All articles tagged , Camera, iPhone, iPod touch, MobileMe, Photos, SMS, Social Networking, Tips, Voice & Data Plan, Weekly Roundup

Happy Friday, Touchtip readers! Today we’d like to share with you some of the best tips that our readers have sent in over the past week. We’ve got some terrific reader tips this week which include how to get free SMS messages on your iPhone, and how to get free push syncing of email, calendar, and contacts without shelling out the extra cash for a MobileMe subscription. You’ll also learn the secret of mastering the iPhone keyboard (hint: it’s easier than you think!).

Read on to learn about these tips, and more. And if you have your own tip you’d like to share, please send it to us and we’ll post in our next Friday Roundup. Now, on to the tips.
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If you do any social networking with your friends or colleagues online, then you know what a pain it is to check all the sites to monitor their activity. You have to go to each site, sign into your account, check the updates. This gets more and more tedious as you connect with more people using different social networks. You’ve got friends on YouTube, and some are on Facebook, your colleagues are on LinkedIn, he uses Digg, she uses Flickr, you get the idea. It’s getting to be a big distraction just to keep up, and your CPA (constant partial attention) is getting stretched to its limit.

Enter FriendFeed, a social media aggregator that combines activity from all of your social networks into a single stream. While FriendFeed does not currently have a mobile-friendly version of the service, there are other ways of using it on mobile Safari and we’ll tell you how after the jump.
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iPhone wallpaper sites are a dime a dozen, but here at Touchtip we really only like to tell you about the sites that are offer unique, high quality wallpapers. We’ve already told you about a few of them, but we just discovered a new one worth checking out if you are looking to freshen up the face of your iPhone or iPod touch. Despite the site’s name, Pixelgirl offers images that will appeal to both sexes. The wallpapers are free, of course, and designed by a variety of artists. The images range from cute and cuddly, to psychedelic and ’shroomy. Pixelgirl also has big galleries of desktop wallpapers and icons for your Mac or PC computer. It appears that the iPhone wallpaper section of the site is fairly new since there are currently only about sixty of them to choose from. However, the site does take submissions from artists so look for the iPhone selection to grow over time.

Pixelgirl - Wallpapers for iPhone and iPod touch
www.pixelgirl.com

The media’s fickle love affair with social networking has spurned MySpace in favor of Facebook, and now Twitter, with a little LinkedIn on the side. Each of these social networks has enjoyed some level of success either by focusing on one market, or by doing at least one thing very well. Also, each of these started as a desktop web application before offering mobile access and only a handful deliver a true iPhone interface. There is one problem with these iPhone versions in that they feel more like an afterthought, created for the sole purpose of riding the iPhone media frenzy to get some press. Take the iPhone versions of Facebook and LinkedIn, for example. They are feature-crippled compared to their desktop siblings which makes the overall social networking experience for mobile less than satisfying. Yet quietly, deftly, iRovr has been building up an iPhone-only social network that leaves all the others sitting in the dust. Simply put, iRovr is fantastic and laden with features for blogging, life streaming, sharing photos and videos, social bookmarks, and polls. iRovr has everything we need in a social network, and more. Read on to learn more about iRovr for iPhone and iPod touch users.
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We know, we know… the words “great” and “iPhone photography” really don’t belong in the same title, but this new, free utility from Snapture actually does help you take better pictures with your iPhone. Snapture contains several tweaks that improve the photo-taking experience on the iPhone. Some of the features are so obvious you have to wonder how Apple overlooked them to begin with. Snapture is a free download, but it does require a jailbroken iPhone. You can find it in the Installer.app under Utilities. Snapture is one of those “a taste of what’s to come” native apps that hint at some of the great iPhone applications that will be available in the Apple App Store this June. Read on to find out more about Snapture’s handy features for the iPhone camera.
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The life evolution of iPod touch jumps the track and produces Chumby, the platypus of web-enabled touch devices. Like a forbidden mashup, the unholy communion of the iPod touch and the popular bean-filled footbag has produced a quirky new breed of web-enabled touch devices that make you say WTF as you fall hopelessly in love with its cuddly charm. Chumby is about the size of a cup of coffee and makes a perfect bed mate for your night stand, or even a desk pal at work; always within sight and just a touch away. Chumby’s squishy, Italian leather body features a color touch screen, audio, and built-in Wi-fi all running on a Linux-based operating system with Adobe Flash. Chumby comes loaded with widgets that deliver Flickr photos, weather, stocks, sports scores, news, internet radio, video, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, email, and on and on and on. Heck, you can even play games with Chumby, and not just hacky sack, either. Find out more about Chumby after the jump.
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We just discovered Evernote, a very slick and powerful note application that offers terrific features including a mobile interface for your iPhone or iPod touch. Evernote has downloadable client software for your desktop that automatically syncs your notes to your Evernote web account. To access or edit your notes, you point mobile Safari to Evernote and sign in, or use the IMAP interface. Of course, you need to be on EDGE or Wi-fi to use Evernote on your mobile device, but if you go between a desktop app and your iPhone, and use your iPhone camera to capture things you want to remember, then EverNote will blow your socks off. We started using Evernote last week and we can tell you that we are absolutely hooked on it. Unfortunately, Evernote is only currently availabe as a invite-only beta, but lucky you, we happen to be sitting on a pile of invites. Read on to find out how you can be one of the first people to get your hands on Evernote.
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That measly 8GB iPhone drive fills up pretty quickly which means you have to constantly shuffle around the music and videos you have on your iPhone every time you sync. And it only gets worse as your media library continues to grow. We feel your pain and have a possible solution for you if you have a PC at home that is always connected to the net via Wi-fi or cable. MyCast from Orb automatically checks the bandwidth, screen size and resolution of your viewing device and optimizes the digital content for your device and connection speed. Orb turns your PC into a secure media streaming portal where you can access your entire library of music, photos, and videos from Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch. Orb will even stream tv and can also double as webcam home security system. It’s easy to set up and best of all, it’s free.
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