Friday Roundup for April 4th, 2008 - iPhone tips submitted by you
This week’s Friday iPhone tip roundup includes some great advice sent in by the readers of Touchtip. Our post last week about the invites to the EverNote beta was very popular and we still have a few left to give out, just let us know if you want one. Our Playboy post wasn’t so popular, at least not with some of our female readers who felt left out. Honestly, we’d be happy to write up an equivalent post for the ladies, but we can’t find an iPhone app from Playgirl or Chippendales. If you have a suggestion, please share it with us.
Our readers’ tips this week include a very cool way to use your iPhone to send notes to Jott which then get converted to text and sent to your EverNote account. We also find out how to avoid huge roaming charges when using the iPhone outside the U.S., reverse lookup telephone numbers with geolocation, accessing your desktop computer with iPhone or the touch, customizing the icons in the Music app, and how to use an iTunes setting to increase the volume on your mobile device. Read on to get all the details.
Use Jott to send voice notes to EverNote
Submitted by Jose F
Thanks, Touchtip, for sending me an invite to the beta for EverNote. Just wanted to let you know that you can set up EverNote to work with Jott so that you can use your phone to take notes that automatically get transcribed and sent to EverNote. Here’s how it works. You need an EverNote account (I got my invite from Touchtip), and you need a Jott account which is free as well. Go to your account in EverNote and look at the custom email address you have to email notes. Use that email address as your email in Jott. Now when you call your Jott phone number and leave a voice message, it gets transcribed to text and sent to your EverNote account. So sweet!
Reverse lookup a telephone number
Submitted by Kerry Wiajadja
This handy widget lets you trace a phone number to its owner and location. It uses Google Maps to display the results. It’s a web site so you don’t have to download or install anything, and you can use it from your desktop. Try it out at Phone Number Trace.
Increasing the volume of music on iPhone
Submitted by touchalex
Plug your iphone in and select the library of your music in your iphone within itunes. Next select the very first song in list view and then scroll all the way down and shift+click, this is to select all your songs. Now Ctrl click (or right click) and select ‘get info’ > options > volume adjustment and slide up a few notches on the scale. It may take a while if you have a load of songs but it will raise the volume level.
Minimize international data charges when roaming overseas
Submitted by Andrew Thompson
- Utilize WiFi, available in many international hotels, airports, and restaurants to browse the web or check email.
- Keep Data Roaming “OFF”: By default, this setting will be in the “OFF” position. The path is: Settings > General > Network > Data Roaming.
- Turn off your phone’s “auto check” function, and check email manually when needed, using WiFi.
- Reset the usage tracker to zero when you arrive overseas and monitor your data usage.
- Consider purchasing an international service plan that includes discounted international data usage. See att.com/wirelessinternational for details and international roaming rates.
Use your iPhone or iPod touch to access your PC or Mac
Submitted by Janis Gong
These tools provide complete access to your remote PC or Mac from anywhere. You can use your iPhone or iPodTouch to conveniently manage your email, files, programs and network resources. Both are paid products but have free trials.
RDM+ for PC or iGet Mobile for Mac
Customize the music icons
Submitted by pacman
You can customize the Music app icons on the iPhone and iPod touch. Here’s how.
- Start by opening the Music app
- Select the More button (bottom-right) and then the Edit button (upper-left)
- On the Configure screen, tap and drag the button you want to add to the bottom button bar. Note: there’s only room for 4 buttons down there
- Repeat the above step until you’re happy with the buttons. It’s also worth mentioning - you can re-order them by tapping and dragging them horizontally.
Read more iPhone tips submitted by readers of Touchip.
Add a comment (5 so far)
Loving your weekly round ups. This is only my second week of reading, a great idea. See you next week
The “tip” about the reverse phone number site is not much of a tip. It’s actually an ad. It’s a pay service that really provides nothing unless a fee is paid.
@Jim - I agree, that reverse phone number site is not very good even though it’s listed on the official Apple web apps directory. We liked this one because of the Google Maps integration, but you’re right, without displaying the owner of the name it’s only useful to see the location of the number. Unless, of course, you’re willing to pay for the service and with so many free reverse lookups out there we’re not sure who’d actually pay for this. Although, we really haven’t seen a good one for the iPhone yet, but we’ll let you know when we do. Thanks for the comment.
Yes, I’d like an Evernote beta invitation…
Brad DeLong
Re: Minimize international data charges when roaming overseas
Easiest way I found was to just remove the sim card while you’re overseas from the phone and just use wi-fi.