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July 2007 Archives
Jul 1, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 9:22 AM ETOut on the streets
Well, not really out on the streets. Yesterday (Saturday), I took the iPhone to my daughter’s birthday celebration at a local kids gym—basically a large room with padded walls and floor, and lots of things to climb on, swing from, and jump off of. We had about 20 parents there,...
Jul 1, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 9:31 AM ET
Blue over Bluetooth
Yesterday, Dan Moren wrote about Bluetooth, and included this small summary of the iPhone to Mac Bluetooth connectivity: “I also decided to try and pair my iPhone with my MacBook to see if I could wirelessly sync my contacts via Bluetooth. The short answer? Not so much. The iPhone will...
Jul 1, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 4:19 PM ET
Holey docks!
A question I've seen a number of times over the past few days goes something like, "Why does the iPhone's dock have holes in the bottom? (See the image to the left.) After all, docks for "real" iPods don't have these holes, right? Well, sure -- but "real" iPods...
Jul 1, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 4:26 PM ET
You and your iPod accessories
If, like me, you've got a fair collection of accessories for your iPod, you may be as pleasantly surprised as I was when I leapt into the Breen Bugser and, on a whim because my iPhone's charge was down to about half, jacked the thing into the car's DLO TransPod....
Jul 2, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 12:05 PM ET
A simple iPhone case alternative
While I wait a bit to see what comes along in the way of cases for the iPhone, I wanted something to protect the iPhone from general abuse. On a lark, I slipped the iPhone into the felt-like case that’s bundled with the current iPods. As you can see in...
Jul 2, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 5:19 PM ET
A real, live tip! Reveal link URLs
Actual tips and tricks for the iPhone have been hard to come by; most of its functionality is right there, out in the open. But here's something worth noting: In Safari on the iPhone, holding your finger down on a link pops up a balloon displaying the underlying URL....
Jul 2, 2007 - Posted by Jim Dalrymple at 6:48 PM ET
A tip for using predictive typing
I've talked to several people that are having some difficulty using the iPhone's predictive typing feature. Here's a tip that may help you if you're having trouble using it. Predictive typing is easily one of the best features on the iPhone, but you have to let it do it's job....
Jul 2, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 6:50 PM ET
iPhone headphone surgery
As has been noted in nearly every writeup about the iPhone, the headphone jack is recessed. This design decision (apparently necessary due to some element of the iPhone’s design) means that most headphones won’t fit into the port. The list of victims includes my beloved Bose QC2 noise cancelling headphones....
Jul 3, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 12:36 PM ET
Relief pitchers need gadgets too
The gent to the left is Brad Hennessey, a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. Like many of you -- 700,000 of you, if one analyst's projections prove correct -- he's now the proud owner of an iPhone. Unlike many of you, he picked his up almost immediately after taking...
Jul 3, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 1:55 PM ET
Keeping it low-key in Colma
Over the weekend, you might have seen Shawn King's video report from the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York. Big crowds, big excitement -- a carnival-like atmosphere with cheering Apple Store employees. We've got the B-side of that experience today, courtesy of Macworld assistant editor Brian Chen. Last week,...
Jul 3, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 11:17 PM ET
Quick and easy period key shortcut
In this post on the Missing Manual website, David Pogue provides (courtesy of one Andrew McCallum) the neatest iPhone trick I’ve yet seen. Basically, you can type a period with ease if you simply press the ‘.?123’ key, then keep your finger on the screen and just slide it up...
Jul 4, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 12:07 AM ET
The inevitable free iPhone scams
With the release of the iPhone comes, as expected, the offers of free iPhones, very much like the same poisonous offers that infected the Web when the iPod became the device to own. And with those offers come this admonition: Stay away, it's a scam. "No, no," the scammers will...
Jul 5, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 4:30 PM ET
Rebooting the iPhone
After conducting a music playtime test on my iPhone (hint: at least on my iPhone, Apple's 24-hour estimate is a little, erm... generous) my iPhone's battery was good and drained. I plugged it back in and after checking on it a couple of hours later, I found an unresponsive iPhone....
Jul 6, 2007 - Posted by Jonathan Seff at 12:46 PM ET
Syncing notes with the iPhone
On my Treo 650, I used to sync notes between its Memos app and a desktop application using The Missing Sync, but of course you can't sync the iPhone's Notes application with anything. Then it occurred to me that each contact has a notes field, so I created a fake...
Jul 6, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 3:18 PM ET
Signing off
No phrase sends me into a fit of envy quite like the one you see on the left -- "Sent from my iPhone." Anyone who's bought a phone -- or who's received an e-mail from the aforementioned lucky so-and-sos -- will recognize that as the default signature that appears on...
Jul 6, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 8:18 PM ET
The limits of Add Call
One of the many great touches to the iPhone is the ease with which it handles conference calls. Here's how we described it in our iPhone FAQ: To initiate a conference call, make your first call as normal and then and tap the Add Call button—you can choose a person...
Jul 7, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 4:55 PM ET
"iChat" via SMS
Reader Keith has asked us to weigh in on AOL's Mobile AOL Instant Messaging (Mobile AIM) service as an alternative to "real" iChat on the iPhone. The way Mobile AIM works is that after signing up for a Mobile AIM account (or registering your current iChat/AIM account), you can...
Jul 8, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 5:07 PM ET
"Sleep" vs. Shutting down
We've received a few questions about the iPhone's sleep mode; specifically, how it compares to actually shutting down the phone. Here's the 411: When you shut down--by holding down the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds and then swiping the red slider control that appears--the iPhone is completely turned off....
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:06 AM ET
Say cheese
Ahoy. Having spent most of the last week in an undisclosed location that lacked not only Wi-Fi but pretty much any shred of cell phone reception, I've been suffering from the dreaded "half-an-iPhone" syndrome: when showing off the iPhone to the a large number of relatives, I had to continually...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:05 AM ET
A compliment and a complaint for Safari
Adapting Safari to work for the iPhone's interface is no small feat, and by and large, the Apple engineers have done a pretty good job of taking a point-and-click interface to a tap-and-scroll interface. Drop-down menus (HTML <select> elements), are a great example. Choosing the right option would be difficult...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:17 PM ET
Go to the head of the page
Just in case you don't happen to read our excellent Mac OS X Hints site, I thought I'd pass along this excellent tip submitted there by user ckontyko:When browsing a web page in Safari on an iPhone, one tap of the top status bar (signal strength, time, etc.) brings you...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 2:33 PM ET
Custom duty: creating and getting rid of custom labels
Readers Rob and Katy have a question for us:When you edit a contact's phone number or email address, you have the ability to "Add Custom Label". I created one, and now I want to delete it. How?Excellent question, guys. First, a little background. The iPhone's contact management system is very...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:39 PM ET
iPhone's Calendar stays up-to-date
Over at our Mac Gems weblog, our own Dan Frakes has pointed out a solution to make iCal's dock icon always show the current date, reminding me about one of the nice subtle touches that Apple put into the iPhone: the calendar icon on the home screen always shows the...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 4:18 PM ET
iPhone's VPN is a curmudgeon: forgets your password, won't accept letters
As much as we like the iPhone, it's obvious that it has its share of shortcomings. Fortunately, most of those fall under the heading of "missing features" rather than outright bugs. That doesn't mean it doesn't have examples of the latter as well. Reader Lindsay sent us a question about...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 5:53 PM ET
The iPhone and iPod accessories
Many reader questions we receive relate to the iPhone's accessory compatibility. Given that the iPhone includes the same 30-pin dock-connector port found on current (non-shuffle) iPods, you would think (or at least hope) that the iPod gear you've purchased over the years will also work with your shiny new phone....
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 7:25 PM ET
Attack of the iPhone app launchers
It's really amazing how quickly iPhone apps have sprung up. I mean, it's only been about ten days, yet already more than a hundred apps have been created by developers who get no direct profit from the endeavor. So while these apps are great and all, they are hard...
Jul 9, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 8:15 PM ET
Review: Belkin Headphone Adapter for iPhone
As I noted in my article on the iPhone's compatibility with iPod accessories, the iPhone's headphone jack is recessed into the iPhone's body; third-party headphones with larger miniplugs won't work with this recessed jack. The solution is a headphone adapter that plugs into this recessed jack and then lets...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:47 AM ET
JiveTalk is iChat for your iPhone
As disappointed as many of us were with the announcement that fully fledged third-party apps wouldn't be available on the iPhone, the fact remains that web developers are still plenty capable of creating great apps. And, better yet, filling in some of the gaps that Apple has left. The lack...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:41 PM ET
Hackers in ur iPhone, tweakin' ur software
Okay, well not your iPhone per se—rather, the iPhone of all of us. Intrepid hackers claim to have gotten access to the iPhone's file system, and have the done the seemingly impossible: they've moved some icons. In all seriousness, this is likely just the first step on the path to...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Jim Dalrymple at 12:58 PM ET
Careful of that mute button
We all develop habits for the most common things we do in the course of our day. For me, I always walk when I get a phone call -- always. I usually always get a fine cup of Tim Horton's coffee for those long calls, giving me a wonderful sense...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 2:10 PM ET
Review: V-Moda Vibe Duo
V-Moda's $101 Vibe Duo was the first third-party headphone/microphone combination announced for the iPhone, and is the first one we received for review. Essentially V-Moda's original Vibe headphones with the addition of an inline microphone, the Duo lets you make and take calls without having to remove your headphones....
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:00 PM ET
iPhone should make sound and fury smarter
So as long as we're revolutionizing the whole phone thing, here's a suggestion from out in left field. I frequently switch back and forth from ring to silent; I often wear an iPod as I walk, I prefer to have my phone vibrate when it's in my pocket. But when...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 3:03 PM ET
C:\ONGRTLNS.IPN
I got an e-mail yesterday on my iPhone from Dan Miller, the executive editor of Macworld's print magazine. As you might expect, we pass around a lot of files at Macworld. Our print manuscripts are in Microsoft Word format. (Although to be honest I write most of my stories in...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 5:33 PM ET
Quest for information
When you pen a column like Macworld's Mac 911, people naturally ask you questions. And to look like you're deserving of the three pages allotted to you each month, you try to answer them. But I've got one that's got me stumped and I'd like your help. A friend purchased...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 7:10 PM ET
The agnostic iPhone
iPod owners who've had occasion to plug their little musical buddies into an other-platformed computer understand the limitations of doing so. When you plug a Windows-formatted iPod into a Mac, it pretty much works. When you plug a Mac-formatted iPod into a Windows box, the PC hasn't a clue what...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 8:31 PM ET
The first iPhone smoothie
For those of you that have an iPhone, watching it get mutilated is painful to watch. For those that don't, it's a riveting entertainment experience. So, to horror some and delight others, the good folks at Blendtec have added a new installment to its "Will it Blend?" series (in...
Jul 10, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 8:53 PM ET
Digg launches official iPhone version
While the iPhone can view normal web pages, many people like top go to special iPhone-optimized versions of them. One such site is digg. Since the launch of the iPhone, many digg users with the device have been using David Cann's special version of the site to view it...
Jul 11, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 1:42 AM ET
File storage on iPhone: Solved!
Count me among those who have bemoaned the fact that you can't use your iPhone as a storage device. Well now—if you have a Mac—you can. The means to this minor miracle is Ecamm Network's $10 iPhoneDrive. This is a small utility that, when launched, displays the free storage area...
Jul 11, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:01 PM ET
Apple's guidelines for iPhone app development
If you're interested in developing web apps for the iPhone—and hey, it's the hottest gadget since desk lamps, so why wouldn't you?—there are a few things you should know. Fortunately, many of them are covered by Apple themselves in their Development Guidelines. For those of us mere mortals who are...
Jul 11, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 2:54 PM ET
What are you doing? Twittering on the iPhone, of course.
Microblogging phenom Twitter and the iPhone would seem to go together like ice and tea on a hot summer day—so much so that I'm tempted to dub Apple's handset the "Twitterphone." And while you can use Twitter's own website via Safari or the iPhone's SMS functionality to inform all of...
Jul 11, 2007 - Posted by Jonathan Seff at 3:09 PM ET
iPhone Poker
In what may be the first real game for the iPhone, Scenario Software has created a Web version of its Scenario Poker Texas Hold 'em game just for the iPhone. You can play by going to http://iphone.scenario.com through your iPhone's Safari browser, and can choose from an 8-player portrait-oriented version...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Rob Griffiths at 7:37 AM ET
Give your iPhone the power of telekinesis
No, your iPhone can’t bend spoons or make pieces of paper slide across your desk…but if you install Google’s telekinesis alpha, you will be amazed at the things your iPhone can make a Mac do. What kinds of things? Stream videos and music, basic remote screen capture with typing support,...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:29 AM ET
QuickTime update adds iPhone export
Loud was the rejoicing of the multitudes when they found that yesterday's QuickTime update added fullscreen playback functionality for even the non QuickTime Pro users. But also in that update was a little bit of iPhone-related news: two new video export formats. As with the iPod and the Apple TV...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:37 PM ET
Politician weighs in on iPhone, makes inane classic rock reference
What happens when you create something so popular that it takes attention away from pretty much anything else going on in the world? Congress happens, of course. Democratic Representative Edward Markey from my own home state of Massachusetts and chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications, is angry about the...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:20 PM ET
On the button
It's little surprise that so much of the talk about the iPhone's interface discusses the multi-touch screen. After all it's innovative and it's flashy, and those are two things we love. We've had hardware buttons for ages after all: there's nothing new there. But it's worth taking a look at...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 5:45 PM ET
iPhone tips: Ours and yours
Over at The Mothership, we've posted 21 of our favorite iPhone tips, dealing with everything from Safari to Mail to the iPod features of the phone. Some of the tips -- like Chris Breen's storage solution -- will be familiar to devoted iPhone Central readers, others will be new, but...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 6:24 PM ET
Assault and (iPhone) battery
I just got off the phone with Apple's Greg Joswiak, who was eager to combat a lot of the bad reporting going on out there about the iPhone's battery lifespan. Short version: After 400 complete charges (and that means complete, drain-it-till-it-dies), the iPhone loses 20 percent of its battery capacity....
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 6:36 PM ET
Etymotic Er-6i headphones fit iPhone jack
When I got my iPhone, one of the first things I noticed were how uncomfortable the included earbuds were. While this didn't come as a surprise to me, it was annoying, as the earbuds were the only headphones I owned that were iPhone-compatible. Well today, I received my newly...
Jul 12, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:06 PM ET
Jack not name, jack job
So I was talking to Apple marketing VP Greg Joswiak today. (Boy, doesn't that sound chummy?) Anyway, Joz -- we call him Joz, those of us who can't ever remember his first name -- was telling me all about this iPhone battery nonsense. When we were done with that, I...
Jul 13, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:13 AM ET
Just my type
Typing on the iPhone may not be as bad as we expected, but I think even the best iPhone typists among us will agree that it's nowhere near as fast as typing on a full keyboard (I mean, ten fingers versus two thumbs? No contest!). Still, if you're curious to...
Jul 13, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:41 AM ET
VoIP: not as killer as I thought
Way back at Macworld, I opined that Voice-over-IP (VoIP) could be one of the killer apps on the iPhone, but after having played a bit with Jajah.com, a web-based VoIP client that does seem to work on the iPhone, I've started to wonder if maybe I wasn't blinded by the...
Jul 13, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 4:04 PM ET
Custom ringtones on your iPhone is a long, arduous process
If you're really really dissatisfied with the crop of ringtones available on the iPhone—what, no chance of grooving to "Baby Got Back"?—then you may be a prime candidate for a controversial new procedure that will let you add your own ringtones. Concocted by hackers from the #iphone-dev IRC channel, this...
Jul 13, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 6:46 PM ET
Automate your Mac with the iPhone
Macworld has just published a Secrets article about Automator.us' iPhone Mail Rules v1.0, a collection of AppleScript-based Mail rules that let you do things like automatically transfer a picture on your iPhone to an iWeb blog page, mail pictures to your Mac and have them placed in iPhoto, send a...
Jul 13, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 9:06 PM ET
Sync here, sync there, sync somewhere
I've posted a blog entry on the Mothership about syncing your iPhone with different computers. Short version: it can be done, because I've got my iPhone syncing different parts of its library with three different Macs. As usual, for the long version you should read the actual article. Bonus: I...
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:27 AM ET
iPhone not reaching absolute power?
First-generation products always have kinks to work out, and Apple's are far from an exception. Generally, I've been having good luck with my iPhone, though as I've been using it for the last two weeks, I've definitely come up with a handful of things that I think should be improved....
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:13 AM ET
If iPhoto keeps rearing its head, here's a solution
We've gotten a number of emails from iPhone users who are having a pesky problem with iPhoto. The photo app is opening everytime they go to connect their iPhone to their computer. Hardly a cause for panic, but an annoyance nonetheless. Fortunately, if you're suffering from iPhotoitis, there's an easy...
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 12:09 PM ET
The commercial comes to life
You've likely seen Apple's Calamari iPhone commercial—the one that takes you from movie, to maps, to restaurant-reservation in search of a steaming heap of squid. It's a great demonstration of how the various components of the iPhone can interact. Better yet, it's actually useful. As in.... Yesterday my band had...
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 1:11 PM ET
Forgetting wireless networks
One of my colleagues was recently talking about how many open networks he finds with his iPhone. The only problem is that after joining one, the iPhone wants to remember it, even if that network doesn't let him connect to the 'net. It may seem like there's no way to...
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 4:46 PM ET
Video: iPhone Multi-Sync
On Friday I wrote about syncing iPhone with multiple computers. Reaction was... interesting. Some believed me, others didn't. So I thought a quick video might demonstrate what I'm talking about. And so I made one. The video shows me syncing my iPhone with three different computers, for different data...
Jul 16, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 6:07 PM ET
Turn (or squish) some heads with Smooshtacts
Sure, you have an iPhone, so you're already pretty popular with just about anyone who sees what you pull out of your pocket. But, if you want to impress people even more with just how cool your little all-in-one device is, make a smooshcontact. A smooshcontact is essentially a...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:23 AM ET
iPhone tips you on mystery callers
I think by the time the next generation rolls around, the concept of phone numbers will be pretty darn archaic. I'm already at the point where I don't know the numbers of even most of my closest friends and contacts, and the iPhone has really only encouraged that. Still, every...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:03 PM ET
Phone links could dial M for Malicious
Some security researchers think that the fact that the iPhone lets you tap a phone number to dial it in Safari and Mail is a potential security risk. They warn that you could be tricked into dialing expensive 1-900 numbers or, worse, your iPhone could be trapped into a malicious...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 1:33 PM ET
Sync different
We had a query from a loyal reader that was so good—and so applicable to both the iPhone and iPod—I couldn't help myself. I stole it for today's iPod Blog entry at Playlist. I won't give away the plot, but here's the gist: The Good Doctor Watts was stumped because...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:14 PM ET
iPhone taking down Duke infrastructure
Something strange is afoot in Durham, North Carolina. The wireless network of Duke University has been having issues in the past few days, with routers being barraged by repeated requests for IP addresses—up to 18,000 per second. And that problem has been laid squarely at the feet of iPhones on...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 3:17 PM ET
Review: Belkin Slim-Fit Case for iPhone
To start off the deluge of iPhone case reviews, here's a look at Belkin's $30 Slim-Fit Case for iPhone. As a slide-in case, the Slim-Fit doesn't let you use your iPhone while in the case, but rather offers a protective holster for storing the phone when not in use....
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 7:15 PM ET
Review: Power Support Crystal Film Set for iPhone
If PC World's tests are any indication, the iPhone's glass screen needs much less protection than the plastic screens on iPods. And then there's the fact that a poorly-made screen protector could disrupt the iPhone's touchscreen interface. Still, if you're paranoid--and I admit to being so myself--there are quite...
Jul 17, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 7:50 PM ET
Review: RadTech iPhone headphone adapter
Last week we reviewed Belkin's Headphone Adapter, the first product we'd received for using third-party headphones with the iPhone's recessed headphone jack. We've since received another such adapter, RadTech's $7 ProCable - Audio Extension Cable 3.5mm Male - Female--which I'll call "adapter" for short. Like Belkin's solution, RadTech's adapter plugs...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:04 AM ET
iPhone unlocked, sort of
While hackers have run into problems in their quest to unlock the iPhone for use on any carrier, they have made one important breakthrough: you can now theoretically activate your iPhone without having to sign up for a new two year contract. Good news for existing iPhone customers, especially those...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:46 AM ET
iPhone: International phone of mystery
Have questions about using the iPhone to call abroad, or to call home when you're jetting to another country? Apple's provided a knowledge base article that spells out the iPhone's various international relations. For example, when calling other countries, did you know that you dial a "+" symbol by holding...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:23 PM ET
Apple adds iPhone development resources
Interesting in programming for the iPhone, but not really sure where to start? Apple's posted a new addition to its iPhone resources on the Apple Developer Connection: a sample game called Puzzler. You can download the source code for Puzzler, which includes the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files and tinker...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 3:04 PM ET
iPhone network security in depth
With millions of iPhone users hitting the streets and hotspots in the next few months, there's a high degree of concern over whether they will be able to keep their data from the hands of the many crackers and sniffers out there who routinely grab any login information or other...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 5:08 PM ET
Bookmarklets make iPhone surfing easier
It may seem like a no brainer, but since full-fledged AJAX applications run fine on the iPhone, so do many bookmarklets. Bookmarklets, if you're not familiar with them, are little JavaScript applications that look just like bookmarks. They can do handy things like help you shrink URLs, or let you...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 6:59 PM ET
Merge Call mea culpa
So a couple weeks back, Chris Breen and I were recording a Macworld Podcast episode -- him on the iPhone, me on Skype -- when we tried to patch in another iPhone caller using the phone's easy-as-pie Merge Call feature. The only trouble is, in this case, it wasn't easy-as-pie...
Jul 18, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:51 PM ET
Metapost: iPhone Central on iPhone
Faithful iPhone Central reader Walter R. Basil wrote to us: How about a light version of iPhone central for those of us browsing from our iPhones? Using EDGE of course. Well, I suppose we should-- hey! Whaddayamean you want a light version of the site? The whole point of the...
Jul 19, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:43 AM ET
Apple holding free iPhone Tech Talks
Apple's pretty serious about getting developers onboard the Web 2.0 train for the iPhone. Yesterday we noted that they'd posted a walkthrough video and sample code; now they've announced a series of iPhone Tech Talks to be held throughout the country. The talks are aimed at those who are interested...
Jul 19, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:03 PM ET
iPhone lacking Unicode support for Arabic, Hebrew
Here's an oddity: Arabic and Hebrew characters don't render in the iPhone's web browser. BBC News, for example, offers news in a variety of different languages, including Arabic. However, when you try to view those pages on the iPhone, the Arabic text renders as gibberish. A quick test of other...
Jul 19, 2007 - Posted by Christopher Breen at 1:03 PM ET
Let's talk iPhone!
Look, we run the numbers here and we know exactly—to the digit—how many of you are excited about the iPhone. What say we talk about it in person? I'll be doing exactly that on Tuesday, July 24 from 5 to 7 PM. One catch though, that's Hawaiian Standard Time. Oh,...
Jul 19, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:21 PM ET
Apple on syncing your iPhone with Entourage
According to Apple, you can sync your iPhone with your contact information and calendars from Entourage. While that's technically true, a recently published Apple knowledge base document shows that what APple really means by this is that you should sync your contacts and calendars from Entourage with Address Book and...
Jul 19, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 6:09 PM ET
Handy iPhone feature #3923: Album art while locked
From the "I didn't know that" department: if you wake your iPhone from sleep when it's playing music, it will display the currently playing album's art instead of your wallpaper as well as put the name of the track that you're playing underneath the clock. That way you don't have...
Jul 20, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:58 AM ET
iPhone jinxing Harry Potter's buzz
Three weeks in, and the iPhone buzz is still going hot. In fact, according to Carl Howe over at Blackfriars Marketing, it's hotter than Harry Potter (hey, that rhymed!). Maybe it's just my excitement over The Deathly Hallows talking, but I'm not so sure about that (be on the look...
Jul 20, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:20 PM ET
BMW + iPhone: Look ma, no hands!
Own an iPhone and a BMW? And what kind of security do you have? I'm just...asking. Anyway, if you're interested in using your iPhone while in your car, BMW has confirmed that the handsfree system found in models made after October 2004 will be compatible with the iPhone. Not only...
Jul 21, 2007 - Posted by Jim Dalrymple at 12:27 PM ET
Cisco the root of Duke's problems, not iPhone
It took a week of false accusations from Duke University, but the truth finally came out. The iPhone was not at fault for the wireless networking problems the university has been experiencing. Duke admitted late yesterday that a Cisco wireless access point was the cause of the problems that Kevin...
Jul 23, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:11 AM ET
Security firm claims first iPhone exploit
The popularity of the iPhone ensures that it's going to be a target of unwelcome attentions, so the announcement this morning that a team of security researchers had allegedly discovered a vulnerability should not be shocking. Independent Security Evaluators, the firm that did the investigation, claim to have found the...
Jul 23, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:31 AM ET
Death of an iPhone battery
There's been much ado about battery replacements for the iPhone. We know that after 400 full charges, the iPhone's battery will drop to around 80% capacity; hardly unusable, but we don't know how the curve goes from there: do another 50 charges drop it to 70% capacity? 50% capacity? We...
Jul 23, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 12:26 PM ET
Another headphone-jack adapter option
We've reviewed two headphone-jack adapters, one from Belkin and one from RadTech, that let you use third-party headphones with the iPhone's recessed headphone jack. But as reader Chuck recently pointed out in a comment, if you've got an original iPod shuffle and happened to purchase Apple's iPod shuffle Sport...
Jul 23, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 2:21 PM ET
Woz on his iPhone: "some positives and some negatives"
The wonderful wizard of Woz is a lot like the rest of us. Even though Steve Jobs reputedly promised him an iPhone the day after it was released, that wasn't enough for Woz: he got in line with the plebes at the San Jose Apple Store on June 29th and...
Jul 23, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:03 PM ET
Hands-on with Shure Music Phone Adapter
I spent the weekend testing out a pre-production prototype of Shure's $40 Music Phone Adapter, which provides hope for all of us iPhone-usin' types who don't particularly like Apple's stock earbuds. I'm an in-ear headphone guy, and quite honestly, I will never, ever, ever go back to little earbuds of...
Jul 24, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:42 AM ET
AT&T activated 146,000 iPhones at launch
While Apple is planning to release its quarterly financial results tomorrow, AT&T has dropped its own numbers today, which includes some information on the iPhone. Though AT&T's financial results were higher than many had anticipated, due in no small amount to the iPhone, the wireless provider said that it had...
Jul 24, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:13 PM ET
Feeding frenzy: NewsGator releases mobile reader for iPhone
Along with instant messaging, one of the features that many have missed on the iPhone is some sort of dedicated RSS feed reader. While you could use a web-based reader like Bloglines or Google Reader, they weren't really designed for the iPhone. And while Apple provides its own RSS solution,...
Jul 24, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 3:14 PM ET
Apple offers tender love and care for your iPhone
We protect the things we care about, and for many of us, our iPhone falls right in that category. While the unit ships with a one year repair warranty from Apple (and two years of phone-based tech support), you may want to extend that a bit, and now you can,...
Jul 24, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:25 PM ET
iPhone Central Hotline: Your thoughts
That's right, folks. It's not quite a podcast, but it is our first collection of your thoughts (with some interjections) from the iPhone Central Hotline. If you look on the right side of the site, you'll see a voicemail link that iPhone users can tap to dial our voicemail box....
Jul 25, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:44 AM ET
iPhone charging tips from Apple and elsewhere
Having been briefly the proud possessor of a totally non-functional iPhone, I think I can say with some authority how important it is to keep your iPhone charged. Without juice to power it, your iPhone is about as useful a wireless device as a ham sandwich—and much less tasty. Fortunately,...
Jul 25, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:52 PM ET
There's a whole lot of hacking going on
Those iPhone hackers have been busy little beavers. While most of us have been enjoying our phone/iPod/internet device by showing it off to anybody with a pulse who can stand us prattling on for ten or twenty minutes at a time, those other folks have been busily engaged in vivisecting...
Jul 25, 2007 - Posted by Philip Michaels at 6:08 PM ET
iPhone: Reports of My Failure Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Let's hold off on those gloomy pronouncements about the iPhone's adoption rate for just a little while longer, OK? In the wake of Tuesday's news that AT&T activated 146,000 iPhones at launch, the "Apple-is-doomed" crowd began its predictable round of panicky pronouncements about the iPhone failing to meet expectations. Nice...
Jul 25, 2007 - Posted by Jim Dalrymple at 9:40 PM ET
Ozzy ringtone on my iPhone
One of the things I missed about giving up my BlackBerry was the distinctive screaming of Ozzy Osbourne belting out the opening line to Crazy Train every time I got a phone call. Well, I am happy to say that Ozzy is back -- this evening I tried the iPhone...
Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 1:56 PM ET
TinyBuddy: AIM for iPhone from AOL, sort of
There's a new web-based instant messaging client for the iPhone, and it's kind of, sort of, from AOL. It's TinyBuddy, written by AOL employee James Burke and hosted by the AOL Greenhouse. It's not an official AOL project, but Burke's used his up-close knowledge of how AIM works to make...
Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 2:41 PM ET
One line of code can make your site iPhone-friendly
While Apple boasts about the ability of the iPhone's browser to display the real, not watered down Internet, there are things that can be done to make your site more accepting of the mobile browser. On the far-end of the spectrum, there's designing an iPhone-specific version of your site; if...
Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 5:59 PM ET
Podcasts: The iPhone's secret backdoor
As has been established, I'm a champion of syncing your iPhone to multiple computers. But here's a sticky situation that results from such a set-up. Let's say you're at work, and your iPhone is set to sync music and videos with your home Mac. What can be done? Podcasts, my...
Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 6:37 PM ET
Dead Wi-Fi? My iPhone knows
Today I noticed something peculiar about my iPhone. Despite my presence in the massive IDG office and lawn tennis complex, the iPhone was telling me that it was using AT&T's EDGE network for Internet access. We've got an in-building network, appropriately named IDG, so that didn't really make sense to...
Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Jim Dalrymple at 10:22 PM ET
Your voicemail box is full
Last night I got a message on the iPhone that my Visual Voicemail was 92 percent full and that I should delete some messages. Being the daredevil that I am, I decided not to delete any messages and let the mailbox fill up and see what happened. I would never...
Jul 27, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 11:39 AM ET
iPhones may be running interference on iPods
As I said over at Macworld last week, carrying around an iPhone hasn't yet freed me from the tether of carrying around my 30GB iPod as well. Since they're about the same size, I often find myself slipping them into a pocket together, or laying them down on the desk...
Jul 28, 2007 - Posted by Aaron Freedman at 10:51 AM ET
iPhone doesn't give radio listeners any love
Lately, one of the things I've really been getting into is NPR. It has now become part of my daily routine to wake up and tune into to WNYC for "Morning Edition," and catch "All Things Considered" when I get home from school. But, I'm not always at a...
Jul 28, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:20 PM ET
Who's that happy iPhone guy?
On the lead page of our Mac Beat section (and on the table of contents, too) of the current issue of Macworld magazine there's a wire-service picture of a super-happy guy who was one of the first to leave the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York with an iPhone....
Jul 30, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 9:52 AM ET
iFuntastic adds more fun
It seems like only Friday that my colleague Jim Dalrymple was explaining how to put custom ringtones on your iPhone using an app called iFuntastic. But a lot can happen in just a few short days, and iFuntastic has seen a pair of updates that bring a slew of new...
Jul 30, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 10:53 AM ET
The shipping news: iPhone, accessory availability
The online Apple Store was down ever so briefly this morning, and quick as a wink reappeared with only slight updates. While there was nothing brand new added, the availability of several products has been improved: iPhones, for example, are now shipping within 24 hours; Apple's Bluetooth headset is shipping...
Jul 30, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:03 PM ET
iPhone class action plaintiff clearly doesn't read this blog
It was only a matter of time before someone was taking legal action over the iPhone: the only question was, on what topic? I would have bet it was being locked to a specific cell phone provider—but then, I would have been wrong. Gizmodo is reporting that a man by...
Jul 31, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 12:26 PM ET
Organization asks Apple to make iPhone more consumer friendly
As if an Illinois class action suit about the iPhone's battery wasn't enough, New York State's Consumer Protection Board has jumped into the fray with similar complaints. Yesterday, the organization sent a letter to Steve Jobs taking issue with some of the additional costs of the device. Among their issues:...
Jul 31, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 1:07 PM ET
Third-party iPhone app helps you redecorate
The iPhone hackathon continues as the enterprising programmers begin putting together the first real third-party applications for the platform. While we last week saw the existence of an application that did nothing more than print "Hello World," others have now built upon that foundation to produce applications that actually do...
Jul 31, 2007 - Posted by Dan Moren at 2:54 PM ET
DIY iPhone battery replacement
At the risk of turning into iPhone Battery Central, here's something that might bring a ray of sunshine to the lives of those disappointed with the fact that the iPhone's battery is not user-replaceable. The first third-party battery replacement kit has hit the market, courtesy of Brando (no, not the...
Jul 31, 2007 - Posted by Jason Snell at 8:59 PM ET
iPhone Software 1.0.1 released
Apple has released iPhone Software 1.0.1, featuring security fixes and perhaps some bug fixes too. You can download it by attaching your iPhone to iTunes, and clicking on the Check for Update button. Be warned: If you've hacked your phone you'll probably need to restore in order to use the...
Jul 31, 2007 - Posted by Dan Frakes at 10:22 PM ET
Our iPhone Wish List: Hardware
Earlier today, we published our "consenus" wish list for the iPhone. Based on an informal survey of iPhone users among the Macworld editorial staff, that list of 27 items represents the features that all, or nearly all, editors requested. But it wasn't a comprehensive list by any means. Our...
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