• MyWi – turns your iPhone into a hotspot
• Backgrounder – brings multitasking to your iPhone
• ProSwitcher – a nice UI for Backgrounder
• Circuitous – a multitasking/app switching application
• Categories – allows you to create folders
• WinterBoard – an app that lets you customize many aspects of your iPhone
• BossPaper – an advanced wallpaper manager that puts total control of wallpapers into your hands
• VoIPover3G – tricks any app into thinking you’re on wifi while you are on 3G or Edge
• Xpandr – a shortcut expander
• Action Menu – improves the copy/paste experience
• QuickScroll – allows you to quickly scroll through a page
• Find In Page – quickly find any text on web pages
• qTweeter – lets you update Twitter and Facebook status from within any application
• SBSettings – a quick a way to toggle settings on/off
• MultiIconMover – lets you move multiple icons at a time
• InfiniDock – add unlimited icons to your dock
• InfiniBoard – vertical scrolling on your springboard
• QuickDo – app switching/launching
• LockInfo – customize your lockscreen to get the information you need

What do you think the best jailbreak apps are? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Federal regulators lifted a cloud of uncertainty when they announced it was lawful to hack or “jailbreak” an iPhone, declaring Monday there was “no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model.”

Jailbreaking is hacking the phone’s OS to allow consumers to run any app on the phone they choose, including applications not authorized by Apple.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked regulators 19 months ago to add jailbreaking to a list of explicit exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions.

At stake for Apple is the very closed business model the company has enjoyed since 2007, when the iPhone debuted. Apple says it’s unlawful to jailbreak, (.pdf) but has not taken legal action against the millions who have jailbroken their phones and used the underground app store Cydia.

Apple maintains that its closed marketplace is what made the success of the iPhone possible, and sold more than three billion apps. Apple also told regulators that the nation’s cellphone networks could suffer “potentially catastrophic” cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad (.pdf) if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices.

Every three years, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office entertain proposed exemptions to the DMCA, passed in 1998. The act forbids circumventing encryption technology to copy or modify copyrighted works. In this instance, Apple claimed the DMCA protects the copyrighted  encryption built into the bootloader that starts up the iPhone OS operating system.

But the Copyright Office concluded that, “while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions.”

A federal appeals court came to the same conclusion last week in an unrelated dispute about “dongles,” or keys that grant access to software. “The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing,” (.pdf) the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case concerning a software licensing flap between MGE UPS Systems and GE Consumer and Industrial.

Jay Freeman, who runs Cydia, said about nine million iPhones have his alternative marketplace installed on their phones. “If there was something on the books that jailbreaking was not exempt, that would be painful,” Freeman said. The Dev-Team, one of the main groups offering free iPhone hacks, declared Monday’s development as “fantastic news.”

Mario Ciabarra, chief technical officer of Rock Your Phone, which sells an application to turn an iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, said the the Copyright Office’s decision is a “big win for consumers and applications developers” and has given the jailbreak community “the legitimacy it deserves.”

Apple told regulators that modifying the iPhone operating system leads to the creation of an infringing derivative work that is protected by copyright law. The Cupertino-based computer maker also claimed that the license on the operating system forbids software modification.

Monday’s decision, (.pdf) which applies to all mobile smart phones and not the iPad, does not require Apple or other handset makers to allow jailbreaking. Instead, it makes it lawful to circumvent controls designed to block jailbreaking.

The newly announced phone has “one of the most beautiful designs you’ve ever seen,” Jobs said at a tech conference in San Francisco. “This is without a doubt the most precise thing and one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever made.”

But besides being “beautiful,” what actually makes this iPhone different? After attending the unveiling and talking with analysts and bloggers, here’s our quick list of 10 things you should know about the iPhone 4, which goes on sale June 24, and costs between $199 and $299. Let us know if you have more questions and feel free to leave thoughts of your own in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

1. Sharper screen

In a keynote speech, Jobs sounded more excited about the iPhone 4′s new screen than anything else.

With 326 pixels per inch — four times that of previous Apple phones — Jobs says the iPhone 4′s “retina display” screen is years ahead of anything else on the market.

“Text looks like you’ve seen it in a fine printed book — unlike you’ve ever seen on an electronic display before,” he said. “Once you’ve used a retina display you can’t go back.”

2. Gyroscope

“These phones are getting more and more intelligent about the world around them,” Jobs said. That’s true of the iPhone 4, which has five sensors, including a gyroscope.

What does that mean for users? Probably cooler games and apps. The iPhone 4′s internal gyroscope can sense motion on six axes. On Monday, Jobs showed a demo where he pivoted in a circle, and the stack of blocks in an app spun with him. The phone is basically more aware of where it is in the world, in relation to gravity, than it was before. It’s hard to say exactly what app developers will do with this, but likely something.

3. Thickness

The iPhone 4 will be the thinnest smartphone on the market, Jobs says. At 9.3 millimeters (0.37 inches) thick, it is 24 percent thinner than the previous iPhone model, the 3GS, he said.

“I don’t think there’s another consumer product like this,” he said. “When you hold it in your hand it’s unbelievable.” The iPhone 4′s screen remains the same size as before, 3.5 inches when measured diagonally. That makes it smaller than some Android phones, which are its main competitors. But that may not be a good thing. As people watch more video on their phones, they’re demanding larger screens, some analysts say.

4. Camera flash

In what’s largely seen as a catch-up move, Apple added an LED flash to the iPhone 4′s camera, which lets mobile photographers shoot photos and video more easily at night.

5. Better camera

The quality of the iPhone 4′s camera is improved over previous models. The iPhone 4 shoots photos with 5 megapixels of resolution, compared to 3 megapixels before. That’s still not the best on the market. The HTC Droid Incredible has an 8-megapixel camera, for example. The Nexus One, another competitor, has a 5-megapixel camera, too.

The iPhone 4 also shoots HD video, and a video-editing app called iMovie, which Apple will sell, allows people to shoot, edit and share videos with the phone.

6. Video conferencing

In addition to the back-of-the-phone camera improvements, Apple also added a second camera to the iPhone 4, which faces its user. This can be used for video conferencing, which Apple and Jobs expect to be an emerging trend in mobile phone use.

7. Multitasking

The iPhone’s operating system, which Apple calls iOS 4, got an upgrade along with the iPhone 4′s hardware. Among the most-awaited changes is multitasking, which means that the phone can run multiple applications at once. Want to listen to internet radio and check e-mail at the same time? Starting on June 21, you can with the iPhone.

Several other smartphones have featured multitasking for some time. So Apple is not blazing new territory here. Jobs says the company waited to add the feature until it could do so without sucking down too much of the phone’s battery life.

8. Stainless steel antennae

The iPhone 4 is flat on the front and back, and a band of stainless steel goes around the edge as a trim. This isn’t just a design feature, Jobs said. It’s actually the antennae.

“It’s never been done before and it’s really cool engineering,” Jobs said.

9. Guts

The iPhone 4 has a new processor — the A4 — which Apple says makes the phone faster than competitors and faster than the processor in the iPhone 3GS. Apple debuted the A4 processor as part of the iPad slate computer in January.

But the iPhone 4′s capacity to store books, videos and music disappointed some. The high-end model stores 32 gigabytes of data, which isn’t any more than the iPhone 3GS.

10. Wireless carrier

The iPhone 4 is only available with a contract from the wireless carrier AT&T. That’s bad news for some people. Bloggers have been begging Apple to open the iPhone to multiple carriers — and specifically to Verizon — for some time. Some iPhone users, particularly those in bigger cities like New York and San Francisco, have complained that AT&T drops their calls and doesn’t handle data requests quickly enough.

Interestingly, even though the 3G S is technically Apple’s third-generation iPhone, some tech pundits were expecting the iPhone 3G S to be called the iPhone 4G. But you could also argue that the iPhone 3G S is more like the iPhone 3.5G, which doesn’t have the greatest ring.

There’s also a chance that in between the iPhone 3G S and iPhone 4G (or whatever it’s called), we might see a totally new branch of iPhone, something akin to an iPhone Mini or Lite.

I’m not sure Apple needs to answer to the smaller form factor of the Palm Pre, but there are some people out there who think the iPhone’s just a tad too big. And there are some people who want a physical keyboard, but don’t count on Apple slipping in a slide-out keyboard anytime soon.

Gizmodo and other blogs posted this concept art for the iPhone 4G before Apple announced the 3G S.

(Credit: Rodolphe Desmare)

All that said, I do think next year’s iPhone will feature a new design that also includes a new screen. Some mock-ups floating around have suggested the aluminum unibody design of the new MacBooks. That’s possible, but so are a host of other innovative industrial designs.

The point is, the next go-round, it’s probably not enough to just stick with upgraded internal components. Some significant cosmetic changes will be required to differentiate the generations and more easily entice upgrades by existing iPod owners. And I’m not talking matte vs. shiny finish.

Ultimately, however, it’s what’s inside that counts and consumers are always wanting faster, more powerful smartphones with more memory that somehow manage to be more energy-efficient and offer better battery life. There’s already talk of the next iPhone having a dual-core processor and better graphics chips that can deliver higher video resolutions and better still images when taking pictures (read Brooke Crothers’ story on new ARM chips here).

The question is whether Apple can continue to increase battery life at the same time. In fact, one big reason a lot of people are interested in upgrading from the 3G to the 3G S is because of the improved battery life.

Beyond the hardware, there are still features concerns to address (everybody has their wishlist) and more importantly, carrier and pricing plan issues. Someday, some other carrier, perhaps Verizon, which is preparing to build out a 4G network, will get the iPhone. And someone, maybe Apple, will declare that iPhone the iPhone 4G. Or maybe it’ll just be the 3G V. All I know is that come this time next year, we’ll most likely be seeing a new iPhone. And it will be here before you know it.

Comments? Aside from a carrier choice, what are looking for in a true 4G iPhone?

Richard Lai has come up with the easiest way to tether your iPhone’s internet connection to your computer, as promised by Apple, but delayed by AT&T. This “hack” doesn’t involve the Terminal, or even your Mac. It’s all done with the iPhone.

Simply navigate on your iPhone to: http://help.benm.at/help.php. Once there, download the MobileConfig file for your carrier. Choose the country your carrier is in, then choose the carrier your iPhone is subscribed to. For the United States, most folks will choose AT&T, but if you plan on unlocking your iPhone on Friday, you can choose T Mobile. The process does requires iPhone OS 3.0.

After the install, on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering, and enable tethering. Then, plug your iPhone in, and you are ready to go. We’re not sure about the legal implications of this method, but we tested it out for you, loyal readers. Click through the gallery below to see how it works for yourself. Previously, users had complained that Visual Voicemail stopped working after tethering, but we experienced no such problems.

Of course, AT&T will probably nuke this method before the end of the week, but think of the extra pain you caused the upper management.

Disclaimer: Tethering your iPhone without the proper data plan probably violates your carrier’s contract, and you should definitely back up your iPhone before doing this, just in case anything happens. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

No doubt about it, issues with battery life remain a hot topic for iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3GS users.

Now, if your battery drain is caused simply by use — you never put the iPhone (or iPod touch) down and are always playing games, pushing IMs, watching movies, etc. your only choice is to get a few more charging cables or battery extenders. If, however, you’re doing roughly the same things you’ve always done and getting substantially less battery life for your troubles, there’s a chance a few troubleshooting steps might just help get your power problems back under control.

Reboot iPhone

If, all of a sudden, your iPhone starts burning through battery and getting hot at the same time, there could be a “rogue process” just churning away in the background. The answer to that is a good old-fashioned power cycle.

Hold down the sleep button until the red “Slide to power off” arrow appears. If your iPhone is frozen or otherwise in dire straights, you can hold down the home button at the same time as the sleep button to force quit all applications and bring up the red arrow. Then just swipe, let the iPhone turn off, wait a few seconds, and hold down the sleep button again to turn your iPhone back on.

Redo Push

Since iPhone 2.0 we’ve seen Push gone wrong really cause a hit to battery life. With 3.0, Push Notification means not only could mail, calendar, and contacts start misbehaving in the background, but your IM, Twitter, games, and all sorts of other apps can as well.

Apple says Push can cause a 20% drop in battery life, but if you think yours is worse then it should be, the next step is to redo anything that involves Push, including MobileMe and Exchange accounts, and apps using Push Notification. Now, you might want to try doing one at a time, check your battery life, and if you don’t notice any improvement, try the next one. If you find the culprit quickly, that approach could save you some time. If you just want to get it over with, you might want to do them all at once.

For the accounts, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, choose your MobileMe and/or Exchange accounts, scroll down to the bottom and hit delete. For apps, go to Settings > Notifications and look at the list of any apps using Push Notification. Go back to the Home Screen, hold down the home button until the icons start to jiggle, and delete the Push Notification app.

Then, for accounts, go back to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, hit Add Account…, choose Mobile Me and/or Exchange, and re-enter your settings. For Push Notification apps, either sync them back from iTunes or go to the App Store app and re-download them.

Restore as New iPhone

We won’t lie to you — this is the nuclear option. It’s scorched earth. But to be frank, we at TiPb almost always default to this step because it almost always “just works”. We do this every time we get a new firmware and every time we notice something just isn’t right, and we have excellent battery life to prove it.

To restore your iPhone as new and get a fresh, clean start, attach it to your Windows or Mac via the USB cable and launch iTunes. A Restore button should be front and center on the screen. Hit it, then wait as iTunes goes through the laborious process of wiping your iPhone and installing the firmware again from scratch.

IMPORTANT: When iTunes asks if you want to restore your data from backup or set up as a new iPhone, choose NEW iPHONE.

Yes, you will lose your settings and any data saved in apps that don’t provide some sort of sync functionality, but it’s possible (even likely) some corruption in those settings or data is contributing to your poor battery life, and with an appliance like the iPhone, this is the only way to get rid of it.

This will also kill your Jailbreak, if you’re jailbroken. But if something in your Jailbreak was killing your battery life, like backgrounder gone awry, trying out your iPhone without the Jailbreak is a good way to establish that.

Once your iPhone is set up as new, you can sync your info and media back over using the iTunes tabs as normal, and/or setup accounts and download apps on the iPhone itself.

Conclusion

iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3GS should have roughly the same battery life for you as iPhone 2.2.1 and the iPhone 3G. If you’re getting something substantially less than that, there could be something wrong with your iPhone 3.0 install or your iPhone 3GS’ system.

Rebooting the iPhone, redoing Push-enabled applications, and restoring your iPhone as new are three escalating steps you can try to fix your battery problems.

For some, even the newly expanded 11 Home Screen, 180 (including 4 fixed dock) app slots under iPhone 3.0 isn’t enough. It’s not about need — it’s about want. Luckily, iPhone 3.0 offers another handy, theoretically unlimited way to access apps: Spotlight. According to David Pogue:

You can install UNLIMITED APPS! Only 180 show up as icons—but Spotlight can find and open all of them! (And yes, we tried. Stopped at 250!)

So, check off every single one of your 56,000 (maybe?!) apps and sync them over. Then, instead of swiping right through 11 pages only to find the excess unaccessible, swipe LEFT to go to the Spotlight Search screen (or just press the home button again to get there super quick).

Next, start typing the name of the app, hidden or otherwise, you want to access, and as soon as it appears in the results, tap it to launch.

Boom. App pack rat bliss.

Note: Spotlight also shows WebClip icons you’ve bookmarked from MobileSafari to your Home Screen, so you can go crazy with quick access to your favorite websites as well.

And for those who prefer not to fill up their iPhone with apps, remember you can delete an app when not using it and download it again via the on-board App Store app, without any duplicate charges, any time. Cloud management is a reality, and a second option.

[Note: This a a Wait-A-Thon post! Comment on this post -- or any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" -- for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card! Note that you must post with a valid and real email address so we can send you your prize -- no switching!]

More and more people are switching to the iPhone. They’re switching from Palm and Windows Mobile and Blackberry smartphones to the iPhone. They’re switching carriers to get the iPhone. And now that the next-gen iPhone 3G is all but upon us, and more and more regions are announcing their plans and pricing, the switching is only going to get faster and more furious.

To celebrate the switchers, those who dare to phone different, the iPhone Blog wants to help you get your content off your old, perhaps restrictive and outdates systems, and onto your shiny, new iPhone.

We’ve already gone over how to move your music, movies, and other media to iTunes, so now it’s time to get with the data: contacts, calendars, and email.

Read on to find out how!

This article assumes you’re switching from another smartphone, like Blackberry, Windows Mobile, or Palm, and are new to the iTunes + iPod (and iPhone!) ecosystem. It also assumes you’re a dedicated Windows user or someone who just recently switched from Windows to the Mac and needs to transfer content to an iPhone.

Since longtime iPod (and Mac) aficionados will almost certainly already be using iTunes and the typical Mac applications, your iPhone will sync your content via iTunes the same as it would any other iPod. And, hey, if you’re a Linux (or any other *nix) user, I figure you’ve kept your content open from the get-go, and already know 18 different ways to get it onto your unlocked, jailbroken iPhone hax0red with Open Moko anyway…

“Push” First: Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Apple MobileMe

While with previous iPhone firmware, there was tethered (via iTunes) sync between Outlook and the iPhone, and between the default Apple apps and the iPhone, it was on a type-by-type basis (see screenshots in the iTunes section), and only when you actually hooked up your iPhone and pulled down the data would both your mobile and local copies get synchronized.

With iPhone firmware 2.0, everything changes. Why lead with this? Because if you intend to use either Exchange and/or MobileMe with your iPhone, you can read this section and you’re pretty much done. (Or at least you can skip ahead to photos at the end — though be sure to download iTunes anyway for your media). With Exchange and MobileMe (billed as Exchange for the rest of us), iTunes data sync is eliminated, cables are eliminated, and intermittent syncing becomes a thing of the past. With these “push” solutions, everything is automagically updated wirelessly (via WiFi or EDGE/HSPA cell network). Change something in Outlook and a few seconds later, your iPhone will show the same changes. Tweak some data on your iPhone, and a few seconds later, MobileMe’s website will show the same tweak.

(Not using ActiveSync or MobileMe? No worries. Skip to the next section and we’ll start setting up iTunes for local sync!)

So, to simply and easily set up most of your syncing using iPhone 2.0: tap Settings, tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars (Just Mail if you’re doing Exchange on iPhone 1.x), tap Add Account, and then select the type of account you would like to add.

Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

ActiveSync makes its debut with iPhone 2.0, and doesn’t function on the older, 1.x firmware, so if you intend to use it, make sure you have an iPhone 3G or have updated your original iPhone (2G) to the latest firmware as of July 11, 2008. To setup Exchange ActiveSync, tape the logo for it. If you’re using Exchange 2007 on the back end, you may be able to automatically set up your account. If you can’t, or are using an old version of Exchange — or just in general due to the complex and fussy nature of setting up an Exchange account in general — you’re best practice is to check with your Exchange administrator (or hosted service provider).

Apple MobileMe (formerly .Mac)

MobileMe, Apple’s replacement for .Mac and it’s “Exchange for the Rest of Us”. It will sync, wirelessly, over the air (OTA), contacts, calendars, mail, and photos between the iPhone and your Mac (with the aforementioned Address Book, iCal, Mail.app, and iPhoto) and/or PC (with Outlook). MobileMe will debut on July 11, 2008 alongside iPhone 3G and the 2.0 firmware, and should “just work” once you enter in your MobileMe username and password (previous users of .Mac will keep the same credentials, and will be able to use either user@mac.com or user@me.com interchangeably).

Local Sync: Getting iTunes

iTunes is a free download from apple.com and required before you can sync your iPhone. The iPhone 3G will require iTunes 7.7, which will be released day-and-date with the next generation device, so if you’re reading this before July 11, 2008, you’ll need to wait a bit before downloading, or will need to upgrade to that version.

What Data Does iTunes Sync?

Aside from the media we covered in the previous article, Apple’s iPhone 3G will sync the usual data suspects of address book contacts, calendar events, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, and — because we didn’t include them under media — digital photographs.

If you already have your data in Outlook, you’re good to go for the iPhone. If you have it in another application, or scattered among a few applications… well, we’ll get to that in a moment.

On the Mac side, iTunes “just works” with Apple’s default applications, Address Book, iCal, Mail.app, Safari, and iPhoto, or with Microsoft’s Entourage. Since sync services, contacts, calendaring, etc. are all “CoreServices” handled at the OS level, once you check the appropriate boxes in iTunes, the automagic process is almost transparent. You can even sync to Microsoft Office Entourage (Outlook’s ugly step-sibling on the Mac side) by syncing Entourage with the default apps via CoreServices.

Similarly, if you don’t have your data in these Mac apps yet, or have it scattered elsewhere, we’ll also get to that in a moment.

Now let’s break it down…

Syncing Your Contacts

From Microsoft Windows Vista & XP: Outlook, Windows Contacts, and Yahoo! Address Book

These three protocols are all supported from directly within iTunes. If you have your contacts in one of them, simply choose the appropriate program from the drop-down in iTunes and your information will be moved right over to your iPhone.

From Apple OS X: Address Book, Yahoo! Address Book, and Google Contacts

On the Mac version of iTunes, you can check both Apple’s Address Book and Yahoo! Address Book if you so choose. (I keep things simple — and fear duplicates — so I recommend picking one and sticking with it.)

If you’re running OS X Leopard 10.5.3 or later, you can also sync your Gmail Contacts with your iPhone, using a more round-about method: launch Address Book, select Preferences from the Address Book menu, and check the box next to Synchronize with Google. Once set up, this will sync your Google Contacts to your Address Book, and then iTunes will sync them from Address Book to your iPhone.

From Everywhere Else: Thunderbird, Windows Live, Google Contacts

If you have your contacts in anything other than the above-mentioned programs or services, you’ll have to move them over before you can sync them with the iPhone. Many programs/services allow you to export CSV files or vCards, including: Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Windows Live, and Google Contacts.

Once you’ve got your export file, simply import the contacts back into Outlook, Address Book, Yahoo! Address Book and you’re golden.

Syncing Your Calendar

From Microsoft Windows Vista & XP: Outlook

For reasons known only to Apple and Microsoft, Outlook is your only calendar/event choice for syncing with the iPhone. (The drop down is so far only a merciless tease at options yet (maybe never?) to come).

From Apple OS X: iCal

Like Windows, OS X provides only one option for calendar sync: iCal (and not even a drop down to tease more.) Check it and go.

From Everywhere Else: Google Calendar, Windows Calendar, etc.

Many popular Calendar programs are compatible with the iCalendar format, which allows you to publish and/or subscribe from one program (and even platform) to another. Using this feature, you can try to move your data over your iPhone. Here’s an example using Google Calendar:

You can subscribe to Google Calendars through Outlook on Windows, or use the Google Calendar Sync utility. Unfortunately the iPhone thus far doesn’t reliably sync from anything besides the Outlook default Calendar, which means the subscribed Google Calendar doesn’t get moved over unless you use a commercial product like the Paul Thurrott referenced SyncMyCal.

For Mac users a one way (Google to iPhone) work-around involves subscribing to your Google Calendar. From Google Calendar: Click on the Calendar Settings drop down, click on Private Address, and click on iCal to generate a private address for your Google Calendar especially designed for iCal. Copy the URL and open iCal. Inside iCal: Select the Calendar menu and click on Subscribe, then paste in the Private Address you copied from Google Calendar. Next time you sync, iCal will feed your Google Calendar to your iPhone. For bi-directional sync (Google to iPhone and iPhone to Google), there’s the commercial Spanning Sync, and you can try the demo before you buy.

Theoretically, you could also try exporting and importing XML, CSV, or another cross-program file, although in my experience this often requires a vast amount of work (and Googling, and message board begging…)

Syncing Your Email

From Microsoft Windows Vista & XP: Outlook and Windows Mail

Two options for Windows users, the ubiquitous Outlook and Windows Mail (which I believe is an “upgrade” to the horrible Outlook Express rather a desktop version of the far superior WIndows Live Mail — tsk tsk to both Apple and Microsoft).

From Apple OS X: Mail.app

Still only one choice from Apple OS X users, however: Apple’s default mail client, the eponymous Mail.app. Again, just one checkbox, to keep with the ultra simple groove. (Usability over options is a mantra).

From Everywhere Else: Google Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, Microsoft Live/Hotmail, etc.

Yahoo! Mail can be setup as an IMAP email account on your iPhone, which means your Yahoo! Mail folders on your iPhone will exactly match your folders on Yahoo!’s website and vice versa. Also, Yahoo! provides “push” email for the iPhone, meaning changes to one will be reflected automatically and near-instantly in the other, just like Exchange ActiveSync and MobileMe (but without the calendar and contacts sync).

You can also set up your Gmail account, including the new Gmail IMAP service which works like Yahoo! Mail — but without the “push” — keeping your web, local client (i.e. Outlook, Mail, etc.), and web-based views synchronized at user-definable intervals (manually, every 10 minutes, etc.).

Unfortunately, since they don’t (to the best of my knowledge) surface any open, standard protocols like IMAP or POP, Microsoft Live/Hotmail accounts can’t easily be synced with the iPhone. Your options include signing up for a Yahoo! or Gmail account and manually moving the messages over to your new, IMAP-happy account, or you can try this free solution and see if it works for you.

For any ISP mail, you can simply set up the iPhone as a POP (or IMAP if they offer it — much better!) client.

Syncing Your Bookmarks

From Microsoft Windows Vista & XP: Internet Explorer and Safari

iTunes supports syncing over all your bookmarks from Internet Explorer (hopefully the much more secure and standards friendly IE 7, right?) and Windows Safari (Apple’s own browser). Hierarchies will be preserved, so think about how you’ll use your booksmarks both on the desktop and the iPhone, and organize a good middle ground.

From Apple Mac OS X: Safari

No choices here. Check Safari and move along.

From Everywhere Else: Firefox, Opera, etc.

If you’re using Firefox, Opera, or another Firefox-like (Mozilla Gecko powered), or Safari-like (Apple WebKit powered) browser, is to try and import your bookmarks into Internet Explorer or Safari (export first via HTML if you have to).

If you want to keep using Firefox (or another browser) for desktop use, there’s no way to keep your bookmarks synced, unfortunately, but you can delete the IE or Safari bookmarks (since you’re not using them) and re-import a fresh, updated set whenever you like.

Syncing Your Photos

From Windows Vista & XP: Folder Sync

For Windows users, the procedure to sync photos to the iPhone is as simple as it is non-powerful. Put all the photos you want to sync in a folder (or hierarchy of folders if you want to separate them out, e.g., Family, Friends, Birthday, etc.) and then select that folder in iTunes.

From Apple Mac OS X: iPhoto and Folder Sync

For Mac users, in addition to the folder sync described above, you can also chose to sync from Apple’s iPhoto application, either your complete library, or from selected sub-libraries.

From Everywhere Else: Yahoo! Flickr, Facebook, Google Picasa, etc.

If you keep your photo collection online (i.e. Flickr, Facebook, Photoshop Express, Windows Live, etc.), you’re going to have to target a desktop backup, or download the photos you want on your iPhone to a local directory. Put all the photos you want to sync in one folder, and make sure you note down the location of that folder (e.g. iPhone Photos). This will be the folder you target inside iTunes as described above.

For Picasa, make sure you organize all the pictures you want on your iPhone into one folder, or a hierachy of folders, and then that will be the folder your target from inside iTunes, also as described above.

Wait! Help! My Data is Stuck On My Phone!

On the off chance that some of you don’t use a desktop, laptop, web service, or anything besides your mobile (smart)phone for your data, here’s a down and dirty guide to help you get started.

From the Original iPhone (iPhone 2G) to iPhone 3G

Apple provides excellent directions for upgrading to the iPhone 3G.

From RIM Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Palm Treo (Windows Mobile OS)

Blackberry’s are data monsters. Data — all of it, all now, all the time — is the only reason for a Blackberry. It’s why RIM invented the Blackberry. Windows Mobile, whether running on a Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Palm, or whatever device, is made to integrate with other Microsoft products like Exchange, ActiveSync, and Outlook/Entourage. (Note: Always make sure you have the latest/greatest firmware, patches, updates, etc. from your phone carrier and platform provider).

From a Blackberry or ActiveSync perspective, pretty much all business users will have an Exchange server of one kind or another available to them. Just use ActiveSync on your new iPhone 2.0 and you’re good to go. (Check with IT if you have to, especially for the settings information).

If you don’t have a business Exchange server but you do have access to a Windows computer with Microsoft Outlook on it, sync your Blackberry to Outlook, then Outlook to your iPhone.

For Mac users, check out Markspace, which provides a variety of phone-specific syncing solutions especially for the Mac. They’re not free, but the time and effort they’ll save you are well worth it. (I used to it get my data off a Palm OS Treo 680 into the default Apple apps and it worked seamlessly).

If you don’ have any of the above available to you, try a hosted Exchange service, even temporarily. Sync your Blackberry data to that, then ActiveSync it to your new iPhone, and cancel the hosted Exchange service.

From Palm OS Treo

Palm OS (Garnet) Treo’s can work similarly to the above if you have ActiveSync installed (or download it from Palm’s website – warning, direct file link!) and access to an Exchange server (business or hosted).

Similarly if you have access to Outlook. If you’re stuck in Palm Desktop, you’ll first have to find your Palm install CD and go through the setup again, choosing Outlook instead.

(Mac users, see Markspace, above).

From a Feature Phone

If you don’t have a smartphone, but are coming instead from a standard consumer feature phone (candybar or flip phone from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc.) and have data on there you really don’t want to retype, you can try looking for a data transfer kit that matches your phone. These vary widely in form, availability, and functionality, and will cost you money and time, but if you have both check out Howard Forums or even Google. Search and ask around. Be key word specific (i.e. “transfer data nokia model# outlook”. Best of luck, and please share what you find in case others are trying out the same.

Conclusion

Well, there they are, my tips and tricks for getting your data off the old and outdated just in time for your brand new iPhone 3G/2.0. But try as I might, I know our readers — the real data ninjas — have a whole host of sneaky black magic all their own.

What are your best tips and tricks? Drop a comment and let us know!

iPhone 3.0 has settled in quite well in my view and I am sure many have been more than pleased to see Apple finally give the iPhone features such as copy and paste, MMS, landscape mode typing, Spotlight search, push notifications and many more. But did you know that actually there are some “hidden” functions that weren’t announced?

1. You can now have 11 home screens instead of the previous limit of 9 home screens. So you can now launch 32 more
   iPhone apps from your iPhone’s
   home screen.
2. Thanks to Spotlight for
   iPhone, there is no limit on the number of
   iPhone apps that can be installed on the
   iPhone running
   iPhone OS 3.0 assumming that you have the required storage space on your
   iPhone. If you install more applications then the
   home screen icon limit, you can now access them using Spotlight.
3. This hidden feature addresses one of the minor annoyance in previous
   iPhone OS. When a phone call interrupts you, after the phone call you are taken back to the
   iPhone app you were using before you were interrupted.
4. iPhone’s virtual keyboard has also been updated with few more extra special characters while holding certain characters down similar to the “.com” button. In
   iPhone OS 3.0, when you hold down the “.” you also get “…”. The dash “-” also displays an em-dash “-” and quotations and apostrophes display “<<” and “>>” and can also be curved.
5. Along with Spotlight, Apple has also added Camera app to the Home button settings (Settings > General > Home Button) in
   iPhone fimrware 3.0 so if the Camera application is your favorite
   iPhone; you can quickly launch it from your iPhone’s home screen or any other
   iPhone app by double-clicking on the Home button.
6. You now have another option to force quit an unresponsive
   iPhone app. You can hold the sleep/wake button until the red slider appears, then press and hold down the home button to quit the
   iPhone app.
7. You can undo typing by shaking the
   iPhone. When you are in the Mail, Messaging, Safari or Notes applications, after you typed a word/several words, just shake the phone and a pop-up will appear, asking you whether you want to undo what you have just entered.

by Kelly Turner, Macworld.com

These days, a 2-megapixel camera may not seem like much. But add Web access, a pocket-size Mac, and third-party apps to the mix, and presto! That humble camera is now a personal assistant and digital artist in one. Here are just a few of the ways you can extend your camera.

See in the dark

The iPhone’s camera takes beautiful, crisp photos—as long as you’re outside on a sunny day. For the other 95 percent of the time, you’ll need to employ some photography kung fu to fight off blurry shots. The problem is that in low-light situations, even subtle hand movements can blur your image. Add to that the fact that on the iPhone you have to reach over and tap a small on-screen button to trigger your camera, and you have a recipe for bungled photos. For handheld shots, an app such as River Past’s $1 Night Camera can increase your chances of getting a steady shot. The program uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to determine when the camera is still enough to take the shot. It also lets you turn the entire screen into a shutter button-so you have an easier target-and lets you set a timer so you can prop up the iPhone and get in the shot yourself. In our tests, Night Camera gave us noticeably sharper photos in low light.

The Batrest lies flat in your wallet, so it’s always on hand when you need a little stability.

An even better way to get sharper photos is to prop your iPhone against something steady before you tap the camera button. If you’re willing to spend a little money, the $4 Batrest by Seskimo folds up to create a makeshift stand. When not in use, it collapses to the size of a credit card so you can carry it in your wallet. Seskimo also recently introduced the slightly larger $5 Crabble, which includes non-slip rubber pads that hold your iPhone more securely.

Take wider shots

Stitch multiple photos together to get the whole scene in Panoramas.

If you’re having trouble getting the whole scene in the shot, try taking multiple images and stitching them together into a panorama. There are several iPhone apps that let you do this, but Helix Interactive’s $2 Panoramas offers a good blend of affordability and power. You can take as many shots of a scene as you’d like in any orientation, and then stitch them together by placing markers on each photo to identify items that should line up. Panoramas then does its best to blend the photos and adjust colors to give you a seamless image. The process is very forgiving, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your camera perfectly straight or lining up the shots flawlessly—good news for those of us who are in a hurry.

Get a personal shopper

Show Amazon what you want, and the site will find it.

Want a teapot just like the one your local cafe uses? You could go to Amazon.com and manually search through more than 4,000 entries in hopes of finding the right model. Or save yourself a lot of time by downloading the free Amazon Mobile() to your iPhone. In addition to providing options for browsing the store’s stock and making purchases, the app offers a personal shopping feature called Amazon Remembers. Use the program to submit a photo of just about anything, and someone from Amazon will try to match it with something similar from the site. If the person finds it, you’ll get an update within the app showing the details (including user reviews), as well as options to purchase it or add it to your wish list.

Find your mobile photos fast

Has one of the photos on your Mac performed its own disappearing act? If you took it with your iPhone, there’s a quick way to track it down. In iPhoto, press command-option-N to create a new smart album, and set the menus to read: Camera Model Is Apple iPhone. Or, to gather every iPhone-taken photo on your Mac, regardless of whether it’s in iPhoto, use the Finder to create a smart folder. From the Finder, press command-F. In the resulting window, select Other from the Kind menu, and then choose Device Model. Select Is from the second menu and type iPhone in the text field. Click on the Save button to save the search in the Search For section of the Finder sidebar.

Supercharge your photo browser

Mobile Fotos lets you navigate your Flickr stream as easily as photos in the native Photos app.

The iPhone’s built-in Photos app is a fine photo viewer, but it syncs with only one computer, it can’t show you other people’s photos, it can’t play videos taken with your digital camera, and the photos it stores take up precious room on your iPhone’s hard drive. To put some muscle behind your photo browsing, skip the Photos app and instead combine Flickr’s online photo sharing site with an app like Mobile Fotos by XK72 (; $3).

iPhoto ’09 makes uploading photos to Flickr as easy as adding them to a photo album. Once your photos are on Flickr, use the Mobile Fotos app to access them on your iPhone. In addition to being able to flick through your photo stream and rotate the screen just as you can in the Photos app, you can view videos posted to Flickr, explore photos of family and friends, leave comments on others’ photos, add photos to your Twitter feed, and even see photos taken in your vicinity. And because the photos are online, you won’t have to worry about syncing your latest shots or filling up your hard drive.

Track down a font

Get some help tracking down mysterious fonts.

Hobo? Giddyup? Rabiohead? A lot of creative professionals are font obsessed. If you’re one of them, WhatTheFont by MyFonts is a handy addition to your iPhone. This free app helps you track down the font used for any text you encounter, whether it’s a movie poster, a box of cereal, or advertising copy in the morning newspaper. When you snap a photo of the text, WhatTheFont tries to detect the letters in the photo (you can correct it if it gets something wrong) and then matches the characters with the right font. In our tests, the program wasn’t always spot on, but it did always offer up at least a very close approximation.

Don’t forget the little stuff

Heading out to the store to shop for a new rug? Let your camera help you remember all the little details along the way. There are numerous ways to put your camera to work including keeping track of different prices and designs as you shop, snapping the phone number for a flooring contractor from an ad in the paper, and reminding you want your kids are wearing when you stop at the playground on the way home. Readers have told us they even use their iPhone’s camera to remember where the Easter eggs are hiding, to take inventory of what’s in their suitcase before traveling, and to remember where the fish were biting on their last fishing trip.

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Over the next couple of days, we’ll share some of our favorite tricks and tips for using the iPhone in unexpected ways. Looking for ways to keep files, notes, to-dos, events, and other data synchronized among multiple iPhones, Macs, and other users? We’ve got em. We’ll also show you how to take maximum advantage of the iPhone’s GPS powers and how to turn the phone’s built-in camera into a personal shopper or wide-angle lens. And if you can’t stand to be out of the loop for a moment, we’ll help you cram as much media from blogs, radio, and news feeds as possible onto your iPhone. These are just a few alluring hints of the remarkable power that lies in your hands, waiting to be tapped.

Illustration by Jack Black.

Great for visitors or locals, this iPhone application is for those folks who don’t like to wait in line!

Created by Brent Pope, a father of four, he had the same issues that we all do about the rides we go on: waiting too long in lines.  Deciding to use technology to better the vacation experience at Disney, Mr. Pope developed  an iPhone application for DisneyWorld and calls his company Wait Watchers (how creative.) This simple idea caught on with folks visiting the Resort in Florida and his dream got bigger to help track the wait times at all the Disney Parks. Today, his simple idea of an app to keep track of the wait time has spread to the west coast to help parents who visit  Disneyland  and Disney’s California Adventure too.

Divided into two apps for individual park use, the programs give approximate times of waiting for each attraction. Using reports filed by individuals who are currently waiting in line or have reported the line wait, you can quickly find out the time of the expecting wait period if you don’t have a fastpass. Additionally, you can use the application to interact with other users to let folks know your line time experience. Connecting everyone together, application users get real time line waiting to make decisions on what ride to play on next.

Now just to make sure that you don’t get mislead on the real time wait on the lines, the application has some build in safety features. Including a GPS validation for the reports that have been reported. So if you have the application on your iPhone, you will need to be in the Resort to actually report a wait time.

Finally, you maybe wondering, so how much can this handy iPhone application cost? Well the value of knowing what the line is, without having to walk all the way to Central Plaza in Disneyland, it’s got to cost big bucks right? Wrong, this simple application is priced extremely budget conscious with a fair price of .99. Which is amazing for what it offers parents on vacation!

If you find yourself in line where everyone can hear you complain,  yet it seems that you are being ignored, it’s probably true. Those with iPhones already knew the times and  felt the .99 was worth the cash for this awesome application.

Update: When you’re done reading this, check out 8 More iPhone Tricks You Might Not Know.

Whether you’re an iPhone rookie or a weathered pro, take a look at these quick-and-easy iPhone tips and tricks which not only save you time, but ease your overall iPhone experience.

(These items are listed in no particular order.)

1. Scroll to Top of Page -

In any application, Safari included, you can automatically scroll to the top of the page by tapping on the “top bar”, which has the time, service bars, and battery. In Safari, this not only brings you to the top of the page, but also brings up the URL bar.

2.  Domain Resolution -

When typing a URL in Safari, you don’t have to type the “www” or the “.com”.For instance, for www.cnn.com just type “cnn” in the URL box. Note: Your search engine must be set to Google, not Yahoo.

3.   Domain Suffix – [On firmware 2.0 only]

Hold down the “.com” key for “.net, .edu, .org” keys. Note: Slide your finger from .com to .net/.edu/.org, rather than lifting and pressing.

4.   Press & Hold For Alternate Characters –

Hold a letter for a popup of various versions of the character (i.e. to type España with the “ñ” simply hold “n” and simply slide/release to the appropriate character).

5.   Click & Hold URL’s –

In Safari, hold a link to see the URL and site name.

6.   Soft Reset –

Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep button to restart your iPhone. A white light will flash, the screen will shut off and then turn back on. Keep holding until the screen turns back on.

7.   Take a Screenshot –

To take a screenshot, hold the home button and click the sleep button. The screen will flash white and the screenshot will be stored in your camera roll.

8.   Set Parental Controls –

You can enable certain restrictions or parental controls on your iPhone. You can block explicit lyrics, Safari, YouTube, iTunes, or the App Store. Just go to Settings, General, Restrictions.

9.   Save Any Image from Safari –

To save any image from the web to your camera roll, simply press and hold the image. A menu will appear asking “Save Image” or “Cancel”. Once the image is in your camera roll, you can set it as your wallpaper.

10.  Fast Forward/Rewind Music & Video –

Press and hold the skip forward/back arrows to fast forward or rewind rather than skip tracks. Also, press on the album art to manually FF/rewind.

11.   Delete Emails –

You can do both “bulk deletes” and “individual deletes” when browsing email. To do a bulk delete, simply click Edit, check off the desired emails, and then choose delete or move. To delete a single email, simply “cross it out” by swiping your finger across the email, then press delete.

12.  Double Tap Home Button –

Double tapping the home button has several useful functions, which are described here.

Although some of these tricks seem elementary to some iPhone users, I’m willing to bet there’s atleast one item on this list you weren’t aware of. And if that’s not the case, then congratulations iPhone Pro – you have graduated from iPhone 101.

Enjoy the more productive and enhanced iPhone experience these tricks will provide you!