The best iPhone tips of 2008, submitted by the readers of Touchtip

The Ghost of iPhone Past paid us a visit last night to remind us of all the great iPhone tips our readers sent to us throughout the year.

It’s been a great year for Touchtip, and along the way we shared the best tips here so you could get the most out of your beloved iPhones and iPod touches. As we look toward a new year, we rounded up the best of the best iPhone tips into a single collection, just in case you missed them the first time around.

Read on to see all the best tips, submitted by you, our readers. Also, if you have an iPhone tip you’d like to share, send it to us so we can share it with the iPhone and iPod touch community here at Touchtip.

Awesome iPhone Period-Typing Shortcut
Submitted by D2k

THE most annoying thing, about typing on the iPhone:

The punctuation keys and alphabet keys appear in two different keyboard layouts.

Imagine how excruciating it is to type, for example, “a P.O. Box in the U.S.A.!” That’s 34 finger taps and 10 mode changes!

So here’s what you can do, all in one motion:

1. Touch the “.?123″ key, but don’t lift your finger as the punctuation layout appears.
2. Slide your finger a half inch onto the period or comma key, and release.

Incredibly, the ABC layout returns automatically. You’ve typed a period or a comma with one finger touch instead of three. In fact, you can type ANY of the punctuation symbols the same way.

This makes a HUGE difference in the usability of the keyboard.

 

Reveal keyboard’s special characters
Submitted by Sandeep Sharma

While typing, keep holding any key on the keyboard for about 2 seconds and you see special characters associated with that particular character. This won’t work while typing URL’s though.

 

Know when NOT to answer a phone call
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.

 

Easily use the iPhone, even with fat fingers
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!

 

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.

 

Customize the music icons
Submitted by pacman

You can customize the Music app icons on the iPhone and iPod touch. Here’s how.

1. Start by opening the Music app
2. Select the More button (bottom-right) and then the Edit button (upper-left)
3. 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
4. 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.

 

Great tips using the iPhone camera
Submitted by D. Bergh

I can’t take credit for these tips, but they are so good I thought I’d share them with Touchtip. Jason Snell from Macworld had a video piece about the iPhone that contained some tips so obvious they make you go “doh, why didn’t I think of that?”

• When your parking space is a long way from your destination, take a picture of where you parked. If you’re parked in a lot with location markers, take a picture of the nearest one of those.
• When you take the kids for an outing, take a picture of the kids before you start. That way, if you and the kids become separated, you’ll have a current picture, with the clothes and haircut they were wearing that day, to show the security guards.
• This one hits home to me, personally: I often travel on business and valet-park my car. Often, the attendant asks me what kind of car I’m driving. My usual response: “Uh, I dunno. It’s a rental.” Snell advises, when you rent a car, to take a picture of it, including the license plate.

 

Filling iTunes coverflow with artwork
Submitted by cowpie

If you are like me and use coverflow to flip through your music collection, then you need to have artwork for each song. This is automatic if you purchase music through iTunes because every download comes with album art. Also, if you download or rip music outside of iTunes you can still get artwork for your songs as long as you have an iTunes account and your songs have correct tags. However, if the tags don’t match the artist, album name, and song names of tracks in the iTunes Store exactly, then you won’t be able to get the artwork through iTunes. One fix for this is to simply correct the tags, then control-click your tracks and select Get Artwork. If this still doesn’t work, or you don’t have an iTunes account, you’ll need to download the artwork from the web. You’ll need artwork at the right size so that you don’t have white borders around it in coverflow. I have found that CDUniverse is an excellent source for album art at the right sizes. I also use a free utility for Mac called Corripio, which automatically checks CDUniverse and many other sources to pull in art work for my music. Corripio will also find music lyrics as well, and help you fix missing or bad tags.

 

Free SMS messages on the iPhone
Submitted by Sean P

The new voice and data plan for iPhone G3 is killing me. The entry level plan does not even include any SMS. I almost added that to my plan, but then discovered the AIM instant message app available for free in the App Store. This was most excellent news because you can send SMS messages to any phone number through the AIM protocol for free! If you don’t have iPhone 2.0 yet and can’t add App Store apps, then just point mobile Safari to Meebo.com and use their web-based chat client for AIM. Either client will work, and here’s the trick: when you add a new contact, simply use that persons wireless phone number preceded by a “+” sign like this, +4155567899. The plus sign tells AIM that this message is an SMS which gets routed automatically to the right carrier with no charges. Cha-ching!

 

iPhone typing – secrets revealed
Submitted by Geoff Kellner

I hear so many people (most BlackBerry snobs) complain about the iPhone’s virtual keyboard and how it’s so difficult to type with. I’ve never had a problem with it because I’ve always trusted the built-in auto-correct which is very accurate. I tried explaining this to my co-workers but they just didn’t get it. Then I found this excellent blog post on how to type better on the iPhone or iPod touch. The key is being able to trust the auto-correct. If you can master that, then all you need to do is tap the screen close the letter you are trying to tap and let the iPhone take care of the rest. The only key you must hit accurately is the space key. I think all iPhone and iPod touch owners should read this.

 

Store club cards on your iPhone as pictures
Submitted by Dan Fong

Here’s a tip to lighten your wallet a bit. Take all those club cards out of your wallet or purse and take a photo of each one on your iPhone. Now you can put all those cards away and just carry your iPhone. When you need a card number it’ll be right there in your photos app.

 

Taking screenshots is now built-in to iPhone 2.0 firmware
Submitted by bobby_boy

This is so awesome. I love taking screenshots of my iPod touch and sending them to my friends. I used to have a jailbroken device and a hacked app to get this to work before. Now, however, the latest firmware, iPhone 2.0, has this feature built right in. To take a screenshot from anywhere on your iPod touch (or iPhone), just hold down the home button and quickly press the sleep/wake button at the top of your device. You’ll see the screen flash, and an image is saved to your Cameral Roll. You can then email these to anyone by tapping the share option in the Photos app.

 

iPhone security tips
Submitted by Sammy Fontain

Here’s a run down of some security tips that will keep your data and identity from being being stolen.

1. Auto-lock and Passcode lock – Use them both. I set my auto-lock to kick in after two minutes of iPhone idle time, but that only works for security if you also use the passcode lock which requires a four digit code to be entered after auto-lock was engaged.
2. Wi-fi Settings – If you have a personal wi-fi network at home, don’t leave it open. Require a password with a wi-fi security setting, usually found in your router’s admin screen. Also be sure to enable your iPhone or iPod touch wi-fi settings to “Ask to Join Networks”. This prevents your iPhone from automatically joining a network without you knowing about it. Any novice hacker could leave a wi-fi network open, wait for an unsuspecting iPhone to automatically connect, then hack right into the device to take your identity. You should also disable wi-fi altogether when you don’t need it. That’ll ensure your security, and save you battery power.
3. Web mail - When accessing web email like Gmail, be sure you are accessing it via SSL (secure socket layers). This encrypts the messages during transport so that it cannot be read until it is unencrypted by mobile safari. You’ll know you are on a secure connection when you see the little lock icon in the address bar of safari.
4. Surfing Safari – Disable pop-ups in Safari’s settings. This helps prevent malware from getting installed on your iPhone and lead to a virus. In general, Macs have been pretty safe from hackers and the iPhone hasn’t been much different, but why take a chance? Who needs pop-ups, anyways? Some people recommend disabling cookies, but this can lead to some inconvenience while you surf since cookies are often used to maintain your state with a web application. Without it, you could get inadvertently signed off of a secure site, unable to access certain pages that you normally could, or have to constantly type the same information into web forms over and over.

 

Shortcut for navigating your home screen
Submitted by Reed Moseng

If you tap right above the top-left corner of the dock on the home screen, you can go to the next home screen, or vice versa for going back one home screen. This is great if you ever get tired of swiping all the time!

 

Read more iPhone tips submitted by readers of Touchip.

 

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