You probably know that you can have your iPhone both ring and vibrate by adjusting the options under Settings -> Sounds, but what if you want it to vibrate first, and then ring, as many other cell phones do?
A reader of New York Times tech columnist David Pogue's blog wrote in to suggest one easy solution to this dilemma. Just create a custom MP3 ringtone, using Garage Band, and insert however much silence you want at the beginning of the ringtone—Pogue's reader suggests ten seconds. Now your phone will vibrate before ringing, giving you a chance to discreetly excuse yourself before the opening strains of "Jungle Boogie" echo throughout your staff meeting, prompting pointed stares from around the table.
Hypothetically, of course.
I don't know about anyone else, but much of my iPhone Web surfing happens during down time: when I'm lounging on the couch or on the floor of the family room, or before I go to sleep at night. Sometimes I'm sitting up, but I occasionally lean to the side, and now and then I even—gasp—lie down.
Which presents a small problem: When I lie down, my head and the iPhone both change their orientation by about 90 degrees. The iPhone takes this as a cue to automatically rotate the Safari window back to vertical; my eyes, sadly, don't have such a feature. Horizontal person + vertical page = awkward reading.
My workaround has been to instead turn the iPhone just far enough horizontally that it doesn't auto-rotate, and then angle my head up far enough that the Safari window is roughly aligned with my field of view. It works, but the ideal solution would be an option to temporarily disable the otherwise-handy auto-rotate feature.
Through the magic of Twitter, Chris Pepper pointed me to a nearly-as-good workaround:
The other day I was lying on my side, trying to read a web page on the iPhone. I turned the iPhone 90° clockwise, but it obligingly re-rotated the text 90° counter-clockwise, leaving me again out of sync. I grumbled something about the irritation of being outmaneuvered by a handheld gadget. Amy’s brilliant suggestion: rotate it another 90° CCW. Since the iPhone doesn’t offer 180° rotation, this left the text rotated 90° in alighnment with my head.
He's right: Safari rotates the first 90 degrees, but not the second, leaving Safari's window in the perfect position for reading in bed. A simple tip, but one that will immeasurably improve my night-time NewsGator browsing.
It was really only a matter of time before the devoted team of iphone hackers managed to crack the latest firmware from Apple. As of last night, a jailbreak solution for the iPhone's 1.1.3 software has been released for both OS X and Windows.
One caveat before you begin the process: in order to get the hacked version of 1.1.3, you'll need to be upgrading from a jailbroken version of 1.1.1 or 1.1.2. I'm not sure if there's a way yet to downgrade from 1.1.3 to an earlier version, but it's likely that one will appear before long or some other loophole will be found.
If you're looking for the full skinny on how to the whole jailbreak thing, you could do much worse than to check out this lengthy tutorial at Lifehacker (it mostly documents the Windows process, but it should be similar for OS X).
Giving it a go? Let us know how it works out for you in the comments below.
iPhone hacker Nate True has been digging around in update 1.1.3 and he's made a couple of interesting discoveries, most of which shouldn't come as a surprise. The changes basically add up to signifying that the 1.1.3 update appears to be all ready to support applications developed with Apple's forthcoming Software Development Kit. For example, as we've seen with the Web Clip support, you no longer need to hack the Springboard application to support multiple screens of applications or reorder icons; likewise, all programs are run as a user named "mobile" rather than on earlier versions where all apps were run by the root superuser (a dangerous security vulnerability, since root can be used to make all sorts of potentially malicious changes).
But that's not all Nate's offering: he's also come up with a way to use the new Web Clip feature from 1.1.3 to support something that many an iPhone user has been asking for: speed dial icons on the Home screen.
In order to do this, you'll either need some technical savvy or you'll have to put a bit of trust in Nate: basically the hack works by writing a script on a web server that takes a phone number in the URL and then tries to initiate a call with it. You can turn that page into a Web Clip; voilà, you've got an icon on your Home screen that will call a specified number. The only catch is that because of the iPhone's built-in security features, you'll be asked to confirm that you want to call the number, which may or may not make it faster than using the double-tap Home button method introduced in 1.1.1.
Newsflash: People still use Microsoft's relatively-unimpressive Hotmail email service. And if you're a Hotmail user and sport an iPhone, you may have run into difficulties checking your Hotmail account on the phone via Mail. But if you're thoroughly entrenched and have hundreds of contacts, switching to a new, iPhone-friendly email address may not be an option.
Fortunately for you, our cohorts at Mac OS X Hints have your back, detailing steps that will allow you to use Gmail to access and send Hotmail emails on the iPhone. (You'll also be able to use these steps to similarly set-up Hotmail-sending-and-receiving in Apple Mail.)
You'll need a Gmail address with IMAP enabled, and you'll have to set up your Hotmail account to forward emails to that Gmail address. Tweak a few preferences in Gmail, and set up the account on your iPhone using the recommended settings on Mac OS X Hints.
If you follow the instructions carefully, you'll be able to use Gmail to view and send Hotmail emails on your iPhone, without ever having to log into Hotmail again (hooray!).
One feature I miss on the iPhone version of Safari is tabs; on my desktop computer, I'm lost without the ability to open multiple Web sites in the same window. If you're in the same boat, check out Inventive Labs's Tabulate. Rather than a native application requiring you to hack your iPhone, Tabulate is a JavaScript bookmarklet; just drag the Tabulate bookmarklet on the Inventive Web site (sorry, MovableType has a bug that won't let us include the link here) to your Safari bookmarks bar and then sync your iPhone with your computer. (This procedure assumes, of course, that you sync Safari bookmarks between your iPhone and your computer.)
Once you've got the bookmarklet on your iPhone, just visit any Web site and then choose the bookmarklet from Mobile Safari's bookmarks; a small, orange flag button in the upper-left corner of the screen lets you know Tabulate is working. After that, whenever you tap on any link on the current Web page, a three-button overlay (shown above) appears on the screen. Tapping the blue circle opens the link in the current window. Tapping the green circle opens the link in a new "tab"--actually just another Safari window. Tapping the orange circle saves the link so you can visit it later.
I especially like the third option. As you click on links and save them for later browsing, the flag button in the upper-left displays the number of saved links. When you're ready to view those links, just tap on the button and each saved link opens in a new Safari window. (The Tabulate Web site provides a good demonstration video.)
Of course, Tabulate isn't as good as a real tabs feature; for example, links open in new windows rather than true tabs; you have to re-activate Tabulate for every new page you visit; and some sites, such as Google's new iPhone site, don't work with Tabulate. But it's better than no tabs at all, and I've been using it quite a bit.
[Hat tip: TUAW.]
If you've ever worked in Mac IT, or even supported a small collection of personal Macs, you know how useful Mactracker can be. This handy utility, which I reviewed for Macworld a while back, provides detailed information about nearly every product Apple has ever released--from Performas to Power Macs, iBooks to iPods, AirPort Base Stations to Xserves. You can even get the specs on a QuickTake. Information includes processor, bus speed, drives, memory, graphics card, size, weight, supported OS versions, latest firmware update, introduction and discontinuation dates--you name it.
A while back, Ian Page, Mactracker's developer, provided a way to transfer much of Mactracker's content to the Notes feature on iPods, so you could have that info available on the go--which, in my experience, is often when I need it most. But now iPhone and iPod touch owners can access this data whenever, wherever thanks to the new Mactracker for iPhone (or, if you prefer, Mobile Mactracker). Basically just a Web site formatted for Mobile Safari that lets you browse Mactracker's specs, Mobile Mactracker has become one of my most-used "Web apps." In fact, I even find myself using it on my Mac; it's often faster to visit the site than to launch the Mactracker application.
A drawback is that Mobile Mactracker doesn't provide quite as much information as the full Mactracker application. For example, you're limited to viewing information on desktops, laptops, servers, AirPort Base Stations, the Apple TV, Displays, iPhones, and iPods. So if someone tries to stump you with a question about the eMate, you're out of luck.
Do a lot of traveling? Have a hard time keeping track of your pounds, Euros, kroner, rupees, etc? Wouldn't it be nice if there were an easy way to consult your iPhone and get the latest currency figures, without having to resort to digging through web pages?
A clever tipster over at our sister site Mac OS X Hints points out that Yahoo, which provides the information for the Stocks application, has special ticker symbols you can enter to track currency exchanges as well. So, for example, if you spend a lot of time in the UK, you can add ticker symbol GBPUSD=X, and you'll have the exchange rate between pounds and dollars at your fingertips.
You can find all the available codes at Yahoo, for all of your traveling/currency needs.
Much has been made of the fact that your average user can't replace the iPhone's battery; Apple'll charge you $86 (including shipping) to get a new battery put into your handset. Plus, you'll have to get a loaner unit. One hopes the batteries last long enough that you won't be doing this very often, but the phones are still pretty new, so we haven't really found out yet.
However, if you're willing to take life-and-limb (at least, of your phone) into your own hands, the guys over at Gear Live have posted a video showing how you can replace your very own iPhone battery. This surgery procedure is, of course, performed at your own risk. Any time you open up a piece of sealed electronics like the iPhone, there's a chance of something going wrong, so you could end up paying a lot more than it would have cost you to just get the battery from Apple in the first place.
They've even provided the video in a format the iPhone can play, so you can watch the video while replacing your—hey, wait a minute!
[via Gizmodo]
