The Great iPhone Blog

Simply start listening to your music, then while listening, start your game. Wait until the music stops and the game's music begins. Now just press the top iPhone button; this will put your phone to sleep. Press your headphone button to start the iPod music, than wake up your phone, slide to activate, and you'll be back to the game while listening to your music.

[robg adds: You can also double-tap the Home button to bring up the iPod controller, assuming you have the phone's preferences configured to do so.]

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

My company uses Exchange, and hearing Apple chime on about Exchange support started to get under my skin after my first few unsuccessful attempts at getting it to work. What I didn't realize is that Apple has SSL enabled by default. And since my company does not use SSL for Exchange, the verification process will always fail despite the Domain, Mail Server, and other settings from the configure new account screen being correct. The solution is to just save the broken settings, and then manually edit the account and disable SSL. I hope that, in a future revision, Apple fixes the auto-detect settings that Entourage supports, or at least gives access to all settings from the Configure Account screen.

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

You might think you are out of luck when using Location services on your old iPhone, but you aren't! You have to perform an extra step, and you are relying on the original iPhone's tower triangulation method instead of GPS, but it's better than nothing. It, of course, requires the iPhone 2.0 software.

To use location services with your current local location, before you access any program that needs to know your location, go to the Maps program, and use the Find Location icon to get your current location by triangulation. Then, access the program that plans on using location services, and it will use your current location. (If you've used the "OK to use my location" button to access a program from one location, then move to another location and launch a location-aware program, your stored location will reflect your first position until you force it to update using this technique.)

I've had to do this manually every time I wanted to get local information, but it works w...

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

With AIM available in the iPhone's App Store, you can now send and receive SMS messages without paying for a plan or individual messages. Also, this will be even better when the notification service works on applications sometimes this fall.

First, download AIM onto your iPhone, then start it up. If you want to send a text message to (617) 555-1212, just send a new IM to +16175551212. You should receive a confirmation message from AOL saying your message has been sent, and the user can reply and you'll receive it on your phone as an IM. Hope this hint saves some people a few bucks.

[robg adds: We covered this technique for SMS via iChat a few years back, but I felt it worth mentioning again in the context of the iPhone.]

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

I've seen a few requests around the internets for an app store RSS feed. Until Apple releases their own, I have stumbled upon a useful one:

feed://webobjects.mdimension.com/iPhoneApps.rss

Enjoy!

[robg adds: I discovered (thanks to TUAW) a number of App Store feeds provided by Pinch Media:

• Recently added apps
• Recently added free apps
• Updated apps
• Top 100 free apps
• ...

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

On the new iPhone software, you can search for a contact using the first and last name. For instance, if you want to search for Pedro Fernandes, you would write P F (that's P, then a space, then an F). The iPhone will filter out all the contacts with first and last name starting with P and F, and vice-versa. You can further refine the search by typing more letters. This is a great time-saving feature; thanks, Apple!

Bonus hint... on a standard phone (none-Apple) I always stored the names in such a way that you can do this search. So for instance I would have: Pedro Fernandes stored as PFernandes Pedro, Tania Silva stored as TSilva Tania, Daniel Fidalgo stored as DFidalgo Daniel, etc. This enables a quick search through first and last names. So if you are stuck (or by choice) have an old (classic) phone, maybe you find this usefull as well.

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

If you're trying to configure the iPhone 2.0's built-in Cisco VPN client, you may be stymied by the lack of a place to type your group password.

It's there, but labeled "Secret." Put your group password there, and you should be good to go.

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

Calendar syncing via MobileMe to an iPhone works great, except it doesn't include subscribed calendars yet. (An Apple knowledge base article makes it sound like they are working on it.) Here's a workaround that's good for static calendars, like US Holidays or Jewish Holidays:

1. Select the subscribed calendar in iCal.
2. Choose File » Export... and save it someplace.
3. Choose File » Import... and select the file you just saved.
4. Uncheck the subscribed calendar so you don't see duplicates on the local Mac.

Now your holidays or birthdays will be shown on the iPhone.

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

I don't have the latest firmware (quietly released only when a restore is performed), but a lot of people have been complaining about abysmal battery life for the 3G iPhone (four to six hours). After a lot of trial and error, disabling push mail and only checking mail hourly has greatly improved battery life.

With wifi, Bluetooth, 3G, and GPS enabled, battery life is is more consistent with the first generation iPhone. A quick check of the Apple support discussion board reveals that others are coming to similar conclusions.

[robg adds: Disabling push email on first generation iPhones running iPhone software 2.0 should have similar benefits.]

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips

One of the new features in the iPhone 2.0 software is the ability to search your contacts (as well as an actual Contacts icon, instead of being forced to reach them from the phone section of the iPhone). The search field, however, is located at the top of the contact list, and is (strangely) not fixed in place. So if you scroll down, it scrolls off the top of the screen.

To get it back, you can scroll up, of course, but that's time consuming. Instead, just tap the status bar (carrier, wireless strength, etc.), as you can do in Safari to jump to the top of a web page. This will take you to the top of your Contacts, bringing the search field back into view.

I can't remember where I heard this one, though I think it was from a fellow Macworld writer during an iPhone 2.0 software conference call. Best as I can tell, though, it's not documented in the latest version of the iPhone user's manual (which is some 22 page...

written by macosxhints iPhone Tips