Mac|Life iPhone OS 3.0 RSS Feed

iPhone 3.1.2 is Live

Roberto Baldwin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:54:23 -0500

Plug that iPhone into iTunes, it's time to update.

Apple has unleashed a new update for our precious iPhones. Apple states that the new release will fix the following issues:

- Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep

- Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart

- Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming

Drop your experience with today's update in the comments below.

UPDATE: Robbie got a carrier update with his OS update. Anyone else experience this?

We have a query out to AT&T about the carrier profile update. Hopefully we'll hear from them soon.

iPhone OS 3.0 is Live - Let's Go Crash Apple's Servers!

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:15:55 -0500

We've been pressing the "Check for Update" button in iTunes for the past 12 hours. Finally, we got a bite and iPhone OS 3.0 is being reeled in by our Macs.

We have an article full of tips and tricks for the new iPhone OS it you want to take a gander while you're iPhone reboots in the land of copy and paste. Also, tell us your experience with the update in the comments below.

Have Fun!

Things To Do While Waiting for iPhone OS 3.0

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:41:53 -0500

Apple has confirmed that iPhone OS 3.0 will be available today. The real question is when? Maybe you're refreshing the iPhone OS 3.0 page on Apple's site like a crazy person, maybe you're tracking Twitter for the exact instant someone shouts that the update is live. Whatever you're doing, we have a few things you can be doing to help pass the time.

- Back up your iPhone. Seriously, you're going to updating the OS on your iPhone. It's a good idea to have a solid backup before you begin the process.

- Update all your apps. While Apple's servers are only getting partially hammered by its throngs of fans, you can queue up all the updates that are available.

- Call your Dad. It's Father's Day on Sunday, get a jump on your weekend duty. He'll appreciate it and you'll have more time on Sunday to master copy and paste.

- (Shameless plug alert) Check out our 16 Tips to Become an INSTANT iPhone OS 3.0 Power-User article and get ready for iPhone OS 3.0 action.

- Go pick up donuts. Nothing makes the day breeze on by like fried dough with sugar on it.

- Watch Arrested Development on Hulu. That's what we would be doing if we had the time. We do love those Bluths.

- Update your Flickr feed with pics of you waiting for the iPhone OS update. We're sure it'll be truly riveting stuff.

- Make friends with the new guy down the hall. Maybe he has some inside information about Apple. You never know!

- Clean your fridge. It's a horrible mess.

Drop your time wasting ideas in the comments below.

16 Tips to Become an INSTANT iPhone OS 3.0 Power-User

Roberto Baldwin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:01:57 -0500

Shout it from the mountain top, copy and paste has arrived on the iPhone. After you've gotten your fill of pasting links into your favorite Twitter app and Facebook, follow these tips to make using iPhone OS 3.0 just that more exciting.

Before you start

Before you install the new OS, it's a good idea to back up your iPhone one last time before you take the OS 3.0 plunge. You can right-click on your iPhone in iTunes to initiate a manual backup of your iPhone. This is your safety net in case something horrible happens. And if something does goes awry, use Restore from Backup and choose the latest backup to get back to square one.

Select and Delete

Select the text then delete it.

Tired of the spastic deleting of the delete button? What happens is you hold the delete button, and it starts removing offending characters -- and then it goes on to removing whole words. Next thing you know, you've deleted too many words, and you have to start over. To avoid this, use tap and hold to show the Select|Select All pop-up. Select what you need deleted, hit the delete button and -- poof! -- you've gotten rid of the offending text without trying to judge the speed of the delete button.

Quick Spotlight

Search is just an extra tap away.

When you tap the Home button on the iPhone while on a secondary Home screen, it'll return you to your main iPhone Home screen. If you tap the Home button a second time, you'll be taken to the spotlight search page. You can also reach this page by swiping to the left of your main Home Screen.

Adjust Spotlight Search

We care more about Email search results, and don't care at all about Podcast and Video search results.

If you don't need your music collection showing up in your Spotlight searches, you can turn music search off. In fact you can fine-tune your Spotlight searches to include and/or ignore most of your iPhone items. Just navigate to Settings > General > Home > Search Results. There you'll see the options available for search. You can even drag the search results fields so that you see Mail items first.

Use Copy to Email Photos Instead of Share

One feature that has the Mac|Life staff excited is the ability to email multiple photos in one message.

Using the Share option you can email up to five images. Sure, five is more than one, but what if you have 10 really dope images you want to send at once?

In that case, use the Copy option. Select the photos you want, then press Copy. Navigate to the Email client and paste all the images in.

Warning: The more images you copy, the slower the Mail app runs while it's pulling the images from the clipboard and placing them in your message. Also, the Mail app will refuse to send large messages; we got up to 10MB (25 - 30 individual pics) of images in a message before the app reigned in our fun and crashed. Chances are, you'll probably send fewer than that.

Emoji is Still There

Make your iPhone 80% cuter with Emoji iconography.

If you're an Emoji icon addict, don't fret. If you had Emjoi enabled before you update, it'll still be there when you're done. If you don't have Emoji and you've already updated, no worries. You can choose one of a couple 99¢ Emoji enabler apps from the App Store. Remember, Emoji only works from iPhone to iPhone. Your Pre- and Android-loving friends won't get your message if you slap Emoji characters into it.

Who Called From Where

The information is available in Voicemail and Recents

Now when someone calls and leaves a Voicemail, or just shows up in Recents, under their name it shows what phone they called from. This is great for contacts who have multiple numbers, and, say, you know that their mobile is a better way to get a hold of them than their work number. Now you don't have to guess if the number your calling is the correct one.

Find My iPhone - Stalker Fun

It's off by default. Turn it on before you need it.

To turn on Find My iPhone, navigate to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your MobileMe account.

There you'll see the Find My iPhone option. Turn that puppy on for ~~stalking~~ iPhone finding fun. You can have multiple iPhones utilizing the service. ~~Stalk~~ Find your whole family. Don't forget to enable Push is haven't enabled it before.

Find the Find My iPhone page on MobileMe under your Summary tab.

If you have a family member who tends to get lost, Find My iPhone can be used to locate that person and give them directions to their destination, or at least help them get out of the Mugging District.

If you have kids, and you want to make sure they are keeping to the library and not the local heroin den, you can track and send them messages. Nothing says "get back to your studies!" like a strongly worded message and a two-minute sonar chime.

NEXT: Setup your Exchange Calendar and Notes Syncing.

Exchange meetings without the cost

AT&T wants you to pay extra for Exchange service on your iPhone. Forget that! You can set it up without paying any extra fee.

Now you can send and receive invitations to meetings with the Calendar app

Navigate to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Set up an Exchange account via Add Account. You can get this information from your IT department or just get the information from your Entourage or Outlook client if you're sneaky. Be sure to turn on the Calendar option and your ready to rock. Just be sure you're on your employer's Wi-Fi network so it can find the Exchange server. After set up we were able to set up meetings and we received alerts about meetings we were invited too.

Shake your iPhone

Shake the Killers away.

Shake to Shuffle is a great way to skip to the next song -- and accidently toss your iPhone across the room. But it does have its limitations. You can't Shake to Shuffle once you leave the iPod app, and it won't work while the iPhone is locked.

Bummer.

However, you can still double-tap the Home button to get the iPod controls once you're out of the iPod app.

UPDATE: Commenter DTrigger05 points out that if you have the iPod controls on the screen via a double tap on the Home button while music is playing, you can indeed shake to shuffle while you're not in the iPod app. With this method, you can even shake to shuffle while the iPhone is locked, with the screen on and you have the iPod controls being displayed.

Public Transportation

Find out who is running the bus you're riding

Google's Map app got a public transportation update. In addition to being able to tap on each stop along your route for a nugget of information pertaining to that stop, there is also a sub-menu that gives you information about the transportation service you're using, and a link to that agency's website.

Not All Apps are 3.0 Ready

Before you start launching apps and complaining that the keyboard isn't landscape, keep in mind that not all apps are 3.0 ready. Give it a week or so for all the apps to make it through the App Store review process. Just keep your fingers crossed that they don't reference any swears in their apps.

Passing Notes

Get those notes into the Mail app for safe keeping

To start syncing Notes from your iPhone, you need to enable the feature in iTunes. Plug in your iPhone and navigate to the Info tab. Scroll down and check the Sync Notes box.

All your notes in one place

The notes will sync with Mail on your Mac under the Reminders drop down.

Record Your Message

Why, hello there...

Use Voice Memo to record and email a special greeting to your all friends and family. Record your touching message, trim off the fat on the ends, and email it to your most beloved contacts. Your Voice Memos will also be synced to iTunes.

Copy the Answer with the Calculator

Copy large numbers into other apps. Or, you can try and remember this string of numbers.

Copy and paste to, and from, the Calculator app. If you have a large number you need copied into Calculator app, you're covered. If you need to save the the answer to that huge equation, you're covered. We just wish you could copy the entire equation. Maybe you'll be able to in iPhone OS 4.0.

Redeem on the Go

Redemption!

Got a sweet iTunes card from your friend as a gift while you're away from home? Both the iTunes app and the App Store app now support redeeming iTunes codes. Both apps keep the redeem feature under the More tab. Now you can download that $25 worth of Rush before you even get home. RAD!

Got a sweet tip, drop it in the comments below.

Podcast #94: New iPhones Are on Their Way and What's the Deal with MacBook Pros

Mac|Life Staff — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:25:18 -0500

If you pre-ordered your new iPhone 3G S to arrive at your house, you may have a special surprise on Wednesday or Thursday. Plus, we talk about Apple's mysterious decision to place a slower SATA interface in the new MacBook Pros and Robbie gets ready to hang out in line on Friday.

Got a question, but you're afraid to leave a voice message because of Witness Relocation Dept. rules? Drop us a question via Twitter twitter.com/maclife.

This weeks Battlestar Applactica picks:

Peggle - $4.99

Dupin - Free

PCalc - $9.99

Don't forget, the Mac|Life staff would love to hear your thoughts, comments and ideas for the new podcast. Just leave a message on the Mac|Live question/comment line: (877) 404-1337, extension 622. Please limit the length of your messages to 1 minute max. We'll review these calls each week and feature our favorites, along with responses, on that week's podcast.

To subscribe to the Mac|Live podcast series through an RSS feed, click here; if you want to subscribe through the iTunes Store, click here.

Couple More WWDC Tidbits

J Keirn-Swanson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:13:39 -0500

First and foremost, there's the 3G S. Apple's released the Technical Specs to give you a sense of what kind of hardware upgrades the new phones pack. Along with the long-awaited MMS capabilities, the upgraded camera that now captures video, and the increased selection of languages, the familiar touch screen's getting a makeover as well.

This small, new development is a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating, that keeps your screen smudge free. We suspect that also includes the inevitable ear-print smudging that accompanies any actual phone use. Of course, with the prevalence of protective screen overlays this seems the kind of feature we'd not really notice all that much.

Perhaps one of the coolest new features in OS 3 is Find My iPhone. Doing just what its name says, Find My iPhone helps you track down a lost or stolen phone. A number of apps claim to be able to pinpoint your phone's location when you can't find it, though they require the person who stole or found your iPhone to actually turn on the app in the first place. Others like Zhiing can be used to send your location to another Zhiing subscriber but can't be used to ping the missing phone to get a bead on it.

With Find My iPhone, you can access your me.com account from any computer to locate your phone's approximate location on a map, send a message to anyone who finds your phone, or wipe the phone's memory and restore factory settings. This last feature comes in handy if you have no chance of retrieving your iPhone and wish to keep your address book and pictures out of the hands of strangers. It also adds a level security that will make the iPhone a lot more attractive to business users.

The biggest drawback to Apple's Find My iPhone, though, is that it's only available through the MobileMe service, itself $99 per year. Of course, if you're the kind of person who regularly misplaces things that's a small price to pay when replacement iPhones aren't subsidized by AT&T.

Apple Knows What You Did With Your iPhone

Roberto Baldwin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:02:49 -0500

A "friend" of the Mac|Life staff decided to bite the bullet and install the iPhone OS 3.0 Monday after a developer uploaded it to a file sharing site. While being reckless with his iPhone, the person is also a bit paranoid, and decided not to partake in the app updates that made themselves available.

The "friend" knows that his iTunes account is used to download updates, and he wasn't too keen on letting Apple know what he did. That lasted a whole 24-hours.

Then yesterday he saw that Find My iPhone was live. Surely he could wait until Wednesday to test the service.

Nope.

Today he set up his iPhone with MobileMe and sent it a message and tracked it using Find My iPhone. Very slick and exciting. He imagined a world where he could toss his iPhone in the back of bad guy's cars and track their movements like Spiderman.

Ten minutes after he sent his iPhone with iPhone OS 3.0 a message via Find My iPhone, our "friend" received the following email from Apple:

Coincidence? Or, friendly reminder to our "friend" that while he is a member of the Developer Connection, he's not a member of the iPhone Developer Program and therefore shouldn't have iPhone OS 3.0 on his iPhone.

Either way, nothing has happened to his account and he still has access to Find My iPhone. He just wanted us to remind everyone that Apple knows what were all up too.

Like we said, it could just be a coincidence and or friend is a bit paranoid. Has anyone else that's updated their iPhone to OS 3.0 and used Find My iPhone experienced a similar email from Apple?