The Echoing Green)
Say The Words (DC Talk)
Wallpapers*
There are tons of free wallpapers online (just google "iphone wallpaper(s)"). Below is a selection of wallpapers as well as a link to one site with a HUGE selection of iphone wallpapers. It's also very easy create your own. Just take a pic or desktop wallpaper you like & crop it to the size of your iphone (320 x 480 px). Another option is to simply open up a pic or wallpaper that you've loaded onto your iphone & resize & crop directly from the iphone. When you select any pic for a wallpaper, you're given that option.
http://www.thememyphone.com/index.php
Home Screen - I'm adding these below to give an example of how you could organize your home screens. By the time you read this, mine will have changed already, but I have a "Home" home screen for the apps I use most, then one for all music related apps, one for video, one for Games & some others that could best be described as Miscellanious because there is not a solid theme - maybe just 'second most used set of apps' or 'apps I may end up deleting'. If you find yourself doing some major over-hauling of your screens, I've heard a tip that I've yet to take advantage of: empty the permanent dock area and put four apps you want to move down there, scroll over to the screen you want them to be on & move them up. When you're done, put the apps you want back in the dock. This would save a lot of time over doing each icon one at a time.
