Did you know that there is a way to change the funny looking font of Notes.app? Thanks to macosxhints for sharing this video link:
Here is how to do it:
Enable in Settings/General/Keyboard/International Keyboards the Japanese keyboard.
When you type something with it in Notes it will change the font from Marker Felt to Helvetica.
Did you know that iPhone screen is completely Scratch Proof? I guess you don’t want to take any chance. But believe me, iPhone screen is made out of a 100% scratch free material. I have been using iPhone 3G from quite sometime and don’t have any scratch what so ever on the screen. In fact I found this dicussion thread on Apple Forum which re-iterates the same point:
You don’t need a screen protector, in fact a lot of the Apple Geniuses don’t use one. I use the Power Support crystal film, I like having it on. You don’t even see it when applied right. You never know when Murphy’s Law kicks in.
Honestly you really don’t need a screen protector. But if you tend to have coins or keys in the same pocket, then you’d have to be careful, but if you are careful with your iphone, then you don’t need a screen protector.
Have had my iphone for over 14 months. never used a screen protector and have no scratches on my screen. I will tell you that, although I keep it in my pocket all day long, I don’t keep it in a pocket with my keys. You might want to avoid coins too. Otherwise, i find the screen to be very durable, unlike my Palm screen.
I guess quite a few of you might be know this trick. But I found this just this morning. Pretty cool stuff.
Double clicking the home button from the “Slide to unlock” screen will bring up iPod controls, right over the “Slide to unlock” screen. You can then control your iPod music and tracks without even unlocking your phone!
Note: You don’t have to jailbreak your iPhone for this to work.
You could do this with earlier versions of iTunes 7.6.x and 7.7.x as well. But then, Apple stopped this feature with later iTunes versions. This might have been done to boose Ringtones sales.
Now you can again create custom ringtones from your DRM free songs that is present in your iTunes library anytime. For this to work, you don’t even have to jailbreak iPhone. Its absolutely safe. I created a few ringtones using this shortcut last evening and the ringtones are ringing absolutely fine.
Here is how to Create Custom iPhone Free Ringtonesusing nothing but iTunes:
Note: This method only works with songs that are DRM free.
Open iTunes > Click on the song you want to convert to a ringtone > Right click on the song and hit “Get Info.”
Go to the “options” tab and go down to the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringer to start/stop. The ringer has to be 30 seconds or less. Click OK when you’re done.
Right click on your newly “clipped” song and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” The song will be re-encoded using the start and stop times determined.
After the song is done encoding navigate to your iTunes Music folder and locate your song (it will be in the iTunes > iTunes Music folder.
Change the extension of that ringtone from .m4a to .m4r (tutorial on changing extensions, windows - mac)
After the extension is changed simply double click on the file to add it to your iTunes library under the ringtones section. Sync your phone with iTunes and you’re done! Note: Remember to go back into iTunes and uncheck your custom start and stop times for the original version of your song.
This cool tip from macosxhints helps me jump back a song while I am playing my iPhone’s iPod. This will work with 2.1 firmware and above. I have to just triple click my “click-controller” that is present in the headphone (earphone accessory) for iPhone. The one which we use to pause/play and move to next song, remember? This very click-control will help you jump back a song as well.
I just tried this and yes, this works. Rocking tip. Here is how macosxhints dose it:
iPhone 2.1 adds one more feature to the clicker: triple-click to jump back one song. So one click will pause the current song, two clicks will jump forward one track, and three (very quick) clicks will jump backward one song.
The backup process has been bugging me quite a few times of late. Everytime I connect my iPhone with my iTunes, iTunes starts backing up my iPhone files. This happens not once or twice, almost everytime I connect iPhone to iTunes. And this was testing all my patience. After searching for this problem over the web, I found this amazing fix. The steps I am going jot down works with windows iTunes. But if you are on Mac, scroll down and view the Cnet video.
Skipping Backup Process on iTunes for Windows users:
Look for iTunesPrefs.xml file. If you install into default directories, you will find this in c:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes. If you can’t see the file make sure that you make hidden files visible in your Windows Explorer.
Backup the iTunesPrefs.xml file - make a copy of it and store it somewhere else on your PC
Open the iTunesPrefs.xml file using a text editor. You might have to find a text editor aside from MS Notepad.
In the code, you will have to look for a section called User Preferences. The copy and paste the following snippet into the User Preferences section right after the first <dict> tag: <key>DeviceBackupsDisabled</key>
<data>
dHJ1ZQ==
</data>
Save the file and then restart your iTunes program. Your next sync will exclude the unnecessary backup done on your iPhone. If you want to enable backing up of your iPhone image again, simply erase the XML snippet that you included earlier
Video - How to skip the backup process for both Mac and Windows users:
If you have been looking for a copy-paste app for your iPhone, TextGuru is the one you got to check out and immediately download. I just did it just a while back. Its an amazing cup-paste app from AppStore. It uses to be $4.99 and I felt that was a bit expensive. This $0.99 offer is for limited time, and I must say this app is absolutely needed.
I have been looking for this fix from quite some time now. At times, iPhone’s auto correct feature is helpful. But at times, I do type Hinglish (Hindi & English) and find this auto-correct feature in iPhone a bit buggy. MacOSXHints has an interesting fix for this very issue.
Since the auto-correct feature in iPhone is tied to the language you choose from settings icon, if you disable the English keyboard, the auto-correct feature will be automatically disabled. But iPhone makes it mandatory to activate atleast one keyboard. If you choose Japanese keyboard or any other language keyboard, that will do the trick. Here is how MacOSXHints does it:
Home Screen » Settings » General » Keyboard » International Keyboards. Here you can turn on your alternate Keyboard. Try the Japanese QWERTY keyboard, for instance. Another reason I choose to use Japanese as my alternate is I can quickly see what I am typing on as the label for the space key will turn to Japanese when I am using that keyboard.
After turning on your alternate keyboard, you just turn the slider to “off” for the keyboard where you want to disable autocorrect. To switch keyboards while typing (if you have more than one enabled), tap the globe icon to the left of the space key.
After using iPhone 3G continuously for over 3 weeks, I found my iPhone’s response time had become a bit sluggish. And then, I synced my iPhone with iTunes after a break of around 2 weeks. Surprisingly, post this sync, my iPhone is responding pretty well. The page scrolls and application response time is better than what it was before the sync. I recommend syncing iPhone with iTunes regularly, atleast 3-4 times a month. Since I keep adding and removing apps from AppStore, a sync seems to flush out all those non-relevent files, I guess. For faster iPhone, I recommend not to have more than 9 pages of applications on iPhone springboard. There might be a bug in iPhone 2.0.2 firmware that slows down the OS when there are over 9 pages of apps. Hope this gets sorted out with 2.1 firmware which is releasing tomorrow, the 9th Sept.
If you feel that your iPhone is not functioning as fast as it used to be and restarting it is doing no good, try Hard Reset - It might improve your iPhone’s performance. The term “Hard Reset” is a bit dicey. Hard Reset in ‘windows mobile’ terminology would mean that applications have gone bad and hard reset would restore the device to factory settings. But in iPhone’s terminology, it just means “Forced Reset” or a “Forced Reboot”.
Whenever I find my iPhone’s response time a bit sluggish, I would restart my iPhone by holding power and home button for 6+seconds. Would wait for ”Slide to power off” button to appear, and then ’slide it’ to turn it off. And then, press the power button to restart it. I would also hard reset my iPhone to speed it up. Regular hard resetting iPhone is not recommended. But if one hard resets his iPhone, he wouldn’t lose anything, for sure - all your contacts, sms’s, notes, music, apps etc would still be there. Its like turning off a computer abruptly and then restarting it.
Here is how to Hard Reset iPhone:
Press the sleep/wake button and the home button simultaneously for more than 12-15 seconds, ignore the “Slide to power off” and keep holding.
The iPhone would go blank after few seconds and would automatically shut down.
Wait for ~10 to 15 seconds and then turn the iPhone back on by hitting the sleep/wake button.
You should now see the Apple logo, your iPhone is restarting and thus booting up.
Your iPhone will now reboot. Hard Reset process is complete.
Note:If your apps crash quite often, Hard Reset it once, it might just do the trick.
Hi, I have been using this awesome invention called iPhone in Bangalore, India from November 2007 and have gone nutzzz over this.
Nuts to an extent that I have started my own blog on iPhone. I will be covering various developments happening around Apple iPhone. Will cover everything and anything which is even remotely connected to the iPhone. But will put more emphasis on iPhone news and buzz from an Indian perspective.