iPhone game, again!

If Apple didn't include any game by default with the iPhone, it didn't take too much time for developers to solve that problem:



It is at http://www.conceptdraw.com/aha/

Best price for gas!

The price of gas can vary quite a bit depending on which station you go to. With this application called Gas.App, you can get the up to date price of the gas at every gas station around the zip code you enter. You can also search by city and state. The application also includes a link to quickly find the gas station on a Google Map. Check it out at http://www.gasapp.com/index.php

Custom ringtones at last!

This is really one of the best third-party application that ever came out for the iPhone! It is not really an iPhone app, it is rather a Mac app for your iPhone. It is unfortunately only compatible with Intel Macs. It is called iFuntastic and it lets you add custom ringtones to your iPhone. There are also a few other customization options such as modifying the carrier logo. You can get more info about this great application at iPhoneAlley.com!

Screenshot from iPhoneAlley.com:

For ICQ users!

This looks like it is a good text file reader compatible with ICQ. I haven't really tried it (I am not on ICQ), but it looks pretty good at first. You can check out the app called iOffice2U at http://www.ioffice2u.com/

Flight information!

This is a pretty nice web application for your iPhone that fulfills what a widget on OS X does. The Flight Tracker widget can be very useful if you fly frequently. Often when you are about to take the plane, however, you are not at home. That is why getting this on your iPhone makes this feature many times more useful! It will give you the stats about the flights, including the departure and arrival time and whether the flight is delayed. You can check it out at http://mobile.flightstats.com/go/Mobile/

Audiobook speed!

This is actually a cool feature that was already on the iPod and that moved up to the iPhone. It seems like I had to get an iPhone to discover it! One of the things that can be annoying when listening to an audiobook is the speed. I sometimes like to hear the audiobook a little bit faster than normal, but if it is in a foreign language, I'd rather hear it much slower so that I can really understand everything. Well you can choose the speed that audiobooks will be read without even needing to sync your iPod/iPhone. That is really useful if you don't want the same speed setting from every audiobook.

On the iPhone:

1. Go to Settings and choose "iPod".
2. Choose "Audiobook speed".
3. Tap on the desired speed: "Slower", "Normal" or "Faster".

On the iPod:

1. On the iPod main menu, choose "Settings".
2. Choose "Audiobooks".
3. Choose the desired speed: "Slower", "Normal" or "Faster".

Caps Lock!

One of the things that surprised me at first is the absence of a Caps Lock button on the keyboard. Well, Apple included this feature right from the start. You can enable it:

1. Go to "Settings" and choose "General".
2. Choose "Keyboard".
3. Choose "Enable Caps Lock".

The feature will know be enabled. To use it, tap on "Shift" twice. It will remain blue and you can type in Caps Lock. To leave the Caps Lock mode, you only have to tap once on the "Shift" key!

Draft folder!

This is a really cool tip I just discovered recently. At first, when you look at the Mail interface on your iPhone, you don't see any way of saving an email as draft. It is however possible! You simply have to press the "Cancel" button. A dialog will pop up and ask you if you want to save the message or not. When you choose to save it, Mail will add a "Draft" folder in this specific account and you'll be able to continue your message there!

Rotating application!

This might not be the most useful application, but it is a really nice proof of concept. It is actually a virtual fortune cookie. The way it works is that you load it and see the cookie, when you rotate your iPhone, the cookie cracks open! You can check it out at http://m.digitaljoven.com/fortune/index.html (you unfortunately cannot crack open the cookie without a real iPhone!).

Another weather website!

If you want to try a different weather widget, this one definitely has the Mac look. It works very well and it truly matches the new Leopard and iPhone style Apple is heading for. You can easily switch to another city by entering the zip code. You can check out this nice application at http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/iphone/weather/

Checker game!

This is a cool new checker iPhone game! It works very well but it is still a bit buggy. The interface is very well adapted for the size of the iPhone. It works in a full size web browser so you can check it out at http://www.digiwidge.com/checkrz/

The app Apple forgot!

This is truly the missing application for the iPhone: a chat application! The SMS application looks a lot like iChat but you unfortunately cannot chat with AIM, MSN or anyone on instant messaging. This third-party application is a good alternative, but being a web applications, it has some limitations. It will let you log in to your AIM account. You can quickly access your buddy list. There are also a lot of customization options. The best is to try it out at https://www.iphonechatclient.com/

A scientific calculator!

The calculators that come with most cell phones don't usually have many features. This iPhone calculator application will give you a real scientific calculator. The features are still limited, but it is much better than many other option out there. You can check it out at http://scicalc.belfry.com/



You can also check out my "falling rocks" adventure here (on tips4mac)!

Sending free text messages!

The base iPhone plan only includes 200 text messages per month even though there is unlimited data. If you text a lot, the unlimited text plan will add an extra $20. You can now avoid this fee by using a text messaging web application that runs in Safari. You simply have to enter your email, the recipient's 10 digit phone number and the message. When the recipient replies, it will automatically be sent to your email. You can check it out at http://www.txtdrop.com/iphone/

Watching trailers on the iPhone!

Apple already created a specific section on their website for watching trailers on the iPhone. What this third-party application adds is the nice UI. Browsing on this application is so much simpler than using the real Apple website. The application will then redirect you at the last minute to the chosen movie trailer. You can check it out at http://trailers.optimalconnection.net/

NHL on your iPhone!

With the NHL season coming back at fall, you'll want to be ready and have this application bookmarked. It will let you go through the teams and very quickly find the schedule of the upcoming games. You can check it out at http://web.mac.com/udt.seal.team.six/iWeb/KrisZiel/nhlapp/index.html

A real iPhone optimized game!

I think we can say that it is the first real iPhone optimized game. The previous games were merely optimized in terms of screen size. This one actually makes use of the accelerometer present in the iPhone. It is called "Corridor". The instructions for the game are:

1. If you see protrusions on the left and right, hold the iPhone in portrait mode.


2. If you see protrusions on the top and bottom, hold the iPhone in landscape mode.


3. Do NOT change the orientation of the iPhone while you are in a section with protrusions. This will cause you to crash.

You can get an idea of the app at: http://sho.rt-b.us/iphone/corridor.tmpl (You unfortunately cannot really use it in a real web browser.)

The classic PC game is now on iPhone!

It didn't take too much time for the classic PC game Solitaire to arrive on the iPhone. A developer created a solitaire web game adapted for the iPhone. The solitaire unfortunately doesn't have many customization options. You don't have the choice, you have to play with three cards. The interface is well thought for playing on a multi-touch iPhone!

Converting videos to read on the iPhone!

You probably have many home movies and videos that you want to be able to watch on your iPhone. The iPhone is not too picky about the size of the videos you put on it. It will read a lot of video files. If you want to have the best balance of quality (the maximum quality that the iPhone can render) and file size however, you'll want to re-encode the videos so that they are optimized for the iPhone. You can easily do this if you have QuickTime Pro.

1. First, you must download the most recent version of QuickTime, 7.2 (it came out yesterday).
2. Then load the movie in QuickTime.
3. Go to File, and choose Export (or Command-E).
4. Select "Movie to iPhone" in the "Export:" settings.
5. Click "OK" and wait until it is done!

Your video will now be encoded in the best format for the iPhone!

More detailed weather!

If you are not entirely satisfied with the basic weather widget that comes with the iPhone, there are alternatives. One of the best one is AccuWeather.com. There is now an iPhone-sized website that will give you a much more detailed weather for any city. To enter the city of your choice, you have to click on the "i" in the lower right corner, just like a true widget. You can see more of the iPhone-sized AccuWeather at http://apple.accuweather.com/widget/iphone1/iphone.html

Free Wi-fi!

If you are getting tired of surfing on the slower Edge and want to get on a free Wi-fi network, you'll want to know about this website. Jiwire.com is an established website that has a catalog of over 150,000 Wi-fi hotspots in 136 countries. That is great, but their website is not as beautiful in a iPhone-sized web browser. Jiwire.com just launched an iPhone-sized version of their website however. It will even let you choose to display only free hotspots! You can check it out at http://iphone.jiwire.com/

iPhone Text Editing!

We finally have a text editor for the iPhone: gOffice! You can check out the app at http://goffice.com/ It will let you edit basic text, save it and email it to someone. The file that the application sends is a Microsoft Word doc file. One of the only missing feature (it is probably coming in a next revision) is to be able to edit doc files that you receive by email!

Reverse phone number?

You probably often end up in a situation where you have someone's phone number, but not a complete address or something. There are some websites that let you do what is called a "Reverse Phone Number". It will give you the name and the address of the person owning that phone number. Well there is now a great iPhone-sized website to get that.  It is very well optimized to be used on an iPhone.  It only works with US phone numbers, but then the iPhone is only available in the US! You can check out iPhone People Search at http://www.2robots.com/iphone

Access to your Mac from your iPhone!

I have to say that this is probably one of the best third-party web application for the iPhone that I have ever seen. It lets you remotely access your Mac from your iPhone. It even lets you control your Mac: taking a screenshot, checking out your files, capturing with your iSight and even controlling iTunes. You'll first have to install the necessary software on your Mac. After setting a password, you will be able to access your Mac through Safari on the iPhone. You will have to enter your Macs' IP address. This might be an issue if you have a regular broadband internet access, the IP address is not static and changes sometimes. The application is still under development and many more features are expected to come. What you have to install on your computer is in "Alpha" so it is a "use at your own risk". It really shows that Web apps have more potential than we first believed! You can get more info about this here: http://code.google.com/p/telekinesis/

iPhone game!

This is yet another web based iPhone game that is very well adapted for playing on an iPhone-sized screen. You simply have to move the gems around to make rows of three or more. The only downside of this game is that like any third-party app, you need internet access. You can check out the game at: http://diamenty.myiphone.pl/

Scrolling back to the top of Safari!

This is a great tip that comes from MacRumors.com: Scrolling back to the top of Safari! When you are scrolled down on any web-page in Safari, instead of taking some time to scroll back up, you can simply tap the top bar where there is the time and the remaining battery indicator. It will instantly scroll back up to the URL bar! Thanks MacRumors.com for the great tip!

Digg on your iPhone!

Digg is a very popular website, but is the interface that great for browsing on an iPhone sized screen? Not really. A developer thankfully created a website that is automatically updated to follow what is on Digg but in a nice iPhone sized interface. It is really designed to take advantage of the touchscreen browsing. You can check out the website at: http://davidcann.com/digg

Punctuation when typing on iPhone!

The fact that you have to go on a secondary keyboard to get the punctuation such as the period or the comma was really one of the things that I found the most annoying about the iPhone. I thought it was so much longer to type because you nearly use punctuation as much as any other letter. That was until I found this wonderful tip! I actually found it on David Pogue's website. It will be incorporated in his coming book "The iPhone Missing Manual". To do it, you simply have to press on the button that brings you to the secondary keyboard, and while holding your finger pressed on the glass, slide your finger to the punctuation you want. When you release it, it will automatically switch back to the standard keyboard. The same is also true for the Shift button. "Shift" and ".?123" are the only buttons that respond before you even lift your finger. It really is an awesome timesaver. Thanks David Pogue for sharing this tip on your website!

Is Edge that bad?

If you really want to know how bad the speed of Edge is for web browsing, there is now a great way of testing it. It is "the iPhone network test". It will let you test the real speed of your internet connection in a nice iPhone sized website. It will easily let you compare Edge with WiFi. You can check it out at http://www.iphonenetworktest.com/.


And by the way, no, this test wasn't performed on Edge!

Another great iPhone game!

This game has been around for years, but it is still nice to see it coming to the iPhone: a Tile game.  The interface is very well-adapted for the iPhone.  A single tap will mix the pieces and tapping again will stop.  After that, you can simply tap on each tile that you want to move.  You can check out the game in any web browser: http://tilegame.widgetinfo.net

iPhoney!

We now know that some websites might check the user agent and block you if you are not using an iPhone to check out a website. The Safari debug menu won't let you switch to the iPhone user agent. A developer created a nice application that will let you preview how websites will look in an iPhone screen sized browser. It is called iPhoney! It also incorporates an option to fake as though you are using an iPhone.

1. First, download iPhoney here.
2. Once it is installed, go to "iPhoney" and choose "Use iPhone User Agent".
3. You'll now be able to browse any website that is restricted to the iPhone.

You can finally see that the iPhone app that Apple created that was supposed to be an RSS browser is really not much.