Taking a break!

I will be taking a break of posting on A New iPhone Tip Every Day for a little while. I just feel like there isn't enough new stuff to really cover a tip a day. I really had to search for new tips in the past week and I feel that some weren't really that great. This website is definitely not dead and as I find new awesome tips, I will definitely post them!

A New Mac Tip Every Day remains active and I will continue posting daily there! Third-party apps really make a difference. The possibilities of the Mac is definitely a lot greater.

Magnifying Glass with SMS!

You can easily get a magnifying glass when typing a text message. To do it, you simply have to hold your finger over the text field and a small magnifying glass will pop up!

Finding a Map on your Mac and emailing it to your iPhone!

This is a great way of finding exactly the map you want on your Mac or PC and sending it to your iPhone. The way it works is that once you have found the map you want on Google Maps, you click "Link to this page" in the upper right corner of the page. You can copy and paste the url and email it to yourself. On your iPhone, you can then click on the Google Map link and it will load the map in the Maps application on your iPhone.

Google Calendar!

Well Google is now in the game with iPhone optimized apps. There is a new iPhone version of Google Calendar. It is at http://calendar.google.com (The website should recognize that you are on an iPhone automatically)

This is the new interface (screenshot from the Official Gmail Blog):

The English Elevator Words game!

This is a cool new iPhone optimized game. It is at http://kprobe.com/kprobe/iPhone/vw.php

iPhone games!

This is really a great place to find many free iPhone games. There are many games on there and the whole website is well optimized for the iPhone. It is at http://iphone.knibble.com/

Leaflets on the iPhone!

This is one of my favorite web applications for the iPhone. It is called Leaflets. It works really well and what I really like is the interface that looks so similar to the main page of the iPhone. You can check it out at http://app.getleaflets.com/

A non tip for today!

I am on a trip and I realized I don't really have a tip for today (iPhone tips are not that easy to find!), but I have a quote from Steve Jobs for everyone on the edge of unlocking or not your iPhone. During the UK iPhone announcement, Steve Jobs said:

"It's a cat-and-mouse game," said Jobs. "We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in."

A puzzle game!

Not much new to talk about today apart from this new puzzle game that you can try out at http://members.tripod.com/rv6/puzzle.html

Word and PowerPoint documents on the iPhone!

This is a great new web application that lets you edit Microsoft Word documents and view PowerPoint documents. The Google apps were already useful to fill this gap, but it's nice to see a way of doing it that is optimized for the screen of the iPhone. It is at http://www.glidemobile.com/

International keyboard!

The iPhone doesn't yet have an international keyboard but the iPod touch does. It is nearly certain at this time that the next update will include this. You will be able to switch keyboard in the settings. When you want to type a special character, let's say "é", you will simply have to hold your finger on "e" and a bubble will pop up with the different choices.

A fitness tracking app!

This is a fitness tracking application for your iPhone. It is called Gyminee. It was already available as a regular website, but they now have an iPhone version. It is at http://www.gyminee.com/users/login_iphone

Is it a game or not?

This is apparently a game, I'm not sure but whatever, that's not what I want to talk about. What I really like about this application is that it is one that is using the rotation sensor of the iPhone. You can check it out at http://www.ieightball.com/

Tracking fuel efficiency!

I know a lot of people keep logs of when they fill up the tank to get an idea if their car is performing as usual. This is a way of semi-automating the process on your iPhone. It is at http://miles.dynadel.com/

A bug in the weather widget!

This is really more a bug than a tip, but I thought it was pretty cool and there isn't really much new stuff to talk about so here it is. I got it from Doug Clark.

If you flip through two different cities, hold your finger while it's in between the two. With another finger, tap and hold down the time, while letting off the city. It'll get stuck between the two.

Thanks for sending this in Doug!

RSS feed reader!

It is a new application called FeedMe that is actually an RSS reader. You can select which RSS feed you want to follow from a list and headlines will cycle through on screen. You can also select the speed at which they cycle and it can go really fast to the point where you can read anything. You can check it out at http://www.rogerkenny.com/feedme/

Many cities in the weather widget!

This is a great tip submitted by Doug Clark: Many cities in the weather widget! If you have the weather for many different cities in your iPhone weather widget, flipping through them might take a while. A faster way of doing it is to tap the back area at the bottom left or bottom right to go to the previous or the next one! Thanks for the tip Doug!

Another iPhone-sized news site!

There isn't really anything new in terms of iPhone tips or website today. What I found is this new iPhone-sized news website called "The Onion". It really shows that most websites are adapting to be compatible with the iPhone and the iPod touch. It is at http://mobile.theonion.com/content/index

Cnet news on the iPhone and the iPod touch!

If you often get your news on Cnet, this is probably the best news ever. This new iPhone optimized website will let you browse be category through all the news in a much nicer interface. It is at http://www.iphonecnews.com/

Sudoku on the iPhone!

Apple didn't release any iPhone or iPod touch game yet, but I guess it doesn't really matter. Sudoku is one of the game sold for the iPod and you can now get it free on the iPhone and the iPod touch (within range of a wifi). It is at http://freeverse.com:16080/iphone/sudoku_824/

True free ringtones!

I was really waiting for something like this to come around, true free ringtones without any risky procedure involving a jailbreak. It looks like it is really easy to fool iTunes into installing ringtones on your iPhone that you made yourself. The easiest way to create the ringtone is to load the audio file in GarageBand and cut it in there. You then export it as an AAC. It seems that there is no difference between iTunes official ringtones and AAC files. To make it appear in your iPhone ringtones section, rename it as ".M4R". If you don't choose to have the Finder display the extension, it might just add ".M4R" at the end of the name. You can solve that by pressing "Command - I" to get more info and rename it from there. Once it is renamed, open it. It will load in iTunes and show up in the Ringtones section!

Widgets on your iPhone, in Safari!

Widgetop released a mobile version that lets you run widgets that are currently unavailable on the iPhone. The interface is really well designed and very useful. What is awesome is that widgets are already made for displaying great information in a small size. You can check it out at http://www.widgetop.com/mobile.html

Another note app!

I know the iPhone includes a note taking application, but there are other possibilities. You can also take notes with PogoNotes. PogoNotes is a web-based note-taking app that even lets you share notes with other users. You can check it out at http://www.pogonotes.com/desktop/Site/Main.html

Ignoring a call!

There is a way that I just found out recently of ignoring a call or sending it immediately to voicemail. To simply stop the ringing and ignore the call, you can press the sleep / wake button once. If you want to send the call directly to voicemail, you have to press the sleep / wake button twice!

The phase of the moon?

Okay, I am starting to wonder when we'll stop seeing new iPhone apps every day. Seeing the ideas developers come up with, I guess it'll be never. This new iPhone app called iPhone Moon Phase is not really that useful, but it looks really cool. You can check it out at http://www.microseconds.com/imoon/

A new iPhone game!

This is a new game that just came out for the iPhone. It is an okay game, it can be entertaining, but it gets really long after a while. I didn't really get what was the point of the game at first, but then I realized that if you didn't think your moves through, you wouldn't be able to do it. You can check it out at: http://dgbgames.com/stompem/

Scrolling on the iPhone!

Websites can appear very long in the iPhone Safari because the screen doesn't display a large part of the website. When you scroll very fast with your finger, it will keep on scrolling for a while. If you see the spot where you want to be and you want to stop there, you easily do it by tapping once on the screen. It will stop the scrolling immediately!

Video content on your iPhone!

The iPhone actually has a better resolution than the video iPod (maybe not for long anymore!) so you'll want to make sure you take advantage if this improved resolution. If you put movies or videos on your iPhone, using the exact resolution will be the best balance of space and quality. Handbrake is still one of the best option out there for converting that content to the right format. There previously weren't any presets for the iPhone. You had to know what you were doing. Not anymore. The latest version of Handbrake (0.9) includes the iPhone presets. I noticed after installing it that I still didn't have the new presets. If this happens to you, you should try going to the "Presets" menu and choose "Update Built-in Presets". That solved it for me. You can download Handbrake 0.9 here from MacUpdate.

Handbrake 0.9:


The new presets: