Friday Roundup for March 21st, 2008 - iPhone tips submitted by you
It’s Friday again and time to share the best iPhone tips and iPod touch tips submitted by you, the readers of Touchtip.
Today, we’ll learn how users yearning for 3rd party apps don’t have to wait for the App Store in June. You can Jailbreak or unlock your iPhone or iPod touch in 45 seconds, and it works on any firmware version. We also hear about one resourceful way to take notes on your device using only Safari and a local wiki application (no hacks required). And another reader suggests a clever way to flag phone calls from telemarketers so you can ignore the call. Be sure to read all these tips and more after the jump.
Submitted by David Hawking:
Lifehacker posted a simple guide to Jailbreak Any iPhone or iPod touch in 45 seconds. This method using the open source, cross-platform hack tool called ZiPhone. This tool can handle any level of Jailbreaking or unlocking that you want to do. In most cases you will want to restore your device to it’s new state before running ZiPhone. This works for all firmware versions so hack away!
Submitted by Stephanie:
I was looking for a way to write notes on my iPhone. I thought about wikis but I didn’t want to have to be online to use my notes. I then found TiddlyWiki, a wiki that you can use on or offline. It’s simple to install, just download an html file and bookmark it. Anytime I want my notes, I just fire up Safari and hit my TiddlyWiki bookmark. Awesome
Submitted by Lou Cipher:
Try this. Type “hell” into the iPhone’s weather app. Guess what city shows up? The iPhone is indeed a “smart” phone!
Submitted by Kathie Needham:
Unsolicited phone calls are the bane of my iPhone experience. Even though my number is registered in the Do Not Call registry for telemarketers, it seems like a few of them always slip through. Here’s an iPhone tip to handle those calls. Whenever you get an unsolicited phone call from a non-blocked number, simply tell them your busy and please call back later. Then, add that number to a new contact category on your iPhone called “Ignore”. Whenever any number stored in that category calls you, you’ll know exactly what to do.
Submitted by Boris Stefanova:
Found this great site for watching movie trailers at phonevideoclips.com. The site is designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch. It seems to have all the latest movie previews and they area all categorized so you can find the ones you want.
Submitted by George N:
I’ve got stubby fingers and my wife has long nails, which makes text entry on our iPhone incredibly frustrating. I tried making home made styluses for us but had limited success with the part that touches the screen. In some cases the touch just wouldn’t work at all. I then came across this Pogo Stylus. I was reluctant to buy it ($25!) but finally broke down and got one. We liked it so much we were fighting over it so I got another one. Marriage saved by iPhone stylus!
Have a tip you’d like to share? Send your tips to us, or post them directly to our iPhone and iPod touch forums.
Perhaps Stephanie could post some more info about how she gets tiddlywiki to save her notes when offline. Near as I can tell from the documentation, you have to be online to save the wiki to their servers. Wrong?
@Jim - I’ve done this myself and it works great. You simply download an html file to your computer, then sync it to your iPhone or iPod touch as a document. Then tap it to open the html doc in mobile Safari. You don’t need to be online to use TiddlyWiki, just to download it the first time. The html file contains all the code and javascript you need to take notes. Tap the save button in TiddlyWiki and your notes are saved inside your local version of the html page. One thing you might want to do, is try it out on your desktop computer first just to get the hang of it. Download the html to your desktop, then open it in a browser of your choice. There are different versions of the html file that users have tweaked for different looks and feels.
Those movie trailers on the phone video clips site are incredible. Can’t wait to take the kids to see WALL.E from Pixar.
what happens when you type “hell” in the iPhone weather app? Nothing happens for me.
When I enter “hell” into my iPod Touch weather app, it gives me Hellertown, Pennsylvania. I’m not sure what’s so funny about that…
Doug: Re-#2. I got it working on my (Windows) computer and I understand that part … but how do I “sync it to my iPod Touch as a document”? … and then how does it get opened in Safari on the iPod Touch?
Sorry to be such a novice but I just don’t see the path. (Does it have to be jailbroken?)